Local Missions | May 17th 2026 Pastor Joel Wolfe

That's been going on over the last year or so.

I am just excited to be able to be in here.

Maybe you haven't. If you're new here, you haven't had

me much in here. I've been in the back a

little bit more with the kids, leading the most awesome

children's ministry back there on the planet in the world. Amen,

because of you and all that you do, and you're

volunteering as well. But today we are going to focus

on our missions. And you need to know that as

you are coming to church and you're living your life

and you're participating with what we do around here as

a church. Are you never go to sleep? The sun

never sets on the Kingdom of God here at New Horizon.

How does that sound? Because you are finance, you're giving

the things that you do go around the world and

they're constantly at work. And I don't think any of

us truly understand the full extent of our impact around

the world. And we're just a little, itty bitty, teeny

tiny church tucked away in five one, Washington. And if

we are doing what we're doing, can you imagine the

light of the Lord going forth out of all the

churches around the world. Amen? God is good. His kingdom

is on the move. And so here today I'm gonna

share some things with you. I am sure hoping that

you all got a magazine as you came through the door.

Did you get a magazine? If you did not raise

your hand, the ushers are going to bring you one,

and you want to have one of these. This magazine

is all about our missions, okay. So these are the

things that we do, the people that we support, the

different ministries locally and abroad. And the pictures, all the

pictures in here are from us, from our teams, from

things that we've done and that the missionaries that we

do to have sent back. So everything no AI here people,

no AI. So those are all real. I the picture

on the front, I took that in Knackapir Piot up

in the Caramel Jung tribe in the northern reaches of Uganda.

So we have a very busy, wonderful missions department. I

operate the Missions department with our Missions Board and this

year it has been Sandy Simms, Karen Conley, Stephanie Owens,

and Tammy Fawcett. And for various reasons, some Karen, the

just various ones are stepping down. So I need a

few more of you to step on up and help

me out. It's not a huge commitment, so come up

and talk to me afterwards if you might be interested

in being a part of the missions board here at

New Horizon. But I want to bring your attention to

a few things in the magazine. At the very front page,

there's a little magnet. So if this is your first

time here doing missions with me, I'm going to give

you a magnet. Every year, you're gonna take that magnet.

You're gonna put it up on your refrigerator. You might

have to tape it if you have a stainless steel refrigerator.

Those things ruin magnets. Those that the whole magnet thing

kind of went away when we got those fancy refrigerators.

But also you can take it out and on the

other side is a giving pledge card. I want to

introduce you to that because the cool thing here at

New Horizon is we have such a high percentage of

our people that give above and beyond their tithe into missions,

and our missions budget here this year is has been

twenty fourth twenty four hundred fifty dollars, and we have

been giving that away, sending that out every single month

because you have been faithful. The cool thing is is

that not only have you been faithful to your monthly pledge,

but we've had people giving into missions here and there,

and that has bumped my buffer up. And so we

have had quite a bit of finance come in on missions.

And I am so, so, so so proud of you.

In fact, Devin, if you would go to the giving slide,

I know I'm gonna. I gave him a list and

a schedule of all the slides and I'm bouncing around.

But here is the giving from you folks into missions.

Do you see that slide, the giving slide? Devin, Yeah,

there it is. Okay, So two four hundred and fifty

dollars every month has come in and gone out. On

top of that are projects that we have presented to you.

Plus additional giving comes to one hundred and fifty five

thousand dollars people come on for a total of one

hundred and eighty four thousand dollars has gone through this

church out into the world for missions. Let that sink in.

Let that sink in. That sets this house apart. Because

you have opened your heart up to be a generous

spirit and looking around, I think that you're all still

going to Starbucks, and I think you're all still eating,

and y'all still have a house, a roof of your heads.

