You Are the Light of the World

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. Nice to be with all of you. Like many of you, I grew up in the church, and I can still remember as a child listening to the hymns, and they'd have the ladies sing some of the verses and the men, some of the others. And I always thought how beautiful it was when the ladies sang. The men would start singing. I'm like, now let's go back to that other verse again.

So, lots of great memories coming back, hearing the beautiful music. So, thank you very much for that. It's also a bit of a moment of redemption for me to be asked to speak here. I feel like I've finally come full circle and been forgiven for all of my acts as a youngest brother. I perfected things like singing just slightly off key when my sisters were practicing piano and other things just to drive them nuts. And I guess now I've come full circle. So, it is wonderful to be with you.

I'm just setting my timer here since I'm used to a clock on the back wall when I speak. We don't quite have that here. So, as we all know from reading the Bible, one of the tools that Jesus used in teaching, in addition to parables, was using metaphors and similes.

And we see them all over the Bible. Scholars talk about 30 to 35 distinct parables that are in the Gospels. And in addition to those, more than 50 instances where God is using metaphors, similes, or other analogies. Sorry, I'm shuffling around a little bit here to try to bring that up a little higher. That'll work. So, this method of teaching, as we read in Matthew 13, was meant in part to hide the truth of God's Word from those that God was not opening the minds of.

But it also was meant in part to drive meaning and to drive understanding for those who did have their minds open through the Holy Spirit. And so, what we want to do today, not surprisingly, is talk about one passage within the Bible that talks about light. And I'd like to just use this passage and take it apart and really dig deep into what it means, why this analogy was used, and what it means for us individually. Turn with me, if you will, to Matthew 5, and we'll read this short passage that we've already heard sung.

And it's in verses 14 through 16. Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16. Here, Jesus speaking says, And what I'd like to do during the time that we've got today, and as you all think about and prepare for the rest of the discussions that you'll have, the remainder of this weekend, is look at this passage and just lay it out in three parts that's here.

First of all, the fact that you, we, are the light of the world. Secondly, letting our light shine before men, that they may see our good works. And thirdly, to glorify our Father in heaven. So there's three parts of this passage, and we'll just spend some time going through this in a little more detail. So let's look as a starting point at the first part of this passage, where Jesus says, you are the light of the world.

Now, he didn't just say, you're light, so be bright. Kind of a neat little rhyme. And he could have said that, but he used some very specific wording here, using the analogy of the city on the hill, using the analogy of the light that's lit on the lampstand and not covered up under a basket. And I think it is worthwhile for us to ask why. What's the meaning that's in there? Why is it that the time is spent on that?

And especially, like any of the figures of speech that Jesus Christ used, we have to try to put ourselves back into the shoes of people who were hearing these words. Because the word of God is absolutely eternal, the meaning is eternal, but it was spoken to a set of people at a particular point in time. And the things that they were experiencing and the things that they did is what Jesus Christ was connecting to. And in many ways, those are different from what we experience, what we do, and how we live today. So let's look first at the city set on a hill.

We're not going to spend as much time on this one. This one is probably much easier for us to understand, much more similar to what we would think about. You know, ancient cities, if any of you have been to the Middle East, if you've been to Europe, if you've been anywhere else, probably one of the universal things that man does whenever we're looking to get a controlling location is we look to a hilltop, don't we? Even animals know it. We've got a couple cats running around the house.

The cat likes to sit at the top of the steps. So when the other cat's approaching, they know it and they can attack. They love to sit up on the top of a bookshelf and stare down on you as the humble servants that they know you are. People are no different, right? We set these things up. If you go to Germany and you go down the Rhine River, you see all these castles up on the hilltops above the river.

They were set up as toll booths so that people could see boats coming, they could stop them, make them pay up in order to have safe passage. They'd be set on choke points of roads. And they would serve also as landmarks, as waymarkers. And one of the things, if any of you have been, for example, to a place like Masada or some of the other ancient cities, we think of these ancient buildings and fortresses just as a bunch of stones. But when you visit some of these places, you understand, you can see in a few places, how these buildings were whitewashed, especially in this part of the country in the Middle East where Jesus Christ was.

