Well, if you would please open scripture to Matthew 5. Well, the night sky is absolutely amazing, especially if you're able to get outside of the light pollution of the city and just get out where you can look up. I remember being on a backpacking trip once when I was 18 and up in the Ansel Adams Wilderness in Northern California. And just being able to see the Milky Way galaxy spread out and yet to know that even the The clearest picture of the night sky that we can see anywhere in the world is but a fraction of the cosmos that God has made by the word of his power. And as vast and grand as it is to see that, I particularly enjoy going online and finding out when the International Space Station is going to be passing through the area. This large man-made satellite is about the size of a football field, much of its space being taken up by reflective solar panels that look like wings off of the side of this place where astronauts sometimes get stranded. It's hovering over 200 miles above the Earth, and the space station at that height gets direct sunlight long after the dark side of the Earth has gone to bed. And when it passes overhead, it's that reflective sunlight that is shining so brilliantly as it's just making a nice clip through the night sky. It's really something pretty cool to see. And the truth about the light's capacity to pierce the darkness, the way the light of the space station reflecting the sun passes through the night sky so visibly, This is really the kind of thing that's behind the next words that we come to in the Sermon on the Mount, which are in verses 14 through 16. So let's look at these together. Jesus says, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. And with these words, Jesus closes out the first major section of the Sermon on the Mount. And he began with the Beatitudes as the foundational truths about the character of a Christian. And then with his move into the metaphors of Christians being salt and light, Jesus shows the impact that Christians have on this world. Those whose character embodies faith in Christ, the way that we see in the Beatitudes, these are the kind of people who have a world-shaping impact. And the effect of the picture of salt is that it preserves and purifies and seasons a world that is decaying with the rot of sin. We saw that last week. And just like salt highlighted the world condition of sin decay, the metaphor of light shows us something that Jesus assumes about the human race, something that we have to understand if we're going to get the force of what he's saying by saying that we are the light of the world. What Jesus assumes is that our world is a dark world. It's a dark world. And of course, Jesus isn't talking about darkness in the physical sense. He's talking about it in a spiritual sense, in a moral sense, in the sense of a world that is in rebellion against a holy God. Because of the advent of sin with our first parents, our world is one of spiritual darkness. So not only is it decaying under the effects of sin, but spiritually speaking, it is steeped in darkness, particularly the darkness of unbelief and of the evil that goes along with that. The darkness of sin and evil and unbelief is exactly the darkness that Jesus assumes when he speaks of Christians being the light of the world. Darkness is a common picture for the human condition of depravity in both the Old and the New Covenants. At the heart of the wisdom books, in Proverbs, we see the call to embrace wisdom and forsake folly. And in the second chapter of Proverbs, we see folly as darkness, which by contrast would make wisdom light. And so in pleading with his sons to walk in the way of wisdom, Solomon says, when wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of righteousness or uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness. See the contrast, uprightness as light, sin and folly as darkness. who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of the wicked. This pairs very well, though it's not a good picture, with what we saw from Genesis and Psalms and Ephesians and 1 John last week. And the rest of scripture is in total agreement. Every person is a sinner by nature and therefore chases after sin by choice. That is the human condition. And that accounts not only for the world's decay and corruption, for which we must be the salt, but also for its moral and spiritual darkness into which Jesus calls us to be the light. So we live in a dark world. And whenever truth and goodness and beauty is seen anywhere, rather than speaking to the merits of humanity, what it does instead is it speaks to the evidence of God's restraining grace in the world. It speaks to the influence of his redeemed people. And it speaks to his goodness to his enemies, which Jesus is going to talk about at the end of chapter five. The darkness of the world is the reality that stands behind Jesus' statement in verse 14, you are the light of the world. If the world is shrouded in spiritual darkness, then we see Christ's light in his people as the contrast to that darkness, as the solution for that darkness. But as soon as we say with Jesus that we are the light of the world as his disciples, we find ourselves quickly needing to clarify some things. Because you can see the danger of sitting smugly in the fact that we are the light of the world and thinking, well, that might make us, you know, that makes us pretty good. You know, the world is awful. We, on the other hand, who wouldn't want to be part of our group? The light of the world, that's a pretty good deal. The fact is, we in ourselves have no light at all. We, except for the grace of God, would continue in that condition that we've just seen that scripture says we are born into. And so the thing that distinguishes an enlightened saint from a darkened sinner is nothing but the sovereign grace of God. Which is why in verse 16, the effect of this kind of witness in the world is going to be the glory of the Father, not glory to us, the glory to God. And so it's crucial as soon as we agree with Jesus that we are the light of the world that we can quickly confess with Paul, not I, but Christ in me. That's the only way that this works. Christ in us. This is because we are the light of the world only because Jesus Christ is the light of the world. This is what makes Jesus' statement possible. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. So just as the term darkness stands in for spiritual evil, the term light stands in for spiritual life and truth. So as it pertains to us, ours is a derivative light. It's a reflective light, much the way that the moon reflects the sun or the International Space Station reflects the sun as it's going through the night sky at a much smaller scale. The light of Christ's people only comes from him. In other words, not a single person could possibly be light in the darkness apart from Christ, who is the true light. And that's why Jesus' statement places emphasis on the you at the beginning, in its first place. It's an emphatic statement. You, speaking to his disciples, are the light of the world. And the placement of the word where it is means you only are the light of the world. The world is pervaded with spiritual and moral darkness. And in that darkness, there is one light. Now that Christ has gone to the right hand of the Father, that light is us. It is the church. It is the individual believers who make up the church. This is the only light that the world has. That would be a presumptuous thing to say if I were the one saying it, but Jesus says it. And it shows just how critical he is. and Him in us. A world that is dark and condemned in sin needs the gospel, and Christians are the only people who have the gospel. So one simple way of stating the gospel would be to say that the eternal Son of God came into our dark world as the light that brings life. The light would be sacrificially snuffed out by the darkness in order to deliver people from that darkness into light. That is the essence of the gospel. And in fact, that summary of the gospel is essentially how the apostle John introduces his gospel. So in the first few verses of the gospel of John, he establishes the eternal divinity of Jesus. He is the eternal God, and then John says that in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. And that light comes to us savingly only by sovereign grace. Not by the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but by the will of God. The light of the world died at the hands of those who were in darkness, and because of his victorious death and resurrection, he brings all of his children into the light. And then to them, he says, you are the light of the world. John draws here on a rich Old Covenant theme that the coming of Christ would usher in the era of history where the nations would be drawn to the light of the church. They would stream into the heavenly Zion, coming to that light. The way that in moving to Texas, I found that, oh, so many bugs are drawn to the light of a house. As the prophet Malachi foretold 400 years earlier, Jesus is the son of righteousness that arose with healing in his wings. And as the son of righteousness, Jesus delivers his people from darkness. Jesus delivers his people from darkness. We cannot understand Jesus' statement that we are the light of the world without recognizing that we can only be light because Jesus has delivered us from darkness. We who once were darkness are now light in the Lord. By nature and choice, we were all of us lost and condemned and perfectly content, by the way. But by the sovereign grace of God shining in us and upon us, we were made new creatures and brought out of darkness into the light of Christ. As we confess our sins this morning, what was it that gave us a word of comfort? This is why we always have an assurance of pardon. Because if we leave it at the confession of sin, even though we know the gospel, we end up assuming it. We can't assume the gospel because then it starts to lose its effective power in our lives day by day, which is why we must what? Preach the gospel to ourselves day by day. which is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, this is the gospel not only by which you were saved, but in which you stand and by which you are being saved. And so we always return to the gospel as we confess our sins because that is God's authoritative word to us, that we are in fact forgiven. That is the only thing that will give us comfort. For anybody struggling with the guilt and shame of what you have confessed, run full bore into the assurance of pardon. And what was that assurance of pardon today? It was that we have been delivered by the Father from the power of darkness and brought into the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. And so if we are brought into Christ's kingdom out of darkness, then what is the correlation? It's that Christ is the kingdom of light. And being part of that kingdom, we are the light of the world. And that squares exactly with what Jesus says, both about himself and about us as his people, when he stood up at the Feast of Tabernacles and declared, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. And so you see the order, right? Jesus is the light of the world, and he brings his people out of darkness into the light. And because of our union with him, as he saves us, we then become the light. Jesus makes his people