Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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This is week five of our sermon series on the Book of Matthew.
We are moving right along.
I told you last week we will do a series on the beatitudes this summer.
We will completely unwrap each of those and their meanings.
So, for today, I want to move to the next section.
Many of you have heard many sermons in your lifetime.
I for one certainly have.
I’ve even preached many sermons in my lifetime.
Since I have been here, I have probably preached over 900 sermons.
And in my lifetime, I’ve probably preached over 1200 to be conservative.
Some, I will admit were good and some I will admit they were definitely stinkers.
But there is one sermon that is by far the greatest sermon ever preached and that was Jesus sermon, The Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:1-2 tells us how he begins this sermon.
It says...
Verse three begins the beatitudes.
I’m not going to unpack those here today, but I do want to read them to you because they are important to my text today.
So, we will begin reading at verse 3 and continue to verse 16.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches a large group of potential followers what it really means to follow him and be a part of God’s kingdom.
Look at verse 3.
This is how Jesus begins His sermon here, the beatitudes and there is a lot to unpack from just these 10 verses, but I am saving that for this summer.
Now look at verse 13.
In this passage of scripture, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe who His followers should be.
One is Salt and the other light.
Both of these, we are to be what it is.
That is what Jesus is telling us.
To be salt and to be light.
We don’t become these two things by saying or doing anything.
But just by being.
What does He mean?
Look at the first one.
Salt
In order to understand what Jesus is saying here in Matthew, you would have to be jewish.
Matthew is a book written to the jewish people.
Luke gives us gentiles a better look at salt.
Many minister’s think of this as salt like we have on the dinner table to season food but that is not what Jesus is talking about here.
The key word here to show what Jesus is telling us is the word earth.
Jesus tells us, “You are the salt of the earth.”
The jewish people would understand this metaphor because they would go and scrape up the salt from the dead sea and they would use it for 2 things.
The dead sea had a high potassium rate and not much sodium.
It wasn’t made to be consumed but they would use it because it had a high potassium rate.
Any gardener knows that a good fertilizer contains a good mix of 3 things: Phosphate, Nitrate, and potassium.
So, the jewish people would place the salt from the dead sea in the ground to fertilize their soil.
The second thing that they would use it for is to put on human waste.
They would go outside in the back area, they would have a hole in the ground, and they would empty their bowels and next to that hole was salt.
They would then put salt on it and the salt would act as a disinfectant.
That is why Jesus says in Luke, “It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile...”
Salt would be used for fertilizer or as a disinfectant on manure.
Salt promotes the good things you want to grow and it prohibits the bad things that you don’t want.
That is why when Jesus tells us that you are the salt of the earth He is saying you are to stop bad things from growing and you are to promote good things that are wanted there.
Not by saying or doing anything but by being totally different from the environment.
Think about table salt.
Just a little will do in the kitchen to season food.
But as a fertilizer or disinfectant you need a considerable amount to be effective.
You need handfuls.
That concept means we need more than just a few in society being Christian or being salt.
We don’t have enough salt.
In society we need about 5% of us to be salt to start reversing social trends.
Salt is no good in the box.
It has to be in direct contact in the dirt to be of use.
Salt operates by presence and not absence.
As long as we are in a church service like this we can not be salt of the earth.
Because we are out of contact with the dirt.
It takes 5% Salt all locked in direct physical contact.
Think about a factory, if 5% of us are salt the talk changes.
If we all worked in christian environments where would the salt be making the change to the dirt of this world.
We need quality salt in direct physical contact.
It must be salty.
It cannot lose its saltiness.
How does it lose its saltiness?
It loses its saltiness by being adulterated with other substances.
When they would gather the salt from the dead sea, they would gather the salt and the sand would get mixed in with it.
When the salt has other substances mixed in with it it loses its saltiness.
That is why it is so important for christians to be different.
When we allow the things of the world to get mixed in with the things of God we lose our saltiness.
Christians will influence the world if they are different from the world.
“The church, the lifeboat, should be in the sea.
But when the sea gets into the lifeboat you are in trouble.”
- David Pawson
It’s not that we don’t have enough salt but the salt we do have is losing its saltiness very rapidly.
We are losing it by allowing society to creep in.
Are we called to be credible or are we called to be different?
We should be leading society into a better way not following their way.
Once you lose saltiness you can’t get it back again.
What is Saltiness?
Remember what I read to you in the beatitudes.
To be poor in spirit means to be despised by the world.
To be completely dependent on God.
The world wants to stand up for themselves.
The beatitudes is completely opposite of what the world says.
If you are going to be salt then verse 11 is certain to happen.
When you decide to be salt you really have to have faith to believe that your reward is in Heaven because you won’t have it in this world.
The next metaphor that Jesus uses is light.
Light
Light has its negative and positive aspects.
Negative is to expose bad ways or to show people up.
Positive is to exhibit a better way.
Neither way will make you popular.
Here in Matthew 5: 14
And then if you go over to John 8:12 Jesus speaks of himself as the light of the world.
This is the only time that he points to the disciple and to himself as being the same thing.
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