Senior Pastor Damein Schitter finishes our series on the Beatitudes, preaching on the importance of being salt and light in the world today. We're reminded that the character of a Christian disciple, as depicted by the Beatitudes, is not a garment to be donned in private and shed in public. Instead, it's a pervasive identity that influences every aspect of our lives. Authentic Christian living can illuminate and challenge prevalent societal issues by reflecting Jesus's teachings in our actions. We must remain vigilant, being salt that maintains its flavor and light that pierces the darkness, inviting the Holy Spirit to guide us in refreshing our faith to remain vibrant and visible to the world around us.
Senior Pastor Damein Schitter finishes our series on the Beatitudes, preaching on the importance of being salt and light in the world today. We're reminded that the character of a Christian disciple, as depicted by the Beatitudes, is not a garment to be donned in private and shed in public. Instead, it's a pervasive identity that influences every aspect of our lives. Authentic Christian living can illuminate and challenge prevalent societal issues by reflecting Jesus's teachings in our actions. We must remain vigilant, being salt that maintains its flavor and light that pierces the darkness, inviting the Holy Spirit to guide us in refreshing our faith to remain vibrant and visible to the world around us.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Please join me in praying the prayer of illumination. Please join me in praying the prayer of illumination. Creator, god, may your Holy Spirit shine your light, awakening us to your word and the living of your radiant truth, through Christ, our victorious Savior, amen. Today's scripture reading is taken from Matthew 5, beginning in verse 1. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Speaker 2:Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house In the same way. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. This is God's word. Please be seated.
Speaker 1:Good morning. My name is Damian. I'm the senior pastor. It's so good to be with you all this morning, as I was out of town last week. It's great to be back, and one of the privileges I have today is not only preach but also to sum up or wrap up our sermon series this spring on the Beatitudes.
Speaker 1:And so if you've been with us at all in this series, but really in general here at New City for any length of time, you've heard Ben or me quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer or at least mention him. And for those of you who need a reminder or just are unsure who he is in general, it's good enough to know that he was a German pastor and theologian. During the World War II period he actually was taken into a concentration camp and was killed there just before Allied forces came and freed that camp. And if you've never learned much about him, it's worth it. And there's one aspect that is well known by now, I would say, about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and that is that he was unwilling to compromise his discipleship to Jesus, and that took shape in his writings, of course, but it also took shape in his life in various ways, and one of the places that it took shape in his life is when he realized that the German church was unwilling to stand up for Jews who were in their midst. And after a while it was obvious to him and to some others that they needed to break off from the German church, because, in their mind, you couldn't see mistreatment of Jews in your midst and be called a true church of Jesus Christ, and so they didn't believe they were part of a true church anymore, and so they broke off from that church. But just like in the smaller versions of this in our day, where people have to decide if they're going to stay in a communion of people, let's say because of theological drift, or not, they had to make this choice. In other words, do we stay in the German church and try to fight for change from within, or do we step out and know we might be fully marginalized? And so in one of these conversations, in one biography that I read, someone asked him this very question. They wondered whether he was just kicking against the goads and if he could have a better or larger impact if he would stay in the German church and work against the bad things that were happening, to which Dietrich Bonhoeffer responded if you board the wrong train, it's no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction. I mean, think about that picture. You get on the wrong train and you know it's heading in the right direction and you think to yourself well, as long as I scream loudly and run in the opposite direction of where the train is going, I'm sure I can bring about a lot of change. Now, for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this would have been giving over to what was happening in his day Now again, while his situation truly was extreme, and it may seem extreme to us, the reality is all of us, in some way or the other in our discipleship, have the opportunity to make decisions like this on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:We live in a culture where Christianity is increasingly being marginalized, and we can sometimes fall into what many have called a private, public view of the world. And if we do this, what ends up happening is that we view Christian belief and our Christian devotion largely in the realm merely of our private and personal lives. And then we have a public life as well, and while we might think that that's possible, in this case even to embrace the Beatitudes in our own personal lives and private lives and to come from our various places in the world and to this space and spaces like it and learn and sing together that that is enough, that we can have a personal, private type or side of our faith, but we can live in a neutral public world and largely fit into the culture around us. This is not possible. And lest we think it might be possible, this next section, right after the Beatitudes in Jesus' sermon, show us that it's not possible. Because right from the Beatitudes, he launches into a discussion with two metaphors that are really well known to many of us, and that is the metaphors of salt and light. And so this next section tells us, when we put the Beatitudes and salt and light metaphors together, that the Beatitudes describe the essential character of the disciples of Jesus and that the salt and light metaphors indicate our influence for good in the world, and so both go together.
