The Cost of Carnality — Shane Idleman

You know, the subject tonight is pretty, well, I guess a lot of subjects here are pretty intense. And when we came up with the PowerPoint presentation or the image there, I'm thinking, you know, that looks a little scary, you know.

And that's kind of the point, because carnality is a destructive influence in all of our lives. And I'm going to get into really what that is in a minute. But just know that it's not a good thing. When the Bible talks about the carnal mind, the Bible is actually saying, God is saying that our carnal nature, which is that nature that opposes God, is at enmity with God, it's at war with God.

So we have this dual nature, I have this carnality inside of me, but I'm also called to put it aside and be filled with the Spirit of God. And if we give in to that nature, that carnal nature, there is a cost to that.

And where do we find ourselves tonight? In Matthew again, right? Matthew chapter 5. We're going through Matthew and we're looking at the words of Jesus. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Matthew chapter 5.

And as you're going there, I want to just read a quick quote from J .C. Ryle from a few hundred years ago. And he wrote this, I must honestly declare my conviction that since the days of the Reformation, there never has been so much profession of religion without practice.

So much talking about God without walking with Him. And so much hearing God's Word without doing them. And if you want a good definition of carnality, that's it. That's it. That's what carnality does.

There's a profession of religion, but there's no practice of it. We talk about God, but we do not truly walk with Him. And we hear so much of God's Word, but we fail to do it. And that's what carnality does.

To me, carnality is almost like a facade. Because many people will hear what I'm saying, and then like we've talked about before, almost like therapy. Ah, I heard it. That's true. That's a good point.

And then we leave and nothing changes. Why? Because the carnal nature does not like to change. It hears it, and then it says, I don't like that, so I need to change, but I'm not going to, so nothing ever changes.

And a lot of times when we talk about if a person truly wants to change, are there areas in your life that you truly want to change? Let's be honest. Anybody in here? Just me? Wish chocolate didn't taste so good?

You know, those kind of things? But I'm talking about deeper issues, of course. But what happens is we want the change. What is that? That's the Holy Spirit convicting us of our need to make changes in these areas.

So as the Holy Spirit's convicting, what's our carnal nature doing? Oh, start on Monday. You don't need to do that. Come on, everybody's doing. And that carnal nature kind of pulls us back. So when we talk about change in the life of a believer and change not occurring, it's because the carnal nature is taking over and influencing.

Not the Holy Spirit, because when the Holy Spirit is ruling and reigning in the life of a believer, change takes place. It has to take place, because that's the job of the Holy Spirit, the hound of heaven.

He convicts and he challenges until that change takes place. And I want to be careful here. I was going to make a big note to remind myself. But when I'm talking about carnality, I'm not just talking about actions.

I'm talking about actions and attitude. Because Paul would go on to say in many of his Pauline epistles, as they would call them, epistles to the church, that your carnal nature, this envy, backbiting, jealousy, unforgiveness, you fill in the blank.

Paul would always bring that back to the carnal mind. You're being carnal in your mind. You're acting like carnal Christians. So that's where that term comes from. It's really a lifestyle, an attitude that goes directly away from God's call to a higher standard.

So be encouraged. On one hand, you're going to fight that carnal nature from here on out. I'm going to fight that carnal nature from here on out. But there's a cost to giving in to it. And that's what I want to talk about tonight.

Jesus' Teaching on Salt and Light

So with that said, let's read Matthew 5. And last week we talked about, blessed are those who hunger, blessed are those who are merciful, blessed are the pure in heart. If you didn't catch last week's message, it should be on our website by now, hopefully.

If not, let me know. We can send it to you. But you need to go back and listen to last week's message, because then Jesus goes right into rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Verse 12, For great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And he talked about persecution. And then right out of the blue he comes out and he says this. And this is one of the, chapter and verses are nice, because we can find things, but the Bible wasn't written in chapter and verses.

They were just added maybe 500 years ago to help us find our place. But you have to really read, to get everything in context, you have to read it in its totality. And if you look at the letters of Paul, one of the mistakes we make is Ephesians 1.

Oh, okay, let me read that. Let me chew on that for a while. Well, you should read the whole book of Ephesians. It only takes about 20 minutes. And that's Paul writing a letter. It's almost like if somebody's writing you a letter, you don't just stop and say, well, I wonder what did they mean?

