[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word.
[0:14] I hope you've enjoyed it so far. If you have, say amen. Amen. Well, it's just going to keep getting better. We have Brady Van Winkle. He'll come in just a second. Brady was a great addition to our church when God brought him here, and he is a hard-working machine of a man, and so I'm very proud of him.
[0:33] Jason Holt will be preaching the last message. I don't know if you know this, but Jason Holt is one of the kind of guys they'll probably write books about. God's doing great things with him. He's starting churches and training young men.
[0:47] He has a wonderful wife that's been with him and stands with him, and probably more wonderful than that, she's got her mother here tonight, so could I get Miss Sampson to stand with Lori right quick?
[0:58] I'm so glad she came, and there the boss is with the boss. Thank you. Lori is more talented than Jason.
[1:12] That's honestly probably true, and that doesn't mean Jason's not super talented, and I am so glad you came tonight, Miss Sampson. You're a blessing, and we are very proud of your daughter, and I hope you know that.
[1:24] We really are. I'm proud of Jason. You're going to be blessed to hear him preach. If you ever get a chance, you need to go to Santiago, and you'll see what I'm talking about. We're going to start with Rip Van Winkle's grandson, Brady Van Winkle, member of Vision Baptist Church.
[1:38] Amen. Have your Bibles. Turn to Numbers chapter number 13. Numbers chapter 13. Throwing things everywhere up here. As you turn there, just kind of tell you what's going on.
[1:49] Twelve men, you know, went to spy on Canaan. If you were ever in a kid's class, and I've taught a lot of kids, you know, twelve men went to spy on Canaan. Ten were bad, and two were good. And one of those is, Caleb was one of the good guys.
[2:00] And here in chapter number 13, verse number 30, it says, And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.
[2:12] You see, Caleb had spied out the land, and he had went in, and he had seen what God could do, and he had seen that God could give him the land. And he said, We can go in, and we can take this land. But the ten other guys, they gather around, they say, No, no, no, not so.
[2:26] There's no way. These guys are stronger than us. They're like giants, and they're taller than us. And these guys really blew things out of proportion. They basically said that everyone there was bigger than them, and taller than them, and stronger than them.
[2:37] And they started looking at the outside circumstance. And when they did that, the children of Israel then began to say, Oh, well, no, no. Why did you bring us out here, Moses? And why did you bring us out here to die?
[2:47] It would have been better if we had been in Egypt. Let's get some guys, and let's go back to Egypt. Let's kill these guys. And Caleb's like, No, we can do this, and we can overcome these people. And you say, Well, how did Caleb know that they were able to overcome?
[2:59] And how is Caleb able to know that? Well, because he trusted in God. He trusted in God, and he knew what God could do. And he had seen God work, and he had seen God move. And he knew that he could trust God to get him into the land.
[3:10] He wasn't trusting in his ability. He wasn't trusting in their army. He wasn't trusting in Joshua. He was trusting in God. And he said, We can do this because we have God on our side, and we have God with us.
[3:21] And, you know, as Christians, you know, so often we say, There's no way we could do anything for God. There's no way God could ever do anything with me. But he wants to. He wants to use you. He wants to do big things in your life.
[3:31] And we can overcome anything in our life because we can trust in God. But so often as Christians, and just like the ten men and the ten spies, they began to look at their circumstances, and they began to look at all the problems and didn't look at God.
[3:43] We as Christians so often we look at the circumstances, and we look at what's going on, and we look at our issues, and we look at our problems. We begin to make excuses and say, There's no way. And yet we can because we serve a great God.
[3:54] And the second thing, though, is he knew what God could do. Caleb knew what God could do. If you go to chapter 14, verse 8, it says, If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey.
[4:07] He said, Look, if God's with us, if God's on our side, he's going to take us into this land. And he knew what God could do. How do you know what God could do? Because he'd been in Egypt. He'd seen the plagues in Egypt. He'd seen God bring them out of Egypt. He'd seen them cross the Red Sea, and he said, God is with us.
[4:19] If God delights with us, we can do this. We can take this land. We can have victory. We can have the promised land. But the people were like, No, we don't want this. We don't trust God. And yes, they'd seen the same God and the same things, but they doubted God.