Speaker 1:As we take on the character of the disciple of Jesus as depicted in the Beatitudes, we then lean into the influence of the disciples of Jesus from that character, and so I'm going to say it a couple different ways. Next, I would say this way there is an essential character that's produced by the Beatitudes once we embody them. And when we embody these characteristics, we have to express them in the world, and the metaphors Jesus used tell us that not only do we express our character in the world, but that we express it at our expense. And so I have a sentence that'll be on the screen and then two points today. The first point is the first part of the sentence. The second point is the second part of the sentence. The sentence is this the essential character of the Beatitudes is expressed at the expense of the disciples, and we'll see this in the metaphors themselves that Jesus uses. And so first let's explore what is and some of this is going to be by way of reminder what is the essential character of the Beatitudes.
Speaker 1:So we've read them every week and we've taken one per week over the last several weeks and explored them and elaborated upon them last several weeks, and explored them and elaborated upon them. And what's important for us to know is that the Beatitudes need to be taken as a whole. In this way, they're similar to the fruit of the Spirit. We don't just get to choose one of the fruits that we like, and in fact, if you're like me, there's some fruit that you're drawn to when you read the description of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. But the more I think about it I realize the reason I like that one is just because it aligns with my personality. Some of the other ones I like it doesn't align with my personality, so I want to go big on the ones I like. But commentators and preachers are fond of saying it doesn't say fruits of the Spirit, it says fruit of the Spirit, which means you don't get to choose, you have to take all of them. It's a picture of a person that Paul is giving us, that the Spirit is changing, and so, in a similar way, these characteristics, these Beatitudes, are comprehensive in nature. The Beatitudes paint a comprehensive portrait of a disciple of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And for the next minute or so I'm going to walk through paraphrasing a wonderful quote by John Stott, as he elaborates on that very truth that the Beatitudes are a comprehensive portrait of a Christian disciple or a Christ follower. He talks about how it starts with Christians on their knees before God, acknowledging spiritual poverty, and then from there we mourn over the poverty, because, of course, once we recognize their spiritual poverty, there may be different responses. We may rage against it in our self-saturated culture. But no, jesus invites us to mourn, he invites us to acknowledge it and then mourn over it, and that this actually makes us meek in all of our relationships, and I love this. Now I'm quoting Stott.
Speaker 1:The reason it makes us meek is because honesty compels us, as disciples, to allow others to think of us what, before God, we confess ourselves to be. This is what he's saying. When we really understand our poverty in spirit, that moves us to mourning over it. And then, when we mourn, it moves us to a type of, as we said, brokenhearted honesty where we confess the reality before God that we're foolish oftentimes, that we're greedy oftentimes, that we look to serve and be served by idols. Oftentimes we're confessing that before the Lord. And when we truly know that we're meek and surrendered to this truth, we'll allow other people to speak that truth to us without getting too worked up about it. I love that idea. In other words, it's one thing for me to say I'm a miserable sinner and it's different for you to walk up to me right after this and say, bro, you are a miserable sinner when I just confessed it before God, but meekness and openness and honesty allows me to receive that from you because it's the truth. And then from there, as we confess ourselves to be a certain way we now can turn. Well, not yet, I guess.
Speaker 1:Next, what do we do? Do we stay in our sin? No, but we hunger for righteousness. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. It produces an ache in us, longing to grow in grace and goodness, and then we now see that out in the human community as we begin to move out from these confessions and naming what is real. Our relationship with God now doesn't cause us to withdraw from the world, to insulate ourselves from the world's pain, but, on the contrary, we're to be in the thick of it, showing mercy to those battered by hardship and sin. We are to be transparently sincere in all our dealings and we're to seek to play a constructive role as peacemakers wherever we are and Ben preached this last week. And in all of this, so often we are not thanked for our efforts, but rather we're opposed and persecuted for righteousness' sake. And so this, in a nutshell, is a comprehensive picture of what should be true about us as disciples.
