It's good to see you this morning.
If you have your Bible, please open to Matthew chapter 5.
Matthew chapter 5. It's where we'll be continuing
today. Last week in Matthew 5, what we
saw was the character of Kingdom citizens in the Beatitudes.
We, we saw that they are poor in spirits, that they mourn over
their sin, their meek, they hunger and thirst for
righteousness, they're merciful, they're pure in heart,
peacemakers, and then finally they're willing to suffer for
Christ. And so we examine what those
things mean and how God is talking to a people or Christ is
talking to a people as he's presenting these things.
He's essentially describing the character of someone who
undergoes conversion and sanctification, right?
This is what Christians look like, right?
This is their character. Now that is the kind of person
the king produces, you might say.
But today what Jesus moves into, he moves from describing our
character and who we become to describing the influence of that
character, right? What what does it do in the
world, right? Why is it important as Kingdom
citizens to have right character?
And then what can we expect from that?
And then he answers a question that we must ask, which is if
this is what Kingdom citizens look like, what difference are
they going to make in the world, Right.
What what difference are they going to make?
So are disciples meant to retreat from the culture or are
they or are they meant to blend into the culture?
Are we meant to dominate the culture?
Well, Jesus is really going to say none of those things.
He says something that I think is far more powerful.
He, he tells his disciples. Now remember, the people that
are gathered are his disciples. And then there's a crowd of
people who have come out to see his work.
So there's ordinary people standing on the hillside.
And he tells them that they are the salt of the earth and the
light of the world and the salt of the earth and the light of
the world. Now, in a world that is dark and
decaying, in a culture that suppresses the truth, in
communities that drift toward moral confusion, the king has
placed his people there on purpose.
That's what Christ wants us to understand today.
And so as we consider that, let's read the word of the Lord.
Now, would you please stand to your feet in honor of God's
Word? We're going to be looking at
Matthew 5, verses 13 through 16 today.
This is Jesus speaking. 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 under people's feet.
You are the light of the world. A city set on the hill cannot be
hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and
put it under a basket, but on the 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 the word of the Lord. Yeah.
I swear to God, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before
your word this morning and we humble ourselves before it.
Oh God, we recognize that you have spoken, and here directly
you have spoken through your Son and Father, we ask that you
would grant to us hearts that are like fertile soil, that Your
word could be planted deep into our hearts and bear fruits in in
due time. Lord, we ask that you would
teach us today by your Spirit that you would illuminate the
Scriptures for us, that we would understand them rightly, and
Father, that you would apply them to our lives through the
power of your Spirit at work in US.
May we honor and glorify your great name and all that we see
here today and all that we become as a result of the work
of your Spirit in us. It's in the name of Christ we
pray. Amen, Amen.
You may be seated. So in the 2nd century, the, the
Roman world was deeply Pagan. It, it was morally confused.
It was often hostile toward Christians.
And yet something strange began to happen in the 2nd century.
There would be plagues that would sweep through Roman
cities. Disease would spread.
The wealthy would flee. The strong would abandoned the
weak. The sick were often left in the
streets to die. But the Christians stayed.
They they cared for the sick. They fed widows.
They adopted abandoned infants. They buried the dead when no one
else would. Now the Christians did not hold
any political power, but they did not control the culture.
They they were often persecuted for their faith.
And yet historians note that one of the reasons Christianity
begin to spread so rapidly in the first few centuries of human
history or of of history post Christ, right was because
believers live differently, right?
They live differently. And a decaying society, a
society that was falling apart. They preserved compassion in a
Dark World. They displayed mercy.
And people begin to ask why. Why did these people who
proclaimed Christ live this way? Why do they go on being
persecuted? Why do they go on loving their
Lord and loving their neighbor so well?
Well, that's what we mean. That's what Christ means when he
talks about you are the salt of the earth.
That's what he means when he says you are the light of the
world. This is exactly what Jesus is
describing here. This is the kind of life that
he's talking about. He's not calling his disciples
to withdraw from the world as we might be prone to do.
He's not calling them to mirror the world as we might be prone
to do. He's calling them to be distinct
from the world and to influence the world.
Right. And you notice the weight of
what he says. He says you are the salt of the
earth. You are the light of the world.
Not someday, all right, He not if the culture improves and it's
more likely to accept the message.
Not if persecution stops and you're less likely to lose your
life. No, it's it's present tense.
You are the salt of the earth if you are the light of the world.
You are right now these things. All right, Which gets us to the
main point, I think, of what this passage is teaching us.
If you're taking notes, you can write this down.
Kingdom citizens reflect God's glory through faithful presence
and good works in a dark and decaying world.
Kingdom citizens reflect God's glory through faithful presence
and good works in a dark and decaying world.
And Jesus is going to show us 3 truths about our Kingdom
influence. First, we'll see the Kingdom
citizens are the salt of the earth.
Second, we'll see the Kingdom citizens are the light of the
world. And 3rd, we'll see the Kingdom
citizens glorify the Father through good works.
All right, we'll see our aim, our purpose there.
So let's see what it means first, to be the salt of the
earth #1 Kingdom citizens are the salt of the earth.
Verse 13. Let me read it to you again.
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.
So our Lord begins here with the declaration.
All right, He's not making a suggestion.
You might consider being the salt of the earth.
No, he says you are the salt of the earth.
It's stunning because again, he's speaking to ordinary people
or ordinary disciples, right, fishermen.
There's a former tax collector there.
