Hey guys, our ship short reading tonight is taken from Matthew 513 through 16. This word has the power to change you here now God's word to us. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it salten this be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor toward a people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand it gives light to all 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 who is in heaven. The grass withers, the flowers say but the word of God will stand forever, let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for today another day to live and know you. Thank you for the changing season and for time to be with friends tonight. I pray that you would open our ears and our hearts to hear what was for us tonight and that you would speak through him. Good to see all of y'all here tonight. First things first, go voles and war eagle. This is a great weekend in college football. I love watching Georgia lose and that is biblical by the way. Hey, over the past number of weeks we've been journeying through the terminal in the mount together and the passage that we're going to look at tonight is going to remind us once again that we're not just talking about a different kind of person, we're talking about a different kind of community. We're talking about a witness that is given by the Christian community as a whole, not just individuals. Tonight in the passage that we're going to look at, there are two metaphors or images that are given here to describe Christians. We both have to do with how Christians relate to the world around them, that we influence the world for good by being who God made us to be. To serve as an alternative and challenging community to the surrounding culture. So that's the idea that's where we're headed tonight. With that in mind, let's go to the Lord and ask him to help us by his spirit. Let's pray. After I pray tonight that by your Holy Spirit, you would encourage us, you would challenge us, you would convict us where necessary. I pray that you would help us to consider the ways that you have designed for us to be salt and light in this world for your namesake. And we pray that tonight you would fix our eyes upon Jesus who was the true salt of the earth, who was the true light of the world. We pray that you would do this for his namesake and for our good. We pray these things in his name. Amen. Okay, so there are these two metaphors or these two images, if you will, to describe Christians. Okay, and the first that we're given is salt. Okay, look at verse 13 with me. Jesus says this, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. Okay, now I want you to think just for a second about how salt was used in Jesus' day. Okay, first of all, it was used as a preservative and then secondly, it was used to add flavor or to add seasoning to food. Okay, so the idea that he's trying to get across through this metaphor is that Christians are to relate to the culture by being distinct from the culture but also actively engaged, fully involved in the culture. Okay, now I want you to notice something right off the bat here. Jesus is assuming, right, in this verse that the natural flow of things in this fallen world is to move towards the K. Now that might sound weird or that might even sound a little bit offensive to you, but it's actually common sense. If you stop and think about it for a second, think about this. If you leave meat or vegetables or fruit out for a while, they rot. If you don't exercise or take care of your body, it breaks down. If you don't continually clean your room or your bathroom, it's going to quickly become unlivable. All right, if you don't brush your teeth, they start to decay. If you don't plug in your computer, the battery begins to die. Okay, so the point is that deterioration is the natural direction of this fallen world. But to this, notice that Jesus says to that that the Christian community is the salt of the earth. Okay, that's his answer to a deteriorating world is the Christian community. All right, which is the salt of the earth. Notice that he's not primarily telling Christians to go do something. All right, he's not primarily telling Christians to go do something. He's simply stating that this is what Christians are. You are the salt of the earth. You are, as he's going to say in a minute, the light of the world. Okay, so the Christian community functions as a preservative. Christians are to go against the current of the world's values. And as we do, we actually hinder and we slow down the culture's natural bent towards decay, towards deterioration, and towards ultimately corruption. But notice that we don't do this as isolationists. Okay, we don't do this by putting up some sort of spiritual wall and then lobbing grenades over the wall towards culture and then running away again. All right, we don't do this as an isolationist. Right, we do this by being involved in culture, but distinct from the culture. Okay, it's important that you give that distinction there. All right, so then the question begs, what does it mean to be as a Christian? What does it mean to lose your saltiness as it says in the text there? Okay, well, here's a little background information that might help you as you think about this passage a little bit. There were some salt deposits that were along the coast of the Red Sea and they contained not just sodium chloride, but also a variety of other minerals. Okay, so when salt would become useless, when over a long extended period of time, rain would come and wash out the saltiness. So in other words, it would lose its distinction over time. It would become useless over time. And at the same time, rabbis in the area use salt as a symbol for