And they would take the building that was built, they would plaster it, and then they would use whitewash on it. And so literally, the city would shine in the sunlight. And you would see from a distance these whitewashed walls, and you could see it from wherever you were. And it was a way to help navigate around. It was also a reminder that you were on somebody's territory, and you were going to have to do what they wanted you to do, because you saw that mighty fortress up on a hill.

So some commentators also believe that there was a city fairly nearby on a nearby hilltop, and it's very likely that Jesus was even gesturing over to that city, that they would have been able to see in the distance, as he was saying, being a light like a city set up on a hill. And they could see in the distance as the sun would be streaming off those whitewashed walls.

What I'd like to focus on more, though, in this message, is the second part of the metaphor, because this is, I think, where the differences really come through, in terms of the way that we live and the way that we experience. And Jesus talks here, not only about being a light, but the fact that we take a light and we put it on a lampstand so it can light the entire house. We don't hide it under a bush. And it's the type of statement, it's an absurdity. So Jesus is saying to them, look, none of you would dream of taking a light and putting it under a bushel basket in your house. You light it for a reason. And that is to give light to the room. And there's even more behind that because of how costly and how precious light was in that world. You know, if you've been camping, we recently had a power outage in our house. It only lasted probably a couple hours.

We usually just get quick flashes when the power goes out, but we had one not too long ago that lasted for a couple of hours. And you realize at that point how dependent you are on electricity. It's second nature for us. We don't even think about it. You walk into a room and your hand immediately reaches for a light switch, right? And if you're like me, when you get old and forgetful, you walk into a room and you hit the light switch before you even think about whether the light's on or not.

And I've walked into a room lots of times, I hit the light switch, and I realize I've turned off the light. What am I even doing here? But it's so much a part of what we do, and we don't really even think about it, right? It's instinctive. You just reach for the light switch and there's light. Look at what's happening in this room, right? The light's above. We don't even think about it. I look at little children sometimes, and we just had a second grandchild born. And one of the interesting things about really young children, you know, they're looking at the ceiling because they're lying down.

But what's interesting to me is they look at the lights. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. And they're just fascinating when they're little by the lights and trying to figure out what they are, how do they work, what do they do, because it's something, you know, obvious that they see shining down on them. I'd like to read a few excerpts from an article called Artificial Light, How Man-Made Brightness Changed the Way That We Live and See Forever. And this was written in a newspaper called The Independent back in May of 2011 by a lady named Jane Brockes. She also wrote a book, and I'll read a couple of the stats that come from the book. But I think it helps to drive through this point that, you know, when light was being referred to, it wasn't just sort of this flippant thing. Well, you know, everyone's got light switches and lights in their house. That's not how it was in that part of the world at that time. This article lays out that our modern lives would be inconceivable without abundant, cheap electric light, for which more than a century has illuminated homes, streets, workplaces, restaurants, theaters, and stores, extending both our work and our leisure times. You know, in the old days, the day was really limited by the daylight, and there was only so much you could do after it got dark.

Although the illuminated city and the glamour and liveliness of its nights has often come to define what it means to be urban and urbane, most of us almost never think about light, since however much of it we desire, often more than we need, is usually readily available at the flick of a switch. This thoughtlessness and the freedom that light grants us is something that humans couldn't dream of even a few hundred years ago. In the late 18th century, lamps were still rudimentary, depending on the same technology that had illuminated Roman homes and even the caves of the Pleistocene. A vessel of stone, clay, or metal, with some kind of animal or vegetable fat as fuel, and a wick. Except for the very wealthy, or for those living in places where fuel might be abundant, light was precious and used sparingly, in part because all the fuel for light could also be used for food. So imagine that trade-off. You've got some oil there, and you can decide if you're hungry, am I going to burn this and have some light, or am I going to eat it and have some nourishment? John Smeaton, in his account of building the Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Plymouth in England, wrote that he found it a matter of complaint through the country that the lightkeepers had at various times been reduced to the necessity of eating the candles.

