Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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There are many ways to offer God’s Word to others. If our lifestyle doesn’t reflect our message, our witness will be ineffective. We must pay close attention to our lives that they would bring honor to God, and not dishonor.

“Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” (Php 2:14-16 ESV)

This passage starts out with one of the most difficult commands in all of Scripture (v. 14). I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of pleasure out of complaining. I don’t mind taking on extra tasks around the house from time to time, but Abby’s going to hear me complain about it afterward. Why do I do this? I should find satisfaction in serving my wife and family. But I throw all that out the window when I complain and get a temporary satisfaction from that instead.

A great help in our fight against complaining is realizing what we’re really complaining about (v. 13). When we do anything, we are to be doing it according to the will of God. So when we complain about what we’re doing, we’re not just complaining about the circumstances, we’re complaining about God’s will.

If we can keep from complaining, we’re that much closer to the goal mentioned in verse 15. We can’t be perfect, but we’ve got to be striving. The more we are sanctified in this life, the brighter our light will shine for Jesus. We live in a world in love with sin. Our world considers sinful, ungodly lifestyles as perfectly acceptable. But even as we oppose the sin of the world, we must realize that we, too, are sinners. So God sent Jesus to die for us, so that through Him we might be made perfect.

Though we will never be perfect in this life, we will please God more as we hold to His Word (v. 16). There are at least two applications of this phrase to “hold fast to the word of life.”

1. We must hold onto the word of life, never letting it go. To make this a reality, we must be in God’s Word constantly. We must remind ourselves of the gospel and our dependency upon God.

2. We must hold out the word of life so that others may believe it also. The idea here is that we should put the Word of God on display in our lives.

There are many ways to offer God’s Word to others. One thing must be central to all of these methods: God’s Word. We can get so focused on trying to draw people in that we make the most important thing seem less important.