Sermon Transcript
Church, rise with me as we read Matthew 5:13-16:
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under peopleâs feet. âYou are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and 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. (ESV)
This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Father, I come to You right now and ask in Jesusâ name that You would show up, that You would permeate our souls and our bodies. Lord, the church needs to be woken up to recognize the purpose it serves in the world. I need You to communicate to them through your servant today how they are to be world shakers by being the salt and the light of the nations. Will You please be with us? Will You please speak through me? Lord, I am a feeble servant. I cannot do this on my own. If You let me preach by my own strength, we will fail. You are the head of this church. That we proclaim. We proclaim that You are our King and our Lord, and we need our King today. Will You show up and take this service and proclaim it from your throne so that we would hear it and be moved to do something with it? Please. And Father, I pray that You would capture everyoneâs imagination, protect them from distractions. I pray that You would come against all evil and darkness that would seek to thwart this service. This is your home, Lord. And we need You to make Your presence known today. In Jesusâ name, amen.
Church, today we are continuing our series. By the way, if you are visiting with us, I want to remind you that in the bulletin, there is a sermon leaflet. There are blanks on that leaflet, and this is an opportunity for you to learn and grow by following the sermon and filling in the blanks as we go through.
Church, we are in a sermon series called, âWho Is Jesus and What Does He Want?â As a child growing up in a Catholic home, we prized things like having a big fancy Bible, pictures of Jesus on our wall, and all these things. Jesus was never much of anything for me until I grew up and went through Hurricane Katrina. You see, the Jesus on the wall and in the pictures is often how a lot of people in the church see Jesusâan inanimate object, a powerless, neutral figure. We forget to ask, who is He and what does He want? There is another reason why we must ask this. When Jesus was about to ascend to the Father after He resurrected, He did one awesome thing. He gave us the Great Commission:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18â20, ESV)
Church, we have to make disciples. That is our charge. We do that by two things: baptizing them as the initiation rite into the world of being a disciple, and teaching them to obey the commands of Christ. That is the ultimate purpose of this sermon series. We are studying the commands of Jesus, and there are two types: commands of belief and commands of action. We must believe in the gospel. But what does that mean? What is the gospel we believe in? We are to believe in Jesus. Well, who is He? What does it mean to believe that Heâs the Son of David, the long-awaited Messiah, King of the Jews, Lord of lords, Maker of heaven and earth? Weâre going to look at that through this sermon series. The second type of command is commands of action. Today, folks, we are looking at this kind of command. This command is given in Mark 9:50.
In our passage in Matthew 5:13-16, itâs more of an implied command to stay salty and to be the light of the world.
Our text today in Matthew 5:13-16 is in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is the best sermon humanity has ever heard. Itâs not just incredible because the Lord did it. This is a sermon that Jesus preached on the mount, but itâs incredibly well-layered. As someone who studies languages, composition, and literature, I can tell you it is a masterful piece of literature. At one point, I was able to memorize it before we had children. Over the years, I havenât reviewed it to keep up the memory. But when I was memorizing it, I had to repeat it every day to keep that memory. I did this for two or three years, just reviewing the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5-7. Every time I did it, I was seeing something new in there. This is an inexhaustible sermon, and I absolutely love it.
We begin just after the Beatitudes. Weâll touch on what the Beatitudes are, so donât worry if you donât know what they are. Matthew 5:13 is setting the stage for how Jesusâ believers and followers are meant to interact with the world. We live in a world that is comprised of death, decay, and destructionâall the D words. We live in a world that is falling apart. Jesus has a multi-purpose mission for His followers.
We Must Lead the World to Glorify God Through Our Message, Character, and Deeds
This is the main point of todayâs sermon: we must lead the world to glorify God through three thingsâour message, our character, and our deeds.
How does Jesus begin to show us what it means to interact with the world? First, I want you, church, to notice that in Matthew 5:13-17, Jesus is now using a new pronoun: âyou.â When the sermon starts in Matthew 5:1-10, Heâs saying, âBlessed are those.â But now in Matthew 5:13, Heâs shifting to the word âyou.â The âyouâ here is referring to all those people who have now begun to gather around Jesus. At the end of Matthew 4, Jesus has been preaching and teaching in the synagogues and healing people. So word is getting out: this guy is different. Heâs not like our other teachers. Who is this guy? We want to know. The crowds are getting so big. It says in Matthew 5:1, âSeeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and when His disciples came to Him, He sat down,â as the rabbis and teachers of the day would have done, and He begins to teach them.
The reason He wants to teach âyouââkeep in mind the pronoun âyouââis that the âyouâ was those who were interested in Jesus, much like you here today. These people came to see Jesus because they wanted to see what He was all about. So if you are curious about what Jesus is all about, welcome. Because you get to hear from Him directly today through His word. When we see the word âyou,â just know that you have permission to take that to mean literally you, too. So when He says that you are the salt and you are the light, take that seriously.
