What Is Our Purpose - Leland Zehr

Good morning, greetings to you all in the name of Jesus,

and I too want to again welcome all of you,

especially maybe I noticed Bradford and Laurel are back. Welcome back,

been gone for a while here and other visitors. Glad

you're here with us this morning. Thank you too for

all of you that have already shared this morning let

out devotionals, appreciated, different thoughts, encouraging and challenging to think about.

For what's on my mind this morning, you can turn

to Matthew chapter five, and for the adult class, I

know we were just in Matthew chapter three. We're studying

through the book of Matthew and I'm not meaning to

but in ahead of the class here and steal anything

from the discussion. Hopefully I can at least what your appetites.

Maybe that can be what it is. But these thoughts

that I want to give this morning, the subject that

I want to talk about, have been on my mind

for a while. I'm not sure where they were birthed.

I was trying to think about that, but I think

what led me to these words, at least in part,

were me pondering about our purpose. And I know people

talk about that. What is our purpose? What are we

here for? And things like that. And when I say

our purpose, I mean both as a Christian personally and

also as us as a collective group as a church.

I'm sure you think about it.

I hope you think about it wondering what is our

purpose an m I and our we fulfilling that.

Purpose, whatever it might be.

And I would say too that the subject was born

out of more of a sense of need than personal accomplishment.

And so that is what has been this this study

has been about when you wake up in the morning,

you go about your day and the responsibilities that you have,

do you have a clear foundational purpose of what you

are all about and what you should be doing and being.

You know, in the secular world of businesses and organizations

and team sports and many things, there's an emphasis on

clarity of vision and mission, and there's books written about

straying from that vision and mission and what happens and

all of those things. And that's not my primary focus

this morning, but I'm still leading up to it at

the topic here for some of us, and personality maybe

comes into this some, but for some of us, as Christians,

we would desire and tend towards more a quiet life,

a quiet way, go to work, be a good neighbor,

not stray too far from home, raise our families well,

pay off our place if we have one, support our church,

help those around us as we have opportunity. Others may

desire something much bigger. I want to be a bigger impact,

and think maybe far starting an organization or a movement

to be a missionary in a far away land where

there's many needs in a different way than from our

own land. And I think either one of these has

the potential to be done right and well, and either

one of these has the possibility of being done in

vain and in selfish ambition. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus

went up into a mountain, and he spoke these words

that we know, the beatitudes. But when he got to

verse thirteen and fourteen, he said, ye are the salt

of the earth. And in verse fourteen he said, ye

are the light of the world. And that's what I

want to think about this morning, is salt and light.

And why did Jesus say salt be the salt of

the earth and ye are the light of the world.

And what did he mean? And what was he trying

to emphasize. So before I go into that, I'll read

a little bit I think into verse into chapter four,

maybe the last three verses, and through Matthew five, verse sixteen,

a little bit of a context. And as we read this,

think about think about what is being read, Think about

what is going on, Think about what each one of

these statements teachings that Jesus is saying really means as

much as you can as we read that, because I

feel like all of this ties in with what he

said about being salt and light. Matthew four, verse twenty three.

It says in Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in

their synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and

healing all manner of sicknesses and all manner of disease

among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria,

and they brought into him all sick people that were

taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were

possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those

that had the palsy, and he healed them. And there

followed him great multitudes of people from Galileean, from the Cocopolis,

and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain,

And when he was set, his disciples came unto him,

and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed

are the poor in spirit, for theirs as a kingdom

of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall

be comforted. Blessed are the meat, for they shall inherit

the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst

after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful,

for them they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure

in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed

are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs

is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye. When men

shall revalue and persecute you, and shall say all manner

of evil against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice and

be exceeding glad, for great as your reward in heaven.

For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you

Ye are the salt of the earth. But if the

salt has lost its savor, wherewis shall it be salted?

It is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast

out and trodden underfoot of men. Ye are the light

of the world. A city that is set on a

hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle

and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick,

and it giveth light into all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may

see your good works and glorify your Father, which is

in heaven. Notice in chapter four, briefly, they're those first

verses that I read before Jesus started to preach or

give the Sermon on the Mount. He was out preaching

the Kingdom of the Gospel, but he was healing, He

was with the people, he was ministering. He was touching

the lives of needy people. And then we get to

chapter five, and you have this multitude of people that

have started to follow him.

