Let us begin with prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, precious and almighty Lord, we come to Thy throne of grace to hear from Thee and to seek Thy will. Lord, prepare our hearts to listen to and understand the Word, so that the seed may bring forth fruit in our lives.
Lord, we are unwise people, but we have a wise Lord. We are weak people, but Thou art strong, Lord. So I submit myself and everyone under the sprinkling blood of the Lamb. Lead us through.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
We will begin by reading a few verses. I was lazy enough to put only the references, but I would encourage you also to turn to the Scriptures and look at them as we read.
The first is John’s Gospel, John 1:9:
That was the true light, which lighteth every man coming into the world.
Similarly, Philippians 2:5:
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:13-16:
For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.
Do all things without murmurings and questionings:
That ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world,
Holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor in vain.
Similarly, Matthew 11:29:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Dear Lord, lead us as we meditate on Thy Word, so that we would continue in it. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
The reason I had this on my heart is that I was traveling with a few young people to Arkansas with my daughter. The group was a combination of teenagers, as we often discuss here. It was a mixture of the secular world: believers, LGBT people, and non-believers of different faiths.
As I traveled with them, I was thinking, What do these children think about the body of Christ? That is where my question began. They are wise, talented, and competing in world championships. It is not that they cannot read or write. They are involved in everything. But what do they think about the church?
That was troubling me as I traveled with them. Today, the body of Christ has more responsibility than ever because communication is so fast. There has never been communication this fast in human history. Whether it is good, bad, or distorted truth, people are being communicated with.
Today, someone else is communicating what the church means. But what the church truly means needs to be communicated by the people of the Lord, not by worldly influences. Young people may begin to think that church is a place for condemning people rather than saving people, because this information has already been fed into the younger generations.
Some will avoid believers because they have heard from parents, churches, or the news what kind of ideas Christians may have toward them. I saw this when I tried to start conversations with people in that group. A few were trying to avoid me because they had already heard things.
The media is also working to support churches that fall in line with its views. As I was coming from Grove Baptist Church, I saw a sign that hurt my heart. Outside influences—and even people professing different things during political times—are communicating matters other than the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All this information is being fed into the coming generation. As a father of teenagers and a toddler, and as an adult myself, I see that information comes from many different people. They may not be interested in the church or in the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are communicating at the speed of light.
Before we can say one word, they can communicate a series of presentations or anything else. Therefore, we need to consider the work of the church. Where do we stand? What are we communicating? What is the exact mind of the Lord Jesus Christ?
The dangerous thing is that we may fail to communicate the exact mind of the Lord Jesus Christ because we are busy with other things. The enemy is so wise and deceiving that we look to someone else to tell us what Christ is all about and what our beliefs are.
But we are supposed to be the people who show the mind of the Lord—not someone else. When the disciples waited on the day of Pentecost, those 120 people were not looking to the government to tell them who Christ was. They were not looking to community leaders to tell them who Christ was.
They were waiting upon the Lord so that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and they would be lights in the world.
That is why I was considering Philippians 2:5:
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Although Paul was writing concerning the unity of the church, this is for us too, right? It is for us. Without knowing the mind of Christ, we cannot truly do what we are supposed to do, as those 120 people did on that day.
I was also thinking about Matthew 11:29, where the Lord says:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.
The Lord wants us to learn from Him. Unless we learn from Him, we cannot truly want what the Lord wants us to want. We are born-again believers; the light dwells in us, no doubt about it. But we cannot shine for the Lord unless we learn from Him.
Philippians 2:15 says that we are to shine as lights in the world. That is the desire of the Lord. We may go everywhere, but if we cannot shine as a light, then we are losing the complete purpose for which the Lord saved us.
You can shine as a light wherever you are. Perhaps the Lord gives you an opportunity to go out and preach everywhere, and that is amazing. But the Lord has also kept you in certain places to shine as a light, so that you can communicate through your personal testimony.
Although communication is fast, people still believe personal experience. If we say, “I have had this drink,” immediately someone will say, “I have a personal experience of what it is.” By shining as lights, we have the opportunity to give a personal testimony wherever the Lord has placed us.
We are competing with a world that distorts the truth of the Word of God. It is easy, once we leave this place, to look at something else rather than looking within ourselves and asking whether we are shining as lights.
Let us meditate further on having the mind of the Lord. In Philippians 2:6-7, it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ:
Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
But emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.