Because the God of the universe has promised that when

you have a generous heart, he blesses you back. And

God is good. He's taken care of us, and through

our hearts, through our hands, through our giving, we have

been able to make that much impact. Amen. So that

twenty four hundred and fifty that monthly support, I really

want to bump it up. I want to bump it

up to three thousand this year. I want to be

able to increase what we give to our missionaries. Just

like you know, inflation is hit, it's hit there and

I want to raise that up. And I also our

plan is to add a missionary. But before we go there,

I want to show you the list of the ministries

that we cover and we support every single month, So Devin,

that will be our missionaries there we go. So those

are twelve different missionaries and ministries that we give into

on a monthly basis that are giving monthly keeps them

doing their things monthly, and if we didn't, they would

have to come home they'd have to quit cut, you know,

do all the things, and but this is you, this

is you, this is so you. Okay, So that that

covers that. Yes, we want to add a new missionary

this year and his name is Their names are Dennis

and Anya Melnachuk, and they are in the wonderful country

of the Ukraine. You can go to the picture that

shows the side that shows their picture. Yeah, there you go.

So they're friends of Roman and ENAs And a couple

of years ago I got a knock on my office

door and Roman was standing there and he said, hey,

Pastor Joel, would you marry a couple for me? Okay,

like right now, I don't typically do that. We have

six months worth of pre marriage that we must go

through and all the things. And he said, no, this

is a couple that is being sent out on the

mission field. They feel like now is the time to go.

We just they feel like it has to be now.

So they want to get married before they go, And

so I performed wedding out in the foyer. Absolutely sent

them to Ukraine just in time for the war to start.

They were in place. They did tons and tons of

work right in the middle, right in the heart. They

would drive vans in and load up people as the

bombs were falling and drive them to safety. They were

taking out women, children, the elderly, they were feeding people.

They just they hit the ground just in time. Everybody

say amen, And so we want to start serving them

and including them in our monthly support. And they have

a video for us.

Hi I knew Horizon Church. My name is Dennis Melnichuk.

My wife and I are internople Ukraine and are doing

a work here with orphan care. It's also with young adults.

We're seeing the Lord doing an amazing thing in this

country during this war, and we just want to thank

you so much for your partnership. Every single month that

you give and the help that comes through that has

been really giving us the opportunity to change people's lives.

Every single week, we have kids from the orphanage and

kids who've aged out from the orphanages coming to us.

We also are able to run conferences in schools. We

have evangelism taking place almost weekly on the streets here,

and we're seeing the Lord raising up with people that

are hungry for the things of God. So even though

we might not see these headlines on news. Ukraine is

experiencing a move of God and you are a part

of it. Thank you so much for your hand in

the gospel. We bless you and we thank you for

your partnership.

All right, so are you in shall we add them

to our list, our roster. Let's do it. Let's absolutely

do it. Okay. So last year we love to do projects,

you know me and my mission projects and every time

you guys come through. So last year during the Mission series,

I brought to you a young couple, a new pastoral

couple that were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

remember the DRC. And it was right at the time

where just a week a couple of weeks prior, there

had been a very heavy persecution breakout and I think

ninety Christians were beheaded and all of the refugees from

that area were running for safety, and they were coming

right through where this sweet pastor Gotina was in the DRC,

and they would be having church in a rental facility

they didn't have. You know, when I say rental, it's

just a little shack, right, And so they were crying

out for land and a temporary structure and seed to

start an agricultural program so that they could not only

feed their own church members, but feed the refugees that

were coming through. You raised up last year and you

I was able to send finance to do that. So

I want to show you some pictures of what you

guys did last year. Okay, you ready. So there's a

picture of a road there. Show the road. There is

the road. The road is going out to the tract

of land that we purchased, and I want you to see.

It's kind of jungly, it's a little rough, that's what

it looks like. Okay. So then go to the next picture.

That is Pastor Goutina and the red sweatshirt there and

they are clearing the land and they are planting their

first crops. And this is vital that churches. Yes, churches

have to be able to support themselves as well as

have food to give. And you don't understand these places

where we go to. They don't understand the idea of

a grocery store. I was talking with one pastor. We

were out in the bush and he was I said,

what do you do during the week, and he goes, well,

we're growing our food. You know, he was talking. It

was all agriculture. He was talking about all the agricultural things.

He said, well, don't you do that, don't you grow

your own food? I'm like, not really, I just kind

of go to the store. The store. Yeah, there's a

store that has everything. Really, you know, it was the

funniest conversation I've ever had, and it was you know,

it was. It was difficult too because the language barrier.

But anyway, I don't think we understand the viteleness of

land for agriculture for these people. So go ahead to

the next one. That was the first structure that he built.

