REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving).
FLIP CHART: Go over John Stott’s outline of SOM.
FLIP CHART ON SALT OF THE EARTH: Have someone who was in the class come up and explain what the chart means, how it applies to us.
The real question of the verse is this, “Is our saltiness, our Christ-likeness penetrating the world and changing it or is the world counter-penetrating us and adulterating our testimony”?
There is an on-going conflict to maintain the saltiness of the salt. The world/flesh/devil wants to dilute our testimony and saltiness to make our impact on society meaningless; God, through His Word and through the church seeks continually to re-fortify the Christian so that he has an on-going preserving effect on society and by his presence continues to hinder social decay.
INTRODUCTION:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven (Mt. 5:13-16).
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. The World Lies in Darkness
2. Christians Are the Light of the World
3. Light Provides Uncounted Blessings
4. What Christian Light Looks Like
5. Maximizing the Lighting of the World
6. The Christian Light Bowl Syndrome
7. Our Light’s Goal is that God Be Praised
Jesus puts two crowns on the 8 Beatitudes – that of Salt and Light.
FLIP CHART / QUESTION: God’s Word and all Bible verses contain “explicit” and “implicit” truth. What truths are “explicit” and which are “implicit” in the phrase “You are the light of the world”? (Put the phrase “Light of the world” on the top of the Flip Chart. Then divide the chart in two, top to bottom with one section for “Explicit” and the other for “Implicit”.
LIGHTING UP OUR WORLD
I. THE WORLD LIES IN DARKNESS
It is evident that salt indicates the rottenness in the world and light indicates darkness.
QUESTION: What verses can you think of from the Bible that indicates that the world is a dark place?
“I, the LORD ….will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” (Isa. 42:6-7).
“The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:16).
“I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” (Acts 26:17-18).
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” (John 12:46).
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” (Col. 1:13).
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (I Peter 2:9).
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light …” (Ephesians 5:8).
“You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” (I Thes. 5:5).
QUESTION: What causes this darkness?
READ FROM HUGHES: The darkness of the world is a spiritual darkness that dominates the entire world system, and it is terrible. But the real horror is that the inhabitants of the earth love it! John tells us, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Darkness by itself is one thing, but intentional darkness is far worse. To be subject to darkness of the night before the dawn is one thing, but it is quite another thing to deliberately live in caves and refuse to come into the light.” (Hughes, 84).
Man’s love for evil. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes, “Every difficulty in the world today can be traced back, in the last analysis, to sin, selfishness and self-seeking. All the quarrels, disputes and misunderstanding, all the jealousy, envy and malice, all these things come back to sin and nothing else. … The trouble with man is not in his intellect, it is in his nature – the passions and lusts.” (MLJ, 167-8)
“Why this preference for darkness? John tells us that the world loves darkness because its deeds are evil.” (Hughes, 84)
ILL: How dark? Someone said that the world is as dark and men are as blind as a blind man in a pitch black room with black walls chasing a black cat that was not there.
OBJECT LESSON: Show one of my black pieces of paper.
QUESTION: How do we view the world? What do we see when we look at the world, the world system?
II. CHRISTIANS ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:13-16).
Jews were convinced that they were the light of the world, guides to the blind: “… you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth.” (Romans 2:19-20).
They also spoke of Jerusalem as “a light to the Gentiles”.
The Bible speaks again and again that believers are the light of the world.
“The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of the dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)
In John 12:36 Christians are called the “Sons of light”.
In Ephesians 5:8-9 Paul writes, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…”
“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life ….” (Phil. 2:14-16)
Jesus referred to John the Baptist as a bright and shining light. In our text we are referred to as a city on a hill and a lamp. Paul refers to us as stars in the universe. In revelation John calls us lamp-stands.
But Christ refers to himself as the “Light of the World”.
“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)
“While I am in the world I am the Light of the World.” (John 9:5)
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” (John 12:46)
Thomas Blacklock –
Enthroned amid the radiant spheres,
He, glory like a garment, wears;
To form a robe of light divine,
Ten thousand suns around Him shine.
