Shake and Shine!, Part 1

Has there ever been a time in history when people have been more polarized by cultural issues than right now?

Arguably, the last 12 months have been the most tumultuous in our lifetime. So as followers of Jesus, how do we navigate through sensitive conversations? During this season of blatant hostility, how do we nurture our relationships without compromising our convictions? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll reminds us that the answer is found in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. The first century was rife with conflict and division, yet Jesus commanded his followers to be salt and light.

I want you to do something for me. I want you to take your outline from the worship folder, and I want you to place it at the second chapter of 1 John. Not the Gospel of John, you'll be tempted to go there. Toward the end of your Bible, you'll find three letters.

First, second, third, John. Slip this in at 1 John chapter 2. We'll begin our message from God's Word there and work our way to the passage we're looking at in Matthew chapter 5. Once you've done that, please turn to four verses, Matthew 5, that come on the heels of the Beatitudes, which we looked at in our previous study of Matthew.

And it fits because the kind of person we are to be in character is the kind of individual that the world needs to see in action, but not like you might think. We are salt and we are light, so our major task as believers in Christ is to shake and shine. That's what we do, and when we do it well, amazing things happen to those who've never known Christ. Matthew 5, 13 through 16. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?

It's no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Our hope is that we will understand the metaphors, salt and light, and see how they apply to the way we live our lives in a world that's lost its way. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now Chuck's message titled Shake and Shine. Isaac Watts asks questions that we need to answer, each one of us. Admittedly, he asked his question back in the 18th century, and we're living in the 21st, but not surprisingly, those questions are as relevant as they were when he first asked them. He wrote his questions in a hymn, so for a change, rather than having you open your Bible to a certain place, I'd like you to open your hymnal to number 728, and there you will see the questions Isaac Watts asks. Hymn 728, you will notice one question after another, after another, after another, all of them searching. And the one singing the hymn is asking herself or himself the questions.

Look at them. Am I a soldier of the cross? Am I a follower of the lamb? Here's another. Should I fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name? Look at the questions.

Here's another. Must I be carried to the skies, that means going to heaven, must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sail through bloody seas? The questions aren't over. Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood?

Here's the center. Is this vile world a friend of grace to help me on to God? Interestingly, all the questions deal with our relationship to Christ to begin with and then to the world, the big world. When I say world, you may immediately think of the globe, the continents that form the planet, the great bodies of water that flow between and around the continents, not referring to that world. That world is not vile. That world was made by our God, just as he made all the planets of all the galaxies and all the suns and all the stars. Then what's vile?

What world is that? When you sing a hymn, you must think and you must think often in analogies because they are filled often with word pictures that transport you to another setting and it is usually not one familiar to conversation today. This grand old hymn written in 1724 by a very astute theological thinker named Watts is designed to make us think. Am I a soldier? Am I really a follower?

Do I blush to speak his name to those around me? Is life one great big picnic where I spread the quilt out on flowery beds of ease while others not that far away are facing martyrdom? Is this vile world a friend or an enemy? Now, enough of the questions.

Clearly, most of the answers are no, no, no. The world is not a friend. No, I'm not supposed to sit around and wait for the next picnic. No, this isn't about taking life easy.

The Christian life is not something I enter into to enjoy a playground. It's a battleground. And the adversary never sleeps. I can wake up in the middle of the night, one o'clock in the morning, and the adversary knows it and is ready to tempt me.

I can finish my day at any time of the day and night falls and the adversary has never pulled away. He studied me. He knows every chink in my armor. He's known me since I first breathed earth air.

And the same for you. In fact, this adversary has a leg up on us because he's running things in this world, if you haven't noticed. Let me give you a couple of definitions of world. You may want to find a spot on your outline to write, so set your head on the side, open to 1 John chapter 2. Let's talk about the world for a moment, for a few moments, because John writes about it. In fact, he says, by way of command, do not love the world. In fact, the way he writes it, stop loving the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

What's in the world? The next verse, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. None of that's from the Father. The Father doesn't give you lust.

The Father doesn't prompt pride or arrogance. That's all from the world. So what's the world? A man named Vincent gave us years ago this rather brief definition. It is the sum total of human life in the ordered world system, considered apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God.

