Shake and Shine!, Part 3

As Christians, how do we live in, let alone survive in, a world that's become hostile toward our cause?

Well, that's a relevant question in 2021, but it's not new. In the first century, Jesus warned His followers about the antagonistic ways of their enemies. And using two helpful metaphors, salt and light, He instructed His disciples how to respond. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll helps us understand what Jesus meant when He said, You are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.

Chuck titled today's message, Shake and Shine. Open to 1 John chapter 2. Let's talk about the world for a moment.

There are a few moments because John writes about it. 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. You know 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. So what can we expect from this world? We can expect hatred, persecution, and tribulation.

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. 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.

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. 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. And 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.

They hated that. 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, but 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.

Jesus says, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You don't fight fire with fire. That's not how it's done.

How do we do that? I've got no magnificent model of righteousness in my own self. Christ at work within me, the Spirit of God at work within you and me. Here's the secret.

Look at this. Matthew 5 verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. Mark verse 14, you are the light of the world. Not you bring salt and shake it. Not you carry a light and shine it. You are the salt.

You are the light. You see, the beatitudes talk about who we are and these verses now, salt and light, talk about what we must be when we're with those in the world system and we're always around them. Why would Jesus choose salt and light?

What prompted him to select those two metaphors? Listen carefully. First of all, because the world is in the process of decaying and salt preserves. You preserve.

You're that one light that helps them find their way into darkness. Salt creates a thirst. You have enough salt, you get really thirsty. It makes you thirsty.

Salt helps cleanse. God has placed each of us in a social context, an occupational context, a neighborhood context, and yours is nothing like someone right next to you. Mine is not yours and yours is not hers and hers is not his. Do you think you were just by accident in the work you're in, working with the people you're with? Do you think it was by accident I was in the 3rd Marine Division on Okinawa on that headquarters company inside that Quonset hut with 90 plus percent venereal disease running wild and here old Friar Swindle walks in with his sea bag. I looked just like the rest of them, but I wasn't like them. And I was an anomaly.

Who is this guy? It took them a while to realize I was their friend. I'd go to the slop shoot with them. They'd tank up on beer. I'd drink seven up. And I wouldn't make a big, you want to drink that beer? If the world drinks beer, would you relax? They get smashed. That's what the world does. Don't try to take away their booze.

That doesn't work. You've got to change their hearts. They don't mean to become addicts. They just become because they can't control the drive and the desire. So when you're salt, you don't preach to them. You live the life realizing that it's a life lived around you of lying and cheating and stealing and rage and revenge and hostility and corruption and all of that is encouraged.

In fact, they encourage infidelity. I was sitting in a very nice hotel several years ago and Cynthia was called away for a few moments and I'm there alone and I'm looking at the table and I hadn't noticed a little sign that was on the table. Sitting right over here behind the candle.

And I looked around. It was at that table. The same sign was at that table. Lovely hotel. And this sign was beautifully printed. It read, have your next affair with us. Oh, how nice.

So I said to the waiter, what's this? He says, well, we just want to be helpful. I said, really?

When my wife comes back, I'll have a good chance to talk to her about being helpful on this kind of thing. I said, so it's like encouraging infidel? Oh, no, no. He realized right then. I mean, the world may be corrupt, but they're not dumb. So he realized he's talking to one of these Christians. No, no, these are business affairs.

I laughed too. I said, yeah, right, right. Have your next business affair with us. Are you kidding? This is cheat on your mate, baby.

We'll give you a room. Why would I be shocked? I really wasn't. I just had never seen it done so nicely.

That's just beautifully done. And you know the word next suggests I have others. Have your next affair.

I never had my first. It's insulting to me, but I don't tell him that. I just say, this is an interesting sign you have here. Yes, sir, we do. We do.

We want to attract the businesses. Shake the salt, shine the light. You know what light does? It dispels darkness. Isn't it funny?

It doesn't make any sound. Just... And all of a sudden it can be as dark as Carlsbad Cavern and one little light. You can see your way around. Helps you find your way. Keeps you from being afraid. Shows you where the danger places are that you don't want to walk, stumble into.