TABLE ACTIVITY: How can Christ be the light of the world and yet believers also be called the light of the world?
QUESTION: What is so different about believers that we can be called “lights”?
ILL: “Dr. Donald Barnhouse said that when Christ was in the world, he was like a shining sun that is here in the day and gone at night. When the sun sets, the moon comes up. The moon, the church, shines, but not with its own light. It shines with reflected light. When Jesus was in the world he said, ‘I am the light of the world’. But as he contemplated leaving the world, he said, ‘You are the light of the world’. At times the church has been at full moon, dazzling the world with an almost daytime light. These have been times of great enlightenment, times such as those of Paul and Luther and Wesley. And at other times the church has been only a thumbnail moon, with very little light shining upon the earth. Whether the church is a full moon or a new thumbnail moon, waxing or waning, it reflects the light of the sun” (Hughes, 85).
This is a good illustration …. But the Bible seems to teach that we have light in ourselves. II Peter 1:4 says that we “participate in the divine nature” of Christ.
God, who is “The Father of Lights” and Christ who is, “The light of the World,” through the Holy Spirit, through a mystical union, dwell in the believer, “I am in my Father, and you are in me and I am in you” (John 14:20). God’s nature enters us and shines out through us and we become, in a sense, what He is, light!
“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor. 4:6).
QUESTION: What does this light look like?
If you want to break down the various characteristics of light you will need to study the Beatitudes. The various qualities that make up this light are found there as well as in Christ.
FLIP CHART: Go over the list of the 8 beatitudes showing how each one sets forth different aspects of light.
The statement “You are the light of the world” can better be translated, “You and you only are the light of the world.”
What is weird is how could a few insignificant disciples in a backwater of the Roman Empire where all the wisdom and power was located in Rome end up being called “The Light of the World?”
Martin Lloyd-Jones writes, “There is obviously no light at all in this world apart from the light that is provided by Christian people and the Christian faith.” (MLJ, 162)
“The Christian is only ‘the light of the world’ because of his relationship to Him who is Himself ‘the light of the world.’ Our Lord’s claim was that He had come to bring light. His promise is that ‘he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life’.” (MLJ, 163).
Thus the ordinary Christian who may have never read philosophy knows and understands more about life than the greatest expert who is not a Christian.
ILL: “Bertrand Russell devoted most of his 96 years to the study of philosophy. Yet at the end of his life he acknowledged that philosophy proved to be a washout, and had taken him nowhere. Nothing he had thought or had heard that other philosophers had thought had changed the world for the better. He felt that the basic causes of man’s problems, not to mention the solutions, had evaded the best minds including his own” (MacArthur, 239).
So we are called the “light of the world.” Not someone else, but each one of us …. light of the world.
III. LIGHT PROVIDES UNCOUNTED BLESSINGS
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:14-16).
FLIP CHART / QUESTION: What are the benefits of light? (Write the benefits on the flip chart.)
Dispenses darkness, enhances the power of observation, comforts us, guides us, warns us of and enables us to avoid danger, reveals things as they really are, promotes life, helps mend broken bones, awakens us, exposes darkness, shows the way out of darkness, draws people ….
Reveals what is generally unseen. ILL: When the men in the story “King Solomon’s Mines” reached the peak of some mountains in South Africa it was already late at night. They were very, very cold so entered a cave to sleep. In the morning one of the men woke up screaming and ran out of the cave. The others asked him what was wrong. He pointed to the skeleton that he had been sleeping by all night. The first light of dawn brought the contents of the cave to light.
A guide to those who are lost – OBJECT LESSON: Show the black piece of paper with the white dot. Emphasize how a small light in a dark night can throw a beam of light, can be seen at a great distance.
Makes us aware of darkness – If there were no light we would never be aware of darkness.
QUESTION / FLIP CHART: Comparing salt and light. What is the same about salt and light? What is the difference? Write the answers on the Flip Chart.
