Take your Bibles if you would. Turn to Revelation chapter two. We'll be there in a few minutes. Other verses, I'll throw up here on the screen for you, but I'm gonna read from Revelation two in a little bit. Doing a series on being salt and light.

How are we to be salt and light? How are we to make a difference in this world? Are we to make a difference? The answer to that obviously is yes. Jesus said so here in Matthew five, ye are the salt of the earth, but the salt hath lost his savior wherewith shall it be salted?

It is thence for good for nothing, but to be cast down and be trodden under the foot of man. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candles 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. Let's go to the Lord in prayer once more.

Lord, thank you for your word today. Thank you for Jesus Christ, our savior, who came for us, died for us, who is risen again, who is interceding for us at the throne in heaven at this very moment. Thank you, Lord, for all that you've done for us, what you are doing in our life, that you are our savior, our Lord, our father, and our friend. May you be magnified, we pray. May you draw men unto yourself, we pray, In this service today, in Jesus name, amen.

We talked about being salt and light, about making a difference, about pointing others to Christ and the truth. How do we do that? Well, we do that by speaking the truth, particularly the gospel and telling others about Jesus. We can't fulfill that command fully without taking a track and handing it to the person who waits on you today or talking to somebody at the bus stop about Jesus Christ or a coworker at work and telling them how much Jesus loves them and how much they need him and what he has done in your life. Be a witness.

But you also cannot fully fulfill that unless you practice what you preach in your own life. Others need to see Jesus in us. They need to see the love of Christ in us. They they need to see compassion and and holiness. And they need to see the smile that God puts on our face.

That he's real in your life and mine. That our convictions really matter to us, that we what we say we believe we really do because it affects what we do. Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only. Now, what is the key to being salt and light in the world? How how do we get to be that?

Well, first of all, you must know Jesus Christ as savior. You can't be the light of the world if you don't have the light of Jesus Christ within you. You can't be the salt of the earth if Christ hasn't salted you unless you've received Jesus Christ, his salvation, his forgiveness, his eternal life, it must be in you before you can share it with somebody else. But also this morning, I want to emphasize this. In order for us to be the salt and light that we ought to be, not only must Jesus be in us and we in him, But he must be a person to us, a person that we fellowship with, a person that we serve, a person that we love, a person that we trust.

Is Jesus a person you love or a doctrine you believe in? Christianity is not a formula. It's not merely doctrine on a page that you adhere to or assert to. Salvation is in a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. A person like the rest of the people in this room.

But a person, flesh and blood person who died on the cross for your sins and mine, who was risen again and at the right hand of the father, a person who is both God and man, a person who is the mediator between God and man, a person you can know, a person you can love, a person you can serve. The Christian life isn't just about doctrines, beliefs, and rules. It is about that person, Jesus Christ. He is the one who makes all the difference. In Revelation three twenty, it says this, behold it says you see, I said it says.

He says. He says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. Who is that? That's Jesus saying, open the door to me.

I will come in and I will change your life. This isn't something we just do on the day of salvation, which it is, by the way, when we accept his invitation to salvation and we open up our hearts door in faith to him. But it is something as children of God we should be doing every morning we get up and fellowshipping with our Lord. This passage along with many others declare the personhood of Christ and his desire to fellowship with us. He says, come unto me and I will give you rest.

He says, he that abideth in me, the same bringeth forth much fruit. He says, he that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. That's a person talking, a person who has the ability to change your life and to make you salt and light in this world. To so many people today, Jesus is a doctrine which one must believe, but not a person to fellowship with, to love, to serve, or to follow. The gospel is not just a set of beliefs, but good news.

Good news about who? Jesus. For Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief, Paul said. Jesus. The Christian faith is not so man of so much a set of doctrines we agree to or list of rules we follow, but faith in a person whom we love and whom we can communicate with and learn to trust and serve each day.

A person we can grow to love more and trust more, a person we can talk to, learn from, be led by by reading his word. His words. His words. Just like when we read these words, it's just like he was here. They're his words.

Not the words of a book, just a book or a religion or faith, but a person. Jesus Christ. It is the word of God. It is him speaking to who? To us.

