"Did You Shine This Past Week?"
11:00 2/5/93 Psalm 27:1-6 Matt 5:13-16 Text Philipp. 2:12-18
.ls2
Most of us like to look good. We like for our shoes to
shine, our cars to shine, our words to be polished and we want
our hair in place. We want others to give us that nod of approval
that that brother or sister has got it together. At age 16 we
think everybody is looking at us. At age 30, we hope the right
kind of people are looking at us. At age 60, we realize that
most of the people didn’t even know we were there.
My friends, there is nothing wrong with looking good, and you
ought to want to look good because your looks say something about
your faith in God. The problem comes in that we often spend the
most time trying to look our best, in areas that ultimately don’t
really matter. You see its possible to be of great beauty in
appearance and yet be very ugly in one’s soul or attitude. We
have all met very beautiful people who shine on the outside, yet
we want nothing to do with them because of the ugliness that the
beauty covers over.
Jesus said in our New Testament reading, to let our lights
shine. How well did your light shine for Jesus this past week?
Were you like the brightness of the sun in the noon day sky, were
you like the moon illuminating the night, were you like candle
glowing in the darkness? Or were you more like a flashlight with
a battery so weak, at best it flickered before going blank, Did
you spend more time shining up your outward or inward appearance?
Our text this morning continues in our study of the book of
Philippians starting at chapter 2:14. Please turn there with me
in your bibles. Philippians 2:14 "Do everything without complain
ing or arguing," This one verse alone, determines what type of
shine we carry in our homes, our church, our job, and our commu
nity. Everything means everything. Is God serious, does he
really expect us to go through life without complaining and
arguing? Yes? This is a totally new gospel.
Do you realize that if we obey this one verse, some of us
are going to have to wipe out 90% of our conversation. We have
made complaining and arguing a way of life. Do you realize that
one of the easiest things in the world to find is fault? We can
find fault with our children, our spouses, our relatives, our
pastors, our bosses, our employees and even folks we do not know.
Anybody can find fault to complain. But saints fault finding
without suggesting for improvement is a waste of your time, and
whoever’s time you’re complaining to about something.
A Missouri woman complained that she was married fifteen
years ago by a Justice of the Peace, and since that time she has
had neither justice nor peace. Some people complain because God
put thorns on roses, while others praise God for putting roses
among the thorns. Happiness may turn up in our lives when we
stop complaining about the troubles we have, and offer thanks for
all the troubles we don’t have.
This is a bible verse that we can all memorize and carry it
around in our hearts. We will get the opportunity to practice it
before we leave the church today. I confess that I need a lot of
help with this little verse when one of my kids give me a test
paper that’s a lot closer to an F and than it is an A. I need to
remember it when we vote to do something, and then only a few
people show up to do the work. I need to remember it when I tell
my wife something and she forgets that I told her. Especially
when she is 100% certain I never told her, but I know that I did.
God is telling us to live our lives for Him, without com
plaining about the hardships that come about as a result. You
see when Jesus said come follow me, he did not say it was going
to be easy. It’s not easy living with folks who just constantly
stir up trouble, get on our nerves, or just aggravate to aggra
vate. Then we discover that that’s what others are saying about
us.
As Christians, we must constantly be aware of why we do what
we do. We are called to be single minded in our motivations in
life. There is but one single purpose. It’s found in Colossians
3:17 "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him." Now when we get ready to yell at our children,
according to this verse, there’s a right way to do it and a wrong
way to do it. We must deal with them in the way Christ would be
pleased. There’s a right way and a wrong way to relate to one’s
spouse even in the midst of a disagreement.. Is Jesus happy with
the way we do it.
God hates grumbling and complaining because they destroy
relationships between people. You can send any relationship to an
early grave with a series of little digs, complaints, and put
downs. God has called us into the ministry of building one
another up. That’s not done by complaining and finding faults.
Would others say that you are a builder up of other’s people
faith and character or are you more likely to criticize and tear
them down? In our Black Men Who Excel Series, one of our assignments for a month was, before you can complain about anything to
your wife, you had to make sure that you had complimented her on
three good things. Wouldn’t it be great if we all adopted that
as a model of life. Go ahead and make a critique if you must, be
first say three things good. If we can’t come up with three good
things, let’s remember another bible verse that says, "even a
fool is considered wise when he keeps his mouth shut." We never
grow larger, by tearing others down.
