Giving Light to All

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 5:16

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Well, last week as we began in Matthew chapter 5 we laid a sort of foundation for what it means to be light.
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Of course, we've been carrying forward from verse 13 where Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth.
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And then verses 14 and 15 last week, you are the light of the world. What we did last week was sort of present the foundation or the larger picture and we left out a lot of practical application.
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And so this morning we hope to actually consider more of the practical application of how we as believers in the
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Lord Jesus Christ give light to all. And I hope again that we'll keep these things in mind even though in the weeks to come we'll move far beyond them.
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It's important to recognize where we've been and where we're going. In fact, so much of the remainder of the
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Sermon on the Mount will really be feeding back into what it means for Christians to be salt and light in the world.
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Now as we consider how we give light to all here in verse 16, we also want to remember that verse 16 is a bridge into verse 17.
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Every sentence, every verse truly runs in that way. But here we have this matter of good works and that's going to tie in directly to this new discussion that will start in verse 17 where Jesus begins to explain the law and the law and the prophets.
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And then really the issue of righteousness comes to the very center. And we'll see that sort of glowing and reverberating throughout the
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Sermon on the Mount. So very important that although we won't spend much time at all this morning talking about good works that we will return to this and see this as a motif that continues.
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I should also mention that we'll begin verse 17 not next week but in two weeks.
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I'll be away next Lord's Day. Dr. Brian Laboger will come to preach from Psalm 100,
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Lord willing. And so we'll have to sort of bookmark where we leave things off this morning and we'll pick up again verse 17 in two weeks.
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I'm reminded of a professor who said, if you are a good preacher, you need time away from the pulpit.
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And if you're a lousy preacher, your church needs you to take time away from the pulpit. I'll let you decide which of those applies.
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Either way, I won't be here next week. We've begun this matter of the testifying activity.
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Jesus has begun by explaining who his disciples are. Oddly enough, it begins with those who are bankrupt, spiritually speaking.
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Those who are so poor in spirit, all they can do is beg, beg for the Lord to show mercy.
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And so these ones who are poor in spirit begin to mourn over their helplessness. They see how much is wrong, how much is crooked in their life, and it grieves them, it convicts them.
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They're ones who are mournful and therefore they're humbled. They're a humble people. They're meek.
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And that meekness, it drives them to want to actually be right, right with God, right toward others.
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And so they begin to hunger, they begin to thirst after this righteousness of God. And when they receive the mercy of God's righteousness, this righteousness of Jesus Christ shed in His blood, given freely to them as a covering, that now having this mercy they become merciful.
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They have a purity in heart. They're willing to shine as a light that even when hostility and insult and mockery comes their way, they'll continue to bear the faith and they'll persevere in their faith and they'll bear under persecution.
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So everything that we've learned along the way through these Beatitudes, all of that sort of flows into shining as light in the world.
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So how do we shine as lights? You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket.
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They put it on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house.
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Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
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Father in heaven. So how do we shine as lights? Well first, we shine as lights in the world.
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We shine as lights in the world. The Apostle Paul, he says something very similar in Philippians 2.
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He says, believers are in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And that's not unique to Philippi 2 ,000 years ago.
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That's every generation. Believers have understood that they themselves are once part of the crooked and perverse generation.
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The Lord called them out of that darkness into His marvelous light, as Peter says. And so we are now living as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
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Paul says, you shine like lights in the world. So we shine as lights in the world.
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This description of the world, this is not the sort of Sarah McLachlan, sobby eyed, you know, if only the puppies had enough food.
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That's not the picture of the world that Paul puts before us. He says it's a crooked world. It's perverse.
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It's a midnight world, as we said last week. It's dark. It's dehumanizing.
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It's disfiguring. It's corrupt. It's not solid. It's not stable.
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We have this picture of a world that is twisted. In fact, the Greek word behind crooked is skolios.
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It's where we get that word skoliosis from. Maybe like me, you grew up in grade school and you had to do the dive test in front of the gym teacher.
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You sort of had to arch your back and they tested to see if you had a normal spine or if your spine was twisted.
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That's the idea here, this crooked, twisted world. And Paul is reminding these believers who have come into light, you are to live faultlessly, blamelessly, to do no harm in this world around you.
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The world is warped. The world is dark. But for that reason, because you've been called into the light of Christ, you are light in this world.
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You are light to those who are also perhaps for the first time seeing their bankruptcy, mourning their sin, being humbled and beginning to hunger for righteousness.
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So shine that light in this very place, Paul says. You're a shining light in the world.
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And so that's our calling as Christians. We shine as light when we speak for Christ amidst those who blaspheme.
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We shine as light when we walk uprightly among those who walk in a flood of lust, a flood of cruelty.
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We shine like light when we stand for truth and we're living in a realm of lies and no one trusts anything anymore, anyone anymore.
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It used to be you could do business with a handshake. Those days are gone, gone. Now just to pump gas, you almost need to sign some waiver with some 18 -foot note qualification.
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Christians shine like light. We're men and women of our word. You can take that handshake to the bank.
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At our own loss, we'll fulfill our word. You shine like light when you live for God, no matter the cost amidst a world of godlessness.
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This is what Jesus says believers are because of who He is. He came as light shining in the darkness.
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When we follow in His ways, we too become a light. And that's why Jesus says, I've lit you as it were.