Speaker 1:So then, when you hear that, you're like okay, well, how is this possible? Well, for a moment, let's just go back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in verse 1. What do we see? Seeing the crowds? Jesus went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. Okay, so let's go back to that starting point. We can find ourselves often in the crowd, but when Jesus calls us, he calls us out of the crowd, he calls us to himself. That is the word. His disciples came to him. So we are simply those, as disciples, who keep on coming to Jesus, who have come to Jesus and keep on coming to Jesus. It is the disposition of our moment-by-moment life. And then how does Jesus respond here and how will he continue to respond? Verse 2, he opened his mouth and taught them, saying and so we come to Jesus. Then, over and over to learn from him, over and over to learn from him.
Speaker 1:We believe in Jesus as Ben. In August, ben preached on salt and light, and so there are a couple of places where I took things that he said, changed them about 2%, and I'm now saying them again Because they were so good. And so this is a section where I'll do that. The next four points. When I say four points, there's bullet points.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we believe in Jesus as the God-man, we believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world. We believe in Jesus as the Lord of the universe. That's all true, but we also believe he lived the only true human life, the only life with a brilliant mind, unbiased from corruption and selfishness, which means we believe he is a genius in the art of living. So, then, we apprentice ourselves to his life and teaching with everything we have, and when we do this, we begin to embody these characteristics, because we begin to become like the one that we're following. This is true of any person or group that you're following. You begin to look like them. In a sense, you begin to dress like them. It's one of the reasons why we recognize, without even knowing exactly. We recognize who our kids have been hanging out with Because they come home and you're like what I know who you've been with.
Speaker 1:Disciples of Jesus are to be the same. People know who we've been with because we become like them, and in this case, we commit to becoming like Jesus. We commit to apprenticing them, and when we do this, we embody the characteristics of Jesus. And so when Jesus calls his disciples out of the crowd, he calls his disciples to follow him. Now, he does call us out of the crowd, but he does it for the sake of the crowd. Another way to say it is Jesus calls us into a community, not that it's us versus them, but it's us for them and therefore not like them. So there begins to be this contrast between the crowd who are listening to Jesus and those who have come to Jesus out of the crowd to listen to them. And when we are those people, we become like Jesus. We have this essential character of the Beatitudes, because Jesus fully embodies the Beatitudes, and the more time we spend with him, the more we become like him.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the things that we did every week is we gave you a three-word summary of each of the Beatitudes, and so, in a sense, we were distilling down what these essential characteristics were in the Beatitudes, and so what I want to do were distilling down what these essential characteristics were in the Beatitudes, and so what I want to do now is I want to ask what would a contrast community look like, embracing the Beatitudes, and I'm going to use the three-word summaries that we gave. Okay, so the first Beatitude we said was open-handed trust. Now imagine the beauty of open-handed trust as opposed to closed-fisted control. Do you know people who fight for closed-fisted control in anything in their life. You don't really like being around them, do you? And the only thing, that only thing, maybe worse than being around them is being them. Next, think about brokenhearted honesty. So we're called to be a community of brokenhearted honesty. What is that in terms of beauty, as compared to a dishonest assessment of the world?
Speaker 1:You know, in his book how the Mighty Fall, jim Collins is writing about great companies, or good companies, that, rather than becoming great, became non-companies, in other words, they're no longer in business. And what I find so interesting about this is that this book, how the Mighty Fall, came from his research on his more famous book Good to Great, and him and this large team of researchers studied what are companies public companies that were good and they became great. Well, in that research they found a lot of the opposite, but that wasn't the project they were doing good to great. So later he talked his publisher into letting him publish a book on the other stuff that he found, which he then called how the Mighty Fall. And so there are five steps to how the mighty fall, that is, these good companies that, rather than making the trek to great end.
