John Bradshaw

It Is Written

The Hero

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

Batman, Batwoman, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Superman, The Avengers.

Fantasy figures imbued with superhuman, godlike characteristics.

Now, while it doesn't take a genius to figure out that this might not be the best, most spiritually healthy material for our children to watch, or adults for that matter, people are watching.

So many that 1 recent superhero movie grossed almost $3 billion at the global box office on a budget of almost $400 million.

Was in a fast food restaurant near Nashville in 2018 when a mentally unstable man began shooting.

When he noticed a pause in the shooting, he rushed the shooter, pulled the rifle from the man's hand, and then shoved him out of the restaurant.

Without James Shaw's courageous intervention, it's almost certain that many more than the 4 who died would have lost their lives.

At a news conference hours later, Shaw said this, "...I did that completely out of a selfish act.

I was completely doing it just to save myself.

I did save other people, but I don't want people to think that I was the Terminator or Superman or anybody like that.

I figured if I was going to die, he was going to have to work for it.

He said, I haven't had any specific combat training.

I just fight my daughter every night so I can put her to bed.

I didn't really fight that man to save everybody else.

I know that might not be a popular thing, but I'm really honest.

I took the gun so I could get myself out.

A man put his life on the line and saved not only himself, but others as well.

A 69-year-old man who saw a woman being attacked by a polar bear in Manitoba, Canada, grabbed a shovel and fought the bear off before the bear turned on him.

He spent a week in a hospital having an ear reattached and having other wounds taken care of.

Baseballer Ted Williams spent 5 years in the military before going on to become a Hall of Fame baseball player.

Baseball's Jackie Robinson was a pioneer who changed the sporting landscape and impacted society in a huge way.

Athlete Jesse Owens was born in poverty, but went on not only to win a clutch of Olympic gold medals, but to deliver a stunning message to a tyrant.

Terry Fox wasn't a sportsman as such, but a cancer survivor who attempted to run all the way across Canada 4, 300 miles to raise money for cancer research.

Fox's run started with little fanfare, but running on a prosthetic leg, He ran 3, 339 miles, making it all the way from St.

John's, Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

He ran for 143 days on a prosthetic leg, remember, even as cancer was returning to his body.

The Terry Fox Research Institute reports that to date, $800 million has been raised in his name.

Society tosses the word hero around pretty easily, especially when it comes to sports.

A team wins, maybe a championship, and we whip out that word hero.

David Ortiz led the Boston Red Sox to a World Series title for the first time in almost 90 years.

Evidently a great guy, an outstanding player.

He brought a lot of joy to a lot of people.

It's a bit like loving your spouse, and loving your dog, and loving ice cream.

It's love every time, but it's not the same love.

Michael Jordan wins a collection of NBA titles.

Serena Williams dominates tennis for more than 20 years.

Usain Bolt wins 8 Olympic track and field gold medals and sets 2 world records.

Michael Phelps and his outrageous 23 Olympic gold medals.

They're all freakishly talented and outstanding in their chosen fields.

But as a general rule, being really good at hitting a ball with a bat or throwing a football or running fast doesn't qualify you as a hero.

And I'm pretty sure each of the sports people I've named would agree with that.

Great achievements, they've redefined their sports, they've made a lot of people happy and done historic things, and we call them heroes because that's the best word we can think of when someone does something really remarkable.

The United States military has a special way of honoring people we would classify as heroes.

The Medal of Honor is the United States' highest award for military valor in action.

Those who receive the Medal of Honor have demonstrated bravery, courage, sacrifice, and integrity.

More than 3, 500 Medals of Honor have been awarded to 3, 511 individuals.

5 sets of brothers have received the award, and 2 father and son pairings, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, and his son, Theodore Jr., and Arthur MacArthur and his son, General Douglas MacArthur.

Once upon a time, the Medal of Honor would be sent through the mail.

But more than 100 years ago, regulations were changed stipulating that the medal must be presented in a formal ceremony.

There are more than 60 Medal of Honor recipients alive today.

The first Medals of Honor awarded were presented to the 6 Union Army volunteers who commandeered a train known as the General in northern Georgia and took it towards Chattanooga in the north, damaging train lines and cutting telegraph wires as they went.

More than 1, 500 medals of honor were awarded for valor during the Civil War, almost 500 for World War II, 261 for Vietnam, 146 for the Korean War, 132 for World War I, 28 for the War on Terror, and 965 for campaigns, conflicts, and for peacetime.

More than 2, 400 have been awarded to U.S.

Army personnel, 746 to those who have served in the Navy, 297 for the Marine Corps, 17 for the U.S.

Air Force, 8 civilian, 5 foreign, and 1 U.S.

More than 90 African Americans have been awarded the Medal of Honor.

That's a comparatively small number, best explained by African Americans' place in society up until the 1970s.

In fact, no African Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor during World War I and World War II.

Those who were eventually honored were honored decades after the fact, in most cases posthumously.