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I've lit you like a lamp and I've put you on a lampstand. Now you give light to all in the midst.
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Now the whole point, and we established this last week, the whole point of lighting a lamp is to shine light in a dark place.
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That's the whole point. A lamp isn't lit for its own sake. You're not, as it were, a shining lamp as a
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Christian, just so you can feel better about yourself, just so you can go in the privacy of your own quarters and enjoy how radiant you are.
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You're meant to go into a dark place and to illuminate, to expose all the things that we'll begin to unpack this morning.
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The point being that no one uses a lamp in broad daylight. And our world is not a world of broad daylight.
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That morning sun that will arise, the first hymn that we sang this morning, that day is coming, that day is fixed, but for now we live in a midnight world and we're lit as lamps for such a time and such a place as this.
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So we witness the darkness and the depravity all around us and Jesus says we should have a sense of responsibility.
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We said this last week, you are the light of the world. You have a sense of responsibility.
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Not the guy in front of me, not the gal next to me, I, if I'm a believer in Christ, I am the light of the world.
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I'm meant to be in this dark place, in this dark time, I'm meant to shine. So we have a sense of responsibility, but also we have a sense of opportunity.
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You are the light of the world. And so there is this great sense of opportunity.
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We are light in Christ. We have a message that is filled with his light. And so as Jesus came shining in the perfect darkness, this majestic burning brightness that the ages and prophets of old had long waited for, the one that Isaiah announced is finally, for those who dwelt in darkness, this great light has shone.
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This one who is majestic, the epitome of seraphic brightness, shining in pitch darkness, he enters into the world.
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Entering into the world, he brings men and women, sinners, to himself to save them, and then he lights them like lamps and sends them right back into the darkness.
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As he came, so we go. And what's the reaction? What's the reaction?
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We're to shine in the world. Well, how does the world react when Christians shine? You know what it's like when it's perhaps very late at night.
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If you sleep like I sleep, you know, as minimal light as possible, preferably pitch black. Maybe you hear your phone buzz and you kind of go over to feel for it.
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Your eyes are sort of squinty and you put that phone up to wake it and it's like a SWAT team flashbang.
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It's like the most disorienting thing. That's how the world reacts to light. Get this out of here.
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This is awful. You kids, you're driving in the back seat, you have no idea why your dad is driving and grimacing and groaning and grunting and swerving.
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You see him keep moving his mirrors and looking in the back and kind of growling. You don't realize it's because there's these high beams right behind him and he's driving up 68 and it's really late at night and he's sort of grimacing and groaning because all that light is getting reflected on him and it's very disorienting, very frustrating.
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That's how the world reacts to light. You can't help it as a Christian. You've got your high beams on wherever you go and you're right in everybody's mirrors if you're spending any meaningful time with them and that's not very pleasant.
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We're approaching holiday season. You're going to be around the Thanksgiving dinner table. You can feel that you are the high beams in their mirrors, can't you?
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As they're sort of eating their turkeys saying, how much longer do we have to be here? You've gone through all the polite conversation you can, every polite dismissal of your ways to try to talk about church or, you know, the things that you're learning or so on.
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You're high beams. This is just how the world reacts to darkness. Listen, Jesus says this in John 8, this is the condemnation, the light has come into the world.
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Men loved darkness rather than light. That's always the case. I hope you remember that was the case for you too before Christ saved you.
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You weren't born into this world loving light. I know what it's like. Who doesn't know what it's like to love darkness, to actually run into darkness, to hide from light until the light hunts you down, doesn't give you an option, rescues you.
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This is the connection. This is what John is explaining. This is the condemnation. This is the condemnation of the world.
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Christ has come to save. Sinners would rather plunge into ruin than be saved. People would rather dwell in darkness than come toward the light.
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Men love darkness. They don't love the light. Why? Because their deeds are evil. That's why. Light exposes, the point we'll come to.
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Everyone practicing evil hates the light. We don't want the light to expose. Who wants skeletons to fall out of the closet?
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Who wants to really own just how wretched their thoughts, their speech, their lifestyle is?
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And for this reason, men hate the light. They don't want those evil deeds to be exposed. But the one who does the truth, in other words, the one who agrees with God, not just with God's offer of mercy with what
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God rightly condemns. You are right to condemn. You are right to judge. Therefore, Lord, I humbly see my bankruptcy and beg for mercy.
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We're right back at the Beatitudes. The one who understands that truth comes to the light. He doesn't mind that his deeds are clearly seen.
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Why? Because he knows with those very deeds being exposed, with that wretchedness being open before all, he's receiving mercy and forgiveness from the only one that it matters.
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It doesn't frankly matter what others will think. If he has mercy from God, he has life and light in him.
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And therefore, instead of hiding and running, Christians actually almost form a song, a testimony.
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We heard it on Thursday night when five were baptized. What was being shared? Darkness in people's lives.
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This is what my life was like. And Christ saved me. And now I'm going to live for him.
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Darkness is exposed. Light has come in. Those who have that walk in a truth don't mind that their deeds are clearly seen.
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They want to now walk in this light as he is in the light. And so that's the first point.
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We shine as lights in the world. Now we have to go a little further than that because Jesus does.
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Second point, we shine as lights before men. We don't shine as lights indiscriminately in some general abstract way.
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We shine before men. Before men and women that you can name. Men and women that you see on and off, week to week.
