Bright Lights in Dark World | Part 2

The love of Christ shines brightest in dark days.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding featuring real truth that is a clear warning of the days ahead of us. There are six things we need to remember if we want to shine in these dark days. If you have your Bible, turn to 1 Peter chapter 3.

We'll begin in verse 13 as Adrian Rogers discusses how to be bright lights in a dark world. And the word followers is the word we get our word zealot from. If ye, ye be zealous of that which is good. But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror.

Now just underscore that. Be not afraid of their terror, neither be ye trouble. That's God's word for you this morning. 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. hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that where as they speak evil of you as evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." I want to mention six things that Peter mentions right here, things that we need to be in this dark day. Number one, we must enthrone Christ as Lord. Look in verse 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.

The word sanctify means to set Him aside as special above all, as reigning Lord. May I ask you a personal question? Don't say yes, because I'm going to ask it anyway. Is Jesus Christ Lord in your life? Now, I didn't say, do you admit that He is Lord in the generic sense. Have you ever bowed the knee to Him?

Have you ever taken the crown off your head and put it upon His head? Now, often we hear people say, well, you need to accept Christ as your Savior. Well, friend, you cannot have what He gives unless you accept who He is, and He is Lord.

He is Lord. Now, I'm not asking are you baptized. I'm not asking you, do you know the plan of salvation? You're not saved by the plan of salvation. You're saved by the man of salvation. His name is Jesus. Is He the Lord of your life? Number two, not only must you sanctify the Lord, but number two, we must be ready with an answer.

Look in verse 15, but sanctify the Lord in your hearts. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the reason of the hope that is in you. Are you ready for an answer? I mean, suppose somebody came to you and said, what is the reason for your hope?

And they will come to you if you have a changed life. They're going to ask you, as they did on the Day of Pentecost, what meaneth this? What meaneth this? Now, the problem is that, and then they ask, what must we do? The reason that many people don't ask, what must we do?

They haven't seen anything that is different. They can't say, what means this? On the Day of Pentecost, there was something that was not explainable. Is there something about you that is not explainable? Can you explain my life apart from Jesus Christ?

Friend, has anybody ever asked you a question? What is the reason for your hope? Suppose somebody today, maybe in an automobile accident, would ask you, what is the reason for your hope? Help me. You'd say, just stay right there. Don't die.

I'm going to go get Pastor Rogers. No, you are to sanctify the Lord in your heart, and you are to be ready. The word to give an answer is the word that we get our word apologetics from. It doesn't mean that we're saying, oh, I'm so sorry. It's a word that is used in a courtroom, apologia. It means to give a defense of your faith, just as a lawyer would defend a client.

Can you defend your faith? I want to tell you something, friend. The people out there have some big questions. Right now, our world is swimming in questions. And if somebody says, how can you have faith in God?

Are you ready to give an answer to the person who asked you? Well, there's an answer in the word of God. Let me give you some scripture. Matthew chapter 22, beginning in verse 36. There was a lawyer who asked Jesus, Master, what is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said, thou shalt love, underscore this. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Friend, that is it. That's the bottom line. By the way, the faith of Jesus Christ is built on love, not hate, life, not death. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy being. This is the first commandment.

This sums it all up. Now, when God made man, God made man a free creature. Why did God make man a free creature? Because God wanted man to love, to love him and to love one another. Forced love is a contradiction in terms.

For a person to be able to love, he has to be able not to love. If we were created where we could only love and do nothing else, it wouldn't be love at all. We would be automatons.

We would just simply be machines. God gave man the freedom of choice. We cannot choose to be disloyal unless we can choose to be loyal. We cannot choose to love unless we can choose not to love.

And what is love? Love is the highest good. And for God to take away choice would be for God to destroy the highest good. And if he did that, if God were to destroy evil, that is to give man a choice, then that act itself would be evil. No, God allows evil in this world. God does not destroy evil.

God defeats evil by putting his Son upon a cross and taking that sin into his own heart and his own life and there are answers to these things. The Bible says in John chapter 15 verse 13, greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. Now thirdly, listen friend, if we would be a bright light in a dark world, we must practice genuine humility.

This is no time to strut in arrogance. Notice again what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you of a reason of the hope that is in you. Now notice this, with meekness and fear. With meekness and fear. Meekness is not weakness, it is strength under control. Fear is not being trembling at what is happening around us, it speaks of a holy reverence for almighty God.

Now you can have the reasons, but America is not going to be won by arguments alone, not by the ballot box, not by organization, and there's so many people who think of those of us who are Bible believers as people of arrogance, and they'll say that about us. They'll think of us as hate mongers. They will think of us as intolerant. And we must be very careful that we do not use angry rhetoric when we respond to them. Listen to this scripture, put it in your margin, James 1 verses 19 through 20. Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Your anger, your wrath does not bring about God's righteousness. Now Jesus showed anger against those who were persecuting helpless people. He showed anger toward the religious hypocrites of his day. But to those who were victims of sin, the prostitutes, the thieves, the tax gatherers who in that day were guilty of extortion, he showed them love. He was a friend of sinners.

