Matthew 5: 13-16

[0:00] to kind of explore God's kind of intentions for us as we build out our everyday work.! Now we're going to get back into the Sermon on the Mount. So if you kind of new coming here, we've been working through the book of Matthew. So we've come up to the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus' first large chunk of teaching. Up to this point, we have gone through the Beatitudes. And so we're going to jump back in. Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 5. We're going to be looking at 13 through 16 today. So if you have your Bibles, turn there and be great. If you don't, there should be Bibles in the back where I try to mark it for you. So we're going to be looking at a Christian's call to be salt and light in this world. But before we get there, I'm going to go ahead and read the Sermon on the Mount, or just the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, so we can get some context. Then I'll pray and we'll jump into it.

[0:50] So starting in chapter 5, verse 1. Seeing the crowds, he went up to the mountain. And when he had sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor and spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

[1:15] Blessed are the meat, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger, for they 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 peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 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. And 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. And 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. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, as you come before this text, we pray that you would give us understanding, that you would help us just to see what a magnificent role you've given us in the world. Lord, we see that both salt and light impact the things that they touch. And you have called us salt and light.

[2:36] You have given us a part in your ministry and your plan to restore this world, to save people's hearts, to point people towards you, to bring yourself glory. Lord, I pray that you would just impact us with the gift, the honor of being your teammates in this call. Lord, we don't deserve it. You have poured your grace upon us. And then you've given us the honor to join you in your mission in this world. Lord, I know how insufficient my communication ability is sometimes. Lord, how things can be confused. And I know many of us are tired.

[3:16] I'm tired, Lord. But Lord, I am excited about this text and what it can mean for our impact in this area and our impact for your kingdom and for your glory. And so, Lord, I pray that in your grace, you might just equip us with your spirit to understand your word and to be empowered to live in the truth that you laid out here. It is profound. It is encouraging.

[3:37] And I pray that we might walk in the gifts that you give us. Through the power of your Son, may you change us and make us salt and light for this world so that people will see you and give you glory and praise your name and be changed. Amen.

[3:50] So, Marla, Marla is a 70-year-old lady who lived in a small trailer in an unremarkable trailer park on a seedy side of town. She had been blind for 25 years. She had memorized the seven steps from her living room to her kitchen and the 12 steps from her bedroom to her living room.

[4:13] That was her world. Never a complaint came out of her mouth. Never a moment of unthankfulness. She loved the word of God, but she couldn't read it. Instead, she listened to radio preachers and recorded their scripture readings. She listened to those tapes repeatedly, and over the years, she committed a vast portion of scripture to memory. Her morning devotional time with the Lord became the highlight every day, and she played her mental tapes and meditated upon scripture. And she prayed. And when she prayed, she gave missionaries, pastors, friends, and family. She called prayer, taking a tour. She pretended to go to Philadelphia or Ohio or St. Louis or somewhere on the mission field, wherever they all might be.

[4:58] She prayed for each person as if they were in the same room. If you visit her, she'd say, hey, I visited you last week. And we knew what she meant. She meant that she had prayed for you.

[5:11] Despite her dedication to scripture and prayer, her personal time with the Lord was constantly interrupted. She lived with a bitter, angry, brutal man. He had lost everything in the Depression, but more than money, he had lost his soul. He was angry. He hated everything. And he abhorred her faith.

[5:27] He hated the theology of the church. He mocked his programs. The church, he said, was just a shallow business, a time and place to collect money. It drove him crazy when he saw her praying silently at the breakfast table. He hated when her lips moved while reciting yet another passage of scripture to herself. Yet his attacks couldn't dampen her seal for the Lord.

[5:50] It could not weaken her love for his word. It could not rob her of her ministry of prayer. Marla's situation was hard and sometimes very discouraging, but she resisted her husband's unholy word. She responded with remarkable perseverance, with love that could not be anything less than divine. She prayed each morning knowing that she wouldn't get through her prayer, knowing that in his anger he would deliberately interrupt her time with her God.