There there's men who by the world standards were really
unimpressive or even hated. And he looks at them and he
says, in effect, you are God's preserving influence in the
world. So you want to notice carefully
what he does not say. He does not say become salt.
He does not say try harder to be salty.
He does not say if you perform well enough you may one day
qualify as salt. No, he he says you are salt.
This is identity language. Christ is making a declaration
about their identity and himself.
So you don't want to detach verse 13 from verses 3 through
12, Those beatitudes we looked at last week, right?
The beatitudes are describing the kind of person that the king
creates. Again, he was poor in spirit.
He mourns over sins. He's meek, He's hungering it for
righteousness. He's merciful, pure, and heart.
He's a peacemaker. He's willing to suffer for the
sake of Christ, right? Those people, those kind of
people, the people with that sort of character, those are the
salty ones, so to speak, because influence flows from the
character of Christ in you, right?
It starts in the heart. It starts with a heart
transformed. It starts with a life that's
being renewed day by day. It starts with the mind that's
being transformed. It's not conforming to the world
standards. It starts inwardly and it flows
outwardly, right. So Martin Lloyd Jones, in his
preaching on this passage, he makes this point.
He says our Lord is not primarily concerned with what
the Christian does, but with what the Christian is.
The Sermon on the Mount, Lloyd says, Our Lord, Jones says, is a
description of character before it is a list of actions.
And this is exactly right. The world is not preserved by
Christians who are trying to manufacture influence, right?
We don't create our own influence.
We don't manufacture it. We don't become social media
influencers, right? We live in a world that wants
influence. This is not how character is
created. This is not how influence is
truly achieved, Right? We're not manufacturing.
What we see is that it's preserved by Christians who have
been transformed by the grace of the Lord, that the grace of the
Lord affects a life that person's transformed.
And so the world around them is preserved because they become
the salt of the earth. Now this guards us from
moralism, right? Because if we reverse the order,
if we tell people go be salt without first grounding them in
those beatitudes where there's a union with Christ, then all that
you're creating is a Pharisee, right?
You're creating someone who lives moralistically, right, and
legalistically, and so manufacturers their own
influence. But when Christ changes the
heart, when he preserves from within, then preserving
influence, right? That outward preserving that we
have becomes inevitable, right? You are salt because you belong
to the King. Is what Christ is saying here
that that's why you are salt right now?
Now, why salt? Why does Christ use the term
salt or this idea of salt? Well, in the ancient world, salt
was essential. Now I've eaten with many of you
and you all, not most of you, still think salt is essential,
right? That there was no refrigeration,
right, kids? That we didn't have
refrigerators in our homes. Meat would decay quickly.
Salt was meant to slow the rot. It restrained corruption.
That's the image, right? That's the image that Christ is
talking about. It's a restraint of corruption.
And the image assumes something that we must understand it, but
it is sobering. The image assumes that the world
around the salty ones is decaying.
It's decaying. Now, why is it decaying?
Well, it's decaying because of the fall, all right?
Because sin has tarnished, tainted all of life, all of
creation. And so Jesus is not naive here
about the human condition. And Paul writes in Romans one
that mankind suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, that
they know the truth about God, but they suppress it, they push
it down, they don't want to acknowledge it.
Paul also writes that they exchanged the glory of God for
images. They exchanged the glory of God
for creation. They exchange truth for lies.
They exchange natural relations for unnatural relations.
That's decay, right? What Paul's describing there is
decay in in Ephesians 417 through 19, Paul says that the
Gentiles walk in the futility of their minds that that they're
darkened and understanding. They're alienated from the life
of God. They're hardened in their
hearts. That's decay, right?
What's being described there is the decay of the world.
So left to itself, if we read the Scriptures rightly, what we
can understand is that left to itself, humanity does not just
drift toward righteousness, all right?
It's not like a healing balloon that just rises upward on its
own. That's not happening.
It's more like a lead balloon, right?
Humanity does not drift toward righteousness.
It drifts towards corruption because the heart of man is
corrupt by nature, right? And end of that corruption, what
does Christ do? Well, one, he enters it.
Two, he lives perfectly and sacrifices his life as a ransom
for all who will call upon His name.
And then he places His church. Now church is the word Eklesia
and it means those who were called out, but it's called out
ones. You might say they've been
called out of darkness as Peter does, and into marvelous lights.
They're a royal priesthood, a holy nation, right?
The the scriptures say things about what the church is meant
to be. And this is what Christ does is
he places his church within a decaying world and he says you
are the salt of the earth. He doesn't say retreat into
isolation, right? He doesn't say find the most
remote place that you can gather all the Christians and create a
compound there, as nice as that might sound to some of us some
days, right? He also doesn't say go mirror
the culture, go, go be like them, Not when Christ prays for
the disciples. In John 17, he mentions this
phrase that they are not of this world.
They're, they're created there. There's something supernatural
about them. They've been recreated by the
Spirit of God. They are new creations in
Christ. So we're not called the mirror
of the culture either. But what we are called to do is
to be salty, right? To restrain the decay of our
world. So Christians are those who have
been called out of darkness in the marvelous light, there to be
holy as Goddess holy. They're to be set apart, or in
other words, they were to be different.
And we're different not just for different sake.
No, we're different because we have a union with Christ, the
Son of God, right? We share a new life in him.
We're Co heirs with the Lord. Now, because they are different,
they inevitably act as a preservative in society.
But they are a preservative in society, right?