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You work next to them. You pull up in your driveway near them. You know them.
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Maybe you know a lot more about them. We shine as lights before men. There's a very broad view in here.
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We are omnidirectional light as Christians. The light is meant to be diffused, in other words.
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Don't you see that very clearly? It gives light to all who are in the house. It's not a laser beam focused on one.
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There's not this Christian mentality of, well, there's only really one spot that I can reach. There's only really one person that I can be light to.
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A Christian is just light. Whoever's in the house, whoever's around them, that light is being diffused.
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And so the point is very clear. This is a light for all. A city can't be hidden and therefore, there's those who are drawn to the city.
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Whoever comes to the city is basking in the light of the city. There's light for all who are in the house. Luke 11, the parallel makes this very clear.
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Whoever comes in sees the light. The metaphor of a lamp in a house should be understood in its widest dimensions, right?
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Jesus has lit us as believers as lamps and set us on a lampstand before all men. In the widest dimension, that not only speaks of the individual believer, but it speaks of the church.
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Isn't it interesting in Revelation 1 that the churches are spoken of as lampstands?
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And so then the darkened room, as it were, is the world itself. The church becomes this light on a lampstand, this city on a hill.
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But of course, though that's the widest dimension of understanding the lamp in a dark house, you can take that right down into your literal home.
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And I say this really as an aside, but there's a great light to shine upon our families. There's a great light.
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In fact, most of your training to shine as light takes place in the rooms of your own house.
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Most of your preparation to shine as light beyond your homes into the world takes place within your home, shining as light within your home.
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How parents deal with their children, how spouses live together, walk together. This is light.
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Or at least it ought to be light. Looking around the church, and we see a number of young people, young children, that have received so much light, so much influence, so much shining upon them, not perfectly, maybe not even consistently, but light.
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And the contrast perhaps isn't very clear to them, if only they could see how starkly different the way of life would be if it weren't for that light.
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You can get accustomed to light and almost take it for granted. But we as Christian parents, of course, we cannot take that light for granted.
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There's no way that our children can cruise control into the kingdom of God. You remember that merely being influenced, merely receiving in some passive way, merely hearing does not make little
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Johnny a half Christian. Sort of like, you're either in or you're out. You don't become a halfling.
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You're not sort of halfway into Christ because you've grown up with a lot of light in the home. We can't deceive our children about this.
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They don't have somehow one leg up. They have a lot more accountability and responsibility before God. To whom much is given, much is required.
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So we don't deceive our children about this. Make sure that we as Christian parents aren't deceived about this either.
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Just because they're born into your home and receive so much light and can be influenced and shaped by that, can parent a lot of that, doesn't mean they're halfway there.
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So don't stop praying and don't stop pursuing. Shine light in a winsome way.
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If you can do it in the home, you can do it anywhere. In fact, frankly, it's a lot easier to shine elsewhere. It's usually hardest in the home.
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Isn't it harder to witness and shine as a light to your relatives than to some stranger you come across?
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It's a lot harder to shine to those who have seen you grow up. It's like, who are you to talk to me?
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I remember when you were some runt this big and you're gonna try to tell me that my life is crooked and I need to get right with God.
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You know, go take a hike. It's a lot harder to shine as a light in the home, a lot harder to shine with those that are closest to you.
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If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. In fact, if you do it there, you'll be more prone to do it elsewhere.
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So Christian parents shine as a light in the home. Largely what children see is how a husband and a wife shine as light toward one another, how gracious they are, how they're desiring to honor
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God in all that they do, how Christ becomes the sort of center of their very marriage, and for that reason, their marriage is a lot closer than it could be without him, a lot more harmonious and glorious than it would be otherwise.
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Somehow their love takes on a vibrancy, their patience takes on a certain verter. There's a glory to Christ shining as a light in the home.
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Truly it's his light emanating from his people. And so we shine before men.
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That begins in the home and works its way out. And of course, another point here, we shine before men.
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That means we have to shine where men are. Luke 11 .33 makes this pretty clear.
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No one lights a lamp and puts it in a secret place. In other words, a cellar, somewhere where no one goes.
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There's nobody present in the secret place. That light's not meant to be there. The light is meant to shine where men are.
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Where are people? That's where your light is meant to shine. As 1 Peter 2 says, we're meant to shine a light that others can observe.
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You have to be around observers if the light's going to be observed. Now there's several objections that come from this.
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Maybe the ones that we won't speak, but they bounce around in our mind. We almost know that we can't really say it.
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We know immediately the answer to it, but if we're being honest, it's a flashing thought that muzzles our mouth, that puts a basket or a bowl over our light.
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So here's one of these objections. I'm gonna give a few of them. Here's the first objection. But you don't know how sinful and dark it is.
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You don't know how cruel and sinful they are. That's the first objection.
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I want to be a light, but not before those men. Not in that place.
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Not around them. Do I really have to? Isn't there something about casting pearls before swine?
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Does that apply here? I don't really have to shine there, do I? Well, let me first sympathize.
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It's hard to be around the hardened. I remember working at the factory and it was very hard.
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And usually, there was sort of just this comfortable buffer zone that was established over time. As I said, just get the biggest
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Bible you can possibly buy, some monstrosity that looks like an encyclopedia, slap it on top of the break room refrigerator.
