Investigating Jesus (On Your Eyes): Luke 11:33-36
- Stephen Phelan
- May 8, 2011
- Series: Investigating Jesus
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Investigating Jesus—On Your Eyes
Lk. 11: 33-36 Mid-City May 8 2011
Braveheart, one of the best films ever made as far as I am concerned. An epic battle between darkness and light, and that is what our text is about this morning. Now one of my favorite scenes in the film is when William Wallace goes to Sir Robert the Bruce, a contender for the throne of
Wallace is like a lighthouse—a beacon of light shining into the darkness. That is one image I think you need to understand the message Jesus has for us this morning about our eyes and the role they play. The other is a solar panel. Those are the 2 things I am going to ask you to consider 2 different things—neither of which were around when Jesus gave this teaching, but both of which I think will help you understand this teaching and help you apply it in our world. The first is (1) A Lighthouse & (2) A solar panel. Your eyes are intended to function as a lighthouse and a solar panel.
(1) Lighthouse
V33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body.”
Now, Jesus appeals to your logic here. He says, “Listen, would you really light a lamp and stick it under your bed. Or would you light a candle and stick it under a bowl. No. Defeats the purpose right.
But then he does something in the second half of that I had never realized before until I studied this passage this week. This shocked me the more I thought about it. And it was the purpose of the light. Vv33, “Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” Isn’t that interesting—who is the light for? For others. Jesus says the lamp is light for the sake of others. And what represents the lamp: your eyes. He says so in v34.
I don’t know about you. But I have never really thought about my eyes functioning for anybody other than muah. Until this week, I thought of my eyes functioning for my vision. To help me see the world. No, Jesus says, your eyes should be functioning not only for your vision, but they are a source of light for others.
Let me put it this way: your eyes are intended to function as a lighthouse, shining forth the light that is within you into a dark world. The light that shines out of a lighthouse is put there for a purpose: to help other ships who are in great darkness and peril. Such, Jesus says, are your eyes. They have a light that is intended for the world.
Mothers—it is Mothers Day. There is no greater lighthouse for a child than the light of his or her mother’s presence. You are to your children what William Wallace was to Sir Robert. Your looking at them saying, “There is strength in you, I see it.” And you are drawing out that strength.” You are to see what is lovely and true and good and draw it out. You are raising up little Bravehearts.
But here is the real question moms. Are you giving your kids the light that will never go out. See at some point your light will fade. The grass withers and the flowers fade and so will you. And so will your light.
See but here the words of Jesus in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” If you are following Jesus, you will never walk in darkness. You have the light of the world within you, the light of life. And that light shines out of you like a lighthouse, a beacon of light not only for yourself, but also for others around you who are walking in darkness. And you can say to them, “Sir, I know it is dark there. I too once walked there, but I found a bit of light here, in Jesus, and I offer him to you.
IT is a lot like that great motherly scene in Lord of the Rings. Lords of the Rings and Braveheart in the same message. Look out. See there was this amazing moment in Lord of the Rings when Galadriel, this woman of light, hands Frodo a vile of light. She is like a mother figure to him. And she knows the darkness that he is heading into. And the very best thing she can give him is light. And she looks at him and says, “To you Frodo Baggins I give the light of Earendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” Ahh I love that line. May it be a light for you in dark places, a light when all other lights go out.
Mothers, that is what your life is about. To give them the light that will be a light for them when all other lights go out. See that is what Jesus is. He is a light when all other lights go out. And so when all the other lights around Frodo go out in Shelob’s lair, he rips out that vile of light and the darkness couldn’t overcome it. It pierced the darkness. And that is what you want for your children. That they carry with them the light of life: Christ.
But let’s come at v33 from another angle besides that of mothers. That you are a lighthouse shining forth light from your eyes for the sake of others. Some of you are trying to break out of a pattern of darkness that your family has walked in for generations. I counsel people all the time who are scared to death that they are going to snap and walk out on their marriage because that is what has always been done in their family. Or the darkness of drug or alcohol addiction or pornographic addiction seems like it is just going to win. Here Jesus this morning. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Here John 1:5, “The light shone into the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The God of the universe has given or will give you to a light in Jesus Christ that will shine when all other lights go out.
And see that battle that you fight, to walk in the light, by being true to your spouse, the light of Jesus isn’t just going to shine for you, but you are lighting a lamp for others in your family, for generations to come. Your eyes, my friends, are to function as a lighthouse, a beacon of the light and hope of Jesus Christ that lives within you.
(2) SOLAR PANEL
Your eyes are to function not only as a lighthouse but also as a solar panel. What does a solar panel do? A solar panel receives sunlight. It only works when it is receiving sunlight. Well, look at v34 right after Jesus says, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light.” When the eye is good, the whole body is full of light. When the solar panel is receiving the light, it is charged up and has energy to fill the whole house. Your whole character, your spirit, all of who you are is charged up and filled up with the light and beauty and truth and goodness of Jesus. So v35-36, “See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part is dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”
So, Jesus says, you can have good eyes or bad eyes. And if an eye goes bad, then so goes your character. So goes your spirituality. So, you ask, how does an eye go bad? Great question.
Well, let’s circle back to v33. Jesus says one problem, one way to get a bad eye, is to hide the lamp. To cover it. Remember, if the eye functions like a solar panel, then the worst thing you can do is hide it from it’s light source, which is Jesus.
