Let's look back at verse number one where the Bible read,
and as Jesus passed by,
he saw a man which was blind from his birth,
and his disciples asked him, saying,
Master, who did sin, this man or his parents?
That he was born blind.
And Jesus answered,
Neither hath this man sin nor his parents,
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
I must work the works of him that sent me,
while it is day the night cometh when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world,
I am the light of the world.
And the title of this morning's sermon is,
The Light of the World, The Light of the World.
Jesus Christ said while he was on this earth
that he is that light, he is the light of the world.
Now, go back to chapter number one,
let's see some similar language in the Bible,
but what does light do?
If we were to think about light itself
and the properties of light,
well, one way we could look at this
would be the fact that light brings information to ignorance.
Light brings information to ignorance.
If you're unaware of a certain situation,
someone can give you basically the details or the facts
or the truth about that situation,
and it'll bring it to light.
You say, hey, I was uncertain about this,
or I was uncertain how to read the Bible.
I was uncertain how to find where the church is.
And they hand you a card or the address,
and it's like, oh, they shed light on that situation, right?
What does that mean?
You're bringing some kind of information
to a particular area of ignorance for someone, that is light.
Another thing about light is it brings truth to deception.
It brings truth to deception.
So you can actually bring light to a certain situation
or event or circumstance,
and it can bring things to light in the sense
that now you understand what someone said is a lie.
If someone's telling you something
and you start believing it,
but then they bring some kind of a fact,
it can bring that statement to light,
and now you can see the truth
in contrast to the deception, okay?
Other way that it works, light exposes darkness.
It exposes darkness for what it is.
Now, all these are kind of similar.
You can bring some kind of a truth
or some kind of information to a situation,
and it's going to expose what's in the darkness.
Imagine you're in a dark room.
You can't see anything, right?
What does it do when you flip on the switch?
Now all of a sudden it exposes what was in that room.
Now you can see what's going on
in that situation, in that area.
That's what the Bible is saying Jesus Christ is.
Jesus Christ is literally the light of the world.
What does he do?
He brings information to ignorance.
That's the gospel.
Jesus Christ brings salvation.
He brings the gospel in a world that is dark, okay?
Additionally, he is the truth,
and by being the truth, he exposes deception.
He proves deception and lies for what they are,
and he exposes all the things in darkness.
Now we actually understand
why people do the things that they do.
The events that we see happening in this world
actually make sense when you understand the Bible,
when you actually understand who the Lord Jesus Christ is.
Now look at John chapter one, verse eight.
The Bible says this.
He was not that light, speaking of John the Baptist,
but was sent to bear witness of that light.
That was the true light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world.
So the Bible tells us that John the Baptist
had a very specific job, a very specific role.
He was to bear witness of the light.
Now what is that light?
That light is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now go view it to Matthew chapter number five.
We're understanding that the Lord Jesus Christ said,
as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
But here's the thing.
Jesus Christ died on the cross, he was buried,
he rose again, he showed himself
and his disciples for 40 days,
but then he ascended back up into heaven.
So here's my question.
Did something change about the light of the world?
Yes, and even that statement seems to indicate
there would be a time in which he's not really
the light of the world, but the light of the world.
Not really the light of the world in the sense
that he was basically portraying that context.
So obviously Jesus Christ is the light of the world period,
at all points in time.
But while he's on the earth, he's talking about
exposing that light to different people.
Jesus Christ is not going to just reveal himself
to people here on this earth today though.
He's not gonna walk around, you know some people say,
oh Jesus Christ visited me in the night.
And I'm like, no he didn't.
I saw Jesus on TV.
No you didn't.
I saw Jesus in a painting.
No you didn't.
The Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven, okay,
and he is the light of the world,
but something has shifted since then.
Look at Matthew chapter number five,
and look at verse number 14.
This is Jesus preaching.
He says unto the disciples, ye are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,
neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all
that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
So Jesus Christ said that he was that light of the world,
but then he also looked at his disciples.
He looked at those who he was teaching and training,
and he said, you are the light of the world.
Now if you are a light, what's the purpose of light?
It's to bring information to ignorance, isn't it?
It's to have the truth expose the lie,
and just expose darkness in general,
and we don't wanna hide that light,
because then people will be in darkness today.
Now go to 2 Corinthians chapter number four,
2 Corinthians chapter four.
I have three points this morning
of how we can be that light of the world.
What does it mean to be the light of the world?
Well, there's nothing special about us
from a physical perspective.
There's nothing special about my flesh,
or who I am, or who my parents were.
You know, there's nothing unique about that.
We're all of one blood, the Bible teaches.
So it's not like there's a special race.
There's not a special country.
There's not a special language.
Tell that to the ruck of the knife.
There's not anything that's just,
well, we have something from a carnal perspective.
We have the keys to the truth.
No, there's spiritual keys to the truth though, okay?
And that's what makes us special.
The thing that makes God's people special is God's word.
The thing that makes God's people special is salvation.
The thing that makes God's people special
is that they have the Holy Ghost inside of them.
It has nothing to do with our physical flesh.
It doesn't matter how tall you are.
It doesn't matter your hair color.
It doesn't matter any of those things.
That's not what's important.
What's important is if you have Christ in you.
That's what matters.
Now, if we're gonna be the light of the world,
the number one way that we can do this
is by preaching the gospel,
is by going out and telling people how they can be saved,
by making it manifest unto them,
and declaring unto them what the Bible says about salvation.
Not what I think.
Not what you think.
Not what other people think.
No, what does the Bible just say plainly about the gospel?
Now, look at 2nd Corinthians chapter four, verse number one.
It says, therefore, seeing we have this ministry,
as we have received mercy, we faint not.
But I have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness,
nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience
in the sight of God.
Now, I love this verse.
We slow down for a moment.
He says, we're not gonna handle the word of God deceitfully.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of churches today.
There's a lot of pastors today.
There's a lot of preachers today.
They handle the word of God deceitfully.
They take verses out of context.
They don't explain them in the context
in which they're written.
They're not making it manifest how to be saved.
And they just pick out, cherry pick certain stories
and things to fit their agenda.
But the Bible is something that is true.
It's, and we wanna make it manifest.
Notice the manifestation of the truth.
What do we wanna do?
That's bringing light.
That's, what does manifest make something obvious?
Sometimes you can't really see,
but when you flip on the light,
now all of a sudden it's manifest.
Now it's clear, it's evident.
That's what we wanna do,
is we wanna bring that light
through preaching the gospel.
It says in verse three,
but if our gospel be hid,
it is hid to them that are lost.
So notice, if we don't preach the gospel,
how is anybody gonna hear it?
You know what I never find?
I never just run into somebody,
that's never heard of Jesus Christ,
or never heard of the Bible,
and they have the right answer on salvation.
You know, I've never heard of a good way to get to heaven,
outside of what the Bible just plainly states.
I've talked to a lot of people.
I know a lot of people in this room
have talked to a lot of people.
You know what, none of the things that they say make sense.
I'll lie rescue cats, you know.
How do you know if you're a guy today, you go to heaven?
Why rescue cats?
It's like, well, I'm glad you have a heart for the,
you know, the beast of the earth,
but, you know, that's not gonna get you to heaven.
