5v14-16
RADIANT CHRISTIANITY
Matthew 5:14-16
A Peanuts cartoon, showed Peppermint Patty talking to Charlie Brown. She said, "Guess what, Chuck. The first day of school, and I got sent to the principal's office. It was your fault, Chuck." He said, "My fault? How could it be my fault? Why do you say everything is my fault?" She said, "You're my friend, aren't you, Chuck? You should have been a better influence on me."
How would you describe "influence?" Webster defines it this way, "The capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways." Pretty vague, huh? I think influence is "the ability to cause someone to see things from your point of view."
If you were asked to list some influential people, your list might include presidents, scholars, generals, politicians and other men and women of power. However, if you think about it, some of the most influential people are the least noticed or appreciated:
o A mother who patiently loves and teaches her children. A dad, who is neither powerful nor famous, but teaches his children by giving them a consistent, godly example.
o A high school coach who is more interested in building young men and women than building a name for himself.
o A Sunday School teacher who sees their young students as more than stars on an attendance board, but future spiritual leaders.
o A quiet neighbor who can always be seen going to church on Sunday and is always willing to lend a hand, loan a tool, or pick up the mail.
Chances are, some of the most influential people in your life have been Christians. Look back to the characteristics of believers in the Beatitudes (vv.3-12).
In vv. 3-12 the beatitudes describe the character of the Christian. Vv. 13-16 summarize the function of a Christian whose character is what it should be. That function is summarized in one word: influence. Whoever lives according to the Beatitudes is going to function in the world as salt and light. Our influence depends on our character.
Here's a tough question: Are you influencing others for Christ?
THE PRESUPPOSITION MADE IN VV. 13-16
o The very fact that Jesus said we are salt and light implies that this world is corrupt and dwells in darkness.
o We live among people who believe thatY
C Alcohol will take away their problems
C Elicit relationships will satisfy their longing for love
C Cheating if okay to get ahead of your competitors
C Money will make them happy and content
C Being religious and sincere will be good enough to gain entrance into heaven
C Babies should be aborted when they=re inconveniently conceived
C Ethical decisions should be made based on situations and circumstances
o All mankind is infected with the deadly virus of sin, which has no cure apart from God. Yet unlike their attitude toward physical diseases, most men do not want their sin cured. They love their own way and they hate God's.
o Bertrand Russell devoted most of his 96 years to the study of philosophy. Yet at the end of his life he acknowledged that philosophy proved to be a washout, and had taken him nowhere. Nothing he had thought or had heard that other philosophers had thought had changed the world for the better. He felt that the basic causes of man's problems, not to mention the solutions, had evaded the best minds of every age including his own.
PURPOSE IN YOUR HEART TO BE A RADIANT CHRISTIAN (14)
o Salt left in the shaker: does no good! Once out of the shaker, everything it comes in contact with is changed because of its influence.
o Light: wherever light is darkness must flee!
o We are both "salt" and "light." There is a difference. Salt works in secret while light works openly. Salt works from within while light works from without. Salt is the indirect influence of the gospel, a godly lifestyle. Light is the direct influence of the gospel, telling others specifically about Jesus Christ.
Let the Light of Your Life Reflect Christ
C Christ is the true light, and we are His reflections. He is the Sun and we are His moons.
C Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world." He is the fundamental source of the world's spiritual illumination. We, having kindled our torches at His bright flame, show to the world something of His light. Cf. Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:13; and esp. Phil. 2:15.
C Eph. 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:Y11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
C Col. 1:13 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
C 1 Pet. 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Let the Light of Your Life Show the Way to Christ
o We are God's salt to retard corruption and His light to reveal truth.
o Men grope in spiritual darkness; Satan has their eyes blinded (2 Cor. 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 5For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus= sake. 6For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.)
o Phil. 2:14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 15That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
o Too many times we simply shine the light at each other. We have flashlight parties. We hoard the light.
o Personal responsibility and corporate responsibility to Ashine the light@ of the gospel.
o Some years ago a magazine carried a series of pictures that graphically depicted a tragic story. The first picture was of a vast wheat field in western Kansas. The second showed a distressed mother sitting in a farmhouse in the center of the field of wheat. The accompanying story explained that her four-year-old son had wandered away from the house and into the filed when she was not looking. The mother and father looked and looked all day but the little fellow was too short to see or be seen over the wheat. The third picture showed dozens of friends and neighbors who had heard of the boy's plight and who had joined hands the next morning to make a long human chain as they walked through the field searching. The final picture was of the heartbroken father holding his lifeless son who had been found too late and had died of exposure. The caption underneath read, "O God, if only we had joined hands sooner."
o The world is full of lost souls who cannot see their way above the distractions and barriers of the world and cannot find their way to the Father's house until Christians join together as salt and light and sweep through the world in search of them. Our work is not simply as individual rays of light but as the whole church of Jesus Christ.
