In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we—His followers—are the light of the world and that by shining our lights for others they will see our good works and praise the Father in heaven (
Allow me to wipe that puzzled look off your face by using an extended metaphor to explain what I mean. Now, I wasn’t much of a Boy Scout—never making it to Eagle Scout—and I’ve never been a big outdoorsman, but I’ve done enough camping and hiking to know how to work a flashlight; I think this very basic but very necessary tool can teach us a lot about how to be a good witness (i.e., how to be a light in the dark world around us). To explain how to be a good light, I want to consider with you ways we can be bad lights by shining in all the wrong places.
The first wrong place to shine a flashlight (and by extension shine the light of our Christian witness) is on ourselves. The metaphorical outdoorsman implications are obvious and don’t warrant explanation, so let’s move on to the spiritual. You’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating: It’s not about us. We need to use our lights to point to the Father, not to point out what good Christians we are. We shine our lights and do our good works to bring praise and glory to God, not to show off our great faith or spirituality. It’s not about us.
The second wrong place to shine our lights is on other people. A bright light can be a very helpful tool in finding something that is lost or in finding our way when we are lost, but it also can bring shame and humiliation. Shining a light on someone’s flaws and imperfections can prove embarrassing at best and utterly devastating at worst. In witnessing to our non-Christian friends and colleagues, it’s not really our job to shine our lights on all their sins and shortcomings. We need to point them to the Father and love them with the love of Christ, a love that extended a hand to tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners.
Now, let’s talk about the right place to shine our lights: right in front of us—and more importantly right in front of those whom we are leading to Christ. When on that mountain trail in the middle of a darkened night, the best place to shine a flashlight is where your next step will fall. Not on your feet, not too far ahead, but one step ahead of where you are. As the psalmist said, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
The same idea applies to our witness to others. We need to come alongside our friends who are lost in the darkness and shine the light of God’s Word on their next step toward the Father. We don’t shine the light on ourselves, boasting of our good works or self-righteousness. We don’t shine it on all their flaws and sins, using our light to judge and condemn. Rather, we shine our good works and the truth of the Word will lead them step by step to the One who longs to bring them home.
