Good morning, good to see you. Our text is from Exodus, chapter 25, page 84 in the Pew Bible. You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be made of hammered work, its base Its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it, and there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it, three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower. on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower on the other branch, so for the six branches going out of the lampstand. And on the lampstand itself, there should be four cups made like almond blossoms with their calyxes and flowers, and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold. You shall make seven lamps for it, and the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it. Its tongs and its trays shall be of pure gold. It shall be made with all these utensils out of a talent of pure gold. and see that you make them after the pattern for them which is being shown you on the mountain. May God empower his word to have its effect on us. Let us pray. Lord, we do ask that as you have written your word so you would make it known to us today. Through my words, empower me, empower us to hear. In Christ's name, amen. Have you ever stubbed your toe at night on a piece of furniture? Well, yeah, I have. Most of you have. The problem is that we can't find our way without light. But if you think about it, there are other circumstances that don't depend so much on physical light as on, as it were, the illumination of what is going to be the consequences of a certain action on our part. So how many of you have been in the process of opening a jar and you didn't realize it was under pressure. Everything sprays out and maybe stains and wets your clothes. Or maybe something even more serious than that, you've entrusted some money or some confidence in somebody that you thought was trustworthy the money is gone and the confidence is gone and the thing that you relied on for that person is gone. And that shows up some of the limitations that we have as human beings, that we cannot always anticipate the future. Now sometimes it's our fault, right? I should have known because of where this jar had been that I had to be careful opening or I should have known that this person was not trustworthy, but sometimes you can't tell. And that issue is the issue, in effect, of knowledge, which was related to, you might say, illumination, right? Of having light on the future, in this case, or sometimes, as with the stubbed toe, just having physical light to show us the way. Well, this passage is clearly about light. But it's saying something special to us, because it's in the context of Exodus 25, a little earlier in the passage, verse 8. is the key verse for this entire larger section. Because God says through Moses to his people, his special people Israel, and let them, that is the people, make me a sanctuary, that is a special dwelling place that is holy, that I may dwell in their midst. Now the whole structure that you read in the subsequent chapters is the sanctuary. And this picture of the lamp stand that we've just read about is one piece of furniture. But each piece of furniture is a furniture in God's house. So it's saying something about God himself. And so what's this passage saying? It's saying, God is saying, right? Because he set it up. He's saying, I'm the one who gives you light. Whether it's a matter of stubbing your toe or whether it's a major issue of life, right? A major planning and a major issue of what are the results are going to be. Now, this passage comes in still larger context. the context of God bringing his people out from Egypt, out from slavery, and leading them through the wilderness. And you say, well, that's not where I am. Yeah, we're none of us in that situation. This in some ways will strike us as an ancient passage, but God is the same God. So there's still a message for you and me. It's the message about not only that God is the all-knowing God who knows everything about the future, but that he's willing to provide light for you and me when we're dealing with the future or dealing with simply not having physical light. Now, in this situation in Exodus, One of the things that happens is that the people need to find the way through a rather barren area in the Sinai Peninsula. They're on their way from Egypt and they're on their way to the promised land, but the area that they're living in is not a very nice place. And there's only a few places where you can find a path through. There's only a few places where there's going to be water. There's only the issue of finding your way is a serious one. Now God provides in that circumstance for his people in a special way. Psalm 78 verse 14 says it, he guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night. There was a special cloud and at night it would be fire so people could see it and sometimes even they traveled at night and they were able to do it because God provided a special supernatural light. So that's the picture of physical light and the picture of physical guidance because you have to find a way through this rather barren and trackless place where you are. and sometimes you and me, we may feel I'm in a pretty trackless place right now in my life. So there's a parallel and God is the same God. Now, another thing to wrestle with in this passage is this picture of the lampstand because basically it's a small scale reminder of what God is doing with his people with this cloud and fire leading them through the wilderness, and this is saying, look, this is a more intensive picture reminding you I'm the one that you're to get guidance from. I'm the one that you're to get lights from. But it's a strange picture for many of us because we don't have that kind of furniture in our houses today. We have light switches, right? And it all depends on electricity. Well, God knows all about electricity. I mean, he's the one who who made the whole thing, right? But in the time