So fuel for a long time was, you know, it was edible. All light had to be tended continually. It stank and it smoked, and the open flame was always a danger. Countless conflagrations were caused by a tipped-over candle or lamp, so much so that in some medieval cities, residents were required to put out their cooking fires, which was often the only interior light they could afford after dinner. The word curfew comes from the old French couvre-fure, meaning cover your fire. So these things live on even in our language today. And not only households were dark, the article continues. In the Middle Ages, there would have been no street lighting, and with only the volunteer night watch to keep the guard, the authorities to keep civil order required residents to stay in their homes after dark. Most people willingly obliged because not only would any night traveler be in danger of tripping over wood piles and stones, or falling into a river, but there were plenty of thieves also on the loose. So light, as we know it today, is not something that people of that time knew in anywhere near the same way. A few additional quotes. This is from National Public Radio, and they actually were interviewing the same lady who wrote that article. A few statistics here. In Babylonian times, a days later, labor would get you about 10 minutes of light. A full day's labor, about 10 minutes of light. So the cost of the fuel to burn. That's about $226 using current U.S. median household income for 10 minutes of light. This article is probably a dozen years old, so that could be up to $3,500 at this point in time. Quoting again from the book by this same author, you'll love this, in the tropics, Jane Brock says, people would catch fireflies and make sort of a firefly lantern. And in Scotland, there was a bird that was called the storm petrel, which is a very oily seabird. And the people there would catch it, kill it, of course, first, dry it, and thread a wick down its throat, and then light it, and use it as a lamp. So the idea of a romantic candlelight dinner probably looked a little bit different in that day and time than it does for us today. You can just imagine a bird sitting on the middle of the table as you're having a romantic dinner. And it worked. Later, humans shifted to whale blubber, since whales are basically big floating blobs of fuel. You know, we kind of missed that whole Moby Dick time and time of hunting whales, but it was a source of fuel, and that's what people needed. And connected very closely here in Cleveland, kerosene. Charles Dean was a Cleveland oil supplier who refined lard oil and manufactured coal, coal oil from plain coal. With Samuel Andrews' help, Dean's company became the first in Cleveland to refine kerosene from crude oil. Understanding the commercial possibilities of kerosene, Andrews decided in 1863 to establish his own production company, Andrews Clark & Company, and convinced Morris B. Clark and one John D. Rockefeller to provide financial support.

And in 1870, that became Standard Oil Company, with Andrews as the works superintendent. And of course, we know Standard Oil ended up putting Cleveland on the map. Most people don't think today that Cleveland was actually an oil or kerosene town, as one of its claims to fame, and how the whole boom happened here. So, lots of stories, and I think we get the point. Light was not around the way it was. It was not around back then the way it is today. And so when we read this account, when Jesus says, you are the light of the earth, there's a whole lot more, the light of the world, that comes in with that.

When we think about how precious light was, how rare it was, how much you had to spend for it, how carefully you had to think about whether you used it and where you use it. This whole idea of, again, this absurdity, you don't take a light and put it under a bushel, you put it on a lampstand. When you think about the value, you had to work a whole day for the equivalent of 10 minutes of lighting. And that's what Jesus is saying. You're working so hard for this light, you don't take it and light it.

If you do, you put it in the middle of a house where that light goes everywhere, and you get the maximum benefit from it. You'd be nuts to take and go hide it in the corner someplace, where you don't get the benefit of that very costly and precious light that you have. Turn with me, if you will, to 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20. I was just thinking, as we were talking about this, I used to do a paper route when I was a kid. I was born in the mid-1960s, so we still had plenty of people who'd experienced the depression and lived with that thought process.

