Norbie, Donald: Spanish Wells Bible Conference Bahamas 1995-05 ~ The Cost Of Discipleship - Matt 5

Good evening. It's a joy for my wife and me to be with you again. I want to turn again to the book of Matthew. We're going to look at the Sermon on the Mount, and we're going to read beginning with verse one of chapter five. Matthew five, beginning with verse one. Call this section, um, Kingdom Ethics or Kingdom Law. The Lord Jesus here is a king. We, in one of our hymns, we sang of him as a king. When you accept the Lord Jesus, you accept him not just as Savior, not just as someone to rescue you from hell, but you accept him as he is, the Son of God, the King. He's a great king, the scripture says. So that means we take his authority into our lives. Uh, it's really an anomaly for someone to say, I've accepted Jesus as my savior, but I don't want him to tell me how to live. We accept him. We acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. So we begin reading the verse one. Seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It's then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You're the light of the world. A city that is sit on, 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. The beginning of this section deals with character, and he gives us seven aspects of character that should mark us as Christians. And we looked at some of those. First is poor in spirit. Humility is emphasized. When we accept the Lord Jesus, we come humbly as sinners, and we, uh, acknowledge the fact we have no claim upon God. We come in all of our need to accept him as our Lord and Savior, and that spirit of humility and dependence ought to mark us all of our lives. But sad to say, oftentimes we forget, and as Christians we can tend to be, uh, proud and arrogant. So he says this is an important aspect of Christian character. He speaks of those who mourn, those who are concerned, who enter into the suffering caused by sin, who are marked by compassion. That should mark us as Christians. We shouldn't be indifferent to the suffering or the care that there is in the world. Blessed are those who mourn. Speaks of those who are meek. Christian is not to be one who is, uh, constantly carrying a chip on his shoulder, constantly, uh, defending his rights, this kind of spirit, but one who, uh, if need be, even suffers wrongfully, quietly, like the Lord Jesus himself did. Speaks of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And, uh, I spoke of this as a mark of the Christian should be he's dissatisfied. Many times we're dissatisfied with material things. We're unhappy with what we have. We live in a materialistic world. So people are unhappy with the car they have. They want a bigger car, a newer car. Unhappy with the home they have. Bigger home, better home. And in the process, we oftentimes are quite content spiritually. Now, what the scripture says is the opposite should be true. I should be satisfied with what I have materially. Be content with such things as you have. He has said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. We should be content with our material things. Doesn't mean if you get a chance to get a better job, you shouldn't take it, but along with all the material things, he says there's a responsibility as a steward of God to use what God gives you wisely. If you have a home, use it for God. If you have your car, use it for God. Use your money for God. Invest it for God. Give to the Lord's work. It's good to hear prayer tonight made for the Lord's servants and missionary work in other places. It's a wonderful thing that we, wherever we are, can have a part in the Lord's work throughout the world. Giving. But he says spiritually, don't be satisfied spiritually. And we can fall into that. We just kind of become complacent, we come, uh, become self-satisfied, uh, we're just kind of dead in the water spiritually. We're not moving. And, uh, remember once talking to a friend about another Christian, and he commented about him. He says, I don't think he's grown a bit in fifteen years. We both knew him, and I really had to kind of agree with him. It's possible for us as Christians to become just very complacent, and this is the spirit of Laodicea that says, well, we're rich, we have no need of anything, we're doing fine. And you can become, uh, very blind to your own, uh, nakedness, he says, as far as Laodicea is concerned, to your own blindness. So that's something to be concerned about, to always be concerned and say, Lord, I want to grow, I want to become more like the Lord Jesus, I want to hunger and thirst after righteousness. It's great to see people growing into old age, to just be living a growing, maturing Christian life, becoming more like the Lord Jesus. I had a letter once from a student who was a missionary for some time in, uh, Japan. He was a student of mine when I taught at Emmaus years ago. He's now, uh, dying of cancer, but he wrote me a letter some time back, and he said, you know, as I'm thinking of getting older, he says, I just want to be a more gracious, kind, godly