And he's been doing some schooling out of that, and

he's been doing some teaching and some training. And then

I heard I heard back from them the last couple

of weeks ago, and they were getting ready. They were

wanting to have church in their own structure, but the government,

believe it or not, out there in the jungle, the

government was requiring sixteen hundred dollars worth of fees before

they could meet in their building. And I said, you've

been waiting for sixteen They don't have six hundred dollars,

but I did because you have been so faithful with

your giving. I said, Annie, how much money do we have.

She said, we got twenty four hundred dollars left in

our mission's fund. I said, okay, serve it up. We're

gonna send it off, right, And so we were able

to send that money. And this next picture is their

first church service in their building. Go to the next one.

This was last week. This is what you did. Look

at what you do. Look at you. So it's just

I don't know about you, but you just gotta you

gotta feel good about the Kingdom of God because it

is making headway and making strides. So that was last

year's project. Now I want to talk to you about

a project this year. You're like, oh, I knew that

was coming. Absolutely so last dessert dash in November. Well,

in September we took a mission trip and we went

up to the Carama Jung tribe in northern Uganda. We

found a church. I'm going to show you in the video,

and uh, well you know what, I'm just going to

show you the video forget me talking, So go ahead

and show the video. On this year's project Horizon Missions

is on the Move.

The twenty twenty five mission trip included a trip into

Northern Uganda and the Caramel Jung tribe. This tribe is

one of the most remote and unreached in Uganda, being

so primitive, even the Ugandans avoid traveling into this region.

When we visited the village of nakapir Pirit, we found

great need as well as a very beautiful people. Their

stories were filled with tragedy and suffering, yet it became

increasingly apparent that God loved.

Them and that God was the answer to their needs.

Our vision for missions here at New Horizon is for

community transformation that only the spirit.

Of God can bring forth.

We believe that it all flows out of the local

church and the leadership of incredible pastors.

Meet past our lineups.

He and his family live in this beautiful compound in

Nakapira Pirit.

Not pastor Pastor sleeps here, but.

Here is their incredible church.

At the time of our visit, they were renting this

land and gathering under the shade of this tree. Last

November we raised funds to purchase this land and build

a temporary church structure. The next step is to put

in a water well to provide the miracle of clean

water for this little church.

Clean water is so vital to life and is so scarce.

In Africa, people will walk miles each day for water.

Wells become the gathering place for the whole community. When

a well is not available, that people are forced to

gather water from swamps and purify.

It for daily use.

Sicknesses and disease are rampant due to poor water quality.

This well is vital for the practical things of life, but.

Also becomes the Kingdom's calling card as the true church

is then able to offer water for the soul.

Let's jump in and.

Make this miracle happen. The cost for this well is

thirteen hundred dollars. This well will make a difference for

many years to come. Thank you for partnering with us

in this project. You want an opportunity to give health

for the body and healing for the soul in this

far away village called Knockapre of purit.

Amen. That, by the way, was a well that you

put in two years ago. So that well I love

going to visit them, and all the people are coming

from all over the place. We want to put this

well right smack dab in the middle of where this

church is going to be built. And because that way

that when the community comes to find clean water they

get also the water of life. Amen. And so we

want the church, we want the Kingdom of God to

be the center of all of that. This is how

we transform communities. Amen. So that is something we're gonna

do a little bit later on. I want you to

be considering maybe what you might be able to give

into this incredible project. Amen. All right, Well, we do

things all over the world, but we also do things locally.

I've had so many people come to me over the

years and say, passer, Joe's so cool, will we do

over there? But you know what, we need help right here.

There's need right here.

And I agree.

And so we support quite a few local ministries. And

one of them is a group that a couple that

we sent out from New Horizon just a few years ago.

So we have John and ste Soulier. They come on up.

They are working through Wywham. They've been with y Wham

working at maternity homes, keeping single moms out of the

abortion clinic. Can I get a n Amen, keeping single

moms out of the abortion clinic. And you know when

they have no hope, they're going to go, Oh that way,

that is such a welcoming, easy path. But these people

have dedicated their lives to diverting that and helping single mamas,

So let's hear from their heart.