Speaker 1:And the first step is success and you're like okay, well, how is that bad? Well, the second step is, from that success, the undisciplined pursuit of more. And then here's the third step that I think really speaks to this second beatitude, which is essentially hubris. And what did hubris do to these companies? All of the data that was right there, telling them that they were not up and to the right, but in fact they were down, they were shrinking, they were failing, they were not doing well. All of the data was there, but what did they do? Because of their hubris, they spun the data. They started telling stories to themselves and others that weren't true, and they lived in that reality as though it was reality and it wasn't, which is why they no longer exist. Now, think about facing reality, jim Collins said was the first step in leadership here. Well, that's what Jesus is inviting his disciples to do Face reality as it is, and when you do, it will break your heart, but you will be honest about it. You won't be dishonest in your assessment.
Speaker 1:That moves to the third one, which is love-constrained power or meekness. Imagine love-constrained power as opposed to power-grabbing self-protection. Have you ever been around people who need to flex their power, in fact, when the thing they love is threatened, their signature move is to power up. It might go well for a moment, but it only brings destruction. And so we can be like the world and be a part of power-grabbing self-protection, or we can embody the characteristics of Jesus and even, in our power, constrain it out of love.
Speaker 1:What about hunger for righteousness or right-making ache? What does it look like to be a community that has a right-making ache, as opposed to a community that is all about pragmatic self-promotion? So there is no ultimate right or truth to ache for, it's just whatever is easy, whatever seems right, whatever is opportunistic. Which one do you want to be a part of? What about tenderhearted compassion as opposed to hardhearted callousness? There is a cost to compassion. In fact, helping professions call it compassion fatigue. That is, whenever you, in your own strength, try to keep exercising compassion for others without pulling from a source that's beyond you. You have compassion fatigue. But what would it look like to be a community connected to the source, who is Jesus? We could have tender-hearted compassion for others, but what happens is when we get fatigued of that, our heart becomes hard and calloused toward others.
Speaker 1:What about the next one? Single-willed seeking, that is, the pure in heart, pure, single-willed. What would it be like to be a community of people who didn't rise and fall in optimism or pessimism on an election cycle? Wouldn't that be amazing? Because, guess what? Our God is still in heaven. Jesus is still raised from the dead, and so we can still be single-willed in our seeking. We can be pure in heart. We don't then go for divided heart, shiny idol syndrome. That was a little longer than the others, but essentially it's looking for a new savior. Depending on how well we think things are going or not, we fall into pragmatism and a split heart, a divided heart. Yeah, I believe in Jesus, but I really believe in this candidate too, to save everything and everyone. No, jesus calls us to single-willed seeking.
Speaker 1:Second last one shalom contending family. What would it be like to be in a family, a church filled with disciples who contend for peace wherever they are in, whatever room they're in, as opposed to blind eye peacekeeping where everyone just walks on eggshells? Which person would you rather be? Which person would you rather be around? Which person would you rather follow A person in, who, in open-hearted trust, broken-hearted honesty, love-constrained power, right-making ache, tender-hearted compassion, single-willed seeking, actually contends for peace? Or would you rather be around a person who turns a blind eye to injustice? And finally, what would it be like to be a witness-bearing courage community as opposed to a light-hiding cowardice community? We're going to get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1:But Jesus says we are the light of the world and the light is not to be hidden. But the problem is, is that in darkness, as Jason said, you light a match or you have a light? What does it do? It draws attention, and sometimes it draws attention from the enemies. So the question is, is that a self-protection and cowardice? Do you hide that light or do you let it shine? Protection and cowardice do you hide that light or do you let it shine?
Speaker 1:So you see, these are the essential characteristics that the Beatitudes produce. This is the essential character. This is the comprehensive portrait that Jesus longs for for his disciples, and when he calls us and we come out of the crowd and follow him, the longer we're with him, the longer we stare at him, the more like this we are to become. Now, all of this sounds very beautiful to me and I hope it sounds beautiful to you, but maybe we already know this. It doesn't just come easily. It comes at a cost. It costs us something. So the essential character of the Beatitudes. We express that in the world at the expense of ourself, at the expense of the disciple.
Speaker 1:So that's my second and final point, the expense of the disciple. What do I mean by that? Well, first, in our passage for today, that's unique verses 13 through 16, jesus uses two metaphors, and in these metaphors there is a twofold call. And this twofold call has one thing in common.