You get the whole context there. So Jesus is going on in verse 13. You, meaning us, are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It's then good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

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, but on a lampstand, and gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

And I almost wanted to read verse 17. I think it's in the PowerPoint, but that was my mistake because to me it's a transitional. It definitely fits here, but I want to pick up next week because that's a whole other message when Jesus talks about, I came to fulfill the law.

Every jot, every tittle, I am the fulfillment of the law. Do you think that your good works will exceed those of the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the religious leaders? You know, that's a whole other topic, but what I want to focus in right now is verses 13 through 15, being the salt and the light.

And as you see in your article in the Bulletin, I believe, no, I don't think it was in the paper today. It'll probably be next week. But I ask the question, are you affecting the world? Are you affecting the world?

Are you affecting your neighborhood? Are you affecting your culture? Or is it infecting you? It's a very healthy question to ask. I try to ask it on a monthly basis. Am I being effective or am I starting to get infected?

Because you know it can happen, right? A Christian, we're always on guard. We are on battleground mode. We're in battleground mode. The devil wants to take us down. So we have to have that stance. And are we affecting the world or is the world infecting us?

And hopefully after this message, you'll know if you're affecting it or if it's affecting you. Now, why is this so hard? Why is this challenge so hard? Are we affecting the world? We'd all say, yes, I want to affect the world.

I want to affect the world. But nine times out of 10, especially young adults who are Christians, don't affect the world. They're infected and they're pulled down. You ever wonder why is this so hard?

Well, a couple reasons. From here on out, we are in a battle, as I said. Life is a battleground, not a playground. A carnal Christian views life as a playground. Number one. Number two is we're swimming against the current.

We're swimming upstream. We're going against a cultural mindset that is directly against God. So we're basically in a fighting mode all of the time. It's an uphill battle. You ever hear that term? Well, that's what it is here.

And you say, Shane, that's kind of negative. That's kind of depressing. But remember a few weeks ago, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I'm glad that the Bible tells me there's an enemy sent to kill, steal, and destroy.

I'm glad that it tells me this is an uphill battle. You're going to need Christ. You're going to need the sword of the Spirit. You're going to need all this. Why? Because now you're prepared. And I think a lot of people, they just walk right into the enemy's camp.

They don't realize how easily we can be infected by the culture. And what happens, this is primarily when I used to speak to young adults at young adults' conferences, I would tell them and show them how easily it is, and there's a lot of young adults in this type of service too, is you're still, and we don't like to say this, but early 20s, 19, you know, you're still in a very impressionable age, worried about people's opinions of you, trying to figure out what has God called me to do.

You're worried about what people think. And once you get to my age, you don't care as much about what people think. You've learned, okay, that's not really guiding me in the right direction. And what happens is you are shaped by the culture that you're trying to relate to.

So you want, I want these people to like me. I want to be, I don't want to be a weird person. I want, who am I? Tell me who I am. And that's why it's so important, the role of a father in a child's life.

You shape that child. You tell that child who they are, what God has done with them, why God has created them. They are special. You instill into them as parents these traits. And if you don't, guess who takes over?

MTV. All this cultural influence. They influence you. And what happens as young adults is you're searching in your identity and the culture and this. You want to be cool. You want to be relevant. So what do you do?

You open yourself up to the influence. And the culture begins to influence and shape you. Paul would use a word, conformed. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

It all starts up here. All starts right here being conformed to that, that culture. And I only pick on MTV because just a while back I was sitting on a couch in a hotel and had six different screens up there.

And all the stuff, I mean, it's like, it's just so perverted. The culture's so perverted. And if you open yourself up to that, you wonder why there's no passion for God. I'm spiritually dead. It's because we are being carnal.

We're fueling that carnal nature. And there's no such thing as a carnal Christian. That's an oxymoron. Right? When we're feeding that carnality, we can't be filled with the Spirit of God. They are opposing forces.

The Bible uses a strong word. It says that the carnal mind is at enmity with God. Look up that word enmity. That's not like a little, well, we can negotiate, well, now we're friends, there's a peace treaty.

Enmity is at war. And that's what I don't like. My carnal nature is at war with God. That's very scary. Because you give it too much, that's why you've heard that word stronghold, or giving the enemy too much ground, is that carnal nature will begin to influence you and draw you away from God.

