Lights In The World - Life Together | Week 5 | Tim Birdwell

That you're not meant to go looking for lights, you're not meant to blend into the darkness, you're not meant to shout at darkness. Our school Listen to me, our schools and government and culture is dark. Stop being shocked by it. What? They're teaching this in my kid's school? Of course they are, it's darkness. Your president did this? Of course, did. It's darkness. This Taylor Swift is thinking about this? Of course, he is. It's darkness. Stop shouting at it. Start shining in it. [00:10:42] (38 seconds)  #ShineInDarkness

This is the purpose of our unity, that we have a dark world. In Matthew five, Jesus says, we are the light of the world. I I don't know if you noticed, that's not a command. That's a statement of fact. That that we live in a a dark world, and the reason we're supposed to be unified is to be a light in this darkness. And that is not up to someone else out there, that's up to the Christian church. We are the light in this dark place. [00:02:14] (31 seconds)  #UnitedToShine

This is the imagery we see often throughout scripture and Paul really highlights it. This is the goal of our unity. This is the goal of our lives, to shine as lights in a dark world. Now, news, you want the bad news? Our world keeps getting darker. Good news, the littlest light will break through darkness and darkness will flee as we shine as lights in a dark, dark world. [00:08:01] (31 seconds)  #SmallLightBigImpact

Grumbling is different than that. Grumbling is taking all these surface level things and all these little things that happen throughout your day and just subtly, under your breath, whispering, gossiping, complaining with no solution in sight, not drawing near to God in that. In fact, you leaving God in that and actually dividing other people and making them leave in your own grumbling. Do you see the difference? And so Paul says, you wanna shine his lights in the world? You wanna work out your salvation with fear and trembling? Hey, just start here. Keep your mouth shut. [00:26:30] (37 seconds)  #SilenceTheGrumble

Listen, we are not called to exit society. One of the things that we have to do on this trip, footsteps of Paul, we got to go see these monasteries, like up in the mountains, beautiful places, all this scripture, all these murals, all these monks who go away, up high, afar. Listen, there's times of spiritual retreats, I'm all about those things, but we are called to be a light in the world. We cannot be lights if we're just all surrounded by light. You're supposed to be a light in the darkness. You're supposed to be in society. [00:11:20] (33 seconds)  #LightInSociety

Work them out. Right? You have salvation. If you placed your faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus died for you, he rose again for you, He has delivered you out of the power of sin and the penalty of sin. That's what salvation means. And so you're saved by grace through faith. That's God's work. Even Paul says it right here. Again, just read the text again with me. It is God who works in you, verse 13, do you see that? Both to will and to work. Right, so he's saying, hey, you have this salvation, it's inside of you. I wanna see it worked so it's seen outside of you. That's salvation that leads to sanctification. [00:14:24] (38 seconds)  #WorkOutYourFaith

A lot of what's happening in our culture, as we look at, there's darkness sexually, financially, politically, there's darkness online, and a lot of Christians are just blending right in. You see a Christian on Facebook talking to somebody else about Donald Trump or Joe Biden or immigration policy and you would not know they're a Christian the way they talk to people. They are not exhibiting the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, self control. And we're just blending in. [00:08:45] (35 seconds)  #DontBlendIn

See, if I didn't have this light, like I would stumble, I might fall off this stage, and it's actually a big fault, and I would hurt myself. So light is beautiful, but it's also essential. Now you light up your flashlights. I know you got your phones. It's that little button at the bottom left. Let me help you. Now, what happens when you not just have one light, but you have a whole room full of lights. It's beautiful, it's helpful. You're like, oh, I see you now. Oh, I know what's going on now. Oh, I can avoid danger now. I know it's true now. I know it's false now. [00:07:06] (46 seconds)  #RoomFullOfLights

But people, even in the church, are like, it should be darker, let's make it dark. What's wrong with you? Why are you so full of light? You must be fake. They're like, no, she just has Jesus. She's not perfect. I'm just telling you, this is so abnormal, this is so counter cultural. If we were just to be you individually, a person who did not grumble, you would change the world. Imagine a whole church like that. [00:30:28] (26 seconds)  #CounterCulturalLight

But oftentimes, here's what we do. We go into a dark world looking for lights. So we go to our government, which is dark, and we're looking for it to be a light, whichever president you voted for. And we're looking for our school system to be a light, whichever, like public, private, homeschool, and you're like, this is gonna be a light, like Montessori. It's gonna fix everything. This Christian school, like, it's gonna bring it all together. And then you look in those places and at some point, maybe it's light for a little while, but at some point, it fails you and now it's dark. [00:10:01] (31 seconds)  #LightsFromUsNotInstitutions

How do we do that? How do we do that? It is a dark world, it's hard, it's hard not to complain. Paul says it, look at verse 16, he says, you hold fast to the word of life. The word of life is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the life of Jesus himself. That word is literally logos. You see it in John chapter one, in the beginning was the word, that's Jesus Christ, his light and his life, you hold fast to this word. You hold fast to the message of Jesus, to Jesus himself. As I read commentaries, they disagreed. Some translations say, hold fast to this word, like cling to it, but some said, hold forth, like present this word of life. [00:31:15] (45 seconds)  #HoldFastTheWord

