Matthew 5:14-16

(Whisper "Elvin’s a great guy" and have the boys pass it down the line)

You guys got it right! That doesn’t always work.

The way the last person in the line knew what I said is that each one of you passed it down the line. And the way the last person in the line knew what I said is that each one of you gave the right information to the next person. If someone didn’t say the right words, if you didn’t give the right information, the last person might have thought I said "Elvin’s a late guy" or Elvin’s a great buy" or something like that.

You passed on the information. And that’s exactly what God wants us to do. He wants us to pass on information. Verse 14 of our text says that:

Most people in this world are blind. I don’t mean that they can’t use their eyes, that they can’t see things. I mean that most people don’t God. And if you don’t know God then you really don’t know anything. If you don’t know God, then you don’t know how this world started to exist. If you don’t know God, the you don’t know how YOU started to exist. If you don’t know God, then you don’t know how valuable you really are, how precious people are, how precious this world is, and how to take care of this world. If we don’t know God then we don’t know what is going to happen after we die. Which means if we don’t know God, then death is a really frightening thing. If we don’t know God, then we don’t know why we are in this world, and what we’re supposed to be doing. Life has no meaning.

But if we know God, then all of these things fit together. If we know God, we love to live, even if bad things happen to us and make us sad. If we know God, then we know that He has a purpose for us in our life, and when it’s time to die, then we know where we’ll go.

And most people don’t know all this. They don’t know the truth. They think this world just happened to pop into existence, for no reason. They think that human beings are just like any other animal. They don’t know that human beings look like God, and are very special. They think that you live and then you die, and that’s it. And some people, then, think they want to die right now, because they don’t want to live anymore.

You are the light of the world, and people need to know the truth. It’s your job to pass on that truth, so that they will live, so that they will have hope, so that they will know God. You’ve been given the truth. You know God. You know that He sent His Son Jesus to die for you, to come back to life for you, to give you eternal life. You know that.

You’ve had this passed on to you from a number of different places. One of the first places we learn this from is from our parents. Parents do all kind of things to teach us about Jesus. They pray for us, even when we don’t know how to pray ourselves. We see them praying on their own, just them and Jesus, and we know that time with Jesus is important. They take us to church, even when we have no idea what the preacher is talking about. They take us to church, even when we don’t want to go, because they know how important it is, because they know that Christians can’t be Christians all by themselves. We need each other. Parents are the most important people we have to tell about God. Parents have told their children, and those children have told their children, and those children told you.

But along with parents, we learn about God in other places. For some of you, you learn about Jesus in your school. The school we have here is all about how God made and works in this world. You learn about God through Bible classes, but also through science and English and music and math classes, too. Because everything belongs to God. And you know that.

And some of you go to public schools, and there are Christian teachers there, too, who show you Jesus in how they act and talk, even if Jesus can’t be really taught in class. And some of you go to school at home, and your parents are also your teachers, and again you’re learning about Jesus from them.

And your church, of course your church, teaches you about God. You learn and know God better by singing about Him, and by praying together as a group, and by hearing about Him from His word. Everything you do in Cadets, from knot tying to the Snow Derby to the pancake supper to rocket launching to the pine wood derby, to your lessons…in the middle of everything is Jesus. It’s all about Him.

Starting with Jesus’ disciples, all this has been passed on from person to person. The disciples, Peter, James, John, Bartholemew, they told people, and then those people told other people about how great God is. Psalm 145:3,4 says:

Now, you’ve been given all this. Someone has passed this all on to you, in a lot of different ways. Now…you, keep passing it on. If all these people passed it on, and they gave it all to you, and you just sit with it, and you don’t tell anyone else, what are those other people going to do? Someone told you, and then all those other people just sit there, wondering what you know, wondering why they can’t know.

You are the light of the world, Jesus said. Verse 14:

But hiding our light is a whole lot easier than letting people see our light. Keeping the information to ourselves is a whole lot easier than passing it on.

We keep our lights hidden, we keep the message to ourselves. We know people who don’t know Jesus, but we don’t really ever talk about Jesus, or church, with them. You know, we’re a little uncomfortable bringing that up with them, and maybe they don’t really want to hear about it anyway, and what if they get mad and stop being our friend, so it’s better just not to say anything.

Sometimes, though, we pass on the message, but it’s the wrong message. Jesus came to save the world, but we act like Jesus came to make our lives miserable with all the things we have to do, and all the things we can’t do. We’re brothers and sisters of Jesus, we’re children of the King, and we walk around like we really don’t want to be Christians, but we’re supposed to, so we’ll do it. People don’t want to hear a message of burden and demands. They want to hear the message of hope and freedom. Pass that message on.

And sometimes we pass on the message that Christians judge and condemn and pick on people, that nobody is really good enough. We know that nobody’s perfect, and we’re just not working hard enough if we can’t find something to complain about. We talk about people, we put people down. Sometimes, it seems like Christians are mostly just ticked off. And the message we pass on is a critical message. We make people afraid of Christian, and Jesus.

We don’t want to hide our light, and we want to shine our light clearly. Verse 15:

We want to pass on the message. Lights aren’t meant to be hid. Lamps aren’t supposed to be covered. Lights are supposed to be seen. We are supposed to pass on what we know. Verse 16:

When we know God, and we know that He takes care of us, and we know that He’s saved us from our sins, we act different. We talk different. We even look different. We are different, and it shows.

Because Jesus saves us, we become:

And people see that. And they know that it doesn’t just happen for people to be trustworthy and pure, to be loyal and obedient, to be reverent and grateful. They know that that’s just not normal. And they want to know how you got to be reverent and obedient and compassionate and trustworthy and pure.

And you know that the only way you are that way is because of Jesus. You know that if it wasn’t for Jesus, that you wouldn’t give two hoots about people, that you would just want to take care of yourself, and nobody else. That you wouldn’t be grateful for anything, you would just expect to get things.

And you’re seeing how Jesus is changing you into the kind of person He wants you to be, and people are noticing it. You’re passing on the message you’ve heard. You’re being a light to people who are stumbling around in the dark. You’re showing it.

But even if you’re showing it, and even if people are seeing it, they still need to hear it. Passing on the truth happens by what people see, and by what they hear. It’s not enough to just show it, we have to speak it. And that’s where we usually freak out a little. I mean, it’s good that we live good lives and are all those things, reverent, obedient, and all that. But for us to actually talk about Jesus, that’s where it gets scary for us. We’re afraid of what people might say about us, when we talk Jesus. We worry that they’re not going to be our friends anymore, that they’re going to think we’re weird.

And when we’re too nervous about talking about Jesus, then we’ve hid our candle under a bowl. And you know what happens when you put a candle under a bowl for too long? It goes out. It stops shining.

That’s what can happen when we hide our light and keep the message to ourselves, when we don’t pass it on. We can stop caring about Jesus. We will stop being reverent and obedient and compassionate.

But when we do pass on this message that we’ve heard from our parents, from school, from church, when we talk about Jesus, our light will get stronger. We’ll love Him even more and we’ll want to do things for Him even more, and we’ll pass on that message even more.

I’d like to invite the parents of the cadets, and the counselors, and the cadets, to come up to the front.

Counselors and parents light candles from communion table.

They light the boys’ candles

The boys go and light the candles of the congregation.

Each time a candle is lit, say to each other

Jesus has saved me