I'm sure many of us had parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents who experienced that time. I still remember one lady on this paper route that I would do. It was just a block over from our house. I would go by in the wintertime. It'd be 4.35 in Minnesota. It was already dark in the winter.

I could see her there in her living room under a single light bulb that was lit. I would always think, what's this lady doing? Just turn your lights on. Again, this idea of the scarcity of light, the cost of it, and everything else, she would huddle under this single light bulb because—and I know, I experienced it from my own parents and others we knew as well—it was enough. We weren't going to be extravagant. We were going to try to be frugal and just live with that light that you could. But this is the first lesson that I want to draw out of this idea of, you are the light of the world, the preciousness of light.

I think the stories I read already underscore that one scripture that brings that home, though, is here in 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 19. Here we read, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, that you have from God, and you are not your own? And in verse 20, You were bought at a price, and therefore glorify your body, and in your spirit, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

You were bought at a price. That price that's being referred to is the blood of Jesus Christ, because we know that it's His sacrifice that brings us into His body. And just as light was precious, just like a lot had to be given up in that world in order to have even a short amount of light, this idea of the preciousness of us as Christians, as children of God, is something that's brought home.

We reflect every year and a whole lot of other times beyond just the Passover on how precious the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is, the door that it opens for us, what it brings us as heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, that preciousness.

Another thing, in addition to preciousness, that we think of is righteousness. Another analogy for light that's used in the Bible is righteousness. The contrast between light and darkness is used as the contrast between good and evil. One place that we see that is in Ephesians 5, verses 8 through 11. And here we read Paul writing to the Ephesians, and how it is that they should walk, walking in the light. And he lays out the contrast here, starting in verse 8. You were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. So he likens the ways that we walked before we were called, according to the ways of man, carnal nature, apart from God, as being in darkness, and then being in light when we've received God's Holy Spirit. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Just like light exposes the things that are in the corners, if you're cleaning your house, if you're painting, this is where I think of it. We had a spot in our living room that drove me nuts for years. I don't know why it took me so long, but whenever the light would hit a certain spot during the day, there'd be enough daylight that I could see where the people who had painted it before we owned the house painted part of it really thin, and you could just see a little bit of the old color bleeding through. But you could only see that when you had the light on it at a specific angle. Or if I had a very powerful electric light and I would shine it, then I could see it. And it was only in that light that I could see those things. And God's talking here about the same type of thing. That light that comes out exposes the works of evil. And people who are walking in this world, people who don't know God, people who are still learning, we learn to discern. That light starts to come through. It shines on different parts of our lives as we understand things about ourselves, as we understand things about the world around us. And we see, as that is exposed, we see those works of darkness. We see those places where things need to be cleaned out, where they need to be changed. That's the light working in our lives. So light also is likened to righteousness. Lastly, what I think is really powerful about this analogy of light is that Jesus at the end of the day is saying, we have His very characteristics. Now why do I say that? Rabbinical teachers in the times of Jesus Christ were often referred to as lights. I'll read a quote here from Charles Spurgeon, who is a fairly popular American Protestant preacher. This title, Spurgeon says, has been given by the Jews to certain of their eminent rabbis. With great pomposity they spoke of Rabbi Judah, Rabbi Yohanan, as the lamps of the universe and the lights of the world. It must have sounded strangely in the ears of the scribes and Pharisees to hear that same title in all soberness applied to a few bronze-faced and rough-handed peasants and fishermen who had become disciples of Jesus. So another thing that Jesus Christ was doing was saying, you know, all these wise people that you look up to out there, these disciples over here, these fishermen I've been working with, they are the light to the world. So laying out something very different in terms of their identity. It's also part of His identity. John 8, verse 12. Don't need to turn there, I'll just refer to this in John 9, verse 5.

