Memorial Day (Friday)

Tom Shrader establishes the foundation for Christian living by examining what it means to be saved by God, from God, for God. Using Isaiah 6 and Matthew 5:13-16, he explains that Christians are called to be salt and light in the world, living distinctively so that others see their good works and glorify the Father in heaven.

“I'm saved by God from God's wrath.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: CBCC Memorial Day 2007

Recorded: 2007 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 39 min

Themes: salvation, purpose, witness, discipleship, holiness, testimony, christian living, calling, new believer, seeking purpose, young adult, struggling with identity, wanting to make impact, feeling called, christian worker, mentor

Scripture: Matthew 5:13-16, Galatians 5:16-23, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Isaiah 6:1-8, John 12:38-41, 2 Chronicles 26:16

Theological Themes: soteriology, sanctification, becoming holy, missiology, christian mission, ecclesiology, church identity, biblical calling

Full Transcript

Well, glad to be with you. We've got six times where we are going to be together and I will be here and you, hopefully, will be back for all six of them. The nature of this is you're going to get to know a little bit about me and what makes me tick. Some of you I'll get to meet, most of you I won't. But my prayer is that God will use this time and impact your life and mine.

It was so cool. Somebody walked in tonight who was here when we were here two years ago. We did a series on Jonah and I just re-listened to that. I don't listen to my own stuff. I don't personally like it that much, but I was re-teaching Jonah and I went and decided not to teach it after I listened to it, but I'm going to tell you, it was really good stuff. But they came in and they said, "There's a little bit of Jonah in all of us" and that was the theme for that whole weekend. To have somebody remember that and somebody else came in who was here too - I guess we were here Labor Day last year - and repeated back to us what we taught, that's really good. So, the bar is set fairly high and it looks to me like maybe half of you have a chance of getting there. So, that would be pretty cool.

I'm going to read to you from three passages of scripture and I want to get them all out in front of us. Then we're just going to move through here for the next six times we're together. If you've got Bibles with you, you can open them to the Gospel of Matthew and also to the Book of Galatians and also to 2 Corinthians. We're going to go to these three passages and I want to come back and set the tone for tonight.

Setting the Context

Here's what I know. Many of you came in today - that's a really long day and then you eat that huge food which was really good and then you come back in and you have just incredible worship and then the Bean family and we're going to try to get Landon over here on his medication by the end of the weekend. Looks like we got a shot for that. We're going to have to go down into Seaside to get that prescription filled. So you got all that and then me and you're tired and all that stuff so I won't take a ton of time, but I really want us to have a ton of fun. But when we get to this part we get really serious now because this is really big. This is big stuff so we've got to hang on this.

Matthew 5: Salt and Light

Matthew chapter 5 verses 13, 14, 15, 16 - this is where we're going to camp. This will be base camp for the weekend:

"You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house."

Verse 16, this is it - boom, this is the thing right here: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."

Here's what He's saying: people should be able to see that there's something distinct and different about you. Let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works. So apparently whatever this Christianity thing is or this transformed life is, apparently it's visible and it generates a response in people. After they see your good works they should glorify your Father in Heaven. So we're going to spend some time there. We will be back to that passage again and again and again.

Galatians 5: Fruit of the Spirit

In Galatians chapter 5, Paul gives us the fruit of the Spirit and before that he really gives us the fruit of the flesh. Galatians chapter 5 verses 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 - you can read those tonight - and he says this is what all this stuff is. If you've got these things in your life, you've got issues. That's what he's saying. If you've got these things in your life, you're not walking by the Spirit, you're walking by the flesh.

But the fruit of the Spirit - in other words the product of an indwelling Holy Spirit - is this: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So if I am letting my good works be visible, I'm letting that light shine, if I'm being salt, I'm going to suggest to you that what should be in your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

2 Corinthians 5: New Creation and Reconciliation

In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, starting in verse 17, Paul is building this magnificent case here that our lives have been transformed and changed. It says in verse 14 that the love of Christ is what controls us because we are the salt of the earth and light of the world - all this stuff we're reading about.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ" - we'll unpack that phrase "in Christ," it's key, you've got to get that, He needs to believe, all that goes with it - "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away, new things have come. Now all these things are from God" - what things, we'll talk about it - "who reconciled us to Himself through Christ." That's what He did. And then He in turn gave us the ministry of reconciliation. "Namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He committed to us the word of reconciliation."

