Light in the Darkness Matthew 4:12-25

Pastoral ministry, which of course, I am a pastor, it's a unique job.

It's a unique calling. If you're not careful, you can spend little to no time with unbelievers.

If you just spend time with church people, that's what your life will be. About two weeks ago,

I read a very convicting quote from a 19th century hymnist by the name of Horatius Bonar.

And this is what he wrote concerning pastoral ministry. He said, to deliver sermons on each returning

Lord's Day, to administer the Lord's Supper statedly, to pay an occasional visit to those who request it, to attend religious meetings.

This, we fear, sums up the ministerial life of multitudes who are, by profession, overseers of the flock of Christ.

An incumbency of 30, 40, or 50 years often yields no more than this.

So many sermons. So many visits. So many meetings of various kinds.

These are all the pastoral annals. The parish records. The all -of -a -lifetime ministry to many.

Of souls that have been saved, such a record could make no mention.

Multitudes have perished under such a ministry. End quote.

Probably one of the most convicting paragraphs I've ever read in my entire life. What Bonar is highlighting here is a pastoral ministry that has no care for the unbelieving world around you.

Or, we could even apply this to everybody. A church that has no care for the unbelieving world around you.

This is something we must pay attention to. Especially me. Now many of you are not in this position where your job doesn't put you away from unbelievers.

Oftentimes, your job puts you right with them. You cross paths with them all the time.

But I am personally challenged to find ways around unbelievers because if I don't watch it, then

I won't spend any time with them. I have to do it intentionally. This is why

I go to KJ's bar, and when I say that, usually it's meant with laughs, but in all honesty,

I go there for a reason. I want to go to a place that would be classified as a dark place.

And it's dark in the sense that it's not a place where Christians spend a lot of time, and for good reason, right?

It's a place where there's excess alcohol and other sins go with that. This is not to say that Christians should never go there, but if we do go there, it should be with wisdom.

The reason I like to have a small presence there is to be used by God to be a light in a dark place.

And I've gotten to know some of the people, and you know what? If we go there in a wise way, then they're much more likely to walk through our doors, maybe sometime down the road.

And we must do this because this is what Jesus did. Jesus is the light.

And what He did is He came to a dark world to meet people right where they're at in order to pull them out of the position that they were in, the dark position that they were in.

So this morning, we are going to see this. We're going to see the Gospel brought to a dark place, and it comes through the

One from whom the Gospel is all about, right? It's all about Jesus Christ. And He's going to set us the example that we must follow.

So I encourage you to turn with me to Matthew 4. We'll look at verses 12 -25.

If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 962. This sermon is titled,

Light in the Darkness. And this is our big idea. The beginning of Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world.

The beginning of Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world. And we're going to see three ways how.

He brings hope in what we need to see. The first way how is by shining

His light in a dark place. And we'll see this in verses 12 -17. Now to give you a little recap about where we have been, two

Sundays ago, we had a Christmas sermon. Last Sunday, we had a sermon that was related to this sermon.

Last Sunday's sermon was about how to do evangelism from Colossians 4. And I didn't preach from our sermon series because I knew that there were going to be so many people gone.

So you didn't miss anything with our sermon series if you weren't here last week. So the last time we were in the

Gospel of Matthew was three Sundays ago. And that was the first half of chapter 4, verses 1 -11, where Satan tempted

Jesus in the wilderness. God led Jesus in the wilderness because He is the second

Adam. The first Adam failed when tempted by Satan. While the second

Adam, Jesus, would succeed when tempted. This is so important since our redemption depended upon it.

If Jesus fell into sin, which was, by the way, impossible because He's the God -man, but Satan still did it, if He would have fallen into sin, we would all be eternally lost.

Satan tempted Jesus three times and each time failed. In each of these lies from the devil,

Jesus comes back at him with three truths, three corrections to his lies.

The first lie that Satan told was to rely on self and not God. But Jesus responded by telling

Satan that one must rely on God alone. The second lie that Satan told was to have

God prove Himself to Jesus. But Jesus responded by saying God does not need to prove

Himself to anyone since He already has. We must not ask God to prove

Himself over and over again, but always trust Him. The third lie that Satan told was that it is okay to worship the creature.