light because he, the light of the world, abides in us and we in him. And this has a life-changing effect, as was clear in Ephesians 5, especially as we read in verse 8, that you who once were darkness are now light in the Lord. And so what does that mean? It means, so walk as children of light. And then the rest of that chapter, Paul is laying out in very specific detail what it looks like to be a child of the light. It gets into everything. As soon as Jesus says, you are the light of the world, he begins pressing the point in the rest of verses 14 and 15. He says, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. He presses the point home with two illustrations that show that Christians shine the light of God's sun into a dark world. The first illustration is that of a city set on a hill. Now this isn't immediately obvious to us in the same degree that it was to the disciples who listened to the Sermon on the Mount in real time. And so a few observations here are helpful. Because Jesus isn't just talking about a run-of-the-mill town. The word that Matthew translates for us or gives to us as city really refers to a large urban center. So think Jerusalem, okay, not Bethlehem. Think of Caesarea, not Nazareth. We're talking big time town that people would do a lot of business in. It was well known, it was hard to miss. This is the kind of city that, especially if it was built on a hill the way that Jerusalem was, was impossible to hide. It was impossible to hide. It was visible from miles around, especially at night, because the lights that would light up the individual buildings would, together, shine so brightly that you could see that thing from miles around. Because if you were in the countryside before they had harnessed the power of electricity, it was really, really dark. It's really dark. And so you might be walking through the countryside and then you just see a tiny pinprick of light off in the distance, however many miles away. And as you get closer and closer, it shines more brilliantly as you realize, oh my word, that is quite a city. And that's exactly the kind of city that Jesus uses as an illustration to press the point. And the point is the profound truth and life impact that the church is to have in a world of deceit and death. Now, I think that with the city metaphor, Jesus zeroes in on the corporate impact of the church in the world. Because it's through the church that the nations are being discipled in the Great Commission. It's not simply by individual Christians going off and doing their individual Christian thing with the church as an add-on. A city has the force and impact that it does precisely because it is a collection of individual lights. And the church is called to be that light to the nations that are being drawn to Christ. And so we trace this back to Isaiah 2, the nations go streaming up into the city. It's not just a scattered thing here or there. A city shines brightly because of its individual lights shining together. And one of the prophetic passages that draws out the impact of the coming of Christ in the New Covenant age is Isaiah 60. This passage forms a backdrop for what Jesus is telling us here in our text. But it's also a prophecy that framed the coming of the Magi to worship Jesus as a tiny boy. It says, arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people, but the Lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. This glorious prophecy has been being fulfilled wherever the church has been a faithful witness for Christ. the shining New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ, a beacon on Mount Zion. And so through the church's witness, the Holy Spirit is convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, as Jesus says in John 16. And the effect has been that he is drawing the elect from all the nations of the Gentiles to that glorious city on a hill, which is the church. Now the second image that Jesus uses pertains specifically to those of us as individual Christians whose faith is in Christ. We have the city on a hill corporately. We have a lamp on a stand individually and as households in the new covenant. Jesus uses the illustration of a common household lamp to show that the very nature of light is to shine. If you missed it in physics class, light shines. That is about all I remember from actually the physics class I didn't take. That light shines. There you go. Now, the kind of lamp that Jesus mentions has, it's really nothing extraordinary. It's very, very ordinary. Obviously, electricity wasn't running through homes in that day. And so again, when darkness came, it got really dark. And lamps were essential to see at night, especially the earlier it got dark. The average lamp would simply be a rounded container filled with oil with a wick. put into it. And there were stationary stands that would be just like little pillars in the middle of the room, sometimes a shelf that was attached to the wall. And that's where the lamp would be placed. And that one lamp was the source of light for the home. Without that lamp, there was nothing but darkness. Now, the one thing you'd never think to do with a lamp is to put it under a basket. It's really just a ridiculous image. Now, some translations have bushel, or they have peck measure. And either way, it was a container that was about two gallons. And the size of the container is very insignificant. It doesn't matter. The point is, you wouldn't put it over a lamp. Because that would be contrary to the nature of what the lamp was for. The whole reason for the lamp is to give light. Without it, it's pointless. And just so, Somebody who professes the name of Jesus without functioning as light in a dark world is