Verse 18: ministry of reconciliation. Verse 19: word of reconciliation. Therefore, consequently because of all this, "we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

Verse 21: "He" - and we'll take the pronouns out, we'll just put them in there - "God made Him," that's Jesus, "who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God."

The Gospel Foundation

For the majority of our time, we're going to be in one of those three passages, and the base camp for us is going to be Matthew chapter 5, verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. I am speaking to you six times, counting tonight, and I am going to operate with a basic assumption that I am almost certain is flawed, and yet the format really requires the assumption. The assumption is this: that all of us are Christians. Rarely am I in a setting where everyone there is Christian, even in a Christian camp, even maybe if you've been here for 63 years.

Almost always we have someone with us who either came reluctantly, didn't want to come at all. That was a discussion right at dinner last night: remind me again why we're doing this, why are we going there, I don't want to go, I've got other things I can do. Maybe you're like a child in the house, or a young man or woman, but you're living at home, and if you're living this out, you're going to do what I tell you to do, so you're stuck here. Or it may be that you are married to somebody who is a Christian, and it's going to be a long summer, and you've conned them into a golf trip if you'll come to this. So you don't want to be here, you have no intention to be here tonight.

Or there may be some of you who are church people and have confused being a church person with being a Christian. I mean a lot of really nice people, nice church people, but they aren't Christians. So because that's true, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about the gospel.

From Christ-Centered to Gospel-Centered

We used to talk about ourselves a lot at the church I go to as being Christ-centered. We're a Christ-centered church. We have subsequently really dropped that term. Now before you burn me at the stake, let me finish. We have used the term, we are more gospel-centered.

Here's what happened: the more we talked about Christ-centered, we found all these people that weren't Christians at all that loved talking about Jesus. Mahatma Gandhi said this: I read the gospels every day, I believe the teaching of Jesus, but I refuse to believe that Jesus or anyone else could die in my place for my sin. So I guess in a sense we could say he was very Christ-centered, but he wasn't obviously a Christian at all.

So we talk about gospel-centered. What's the gospel? And then what's happened, because we're on a sojourn of life ourselves, as we talk more and more about the gospel, we've realized that there's a dimension to it that I've ignored, at least in our teaching a lot, and I have to come back to it again and again.

The gospel is not just something we share with people who really need a savior, they're lost, they need to be saved. The gospel is the answer to all of life's questions. The gospel is the thing that keeps me on balance and focused. It's the gospel that allows me to walk through the valley and the shadow of death. It's the gospel that allows me to endure whatever life throws at me.

Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves

So here's what we have to do. We have to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. I have to be reminded every day of who I really am, who I really was, where I was when Christ found me, and saved me, and brought me into right relationship with Him.

So just for the sake of making sure at least we start on the same page, I want you to understand what it means to be gospel-centered or to be a Christian. It means to acknowledge that we're a sinner, that our sin has separated us from God, and that there is nothing we can do. We have a debt to God that we cannot pay. And that's why Jesus came and lived and died.

The Historical Reality of Jesus

That Jesus lived is a historic fact. I don't think you could find anybody anywhere who would deny that Jesus existed. And virtually everyone I know believes that He died. There's nobody going, there's a 2,000-year-old man, an old man over here that's Jesus or something. No, Jesus died.

Now what the Encyclopedia Britannica leaves out at that point is why He died. And I wouldn't know that if I didn't have this book. This becomes really important to our discussion. Because here's what the Bible tells us: Jesus died according to the scripture for our sin. That's why Jesus died.

The Theme: Saved by God, From God, For God

So here you go, if you're one of these people that take notes, I'm always marveling at people. It's always exciting to me that people are writing while I'm talking. I find that stimulating until I see somebody going, "Dear mom, you cannot imagine how bad this is. He's short," and all sorts of stuff.

Here you go, so here's the theme, this will take us through the weekend. I am saved by God. How hard is this to figure out? I'm saved by God. This is really important: I'm saved from God. I'm saved by God from Himself. I'm saved by God from His wrath.

God is angry and must judge sin. I'm in jeopardy, I'm in trouble, I've sinned just like you, everybody else. I'm saved by God from His own wrath. I'm saved by God from God, now you all know the next part, what is it? For God. So if that's all you've heard so far, you've got to figure out pretty quick that God's a big part of this whole thing.