In John 8, 12, Jesus spoke to them and said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life. So He's saying He Himself is light. But then in the parable that we were reading, He's saying that we are the light. And that fits hand in hand with the idea that Jesus Christ dwells within us through the Holy Spirit that came after He died, the comforter that lives within us. John 9, verse 5, similarly, He says, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. As we know from the other passages, what He's saying is, when He is not in the world any longer, we are the light of the world because He's living within us. So to recap this first section, you are the light of the world. It talks about the value and the preciousness that we have to God as His children, those who have received His Holy Spirit. It's not something simple that's everywhere like the flick of a light switch. These words were spoken at a time when light was incredibly expensive, rare, and you had to put a lot of thought into when and how you would use it. It's also a symbol for righteousness. We think about the works of light and the works of darkness. And it also refers to the very qualities of God, the qualities we're to have as God, as Jesus Christ, is living His life within us through His Spirit.

So let's move on to the second point, then, the second part of this passage. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works. So I focus here on this little word, so, just a two-letter word, but let it so shine. He's referring back to the analogy he gave of the city on the hill, of the light on the lampstand in the house.

And he's saying, just as those things shine, so in the same way, our light should shine before men, that they can see their good works. I remember when I was a little kid, and, you know, just starting to sort of have an awareness of directions and where I was when we were driving and those sorts of things. There was a building, a hotel, that was on 494 Freeway in Minneapolis. And I knew that when I could see that hotel on the horizon, as we were driving down the highway, that we were about 10 minutes from home.

That's like my first memory of really having an understanding of where I was in space, right, and proximity. And that became my landmark. And so I would know, when we were coming home from church, when I could see that building on the horizon, I know the distance from home, and I know we're getting close and almost there. You can think of your own analogy of landmarks that you've had. And, again, shining cities on a hill, those were used as those same sort of navigation points and beacons.

And often we still give directions that way, don't we? Different landmarks. And it has to make us think, you know, are we a landmark that's used as a reference point? You know, perhaps you, in your neighborhood, in your circle of friends and other places, you've sometimes seen people, whether it's people you refer to, whether it's people referring to you, and they'll say things like, you know, if they're not going to do it, I'm not going to do it either, because I trust their judgment.

We'll often do that type of thing. We'll look to individuals and the decisions they make, and it influences the decisions that we make. Just like a light, a landmark, a beacon, a city that's out there on the hill. Giving light to all the house is really where I want to spend a bit of time on this part of the point, as we think of being that way. You know, there's an element to light that it's just, it's relentless. And it just, it seeps in everywhere.

How many of you have ever been to the bottom of a cave, like a deep cave? And what's one of the things that they do when you're down there at the bottom of the cave? They'll talk to you about light, won't they? They'll say, you know, we never really see a dark place, we think we do, but you never really see a dark place.

And then they say, hold on to something if you're scared, and then they turn off the lights, right? And the darkness, and you like wave your hand in front of your face, and you really can't see a thing. And it makes you think how rare that really is. You know, I've gone through periods of time where I travel a lot, and I'd spend, you know, anywhere from one to four nights a week in a hotel.

And I'm pretty sensitive to light, and often I would go to sleep, I'd take a towel, and I'd put it against the door, because you get these big gaps under the door where the light seeps through, and I'd look, and I'd feel like, you know, it's really dark in here. Turn off the lights and go to bed, wake up, you know, at one in the morning. And there's all this light in the room, because once your eyes adjust, the room is dark around you.

And any little bit of light, it just seems incredibly bright, and it seeps through in ways that you'd never expect. These little gaps in the curtains, places under the door, an alarm clock that's got a backlight, and all these types of things. But, you know, there's a quality there that we need to think about in terms of how it is that light operates. You know, it seeps into the darkness, and you physically cannot keep it out.

It's relentless. It's persistent. It's almost as though if you're going to personify light, it's like this patiently persistent thing that just seeps in everywhere. And unless you're hundreds of feet underground, with a single-axis point that you can completely cut off, the idea that you can be without light on the surface of this earth is virtually impossible. You know, that's how God's way is as well. And I think we need to think about that in our own lives, because it's easy to get points in our lives where we just feel like there's not much happening within us.