“Salt and light have one thing in common: they give and expend themselves – and thus are the opposite of every kind of self-centered religiosity” (Stott, 64).
“The kind of service each renders is different. In fact, their effects are complementary. The function of salt is largely negative: it prevents decay. The function of light is positive: it illumines darkness” (Stott, 64).
“We are God’s salt to retard corruption and His light to reveal truth. One function is negative, the other positive. One is silent, the other is verbal. By indirect influence of the way we live we retard corruption, and by the direct influence of what we say we manifest light.” (MacArthur, 240).
“Whereas salt is hidden, light is obvious. Salt works secretly, while light works openly. Salt works from within, light from without. Salt is more the indirect influence of the gospel, while light is more its direct communication. Salt works primarily through our living, while light works primarily through what we teach and preach. Salt is largely negative. It can retard corruption, but it cannot change corruption. Light is more positive. It not only reveals what is wrong and false but helps produce what is righteous and true.” (MacArthur, 244).
This section of the Beatitudes is about the Believer’s Influence on the world. The quote we studied several weeks ago deserves another hearing.
TABLE ACTIVITY: Sum up in one sentence the quote from Elihu Burritt.
BURRITT, ELIHU 1810-79, American reformer, b. New Britain, Conn. A blacksmith, he studied mathematics, languages, and geography and became known as the learned blacksmith.” Profoundly idealistic, he supported many reform causes—antislavery, temperance, and self-education—and he pleaded for them when he edited (1844-51) the weekly Christian Citizen at Worcester, Mass. Most of all, however, he worked to promote world peace, organizing world peace congresses. Burritt argued for cheaper international postal rates and greater intellectual exchange among nations. Among his much-read books were Sparks from the Anvil (1846) and Ten Minute Talks (1873).
“No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations with others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world. Everywhere his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him. It is an old saying, and one of the fearful and fathomless statements of import, that we are forming characters for eternity. Forming characters? Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought? Thousands of my fellow beings will yearly enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger marks in their primary formations and in their successive strata of thought and life.”
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. The World Lies in Darkness
2. Christians Are the Light of the World
3. Light Provides Uncounted Blessings
4. What Christian Light Looks Like
5. Maximizing the Lighting of the World
6. The Christian Light Bowl Syndrome
7. Our Light’s Goal is that God Be Praised
INTRODUCTION:
Comparison of salt and light:
Both Salt and light are vastly different in the way they approach their respective functions. For instance: Salt is hidden, light is obvious. Salt works secretly, while light works openly. Salt works from within, light from without. Salt speaks of the indirect influence of the gospel, while light pictures its direct communication. Salt is largely negative. It can retard corruption, but it cannot change corruption into incorruption. Light is more positive. It not only reveals what is wrong and false but helps produce what is righteous and true.
IV. WHAT CHRISTIAN LIGHT LOOKS LIKE
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:13-16)
GOOD DEEDS
“It seems that ‘good works’ is a general expression to cover everything a Christian says and does because he is a Christian, every outward and visible manifestation of his Christian faith.” (Stott, 61)
“Indeed, the primary meaning of ‘works’ or ‘deeds’ must be practical, visible deeds of compassion” (Hughes quoting Stott, 88).
In Greek there are two words for good. There is the word agathos which simply defines a thing as good in quality; thee is kalos which means that a thing is not only good, but that it is also winsome and beautiful and attractive. The word used in this text is kalos.
QUESTION / TABLE ACTIVITY: What are some practical, visible, attractive deeds of compassion you have seen done for non-Christians?
VERBAL WITNESS
“Since light is a common biblical symbol of truth, a Christian’s shining light must surely include his spoken testimony … Evangelism must be counted as one of the ‘good works’ by which our light shines and our Father is glorified” (Stott, 61).
Greater lights – Latimer and Ridley, English martyrs burned at the stake during the English Reformation. While standing at the stake Latimer turn to Ridley and said, “Be of good cheer, Brother Ridley, we have lighted such a candle in England as by the grace of God shall never be put out.” (Hughes, 85).