That's why they crucified him. Do you know what we need in this day and this age? We dear friend need a full heart and a bright head, both together.

Be ready to give an answer, but also show love in genuine humility. Now when Nero, when this was written, Nero was the emperor. You say, well, they had it easier in those days.

Oh no, they didn't. Nero wanted to remodel Rome so he had the slums burned. The people rose up because their homes were destroyed. He had to have a scapegoat. Somebody said, why don't you blame it on those Christians? They're always talking about setting the world on fire. And so they blamed it on the Christians. And again, as I said, it was open season on the Christians. They would take Christians in that day, nail them to crosses, cover them with boiling oil and set them on fire to light the gardens for the banquets. Can you imagine such a thing?

These are people, these are people who love the Lord Jesus Christ. They read in the mouths of lions with their own blood. They had to fight with gladiators in the Colosseum. Many of them would not fight. They would just simply give their lives.

I wonder what would happen to some of us if we had to make those kind of choices. These early Christians, friend, they had to make those kinds of choices. And I want to say that they had meekness and fear and their humility. Their humility, their ability to suffer for Christ brought that Roman empire crashing down. There was an uprising in China.

A Chinese student wrote these words, lies written in ink cannot obscure truth written in blood. Now folks, it's possible for us to be so arrogant that we'll win the argument and lose the audience. I'm calling upon you to have genuine meekness, genuine reverence in this day and in this age. This is not the time to go pointing fingers at everybody else. The Bible says the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God.

And I tell you folks, all that's happened in America today has happened on our watch. And we need to confess the sins of the church. We need to confess our indolence, our laziness, our selfishness, our pride, our refusal to live a separated life and to share the gospel, the glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Number four, we must live, if we would be a bright light in a dark world, we must live a superior lifestyle, a superior lifestyle. Notice the next verse. We've been in verse 15, look in verse 16, having a good conscience, whereas they that speak evil of you as evildoers may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. You're going to be falsely accused, but it's going to become evident. It's going to be to their shame because your lifestyle will be superior. You will be blameless. I didn't say sinless, but you will be blameless. You see, verse 15 says they're going to be asking us questions of the hope that's in us.

Why? Because they can see something different about us. Go back to chapter before this, 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 12. Listen to what he says, having your conversation, the word conversation in the old King James scripture always means behavior. Having your behavior honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. That is, when Jesus comes again, when the day star rises, they're going to have to say those Christians were living a superior lifestyle.

God forbid that you, I, any of us could be a part of any scandal. People are to see this church and they're to see your life at school, in the neighborhood, on the job. You should stand out like a diamond in a coal mine, like a gardenia in a garbage can.

You should be different. We need to out love, out live, out give, out pray, out witness the people of this world. Amen?

Are you willing to do it? We have to sacrifice them. You want them to believe in us, what we believe in? If you want respect, we're going to have to get it the old fashioned way. We must earn it. Let them see your good works. When we begin to live this way, others will begin to ask us, what makes you tick?

What is the reason for the hope that is in you? What happened to Paul and Silas when they were in that prison, that Philippian jail at midnight? Other people around them were cursing, moaning, screaming. Paul and Silas were praying. They were singing praise to God, giving God thanks.

Everybody in the prison saw there was a difference. What do you think made that Philippian jailer come in there after that earthquake and say, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? He would never have asked them that question if they'd been cursing and complaining. No, they were praising God. There was something different about their lifestyle in the midst of tribulation.

I've told you before, the Bible doesn't say that if you're saved, you'll not have tribulation. You may get cast into prison. I may get cast into prison.

And in prison, we need to be a bright light in a dark place. That's what Paul and Silas were doing. That's the reason that man said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Remember what Nietzsche said? If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, you're going to have to look a little more redeemed. Number five, number five, we must display genuine love.

Look in 1 Peter chapter 4 now, verses 8 and 9. Listen, and above all things have fervent charity. The King James says charity means love among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins, use hospitality one to another without grudging. We are against abortion because we believe that abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. But what are we doing for the teen-aged girl or the person who's caught in a situation with a baby and they need help?

Do we turn our backs on these people? How do we show them love? We turn our backs on them and shove them into the arms of the abortionist who's looking for a few more hundred dollars for performing an abortion. We believe in the permanency of marriage. We believe that one man is to be married to one woman, till death do them part.

But there are many people whose homes have been broken by divorce, severed by divorce. What do we do? Do we wrap our robes of self-righteousness about them and turn them away and say, you're second class, no good, you've made a mistake, there's no hope for you and no help for you?

No! In the name of Jesus, we open our arms and say, you're welcome here. We have a message for you in the name of the Lord Jesus. We're against pornography. It's terrible, it's horrible. It's a vice, vile, filthy. It is antithetical to true love. It's based on lust.

