The Lord Is My Light And My Salvation

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!