Lesser lights – “When my now grown daughter Holly was in the first grade, she weekly approached her teacher, Mrs. Smith, and timidly said, ‘Mrs. Smith, will you come to church?’ Mrs. Smith would promise to do so. And when Mrs. Smith did not show up, Holly would approach her on Monday morning and say, ‘Mrs. Smith, you didn’t come to church.’ Who could resist those big, sad, brown eyes? Finally Mrs. Smith came, and she came again, and she came to know Jesus. Today she is a remarkable, radiant sunbeam herself. This is a mystery, and it is beautiful. Somehow believers shine with the light of Christ, and it goes forth with life-changing effect.” (Hughes, 85).
CHRISTIAN CHARACTER
Kris Putrasahan’s table mentioned last week that we are light when we emulate the character of Christ.
FLIP CHART Show how each quality listed in each beatitude is a key to Christian character that shines as a light to all around.
TESTIMONY: Ask Gloria to share her testimony where the lady came up to her and asked her apologetically if she could ask her something. Then she asked her if she was a Christian.
QUESTION: Do you have an experience where you, unwittingly, were a light to others?
ILL: A young boy about nine years old went with his parents to Europe one summer. Part of their tour was visiting the great old cathedrals of the past. As he would visit cathedral after cathedral he saw the massive stained glass portraits of the disciples and of other saints. He was so impressed as he stood in these great empty halls looking through the beautiful stained glass windows. Upon returning home he told his Sunday School teacher about the great churches in Europe and the glass portraits of the saints. His teacher asked him, “What is a saint?” As his mind went back to those massive beautiful stained glass windows, he said, “A saints is a man the light shines through.” (Message by Chip Bell, taken on the web).
V. MAXIMIZING OUR TESTIMONY TO THE WORLD
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lampand put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:13-16).
Our Savior uses two metaphors to illustrate Christians as light
A CITY
Jesus and the people were sitting on the side of a hill. The houses in the cities were made of limestone that reflected the sun. Did Jesus point to a city that they could see in the distance and say, “A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”?
“The city on a hill” is a famous metaphor that is used to refer to American and used in presidential addresses by John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. It was first used by John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in one of his sermons:
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill: The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world: we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us, till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.
The church / community of faith, is a city that cannot be hidden
But the “city” here is referring to the believing community, the community of faith. As a physical city is a place where physical light congregates, so a church is a place where spiritual light congregates. In that sense the local church, the community of faith, as a body of believers is a “city on a hill”. By the preaching and teach and singing and activities and service the local community of faith becomes a city of light to the surrounding area.
ILL: Show the transparency of the night sky from space, showing the lights of the various cities of North America. Explain that when God looks down on our dark world he also sees light but it is the light shining out of the Christian community.
A LAMP:
The houses of Palestine are very dark with no windows. Village houses in Java were also dark with no windows. Often you would go into the house and could not see things in the corners.
There was a stand in the middle of the one or two room house where the lamp could be placed to give maximum light. Jesus says here that you would not put the lamp under a bowl. In other verses he says under a jar or under the bed.
We can understand this easily. We put our lamps where they give us light. We don’t store burnt out lamp bulbs or dead batteries. Everything focuses on maximizing the effect of the light as we desire it to be used.
OBJECT LESSON: Light candles. Place them in the front of the room. Have everyone close their eyes and imagine that it is night and that everything is pitch black outside and also in the room. Have them determine where they will place the candles. After they have opened their eyes choose one person to place the three candles wherever they choose.
QUESTION: Ask, “Why did _____ place the candles in those three locations?”
APPLICATION: God is the householder, the owner of the house, the creator of the world, and he places us where he wills, where we will give maximum light or at least light where He wants the light to shine.
We are to shine where he places us! It may be in a school, office, neighborhood etc. In fact God takes some of his lamps and puts them in Africa, Asia, in the Muslim world.