His children. Notice this, Micah six eight. He has showed the old man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. To do justly, to do what is right, be fair, righteous in your actions, honest, to love mercy, to be a person of compassion, a merciful person reflecting the love and mercy of God. And one who what?

Walks humbly with thy God. What does that indicate? God is a person with whom you can walk each day. Now you may not be able to see him, but he is there. He is there.

And he is a person who wants to wants you to walk with him, to talk with him. He wants to hear your fears, and he wants to give you peace. He wants to instruct you in the way and be there for you when life seems to turn against you. He is a person with whom you can walk and follow, walking with thy God to us, what God expects and desires and deserves. As we walk with God, we learn his expectations.

We can see his desires like any other person. How do you get to know the expectations, desires of your spouse or your friend. You you spend time with them. You get to know them. Jesus is a person too.

One you can talk with, listen to, serve, and fellowship. Revelation chapter two verse one. We'll read the first seven verses. This is written to the church at at Ephesus. I preached on it not too long ago or taught.

I don't remember if it was in here or the Sunday school. But but I just want to take a moment to notice one thing out of this passage today. Beginning in verse one. Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus. Right?

These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. That would be Jesus who is this person. The church of Ephesus is a group of believers that formed a church in what today is Western Turkey. Okay? He says, I know thy works and thy labor, thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.

Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars. Has and has borne and has patience and for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted. Boy, that sounds great. Boy, this is a good man. They are they are hard workers.

They are diligent. They stand for the truth. They're they they cast out the false preachers and teachers and they're patient. And boy, that we get to verse four, and it says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent.

And except you turn around, unless except you have a change of heart, there's something that's missing. They were they had the right doctrine. They stood for the right stuff. They were very busy. But they left their first love.

Love had diminished. What love? What was John talking about? This church was growing and fruitful, became one of the more prominent churches in the first, second, and third centuries. The gospel went forth from this congregation and other churches were planted, several of them to which John wrote in this passage in Revelation two and three.

Timothy pastored this church at one point. The apostle John pastored this church at one point. In Paul's letter, we see a church that is vibrant, struggling in a few areas as a new congregation of believers, but strong and united in the faith. Yet, by the time John wrote Revelation, which was about thirty or forty years later, they had a problem. What was it?

Apparently, it wasn't. It wasn't taking a stand for the truth. They were doing that. It it wasn't their work ethic and their lack of ministry. They were doing that.

It was their lack of love. Love for who? I can only believe, conclude that it would be their love for who? Their love for Christ. Their love for Christ, meaning the time they spent with him.

Their love for Christ, meaning the closeness they shared with him. Their love for Christ mean the loyalty they felt for him. That person, that friend, that spouse that you are close to, that love, that time that you spend together knits your heart together. And you feel that closeness and that loyalty. Do you feel that same closeness and loyalty?

Is your heart knit together with Christ? He is a person who desires your love. Their love for Christ had evidently grown cold. Their relationship from with Christ had grown distant. Does that describe you this morning or has it described you at some point?

Do you do you understand what we're talking about today? You just let other things, the busyness of life, even service, going through the motions to crowd out the time we spend with the person getting to know him, to love him, to follow him, Jesus Christ. Jesus is a person who demonstrated incredible love for us. He deserves our love and our fellowship in return. Not just belief and obedience, but love.

He desires that. God desires that. He desires your love, not just your obedience, not just your trust, but your love. Deuteronomy six four and five, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt, what? Love the Lord thy God.

Just read that part with me. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the Jesus says, this is the what? The first and the greatest commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.

When Moses wrote this, actually said this, Israel had spent forty years wandering in the wilderness because they didn't trust in the promise of God. And why not? Because they didn't know him and they didn't love him like they should have, and so they didn't trust him. And when God said go into the land and take it, they said, we can't do that. Look at those cities.

They have these huge walls. They have these chariots. They they have these soldiers that make us look like grasshoppers in their sight. And God said, okay. Well, we'll let the next generation go in.

So you get to wander around in circles for forty years until your children learn to trust in God, and I'll give the land to them. Israel had been distant from God. As they approached the land of Canaan, the next generation to go in, Moses gets up to recite the law for the new generation. And what was his first command? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and teach your children to do the same.