And he did this by saying, worship me. Satan wanted the worship for himself. But Jesus responds by saying, worship

God alone. He's the only one worthy of worship. So what we must take from the first 11 verses of Matthew 4 is to listen to God's Word in the face of Satan's lies.

We must follow Jesus' example by responding to Satan with God's truth. This leads us to our text this morning.

To this point, Jesus had just begun His ministry, but He hasn't yet done it publicly.

What we've seen to this point is His baptism and temptation. Both of those happened without the whole world seeing

Him. Now today, we are going to see Him begin His public ministry. Let's begin by reading verses 12 -17.

Now when He heard that John had been arrested, He withdrew into Galilee. And leaving

Nazareth, He went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet

Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the

Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light.

And for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.

From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

What we see right from the start is that Jesus leaves the region of Judea.

Now Judea was located about where Jerusalem was. Jerusalem was in the region of Judea.

And what Jesus does is He travels about 80 miles north to the region of Galilee.

So Galilee would have been a place out in the sticks. Now 80 miles is not very far in our day, but in this day, that's a long ways away.

So He's starting His ministry far from Jerusalem. The text tells us that He went north when

John the Baptist was put in prison. Later in the Gospel of Matthew, we learn the reason why

John was put in prison. He was put there because he challenged King Herod Antipas, who had intimate relations with his brother

Philip's wife. The Herod dynasty, there's all these different Herods. So Herod Antipas was one.

Philip was another. And so Antipas committed incest with his brother

Philip's wife. But this is not the reason why

Jesus went to Galilee. John chapter four verses one through three tells us that Jesus went north to Galilee from Jerusalem because the

Pharisees heard that Jesus was baptizing more than John.

What this tells us is the same hatred the Pharisees had for John, they now had for Jesus. And Jesus did not leave because He was afraid of the

Pharisees, but rather it was not His time to die. Remember, Jesus came to the earth to die.

He was on a rescue mission to save sinners. But He knew He needed to finish His ministry first.

So He couldn't be surrounded by the Pharisees early on because they would have put Him to death in His first year. It wouldn't come till after His third year that they would execute

Him through Pontius Pilate. So Jesus went to Galilee because this was the focus of where His ministry would be.

This is where Jesus would spend most of His time. Furthermore, Jesus going to Galilee was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

We've already seen many Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus in the

Gospel of Matthew. And verses 15 and 16 are a fulfillment from the prediction made in Isaiah 9, verses 1 and 2.

What that text tells us is that the light would shine on this region in northern

Israel. Now this region historically was taken over by the

Assyrians 700 years before Christ. And from that time to the time of Christ, this was a mixed people, ethnic

Israelites who were known as Jews, and Gentiles who are the non -Jews.

The dominant Jewish stronghold of Jerusalem looked down on this region in the north because it was a hybrid of these two groups of people.

It was a mixed group. They didn't maintain their ethnic identity like Jerusalem did.

But think about this here. Of all the places that God could have chosen to send

His Son to spend most of His ministry, He picked

Galilee. Of all places. The God -man Jesus started and spent most of His ministry in a backwoods region.

To put this in our context, this would be like God sending Jesus to minister in the

St. Croix Falls area rather than Minneapolis. That doesn't sound very strategic, does it?

It sounds counterintuitive. But it was God's plan. And I find it interesting.

There's a lot of books being released saying plant churches in cities. Plant churches in cities. I'm a little biased towards the country people, right?

Because we are country people. Jesus was in the country. That's where He spent most of His time.

And was it wasted? No. God did incredible things through Jesus' ministry.

That's a side point there. But this should encourage us, right? We matter. Places where there's little population, we matter.

God cares about the Gospel reaching places that are often forgotten by so many people.

Very few people knew about this region. And it had little significance. It wasn't

Jerusalem. It wasn't Rome. Think of all the big places in the world at this time. Now what the text tells us, and what we must see in this first point, is that Jesus is the light that was brought to a dark place.

Now the people living in this region dwelt in darkness for two reasons. The first reason is they were dominated by a people not their own.

I mentioned the Assyrians. They lost their national identity and their pride.

But the reason they were in this position in the first place is because of their sin. God sending the

Assyrians to northern Israel 700 years before Christ was because of their hardness of heart.

