THE LORD IS MY LIGHT AND MY SALVATION
Psalm 27
Thomas A. Gaskill
January 23, 2011
[I listed this sermon under full text but it is a mixture of full text and outline]
Begin by reading Psalm 27 in its entirety.
Summarize what is going on.
Psalms 27:1,4,8,13,14 A Psalm of David.
(1) The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
(4) One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.
(8) When You said, "Seek My face," My heart said to You, "Your face, LORD, I will seek."
(13) I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
(14) Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
What does it mean to say “the LORD is my light”?
I can remember going to the Alabaster Caverns in Oklahoma. My daughter, Moriah, was just a little child at the time. (By the way, she gave me permission to share this incident!) We were deep into the cavern when the guide told us the lights were about to be turned out. Well, Moriah didn't hear the warning; she must have been distracted by all the sights and sounds in an environment radically different from home. She was on edge. The lights went out and the entire group heard an ear piercing scream and a little child crying out that she was blind. Moriah was in a panic and the lights were quickly turned back on. When the lights came on, Moriah's fears were instantly relieved.
Light enables us to see. Without light we would not be able to enjoy all the beautiful colors God has blessed us with in His remarkable creation. Light enables us to see our loved ones up close and far away.
Light gives us a sense of security, as in the Moriah's case. Think of all the children and adults who always have a night light turned on while asleep in bed. We have porch lights and yard lights to deter crime.
Digging deeper now:
Light is perhaps one of the most important things we have in this world. Imagine what it would be like to not have light. What if we didn't have a sun, moon, and stars. No light at all would be debilitating. No television, no vision, no sight.
We are dependent on light for our inventions and probably just about if not all conveniences of life. In fact this could probably be said about our necessities as well. Think about it for a moment.
No light would mean no sun. The sun is necessary for all vegetation. Trees are necessary for shelter, heat, and producing oxygen so we can breathe. How many of you here can breathe without oxygen? Light is critical, it is absolutely vital to all of life. Everything is affected by light in someway or another. Even life in caves and in the depths of the ocean and under the earths surface are dependent on light somehow or other.
Light was the very first thing God spoke into existence. Light was created before the sun, moon, and stars … grab a hold of that one. God is our light.
The LORD is my light.
God is our source of life. God is our all in all. God is our security who eliminates our fears. God gives us sight. It is because of God that we have purpose, meaning, and can make sense of life. Apart from Him everything crumbles and amounts to nothing. If there were no God, there would be no us!
Listen to what Jesus says in John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
The LORD is my salvation.
Only the one true God can save His people. This is recorded over and over in the Old Testament as the Israelites would conquer pagan lands in the name of their God. God especially showed Himself as the mighty Savior when He would defeat the enemies of His people without them having to raise a single weapon themselves. Look at the great exodus from Egyptian bondage. What a mighty Savior is our God. And all this points to our great deliverance from sin found only in Jesus Christ – God the Son. The Hebrew word translated “salvation” can carry several meanings according to Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon, which is an authoritative word dictionary for ancient Hebrew word meanings. This word “salvation” carries in its meaning: deliverance, rescue, safety, welfare, prosperity, and victory. What a powerful word “salvation” is!
Salvation is a manifestation of God's love.
John 3:16,17 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Christ delivers us from out bondage to sin. He sets us free to be the people He's called us to be. He gives us a wonderful future.
The LORD is the stronghold of my life.
The NKJV has a poor translation here. “Stronghold” is a more accurate translation rather than “strength”.
Christ is our rock of safety. Christ is now preparing a dwelling place for us in heaven. Christ says “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
God is our safe place; He is our refuge. And as such, He most certainly gives us strength in the midst of hard times. Who can possibly overpower our all powerful God? Who can sneak by His all seeing eye? Who can evil prepare apart from His all hearing ear? None, I say, none. No one can take our God by surprise!
Are you afraid? Do you have any fear looming in your life? Terrorists; do they scare you? Bad storms; do they scare you? Does our failing economy frighten you? Are you afraid of dying?
So, “whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?” Though the wicked may slay our bodies, yet we shall live! Thanks be to our great LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. Our light, our salvation, our refuge!!
Romans 8:35-39
(35) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
(36) As it is written: "FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER."
(37) Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
(38) For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
(39) nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Our God works in ways that we often don't know about. Listen to this testimony:
A missionary on furlough told this true story while visiting his home church in Michigan, "While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. It was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and begin my two day journey back to the hospital. Upon arriving at the city, two men were fighting, and one was seriously injured. I treated his injuries and told him about Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camped overnight, and arrived back home without incident. Two weeks later I repeated my journey. When I arrived back at the city, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me he knew I carried money and medicines. He said "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to jump your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards!"
At this I laughed and said that I certainly was all alone out in that jungle campsite. But the young man pressed the point, saying, "No Sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those 26 armed guards that we were afraid and left you alone."
At this point in his message, a man in the audience jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked the exact day that incident happened. The missionary told him - and the man excitedly told THIS story - "On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here, and I was preparing to play golf. I was about to tee off when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Holy Spirit was SO STRONG, I called men to meet me here to pray for you. "If you were here with me that day to pray please stand up?" The men who met together to pray stood up. The missionary wasn’t really concerned with who they were - but he wept as he counted their number -You guessed it - there were 26!
Have you recognized Christ as your light and salvation? Is Christ your refuge? If not, why delay? Come to Him now while you have the opportunity. I invite you to come to Christ.