[6:16] On Sunday night, that man, now much older, stood in front of a congregation of leaders and asked to be baptized. They asked him to give the story of coming to Christ. And with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face, he said in a bravely voice, I could argue against the theology of the church.

[6:33] I could argue against its programs. I could argue against its economics. But I could not argue against this woman's life. Her kindness, her love, her faith, her zeal broke the back of my anger.

[6:47] So I open with this illustration because this life that Marla lived was not a life that she generated. It was a life that was generated by the God who had saved her, by the living King, Jesus. And this is kind of the analogy we get with salt and light. We are people that have been changed by the redeemer of the world. And so we can have an impact, an impact that's not mechanical, not manufactured, but an impact that is from the Holy Spirit and from the Lord. So my goal is today. I've got a couple of goals. I want you to understand what it means to be salt and light. It's a powerful word picture and I hope you can understand. And I want you to experience afresh just the honor of being called to be a part of God's rescue plan for his people, for his world. I want you to be amazed by how deep of an impact you can have.

[7:40] And I want to equip you to contend for this impact by highlighting the enemies of what an effective Christian life is supposed to look like. And finally, I want you to be rooted in the goal of this Christian impact. The ultimate goal is the glory of God. So we'll do a little context. This passage starts out, it's very forward and it's very confident. It quite boldly and simply says, you are the light of the world. And so you're the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

[8:15] But before we get into what it means to be salt and light, we must first understand who it is. Who is this you are that Jesus is talking to? Our first and primary clue comes from the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5, verse 1, Jesus says, or Jesus, seeing the crowds went up to the mountains, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him. So the you, in this time of Jesus, teaching were his disciples, those who followed him. And so this is true today. The you refers to those who follow Jesus. The you is the people of God. And therefore, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, the you is you. And I think this can be kind of convicting because we see like, like Jesus is saying, you are salt and light of the earth and of the world. And as we'll look, we'll see that both of these things have a great impact on anything that touches. Right? And so I think sometimes we can, we can want to, we want to shy away from that and be like, no, no, it was mainly meant for those people then. But the context of Matthew doesn't let us make that assumption.

[9:18] For one of the main things that Matthew has been teaching thus far in the book is to show us how Jesus is the true fulfillment of all that the people of Israel are supposed to be. It is subsequently that through Jesus, God is making a new people for himself. So we see this in lots of ways throughout the book. But even now we see that Jesus is coming up to the mountains. This is kind of imagery of the original given law. And he's giving the new covenant. And this is a new covenant that's fulfilled in Christ for the sake of his people. So he has created new people in himself. So the you here is you. You are a new creation in Christ. So you are supposed to be salt and light, and you will have an impact according to what we have seen so far. But we also want to keep this passage within the context of the Sermon on the Mount.

[10:14] So what person is this salt and light? What's this beatitude type person, right? As we discussed throughout this series of the Beatitudes, that this type of person can only be like have that kind of characteristics because Jesus was that person who is then making us people like himself. So we kind of came to this in in two ways in the Beatitudes. We see that as we read the Beatitudes, it calls us to a really high standard, right? And so the Beatitudes really force us to run to Christ in two ways. We must first run to him as our savior because if we're honest with ourselves, whether it's the Beatitudes or whether it's even this text about salt and light, we actually we can't live out everything that we're called to, right? And so we must run to him as our savior, the one who forgives us. But he still calls us to do that. And so then we must run to Christ, our savior, as one who then enables us and makes us new and helps us become this type of person describing the Beatitudes. So the you here, the salt and the light of the earth is this person who has been changed and reshaped in the character of Christ by Christ himself.

[11:28] Another simple observation we should make here is that the people Christ is addressing are simple, unimpressive people, right? The message of salt and light was not given to the religious leaders of the day. It was given to his ragtag bunch of disciples, right? They were people that society needed in esteem. And then Christ takes these people and says, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, right? And so he's taking people that isn't seen by much in the eyes of the world and he's calling them. And so we see this with Marla, right? Marla, it wasn't this the case.

