Be Different
Notes
Transcript
What does it take to make a difference in the world? Everyone wants to know that their life matters. The older you get, the more you have a tendency to take inventory of your life to see how you have made a difference. Often times, that is seen in the legacy of children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren. But regardless of whether one has children, we want to know that our life on this earth made a difference. The question is how?
In the day of social media influencers and a camera in every pocket, anybody can become instantly famous. The average young person looks to social media followers. My nephew wants to be a professional baseball player. Some want to be actors. There is a tendency to believe that you have to be immortalized to matter. But what does Jesus say about living a life that makes a difference? This is what we will look at today.
Last week we began with looking at the introduction of the Sermon on the Mount with the section known as the Beatitudes. Today, we take a look at two metaphors. There is a cause and effect relationship between these two passages. Jesus is teaching that there is a direct correlation between attitude and action. I said last week that who you are will always determine what you do. What Jesus emphasized with the beatitudes was that being is more important than doing. God first cares about our character, then our conduct. As we dive into the next part of the sermon, we will see the transition from being to doing.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Let’s examine the meaning of these two metaphors more closely. These verses are within Jesus’ opening remarks, so we are still in the introduction of the message. He began with discussing who the people in God’s kingdom are, not with what the people in God’s kingdom do. These verses begin the transition to the discussion of what God’s people do. So he uses these metaphors which compare the people of God to salt and light to illustrate such a transition.
The people in God’s kingdom are the salt of the earth. Now, you have probably heard numerous sermons talking about the characteristics of salt. You have heard that salt is a preservative. They did not have refrigeration in the first century, so they used salt to preserve meats. The fishing business was in Galilee, but the major market was in Jerusalem. How do you get fish from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south? You salt the fish, so it prevents decay.
You know how salt can liven up a dish. The key to great guacamole is the right amount of salt. Have you ever just mashed up avocados and ate them? Boring! Add some salt, some pepper, garlic, and maybe a little lime juice and you are on your way to flavor town! Salt may be the missing ingredient in your next meal you cook. It livens up a dish. It enhances the flavor of whatever it touches.
Salt also creates thirst. Have you ever eaten just one potato chip? One night we were sitting on the couch and Marci brought a bag of pretzels. I told myself I was only going to eat one handful. Six or seven handfuls later, we had cleared about 70 percent of the bag! When salt hits your tongue, you begin to salivate and you begin to crave more of what you are consuming.
In the same way, the people of God, as the salt of the earth, preserve its decay. A meaningful Christian presence in the world keeps the world from descending into lawlessness. You don’t have to look far to see the effects of abandoning Judeo-Christian values in a society. As we continue to grow into a post-Christian nation, we see an abandonment of an objective morality in favor of one that is subjective. The issue is that morality becomes a matter of opinion, yet there are still universal morals that apply to every culture in every time period. We point to an objective moral standard beyond ourselves and rooted in God as the moral law giver.
While the number of voices claiming Christianity and religion in general poisons everything is growing, people often forget that it was people of faith and belief in a creator that gave rise to modern sciences. The abolition of the slave trade came from Christian influence in Europe and in America. When Christianity is lived authentically under the rule of Christ, it largely benefits society rather than harms it. It is when we are not living under Christ’s authority that the next part of verse 13 comes into play.
When the salt loses its saltiness, it is no longer good for anything. It becomes trash for other people to walk on. Notice though that this is not a matter of one’s salvation. It is a matter of testimony. If the church ceases to be the church under Christ’s control, the salt loses its saltiness. It becomes good for nothing.
You are salt to penetrate society with the truth.
You are salt to penetrate society with the truth.
When the church ceases to engage the culture, and ceases to live out biblical principles, we lose our testimony. We contaminate the salt. The salt loses its saltiness. When the church looks like the world around it, the church has lost its basic function.
The second metaphor is light. Jesus calls his disciples the light of the world. Simply put, light illuminates darkness. Light reveals what darkness conceals. If you walk into an unlit room in your house in the middle of the night, you don’t assume there is nothing in there, do you? Of course not. You will walk in and start bumping into stuff. When you turn the light on, you see the room exactly for what it is.
The apostle John uses the imagery of light and darkness often in his writing to illustrate this concept. Sin has darkened this world and everyone is walking around in it unaware of what is truly taking place. You are the light of the world. Christ has placed you in the world to show people what the true situation is. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. If you are driving down the road at night, you can see the light from nearby towns from far away. In the same way, nobody buys a lamp and puts it under a basket. If you do, it does not achieve its purpose.
When the power goes out at my house, I have discovered the best thing to do is not walk around with a flashlight pointed at the floor in front of me. It gives me such a limited view. Instead, I turn the flashlight toward the ceiling and set it on a table. Light begins to fill the whole space and then I can see more of the room. Don’t hide your light under a basket. It will never achieve its intended purpose. Rather, the people of God are to let their light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds and Glorify their father in heaven.
You are light to illuminate your world.
You are light to illuminate your world.
We hide our light under a basket when we keep our Christian walk hidden from others. When we live as closet believers, we are not shining our light before men so they may see our good works and glorify their father in heaven. When we confine our Christian walk to the walls of a building, we hide it under a basket. We have to keep engaging and keep shining so people can see the truth and respond to it.
If the salt loses its saltiness, it no longer is good for anything but to be trampled under foot by men. A lamp hidden under a basket is ineffective in lighting up a room. Churches close when they cease to be effective in their essential functions.The Great Commission tells us that our chief purpose is to make disciples, but we are to do this as we go. As we are in the community, we are to be salt and light. Notice that even then this is more about being than doing. If we are going to make a difference, we are going to have to be different.
How do we be different?
Being different requires proximity. Salt is effective when it comes into contact with the thing it is preserving or enhancing. There is no space between light and darkness. It is not as if you can salt food without the salt actually touching the food. There is no space between the light in the room and the darkness that remains. It is not as if there is a third space that something else occupies. For us to be effective as Christians, we must be proximate to those who need the gospel. We serve them. We befriend them. We build trust. Then we give them the hope of eternal life in Christ. The good news is I am working with an organization that will help us do that in the digital space. What we are hoping for in the next five years is to see an increase of people aged 40 and under. What if we can meet them where they already are? On their devices. I’m working on a strategy that will do just that.
The second thing is to be different we have to resist dilution. Salt loses its potency as it is exposed to contaminants. It begins to lose its saltiness. Light begins to lose brightness as you add a diffuser to it. When we allow our pursuit of holiness to be tainted by unrepentant sins, our salt gets tasteless. Our light gets dimmer. When we lose our intimacy with God, our effectiveness dulls.
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
To visit orphans and widows is to be proximate. To keep oneself unstained by the world is to resist dilution. Are you proximate or withdrawn? Are you looking more like Jesus, or more like the world around you. I’m not talking about your public persona. I’m talking about the person you are when nobody’s eyes are on you. Are you resisting sin? Do you have a regular habit of connecting with the Lord each day? Is that something you struggle with? Let’s start gaining victory in these areas of our lives.
Are you ready to make a difference? Begin by committing to be different.