I'm saved from God, I'm saved by God, from God, for God. So the angel appears to Joseph and says, Mary will bear a son, you'll call His name Jesus. Why? He will save His people from their sin.

The Picture from Isaiah

In the book of Isaiah, something happens that becomes really important and typical to us, typical in this sense: it becomes really a picture of salvation. I'm going to invite you to turn there.

even though we didn't read the passage before, it's important I think for us to turn there, Isaiah chapter 6. You see or hear this passage a lot, Isaiah chapter 6, in conjunction with worship. But I want to use it as well in conjunction with salvation. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1.

In the year that King Uzziah died, that's 739 BC, in the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty, exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Uzziah was essentially a good king. There was a point in Uzziah's life when he became strong, he ruled for decades, he became strong. This is from 2 Chronicles 26:16. But he had become strong and his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly and was unfaithful to the Lord.

The story is that he goes into the temple to make sacrifice, which only the priest could do. He did that as a result of his strength, which made him proud. He reigned for a long time, essentially a good king. He immediately breaks out in leprosy and that is how he dies, he dies this agonizing death. So in 739 BC, when Uzziah, because of his pride and arrogance, was struck with leprosy, I would say, by God, in the year that he died, Isaiah has a view and he sees the Lord.

Isaiah's Vision of Christ

Now, let's think about this for a second. What's he seeing? We got this picture of what's going on, we got flying seraphim and sitting flares, seraphim and all over the place. And holy, holy, holy, holy. But what's he seeing? I didn't want to diminish it, but we'll get to the holy part in a minute. What's he seeing? He sees the Lord. What does he see? Who's he looking at? Jesus. That's right. God's Spirit. We know he can't see Spirit, right? God's Spirit.

John tells us, in John 12, verse 38, Jesus had done these other things. But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah, the Lord, the prophet, the Lord has believed. To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And then he continues to quote Isaiah, and John says this, John 12, verse 41, these things Isaiah said, because he saw His glory, Jesus' glory spoke of Him.

So Isaiah gets this incredible picture of the pre-incarnate Christ doing what He's doing now. He is sitting on a throne. He's lofty. He's in a position of sovereignty and of power and majesty. One author writes this, Isaiah's vision is not simply a dream of the past, it's the present reality, and it's a picture of the future. There's differing views on where Isaiah was at this point. Some suggest that he was a guy pretty lost, figuring stuff out, others suggest he was already a prophet of God. Either way, Isaiah has this vision. He sees God as He really is.

The Awesomeness of God's Presence

Look at it, verse 2, seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings, two covered his face, two covered his feet, two with two he flew. And they're counting out to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with His glory. The foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of him who called out. While the temple was filling with smoke, it's the picture of the presence and the power and the awesomeness of God.

Will Smith was on Oprah not long ago. I watch Oprah one day a week. If we were at church, I would at this point say, why do I watch Oprah? And our people in our church would say, for us. I watch Oprah for them so that I can relate to them, kind of how goofy the world can be. Will Smith, who I like, Oprah, who I kind of like to be honest with you, I mean, I think she's not a believer, but she does some incredible things, but she's a little whacked on some stuff.

Will Smith was on with Oprah, and Will Smith was having this interview. Oprah talked to him about these things in life and said, I know you met Nelson Mandela. And Will Smith said, when you meet Mandela, there's this overwhelming sense, I'm quoting now, that floods over you, how small you are, and how big you can be. We are not looking at Nelson Mandela, and to balance it out, George Bush. We're not looking at Republican, Democrat, we're not looking at anybody big, we're not looking at Bono or anybody else. He's looking at God. He's looking at Christ. Now if Nelson Mandela makes you feel small, imagine what this scene does to you.

The Result: Recognizing Our True Condition

You don't have to imagine. He tells you, verse five, then I said, now I've seen Him, here's the result of this, woe to me for I am ruined. I'm reading from the, I think still the New American Standard, woe to me for I am ruined, the King James says, woe to me for I'm undone, the English Standard Version says, woe to me for I'm lost, woe to me for I am lost.

So I meet people all the time who are trying to find out who they really are. They have to discover themselves. So they'll get on a plane, fly to Maui to try to find themselves, or they'll go down to Sedona, we're not far from Sedona, they'll go to Sedona, I'm from Phoenix, that's where I'm from, so they'll go to Sedona, or they'll go to some wonderful place, they'll come to Cannon Beach.