PURPOSE IN YOUR HEART TO BE A RADIANT CHRISTIAN
PROTECT YOUR ALIGHT@ FROM BEING DIMINISHED (v.15)
o A person who is a true disciple of Jesus will be evident to everyone. William Barclay said, "There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy."
o Football fans donning their teams colors, caps, flags on cars, standing up and cheering, etc.
Don=t be Ashamed!
Don=t be Afraid!
Good news is for sharing!
o The potential problem could be described by a number of words: timid, afraid, embarrassed, ashamed, but the result is the same, the good news of the saving power of Jesus Christ is not shared.
o Good news is for sharing! Illus of man bursting out of one of the patient rooms late at night at the local hospital. He runs up to a man he had never met before, and with joy in his face said, "She's going to make it. She's better. She is going to make it." He couldn't wait to share that good news. He did not even have to know the person with whom he shared it; it just flowed from him because he had received good news, and good news is to be shared.
o It is ridiculous to light a lamp and then hide it. The purpose of the lamp is to give "light to all that are in the house." Covering it with a basket is contrary to its purpose.
o You don't put a lamp under a basket, but on a "lampstand" so that everyone can see.
o Too many Christians are "basket lamps." They go around hiding and camouflaging their faith so no one can see it. They are as useless to God as a lamp is under a basket. Jesus saved you so that you can shine!
o For whatever reason we fail to be lights to a lost and dying world, our position as a Christian becomes not only contradictory but even ridiculous!
o Luigi Tarisio was found dead one morning with scarce a comfort in his home, but with 246 exquisite violins, which he had been collecting all his life, crammed into an attic, the best in the bottom drawer of an old rickety bureau. In his very devotion to the violin, he had robbed the world of all that music all the time he treasured them; other before him had done the same, so that when the greatest of his collection, a Stradivarius, was first played it had had 147 speechless years.
o Yet, how many of Christ's people are like old Tarisio? In our very love of the church we fail to give the glad tiding to the world; in our zeal for the truth we forget to publish it. When shall we all learn that the Good News needs not just to be cherished, but needs to be told? All people need to hear it.
o If we find in ourselves a tendency to put the light under a bushel, we must begin to examine ourselves and make sure that it really is light.
o So many of us Christians are no different than the world. George Barna's research has shown that the average Christian in the average evangelical church is almost indistinguishable from the rest of society. He is not talking about being different in some artificial and outward way that you might see in some legalistic churches. Rather, he is talking about the fundamental moral and ethical difference that Christ can make in how we live. When our teens, supposedly saved, get pregnant and do drugs at the same rate as the general teenage population - when our marriages end in divorce at the same rate as the rest of society - when we cheat in business, or lie, steal, and cheat on our spouses at the same statistical level as those who say they are not Christians - something is wrong.
o G. Campbell Morgan, the famous former minister of Westminster Chapel in London, in his book How to Live, told about a conversation he had after he finished preaching one evening. A man approached Morgan to tell him he had invited a fellow employee, one with whom he had worked for 5 years, to attend the service. He then said, "My suggestion came as quite a surprise to my friend. He responded to my invitation by saying, 'Are you a Christian?' And when I answered, 'Yes, I am,' he replied, 'Well, I am too!' Here we had worked beside each other for years, and we never knew that we were both believers in Christ. Wasn't that funny?" To the man's surprise, Morgan retorted, "Funny? No, it isn't funny at all! You both need to be born again." It was inconceivable to Morgan that two men could be truly saved and work side-by-side for 5 years and not be aware of their kinship as brothers in Christ.
PURPOSE IN YOUR HEART TO BE A RADIANT CHRISTIAN
PROTECT YOUR ALIGHT@ FROM BEING DIMINISHED
PROJECT YOUR ALIGHT@ TO THE GLORY OF GOD (v.16)
o When our lights shine as they should, others will see the beautiful work the Lord has done in us, and they too will glorify Him.
o "good works" of faith (witnessing, teaching, preaching the truth of His Word) and of love (practical, visible acts of compassion) Ccovers everything a Christian says and does because he is a Christian
o The supreme calling of life is glorifying God.
Bible teacher Keith Brooks had just finished speaking to a large class of businessmen on the Christian's responsibility to be a "light" in the world. He emphasized that believers are to reflect the Light of the world, the Lord Jesus. After the class, one of the members related to him an experience he had in his home which had impressed upon this same truth. He said that when he went into his basement he made an interesting discovery. Some potatoes had sprouted in the darkest corner of the room. At first he couldn't figure out how they had gotten enough light to grow. Then he noticed that the someone had hung a copper kettle from the ceiling near a cellar window. It was so brightly polished that it reflected the rays of the sun onto the potatoes. The businessman said to Brooks, "When I saw that, I thought, I may not be a preacher or a teacher with ability to expound Scripture, but at least I can be a copper kettle catching the rays of the Son and reflecting His light to someone in a dark corner."
Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worchester, spoke to Master Ridley, Bishop of London: ABe of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God=s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!@