Points out the path that leads to where you want to go. Just one light. Notice it cannot be hidden and it should not be obscured. Can't be hidden. That's why they put lighthouses on the shore. You can see them. One light.

Cannot be hidden, should not be obscured. Let it shine, let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. It's not a little light, it's your life. Let it shine. Just live your convictions. The blacker the darkness, the brighter the light shines.

C.T. Studd put it this way. Some people like to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

Good for him. They'll observe your good works and they'll glorify your God who is in heaven. Isn't that an interesting thing? They will observe. They won't hear about your good works. You're not telling them. That's phony.

You know, I don't go to the slop shoot. I go to the chapel and pray for you guys who are down there. That helps nobody.

Shame never wins anyone's attention toward Christ. So what are the good works? How you react to pressure under trial. How you go on beyond the death of your mate.

Without turning into an alcoholic or so depressed that you consider suicide. The patience you show at irritating people the way you drive. Oh, let me get off that subject.

I'll get on to it. How you handle success. How you deal with promotion and demotion. How you ride through no job for a while, unemployment.

You're being watched. The way you get along with difficult people. Oh, the way Rebecca Pippard Manley wrote in her book, Out of the Salt Shaker and Into the World. It's a great book.

She wrote it years ago. I reread the Gospels a year ago out of a desire to rediscover Jesus. My first impression was that Jesus was utterly delightful. He enjoyed people. Jesus was more than merely charming. He cared about building a sense of family.

I learned that Jesus establishes intimacy. He's approachable. Children loved him and he loved them.

His love is extravagant. Jesus' work in the marketplace, he was approachable. He made people feel welcome if they had a place. He was compassionate. He cared deeply and wasn't afraid to show it. The Stoics may have been proud of concealing their tears, but he never concealed his. He showed them plainly on his open face whether he was weeping for a city or for a friend's loss. He healed people because he cared about them. I love this part.

He was consistent, never flashy, sometimes almost quiet. Even after his death, Jesus demonstrated the very same care. If I had been resurrected, writes Rebecca, why, I would have raided the Coliseum and staged the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. I'm back from the dead.

But in one post-resurrection account, we find Jesus simply making the disciples a little breakfast by the seashore. This brings me to three ways to make all of this work, and I'm going to make it quick and simple, but I want you to write them down. These are three don'ts. We're dealing with being salt and being light, so here are three don'ts, and I'm through.

Number one, don't overdo either one. Too much salt does what? It ruins the taste. Cynthia and I have a friend who was on a diet, and she decided the way she could keep from eating more than she should, especially when she ate out, was to cover half of her food with a lot of salt. So she put salt all over it, all.

You try it. You'll eat only the part that doesn't have salt a quarter of an inch thick. It ruins the food.

Too much salt. Don't overdo it. Don't overdo the light. You don't like light right in your eyes. The only time I like that is when I'm going to get operated on, then I don't mind, or they're going to work on my teeth. Preferably I like to be out for that as well, call the light you wish, but I don't like a light right in my eyes.

You do that when you overdo light. Just live your life. Live it for God's glory. March to God's drumbeat.

Serve and worship and love Christ. Don't be afraid to represent him or talk about him when the moment's right. I think really the only time a light in your eyes is appropriate is when you're being arrested. Don't put that light on you. So don't push it too hard, okay? Number two, don't hold back.

Don't hold back. Risk standing alone. I had to risk that. I had to risk being ostracized. I had to risk being misunderstood. Don't hesitate to be different.

When you are, you will be introducing a slice of life to the world it would not otherwise see. It happened to Chuck Colson in prison. Rather than becoming bitter as he served time because of a bad president to whom he was loyal and wrong in his own life, as he served time, he realized this prison needs to be reformed and he began prison fellowship.

What a great way to shine the light, shake the salt. Jim Rayburn saw a lot of kids running wild and loose and free and he thought they would love to be a part of something that's fun to be a part of. He began young life.

Nobody else started young life. Jim started it. He began the thought while he was a student at Dallas Seminary at Stearns Hall in the dorm right there. Intervarsity had been on the campus in Great Britain and was little by little moving. But when Bill Bright hit the ground running, he introduced Campus Crusade for Christ. It was like a fire across a wheat field. Now you can hardly speak of Christ on the campus.