That's just straight Bible. So with that said, the context here is you are the salt. I am the salt. If this influence leaves, it's difficult to get it back, which is seasoned again. Right? You are the salt.

If your influence leaves, it's hard to get that influence back again. The definition of seasoned, I'm sure many of you are wondering, seasoned with salt, what's he talking about? Well, what does salt do?

It flavors, right? It preserves, and it purifies, and it cleanses. You have to think of this back, especially in Paul's day, in Jesus' day, salt was used for many different things, on wounds, to cure meat, meat that was decaying and dying, this decaying meat.

You know, that's what happens with meat, right? Leave a hamburger outside for a couple days, you're not going to want to eat it, even overnight. What's happening? It's decaying. So the salt goes in, and what does it do?

Now it's preserved. It can last longer. The salt stops that decay. And now we have things called sodium nitrates, where a Twinkie can stay on the shelf for 15 years. So we've went beyond, you know, the scope of salt, of what salt is used for, and we've even perverted that.

But anyway, that's a health and fitness message, it has nothing to do with tonight. So salt flavors. So there's a sweet smelling aroma about our life, there's something different. The world should say, there's something different.

I don't necessarily like it, but there's something different. Haven't you ever heard that before? There's something different about you, there's a difference there. I've never seen anybody lead somebody to Christ who looks just like the world.

They don't want the world, they've had enough of the world. They want to know what's the difference, what's the distinction. Why use that sweet smelling aroma? Where's the difference at? Why do you not watch the same things as me, as the world?

Why do you not talk the same way? Why do you not do this? Why don't you do... Why is there a difference there? It's that sweet smelling aroma that Paul talks about. That's one of the things that salt can do, it flavors, it also preserves.

Do you know as Christians, we're called to preserve a standard? That's why we get all worked up when all this legislation comes against everything that goes against God. Remember a few weeks ago, the new law in California, a little 10 year old boy, if he feels like a girl today, he can walk into a girl's bathroom.

Well, the Christians should be saying, hello, not on our watch, that's not right. This whole thing with gay marriage, it's not about bigotry, it's about nothing. It's about loving God's standard, loving His holy word.

And as Christians, we're the salt, we're the light to say, not on my watch, hello, that's not right. That's a preserving aspect. And this is why, you know, there's a big debate in the church, church politics, this and that, you shouldn't talk about these things.

Well, that's why people wanna talk about it because if I'm the salt, I can't ignore abortion, I can't ignore gay marriage, I can't ignore, you know, little kids being able to go in other kids' restrooms and being taught that same sex marriage is okay and experimenting.

I can't ignore it. Oh, it's only about the gospel, yet I'm supposed to ignore all these other things? The salt permeates everything, everything in our culture. Now, granted, this pulpit is not to become a political platform, but it is called to be the salt and to speak boldly into the issues confronting our culture.

Embryonic stem cell research, let's create life simply to destroy it. I mean, can we not talk about these issues? That's what their culture is doing. We're drifting from God. The church says, hello, come back to Him.

That's the goal of being salt is to preserve and to bring back and to hold that holy standard. We can't ignore that, but also to purify and to cleanse. So as the salt, you're supposed to walk into an environment and there's a purification process.

You know, many of you in the workplace, oh, here comes such and such. We can't tell that joke. We can't talk about, oh, here's Holy Roller. There's a purification there. And on this point, this is where you've heard me say before, men, especially men or parents, you've got to make your home a holy sanctuary, not a breeding ground for Satan.

They go, oh, what's that guy talking about? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Your home is either purifying and honoring God and it's a holy place where worship takes place. Kids are built up. The marriage is restored or it's a breeding ground for Satan while we're allowing these things to come into our home.

Cultural Influence and the Christian Distinction

Think about it. Let me read a few points from the article in your bulletin. We've lost our influence on the culture and instead the culture has made an indelible influence on the church. It's the church who's putting all these movies on the top 10.

It's the church who's made the porn industry a billion dollar industry. Shane, what are you talking about? Well, 90 of America confess that they are Christians. Probably the number's much lower now.

But my point is, Christians are influenced by the culture because there's no difference. There's no distinction. Come out from among them. Be separate. It's the distinction that makes a difference. Let me say that again.

If you take one thing away from this message tonight, let it be this. It's your distinction that makes the difference. Why? Because God honors that distinction. He honors it. That's being filled with the Spirit of God.