Our text says that we are to give light “to everyone in the house” and also we are to “let our light shine before men”.
Wherever He decides to place us, we are to be a beacon light to the lost, lighting up their lights and helping them find their way to the Savior.
VI. THE CHRISTIAN LIGHT BOWL SYNDROME
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:13-16).
Hidden light is still light but it is useless light.
“There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy” (Barclay, 123).
Martin Lloyd-Jones writes that a Christian hiding his light is the most pathetic person on the world.
There is only one purpose for lighting a lamp, and that is to give light. That is the only reason God put His light in us.
QUESTION: What are some bowls that Christians put over their light and thus hinders them from being light in the world?
Remember the devil does not want us to function as lights in this dark world. He is always standing by with bowls ready to be handed out.
OBJECT LESSON: Take a big bowl and tape Apathy, Isolation, Fear, Silence ….. to the sides.
THE BOWL OF FEAR / SILENCE
ILL: Young man who worked in a lumber camp all summer. When asked if he was persecuted for being a Christian he replied, “They never found out.”
THE BOWL OF APATHY
We live as if the world is not in darkness and carry on our lives never realizing that we are to be a light.
THE BOWL OF ISOLATION
We are not told to be “a light to the church.”
We can not be a light to the world if we have withdrawn from the world.
Sometimes we are so involved with the church, the Community of Faith that we never mix with the world. The more we are involved with believers the less we are involved with unbelievers. We really need to make a definite effort to develop new connections.
Surveys have shown again and again that the unsaved come to Christ, not mainly through radio and TV or evangelistic campaigns or meetings, but again and again through someone sharing the Gospel with them.
ILL: Cortney worked in a flower shop. One of the employees lost her husband. Cortney watched her and asked her what the secret was in being able to handle the death of her spouse. The woman told her about Christ and Cortney is a believer today …. And our daughter-in-law.
The most powerful means of evangelism is ordinary people who reach out to their friends, relatives, neighbors.
ILL: I always think of Grant and Patsy as shining lights. So many times they have asked for prayer for a neighbor, a friend, someone needing help. Obviously they continually reach out to those around them.
VII. OUR LIGHT’S GOAL IS THAT GOD BE PRAISED
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:13-16).
Light does not exist to call attention to itself, but to draw attention to the things it illuminates.
If our lives / light has not caused people to glorify God, to be attracted to Him, then our light is not shining as it ought.
“Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.” (Psalm 115:1).
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. . . . . Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (I Peter 2:9, 12).
“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:4).
CONCLUSION:
ILL: Robert Lewis Stevenson, best known for his adventure story Treasure Island, was in poor health during much of his childhood and youth. One night his nurse found him with his nose pressed against the frosty pane of his bedroom window. “Child, come away from there. You’ll catch you death of cold,” she fussed. But young Robert wouldn’t budge. He sat, mesmerized, as he watched an old lamplighter slowly working his way through the black night, lighting each street lamp along his route. Pointing, Robert exclaimed, “See; look there; there’s a man poking holes in the darkness.”
God sends us forth from our “city on the hill,” our “Community of Faith” to poke holes in the darkness. He determines where he wants those holes. Our job is to be lights in this dark universe.
SO WHAT!!!
- The world, in spite of all progress, is still lies in spiritual darkness.
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God intends each one of us to have a definite influence on the world as salt and light.
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We and we alone are the light of the world because of Christ living in us, because we seek to live to display all the qualities of light in our lives, because we reflect His light as the moon reflects the light of the sun.
- As light God expects us to expose darkness, provide warnings to the unsaved, give direction, draw people to the Savior.
- When we live godly lives, when we do acts of compassion, when we share our testimony, our light is shining.
- God is the householder and he places us where our light will be maximized and where we can be a pointer to those who are lost.
- We must not take the bowls of apathy, silence, fear, isolation that Satan hands us to cover up our light.
- The whole purpose of being light, of living as light is that God would be glorified through our lives.