[12:04] Marla was old, she was blind, she was poor, and she was unloved by her husband. But boy did her life speak to the blessings of God. And so it is with you. God is not impressed by your charm, by your wit, by your skill, by your personality. But in spite of all your failings, he has given you a high and honorable task. He has called you to be a crucial part of his rescue plan for his world.

[12:26] So now we're going to jump into the salt and light analogy. We're going to dig into that a little bit and see what that looks like for us, what we need to understand. And so as we're going to look at it, we're going to look at it in four different ways. We're going to see that it has an assumed impact.

[12:37] So if you are salt and light, you will impact. There's an adversary of this impact. We'll see the area or the realm in which we as Christians are to impact, and then we'll finally see the aim of this impact. So starting out, we'll look at the assumed impact.

[12:56] What is the Christian supposed to be like? Well, salt and light, again, that's pretty easy. That's pretty simple. So we're going to look at salt, and we're going to look at light, and we're going to break them up. And we're going to kind of dig into these analogies. And in order to do this, we must see what salt was used for. So we'll start with salt. What was salt used for in that day and age? Christ 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 but to be cast out and trampled their stupid feet. So in Jesus' day, salt had two primary purposes. It was to preserve food, and it was to add flavor. So nowadays, we've got refrigerators, we've got freezers, we've got vacuum ceilings, we've got all kinds of ways, dehydrators, all kinds of ways to preserve food.

[13:35] But back in Jesus' time, salt was the main way. And because of that, salt was a very precious commodity. It was even traded on the open market. It was even used as a currency in some cases.

[13:46] So we see that salt in this context is valuable because it preserves food, but it also adds taste to food. And you kind of see this. It says, but if salt has lost its taste, so we see that there's a value for its taste. And you know what, salt has kind of those similar processes or points today, right?

[14:08] We still use it because it adds flavor, and we still use it because it preserves food. When I was in college, I had a friend who took a serving of McDonald's french fries. He thought it'd be fun to stick in his parents' closet.

[14:22] And so three years later, when I came upon his little experiment, I was amazed to see that these fries looked like they could just be an hour old, right? There was no formal decay looking on it, right? And it turns out, I did a little, looking into this, it turns out that it's like a lot of people like to do that. So there's all kinds of people that take different fast foods, hamburgers, whatever, leave it unrefrigerated for a long time and just kind of observe the process.

[14:46] So a lot of people attribute to all the preservatives in that. But as I looked into this, it's really the salt and the dryness of the food. So salt preserves food because it pulls out the moisture and also kills bacteria. So when there's no moisture, no more bacteria can grow, it also kind of kills what the bacteria is. And so what they say is mainly this preserving effect is due to the salt and the low water content in this food. So all this is to say, oh yeah, and then the fast food industries, right? They take, they load their buns with sugar to kind of offset the salt in the meat. And it kind of gives you that nice like one, two salty sweet combo that adds flavor, right? So we still use salt for flavor and to preserve things today. And I think this is the main point of what Jesus is trying to call us to be as Christians. And I think the story is fun, but really what I want to show is that salt has an impact, right? I was talking to a friend about this passage and he says, you don't put salt on a steak, eat the steak and say, or you eat the steak and say, wow, that steak is salty. You don't say, oh, that salt is steaky, right? Salt is the one that has the impact.

[16:02] Salt is the one that makes the change. And so we see what salt is working against, right? It's working against like tastelessness, it's adding flavor, and it's also kind of working against decay. So it preserves and adds flavor.

[16:24] So you're saying that, so if we apply this to the Christian life, we see that the Christian is intended to have a deep impact on the world around him.

[16:39] And this impact should preserve and add flavor, add taste, add substance to the world. So you say, how does this work? So we'll run through one of the Beatitudes real quick. What does this actually look like? Well, one way, let's take the man who is poor in spirit, right?

[16:57] The Beatitudes says, blessed with a poor spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And we'll see how this man both preserves and adds flavor to life. So the salty man here is the man who is utterly humble.