that he's dealing with these people, about three and a half thousand years ago, at that time, human beings had not discovered how to master electricity. But they did have ways that were simpler ways that God had provided, ultimately, by which they could have light at night. So this lampstand basically is a piece of furniture that has seven lamps on it, and the lamps are held up high by the lampstand, right? Now the lamps are not what you would think of with a shade and electric bulb. They are Aladdin lamps. There are these little things that can have oil in the main area and then they have a little wick and you light them. It all is ingenious when you think about it. And you can use olive oil which will burn and which will provide a light. And that's what it is. So God is speaking to the people back there both in terms that they can understand and with means that they can actually use. And that's a way of saying, look, God is the eternal God. He's God of all ages. He knows about electricity. He knows about your circumstances. He knows about my circumstances. And he comes to us in ways that show he understands. The ultimate way in which he comes is in Jesus Christ himself. Jesus Christ is God become man. God taking on human nature, believe it or not. I mean, this is incredible. I mean, if you've been a Christian believer for some time, you can come to take it for granted. If you think about it, this is unbelievable. God becomes man. He takes on human nature so that he's one alongside with us. And that's a specific demonstration. I understand your struggles. I understand your pains. I understand the fact that you can open a jar and it can spray all over you. Who knows whether that happened to Jesus during his earthly life, because as a human being, as a human nature, he did not know everything. As God, he did. So there were things in which he had to struggle with an imperfect knowledge of the future. That is, according to his human nature. He's one with us in that respect, and that is part of God's design in order to rescue us. Because one of the things about, if we go back to this picture now, in Exodus, one of the things about it is the provision of physical light, but also it's provision of spiritual light. How is that so? Well, 1 John 1.5 says, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. So the physical light you see, even from these lamps in this building, That is derivative from God, who is the original light, right? And he made light, created light, after the pattern of who he is. But when 1 John is talking about God being light and not darkness, the focus is not simply on physical brightness, which God can display, but it's on the spiritual brightness of his purity, of his holiness. Now listen to another verse, it's in John 3, 19, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, it's referring to Jesus. And people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed. But everyone who does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. The problem, friends, if we're honest with ourselves, is that there is something in us, and it's been in us ever since the first sin of the first man. There is something in us that wants to do evil, that wants to be under the cover of darkness, whether it's thieves stealing at night, or whether it's a lie that you want to get away with and you want not to conceal with physical darkness, but you hope nobody will ever find out the truth. And the trouble with coming to the light is those things get exposed. So there is something in us called sin. There's something in us that says, I don't want to come and I don't dare to come to God who is light because it will expose uncomfortable things, in fact, very nasty things about the heart, not simply what you do. That can be bad enough from time to time. Which of us has not sometime dishonored his parents? It's not simply the outward thing, but it's the inward source that is worse. Now the answer to that is found in God himself, and he's saying you have to come to me, painful though that may be, because your sin is going to be shown up, because I have a remedy for sin. Now the tabernacle as a whole includes a picture, a symbolic picture, of that remedy through the sacrifice of animals. It's looking forward to the sacrifice of Christ. Christ has to come into the world not simply to be one with us as a human being, but to substitute for our sins in order that we can bear coming into the presence of God. So the picture here of God being the light is a dangerous picture as well as an inviting picture because of human sin. Now this is very important in a culture like ours because there is much confusion about how do you find your way in life, how do you find your way through life as a wilderness, right? And I see two false answers that are over against the answer that God has provided here. The one false answer is Everybody just has to find his own way. You make it up as you go along. But the trouble with that is the evil in the heart. If you make it up, if I make it up, because I've got the same problem. If I'm making it up, I'm going to make it up wrong. It's going to come out really bad in the end, in the long run. But I can't see that, right? I persuade myself that a little lie is not gonna matter. And then, of course, I have to cover it up with a bigger lie. And I have to cover that up with a bigger lie still, and then I have to cover that up with a murder. That's what David did, right? If you remember David and Bathsheba. So one thing leads to another. It's horrible. It's God who's saying, I have the way out. because I'm the light. I'm giving you the light that'll put you on the path out. Now, there's another false solution, and that is education. Now, education, learning things, right? That's a good thing. But if you just learn information, it hasn't yet changed your heart. So there are many people, I think, who are putting their hopes, because they don't know Jesus. They don't know God as the God of light. They're putting