Do you ever feel that? Well, you feel discouraged. Or you feel like, you know, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that. It feels like nothing is having impact. Or you're dealing with things within your family. You've got people at work who are just difficult, toxic type of personalities, and you feel like you can't really make a difference in that place. And I think that's where we need to remember this element of light, that patient persistence. If you want a scripture that refers to that, it's in Romans 2 verse 7.

It doesn't use those words quite specifically. But it's that patient persistence that we're to have as well as Christians. The other place, if you want to look scripturally, that's worth reflecting on for a while is in 1 Corinthians 13. Beautiful passage talking about all the different attributes of godly love. And verses like 4, 7, and 8 talk about love suffering long. It talks about love hoping all things, enduring all things.

It talks about love never failing. We know that God is light. We know God is love. If you want to use mathematical formulas, you could say, therefore, love equals light. Those are all attributes of God that are assigned to Him.

And this idea of how love just continues. It continues to shine forward. God's way. God's way of love. No matter what situation it's in, no matter how much or little power we feel like we have, the job is just to continue moving forward.

And there will be periods of time in our lives where we feel like it's making no difference at all. You feel like you're this little tiny pinprick of light within a dark room. But if you flip that for a minute, you are a tiny pinprick of light in a dark room.

And when you wake up in the middle of the night tonight, and you see light seeping through your curtains from the parking lot, or seeping under your door, you can think about that. Even in the moments when we feel the most powerless, that quality of light that God gives, it has that ability to seep through. And even when we don't know it's being seen, when we don't know it's having the impact, it is. And our job is to continue to show up every day, every hour, ask for God's strength, and continue patiently and persistently to do His way, knowing that with His Holy Spirit in us, that light is shining out.

It might be dimmer at some times than it is at others, but it continues to shine out. And our job is to keep going back to that well, keep strengthening ourselves through His Spirit, and continue to move forward in the way that He wants us to. Turn with me, if you will, to Galatians 6. I think this is another powerful passage that lays out this thought. We read verses 8 through 10 of Galatians 6. We'll break into the thought here halfway through verse 8 of Galatians 6. Again, speaking to this idea of patient persistence. Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

A fairly familiar passage, probably, to most of us, but there's a lot of meaning packed into that, isn't there? What are you feeling tired of right now? Where do you feel like you've just been putting in effort after effort after effort with no outcome? Where do you feel like you're just losing heart? Set those things before God. Talk to Him about how you want His light to continue to shine through you. Meditate on ways that you can do that and continue to move forward. And we have promise here that in due season we will reap if we don't lose heart. Our job is to continue to turn to God, continue to ask Him for His strength and power through His Spirit.

And that light cannot help but shine through us in the way that He wants it to as we're doing that. It's going to be different in different periods of life as we have different levels of strength, different levels of influence, different levels of interaction with others, but it will continue to happen.

So that patient persistence, making sure that we don't grow weary, that we continue to renew ourselves through Him and move forward in light and shining light wherever and however we can, is so incredibly important. So as we think of that second thought here in the passage, let your light so shine, we consider that we are to be lights in big ways and in small. And light even in very small doses in a dark place can accomplish great things. You know, you think of people that we encounter every day in life that have all kinds of things.

You deal with people who have generational dysfunction going on in their life. It just makes them incredibly bitter and difficult people. We have the ability to shine even a small amount of light into those lives or into groups where those people are to show that it doesn't have to be that way. It can be different because of the light that we shine. We have the opportunity to be a beacon for others, to show a way and a path through difficult times even as we struggle to make it forward during those times.

And sometimes we're just that speck of light that's peeking through the curtains into a dark room. And that's okay, too. As long as we're continuing on, we're strengthening ourselves in God, we're setting ourselves before Him every day. That persistent and unstoppable nature of light, something we need to always think about exhibiting in our lives. Let's look then at the last section of this passage of Scripture and glorify your Father in heaven.

