The Village Church
Salt and Light - Audio
We're going to be looking at verses 11 through 16 today. Matthew chapter 5 verses 11 through 16. A Christian is something before he does anything. We have to be Christian before we can act as Christian, says one pastor. A Christian is something before he does anything. You have to be Christian before you can act as a Christian. This being a Christian and acting as a Christian has been something we've been talking about for the past four weeks. We talked about the blessings of the Kingdom. We talked about the character marks of the Kingdom that are produced in all believers. The Beatitudes and the blessings of the Kingdom. The character marks that changes our being. Makes us poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, a desire for the things of God. It changes our doing that we can live a Christ student life, a life of mercy, a life of commitment, a peacemaker, life. These marks, these Kingdom blessings, they come to all believers. Does it matter your denomination or where you live in the world? We all have these blessings and these character marks produced in us by grace through the spirit. And now this morning we're going to see Jesus make a transition from the Beatitudes to talking directly to his disciples, talking directly to those who have these marks and these blessings. He's letting us and them know that because we have these character marks, because we have these blessings of the Kingdom, we are distinguished. We are distinguished between those in the world who don't know him. See, he gives us a general picture of how the world where we're at, to his distinguished people. And he gives us a picture of how his distinguished people are supposed to act toward the world. And what he communicates to his first disciples, he communicates to us today. You see, you are distinguished from the world to influence the world. You are distinguished from the world to influence the world. So if you have your Bibles, open them to Matthew chapter 5, we get into verse 11. Let us know you and others insult you, and other all kind of evils against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your Lord is great in heaven, for so they persecute the prophets who are before you. You are to solve the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it be salty again? It is no longer good for anything that's helped to be thrown down and trampled on the other people's feet. If you are the light of the world, a city on the 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. Let us pray. Father, we come to the preaching of Your Holy Word, and we pray Your Spirit down and that He will come and speak through me and apply Your Word to my heart and to hearts of everyone that is here. Lord, we need You to be glorified. We want You to be worshiped. We want You to be the focus. We want this to be Christ-centered, Christ-honoring in all that we do, so Spirit, You take the world of truth and do with it as You will, apply it to the hearts of the people, Christ in my prayer, Amen. So we are distinguished from the world to influence the world, but in doing so, the world will have a reaction to us and I'm going to make it easy. And that's not going to plant the Christian flag down and say, "Here we go. Let us influence the world." So Jesus tells in His disciples, "There's going to be some pushback. There's going to be a reaction to His distinguished people." That's what He tells us in verses 11 and 12, "Blessed are you and others and so you and persecute you and all kinds of evil against you on my account. Be joyous and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so did persecuted prophets who were before you. The world's reaction to Jesus' distinguished people was a negative reaction. Notice here how He's directly making this point to His disciples and to us as well. Blessed are you. Blessed are you. He moves from giving general descriptions of the kingdom and kingdom blessings to giving the general application to what's going to happen to those who have these blessings and have these marks. Not blessed is someone else, but blessed are you. Blessed are you. Blessed is me when people insult me. The years referring to His people, His church, He points out the fact that certain things are going to happen to you as a distinguished person, as a distinguished people. You should expect a negative reaction from the world. He gives us three negative reactions that the world can have toward His people. He says, "First, people will insult you. They will verbally attack you. Criticism, slander, disrespect, put you down. This can take place in your face, or even behind your back. Have you ever been insulted for Christ? Slammed it because of your faith? The second reaction is persecution. Let me talk a little bit about that a few weeks ago. In persecution, there's someone being a victim of hostility or ill-trickness because of religious beliefs, because of their race, because of their political views. In persecution, it can be verbal and it can be physical. And thirdly, there's a reaction of people speaking all kinds of lies against you, spreading rumors against you, gossip against you. People trying to bring the disgrace to your name and reputation. With these words, Jesus is telling us not to go through this life, but roles, colored glasses on. People don't go through this life thinking just because you're a Christian, that everyone's going to welcome you. Everyone's going to be excited about your presence. Everyone's going to be excited about your values. Because you are Jesus' distinguished people, because of who you represent, there's going to be some pushback in the world we live in. And why would we have this negative reaction? He tells us. He says, "It's on my account." It's going to happen because