Thank you for having us, Thank you, Pastor Joel, and

thank you for your heart for missions and for supporting missionaries.

Just to share a quick story with you, a few

years ago, I quit my job, the career I had

been working for a really long time, to move into

missions full time. At that point, I started to raise

support for our family and reached out to people I

was closest to. I was met with heavy skepticism. They

asked really hard questions like how are you going to

support your family? What about health insurance? And didn't you

just quit your job and now you're asking for money.

I was disheartened, to say the least, but God, a

few weeks later, we came to church. Pastor Joel was preaching,

and she was preaching a sermon called holding the Rope.

It was it was a good one, I remember it.

It was about the partnership between missionaries in the field

and the home church supporting them. And I just wanted

you to know how encouraged I was by that and

how I just felt bold afterwards knowing that we had

your support as well as the whole church behind us

and the work we were doing. So thank you for that.

So true.

Our pastors, Pastor Jole and Pastor Dwayne. Seven years ago,

we came here to this church and we were really

looking to grow and be challenged and to learn more

and have a deeper faith.

And we've gotten that here.

We've gotten that because we've had incredible leadership from both

of you.

Pastor Dwayne.

One thing that I remember, I was on staff here

actually for a while too, and my first day working here,

I walked through the front doors on a regular Monday

morning and Pastor Dwayne was vacuuming. And so I just

want to sit point that out that this the way

you've modeled servant leadership for us, has shown us how

to live a laid down life. I've just shown us

how to give and step in wherever you see the need.

And we just thank you for that from the bottom

of our hearts. Yeah, this church has been incredible to us.

You are our family and we love you all. Yeah.

And just to add to that, prior to coming here,

we had been shopping churches for a while. We probably

visited half a dozen churches and that's hard, and walking

through the doors here for the first time, we could

feel the presence of the spirit. And I remember being

greeted as we enter the auditorium by this kind, sweet

man named Maury. I went in to shake his hand

and he just embraced me. He just grabbed me and

just gave me this big hug. And I just knew

at that moment that knew Horizon was our home church.

Yeah, and then Maury's with Jesus now, but some of

you might remember him. So who's missing from us at

the moment is the third party of our family.

Arelli.

Our son is five years old, and he also loves

New Horizon Church. There's actually a couple photos coming. He

also loves this church. He's served in this church. He's

in pick one. He's been a greeter in this church.

In the next one, he's also been an usher in

this church. He's happily with Grandma right now having lunch.

So as a family, we are just so blessed to

be part of this family.

We love you guys.

What we are getting ready to do now and what

I wanted to share a little bit more about is

our calling and we found it. In fact, we realized

it all of the sudden. One day, February first, twenty

twenty three, that was the day as house parents in

a maternity home, we welcomed our very first two pregnant mamas.

And we've got a photo of those ladies. They're stunning.

I know, yes, we we welcomed them, and they changed

everything for us. What we thought was going to be

like a transitional part time, like we were going to

do this for a minute kind of thing became our

calling for our life and our family. Being able to

provide a home that welcomes moms that are experiencing hardships, trauma.

They may be homeless, They may come from a past

so that's very broken, could be addiction in their history.

There could be all sorts of different things. But they

have chosen life, and we love life, and we want

to come around that. We want to support that. We

want to give mothers that are choosing to carry on

the life of that pregnancy to have a path of stability,

to have a way to be protected and surrounded, and

so they get to often live with us. And I've

given tours to women who cry the moment they see

the kitchen table, and I tell them that we eat

meals together because they've never had that, and so being

able to have a family come around them is amazing.

I often tell people that the most important job in

our house is my husband's being a house dad. Being

a male father figure who loves the Lord is incredibly impactful.

By him just being himself, He's changing lives and generations,

and I truly believe that I love that we get

to do this serving these mommies and all of their babies.

The two that you're looking at there, they also gave

us our very first grand baby girl and our very

first grand baby boy, who was an angel baby, and

his mama went on about a year later to have

another child who is a beautiful, thriving little girl, and

we do have a picture of them also, so this

actually is both those same mamas, and this was just

in February. We've gotten to come back and visit and

we held a little family reunion. We had a bunch

of ladies and their children come back and visit with us.