This one short verse, "do everything without complaining or
arguing" could lead us into depths of closeness and fellowship
and love for each other that we have never known. Let’s not
complain about living the life that God has called us to live.
Will we get discouraged, yes we will. Can we share our discour
agement with others? Yes we can. It’s healthy for us to do so.
The intent of this verse is for us to see that there is an atti
tude that we must carry about ourselves as Christians if we are
to shine for Jesus Christ, even when we are not being treated
fairly. In reality, especially when we are being treated unfair
ly.
Our spirits should not be one of complaining and arguing
because that’s not the spirit of Jesus Christ. Our obedience to
Christ ought to be willing and cheerful. Keep in mind, that if
nothing can come into our lives, except that God allows it, our
ultimate complaint is always with God. Yet if we know that God
loves us and is always going to do what’s going to perfect us in
the image of Christ, why complain about the work God is doing.
God will use every experience that comes into our lives if we are
willing to let him.
By not complaining and arguing, we are actually doing our
selves a favor. In the process we are becoming something.
Notice what verse 15 says. Philippians 2:15 "so that you may
become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a
crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in
the universe". When we complain, criticize and argue, we are
kept from becoming what God intended for us to be.
There are several things that God expects us to become as
Christians. To be blameless deals with the outward appearance.
God is saying there should be no outward deed we are doing that
others can readily look at and say "aha. That’s not how a Chris
tian should be behaving." Now if we are going around doing the
same kind of sin that everyone else is involved in, with the
excuse that everybody is doing it, we have defeated the purpose
of becoming a believer in Christ.
Right now, the homosexual lobby has made their lifestyle
the dominant issue in politics. The world is not going to col
lapse because President Clinton is in favor of their lifestyles.
Homosexuality is not a greater sin than adultery or sex outside
of marriage. It’s listed with the sins of lying, adultery,
stealing, and swindlers. The difference is that its the only
group of sinners demanding special acceptance and treatment
because of their sin. There is no adultery group demanding the
acceptance of adultery, or liars demanding the acceptance of
lying or of thieves demanding the acceptance of stealing. Yet
when we speak against these things, we are not call thieve-a
phobics, or adultery-phobics, or liar-phobics. I believe a
homosexual can do as good of a job in the secular arena as any other
sinner can, but the Bible tells me that no sinner who refuses to
repent of his or her sin, regardless of what it is, is going to
have a part in the kingdom of God. Some of us were born more
likely to lie and steal than others, but that will never make it
okay for us to lie and to steal.
The verse here is saying, we should not open ourselves to
attack by having blatant sin in our lives, thereby discrediting
the power of Jesus Christ to give us strength over sin. There
are some sins and temptations that we will struggle with all our
lives. There is no sin in struggling, the sin comes when we yield
in defeat and claim we cannot do anything about it. God is not a
liar. No temptation is greater than what we can bear. But all
the grace in the world is not going to be sufficient once we have
already made up our minds to go ahead and yield to sin.
God is not interested in us shining on the outside, while
inside being a pit of evil that is not apparent to those who do
not know us well. The word pure here describes a person’s inward
character. It is to be unmixed. Our hearts are like water in a
sense. You can have a pure gallon of clean refreshing water, but
if you put a drop of ink in that water, it’s only a matter of
time before the entire gallon of water is tainted by that one
drop. God cares every bit about our inward attitude and motiva
tion as he does our outward appearance and actions.
It’s possible for us to shine like the sun on the outside
and be a hypocrite, doing things for selfish and sometimes even
evil motives. It is impossible for us to shine on the inside for
God, and then be hypocritical on the outside. When our hearts
are submitted to the word and the will of God, our actions will
align themselves with the word of God. The only way our hearts
will submit, is when we allow Jesus to be the one who gives us
the kind of heart that we need.
God’s desire for us is to be blameless on the outside, free
from the judgment of others, and blameless on the inside, free
from the judgment of the word of God. The goal is for us to
become children of God in a crooked and depraved generation. We
do not realize just how anti-Christian the world we live in has
become. The KKK can march anywhere at anytime and say any mes
sage filled with hatred and have police protection. Yet in
Texas, some judge forbid Christians who believe that the taking
of a child’s life in a mother’s womb is wrong, from praying
within four blocks of an abortion clinic. Why is a group of
praying Christians more than a threat to soceity than the KKK.