utterly pointless. And Jesus would have far better for those of us who follow him. The idea of a Christian not showing the glory of Christ in his life and speech is as foreign of an idea to the Bible as is a lamp being hidden under a bowl. And for the disciples listening that day, they would have got the point immediately, because they've never put a basket over any lamp. Now, as Jesus presses the point through these two illustrations, he then gives an illuminating call in the first part of verse 16, a command that shows the illuminating glory of Christ through our lives as Christians. He says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. That's the command. It's straightforward. It's simple. Having established that by our very nature as Christians, we are God's luminaries in this world, Jesus commands us to let our light shine, his light be magnified through us that the world may know God. Now, the form of the way that he gives the command, let your light shine, shows, even in that, that we are, again, we are not the source of the light. He doesn't say shine your light, he says let your light shine. There's a passive sense in which we actively let our light shine. Because it's not our light, it's his light. Sin, if you will, is like putting a bushel over the lamp. That's what sin is. The reason we continue to confess our sins and keep our short accounts with God is so that we would let His light shine through us and enjoy Him as He is worthy. This is a call for distinct holiness, for Christ-likeness in every part of our lives. Now, what effect does holiness have upon a world that is unholy? Well, it exposes the empty darkness for what it is. And that's exactly what God intends for us to do, so that the world may be drawn to the light of Christ. This is why the Apostle Paul said what he did in our reading earlier, that we would have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. Notice a couple of things. Paul doesn't say, don't be around unbelievers. He doesn't say that. Jesus has already established in the salt metaphor that we actually need to saturate the world, otherwise we can't possibly function to preserve and purify and flavor it. We have to be in the world. We have to be rubbing shoulders with those who need Christ. What Paul says is, don't have fellowship with the works of darkness, which is to say, be holy in the midst of an unholy people, that's the call. He also doesn't say, go hold up signs to let sinners know they be sinning. We all know those who do that, and the effect typically is neither, it doesn't preserve much, it doesn't purify anything, and it only gives the church a bad name. We are to be exposing the works of darkness by being who we are. That doesn't mean don't be engaged in the culture wars in whatever form, but be doing it as a distinctly Christian person. We have to not only have the right message, we need to proclaim it with the right means. The means and the message matter, and we take our cues from Jesus. He got awfully close to holding up the sign and yelling when it was self-righteous Pharisees who knew better. And he got awfully gracious in drawing in the sand and sparing the lives of adulteresses who needed his message of grace and truth. as a means by which he would call them to go and sin no more. We expose sin for the vanity and evil that it is by showing the goodness and light of Jesus in all the various ways that we do. Now, the emphasis of Jesus' metaphor of salt was primarily on the subtle influence of Christianity in a decaying world. It had to do with the effect of the presence of Christians in our culture. But in moving to the light metaphor, what Jesus does now is he's talking about the positive, active effect of Christianity. And specifically, Jesus really targets two things, two aspects to this. The first of which is that we are to be about the business of doing Christ-like works. He says that we are to let our light shine, that they may see your good works. There's simply no such thing as invisible Christianity. So the idea of someone being a hidden Christian, trusting in Christ personally, but not really letting anybody know that, not really having it shape and impact the decisions that we make or how we live in the world, that that idea is pure fiction. Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world and that light shines through good works. It's in the very nature of a Christian to do good works. To which we would quickly add that the good works are not saving, of course, right? These good works have nothing at all to do with becoming a Christian, with being born again or saved into the kingdom of Christ. Salvation is all of grace. But grace at the root bears good fruit, and that good fruit looks like good works. That's how it is. And this is precisely what James means in his famous second chapter of his letter when he says, thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. What is it showing? It is showing that saving faith, we are saved by faith alone, will result in good works because that is in the very nature of faith to do. Because we love God, because we love others. And Jesus says in verse 16 of our passage, let your light so shine before men, by which he means let your light shine in this way. Jesus doesn't just say, let your light shine, and I really hope that you figure that out. He says, let it shine this way. What is this way? Good works. But what qualifies as a good work? I, by nature, am a legalist. I like lists. I have an entire binder in my briefcase full of lists. I will take more time out of my day to go make sure I check off all the things that I did because it feels so good than just keep going and saving myself time, which is