These verses are a quick summary of what the Lord went through. They are not everything, but they are a summary. We take up these things and worship the Lord.
The Lord lived a regular human life, yet He faced day-to-day humiliation. He was verbally abused. He was physically abused. He faced nakedness. What did He not face? Even His brothers did not believe in Him.
Yet the Lord still shone as a light. He continued doing His work. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we also, as born-again believers, go through difficult things. We do not go through everything that the Lord went through, but we face many things that discourage us from being lights.
But when we understand the mind of the Lord—when we see that He faced all that humanity can face and still remained the light of the world—it encourages us.
I had a slide with circles. I am a very bad artist, so I simply made circles. I used white circles for born-again believers and dark circles for those who are not yet born again.
I do not mean that the church is merely a circle, because the church is a group of blood-bought believers, and every believer has light. But in a local gathering, there may be those who are not yet caught by the Lord.
Those who have the light have a great responsibility to help those who are in darkness come to the Lord. If anyone is still in darkness, it is simple: accept the Lord as your personal Savior. Believe that He died for you.
But, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those who have the light have a great responsibility to help people move from darkness into light. The Lord is working, and this is not merely the work of those who preach the Word. Each one of us has a responsibility to shine as a light.
Many churches begin with children, but children are not always available today. It is not necessarily our fault, but the lightning speed of the world is attracting them. Therefore, we have this responsibility: to shine and bring them to the Lord.
Without this, the church will become weaker and weaker. Everyone has a responsibility to shine. We may not know which believer will influence which person in darkness, or which behavior of a believer will draw someone to the Lord.
It may be something very simple. Children are observing us. Those in darkness are observing those who have light. When people do not find answers, they go to the lightning-speed world, gather all the information they want, and remain in a darker place.
The world is so dark—so much darkness. What can we do? The Lord truly wants us to shine as lights.
I was thinking, How do we shine as lights? What kind of life can we live? Then I read Philippians 2:13:
For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.
It is the Lord. When we are trained under the Lord, He gives us the desire to do good and enables us to do it. No matter how much we personally try to do good things, donate, speak kindly, or act in an earthly way, we cannot do it apart from Him.
That training must come from the Lord, because the Lord is the Light. He wants us to be trained, and He wants us to be that light. Without His light, we cannot bring someone from darkness into light.
That is why we need to continually go to the Lord: “Lord, train me. Lead me. What can I do? How can I shine as a light?”
We are already praying as a church, no doubt about it. We pray for perishing souls and for ministries. We appreciate all that is being done. But we still need to contend with the lightning speed of what is outside.
When you are in your office, with your children, in-laws, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, or neighbors, people should see you and see the decisions you make. Through that, they should be able to come to the Lord.
Without that, instead of preaching the gospel, we become a hindrance to the gospel.
As children of God, God gives us the desire to do good and helps us to do good. Hebrews 13:20-21 speaks of how He has brought us through the blood of the eternal covenant and desires to make us perfect in every good thing to do His will.
Training under the Lord continually and implementing His ways in life is very important. Otherwise, we may be saved and doing the work of the Lord, yet we may have stopped shining for the Lord.
Philippians 2:15 says:
That ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
We have responsibility and accountability as children of God. I do not want to use a worldly term, but it is a privilege. We have been given authority, and we have been given responsibility.
As believers, when it comes time to make decisions about ourselves, our children, or our neighbors, we may stop acting as children of God. We may make decisions that please our own minds or our egos. We may speak about the Lord but fail to behave as children of God.
That pushes people away from the Lord. Whenever we make decisions concerning others without acting as children of God, we become a hindrance to the gospel. Knowingly or unknowingly, we push people further into darkness.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have the privilege of being children of God. We have the responsibility and accountability to live as children of God. That is what makes us shine as lights in the world.
Philippians 2:14 also says:
Do all things without murmurings and questionings.
This concerns the body of Christ, but it extends further. Once we leave this place, the body of Christ is you and me. Many people do not know the definition of church. They know what church is by looking at us—our actions and our decisions.
Sometimes, everything that is legally correct is not spiritually right. We want to be legally right. We want to be ethically right. But do we want to be right as children of God?
The words “blameless and harmless” describe the very nature of the salvation God has given us. God wants us to stand holy and blameless before Him. This nature of salvation should be shown in our day-to-day lives.
If we fail to show the nature of salvation, our neighbors, family members, and extended family may begin to move away from the Lord. The enemy is so smart. He allows us to worship, preach the gospel, and work, but he does not want us to live the life that shines as a light.