[4:32] And Caleb was like, No, don't rebel. Don't run away trusting God. And he said, I know what God can do, and as Christians we should know what God can do. We could go around this room tonight and hear story after story of the big things that God's done, and we've heard some stories of things that God has done.
[4:46] And we should remember, we have a big God, and we serve a great God who can do big and mighty things in our life, and he's already done big things, and he still wants to do big things. But so often, we like to make those excuses.
[4:57] And so often, we like to say to ourselves, There's no way that I could overcome or do anything big for God. There's no way that I could take the gospel to the world. There's no way that I could witness to my friends or my neighbors.
[5:07] There's no way I could overcome this sin. And yet, God says, I'm right here with you, and I want to do big things. And the last thing we see that Caleb did, though, is he knew the Lord was with them.
[5:18] Verse number 9, it says, Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their defense has departed from them, and the Lord is with us for them not. He said, Who cares about these guys?
[5:29] It doesn't matter if they're giants. It doesn't matter if they have super strong holds. It doesn't matter what they have. We've got God. God is on our side, and God is with us, and God will give us the victory. And Israel didn't trust in God, and they said, No.
[5:41] No, we don't care about God, and we don't care that God's with us. We're afraid of these people. And they ended up messing up, and they were right there. They were a step away from victory. They were a step away. And then we know what happened to the story.
[5:53] God came down and said, Sorry, you're going to have to wander to the wilderness for 40 years now. And these people that were there that had rebelled, they all died in the wilderness and never saw victory, never saw God do anything in their life.
[6:03] They could have had that victory. They could have been in the promised land, and yet they didn't because they didn't realize that God was able to overcome it. I don't know about you, but I want to be like Caleb. I want to stand up and say, We are well able.
[6:14] I am well able to take the gospel to Turkey. Why? Not because I'm anything special, because God is a big God, and God wants to do big things. And you can sit out there, and you may say, No, no, God can't use you. No, God says you are well able to overcome anything in your life, any sin, any difficulty, any problem, whatever it is, God wants to do big things.
[6:31] The thing is, are you going to trust Him? Are you going to trust God, or are you going to trust in yourself? I'm going to leave you this verse. Romans 8 verse 31 says, What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
[6:43] Amen. One day eyes that are blind Will see you clearly One day all who deny Will finally believe One day hearts made of stone Will break in pieces One day chains once unbroken Will fall down at Your feet
[7:43] So we wait For that one day Come quickly We want to see Your glory Every knee falls down before Thee Every tongue offers You praise With every hand raised Singing glory to You and unto You only We'll see glory to Your name Windy voices that fly Will all be silent
[8:45] One day all that's divided will be whole again One day death will retreat And wave its white flag One day love will defeat The strongest enemy So we wait For that one day Come quickly We want to see Your glory Every knee falls down before Thee Every tongue offers You praise With every hand raised Singing glory to You and unto You only
[9:51] We'll see glory to Your name We know not the day or the hour Or the moments in between But we know the end of the story When we'll see Your glory Every knee falls down before Thee Every tongue offers You praise With every hand raised With every hand raised Singing glory to You and unto You only We'll sing glory to Your name
[10:56] Glory to Your name Please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter number 5 Matthew chapter number 5 We're going to read a couple of verses here this evening Matthew 5 will start in verse number 14 Did all of you notice whenever they were singing A few songs back That one by one light started coming on here on the stage Did you guys see that?
