Introduction
After last week's sermon, I thought that it would be worth spending one more week on the subject of our interaction with the world. Today I want to focus primarily on the how-to of being salty salt.
I. Never, Ever Forget These Two Things
A. We don't live in a friendly place.
1. We live in a dying place that wants to take us with it into the grave.
2. The Christian has to be careful not to have identity amnesia.
B. Every Christian has two identities: sinner and child of God by grace.
1. It is important to keep these two identities in the forefront of our minds because we are always living out of some sense of identity.
2. We are constantly telling ourselves who we are and the identity we assign to ourselves will influence powerfully the way we respond to the difficulties of life.
I. Your Redemption Makes You Salt and Light.
A. Notice that Jesus is not commanding us to become salt and light; he simply states that we are salt and light, 13, 14.
B. By virtue of your redemption, you are salt and light.
1. Christ redeemed you on the cross.
2. He brought you back to life in the resurrection.
3. He injected you with the flavor of his kingdom.
4. He brought you out of darkness and placed into his kingdom.
Col. 1:13-14 – He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
1 Pt. 2:9-10 – But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once werenot a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
C. You may or may not be functioning as salt and light, but if you have been saved by Jesus Christ you are salt and light, 13b, 15.
1. If we, as citizens of the kingdom of the beloved Son, do not function as salt and light to the world we live in, there is no salt and light left.
2. You might say that God could just do it himself, which is true, but he chose to use his Church to make his glory known to the world.
D. Being salt and light is the corporate identity of the citizens of the kingdom of the beloved Son.
1. In both verses 13 and 14, Jesus uses the plural you and the singular saltand light.
2. It is true that every Christian is a light on his/her own.
Phil 2:14-16 – Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
3. But here our Savior is emphasizing the powerful, corporate identity of his Church as this massive, savory, world preserving agent and this united, powerful, focused beam of darkness-destroying, heart-enlightening light.
"The kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ. But its power and influence are visible only in the sphere in which the world least expects to see them – in the poor in spirit, among those who mourn over sin, and in the persecuted community of the followers of Jesus." Sinclair Ferguson
II. The Saltiness of Christians in This World, 13.
A. From the last Beatitude we get the idea that there is great conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, 11-12.
1. There is opposition to Christ's people and even persecution.
2. The Church of Jesus Christ is too different, too antithetical for the world to tolerate it.
3. That being the case, how are those who belong to the kingdom of God to live in the world?
4. How can they live in a way that will make an impact for God's glory among men? The answer in this passage – being salty salt.
B. In Jesus's day, salt was a vital preservative.
1. Even in our modern world, we are familiar with this use of salt.
a. Charque – no best-eaten-bydate needed.
b. Carne de sol in the trip to Sao Luis.
c. Salted fish.
2. Jesus's point in using this analogy is this:
a. Christians whose lives exhibit the qualities of the blessed will have a preserving impact upon society that, if left to itself, will rot and deteriorate.
b. Without the influence of the Gospel, society will suffer moral decay and become putrid, unfit for anyone to live in.
C. Another image that salt would elicit in the Jewish mind was the image of hygiene.
1. Ezekiel 16:4 hints at the Jewish practice of rubbing newborn babies with salt.
Ez. 16:4 – As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you;you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.
a. This practice was not for ritual cleanliness, but for hygiene.
b. Already it was understood that if hygiene was ignored at the beginning of life, sickness and even death could result.
2. If this practice was in our Savior's mind, the application of this analogy would be this:
a. Commit yourself to being salt in your society at the earliest possible opportunity.
b. Be willing to pay whatever prices needs to be paid in terms of the world's response.
c. It is important, if our lives are to make a moral impact on others, that we live as Christians among them and take our stand right from the very start.
D. A third variation of this same analogy is brought out by Judges 9:45.
Jg. 9:45 – So Abimelech fought against the city all that day; he took the city and killed the people who were in it; and he demolished the city and sowed it with salt.
1. This action would make the soil infertile for the future.
2. As Christians believe, think, and act as what they are, they spread salt upon the corrupt soil of society, keeping it from producing its evil fruit.
3. This will not regenerate the culture, but it will make it more difficult for sinful attitudes and habits and words to become the norm among those on whom he/she has an influence.
4. The U.S. is an example of that with the early Christian influence.
E. Another thing that we need to see here is that salt is small, cheap, and usually not a lot of time is spent thinking about it.