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A lot of people just sort of leave you alone. So people called me Father Ross or whatever.
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I'm like, wrong tradition, guys, but whatever. But there was a couple of guys that they really enjoyed making sure they could openly mock or blaspheme
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Christ within my hearing. And it was really hard. It was really hard.
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And I was a lot like Righteous Lot, vexing my soul daily, knowing here it comes and kind of saying, you know, it's all fun and games to you guys.
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You're gonna have to answer for that. It's difficult then to be the object of scorn.
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It's difficult to walk into a room and be the grand ruiner of everyone's daily happiness.
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Now, here I come like a stubbed toe to come dwell with you. It's like, oh, here he comes.
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Oh, here she is. You see that tension. And Paul says that Christians are like the fragrance of life, this aroma that is irresistible to those that God is saving, but to those that are perishing, to those that are in rebellion against God, a
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Christian's presence is like a stench. And the problem is that we can lose heart very quickly.
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We can grow weary in doing good. We can say, I'm not effective at all. I'm not meant to shine here.
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It's just way too dark, way too sinful. I've gotta go elsewhere. I've gotta kind of just stay in my own lane.
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I really can't be bothered to be an influence or even seek to be an influence. There's just no way forward here. But notice what
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Jesus does not say. He does not say, go therefore into all of the world and find some secretive place where no ungodly people will bother or disrupt you.
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And there in your fortress of Christian solitude, let your light shine. He doesn't say that.
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He says, shine before men. Are you in a crooked and perverse place?
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So was Paul. So are the Philippian believers. So are all believers. That's where you're meant to shine.
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A light is put where the darkness is. So don't retreat to where you can find some ever increasing gradations of light.
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Go to where it's dark. That's where you're meant to be. You're a Christian. In fact, your salt will be so much more pungent and your light, though it's weak and faint, will be so much more powerful because of what you're set against in that darkness.
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So don't esconce yourself where there's other lanterns to sort of mask and diffuse your light. Go where it's dark.
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And there you shine. Let me put it before you this way. Here's a way you can think. Are you more affected by how others' lack of light affects you?
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Or how your salt and light might affect them? Let me say that again.
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Are you more stirred, more impacted by how others' lack of light affects you?
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Or are you more stirred by how your light might affect them? This is something we all have to consider as Christians.
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I don't like this situation. I don't like this circle. I don't like these circumstances.
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I don't like this workplace. I don't like this job. I don't like this neighborhood. It's so dark. It's so impactful.
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Their lack of light is really bothering and affecting me. Well, guess what? You're a light for that very reason.
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As an old Puritan said, the worse the people are among whom you live, the more need they have of you.
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That's why you're a light. And if they're perverse, the more need you have to turn their proud hearts to the truth.
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Why should a physician be anywhere but with the sick? Can you imagine going to the doctor's office?
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And you're beginning to say, okay, what seems to be the issue? Oh, I have this problem and it hasn't been going away. Oh, problem?
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Well, we've got nothing for you. We're a doctor's office. Isn't that why we go? Isn't that what a physician's for?
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Jesus came in this way. Jesus says, I didn't come for the healthy. I'm gonna come for those who think themselves pretty well and I have my life together.
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I don't really need these Christians, all this jargon, all this nonsense. I don't need that. And Christ said,
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I didn't come for you. I came for those who are sick, needy, helpless.
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That's who I came for. And so if we're following Christ, then we put ourselves in those same situations.
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There'll be those that rebuff, those that repel, those that want nothing to do with it, and yet we shine as a light in the midst of that very darkness.
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Second objection. It's so easy for you to say, but I don't belong.
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I'm not relevant at all. I can't even shine. There's just, there's nothing there.
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I don't even have a way in. No one, they won't even look at that. I'm completely irrelevant. And I would say to that, notice what
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Jesus says. It gives light to all. It gives light to all.
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The whole world is dark. All sin is darkness. In the midst of darkness, light is always relevant.
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You're always relevant as a Christian. In fact, as an encouragement, when you feel most out of place and most irrelevant, you are more relevant than ever.
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When your life is starkly contrasted and you feel like you have absolutely nothing in common, you are the most relevant you could possibly be.
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Now you have something you can actually offer, not something that is sort of perverse and salt mixed in with sand, but now you can actually make a difference.
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It is relevant. Always light is relevant because of who we are, who humanity is, who it's meant to be.
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So every glimmering ray of your different life as a Christian in Christ proclaims that there's something more to life that others who dwell in darkness cannot see.
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When you're walking in light and you, like Job, made a covenant with your eyes, you won't look upon another after lust, then to that young man that's caged with the empty promises of pornography, you're shining like light.
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There's something more to life than living like an animal. Or for some young woman that sees that somehow the difficult situations are thrown upon you and your relationships begin to deteriorate, you have a secret place of contentment and you're not thrown by those.
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You don't slander, you don't gossip, you're not jealous. And all of a sudden, you're becoming this glimmering ray of light.
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There must be something more to life that I haven't found. Or for an older man that sees that his well -ordered life has now amounted to ambitions that have become waste and he's in this sort of crisis mode of looking for something to identify himself with before his health and even perhaps his mind begins to waste away.
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And he sees in you that you go from strength to strength. And you don't need to buy the cherry red
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Ford Mustang to make yourself feel young again. There's something about you that actually is embracing the changing seasons of life.