That the mere presence of a holy man is a rebuke to sin and
restrain upon it, right? Think, think about that.
The presence of a holy man is a rebuke to sin.
It's a restraint upon it, right? Think about it.
When a Christian refuses to laugh at crude jokes, something
is restrained, right? When a businessman refuses to be
dishonest, something is restrained.
When a teenager refuses sexual compromise, something is
restrained. When a church practices
forgiveness instead of bitterness, something is
restrained. You see what we're talking
about? Now, you could go on and on with
lists like that, but the holy living of a righteous person
restrains evil. It absolutely does that.
The church restrains control corruption by truth.
It restrains corruption by its holiness.
It restrains corruption by gospel witness, Right.
So, so we don't want to underestimate what quiet
obedience does in a community. It it does a lot.
You may never hold an office, right?
You may never write a book, but your integrity, your marriage,
your godly marriage, your godly parenting, your godly speech,
your your whole life lived in godliness as a Christian.
Those sort of things slow and restrain decay, right?
That that is the gospel power of simple faithfulness to God.
Just showing up day in and day out and doing what we might
think are mundane things like Bible reading, prayer, exhorting
our family to believe and to trust in the Lord, walking as a
godly man, as a friend and a Co worker, all sorts of things.
But our Lord does add a warning here, doesn't he?
But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be
restored now? In that region, salt was often
mixed with impurities. And so if the true salt leached
out, what remained looked like salt but had no preserving
power. It had to be thrown out.
It was useless. Now Christ is offering a warning
to his people. It's a warning to the church.
Salt that is no longer salty is worthless.
Lloyd Jones presses this home for us.
He says this. He says the church has often
been most ineffective when she has tried most to be acceptable.
When she courts the world's approval, she forfeits her
authority. How true is this right?
Compromise over and over again. Compromise with sin destroys
godly influence. It destroys it.
It tears it down. When the Church adopts the
world's moral framework, when we soften hard truths to avoid
discomfort, when we redefine sin because our culture redefines
sin, when our homes look indistinguishable from
unbelieving homes. We may still bear the name
Christian right. We may still call ourselves
Christians. But we have lost preserving
power. So I want you to understand that
blending in with the world is not mission.
Now, it's true that in missions, when we send someone to a new
culture, in some sense they ought to blend in.
They need to learn the culture, right?
But they're not going to blend into the culture just for
culture sake, right? Or for blending in sake.
They're going to learn the culture so that they can learn
how to rightly preach the truths of the gospel to those people
rightly live it out, right? So blending in is not mission,
that's failure actually, that the church does not preserve the
world by becoming like them. It preserves the world through
distinction, through holiness, right?
Peter says in first Peter 212, keep your conduct among the
Gentiles honorable. Keep your conduct among the
unbelievers honorable so that they may see your good deeds and
glorify God. Now, that's salt language,
right? It's very similar to what Christ
is saying here in Matthew 5. But what we see that Peter's
promoting there is a distinct conduct, right?
There's there's a visible difference between the way
Christ professors live, Christians live, and the way
that the world lives. And if there's no observable
difference between US and the world, whether it's in our
speech or entertainment choices or our financial priorities or
our sexual ethics or our forgiveness, then something has
gone terribly wrong that we're missing the point.
Salt that tastes like everything else is no salt at all, right?
It's not salty. It could be something else, but
it's not salt, right? And Jesus uses the sobering
language. It's no longer good for anything
except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
So the King expects distinctiveness from his people.
He expects them to look different, to act different to.
And, and when I say that it's not about moralism, it's about
obeying Christ. It's about being fully submitted
to his will for your life, to what he says.
And it's saying I'm going to do that, going to trust him to
create in me the character that becomes like his.
I'd like to bring this home, so to speak, to Magnolia.
Even to your daily lives, right? Faithful presence here matters.
It matters a ton. The the way you live day in and
day out. You might think it's sort of
ordinary and doesn't matter. And there's a lot of ordinary
things to it, right? Work and school and family life
and sports and activities and church and whatever else, right?
But the way you live in those things, faithful presence, those
things matter. You don't have to change the
nation to be faithful, right? You, you need to be obedient
where God has placed you. But to understand that God has
placed you in a place and he's created you in his own image
with a, a certain personality, right?
You bear characteristics that are yours, but you're made in
the image of God and you exist in the place and time and space
that he's placed you. And you say to those things, I'm
going to be faithful here in the way that God has created me,
right? That matters.
You need to be obedient where he's placed you.
You might think about fathers, right?
Your steady, humble leadership preserves your home.
It it preserves your home, right mothers.
Your consistent faith, your gentle strength preserves your
children and your husband. Students, your refusal to join
in gossip, your refusal to join in impurities, your your refusal
to join in dishonesty preserves your friends.
It employs. Your integrity preserves your
workplaces and church members right.
Your unity preserves the body of Christ.
So your obedience restrains decay.
So we have to ask honestly, am I distinct?
Am I faithful in my speech, in my marriage to my spouse and my
use of technology and my financial stewardship and my
love for the lost? Am I distinct and am I faithful,
or have I begun to blend? Now?
If the only difference between us and our unbelieving neighbors
is that we attend church on Sunday, we should tremble at
this verse. We should understand there's not
really a distinction between US and them other than time given
on a Sunday morning. You see, the king has placed you
in a dark and decaying world on purpose, not not really to
dominate it, not to disappear into it, but to preserve within
it by his grace and strength. And that's why he says to you,
you are the salt of the earth. You are the salt of the earth.