1. Like salt, Christians may seem small and insignificant, powerless in a power-mad culture.
2. Yet Christians have the ability to influence every segment of society and to permeate the whole thing.
3. Salt is cheap (competition at school).
a. Its value is minimal.
b. But salt has unusual properties that far exceed the value we give to it.
c. So it is with the member of God's kingdom.
4. It is all too easy for us to become discouraged as Christians because of our weakness and insignificance, either personally or numerically.
5. But we must never give in to Satan's lie that we can be effective only when we have large numbers and a show of strength.
6. This illustration of salt is an encouraging reminder that the apparently cheap and insignificant can influence its environment out of all proportion.
a. Sometimes it happens on a national scale – England spared from a bloody revolution like the French because of the evangelical revival under Whitefield and Wesley.
b. More frequently it will happen on a small scale as those around you are salted by the grace of God in your life.
c. When you are the salt of the earth, you preserve society.
F. One last and familiar property of salt is that it not only preserves, but it also seasons.
1. Salt brings out the flavor.
2. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the meanings of the word season is to give zest.
3. Christians should have zest!
a. Seasoning the world is not a matter of being Scrooge-like personalities whose presence brings a bout of depression and whose entrance marks the exit of joy.
b. No, the presence of God's people should increase the flavor of life in many different ways.
1) We come to our friends, co-workers, neighbors, classmates as those who live in the presence of Christ who has given us abundant life.
2) Everything about us should express the attractiveness as well as the holiness of our Lord.
4. Paul tells us that our speech in particular should be seasoned with salt.
Col. 4:6 – Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
Eph. 4:29 – Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.
a. Like salt our lives and our speech are to bring the flavor of Jesus Christ.
b. Too much of ourselves will leave an unpleasant taste.
c. But we can never bring too much of Christ.
G. When salt loses its saltiness, it is worthless.
1. Technically sodium chloride cannot lose its flavor.
a. But at the time of Jesus pure salt was not available.
b. So what they used was a salt that was contaminated with gypsum.
c. If they weren't careful, the sodium chloride would leach out and all they had left was this chalky substance only suitable to be thrown away.
2. That is the picture that Jesus is painting of the Christian who refuses to be a preserving influence on society either by completely removing himself from it or by becoming just like it.
a. We are often blackmailed by a world that says, "Unless I find your life attractive on my own terms, I will not respond to the message of the Gospel."
b. Christians witness by making the Gospel and the Christian life the same as a life without the Gospel.
c. Why should the Church be so concerned to tell the world that it is not really different from the world?
d. The Church becomes powerless and pointless – it is good for nothing but to be thrown out.
III. Salty Life Illustrated by the Sermon on the Mount.
A. How do you live a salty life? By preaching to thousands? By doing something big? Perhaps.
B. But primarily we live a salty life by exhibiting the characteristics that are already ours in Jesus Christ that we see in the Beatitudes:
1. Poor in spirit
2. Mourning over sin
3. Humility
4. Hungering and thirsting for God's righteousness
5. Being merciful
6. Pure in heart
7. Peacemaker
8. Rejoicing in persecution
C. These are not flashy, but they are the stuff that a salty life is made of.
D. And the rest of the Sermon on the Mount gives us many more examples of what it means to live a salty life.
1. A healthy regard for the doing and teaching the law of God and the whole council of God, 5:17-20.
2. A life of peacemaking and respect for those around you, 5:21-26.
3. Faithful marriages, 5:27-31.
4. Honest speech that reflects your redeemed heart, 5:33-37.
5. Selflessness, 5:38-42.
6. Love for your neighbor, 5:43-48.
7. A sincere heart in worshiping the Lord, 6:1-4, 16-18.
8. Prayer, 6:5-17, 7:7-12
9. A passion for Christ rather than for the things of this world, 6:19-34.
10. A heart that judges rightly because it has already judged itself, 7:1-6.
11. Sincere belief in Jesus Christ demonstrated by obedience to all that he says, 7:24-27
Conclusion
Salty lives, that's what we are called to live. And as we live salty lives, we are used by God to bring his kingdom and his rule throughout the world. So be salty and let the kingdom of God come through you. http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2016/02/salty-salt-mt-513-16.html
Put the internet to work for you.
| |
| Recommended for you |