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And he says, there's some light there that I clearly do not understand. Or for an older woman who's buckling under the weight of anxiety, whose whole family seems to be splintering, and she looks upon you and sees your devotion and simple trust in the
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Lord and recognizes that for you and the very areas that she is filled with terror, you are filled with comfort, you shine like a light.
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There's something more to life. There's something that cannot be seen in the midst of darkness.
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It can only be seen by light shining in the darkness. Now a third objection you say, but I don't have enough light to shine.
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My light's too weak. My life is so inconsistent. Probably if they got close to me, there'd be more darkness than light, frankly.
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Well, let me remind you that it's not your light that is shining, but the light of Christ that shines through you. Jesus says,
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I am the light of the world, John 8, 12. And as he says it here in Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world.
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We established this last week. The light that we shine is simply the light of Christ within us. He dwells within his people.
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He draws us into this union that he has with his father, with the Godhead. And then by his own spirit, he illuminates us.
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He opens our eyes to understand him, to hear him, to behold his glory.
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He gives us a spirit to prompt us, to direct us, to lead us into truth, to convict us of our sin, to draw us close to the
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Savior. And in that sense, the light that shines through you is his light. And in that sense, your story, your life is really bound up with his story and his life.
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It's very important that we understand this. We're baptized, and we said this on Thursday night, we're baptized into his death.
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It's not so much what the one being baptized is doing as much as it's what he has done.
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We're baptized into his death. It's really his baptism that's being presented, not the baptism of any particular believer.
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And when we begin to understand it in that way, we recognize all that Paul has to say about the Christian life.
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In Colossians 3, our lives are now hid in Christ, awaiting to be revealed when he is revealed.
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As Paul says in Galatians 2, it's no longer I who lives. Now, that Paul is dead.
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He died when Christ died. Now, Christ is living in me. Paul's radically identifying his own life with the life of Christ.
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He's saying, I'm so united to the empowering presence in life of Christ that it's as if I no longer live.
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It's just Christ in me. And in the same way, he could say, it's not really my light, my influence at all.
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It's simply the light and influence of Christ shining from me. And so in that sense, the more you draw close to Christ, and perhaps it's because you feel that you have such little light to offer, such inconsistent light with great pockets of weakness and darkness, and maybe that prompts you and compels you to draw very close to Christ.
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Amen. Now you're even better equipped to be light in that dark place. Are you perhaps convicted because you see how inconsistent and weak your witness has been in the places that you're shining?
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Well, take heart. If that's drawing you back toward Christ, he's simply filling your lamp with oil to go back and shine all the more.
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I mentioned weeks ago the underground church in China, and particularly one of the pastors there that's in the prison system in China, Wang Yi, who was imprisoned as a political prisoner for preaching the gospel.
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And of course, in his larger book, Faithful Disobedience, I read some essays some weeks ago, and one of the excerpts
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I didn't read, and I thought it so well captures how he understands this very principle, that as unique as every believer is, as unique as what our lives have been and what led us to see our bankruptcy, what led us to see our sin and rebellion, what brought us to the foot of the cross, what opened our eyes and our ears and our hearts to receive
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Christ as our Savior, to pour our lives into his life, that however different that may be, and I love hearing all the testimonies.
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I know how unique every single testimony is, even in this room, for those that have trusted in Christ. And yet for all that difference, it all boils down into simply one great testimony, one great story, and that's what
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Wang Yi is saying. He says, the gospel allows for everyone's story to be retold, and it answers all of the questions which could not be answered within the story itself.
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You hear someone talk about their testimony, they're framing it in light of the gospel story.
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This is the darkness, this is where I was without him, this is how he began to spread light and what he used, and this is what happened when
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I came to him, and this is where I am as a result of that. It's simply the gospel story writ large, and as unique as our stories are, it's always across that framework.
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And for that reason, as Wang Yi says, the gospel means that the stories about our lives have no substance without the story of Christ.
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The gospel means that once we have Christ's story, all of our stories become his story.
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To be called then is to be called into the gospel story, and to then carry that story into other people's lives, knowing that if your light is used to bring them out of darkness, they will simply be having their own story become a part of that story of Christ, the story of the gospel.
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And so the gospel tells everyone that, though their lives, though their past, though their difficulties have meaning, that when it compares to the gospel, really there's not that unique.
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Everything in their lives actually depends upon the person and work. And so we shine.
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We shine as light because our light is his light. Our story has been wrapped up into his story.
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Our identity is now really beholden to his identity. Do you see?
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So if you're trusting in him, you have a light to shine. Don't look down and inwardly to say, do
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I have enough light to shine in this place? Look to him. He is the light of the world. And by saying
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I don't have enough light to shine, you may mean something like, I just don't have enough strength. I don't understand enough.
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If they ask a question, I'm gonna be clueless. I'm gonna look like I don't know what I'm talking about.
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I'm gonna be a deer in the headlights. I don't have enough depth. I really just need to study and maybe in eight and a half years
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I could try to shine a little bit. We all feel that way, don't we? And you look at someone and you go, yeah,
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I feel that way, but I know he doesn't. I'll give you a little secret. I'm actually a little intimidated to sit down in a few nights.
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I always feel that way. I always feel that way. You never grow out of needing to trust in the promise of Christ that he'll give you what you need to say.
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You never feel that way. I'm convinced. It's intimidating to shine his light, isn't it?
