The Church of Salt and Light

1
The Church of Salt and Light

• Matthew 513-16

2
The Church of Salt and Light

• The kingdom of God is the theme of Jesus sermon
  on the mount.
• beatitudes or blessings
• eight beatitudes in Mt.53-12 (53-10?)
• In the beatitudes, Jesus teaches about our
  attitude toward ourselves, toward sin, toward
  God, and toward the world around us.
• In the verses we are looking at today, Jesus
  preaches about living out the kingdom attitudes
  of the beatitudes.

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The Church of Salt and Light

• Jesus is preaching here about our witness to the
  world.
• Jesus preaches in 513-16 that if we live out the
  kingdom values of the beatitudes, we will become
  witnesses for God because we will be like salt
  and light.

4
1) We are salt

• Mt.513 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 by men.
• The most important use of salt was to keep food
  from going bad.
• Only the purest or best salt could be used in the
  kitchen for preserving.
• The salt collected from the salt marshes near the
  Dead Sea was not always totally pure.

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1) We are salt

• When impure salt ended up in the kitchen, it
  would be discarded because it could no longer be
  of any use in cooking.
• In Jesus day, salt was placed aside for future
  use on the pathways of the city, where it would
  be walked on.
• The temple had a small storeroom for discarded
  salt.
• During the winter rainy season this discarded
  salt was taken from the storeroom in the temple
  and scattered on the marble courtyards of the
  temple to reduce slipperiness.
• Salt was also used on the flat roofs of houses.

6
1) We are salt

• When Jesus refers to salt that has lost its
  saltiness, he means the salt has been mixed with
  so many impurities that it no longer has any
  useful purpose in the kitchen.
• Its only remaining purpose is to be scattered in
  places where people walk.
• When Jesus preached that we are to be the salt of
  the earth, he meant we are to be a preservative
  influence in our society.
• We are to live out or model the values and norms
  of the Kingdom of God.

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1) We are salt

• We are to be people who are meek (v.5), merciful
  (v.7), pure (v.8), peace loving (v.9), and joyful
  in the face of trials (v.12).
• By telling his disciples that they were the salt
  of the earth Jesus is instructing us to be a
  certain kind of people, rather than to do a
  certain kind of thing.
• 2 Cor.517 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he
  is a new creation the old has gone, the new has
  come!

8
1) We are salt

• Gal.522-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
  faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
• Part of our mission in life is to be this moral
  disinfectant and preservative.
• As we live in this manner, we bear witness to
  God, our heavenly Father.

9
2) We are light

• Mt.514-16 You are the light of the world. A
  city 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 men, that they may
  see your good deeds and praise your Father in
  heaven.
• In Jesus day, cities built on hills could not be
  hidden.
• Cities were usually built from white limestone.
• At night the oil lamps from the homes of the city
  would reflect on the white limestone.

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2) We are light

• In the same way that the Jewish people arranged
  their oil lamps to shine as much light as
  possible, so the followers of Jesus are to shine
  brightly for God by doing good deeds.
• We show unbelievers that we are different by
  doing good, just as light is different than
  darkness.
• In Jesus metaphor of salt, the emphasis is on
  being a certain kind of people.
• In Jesus metaphor of light, the emphasis is on
  doing good things.

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2) We are light

• 1 Pet. 211-12 Dear friends, I urge you, as
  aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain
  from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
  Live such good lives among the pagans that,
  though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may
  see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he
  visits us.
• To avoid sin is to be a certain kind of person.
• It is like being salt in our world.
• To live good lives and to do good deeds is like
  being light in our world.

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Application Questions

• We are to be the salt of the earth and the light
  of the world.
• We are to be witnesses to God both by who we are
  and by what we do.
• 1) Do you display the values of the kingdom of
  God by who you are?
• When we display the kingdom values Jesus spells
  out for us in the beatitudes, we are being
  Christian witnesses for God.
• A credible witness for God begins by becoming the
  kind of people Jesus preaches about in the
  beatitudes.

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Application Questions

• 2) Do you display the values of the kingdom of
  God by what you do?
• Does your lifestyle display the values of the
  kingdom?
• 3) How do our good deeds point toward God?
• Mt.516 Let your light shine before men, that
  they may see your good deeds and praise your
  Father in heaven.
• Good deeds can be done by Buddhists and atheists
  as well as by Christians.
• So how do people around us attribute our good
  deeds to our faith in the God of the Bible?

14
Application Questions

• How do our good deeds witness to the truth and
  salvation found in our God?
• Acts 18 ...you will be my witnesses in
  Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
  the ends of the earth
• The believers in the book of Acts certainly
  witnessed by who they were and by what they did.
• But they also verbalized their faith.
• As we do our good deeds, we need to make sure we
  are also verbalizing our faith so that people
  will come to know and to praise our God.