The Lamp Under A Basket: How To Be A Light-Shining Kingdom Agent Series

While I was on vacation in Cancun we were swimming in the ocean everyday and it was simply wonderful and beautiful and really fun. The first few days the waves were very low, you could just sit out there in the waters and it was so calm and peaceful. But then slowly a hurricane began forming south east of us, eventually named hurricane Ian, and we went out swimming the day before hurricane Ian would pass by us, and the waves had grown much stronger.

As I waded out in the water, the waves would crest and crash down into us, and the closer to the shore you were, the harder the waves would hit. But I noticed that as I got deeper and deeper out, at first it got harder and harder, the waves kept cresting and hitting me. I was in to my knees, then to my waist, and the waves were hitting harder and harder. I almost turned back because I thought the waves are too strong. But then I went in deeper to about the depth of my upper chest and shoulders. And as the waves came, they were just forming, and they wouldn’t crest and crash where they turn white, until after they got past me.

So I could simply float over the waves as they formed, because I was out deep enough to avoid the crest of the waves.

And I realized at that moment that this is the picture of the Christian life in regard to our relationship with God. If we have a shallow relationship with God, we barely pray, we hardly ever seek God, we read the bible very rarely, the waves of life will crash into us, we’re not in very deep, and those waves will threaten to knock us over and even drive us out of the water all together, away from God. But wise Christians then begin to fight for their walk with God, they push into prayer they push into bible reading and study, and church, and at first seems to get even more difficult. The pushing doesn’t seem to get anywhere and the waves hit even harder, because the enemy wants to prevent our breakthrough.

But wise Christians KEEP PUSHING into God, KEEP SEEKING God, and suddenly they breakthrough, to a deeper relationship with God, a more passionate intimacy, they spend hours with God, they fast and pray, they study the word diligently and their closeness with God is deep and powerful, and as the waves of life hit, and hit, and hit, they’re so deep out, the crests don’t harm them, and they float over the troubles as they come.

And that’s super important to understand in our parable today of the light under a basket, to live this out will seem very hard if your relationship with God is poor, but if your relationship with God is deep and intimate and close, this will just naturally happen as you lovingly obey the Father.

Our Parable today is from Luke 8:16-18. But the parable also appears in a brief format in Matthew’s gospel, as part of the famous sermon on the mount, it’s rendered like this: “Matthew 5:14-15 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

The parable also appears in the gospel of Mark, rendered very similarly to how Luke renders it, almost exactly the same, in Mark 4:21-25 if you want to take a look.

But we’re going to focus on the way it’s rendered in Luke, which is almost exactly the same as Mark, I think it’s likely that Jesus also made mention of this parable in the sermon on the mount, but later shared it as a separate parable to give further detail. So we’ll focus on the greater detail version for today.

It says this: “No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.” –Luke 8:16-18 NIV

I want to draw your attention first to something Jesus says here, he says be careful how you listen. Let’s talk about that first, then we’ll get to the light.

Why does this Jesus say this? What does he mean?