Talk about doing it while you have an opportunity. Dawson Trotman realized folks are floundering. They don't know the scriptures. They need to have a system for memorizing.

So he began the Navigators. And I, for one, had my life changed by it. I mean, these men risk. How about disabilities? Can you think of one person that's made a difference? Of course you can.

Joni Erickson-Tada has a wheelchair ministry where her organization repairs them and makes them available to people who would otherwise be housebound or bedbound. But because of her risk to use her disability, she's opened the door, like the vision of Wilberforce, who despised slavery when it was so popular and was hated for attempting to stop it. And before he died, it had turned the corner. Yeah, you'll have to risk. Yeah, you'll have to live in disagreement with the system. But there's a way to do it. It's called being salt and light. And lives will change.

Here's the third. Stop worrying about the critics. Don't worry about the critics. The apostles, the prophets, they hated. The reformers were despised. But because of the reformers, we've got a Bible in our own language. Hated men, hunted by the religious crowd who would have killed them for putting the Bible in the vernacular of the people rather than leaving it in Latin, chained to the pulpit of the clergy who were living their corrupt lives.

And the reformers said, we're not going to do that. And Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and Savonarola, you begin to name them. I mean, from Scotland to England, Wesley to all around, ultimately Whitfield and on into America. And these great people didn't let the critics stop them.

The reason was they stayed engaged in the real world and they dealt with it to bring salt and light. George MacLeod put it this way. I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of a church. I'm recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross in between two thieves. On a town garbage heap at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek.

And it's the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse and soldiers gamble because that is where he died and that is what he died about and that is where Christ's men and women ought to be and that is what church people are to be about. Get out there and shake that salt. Shine that light. Step into your place in the kingdom and you look around and where rewards come you'll have folks come from nowhere saying thank you. Thank you for living the life. Thank you for telling me the truth. Thank you for loving me beyond my brokenness, my addictions, my filthy mouth, my infidelity. Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for laying Christ before me. Father, we need help with this. It's a confusing time in which to live. It's frightening.

It's unpredictable. It's easy to become paranoid, to hide out and to run from the challenge. Give us the courage to run to it, to make it so attractive and winsome people cannot turn it off. Then help us to get out of the way as the Spirit of God uses the salt and light to transform lives. Begin with us, this place, at this time, in the name of Jesus.

Everybody sit. Amen. Amen. This is Insight for Living and Chuck Swindoll chose a creative title for today's message, Shake and Shine.

It's a reference, of course, to the mandate from Jesus that we should live as salt and light until He returns. And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry or these messages, please visit us online at insightworld.org. I'm pleased to tell you that today's message is available on CD and MP3. In fact, it contains Chuck's entire sermon, nearly an hour in length and uninterrupted. And you can purchase a copy right now by going to insight.org slash store. Or call us.

If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Look, no one needs to be convinced that we live in a morally bankrupt world that's trapped in spiritual darkness. The last 12 months have been fraught with evidence. But Jesus told us neither to run from the world nor embrace it. Instead, we're to shake and shine our way through it. And at Insight for Living, we're committed to equipping you for the challenge. These daily programs are made possible because people like you give generous gifts. And through your support, people all over our country and even around the world are learning to become salt and light.

In fact, listen to what one listener recently wrote to us. She said, in the middle of a stressful season, after reading of the Scriptures, participating in my church, and listening to Insight for Living, God has shown me that I can and should fully rely on Him. I'm learning how to become a godly woman.

And each day, I get to practice His grace. Well, to learn more about what it means to become salt and light, we encourage you to purchase the CD of today's message, Shake and Shine, or you can purchase and download the MP3 by going to insight.org slash store. And then as God prompts you to do so, we invite your financial support as well. Day by day, this Insight for Living broadcast launches out from Texas and spans the globe.

It's the voluntary donations of friends like you that keep us going. Here's the number to call. If you're listening in the U.S., dial 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org. I'm Dave Spiker. Tomorrow, Chuck Swindoll presents what he calls crucial truths rarely understood. Listen Tuesday to 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.