Salt and Light

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 people’s feet. “You 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.”

Introduction

What is the Christian’s relationship to the world?

The Christian is not someone who lives in isolation. He is in the world, though he is not of it; and he bears a relationship to that world. In the Scriptures you always find these two things going together. The Christian is told that he must be otherworldly in his mind and outlook; but that never means that he retires out of the world. -Lloyd-Jones

Salt

A vague Metaphor

A thick Metaphor

Jesus doesn’t specify what he means when he says we are salt.

Salt signifies many things and so the analogy can be applied in different ways.

I think at the very least it shows us that the church has a function in this world.

Preservative

The earth that God has made is good, yet it is prone to corruption.

It is subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Energy in a closed system tends toward a state of equilibrium

Things go from a state of motion to a state of stasis

Things go from a state of order order to a state of decay

This is true biologically

Young babies will eventually get old and wrinkly

In physics

hot water left on the counter will become lukewarm

One day our sun will run out of energy

In society and culture

Culture becomes more and more sophisticated in the way it does evil

Because sin has entered this world and death has entered in through sin and it now has dominion over the majority of it

The Ancients Used to think that those who came before them were greater

The Greeks looked to Ancient Troy as a the idyllic civilization to which man could never return

We moderns tend to think that anything that came before us was primitive, quaint, ignorant, and inferior

We are evolved, the future will usher in greater and greater prosperity and morality and flourishing

But in reality, this world is like a raw pork tenderloin left out on the kitchen counter

Sin, like so much bacteria, slowly degrades it until it is putrid

The Church Preserves

This is one of the functions of the church, to preserve the pork tenderloin

This is what the church has done in past ages, this is what the church must get serious about doing once again

It has been said that the intellectual history of the Western world was saved by the intellectual contributions of the apostle Paul, in particular, and of Christianity, in general. It has also been said that the advent of Christianity is what saved Western culture from pure barbarianism. If we look over the influence of the Christian church, particularly in the West from the first century to the present day, we will see that the Christian church more than any other institution has been responsible for the inauguration of higher education. The university system was the brainchild of the Christian church. It was the Christian church that brought in the arts, music, painting, and literature. Many of the world's greatest artists have been Christians, and the same is true in the realm of music, with Christians such as Bach, Mendelssohn, Handel, and Vivaldi. Additionally, the Christian church began the hospital movement in the West. It was the Christian church, following the mandate of Jesus to care for orphans, that ushered in orphanages. -R.C. Sproul

The only societies which have truly progressed in this world since the coming of Christ are the societies in which Christianity has been dominant.

Salt as purifying

Many in the Greco-Roman world used salt as a sign or purity

Savor

Like a marinade or a dry rub

There may be a lot of good in the earth that God has made, but the church is the salt.

The church enhances it and makes it more delightful and pleasurable.

Entertainment

Our society is one in which entertainment is central

Everybody’s working for the weekend

People devote their lives to labor so that they may spend their earnings on entertainment

Larger TV’s, Internet, Video Games, Movie Theatres, Taylor Swift’s Eras concert, clubs, bars, operas, audiobooks, vacations, cruises

These things have become central to our lives

Worldly pleasures and entertainment are more widely available than they have ever been in the history of our species

Yet we arguably have more psychoses than at any other time in history

Everyone is diagnosed with some mental illness or another

We’re depressed, we have anxiety, body dysmorphia, turrets, bi-polar

We’re miserable because we spend all our time pursuing pleasure and entertainment but it has lost its taste

There is no savor and no purpose in it

Proper entertainment

But not for the Christian. We can pursue earthly pleasures with purpose knowing that they are not an end in themselves

They are merely given to point us to the infinite pleasures in the One who has created this world

Further, Christians can savor even what many would consider to be the most dull and mundane parts of life because they have Christ.

Provokes Thirst

That people would see us and be thirsty to drink of the waters that we have drunk from

John 7:37–39 “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

People should not be able to know us too well without sensing that we are deeply satisfied. And hopefully, that sense of our satisfaction should cause them to long for the same thing.

They may never respond to that longing. But if we have increased it, and if we have pointed to where it can be satisfied, we have performed our function.

This is one reason why gratitude and joy are so important for the Christian.

God is our Father, Christ is our brother, everything is ours in Him, and that should be evident in our lives.

Failure

Don’t lose your saltiness.

For us to fail to preserve, enhance, and provoke thirst in this world is to miss our purpose

What good are we here if we have lost our saltiness?

It is a statement of fact, not a command.

We are the salt of the world. By the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us, we will fulfill our function as salt.

Light

Is Jesus the light of the world or are we the light of the World?

John 8:12 “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.””

When Christ came the World was completely engulfed in Darkness

But He was the Light that came to expel that darkness

And he has transferred that same light to us so that wherever one finds a church, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, there is light and the darkness is pushed back

The Irony of the Enlightenment

That time in which Western Civilization began to decouple itself from the light of Christianity is called the enlightenment

Christianity is a Public Religion

The Light of the World

So that the whole world would be illumined

The Works of William Perkins, Volume 1 Part 1 > Second Similitude

The whole world lies in darkness, that is, in ignorance under sin, and so subject to damnation by nature. Now God has ordained the ministry of the Word to be a light, whereby this ignorance may be expelled, and they brought to the knowledge of their sins, and of the way that leads unto life.

The Works of William Perkins, Volume 1 Part 1 > Second Similitude

Christ shows how His Word is to be handled; namely, so as it may be a light unto men’s minds and consciences, to make them see their sins, and their great misery thereby; then, to let them see the remedy from that misery, which is Jesus Christ; and lastly, to show them that strait way of obedience in all good duties to God and man, which God requires in the life of a Christian.

We are a light to the world by the preaching of the gospel

A City on a Hill

This doesn’t mean what Reagan thought it meant

A city which can be seen from afar

Even in the midst of a world which persecutes us

Matthew 5:10–12 ““Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

When we are a light, we bring attention to ourselves. But we are attracting the attention of those who hate us and would persecute us.

1 Jn. 3:12-13 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

Christianity was never meant to be quiet and obscure

In a world of darkness we stick out like a lighthouse in a storm

Even in times of persecution the church’s presence is to be felt and its voice is to be heard

As it was heard in its early centuries. And it was heard under the tyranny of Rome. And it is felt even today in China and Iran.

Hidden Under a Bushel

In what ways has God gifted you? How is it that you in particular are to be a light to the world.

Being a light does not always simply mean be evangelistic.

What works can you do? What skills do you have whereby you can reflect the glory of the Creator in this world?

Do not hide those gifts and skills. Do not bury those talent. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity.

hence it appears that men in this calling cannot without great sin hide the gifts and talents which God has given them, for they are as lighted candles, which must not be put under a bushel. -William Perkins

Do not waste talent. Achieve God-given potential

The Testimony of Good Works

The Light is predominately our good works.

Matthew 5:16 “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.”

A good work, is a work commanded of God, and done by a man regenerate in faith, for the glory of God in man’s good. -William Perkins

Our good works are so that they would praise our Father in heaven.

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Hebrews 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Our works do not save us, but they are central and vital to living the Christian life.

It is by our works that we become a light to the world.

The temptation to pride is always present. These good works are for the glory of God because they come from God.

Yet even in this, yet not I, but through Christ in me.