And being able to walk alongside them even after they've

left our home is incredible privilege. But what it's doing

is it's really we want to show God's love. We

want people to know that there's hope in Christ, that

there is an anchor for your soul. And being able

to share the Gospel, to share hope, to see lives transformed.

It's amazing privilege and we are so honored to be

part of it. God is moving and doing amazing things

in their lives and in the other thirty two women

that have also lived with us in the last few years.

So what we're getting started now back here in the Northwest, Yay,

so glad to be here. We have joined Road to

Hope Maternity Homes. They for twenty seven years have had

a maternity home in the Portland area. There is such

a desperate need for more housing and so we have

been invited and answered that with a big giant yes

to help them open a brand new maternity home in Salem,

Oregon where we will be able to serve more moms

in need. Yeah, we're super excited. New Horizon. Thank you

with this is our fourth year. You're in the Missions magazine.

You can read more about us after the service because

we're going to pay attention first. You can also stop

by the table in the lobby. We would love to

send you our once a month text update where you

could just read more about what's going on and see

what's happening at road to Hope Maternity Home. So thank

you all so much. We'll see you out there after.

All. Right, stretch your hands to them, Father in Jesus name,

lor God, once again we set this incredible couple apart

for you. In Jesus name, God, I pray that every

need is met. Lord God, I pray right now that

you are calling women into this house, into this home,

and into these hearts. Lord God, you are preserving life

in Jesus' name, and God, I thank you right now

that theirs is not just a quick get that baby

born and send them out, but they are going to

parent these women and children into their futures in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Ameneluia, isn't it encouraging, so encouraging?

Hallelujah.

Well, I want you to pull your bibles out, and

while you do, I want you to be considering once

again your pledge card. I want you to be considering

what maybe you could do for the project this year.

We're gonna take some time at the very end, hopefully

I'll have time, but I just yeah, missions I pray

that your heart bursts for missions. I pray that our

life swirl, that we are presently in that we are

able to conquer it, live well, and have enough bandwidth

to where we can do for others. Amen. Okay, So

I want you to open your Bible to Genesis one one.

You know, the question is is where to start, And

so I start at the beginning, which is Genesis one one.

I do that many times when I'm preaching. So Genesis

won one. If we can get that up on the screens,

I would appreciate it. It says, in the beginning, God

created the heavens. Is it working, Devin, Genesis one one.

In the beginning God created there you go, the heavens

and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the

spirit of God hovering over the waters. And God said,

let there be light, and there was light. Let's say

that again. Let there be light, and there was Amen.

So biblical scholars have always taught that whenever something is

mentioned for the first time in scripture, you need to

pay attention because it means something very important. And this

verse theses are not only the first time that light

and darkness and God are mentioned. This is the first

time anything is mentioned, so this is the first mention

of any mention. So we have to believe that there's

something very powerful in these first three verses, and in

these three verses is darkness, light and God. Darkness, light

and God. Darkness is significant. Darkness has a very strong

imprint in a human soul, the most primal fear of

every human being. Though some of us have overcome it,

you might still remember it's the fear the dark. Darkness

has fear rooted in it. I don't know about you,

but I remember being a little afraid of the dark,

and my mom would come in and she'd flip the

light on. It's like, oh, well, just my bathrobe. What

am I thinking? Darkness? I told a story a couple

of years back, So if this is the second time,

just smile and nod and remember the story because it's

a great one. But if this is new to you,

then come along and enjoy. So a few years back,

probably boy, it's probably been ten years now, I took

our family, we all join and I and the kids

went on a bike ride and we always love adventures.

And on the border between Idaho and Montana, there's a

bike trail called the Hiawatha Trail. Everybody has to try

it once. So on the website it says though that

you must have a light on your bike to do

the trail. And the wolves are a little rogue, a

little maverick, and you know, we kind of do things

like yeah, right, but cooler heads tended to overcome the

whole thing. And I won't tell you who that cooler

head was. So we stopped at the dollar store and

we bought some little flashlights and we duct taped them

to our handlebars, and so we get to the top

and it's a down downhill ride all the way down.

And you start at the top of the mountain and

you go through tunnels and you go over train trestles.