What is the purpose of Jesusâ sermon? That is seen in Matthew 7:24-27:
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (ESV)
When He says âyou are,â He is defining your purpose. We must ask the question, church, what is that purpose? The first purpose is that we are salt. So now we have to ask: what is salt? What is the purpose of being like salt? How are we supposed to operate in that?
Jesus Purposed Us to Stop the Moral Decay of the World (5:13)
Salt Was Used to Arrest Decay
What does it mean that we are salt of the earth? Jesus purposed us to stop the moral decay of the world. In Matthew 5:13, that is our purpose. What does it mean to be salt of the earth? It means that Jesus wants us to be in the world but not of the world.
We Are Called to Be in the World, but Not of It (John 17:14-16)
Over Christian church history, there have been people who, when they became Christians, were so disgusted by their former way of living that they thought they had to withdraw from society and become monks. They would move to the wilderness, not talk to anybody, because they didnât want to sin anymore. But Jesus is saying, âI donât have a place for you in My kingdom to live like that. In My kingdom, you are the salt of the earth. You must be in it. But when you are in it, you donât want to be of it.â We are here to salt the earth. Weâre doing something different.
What does salt do? What kind of use of salt does Jesus have in mind? He has in mind that we are in the world to arrest decay because thatâs what salt does. Salt was used in the ancient world primarily to do two things: season food, just like we use today, but primarily to put on meat to keep it from decayingânot just meat but other foods as well. Salt is a preservative, and it arrests decay. This is the primary intended idea that Jesus is communicating to us. When He says that we, the church, are the salt of the earth, we are arresting the decay of our planet. When the church does her job well, morality does not slip on the earth. But when the church decides to become internally focused and no longer externally focused, the world goes awryâimmorality climbs, and we stop bringing the light of God to the world. In a word, church, we are counter-cultural. Christians are the original rebels. We do things differently.
If you were part of the baby boomer generation, you grew up being a hippie and rebelling against society. Iâm here to tell you, if that is your thing, if you like to jive with rebels, congratulations, youâre at the home of rebelliousness, and that is the church. We do things differently from the world. Hereâs some examples of what it looks like when churches do their job. Churches are the reason slavery was brought to an end. We have William Wilberforce, who fought to end slavery in England, Harriet Tubman, and MLK Jr., not just ending slavery but fighting for equal rights. Not just that, but the church is the salt of the world. Scientific and philosophical breakthroughs stemmed from a conviction of who God is, like Gregor Mendel, Blaise Pascal, and James Clerk Maxwell.
Did you know that the Baptist church was the first place that slaves and women were given a public voice? In Baptist churches in the 1700s and early 1800s, it was the only place where a slave could confront his slave owner for his sin, and the church welcomed it and would discipline the owner. The same with women who were undergoing domestic abuseâthey could bring that charge against their husbands. That is the church being the salt of the earth. Churches are the reason we have orphanages, the reason we have separation of church and state, and the reason why victims are being rescued from sex trafficking, like our very own memberâs organization, OneHope Refuge. Food and shelter for the poor, Mother Teresa, fighting for better hospital conditions because of Florence Nightingale. Also, churches are the reason we have the best music and art in historyâMichelangelo with the PietĂ and the Sistine Chapel, Johann Sebastian Bach, motivated by âto God alone be the glory,â soli deo gloria, and Dante.
The church gives its life to make sure the world is given the Word of God, like smuggling Bibles into North Korea. You had John Wycliffe and other early Bible translators who were persecuted for trying to translate the Bible into English. This is what the church is called to do: to be the salt of the earth.
How Has God Encouraged You to Be the Salt?
I want to be clear, church, because if you turn on the news, youâre going to see a lot of new conservative voices that are fighting for things that Christians also fight for. But do not let them think that they are your friends if they are not doing it because of their love for Jesus. There is a difference between being bombastic and saying you want to fight against things like men going into little girlsâ bathrooms and doing it because you believe that everybody needs to be protected because they are an image-bearer, and you love Jesus. I have seen so much name-calling, so much rude rhetoric coming from these neoconservatives who are bombastic and angry and fighting for what they call conservative rights, and they have nothing to do with Jesus.
Church, if we are to be the salt of the earth and we engage in politics, there is a fashion in which we must do it that exudes the love and humility of Christ. Do not let bombastic politicians rally you to cozy up to them. If you cozy up to the wrong political partners, you make Jesus look bad. So just remember that. How do we do that? Thatâs in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:22, when youâre thinking about those who disagree with you politically, Jesus says: “Whoever says, âYou fool!â will be liable to the hell of fire.”