I think this is such an important clause that's placed at the end of this section. And it can be a challenge sometimes. None of us want to be different. It's hard being different. Sometimes we just want to blend in. But this clause, and glorify your Father in heaven, is placed at the end of this scriptural passage for reason. And that is at the end of the day, our light is not just there so people can feel good. Our light is not just there so people can think He or she is an upstanding human being. It's there for an additional reason. And that is that people should glorify our Father in heaven because of the interaction that they've had with us. So that carries with it some element of us making clear that we are people of faith, that we're people who believe in God. That there's a motivation and a reason that we do the things that we do. How we do that, how we express it, is going to be different in the different interactions that we have. It's going to look very different with your family that's close to you. That's going to look at like the barista at Starbucks who we've never met before. I'm not suggesting we walk up and say, you know, do you love Jesus? Because I do. There are appropriate ways to do this that are consistent and appropriate in the relationship that you have with different people. And the way that you do it is as different as every relationship that you have. But the thing we need to keep in the back of our minds is, at the end of the day, is there that connection that we see here in Scripture to the light that we're shining and glorifying our Father in heaven, not us as individuals? And so we need to give that some thought. So think of the customer service ratings that were asked for in life these days. I don't know about you, but it seems like nowadays I go to get gas and I get an email afterwards that says, how was your experience? The gas came out and I paid. Everything's good, right? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. And we're kind of hyper-focused on this. But, you know, what is that customer experience that people have when they interface with us? I think it's worth thinking about that in that context. You know, in Jesus Christ we have the ultimate expression of the customer service that we're supposed to drive with people that we come into contact with. John 3.16, let's turn there. A very familiar passage. If people know a Bible passage in the world today, there's a good chance it's John 3.16, especially if they like watching NFL football. For a long time there was a guy in the end zone that always held up the John 3.16 sign. I'm not sure. That's quite as much of a thing today as it was back a few years ago. But John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Fantastic. A lot of truth, a lot of wisdom there. The verse continues, or the passage continues, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Now let's think about that for a minute. Jesus Christ came for a very specific purpose the first time. It's a very different purpose for why he will come the second time.

You can turn back the passage. I don't have the verse written down right now where Jesus comes to the town he grew up in and he speaks in the synagogue. He turns to the passage in Isaiah and he talks about coming and healing the brokenhearted and he stops. He stops before that passage starts to talk about the second coming. And he makes it clear that his first coming was for this reason. Not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He had a very specific job. Now that doesn't mean he has a different job later. We know he does. He'll come back as King of Kings. He's going to bring destruction on those that resist him. But that is not the job of his first coming and it's not the job of the period of time before his second coming. Jesus chose his situations very carefully in terms of when and where he was confrontational and when and where he had difficulties or was corrective with others. Yes, we see passages of him overturning the tables in the temple. It's a passage. We have a passage where he was going against the scribes in the Pharisees and calling them hypocrites.

But then we look at all of the other passages and the things that he did. The ability that he had to, in humility and love, interact with people who were caught in their sins. You think of the woman at the well in Samaria. You think of the people that he ate with that were the dregs of the world. That the authorities of that day, the religious authorities, wouldn't even dream of sitting at the same table with.

And Jesus sat down with them. He didn't compromise with them. He didn't say, all your sins are okay, just keep doing what you're doing. But he sat down with them. And there was something in the way that he was able to operate with others where people were drawn to him. Even little children wanted to come to him. It's amazing. While at the same time, he didn't compromise what he stood for and God's way of life.

That's something we all can and should aspire to as he's living within us. How many of you have ever encountered seagulls? Ah, ah, ah! Right? There's a french fry out or something. They're everywhere, and they're calling, right? Or a housefly. If you're out camping, you get a fly or a mosquito caught in your tent. All you hear is this thing buzzing. Jesus Christ had the opportunity to say, you are the seagulls of the world.