Historian Glenn Knobloch wrote, "...it was not until the Vietnam War that black servicemen not only served on an equal footing with whites, but were also awarded the Medal of Honor in the same proportion.

So who do you think is the greatest hero of them all?

And who are some of the remarkable people who have received the Medal of Honor?

To find out, we're going to go together to the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Desmond Doss went into battle armed with the Bible and prayer.

An Academy Award winning movie told the story of his exploits on Hacksaw Ridge.

Our free offer today is The Faith of Desmond Doss.

To receive this free book, call 800-253-3000 or visit us online at iiwoffer.com.

Find out how you can have the same kind of faith Desmond Doss had, 800-253-3000 or visit iiwoffer.com.

The National Medal of Honor Heritage Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee is a remarkable place.

It is here that Medal of Honor recipients have been recognized for their heroism, their bravery, for what's often referred to as deeds of conspicuous gallantry or intrepidity.

But Behind it all is the reminder that Medals of Honor were awarded amidst the turbulence, the turmoil and the tragedy of war.

The Medal of Honor has been awarded by the United States government more than 3, 500 times.

Some remarkable acts of heroism have been recognized.

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven & Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

Eric Flickinger

Clinton Wahlen

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We are taking a look this quarter at how God wants to unite heaven and earth.

We're looking at Christ in the books of Philippians and Colossians.

And this week on Lesson 5, we're looking at how we can shine as lights in the night.

Father, we're grateful to be here today as we continue to learn more about Christ through the writings of Paul.

We ask that your blessing would be upon us as we seek to learn more of him so that He can sit more fully on the thrones of our hearts.

We're also grateful to have with us once again, the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson, that's Dr.

He is an associate director of the Biblical Research Institute, and he especially loves the New Testament and hermeneutics, and we're grateful to have him with us.

We're kind of getting into the middle section here of what we're going to be studying.

This week we're looking at shining as lights in the night.

And we're gonna delve into a passage or 2 here that sometimes are a little bit misunderstood.

There's some miscomprehension here, but I think By the time our lesson today is done, we're going to get a better understanding of what Paul meant, and honestly, what God meant through Paul as he writes these things.

In chapter 2, in verse number 12, this is Philippians chapter 2 and verse number 12, We see a passage here where Paul writes, therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Now, someone might look at that and say, well, I can work out my own salvation.

Or I need to, or my salvation is by works.

So there's different ways that you could misinterpret and misunderstand this passage.

My guess is it probably lines up with everything else in the Bible, but how do we get there?

Well, actually, it doesn't really sound like Paul, does it?

We hear him, you know, it's not by works, but by faith alone.

And so when we hear him say, work out your own salvation, did Paul really write this?

And yes, it's from Paul, and sometimes it's just, you know, it's not legalism.

Paul doesn't have a legalistic bone in his body.

But sometimes it's just a matter of looking at it in its context.

So yes, sometimes we hear just a snippet, even of a verse as this is, work out your own salvation.

And if we read it in its context, it becomes much clearer.

So for example, reading verse 13, which immediately follows, well, start work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

4, verse 13, it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." So Paul makes it very clear that what we're working out is what God has already worked in.

It's not anything that we can manufacture.

You know, this lesson is about shining as lights, but we cannot create light.

He's the 1 who said in the beginning, let there be light.

And if we have any light at all, it's light that we've received from Him.

So this is God working in us, and as a result of the work that God is doing in us, then that is coming out.

So it's not, As you said, we're not producing the light.

We're just letting, like Jesus said, let your light so shine before men.

And that's light that we're reflecting to the world.

It's not light that we are, it is not a self-originating light.

It's a light that we are reflecting toward others.

It makes a big difference if we understand it that way.

Yeah, Jesus is called the Son of Righteousness, right?

The sun is the source of light for our planet, but the moon reflects that light.

And that's kind of the relationship we have with Jesus.

We're like the moon, we reflect his light.

It's not anything we can generate, nothing that we can produce, but it's his light, his love, his righteousness that shines through us, hopefully.

And I think in looking at this verse in its context, reading the following verse that really helps to explain it very nicely, there's a lesson here for us in how we study the rest of the Bible as well.

Because you can kind of, you can cherry pick little verses here and there or portions of verses, I've seen that done plenty, and try to make the Bible say what you want it to say or what you wish it would say or something that fits in with the rest of your theological bent or direction rather than just letting it speak for itself.

And reading it in context and as you mentioned, comparing what Paul writes here to things that Paul writes in other places in the Bible, it helps us to get a more, I don't know if I like the word, balanced, more complete, more clear picture of what Paul is actually writing.

And that doesn't just apply to Paul, it applies to everywhere else in the Bible.

We need to take what I would say a gradually slow zoom out approach to study the Bible.

So we start with a verse and we zoom out a little as we did here, look at not just the 1 snippet or the 1 verse, but the larger phrase and sentence and paragraph.

And even here in Philippians, we'll see in a later study when we come to Philippians chapter 3, that Paul unpacks this even further, what it means that God works in, we work out what God works in, how that actually functions in practice.