All the sins that they committed. They did not listen to God's appeal in Isaiah 2 .5

that reads, O house of Jacob, come. Let us walk in the light of the

Lord. They did not walk in the light. But in the darkness. And if you continue to walk in the darkness, consequences are coming.

God promised, even as they were in the darkness and surrounded by the Assyrians and overtaken by the

Assyrians. He promised in Isaiah 9 .1 and 2 that the light would come to this region. God was sending the brightest light of all.

His son, Jesus, to an evil and dark place. Jesus refers to himself in John 8 .12

as the light of the world. What he is doing here is bringing his message.

What verse 17 tells us is from that time, Jesus began to preach saying,

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is bringing the gospel to a lost world.

And it's interesting here. He preaches himself, right? When we share the gospel, we preach Jesus. But Jesus is preaching himself because later on, he would accomplish salvation through his death and resurrection.

He came on a rescue mission to deliver people from their bondage to sin, their bondage to darkness by calling them to repent and believe in him in order to bring them to his purity.

Jesus is purity coming to a sinful and dirty place.

I think about the weather we had recently. Christmas was gross, right? I mean, all the rain and dirt everywhere.

And then a couple of days later, this fresh snow comes over blankets.

And I remember I saw Karen's picture on Facebook yesterday. I'm not sure if I liked it.

I hope I did. But it was all the snow was on the branches and beautiful path.

And I tell you what, going for a drive was breathtaking with that fresh coat of snow.

That's what Jesus is doing, right? He's coming with this dirty place and he's bringing his purity to this dirty place.

And our world is full of dark places. I used to work in secular employment and I'm really grateful that the

Lord had me do that for a little while because I can relate to you a little bit. I know what it's like to be surrounded by darkness.

And when I was a sales rep for a running shoe company, we used to have these sales meetings where it was like Sodom and Gomorrah.

I mean, the sins that took place there. And it was so dark. And I hated going because I would rather be around my

Christian friends where we could enjoy fellowship and where the time was rich. And I remember getting on the plane ride home and just wanting to read the

Bible because it felt like water coming over me, washing off the dirt of just being in a dark place.

I also remember going to school growing up. The public school was a dark place. It's a place where God isn't even acknowledged.

And if he is, it's in a very vague way. And sins run rampant. And we need to pray for our kids who are in the public school.

Now, thankfully, we have teachers like Hansi and I know Barb is a substitute. And teachers and others there can shine the light of Christ in those places.

And some places aren't as bad as others. Typically, in a more rural area, it's a lot better because you still have the

Christian influence. But still, there's a lot of darkness there. And I remember growing up in the school system and thinking, how many

Christians are here? How many people who are following Jesus Christ? And the answer is not very many.

And we need to pray for more. So as we look at Jesus shining his light in the dark place, what we must understand is that as his church, we represent him.

So he is the light coming into the world. And he sends us to be the light in the world.

In fact, Jesus calls us this. In Matthew 5 .14, he says that you are the light of the world.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Eureka Baptist Church is a beacon of light in our community.

Not the building. The church isn't the building. The church is the people. Each of you are a light.

And through your actions and through your words, you give people an opportunity to leave darkness and be brought to the light through Jesus Christ.

And people can experience a joy that they never experienced before. Do you see yourself that way as the light coming into the world?

So that's the first way how the beginning of Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world by shining his light in a dark place.

The second way how he brings real hope to a lost world is by calling his messengers to send out.

Verses 18 through 22. What we just saw is that Jesus brings the message to the people.

But what is incredible about God's plan as I already alluded to is that Jesus is not the only messenger, right?

He's sending God's people out. The ones who are saved become the messengers.

What we are going to see is that Jesus is going to call his people to join his mission. Let's read this in verses 18 through 22.

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately, they left their nets and followed him.

And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them.

Immediately, they left the boat. And their father, and followed him.

It's such a remarkable passage. In my old church, we had it written on the wall as you were walking out the door.

I am making you fishers of men. Follow me, for I am making you fishers of men.

It's a reminder we always need. As Jesus is ministering near the

Sea of Galilee, he sees two brothers. Simon and Andrew. And then he sees two other brothers,

James and John. And all four of these have the same profession.

They're fishermen. It is rare in our day to see professional fishermen.