He didn't say it. He had an opportunity to say, you are the housefly of the world. He didn't say it. He chose light. And he chose it for a reason. And let's just be brutally honest for a minute.

You know, as mainstream Christianity has entered the political and the social sphere, sometimes it's like a bunch of seagulls. And if we're honest about it, it's very easy to talk about why everybody else is wrong and bad. What's difficult to do is with those people who are stuck in all of these different things to express the love of God in a way that they will remember, even in some small way, that will eventually make a difference in their lives.

That's what I encourage everyone to think about as we think of shining the light, not squawking like a seagull. There are absolutely places that stand for what's right, and we should not compromise with what's wrong. But we should also absolutely be lights to the world, be appealing to the world. A couple of scriptures in this regard as we wind up this section in the message. Let's turn to Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4 will read verse 29. Ephesians 4 verse 29. Many will recognize this scripture as one that we turn to as we talk about the way that we speak to other people, why we don't swear, why we don't curse other people out.

Ephesians 4 verse 29. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification. And I love the last part of this passage as something to think about. That it may impart grace to the hearers. You know, it makes me pause and think, and also to pray about that on a day-to-day basis. You know, what can I do in the words that I speak to impart grace to others? That's not a negative, right? It starts with negatives. No corrupt words. But then it goes very quickly to the positive. What's good for edification? To impart grace. That's how we can be lights.

Imparting grace to other people. Think about the situations that we come into, whether it's a difficult interpersonal situation, whether it's something in the broader family or in our neighborhood where there's controversy and difficulty. Do we bring grace to those situations? Bringing light by doing that. 2 Corinthians 5, 20 carries on from this same theme. Again, one that we're probably pretty familiar with and have heard before. But 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, Paul writes to the Corinthians and says, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.

I love the latter part of this verse. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. That describes a level of conduct where, at some level, when people see that, they say, Boy, I want to be like that.

There's something there that I want a part of. And you hear that sometimes when people talk to you and they'll say, Yeah, my friends will say, I've got this crazy religion. But I'll tell you what, if there's some religion that's right, it's probably that one. Because I want the kind of life these people have. They just seem to be joyful. They seem to be able to make it through the difficult times. They seem to have a purpose in life, even when things aren't going 100% great. That's this quality, living in a way that implores people on the behalf of Jesus Christ to be reconciled to God.

That's a way that we shine our light. So what's the takeaway here as we think about the customer experience that we're driving, people glorifying God as a result of the light that shines? We want to live His way without compromise. Absolutely no doubt about that. Have it be the center of who and what we are. We want to strive for the example that Jesus gave us of, at the same time, standing for what's right, of being approachable, willing to have a relationship, willing to speak with people as a part of His creation, as individuals who have the same potential that we have, and to be able to have at least some ability to shine some light into their lives and help them to understand there is another way, even if they're not called to that way today.

And of course, we reflect on the fact that we're not called to be the housefly or the seagull of the world. In conclusion, let's turn back to Matthew 5. We'll read verses 14 through 16. Hopefully this gives everyone some good things to think about as you go into your discussions during the rest of this weekend.

It's always incredible in these discussions what we can do to edify one another to be lights to one another. And so I wish you all fantastic and meaningful discussions as you delve deeper into all of these things. Matthew 5, verse 14, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. We are precious lights, each and every single one of us, even when we don't necessarily feel like it. We are to shine so that our good works are seen. Sometimes that might be incredibly bright, sometimes it might feel dim, but it is still a light. And lastly, those works ultimately are to lead people to understand that we do it to the glory of God, and hopefully lead them at one point in time, later in their life when they have the opportunity to glorify God themselves.

This room is full of people who shine a godly light every day, and I hope that we'll all gain encouragement and understanding, and especially that you will from one another as you go through the rest of your discussions in this weekend.