of him. And Jesus is clear about this point here, that it's not because of your race, it's not because of whatever politics you hold, you're going to have this negative reaction for you because of who you are as a believer, because of who you represent as a believer. He's talking about the kind of persecution that comes to you because you are a Christian, because of what you believe, because of what you stand for. Now, does this mean every single non-believer in the world is going to hate on you? No, does it mean that? But it means some will. Some governments will, other religious groups will, some social groups will, sometimes even other believers will. Don't forget, Jesus is talking against people who thought they knew God. And people who thought they knew God are going to be persecuting his disciples. You do realize that, right? The Jews. So you can also receive this kind of ill treatment for other people who claim to be a believer. So it's not just the God haters that can do this to us, it could be even those who claim to love God, to know God, who will insult you, persecute you, and spread lies about you. There's a, at this very moment, there's a pastor in Iran who heads up a network of Christian churches, and he's on trial right now because of his faith, and many of you may know about this story, because he's a Christian, because he refuses to recant his faith, and if he's convicted, he will die, he will be home. No one reporter who was reported on this case, she says, "Those of us in the free world should press our members of Congress to speak up." Those of us in the free world should press our members of Congress to speak up. I say Christians need to pray up for our Christian brother, who's in Iran. Did you pray for him if you heard the story? If you haven't, they're going to pray for him right now. So bow your heads. Father God, I will pray for my brother over in Iran who, at this very moment, could die because of Christ. He'll lose his life because of what he believes in, and so we pray for him. We pray that I pray, Lord, that he will not die. I pray that you will rest with him, but if he does die, I pray he will die with dignity. So be with our brother, be with all the other believers over in Iran who are persecuted because of who they represent, because they represent you. So be with them, strengthen them, sustain them. May your spirit give them an extra measure of grace, an extra measure of strength, and crashing my prey. Amen. Now you ask yourself, "While I pray for our brother in Iran, I pray for him because don't spiritualize persecution to the point that it nullifies its sinfulness and evilness." It's evil. There's a consequence that it will fall, and it's evil. There's nothing spiritual about it. It's evil. There's nothing fun about sin another human being put to death simply because of their religious beliefs. And I'll point this out to you because I want you to have a clear understanding of what Jesus is talking about in verse 12, because you can read verse 12, "Rejoice and be glad the wrong way." You can read that and think, "Jesus is telling his disciples, "I want you to be rejoiced for and glad in the fact that you're going to be persecuted for me." When Jesus says, "Blessed are you, whenever others insult you and persecute you and falsely speak against you," he is not saying persecution is the blessing. Did you believe that? Nor is he saying in this verse that our brother should be excited about the fact that he's going to suffer a very violent death. I don't believe Jesus is telling us that we are to rejoice and be glad in persecution itself. And I love what one Christian pastor says about this verse in response to those who think they should rejoice in persecution itself. He says, "They have rejoiced wrongly in their persecution for its own sake." Now that surely was the spirit of Pharisees and there's something which we should never do. We should rejoice in persecution itself. If we say, "Oh, well, I rejoice and I'm at sea of the glad," then I'm so much better than those other people. That is why they are persecuting me. Immediately we become a Pharisee. Persecution is something that the Christians should always regret. It should be to him a source of great grief that men and women because of sin and because they are dominated by the Satan should behave in such an inhumane manner. This is in a sense one who must feel his heart breaking at the effects of sin and others that makes them do this. So he never rejoices in the fact that persecution and such is evil. Your heart should break enough that you will pray. See the rejoicing and the gladness is not in persecution itself. These two imperatives that call us to have this continuous joy and gladness, it flows out of us as we keep in balance to very important perspectives that are only unique to Jesus' distinguished people. What are these perspectives? He gives them to us in verse 12 as well. Rejoice and be glad why for your reward is great in heaven, for so to persecute the prophets who are before you. This first perspective that says your reward in heaven is great means you have to keep on the forefront of your minds and turn a perspective in this life and turn a perspective. So this takes us back to those past sermons on the beatitudes because of these blessings in those character marks you are God's distinguished people, your actual soul journal whose final destination lies beyond the grave. This great reward in heaven is referring to our future life and what will one day be like when we will there will be no more sin, no more insults, no more persecution, no more lies against you, no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering. All things will be made right then. Sin Jesus face to face when God's kingdom finally come and all of its fullness, that's