Lust wants to get, love wants to give. But there's so many today and especially with the tidal wave of slime that's coming in through the internet who are caught up in pornography. What do we do to these people? Do we step on them or do we offer help to people who are driven by such a compulsion and do we say to them, in love we love you and there's an answer to the Lord Jesus Christ? We're against the homosexual agenda. We believe that it's contrary to the word of God and contrary to human health and welfare. But what do we do to those who are caught up in this lifestyle?

Do we merely criticize them, put them down? Friend, this is the day, this is the age where the church needs to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ. If we would be bright lights in a dark world, we need to be known, not merely for what we're against, but what we're for. The newspaper delights in printing any time we take a stand against sin.

That's bold headlines. Friend, what we need is an explosion of random acts of love and they can see the love of Jesus Christ. Number six, we must always hold on to hope. We must always hold on to hope.

Look again in verse 15. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you of a reason of the hope that is in you, the hope that is in you. Now the word hope here does not mean mere wish, fond desire, but it means rock-ribbed truth based on the word of God, divine certainty based on the word of God. And friend, listen to me, I don't care how dark the day is, you listen.

We're on the winning side. Sin can't win. Faith cannot fail.

Have faith in God. Augustine was one of the early church fathers, lived many, many years ago. Augustine was told that Rome had been sacked. I guess that modern America is the closest counterpart to ancient Rome. Ancient Rome was the most powerful force on earth.

And the vandals came and sacked Rome, destroyed Rome. Augustine is reported to have said this, listen to it, whatever men build, men will destroy. Let's get on with building the kingdom of God. Whatever men build, men will destroy. If you put all of your eggs in brick and stone and mortar and computers and technological advance, friend, you're only living for the moment.

I don't want you to think that I'm un-American because you're looking at a red-blooded American patriot. But our job is not to ultimately save America. Our job is not to preserve our lifestyle or our freedoms. No, we must do that. God helping us, we will do that.

But our main responsibility is to stand for Jesus Christ here and around the world and put our hope, our faith, our prayers in something that cannot fail, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. That friend is our hope. That is the hope that is in me. Now, you say, well, Adrian, evidently then you're a little discouraged by the way things are going.

Friend, I'm not discouraged at all. We don't need to hunker down in a corner. We need to go out with a banner unfurled and march under the blood-stained banner of Prince Emmanuel, our Savior, our King, our Lord. God is our source of supply. The Holy Spirit is our ally. Jesus is our Commander-in-Chief. We're brothers and sisters in Christ in this mighty army of love, and may God help us in this day and in this age to be bright lights in a dark world.

Amen and amen. Friend, remember I told you about God's amazing grace, that God wants to save you? Why should souls around the world be coming to Jesus and you be left out when Jesus died for you? Do you like to be saved?

I'm telling you, you can be saved today if you'll receive Jesus Christ. Would you pray a prayer like this, oh God, thank you for loving me. Thank you, Lord, for loving me in spite of my sin. Jesus, thank you for paying for my sin with your blood.

Oh, thank you for doing that. I believe you're the Son of God. I believe you walked out of that grave. I believe you paid my sin debt with your blood. And now, Lord Jesus, I receive you into my heart. I yield my life over to you. I acknowledge you as Lord, trust you as my Redeemer. Forgive my sin, cleanse me, cleanse me, Lord, save me.

Take control of my life and begin now to make me what you want me to be. I'm so weak, Lord, but you're strong. Lord, I'm going to give my heart to you and then you're going to have to start working on me, Lord, because, Lord, I'm weak. But, Lord, you'll do it. I just trust you. I give you my heart. Save me, Lord Jesus.

Do it right now. In your name I pray, amen. And if you prayed to receive Jesus Christ just now, we want to celebrate with you and invite you to our Discover Jesus page. There at the website, you'll find answers you may need about your newfound faith.

We have a response section as well. Share your testimony with us or how this message has made a difference in your life. Go to lwf.org slash radio and click the tab that says Discover Jesus.

Welcome to God's forever family. We can't wait to hear from you today. Now, if you'd like a copy of this message, call 1-877-LOVEGOD and mention the title Bright Lights in a Dark World. You can also order online if you'd like, go to lwf.org slash radio.

Or you can write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. And again, the title of the message is Bright Lights in a Dark World. You know, these are the greatest days of evangelism in the history of the church.

In light of the current climate in our world, we should go out with banners unfurled and be bright lights in our dark world. We're glad you tuned in for today's study of God's word. Join us next time for more from Adrian Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener reached out on Facebook and wrote this encouraging word, Pastor Rogers continues to inspire, encourage, and point toward the only one who brings us hope and peace in a hopeless, peace-less world. We are honored to share hope and truth and peace in some very dark days, and we're grateful for the prayers and the generous gifts that make this mission possible. As a way to say thank you for your support right now, we want to send you our Struggles Booklet Collection, featuring messages from Adrian Rogers like turning problems into possibilities and the battle of the bottle. This bundle is a source of hope and direction as you face stressful circumstances in your life. Request the Struggles Booklet Collection when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVEGOD. And again, thank you for your generous support of love worth finding.