Oh, I'm a good person.
Oh, I go to church.
Oh, I've been baptized.
Oh, I do these things,
but that's not a manifestation of the truth.
And notice what it had said in verse number one.
Therefore seeing we have this ministry
as we have received mercy.
Now, how much do you have to do to receive something?
Nothing, you just receive it.
Notice he didn't say, well, I gave my life to Christ,
and so I'm in this ministry.
No, they received mercy.
We receive salvation.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
If we don't preach the gospel,
how is anybody gonna hear it?
Let's just be frank, okay?
Are they gonna hear it on the TV today?
Are they gonna read it in the newspaper?
Is the school district gonna teach the gospel?
Is the library?
Is Hollywood?
Is MTV?
Is BET?
I don't care what it is, it doesn't matter.
Is Telemundo, are you gonna find Telemundo
and get the gospel?
I'm afraid you're not.
I know you're not.
The Bible tells us you're not.
We are that light of the world,
and if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
Now, it's not hid to us, because we're saved.
But you know what, we shouldn't be selfish with the gospel.
We shouldn't be selfish with the light.
We need to share that with other people.
You say, why, Pastor Shelley, verse four,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not,
lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So notice the devil, his agenda,
he has one agenda, to hide the gospel light.
He wants to get people to not believe in it.
Now, how do you convince people not to come to the light?
Here's what he usually does, a fake light,
a fake gospel, a false gospel.
He gets people close enough to what seems like light
to trick them into thinking that they have light.
Look, when I go out and preach the gospel
in America today, 90% of the people that I talk to
say that they're saved and going to heaven.
I mean, if you go to other countries, it's different.
Not everybody thinks they're on their way to heaven.
A lot of people don't.
But in America specifically,
I mean, virtually every single person,
I mean, it's very rare you find someone that says
they're not going to heaven.
Now that's, if you already think you're in the light,
why would you need to turn the flight switch on?
Why do you need light?
Well, they don't.
And so there's a problem
because the devil wants to blind people.
Now, if you think that there's light, but there's not,
isn't that kind of a blinding effect?
There's some kind of a blindness over you?
The devil wants to blind people.
He wants to blind them with the cares of this world.
He wants to blind them with false religion,
a Cain type religion,
where they think their works is going to save them,
where they think the things that they do
is going to save them.
He wants to trick people
and he wants to use the word of God deceitfully.
You know, when the devil tempted Jesus Christ,
he only ever used the Bible and just twisted it.
He didn't come to him and say like,
hey, you want some LSD?
Hey, Jesus, you want some booze?
Hey, Jesus, you want, what did he do?
He used the Bible, but then he corrupted it.
And then today, if you ever preach against anybody,
you preach against any church, any religion, any pastor,
people will freak out.
They'll be like, whoa, why are you attacking
these godly Christian people?
But here's the thing.
The big fight is between true religion and false religion,
between the true light and the false light.
And a lot of people that we get saved,
they go to every kind of church.
You know, it's funny,
it seemed like when I was going soloing with brother Ryan,
he kept getting people saved from Grace Baptist Church.
And you would think like that's a pretty good sounding name.
Grace, I mean, is Baptist,
but a lot of people there just weren't saved.
They just, no one had just sat down
and just opened up the light book
and just said, here's how you can be saved.
And it's just sad today.
Most Christians go their whole life
without even trying to show someone how to be saved.
Not even try, I'm not saying they don't get people,
not that they don't get people saved,
they don't even try to get people saved.
And look, if you try, it's pretty easy actually,
because the light has power.
The light is attractive and people want to be saved today.
But we need people to go out and preach the gospel.
Look at verse five.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord
and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
Now, how many times have you heard in a church service,
let me give you my testimony of salvation.
Well, you know, I gave up drugs
and I was going down a dark path.
And then I was hanging out with the wrong people
and I killed 20 people and I was like, whoa, you know.
This is, don't confess that to me right now.
I'm now a witness.
Do I need to call anybody on this one?
You know, they're talking about
all this wicked stuff they did.
Look, I'm not preaching myself when I go out.
I'm preaching Christ Jesus.
I'm preaching his sacrifice.
I'm preaching his gift.
I'm preaching his love.
I'm preaching what he did, nothing that I did.
All I did was receive it.
All I did was flip on the switch
and I want everyone else to flip on the switch too.
And notice it says in verse number six,
for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
hath shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
So God commands that he wants the light
to shine in the darkness.
Now, you know what makes light appear very bright?
When it's surrounded by darkness.
You know, if it's surrounded by other light,
it kind of blends in or it's not as noticeable,
but out of darkness, light has a huge impact.
And so God allows the world to be a dark place
so that the light of the gospel can shine so bright.
So we can see the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know, our world's getting darker by the moment.
It seems like it's getting worse.
It's waxing worse.
The Bible says we know that we are of God,
but the whole world lieth in wickedness.
But you know what that gives us an opportunity to do?
To shine even brighter with the gospel.
You know, when you go out and you preach to people today,
I think it should be a time to be more receptive,
people can be more receptive today
because the fact is all the other junk out there is so dark.
It's not even close to the truth anymore.
There's so many people falling away from the truth.
There's so many fakes and substitutes
that just aren't even close to the truth anymore
that when we shine that glorious light of the gospel,
it should attract many people and get them safe.
It's the only thing that makes sense.
How could a work salvation make sense?
How many works do you have to do?
Wouldn't that be an important question?
I mean, the Bible says it's light.
And he says, this is how you get saved.
Okay, show me how many works I have to have then.
Show me that verse.
Oh wait, it doesn't exist, does it?
Show me which ones too.
Because some people will say,
well, you could lie and still go to heaven,
but you can't commit murder.
Where's that list of where all the defining sins are
that I could lose my salvation or I couldn't?
Or which ones are practicing sin?
Or how often is practicing sin?
Or which ones do I have to turn away from?
Which ones do I have to be willing to turn away from?
And which ones do I have to actually turn away from?
It's like, this is confusing.
You know why that's confusing?
Because the person preaching is not saved.
There, I said it.
Because if you have the light, you're not gonna,
if there's a light switch on the wall
and you know where the light switch is,
you're not gonna be like.
No, I know where the light is.
Wait.
No, you're just gonna be like, hey, light switch.
That's why it's confusing because they're not saved.
Now, I'm not saying that they're eternally damned,
but they're not saved.
If you don't know where the light switch is,
it's because you don't believe the gospel.
And so we need to go out
and we need to flip the switch for people.
And you know who gets all the glory?
Jesus Christ.
You're not that impressed, okay?
If I go and I just, and the light comes on,
you know what's impressive?
Like all the conduit work and the electrical wiring
and the fact that fluorescent light bulbs light up.
That's really what's impressive, okay?
Me flipping the switch is not that impressive.
Me going out and telling you all the great things
Jesus did for you, that's impressive.
Me being able to just repeat what the Bible says
isn't that impressive, okay?
It's not that hard because it's that manifest,
the problem is most people are not doing it.
And let me tell you, let me give you a good reason to do it.
Go to Ephesians chapter two.
Ephesians chapter number two, if you would for a moment.