the reward that awaits us on the other side. Think of the worldly is what Jesus is saying to his disciples but not in a delusional way, in a way that allows you to rejoice and be glad in the reality that you are not currently living your best life now and if you think that you don't long for heaven, realize that if this is your best life now, if you're currently living it now, you don't long for heaven, feel like I need more time, honestly if you think this is best to get do you really long for glory? No, you're going to live it up here, get all you can get here, find all the satisfaction you can find here, Jesus says great is your reward in heaven. Do you long for heaven like that, God's distinguished people have a continuous joyful longing for their true home, that's living with an internal perspective, that's the first perspective that we have to have on the forefront of our minds. The second perspective says, so they prosecute the prophets who are before you and what does you mean about that? What does that mean? The point he's making here is that the present reality for his distinguished people would never fully be what the future reality is going to be, that's the overall point. You're never going to have utopia, you're never going to have heaven on earth, you're a taste of it, you smell of it, but it ain't ever going to be what it's going to be. The banquet is not going to come in our lifetime, it's still to come, we've been talking about that since we started this sermon on the Beatitudes, it's the people with distinguished but we're not invincible, we're not exempt, nor we would immune for the fall and world, we're going to still suffer, we're going to still have hardships, we're distinguished but we're not exempt from the things that be follows us in the fallen world. There are no get out of suffering free cards in a Christian journey, ever, you're never going to get one, because they don't exist. Remember those who came before you, the soul that persecuted the prophets who are before you. He's telling the disciples, remember Isaiah, remember Jeremiah, remember all those who came before you, remember them. What you're going to experience is not abnormal for the Christian, it's the norm, it's nothing abnormal about it. If they persecuted prophets, they persecuted apostles, they persecuted Christ, they persecuted our brother and our aunt now, guess what, you're no different. We are actually in good company when it comes to that. All God's distinguished people will face persecution, some will be more heinous and more intense than others, but we all will face it on some level. And as I said earlier, this persecution we experience is for Christ's sake, Christ's sake. It's because of who you are and who you represent. So the rejoicing and the being glad is in the reason for the persecution and suffering, not the suffering itself. The reason for this for Christ's sake, for him, they persecuted him and do the same for us. Philippians 1, 29 says, "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake." Philippians 1, 29 says, "For it has been granted to you for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but you should suffer for his sake." So we keep in balance two perspectives, an internal perspective that makes us long for glory, and this present life perspective that says, "I'm going to have some hard times for Christ's sake." You got to keep him in perspective. You got to. Rejoice and be unsealed and glad for your reward is great in heaven, for they prosecute their prophets who are before you. So the world has a negative reaction to you as God's distinguished people. Many of you ever experienced any of this reaction, have I, do you know of anyone that has personally? The world will respond in a negative way, and on the other side is our response to this world, to this world that responds against us in a negative way. What is our response to this insulting, persecuting, slandering world? What is our response? Our reaction is one of influence. We are distinguished from the world to influence the world for good, for good. As one believer said, we offer love and truth for hatred and lies. As it's distinguished people, we first influence the world through being the soul of the earth. You are the salt of the earth, but if softness has lost its taste, how shall it be salted? You have been mazed salt by God. He's not calling you to be something that you're not. Notice that Jesus is not calling His disciples to be something that they're not. They have already been mazed salt. They'll be attitudes, go back to them, they'll be attitudes, the blessings of the kingdom. You have been mazed salt for the purpose of influence. You have been mazed salt for the earth. It includes people, communities, culture, society, and even includes those who insult you, persecute you, and slandering you. It includes all. It's all the above. Salt has two unique qualities about it. You know what they are? It preserves and it sees us. There's a negative and positive function to the negative and positive to the function of salt. It's negative function is that it has the ability to preserve, to prevent decay. You take a piece of meat, for example, when the salt is rubbed into the meat, it preserves the meat from decay. You see in the ancient world, they didn't have refrigerators and freezers like we do. They use salt to preserve their meat because it had their ability to draw up moisture and to prevent the survival of bacteria that can cause the meat to decay. And then salt of the earth, you have that same function in this life, to preserve society, to prevent its decay. This causes you to think about your life differently. If I'm functioning as salt in the world in which I live, in the community in which I live, in the job in which I work, in the