Even in small decisions and simple daily life, we can bring light to people around us. Ephesians 6:12 tells us whom our fight is with:
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
As believers, it is easy to end up fighting people rather than the enemy. Because we live in flesh, we easily fight with flesh. But our fight is not against people; our fight is against the enemy.
The world’s rules, regulations, and policies are designed so that our fight is constantly with people: with a neighbor, colleague, or family member. We have many relationships, and it is so easy for conflict to arise in college, school, work, and home.
When our fight is against people, we help those in darkness remain in darkness. We can examine our hearts. Wherever we are, if our fight is against an individual, then we are becoming a hindrance to the gospel and are trapped by the enemy.
Do your best, brothers and sisters in Christ. People look at you and me and ask, “What is church?” Many people have wrong ideas of what the church is. Some think what is shown on Fox News is church. Others think what is shown on CNN is church.
But, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord wants you and me to show people what the church is, what the mind of the Lord is, and what the heart of the Lord is.
I want to consider three simple examples from the Word of God. Who can train us? Christ can train us. The first is compassion.
Matthew 9:36 shows the Lord’s compassion for the crowds because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. Those in darkness may be our daughters, sons, friends, close friends, or anyone else. What we need is compassion.
Without compassion, we cannot win them. That is the heart of the Lord. The mind of the Lord is to have compassion. We may have everything else, but if we do not have compassion, we do not have the mind of the Lord.
The Lord does not have another plan besides us. I once heard in a brother’s message that when the Lord went to heaven, an angel asked, “What is the plan?” The Lord said, “I do not have another plan. Those 120 people—or those twelve people—are My plan.”
Dear brothers and sisters, today the plan of the Lord is you and me. If we do not have compassion, we have missed everything. The first and foremost thing we need is compassion.
When we have compassion, all our complaints about another person are set aside. Without compassion, we cannot move forward, because the first thing the Lord has is compassion. We were not worthy to be saved, but it was the Lord’s compassion.
Many people may have prayed for us out of compassion. Many people may have taught us out of compassion. Today we stand here because of that compassion.
We must not look at anyone without compassion. Once we look at someone without compassion, we have lost it. The world is structured to make people compete in unhealthy ways, and there is little compassion in the world.
The church may be a small group of blood-bought believers, but our God is stronger. The people may be many, but we have a living Lord with us. We have the responsibility to move in a direction that does not fall into the traps of the enemy.
The second point is this: the work of light is not to burn things, but to light things up. We easily condemn people. We easily burn things. But we forget that we are called to be light, not fire.
Fire will come. One day the Lord will judge, and we all must pass through the fire. But we are called to be lights, not fire. It is easy to become like fire and burn people, relationships, and their ideas.
If you are surrounded by people in darkness, you are blessed. God has given you an opportunity by placing you, a person with light, among them. Your responsibility is to show compassion and stop burning them.
Our job is not to act like fire but to act like light. Consider the Lord’s response to the woman caught in adultery in John 8:11:
And she said, No man, Lord.
And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more.
I wrote this: Sin should be addressed with love, patience, and kindness. Whether the sin is murder, sexual sin, adultery, or anything else, sin is sin. It must be addressed as sin, but it must be addressed with love, patience, and kindness.
We cannot simply sit and panic. Panic will not accomplish anything unless we shine as lights. Young people going to college have many things to face. They are rare people in society because they are trying to live differently. It is easy to become like the common darkness, but they are called to be lights.
We need to strengthen them, help them in families and in church, and engage them. They need to be able to speak about sin in a loving, patient way. The Lord had so much patience with the woman caught in adultery.
His simple statement speaks volumes about His patience, His love, and His kindness. That is shining as a light: blameless and harmless, like a dove.
It is not our job to condemn people. John 3:17 says:
For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him.
The mind of the Lord is not to condemn people but to bring light in a gentle way. If people see even a small amount of condemnation or judgment in us, they may not come to us. They may run further into darkness.
If the Lord’s coming is delayed, what will people say about this generation in church history? Will they say that this generation failed to address sin properly? Will they say that this generation failed to shine as lights for the Lord?
Worshiping is very important, but shining as a light is also very important. Media and public voices can easily sweep us off our feet and make us forget that we are lights. They can make us follow those who speak well on stages and give impressive talks.
We do not need to be great. We do not need to listen to the great. We simply need to shine as lights. We need to go to the Lord and say, “Lord, train me. I want to shine as a light.”