Speaker 1:John Stott says it this way both salt and light give and expend themselves and thus are the opposite of any and every kind of self-centered religiosity. You see, salt, in order to preserve, has to in a sense give of itself, and light, in order to shine, light, has to give of itself. It can't be hidden, it can't keep light to itself. Salt can't keep its saltiness to itself, it has to expend itself, which, to us should say any spirituality that allows the self to remain at the center is not Christianity. There are spiritualities that allow the self to stay at the center, it's just not Christianity.
Speaker 1:And so, what might it be to embody the character of the Beatitudes, but yet at our own expense? Well, there will certainly be the expense of our comfort, there will be the expense of emotional energy, there will be the expense of our time, there will be the expense of being accepted or respected by others at times and ultimately, of course, there will be the expense of losing control of our lives. Because as soon as we step out of the crowd and begin following Jesus, as soon as we acknowledge that we are poor in spirit, from that moment on, if we truly acknowledge that we are giving up control of our lives, our self has been de-centered. Lives, our self has been de-centered. And so, from that expense, let's explore how these metaphors work. Okay, in two different ways. They work this way they expose decay and they expose darkness. Salt exposes decay, light exposes darkness.
Speaker 1:So what about the salt of the earth? Now, many of you have heard this, I won't spend a long time on it, but salt is a preservative. Okay, it arrests decay, particularly in meat or fish before refrigeration. It has a preserving force. When done well, it will preserve meat and fish almost indefinitely, because salt, as a chemical compound, is very stable. It's very strong. But what's so interesting and powerful about this is that when you think about salt and its preserving power, what you begin to recognize which is a little bit of thought is it's not just food that, without preservative, will decay, it's actually everything in our current world.
Speaker 1:I mean, think about your garden or your yard. I was gone last week and I came back and while we had, people keep our plants alive. Thank you to all of you who did that for us, some of you here. I noticed there were weeds everywhere, in our pavers and in our driveway, and I'm like I was gone for a week but things begin to decay. Your yard needs mode. It's just the way in which things go.
Speaker 1:What about your car? Imagine if you never drove your car, you never changed this oil and you just left it in the sun. You never washed it. It would decay even faster than it will if you try to preserve it. What about your body? We know that all of us have. Eventually our bodies will wear out, but we understand there are ways to preserve that in certain ways right. So if you don't move and you essentially eat whatever you want whenever you want, you will end up in the same place that someone else who tries to preserve the health of their body. You'll end up in the same place, that's true, but probably faster. Okay so, but nevertheless, the inertia of our physical bodies is decay.
Speaker 1:What about your relationships? Think about your marriage. If you don't seek to cultivate health in your marriage, it will decay. If you don't seek to cultivate the health of your relationships at all, they will decay. The inertia of an untended-to relationship is not health, of course food, which is the most immediate context of this metaphor, but what Jesus is saying is the world is on a path to decay. Morally, spiritually, in every way it's on the path to decay. The question is can it be preserved? Can there be an influence that slows it down, that even redirects it at times? And Jesus says the answer to that question is yes, like salt. His disciples can go into the world and preserve decay. This is what Jesus is telling us.
Speaker 1:In ancient times, what was commonly called salt was probably more like a white powder that did contain sodium chloride along with other components that could easily be contaminated. We think of crystals of salt. It wasn't really like that. We have these refinement processes to get it basically refined to almost no impurities in our table salt, but it wasn't like that. Then they didn't have those processes. So it was really a white powder that had a high concentration of salt, but it did have some other impurities in it, but as long as the salt was more potent than the other impurities, it preserved, the salt did its purpose. In the same way, jesus is saying, as he says, you are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. What Jesus is saying is not only are you called to be salt, a preserving force, but contamination is easy.
Speaker 1:Christians, in a sense Jesus is saying, must retain their Christ-likeness, the character of the Beatitudes, in order to remain effective in our influence on society around us. That saltiness that Jesus is talking about is exemplified in what he just taught us in the Beatitudes. So what we have to do is we have to take seriously, as Christians, the ease of contamination. It happens, it happens easily, without counteracting. The inertia of your life is not towards the Beatitudes, it's not towards holiness, it's towards self, it's towards idolatry. And so Christians, for a long time, have taken this really seriously. And then some other Christians don't take this seriously, and the solutions that these different Christians come up with are very different.