The world, don't miss that, lives apart from, alienated from, and hostile to God. That's where you work. That's where you drive your car. That's the courtroom into which you go.

That's the school where you train. That's your lifestyle that's all around you that's being lived out by a very convincing ordered system made to make you think unChristianly. Let me go further. A.T. Robertson renders cosmos. See the word world here in 1 John 2 and verse 15.

Do not love the world. It's the word k-o-s-m-o-s. We get our word cosmopolitan from it. What is cosmos? A.T. Robertson, great Baptist scholar, writes, cosmos refers to an ordered system. Here, it's the ordered system of which Satan is the head, his fallen angels and demons are his emissaries, and the unsaved of the human race are his subjects. Now think, you have to think to travel along with me through this.

It'll prepare you for what we're going to read about salt and light. It is the ordered system of which Satan is the head, his fallen angels and demons are his emissaries, the unsaved of the human race are his subjects, together with those purposes, pursuits, pleasures, practices, and places where God is not wanted. Much in the world system is religious, cultured, refined, and intellectual, but it is anti-God and anti-Christ. Don't love the world system. Don't love the world's opinions.

As J.B. Phillips rendered this paraphrase of Romans 12, don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold. Politically correct thinking is all about agreeing with the world system. They love it when you do.

They resent you when you don't. They have words for us when we don't fall in line and fit into the system. You see, the entire world system is degenerate. I said to Cynthia the other day as we were hearing the news, and it was a tragic bit of news, just horrible information about the way certain individuals were treating others, and I just sighed and said under my breath, what in the world is this about?

She answered very softly and accurately, depravity. It's about depravity. When you forget that, you're going to be disillusioned. So this vile world is no friend to grace to help us on to God. So what can we expect from this world?

I've given you a place in your outline to write three words that you know but maybe haven't put together. We can expect hatred, persecution, and tribulation. With that, turn from 1 John, oh no, before you do, wait, you haven't thought of this. Look at the last chapter of 1 John chapter 5 verse 19.

Look closely. We know that we are of God. That's the believer in Christ. Now look at the world. We also know that the whole world lies in the evil one. In my Bible, written in italics are the words the power of the evil one. One of my mentors, J. Dwight Pentecost, used to use the paraphrase, the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one. The whole world operates under his control. The world thinks like the evil one thinks. The world has opinions like the opinions of the evil one.

When you get this, you are not shocked or disillusioned. You sigh, you're hurt when you get the specifics of how that works its way out as people treat one another like they do, especially as people treat Christians like they do. We're marked out.

I'm going to show you why that hatred is like it is. Now turn to the Gospel of John, okay? Not the letter, but over toward Matthew, stop off at John's Gospel chapter 15.

How could I say that the world really resents us and hates us? Because that's what Jesus taught. He told his disciples before he went to the cross.

That's the world that they would enter. And he says it without equivocation. Look at chapter 16 of John, the last verse. These things I've spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world, the implication is there's no peace. In the world, you have tribulation, but take courage.

I have overcome the world. Now back to chapter 15. Let me point out why we can expect hatred, persecution, and tribulation. John 15 verse 18. These are the words of Jesus. I happen to have a red letter Bible, so these words are in red.

These are the words Jesus spoke in what was called the upper room discourse, words he gave his disciples shortly before he was arrested and crucified. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. I'm going to show you three reasons the world hates us.

Number one, if you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you're not of the world, that means the world system, but I chose you out of that system because of this, the world hates you. The first reason is because we're different. The world wants us to be alike. They want us to be as miserable as they are. They want us to curse like they curse. They want us to hold opinions regarding morality like they hold opinions regarding morality. They want us to think about marriage like they are thinking about marriage.

They want us to deal with issues like they deal with issues. That's why you find yourself so often out of step. You're so different.

Why? Well, because your guidance is the Word of God, which is not a part of the world system. If the world had its way, it would burn every Bible there is. You're not even allowed to bring them to a school now. I mean, they have no place for this. It's so different, and therefore, I hate that. I hate that kind of teaching.

It's bigoted or whatever word they may wish to use. Don't be disillusioned because we're going to learn. Don't get hostile. Just calmly realize what you're dealing with.