You're meant to be a a preserver within the world.
Now let's consider what it means not only to restrain decay, but
to shine in the darkness. Kingdom citizens are the light
of the world .2 like in verses 14 and 15, you are the light of
the world. A city set on the 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.
If salt emphasizes restraints right, slowing decay, then light
here emphasizes revelation. Salt works quietly, but light
works visibly. And again, Jesus begins with
your identity, who you are, and him.
You are the light of the world. That's really sobering language.
And I say it's sobering language because in John 812, Jesus says
I am the light of the world. So he's the light, He's the true
light. He's the eternal light who
shines in the darkness and whom the darkness has not yet
overcome, as we see in John 15 and now here in Matthew 5.
He says to his disciples, you are the light of the world.
How can that be? Well, we must understand
something really important. Christ is light by nature,
right? We are light by union.
We're light by our union with Christ.
He shines inherently. It's who he is.
But we shine reflectively. We reflect the Son of God.
Lloyd Jones makes this point very clearly.
Says the Christian does not generate light.
The Christian reflects it. So we we are not the source of
light. Christ is the source of light.
We are the instruments, so to speak.
You might think of it this way. Just as the moon has no light of
its own but reflects the sun, so too does the believer reflect
Christ, right? So if you detach light from
Christ, you, you are left with moralism or activism, right?
We, we would have no light source of our own.
But biblical lights is the visible radiance of a life
that's united to Jesus, right? Paul says in Ephesians 5 verse 8
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are the
light in the world, right? Notice the language.
You're not merely in the lights, you are light in the Lord.
So no union. If there's no union with Christ,
then there can be no light. That that's the point that's
being made here. So This is why conversion
matters. This is This is why repentance
and faith coming to Christ matter.
This is why regeneration matters, right?
Becoming an altogether new thing, a new creation in Christ.
This is why sanctification matters, right?
The more we behold the light of the glory of Christ, the more we
become like Him. So This is why the Beatitudes
come first, right? The the world does not need
religious activity. You, you understand, before
Christ came on the scene, there was a lot of religious activity
in the world. What it needs is men and women
who have been made new. It needs men and women who have
been made new. And now they're on a mission for
the Lord to live as faithful sons and daughters of God.
But we do not shine because we are impressive.
We're not impressive. We shine because Christ lives in
US. And if Christ is not at the
center, if communion with Christ is not real in our lives, or if
there's no real communion with God, then the light dims very
quickly. It might give the appearance of
light, but it's batteries are going to run out.
This is not about your personality, right?
Maybe you were raised in a Christian home, so to speak.
You were raised at least under Christian influence.
You were raised to go to church. You were raised to act like a
Christian. And so you have a lot of
morality built up in you. You have a lot of knowing sort
of what's good and wrong. And, and so you try to do those
things. You try to manufacture light
through religious activity by your personality.
But this isn't about your personality.
It's not about charisma, it's not about the platform you build
or the things that the the, the the titles that you hold.
It's about Christ. Do you have fellowship with
Christ on a daily basis? Do you have communion with the
Lord on a daily basis? Jesus then gives 2 images.
The 1st is a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, he says.
So in that region, many cities were elevated and at night their
lamps would be visible from a great distance.
If you've ever driven out West and you've got to go through
Amarillo at night time, you will feel like you're coming into
Amarillo for three hours nearly. You'll see the glow of the
lights and they get closer, it seems, and then you drive and
you drive and you drive and you drive forever until you finally
come into Amarillo. Those of you who have been at
night or shaking your head, all right, that's what it would look
like, right? The light is visible from a
great distance. You, you couldn't conceal the
light of the cities even if you tried.
So the point here, I think that Christ is making is a point of
inevitability. It's inevitable that light will
shine in the darkness. It's inevitable that it will
light up a place. True Christianity then, cannot
remain invisible, Right. And so he adds this, He says,
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.
Right. This little light of mine, I'm
going to let it shine. Yeah, hide it under a bushel.
Oh, no, right. Going to let it shine.
So so no one lights a lamp in order to conceal it.
That that defeats the purpose. All right.
You don't go into the dark with a flashlight and then turn the
flashlight off hoping that'll help you see better.
Lloyd Jones says this. He says that the Christian is
never meant to be secretive in his faith.
He he's not to be obtrusive. He's not to be self advertising,
but neither is he to be hidden there.
There's something about him that cannot be concealed.
Or if you've spent time around a man or a woman who is godly, you
sense the light in their life like you.
You just know these things to be evident and true about them,
right? Sometimes you spend time around
people who you think are godly, and the more you're around them,
the more you realize there's not a lot of light here.
There's a lot of preserving salt about this life, right?
So, so you know what it looks like the question today is not,
who do I know that does this? The question for us is, am I
truly lied? Am I truly salt?
Can I discern these things about my life?
Do I see that I make that I preserve things around me
that'll bring the light of Christ into a Dark World?
Hidden discipleship contradicts the King's design for your life.
I want us to be a little bit careful here because we might
think that that means we should become performative.
But the Christ is not looking for theatrical righteousness,
right? He's not looking for a
performative righteousness where we broadcast our righteousness
to everyone around us. In fact, later in this chapter
he's going to warn against practicing, practicing your
righteousness to be seen by others.
So one, since Christ is saying you will be seen, your good
works will be seen, you will be light.