school in which I go to, that makes me think about my life and responsibilities there differently. If I am the salt there to preserve it, it means you fight against the spread of evil, injustice, discrimination, and word and deed. See, the Lord has rubbed his distinguished salty people into a broken, decaying world to preserve it, to prevent its decay. You are God's distinguished, salty people, and where you live, you are meant to have influence there for good, wherever you do, wherever job you have, wherever neighborhood you live in, wherever you buy groceries, wherever you go get your car wash, wherever you are, you are the salt of the earth, and are you having influence there for good to preserve it from decay. The second function is a positive one, it's seasons, and when you season something, what do you do? Yeah, it makes it more lively and exciting, it brings out flavor, right? That's like when you eat in a piece of meat and you're like, "Man, that needs a little more salt, it needs a little more flavor, it needs a little more flavor." So, you're not just preserving society as a lever, but you did a bring up more flavor in society, to make it more lively, and how do you do that by how you live your life, and what you value, and how you love your spouse, how you respond to your hardships, and how you deal with conflict, and when you do those things, your life brings a different taste to life. That's what it should be. And I believe it receives your life that should say, "There's something different about that person's life, a different taste about that person's life that I don't have, that I don't have." And he said, "What is that? They begin to see Jesus in through you, and how you live, and how you deal with difficult people. They see Christ in you. That brings a different taste to life, and all people send that about you, about me. Are you salt, or have you lost your saltiness?" There are two things that causes us to lose our softness in the world. The first one is what I call isolation. You isolate yourself in the world. You retire from the world. Christians who take this position, they believe that the Christians in church have no social responsibility at all. We have no responsibility within culture. All we care about is just a spiritual aspect of a person. That's the primary task. And all we care about is our own little covenant community of the leaders in the hell that they can't in the world, because the primary task of the church is spiritual. So if there's evils going on, well, we don't say anything against it, because that's not the mission of the church. That mindset causes you to lose your saltiness. You become irrelevant. That's what you become, irrelevant. And when you lose your saltiness, you're no longer good for anything Christ says, but to be thrown out. You have lost your influence. You're no longer relevant. One Christian says, "To try to improve society is not worldliness, but love. To wash your hands of society is not love, but worldliness." Where are you? To improve society is not worldliness, but love. To wash your hands of it is not love, but worldliness. Think about who a society made of? People. People. There's not some abstract thing that's out there, it's people in this society. If you change the people, guess what you're going to change? Society. Society is made up of people. So to say I wash my hands of it, they ain't love, that's not love, that's worldliness. The second way you lose your saltiness is when you just completely assimilate yourself into the world, to the point where you're not distinguished, and all your non-Christian friends don't see anything different about you. Well, you just like us, bro. What? I don't see nothing different about you, Alex. You value what I value, you love what I value, you do everything I do. So what's different? Now am I saying I'm better? I'm still a sinner, but that would be fruit in my life that distinguished me from those who don't know Christ. And if you completely assimilate yourself into the world, all this world, you doing everything the world does, that's nothing different about you. You should be distinguished. Do your friends, neighbors, see anything different about you, or are you just a spiritualized version of them, a spiritualized version of them, meaning you go to church, but do the same thing they do. They just don't go to church. And that's what I mean by that. Are there is there a difference? Again, go back to the beatitudes, go back to the marks of the kingdom, the blessings of the kingdom. What keeps you as a salty believer to be out of Tuesday? All those things being produced in us, in us, changing us. You see, being salt flows out of your character. And if you don't have Christian character, then you're not going to be salty. You're not going to have any influence, no longer be good for anything. And so it goes back to basically to my relationship with Christ, asking the Spirit to produce in me things I can't produce in myself. I can't make myself harmful, the Spirit has to do that. I can't make myself mournful my sin, the Spirit has to do that. I can't make myself be merciful to people that I don't like, the Spirit has to do that. I can't make myself a peacemaker, the Spirit has to do that. I can't make myself this desire, the things of God, the Spirit has to do that. And so if you recognize yourself, you don't have any of these things, you need to fall on your face and repent, the Spirit doing me what I can't ruin my sin. I can't make myself salty. You do it for me. Give me to live above the influence of the world so I can influence it for good. Distinguished from the world to influence the world. Now, whatever Jesus would have ended his little sermon there on that one point that you just saw, what type of view of the church would