[11:32] And some of you maybe are sitting a little bit further back How many of you haven't seen it? Raise your hand Didn't notice Everybody noticed Fantastic Alright good Then I don't have to cut out that part about explaining how it happens Because you all saw it But you know as I'm sitting here tonight thinking about The missionaries and watching the film And different friends of ours That are serving different places in the world And seeing the map And rejoicing with you And all that God's done through Vision Baptist Church Over these last 10 years Just 11 years ago All of this was just a dream and a hope and a prayer 11 years ago we were in Chile Getting ready to start our first church In September we were I don't know six weeks out From the first church service Of our first church there in Chile Just hoping and praying that God was going to do something There we had a building We had a sign We had some chairs And first week of September We were out in the community Trying to hand out some flyers And get to know some people
[12:33] And make some contacts But see what God's done over these last 11 years Here up in Alfreda Down in Santiago Different areas around the world To see You know What God could do Through the potential Of all these young missionaries That you guys are meeting Week in and week out You know The past is so encouraging But the future And the potential If the Lord The Lord tarries His coming Is so unbelievable And if we look at our pastoral staff here The average age that we have Of the pastoral staff Is like 40 There's one guy That's really skewing the numbers high If you look at the average age Of the missionaries here You know We have Jim Roberts Who's affectionately known as Old Man Jim He's You know Outside of him You know There's Man There's so much potential Of what God's going to do Over these next 5 10 15 20 30 40 years
[13:35] Who knows What God Is doing Will continue to do Through Vision Baptist Church And we should be Be so encouraged To look back And see The faithfulness And goodness Of the Lord And how He is blessing And be so encouraged About these lights That we see here It's just the first step The tip of the iceberg Of what God is doing Through the ministry Of men and women In this church And you have You have the opportunity To be a part of it To be around it And I know Sometimes week in And week out You maybe lose A little bit Of the excitement Of all the things That God's doing But be encouraged And I pray That this week That's what's going To happen That you're going To leave here Each night And after the Sunday Activities Knowing that you're A part of something Bigger Of something special Of something That's actually Affecting the world For God's glory In our generation And we have the opportunity To be a part of that What an awesome thing Look at what the Bible Says here In Matthew chapter number 5
[14:36] Jesus is talking here His ministry's just Getting started Similar to how We're just getting started And all the things Going on In many aspects In chapter 3 He was baptized By John the Baptist In chapter 4 He's going through Some temptations And some of the Initial disciples Are being called Here we have The Sermon on the Mount One of the first times That he's at length Speaking here To the multitude And his disciples That came together And he says In verse number 14 Ye are the light Of the world A city That is set On a hill Cannot be hid Neither do men Light a candle And put it under A bushel But on a candlestick And it giveth light Unto all that Are in the house Let your light So shine Before men That they may See your good works And glorify Your Father Which is in heaven The first part there Verse number 14 Is so interesting
[15:36] Because Jesus Speaking to the multitude A multitude That hadn't been through A whole lot of preparation Much training People are new They're just getting started These new disciples Some others That are listening on And he tells them That you Ye Talking about you Plural All of you Are the light Of the world Are the light And you know Whenever we're talking About the theme Of the week And you see the lights That we have And the decorations And we're thankful For everyone That's put time Into making things So pretty And our attention Is drawn to the needs Around the world And the opportunity And how we're lights Of the world But we're thinking About this concept It's a concept That we find In the Bible And the Bible Uses this battle Of darkness And light Of lies And truth Of the forces Of the devil And demons And all the deception With God And Jesus And the truth And the church
[16:36] And all that we're preaching The message Of the gospel And Jesus declares To them That they are He declares to us That we are The light Of the world Now it's interesting Because in that First cultural That first century Cultural context There were a couple Of rabbis That were known And they were given A title Of being the lights Of the universe Or the lights Of the world And guys that were Respected That were well known They were like The televangelists Of their days And here Jesus Using that same Title That same That same name He gives it to them And he says You all Are the light Of the world Now there's a couple Of things that I want Us to take away From this passage This evening And the first thing Is you Are the light You are the light We're not trying To be the light We don't need to Want to be the light Being the light Is our identity In Christ