[17:08] He is referred to by Jesus as poor in spirit. As we looked at a few weeks back, this is a man who recognizes his utter need for God. And this need has dropped, drives into him, drives humility into him in his core. But it's not simply humility before God, but it's humility before others as well. For how could one who is utterly indebted to God's grace hold any kind of pride over somebody else?

[17:34] And now consider what happens when you come across a man who is just completely humble, right? You're immediately softened by his humility. And you're softened because the pride inside of you no longer sees this man as a threat, right? This man is utterly humble. And so you don't need to fight for your own place because this man is genuine and humble, right? And so in this way, this humble man is preserving the person who would want to fight him in their pride and thus restraining the person's need to rise up in pride. And we see it in flavors. So let's back to the same guy, the humble guy, right?

[18:13] It adds flavors as taste, right? So one thing about pride is pride is very tiresome to maintain, right? So if you're always trying to prove yourself or confirm yourself, you're always working for different ways to do that. And reality doesn't always meet what you want to see as yourself. And so your pride is working in overdrive all the time, right? So a man who's built around his own appearance, built on his own pride is a tired man, right? But this ultimately humble man, right, is a man who adds flavor to life because he is one who realizes his deep need for grace and has a God who has given it to him, right? This man doesn't have to fight for his own kingdom because he's been given the kingdom of heaven, right? And so we see that this humble man then shows this prideful man where life is truly found, where joy is really found, where rest is really found. In this way, he has any taste, he has any flavor to life.

[19:08] And we see this is the case with Marla, right? Let's look again at Marla and her husband. Marla's husband said that her life had broken the back of his anger. You see, Marla's salty life preserved her husband's anger because her life pointed him to a savior who could rescue him from that anger.

[19:26] So ultimately, as Christians, we through our lives are pointing people to a resource that can actually change them, right? And so this, the Christians' main preservative role in the world, we preserve the world from its own moral decay primarily by introducing them to a savior who can actually do something about it.

[19:44] All right, let's turn to light. Light's role is to illuminate and highlight truth. So Jesus says in verse 14, 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 those 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. So I think, so what I want to show with the salt is that salt has impact, right? It changes the substance that it's applied to, right? And the same thing with light. So we see that light has impact. First off, light always impacts darkness, right? Light expels darkness. Darkness is the absence of light, but when light comes on, the darkness always yields, right? So you walk into a dark room and you turn the lights on, the darkness goes away. Light always impacts darkness and it's not the other way around. And this ought to be a powerful, encouraging analogy for us.

[20:39] You are the light of the world and darkness will yield. Your influence will push back darkness. It has no power to stop your impact because you have been being new by Christ himself, the light of the world.

[20:51] But we also see that light shows us how things truly are. So we've been given this wonderful task of showing the world around us how things truly are. While this statement may seem pretentious to some, the Bible is clear. True wisdom is found in God's Word. So even the least educated Christian, armed with God's Word, sees more clearly than the most educated professor who is devoid of God's truth.

[21:18] And so this should be an encouragement to us because we know that we have been given wisdom for life and we have true light that we can share to others around us. This doesn't mean that the world doesn't know things, right? It can know things, it can know true facts.

[21:33] But it's darkened in two specific ways. It does not recognize the God who created them and therefore is missing the whole point of knowledge. God created the world to reveal who he is. Knowledge that is devoid of God is simply missing the point. It's missing the beauty, it's missing the wonder.

[21:48] And now, knowledge outside of God wants to say that it's light. But simple knowledge lacks the ability to change what is actually broken. So as the modern world likes to triumph in our knowledge, and claim that knowledge will solve our problems, this is just simply not the case.

[22:08] All the world's learning can't change the fundamental brokenness of a human heart. Until that heart is healed, changed, and given victory of his own sinfulness, knowledge will always bow to sin's power.

