Your Role in the Great Commission: Living a Mission Minded Life

The current age, despite its technological marvels, is one of gross darkness without the Lord Jesus Christ. Man, through discoveries, wisdom, and wit, mistakenly believes he has enlightened himself and that this knowledge will deliver him. However, this human light has utterly failed. The sources reveal that the answer to this composite darkness is found not in human intellect or political solutions, but in Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, and His humble followers.

The call to action is clear: Believers are the light of the world, tasked with illuminating the path to God.

1. The World’s Failure: Technology Cannot Save

The world, which often views itself as “enlightened,” is in deeper trouble today than ever before. Man has learned to fly through the air like a bird and swim through the sea like a fish, but he has “still not yet learned to walk on earth like a man”.

The Composite Darkness of Human Wisdom

The reliance on human wisdom, science, philosophy, and political schemes consistently demonstrates man’s “composite darkness”.

• Philosophers and Think-Tanks: The Apostle Paul rhetorically asks, “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?”. This refers to the intelligentsia, the philosophers, and the think-tanks of the world. God has “made foolish the wisdom of this world”.
• Failed Solutions: Society has lived through numerous political and social movements—the New Deal, the Great Society, Camelot, and others—which are all demonstrations of man’s fundamental darkness.
• Self-Destruction: Western man has decided to abolish himself, creating boredom from affluence, impotence from erotic excess, and vulnerability from strength. Having educated himself into “imbecility,” man is polluting and drugging himself into stupefaction.

Science and Education Are Insufficient

Science, philosophy, education, and culture are incapable of saving the world.

• Science’s Limit: Science can measure the distance between the Earth and the Sun but “can’t tell you how far Jesus can remove sin from a human heart”.
• Education’s Flaw: Nazi Germany was educated, and today’s world, despite having more education than ever, is “sinking faster than it’s ever sunk”.
• Culture’s Vanity: Culture never saved anybody; it only makes the world a “better place to go to hell from”.

The only power that saves anyone in this world is what God calls the “foolishness of preaching”—preaching the cross of Christ.

2. The Light Bearers: Who God Chooses

Jesus declared to His followers, “Ye are the light of the world”. The word “Ye” in the Greek is emphatic, meaning “you and nobody else”.

The Humble Disciples

Jesus was speaking to a motley crowd of humble folks by the Sea of Galilee. They were mostly Galileans, the “hillbillies of that day,” unlettered, and insignificant in the eyes of the world. They must have been “absolutely astounded” to be called the light of the world.

The reason they were the light was because of Jesus, who is the Light of the World; when they became His disciples, His light resided in them.

God’s Strategic Choice

God intentionally bypassed the perceived elite and strong of the world.

• Not the Elite: God chose “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble”. The world emphasizes beauty, brains, bucks, and brawn.
• The Foolish and Weak: God has chosen the “foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (the non-intellectual or intellectually common). He chose the “weak things of the world” (the physically weak, those without bulging biceps).
• The Base and Despised: God chose “base things of the world” (those from the wrong side of the tracks or ignored).
• The Purpose: God chooses the seemingly insignificant “that no flesh should glory in his presence”.

You do not need to be a multi-millionaire, a seminary professor, or socially accepted to be the light of the world.

The Evidence in Moscow

This truth was demonstrated in Moscow when a simple preacher shared the Gospel:

• The Philosopher: A philosopher spoke of a conflict between a lower ecology (wicked) and a higher ecology (good). He was astonished when told that the higher ecology is God, the lower is Satan, and that receiving Christ allows one to overcome the lower ecology because “greater is he that is in you than he that’s in the world”.
• The Rocket Scientist: A rocket scientist with the Soviet Space Agency affirmed that the universe must be regulated by a “higher power,” but he had never heard the Gospel. He walked off with Bibles like they were “a million dollars”.
• The Lawyer: A beautiful lady, a lawyer for the largest department store in Moscow, gave her heart to Christ in the service.

These educated, powerful individuals realized that “Jesus and Jesus only is the answer to this world’s problems”.