wisdom. Okay, in other words, to lose its saltiness literally meant to become foolish. That's how a rabbi would think about this phrase, to lose its saltiness meant to become foolish. All right, so Christians whose values and conduct aren't distinct from the culture that they're in around them aren't fulfilling their mission. They have lost as it were their saltiness. Okay, they've become foolish. In other words, here's what Jesus is trying to say. A Christian, if you're a Christian, there should be something about your life that is distinct. If you're a Christian, there should be something about your life that is different from the culture all around you. Okay, so that's the first metaphor he gives is that of salt. The second metaphor is that of light. Okay, now if you think just generally about light, what does light do? All right, light illuminates, it warms, it makes visible. But here's a little bit of background info to help you here. A typical lamp in the Jewish home was fairly small, but what they would do is they would put it on a stand so that it would illuminate the rest of the house. They would usually put a lamp a pie so that there would be light cast throughout the house to give maximum illumination to the rest of the house. So the idea here is that the world will see the light of Jesus' kingdom through the testimony and the lives of Jesus' followers. Look at verses 14 and 15 with me. Jesus says this, you are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people put a lamp, um, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light all in the house. Okay, so we're given this image of a brightly lit city on a hill. And that city, that that light is a combined light from the individual followers of Jesus which served as a living testimony to those in the world who did not yet have the light of Christ. I don't know how many of you have ever gone to an Advent candlelight service. I love those. And I think that in fact, if your church doesn't do that, it's not a good church. Advent candlelight services are amazing. I'm just kidding, by the way, sort of. But here's the thing. I went to one some years back at a church I worked at in Memphis and here's the way it worked. And this is a huge old old sanctuary. And at the front of the stage, there was the pastor, there was a couple of us. There were three pastors up on the front. And then the congregation was all sitting out and it's a long church building. Okay, but it's dark. It's almost dark. And it was start by the pastor who was leading it would light his candle and then he would give it to the two other pastors who were with him and then slowly but surely they would go down the aisle and light the candles of everyone on the inside of the aisle and very, very slowly, very slowly. Over time, okay, all of that light would begin to be extended outwards and backwards. But here was what was so neat. The last year that I was there, I didn't have to serve up front. So I decided to go up into the balcony and to just watch and to sit. And what was so amazing about this is watching as that light became more and more visible through candle light only. Okay, over time, you could very clearly not at the beginning, but by the end in the very back of the church sanctuary all by itself, you could see the cross lit up. All by itself. And that was due only to the spreading of the light through these candles. Okay, that is the picture of what Jesus is trying to say here. He gives this image of a city on a hill which is basically to say the Christian community is to look at the world around them and to say this, look, behold, notice, see. Okay, the Christian community is meant to be an outward facing community. Okay, that is God's design for the Christian community. But notice what the text says about why? Look at verse 16. In the same way, Jesus says, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father isn't who's in heaven. The reason why the result is so that your father in heaven is glorified. Okay, the church is meant to be outwardly focused so that God receives glory through his people. Okay, now I want you to think just for a second about what this looks like for you to be engaged as it were, as a Christian at Auburn University, relationally speaking. Okay, basically in part, it means that as a Christian community, not just individuals, but as a community, you are to be welcoming, you are to be hospitable, you are to be outward focused. All right, now that doesn't mean it does not mean that you are supposed to be best friends with everybody who walks through the door. Okay, that's not reality, that's not realistic, it's not going to happen. Okay, but what it does mean is that the Christian community is meant, it is designed by God to be an outward facing community. It is meant to be missional in nature, okay? In John chapter 1 and chapter 8, Jesus is the light of the world. And then we read later in first John chapter 1 that Jesus is light now shines to the world through his body, through his church. Okay, so if you think about being a Christian and being a light in the darkness, I want you to think for a second about how light interacts with darkness. Okay, light dispels the darkness. For example, in our country right now, there is a lot of controversy, there is a lot going on with the problem of racial relationships a lot. Okay, there are a lot of things that are going on that are deeply troubling, but if you look at it at the very heart of the struggle, okay, is really a sin problem. It's a heart problem. Okay, so the answer is not just in legislation, the answer is not just in social structures, though those things are incredibly important in this discussion. The answer ultimately is in the hope that