You'll meet Paul, I love to hang around here, it drives Susan just a bit crazy, and see people and try to figure out what they're doing, who they're with, what they're trying to figure out. We do the same, Susan and I were just in Coronado about three months ago, and we had three or four days over there, and we just hung out in Coronado, didn't even drive the car, and we'd look and try to figure out. I would say, well, look at those people, he's having an affair, that's not his wife, that can't be his wife. I play a little game, girlfriend or wife, I try to figure out the whole thing. I'll say, I'll bet those people are having problems. So often in these places, you will find these people in these bookstores. I am a bookstore freak, and this bookstore here is actually pretty good, but you'll see people in there buying

All these books are trying to figure out who they are. If you want to understand who you really are, all you have to do is have what Isaiah had. All you have to do is get a picture of God, because when you see God and understand who He is, who you are falls right into place.

What happens is, as John the Baptist told us, He will get bigger and bigger and bigger, and you'll get smaller and smaller and smaller. When Isaiah sees God, here's what he says: "I am undone." There's even an implication, perhaps, that I thought I had it all together. I'm undone, I'm ruined, I'm lost. Until you come to that point, you'll never transition into conversion and become a Christian.

The Foundation of Spiritual Growth

This has to be a point in your life, and whatever that point is, when you really see Him, my theory would be that it has to deepen itself over the years. We were singing a song Sunday, "I'm so desperate for you." I'm convinced there it is. You want to grow? I want to grow spiritually. I want to be a spiritual giant, so we're listening to tapes and CDs and all this stuff. If you want to grow spiritually, preach the gospel to yourself and grow desperate for Him and who He is, and now you just begin to grow. He tells you it's all right here. That's why we studied this book.

God revealed Himself in creation, right? God spoke the world into existence. He's a big God. We talk about this every time we come. God created the world. He didn't manufacture the world. He didn't assemble the world.

God as Creator, Not Manufacturer

I was looking at a label on the back of my shorts that I was wearing today, and it said they were assembled in Haiti with American products. God didn't assemble. Someone, a craftsman, got parts from the wheel factory, from the cord factory, from the key factory, made the casings and all the stuff that went with it. But they didn't start from scratch. They took this product, made it hot, then molded it, or whatever they do to make a piano. They brought all these parts and brought it together.

It didn't assemble itself. It didn't just morph. It didn't evolve, right? If I said to you, the existence of this piano screams that there has to be a creator. I don't know who made it. We know that they exist because of this.

If I said to you, here's how we got the piano: there were white keys and black keys, and there were cords, and there were screws, and there were assembly parts and wheels and casings. They were all around, and then one day, they came together. Well, you'd say that's foolish, and I'd say, honestly, that's why it took millions of years. You'd say, oh yeah, well that makes sense. No, it's just as dumb. It's stupid.

This piano tells me that there is a creator, that there was a manufacturer, to be accurate. The world speaks of a God who's a creator, not a manufacturer. This guy started with raw materials. The earth was void. There was nothing. God says, "Let there be light." Bam! There's light. A powerful God. The more I understand it, the more I see who I am.

God's Work of Salvation

Then look what happens. "I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips, for our eyes have seen the King and the Lord of hosts." And one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he'd taken from the altar. So it's a picture of sacrifice here. We're not going to get into all of this, but he takes this picture of sacrifice, touches my mouth with it. "Behold, this has touched your lips," God is saying, "and your iniquity is taken away from you, your sin is forgiven, your guilt is removed, atonement's been made."

In our context, we'd say you've been delivered, you've been saved, and all of this was done by God. I'm saved by God. Isaiah did nothing but realize that he was a sinner.

Max Lucado writes this: "Please note, salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, God-originated. This gift is not from man to God, but from God to man. Grace is created by God and given to man. On the basis of this point alone, Christianity is set apart from any other religion in the world."

Christianity's Unique Distinction

Every other approach to God is a bartering system. If I do this, God will do that. I'm either saved by my works—this is other religion—by what I do, or my emotion, what I experience, or by my knowledge, by what I know. By contrast, Christianity has no whiff of negotiation at all. Man is not the negotiator. Indeed, man has no grounds from which to negotiate. See, there's real salvation. God did it all.