And he he gives these.

These uh sermon, these beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount.

What we call it, these words the beatitudes. Beatitudes mean

the word means blessing. Are to define it a deep, happy, spiritual,

prosperous being favored of God. Many of these blessings that

he talks about, they're not really commands so much. They're

more of a statement just the way that it is.

And these blessings are in complete reverse and opposite values

of the world then and of the world now. The

values of the world are power, wealth, self promotion, and

he takes those and he completely switches them around. And

so leading up to these verses, I want to mainly

focus on I'd like to just think about these beatitudes

just briefly. I'm I'm barely going to touch them, but

I'd like to.

To more than read the verses.

In the first one he talks about humility, humility instead.

Of ambition and self promote motion.

And the next one is meekness or meekness, gentle, a gentle,

quiet strength, mourning those that suffer and are grieving in

some way. He talks about the merciful, those that when

it was in when it is in there our power

to bring justice to someone. Instead, compassion for parents and

forgiveness is extended the pure in heart, purity on a

level that no one else really sees or knows about.

It's an inner sincerity and a moral integrity. And then

he talks about peace makers. Blessed are the peacemakers, those

that pursue and seek reconciliation rather than promoting schism, division conflict.

They don't divide and conquer when they have opportunity. All

these attributes, all these beatitudes, I think, are a glimpse

as Jesus starts his message into the heart and the

character of God for his people. And then he gets

to verse thirteen, verse sixteen, and he says, ye are

the salt of the earth, and ye are the light

of the world. And I don't want to over make

something more than is meant by the wording here. But

he doesn't say to be a sault or to be

a light. He says ye are the light and ye

are the salt.

To me, I think that.

These beatitudes are not so much of a telling you

how to be saved as describing a person that is saved,

the fruit that comes out of the life of those

that are salt and that are a light, those that

are living those beatitudes are a salt and a light

in the world that they are living in.

Now. Salt and light.

I want to think about those two things, especially a

little bit this morning, and I want to take us

back brief a little bit to Jesus' day, because with

modern technology, some of these illustrations, some of the teachings

that he was trying to drive home, I think lose

their value with the way that we understand things like light.

For example, today we have many kinds of light, powerful lights,

lights powered by electricity and solar and batteries. We have

spotlights and floodlights. Our homes are full of lights, and

you just walk into a building and you just flip

on lights from room to room. It's almost hard to

get away from light. Even at night in the towns,

and there's there's this background glow of lighting on you

have to see to see the stars in a in

a more full way. They have places up in the

mountains that are removed from the cities and all the

artificial lighting so that you can see.

And so today our.

Lighting is completely different than in the day that Jesus said,

ye are the light of the world. Today a lot

of lighting is marketed, and it's more about the fixtures

as it is about the light. There's huge markets chandeliers

and decorative lights and warm lights and bright lights, string lights,

But in Jesus Day it was much different. Lighting was

simply a flame of fire. And I brought some salt,

and I brought some light here this morning, just to

give a little bit of an illustration. So the salt

is pretty basic salt and a very simple salt shaker.

And I have a lamp here, and it may look

strange to some of you. Some of you would be

more familiar with this. I know that a lamp is

different than light.

A lamp. This is a.

Small structure made out of clay. I'll come back to

that in a little bit.

Salt. Let's talk about salt just a little bit.

I don't know when the last time you really stopped

and thought about salt. You use it probably every day.

I brought it in a fairly small container, at least

comparatively speaking. I didn't bring it in a gallon jug

or a five gallon bucket. It's a pretty small container.

And the reason for that is that a little bit

of salt goes a long long ways. One person I

don't know could live off of this salt for maybe

a year, depending on how much you baked with. Another

interesting thing about this simple little salt shaker. That is

somewhat unique to these type of things is that if

you look at the lid and you can look at

the end of that, there's a bunch of little holes.

The reason for that is that it's really easy to

get too much salt on what you're putting salt on.