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You don't know where things are gonna go. You don't know what you're dealing with. You don't know where they're coming from. But you know that it's not really about their story.
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It's not even really about your story. It's about his story. And whether they're willing to come out of darkness and receive that light, come out of hopelessness and receive that great hope, come out of this base rebellion and be transformed by his grace.
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And so there can be no place for the Christian to say, well, I just don't have enough strength. I just don't have enough ability.
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I don't have enough depth. I just need reinforcements. I really can't shine. I'm too new to this.
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If it weren't for that, really, I would engage. Really, I would shine. What is true in the court of law is true of the
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Christian. If you have a testimony, you're a witness. If you have a testimony to share, you're a witness.
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Do you have a testimony to share? You can't be a Christian without a testimony. If you have that much, you're a witness.
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You have something to witness with. In fact, you might have the best thing to witness with. It's really our first go -to if we have a chance.
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We just wanna tell them, here's who I was. Here who Christ is. Here's what he did for me.
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Here's what he'll do for you. As simply as that. What can you tell them?
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You can tell them that God saved you from your sins, saved you from yourself, saved you from the path that you were committed to, that you know what it's like to come out of darkness into light.
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You know how painful it is. You know how glorious it is. You know how it's the last thing on earth you'd ever want in your flesh, and how being drawn by his grace, coming into it, you'd lose the whole world to have it.
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You'd lose your own life. You know what it's like to be dead in trespass and sin, to be made alive by the
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Spirit of God. You know what it's like to see that you were blind when you thought you were seeing.
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You were deaf when you thought you were hearing. Now there's people on the other side of this too, where they have plenty of strength, plenty of ability, plenty of depth, but they're unwilling to engage.
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Maybe they feel, I just, I don't even know where to start. I feel bad sometimes. I ought to just stick to testimony.
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Sometimes I just sort of start going into all sorts of weird stuff. Muratorian canon analysis, it's like, wait, wait, just get back to the simple things, the basic things.
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In this scenario, I can't help but think of General MacLennan during the Civil War. He was the commander of the
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Army of the Potomac. All the resources that you could want. The Union was pretty good with resources. All of the training, seven months of training, built up the
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Army of the Potomac. It was probably the premier fighting force in the world at that time. And he would never fight
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Lee's army. He just wouldn't do it. He'd have a skirmish and then he'd hold. He wouldn't pursue them when they were beaten down, and eventually
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Lincoln was tearing his beard out, saying, I need someone that will actually fight, someone that will actually engage.
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In other words, there was a lot of promise, there was a lot of supply, there was a lot of preparation, there was all the training, and there was just no action.
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And we, especially as Reformed Christians, we can spend a lot of time dotting
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I's, crossing T's, preparing, watching whole video seminars, and all of that is sort of just filling the lamp with oil and it never gets lit, and it's never put in a dark place to shine.
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And don't think you get away scot -free. C .H. Spurgeon, of course, was a marvelous evangelist and preacher in the 19th century.
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One of his great books, The Christian's Great Business, he's talking about witnessing and shining his light as being the great business of the
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Christian, the great conduct of a Christian. And he says this, I believe that not seeking to win souls brings many spiritual wounds upon Christians.
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God in his discipline often will bring sorrow upon his own people because of their silence to his grace.
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You see what Spurgeon is saying? Maybe that speaks to you this morning as it does to me. Could there be some spiritual sorrow, some spiritual stillness in your life because when he's given you opportunities, you've been silent.
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When he's put you in a dark place, you've covered your light. Could it be that in his fatherly wisdom, you haven't lost what you've received, but there's a sorrow, there's an emptiness, there's a hollowness in your walk as a
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Christian, you've lost a lot of the joy. Can you not just know that experientially from the obverse? That when you've been used, when you've been a witness, when you've had the opportunity to shine the light, that you're filled with this great sense of joy and purpose like an engine finally running on all cylinders.
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It's this whole new jolt of life. And all of a sudden you're less prone to stumbling.
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Your immune system is built up. You're a lot more thoughtful, you're a lot more purposeful, you're a lot more prayerful. You can start to see how the spirit of God is constraining his people to shine as lights.
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And when we refuse to shine, unwittingly, willfully even, we can expect this emptiness, we can expect the cylinders of the
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Christian walk to get clogged and malfunction. Again, our stories are ultimately his story.
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Our identity as believers is ultimately his identity. Our light is his light. Everything, as Yee said, in our lives depends upon his presence.
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In his person, in his work. So when we shine his light, most people will simply evade the issue.
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They'll politely divert the conversation onto a different topic. It'll be like you've seen perhaps footage from Ukraine and there'll be some jet flying by and there's some surface to air missile that's seeking it and it's just throwing out all these flares trying to get rid of it.
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And that's essentially, you're like a surface to air missile as a Christian. And when you're talking to someone and you keep on sewing in these little words like, well,
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God has just blessed us and oh, well, our church on Sundays and you can just get the sense that the flares are flying out.
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Let's change the topic, change the topic. Get this thing off my tail. But you don't stop sowing good seed.
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You don't stop praying for the God who gives growth. To move in this way and to do the work that only he can do.
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You can sow, you can water, you can witness, you can shine, but truly it is God who saves.
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He is the God of salvation. And so you go to him. A good rule of thumb is you should pray twice as much as you talk.