only the gospel of Jesus can give. That's why social structures and legislation can never fully solve the racial tension in our country. It's not going to happen because it can only happen through the peace that the gospel of Jesus can bring. Okay, now here's the thing to consider, even Martin Luther King Jr. himself picked up on this. In one of his quotes, he says this, darkness cannot drive out darkness only what can do that. Light, only light can drive out darkness. That's the idea. Okay, so part of the reason that Jesus uses these two images, that Jesus uses these two metaphors is because he wants to show us the way that we are meant to engage with the world around us. We're called to be radically selfless to point away from ourselves. Think about this for a second. Okay, you don't eat something and then point out how good the salt in it was. Right, that'd be ridiculous. Okay, salt preserves. It enhances the flavor of something, but it's so that you can taste. It's so that you can enjoy something else. In a similar fashion, you don't walk into a room and point out how great the light is. Okay, the light is turned on so that you can see something else. In college, at one point after I really came to understand the gospel, the pendulum in my life, so to speak, was all the way over here and I thought that the right thing to do is to swing the pendulum the other way. And so I started to be hyper spiritual in a lot of ways. And at one point, y'all, this is kind of embarrassing. At one point, I even got this t-shirt and had it like a really lower laughing already. This is not good. At one point, it had this Bible verse on the back and then on the front, all it said was this word worship and then it had a period. Okay, and that was the whole idea. And I wore this thing around college like, hey, look at me. I'm being a great Christian. And all these guys that I played ball with and so forth were looking at me like, dude, what's your deal? That shirt is ridiculous. Okay, and I just chalked it up to, oh, I'm just experiencing persecution. Okay, they don't like this t-shirt. That was one of many very bad decisions in college that I made. But here's the point. Okay, I am going somewhere with this. Believe it or not, when we try to be showy, so to speak, with our faith. Okay, this ironically takes away from the very mission that we are called to to begin with because it's not about me. It's about Jesus. Okay, see, God's people here are being called to be salt and light. But think about the dangers here that are present that you need to avoid. Okay, think about this. If you use too much salt and something, it becomes imbitering. But if you sprinkle it, it flavors. Light is annoying if it glairs in your face. In fact, you try to push it away. Don't you? And we do the same thing relationally, if it glairs in our face. But if warm light allumans, people will come to it. I don't think here that Jesus is calling us to rub salt in the wounds of the world. Okay, or to glare light one foot from their eyes. That's not what Jesus is calling us to do here. But the idea is this, when you live your life as a Christian to get noticed, we talked about this last week, you ruin everything. That's the whole point. When you live your life as a Christian to get noticed, you ruin God's intention for you. You're no longer flavoring. You're no longer a preserving salt. You're ruining the meal. You're no longer an illuminating light. You're an annoying glare in people's eyes. See, verse 16 points us to the fact that we are to live in such a way as to point people to Jesus, to give glory to God, not so that we get glory. We are called to demonstrate the character of God and his kingdom through the character of our lives. Now, I don't want you to leave here without considering Jesus and considering how Jesus embodies the very things that he's talking about. Jesus perfectly embodies being both salt and light. Okay, he's the true salt of the earth. He was completely distinct and yet on the cross he was willingly thrown out and trampled by men. He's the true light of the world. He was radically engaged and yet on the cross his light was snuffed out. He is completely selfless. He gave up his life so that you and I might have life forever. Romans 5 tells us that Jesus died on the cross as a very demonstration of God's love for you. So I want to end by just simply saying this. Folks, theology, good, healthy theology, which is a good thing. Okay, theology is meant should lead you towards mission. Okay, good theology should lead you towards mission. Worship, in other words, should make a missionary of you, so to speak, right? Worship should give you a longing for the name of Jesus to be honored and glorified everywhere to all peoples, but it has to start here first. It has to start here at Auburn University. So Jesus's call to you is to go and to be salt, to go and to be light. Be who he has made you to be to a world that so desperately needs it. That's his call to you. Will you hear it? Let's pray.
Father, I pray that you would implant this word deeply upon our hearts. I pray that you would help us to remember that you have made us not just as individuals, but as a community to be salt and light, to be those who point people to Jesus collectively. I pray, God, that our theology would lead us towards mission. I pray that our worship would lead us to a longing for the name of Jesus to be honored and glorified everywhere among all people, but it would start with the very people that we rub shoulders each with here at Auburn every single day. Our friends, our roommates, our classmates, et cetera. We pray that you would do this in us and through us. We pray in Christ's name. I'm at it. Stand and sing it.