We'll see that in more detail when we look at chapter 3.

Alright, and we're getting there, we're getting close to it.

Now you called this lesson, this week's lesson, Shining as Lights in the Night.

What does that mean in practice for us to shine as lights in the night?

Well, first of all, of course, Paul talks about it in Philippians chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

So the next few verses, he says, do all things without complaining and disputing that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world." So we're to shine.

You know, Jesus said, I am the light of the world.

And as you mentioned, he also said, you are the light of the world.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.

And so the light we receive from Jesus, we are to shine, and we shouldn't be shy about shining, because that is how we can make the most impact for the Lord.

You know, I live in a city which is, you know, got a lot of artificial light.

We can see probably Venus, you know, at the planet that's fairly close to our Earth and maybe some very bright stars, but not very much.

It's only when you go out into where it's very dark that the stars shine more brightly.

And that's a good analogy for what the Christian life is like.

You know, we might feel sometimes that we're all alone, that people around us don't see things the way we do.

We kind of stick out, we don't want to stick out.

But actually, the Lord may want us to be different.

He may want us to be noticed, not because we're peculiar, but because there's something attractive.

There is a light, a love, a winsomeness of Jesus about us.

So there ought to be something different about us, something that separates us from the rest of the world.

Sometimes I run into Christians, well-meaning Christians I would say, who say, well, you know, If we're so different from the world, what interest are they gonna have in us?

How is that gonna draw somebody to us if we're so different?

Well, I mean, I would counter if we were the same as them, what interest would they have in us if we're the same?

There should be, as you've said here, as Paul says, a light in us.

Now, most of the time, we consider light to be a positive thing.

You know, when it's dark, we turn on a light so that we can see.

And so he wants us to be these lights in a dark place.

If we're not being lights in a dark world, what does that look like?

The Day That Changes Every Day

04 Unity Through Humility

We are taking a look at how God wants to connect heaven and earth together, especially as we look at Christ in the books of Philippians and Colossians.

This week is lesson number 4, Unity Through Humility.

Father, we thank you for bringing us together this week, as you have for the last several weeks.

We're looking at pictures of Christ that Paul gives us in the books of Philippians and Colossians.

And we ask that once again, you will help us to see how God wants to unite, how you want to unite heaven and earth together.

We're also glad to have with us this week, as we have for the last 3 weeks, Dr.

He is an Associate Director of the Biblical Research Institute.

And we're looking at Paul's letters, as we've said, to the Church in Philippi and to the Colossians.

And the Church in Philippi wasn't really unified real well.

They had some challenges, some difficulties, some issues.

I guess those are some words we could use to describe it.

What were some of the factors that led to this disunity that we see in the Philippian church?

Well, as the title suggests, lack of humility was part of it.

And honestly, that's something that probably quite a few of us struggle with from time to time.

And so if we would look at Philippians chapter 2, the first 3 verses, most of them, I think it will help us understand the problems that they face.

Therefore, Paul writes, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of 1 accord, of 1 mind." Apparently, that didn't exist very well.

Verse 3, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit.

It's mentioned a couple of times, this selfish, conceit, selfishness.

This is at the root of all disunity, ultimately, selfishness and conceit.

We think more of ourselves than we ought and less of others than we should.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's not human nature.

Human nature is the way that it is, and we see the results of this.

So a lack of humility and it was an interesting phrase here, selfish ambition, selfish ambition.

And much of our ambition really is selfish.

The vast majority, I think it's safe to say, is selfish.

And so they were seeing that here in the church.

And yes, ambition, if we're honest, touches all of us.

We all want to be better, do better, you know.

And Sometimes that gets in the way of what God wants for us.

So a lack of humility, we could call that pride, selfish ambition, these are things we all struggle with.

It's things that the members of the church in Philippi struggled with.

Paul is writing to them to try to help them to recognize the problem, clarify in their own minds that it exists, and then to help them through the problem by the grace of God.

What kind of advice, what kind of guidance, what kind of instruction does Paul give to the Philippians to help them over these obstacles that they're facing?

And in case we missed it, He puts it right there very clearly.

If there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, you see, it's knowing Jesus, Knowing what we have received and how needy we are is what helps us to realize that selfishness, selfish ambition, conceit, pride, these are our enemies.

If any affection and mercy, you know, the affection and compassion, you know, this is who Jesus is.

You know, He told a couple of parables that exemplify this, and often it mentions that he had compassion on the multitudes.

But think about, for example, the Good Samaritan.

This man is by the side of the road, And the religious people we expect to help pass by on the other side.

They're more concerned about themselves, their reputation, who they are.

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It Is Written

All Teachings

The Hero

28m

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

28m

The Day That Changes Every Day

28m

04 Unity Through Humility

28m

03 Life and Death

28m

02 Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer

28m

06 Confidence Only in Christ

28m

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

28m

13 Choose this Day!

28m

Mission Possible

28m

12 God is Faithful!

28m

New Covenant

28m

Sound Doctrine