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A good rule of thumb is you should pray more than you should witness. Because it's
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God who gives growth. And for that reason, take encouragement. It's not what you said, what you didn't say, what you should have said.
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When you get back in the car, when you're leaving the airport lobby and you're going, oh, why didn't I just say that?
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Or, oh, when they said this, I should have said that. And it just doesn't matter. In fact, look at your own testimony, the
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Christians that God used to bring you to himself. Do you remember all the things that they said to you? Of course not.
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They spent all this time going, I shouldn't have ever said that to them. When they're brought into the light, that just sort of becomes a distant memory.
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Everything is so new, so glorious. So spend more time praying to God who gives growth. Now along these lines, and this is a third point, we shine as lights exposing darkness.
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This is one of the reasons those flares come out. This is one of the reasons we appear like high beams, even if we don't mean to.
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We read this from Ephesians five. Walk as children of light, finding out what's acceptable to the
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Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful work of darkness, but rather expose them.
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So light exposes. Listen, everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest their deeds be exposed.
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That's what light does, it exposes. And so on the one hand, Christians can't participate with darkness because we're meant to expose darkness.
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We can't become complicit with the ways of ungodliness because we're meant to expose what is not godly, what is not good, what is not true, what will not lead to happiness and joy and salvation.
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That's why Paul says and reminds these Philippians and these Ephesians, you're children of light now. Walk in that light.
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You were once darkness, but now you are light. In other words, there's been a change, there's been a contrast.
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Don't go back on that, press into it. The contrast is what makes you shine. Now, very important that we understand, we don't expose darkness arrogantly.
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We don't have some gloating chip on our shoulder that we shine before men with sort of our chest puffed out and our head held up high.
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We're exposing them, looking down on them, belittling them, shaming them.
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No, that's not the sense. Actually, very merciful, very gracious, very patient, looking to do them good.
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Our humility known before all men. There cannot be any arrogance, any condescension, any cynicism on the part of the
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Christian. Remembering also that we were once darkness and walked in that same way. And so the light that we've received is a light we seek to shine.
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It's a light that's humble. Remember the beginning of the Beatitudes? Blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful.
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Humility, if I could say, if Christ is the light, let me put it this way. If Christ is the light of the lamp, humility is the clay of the lamp.
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Humility is what that lamp is baked out of. God forbid that we're some sort of jarring, assaulting, arrogant light.
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And we're gonna be tempted to. The rebellion, the sin, the depravity as such, it's jarring.
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Frankly, a lot of it is blood boiling. And yet we must be meek.
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And we must be humble. I was listening to a video of an
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Australian, John Dixon, who's a Bible professor over at Wheaton.
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And he's written a lot of books on doubt, and how do you deal with doubt as a faith?
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How can you use doubt as a means of witnessing to the gospel? And part of the reason he's so big on this topic is because of how the
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Lord used that to bring him to salvation. And he was a teenager, he was in high school, and he said there was a teacher,
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Mrs. Weldon, who he said was almost illegally a Christian. He says, in fact, it would be illegal now.
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She invited any students that wanted to come to her house on Friday afternoons for burgers and scones.
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And he said he and his closest two friends, Ben and Angus, would go over there, mostly to grift, eat burgers, eat scones.
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And he said, I remember the first afternoon I went there, we were stuffed with these burgers and pastries, and we were kind of rolled onto the couch, and it's like we couldn't even move.
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And all of a sudden, she pulled out her old leather Bible and began to open it. And he's like, I felt like she was like a witch, and some spell was about to be given.
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And he said, and yet, we all just stood there, sort of dismissively, thinking, well, she's been so kind to host us, we'll kind of just awkwardly let her get through this little cringe time of reading from the
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Gospels and, you know, get out of here as soon as we can. He said she was funny, she was smart, and she was a
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Christian. And we didn't know anyone like that. He said, me and my best friends, we were failing at school, we were in trouble with the law, we had all these, you know, juvenile cases.
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He says, in fact, he didn't say if it was him, but he said, in fact, one of the days we went over, we took her
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DVD player and sold it for drugs. We thought that she'd never welcome us back. He said, the next week, she said, aren't you coming over today?
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And then he said, the only thing she ever said about it was, I seem to have misplaced my DVD player. And that was it.
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And recounting that, he said, I had never known someone like that. And this is what he said.
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She was like Jesus to me. I had never known someone like that. I didn't know a human could be that way.
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A year later, he was converted. Ben and Angus were converted, too.
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40 years later, the three of them are still preaching the Gospel, all because of the influence of this little lamp, burgers and scones and reading from the
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Gospel in all humility. So we expose darkness, but we do it as those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek.
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We don't do it as full, contented, high and mighty. We say, we're hungry, we're thirsty for righteousness.
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Don't you have some of that hunger pain, too? Don't you want your life to be right with God? Aren't you tired of hiding all the darkness in your life?
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Don't you wanna be clothed in a righteousness that belongs to Him? And so you become like David in Psalm 51.
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Have mercy on me, O God, according to your lovingkindness. Blot out my sin, wash me from my iniquity.
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And look at where this leads him in the train. That's where he's begun. He's begun at the first beatitude. And where does that take him?
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Well, it takes him to light and salt, doesn't it? Psalm 51, now verse 12. Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
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Uphold me by your spirit. Then what will happen? Then I'll teach sinners your ways. Then I'll teach transgressors to be converted.