In times past, the hero was the father, not Edward from Twilight. The greatest influence in the home was the mother, not Bella. And kids once quoted scriptures, now they're casting spells. Didn't you talk about this last year, Shane?

Yeah, but it's absolutely relevant today because it's showing you how the culture influences the church. I've seen young adult Christians with porn star stickers on their trucks and cars. Like, that's cool.

See, that's not cool. That's perverted. What's happening? The culture is influencing the church. And now we have all these books on marriage where the porn industry is influencing the church. The Christians, can we do this?

Can't we do this? What about this? Everything's influencing the church. The church is called to come out from among them. Be separate. Stand. Set a guide. Draw a line in the sand and say, here and no further.

This is what we stand for. This is the purifying effect. This is the cleansing effect of the church, of Christians. Yeah, you can call us lukewarm and narrow-minded and bigoted and all these things, but Jesus said you have to be the salt and the light of the earth.

And if you lose that seasoning, you might as well just be cast out into the side of the road. That's what they did with bad salt. Just throw it in the field. It's not good for anything anymore. See, you have to remember that.

Your effectiveness in this world is directly related to your spiritual condition of your heart. You will not affect anything if you're being infected by the world. We call that playing Christian. You say it, but there's no power to back it.

Have we all played Christian before? Of course. The guy up here preaching to you has played Christian. As I've said before, I'm preaching to myself. These are always for me before you. Then I edit them down a little bit.

At this point, you might think, wow, I can never measure up. And let me reassure you that God does not let your relationship with Him hinge on measuring up or following all these rules or I gotta do that or I gotta do this.

What you do is you follow hard after Christ and let that relationship take center stage and then everything falls aside. You cannot be a carnal Christian and follow Christ wholeheartedly. They are opposing forces.

The First Cost: Losing Godly Influence

So what happens in a person's life is they stop following Christ and they give over to that carnal nature and we have the cost of carnality. So that's what I want to talk about is the first cost of carnality in your bulletin.

We lose our influence. Now I'm gonna expound on that a little bit. What I should have said is we lose our godly influence and instead what do we produce? We produce worldly influence. Think about that.

We influence others. So when we're not the salt and the light, we influence others, especially parents. Parents, we influence those. If we're not being the salt and light, guess what we're going to influence?

Those same characteristics in our children. And I remember one of the top questions I got when I was leaving the fitness industry 12 years ago or so, it was an epidemic, I'm sure it still is, was childhood obesity.

And that's on the rise and all these things. And I said, well, guess where it's starting? Uh-oh. If there's childhood obesity in a four-year-old or five-year-old or six-year-old or seven-year-old, it's happening at home.

What people are allowing. Their influence is an influence in infecting the kids. So anytime I see childhood obesity, I blame the parents more often than not. Now, genetic predisposition, certain circumstances, of course, I would never make a blanket statement.

But the whole point of this is to say that the home is influencing the children, the parents are influencing the children. So this is vitally important. The cost of carnality is you lose godly influence on your kids.

And if you're a young adult, you lose that godly influence on your friendships. And instead, you become like them. You might say, well, Shane, how do I know? How do I know? How do I know? How do I know?

How do I know if this friendship, how do I know? Well, it's a very simple question. Ask this. Is the direction they're leading you the direction you want to go? Is the direction that the friendships and the influence is pulling you, is it the direction towards god or is it in a direction towards carnality?

That's all you have to ask yourself. That simple question. You'll know what direction that relationship is pulling you. And basically, the definition of carnal is allowing the flesh to lead and influence.

So to sum it up, to be carnal means I'm allowing my flesh, whether it's anger, irritability, envy, jealousy, all these things, I'm allowing my flesh to lead me instead of putting those things in check and allowing the Spirit of God to lead us.

If we would make it our goal to know Christ more personally, we would preach Christ more powerfully. Did you catch that? If we would make it our goal to know Christ more personally, we would preach Him more powerfully.

There would be a greater influence there. There would be a greater influence in our lives. And as a side note, I just actually put this this morning. And my heart is not to beat up, really, this area.

My heart is to challenge and to convict. But a carnal pastor can still give sermons, but he will lose unction, authority, boldness, and spiritual power. The world will love him, but the sheep will leave starving for more of God.

