The Root of Evangelism
The Salt and Light • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 13 viewsAre we the salt and the light? Are we practicing what we preach?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning and welcome!
It is an honor to be able to come and share the word with you this morning.
And the word the Lord has given me for this morning is “evangelism.”
And I am not meaning, me evangelizing you but rather what it means for each of us to be evangelists in our own right.
For each of us to “Walk in the light as Christ is in the light,” as John tells us in 1 John 1:7.
I want us to be able to come to an understanding of what it means for us as a church to be able to evangelize our friends, our family, and our community.
And even though people tell us that the time for true evangelism is past and that people will not respond, Paul’s words in Romans 10 that say . . .
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
So, how can they know Jesus if they have never heard of Jesus?
How can they believe in Jesus unless they are told who to believe in and what it actually means to believe?
How can they hear without someone actually telling them? Someone accepting the call to proclaim the word?
We say, “not me...I can’t...I’m not qualified.”
Isaiah says this . . .
And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
And this was the prophet of God.
Feeling like we all feel.
Feeling unworthy to share the Word.
However, God responds . . .
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”
God will cleanse us, purify us, prepare us.
And then He will call us . . .
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
The question is, will you respond like Isaiah?
Or will you continue to make excuses for why it can’t be you?
Because it is not just the job for the preacher or the traveling evangelist that comes rolling into town.
It’s not just for the Sunday School Teacher or Children’s Church Worker.
The mission is for all disciples.
It is all of our mission to share the Gospel.
To spread the good news of Jesus Christ in the world that is nothing but bad news on every turn.
And we are going to look at one of the ways we can do this.
And we are going to be in Matthew 5, specifically looking at verses 13-16, which interesting follows right after what we know as the “beattitudes”
Those attitudes we should be exhibiting and the blessings that comes along with them.
And the part about the “beattitude” that is important is the word “attitude” that is embedded in it.
Because there are going to be times that you will not be able to evangelize with words, sermons, or lectures.
No, the majority of your evangelism is going to come from ordinary everyday interactions and encounters you have with people.
Don’t get me wrong, it is great to have revival services and I would encourage you to go and be a part of those, but your personal evangelism to others will not come in those services.
You evangelism will come when you are away from those services living your everyday life and allowing others to observe how you are walking out your faith.
And your attitude in this is going to mean everything.
It is going to make the difference between whether someone accepts Jesus Christ or not.
Which brings us to our Scripture focus.
Matthew 5, starting in verse 13 . . .
Scripture Focus
Scripture Focus
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, 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 in heaven.
Be The Salt
Be The Salt
So, in this section Jesus is giving His disciples some much needed instruction.
And remember that this section follows right after the Beattitudes, those blessings associated with attitudes and actions of those who actually follow them.
And what Jesus has done is planted a seed in these disciples mind and now he is going to water that seed and expand on things for them just a bit.
And Jesus starts out by highlighting two things, salt and light
The first of these being the salt.
Again, in verse 13 Jesus says . . .
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
The point Jesus is making here is that he is taking something that is very important to them, something that they are all very familiar with and something they absolutely depend on in their everyday lives and using it.
Remember that in those days they did not have refrigerators or deep freezes, or even ice where Jesus was at.
So their ability to preserve meat was very limited.
They only had a few options.
Either bury it in the ground and hope to keep it cool.
Put it in a stream of cold running water.
Or, pack it in salt, effectively curing the mean.
And of course options 1 and 2 were not readily available or as reliable as the third option.
So, salt was very, very important to their economy; almost as important as money itself.
And what Jesus is telling them is that when it comes to the preservation of the Gospel, the delivery of the message of God, you are the salt of the earth.
We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are that important to the message.
Remember, go back to Romans 10 from a few minutes ago . . .
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
This is how critical that you are in getting the word of the Gospel out.
And I hear people say all the time, “God will just send someone else,’ which is true, but God said for YOU to go.
Think about it this way, how many can be saved if YOU and SOMEONE else goes also?
The plain simple truth is, it is not someone else’s responsibility to evangelize your circle—it is your responsibility.
But let’s just imagine for a minute that you are not buying what I am selling and you decide you are not going to do it.
Look at verse 13 again, particularly the second part . . .
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
But if the salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? IT IS NO LONGER GOOD FOR ANYTHING, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
When Luke records this same event, he adds this . . .
It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
Jesus is telling them that once the salt loses its saltiness, once it loses that quality that gives it, its value it is worthless and gets thrown out and mixed with the dirt path or sand.
It's not even fit to put on the soil in the fields or the manure pile.
It is basically waste.
And it is a good thing that God does not think of us that way when we lose our saltiness.
Because once we reach this point, we ARE useless to the cause of furthering the Kingdom of God.
We have lost our value to the Kingdom.
And that is harsh but AND HEAR ME CLEARLY...WE ARE NEVER WORTHLESS TO GOD.
We are God's creation and are priceless to Him.
So priceless that Christ died for each and every one of us.
So priceless that God is willing to do whatever it takes to redeem us . . .
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
Folks, God's desire is for each and every one of us to be salty, to be of value.
And if we have lost our saltiness, all we need to do is repent.
Because even though salt cannot regain saltiness, WE CAN!
And that is Good News this morning!
All is not lost, all is not hopeless!
But the very first thing we need to resolve within ourselves is for us to BE A REAL AND AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN.
Because that will lay the foundation for so much.
People will know who you are and where you stand.
They may not like you, they may not even respect what you believe, but they will respect you for standing firm in what you believe.
Don't waver, but rather stand firm.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
And my favorite verse in all the Bible . . .
But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
We have to stand firm and stand on those principles.