the point of the list in the first place. So what qualifies as a good work? Well, I would simply cite what Jesus said to a rich young man on one occasion. No one is good but God alone. The very thing that distinguishes an action as a good work is that it shows the nature and character of God. It's motivated by His glory. The very thing that distinguishes an action as a good work is that it shows the nature and character of God, and it is motivated by His glory. Now, if I'm understanding it correctly, this means that good works are the business of Christians alone. Good works are the business of Christians alone, not because other people don't do things that on the surface are of the very same kind of work. You can have two Christians going and aiding those in need, or two people going and aiding those in need, a Christian and an atheist, but the atheist is not motivated by the glory of God. The Christian is, or should be, and the thing that makes a work good is that it reflects the goodness of the God who alone is good. And this is why Jesus can say, show your light this way. Because again, he's already established you and you alone are the light of the world. Now go and do good works so that the world may glorify your father who is in heaven. Anything that we do as Christians that is motivated by our faith in Christ and that shows what God is like, this is what qualifies as good works. Everything else is just works. We really don't need to go looking for a list of good works. The opportunities are all before us all the time. It's not as if there were particular things that are on the list and that when we get to heaven, some of the things we go, you know, God goes, oh, that wasn't on my list of good works. That's too bad, but I'm really glad that you were motivated by loving me and for my glory. Anything we do that is motivated by the glory of God and that shows what he is like is a good work. So when saints show up to spread soil at the memorial garden, because they love God and their brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a good work. Those driving by see it, they might think, why? Why are they spreading so much dirt? Maybe ask what's in the garden, probably not. But when you're at a park and you pick up a piece of trash, why? Because Christ is glorified by your care for his world, that's a good work. When you bring a meal to someone in need because God has saved you, that's a good work. There are as many different forms, shapes, sizes of good works as there are Christians to do them on any given day. And remember, we're saved by grace alone through faith, not by works. But two verses later, the apostle says, we are God's workmanship prepared by him for good works, which he's prepared beforehand. So what is the list of good works? Everything that the Father's prepared for us to do. That's it, that's the list. This is the light. But there's another aspect of Christ's call to us that we would be his lights. And it's implied in the result. It's implied in the result. What does Jesus say the result of the good works is? that they would glorify your Father in heaven. This can only come about as a result of Christ-like works being paired with God-revealing words. I don't think it's possible that Christ-like works without words that reveal who God is could possibly result in the praise of the Father. That's specific revelation. Good works need good news. The gospel of the father who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son for the salvation of all who believe. So both by our works and our words, we are to reveal God, pointing people to darkness or pointing people to light while they're enshrouded in darkness. So how can sinners glorify the father unless they know who the father is? I mean, the revelation of God in his creation is truly magnificent. And if you get into some kind of philosophical theology that finds triunes at the root of everything, then maybe you could make the case that general revelation is Trinitarian. I'm not putting that down at all. I'm actually quite fascinated by the idea. But what I am saying is that Paul tells us in Romans 1 that there's enough light in creation for all people to know that God exists and that he's powerful. It's enough to condemn them for not seeking after Him, but it's not enough to save them, because they can never know that the Father sent His Son for the salvation of sinners by grace through faith alone, unless somebody tells them. No amount of good works is ever going to model that. It must be told. God revealing words, framing Christ-like works. This is the Christianity that we see in the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus, heads up, is about to get very specific with it. You are going to be so glad when we get to Genesis in August. Because it's going to be a ride. Jesus gets very specific with it. But remember, the whole thing opened up with the Beatitudes. Why? Because the gospel saturates it from beginning to end. Peter, who was there that day for the original Sermon on the Mount, brings both of these aspects, God-revealing words and Christ-like works together as he unpacks our faith for us and what we are in the midst of this generation. What does he say? He says, 1 Peter 2, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. We are called out of darkness into his marvelous light so that we may proclaim the excellencies of him who did that. And that means that we speak. We speak the praises of God, and as we praise God, we are to live also honorably. That is good works. And in this way, unbelievers are prepared to glorify God. One of the most obnoxious and unattractive sights to behold is a zealous and vocal evangelist whose life is out