It's actually really cool. Well, the tunnels are really fun,

but there's one tunnel that's over a mile long and

it's curvy, so we didn't really take that into account,

and so the kids were turning on and off their

flashlights and shining it, you know, and all the things.

So when we came to that tunnel, I said, okay,

everybody turn your flashlights on. Blink, and only one came on.

So now we're down to one. We went from four

to one, and the one was very dim and we

got into the tunnel and we're going around the corners

right now. Let me describe the tunnel. It's got about

a six foot wide rock gravel road kind of thing,

and there's big ditches on the sides like that deep

like if you went into it, you would you would

be painful. Right. The walls and the arch and the

ceiling are just dynamite had blasted out granite, so it's

all rough and get jagged, you know, and all this

kind of stuff. You just don't want to touch it. Right,

Drips of water are coming down kind of thing. So

we're riding along. We got one little light and it's

barely on, and so we're pedaling away and that person's

up front and we're like me, and all of a sudden,

that light goes out. Now we are in utter darkness,

and all the fun is sucked out of the tunnel.

There is no fun anymore. We stop, we can't make

any forward progress. We're kind of with our toes going

like this. All of a sudden there's fear. What if

we fall into ditch? I don't know, maybe there was

a curve. There's a curve coming up here pretty soon.

But we don't know where the curve is, and so

we're disoriented and we're confused and we don't know what's

going on, and we're like'ful and it's weird, and the

kids are you know, like you know, it's it was

a moment, and so we're like, okay, guys, we just

got to inch along. We just barely have to inch along.

And so we're kind of doing our best, and I mean,

it's black, you can't see your hand in front of you,

and all of a sudden, up from behind us comes

another little bicycle rider and they had obeyed. They had

a light, and so they came up and we're like,

don't say nothing, don't hurry up, kids, let's go. And

so we we platstered ourselves right behind them, like we're

not here, don't notice us, but don't go too fast

because we got to stay right with you. And so

we were right on their heini and we made it through. Hallelujah.

Light changed everything. When we had light, it was fine.

The light goes out, darkness, fear, disoriented, confused, not knowing

what's going on. Light comes along and all of a sudden, Wow,

this isn't half bad. We can do this. We know

where to go, We can see our future. Did you

know that light carries all beauty? Did you know that

if you did not have light, you would never see beauty?

Think about that. Did you know that light carries all color?

If you didn't have light, you wouldn't have color. Did

you know that light carries all life? If we did

not have the sun shining every day, the food chain

would be interrupted and we would all die. Light carries

life like life. Light is essential. The speed of light

is a constant that the physics of the entire all

the laws of physics rest on the constant of the

speed of light. Einstein's theory of relativity is m e

equals mc squared. Energy equals mass plus constant changes. Mass changes,

but the constant never changes. What is that constant number,

It's the speed of light. Light undergirds the very foundations

of all the physics of the universe. Light is essential.

Light is the most incredible thing, and we take it

so for granted. Light is created from God. It's rooted

in God, and it's sustained in God. Darkness is the

absence of light and my final thing that I will

just declare even now before we go any further. Light

always wins. Have you ever seen darkness like beat up light?

Does darkness ever come in and turn off the light? No,

you turn on the light. Darkness flees. Light always wins.

Light always wins. So that's Genesis one one. Now I'm

going to get you all the way up to Jesus

because that's where we got to go, right. So all

through the Old Testament, light is important. Light is a

central theme. You got the burning bush, You got the

pillar of fire that led the children of Israel in

the night darkness in the wilderness and gave them trust

and safety. You got the light and the power and

the fire and the glory that fell when Solomon dedicated

the temple, and that light came down in and it

resided in the temple, and the people of God could

come to the temple and they could see and sense

the light of the presence of God. So from Solomon's temple,

it's a thousand years before Jesus shows up, and some

things happen in Israel between when the temple is filled

with the light and the glory of God and Jesus

some things happen, and there was a moment in time.

Ezekiel tells us that in the Temple of Solomon that

glory light lifted and left, and from that point on

the light in the temple is just human made four

hundred years of silence from God, Jesus comes on the scene,

and in John chapters seven and eight, it's the story

of Jesus where he finds himself in Jerusalem during the

week of the Feast of Tabernacles, where they light a

huge candelabra at the front of the temple to remind

the people of the pillar of light that led them.