There is a way that we talk about politics, and itâs not by degrading our fellow man.
We Must Encourage Others to Glorify God by Our Character, Message, and Deeds (Matthew 5:14-16)
God Uses Our Message (Isaiah 60:1-3)
We must encourage others to glorify God by our character, message, and deeds. God uses our message. The light metaphor is actually coming from the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 60:1-3, we have this beautiful metaphor of how the light is how God draws the nations to salvation. The book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus, making wonderful predictions about the Messiah, the One who would save Godâs people from the devil, from the world, His wrath, and their oppressors. In Isaiah 9:2, it says that this Messiah would be a light to the nations. In Isaiah 42:6, He is called a light to the nations. In Isaiah 49:6, His illuminating work will result in the salvation of the nations. So, church, when Jesus is talking about the light of the world in Matthew 5, He is drawing from that imagery in Isaiah. We are the light of God because we are summoning the nations to God Himself. In that message, they find salvation from their sin and Godâs wrath.
God Uses Our Character Traits (Matthew 5:3-10)
Jesus uses our character traits when we are called to be the salt and light. This is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3-10, the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes describe a beautiful thing. Jesus uses what is known as bookends in literature, where you have a phrase at the beginning and a phrase at the end, and itâs repeated. In Matthew 5:3, He says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Then in Matthew 5:10, He says: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousnessâ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
This is called bookends. It starts with âfor theirs is the kingdom of heavenâ and ends with it. So, church, what does that tell you? The contents in between these two verses are all about describing those who belong to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus wants to talk to Godâs people and say, âIf you are part of My kingdom, hereâs what you are, church: you are poor in spiritâyou recognize that without God and His help, youâve got nothing going for you. You mourn because you are tired of seeing darkness in yourself and in the world. You are humble. You hunger and thirst for righteousnessânot just righteousness in the world, but an end to sin in yourself. You desire to be righteous like your King. You are merciful.â In Matthew 5:7, you give people mercy when they look at you wrong and treat you poorly. We pray for shooters. When we are hurt, beaten, and persecuted, we tell them, âJesus loves you.â We are pure in heart. We do not think evil things. When we do, we hunger and thirst for righteousness. Weâre peacemakers. When we engage in politics, we donât start slamming each other. We say, âHey, how about we try to figure out how we can talk about this in a way that makes you feel heard and loved, but also weâre getting to the truth?â When your family members or church members are fighting, you step in and say, âHey, letâs focus back on the cross for a second and what Jesus did for us.â Thatâs peacemaking.
The last point that Jesus makes is that we suffer, church. We willingly take the beating and bruising for being a follower of Jesus. If you constantly try to escape the pain of being a follower of Jesus, then how do you know you belong to the kingdom of heaven? If you truly love your Savior, you recognize that your life is nothing without Him, and you give it all up. Jesus must be your greatest treasure and joy. If Heâs not, I ask you to stop and pray that He would give you the wisdom and knowledge in the heart that loves Him more than you love your own life.
God Uses Our Deeds Seen in the Rest of Jesusâ Sermon (Matthew 5:17-7:29)
God uses our character to be the salt and light of the world, but He also uses our deeds. The deeds are seen throughout the rest of the sermon, from Matthew 5:17 through Matthew 7:29. Jesus says, church, we donât get angry at or insult others, but rather we fight for reconciliation. We fight for sexual purity in our lives, value marriage, and loathe divorce. This is the salt and light of the world. The world tells you to have sexual autonomyââdo youâ, âmake yourself happy.â But the church says, âyouâre going to destroy yourself that way. You need to put your spouse before your own needs. You need to put God first before you put your spouse there.â Church, I think the church should be fighting no-fault divorce. Some will say, âWhat about those who are being abused and canât get out of the marriage?â Church, we need to be there for women who are being abused. The one time the church is called to use force is when it means protecting the little ones, the oppressed, and the broken.
I have a friend we met on our honeymoon cruise, and we found out they just got a divorce. I asked her, âDid the church step in, or were they in the dark?â She said the church had no idea. Church, we canât be the light of the world and fight for marriage if weâre not in each otherâs lives. You have to tell us. Ladies, if your husband is not treating you well, speak up because we will fight for you. We will fight for reconciliation and for marriage. Why? Because we believe that marriage represents Christâs pursuit of His bride. We want these things to work because we want the world to see Jesus in our marriages. Iâm not trying to make anybody feel guilty if you went through a divorce. Thatâs not why Iâm bringing it up. Iâm looking at the church as a whole and saying that we must love marriage. If you went through a divorce, Jesus is over it. Iâm not saying who was right or wrong. What Iâm trying to get at is that we have cheapened marriage. We have let marriage become an âI doâif I feel like itâ or âwhile itâs convenient.â The church can do a better job of helping people fight for marriage.
