Okay, can you hear me now? There we go. That's way better, man. I got little ears, man. Jamie, look at that.

Listen, we're just gonna have fun now.

All right, well, let's try that again. Good morning. My name is Crosby, and I've got the privilege of being the student pastor here at Ebenezer. And. And it's always a privilege to be able to have graduation Sunday and recognize these graduates.

And I will tell you what's cool about this, especially for me today, is a lot of our college graduates that were on this stage this morning. I've got to watch them graduate twice, and I got to see them stand on this stage as a high school graduate and now as a college graduate. And I will tell you, one of those college graduates that was on this stage today actually plays a huge part here at Ebenezer that some of y' all don't even know that she plays. And that is Erin Terrell. Aaron Terrell is our ministry assistant here.

And let me just tell you, if you've ever gotten an email from. It's not from me, actually, because I cannot write an email to save my life. Okay? But Erin, she sends out all information that you get. She put together the slideshow.

Her and Shannon organized everything out there to get them lined up. So let's give them a round of applause. This morning, I could not do what I do because I'm not good at those types of details without those two people in my life and how awesome that they are. And so it's really cool, because Aaron's group was the very first graduating class that I had here at Ebenezer, and they started when they were in ninth grade with them and all the way up. And so that's a cool moment to share this stage with them today and be able to see them do that again.

So if you would turn in your Bibles to Matthew, chapter five. We're still in our illuminate series, and the title of today's message is called Reflective light. Matthew, chapter 5, verses 14 through 16.

And it says this. You are the light of the world, and a city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand and gives it light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Now, when most people hear this passage, they immediately feel pressure, okay?

They immediately feel this pressure to be better or to try harder. But it's really the pressure to they self evaluating themselves and looking at this and saying, hey, you know what? This is a pressure to fix myself. But Jesus is not giving us pressure. He is giving us identity.

You see, the big idea and the focus of today's message is that you do not produce light, you reflect it. Did you hear me? You do not produce light, you reflect it. When I think about a mirror, I think about a mirror, how it has no power. Now, I know for some of y', all, you might have a mirror that has power.

Okay? All right. Some of y' all have got those fancy mirrors. I almost brought one. I don't own one, okay?

If I did, maybe I'd look better. But those fancy mirrors that have the illumination around them, you know what I'm talking about? Like, you look and it's like, wow, you get to see up close and personal. But I want you to think about a mirror. A mirror does not have power.

It creates nothing. But when it faces light, it becomes very powerful. See, the power of your life is determined by what you face. Which brings me to my first point this morning. Which is the source.

You don't produce it. Jesus says, you are the light of the world. This is not a command, but it is a declaration. You are not the source, but we are the reflection. Your responsibility is not to produce light.

It is to position your life towards Jesus. Because we are not the source and we do not produce it. When you look at this text, it says very first line in verse 14, you are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lamp stand.

Now, how many of y' all have ever had your power go out, right? Everybody in this room has had their power go out. Anytime that it storms, snowstorms, ice storms, hurricanes that we get around here, I always lose power. Never fails, okay? And I can never find a flashlight in my entire house because my son uses them to go outside to hunt bugs, okay?

So there's never a flashlight. And I don't own a single lamp in my house either. So when the power goes out, we are using our cell phones to light up the room. Now, when you think about that, nobody hides a lamp stand, right? Lampstands are important.

They were important back in those times. They were to give light. Nobody hides the light. And so when you look at this text, Jesus is saying, you are the light of the world. It's a decoration that we are supposed to have, but that we're not the source of the light.

He is. We are just the reflection of what that light looks like. And that's why, like, this morning, I was telling some of our other ministers this morning, I was like, you know, it'd be really funny if I had that mirror and just shine that light right here. I'd blind every one of y'. All.

Not only with my brightness of my head this morning, but also with the mirror. But it's a reflection, beaming. But it's our responsibility not to produce the light, but it's to position ourselves towards Jesus. Number two is the strength. Closeness controls the brightness.

Your brightness is directly connected to your proximity to Jesus. When you stay close to Jesus, your life reflects him clearly. When you drift, your light grows dim. Our closeness to Jesus is what. What controls our brightness.

Now, I want you to think about that. Your closeness determines the brightness. Okay? If we were to stand here and walk outside and try to get as close as we can to the sun, guess what's going to happen. We're going to melt and cook.

Right? Okay. The closer that you are to the sun, to that light source, the more that you can control the brightness. So you think about it. The closer that you get when you have a flashlight, the closer that you get to that light, it gets blinding, right, because of your proximity towards it.

But the farther that you get away when your power goes out and there's no light in the house, guess what? The farther you get away from that, the light starts to go dim. And that you distance yourself, it goes dim.