[17:37] It's who we are As Christians The Bible says In Ephesians 5 8 For ye were Sometimes darkness Not that you walked In darkness But in sometimes In the past Ye were darkness But look what The Bible says But now Are ye light Look what it says In the Lord Now we know The Bible says In so many different times That he is light For example We find in John 8 12 Then spake Jesus Again unto them Saying I am The light Of the world We have the quote Up here by Jesus On the wall I am the light Of the world We have it in 1 John 1 5 Then Then is the message Which we have Heard of him And declaring to you That God Is light And in him Is no darkness At all James 1 17 Calls him The father Of lights Philippians 2 15 says That ye may be Blameless And harmless The sons of God
[18:38] Without rebuke In the midst Of a crooked And perverse nation Among whom Ye shine As lights In the world And I don't want You to leave here Thinking I need To be a light Because the Bible Says if you're A Christian If you put your Faith in him If you're a Follower of the Lord And I think By your testimonies The majority Of everyone Here tonight Would have That testimony Then the Bible Says that you And I We are now Today The light Of the world It's not something We're trying to do It's not something That we need Training to do It's not something That maybe If these disciples Follow Jesus For years Maybe they could Get to the level Of these real Well known rabbis And there's only A couple of them And they're known By this title No Jesus says He lets us know In Christ We are the light Of the world We should understand Our identity in him Because what we do Is born out of Who we are And the Bible
[19:39] Tells us who we are We are the light Of the world We're the light Of the world And this is an Important concept Because the Bible Tells us For example A very important Passage That maybe we can Have here on the screen It says in 2 Corinthians 4 Verse number 3 And 4 2 Corinthians 4 3 and 4 But if our gospel Be hid It is hid to them That are lost Look what it says In verse number 4 In whom the God Of this world Little g there We're talking about Satan In whom the God Of this world Hath blinded The minds of them Which believe not Lest the light Of the glorious Gospel of Christ Whom is the image Of God Should shine Unto them Here's a passage Talking about Highlighting this Battle of truth And lie This battle Of darkness And light And the enemy Has blinded them They've been born In their sin They've been born Blinded
[20:40] They're born Not knowing The truth And they're living That way And we have been Called to be The light So they can hear The glorious gospel The light Of the glorious gospel And come to know him As their savior Back in our text That we're looking at Matthew 5 14 Ye are the light Of the world A city That is That is set on a hill Cannot be hid It says there That we're the light What's the next three words There after light Help me out now Of the world I love what the bible Says here Because it helps us Understand that this idea If our identity Is to be a lamp Is to be a light Then we have here Right after that phrase That Jesus gave us He gives us The area In which we ought to work Where we should Try to make sure This light reaches And that area Is the world All men Should hear the gospel He died for every man Every man Should have the opportunity Every woman
[21:40] Every boy Every girl Should have the opportunity At least once in their life To hear a clear presentation Of the gospel So they can put their faith In the Lord Jesus Christ We're supposed to go To all the world Hey this board back here I was talking with someone Over lunch today About where they should Consider going In Latin America To be a missionary And I'm like The truth is I think if we start up In Venezuela Is a good option Colombia Is a good option I like Ecuador It's a good option Peru is a great option Bolivia is an excellent option Chile Check out the map over here You guys see Chile See the proportional size Of this map To all the other maps Hanging here You guys have my heart Right So Chile is a great option Argentina is a great option The point is They're all good options Uruguay Paraguay We like them all They're all good We need the light In all those places Because they're living In darkness Around the world They've been blinded From birth By the enemy And they need to know The truth And God's called you and I To take that gospel to them
[22:41] Just about 14 months ago We had the opportunity To start a church In an area Where literally There's no gospel Preaching church Anywhere within miles In this particular area Within probably a I don't know A mile circle Which for us That's about 50,000 people There's not even A Catholic church There's no evangelical Catholic Jehovah's Witness Mormons There's nothing At all That's been built Because it's a new area And no churches At all What an opportunity To take the gospel To take the light There We've got a picture Of a recent youth meeting This is very recent This is like two or three weeks ago I think the guys have it there In the back If not Then you guys can imagine I think they're Here we go Alright great This picture was taken Just I don't know Maybe two or three weeks ago It's a group of teenagers That have gotten together On a Friday or Saturday I don't remember And they're studying the Bible Several of them Are unsaved Several of them Are from an area
[23:41] Of the city That's about It's only about Four or five miles away From the church That we started But for us That's like Two or three Hundred thousand people Away from where We started this church For them In their mind It would be like The distance of here And maybe Lawrenceville Or something very far away Difficult for brand new people To even think about coming And public transportation And all those kinds of things And there's some people here From that area That have come together To study the Bible To hear the gospel preached To have light Shown into their lives Now let's look at that Here's literally the neighborhood Where a few of them come from If we can see this next This next picture here I think the guys have Yeah good So this area here This is actually from Google Maps Zoomed in In the area Where a few of them come from You're seeing here About 40 homes From the top Obviously 200 people roughly Living here In this very small area Living in darkness Because in this area Of the city There are no