We are the light of the world,
but if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
You say, well, I don't, you know,
I don't wanna go out and preach the gospel.
Well, if we all have that attitude,
no one will get saved again.
No one.
Jesus Christ is in heaven.
He's not gonna go around preaching the gospel right now.
He wants you to go out and preach the gospel.
He's made us ambassadors of Christ.
You say, hey, what's your purpose on this earth,
Pastor Shelley?
It's to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's to be a light unto all the world.
That is my goal, that is my mission.
That should be the goal of every Christian today.
But you know what?
People aren't preaching that from the housetops.
You know why?
Typically, because the pastor's not even saved.
So how's he gonna get up and start screaming,
you need to be, you need to work to get to heaven.
And then people are like, how many works?
You know, you can't get up and thunder for something
you're not even sure of.
You know what, whenever you know what light looks like,
you can get a spotlight and you can go out
and you can shine that thing bright.
You can light up the sky.
You're not afraid to use the light.
But this world today, they don't have any light.
They have none.
Look at verse 11.
Wherefore remember that ye being in times past
Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands,
that at that time ye were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world
but now in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
The Bible says those without Christ,
notice an attribute that they have,
having no hope, no hope.
You know, I thought, I was thinking about this phrase
a lot this week, having no hope.
If I was not saved and I wasn't going to this church,
that is a perfect description, no hope.
If I was to think about this world
and the state that we're in today
where I have to pick between Donald Trump
and Joe Biden, you know what I think of?
No hope, no hope for America.
When I look at the democracy that we have in this country,
when I look at how the majority of people feel today,
when I look at what's going on in our government
with all the pedophilia, with all the abortion,
you know, I look at the world and I say, just no hope.
When I look at all the corporations
and all the businesses bowing down
and just doing whatever the government wants,
not taking a stand, nobody cares about the truth.
You know, if I didn't have church,
if I didn't have the gospel,
I could see sitting at home and just feeling hopeless,
feeling like there's just complete despair.
Imagine this, there's a lot of people
that even lost their job recently.
There's people they've lost a spouse,
whether that be through death or divorce
or some kind of separation.
I mean, there's people out there today,
they have no job, their spouse has left them.
They're looking at the government like,
I don't know what's going on there, right?
What hope do they have?
They have no hope.
You know what, we as God's people,
we have hope every moment of our lives.
We know that when we die, it's gonna be better.
You know, I've heard people say this,
you can't threaten me with heaven.
And you know, that's a pretty decent attitude at least.
They're just thinking, you know what,
I'm not afraid of death
because I know that it'll end up being better anyways.
Now that doesn't mean that we desire death.
It doesn't mean that we don't have a desire
to be with our families and to raise our children
and to serve God and to share that light
and get people saved.
But what it is, we have hope at the end of the tunnel.
We know where we're headed no matter what.
I know what that hope can carry us through despair.
That hope can carry us
through the difficulties of life today.
But this world has no hope.
I mean, I can't look at any Republican or Democrat
and think like, well, our country will be great then.
This is what the philosophy of most people is.
Well, at least it won't be as that bad, right?
Like they think, well, if the Republicans get nominated,
then it won't be as bad, right?
It won't be as horrible.
But they still have no hope because they say this,
well, then all the Democrats are gonna keep rioting, right?
They say, hey, if Trump gets elected,
then the Democrats are gonna keep rioting
and there's still gonna be conflict
and there's gonna be all this division in our country
and we're gonna still have all these censorship online
and all these problems.
And they say, well, if the Democrats get elected,
then basically just the Earth's gonna open up a hole
straight to hell, you know, I don't know,
a vortex in there with all the abortion
and all the sodomite agenda, which is both parties.
But just everything that the Democrats stand for,
communism, socialism, they're gonna hike up taxes,
they're gonna just allow the foreign countries
to come in and just rip us off.
I mean, you look at that, you're like, no hope.
There is no hope.
If you think that getting the right politician in office
will save you, you have false hope.
And I understand that people make comparisons
and say this guy seems way worse than the other.
And I get that.
But at the end of the day, they're both bad.
That doesn't change the fact they're both bad option.
It doesn't change the fact that there's really no hope
in that institution.
That's not the institution that we should look to.
We should look to the local church.
Go to 1 Timothy chapter number three.
1 Timothy chapter number three.
Not only that, just social interactions in general.
People today, especially with all the COVID
and all the restrictions and all the social distancing
and everything like that,
it's really disrupted people's social interactions.
You know, they don't feel like they can go out
and talk to people and commune with people
as much as normal.
There's a lot of boundaries being put in place
by our local, state, and federal ordinances.
And really, those social interactions
make a big difference in your emotional state.
Hey, don't sit in the back.
If you wanna come sit up here,
don't sit down in the back, please.
But according to the Bible,
the one place that we can feel like everything's normal,
the one time that we can actually feel
like things make sense.
You know where that is?
It's church.
It's the one institution that's run correctly.
Now, obviously, some churches can do it poorly,
but if done what the Bible says,
the church can actually be a good institution.
Other institutions, they,
I'm not gonna go work in the workforce
and feel like it's done right.
Okay, done according to God's word
and have all the right authority structures
and have the right type of rules.
I mean, I like being in the church.
And look what the Bible says
in 1 Timothy chapter three verse 15.
But if I tarry long,
if thou mayest know how the oddest to behave thyself
in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.
So notice the church is the pillar of the truth.
Where else are you gonna get truth today?
Nowhere.
No one is gonna open up the Bible and teach you the Bible.
Church is your option for that.
It's not any other institution.
It's not any other medium.
It is the church,
and it's supposed to be a place where you hear truth.
You know what makes me more upset than anything?
Is when people preach lies at God's house.
Because this is the one place,
this is the one place you're supposed to be able to come
and just kind of let your guard down
and just receive truth in.
And when people get up
and start preaching lies behind the pulpit,
that's so frustrating.
That makes me so angry.
It gives me so much fury
when I think about someone coming up here
and preaching lies because you know what?
Some people believe everything that the preacher says.
Some people feel like they can just trust,
well, that guy's a man of God.
That guy's a pastor.
That guy's a teacher.
So therefore, if he says something, it must be true.
Well, unfortunately, majority of preaching is not true.
And the only thing that's true is this Bible.
But if you get an opportunity to preach the Bible,
you say, what's the most important thing, Pastor Shelley,
that what you're saying is biblical,
that what you're saying is the truth.
I don't care.
You could be stuttering and stammering.
And I don't care if you have a weird,
you're like, you know,
I don't care what you're doing up here.
I don't care if you look funny.
I don't care.
Obviously, all those things matter to some degree.
But at the end of the day,
if I can boil it down and say,
well, what he's saying is right.
I don't care.
I don't care if you have a hick accent.
I don't care if you have a New York accident.
I don't care what it is.
I don't care if it's British or Australian.
I don't care what skin color, how tall.
I don't care about those things.
Just tell me the truth today.
Because I'm just so sick and tired of being out there
and it's just lies.
And let me tell you something.
The media is lies.
You say, well, that's the Democratic media.
No, the Republican media lies too.
They both lie.
They all lie.
It's just constant lie after lie after lie after lie.
Why do I want to go and subject myself to lies?