The fishermen we see, right? Derek, right? Derek's a fisherman. Mark's a fisherman. Although he still has to help me catch fish, but we're working on that.

Um, sorry about that. Now, there still are professional fishermen on the

Earth. I remember my family and I re -vacationed to Alaska. And we went to the village of Seward, Alaska.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever been there, but that's a fishing village. And people do it for a profession, where they have big halibuts that they are catching.

And, but this is rare, right? We don't really know too many professional fishermen. But all four of these, this is what they do for a living.

They go on the sea, the Sea of Galilee, every day, cast their nets out and haul these fish in.

Now, as Simon and Andrew are fishing, Jesus calls out to them from the shore, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

And he does the same with the two brothers, James and John. John is the one who wrote the

Gospel of John. And of course, Simon is Peter. Who wrote first and second

Peter. Now, we don't know much of the background here of how this episode played out.

It could be that they had a lengthy conversation and Jesus persuaded them to join him. It could also be that during Jesus' short ministry in Galilee, they knew of him and were already drawn to what he said.

So when he called out to them, they were ready to follow him. But what we have to understand is that these are

Jews that Jesus is speaking with. What we have seen is that much of the Jewish population had been led astray.

At some point between the Old Testament prophet Malachi and the ministry of Jesus, there was rampant false teaching within the

Jewish religion. The false teaching was that one could earn his or her own salvation by keeping the law.

And so salvation was not through grace, through faith alone, which is what the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation.

Now, the ones who received Jesus when he came were the ones who had a correct understanding of the

Old Testament. The salvation is by grace through faith alone. Now, it is true that some of the

Jews probably would have been unbelievers who received his message. But Old Testament believers would have been willing and ready to receive the

Messiah when he came. And it may be that the disciples were Old Testament believers who just believed.

Now, there's a debate on that. When were the disciples saved? We don't know. I tend to think that these are people who were already saved, who were called, and they showed their true faith by following Jesus.

But that's not the important thing here. But the important thing is here is how willing they were. They were willing to leave and follow him.

Twice, it says, immediately. You see that in verse 20 and verse 22? Immediately, they left their profession and they followed him.

This is one clear evidence of true believers. They are willing to count the cost.

They are willing to give up everything for Christ's sake. In another Gospel, Jesus said in Luke 9, 23 -25,

If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? A true disciple is one who is willing to give up everything for Christ.

Look at how quickly they were willing to leave their jobs. And in the second group here,

James and John, it even says they left their father, which tells us they left their family behind.

Now, you might say, that's not right to leave your family behind. No, I don't think they were married yet.

I think what that means is they left their household to follow after Jesus Christ.

And we have to wonder why missionaries leave the comforts of home to go to a foreign land.

We support six missionary families. Their pictures are on the wall in the back. They do this because they have given their entire life in the service of Christ.

They are counting the cost and showing themselves to be true disciples. Now, every

Christian is a disciple of Jesus, and most disciples do not go to the mission field.

But the question I want to ask you and me is, what have we given up to follow

Jesus? Every Christian gives up something. The biggest thing a true disciple leaves behind is their sin.

You don't live like you used to. 2 Corinthians 5 .17 says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has gone. The new has come. Your life takes a different trajectory.

Another mark of a true disciple is he or she shows the value of Christ in his or her life.

And it's shown in priorities. Our lives show us who is most valuable.

It's been neat to see Sean Anderson's life. And some of you know Sean before I even met him.

I've known Sean for three years. But there's people in our community who are asking

Sean, what changed in your life? He was challenged once.

And Sean went from, I think Sean would say this, that he went from having maybe one foot in to having two foot in.

And the Lord persuaded him to do that. He counted the cost. And people have seen a change in his life.

And they're asking about the men's breakfast and things like that. And Sean's inviting them. And people notice when someone goes from one foot in to two feet in.

And this is how my mind works. Unbelievers have no feet in.

Believers have one foot in. There might be some believers who have one foot in or they might not be believers.

We don't know. That's kind of a middle category. It's hard to tell if they've truly counted the cost.

And then there's those who have two feet in. And there's no question where their allegiance is to.

It's to Jesus Christ. It's not to the world. It's not to idols in their life. They're trying to put to death a sin in their life.

So where are you? Ask yourself that. Do you have both feet in for Christ?