Not just to obey the commands, not just to know all the right stuff, but teach them to love me. Teach them to love me. Not just the rules and regulations of the law, but to love the Lord who gave it to them for their good, who deserves their allegiance, who longs for their fellowship. A person, not just a doctrine or a law. By Jesus' day, the Jews had forgotten this once again.

All their focus was on the law, and they had forgot about the person behind the law. And they had little relationship with God. The nation of Israel was distant from God. God sent them, John the Baptist, to wake them up and to remind them of the person who was coming, the Messiah, the Son of God, for God is a person. The one Lord who is living and powerful, but also jealous and protective of his people.

His people whom he want, he loves. His people whom he delivered time and time again. Those for whom the church today, he died on the cross. God has demonstrated his love for them. Now it is their turn to choose to love God in return.

Not just belief and submission, but allegiance and fellowship. It is now our turn to show God that we love him, the person, by fellowshipping, by listening, by following. It's not just a list of rules. It's a person by spending time with him, seeking to please him, standing up for him, trusting him. He desires our love.

He deserves our love. First John four nineteen says, we love him because he what? First loved us. It is God who demonstrated his love by sending his son to be the sacrifice for our sins. But God commendeth his love or showed his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ came and he died for us.

We love him because he first loved us. He didn't just say it. He did it, demonstrated it. He came as a person in a human body to reveal to us who he was and then as one of us to die in our place. More than anything, Jesus deserves and desires our love and our loyalty.

Service, yes, but out of a heart of love and close fellowship with a person of our faith, Jesus Christ. I think so many of us at times, we forget about the person. It just becomes about all the rules. And I think there are so many people today that are sitting in pews or and they don't know the person. All they know are the what?

Rules. And if all you know are the rules and you don't know the person, then you're not saved. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons or the children of God even to them that believe on his name. Salvation is not in a statement of faith. It is in a person, Jesus Christ, in whom we put our faith and our trust.

We share our love, our concerns, and we praise, and we follow, and we serve. Why did God create Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to have fellowship with a being created in his, what, image. And he still desires that from you and from me. Yes, the just shall live by faith, but a faith that grows into love and friendship and fealty for Christ who loved us so much, who's forgiven all of our sins, who's accepted us into his family, who is preparing a place for us in heaven, who is coming back one day to take us home to be with him. And if you're not so excited about that today, I would have to say it's because you don't know him as much as you should or you'd be more what?

You'd be more excited about getting to be with him. Sadly, we spend most of our time getting to know people on a television set these days than getting to know the savior of the world with whom we will spend eternity. No wonder Christians have left their first what? Love. Not just the world, but but us because we spend a whole lot more time building relationships with fictional people at times.

Santa Claus and not God and not Jesus. Christ desires our love. He deserves our love. As a person, he deserves your trust. Your trust.

Proverbs three, five, and six, Trust in the what does it say? Trust in the Lord. Lord. The Lord is a person. Doesn't say just trust in the rules.

Trust in the law. The law is just. The law is sure. It's good. But it but it's not it's not the end.

It's it's not it's not the perfect the perfect son of God, the person, the end of our faith. Paul said the law is like a schoolmaster that teaches us until we grow up to be mature and then turn to become the person. The person we become is as we get to know the person of Jesus Christ. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not into your own understanding.

In all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Thou will keep him this is Isaiah twenty six three. Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trust what does it mean when he says his mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth? Who does God give peace to? Those whose minds are stayed upon the person of the son of God who Jesus Christ, is right now at the right hand of the father, who has sent the spirit to live inside of our hearts, who has given us his living word.

Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee. You don't trust so much. In words, you trust in a person that's behind the words. You say, well, I trust in in what this person says or that person says. And you get the book and you you read it and you trust in what they say because you think you know them and you think they're trustworthy, there is one who is trustworthy.

And his words are trustworthy because he is. And our trust is not in words in a book. They are in the person behind the words in the book. Learn to trust him, to listen to him. His word and his spirit, his guidance.

Trust in his love and his faithfulness. He has earned that. He, the person. Like a child trusting a parent or a student, a teacher. Most of the issues we struggle with in life as God's children are a result of a lack of what?

