I. EXORDIUM:
Are you the Light of the world?
Yes. JESUS is the Original Light but He made me one because He will go with the FATHER.
John 14:12 (Amplified Bible)
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father.
II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:
Believers/unbelievers
III. OBJECTIVES:
To show that GOD, the LORD JESUS CHRIST made me light of this world and a city full of light.
IV. TEXT:
Matthew 5:14 (Amplified Bible)
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
V. THESIS:
Praise, worship, glorify, adore, bless, honor, acknowledge and thank You very much LORD JESUS for You are the Light of this world that lives within me and I reflect Your Light from within.
VI. TITLE:
We are the light of the world
VII. EXPLICATION:
A. Author: Apostle Matthew
B. Keyword: Fulfilled
C. Emphatic Thought: Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy
D. Audience: Jews
E. Apparent Purpose: To show that JESUS of Nazareth was the kingly Messiah of Jewish prophecy.
VIII. MAIN BODY:
Matthew 5:14 (Amplified Bible)
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Matthew 5:14 (New King James Version)
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
A. Believers are the light of this world.
"You are the light of the world."
GOD has made the following a light for us:
1. Our paths
Proverbs 4:18 (Amplified Bible)
But the path of the [uncompromisingly] just and righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines more and more (brighter and clearer) until [it reaches its full strength and glory in] the perfect day [to be prepared].
2. Our lives
John 5:35 (Amplified Bible)
John was the lamp that kept on burning and shining [to show you the way], and you were willing for a while to delight (sun) yourselves in his light.
2 Corinthians 6:14 (Amplified Bible)
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers [do not make mismated alliances with them or come under a different yoke with them, inconsistent with your faith]. For what partnership have right living and right standing with God with iniquity and lawlessness? Or how can light have fellowship with darkness?
Ephesians 5:8-14 (Amplified Bible)
For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light [lead the lives of those native-born to the Light].
For the fruit (the effect, the product) of the Light or the Spirit [consists] in every form of kindly goodness, uprightness of heart, and trueness of life.
And try to learn [in your experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].
Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them.
For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret.
But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light.
Therefore He says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light.
Philippians 2:15 (Amplified Bible)
That you may show yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish (faultless, unrebukable) in the midst of a crooked and wicked generation [spiritually perverted and perverse], among whom you are seen as bright lights (stars or beacons shining out clearly) in the [dark] world,
1 Thessalonians 5:5 (Amplified Bible)
For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we do not belong either to the night or to darkness.
3. JESUS CHRIST in our lives
John 12:36 (Amplified Bible)
While you have the Light, believe in the Light [have faith in it, hold to it, rely on it], that you may become sons of the Light and be filled with Light. Jesus said these things, and then He went away and hid Himself from them [was lost to their view].
4. The Jews
Romans 2:19-20 (Amplified Bible)
And if you are confident that you [yourself] are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, and [that
You are] a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the childish, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—
5. The Church
Revelation 1:20 (Amplified Bible)
As to the hidden meaning (the mystery) of the seven stars which you saw on My right hand and the seven lampstands of gold: the seven stars are the seven angels (messengers) of the seven assemblies (churches) and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Revelation 2:1 (Amplified Bible)
TO THE angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him Who holds the seven stars [which are the messengers of the seven churches] in His right hand, Who goes about among the seven golden lampstands [which are the seven churches]:
B. Believers are cities set on a hill that can't be hidden.
"A city set on a hill cannot be hidden."
Revelation 21:14-27 (Amplified Bible)
And the wall of the city had twelve foundation [stones], and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
And he who spoke to me had a golden measuring reed (rod) to measure the city and its gates and its wall.
The city lies in a square, its length being the same as its width. And he measured the city with his reed—12,000 stadia (about 1,500 miles); its length and width and height are the same.
He measured its wall also—144 cubits (about 72 yards) by a man’s measure [of a cubit from his elbow to his third fingertip], which is [the measure] of the angel.
The wall was built of jasper, while the city [itself was of] pure gold, clear and transparent like glass.
The foundation [stones] of the wall of the city were ornamented with all of the precious stones. The first foundation [stone] was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony (or white agate), the fourth emerald,
The fifth onyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each separate gate being built of one solid pearl. And the main street (the broadway) of the city was of gold as pure and translucent as glass.
I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Omnipotent [Himself] and the Lamb [Himself] are its temple.
And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon to give light to it, for the splendor and radiance (glory) of God illuminate it, and the Lamb is its lamp.
The nations shall walk by its light and the rulers and leaders of the earth shall bring into it their glory.
And its gates shall never be closed by day, and there shall be no night there.
They shall bring the glory (the splendor and majesty) and the honor of the nations into it.
But nothing that defiles or profanes or is unwashed shall ever enter it, nor anyone who commits abominations (unclean, detestable, morally repugnant things) or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
This is the city to replace the tower of babel that is supposed to be a light for Israel but they were filled with own pride and own self-satisfaction, that they want to reach GOD through their own efforts and not by grace (the LORD JESUS CHRIST) as we have seen proof in the following verses:
Genesis 11:4-8 (Amplified Bible)
And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top reaches into the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them.
Come, let Us go down and there confound (mix up, confuse) their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from that place upon the face of the whole earth, and they gave up building the city.
IX. CONCLUSION:
Praise, worship, glorify, adore, bless, honor, acknowledge and thank You very much LORD JESUS for You are the Light of this world that lives within me and I reflect Your Light from within.