If you just take the lid off and salt your food,

it is really easy to overdo it and make it

to where the food is absolutely no good. And we

watch our children learn this lesson over and over, one

at a time as they grow up and they want

to put their own salt on all by themselves, and

then they can't eat it, but hopefully the lesson is learned.

Salt is strong, Salt goes along ways. Salt is not beautiful.

It's not attractive.

Unless you put it in a pretty container. But if

you just look at the salt itself, there's nothing really

special about it.

You can take one of.

These tiny grains of salt and you put it on

the tip of your tongue, just one grain of salt,

and you can feel that or taste that saltiness.

It's it's very strong and potent.

A lamp here, this lamp it's a it's a lamp

that would have been similar to the day in Jesus Day,

Bible times, so it's much different than we think of

a lamp today.

It's made of clay, it's not very big.

It's not very pretty unless you like antiques, but in

and of itself, it's it's just very simple and practical.

It's in Jesus Day, they didn't have electricity, solar power,

all the different light options that we have today.

Light came from a vessel similar to this.

There would have been other things like torches as well,

but when they talk about a lamp, it would have

been probably something like this. But a unique thing about

these lights that is different than most lights today. This

lamp has two holes, a big one in the middle,

a little one in the front for a wick, and

a little handle.

To carry it.

But what is unique about this that we're not used

to normally, unless we're just having fun, we're camping, is

that in order for this to produce light and to

burn it all depends on the oil on the inside. Right,

there's no oil in this at this time. I could

light it, it would burn up the wick and that would

be the end of it. I think that's significant to

what Jesus was trying to teach in the lesson of

being a sult and.

A light to the earth.

And you remember another parable Jesus taught on this subject

in Matthew twenty five about the ten virgins. And I

don't know if that parable made sense to you growing up,

but probably not one hundred percent. Talked about ten virgins,

ten young ladies that took their lamps. It talks about

these things, and there was ten of them, and five

were wise, and the Bible says five were foolish. All

ten of them had a lamp like this, but only

half of them. Five of them had the oil to

put in the lamp. And the parable says that all

ten of them went to bed that night they had

their lamps, and the bridegroom called at midnight to come,

and these ten virgins jumped out of bed and they grabbed.

Their lamps, and they trimmed their lamps, and.

They needed light because in those days.

It was pitch black. There was no night lights.

You think about when the electricity goes out, or you're

somewhere far away where there's no lighting and you get

up in the middle of the night, and it's just

pitch black.

I assume that's how it was. But five realized very quickly.

That their empty lamps were of no good in the

middle of the night, you know, the day before, when

it was broad daylight, and they got their lamps, their

their ten lamps, and they were preparing.

There was very little difference.

Between the five whys and the five foolish because because

it was broad daylight.

But the five.

Wise virgins, they had remembered their oil. They brought a

vessel of oil along in those days if they wanted

to burn their lamps. And so I'll just illustrate that

here poured their oil in those days. I think it

would have probably been normally olive oil, which which is

what this is not a very impressive impressive flame. You

can probably barely see it from the back in a

light and a room full of light. But if you

take this little lantern, this lamp, and go into a

room with no light, which I did, it's surprising what

that little light can put off. It makes the difference

from stumbling around and pitch black to being able to

actually see and navigate and get around the room and

see what you're doing.

I have something else on the board.

Here just a few simple facts about salt and light.

Salt adds flavor. It also makes you thirsty. It preserves.

In those days, they didn't have refrigeration to preserve food

and meat and fish.

So salt was used.

Melts ice the cold. It purifies and it heals, and

a little bit goes along ways. It was also used

at times as kind of like a currency to pay

for pay people for things. It was used on sacrifices,

sprinkled on light. Light illuminates, It provides clarity, It dispels

the darkness, provides warmth.

It's a beacon from afar.

You can see it, and it blasts and benefits all

that are near. One thing, I'll just say, and I

don't want to over emphasize this point, but neither of

these salt and light make any noise. But they do

their work very well and very thoroughly, quietly and effectively.