But in another sense, Christ is going to say we don't practice
righteousness to be seen by others.
You see the difference? The issue is whether our
allegiance to Christ is visible at all that.
Does anyone know that you belong to Christ?
Can they see it in your joy, right in your workplace?
Do they know that you are a Christ follower?
Kids, the people you play on a sports team with, do they know
that you're a Christ follower? In your extended family, often
some of the hardest people to reach.
Do they know that you are a Christ follower?
Not because you're obnoxious. Why?
We don't need obnoxious Christians.
The world has plenty of those. Not.
Not because you're loud, but because your life is holy unto
the Lord, right? If no one can detect your faith
unless they see you on a Sunday morning, then something is
wrong. Because Christ says the city on
the hill cannot be hidden. And if it is hidden, it's not
functioning as it's designed. But light does two things
simultaneously. One, it exposes and two, it
guides. All right.
When light enters a dark room, it reveals what is there.
All right, we, we love it in our house when one of the kids balls
will roll under a couch and we have to take a flashlight and
look under the couch. Patricia loves this, right?
It exposes what's under there, the dust, the disorder, the
things we would rather not see. Right.
But that's uncomfortable. Not as uncomfortable as I'll be
when I go home today, right? Yes.
I'll move the couch as it does. Thank you, Brent.
But first, a nap. John 319 says light has come
into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the
light because their works were evil.
So light confronts sin, right? It's like turning on a light in
a room full of cockroaches. When a Christian refuses to
participate in gossip, darkness is exposed.
But when a believer speaks truth about sexual ethics with
gentleness and conviction, darkness is exposed.
When forgiveness replaces revenge, darkness is exposed.
But but light doesn't only expose that.
I said that was one purpose. Another purpose is that it
guides. Light is a guide, right?
Psalm 119 One O 5 says your word is a lamp unto my feet and a
light unto my path. So light helps people see where
to step. It's it's a guide for them in a
Dark World. But the world is confused.
Surely we can agree on this. It calls evil good and good evil
all the time. It celebrates what destroys it,
mocks what heals it. That's darkness.
There's no way around it. That's darkness.
And into that confusion, the Christian is meant to shine with
clarity now, not like a self-righteous clarity, but with
gospel clarity, A life transformed by the gospel, a
life that proclaims the gospel of a life that lives worthy of
the gospel it's received are the transformed life.
Holiness with compassion, conviction with mercy, truth
with tears. All right, Lord Jones emphasizes
that light is something that inevitably effects others.
It cannot help but do so. So when a true Christian lives
out the Beatitudes, those character traits of a life
transformed, the world notices. Now what I want you to know
about the way the world notices is really what you ought to know
about yourself. When you notice holy things,
sometimes you notice it with attraction, a desire to become
that. Other times you notice it with
hostility. That speaks against my nature,
speaks against my desires. Have you ever been offended
while you're reading God's Word? I have, right?
I should be often offended when reading God's Word.
It should confront me. Often God's Word reads me.
To be honest, I don't read it right.
Light always provokes a response.
Always. It's either going to be hostile
or it'll be desires. Right.
The the question is not whether your life effects others then is
it? The the question is how does it
affect others? Because it does affect others.
The way you live absolutely effects more than just you, it
affects those around you. So, so let me push this in just
a little further. Is your faith public or private?
Does your neighbor? I don't literally mean the
person living next to you, although that might count, just
mean your neighbor. Like the people around you, does
your neighbor see a joy of the Lord in you?
Do they see repentance in you? Do they see forgiveness in your
marriage? Do they see generosity?
Do do they see humility, or are we the kind of people who
proclaim Christ and then carefully seek to contain our
Christianity so that those things wouldn't be seen?
Do your family and your friends know where you stand on truth?
Not not just because you you know you're bold on Facebook,
but because you live it consistently in your own life,
right? Do do your children see you walk
and lied at the home? Do they?
Do they sense light from you and salt from you?
A desire to preserve, a desire to shine for the Lord.
I'll be honest with you, it's easy to shine in this room on
Sundays, isn't it? Let's be honest, it's easy to
show up here to sing songs, to pray, seek the Lord.
It's easy to shine here. We were surrounded by people who
also want to shine. It's a lot harder to shine in my
living room and in my kitchen, A lot harder.
It's harder to shine in a board meeting.
It's harder to shine in a locker room.
It's harder to shine at a family gathering where Christ is not
honored, But that is where light is needed the most.
These are the places that God has called you to.
So the world is not helped by hidden Christians, brothers and
sisters. It's helped by men and women and
boys and girls who have given their life to Christ, who
quietly, steadily, visibly belong to the Lord.
Christ says you are the lot of the world, not because you're
extraordinary, but because a lot of the world has taken residence
in you. So then, brothers and sisters,
we must shine. We must shine not for the
applause of man, not for a great reputation, but because the King
designed you in himself. He's created you for this to
eliminate, illuminate the darkness.
And so now we must ask why? Why does he want us shining?
Verse 16 gives us the ultimate aim here #3 Kingdom citizens
glorify the Father through good works.
Look at verse 16 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.
Do you see that this? This is the ultimate aim.
The ultimate aim is not your own influence.
It's the ultimate aim is not cultural reform.
The ultimate aim is not your reputation.
The ultimate aim in all of life is the glory of the Father.
Perhaps the Westminster Shorter Catechism says it best.
What is the chief end of man? It's to glorify God and enjoy
him forever. That's all right, all right.
