1. Called To Shine

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Welcome to The Prodcast, where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode one,

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Called to Shine. Introduction.

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The Bible makes the assumption that a true Christian wants to be a faithful witness. This is because a

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Christian learns to love what Jesus has done for them and wants with all their heart to do those same things for others.

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Knowing that Jesus left heaven as God's true missionary and came to a land that was not his own to seek a lost and broken people propels us into missionary action.

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That is our purpose. And while the Bible assumes the fact that we are naturally newborn missionaries, it does not assume that we know how to live like that.

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That is why texts like Philippians 2, 14 -15 are so important. Because they will teach us how to become and how to grow into missionaries that will be sent out into the world long grown dark with sin.

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Section one, called to live in a darkened world. When Paul wrote the letter to the

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Philippians, they were living in some of the darkest moments in the history of the church. Jesus has told his newly blood -bought people to build and establish little churches all over the world that would make disciples of the nations until he returned.

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So the saints in Philippi were busily doing that, planting a local congregation right in the middle of a crooked and perverted generation that was attacking them on every front.

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Obedience to Jesus was actually costing them. The attacks were coming from the religious people on one side, the

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Jews, who had crucified their Messiah a generation before and were now attacking Jesus' followers in Asia Minor and beyond.

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They were brutal, vindictive, and they wanted nothing more than to destroy the Jesus movement brick by brick and were willing to use any means necessary in order to upend it.

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The secular attacks, however, were coming from the other side, the Romans, who were already beginning to ramp up persecutions that would end in the bloody deaths of thousands of believers in the days ahead.

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These attacks were especially relevant to the Philippian Christians since Philippi was a Roman outpost very near and dear to the heart of Caesar.

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He not only expected full and total allegiance from his citizens, he expected them to worship him.

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And since Christians swear fidelity to Christ and Christ alone, they were a perpetual threat to the godless

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Roman state as well as the apostate Jewish religion. In every conceivable way, the church was caught completely in the crosshairs.

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The Jews believed that they were blasphemers worthy of death. Rome believed that they were enemies of the state needing execution for their sedition.

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And in the midst of all of this, the church was trying to be faithful, asking herself the same questions that we're asking ourselves today.

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How can we live faithfully as missionaries for Christ in the midst of so much darkness?

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Well, Paul is going to give them the answer to that. And us, in Philippians 2 verses 4 through 5, this is what the text says.

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Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourself to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world.

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Section two, called to shine in a darkened world. Paul's answer to the question is striking, and I think we need to unpack it bit by bit.

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First, I think it's right to notice what he is not saying. He does not tell them to pick up swords and start a never -ending jihad as a way of winning back the culture.

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Convert or burn is not and never will be a legacy of Christ or his people. He also doesn't tell them to adopt a modern evangelical approach, bowing down to the

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God of niceness, fake smiles, and Ned Flanders sweater vest, all while the world around us burns to the ground.

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For far too long, we have either been unhelpfully tender or just ran away from culture like a throng of cowards.

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For far too long, the church has been in a posture of retreat instead of a posture of progression.

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She has let the world emasculate her men, masculinize her women, and adulterate her children, all the while we have sat back like jellyfish and let it happen.

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This is not what it means to be faithful. He also does not advise them to engage in fleshly tactics such as politics, special interest rallies, social activism, or to incite a good old -fashioned mob to riot as was common in the ancient world.

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His advice looks entirely different from anything that the world at that time had ever seen before and the same is true for us today.

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He simply told them to live like Christians. And the question, of course, is how might a

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Christian live in a darkened world? The answer, we must live as lights.

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Paul reminds them that we have been planted right in the midst of Satan's darkened territory with the explicit purpose of shining for Jesus.

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Just as a lighthouse stands firm in the middle of a hurricane, our goal is to beat back the darkness with increasingly intensifying light without retreat.

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We are to shine with the courage, or with the kind of courage, that is ever -brightening spirit rock character and purity that will baffle a crooked and perverse generation bent on darkness.

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We are to behave in such a way that the world will take notice. In fact, if the world is not taking notice of the church, maybe it is because we are not radiating

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Christ. We are not called to run away or hide as many have been accustomed to doing.

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We are not called to blend in with the world like a chameleon avoiding a predator. We are called to out ourselves, to showcase the light of Jesus Christ so publicly and so boldly and so resolutely that everyone on earth will know where we stand.

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Our goal is that no one would be confused about it.

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That the world would not have to guess or question where our allegiances lie. Our Christianity should be as conspicuous to the world as a candle in a darkened room, or maybe better yet, a struck match in a nitroglycerin plant.

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We are not called to hide. We are called to shine. Section three, called to love in a darkened world.

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But even with that, Paul makes it quite clear what kind of shining that we are called to do.

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Look at the passage again. Paul says, do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourself to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.

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The logic of the passage could not be more clear. We are told to shine as lights in the world without complaining and without disputing.

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Because when we complain, we prove to be filled with the same kind of stink that has infected the world.

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When we cause controversies and disputations, unnecessarily we are as rotten to the core as the lot of men and women who are separated from Christ.

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Our goal is to shine the light of Jesus Christ with purity and with courage and with love without ever unleashing the heat of the toxic, complaining, or foolish controversies that were around then and are still around today.

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This means that no matter what the world might throw at us, we must not complain. We must not allow ourself to throw sanctified pity parties or glorified gripe sessions.

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We must not grumble about anything as the Israelites were so prone to doing when they were walking through the wilderness.

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We must be joy -filled people with hearts that are filled to the brim, enduring the very worst that this world can throw at us, knowing that God has allowed these things to happen to us for our good,

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Romans 8 .18 and Romans 8 .28. We must weather the fiercest attacks from Satan.

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We must endure the wiles of our own flesh, and whatever punishment that this God -hating world wants to throw at us, we endure it with joy, knowing that God will complete

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His good work in us through trial, Philippians 1 .6 .29, James 1 .2

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-4. And we must do this with a song in our heart and with the praises of God on our lips, shining joyfully for Him, because He has counted us worthy to suffer for His name,

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Acts 5 .41. If we complain every time something bad happens to us, we cloak our testimony.

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If we whine whenever the going gets tough, we snuff out our lampstand and our witness. If we spend our days griping and grumbling, asking

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God, why did this happen to me? Why is this always me? Why did you allow this? Why is the world so bad?

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When are you going to step in, et cetera? Then we will miss the very purpose for which

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God created us. He did not create us for comfort, security, and pleasure.

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He did not make us to whimper and whine whenever things do not go our way. He made us to shine with the light of the glory of God.

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He made us to glow against the darkest tyrannies so that those who are still far off may find their way to God because of our shining.

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In the same way grumbling will extinguish our witness, we also must not give ourselves over to foolish controversies.

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Paul says, do all things without grumbling or disputing. Paul is teaching us that a humble approach is always the best.

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We are not loudmouth blowhards who line the streets with megaphones, angrily condemning everyone that we see.

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And we do not seek to get into arguments or confrontations just so that we can give the world a piece of our mind.

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We're not timid, and we're not brazen. We're not cowards, and we're certainly not agitators. We're not weak, and our strength does not come from within us.

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We are Christians. We imitate Christ. We live like the one who pursued sinners, who did not retreat under the threat of death, and also who stood humbly before his captors without grumbling.

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Bottom line, we're called to show up. We are not regressive, and we're not aggressive.

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We show up, and we shine. We humbly, confidently, meekly, and boldly show up and stand firm for Christ.

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We are called to pull the lint off of our lampstands and let the world see

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Jesus through us. We, my dear friends, are called to shine.