Speaker 1:And so, to be a little more concrete Christians who don't take the ease of contamination in our saltiness seriously, just assimilate into the world around them Without any hesitation, adopt all of the cultural artifacts, adopt all of the spending habits, adopt all of the TV shows and movies, adopt all of the priorities in career and job choice. Essentially, we just look the same because we think well, we're Christians now, my identity's in Christ. But we just assimilate and we lose our saltiness and we wonder why no one at all is curious about our life. No one. It's like oh, that's weird. I thought I should be ready to give a defense for my faith. It's like nobody knows you have it.
Speaker 1:That's what Jesus is saying. I mean it sounds harsh, but he's saying it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. It literally becomes the dust. Jesus is saying that people walk on. But there's also a type of Christian that takes this so seriously and they're so afraid of contamination that we just cloister ourselves off from the world, that we just live in communities and we think that sin is infectious like a virus and if we get around it at all, if we touch it, we got to wash our hands and we have to get away. But no, jesus is calling us to be something distinctly different. He's calling us to follow him, listen to him in the midst of the world for the sake of the world.
Speaker 1:But Jesus knows the temptation to cultural compromise is strong. I mean, who hasn't been tempted to find other things besides righteousness that you hunger and thirst for? Anybody? Anybody hunger for anything else besides hunger and righteousness? Anybody else ever tempted to stop showing mercy? Anybody else ever tempted to clutter your heart with things of the world? Anyone else ever tempted to stand aside during conflict and just let it happen in front of you because you want to avoid engaging it? Of course there's a word for that. It's called worldliness, and worldliness is when a Christian loses their salt. Another way we can name this is just cultural Christianity.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so Ben shared some statistics last last august talking about how cultural christianity in america is known for its tastelessness and compromise, and so I'm going to read a few of those as we move towards our close. So again, we are to embody the essential character of a disciple as given to us in the attitudes. But that will cost us, and when we aren't willing to engage that cost and keep following Jesus, we lose our saltiness and in our cultural Christianity. In America, for example, those who profess to be Christians are considered to be more than two times as likely to have racist attitudes than non-Christians. Divorce rates between Christians and non-Christians are about the same. Percentage of men who view pornography is roughly the same Christian or non-Christian. One in four people living together outside of marriage call themselves evangelical Christians. 20% of evangelicals give away no money at all none. Domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse are just as prevalent among Christians as non-Christians.
Speaker 1:And, according to our friends here in Orlando who wrote a new book called the Great Dechurching, their research finds that cultural Christians represent the largest group, that is, 52% of people who are dechurching in our generation. They fall into cultural Christianity and so listen. This is why we must continually come to Jesus out of the crowds. A lifestyle of coming to Jesus. We see he's there, he's teaching. We gotta come out of the crowds and listen to him again, see him, follow him. We must come to him out of the crowds. We need his saltiness in our lives and hearts in order not to lose our saltiness. Okay, but the influence of Christians on society depends not only on being salty, but also on the fact that we're the light of the world. Jesus says so.
Speaker 1:This is the second metaphor and, of course, this is a metaphor of light and darkness, and we get this in our call to worship. Jason led us through this Again. Jesus spoke to them saying this is from John 8, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So Jesus says you're the light of the world. How is that? Because you follow me, and when you follow me, you have the light of life. Listen, when you have the light of life, jesus is saying why would you hide it? Why would you hide the light of life? Disciples of Jesus don't hide the light. They display it at all times. Like a sunflower, we follow the light across the sky at all times, and like a full moon on a cloudless night, we reflect the light of the sun brightly for all to see in the darkness. This is the call to be light.
Speaker 1:Now, listen, you know there's a difference between good light and not good light, and this is how I know I, like you, have found myself in the day later on noticing that I have two mismatched colors of socks on Right. Why? Because I picked my socks out when the light was low and dim. I thought I was loving Leah, in this case, by keeping the light dim. See, when we try to hide our light a little bit, we think it's loving, and then later, when we're in full light again, we're like I had mismatched socks on.