You see how influence works? The cost of carnality, we lose our influence even as pastors because who I am all week is who I will be when I step to this pulpit. Anywhere across our landscape, who a person is all week, do they fight that sinful nature or do they feed it?

That's who they will be when they step up to the pulpit. And I can always tell a carnal pastor, a carnal preacher, a carnal speaker, the world loves them. Why? Because he's saying the same influence that they have in their own heart.

When the world begins to not like... Jesus said, if you follow me, the world's going to hate you. Was Jesus wrong? Was he out of step with our culture? Was he misquoted there? So it begs the question, does the world love the way that we do church?

If they do, something's wrong. Now should we be welcoming, accepting, loving places of worship? Of course. But if the world loves what they're hearing and enjoys hearing that Christ is the only way, the only truth, the only life, unless you repent of your sin, you're going to spend eternity in hell.

Are they going to like what we're talking about? No, they're not. Why? Because the carnal nature and God are at war with each other and the world is carnal. It's going against God. So you can always spot that.

A person should not love... The world is not going to love the pulpit. Now from time to time, you'll say encouraging messages that pretty much include a broad group of people. But for the most part, they don't like what's being said because what are we doing?

We're challenging the idols in their own hearts. We're challenging their idea and their definition of God. They think they're God. Right? I've got God right here in this little box. Here's my religion.

Here's what I think. And I say, well, that's nice what you think. The word of God says this. Well, I don't like that. So that's one of the first costs of carnality is we lose our influence. What's the second cost of carnality?

The Second Cost: A Damaged Relationship with Christ

Our relationship with Christ suffers. Now this is important. If the first one wasn't bad enough, this one's the kicker. Our relationship with Jesus Christ suffers. You remember what I said last week or a few weeks ago when Jesus talked about the church that he said to return to me?

But you're not hot or cold. You're lukewarm. That's what carnality is. It's lukewarm. Jesus said you're good for nothing. You're carnal. You're lukewarm. You're wavering. You're unstable. You're uncommitted.

Those are all the terms throughout the New Testament. Why do they use those terms? To upset us? No. To draw us back. That's what Jesus said. Turn back to me. Return to your first love. You're carnal. You're lukewarm.

You've left your first love. Turn back to me. That's what carnality is. So not only do we lose a godly influence, our relationship with Christ suffers. As I said earlier, a carnal Christian is an oxymoron.

Our relationship with Christ is built on holiness, purity, and a disconnect from the world. You cannot give your heart and passions to two people. You want a practical example? I'm married to Morgan. Can I also try to be married to somebody else?

How would that go over? Wait a minute. That's what we do. You cannot follow two things. If Christ be one of them, you cannot follow another, Spurgeon would say. You cannot love two masters. You either be loyal to one and despise the other or hate the one and love the other.

But that's what we do. That's why a carnal Christian is a miserable Christian. That's why they want me to hurry up and finish this message, quite frankly. They don't like it. They don't like to be challenged.

They like their lukewarm living. A call to holiness and purity is an irritant in their eyes. They don't like it. I'm carnal. I like the darkness. Don't upset me. Leave me alone. So we came to the wrong church for that reason.

We want to expose those things so healing and repentance takes place. But that's why the relationship with Christ suffers because when you give yourself over to a carnal lifestyle, Christ is being cheated on.

Adultery. The bride of Christ is cheating, in our modern vernacular, on Christ because He's not my one and true love. I'm not falling hard. I like Him on Sundays, but the rest of the week, I want my other spouse.

Graphic, but true. Is it not? That's what carnal is. We see this even in the Old Testament. Elisha, right before God called down fire on Mount Carmel there in the Old Testament, Elisha told a whole group of people, how long will you falter between two opinions?

Another translation says, how long will you waver between two opinions? If God be God, follow Him. But if Baal be God, follow him. Stop wavering back and forth. Let God be true and every man a liar. Follow Him with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength.

That's following God. Playing Christian, having a carnal lifestyle, coming into church acting as if, is not following God. That's all of our might, all of our strength, all of our heart, everything is bent towards Him.

Not perfectly. I struggle weekly like everybody else. If not daily, that carnal nature, just wants to play around, doesn't it? Just want to play patty cake, patty cake, patty cake, until it just pulls you.

Come on, come on back. You don't need to study sleeping. Come on, you should go there. Come on, just pull. It's like luring you to sleep. Delilah, come on back. Come on back. Remember the good old day?