person as I get older. It was a lovely letter. He wrote quite a lengthy letter describing what he had in mind as he got older. He wanted to have these characteristics mark him. And, uh, when I saw him, oh, some months back, talked to him, uh, you know, I, I could say, well, I believe his desires are being answered, even though he's dying of cancer, he's had a lot of pain, a lot of suffering. He's becoming a more and more beautiful Christian. Says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They'll be filled. Times coming, it says, we shall be like him. We shall see him as he is. So your hunger, your thirst to be more like the Lord Jesus will one day be completely satisfied. So don't be satisfied spiritually with yourself. Blessed are the merciful, those who are forgiving, those who don't carry grudges. And, uh, we stress that the tremendous need in our marriages to be merciful. Husband and wife, to be forgiving. Sometimes tell a young couple when you're getting married, uh, never go to bed angry. Forgive one another before you go to sleep, and start the next day with a clean sheet. Don't carry over grudges and, uh, resentments. He says, blessed are the merciful. He says, blessed are the pure in heart, and I think this is where we sort of, uh, stopped the other morning. Pure in heart. Naturally speaking, our hearts aren't pure. Our hearts are deceitful. Our hearts are evil. Sometimes, even though you've been saved a long time, thoughts will come into your mind and, and you'll be appalled as you realize, am I thinking that, and I'm saved, I'm a Christian? So we struggle with that. We struggle with that old nature. I was talking to a man a while back in jail who, uh, has accepted the Lord, but he's struggling. He was saying, you know, he says, I, I, I thought when I accepted the Lord, I would suddenly be completely different. I wouldn't have these temptations or these thoughts anymore, and, and, uh, he was wondering, am I really saved? Because I'm struggling with sin. I said, oh yes, that's a sign you are saved. Don't be discouraged. Be realistic. Realize that old nature is there, and you have to uh constantly put it down. He says, put to death your members which are upon the earth. And Paul, after about twenty years or so being a Christian, says, I- I beat my body, I buffeted it. It's just like I'm in a, uh, uh, a fight with that old nature, and he says, I'm determined not to let it dominate me. Blessed are the pure in heart. So let me urge you to, uh, cultivate purity. It's very distressing to me when I hear preachers who fall, and uh, you realize it hasn't been just a sudden fall. You know, people were aghast when Jimmy Swaggart, uh, was discovered, uh, in company with a prostitute. Here's this television preacher. Many people in the United States were really just great followers of him. I remember once a, um, a woman that we had worked with and seen come to know, know the Lord, uh, was very close to her mother. Her mother was a follower of Jimmy Swaggart. Her mother told her, Jimmy Swaggart says if any church doesn't speak in tongues, they're a dead church. And on the basis of that, she discouraged her daughter from meeting with us because we didn't speak in tongues. So here's this person who is, uh, you know, professing to be so spiritual, and many people following him, and it's discovered that, uh, here he's living an immoral life, having this religious front, married, children, all the rest, and a secret life, a hidden life that people didn't know existed. The truth was, it didn't just happen overnight. That had been a pattern and involvement in pornography, and that thing had been going on for weeks and for years, and and, uh, it destroyed. So purity in heart, you have to guard it and guard it. Remove whatever it is that is corrupting your thinking. Get rid of it. And you know, I, when I think of the music young people are listening to, I don't listen to it, but uh, the reports I hear, and just looking at the jackets on some of the uh, rock and roll artists, the jackets on their tapes and so forth, it's pretty uh, rotten. And young people will listen hour after hour to those uh, lyrics, where sex is glorified, drugs are glorified, rebellion is glorified, defiance against any moral kind of living. And, uh, this is just pounded into their thinking, hour after hour after hour. The tremendous influence of the media. You know, in the States recently, there have been a, a number that have been killing their parents. Up in, uh, Pennsylvania, two boys shot their parents, killed their parents. And just the other day, there's someone, I believe, in Georgia or one of the southern states, uh, a man who went in and shot both of his parents to death. They were saying in s- at least in certain cases, they've been watching violent movies, a lot of, uh, violence, and their thinking has become so perverted and so twisted that they go- could go into the living room and stand before their parents, parents who brought them into the world, who cared for them when they were helpless, who nourished them, who poured