When God Lets the Light In
Texts (CSB):
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Ephesians 6:10
John 1:5
2 Corinthians 4:6
Introduction — Broken Glass
Church, I want to begin with a simple image.
Broken glass.
When glass breaks, we don’t stop to admire it.
We sweep it up.
We treat it as dangerous.
We throw it away.
Broken glass feels like a liability.
And that’s often how we treat the broken places in our lives—our failures, our wounds, our exhaustion, our doubts. We assume those are the parts God wants us to hide, fix quickly, or get rid of before He can really use us.
But then I thought about two other things made of broken glass.
A kaleidoscope.
And stained glass windows.
Same material.
Same fragility.
Very different outcome.
And the difference is not the glass.
The difference between broken glass and a stained-glass window isn’t the glass—it’s the light, the design, and the one holding it together.
That difference is also the story of what happens when God lets the light in.
Point 1 — Broken Does Not Mean Disqualified
Listen to Paul’s prayer:
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
—1 Thessalonians 5:23 (CSB)
Paul does not pray that God sanctify the best parts of us.
He prays that God sanctify us completely.
Spirit.
Soul.
Body.
That means God does not bypass:
• our history
• our habits
• our bodies
• our grief
• our hidden faults
Some of us are comfortable letting God work on our “spiritual life,” but we quietly assume the rest of us is off-limits or unusable.
But God does not sweep broken pieces away.
He chooses them.
Jacob limped and was renamed Israel.
Peter failed publicly and was restored.
Thomas doubted and was invited to touch the wounds.
If brokenness disqualified people, there would be no Bible—and no church.
God does not wait for you to be unbroken.
He waits for you to be available.
Point 2 — Strength Comes From Participation, Not Performance (12–18 minutes)
Paul writes:
“Be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.”
—Ephesians 6:10 (CSB)
Notice what Paul does not say:
• “Be strong enough”
• “Try harder”
• “Fix yourself”
He says: be strengthened.
Christian strength is not self-generated.
It is received.
I recently told a group of young weightlifters that if they would do their part, the Lord would do His. But what Scripture actually teaches is deeper than a transaction.
Your part is not producing strength—your part is positioning yourself to receive it.
Think of a kaleidoscope.
The glass inside it doesn’t create beauty.
It doesn’t move itself.
It simply submits to light and design.
In the same way, God’s strength does not bypass weakness—it flows through it.
Paul would say elsewhere:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
—2 Corinthians 12:9 (CSB)
You don’t become strong by denying weakness.
You become strong by standing in the Lord’s strength long enough for it to shape you.
Point 3 — When God Lets the Light In, We Become Windows
Stained glass does not create light.
It receives it—and then it refracts it.
The same light that shines outside shines inside, but it is transformed into color, story, and meaning.
This is especially true in places like Chartres Cathedral, where the stained glass does not simply decorate the building—it teaches the faith.
At the heart of Chartres is The Passion Window.
When sunlight passes through it, the light shines through scenes of Christ’s suffering—His arrest, His trial, His crucifixion.
The light does not avoid the wounds.
It passes through them.
And as it does, the suffering of Christ is not hidden—it is transfigured.
This is the gospel.
“The light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.”
—John 1:5 (CSB)
The church was never meant to be clear glass—barely noticed.
God makes windows out of real lives.
Lives with scars.
Lives with stories.
Even the risen Jesus still bore His wounds.
Not erased.
Redeemed.
God’s glory shines through us, not around us.
Final Facet — From Window to Witness (23–28 minutes)
But not all light is meant to stay inside a building.
There is a story told by a Greek man about something that happened when he was a child.
As a boy, he found a broken piece of mirror on the ground.
Sharp.
Jagged.
Dangerous.
Instead of throwing it away, he took it home.
Day after day, he sanded it down until it was smooth enough to carry. And he kept it in his pocket.
Whenever he walked into dark places—alleys, corners, shadowed rooms—he would catch the sunlight and reflect it into places where light rarely reached.
He did not create the light.
He did not conquer the darkness.
He simply positioned what was once broken to reflect the sun.
“For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.”
—2 Corinthians 4:6 (CSB)
This is what sanctification looks like.
God does not heal us just so we can feel whole.
He heals us so we can carry His light into places that are still dark.
Closing — Step Into the Light
So the question this morning is not, “Are you broken?”
We all are.
The question is:
Are you willing to be placed in the light?
Some of us have been sweeping parts of ourselves away—parts God wants to use.
But when God lets the light in, broken glass doesn’t disappear.
In the hands of God, broken glass becomes something He can carry into the dark.
Let us pray.