Are you willing to lay down your nets and fully follow Him? Jesus wants all of you.

Not some of you. He's not the cherry on top of your life. He's everything. Now you might wonder, you know, what are some tests?

What's a good litmus test to find out if I have both feet in? It shows in the way you live your life.

Do you spend time with God regularly in His Word and through prayer?

Do you talk with Him? It says in Scripture that Moses talked with God like a man with his friend.

Is that what your life is like? Do you prioritize Christian fellowship?

If you miss several Sundays in a row and you just feel like, you know what, I'm craving Christian fellowship.

Or I'm craving a Bible study. That's really good evidence that you have both feet in. And if you're thinking, you know what,

I could do without it. That's a sign you don't have both feet in. True disciples hunger for Christian fellowship.

Here's another one. Do you see yourself as a light in a dark place?

Do you want to see other people coming to know Christ as their Lord, Savior, and treasure? 19th century

British pastor Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon, that's a name everyone should know.

He was known as the Prince of Preachers. He once said, Have you no wish for others to be saved?

Then you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that. That's very convicting.

True disciples view Christ as most important and it shows in the way you live. You follow

Jesus and you follow Him closely. This doesn't mean perfection, right? The old quote, it's not the perfection of your life, but it is the direction of your life.

One should clearly be able to see a difference between a disciple of Christ and one who is not.

And if you're conflicted, the world is right here and Christ is right here and you don't know which way to go. At some point, you have to move towards Christ to really be sure that you have a saving faith in Him.

And what God does when He saves you is He pulls you out of the world and then

He sends you right back in. When Jesus is praying to the Father in John 17, when

He prays to the Father, He says, I don't pray that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

So Jesus is saying, leave them in the world as my messengers and the

Lord is going to protect you as you're in the world. But you have to understand that the world is not your friend.

The world is passing away. And so we need to live like citizens of God's kingdom now.

So the beginning of Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world. And the second way how is by calling

His messengers to send out. He's calling everyone in this room. The third way how

Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world is preaching the good news everywhere. We'll see this in the final three verses, verses 23 through 25.

In the previous point, I mentioned that some Christians are sent to the mission field. In these verses, we will see that all

Christians are called in some way to reach people everywhere. Verses 23 through 25.

And He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

So His fame spread throughout all Syria and they brought

Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics.

And He healed them. And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the

Jordan. What we need to notice here is how widespread Jesus' ministry was.

And in the first part of verse 23, we read that He went throughout all Galilee. Then in verse 24, we read that His fame spread throughout

Syria, all Syria. Then in verse 25, we read that His ministry spread and crowds followed

Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the

Jordan. So you get the idea, really everywhere in the region, Christ's influence is reaching.

And we should take this to say, we should not take this to say that Jesus traveled to all these places.

But what happened is that He was preaching and the message was getting out. And so people were flocking to Him.

So it was kind of a reverse mission, right? Usually the missionary goes to the field, but as he's preaching, the word is spreading and people are coming to Him.

These were unique times. One of the main reasons people came to Him was because He had supernatural power to heal.

He was doing miracles for everyone to see. Verse 24 tells us that the sick, the crippled, and those oppressed by demons were the ones who came to Him.

And Jesus turned no one away, but healed all of them. Jesus' ministry was one of physical and spiritual healing.

Many, many people were healed from their physical ailments. The Lord did this not only because He is merciful, but also to show

His miraculous power so that people would believe that He truly was the

Messiah. Now, this is very relevant to our day and it was relevant in the first century and relevant to our day.

People should not just want to be healed physically by Christ or by God. And when we pray for healing, right, we shouldn't stop by praying for physical healing.

We should pray for spiritual healing, for spiritual growth or something like that to take place.

In John 9, I love this story of the man born blind.

He was born blind and what Jesus did is He healed him physically, but not just physically.

The man believed in Jesus Christ and He had spiritual healing as well. In our text, in verse 23,

Jesus is calling people to believe in Him when He taught proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

As a church, we should follow Jesus' example in this. The Lord calls us to help people's physical needs.

And right now, as a church, we're trying to figure out how we want to best do this. We are revamping our benevolent fund so that we can help people when a legitimate need arises.

In addition, the reason our compassion and care team exists is to help people in need. Those in our church and in some cases, maybe those outside.