You have the salt of the earth, than you're the

light of the world. I'd like to look at a

few spiritual applications. If I was, i'd be half tempted

to just close the service. Now, I think I gave

you enough that you could take the salt the light,

the illustrations, and if you would consider and take the

time to meditate on those things, those spiritual applications, there

would be much that you could think about. I want

to say a few things though, R he says, and

again I already said that that. He didn't say, go

be a light and go be salt. He said, ye

are the light. And I think again that just is

emphasizing that the beatitudes were a description of those that

followed Jesus, and it is what he expected. R affects

the attitude of our lives, the of our life.

A couple things about salt.

I think you know this, but sometimes we forget about it.

Just the simple fact that salt does no good unless

it's in contact. Okay, that's different than light, right, Salt

does no good sitting in the middle of the dinner

table being right beside it. But salt has to touch

the item.

It has to touch the.

Meat and dissolve into it or whatever it is before

that it is effective in making that food savory. It

has to touch the ice, the cold before it'll do

its work and melt that cold. It has to go

into the wound and touch that ugly wound before the

wound can be healed. If we Christians are to be

Christians with a sabor, we will need to get close

at times, we will need to have contact in the

lives of other people. This is true socially and this

is true spiritually, and we see this in.

Jesus' life being lived out.

And that's partly why I read the verses in Matthew

four that really show that where Jesus went about healing

the sick, the diseased, those that were possessed, he was

touching the lives of people. And then if you skip

ahead after the Sermon on the Mountain, go into Matthew eight,

he starts all over again touching the lives of people.

One of the practical areas that I think about this

just because of events recently and in our own lives.

It has made me become more aware and maybe aware

of my lack And I just say this as an encouragement,

not as a condemnation, but in the area of grief

and sorrow and mourning, Matthew five four said, Blessed are

they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. You know,

there's many different kinds of sorrow, but life is full

of sorrow. And if you haven't experienced it yet, you're

unusual or you're young. But sorrow will come, hardship will

come of some kind. It's not all the same for everyone.

It could be the death of a loved one, just

this deep, permanent loss, and to either experience that or

be near to someone that is going through that is.

Very just difficult.

And it made me think, especially in the last months

with Matt and Katrina's justice that loss, how much I

guess I missed at times in my past what people

are really going through in those moments of loss. And

you can't know what you can't know, I guess in

some degree, but maybe in a sense we can if

we put forth effort and we're intentional and we get

close to a situation. Other losses are sicknesses of all kinds,

short term, long term diseases, maybe a chronic pain or

suffering of some kind that you can't find help for

you just kind.

Of live with it.

Maybe a loved one is struggling mentally and gradually becoming

someone that they weren't, And there's all that goes with that,

the slow grieving process and the difficult of that. As

we age, there's aches and pains, and our bodies quit

working in the way that they once were, and so

that can be a sort of a grief and a loss.

When we once were taking care of others and now

they're taking care of us. There's sorrow that can come

with that. There's a sorrow that comes with sin of

all kinds. Maybe we ourselves or maybe some loved one

has fallen into sin, and there's betrayal, there's broken trust,

there's unfaithfulness, and it's heartbreaking, and our world gets completely

shaken up with disappointment and shame, and we just I'm

not sure who we can trust. All these things are

part of life's sorrows and more. And you know, we

cannot We cannot fix problems. We cannot make the difficulties

of life go away, even though we desperately want to sometimes.

But sometimes the best that we can do is be

a salt, is to come close to touch in some way,

to just let them or that person know that we notice,

we care, We're praying. It doesn't need to be much,

it doesn't need to be much. In fact, it probably

shouldn't be much, just just a sprinkling of kindness, a

few words, a card, Maybe maybe you just go visit

and be in their presence awkwardly for a bit, just

because you're showing them that you care.

You know, a big pile of salt is not needed.

Sometimes when we can't fix a problem, we see a problem,

whatever that sorrow might be, and it's like, we have

no idea what to do. There's nothing I can do

to fix it. And it's true. But when we stay

at aloof and we protect ourselves because we don't know

what to say, and we don't get involved because we

don't want to do the wrong thing, often the people

that are in that moment feel rejection and pain and forgotten. Remember,

salt is no good unless there's contact, and along with

a little bit goes a long way. Clautionans four or

five and six says, walk in wisdom to them that

are without redeeming the time. Let your speech be always

with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how

to answer how you ought to answer every man. You know,

just a few words, fitly spoken, can minister grace and

encouragement and can replace that desperate, dark despair with some hope.

