Salt and Light-worksheet2

The believer’s relationship with the world

(Matt. 5:13-16)

If you had just two words to describe a believer’s relationship with the world, what would they be?

The Lord likens a believer to salt and light.

I.  Salt

Salt preserves; salt gives flavor; salt cleanses; salt de-ices; salt creates thirst; and salt, when poured into a wound, stings. But how do followers of Christ, like salt, do these things?

1. We are to preserve the truths of God.

We are not to allow the world’s standards corrupt what the Lord Jesus has taught.  We are to preserve what He taught by believing it and obeying it. 

1. We are to create a thirst for God.

The Lord told these disciples what was heard from their lips and seen in their lives would create a hunger and thirst for Himself that would drive men to Him to receive the water of life.

The example of the Apostle Paul-1 Thess. 1:1-6.  They mimicked the life of Paul. 

If your life is not creating a thirst in others for God, what good is it? 

II.  Light

The nature of light is to shine.  Jesus uses this metaphor to teach us that we are not to hide what we have in Christ. 

1. Light cannot be hid.

God wants the world to know who belongs to Him. 

1. Light both attracts and repels.

The world loves darkness rather than light.

Did you know that there is a direct correlation between the light we shine and our obedience to the word of God?  Phil. 2:14-16. 

The church is to be as distinct from non-Christian society as light is from darkness and salt from decay. And yet the church is to permeate that society much as light shines in darkness and salt soaks into meat.

What is your relationship with the world?