out their lives for them, and in cold blood destroy their parents before their eyes. What a terrible, terrible thing. Unbelievable. And that's the result of minds that have been just so corrupted and twisted and perverted by sin. He says, blessed are the pure in heart. So we as adults have to guard our thinking. Used to be a man in, uh, Michigan in a retirement home, a Christian retirement home there, and I understand every day he prayed, oh God, keep me from dying a wicked old man. He'd been saved for many years. He was up in his eighties, I think, at the time, but he realized the potential for evil in that old natural heart. So we have to guard purity. Blessed are the pure in heart. God can't use you if you aren't clean living, if your life isn't what it should be. Regardless of your gift, regardless of, uh, your ability, God will not use you. So there's strong, strong warning about that, isn't there? Now he goes on to say, blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers. In your assembly, are you a peacemaker? Or are you a troublemaker? Some people are troublemakers. We had a fellow came to our assembly years ago, and he caused trouble. Went to another assembly, the elders there asked me about him. He moved to a different town, went to a different assembly. So I told them the problem he'd caused, and he'd been there just a short little time, and he was going around and talking to people, and he was asking to people, do you think our elders are really doing their job? He was sowing doubt and discontent and criticism. Well, the elders got a hold of him right away, knowing what he'd done before, and they said, you stop that or you leave. We're not going to hear any more of that. You'll start undermining, you start sowing confusion in this assembly, and we'll put you out. We're not going to tolerate that. They were wise. Blessed are the peacemakers. Some men seem to just destroy works wherever they go. I'm thinking now of a man that I knew for years. He's dead now. He's gone to be with the Lord, but, uh, it seemed that wherever he went, there were two assemblies we'd been associated with, and when he was through with them, both of them died out, destroyed both of them, was a factor in the destruction of two assemblies. Very sad, very sad. He wasn't a peacemaker. He wasn't a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who, when there's someone that's hurt or someone that's offended, uh, someone in the assembly who's able to go and be a peacemaker and to pour oil on the troubled waters. I want to read a verse in Galatians six that I like. Galatians six, where the, uh, exhortations being given to us. He says in verse one, Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. A spirit of gentleness. We need brothers and sisters with that spirit that can go to someone who has maybe fallen in some way, things are not going well spiritually, but can handle them gently so that there's healing. And when you're hurt, when you're not functioning right, you don't need someone to manhandle you. The town where we live, when we first moved there, we went to a, uh, a dentist at first, uh, and after he'd worked on me a little bit, uh, when he would, uh, give your teeth a cleaning, you would come home and your mouth would be sore for a week. He was the roughest man. He was, he was like a horse doctor. He was really rough. We changed dentists. We said, hey, we don't have to put up with that, you know, we want someone with a gentler touch. And we've got man now who's very gentle. But if you're needing something to be done, a doctor, a dentist, whoever, you want someone with a gentle touch. So it'll be a healing experience. You won't go away feeling more injured than when you came. We need people like that in the fellowship. Someone quits coming to meetings. What's the problem? Uh, do you go over there and you just read him off up one side and down the other and beat him over the head with a two by four? How do you treat him? You need some brothers, some sisters to go and in gentleness to try to restore him, to help him. What's the problem? Why are you missing meetings? What's happening in your life? How can we help you? Blessed are the peacemakers. An assembly is blessed if it has people like that, with a shepherd's heart, with a tender heart, and with a gentle touch. So he says that should mark us all as Christians, but, uh, some Christians are better at it than the others. Now, what is also true is that we can all be peacemakers as far as the, uh, world is concerned. And I want to turn to second Corinthians and read in chapter five. Second Corinthians five. This world is a world that is, uh, full of confusion, and, uh, a lot of people who don't know peace. It's amazing. For example, in the United States, all the people who are going to see psychiatrists and psychologists, and somehow they're striving to get inward peace. They're like the troubled sea, the scripture says, and cannot rest, casts up mire and dirt. He says, as Christians, we can bring peace to people like that. Wonderful to be a