You know I've had and I've probably done to my shame,

but I've heard you hear this thing sometimes and maybe

a matter of a I don't know, conflict, a brotherhood

conflict or something, and there's this disagreement and someone says,

and I really told him a thing or two, or

I really let him know how I felt, as if

you know, this honest, salty approach really took courage, and

maybe it did, but I just say, be careful, be

careful with our salty honesty.

Sometimes it needs.

To be done, but it needs to be done in

little doses, and it needs to be done very carefully

with the.

Motives of our heart.

Sometimes that can just be carnal blowing off steam that

makes us feel better and leaves another.

Dealing with the.

The hard words, which which leads me to the next

thought here, spiritual salt.

Should bring redemption and healing and peace.

I'm not going to say a lot about this, but

in Mark nine there's this big, long discussion some on

and off of the well. The whole thing's not about that,

but part of it is about the disciples wondering who

would be the greatest, And that's where Jesus takes a

child and gives them the lesson of becoming as little child.

But the very last verse of Mark nine, he says,

salt is good. But if the salt has lost its saltiness,

where with will you season it? Have salt in yourselves

and have peace one with another. And I think salt

applied correctly is meant to bring healing, and I understand

that it takes. There's a response on both salt sides.

There's not always possibility, but generally between brothers, when salt

is handled correctly, the outcome should be peace one with another.

Salt enhances flavor. You know, the principles of the Christian life.

Of a Christian should enrich life.

That doesn't mean it.

Makes it easy, but it makes it deeper, it makes

it more mature, it makes it more purposeful than a

life that is without without Christ.

Salt does not seek self glory.

You know, you go home at dinner and you put

salt on, or you eat a good meal, and I

don't ever remember at the end of a meal feeling

satisfied and just this delicious meal and looking at the

salt shaker and thinking or for sure saying, you know,

thank you, salt for what you have done. You know

it's forgotten, it's put back on the wherever it was,

and we think about that meat, and we think about

those vegetables. Salt gets no glory, but it does its

work quietly. It enhances others, It makes others more full.

And so there's this lesson.

And Jesus doesn't say it exactly about salt, but he

makes this point about light in verse sixteen. On the light,

he says, light your light, so shine before men that

they may see your good works. But glorify your Father,

which is in heaven. So salt and light is to

bring glory to God. And then the last one about

salt is salt is worthless if it loses its saltiness.

You know.

Again, if for some reason, I don't know what makes

salt lose its saltiness, maybe if it gets wet and

then dries out or something. But if this salt is

not savory, does not enhance meat, does not melt, ice,

does not heal wounds. There's just really no other good

purpose for it. And the illustrate the point Jesus is

making is as Christians, it's the same way if our lives,

if our Christian life is not doing anything other than

the godless Christians in the world, which as Christians were

to help all these things. But one of the things

is to prevent moral decay in our own lives and

the lives around us. But if we don't live and

talk and act in a godly way, and our attitudes

are not sanctified by humility and meekness, there's really no

place for us in the Kingdom of God. If the

salt has lost its savor, it's for the dunghill. The

Bible says, yeah, the light of the world. A few

things here on the light. I want to just give

a few spiritual symbolisms that go with the physical light itself.

There's many, but I'll mention just a few. In the Bible,

the Bible says that God is light in him, there

is no darkness at all. Light represents the presence of God.

Light represents truth, holiness, salvation. It represents wisdom and guidance.

God's Word is a lamp unto my feet and a

light and to my path. It represents clarity, and it

drives away darkness and confusion. And the thing about a lamp,

these kind of a lamps. We like big bright spotlights,

But a lamp.

Is not made to shine far out.

It's made just enough to see the next few steps

in life. We don't always see down the road.

Light.

Darkness is simply the absence of light. Darkness alone cannot

dispel light, and I think that is an important spiritual application.

Sometimes we see the darkness whatever that might be a

person or an event, or you go into town or

Eugene or Portland and there's just this display of strange

feeling of wickedness and darkness, and it's intimidating, and there's

probably a place to be distant from that. But I

think if we are living I know that if we

are living.