of order, whose relationships are degraded, who's always ready to tell other people about the salvation they need and the repentance they need to do, all the while he can't seem to get things straight in his own world. We all know the type, and we all run the other way. And we all come behind and say to the people who were subjected to that, that's not all of us. Jesus is so much better than what you just saw. Christ-like living and God-revealing speaking is what Jesus says that we are after. And so it should be obvious by now that we can't pull this off ourselves. We don't have it in us. Jesus is keeping us in a place of dependence on him and on his spirit. We are called out of darkness by God's sovereign spirit, applying the work of Christ. And the fruit we bear as Christians, our good works and our words, are also described as fruit of the spirit. Or as Josh read it, the fruit of light. And as the Spirit works in the world through Christians, Jesus says that the result is that the world glorifies the Father in heaven. That's what the world will do as a result. It glorifies the Father in heaven. And so from first to last, it's soli deo gloria. It's glory to God alone. And that's something we need to remember because there's this tension, right? We get to chapter six and Jesus says, don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Don't do your works to be seen by men. And then here he says, let your light shine before men so that they would see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. Is he being contradictory? Of course not. He's talking in chapter six about motive. He's talking here about obedience. As we are about the business of obeying God, we are to be motivated by his glory, not the attention of people. But it just so happens that as we are obeying him, that's the kind of life that the world needs, takes notice of and glorifies God because of. And we're not shy to let them know that it's that kind of life only because of Jesus. This is exactly what Peter honed in on also. God's word never returns void. And in a similar way, our witness for Christ will never be neutral. It will have an effect upon those around us. Yes, it may provoke hostility. What did Jesus say right before these metaphors of salt and light? He said, blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Well, what does that mean? That means that as we're about the business of doing good works and glorifying God with our words, there are some who will persecute. That's gonna be their response. That's okay. It's not good for them, but it's gonna happen. God often gets glory even from unbelievers who recognize that there is something true and beautiful about the God of the Christians, even as they are persecuting Christians. What did the persecutors of Paul and Silas notice right after they had beaten them and thrown them in jail? These guys aren't like our typical prisoners. They do prison differently. They're singing and their feet are bleeding. And then when the jail cell gets bust open, they're not running for the door. They're waiting to tell us about Christ. Unbelievers glorify God as they see the difference of Christians. But then some, seeing the difference, then hear the message and believe. Another way that God gets glory as we do our good works and glorify God with our words. And so whatever the direction, whether from unbelievers or from unbelievers becoming Christians, the glory of the Father is accomplished through our good works and witness. And this dual effect upon those around us has been happening since the foundational days of the early church. Just after the first recorded incidents of church discipline, with Ananias and Sapphira falling down dead. Boy, what a dramatic start to church discipline. Luke records the effect of the believers' lives and witness on the people of Jerusalem. Look at what happened. So great fear came upon all the church and all who heard these things. And through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. And yet none of the rest, dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. So you had unbelievers glorifying God, seeing the distinction, recognizing why, even though they kept at a distance, and you had others being added daily, because that's always what God is doing. He's building his church. He is keeping his promise to his son, and his son accomplished it. This is the effect of faithful Christian living. This is how God is drawing people to himself as the light of the world shines through us. Christians shine the light of God's Son into a dark world, and the Father gets the glory. And so let's resolve to keep close to the light. If the light is not in us, then it is folly to keep a distance from Jesus. to be so busy about doing good works that we don't spend time with the one who is the light. Let's keep our eyes on him and often be with him in communion and diligently examine every facet of our lives and our decisions in the light of his word. As we do that, the effect will be profound. It can't not be. Jesus says you are the light of the world. Let's pray. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you that you get the glory from us, that in saving us, you are magnifying your grace, that in being at work in us by your spirit, you are forming Christ in us, that the world may know what light is as they are shrouded in darkness. Thank you for the privilege of being your light in this world. Help us. Help us to shine with works that shout the goodness of our Savior, with words that graciously and boldly proclaim that he and he alone saves. We pray this in the name of Jesus, and we pray that your spirit would be at work to this end, that you would get the glory. Amen.