Harvard, Yale, and several other prestigious colleges have
informed and outstanding Christian prep school by the name of
Westminster that it’s students would have a more difficult time
getting into these colleges unless the school changed its poli
cies. What policy, Westminster is a Christian School and it only
hires Christians to be teachers at the school. Can you imagine
Harvard telling Jewish schools, they must hire Christians or
their students would be denied admission to Harvard.
Our society talks about freedom of choice for everything
under the sun. Soon the Freedom of Choice Act will be up before
Bill Clinton and he has promised to sign it. This law will
prevent any state from passing any law to save the lives of 7, 8,
and 9 month old babies in their mother’s womb. These children
could easily live on their own. How many of us truly believe
that it is God’s will for us to abort nine month old healthy
children in their mother’s wombs, while down the hall we spend
$1000 of dollars trying to save a five or six month old that was
born pre-mature. How many of us truly believe that we are taking
a step in the right direction when we adopt a law that will allow
kids like some of our Angelic Voices to get abortions and never
have their parents know about it. Is that the kind of mental
anguish we think children should carry around inside, all under
the guide of freedom of choice.
The homosexual community never talks about abstinence. Yet
their lifestyle has led to the unprecedented spread of AIDS. It
costs $100,000 to care for an AIDS patient the last two years of
his life. There are between 2 and 10 million people carrying who
are infected with the AIDS virus. That means in 10 years the
medical bill alone will be between 2 and 10 trillion dollars.
Who do you think is going to have to pay that money? We will with
our taxes. Yet the Gay lobby fight every effort to get a massive
testing done to try and find out who is infected so that we can
stop this disease. When people say their sexual lifestyle is
their business, that’s just not the case. Our tax dollars are
going to have to pay for the medical and social consequences. We
are all going to pay for living in this crooked and perverse
generation.
There are many ways to go crooked. If I told you I had a
five foot long straight piece of wood in my closet, draw a pic
ture of it. We would all come up with an almost identical pic
ture. If I told you that I had a five foot long crooked piece of
wood at home, draw a picture of it, we would all come up with
something different. Our measuring standard is Jesus Christ, and
we are to line ourselves up with the word of God. When we do
that, then the next part of this verse will apply to us which
says in the last part of verse 15, "in which you shine like stars
in the universe as you hold out the word of life."
Few scenes are more majestic and make you realize the awe
someness of God more than to go out on a clear night and see the
stars shining brightly in the heavens. The darker the night, the
greater the brilliance. As Christians, we are to shine in the
same way in this dark and depraved society that we are in. The
problem is that too often we do not want to shine as God intend
ed for us. We might offend someone by calling sin, sin or by
living too much of a righteous lifestyle. People don’t want to
be around you when you act too much like Christ, because it
exposes the great darkness in their own lives.
The answer is not to turn down you light so that they feel
more comfortable around you. The answer is to stand firm for
Christ and tell them how they too can come out of the darkness.
We have the words of life. We have the words of truth. Our
society may ridicule us, scorn us, and laugh at us, but we are
the only hope that this world truly has.
As Christians, God calls us not only to be against some
things, but we are to stand for something positive. We are going
to have to be the people willing to love those dying of AIDS
regardless of how they got it, because they are people who Jesus
ð 7 3 Š
loves and for whom Jesus died. They are also the people being
abandoned by their friends and families. It’s up to us to show
people that Jesus loves and Jesus cares. You see shining for
Christ involves both refusing the darkness and turning on the
light.
As Christians, God calls us to love the children of the
addicts who abandon them. He calls us to love children who are
left behind when the parents are sent off to jail. He calls us
to love the children of the teenager who decided to go ahead and
give birth and put the child up for adoption. A call is going
through the land for Christians to open up their homes to needy
and homeless children who get caught up in the social service
system never knowing what it is to be loved by people who care.
Is it going to be easy. NO. Is it loving those who Christ loved.
YES.
We are not going to convince this world that Jesus is the
Son of God, simply by keeping our lives free from sin. We have
got to be pro-active in our outreach ministry to those in our
midst. It was encouraging to have a number of you come forward
last week and say, I’ll make myself available as a tutor if
needed. It shows that there are some ministries we can do,
without having to set up a program. There is a place for pro
grams but there is also a place for one to one interaction.
We want GPC to be known as that church that cares about
being true to the word of God in reaching people where they hurt,
and reaching them with the word of God. Like the apostle Paul
said to the Philippians, we want to be able to boast on the day
of Christ that we did not run or labor for nothing. This church
is going to reach its potential for Jesus Christ and the gates of
Hell shall not prevail against it. How brightly do we want to
shine for Christ.