Come on back. All the time, it's a constant battle. But that's the cost of giving in to it. There are costs to our actions. And one of the greatest things is our relationship to Christ is hindered. And then he goes on to say, 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, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that others see your good works and they glorify your Father in heaven.

And there is something here, I actually wrote it down when I got here, at four o 'clock. There is something about godly ambition that is good. You can have godly ambition. You can say, I want to do something for Christ, and I want the world to know.

Not to give me the credit, but to give Christ the credit. Let my light so shine before men that others will see it and glorify God. So it's the stance of, well, I can't say anything, can't do anything.

No, have a healthy, God-given ambition. Let that light so shine before God, but then be in such a state of humility that you always point to the cross. That's what he's saying. Let your light shine, it's okay.

You know the little kid song, I've got this light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. But that's so true. We've got to let that shine. What does the light do? If Jesus wants us to be the light, what does the light do?

The light dispels darkness. So when you walk into an environment, when you walk into a situation, when you walk into your workplace, do you dispel the darkness, or does the darkness come upon you? Try it sometime.

Just open your window early in the morning. Open the blinds. Is the darkness and the light competing? Oh, now the darkness is still winning. Well, is it competing, or is the light just flood in, the darkness has to run?

It can't stay. There's nowhere to go, there's nowhere to hide because the light dispels all of that. That's why Paul tells us to expose the unfruitful works of darkness. How, Paul? By being the light of the world.

Our character, our attitude, our stance, everything is reflected in that. Everything being the light of the world dispels darkness. What else does light do? Well, ask any little tiny kid, it brings comfort.

Daddy, leave the hall light on. Can I leave my bathroom light on? Why? What is there about? It's just a light right there. Because now I can see clearly. Now I have the light on, it dispels darkness. I can see clearly.

It brings comfort to a person. Does it not? So we should actually bring comfort to a person. Believe it or not, a lot of these messages do bring comfort to people. After it gets over the... At the ultimate end is it brings comfort, and hope, and conviction.

It's not just hellfire and brimstones, it's trying to get people back to a loving relationship with Christ. So when you preach the light, it brings comfort once you surrender to it. But it doesn't. If you keep trying to close the blinds, I don't want that light in here.

I'm going back to sleep. Close those blinds. Turn that light off. I'm going back to sleep. But once you allow it to come in, it brings comfort. Also, what else should we be doing? We bring clarity. Oh, now I can see.

Now I can see. The light brings clarity, does it not? So when we speak on the issues of our culture, we should be able to bring in clarity. We bring in the light of God's Word. Issues dealing with marriage, finances, everything, the Word of God, our life should bring clarity.

That's what being the light is. It illuminates. It makes things stand out. It's almost like, you know, how you pull out that battery, or that flashlight, and the batteries have been in there a couple years.

You just barely get a light there. What happened? That's what's happening in the lives of many people. That light that's supposed to be illuminating and shining and guiding is no longer there. It's just barely flickering.

That's why Jesus calls us back to Him and away from and out of that lifestyle. We are a reflection of what we worship. Right? Whatever is influencing me is coming out. So when I'm talking about being the light of the world, what's going to come out, what's going to be reflected is what's coming in.

Same thing with you. What's coming in? What's coming into you? What's coming into your mind? All these things. This isn't rocket science. What's coming in is coming out. That's what you're reflecting.

So why do so many people say, I'm a Christian, but I'm not the light in any way, shape, or form? Well, what's coming out of you? Everything you've been putting in. That's simply what's been coming out.

The Third Cost: Tarnishing Christ's Name

The cost of carnality number three, and this is where we're going to close. Our lifestyle tarnishes the name of Christ. A carnal lifestyle. I'm not talking about slipping and falling and making a mistake now.

I'm talking about a lifestyle. A carnal lifestyle will tarnish the name of Christ. And you have to remember something. Especially young adults, again, on this point. The messenger must reflect the message.

Did you get that? The messenger, me and you, must reflect the message. So when Jesus is talking about the light of the world, the messenger must reflect the message. You want an example for that? How many of you have seen pictures of the dead soldiers coming back from Afghanistan earlier in Iraq?

Have you seen them? There you go, thank you. And they're coming back, and the President's there, and people are there, and they're paying their respects, and they're unloading from the airplane. What would happen if the President of the United States decided to send Elmo to go greet those families?