When we think about the closeness to Jesus, I think about how our lives should reflect that when we're walking outside. That, yes, he is the light that we are shining because we are his reflection. But that people see our lives and they see how close we are to Jesus in our walk with him and our relationship with him, and. And they're like, you know what? That person is so bright.

I'm gonna have to put some sunglasses on because I can't see.

Because we are the light of the world. We're supposed to share that. This whole series is called Illumination to Light it Up. The whole reason why we're able to see in this room is because we have light. But we have people that are walking outside every day that have a relationship with Jesus that have no light because they're not close to Jesus.

They have a relationship. They say, hey, I've trusted and I followed. But they're not close. They are far away from that light. They are not being close in proximity to that light.

They are distancing themselves. Listen, there's a lot of people out there that claim the name of Jesus but don't have the proximity right. They're not close to the source.

Number three is the shade that the sin covers the light. If light is not visible, it is not gone, but it is covered. Sin, compromise and fear block your reflection. You don't need more light. You just need to remove the covering.

Sin does not remove the light. It covers it. There's a lot of people walking around with their light being covered because of the sin in their life.

They haven't come to that place that they said, hey, you know what? I know that I'm a child of God, but you know what? I'm living in sin and I have not repented of that sin. And so what's happening is they're shaded, not that it removed the light, but that it covered it. I tell teenagers all the time, I'm like, listen, when you go to your school, whatever school you go to, when you walk in and people know that you're a follower of Jesus, they see how you live your life.

They see what represents your life. Are you representing Jesus in everything that you do? Or is there so much sin and cover in your life that nobody can see the light because it's so dim? Listen, we live in a world today to where closeness and proximity to Jesus is the most important thing. If we're going to be bright lights for him, if we're going to illuminate the world, then we've got to fix the sin in our life, repent of the sin in our life, get our eyes focused on him so that way we can reflect him in everything that we do.

Listen, I've been in and around church my entire life, and there's not a day or a person that I meet that's like, oh, yeah, I'm perfect.

Nobody is. We all have struggles. We all have sin in our life that covers that light. But you know what we're supposed to do? We're supposed to say, hey, Lord, you've forgiven me of that sin because of what you did on the cross.

And so now I'm going to let my light shine for you instead of covering it up. But a lot of times we have pride, we have fear. And so we cover it up because we don't want anybody to see our light. We're afraid because our light might bring attention to us.

Now, I know as adults in this room, that's not one of probably your struggles that you face, but I can tell you For a teenager, especially for these graduates that are going out into a world that they have no idea what they're about to get into. Some of them, right, some of these high school graduates that are going to go off to college and be on a college campus, their light might be covered because of fear.

Your light might be covered because of fear at your workplace.

See, we're supposed to be light of the world. That just doesn't mean we're supposed to be light at church.

When I think about when we go to camp every year, teenagers are like, man, it's so easy to worship and to, you know, talk about Jesus and what he's done in my life and to share all these moments and sing the songs. And you know why? Because you're all together as one body of believers. And that's easy. But it's very difficult to go outside into the world if you have that fear of not shedding that light and showing it because of what people may think.

Teenagers have a battle constantly of this pressure that. That their identity has to be in what social media tells them.

Their reflection is all messed up because they think if I reflect what the world wants to tell me, that I should reflect, then I will be okay.

But that's not the case. They are getting farther and farther and farther away from what this word says right here. That you are the light of the world and that you cannot be hidden.

Number four, the spotlight.

It's about him and not you. Your life is meant to point people to God and not to ourselves. If people leave impressed with you, then you've missed it. If they leave thinking about God, then you got it.

Anytime I look at myself and say, hey, you know what? It's about me, I've missed it. Oh, guess what? Hey, I shared the gospel with somebody. They gave their life to Christ.

Look what I did right. It's not about me. If I focus on myself, then I've missed what this says. I want to bring as many people to Jesus because my light is so bright. And they get close to that light that they don't see me.

Because it's not about me that they see him through my life, church. Let me tell you something. When you walk outside of these doors, you are the light of the world. When you walk around Stevens county, when you're in your businesses or your workplace or at the grocery store, do you know how many people I run in at the grocery store? Listen, do you know how hard it is to buy a gallon of milk at Walmart?

It takes forever because I find Myself in Walmart talking to about everybody, right? Listen, we live in a small town. That's what's great. I can go to Ingles and I can see teenagers working that I know, that I've seen at school, that I have a relationship with. And I'm like, hey, how you doing?

You know? And I find myself talking to them, whatever it is, Chick fil A, you can name them all the places you, church are the light of the world, and in everything that you do that you should shine brightly. But the problem is some of you are not close enough to the source. Some of you who have sin in your life, that is, that is not covered your light, it's dimmed it. Because your closeness, you're putting shade on that light to where it's like, hey, you know what?