[22:22] And we see this throughout our society. How many educated, powerful people have we been seeing go down in moral ruin, right? We've been seeing scandal after scandal after scandal for the people who are supposedly most educated, who should have the most knowledge. So what we see is that knowledge, objective facts aren't enough to change your heart. And so the Bible gives us this compelling picture of light, not simply as truth, but as the person that is Jesus, right? And so we who have Jesus working through us have that knowledge, that light to share to others, to introduce them to somebody who can actually deal with the sin that's in them that blocks their ability to actually change.

[23:02] So it's our wonderful opportunity to carry the light of God's truth into the darkness of this world. A truth that will lead others to recognize the beauty and compelling God that is behind their creation, as well as know the gift that God has given them and rescuing them from the sin that's inside them.

[23:21] So far we've seen that salt and light have a great impact. We have kind of another response, response, right? So if we go back to the Beatitudes, we see that the Beatitudes ended with persecution. The last two were about how this Beatitudes type person should expect and actually rejoice in the persecution that comes along their way. But the point is clear. The life of this new man, this person in Christ will have an impact. Some will respond by persecuting, some will be changed in their positive ways, but all will be impacted. Sometimes a person will oscillate back and forth, begin as a persecutor, and then as one impact into your life. Consider Marla's experience. Marla and the impact that she had on her husband. Marla's life illuminated the truth of God for her husband. Her husband could argue against the church and against its doctrine, but he could not deny the truth of her life. And in this way, Marla was a light revealing truth of her husband, introducing him to the God of the world.

[24:24] So we see that light has an impact. Salt has an impact. We are called to have that impact in the world, right? We are called to have a preservative effect. We are called to lead people to truth. We are called to show people what life, what taste is, right? And without God, all that's impossible. So we have been given that awesome role to be introduced in the world to the God that we serve. But with all the power that this analogy has, right, we also see that here there's a warning. We see the joy that's promised the impact is also coupled with a warning against living in a way that conceals our impact. And we actually see that the adversary of this impact is our own selves. And we'll see this and I'll read the text again.

[25:08] You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except 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 will people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand it gives light to all that are 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.

[25:27] So we see this mainly in this analogy that says you don't light a lamp and put it under a basket. The same thing, salt that has lost its taste is worthless. And so we see on one hand, light can be covered, can be concealed, but the argument here is it defeats its purpose.

[25:48] Right? Light the light if you're just going to cover it up. Right? And so this is kind of the argument. We have been made new in Christ. Why conceal what we are? Right? And so that's kind of the argument that's coming here.

[25:59] It's just absurd. It's absurd to take everything that we've been given and just hide it for whatever reason. Right? And so in this way, and when you, when light gets covered, or when salt loses its taste, it completely loses its purpose. Right?

[26:18] And so we can compare this to other things. Let's say you've got a flower, right? A flower adds beauty to the world, gives pollen for animals, or for insects, right? And it generates oxygen, right?

[26:33] When... When... When... When... Uh oh. I just got a great fuse. Oh, that's fine. Should I talk louder? All right, so this is kind of a... So right now, so a flower, right, it gives beauty, pollen, and oxygen, right? Yeah, thank you.

[27:01] And then... And then when it dies, right, it still provides beauty, and then when it decomposes, it provides nutrients back to the earth, right? Salt that has not been salty is just worthless anymore.

[27:11] It says to be thrown out. Right? I'll just wait. Good idea.

[27:24] Good. You good? Hey, all right.

[27:41] Another reason to move location. You're ending. desde desde an impact on this world for God's kingdom?

[28:14] If not, you must ask yourself, what is it that's concealing your light? Because we're told that we're going to have a profound impact. If you're not having an impact, what might you be doing that's concealing your light?

[28:30] And then we should take some time to see how ridiculous this is, that we would conceal the light that God has put in us. He made you to have a profound impact on the world. He gave you a beautiful and precious ministry.

[28:43] He has likened you unimportant, weak, and struggling you to His Son. And He has brought you into the divine nature so that you might show the world how sweet it is to know and be changed by the God of the universe. It is ridiculous that we would exchange that for something of this world, something so silly.

[29:01] The world cannot touch the honor that God has given us. It has nothing to offer that can be with the God of the universe, the boss of all existence. And yet we exchange Him and the honor roll that He has given and gifted us for what?

