Scripture: Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:5-8; Ephesians 2:8; Matthew 7:3-5; John 8:7; Ecclesiastes 3:1 Series: Epiphany
Preached the Sunday before Lent, this sermon pairs Isaiah’s call to fasting-as-justice with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount declaration that disciples are the light of the world. Wilson emphasizes the possessive ‘your light’—each person has a light worth shining—and identifies that light as good works, which Jesus shows rather than defines. The heart of the message is that Jesus tolerated sinners but had no patience for hypocrites; being light therefore begins with integrity, meaning what we say and not overcommitting. Using fire imagery, the rear-guard promise, and Ecclesiastes’ seasons, he urges hearers to start small where they are (even ‘I’m not going to lie today’) and grow by grace, shining the particular light God created each of them to be.
Illustrations: colorado-bend-burn-ban, fuel-oxygen-spark, prometheus-maui-azazel-loki, headlamp-rear-vulnerability, rear-guard-flank, do-what-i-say-parenting, family-values-pastor-abuser, church-leavers-hypocrisy-survey, not-going-to-lie-today
February 8, 2026
Isaiah 58:5-8 Matthew 5:13-20
Light of the World
Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. - Isaiah 58:5-8
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:13-20
We went camping a few weeks ago as a family, before the hard freeze, but it was still fairly cold. We went to Colorado Bend State Park, which is a little north of Llano. And there was still a burn ban going on, so we couldn’t build a fire, which was unfortunate.
Building a fire is one of the best parts about camping. A group of people coupe stare at a fire longer than they stare at their phones. It is mesmerizing.
Fascination with fire transcends language and culture. Greece had the myth of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods because it seems like a divine object. Polynesian myths have Maui bringing fire to the world. In the Book of Enoch, the fallen angel, Azazel teaches humans fire. Loki steals the fire in Norse mythology.
You need a spark to light a fire. Fire has three components, as I tell my kids and anyone who will listen to me talk about fire: there’s fuel, oxygen, and a spark. And then we’ve got fire.
Even with our candles for Christmas Eve—you need those three components, or else there is no fire. The spark, in fact, can come from the other candles.
We’re preparing for the Season of Lent, which is coming up in a little over a week. This passage from Isaiah was often read during Lent. It grounds our understanding of fasting for Lent.
The fast we choose is God’s justice. The fast we choose is being light—shining our light.
What struck me this week about this passage here in Isaiah, and then again in Matthew, is the possessive nature of the light that both Isaiah and Jesus speak about. We aren’t speaking of light in a general sense. It is my light. It is your light.
What this assumes is that each of us has a light to shine. That’s step one: you have a light to shine. I’m not even talking about what that light is, how you can find it, how you can grow it—any of that. You have a light to shine. You have a light that’s worth shining.
If I’m shining a flashlight or headlamp in front of me, I can see in front of me. I can’t see behind me. I’m vulnerable in the back. One of my kids could sneak up behind, grab me, and say, “Got You!” And then I would have to concede that I was got.
But Isaiah has a helpful word on this: “The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”
Rear guard is a military term for the units that protect the rear flank of a military position, especially when they’re marching. When an army is marching, you want most of them doing such marching in one direction. But that opens up a vulnerability on the flanks for an enemy army to engage them.
The rear guard is a force designed to protect the rear, so that the rest of the unit can look forward.
It is an act of faith to believe that God is our rear guard. Our confidence in God frees us to be light for the world.
And we do that by remaining in the very context of the Sermon on the Mount.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Jesus even defines what our light is. It’s the good works.
Now, different Christians have read this passage in different ways, because Paul has some other language around good works that seems to contradict this. Paul says that we are not saved through works—For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God
But that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus isn’t talking about salvation. Jesus is talking about how we should live our lives right now. How are we responding to God right now? What is the possibility—the way of life—for us?
“Show your good works before others.” Is what he says.
Okay, so we’re light, right? We’re all a light. We get that part. Then it begs the question: Well, what is the light?
As Jesus says, the light is the good works that we do, which shine out before others.
Okay. Well, what is a good work? How do we define it?
In this way, Jesus is offering us a less than straightforward path of living. Jesus doesn’t define a good work the way that he defines light. Jesus shows us. Jesus shows us by how he lives—by those whom he welcomed, by those whom he served, by those whom he rebuked.
The biggest rebukes of Jesus were not for the greatest sinners, but for hypocrites. Jesus had an amazing tolerance for sinners and an amazing intolerance for hypocrites.
The moment we begin to take our faith seriously—whatever the age—what we should focus on is meaning what we say. The Gospels show us this again and again: hypocrisy is what Jesus hates. Sinners? He has all the time in the world for sinners.
So often the church today, and the church historically, has focused so much on sin and ignored hypocrisy. When we read the Gospels—if you listen to how Christians talk, you would think that Jesus’s biggest concern is personal behavior, cussing, things of that nature.
But what Jesus does in the Gospels is different: he not only seeks the sinners, he loves them, forgives them—he seeks the sick, seeks the impure—and he has got no time for the hypocrites. Those who say one thing with their mouths and do another thing with their actions. Which is why, to be light, we need to start there.
There’s an old parenting line: “Do what I say, not what I do.” And it’s a joke, and it’s funny, but it points to the ways that if we believe that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, then how we speak deeply matters. And we should discipline our language so that we speak only what we can truthfully follow through on.
This is what Jesus is getting at later on in the Sermon of the Mount when he says, “Don’t point out the speck in your neighbor’s eye when you’re ignoring the log in your own eye.” It’s hypocrisy. The speck in your neighbor’s eye is real—he’s not saying that it’s good to have a speck in your eye. It’s the same thing he means in the Gospel of John, when he holds back the crowd that was stoning the woman: “Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The judgmentalism that many see in modern Christians is integrally connected to hypocrisy. In surveys of people who have left the church, the number one reason is almost always hypocrisy or judgmental ism of Christians. And we see this all the time. Every few years there’s a politician who talks about family values and then has an affair with one of their staffers. There’s a pastor who preaches about what Jesus would do and then embezzles $50,000. There’s someone given responsibility to care for young people who abuses it. Hypocrisy. It goes on and on.
We’ve got to start where we are and commit. That is the path that Jesus offers. That is the narrow path. And we do it by grace. It’s by grace that we don’t need to overcommit in our life, in our faith.
Being light is about being truthful in how we live our lives and how we speak. Not being a hypocrite. Seeking to not be a hypocrite. Not claiming something beyond what we are currently doing.
This is how it starts. It can be a small light. It can be, “I’m not going to lie today.” That’s it. All the other sins are their own battles—but I’m not going to lie today. It starts somewhere, on this ground floor of where we are in our own struggle. That is light. That is the light, so that people look and say, “That person is different. They’re not lying like the others. They’re not claiming something they’re not.”
And it grows. It grows because God is with us, because we are not alone. And there’s a season for it. As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” There’s a season for us to focus on different aspects of our life. There’s a season for us to grow. There’s a season for us to just stay still. There’s a season for us to give and give and give. There’s a season for us to receive. There’s a season for us to call out the people in our lives. There’s a season for us to be called out.
And yet, if we start where we are with God—with meaning what we say—that light will keep burning, and it will make an impact. Not because of how awesome we are, but because of who God is for us.
Go forth and be light as you have been called to be light. Not the way I have been called. Not the way the person next to you has been called. The way you have been called to be light. Start where you are and grow from there and share from there. Don’t try to be someone you’re not, but who God created you to be: a beloved child of God, worthy of love, with purpose in this world—a sinner in need of redemption, who has been offered life at the foot of the cross.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.