I don't know if I'm gonna decide. There's the light still there, but I don't know what I'm gonna decide yet. Let it shine.

Light it up. Let it be bright for Jesus.

When you go out there and people see your life, you're a reflection to what Jesus commands, that you are the light of the world and it is about all about him and not about you. That the spotlight should be on him and not you.

So how do we. What does that look like in our life? Well, I'll tell you, number one in the application is this, that you need to check your direction, that you don't reflect what you believe, but you reflect what you face daily.

And if you're to ask yourself, honestly, what am I constantly looking at, what is shaping my thoughts, what is, what is shaping my desires and what is shaping my decisions.

Some of us need to change our direction because there's a lot of things. Listen, we're all being discipled by somebody.

It just depends on what you're giving the most time to, what you're focusing on. Because I guarantee you, what you're focusing on and what you're doing, reflecting, if it's not Jesus, then it's probably something else that's consuming your time.

With teenagers. I would tell you the number one thing, and I fall into this category too, is spending time scrolling all over social media, right? You hear about it all the time. Listen, as a youth pastor, I see it, I deal with it. I mean, you got kids in Walmart doing tiktoks, you know, in the grocery aisle, right?

Because they're consumed with it, because their identity is in that. But here's the deal, Adults, it's no different for us, right? There is social media for them, but for us, we might have something else that's consuming our time, that we are reflecting that what we're participating in daily, what we're constantly looking at, what is shaping our thoughts, our desires, and even our decisions. If Jesus isn't what you're facing, he won't be what you're reflecting. If Jesus isn't what you're facing, he won't be what you're reflecting.

The second thing in our application today is this close. The distance. Some of you are not far from God because you rejected him, but you just drifted away. Closeness doesn't happen by accident, but it requires intentional time with Him.

Some of us just need to start simple by taking time to open up this, right, His Word, opening up our Bible, praying, turning our attention towards him daily. Listen, I'm with you. There are some times where it is so hard to find the time to read. And I'll be honest with you, reading for me is not fun. It's not.

I struggle to read. I hate reading. I have tried to find every aspect of my life to be able to help me read because I can't stand it. Usually I listen to it, right? I cheat.

I hope that's okay.

But when you read this, it comes alive because you know what you're looking at. You're reflecting what God's word says. You're reading it. You're taking it in. You're soaking up that information to where.

When you read a passage of scripture like this, it is a declaration that you are light of the world and that it cannot be hidden. And it gives light for all who are in the house.

When you read that, it brings power. These are powerful words on this page.

So reading it brings you closer.

The last thing is we need to change our motive.

Is your life pointing to people?

Are you pointing people to God, or are you pointing people to yourself? God didn't save you to build a platform. He saved you to reflect his glory. If your life points to you, then you've missed the purpose of what we're called to do. Listen, the challenge today isn't about trying harder, but it's about turning your life back towards Jesus.

That we need to turn our focus back to him, that we need to stay close to him and remove what's blocking the focus on Him. And we need to start trying to shine and start reflecting who Jesus is and what he's done for us in our life.

Listen, it's very simple.

All of these things came out of this book right here today, every bit of it.

But Sometimes we miss the little things that are in the details in this because we're not reflecting Christ and what he's done for us.

You're like, well, you know what, Crosby? I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, that's good. You know why? Because Jesus loves you.

He died on the cross for your sins, and all you have to do is repent of that sin and accept Him. That's it. It's as simple as that.

But the hardest part about that is people not being concerned about themselves, moving themselves out of the way and saying, hey, you know what, Lord? It's time for me to reflect to you that I need that relationship with you, that I'm lost, that you are Lord of my life, and you died on a cross and rose from the grave three days later, and you conquered my sin on that cross, that you paid that price.

We're going to enter into a time of invitation. And listen, this is no different than anything we've ever done here before.

But there's two things that I want you to do today. Number one, if you are like, you know what? I don't have a relationship with Jesus. I want you to come down here and I want you to grab Pastor Jamie or Pastor Father Fred, and you come up here and you tell them, hey, you know what? I want to know more about this Jesus.

I want a relationship with him. And then the second thing is for our graduates that you saw on the stage, listen, church, they need our prayer more than anything because a lot of them are leaving our community where we get to as a church, pour into them and going into a community that we have no idea what they're going to face.

So this altar is open today as we are singing this song and worshiping. Listen, pray for our graduates. Come down here and kneel and pray. But listen, if you don't have a relationship with Christ, make today be the day that your light shines, because you have that relationship with Jesus. For the ones in here that you say, hey, you know what?

I've been a Christian all my life.

Maybe there's some covering in your life that you need to let go so that way you can let his light shine through your life, let's stand and worship.