It may be a simple neighbor. You do not need to think about the whole world, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. It may be a daughter, son-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, uncle, aunt, neighbor, or colleague.
Let us come back to the immediate sphere. We cannot do much for the whole picture of the world except talk, but action comes in the small picture of our own world. Our world is not as big as we think. It is often very small.
The big things do not make us worry as much as the small things do. So make sure you are shining as a light among the immediate people with whom you have contact. That is the way to change people and, in turn, change the world.
Media is a business. We should understand that. People invest in stocks, and everybody wants money. If you invest in CNN or Fox, you do not want them to go down because you do not want your money to go down.
But that is not the solution. Let us come back to the basics. That is not my concern. My concern is the people around me.
The Lord has blessed some servants of God to go across the world and preach, and that is an additional blessing. It is important. But for common people like us, we can influence the immediate people around us and help them shine.
How amazing it would be if all the dark circles turned white. What is needed is for you to shine as a light and for me to shine as a light—nothing else.
The world is full of schemes. They are attractive, and science can make people believe many things. Young people going to universities have questions inside. If those questions are not properly addressed, they can be lost. We may not be able to answer everything, but we can show the love of God.
The final point is intercession: praying earnestly for individuals.
What I learned in Sunday school is that we should pray more for the person who troubles us most. The more we think someone is in trouble, not with the Lord, cheating us, or opposing us, the more we should pray for that person.
I was thinking that the Lord may have prayed for Judas also. He prayed for Peter, and He prayed for His disciples. We do not know the fullness of the Lord’s ways.
On the cross, the Lord said in Luke’s Gospel:
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
He was interceding. He did not stop interceding. We need to intercede for the immediate people around us, because children observe this pattern in our lives.
Children learn many things from home. They certainly learn from school too, but home plays a very great role for all of us.
The Lord knew Peter would deny Him. Who would become a co-signer for someone buying a home if he knew that person would bail on him, cheat him, or deny him? Yet the Lord did this for Peter. He prayed for him.
Peter denied the Lord, and the Lord knew Peter would deny Him. The Lord even told Peter that the enemy wanted to take him, yet the Lord still prayed.
It is not our job to determine how people will be saved. But we should bring forth the mind of the Lord: being compassionate, being light rather than fire, and interceding. These are simple things that can influence a person.
John 9:5 says:
When I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Christ is at the right hand of the Father. The Lord is still the Light, no doubt about it. But now we are the carriers of that light. We are the carriers of the testimony of that light.
We move among people, and people do not see Christ directly; they see us. We should be able to lift up Christ in our lives. Only then can people be drawn to us and to the Lord.
This is where the church must be very careful. The way to contend with the lightning speed of the world is to be trained under the Lord and to understand the mind of the Lord.
Then we can introduce to others the beauty of the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ that you and I have seen.
The work of light is simply to light up a dark place. We have many complaints about dark places, but we forget that we are lights and that we have the ability to bring light into darkness.
What is the work of light where there is no darkness? That is heaven, where Christ is the greater Light. But here, in school, college, among relatives, in offices, businesses, coffee shops, and even politics, bring light into the dark place.
You do not need to do anything extraordinary. Simply have the things the Lord has put within you as you deal with people. When light comes, darkness automatically goes away. There is no place for darkness.
If light avoids darkness, then who will help those in darkness? Therefore, we need to examine ourselves. Are we shining as lights?
There is something called fundamental Islam, and people also speak of fundamental Christianity. My Hindu friend says, “You are a fundamental Christian.” Let us not be what the media paints us to be. Let us shine as lights and introduce the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ to people.
The final verse, which is very important for us, is Philippians 2:16:
Holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor in vain.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, whatever we are doing is not about winning here. It is about whether we will truly rejoice in the day of Christ. Let us keep these words as we close in prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, dear precious and almighty Lord, unworthy people we are, but Thou hast chosen us to shine as lights in the world.
What a great responsibility this is. There is no other thing that can truly introduce Thee, Lord. It is our life. It is our behavior. It is our decisions. It is our compassion toward people.
Lord, help us to train under Thee and to have the very mind of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may introduce the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ to people.
It is not the work of the media or the work of anyone else. It is our work to shine as lights. Lord, we are Thy plan. Thank Thee, Lord, for choosing us as Thy plan.
Lord, thank Thee for leading us this time. We give Thee all glory and honor. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.