Introduction

We used to have week-long vacation Bible school at the church of my childhood.
01 One of our favorite songs was “This little light of mine…” (Sing the song.)
It was a small reflection of our congregational expectation that we should be declaring the love of God to a lost world.
We also sang, “Lead me to one soul today, O teach me Lord just what to say.”

A. Imperatives:

We also heard lots of sermons on Matthew 5:13-16 in which we were told to actively work to tell others about the Good News.
Needless to say, it created lots of guilt.
We were all sincere people, and wanted to honor God.
But the imperative to actively witness to others seemed unreachable.

Then there was the elder who believed that we needed to have a visitation night.
He recruited, announced, cajoled, etc. in attempts to get a team of people to go visit.
He was largely unsuccessful. His visitation nights were very poorly attended.

Over the years there have been various attempts to formulize witnessing. They each have had their moments, but then they become obsolete.
Methods have included radio programs, television evangelism, tracts, accosting people on the street, door knocking, etc.
Now some of these methods are associated with negative ideas: Jehovah’s Witnesses, the crying televangelist, not very effective.

This text serves as a bridge or transition from the beatitudes to Jesus’ instruction to “enter by the narrow gate,” Matthew 7:13-14.
Jesus declared these disciples “blessed” because of their demeanor—poor in spirit, etc. “Congratulations,” he says to them.
As a group bearing God’s approval, Jesus then tells them that they function as salt and light in the world. It makes sense that he would say this.

“You” is plural.
The word is emphatic. We know this because the word “you” is unnecessary. It is added in the Greek to make a point. “You and you alone” are salt.

The statement is made as a warning. If the disciples deny/reject their mission, they will become like salt that has become impure because of its association with impure elements of the world.

Salt was immensely useful. It is also used metaphorically to refer to various layers of meaning.

Eugene Boring writes that the imperative to “let your light shine …so that men may see your good works and glorify God” stands in tension with Matthew 6:1-18. There Jesus says, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men to be seen by them.”
Here, light can function in two ways.

In the first case, light functions as something that illuminates and exposes. It enables things to be seen as they are. Light is honest and clarifying. Light, used here, is not noticed—only what it illuminates.
In the other case light is noticed and followed. People flow toward to the light as toward a city on a hill.

Jesus clearly believes that the Jews had failed in their calling to declare the kingdom. See Matthew 23:13-15. “…you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

Jesus does not present this as an option. “You and you alone ARE light,” he says to them.
In this text Jesus strikes a death blow to religion that is merely personal and private. The disciples of Jesus are not an introverted secret society shielding itself from the world.
What’s interesting in this text is that in neither case, saltiness or illumination, do the disciples generate it. God is the source of both.

And they have been lit, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the world - Eugene Boring. “…that men may see your good works…”
And the good deeds point to God and glorify him rather than self/mankind. See Matthew 9:8.

Virtually the whole of the first part of the sermon is in the indicative (direct statement). But here Jesus uses the imperative (give a command). “Let your light shine,” he says. See Matthew 5:16.

You could say that the rest of the sermon is commentary on this passage. Almost as if Jesus is saying, “Be what you are!”
The power and influence the disciples have derives from their character.
When Oscar Wilde arrived for a visit to the U.S. in 1882, he was asked by customs officials if he had anything to declare. He replied: “Only my genius.” Fifteen years later, alone and broken in prison, he reflected on his life of waste and excess. “I have been a spend thrift of my genius...I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character.”

If you think of disciples as illumination and influence, you have a good idea of the sort of relationship God wants them to have with the world.
But you have to ask, “How should they go about shining and influencing?”
By proximity to the world. They must be visible or taste-able by those around them. Their lives must be distinctive from the world. Being LIKE the world gives them no distinctiveness.
By concrete, observable acts. Jesus said to let people see your good deeds and glorify God. See next point for more on this idea.
By decided, intentional, purposefully good acts. In other words, disciples of Jesus think about how they can help the world. They are altruistic in their decisions.

In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
In being salt and light we are agents of the Kingdom, and we give the people around us a glimpse of what the Kingdom is.