He, he will work out all of those things, influence, reform,
reputation, all those things are not our concern, but the Lord
will work those things out as His glory covers the earth like
the waters cover the sea. He will.
We have to trust that. But we're told, let your light
shine before others so that you may, so that they may see your
good works. Jesus is assuming something
here, right? Kingdom citizens will have good
works, all right. And the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus assumes things about Kingdom citizens.
He'll say things like when you pray, not if you pray.
When you pray here, he's saying Kingdom citizens will have good
works. He doesn't say if you happen to
perform a few good deeds this week.
No, he assumes an observable righteousness about your life.
But this is not salvation by works.
Scripture is abundantly clear that we are not saved by the
works that we do. Ephesians 289 says this, For by
grace you have been saved through faith, not a result of
works, so that no one may boast. But if you keep reading, in
verse 10, the apostle Paul writes there for we are his
workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
So you're not saved by your works, you're saved by grace
through faith, but you do become a new creation.
You're his workmanship created in Christ.
Now for good works which God prepared beforehand.
Paul writes so that we may walk in them, right?
So you're not saved by works. We say this around here quite
often, I hope. And I'll say by works you're
saved for works. You're saved to go do good works
for the Lord. Again, Martin Lloyd Jones says
this. He says the Sermon on the Mount
is not a blueprint for how to become a Christian.
It's a description of how Christians live.
So these good works are not the root of salvation.
Christ is the root of our salvation.
All his work is the root of salvation.
These things, these good works we do are the fruit of
salvation. If you you're curious on that,
you may read John 15 later. All right, but we read that
Jesus is the vine and we are the branches that we must abide in
him, for apart from Him we can do nothing.
He goes on to say, if you love me, obey my commandments.
He says, I've written all these things to you so that my joy may
be in you and your joy may be full.
All right. So in other words, the
Beatitudes become visible. You might think about it like
this. We read last week about the poor
in spirit or poverty of spirit. Well, that becomes humility in
conversation. Mercy becomes practical
compassion. Purity of heart becomes
integrity in private. Peacemaking becomes
reconciliation in conflict. You see what these things, the
good works, these things produce, then good, good works
are simply the internal work of grace made visible.
All right? And Jesus says the world should
be able to see your good works, not because you're on a stage
performing them, not because you advertise them, right?
We go get billboards on the bypass and put all our good
works up there. No, just a real life, a genuine
life lived for Christ. People will observe your good
works. Now that confronts on us what
might be a subtle temptation. Some of us are content with an
inward faith that never becomes outward obedience.
All right. We're content to say we do
believe in Christ, but never really let that affect our life
unto obedience. We we affirm sound doctrine,
right? We're members of New Life
Community Church because we were able to affirm the confession of
faith. We even made a profession of
faith. We were baptized or right we we
agree with confessions. We defend truth at times, but
where are the visible works? That's the question, right?
James 217 says this faith by itself, if it does not have
works, is dead. There must be fruits from faith.
If the gospel has truly gripped your heart, it will reshape your
life, but that's undeniable right now.
Here is where this first becomes searching for us because Christ
says so that they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father who is in heaven. Jesus does not say so that they
may see your good works and praise you that that would be
our fleshly instinct. We we like recognition.
Let's let's be honest, it's it's nice when someone recognizes a
good deed. We we like being thought of as
faithful. We like quiet admiration, but
but key Kingdom righteousness redirects the attention upward
again. It's like a mirror reflecting
back to the Lord. The aim, then is that when
people observe your life, they do not say what a remarkable man
Alan Garrett is. No, they say what a gracious God
Alan has. But Lord Jones warns here about
subtle pride. He he points out that it is
impossible to do the right thing.
Sorry. It is possible to do the right
thing for the wrong reason, right?
It's possible to shine in order to be seen.
We're going to read about the Pharisees on the Sermon on the
Mount and how they're guilty of this, that that's precisely what
Jesus is going to condemn later in chapter 6.
He's going to say, beware of practicing your righteousness
before other people in order to be seen by them.
Beware of that. So how do you reconcile?
516 It says light. Let your light shine before men,
that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father in
heaven. And six, one which says, Beware
of practicing your righteousness before others so that you may be
seen by them. The difference becomes motive,
intentions of the hearts. And 516 good works are visible
because obedience cannot be hidden, right?
You're going to live these things out.
It's going to be seen, and the glory then goes to God.
In 6th 1, righteousness is performed in order to gain
applause. It's seeking it.
So one is unavoidable visibility through a life that's been
transformed. The other is a calculated
display. Let me practice this before
others so that they might see my good works and praise me, right?
The Christian does not dim his light to avoid attention.
That's not what Christ is teaching here.
Neither does the Christian position himself to collect
praise, right? We live openly, but we live
humbly before the Lord. And then notice the relational
language that Christ uses. Your Father, not my Father who's
in heaven, your Father who is in heaven.
That's an intimate language, right?
That's making God the Father, our Father.
The world may not know him right there.
We've we, we understand from Romans one that they are
suppressing the truths about him, that God has displayed his
glory in creation. It's a testament to who he is.
And unbelievers suppress that truth.
So the world may not know him, or at least they are suppressing
things about him, but through your life they can see something
of him. When your marriage reflects
covenant faithfulness, Paul's explicitly clear that this is an
image of the gospel of Christ at work.
