PCI Essentials Part 4 - Culture

We’re into our 4th week on our essentials series, and today we’re looking at culture…and we’re slowing it down a little, because I noticed when I looked at some of the other weeks, there’s a bit of overlap.

So today we’re slowing it down and before we jump ahead we’re going to look at where we are right now.

Because God has placed you - each of you - in a particular place in a particular setting and in a particular time. That’s where you are right now.

So where you live is in a particular place where God has placed you.

Where you work is in particular place where God has placed you.

In other words, we live and work and play sport and interact within the world around us. We are part of a culture wherever we are.

In church, we’re part of the church culture, but outside of the church - in the world, we live in and work in and play in part of a culture that is different to that of the church, but it’s a culture in which God has placed us.

And in our passage today, Jesus is calling his disciples to be different WITHIN the culture in which they live.

There were some back then, called the Essenes - who were a bit like the Pharisees, but more hard-core…and they separated themselves from culture and lived away from society - but Jesus is telling his followers, don’t separate yourself from the world, make a difference in the world.

Because, there are two options that Christians can take when it comes to our interaction with the world...

We can be like the Amish, who separate themselves completely. In other words we can escape the world.

Or we can adopt what the world does and look NO DIFFERENT from the world....In other words, we can embrace the world around us.

Jesus is offering a third way - to ENGAGE the world for him.

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In our passage today, Jesus is teaching this to his disciples as part of the sermon on the mount, which we went through in our midweek last year…and I’m recapping some of what was mentioned last year this morning.

And in a culture where the rich were deemed the blessed, the hard-hearted, the ruthless were considered the role-models in society - or at least it was the rich, merciless, bullies that tended to get their way - Jesus is offering an alternative to his disciples...

‘If you want to follow me and be my disciples, then you need to be different to the rest of the world. You need to love mercy, justice, truth, grace, kindness, peace. You need to be meek, pure in heart, poor in spirit if you want to follow me.

And you’re going to be different. You’re going to be set apart. You’re going to look different to the rest of the world.

Because when we live out the teaching of Jesus where we work or where we live, we will stand out like a sore thumb.

Because the world is in darkness, and WE have the light of the world in us. And if WE have the light of Jesus in us and we are shining lights in a dark dark world, then we will be noticed.

If you imagine the church hall late at night with all the lights off, it’s dark. If someone was to stand at one end of the hall and another person was to stand at the other end and strike a match, you would see that match from the other end of the hall. It MIGHT NOT light up the whole hall - that’s not the point…The point is that in all that darkness, the small match is noticeable…it stands out.

And where we live and work is in a world of darkness. And as a follower of Jesus we can bring light into that darkness, and we can bring salt into that flavourless place.

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Let’s read the verses from our passage again...

Matthew 5:13–16 NIV

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Jesus says that the disciples are salt and light. And as disciples of Jesus, so are we. And he makes an emphatic statement. This isn’t a promise…follow me and you will some day become salt and light. Jesus is saying that BECAUSE you are following me, you ARE NOW salt and light - salt of the earth and light of the world.

You ARE the salt of the earth. You ARE the light of the world.

Let’s look at what he means by each...

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First of all Salt...

Salt had various uses, and if you put all the uses together you can get a better view of what Jesus was getting at in this passage.

But here are the uses and characteristics of salt...

We all know the difference between a meal that has no salt and one that has salt and one that has too much salt. We get that. And how many of us add salt to a meal before even trying it to see if it needs salt?

I went on a tour of the Tayto factory with Kate before we even moved to Magheralin and before the children were born. We were in Tandragee for no real reason and decided to chance our arm and see if we could go on a tour of the factory. We knew they did free tours of the factory but weren’t sure if you needed to book. Turns out you did need to book, but they let us go on a tour anyway along with a bunch of primary school children.

So here are Kate and myself - in my late 20s, are on a tour of the factory with 6 and 7 year olds. Any time they asked a question I was first with my hand up, because getting questions right meant prizes - forget the kids, I was after the prizes.

Anyway, the point of this story is that as part of the tour we got to sample some crisps before they were seasoned. And they tasted bland. There was no real taste to them. They kinda tasted like an oily potato, but it wasn’t that nice.