You know, the TV's full of lies today.
The newspaper's full of lies today.
Music is full of lies today.
The world's full of lies today.
And the only place that I can feel normal is church.
If I didn't have church, I'd be going insane right now.
I'm close and I still have church, okay.
With the things that are going on,
it makes me so angry throughout the week.
But I have church to kind of hit that reset button.
But let me tell you this, Christian.
The people that don't have church, they don't have that.
Have you thought about that this week?
Have you thought about, there's people out there,
they didn't get to have a normal hour this week.
They didn't get to have a time
where they get to be around normal people that think godly,
that don't think that a woman can use the men's restroom
and a man could use the woman's restroom.
They think that men should compete in men's sports
and women should compete in women's sports.
They think that women are the only ones that can give birth.
You know, I mean, look, the world is sick today.
The world is crazy today.
The things that they're doing,
the things that they wear, the things that they say,
the music that they play.
I mean, music was pretty ungodly whenever I was a kid,
but today it's so bad and it doesn't even sound good.
Like at least our music sounded good, you know,
whenever we're talking about drinking
and whatever, fornication.
They're talking about drinking fornication
and it sounds bad too.
You're like, I don't know why
anybody's listening to this trash, but it's super popular.
This is the one place that we get a sense of normalcy.
And you know what?
We need to elevate church.
We need to go to church.
Go to Revelation chapter one.
Let me give you another proof text that we're the light.
Not as only preaching the gospel, point one,
but point two, we need to go to church.
If we're gonna be the light of the world,
we have to go to church.
If we stop going to church and church ceases to exist,
there's no light.
We need that church.
We need that institution because the Bible says,
how should they preach except they be sent?
We need a church to send people out to preach the gospel.
Let me tell you this.
I've never, never had anybody knock on my door
to preach me the gospel, okay?
Except for like a Mormon, okay?
I wish I did.
But then even from that, even if you're gonna find people
that had someone knock on their door,
how many of those people are doing it on a whim?
I guarantee they're sent by the church.
Without the church, who is gonna preach the gospel?
It's not gonna happen.
We can't forsake church
because then we're gonna forsake the soul winning.
Then we're gonna forsake going out
and preaching the gospel.
We need the lighthouse.
We need God's house to be that light.
Now, Revelation chapter one, Jesus Christ tells us
that the church is a light.
Look what he says in verse 20.
The mystery of the seven stars
that thou sawest in my right hand, this is Jesus speaking,
and the seven golden candlesticks,
the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest,
are the seven churches.
So what's that candlestick supposed to do?
It's supposed to hold up the candle.
And what's on that candle?
It's the light.
It's supposed to lift up the light.
Now, what did the Bible say?
The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth.
What's a pillar do?
It holds something up.
So that candlestick is holding up that gospel light.
Without the church,
the gospel light has nothing to stand on.
It has nothing to lift it up.
It has nothing to elevate it so that it can shine bright
and it can shine to more people.
If I have a light and I have it hidden under the pulpit,
it's not gonna benefit you.
But if I take it out
and I put it on a big candlestick up here,
now it can benefit everyone in the whole room.
This is what church does to the gospel.
You say, well, with my little light of mine,
I can go out and preach the gospel.
Yeah, you can.
But you know what?
When we come to church,
we can put it on a big candlestick
and it can shine bright to the whole world.
That's why we need church today.
And we have to understand this difference
between public and private spirituality.
Jesus Christ preaches in Matthew chapter number six,
not to pray to be seen of men, okay?
He tells people not to give their alms before men,
giving money to people.
You're not supposed to fast.
But if we think about private spirituality,
what is private spirituality?
It's something in which could be connected to you, right?
Me praying could give glory and honor to me.
That's why people like to brag about their praying.
They like to get up and go on Facebook
and post all these pictures of them praying
in front of their building
and praying in front of everybody
and praying the prayer breakfast
and having these big shows of all their praying.
Why?
Because they want to look spiritual.
They wanna get credit for the work that they're doing.
Or they give money
and instead of giving money to help somebody,
they wanna give money
so that you'll think they're a good person.
It's still about them.
Or fasting, which would be a private thing.
They would wanna make it clear like,
just day one of a big fast.
It's really rough so far.
I've skipped breakfast, okay?
It's rough.
I mean, I wish you, you know, pray for me.
Pray for me that I'll keep on being steadfast in the faith
and being so spiritual today
because I'm just, you know, I was skipping so many meals.
I usually have three in the morning.
Limited myself to some raisins.
But you know, Jesus did those things, didn't he?
Jesus prayed.
Jesus fasted.
But you know, he didn't go around bragging about it.
And in fact, when he prayed a lot of times,
he went by himself into the wilderness.
He went up into a mountain by himself, he prayed.
Even at night with his disciples,
he went off by himself and he was praying
because the point of the prayer
was not for anybody to notice.
The point was for him to commune with God.
The point for him was to serve God.
But there are, the thing you have to understand though,
is while there are certain aspects of the Christian life
that should be not done in public,
the majority of your Christian life
should be done in public though.
Think about this.
Did Jesus Christ have a private ministry?
It seems like it was pretty public.
It seems like a lot of people heard about it.
Like everyone.
Everyone knew about him, knew about what he was doing.
They're constantly seeing him serve
and constantly doing things.
But whenever you're in the church,
whenever you're going to church and serving the church,
who's getting the glory for that?
It's not about a person.
It's about God.
We're giving the honor and glory to God.
So our public ministries
should be that of giving glory to God.
And we need to do that.
We need to let our light shine
so that they can see our good works and glorify our Father,
which is in heaven is what the Bible says.
So we want church to be public today.
We want our going out and preaching the gospel
to be public today.
Why?
Because we're not preaching ourselves.
We're preaching Jesus Christ.
Because we're not coming here to worship a person.
We're worshiping Jesus Christ.
We're worshiping God.
We're worshiping the Word.
That's who we're here for.
And you know what?
You should not go to church for a person.
Some people today, you know they go to church for?
The guy standing behind the pulpit.
The pastor.
And they say, well, I'm only going to church
if the pastor's going to church.
You have a bad attitude.
You have the wrong philosophy.
The reason why we go to church
is for the Lord Jesus Christ period.
That's why it gets me angry when someone decides,
well, I don't wanna go to church.
What reason could you have
if you're supposed to go for Jesus?
What's more important than Jesus?
Tell me.
Pray tell me.
Well, I don't wanna go to church
because the pastor's not gonna be there.
What's not about the pastor?
It's about God.
It's about the truth.
It's about the Word of God.
It's about serving Jesus Christ today.
It's about lifting up that light of the gospel today.
And you know what?
You are the light of the world.
So when you don't go to church,
you know what?
You're hiding your light under a bushel.
It's not about going there to worship a man.
Steadfast Baptist Church is not about Pastor Shelley.
It's about the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what?
It's not about any other man
that gets up and preaches a sermon.
You say, well, I don't like that guy's preaching
or I don't like brother so-and-so.
You know what?
You go to church.
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night
for Jesus, not for man.
Not to be seen of men,
not for anything that has to do with this flesh
for one reason, for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't go to church for a person.
And you know what?