Speaker 1:Because what does light do? It reveals reality, it reveals the truth, and when you're in the dimness of light, you can neglect reality. Or I have three suits and whenever I do a wedding I always ask them which suit color do you want me to wear? And one of them is black and one is navy. But I tell you what, every single time I pull that thing off the shelf both of them in the light of my closet I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference. But guess what? What do I have to do? I have to walk out of my closet and hold them in the light of the sun, the good light, to be able to see which one of these is navy and which one of these is dark. You see, this is what the light does. As we stare at the face of Jesus, who is the light of the world, and follow him, we reflect the light of the world to others, and what this does is it creates a beautiful contrast, right, jason? I love that image he gave us. In the woods at night, without artificial light, you strike a match and it gives you a decent amount of light.
Speaker 1:The point is, is light and darkness is a beautiful contrast, and so our lives should be so beautiful. Jesus is saying that it reveals the true nature and color of things, that by living as Christians, we can expose dishonesty in business just by being there. We can expose gossip in the office by being there. We can expose corruption in politics by engaging it. We can expose promiscuity in social gatherings just by being there as light, and we can expose dysfunction in families and communities by being there and reflecting light. Our whole way of life can make other things look as they actually are.
Speaker 1:Listen too much of our Christian discourse, though, as as light and darkness is more like the world, it's so self-righteous, it's so mean. It's so us versus them, not us distinct, but for them, and rather than being salty and repentant, we're and mean, and we don't lead with the very first beatitude, poor in spirit, repentance, modeling it for others around us. We try to become the light as opposed to reflecting the light, one of the things that is so tempting for Christians, because we have the beautiful moral code of the Bible that tells us how we were designed to live. We know that our performance doesn't make us right before God, and yet so often the way that we profess Christianity, what people hear us saying is stop doing bad things and do good things like us, as opposed to listen to who Jesus is and inviting people to see him. So listen, jesus, the one who embodied the Beatitudes the most holy and beautifully. He wasn't mean and arrogant, but in our Lord Jesus, we have a different picture of salt and light, a picture where jesus disadvantaged himself for the good of others, at his own expense, gave of his very life in light. And jesus, of course, ultimately is the light of the world and he fully embodied these beatitudes, expressed them not only at expense, but at the ultimate expense. And Jesus wasn't just opposed, he was opposed to death. And now, as he continues to be generous to us as his disciples, he sends his spirit, and his spirit, like salt, preserves and reorients our heart and, like light, shines into darkness that we can turn again back to him. He arrests the decay of sin in our lives. But he even goes farther than that he destroys it. He shines his light in our hearts, so much so that now we have his light and become his light. He is the light of the world, and it's only as we dwell upon his light that we reflect his light to the world.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, father. We come to you grateful for how you revealed yourself in your word. Lord Jesus, the writer of the Hebrews says that many times and in many ways God has revealed himself, but most of all, most fully and finally, in his Son. We look to you, lord Jesus, as the Son of God, the image of God, the one who became flesh and dwelt among us, the one who gives us the right to become children of God, the one who even makes a way for us to step out of the crowds, even with unclean hearts. But you make us clean, and so this morning we give you praise for making us who we are. We are grateful that you don't call us to self-righteousness, which always leads to self-contempt, but you call us to faith in your righteousness, which leads to generosity and humility. Call us to faith in your righteousness, which leads to generosity and humility. We ask that this would be the thing that characterizes us generosity and humility as your disciples, as salt and light in the world. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Speaker 1:Well, it's our practice after every sermon to take just a couple of moments to reflect on what we heard, to capture the moment, what's on your mind, what's on your heart, before it might slip away and you might not come back to it. So what I want to offer to you now is where might you be losing your saltiness? Or the other question would be where might you be hiding your light? And so, of course, you're free to reflect on anything that came into your heart and mind that you may have written down. But if not, I want to ask you, to ask the Holy Spirit now to illumine to you an answer to those questions, or one of those questions when are you losing your saltiness? An answer to those questions or one of those questions when are you losing your saltiness? No-transcript.