See that is what sin is. It is hiding from the light of Christ. It is Adam and Even cowering in the bushes, desperately taping over some fig leaves to hide themselves. And what this is saying is that one of the ways we destroy our character and our spiritual growth is by doing things that we feel the need to cover over. Things that are best done in the dark b/c you don’t want anyone else, much less Jesus, seeing you do it.
So let’s play that out in a few areas. Here is the really obvious one. Pornography. What happens is that you take your gaze off things that are good and true and beautiful and you fix your eyes on an image of a woman or man that, in most cases, isn’t even real. And see you know that it is evil, why, because you do it lurking in the shadows. If you are going to look at porn, you look both ways to make sure no one is looking. If your married, your paranoid that your spouse is going to find out, you try to erase your computer history. See that is trying to putting the lamp under a bowl. It is like taking the solar panel and removing it from the sun. See the eyes are the lamp of your body and what you look at radically affects your character.
And it isn’t just on the computer is it? Guys struggle with this more than women. You see a beautiful woman and you fix your eyes on her. Or if you are gay you see a dude that you think is good looking and you fix your eyes on him. Now some people defend this by saying it is like looking at art. But, think about it. You can sit and stare at a painting for hours and people will just think you are an intellectual. Oooh, magine all that he is getting out of that painting. He has been looking at it for 2 hours now—he must be really smart. Sit and stare at a woman for more than 30 seconds and people won’t think you are an intellectual. The will think you are a creep. So you have to hide the lamp and steal glances. You have put the solar panel under the bed. You have a bad or sick eye and it will corrupt your character.
But here is another way your eyes go bad. It isn’t just by doing things that you need to hide (sin), but it isA huge part of the problem is how we look at ourselves isn’t it. V35……..See this says that the darkness of our culture creeps in here and we start believing lies. We see evil and we internalize it. Let me show you how this works.
Let me play this commercial for you from Dove that images a number of young girls who don’t love themselves.
So the problem here is the eye. These girls look in the mirror and they don’t like what they see. So they have a bad or a sick eye that is giving them self-image problems. Our culture has painted a photo-shopped image of what beauty is and plastered all over magazines and billboards and movies and they don’t match it.
In the Dove commercial you have a bunch of young girls who don’t like themselves. They have an image problem. So Dove says, “Let’s change their mind. We’ve created the Dove self-esteem fund. Because every girl deserves to feel good about herself and see how beautiful she really is.” Now I actually believe that last line. That every girl deserves to feel good about herself and see how beautiful she really is. And not just every girl. Every boy to—to feel good about yourself and see how beautiful you really are.
And that is what the Bible is trying to do from Gen to Revelation. Listen to the beginning of the story. Here this. Breath it in. Gen. 1:27, “God created mankind in his image.” Not the flamingo, not the zebra. Man. We went to the zoo this weekend. The flamingo—what a strange bird. God must have been in a really good mood when he made that bird. I think he was laughing. But the flamingo, as beautiful as it is, doesn’t image God.
Smoke it like you would a joint. Hypothetically, of course. Personally, I have never smoked a joint, but I have watched others and the look is almost always the same, “It is this look of supreme relaxation. Like something is happening.” Well, the gospel, the good news, should have that affect. Here this. You’re made in the image of God. Your freckles image God, somehow, someway. Your blond hair, your dark hair, your black skin, your white skin, the way you love, the way you laugh--image God. In fact, Ps. 139 says he knitted you together in your mother’s womb. That is how fond He is of you. He made you to look like him, to image him to all the earth.
But, now, let me tear your self-esteem right back down. This wasn’t in the Dove self-esteem campaign. But your image and my image have been horribly marred and distorted. You, like me, have fixed your eyes on something other than Jesus. Something got a hold of your attention and you found it more lovely than Jesus. And it happens to every single one of us, even at the age of kids in the Dove commercial. And the solar panel loses its charge. In fact, it goes dead. That is the bad news.
Let me show you how this works and I will play it out in my son’s life. He recently found Skittles more lovely than Jesus. Here is how. Jesus calls him to obey his parents. His parents said the Skittles were off limits. But he fixed the lamp of his body onto the Skittle and he couldn’t get the lamp of his body off the Skittles. And after his awhile, his gaze upon the Skittles so transfixed his being that he was being drawn in like those space ships that get sucked up in Galaga. It was like he couldn’t avoid it. And so then a few minutes later I found him laying on my bed underneath the pillows with an empty bag of skittles. He wasn’t just caught red-handed, but yellow-handed, green-handed, grape-handed.
As we get older the things that are more lovely than Jesus change and the consequences become more severe. That, is the bad news.
But the story doesn’t end there. See Jesus never tooks his eyes off of you. Before the beginning of creation, Eph. 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” Do you hear that? You were in his sight before the creation of the world. Jesus has eyes for you—He always has, before the beginning of time. Jesus had eyes for you. And He has never taken them off of you. And we know this b/c of the cross. The cross is the ultimate expression of His love for us, the ultimate reminder that he didn’t take his eyes off of us.
And now, on the other side of the cross, He comes to us and shines the light of His Resurrection presence into our lives and says I am going to make you holy and blameless. See it is so much better than Braveheart or Lord of the Rings. So much better than William Wallace coming to us—Jesus comes to us and says, “There is strength in you, I see it.” So much better than Galadriel, Jesus says, “May the light of the world be a light to you when all other lights go out. My light I give to you.” Cmon!