Everybody does this and our world is dark because of it. You are a Christian, you are a light in the darkness. You don't do this. And if you I mean, just try it this week. Try not to grumble. Some of you are like, I hello, how are you doing? I don't know what to say right now. You're like, something is malfunctioning in my brain. I don't know how to not be like, hey, what's wrong with her shoes? Hey, why why'd y'all pick up this? What what's I saw this on the news. Like, you don't even know what to say if you don't grumble. [00:27:46] (35 seconds)  #TryNotToGrumble

And another way, this is serious and Paul uses this language, is we have other things up against us in this desire to work out our own salvation. We have sin coming at us every single day. It's coming up within us, it's coming at us online, it's coming at us in relationships that no one drifts towards holiness. D. A. Carson, a theologian, said it this way about the need to have grace driven effort to work out our salvation. He said, people do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to scripture, faith and delight in the Lord. [00:16:24] (40 seconds)  #GraceDrivenEffort

Things get distorted. In fact, Paul talks about in our passage today, a crooked and twisted generation. He's talking about darkness, that things get distorted, they don't look like they they seem and and things get hard in the dark, confusing in the dark, people hurt in the dark. How many of you, your parents told you, hey, nothing good happens after midnight? Things get destroyed in the dark like vandalism and adultery often happens in the dark and crime happens in the dark and we know this. [00:06:00] (33 seconds)  #DarknessDistorts

That more and more as a pastor, I get to come alongside couples who need marriage counseling several weeks ago. We invited you guys to ask for counseling. We have great recommended resources, and we got a lot of you guys, and I appreciate that so much, but oftentimes, when we get asked to help as pastors or counselors, it's often they've already decided that they're getting a divorce. And they're committing to the fact that there's gonna be two Christmases from now on for their kids. And some of you, you're like, yeah, that's that's our life and it's it's dark and it's hard. [00:04:53] (33 seconds)  #SaveTheMarriage

We live in a dark world with our our our young generation where everything may look okay or even great on a manufactured, procured Instagram profile, while internally, there is more loneliness, anxiety and depression that is crushing a generation, that's dark. How many of your kids say sometimes that, dad, that's dark. And they're being funny, but it's not funny. There's darkness. [00:04:12] (31 seconds)  #InstagramVsReality

Jesus, why Jesus? Well, he was perfect in every way, had every reason to complain. He came down from a throne and was born in a stable. Do you think that was the same? No. He came from heaven with the trinity. Those were his best friends. God the father, God the holy spirit, perfect in every way. And he got Peter who denied him three times. One time to a servant girl and started cussing. That's his new like hangout trinity. Do you think that was uncomfortable? Do you think he had a reason to to complain? Yes. He hung on a cross for hours in physical pain, but also the cross in the Roman days, it was all about public shame. [00:33:12] (51 seconds)  #JesusEndured

And they'll always they'll talk about that for a little bit, but they never talk about the scriptures, they talk about their experience. I just can't I can't get over that. And they weren't able to persevere because they never built up a strength, because they came This is what happened in COVID, people. COVID revealed that none of us are actually working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. COVID revealed that we have consumer Christianity and we like listening to messages on YouTube and it makes us feel good as long as we get fed. And Paul's calling us higher and God's calling us higher to shine his lights even in the darkest days, even when there's stuff you don't understand, even when your marriage is hard, even when friendships are difficult, that you persevere because you are the light of the world and the only people that can do that are the people that are getting stronger, the people that are locking arms together, like one light, they ain't gonna do it, but a whole room of lights, we can go into the darkness ablaze for the the king, Jesus, is on our side and he's gone before us. [00:21:42] (79 seconds)  #PersevereTogether

Now listen, I'm convicted of this too and I have to study this and be convicted all week. Y'all get like, I've just given this to you for an hour. This is what I'm sifting through in my own heart all week and we're lifting five pound weights and we're expecting to get strong in our faith and it doesn't happen. And here's what often happens, the world is dark and it takes people out. It takes people out. I see it all the time. It's called deconstruction. People see like the hurt in the world, the harm in the world, they struggle with Iran and Israel and Palestine, they struggle with immigration, they struggle with relationships, they struggle with things online, they struggle with their own anxiety and their own brokenness, they struggle with their own relational difficulty and divorce. [00:20:03] (53 seconds)  #DeconstructionWarning

And because they just had some five pound weights, come to church once a month, watch online, eat some waffles, give here a little bit, they never worked out their salvation, so they're they're weak. And anything that happens in politics, in our culture, or Black Lives Matter or whatever the thing of the day is, they leave their church, they leave their family, they would say they leave their faith and almost every person I talk to, because I I'm trying to be a light in the darkness, I talk to these people. Some of them are in my extended family, some of them are my neighbors, you talk to these people. And I always ask them, hey, as you read the scriptures, how did you come to this conclusion? [00:20:57] (46 seconds)  #FaithFitnessNotConsumerism