The way a husband loves his wife like Christ loved the church,
the way a wife submits to her husband like the church submits
to Christ. These things tell the story, so
to speak, of the gospel of Christ.
And so when your marriage reflects covenant faithfulness,
they see something of the Father's steadfast love for his
people. When you forgive someone, they
see something of the Father's mercy.
When you speak truth gently to someone, they see something of
the Father's wisdom. When you endure suffering
without becoming bitter towards God or towards whoever's caused
the suffering, or what have you, they see something of the
Father's sovereign sufficiency in your life.
So your life becomes a window. The question is, does your life
magnify Christ? Now I do want us to be careful.
Many people like to reduce the teachings of Christ to like a
vague niceness, and he was a really nice guy.
Well, Christ is not reducing things to a vague niceness.
He's he's being very specific here.
Jesus says they will see your good works, and these good works
are not to be detached from truth, right?
Titus 210 says believers are to live this way so that in
everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
So our deeds must adorn our doctrine.
We cannot believe the creeds and the confessions.
We cannot say that we believe God's word and then live a life
that is contrary to that. Our deeds must adorn doctrine.
However, your deeds do not. Please hear me.
Your deeds do not replace proclamation, they validate it,
right? Salt and light are not silent
metaphors. You cannot glorify the Father
without people eventually knowing who the Father is.
So witness becomes as salt and light.
Our witness becomes both life and lips.
It's both our deeds and our words.
We live distinctively and we speak clearly.
Brothers and sisters, we show mercy and we proclaim Christ out
loud if we have good works, but we never speak of Jesus.
People are going to admire your morality without ever meeting
your Savior. If we speak loudly about Christ,
What? We live a life that's contrary,
right? Our deeds don't show that we
really love Christ. Then we undermine the message
that we proclaim. You understand what that means?
Like, this is terrifying for me. All right, I'm a preacher.
I'm married to Patricia. I have three sons in the home
with me. They hear me often proclaim
Christ in the pulpit. But if the way I live at home is
contrary to the Christ I proclaim in the pulpit, then I'm
going to produce sons of Satan, most likely.
Maybe they'll hear the word rightly preached.
But I'm going to undo everything that I say if I go live, if I go
live disobediently to God in my home, that this has to affect
the man or woman that you are in places especially like your
home. It has to, right?
We, we can't just encourage our kids to trust the Lord, to
follow him, to use kind words, blah, blah, blah, and then not
do those things ourselves. They're, they're going to look
at your life, they're going to hear the words you're saying,
they're going to look at the way you live and they're going to
say they don't even believe it. Why should I?
It's very, very sobering for me. I hope it is for you.
Kingdom Witness is meant to hold both things together, all right,
Works and words, they should align.
We should have a life that's shaped by the Beatitudes, and we
should have a mouth that's shaped by the gospel.
So let me ask you this. Where is God calling you to
visible obedience right now? Where is God calling you to
visible obedience right now? Is it in your integrity, doing
the right thing all the time, whether someone's watching or
not? Is it your purity?
Is it your faithfulness to God or your faithfulness to your
spouse or to your children? Is it, is it something like
hospitality or justice for mercy, for evangelism, for any
other number of things? I'm going to ask you to ask God,
where are you calling me to obedience right now?
What are you calling me to do today?
Are the good works that grace has prepared for you?
The answer to that would be yes, but are you letting fear or
discomfort delay your obedience? When people look at your life,
do they think more of you or more of your Father in heaven?
Do they walk away impressed with your discipline or are they
drawn to your God? Do they walk?
Do they see a man protecting his reputation or a man who wants
Christ to be honored? Right, the the world doesn't
need polished Christians. Holy Christians, yes.
Polish Christians, no. We need transparent Christians,
men and women who are so clearly dependent on grace that when
obedience shows up, God gets the credit for it.
That's the aim, right? The aim is not cultural
applause. The aim as a church is not
church growth metrics. In fact, we would need to be
doing the opposite of what I'm teaching today to employ church
growth metrics. The the aim is not personal
platforms. The the aim is that in Magnolia
and beyond, there would be men and women and boys and girls who
look at the lives of believers and say God must be real.
That's why we shine, right? That that's why we live
distinctively. That's why the king has placed
you in a dark and decaying world.
It's not for yourself. It's for the glory of your
Father in heaven. It's for the good of your
neighbor. So what would this look like if
we obeyed it? If we said, Lord, I see Matthew
513 through 16, that you have called me the light of the
world, the salt, or you have the light of the world, the salt of
the earth. You want me to shine before
others so that they may see your my good works and glorify You.
Father, what would this look like for me to obey it?
Where are You calling me to obedience?
I want to offer some pictures of what this might look like, just
briefly. It would look like husbands who
lovingly lead their wives with steady conviction, men who open
their Bibles, men who walk humbly with the Lord, men who
protect and provide for their families and their churchmen.
It would look like wives who joyfully submit to their
husbands and the Lord with strength and dignity, not weak,
but strong in faith, steady and love, shaping their homes with
grace. It would look like parents who
take seriously the command to raise their children in the
discipline and instruction of the Lord, not outsourcing
discipleship to the church, not leaving formation to the screens
that they have in their hands, but intentionally teaching them,
correcting them, modeling for them, praying for them.
It would look like teenagers, young men and women who love the
Lord, who fear God more than any fear of missing out on
something. Young men and women who prize
holiness and pursue purity. Young men and women who tell the
truth even when it costs them socially.