But at the end of the night they blow out

the candles and the temple becomes eerily dark. Well, on

the last night, Jesus stood in the courts of the temple,

in front of the Temple of God and made an

audacious claim. He said to them, he said, I am

the light of the world. He said that I am

the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never

walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

And when Jesus declared that, he set off a firestorm.

The religious leaders and the government people of the day

heard that, and they started like gnashing their teeth, and

they came up to him, and they began to fight him,

and there was a clash. When Jesus declared he was

the light of the world, he came up against darkness.

The darkness thought it had won. The darkness put Jesus

on the cross and then into the tomb. But I

am here to say that the light always wins. And

Jesus rose from that grave and with healing power in

his hands. But I will tell you that was an

audacious claim. I am the light, not just of Israel,

not just of the Jewish people. But Jesus declared he

was the light of the world, the entire world. And

then before he was put on that cross, he made

another audacious claim. He got up in Matthew five, verses

fourteen and sixteen through sixteen. Can you give me that, Devin?

He said, you are the light of the world. Another

audacious claim. What in the world, Jesus, you be the

light of the world. Will just take your light? And

Jesus said, absolutely not. He said, I'm flipping it now

and I am going I am here to say that

you are the light of the world. 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 a 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 the Father

in heaven. This is the heartbeat of missions. Jesus is

the light up against darkness. He walked this face of

the earth, and he did his thing. And when he

died and went to heaven, he declared that all authority

has been given to me in heaven and in earth.

And I say to you, now, you are the light

of the world. Go and make disciples of every nation.

You are the light of the world, not in and

of yourself. It's the light of the Kingdom inside of you.

You no longer live, but Christ lives in you, and

He is our hope of glory. You are me us.

We are the light of the world, and we must

be that. We must be that. I'm gonna tell you

a missionary story. Do you mind. I'm gonna be a

few minutes late. We're gonna go a little bit late.

Just be prepared. Yeah, everybody's like, oh boy, what's she

gonna do to me. Oh, you're gonna love every minute

of it. Okay, you ready. You are the light of

the world. I am the light of the world. There

was a Massi warrior in Eastern Africa. Now I've been

able to be around these Massi warriors. Look them up.

They're very fierce. They're warlike, they are vicious, they are violent.

They know how to kill, and they know how to

keep a grudge. They are not what you would say kind.

Have you met the Massi? Absolutely am I right in

what I'm saying. Yeah, they're from Kenya, So the Messiah

are all in Kenya. They come down into Uganda, and

I believe they're in Tanzania too. So there's a guy,

one of the warriors, his name is Joseph. He's walking

down the road and he's kind of a leader in

his village, a Messiah warrior. It's all he's lived, it's

all he's known. Someone we don't know who this person is,

stops him on the road, the dusty road, and shares

the gospel. How beautiful are the feet of those who

bring good news? How will they know unless they hear?

How will they hear unless someone is sent? So he's

walking down the road. Somebody shares the gospel. His heart leaps. No, people,

you don't understand. It's not like this man was raised

in church. This man was raised with a spear in

his hand. His heart leaps, his heart is stirred, his

heart has changed. He receives Jesus and they sit and

they talk, and just this exchange happens. And the first

thing that goes into Joseph's mind is, I gotta share

this with my gosspel, with my tribesmen. This happened about

twenty years ago. This is recent. So he goes into

his village and he starts going knocking door to door. Hey,

and he starts sharing the gospel. But he's not met

with the same reception that he had for it. He's

met with kind of a hardness. And he goes from

house to house, and after about four or five houses,

all of a sudden, the men of the village come out,

grab him, throw him to the ground, hold him down.

The women get barbed wire and start thrashing him until

he passes out. They drag him out of the village

and leave him to die. Miraculously, he does not die.

He recovers, he wakes up he comes back to consciousness,

He's able to drag himself to water, and by the time,

once his wounds were healed enough to be able to

get up, he thought to himself, maybe I didn't share

g Jesus correctly. Maybe I'm gonna try it again. So

he gets up. This is a true story. I'll show

you the articles that talk about this. He goes back

into the village and preaches Jesus. Those same men grab him,

throw him to the ground. The women come around and

thrash him with barbed wire, ripping open those freshly closed wounds.