Be the Light
Be the Light
And once we have established the fact that we are the salt, Jesus then tells us . . .
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
And the thing about light, we all know what light does right?
It illuminates.
For instance, if we came in here at 11PM and turned all the lights out it would be pretty dark.
But we could light one small candle in here and it would illuminate the entire room.
Now the light may be dim in places and there will be some dark corners, but one small light will illuminate a whole room.
Now imagine if you had a three or four lights up here where the instruments were, a few in the seats, maybe some on the sides, and open the door and lights in the foyer, the kitchen, and heck open the doors and let the outside light in.
The whole place would soon be lit up.
There would be no place for the darkness to hide.
The imagery here is the light of Christ.
The goal is for the light of Christ to shine everywhere in here.
Now imagine if you took that light to the community and joined with the light from other churches, other brothers and sisters in our town.
Where would the darkness go?
-Maybe north to Lancaster, maybe west to Danville, south to Somerset, east to Mt. Vernon.
But what if other Christians were waiting there with their light?
Then where would the darkness go?
You see when we are light, light spreads and light travels fast.
We always say that we want revival, we pray for revival,
Well, then BE THE LIGHT!
Let your light shine because, a city on a hill cannot be hid.
Light cannot be hid.
And if the whole city is lit up for God then God will not be hid or buried by the sinfulness of the world around us.
The anti-Christs in the world have no power over the light.
And when you are the light, people are drawn to the light.
Jesus says . . .
No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
And . . .
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
So then why do we want to hide our light?
What are we afraid of?
We have nothing to be afraid of.
It is the darkness is what should fear, no the light.
And you have to resolve whether or not you are willing to be that light.
We Don’t Practice What We Preach
We Don’t Practice What We Preach
However the major problem I see with the Church today is we talk out of both sides of our mouths.
And we certainly don’t practice what we preach.
We can spit a good game but when the rubber meets the road, we fall short.
I am going to read you a little something here out of 2 Chronicles 30, verses 17-20 . . .
For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites had to slaughter the passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to make it holy to the Lord. For a multitude of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the passover otherwise than as prescribed. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “The good Lord pardon all who set their hearts to seek God, the Lord the God of their ancestors, even though not in accordance with the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness.” The Lord heard Hezekiah, and healed the people.
Now, I’ve got to lay a little foundation here.
We have Hezekiah, who had been anointed king over Judah.
He was the 12th king of Judah after the division between Judah and Israel.
Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz.
And Ahaz , his father, was not a Godly king.
Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestor David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals; and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree. Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with great slaughter.
And this was not the end of it either. Things went from bad to worse for Judah under King Ahaz . . .
In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord—this same King Ahaz. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, and said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel. Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, and cut in pieces the utensils of the house of God. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the Lord, the God of his ancestors.
What Ahaz represented was the wholesale abandonment of God for the idols and false gods of the world.
And when Hezekiah came to power after his father's death, Judah was in a state of total despair.
Their nation had been ravished by war and poverty.
Many had been taken captive and killed.
And they had experienced a wholesale abandonment of God and apostasy.
So things were looking pretty bleak.
But Hezekiah was a Godly king and tried to return his nation to God.
And his very first order of business, Hezekiah began to repair the temple that had been defiled and destroyed by war and idol worship.
And once repaired Hezekiah began to offer the daily and regular sacrifices that had been abandoned.
And the next order of business was the celebration of the Passover, which is where we pick up this morning.
Because of the timing of things they were not able to celebrate the Passover at the regular time, but they had decided to do this a month later.
And in preparation Hezekiah issued a proclaimation concerning the Passover celebration and for the people to be ready both physically and spiritually.
And couriers were dispatched to each and every town in Judah.
And you would expect that when the King issued such a proclamation the people would respond, right?
After all if our President got up and said . . .
People of the U.S., repent and return to the Lord!
Do not be like your fathers, and brothers who have been unfaithful to the Lord. Causing the horrors that you see in your nation today.
Do not be stiff-necked but submit to God!
Serve the Lord so His anger will turn from you!
He will not turn his face from you if you return to him!
If our president said that the people would come out in droves wouldn't they?
NO, we know that wouldn’t happen and the people of Judah didn't respond either .
So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun; but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.
Sound familiar?
Scorned and ridiculed because the people had wandered so far from God.
These people didn't want to hear anything about God.
And honestly, the couriers didn't really care one way or the other anyway.
After all they were just "doing their job."
They were getting paid to deliver the message.
It was their "obligation” their “job” their “career”
And I wonder, do you think that people today respond to the message the same way because our couriers are acting the same way?
Those who are delivering the message are doing so because "it is their job."
Or they feel like it's their "obligation."
The lack conviction.
There is no compassion.
No love for the people.
No genuine repentance themselves.
After all, they will get paid either way.
And this isn't true in every single case, but I wonder where is the passion today?
Where is the conviction?
Where is the urgency?
After all didn’t Jesus told us . . .
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Where is our urgency to tell people today?
It is no wonder we are mocked, ridiculed, scorned.
People don’t see the need.
People today do not understand that Jesus is the answer.
Jesus is the solution.
Jesus is the only way.
And they don't understand many times because we are not telling them.
Yes, we may be speaking the words, but does our life back up what we say?
**DO WE PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH?**
Altar/Challenge
Altar/Challenge
And that my friends is our challenge and altar call today.
Are we practicing what we preach?
Are we being good evangelists and representative of the Word?
Are we being the salt and the light?
If the answer to any of this is “no” or “I don’t know” or “maybe”, then what are you willing to do about?
Are you willing to fix it?
That is the question of the hour and how you answer that question is up to you.