It would look like business owners and employees who refuse
dishonesty, who who would rather absorb loss than compromise
righteousness. It would look like church
members who move toward one another when there's tension
between them, seeking reconciliation instead of
harboring resentment. And it would look like 1000
other things that God would do among us.
But what would Magnolia see all the people around you see?
What would your families and your homes see?
What would your your fellow church members see?
Well, they would see salt. They would see that decay is
being slowed, that corruption is being restrained, that Holmes
are being strengthened. The truths spoken in love.
They they would see the light, which will bring clarity to
confusion. It would bring hope and sorrow,
stability and chaos, joy that doesn't depend on your
circumstances. And slowly, maybe sometimes
quietly, maybe sometimes dramatically, right, people
would begin asking questions. Why are you different?
Why? Why do you forgive that person
who's wronged you? Why do you endure suffering with
so much peace? Why?
Why do you care about holiness so much?
And your answer would be because I belong to the King of Heaven.
I'm a citizen of His Kingdom. He's made me the light of the
world, the salt of the earth, by His marvelous grace.
Church. It's about faithful presence.
That's what Christ is teaching here.
You're called to be salt and light.
So let me speak plainly to those of you in here who believe
today. You believe Christ.
You've trusted him with your life.
Where have you been blending in? Where has fear silenced your
obedience? Where has comfort dulled your
distinctiveness? Where has private compromise
weakened public witness? I urge you, repent of those
things. Return to Christ, draw near to
Him. Let his grace reshape you.
Do not shine by trying harder today.
That's not the message. You shine by abiding deeper, and
if Christ is central in your life, the light will come, the
salt will be. Evidence may also speak to
anyone here who is not a Christian.
You've not yet repented of your sins and placed your faith in
Christ. I want you to understand you
cannot be salt if you are still a part of the decay.
You cannot be light if you are still in the darkness.
The problem is not nearly merely that the world is dark.
The problem is that you are dark by nature.
Right. Scripture says in Romans 323
that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of
God. We saw in Romans one that we are
suppressors of truth. We see throughout the Scriptures
that we love ourselves more than we love God.
And that is why decay exists in the world.
That's why darkness exists. It begins in the human heart.
But here's the good news that the true light has come into the
world. Jesus Christ, the true light,
lived the perfectly distinct life that you have not lived and
cannot live. He obeyed where you have
compromised. He has shown His light without
dimming, and when He went to the cross for our sin, what we see
there is that on the cross the judgment we deserve for our
rebellion fell on Him, and three days later, after his death, He
rose from the dead, conquering sin and death.
And now Christ calls you to repent and to believe, to turn
from your sins, to trust Him as your Savior, and to be united to
the light. Only then will you be able to
shine as a light in the darkness.
Church, this is Our Calling. In a dark and decaying world.
We reflect God's glory through faithful presence and good
works. We're not going to do it
perfectly. We won't do it Florida State,
but we can do it genuinely. We can be faithful here,
faithful when we fail, and faithful and we succeed.
So let us leave here today resolved to be distinct without
being harsh, to be visible without being prideful, to be
courageous without being arrogance, to be holy without
being self-righteous. Because Kingdom citizens reflect
God's glory through their faithful presence and good works
in the dark and decaying world. And may it be said of this
Church of New Life Community Church, not that we were
impressive, but that our Father in Heaven was glorified and all
that we said and did and thought, Amen.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word today. We thank you that you have
called us as Christians salt of the earth, light of the world.
You've called us out of darkness and put us, brought us into
marvelous lights. You've made us new creatures in
Christ. You've made it possible through
regeneration for us to live a life that honors and glorifies
your great name. That's the aim of all of this,
Lord, is that we would glorify you.
And so I ask now, Father, that you would help us to examine our
hearts, to examine our minds, to examine our actions and our
words, and to see to see where we've been unfaithful, where we
just quite honestly haven't wanted to obey your commands in
our life, where we've pridefully, arrogantly stood
against you. God, would you reveal that as
painful as it is, would you reveal those things to us?
And would you lead us into repentance?
Romans tells us that it's the kindness of the Lord that leads
us to repentance. So, Lord, let us be drawn to you
by your kindness. Give us lives that reflect your
glory as we become salt and light.
And Lord, I pray also for those who do not believe today.
Would you draw them to yourself this morning?
Let nothing hinder them from coming.
God, would you grant them faith and repentance by Your grace?
Would you create in them a new heart, a right spirit with you?
Would you grant to them your Holy Spirit and give them, make
them new creations washed by regeneration and renewal of the
Holy Spirit, that they might become the kind of people who
adorn the gospel with their deeds?
I'm going to give you a moment. Now they're in your seat to
reflect on the message, the questions that have been
proposed, the words of Christ that we've read today, and to
respond to the Lord faithfully now.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your kindness toward us.
God, we thank you for the faithful life of Christ.
He was perfect without sin, without blemish, without spot or
wrinkle. Because of your great love, You
sent Him to give Himself for us, to become a sacrifice for us so
that we might truly live to be reconciled to God the Father, to
walk in fellowship with you. He's our mediator in heaven.
He's our advocate. And so when we have sinned, when
we have erred, we have an advocate before you, Christ our
Lord, so we can repent and we can trust that you are faithful
and just to forgive us our sins. Lord, we thank you for these
promises, for these truths. God, would you help us to live
as lights in the world. Salt in the earth helps to
glorify your great name, to honor our Father in heaven.
In the name of Christ I pray. Amen.