[24:42] Bible preaching churches There are We haven't reached This area yet Let's back up once One click To minimize a bit Here the screen And we can see This same neighborhood But from a little bit Further out And here we go You see this area Okay Now here there's probably I don't know We're reaching multiple blocks Like we first saw Let's go one more picture back And now we're seeing A much larger area Let's go one back Even further And here we would need A couple of churches To reach this area There are none Currently There's a few young people That have come Because of some friends To the Bible study In this brand new church That we started We need a couple of churches here Now watch that soccer field Up on the left Because we're going to Back out a couple more times And you can see Where the soccer field is You can see the density Of population in Santiago You can see Where it's just Gray square dots Just block after block Mile after mile Let's go back One more Watch that little soccer field Because it's still Going to be there Now you see it there In the middle Here's a couple of million
[25:42] People living in darkness In West Santiago In this whole area That you're looking at There's no churches Now in that one area Close to the soccer field We were talking about We need two right there Right One church for every 50,000 In Santiago We need 140 churches In the one city alone And when I look at Santiago And I see places like this I'm thinking Spiritually This whole area Is It should be Just a black screen Where there might be A few scattered people That have gotten saved Because maybe in another area They've heard the gospel Or whatever But by and large It's complete And utter darkness Now if we back out One more Let's keep moving back You see that That soccer field still Right Kind of right there In the middle On the left Now we finally have One of our churches That reach into the scope Of this As we back out Let's move back one more Alright here we go Now in this area Santiago's kind of Here on the right We're looking at The west side of the city still There's four or five Of our churches
[26:42] On the left side Of that screen Guys that we've trained And have gone through The Bible college That are preaching The Bible But when I see Santiago I think this is a city That is by and large Completely blinded By the lie of Satan They're believing All kinds of religion All kinds of things And they need the gospel The lie of the glorious gospel And the Bible says That Jesus is light That God is light And that you and I are light And he's called us To be his ambassadors To take the light To take the light Of the gospel And the light Of who he is And as we go forth And we preach his message They can see the light And they can know the truth And he's called us We don't need to get Just wrapped up In saying okay We've got a few lights Praise the Lord We've had some money given And praise the Lord And I think we're ready Just to kind of relax And lay back No we're just In the starting point And this is one city
[27:42] Of hundreds and thousands Of cities around the world That need Bible preaching missionaries Is an 18 year old man Young man living in Forsyth County I told the Lord 95% of the world Lives outside of the U.S.
[27:59] There's about a 95% chance Lord You want me outside of the U.S. Because people need to hear the truth And I would like to challenge you today Let's don't let this just be another conference Let's let this be a time Where we come together And we ask the Lord Lord help me to realize That I am the light At work with my family In the community I went down to Dunkin' Donuts Early yesterday Praise the Lord for Dunkin' Donuts Close by the church Before my classes At the training center And there were two men From the church Sitting down with foundation lessons In front of them Drinking coffee I don't know if they were eating donuts But they were talking about the light Praise the Lord And you can be involved in that Some of you need to go To the other side of the world Some of you need to reorder Your life And your family And your thoughts And your heart And your time And your finances To show this priority Of taking the light to the world
[28:59] Leave here today knowing We're not trying to be light We don't need to do more So we can be light We are light Because of what Jesus Has done for us Let's pray together this evening Lord I thank you so much For the opportunity To look into your word And see who we are in you And to realize There's a lost and dying world That is living in darkness And there's young people Like the ones that That came to our church I've not even met them yet Because I've been back here That haven't heard the truth Now they've heard the truth Praise the Lord Some were even saved But we need We need dozens We need hundreds Of churches like that We need hundreds Of church planters That can go to places Around the world We need hundreds Of men and women That can be senders And stand faithfully With these ones That are going Help us to find our spot Help us to live our lives Purposed around Being the light And we ask this In Jesus name This message was recorded
[30:04] At Vision Baptist Church In Alfred, Georgia For more information Log on to www.visionbaptist.com Where you can find Our service times Location Contact information And more audio And video recordings Amen For more information www.vis says www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz www.visso.nz