I love going to church because it helps me feel normal
and I love being around God's people.
I get to see what it's like.
Go to 1 Corinthians 14.
Let me give you another verse on this.
Point number one,
how are we gonna show the light of the world
by preaching the gospel?
Point number two, by going to church.
And look at the benefit of this.
Here's a benefit of church and shining our light bright.
It says in verse 23, 1 Corinthians 14, verse 23,
if therefore the whole church
be come together in one place and all speak with tongues
and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers,
will they not say that you're mad?
So if I get up and I start preaching
in a foreign language this morning
and then let's say I started preaching Spanish
and then after the service y'all are speaking Russian, okay?
Or Chinese or Tagalog or some other language
and someone comes in there like these people are insane.
Like what's the point?
Like nobody even knows what anybody else is saying.
This doesn't even make sense.
So that's what the Apostle Paul's rebuking in this chapter.
He's rebuking the idea of coming to church
and hearing the Bible in a foreign language.
I don't know, like going to a Rachmanite church
in a foreign country where they don't speak English
and the service is in English.
This literally rebukes that stupid doctrine.
Look, you should go to church
and hear the Bible in your language.
Now you could live in a country
where there's multiple languages.
We live in a country where a lot of people speak Spanish
and you know what?
I think it'd be great to have some Spanish services
but the point would be to reach people that speak Spanish.
That's the point.
It wouldn't be to show off how well we can speak Spanish.
I can't speak it that great.
Soy gringo, okay?
I just try, okay?
I can preach it just enough to get someone saying
and to me that was the most important thing
I could learn how to say.
Not donde esta la biblioteca, where's the library?
I don't even know that necessarily
because I already got a Bible
so I don't need any other books right now.
But look at the next few verses.
It says in verse 24, but if all prophesy
and there come in one that believeth not or one unlearned,
he is convinced of all, he is judged of all
and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest
and so falling down on his face,
he will worship God and report
that God is in you of a truth.
So notice what happens.
It says instead of preaching a foreign language
or talking in a foreign language,
why don't you just preach in the gospel?
Why don't you just, if someone comes in, say hey,
what do you think you have to do to go to heaven?
And that person says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You're like, amen, brother.
And if they say, be a good person,
go to the Catholic church, get baptized,
you say, well, can I show you what the Bible says?
And then you can manifest the truth in their life
and they can fall down and worship God
because notice it didn't say,
well, if the pastor preaches in the gospel,
it says if anybody in the room preaches in the gospel.
Notice we should all be able to preach the gospel.
We should be a congregation of saved believers today.
You know what, the church is for the saved.
And if an unsaved person stumbles in,
everyone in the congregation should be able
to share the light of the gospel with them,
should be able to preach the gospel to them
and get them saved.
And notice who they give the glory to, they worship God.
Notice they didn't say, oh, this person's so great.
Did it matter who the person was?
How much recognition did the person get?
None.
It was all about worshiping God.
That's the one thing that we need to shine the light of
is God.
It's not about a person, it's not a personality,
it's not about us, it's about the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him being the light of the world.
Verse 26, it says, how is it then, brethren,
when you come together, every one of you at the psalm,
at the doctrine, at the tongue, at the revelation,
at the interpretation, let all things be done unedifying.
He's saying, how come you all speak different things
and say different things and have all these unique things?
I mean, how much sense would it make
if I said everybody turn in the hymnal
to your favorite song and let's sing?
I'm singing To God Be the Glory.
Somebody in here singing Jesus,
the kids are singing Jesus Loves Me.
It's gonna be chaos.
We wanna sing the same song.
What if we all had a different Bible
and I start reading the verses?
You're gonna be like, well, my version
says something different.
I have the message and it doesn't even make sense.
It says the slimy juice of the marshmallow, okay?
I don't even know what that is.
I didn't even know marshmallows had juice.
How does that even work?
Okay.
It's bizarre today.
Now, go if you went to Psalms 22, Psalms chapter 22.
We need unity and when we have unity
and rally around the gospel, okay,
that is what's gonna make the difference.
That's what's gonna get people saved.
We can't have our own doctrines.
We can't have our own songs.
We can't have our own chaotic service going on.
We need to be in unity.
That's what church is.
It's a time to unify, to rally together.
And you know what?
I feel in unity with this group when I come here.
I don't feel in unity when I go to Walmart.
I don't feel in unity when I go to some government building,
to the DMV, you know?
What is the unifying factor here?
Because honestly, when I go to Walmart, it looks like this.
It doesn't look any different per se.
I mean, we're dressed a little bit more godly,
but I'm just saying like from a demographic perspective,
it's not any different.
What's the unifying factor?
We all believe in Jesus.
We all love the Bible.
We love the word of God, and that's what unifies us.
And when we're unified, we can all come together
to form that pillar and to shine the glorious light
of the gospel.
If everyone in here is interested in self-promotion,
well, I have a doctrine.
Let me tell you my doctrine and my psalm.
I'm gonna sing my song this morning, not yours.
You know, I don't care what the song leader says.
I don't care what the Bible, I'm gonna read my version.
That's a prideful, arrogant, haughty attitude,
and we're not gonna have unity,
and we're not gonna be able to do things for God.
We need to go to church, and look,
if you don't have church,
you're not gonna have that unity.
If we all just stay home every single week,
you think we're all gonna believe the exact same things,
really, and have the same unity that we have
when we actually come together, and we rally together,
and we sing the same songs, and we read the same scriptures,
and we have somebody that knows the Bible,
actually get up and preach us the Bible,
and teach us the Bible, and make it manifest,
and we're encouraging people to memorize the same chapters,
and read the Bible, the same Bible.
That's what's gonna actually give us unity.
If we all just divide and just go to our own homes,
we're gonna have a lot of chaos.
The light is not gonna be able to shine as bright.
We need to come into the congregation.
That is what is going to give the light of the world.
Psalms chapter 22, look at verse 22,
and this is a psalm about the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
It says in verse 22,
"'I will declare thy name unto my brethren
"'in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.'"
Notice what Jesus Christ says.
He says he's gonna praise Jesus in the congregation.
We must have church.
We must have the congregation,
and notice who he's praising it to, the brethren.
Not about the unsaved.
Some people try to make church
all about getting someone saved, but here's the thing.
The unsaved are not gonna just flop to the church.
The unsaved are out there.
We wanna come together and rally together,
and we wanna sing Jesus' name to our brethren,
and encourage our brethren to then go out
into the world and preach the gospel.
There's a lot of people that need the gospel today,
so what's the point of church?
To praise Jesus' name to your brethren.
For you to sing the name of your savior
in your brethren's ears to hear you singing Jesus Christ.
That sheds light.
You wanna be light unto your brethren
and preaching the gospel to your brethren by singing it,
and by rejoicing, and by reading the scriptures
unto your brethren, and you know what that does?
It emboldens them to be that light too.
Encourages and motivates them.
Verse 25, "'My praise shall be of thee
"'in the great congregation.
"'I will pay my vows before them that fear him.'"
Notice we wanna have a group of people that fear God,
and we wanna pay our vows.
We wanna go to church.
We wanna preach and sing the word of God together
as a group, and this is gonna help motivate us
to be that light of the world.