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You see? You, Lord, remind me of that grace that I've received. Show me that mercy.
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Cleanse me from my sin. And I'll do what always happens as a result of that. When I receive your mercy,
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I want others to receive it. When I've been cleansed of my sin, when light has shown into my darkness, I want others to have that light, others to have that cleansing.
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And so we shine before men in all of humility. This is the best way we testify to our Savior. We do not come to them and say, huh, if only you were like me, you wouldn't even need
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Jesus. No, we say, you're a lot like me, and I'm a lot like you, and you need
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Christ. You need Christ. You need him. I beg you,
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Peter says, like sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from lusts that war against your soul.
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Have an honorable walk among Gentiles so that when they speak against you by your good works which they observe, they can glorify
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God in the day of visitation. Peter reminds us that this is our task.
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He says, the Gentiles, when you have your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, it's his way of saying the church is like Israel to the nations.
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It was meant to be a light to the nations. And he says, well, now you're that lampstand. Now you're that light.
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And have this walk that brings glory to God in the day of his visitation. Walk in this way that's so honorable and so bright that they can't sit quietly.
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They can't just politely ignore it. Eventually, they just have to know why do you have this hope within you?
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Why do you put yourselves in this way of life that's a lot more difficult? Why are you willing to put up with these kinds of things?
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When we as a body are putting off the desires of the flesh, when we as disciples of Christ are radiating his light, walking in humility because of his love, we shine a light so bright that it will not be ignored.
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And so I close with this. The last point I would make is we shine together.
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You wanna shine in humility toward those that are dwelling in darkness?
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Learn how to radiate humility towards one another in the body. You wanna shine with a joy and a patience and a mercy toward those that are in rebellion to God?
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Learn how to radiate that patient mercy and joy toward one another in the body.
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Paul and Peter are always confronting the church to deal with their relationships as brothers and sisters to grow into maturity and love and self -sacrifice in preferring the other and learning how to mourn and how to rejoice with those who mourn and those who rejoice and being gentle and being patient and taking all sorts of odious offenses and wounding stabs and covering it with this thick blanket of brotherly love.
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Why? Because that's a light that the world cannot explain. That's a light the world cannot ignore.
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And I close reading from John Winthrop, his famous sermon on a city on a hill from 1630 and he was imploring the
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Christians in Massachusetts Bay Colony to do this very thing. He's saying to the
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Christians, how we live is going to dictate the light that we shine. How we are towards one another will be the very limit, the sort of scope of the lumens that we can radiate.
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So he says this, follow the counsel of Micah. Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.
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And to this end, be knit together like one man and look to each other with brotherly affection.
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Be willing to curtail your own weaknesses for the sake of your other brother's needs and uphold a familiar relationship together with all meekness, with all gentleness, with all patience and generosity.
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Delight in each other. Make your brother or sister's condition your own. Rejoice together, mourn together.
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Labor, suffer together. Always have before your eyes the commission and the community engaged in His work as members of His body.
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And if we do this, we'll keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace and God will be our God. He'll delight to dwell among us as among His own people and He'll command a blessing on us all of our ways so that we can see even more of His wisdom, power, goodness, and truth.
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We will find, in fact, that God will be among us and that 10 of us can resist 1 ,000 of our enemies when
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He makes us a praise and a glory to such an extent that men will say, may the Lord make us like that of New England.
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That was 1630. Could it be your prayer to shine like a light?
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That others could say, Lord, make us like those of New England.
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Could that be our prayer as a church? That we would sow love and labor, pray, walk humbly, do justice, but not just our future generations, but other regions around this dark, filthy country could say,
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Lord, make us like those lamps in the stony soil of New England. Amen. You are the light of the world.
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A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house.
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Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
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Father in heaven. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank
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You for Your Word. O Lord, make us doers.
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Lord, if ever there was a time, make us doers of this
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Word and not merely hearers. Help us,
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Lord, to overcome those fleshly, carnal, weak objections to shining as light.
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Give us a boldness, a confidence that isn't born of arrogance or selfishness, but is born of humility and love for You.
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Let the confidence be trusting in Your promise that You give us the words to say, that You are the one who knows how to give growth and how to bring those that are lost in darkness found into Your light.
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Father, we pray for those that we rub shoulders with, those that we interact with, those that we see.
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O Lord, enhance our witness. Do the work that You undertake to do by Your Spirit, Lord.
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May the light be an exposing light, but Lord, prevent them from pushing away or rejecting the witness of that light.
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Lord, rather, let it show them their need, their poverty. Let it make them humble,
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Lord, as they mourn over their sin so that they can begin to hunger and thirst and receive that mercy that comes only from You.
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May our own story be bound up with Your story, the one who shone as a light in this great, vast darkness, who walked as perfect light with perfect humility, perfect gentleness and love to all that You healed and taught and sought, and then having that perfectly righteous life that glorified
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Your Father in heaven to give Yourself over to death on the cross, to be flayed and tortured and crucified so that Your righteous blood would become our sacrificial covering, our glorious dress, our acceptance with God.
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Oh, let us never denigrate or take for granted who You are as the light of the world, and let us never have our lamps empty or half full, but full and burning bright as we await the appearance of the bridegroom in whose name we trust and pray, amen.