When it comes to this whole idea of God, you've got two groups. You've got biblical Christianity, and you've got everything else. Biblical Christianity is unique from every other faith, religion, path, journey in the world, because biblical Christianity is about a Holy God reaching down to a sinful man. Every other faith is about some way a sinful man is trying to appease a Holy God. There's the distinction.

So what we have in Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 7, is we are saved by God from God's wrath.

The Call to Service

Look at verse 8. "Then I heard a voice of the Lord saying, 'Who shall I send? And who will go for us?'" This is Isaiah speaking. He said, "Then I said, 'Here I am, send me.'" And then God gives him an assignment. By the way, it's an awful assignment. It's just a terrible assignment.

I would just read it. It doesn't have anything to do with really tonight, but "Go and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but they don't perceive. Keep on looking, but they don't understand.'" This is just terrible. "Render the hearts of these..."

People are insensitive, their ears are dull, their eyes are dim. Otherwise, they might see. They hear with their ears, but no understanding in their heart. And Isaiah has a great response in Isaiah 6, verse 11: "Oh Lord, how long should I do this? I want to go." And then He says, "Until I wipe them out, destroy them," and it gets kind of ugly from there.

But here's the point. I'm saved by God, from God, for God. So maybe you're a church guy that's been working real hard, but it's not working for you, and you're pooped, and it could be because you're saying, "Here I am, send me," but you haven't had that conversion yet. Salvation is utterly, completely, entirely from God. So we'll come back to that—saved by God, from God. But our focus for these six times together is saved for God.

Our Chief End

So if we go to the catechism, question one: What's the chief end of man? Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We don't talk about that enjoy part much. To glorify God. Now, the scripture tells us we glorify Him whatever we do. Paul says, eating, drinking—picture the most common things of life, whatever it is I do. I'm brushing my teeth, stopping at a stop sign, whatever it is I do, I'm glorifying God.

Why Are We Still Here?

Now think with me. If I'm truly converted, I'm really His, I see God as who He is, I understand myself, God saved me for a reason. If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, He would have taken you there when you believed, right? If His whole mission was to get you to heaven, then at the moment you were saved, you'd be gone.

God has something for you to do. Here's the other side of it: you're not done with it yet. How do we know? Because when you're done with it, you will assume room temperature—you will die. So God left you here for a reason, and He's not done with you. So the question becomes: Why did He leave you here? What's He want you to do? How should you do it? Where should you do it? When should you do it? So that becomes the whole quest.

Salt and Light

Now I'm going to invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 6, and we'll touch on this very quickly and set the table for the rest of the weekend. Here's what He's saying: there's something distinct and different about you. Matthew chapter 5 begins the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Matthew chapter 5, verse 1: "When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and He sat down"—a position of teaching—"and His disciples came to Him, and He opened His mouth and He began to teach."

And then verse 3, really through verse 12, gives us the Beatitudes, the Blessed. By the way, it begins, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Poor in spirit means literally spiritually bankrupt. It's exactly where Isaiah was. When we think of beggars, He's talking about spiritual beggars. When we think of beggars, we think of somebody down in Portland, downtown, going, "Hey man, you got any spare change? Hey man, you got a dime?" and almost accosting them in some ways.

Beggar, the term that He uses, is somebody who's so impoverished and so aware of their bankruptcy and inadequacy that they can't even look at you. They're not confronting you for spare change, they're cowering in the corner and they're utterly dependent on someone else for their substance. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who are there spiritually—Isaiah: "I'm lost, I'm ruined, I'm undone." You and me, that's our experience.

So He describes that, and then He says, "Look, here's a couple of things." What Jesus has in mind here in this whole idea of the Sermon on the Mount is to tell us that our life is distinct and different. There has to be something different about us. We who are Christians are different than the rest of the world—we're counter-culture. We are unique, not odd. Get that? Sometimes, I'm afraid, that's how we look—we look odd. The way we dress and all that other stuff shouldn't make us just different—we're unique.

You Are Salt and Light

And He uses two common pictures: salt and light. Now, let me read this to you the way it's written in the Greek, with the emphasis in the appropriate place. It would read this way: "You are salt." And the "you," interestingly enough in this, which really sets up the rest of the weekend, the "you" in this is plural. So He's probably speaking to these guys as a group, and the implication may mean the body of Christ or it may mean the church—it's a collective effort. Together we're the salt of the earth, together we're the light of the world.

