New Year Message (Part 2): Light Up The World By Doing Good, 15th January

'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.'
Matthew 5: 14-16

We need to open our lives to the light of God by :
• By living clean, upright and holy lives
• By having an encounter with a Holy God
• By being illuminated by the Word of God
• By living under the direction of the Holy Spirit?

1. Good Deeds Are Central To Christianity

‘Let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers.’ Galatians 6:10

Good deeds don’t make you a Christian. But once you are a Christian you must do a lot of good and therefore spread a lot of light.

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Luke 4:18

We should:
• Feed the hungry – ‘Make Poverty History’
• Give the thirsty a drink - Burkina Faso
• Look after the homeless - King’s House
• Give people clothes
• Care for the sick
• Visit the prisoner - Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship

2. Good Deeds Need To Be Seen

A follower of Christ is not to do good deeds just to impress men and women but nonetheless they must be seen by men and women.

We need to be seen to be doing the job by doing it

We must not just talk the love of God. We must show the love of God by getting stuck in.

We need to be seen by making things visible

‘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.’
Matthew 5: 15

18th Century Revival
J Wesley Beady in Before and After Wesley said:

‘The evangelical revival did more to transfigure the moral character of the general populace than any other movement British history can record. Wesley was both a preacher of the gospel and a prophet of social righteousness. Wesley was the man who restored to the nation its soul.’

As a result of the eighteenth century revival, mission activity was launched throughout the world and social justice was given a huge boost. Prison reform, educational and medical advance, increased help for the underprivileged and most notably, the abolition of slavery can all be directly traced back to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

19th Century
Charles Finney has always maintained that ‘You cannot be on the wrong side of slavery and on the right side of Christianity.’

John Wesley wrote these words to William Wilberforce, an MP who had committed his very life’s work to the abolition of slavery:

Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Be not weary in well doing, go in the name of God and in the power of his might, until even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish before it.

Sir Roy Strong in The Story of Britain said that, ‘Wilberforce had become a legend, the nation’s conscience.’ He added:

'The causes he espoused read like a role call for the values of a new age. Parliamentary reform, support for Elizabeth Fry in her prison reformation, the humanisation of the criminal code, the establishment of Trustees Savings Banks, the creation of a national gallery, involvement in the British and foreign Bible Society, speaking in favour of Catholic emancipation and against the evils of transportation and taking part in founding what was to become the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.'

William Booth
General William Booth and his pioneering Salvation Army this world was a battleground and people were to be saved, body, soul and spirit. For that to happen evil had to be confronted and captives set free.

William Booth and the Salvation Army Pioneers campaigned with all their might against the scandal of child prostitution. Eventually, Parliament acted with the Criminal Amendment Act of 1885 that raised the age of consent to sixteen years old and gave authority to the agencies of reform.

In the opening pages of Darkest England there was a two page vivid graphic of Salvationists saving the lost from all manner of evils.

His campaign included: employment schemes, help for the homeless, shelters, cheap food depots, homes for drunkards and rescue for the prostitutes, enquiry agencies for missing people, refuges for street urchins, industrial schools, legal assistance for the poor, a poor man’s bank, plans for new farms, plans for a farm colony, villages and even a matrimonial bureaux.

William Booth stated his vision clearly in his last speech in front of 7,000 Salvationists at the London Royal Albert Hall on May 9th 1912:

'While women weep as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, I’ll fight; while there yet remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight - I’ll fight to the very end!' The General Next to God by Richard Collier.

This is the kind of Christianity that has shaped our country and which is going hand in hand with the growth of the Holy Spirit movement around the world today.

No-other section of the worldwide church has achieved such impact and transformation amongst the masses as the Pentecostals. Why? They meet people at their point of need.

3. Good Deeds Bring Glory To God

‘That they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.’
Matthew 5: 16

When people see love when and where they did not expect it sometimes to people who did not deserve it, they will ask why.

In the Acts the disciples cared practically for one another and others, meeting together and making sure no-one was in need.

Peterson puts it like this in The Message version of Acts 2:47.

'People….liked what they saw. Every day their numbers grew as God added to those who were saved.’