their hopes in an educational program. Well, people will, if they just know enough, they'll automatically straighten out in their life. But it's not true. There are people who are PhDs who are nasty people. So that isn't a solution either. God is saying, you have to come to me. Now let's look at some of the details of what is in the lampstand and what that says about the way that God has provided. Verse 31, you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. It's gold, it's expensive, it's beautiful. Now one of the things I should mention, it's not in this passage, But in Leviticus 24, it's clear that the provision is to be that these lamps are to be going, they're to be burning all night long. God is awake all night long. Psalm 121, he neither sombers nor sleeps. See when you go to sleep, you're really vulnerable. But God is there. God never goes to sleep. And God knows the way, even when you're not alert. There's a comfort in that. But also there's the gold. And now it's beautiful. God is a beautiful God, if only we could see it. Although, again, this problem with, I don't want to come to the light because the darkness is going to be shown. So we have a problem. But the light is a beautiful thing when you think about it. You get many colors of rainbow. It's God who is the source of that. And so God is a beautiful God. If you want to understand that, because I think many of us, it's hard to see because there are struggles that we have in this life. If you want to understand the beauty of God, you have to see it through Jesus Christ. You have to see it through his purpose. person because he displays in a climactic and full way what kind of God is the God of this universe. It's beautiful. It's also a reminder of this is a great king who has all the wealth of the world. Now later on in this passage it says that the lampstand is made of be made of a talent of gold. I looked it up. Talent, it's not what you think of as a skill. It's a weight. It's about 75 pounds of gold. I looked up the current exchange rate. That's about $2 million. This thing is expensive. But it's not an expense to God, if you think about it, because he owns all the gold in the world. So, but it's a reminder then of the immensity of God, the majesty of God, the resources of God. God's resources are not going to be strained in order to take care of you and your life. So it's gold. And then it goes on to talk about the seven lamps. I'm going to go down to that part. The seven lamps, why seven? Well, when seven is a symbolic number, it stands for completeness. But in a context like this, you're thinking of the cycle of day and night as well, right? Because the lamps would be lighted for the whole night through. and it's a reminder of this cycle of day and night, and of the lights of the sky. This picture of God's house is, as it were, a small-scale picture of the universe, which is God's house. And there are lights of heaven, and there's a cycle of seven days, right, in which God created the world, but then we observe this cycle. And we meet together on the first day of the week to celebrate the God who made everything. as well as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, but we celebrate that cycle. God is the Lord of all times. This is relevant because of this problem of the future, right? You can't see the future. You can't see what's going to happen. You can't see whether the jar you're going to open is going to spray all over you. God knows the entire future, all the way out forever. This life is not the end. Can you see enough to see the next life and the consequences of your behavior in this life? You can't do it by yourself, but God is there to instruct you. So God is the God of times, who is the Lord of times. And it may be also that the sevenness refers to the seven lights of heaven, the sun, moon, and five visible planets. So it's another possible connection, right, to remind you God not only made the little lights that are in his house on earth, but he made the great lights and he made them so that we can see in the day and to some extent if there's a full moon we can even see at night. So all those things are a provision of this great God who is the universal God of the world. Now you look at this, you see, and you say, well, he's just doing this for the Jews. He's just doing this for this one people. Well, yes, at that time, but he has plans for the whole world. And when Jesus comes as a fulfillment of this, he says, I am the light of the world. We have that verse. overhead. I'm the light of the world. He who fathers me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. I'm the light of the world, not just of the Jews. So the statement is for you, it's for me, to believe that this Jesus is the way. He also says that. He's the way to God. He's the way to eternal life. He's the way through the wilderness of life. All that is being depicted beforehand here in this picture of God as a source of light. So what else do we learn? Well, there's an interesting thing here about the lampstand because it has a stem, it has cups, It has calyxes. You know what a calyx is? I had to look it up. It's the cup, it's the outside and lower part of a flower. It can look like leaves, right? And then the beautiful part of the flower sits up on top of it. But this thing has the calyxes, and it has the blossoms, and it's basically a tree, right? The tree of life, I would suggest. You remember the tree of life was put in the Garden of Eden, but then Adam and Eve were barred from the presence of this tree, which symbolized life in communion with God. Well, now it's promised again, but how can you get in? This is the light of life where Jesus says in John 8, 812, he says that the one who follows me will have the light of life, right? Because you need light if you are to conduct your life in the right way. And Jesus is saying, that's who I am. You have to understand that, but not only to understand that, but to say, I am going to commit myself to