you be left with? If he just says you saw the earth and that's it, what would be your view of the church? It's a congregation of participation. If he just said you will saw the earth, the church would just be another united way, because think about it. God has other things, institutions he's set up to restrain sin. There's other things that set up in our world, because the world is not as simple as it can be. You do realize that, right? Because if it was, things would be a whole lot worse. He set up certain things, governments, laws, they are in place for a reason. And if the church, if that's all we are, assault, then what is different from us than united way? Because united way does a lot of good things. They do salty things to try to help society to make it a better place. See, we're not just another united way, we're not united way at all, because with this salt metaphor, you need a balance, and Jesus gives us the balance. You assault the earth and your light of the world as well, verse 13. You are the light of the world, a city on the hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it on the basket, but on the stand that it gives light to all that's in the house, in the same way that you're light shined before others, so they may see your good words and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. When Jesus says we're the light of the world, He is acknowledging the fact that the world is in darkness, otherwise it wouldn't be like the world is in darkness. And what kind of darkness is the world in, sin, the fall, the world is full of those who don't know Him, and we as His people are the light of that dark world. You are a city on the hill He says, and a city on the hill can clearly be seen, you can't hide it, you see it, well that's a city, that's not just a house, but it's a city. Everyone who sees it knows it's a city, it's distinguished. Secondly, do people light a lamp in the house and put it on the basket, if you have visitors in your house, do you let them sit in the dark and try to have a conversation? No, you go get some lights, some candles or something. When electricity went out, we were all in darkness, so if you had candles you lit it, you just didn't sit there, if you had the candles you lit it, so you can have light in your house, and in the same way we let out light shine before the world, do folks know where you stand as they believe, do they know, you know what, I'm not even going to approach that guy, because I know he's staying on this issue, he's not going to cover him out his values, we are a lot of the world means we are taking the gospel along with our good deeds of being salt, we always bring the gospel in, because we know what folks really need is that faith in Christ, so we're the light is both in, we don't function just to solve, we are the light too, everything we do is meant to lead to the gospel eventually, because if someone doesn't know Christ, you know where they're going to go, don't you? So we bring the gospel in, truth to the situation that says, Father said to the Son, to live a life you could not live, he doubted that you should have died, why because he loves you, and there is salvation available to you, repentance available to you, restoration available to you, healing available to you, through standing faith in Christ, we're both in here, it's easier to be the salt, but when it comes down to being the light, that's when we're getting nervous, because you know evangelism, we talked about that last week, you got our hearts have to break for those who don't know Christ, pray for them, share the gospel with them, be distinguished, let people know what you're saying, you are a city on a hill that cannot be hidden, evangelism has to be practiced in our life, because you want folks to be who are in darkness to come into the light, and Jesus says, let our light shine before men, and when they see our good works of being salt and being light, some will give glory to our Father who is in heaven, when we live as we should live as the people of God. Our friend of mine, her name is Rika McCoy, her and I got together for lunch this week to talk about some stuff, and when I first met her, she told me about her, Rika's from India, and her and her family's been here for some time now, and she's pretty much one of the only ones in her family who's a believer, and when I first met her last year, she told me about her brother, who was really, really standing office about the faith, didn't want to have anything to do with it, didn't want to have anything to talk about Christ, he's been praying for her brother for 13 years, he prayed or received Christ a few months ago, he prayed or received Christ a few months ago, he went from someone who was hostile to the faith to someone who is now going to eventually be preaching the faith, prayer is not wasted, not wasted, that's what it means to be a light for people, I don't give up on them, I'm going to labor for them in prayer, and you never know what the Father's going to do, he is faithful, amen, let us pray. Father, I do thank you for Rika's brother, I'm excited for her, I was with her Lord when she told me the story, and so I pray for him and his relationship with you and Stephen, who's going to be discipling him, that Lord, he will grow leaps and bounds in this fallen in love with grace and the gospel, and he'll be able to share this with all of his friends who don't know Christ, so I pray that you will encourage him, protect him from the enemy and that light, Lord, he'll be a light and salt in the world, and I pray that prayer for all of us, Lord, that you, your spirit will make us salty, in the places where we live, that will be light in the places where we live, and then Christ in my prayer, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]