Then they took us further down the production line and we go to taste the same batch of crisps but this time with salt on them. The difference was amazing.

But we know this and I’m not going to labour the point anymore…Salt flavours. Salt takes a bland thing and makes it taste nice. In fact, often what salt does is to bring OUT the flavour of the food. It brings it to life. Before salt there’s nothing there - no flavour…but salt brings food to life.

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The second thing about salt is this…Its other use back in Jesus’ day was in preservation. Salt is a preservative. There were no fridges or freezers, so when you killed your cow or goat or chicken or fish for food - you could never eat it all there and then, and you couldn’t afford to either.

So the meat was covered in salt - salt is a disinfectant. It has antibacterial properties and so meat could be stored in salt for an indefinite amount of time. It stopped the meat going off or decaying.

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The third thing about salt is one of its characteristics. Salt was connected with purity - possibly because of its white crystalline properties. Pure salt is white like snow, which was also considered pure. The Romans said that salt was the purest of all things.

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Now, if we put all this together, which I think we need to do - then we can see how we, as disciples, are the salt of the earth.

Disciples of Jesus are people who are trying to live the way Jesus lived and taught how to live. And as a result they will stand out from the world. They will be different because they will be acting in a counter-cultural way.

And we can flavour the world for Jesus - we can bring people to life. Like salt brings food to life, we can bring people to live by flavouring their life with Jesus.

And with the disinfectant properties of salt, we can have a disinfecting effect on the world as we bring truth and love to a sinful world.

So at work, when the person who nobody likes is having a hard time, YOU can be the one to come along side them and help them out - and you’ve flavoured that person’s life for Jesus.

Or in your street, the neighbour who is a real piece of work that nobody likes, but they’re struggling with their shopping, YOU can be the one to come along side them and subtly flavour their life for Jesus.

We’re not talking dumping a whole tub of salt on their life and ruining everything. I’m not suggesting you go up to them quoting scripture…Salt is to be added subtly to a meal - just help them out..as Jesus puts it, ‘a cup of cold water offered in his name.’

By doing that you’re flavouring the world for Jesus. I’m not even talking about evangelism here. I’m just talking about living as a Christian.

And, like salt is pure, the purer the disciple is - or, the more the disciple is living like Jesus - striving for mercy, peace, love, and so on, the saltier they will be, and the saltier they become - the greater they will flavour the world around them for Jesus.

But it requires us, as disciples, to be pure salt.

Jesus said...

Matthew 5:13 NIV

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

And as a scientist - as a CHEMIST, I’ve got to investigate this…because salt is salt. Sodium chloride cannot lose its saltiness.

So what does Jesus mean?

Well, we’ve got to remember that they didn’t have table salt back then like we do. Salt was gathered from around the dead sea, which was full of salt. But when you went to the shore of the dead sea and scraped up some salt, you didn’t just get salt - you got sand and dust and stones and other stuff that WASN’T salt.

And so there was the possibility that what you had wasn’t salt at all. It might have looked like salt - it might have been called ‘salt’ but may have had very little salt in it and so it was useless. It may have been about 30% salt and so wasn’t pure at all, and so it’s thrown out.

If you think of drugs - like cocaine or heroin - what drug dealers do is they cut the drugs with other stuff, like talc or crushed tablets - and what that does is it bulks it out so it goes further. And it’s also where a lot of damage is done because people don’t know WHAT is mixed in - sometimes its fertiliser.

But the more stuff that is mixed in with the heroin or cocaine, the less potent the drug becomes…in other words the less effective the drug is, because it’s not pure anymore. It’s only 50% or 60% pure and so it’s useless as a drug.

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When I spoke about this in the midweek, I explained what I did in Almac. I’m not going to now, but in Almac, I was given drugs to test - not cocaine and heroine, but paracetamol and stuff like that.

And I had to make sure that the paracetamol tablet was “pure”.

And how I did that was that I compared the tablets that I had with a jar of PURE paracetamol. If it matched then I knew the tablets would do their job.

Now what’s the point of this?

The point is that as followers of Jesus we are the salt of the earth… and the purer we are, the saltier we become, and the better the effect we have at bringing the flavour of Jesus to the world.

