Sermon Tone Analysis

*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://Y//11//And 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 **A**LIGHT**@** 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.