In the right way before Christ, you.

Know, darkness cannot suffocate light. Light pushes out darkness. Darkness

cannot be where light is, and we should take courage

in that. And the smallest light will push away the

greatest darkness if it's truly the light of God and

not our own light. I've said this quote before. I

don't know where it came from, but I like the

imagery of it. It says better to light one candle

than to curse the darkness, and sometimes that is what

we want to do, and that's what people want to do.

And podcasts and politics is is fight darkness and curse

that darkness and tell it how bad that it is,

and tell everybody else how bad.

That it is.

But Jesus said, be a light to the world. You

don't battle darkness with darkness. Jesus also said that if

if we love darkness, there's a problem. And there's a

reason that men love darkness because their deeds are evil.

And I don't know how that is with you. It

reminds me of a barn full of rats or mice

and you flip on the light and they run from

the light into the darkest corners. And I would just

ask us you all, where is your comfort zone? Where

are you the most comfortable? What do you at ease?

Is it in the presence of carnal music and movies

and secular people and sports and hanging out with people

with worldly values, or is it where there's spiritual vision,

where there's a fear of God, where there's a seeking

after the righteousness like to be attitudes? If we love

the darkness, there's a reason.

Now. One of the maybe the main points.

Most important points with light that I want to make

is light in Jesus day, and a light like this

that light is dependent on the inner oil.

In the oil.

In the Bible, oil represented the Holy Spirit. And you

remember an axe too on the day of Pentecost, when

the when the Holy Spirit came, tongues of fire came

and landed on the people, and I don't know exactly

what they look like. But oil also represents healing and light.

But the structure of a lamp, and sometimes people get

all against structure and all that, but you know, oil

without a lamp wouldn't work. So the lamp is important

to hold the oil. It has a purpose. But it

takes more than the lamp. It takes oil in the lap.

It takes both, and sometimes we can get focused. I

agree on the lamp, and I'll illustrate that as well.

I brought another lamp. It's a little bit more modern.

It's still old for comparison to today. But this lamp here,

I like this lamp.

It's pretty.

This guy's in comparison to this one, is tall, he's handsome.

It's a pretty blue. It's got a lot of improvements.

It's got a bigger tank, it's got glass around the

wick so that the wind doesn't blow it. It's just

a really nice, good looking lamp. But the current condition

that it's in right now. If we were in a blackout,

in a dark room without light, it would be completely worthless.

The lamp has no oil in it, and so although

it's much more beautiful, it's pretty, it's it's appealing to

the eye, has a lot of neat features about it.

As far as producing light, it can't do that right

now unless someone helps it out or it gets oil

in its reservoir.

And in fact.

I would say a little bit stronger than that, the

lamp is not only really worthless, it becomes a hazard

because if it's sitting in the middle of a dark room,

it becomes a stumbling block. It gets the way, and

it's just a problem. It's not a help of any kind.

This point seems to be at least at one of

the points at the heart of jesus teaching. He told

he told the people just a few verses later from

where I stopped in Matthew five Matthew five point twenty

said for us, say, and do you accept your righteousness

exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, He

show and no case center into the Kingdom of heaven.

And it seems like that one of the Hearts of Christ,

as he gave those beatitudes, and as he taught the

Sermon on the Mount and all of those other teachings

and then lived his life.

Was that he was.

Trying to portray to the people a different kind of

righteousness than that they were used to. That they were

used to singing. It was something different. It was something deeper.

It was it was more than just good works and

good lucks and good deeds, although those were important, but

they started and came from an inner heart condition that

affected the attitude, and that produced meekness and humility and

purity of heart when God wasn't I mean, when other

people weren't even looking. It was an inner sanctification that

did produce good works. And we like to blame the

Pharisees on being you know, all about the lantern, But

I think that's a people problem in my estimation, the

short life that I've lived so far, when I watched

people throw the lantern out in the name of Phariseeism,

and we need to worry about the inner as I

watched that life too often, there's I don't know if

the flame has really improved, And so I don't think

it's always the lantern's fault as much as that there

needs to be oil in the lamp, because we need

a lamp.