Go to chapter 40 for a moment.
Go to chapter 40, Psalms chapter number 40,
and look at verse number seven.
Just flip a few pages.
Verse number seven,
"'Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book.
"'It is written of me,' this is Jesus Christ,
"'I delight in you thy will, O my God.
"'Yea, thy law is within my heart.
"'I have preached righteousness in the great congregation.
"'Lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest.'"
I love this verse.
Notice what he said.
"'I have not refrained my lips.'"
Where's the one place that you should be able
to not refrain your lips from the truth?
It's church.
You know, the Bible teaches us
that we're not supposed to cast our pearls before swine.
You know, when we go out into the world,
I'm not gonna sit there and preach every verse in the Bible
to the swine, okay?
You say, what's a swine?
Just people that reject the gospel,
that they don't love God.
There's people that literally hate Jesus
and hate the Bible and hate the gospel.
I'm not gonna go around.
Have you read Psalms 14 lately?
Now, again, obviously, I'm not trying to say
that we should not shy away from preaching the word of God,
but we have to use discretion,
and there's time to refrain your lips.
Jesus Christ didn't make everything manifest
when he went out preaching.
He preached in parables.
Whenever he's being questioned by Pilate and even Herod,
he refrained his lips many times.
But you notice the one place
that the preacher should not refrain his lips
is the pulpit of God's word.
He should get up and thunder the Bible.
Where can I get up and scream about the Bible today?
Here, it's the one place.
You know, people on Sunday,
they love to go and scream and yell
about their football team.
They love to scream and yell their music.
They love to scream and yell all the worldly things.
Well, why can't God's people get up
and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Why can't they scream the light of the gospel?
Why can't they sing the light of the gospel today?
We should be the loudest voices in the world
because we preach the only thing that matters.
And notice where Jesus Christ didn't refrain his lips.
He didn't think, well, this is true,
but I'm gonna hold back.
Nope, he just preached the truth.
He just said the Bible.
Where? In the congregation.
In amongst God's people.
That's why we love hard preaching in this church.
You say, what's hard preaching?
It's not withholding truth.
It doesn't matter if it's a whisper.
It doesn't matter if it's a scream.
It's not the volume that matters.
It's the truth that's being disseminated.
And we need people today to get up
and disseminate the truth
and not refrain their lips behind God's pulpit.
You know, if we had a bunch of people getting up
and preaching the word of God from pulpits
in America today, it would make a difference.
You wanna make a difference today?
Go to a church where a pastor's not afraid
to preach the Bible.
That'll make a difference in this country.
But people, they wanna line up
and they wanna go to a church
where they'll never be reproached by the Bible.
They'll have a man that's gonna stand there
and refrain his lips constantly from the word of God.
That's not gonna change America.
Voting for Donald Trump's not gonna change America.
Why don't you go to a good church?
Why don't you go to a church
where they're gonna preach you the word of God?
Now, go to Psalms 149,
last place I'll have you turn for this last point,
or this second point, but.
Then I have one more quick point that I wanna make.
Psalms 149.
And look at verse number one.
Now, we actually put this to music,
but look at the lyrics.
Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song,
and his praise in the congregation of saints.
So much doctrine packed into that verse.
Where are we gonna sing in the congregation?
The congregation of who?
Of the saints.
Who's the saints?
The believers, those that are saved.
Notice where I'm gonna sing with all my force,
with all of my might, and you know what?
If someone that's not saved comes in,
they're gonna be judged of all,
they're gonna be convinced of all,
and they're gonna report that God is in you of a truth,
is what the Bible says.
Now, go if you would to 1 Peter chapter three.
This is my last point I wanna make this morning.
If we're gonna be the light of the world,
we have to preach the gospel.
Point number two, we have to go to church,
but point number three is that we must live godly.
If we wanna be the light of the world today,
we must live godly.
Now, some people mistake this as lifestyle evangelism.
I don't care how godly you are, you can preach the gospel.
And now, you do have to meet some basic requirements
to go to church, okay?
But for the most part, you can be pretty sinful
and still go to church.
You know, the Bible says I can't throw someone out
for stealing.
That's pretty bad, all right?
There's a lot of things you can't even throw somebody out.
Church should be open to a large array of, say, people.
Now, obviously, there's certain sins
that could get someone kicked out of church,
and we understand that, but for the most part,
you don't even have to be that godly to go to church.
You don't even have to be that righteous
to show up at church.
You just have to be not wicked,
is basically the criterion, okay?
But even a wicked person can get saved.
Even a wicked person can even preach the gospel, okay?
But then on top of that,
if we wanna be a really effective light,
you know, do we wanna put a bunch of dust on the lens?
Do we wanna put a bunch of mud on the lens?
Do we wanna kinda muddy it up,
and you know, the light's kinda flickering a little bit?
You know, it just has spurts of godliness.
When I go to church on Sunday, you know,
it's kinda like blinking and flickering.
Nothing makes me irritated more than a flickering light.
I don't know why.
I don't have epilepsy, I'm pretty sure,
but like, I have it, you know, mentally or something.
I'm just like, ah!
You know, a flickering light, it just drives me insane.
And you know what?
Christians who have a flickering light spiritual walk
make you insane.
They're just like, godly on Monday, and not on Tuesday,
and on Wednesday, and then Thursday,
and you're just like, what are you doing?
Just pick something, you know?
Just turn off or turn on.
I would that you're cold or hot,
but because you're lukewarm,
I'm spewing you out of my mouth, is what God said.
And you know what?
If we're gonna be a bright light today,
we must live godly.
Look at 1 Peter 3, verse 13.
Chapter three, verse 13.
Nevertheless, we, according to his promise,
look for new heavens and a new earth
wherein dwelt righteousness.
I'm sorry, I'm in 2 Peter.
I need a big number in my Bible
where it tells me those things.
Chapter three, verse 13.
And who is he that will harm you
if ye be followers of that which is good?
But if ye suffer for righteousness' sake,
happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror,
neither be troubled,
but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,
and be ready always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you,
a reason of the hope that is in you
with meekness and fear,
having a good conscience,
that, whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers,
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse
your good conversation in Christ.
For it is better if the will of God be so
than ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing.
So the Bible is telling us that we need to be ready
to give a reason of the hope that is in us.
What's that hope?
Jesus Christ.
Notice the unsaved, they're without hope.
They are having no hope.
We have the hope.
We have the light of the world.
But notice the Bible is saying it's better to suffer
for righteousness' sake than for evil.
You know, even a saved person can be reproached
for lying, stealing, committing adultery,
murder, every sin of the Bible.
And when they do that,
it brings shame on the name of Christ
when Christians are hypocrites today.
And now, obviously, all of us are hypocrites to some degree.
No one in here is perfect.
No one in here has arrived.
None of us are without fault.
We sin every single day if we are honest with ourselves.
But you know what?
We need to try and clean ourselves up as much as possible
so that the light of the gospel can shine
as bright as possible.
And you know what?
There's no shame in being persecuted
for righteousness' sake, none.
If people hate you because you're godly,
if people despise you because you wanna serve God,
there is nothing wrong with that ever.
And in fact, you know what?
You should rejoice when people persecute you
for righteousness' sake.