peacemaker, bringing peace into the life of someone who is all torn and confused by sin. This is what he says in two Corinthians five, verse eighteen: All things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. We are, uh, given this ministry of reconciliation. That's being a peacemaker. You reconcile, uh, two sides, you're a peacemaker. Now, God the Father has done everything he can to be reconciled to the sinner. He loves all. There's no partiality. He loves the murderer, even as he loves the person who's lived a morally good life. He's given the Lord Jesus to die on the cross, to pay for our sins, so that we could be reconciled to him. God has done everything he can do to be reconciled to the sinner. So this, but the sinner's still going on in his rebellion and in his, uh, rejection of the Lord, and the Pa- Apostle Paul here says, now look, we've been given this ministry of reconciliation. He says, uh, uh, let's go and, uh, let's be a peacemaker. Let's bring these who are so estranged and alienated and enemies of God, uh, let's put one hand on them and the other hand on God, and let's say to them, look, we can bring you together. This message of reconciliation is for you. You can be saved. You can be forgiven. You can know you're right with God. We have this ministry of reconciliation. What a wonderful privilege. He doesn't say the angels have it. He, he doesn't say anyone else has it, but we who are Christians. He says we're ambassadors for Christ. It's as though God is pleading through us. So we go to the sinner and we plead with him. We represent the God of heaven. We bring a min- a message of ministry of reconciliation. We say it's possible to you to be right with God, to be forgiven. It's a wonderful thing to go to a person who has been, uh, so rebellious and defiant, and perhaps has given up hope. I've had men say to me, who've been in jail, you know, I felt that I could never, I could never be right with God. I'd done too many terrible things. I, I had no hope, so I felt the only thing I could do was just go on getting drunk, doing drugs, or doing my thing until I died. There was no hope for me. I was beyond redemption. There are some people feel like that. And then there are some people who are, are just kind of indifferent, but either way, uh, we come to them and we say, listen, you're away from the Lord, you're estranged from the Lord, but it's possible for you to be reconciled. You can be forgiven, you can be brought back into the Father's house, you can be saved. We have that ministry of reconciliation. He says, blessed are the peacemakers, and when you bring the gospel message to a sinner and you see him come to know the Lord, you are a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers. That's our privilege. Are you involved in that work? Are you attempting to bring this message to sinners? Blessed, he says, are the peacemakers. So that's our wonderful privilege as, uh, believers. As we function in this way, he says, blessed, for example, are the peacemakers, they shall be called sons of God. Uh, as we function this way, as we live this kind of life, we are showing the very character of God. That's what it means when it says a son of God. It doesn't say a child of God. You become a child through faith. As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God. But, uh, as fathers sometimes, we may say to, uh, one of our boys, now son, and really what we're doing when we do that is we're trying to bring before him the dignity of his position. And now you ought to act like a son. You carry my name. You're my son. Now act like. And really, he says, as we, with the Lord working in our lives, reveal this kind of character. Now we're acting like sons and daughters of our God, and we're showing out his nature to the world around us. Now that's the character of disciples. I want to notice here next how he talks about the cost to disciples. Because you want to follow the Lord, the Lord says there is a cost involved. And, uh, as he speaks of the cost, he says, first of all, uh, blessed are those who are or have been persecuted for righteousness' sake. And I think he's speaking especially of Old Testament saints. Here are people who were persecuted for righteousness sake. They took a stand for what is right. They were a voice for God. A preacher of righteousness, that's what Noah was called. Remember John the Baptizer? He stood before Herod, and he says, it isn't lawful for you to have your brother's wife. You're living in adultery. Strong words to say to a king, but he was a prophet of God, and he said, listen, you are sinning. This is wrong. He stood for righteousness. And, uh, sometimes there's, uh, persecution when you do that. You take a stand for what is right, and as a Christian community, we ought to do that. We should stand for what's right. We should be known as people who are moral and who stand for righteousness. But the Lord Jesus goes on to say something further. He says, blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and saw- say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. And