He passes out again. They drag him out and leave

him to die, but the light of the kingdom is

insight of him. He comes back to consciousness, and when

he is able and gathers enough strength, he says, one

more time. My people must hear about this. They are

living in great darkness. And so he goes back into

the village and he shares one more time. One more time.

They throw him to the ground. They get out their

barbed wire, but this time the last thing he sees

before he passes out is that the women are beginning

to weep. And when he comes back to he is

actually in their arms as they are nursing him back

to health. And as soon as he comes back to

they said to him, Joseph, what is it that has

helped you through this? What is your message? We want

what you have. And their entire village came to Christ

the light, the light. He was the light for his village.

And let me tell you something, people of God. Joseph,

his light was not on a dimmer switch when it

gets tough. His light was on. And I want to

encourage every single one of you. You are the light

to your world. And when we do things with missions,

we're being the light to the world. But I am

here to say that you are the light of your

world and you are in conflict with darkness, and it's God.

It's God that gives you the strength and the power

to move darkness because light always wins, always wins. Thank

you Jesus. Remember go into all the nations and disciple them.

I'm going to close with this. You are the light

of the world. You are the light in your world,

You are the light in your family. You are the light.

But you're not just the light for your little patch.

Don't forget you're the light of the world. Missionaries have

been going out since the Apostles, missionaries have been going

out shining their light in the midst of darkness. I

could tell you story after story after story. I love

missions stories. But the question is, after two thousand years

have things changed. What's been the effect. They did a

huge study, believe it or not, let me read this

to you. This was just recently in the last few years,

at the end of a decade long statistical analysis of

the health and development of nations. So the whole point

was to figure out how low income, poverty level nations

can actually rise up. Is it through the government, is

it through NGOs? Is it through money? What is it?

What a need to rise up? Sociologists Robert Woodbury and

his fifty person research team, and this is a decade

long long analysis published a shocking discovery. Missionaries are actually

the greatest catalysts in the development and stability of nations.

Go figure. In an interview that he gave, he said

that areas were Protestant, and these missionaries, they're not just

any missionary. They're conversionary Protestants who preach the Gospel with

the intent of converting others and forming churches, who encourage

everyone to read the Bible in their own local language.

So therefore missionaries are writing languages for just verbal languages.

They don't have a written they're doing that. They're doing

it in the Bible. The people are learning to read

and write. This is what missionaries are doing. He says

that areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in

the past are on average more economically developed today, with

comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy,

and greater educational attainment, especially for women. The church and

missions has been making a difference in the nations over

hundreds of years. You need to read these articles because

it is just impactful the way they came to this conclusion.

And this was not a Christian study. It's the light

of the kingdom. When set against the kingdom of darkness

and God is presiding over it, light always wins. And

this is missions. Would you with me pull out your

Missions pledge card? Would you with me consider We're gonna

I'm gonna give you opportunity over the next three weeks,

but I'm gonna give it to you today because what

if you don't come back next week. I want you

to consider and uh, ushers, would you bring some buckets

up front? I want you to consider what could you do,

What could you do on a monthly basis for this

coming year? What could you do twenty forty fifty one

hundred for the spread of the gospel, for the support

of the missionaries. And then lastly, also, would you consider

giving into our project here today? Maybe you might not

be here next week and you're gonna need to do that,

or go ahead and go home, think about it, and

come back next week and give double how's that sound

because you're gonna think about it and it's gonna go up. Amen,

you are the light of your world. Turn that dimmer

switch all the way up. When you are opposing darkness,

light always wins. Please know that let's all stand missions.

We love missions. Put your hand over your heart Father

and Jesus name God. I pray right now that the

hearts of this body, this church beats with your heart.

Father God. Jesus is the light of the world, and

he is in me, and he has declared over me

that I am the light of the world. Father God,

I pray right now that my heart is aware. It

beats with hope and with faith. It beats with generosity.

It beats with love for every nation across the planet.

And Lord God, I thank you right now that every

missionary that's out there even now, in every nation, their

needs are met, their prayers are answered, their desires are realized,

their vision is accomplished in Jesus's name. And everybody said, Amen,

have Alujah, get the Lord a hand.