Trust. God says don't do that. And for some reason, you struggle not doing that. Why is that? Well, the crux of the matter is if you trusted him fully, then he wouldn't do that because you would know that whatever he says will bring fulfillment and peace and satisfaction in life and not the thing that you think you have to have that he said don't.

And the more we we grow in our faith and love and our we grow in our relationship with the Lord, the more we learn to what? To trust him. And then when God says go do this, I'll go. Why? I trust him.

When God says pray this way, I pray this way. Why? I trust him. When God says, don't go there, I don't go there. Why?

I trust him. He is a person in whom you can trust. Great is thy faithfulness. Oh, God, my father. Draw closer to him.

Get to know him better. Spend time with him. The person. You'll learn to trust him more. And then, what does Christ deserve?

Close with this this morning, your service. He is a person who deserves your service, not just a cause that deserves your allegiance. He is a person who deserves your service. There's a little difference between the cause that deserves your loyalty and the person who deserves your service. But I'm afraid sometimes we get caught up more in the cause than we do the person.

And we forget that there's a person behind the cause, and the cause is not enough. But if you get to know the person like you should, he is enough. It was enough for Paul. Paul writes here second Corinthians five. He says, for the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.

That he died for all that they might that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. That's that's not just about a formula. That's not just about a doctrine. All of that is about a what? A who?

A person. Jesus Christ. Paul said, I I do this. I don't do this just for a cause. I don't do this for the glory.

I don't do it just because it's my duty. I do it for a person. The person who died for me to whom I owe my life, My service, my love, and my loyalty. Because Jesus is a person, it made a difference in the life and ministry of Paul. He wasn't just serving a cause or religion.

And so he went to that next city and he endured the mocking and he endured the accusations and he endured the jail time and the whippings. And then when he got kicked out and thrown out of the city, He just went to the next one and did it all over again. Again and again and again. Why? For a cause?

No. For a person. And yes, he did it for the people to whom he brought the gospel. But more importantly, he did it for Jesus Christ who died for him, who had given him a second chance. He wasted the first part of his life.

He ruined it. He served himself. He was so mixed up and confused. He had rejected the person of Jesus and God and Jesus stopped him. The person stopped him on the road to Damascus and gave him a second chance to make his life count for something.

And that person, Paul was not letting down. How about you? When we when we fail, we're not just failing ourselves. We're not just failing the doctrine, the cause. We're failing the person.

That's why we confess our sins, we confess them to a person who forgives because that's the kind of person he is. A person who gives us a second chance, his mercies are new what? Every morning. I'm afraid sometimes we fail because we just forget that he's a person and because we do not nurture that relationship because we just, a, don't think about it that way, and b, we're just too busy. And then our salt begins to lose its what?

Our savor. And our light begins to grow dim. You don't fix those things just by sheer determination for the flesh is weak. And I can do all things through Christ, a person who strengtheneth me. Now abideth faith, hope, charity, which is another word for love.

These three, but the greatest of these is charity. What is charity? It's love that you share with a person. The world exalts romantic love, love for things, love for pleasure, but the greatest love is love for God, being in love with God, nurturing that relationship. And there you will find peace.

And there you will gain trust. And there you will be motivated for service. And you will be salt and light in this world. What did you do yesterday that demonstrated your love for Christ? What will you do today?

What are you doing to get to know him better? Are you spending time in your prayer closet? Are you spending time listening, really listening to him through his word? Are you acting actively looking how you can follow him today? Let's pray.

Dear heavenly father, we thank you, Lord. For the person Jesus Christ who came and suffered, gave his life for us, that we might be saved. For the person who is alive and well at the right hand of the father who has given us his spirit, who lives inside of our hearts, who's given us his word to reveal his will to us and the way of salvation. Lord, we pray if there's one in here that is yet to come to the person Jesus Christ for salvation, I pray that they would come this morning as we sing this hymn of invitation that we might introduce them to Jesus Christ that they may know you and the way of salvation that you give. And Lord, I pray for us who know you that we might not be satisfied to know you as a doctrine or a belief, but to get to know you better as a person this week so that you might live through us.

In Jesus' precious name we do pray. Amen.