An Opportunity to Shine | Sunday, January 17, 2021

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9–10)

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1–2)

In the stop-and-go traffic of strange and chaotic times, God hands His people two words: opportunity and shine.

Stuck at Every Red Light

This last week a picture came to my mind that helped me frame what I've been feeling for the last eleven months as we've walked through this truly strange corporate experience. I've had a kind of low-level anxiety, the result of a general frustration, and this image helped me understand it.

Every one of us has had this experience. Imagine it's the afternoon, you're trying to get across town, and you're caught in traffic. Every stoplight you reach is on the tail end of yellow and just switching to red. You can feel the physical indicators in your body—blood pressure rising, heightened anxiety, low-level stress—because you need to get somewhere and everything seems to be keeping you from it. You may not typically be an anxious person; I wouldn't consider myself one. But in that situation, you feel it build.

Then, just as your frustration is about to boil over into external anger, someone who isn't in nearly as much of a hurry pulls into your lane. You could have made that green light, but now it's yellow. The anger leaks out verbally, and maybe you smash the steering wheel. If you're a driver, you've had this experience. I've probably had it multiple times in the last thirty days.

Watching Church from the Couch

That image came to my mind last Sunday afternoon. Like many of you, I got up last Sunday morning and, instead of doing what I feel like I'm supposed to do as the lead preaching pastor of a local church, I went downstairs in my sweats, sat on the couch with my kids, my wife, and my mom, and watched the service online. I can't fully express how much of a frustration that is for me. Whether I'm watching Pastor Garrett preach online or watching myself preach, I have that feeling: this is not where I'm supposed to be, and I'm stuck behind red light after red light.

Everything of the last ten or eleven months feels like being stuck in traffic trying to get somewhere. Polling suggests I'm not the only one. Many people across our society, even those who wouldn't normally call themselves anxious, have acknowledged a heightened level of stress from all that's been going on.

With each compounding event, it's as if there's another slow driver and another red light. Two weeks to slow the spread becomes two more weeks of shutdown—red light. No toilet paper—red light. Mask mandates, George Floyd, protests, riots, BLM, wildfires, political campaigns—red light, red light, red light. Election day, election uncertainty, stay-at-home orders through Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Georgia election, January 6th in Washington, D.C.—that's not just a red light, that's a road closure and detour.

A Year of Chaos

A year ago I began teaching through Deuteronomy. Admittedly, I haven't gotten nearly as far as I expected—and in my defense, this year has been anything but typical. But I was thinking about the children of Israel and Moses this week. Their wilderness wanderings were basically thirty-eight years of stop-and-go traffic, and Moses had some steering-wheel outbursts of his own, because Moses wasn't perfect and neither are we.

At the end of 2019 I shared publicly that I thought 2020 would be a year of chaos, and it certainly was. Now people are asking, "What's your word for 2021?" Let me say I'm not a prophet in the sense that I can tell the future. But sometimes it's easy to see how things are converging toward a particular outcome.

There are dash-cam videos from Teslas—and you know I like Teslas—where the car alerts the driver a fraction of a second before an accident, then the accident happens. People are amazed by the apparent supernatural prescience, but it's just physics: the computer reads sonar, radar, and eight cameras and predicts what's coming. That's what I was doing looking at 2019. A presidential campaign season was coming, and 2016, 2012, and 2008 had all been chaotic. You don't have to be a prophet to see that.

I'm not a prophet, but I will tell you this: we live in a broken and chaotic world. You've been impacted by that brokenness many times, even before COVID. And the current conditions suggest the chaos isn't fully letting up. After 9/11 there was a general anxious feeling of "what's next?" That's the climate we're living in now.

Wherever There Is Conflict and Chaos

People have been asking me for a word for 2021, and I can tell many are hoping for something more positive than "chaos." Understandably so. As Pastor Mark shared a couple weeks ago, the very first of our core values is that we do everything with joy because we have an optimistic vision of the future—Christ seated on the throne, ruling and reigning forever, and us reigning with Him in righteousness where there is no sorrow, pain, or sickness.

But for the short term, here's the impression I've had—not "thus saith the Lord," but something pressed on me repeatedly through prayer, Scripture, and conversation. I actually have two words. On December 4, 2019, I was at a missions gathering at Saddleback Church where Pastor Rick Warren said something I wrote down in the little notebook I carry: "Wherever there is conflict and chaos, God is getting ready to move."

That word caught my attention, because I was already seeing 2020 would be chaotic. 2020 was indeed a year of chaos, and the conditions haven't changed. So what then? Wherever there is conflict and chaos, God is getting ready to move. That might be worth writing down—tape it to your mirror, put it on a card by your bed. When conflict comes into our lives or chaos surrounds us, we can fall into a cycle of pessimism, always looking for the next bad thing. But when there is conflict and chaos, God is getting ready to move, and we should be asking, "Lord, what are You doing? What would You have me do?"

What God Doesn't Want—and What He Does

We've seen conflict and chaos at nearly every level: news media and politics, market volatility, law enforcement and race relations, the tech sector, medicine, families, and friendships. But wherever there is conflict and chaos, God is getting ready to move. So when you see it, immediately start asking, "Lord, what are You doing, and what would You have me do?"