now it isn't just righteousness sake, but here are people, and especially, of course, since the Lord has come, who are taking a stand for his name. They, uh, identify with the Lord Jesus. They are witnessing for him. And he says, you're blessed when you do that. Now, it may be costly, you may be persecuted. And you remember the story of Stephen as he stood before the Sanhedrin and he preached. He preached to them, gave a review of their history. He told them about the Lord Jesus. He brought the gospel before them, and it says they were so furious they gnashed their teeth, they dragged him out of the city, they stoned him to death as he was calling upon the name of the Lord. Jesus would say, blessed are you when men persecute you for my sake. And Stephen, the first martyr, so-called, of the Christian faith, died because of the Lord Jesus. He didn't die because of any sin of his own. He hadn't committed any crime. They killed him because he identified with the Lord Jesus. And sometimes when you identify with the Lord Jesus, there there's a a a very strong reaction. It's kind of amazing. That, uh, when you say, I am a Christian, I believe in the Lord Jesus, there can be real hostility. In the United States, you can be, uh, prosecuted legally. For example, if you, uh, say something, do something against a minority group, maybe Hispanic, maybe black, it may be Jewish, maybe something else, against the homosexual coalition. You can be charged, and you can be prosecuted legally. But it's an amazing thing. On all hands, Christians can be attacked, the so-called religious right, and uh, it's perfectly legal. There's a hostility against the name of the Lord Jesus. So we have to recognize that, and uh, he says, uh, blessed are you. You're identifying with me. You remember the apostles after they'd been beaten and they'd been warned not to speak anymore in his name. Don't speak in the name of Jesus. Says they departed, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name. So he says, don't be ashamed of the name of the Lord Jesus. And we can be. Sometimes we're just ashamed to identify with him. We don't want the reproach, we don't want the rejection that sometimes comes. He says, uh, the cost of discipleship, but rejoice and be exceeding glad, great is your reward in heaven. The next section deals with what I call the commission for disciples. As you go out into the world, what is your work? First of all, he uses three figures here. The first figure that he uses is, he says you're to be salt. Interesting expression. Christians, he says, are to be like salt. Now, salt is not useful unless it's mixed in with what you're cooking or whatever you're doing. Uh, you don't, it has no value if it's kept in the salt shaker. Not useful. One mistake Christians have made at times is withdrawing from the world and saying it's such a wicked world, we're just going to, uh, you know, circle the wagons and, uh, have our defenses up, and we're just going to stay huddled together away from this wicked, wicked world. And I can understand that. In the States, more and more, uh, Christians are pulling their children out of, uh, public schools. They're going to homeschooling or Christian schooling. They're saying the public school system is so rotten, so evil, and so violent, uh, that we don't want our children raised. The danger is that you keep drawing in and huddling together and lose touch with the world around you. The Amish, uh, have done that. You know, they have their own peculiar dress, they drive their buggies, they live together in their communities. They are separate. They're living in a different world from the people around. And the hard thing for Christians is to be in the world, but not of the world. Jesus, while he was here, was a friend of publicans and sinners. He mixed with sinners, and he calls on us to do that. In a se- sense, he says the salt needs to be spread around if it's going to have any influence. Now, salt has some, uh, interesting qualities. It preserves, for example, used to be people would salt meat, uh, board ship, sailing vessels years ago, they would have salt pork and so forth. Salt was used as a preservative. Still is somewhat, but not as much. It preserves. The Christians in a community, by their influence, and this is talking, I believe, about their life, the salt talks about the life because it's quiet. Salt is not something you see, it's kind of inconspicuous, and yet you're aware of its influence. It preserves and it seasons. Food that's very flat and uninteresting, you put a dash of salt in there, and it comes alive, and you enjoy it. He says Christians should be like that. By their lives, their testimony of their lives, they make this world in which we live more tolerable. Amazing the influence of Christians. I would hate to be on Spanish Wells tonight if there were no Christians here, none at all. I don't think it'd be as safe and as pleasant a place to live in. Christians have an influence by their lives, by the quality of their lives. Now, something too that salt does is