Here's one.
How about when men read the Bible
and they decide, you know what?
As for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord.
I want my wife to be a godly wife.
And so I'm gonna teach her the Bible.
I'm gonna open up the scriptures
where it talks about women wearing women's clothing,
and I'm gonna make my wife wear women's clothing.
And not only that, I notice where the Bible said
that we're supposed to preach the gospel.
I'm gonna try and empower my wife to preach the gospel.
Hey, I read in the Bible where Jesus,
where God said, let them be fruitful
and multiply in the earth.
And so me and my family, we're gonna be fruitful
and multiply in the earth.
And you say, you know what?
I'm gonna do that.
And then someone looks at you and say,
ah, man, you're mean.
You're so misogynistic.
Oh, you think you should rule your house.
You think you should guide your wife.
You're these young punks that wanna just
tell their wives what to do.
I would rather have someone criticize me
for wanting to serve God
than what most young punks are doing,
like committing fornication and drinking alcohol
and letting their wife tell them what to do
and wearing the skinny jeans.
Hey, why don't you put on a real pair of pants
and tell your wife to serve God?
You know what?
I'm never gonna condemn a man
for wanting his family to serve God.
What kind of nonsense?
But you know what?
There's so many men today,
they're being persecuted for wanting to serve God today.
What a shame.
You know what?
There's a lot of pressure on men to not serve God
and not make their family serve God.
But let me tell you how you're gonna serve God
by the man doing it.
I remember what Eve did.
She took the forbidden fruit off
and she ruined her whole family.
And you know what?
There needs to be some men today to say, no.
He should have taken that apple and thrown in the trash.
He should have taken that fruit and said,
you're not gonna touch that.
You're not gonna eat that.
No, you're so mean.
Why don't you let your wife, you know, exert herself.
She has more artistic creativity.
You know, if your wife feels comfortable with that.
This is what some people, some preachers will say,
well, if Adam had asked his wife it was okay
not to eat the fruit, then it would have been okay.
But you don't wanna just force your wife
to do the right thing.
No, you do.
No, you really want to cut the branch down and burn it.
He should have burnt the tree down.
Or at least, you know, cut a bunch of good trees down
and build a fence around it where his wife can't get over.
She's the weaker vessel.
Come on.
I mean, yeah, but there's people today,
they wanna put a wet blanket on men
leading their homes today.
Not this preacher, not the word of God,
not the Lord Jesus Christ, not Joshua.
Hey, we need men to serve God.
And you know what, I don't care what the world says
about me for wanting to make my family serve God.
I'll be persecuted for righteousness sake
because you know what, there's nothing wrong
with wanting my wife to preach the gospel.
There's nothing wrong with wanting my wife to dress godly.
There's nothing wrong with wanting my wife to serve God.
In fact, if I don't, it's because I don't love her.
How could you not wanna love?
Now look, obviously Jacob led his family on softly.
He led them on gently.
And you know what, I already preached a sermon
about how men should be a servant leader today,
but at the end of the day, there needs to be some rules,
some boundaries set by the man.
And I don't care if I'm hated by the world for that.
Oh, you spank your kids?
Yes, I do.
You know that I do.
Oh, y'all are so mean.
No, I'm not mean.
The Bible says he that spares the rod hated the son.
If you don't spank your children, it's because you hate them
is what the Bible says.
I didn't say that.
That's what the Bible says.
That's harsher than I think
because I grew up with that phrase, spoil the child.
He that spares the rod, spoil the child.
That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says hates the son.
That's way harsher.
That's way more strict.
But you know what, when you start serving God,
people will despise you.
People don't like the light.
You know, when it's early in the morning
and I'm trying to sleep,
I don't like the light being turned on.
It's irritating.
You're like, ah, back to you.
It happens recently.
But I need to get up.
I need to get out of bed, right?
That light can be blinding unto you.
But you know what?
God made the light and it was good.
And he divided the light from the darkness
and he called it day.
Go if you would to John chapter number three,
John chapter number three.
I love church so much.
I just want to keep preaching.
So we have to stay here.
So the world just makes, it's so dark.
It's so dark today.
And I think 50 years ago, America wasn't that,
it wasn't nearly as dark as it is today.
So church didn't really shine as bright.
It seemed like kind of normal.
Everybody's kind of good.
Kids can play in the streets.
I mean, if you ask me, like when I was a kid,
and this is not that long ago,
I'm only 33 years old, okay?
But when I was a kid,
my parents would let me go everywhere in the town
by myself unchaperoned, 10, 11, 12.
I would ride my bike.
I would ride my skates.
I would go to the college and I would just go skate
and we would try to evade the cop police.
They're kind of fake police or whatever.
And they're like mall cops or whatever.
They can't get here.
They have no fitness standards.
So you can just run around.
And we would try to grind on all the columns
and the pillars and stuff.
We were cool.
I'm not a skater kid, but I tried to pretend like I was.
And so we'd do all these fun things.
I mean, I'd be out all day.
My parents had no idea where I was.
I didn't even have a cell phone.
Cell phones wouldn't even exist then yet really.
That wasn't even that long ago.
In the fifties, kids would get rides from strangers.
That was common.
Kids would just stand on the street
and just thumb a ride with a complete stranger.
Can you imagine that today?
That's insane.
If you think of, look, the world's gotten a lot darker.
Okay, that's why church should be shining bright today.
It should seem like a stark contrast
to what the world looks like.
He's like, man, I've never been to a place like that.
Well, I hope so.
I hope it's different.
I hope that as the world keeps getting darker,
we stay the same brightness.
We don't have to keep getting dimmer
so as to not be a sharp contrast.
You say, wow, that was way different than the world.
You know, great.
I don't want to keep dimming myself down
and keep trying to get close to the darkness
just so it doesn't blind you too much.
Just so it's not too bright
for your sensitive eyes there you got.
We'll take off the sunglasses and start manning up.
John chapter three, look at what it says in verse number 19.
And this is the condemnation
that light is coming to the world
and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil.
Why do people hate the light?
Because it exposes their darkness.
It exposes their sin.
Verse 20, for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light.
Well, if we would just, you know, be really godly,
people would automatically come to us.
My Bible says neither cometh to the light.
You know, people avoid church as much as humanly possible.
People are not just accidentally stumbling in here.
You know how many people accidentally stumbled in here?
I haven't even met them.
They got an invite or someone talked to them
or like some reason for them to come here.
They didn't just accidentally walk in, you know.
People are just actually wanting to get saved.
No, there's something going on in their life.
And why do they not want to come to church
lest his deeds be approved?
They're afraid that they're doing something wrong
and it'll be exposed.
It'll be preached on.
It'll be preached against.
And so why would you not want to come to our church?
Well, you have a higher likelihood
of your sin being preached on here.
Why do they like Joel Osteen's church?
Because they'll never shine the light.
They turn the lights off.
Think about this, okay?
Just think about this.
It's not a coincidence.
You go to Joel Osteen's church,
all the lights are off in the entire sanctuary.
Where's the only light?
On him.
And then I wonder what it's all about.
Oh yeah, Joel Osteen and Victoria Osteen.
Hey, when we have all the lights on,
we're just trying to manifest a light.