Let me tell you what I know God does not want me doing in the traffic jam of conflict and chaos: He doesn't want me losing my cool, spinning out with stress and anxiety. If the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness, patience, and self-control, then those are what should mark my life.

I keep coming back to a verse I gravitate toward whenever I'm frustrated:

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. (Galatians 6:9)

Don't grow tired, weary, angry, or irritable when you're doing the good and right things God has called you to—leading the church, preaching the gospel, doing outreach. In due season, at the right time, we will reap a harvest if we do not lose heart.

Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Like we so often do, I've too frequently pulled that verse out of its context. It doesn't sit by itself. Verse 10 continues:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:10)

And one book later:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15–16)

We live in a broken and chaotic world. In the midst of evil days, we need to be careful and circumspect—eyes wide open, ears attentive, paying attention to everything around us. As my dad says, "If you're paying anything, pay attention." We're to walk wisely, redeeming the time, making the most of every opportunity to do good to everyone, especially those of the household of faith.

Chaotic times are opportune times. We need to grasp that. I've let my frustrations get the best of me far too many times, and I've had to remind myself: this is a time of opportunity. An opportunity for what? To wisely redeem the time, to make the most of every opportunity to do good, and not to grow weary while doing it—because we're planting seeds that will bear fruit if we don't give up. So there's the first word for 2021: opportunity. God is seeking to do work in me, through me, through you, and through our church, out to our community and the world.

Arise and Shine

The second word takes us to one of my favorite books, Isaiah.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you... The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1, 3)

In the midst of deep darkness, God calls His people to arise and shine. How? Jesus taught it in the Sermon on the Mount:

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden... Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14–16)

Our good works shine brightly, bringing glory to our Father. Isaiah 60 was a word to a people who would soon face severe darkness—exile in Babylon because of their sin. And if I'm going to give any predictive word about where we're going, it's this: we are going to increasingly feel like outsiders in the culture, just as the children of Israel felt when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC and they were carried captive to Babylon for seventy years. We will feel like exiles in the midst of an antagonistic, paganistic culture. And in the midst of that, God says: arise and shine.

A Letter to Exiles

About a hundred years after Isaiah, as Babylon besieged Jerusalem, Jeremiah gave a word to the people entering captivity—a word applicable to us, who find ourselves living as outsiders among an antagonistic, paganistic culture. That's the convergence we're seeing in North America and Western Europe.

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the remainder of the elders who were carried away captive... whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon. (Jeremiah 29:1)

Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters... that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace. (Jeremiah 29:5–7)

God then warns them:

Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you... for they prophesy falsely to you in My name; I have not sent them, says the Lord. (Jeremiah 29:8–9)

And then the famous promise:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Their Plight Was According to His Plan

There is something jarring in this passage. God says, "I have caused you to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon," and "seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive." Four times in eleven verses, God makes clear that their plight was according to His plan. Write that down: their plight was according to His plan.

Why would God allow His people to be in such a fix? There are many good answers, but here's one important consideration: the brightness of God's glory shines greatest from the darkness of our captivity. There were many false soothsaying prophets then, just as there are many false prophets now who predicted our political situation would be different than it is. "Do not let your prophets and diviners deceive you... I have not sent them, says the Lord." That's not a popular word, but it's our situation.

We are in the midst of Babylon. God calls His people to live there—to build houses, plant gardens, raise children and grandchildren, and maintain their place as His people. This is part of why our focus on small groups, community, and connect groups has always mattered so much: so the people of God can stay connected and shine as bright lights in a dark world, even when we live in the midst of darkness. This is an opportunity—God's opportunity—for you and me to shine the glory of our Father by our good works.

Two Words for 2021

So in the stop-and-go traffic of strange and chaotic times, let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. These are my two words for 2021: opportunity and shine. God has given us an opportunity in the midst of conflict and chaos, because anytime there is conflict and chaos, He is getting ready to do a work. He wants us to make the most of it, and He wants us to shine, that men may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

Before I close, let me reiterate what I said in a recent announcement: reach out to your neighbors. Get them a gift card to a local business, make them cookies, give them a card, invite them to join us online. This is what we need to be doing during this time—remaining a community knit together as the people of God even when we can't gather corporately in one large place.

When the children of Israel were exiled in Babylon, they couldn't gather in their own place either; they were separated from Jerusalem and the temple, in an antagonistic culture. And yet they thrived. God's people have thrived in far harder circumstances than ours. I don't like these circumstances, but this is relatively good compared to what some Christians face in the rest of the world right now. So make the most of this opportunity—shine brightly in a dark world, so that people may see our good works and glorify our Father.

Closing Prayer

Father, that is my prayer for us, Your people. Would You pour out Your Spirit and quicken us, enabling us to shine brightly during these challenging times, to make the most of this opportunity and redeem the time even though the days are evil. When things seem against us, we can be pessimistic and frustrated, like we're sitting in traffic—or we can realize that You have us in this situation, that You have allowed and purposed it, because You have a plan in the midst of the plight for Your glory. So God, shine in and through Your church. May we be like the moon, which has no light of its own but reflects the light of the sun to a dark world. Help us reflect Your light and not be eclipsed by the things of this world that discourage us. Do that work in us, Your church, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.