But we don't want to help people's physical needs and stop there. The greatest need that anyone has is a spiritual need, right?

Everybody is a sinner in need of a Savior. People need Christ. And it's interesting when you see our culture, so many times people don't understand what's wrong with this person?

What's going on here? And usually the answer is they need Christ, right?

That's the deep need that everyone has because Jesus will get you through every trial if you will just cling to Him.

And people need Him or else they're going to hell. And so we preach the gospel of kingdom along with Christ.

Wherever you go on planet earth, everyone needs the gospel. And Jesus preached it to the whole world as we see in our text.

Now is it an application to us? Our first mission field is the St. Croix Falls community.

I already mentioned that we are a light called by God to get the message out. Our second mission field are to the missionaries that we support.

Eureka Baptist Church, we have an extension to our ministry in numerous places.

I mentioned we support six families. Now one of those family, and we need to pray for them, the Myron family, maybe you've seen their updates, their visas have not been accepted.

So they haven't been able to go to Ireland yet. So they're thinking, well, maybe the Lord doesn't want to send us to Ireland or maybe somewhere else.

So we need to keep them in our prayers. But the five other missionary families that we support, we support the

Lepushis in Albania. We support the Shepherds in Mexico. We support the

Stouts in North Macedonia, the Pennys in Senegal, and the Tokars in Ukraine.

So you think that's how far our ministry here reaches as we invest in them, both financially and through prayer and through encouragement.

And this is something we need to grow in. And frankly, I need to do a better job of leading us to better support these people.

We need to pray for them more. We need to encourage them more. And if we have the resources, we need to support them financially even better, and maybe even add more missionaries down the road.

What we must understand is that the gospel spreads all over the place like wildfire. Wherever it is preached, people believe.

The Lord is adding citizens to his kingdom. And it's remarkable that we play a part in this.

It's God's calling on our lives. So what we've seen in this sermon is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry brings real hope to a lost world.

And we've seen three ways how Jesus demonstrated this. He did this by shining his light in a dark place, by calling his messengers to send out, and preaching the good news everywhere.

After Jesus' ministry, when he went to the cross, and died for our sins, and rose from the dead, and then spent 40 days on the earth, he then ascended to heaven.

And right now, he sits at the right hand of the Father. He has gone bodily from the earth, but he has sent his spirit with us.

And we are his messengers while he is away, and while his spirit ministers through us.

Jesus said this to his disciples before he left the earth. In Matthew 28, 19, and 20.

This is the Great Commission, and some of you probably know these verses well. He said,

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.

And then he tells them, And surely, I am with you always to the end of the age. And we are at the end of the age, and he is with us as he promised.

As his disciples, may we be faithful to carry out what he has called us to do.

Bringing the light into places of darkness, wherever the darkness surrounds you.

And I know you can't escape it in this world, right? Wherever you go. Remember, everyone here who knows

Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and treasure, you are that light in a dark place, and see yourself as an instrument of God, and be intentional about being used by God in those places.

Now, next Sunday, this is going to be quite a treat. We're going to begin the best sermon ever preached.

The Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew's version of it in chapters 5 through chapter 7.

And Jesus preaches to many, and there's treasures here for us to see. And I've already been studying it, and I can't wait to look at the

Beatitudes next Sunday. So let's bow our heads together in prayer. Father in Heaven, Your Word has the ability,

Lord, to persuade us as Your Spirit works in our hearts. And I pray this morning,

Lord, that You would persuade each of us to see ourselves as the light that You've called us to be.

Lord, if anyone here doesn't have both feet in for You, I pray that they would not leave here without thinking through that and making that choice to say,

Lord, whatever You'll have me do, I will do. Whatever You want me to give up,

I will give up. Giving up selfish desires to serve

You, Lord. That's what You call a disciple of Christ to do. And we can all look at areas in our life where we can follow

You even more closely. And so may we examine ourselves today and follow

You closer than we ever have. And may the amount of people in this church grow and grow.

We don't want people just to come occasionally and be church attenders and not see themselves as influential, but may people be all in for You in this place.

May that be who we are as Eureka Baptist Church. May we indeed grow in You together as we grow to know

You more and as we grow by calling people to follow You. And I pray for this in Jesus' name,