But we aren’t pure. There are impurities in our lives - we still struggle with sin. And the more sin we have in our lives - the less we are like Jesus - the less salty we are and the less effective we are at flavouring the world for Jesus.

And what we need to do to keep our saltiness is to compare ourselves with the one who IS pure - Jesus Christ. Because by comparing ourselves to him in his PUREST state - the ultimate pure state - we can see how well we measure up and where we fall short.

That way we can increase our effectiveness - our saltiness - and increase how we can effect the world for Jesus.

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Now, onto light.

Light is the opposite of darkness. Light shines in the darkness. And we are the light of the word…But so is Jesus. Jesus says in John 8:12

John 8:12 NIV

12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

So is Jesus the light of the world or are we?

Well, it’s both - Jesus is the light of the world, but we, as the body of Christ should reflect that light too.

Think of it like the sun and the moon. The moon isn’t a light. It doesn’t emit any light. The sun emits an awesome intense light and the moon reflects that light, and that’s what we see.

Which is why Jesus calls us to live for him - to be a difference for him in the world…because people will SEE that. On a clear sky the moon shines like mad. But it’s reflecting the light of the sun.

In a world that is in darkness, a light is something that is visible from miles away. Which is why a city on a hill cannot be hidden because you can see the lights shining .

And so as we live for Jesus and reflect the way HE lived his life - because we are reflections of HIS light - then people will see the difference in us and praise God.

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Another thing about light is it guides the way. Think of a landing strip or a runway at an airport. There are lights on either side to guide the pilot on where to land.

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And now add the salt into this too.

Salt brings food to life. Sometimes, all bland food needs is a bit of seasoning.

So if salt brings food to life - as we live in the world and reflect the light of Jesus, we can also bring people to life. Jesus brings life - he causes dead things to come to life - and as salt brings dead, bland food to life, as we interact with the world we can bring them to life too. And we can guide them to Jesus just by ENGAGING with the world.

So we don’t escape the world, we don’t embrace the world - we engage the world for Jesus.

What an awesome image that Jesus brings here.

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But here’s the thing…If we hide our light, nobody will see any difference in us. If we keep salt in the salt cellar then nothing is brought to life.

Light only guides as it shines. Salt ONLY flavours as it mingles - as it interacts with the food. Only as the salt mixes with the food does it bring the food to life.

And if I light a match in the hall during the day, you may not even see it. If I shine a torch during a sunny day it makes no difference.

So if we stay in our salt cellars or in our well lit rooms within the church we won’t be flavouring anything and we won’t be shining our light in the darkness. Shining your light in the light is pointless.

And what I mean is this…it’s easy for us to say we believe in Jesus when we’re in church. But it can be really hard to come out and say it when we’re at work or on the street, or in the golf club or wherever.

I get that. It IS hard. And we don’t want to shine a 10,000 lumen torch in people’s eyes, or dump a who box of salt on their dinner…we don’t need to go all GUNG HO on people - but we DO need to mingle with the world. We do need to shine our light and not hide it.

And that takes courage, which we’ll look at next week.

But let’s take baby steps here.

Do the people you work with know you’re a Christian?

If not, why not say, if anyone asks what you did at the weekend, tell them what you did on Saturday, and then add, “Sunday we went to church and then ....’ whatever. Just drop it in there.

If you’re at the golf club on a Saturday, and a friend asks you what you’re doing tomorrow, or the next week, simply say, ‘well, tomorrow I’ll be at church, and then...’ whatever. Drop it in…subtly…just a few grains of salt. But you’re revealing your light.

Or maybe, as you befriend or support that person who nobody likes, someone might say, ‘why are you bothering with them?’

And a simple answer would be, ‘thing is, as part of being a Christian, this is something I’m called to do. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy, but it might make a difference to him/her.’

You’re not shining a bring torch in their eye. You’re not dumping the whole box of salt on their dinner…you’re flavouring their culture for Jesus.

But it’s a start.

And as you reach out and show the love of Jesus to those with whom you work or on the street where you live, people will start to see something different in you. The world is looking on. They are in darkness, so these small steps will shine like the moon on a clear night and they can bring people to life.