it will make you thirsty. And by our lives, as I think of this, by our lives, we should make the world around us thirsty to know what we have. Really should. Your neighbors, if they're not Christians, should be able to look over and see you and your life and your family and say, what do they have that we don't have? I wish we had what they had. There's a peace, there's a happiness, there's a quality of life there that I wish we had. That should be the response of the world around us when they see our lives. They should become thirsty to have what we have. I remember this was, uh, brought home to me in a very strong way. As I mentioned before, I do work quite a bit in the jail, and there were two men in the jail that came to know the Lord, and they were in this pod. It's a pod in the jail, it's called C-pod. A pod has a, is a unit. They'll have a larger living area, and then they'll have cells often. ten, twenty, thirty cells will be around the sides of this living area. These two men were in this one cell. They both came to know the Lord. And, uh, a jail is a place of a lot of unhappiness. It's a place where there's a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger, a lot of despair. I've talked to men at times who've slashed their wrists. They wanted to kill themselves. Uh, they just felt life has no meaning, no purpose. I'm ruining everything, I might as well die. A lot of anger. Angry because of maybe whoever turned them in. Maybe angry because of a wife who turned them in because they were beating her up. A lot of anger. One man was in there who, uh, is now in prison, and he was guilty of some sexual crimes, and, uh, he got a pretty heavy sentence, but uh, and he had some real despair because he knew he was losing his family, his wife was divorcing him, and his whole life was falling apart. But he noticed this one cell, and there were these two men there, and he told me himself, he says, you know, I looked at that cell, and here in this place of terrible unhappiness, these two men had peace. These two men had peace. There was a happiness, there was a radiance about that cell. He said, uh, it was different. Finally, curiosity got the best of him, and he, uh, he went into the cell, and he s- he hung around the door, and he said, uh, what do you men have? How do you can you have peace in this place? How can you be as happy as you are in this place? He was thirsty. He says, you got something I wish I had. And they led him to the Lord through their testimony and him coming to our Bible study, he came to know the Lord. The impact, the powerful impact of a life for God. And that was brought home to me. That's what salt does. He saw their life first. Before they talked to him about the Lord, he looked at their lives, and he says, you've got something I wish I had. I hope the people on the island here look at you folk and look at this chapel and say, oh, I wish I had what they've got. I wish I had the peace. I wish I had the forgiveness. I wish I had the purpose in life. I wish I had what they'd have. That's what the response of the world should be as it looks at us as Christians. We're salt. He says, you're the light of the world. Now, light is very visible. It's not inconspicuous. It doesn't lose itself like salt does in the food. It stands out, and it gives, uh, light, shows the way, shows us our condition. You know, you get up in the morning and you go to the mirror, you turn on the light, and maybe you don't like what you see at first. You want to wash up and put yourself in order, but the the light is very revealing. And as Christians, we reveal to the sinner, we give them the gospel, uh, and the the gospel is the light that shines through us. As we give them the gospel, they realize their condition. We don't pull punches, we don't say to them, you're okay, you'll make it, everybody's going to heaven. That's the devil's lie. We have to point out to them, you're a sinner, you're lost. And then the light shows the way, it guides them, shows them the way. What a wonderful thing to see lights. I spent a few years at sea, and uh, I worked in navigation. We were always looking for lights when we were coming into a harbor. You're looking for the lights, the lights to guide you down the channel. You're concerned for the lights, navigational aids, lights to show you the way. We as believers ought to be like lights guiding people into the harbor, the haven of rest. So what we should be like salt, a quality of life that just, uh, really makes people thirsty to have what we have. We ought to be lights showing them the way. Now don't say, well, I just live the life, and I'm not going to say anything. People won't be saved just by living the life. You've got to tell them. You've got to tell them. You need to open your mouth. You get need to begin to talk. I talked to a man in Iowa some years ago. He said, I said, how long have you been saved? He said, fifteen years. Well, he said, I just started to grow a year ago. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I wonder what the secret was. I said, what?