Now, what is typically true for us collectively is true for us individually, and I don't think it's unfair here to emphasize that point. He's still talking to us individually—that you, me, we, us, we are salt and light. The second thing to note is the word "are"—you are. The idea here is much more than doing, it's being. And it's really important to understand, this is not a command. He's not saying to you, "Go and be salt, go and be light." It's not a command, it's a statement of fact.

He's saying, "You are salt," and obviously His point is, you might be lousy at it. "You are light," even if you're a very dim little light. For that much light to shine, it's going to have to get really, really, really dark before I'm ever going to see it. But the point He's making here is, this is a fact.

The Function of Believers

One author writes this: "In these four verses, the Lord summarizes the function of the believers in the world. Reduced to one word, the function is influence." I meet all sorts of Christians. I don't travel hardly any. Susan and I don't travel much—we haven't traveled much in the last three years at all. I used to travel a lot and do this kind of stuff. I don't do much anymore. I only go to places I want to go for people I want to be with. I enjoy Jeff a ton.

The Problem with Orthodox Isolation

I enjoy Janet a ton, and I love Cannon Beach, so we come to this. What I used to observe, because I'm kind of a pretty conservative guy, especially theologically. So I hang out with a lot of really conservative, biblically sound type people, and their doctrine is absolutely right on. Their orthodoxy is bigger than your orthodoxy, trust me.

But when you start to unpack them and spend a little time with them, they're missing a major component. They are repulsed by the world. They are repulsed by what they see on television, and in the news, and in the media, and in the movies, and on the internet.

If I said, give me a show of hands for those of you who are repulsed by what you see, my guess is all of you are going, I'm repulsed with, yeah, there's some lousy stuff. Having said all that, there's some wonderful stuff on television, and wonderful movies, and wonderful internet, and wonderful radio.

As a response to this, the guys who got the doctrine figured out have pulled out of the world. It just breaks my heart to see all these liberal, barely believers, in the world, making a difference, and all the orthodox guys have pulled out of the world. They've got Christian before everything they do. So they only listen to Christian music, and watch Christian movies, and Christian radio, and Christian press.

The Great Commandment Requires Contact

Here's the deal. God said this: I'm going to give you a great commandment, love the Lord God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. I'm going to give you a great commission, go and make disciples. Both of those require contact with lost people. I can't go and make disciples if I don't have lost people around me.

I'm telling you, you can't have this relationship in a casual way. You cannot be walking down the street and say, "Hey, how are you doing? My name's Tom. Your name is? I don't know much about you, but do you know that you're a sinner, and you're separated from your family?" It's not what He calls you to do.

He's telling you you're in community. You're in relationship. Salt. For salt to work, there has to be contact, right? For light to work, there has to be contact.

The Weekend Focus: Good Works

So that sets the table. I'm watching the clock, and I want to be sensitive to you. That's 30 minutes. That's enough. I don't know. Although I could go a long time. But do you get that? Because that's where we're going. We're going to talk about the fact that you've got to be out and in this world.

Here's what I want to do. I think we'll go right in toward that tomorrow. I want to talk about these good works and what they look like. So when we start in the morning, we're going to talk about salt, light. What's that do? But we're going to hang on verse 16. "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works." What should they see? As a result of that, they glorify your Father in heaven. That's where we're going for the weekend.

It's going to be a good weekend. This is really good stuff. You are saved by God, from God, for God.

Closing Prayer

Let me pray. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this place. I cannot drive to Cannon Beach and look at it, see Haystack Rock, and not see your glory. It's impossible. You are a wonderful God. The first missionary you sent to us is creation. Screams of you, the creator.

In the midst of this beautiful place, you dropped this conference center. We can come and we can eat. We can see old friends. We can make new friends. We can relax. We can kind of get away from that everyday world we're in. So in a sense, we almost create a vacuum. God, we pray that you fill that vacuum.

That like Isaiah, we would walk away with a view of who you are. And once that's done, we have a view of who we are. We are desperate, needy, hurting, lonely, broken people, helpless apart from you. So God, thank you for grace, mercy, love.

Thank you for all the planning that went into this weekend. All the logistics that came together. Thank you for safe travel to get here. And we pray that all the things that might be obstacles kind of fade away. And we hear from you. Remind us again, God, salt, light, here in this earth. We love you. We worship you. We praise you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.