Christ had a lamp. Jesus was a lantern.

He respected the culture of the Jews, and he lived it,

and he went and did it. He was not too

proud of a renegade to have to tear down the

whole structure and start over to prove that he was spiritual.

He just had an inner oil in his life that

brought forth a flame and a light. Another thing about

light is it's warm this kind of light, and you

think about a bonfire on a cold night in the

dark draws people together. It's light, it's warmth, it brings

people in. And we could talk about, well, how do

we get this oil and that should I'm running out

of time, but I would just say we touched on

it in our Sunday School repent. You know, before we

can put good, clean, pure oil. The Holy Spirit will

not fill our lives with oil until we have repented

and got rid of the dirt and the filth out

of our own life. That's the first step. And then

it is surrendering our will to the lordship of Christ

and obeying him and spending time with him to be

filled and meditate. You know, we can't have something in

our lives that we will not bring in. If we

don't read our Bible, we don't meditate, and we don't pray,

we cannot expect the Holy Spirit to just somehow force

feed plunge.

Oil into our lives.

We need to be open, we need to stop, We

need to ask, and we need to be in the

presence of God so that he can and read his.

Words so that we can be filled each day.

Light benefits all that are in the house. It says,

that's another thing.

That light for any that are around it. If we

are being.

A light, of course it benefits us. But it's a blessing.

It's an influence and provides a godly atmosphere for others.

Light is a beacon to the lost. I remember years ago,

I'm not sure if it's twenty years ago.

I was in.

The Rocky mountains of Montana, many miles back into the wilderness.

We had went in on horses. I was with my

friend Carl and some others and that first.

Night we well, that afternoon we got into base camp.

We got all our stuff unloaded and the horses dealt with,

and we got our guns and we headed out hunting

for the for the afternoon, and we.

Got out hunting the ways and what do you know,

We've seen an elk far away and you know how

that works.

And then we were after it. But that took us on,

that drew us out into the mountains further than we

had planned to go. And we were going to do

this big horseshoe and come back around to camp, but.

We didn't. Part way around.

It started to get dark and we were not on

a trail, we were not in the area we had

ever been before. And as darkness came, and it got

darker and darker, and we were in the trees and

we were in the brush, and there was deadfall. I

don't know if you've ever been in that situation, but

you have to hold off the panic, the fear of

just you're just crashing through the woods.

And so we walked as best we could in the direction.

It got completely dark, and I remember as we came

up and we were trying to figure out where we were.

We were a little bit disoriented, not completely lost. We

kind of knew the general direction. I remember at one

point finally seeing way down that ridge way down.

Below a little light.

And we weren't sure what it was at first, but

then as we looked and talked, we were pretty sure

that that was base camp. And what that light represented

to us in that moment was food, was safety of friends, security,

a bed, warmth, and protection from the predators.

That was grizzly bear country. And so we headed out

for that light.

That light did us no good where we were at

we couldn't see any better, but it provided a beak

and a direction that we started to follow, and eventually

we made it down the mountain and it was camp,

and it led us to our friends, led us to

the to all those good things. And I think that

is another reason Jesus said, you're the light of the world.

And a city that is set on a hill cannot

be hid. It shouldn't be hid. Don't put it under

a bushel. And I thought about, you know, there's one

hundred and some people here, and if the lights were out,

and if it was acts too, and all of you

were a flame, your lights in the world. And wherever

you go throughout the week and out the and on

your job and wherever you're teaching ministering, do you have

a light or do you just have a lantern? Is

there oil in your lamp? Those are things we need

to think about. It doesn't happen automatically. As Christians, we

are to be sult and light and it doesn't come

from our own selves. And regardless of where you're at,

young people, mothers and fathers, sick or healthy, elderly, those

that are disappointed, those that are in some kind of sorrow.

Now Christ wants us to be assault to be a light.

Doesn't really matter if you get on a plane ticket

fly halfway around the world or if you just live

around Halsey Organ. But the important part is to not

lose your safe, to be aware of what your purpose is,

to be a salt and a light to the to

the world wherever you live, and to be faithful in that.

So God bless you. We'll call for a closing song.

Mmm hmm