him. He says, he who follows me. You can't just sit there. I know many of you already know this, but I'm reminding you, right? You can't just sit there and say, oh, well, that's an interesting idea, right? He who follows me. What does that mean? It means that you have to put your whole life in Jesus' hands. It means that you have to admit to him who is God that you are a sinner. Like the men's song reminded us again and again, sinner man, sinner man, right? That's the way in which we have strayed from God. And you have to be willing to have that exposed. But you're forgiven in Jesus. That's the glory of it, right? It's not a terror. which it would be if you came without mediation, without Jesus as a sacrifice. So when Jesus says, I am the light of the world, it's a universal invitation. It's going out to every kind of person in the entire world. It's for you, it's for me. It's for people who have struggled all their lives. with a bad home upbringing, with temptations to drunkenness, with murder, right? If you committed murder, this Jesus is for you. He's a universal savior. I'm the light of the world, he says. What a wonderful promise that is. Now, what does that mean in terms of response? Well, I've already told you it means that Jesus is inviting you to be a follower. If you are already, many of you in this room are, then it's to continue following him. And it's to take seriously what that means. It means purity in your life. It means you cannot stay the same as you were when you were in darkness. But it also means that you get light inside you. Let me show you a passage, 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 4, and this passage is actually in the context of one of the messengers of Jesus, namely the Apostle Paul, who's reflecting on what he's doing to bring that message and that invitation to come to Christ. And in 2 Corinthians 4, Verse 4, he says, in their case, that is of the people who are rejecting the gospel, the good news of Jesus. In their case, the God of this world, that's Satan, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing, from seeing. What are they kept from seeing? The light of the gospel. That's the good news. It's the message of what Jesus has done, the gospel of the glory of Christ. Now it's saying that Christ is the source of the light because glory is another way of describing bright light. Who is the image of God? So if you see Christ spiritually speaking, you see God as what? For what we proclaim, this is the Apostle Paul, right? But he's been empowered by Jesus himself to do it. What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus as Lord, he's the universal God as we've seen. Jesus as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. You know, we read the Bible or when you hear it proclaimed, it's proclaimed by a servant, right? So the servant is completely subordinate. The point is not the servant, it's not me, but the message, right, which comes from God himself. We are servants for Jesus' sake, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness, that's when he first created light, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now this is a matter of spiritual sight, okay? It is only because God sends this message and he works in your heart that the spiritual eyes pop open. And you say, God is who he says he is. Jesus is God come to the earth. And then you're willing to commit yourselves and follow him. And then he says in the next verse, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. That is, if you're a believer in Christ, you're a jar of clay, right? Your body is made out of material stuff, and you may not even be a very pretty person, physically speaking. So what? We can't all be beauty queens, right? That's not the point. You are a jar of clay, but inside of it is burning the light of God himself, namely the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If you were present at previous week, you know that I've appealed to 1 Corinthians 6.19, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Now that's not true of every human being, but it's true of every follower of Christ. If you're a follower of Christ, your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So if the temple of the Holy Spirit, it has in it all these items of furniture, not in a physical sense, right, but what the furniture stands for. So that means that you have light inside you. Now in the book of Revelation, we can't take much time, we're out of time, but in Revelation 1, it shows seven lampstands, which are the seven churches in Asia Minor. So this church corporately is a lampstand in the temple of God, right? And our task is to show light out into the world. But also in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, you are the light of the world. Well, didn't he say, I'm the light of the world? Yeah, he did, right? He is the true light of the world, but derivatively, if you belong to him, you begin to be like him. That's a task for your whole life. Right, and so what I'm saying to you is, if you haven't committed yourself to Christ, you need to do it. Otherwise, your life is going to head to disaster. Because you don't know the future, and you have the evil of sin in you to corrupt you and lead you astray. If you already belong to Christ, then you've got to continue, right? And you learn more and more of him. That's one reason why we come to church. There ought not to be any lone ranger Christians that are just out there, right? It's different if a person is hindered by ill health from coming to the assembly. God can make special provision. But he wants us to be learners, to be followers of Jesus who are more and more lightbearers. Friends, you are lights. You are God's lights. Let us pray. Lord, this is exciting, but it's also a great responsibility. And we pray that we may take it to heart. Would you, through the Holy Spirit, bring us into closer and closer union with Jesus in order that we may display his glory? In Christ's name we pray, amen.