I don't want to be in darkness.
It's interesting how those things just work, don't they?
Now go if you would to John chapter eight.
I'm almost finished this morning.
There's a lot of other verses we can look at,
but the Bible says that the lightnings
enlightened the world.
The lightnings enlightened the world.
And you know what it causes?
It strikes terror into the hearts of men.
Hey, when you preach God's word,
sometimes it can strike terror into the hearts of men,
but you know what?
At least it lit up the room.
And lightning is one of the most incredible things ever.
I mean, it's just magnificent to see some lightning strike
on the earth and the whole earth just lights up like a glow.
That's what our church should be like, lightning strikes.
Sermon after sermon, just lightning strike,
just bam, the word of God.
I mean, we just open up the word of God, just like bam,
just a big illuminating spark just goes off.
That's what it should be like today
because of how dark the world is.
But you know what?
If we saw a lightning strike in the middle of the day,
it wouldn't really do much with it.
But in the darkness, it just lights up the sky, doesn't it?
And so let me tell you this,
let me give you a little bit of encouragement.
You should be thankful that we live in a time
where it's so dark so that we can shine so bright
for Jesus Christ.
You say, oh man, there's so much despair and so much agony.
Well, you know what?
There was great things done in perilous times
throughout the Bible and it's no different now.
We can do great things through the Lord Jesus Christ
right now, we can be that lightning strike,
we can be that glorious light that lights up the world,
we can make a difference in this city today.
You know what?
I love the fact that we have so much opportunity
that we're not discouraged by the opportunity today.
It's not like, oh, 20 people
already knocked on this door today.
It's like, no one's knocked this door ever.
And no one's going to knock it after I leave.
That motivates me to wanna go out there.
Imagine if we said, hey, there's 5,000 churches
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area
and they're knocking all the doors today.
Wouldn't that be kind of a discouragement
to wanna go soul winning?
You knock on the door and they're like,
they already have the trash can with the sign that says,
please put your information here.
That's called Phoenix in Mormons country.
Hey, you go into the Mormon areas,
they literally have trash cans outside
and say, put your invite here.
And it's like, it's frustrating to go soul winning there
because everybody's just so turned off
to anything and everything, okay?
But when we go out and preach the gospel,
it's very receptive.
People wanna get saved.
We have a great opportunity to go out
and preach the gospel.
But you know what?
They wanna hear the gospel
for someone that's living godly,
someone that's being a good example.
If I show up to them
and I'm just this gang banger looking weirdo,
if I got my pants sagging down,
people are gonna be like, kid, put your pants up.
You're the pastor?
Of what?
The door, the experience?
They're gonna be shocked when I say,
steadfast Baptist Church.
They're like, what are you talking about?
It'd be weird if all of us are going around.
If I've got a beer, hey, you want a beer in the gospel?
That's weird.
People that like light don't want that.
The people that weren't gonna want it don't want anyways.
So we should not walk in this type of darkness.
Look what the Bible says in verse 11,
John chapter eight, verse 11.
She said, no man, Lord, and Jesus said unto her,
neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.
So the woman caught in adultery,
Jesus Christ said he didn't condemn her,
but he wants her to not sin anymore.
And when you're saved, you're not condemned.
But Jesus doesn't want you to continue sinning, FYI.
He says in verse number 11, or verse 12,
then spake Jesus again unto them saying,
I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the light of life.
So notice Jesus Christ said, hey,
if you're gonna follow me, it has to be in light today.
It's not in darkness.
You know, I can tell someone's not following Jesus
because they're not in light, they're in darkness.
That's why when we point out, hey, you're sinning over here,
you're doing these things wrong,
oh, you're condemning me.
I'm not condemning you.
Jesus literally told the woman, I do not condemn thee.
Don't sin anymore.
So if I tell someone not to sin, am I condemning them?
No, not at all.
I'm not condemning anybody.
But you know what, I'm trying to warn them
and I'm trying to protect them
and I'm trying to encourage them to serve God.
And if you wanna be used greatly by God,
you have to walk in the light today.
Go to First Thessalonians chapter five,
last place of return.
In John chapter 11, Jesus is said in verse nine,
are there not 12 hours in the day?
If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not
because he seeth the light of this world.
But if a man walk in the night,
he stumbleth because there is no light in him.
Just a carnal illustration for a spiritual illustration.
If I try to walk through my house and all the lights are off
I'm gonna run into stuff.
And there's probably a lot of toys that can trip me up.
A lot of toys.
Oh man, there are everywhere.
There's a lot of booby traps.
When you got four kids, I mean, it's just,
all bets are off, okay?
I'll just say that.
But you know, my wife keeps the house very tidy
but at the end of the day, if it was dark,
it's very likely I could run into things.
I could stumble over all kinds of different things.
I need that light to help me walk.
Where do I get that light?
Well, we get people saved and they go to church
and they see that light being manifested
and then they choose to walk in that light.
And then when we're walking in the light,
we're gonna be the brightest example
that we can be to the world.
And you know what?
It's all to the glory of Jesus.
It's not about me.
It's not about you.
It's not about any of those things.
It's about the gospel and what he's done for us.
First Thessalonians chapter five, look at verse five.
Ye are the children of light and the children of the day.
We are not of the night nor of darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep as do others,
but let us watch and be sober.
For they that sleep, sleep in the night,
and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
Let us who are of the day be sober,
putting on the breastplate of faith and love,
and for helmet the hope of salvation.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us.
And whether we wake or sleep,
we should live together with him.
So we have in First Thessalonians chapter five,
an admonishment.
You are a child of the day.
Therefore, don't walk in night.
Don't be in the darkness today.
Walk in the light.
There's 12 hours of the day
that we can get the works of God done.
And we need to go out and we need to be that light today.
We need to shine bright the glory of Jesus Christ,
his gospel.
We need to come and worship him at church today
and give him the honor and him the glory.
And we need to live righteously, not to be seen of men,
but so that the light of the gospel
can shine bright through us.
People don't like hypocrites, let me tell you.
People don't like fakes.
They don't like phonies.
They don't like going to church and hearing one thing
and seeing people doing another.
It turns them off to the gospel.
It turns them off to the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you want to be used greatly by God,
you must also live righteously.
We must live righteously.
That's why we come to a church where we have hard preaching.
Now, if you take this sermon in for a second,
doesn't that explain everything we do?
The light of the world is Jesus.
We go preach the gospel.
We come to church and we hear hard preaching
because we want it all to culminate
so that we can be the best light
because ye are the light of the world.
Let's go some prayer.
Thank you, Father, so much for your word.
Thank you for giving us the gift of your son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, for him being our light,
the light of the whole world.
I pray that we would understand the grave responsibility
you've given us of being that light too,
that while we're here, we're ambassadors for Christ,
and that we would just shine as bright as possible,
that we're reminded of our job and our duty on this earth.
And we understand the world is full of darkness today,
but that we can bring light to people.
We can bring hope to people.
We can bring restoration.
We can bring peace and safety and the love of God.
I pray that we would understand
how much people are in need today of light.
People need hope.
People need the love of God.
And I pray that we could just be that to them
and that you would bring us more soul winners.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.