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Salt and Light: Living Righteously in an Entitlement Culture
Text: Genesis 2:1-2; 3:15, Exodus 23:12; Colossians 3:23-24; 1 Corinthians 10:31
Theme: In a culture that increasingly “expects” the nanny state to take care of them, how should Christians living out being salt and light?
Date: 11/17/2013 File Name: Salt_and_Light_05.wpd
Sermon ID: 27
Christians are called to be Salt and Light.
We are to live righteously in an unrighteous world as an example of God's ability to changes lives.
There are certain behaviors and vices and activities we should not participate in.
Not because we’re Baptists and Baptists don’t do certain things.
Rather, because we’re Followers of Jesus who is the Christ.
In His Sermon of the Mount, Jesus told the crowd, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled," (Matthew 5:6).
First and foremost that is a reference to His saving righteousness which brings eternal life.
But He also calls us to care about living righteously in this world.
Just a few verses later, Jesus goes on to say:
"You are the salt of the earth.
But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
"You are the light of the world.
A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
" (Matthew 5:13-16, NIV)
These are powerful metaphors.
Salt is a preservative that works only when it penetrates into food, and becomes useless when contaminated or diluted by other substances.
It must remain pure to do its job.
Jesus says that Christians, likewise, must penetrate society while keeping themselves from being influenced by sin in the world.
Similarly, light penetrates darkness.
To know the truth and fail to stand for it, Jesus says, is as senseless as lighting a lamp and putting it under a basket.
In other words, we’re not created to merely live out our faith inside the walls of our church and home.
We are not to be “of the world” but we are compelled “to be in the world.”
We are citizens of an Eternal Kingdom, who must participate in a fallen, reprobate culture as we seek to extend God’s Kingdom among the kingdoms of the earth.
One of the areas of life in which we need to be examples is in our work.
Every able body Christian is to work.
And when you work, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.
Our last topic in this “Salt and Light” series is living righteously in an Entitlement Culture.
I. THE BIBLICAL TEXT
• “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
(Genesis 2:1–2, NIV)
• “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
(Genesis 2:15, NIV)
• “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.”
(Exodus 23:12, NIV)
• “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
(Colossians 3:23–24, NIV)
1. from these texts and others, Christians understand labor as a duty
a. we discover in Genesis 2:15 that God put Adam in the Garden to work it and take
care of it
b. in Exodus 23:12 we’re told that our labor is for six days, and after that comes a day
of leisure and rest
2. what we sometimes forget is that labor is also a gift from which we reap blessings
a. God created us able to work—to manipulate things, to cultivate the ground, to
manage herds, and to invent microprocessors
b. furthermore, labor is a gift in that we can often see the result of our labors ...
1) the farmer sees the result of his labors in the orderly rows of crops
2) the carpenter sees the result of his labors in the beauty of his cabinet
3) the teacher sees the result of her labors in the education of students
4) the doctor is fulfilled in the recovering patient
5) the pastor is satisfied in the changed lives of his parishioners
3. still, many people have difficulty seeing labor—especially their own labor—as a gift
A. GOD AT WORK SETS THE EXAMPLE FOR US
1. Genesis 2:2 tells us that God had finished the work he had been doing
a. God is a worker
1) most of us don’t think of God this way, but that is how He initially reveals Himself
in the Scriptures
b.
God is not idle—He is active in the universe He creates
1) and even though we’re told that God rested on the seventh day, it means that
God rested from His creative work, but not His sustaining work
2. God is not sitting on His throne merely admiring the handiwork of His universe
a. this was the Deist view of God—that He is like some great supernatural watchmaker
who created the universe, wound it up and now simply watches it tick by
b. the Biblical view is that God Created and continues to actively Sustains the created
order
c. this is the truth behind one of the great Christological passages of the New
Testament
"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
(Colossians 1:15–17, NIV)
1) Jesus holds the material universe together—not only did Jesus create the
universe, He also sustains it—He maintains the delicate balance necessary to life's existence
4. the point? the Godhead is still at work in the universe He created
a. this leaves mankind an example to follow
B. MAN WAS CREATED TO WORK AND EMULATE GOD IN SO DOING
1. work is forever rooted in God's design for human life because we are God’s co-workers
a. our vocations are an avenue that allow us to contribute to the common good and as
a means of providing for ourselves, our families, and those we can bless with our generosity
2. God, therefore, invests work with intrinsic value and honor
a. Christians error when we divide life into two disconnected parts—the “sacred” and
the “secular”
1) we have been fooled into thinking that there is “God” and the “spiritual dimension
of our life”
a) this is what we do on Sunday and, perhaps if there is time, on Wednesday
evenings
2) then there is “Us” and the “real dimension of our lives”, including work and
everything else and the two have nothing to do with each other
a) God stays in His corner of the universe while I go to work and live my life, and
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