The world hates you because you're different. That's verse 19. Let's not stop there.

Look at 20 and 21. Here's the second reason. Remember the word that I said to you.

A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, well, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things, they will do to you for my name's sake.

Because they do not know the one who sent me. Second reason. Because we bear the name of Christ. And you want a name that is going to make conflict quickly emerge in most conversations? Christ.

You want to spur on terrorism? Talk about Messiah being your master. Because we identify with Christ, we are hated. After all, look what they did to him.

Isn't that amazing? The one who never did a wrong against anyone. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He comforted the afflicted. He was there to be of support and advocate on behalf of those who had fallen. He cared. He loved sinful people.

What was it about? He was so different. You know who gave him fits?

The religious folks. He doesn't fit our mold. He doesn't talk our language. Here's the third reason.

This will put the clincher in it. Verse 22. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

24. If I had not done among them the works, which no one else did, they would not have sinned, but now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well. Number three, we expose their sin. Just being there, they hated him.

Why? Because he took up for the adulterous and said, go and don't sin like that anymore, but we're not going to stone you. You who are without sin, you cast the first stone. They hated that. How dare you expose us as arrogant and proud?

It goes on to this day. Generally, we can expect this kind of treatment because the world rests in the lap of the evil one and specifically because of those things I just named, because we're different, because we bear the name of Christ, and because we expose their sin. Now, let me tell you what the natural response is, that we respond like the world responds. After all, we're raised with that. If your parents were not Christians, they taught you to hit them back harder than they hit you. Jesus says, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You don't fight fire with fire. You don't win them over to me by punching them in the mouth. You don't go out with both guns blazing and barnstorming your way through the dormitory, shouting about Jesus being the dominant one in your life.

No, no, no, wait a minute. That's not how it's done. Jesus didn't do that.

In fact, the disciples, some of them were just concerned about him because he didn't come in and talk about overthrowing Rome. Get rid of those swine. No. Says, you owe them taxes? Pay them taxes.

And they were as quiet as you are right now. I mean, that's not the world's way. There's a counterculture here that Jesus is promoting. He does it in the Beatitudes, the peacemakers, the merciful. Blessed are you when you're persecuted. You and I have no concept of persecution.

Oh, we may have someone disagree with our opinion. That's not persecution. Persecution happens when somebody in the room is on the verge of losing his life, if not altogether. Persecution is when you are silenced.

And if you don't shut up, we'll shut you up. This is the reason you don't fit in as a child of God. Today's study in Matthew, chapter 5, certainly places our persecution in proper perspective.

We're living in challenging days for sure, but most of us have never experienced the level of persecution suffered by first-century Christians. You're listening to the book of Matthew, you're listening to Insight for Living, and a message from Chuck Swindoll titled, Shake and Shine. And to learn more about this ministry, or Chuck Swindoll, visit insightworld.org. Now, by way of clarification, Chuck's brand new study in Matthew will command our attention over the next several months.

In fact, the better part of 2021. Chuck started with the birth of our king, and now we're tracing his footsteps through all 28 chapters, moving toward his great commission to go and make disciples. And in conjunction with this broadcast series, Chuck recently completed a commentary on Matthew as well.

Because of the scope of this study, Chuck's commentary comes in two hardbound volumes. The set is called Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew. Whether you're new to the Bible, or you're teaching the Bible as a pastor or professor, you'll find Chuck's approach to Matthew both scholarly and user-friendly.

And it's written in the engaging style that's become a hallmark of Chuck's teaching. To purchase Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew, go to insight.org slash offer. Or if you prefer, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Insight for Living Ministries is supported not by the purchase of books and resources, but through the contributions of people like you. And we invite you to join our mission to introduce King Jesus to all 195 countries of the world. To give a donation today, call us. If you're listening in the US, dial 1-800-772-8888. And then don't forget, many are choosing to automate their giving by becoming a monthly companion. This growing family of supporters is allowing Insight for Living to advance its mission with boldness. To become a monthly companion today, call us. If you're listening in the US, dial 1-800-772-8888.

Or you can easily sign up online at insight.org slash monthly companion. Join us again Friday when Chuck Swindoll continues his message about becoming salt and light for Christ, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Shake and Shine, was copyrighted in 2015 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.