In Matthew 5:33, it says that we are honest and dependable people, and we keep our word. When weâre attacked, we donât retaliate. We show kindness and love towards others. When we give, pray, and fast, we do it with God being our only audience. We donât post it on social media. We reject the treasures of the world. Instead, we amass wealth in heaven by doing good works on earth. We donât have anxiety about food, drink, and clothing because we know that God will provide for us. We donât judge people hypocritically. We are very self-aware of our own sins and faults. We fight for righteousness within ourselves before we fight for righteousness in others. When we need help, we put our trust in God first, not our swords or guns. We choose the difficult path of righteousness. We recognize false teachers and call them out. We have a real and personal relationship with Jesus. Last of all, we build our entire life on these teachings from Jesus. Thatâs the deeds that Jesus has in mind.
If you feel like Iâm pointing you out, thatâs not meâthatâs the Holy Spirit. If your heartâs being pricked by anything I said, just know all I did was cite Matthew 5-7. I love you. Jesus loves you. If you feel like Iâm reading your mail or seeing your dirty laundry, go to Jesus. His love washes over all that. If you messed up, so did I. But thatâs why Iâm hungry and thirst for righteousness. Because of Matthew 5-7, Jesus is reading my mail, too. Itâs painful, but itâs painfully good because it brings me back to Him, to His throne.
We Must Not Shrink Back from Our Identity (Matthew 10:32-33)
We must not shrink back from our identity. Jesus warns against a tasteless salt. In Matthew 5:13, He says:
But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under peopleâs feet.
The word for âbecome tastelessâ is the Greek verb moraino, which is not used to refer to salt anywhere else in literature except here. It usually refers to when people become foolish. Jesus says, what do we do with salt that becomes foolish? This picks up on what Jesus refers to at the end of His sermon in Matthew 7:26-27, where those who donât build their lives on His teaching are foolish (moros). So, what does it mean when salt becomes tasteless? He is referring to someone who hears the words of Jesus and doesnât do anything with it. Donât be like that. Hear the words of Jesus and build your whole life on them. Follow your King. He loves you. He died for you. He saved you. He wants to give you life abundantly. You access that abundant life by following His commands. It is the only way the storms will come, and you will not crumble and fall.
In John 14:15, Jesus says: âIf you love Me, you will keep My commandments.â
In Matthew 5:10-12, thereâs persecution coming, but Jesus says thereâs this light that people try to stick under a basket. Theyâre trying to hide the light. He says thatâs foolish. You canât light a lamp and put it under a basket. The light is still trying to break through. This is our other purpose, church. We are that light of God. When you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, you can try to hide it, but you will become useless in Godâs kingdom. They are still going to see the light of God in you. You cannot hide it. Thatâs Jesusâ point. Donât let your fear of persecution get you to back away from speaking about Jesus. In Matthew 10:32-33, Jesus says:
So everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
So, church, let your light shine. Let it shine big and bright. Be the salt of the earth. We were challenged this week. Is there a marriage thatâs breaking that God is calling you to help reconcile? Do you know anybody who has an unexplained pregnancy and might be contemplating abortion? Show them love and say, âWhat can we do to make sure you have everything you need for this child? How can we make this a joyous occasion for you?â
We were challenged this week on our salt and light nature. There was a shooting in Minneapolisâtwo were murdered, eighteen were wounded. The mayor of Minneapolis said, âDonât just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now.â These kids were literally praying. It was the first week back at school, and they were in a church. His logic is, âWhat good is prayer? They were in prayer, and they died.â Then Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida said, âWeâve had it with the thoughts and prayers for years. Weâre done with them.â Youâre shaking your head, but whatâs the response? The response is we double down. We double down on our prayers for our nation, for these people, for these kids, because that is our nature. The world wants us to keep the salt and light of God out of the picture, but the truth is the world needs us. They donât know it, but they need us. They hate us, but they need us. We have all the tools to make it happen. So donât stop praying and bringing God up in all circumstances, church.
John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center, summarizes this view well: âwe shouldnât expect God to act on our behalf, but we should expect politicians to be able to fix the problem?â Church, nothingâs going to fix our world except God alone. We are the channel for Godâs kingdom to make an impactful difference.
Letâs go to the Lord.
Jesus, we thank You tremendously for Your love, for Your grace, for this opportunity for us to think about what it means to be the salt and light of the world. Help us to be in the world, but not of the world. Help us, Father, to exude the personality of Christâpoor in spirit, mourning, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and even withstanding the persecution that comes because we do that. Be with us, Jesus. Help us to make a dent and an impact, starting with our prayer closet, with our pocketbook, and also with our personalities. We love You, Lord. In Jesusâ name, amen.