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EFFECTIVE FAITH
Thistletown Baptist Church
February 15, 2009
Philemon 1:6 (ESV)
and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.
I Introduction
1. We are in our final week of messages relating to the theme of our Missions Conference, “Let Your Light
Shine”. The focus of the conference is “home missions”, that is, the fact that missions is not just a foreign activity. There are plenty of people in our neighbourhoods, our city, our country, who need to hear the Gospel. There are plenty of people, I have no doubt, within a stone’s throw of this building, who haven’t a clue what the basic information of the Gospel is. We live in a mission field.
2. So far -
Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. [14] “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. [15] Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. [16] In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
The main point – Be pure salt. Don’t let the impurities of the world make you unfit for salting the culture the way you are called to do.
1 Peter 2:9-10 (ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. [10] Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Main point – We are a chosen nation … so that we may proclaim HIS light. He is the light and we want people to see and honour Him.
Luke 11:33-36 – “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. [34] Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. [35] Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. [36] If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
Main point – In conjunction with the baptism of two people last week – make sure you are in the light. The heart is deceitful and it is possible for people to think theyv are believers when in fact they are not.
3. Today, the text we are looking at does not have the word “light” in it. But it is about light. One book I
was reading this week about Philemon 6 specifically mentioned that what Paul says in there is so that Philemon’s light might shine before men and that people would therefore glorify their Father who is in heaven. This text we are in this morning, while not referring directly to light, is a demonstration of what it means to be light in the world.
4. Dear Christian, let me ask you this. Do you want to be light? Do you long to be so used by God that you
shine in the world as a follower of Jesus Christ and some, even if it is only one, turn and glorify your Father in heaven because you showed them your Light?
What we are gong to see this morning is a man who was told how he could do that and try to relate what Paul said to him, to our situation. Continue reading