[29:13] So that's the question. If your light is not shining, it is being concealed, what are you exchanging this awesome roll for? For me this week, it was for a house and a job interview.

[29:26] So these are considered big things, right? Big things that consume our thoughts, right? But what God really put on my heart is that I don't know, if you summed up all my conversation with my coworkers this week, that's what they would have seen my God would be, right?

[29:45] And that's not impressive to them. They don't care. The world likes houses. The world likes promotions, right? And so if I just simply talk to them about a house or a promotion, there's no taste.

[29:57] There's no salt. There's no light, right? What are we concealing it for? We have God who needs, like a house is a good thing, it's a great thing, it's a gift, right? But we've been promised to be in His home someday, right?

[30:12] We're excited because the property we're looking at has like a lot of land. It's like our kids, they can go run around and have a great time in their childhood, but who cares if they don't know the God who made the woods, right?

[30:24] What am I excited about and what am I telling you everybody that I talk to what I'm excited about and this week, unfortunately, it was things other than God, right? And I'm not saying that those things are bad.

[30:36] It's okay, it's okay that those things take our time. We live in this world, work takes our time, plans take our time, all that stuff. But it's what has your heart that matters, right?

[30:47] And what Christ teaches us is that out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth will speak, right? And so if the sum of all my conversations were about a house or about a job interview, it's just bland to my coworkers and I'm concealing the light because God has given me so much better things to talk about and to be joyful about and to praise about and to be excited about, right?

[31:11] And so our salt and light will wax and wane with the love that we have for Christ, right? The amount that he's centered in our life will impact how we talk about him and how we talk about other things.

[31:24] And so our goal is to take the things of this world and just inject them with flavor, with the taste of God, right? Because, right?

[31:37] Just inject them with flavor because God made all these things and they're all here to reveal us to him who he is. So how about you?

[31:50] What did your coworkers, what God would they have thought you served this week by our conversations? Or maybe your kids, what did they glean from you in your interactions with them that would teach them what's important?

[32:05] Your comfort? Your schedule? Maybe the activities you do? Or did your actions and interactions with your kids and your coworkers point them, give them a taste for the God of the universe?

[32:17] Open their eyes to see the light of all that he is. And I think the other way that we can feel light, not simply about what we talk about, what we interact with, but about how we live, right?

[32:35] We as Christians are called to live in a certain way. We're called to me that Sermon on the Mount says, like, hey, now that you're my people, your life will look like this, right? And so when we choose to pursue immoral things, when we choose to respond in anger rather than in love, when we're not actually as Christ has made us to live, we're concealing the light that we have for other people, right?

[32:59] So in your interactions, in the challenges of your day, when the coworker makes you angry, are your responses pointing them to the light that you speak with your mouth or are they pointing them that you serve something else?

[33:13] And so these are two kind of major ways. And I think the final alternative here is to concealing light is that there's really no light in you, right? We see this in the Saul analogy.

[33:25] Saul, to be cast out that it's worth this, right? And so what we know about the Bible is that God changes us and makes us different, right? And so if you see that your life isn't different, I think the question is, is God actually your God and are you his child?

[33:43] So if you're assessing your life and concern there, I think that's probably a matter of important attention. So the next thing we see is the area of impact.

[33:59] So we see that there's both a personal and local impact and we see that there's a corporate and global impact. So we see the personal and local impact in verse 13.

[34:14] It says, in order to people light a lamp and put it under a basket, they put it on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In this picture, there is one lamp that gives light to all that are in our house.

[34:25] Right? So this shows us close proximity, right? This shows us and demonstrates that the personal life of an individual with a Christian will give light and impact those who are in close proximity to him or her.

[34:38] So we as Christians, we ought to intentionally engage with those in our everyday spheres of influence for it is in these close relationships that one is close enough to us to see the difference that Christ has made in our lives.

[34:56] So if people are close to you and they're not seeing that, maybe you're concealing it for some reason, maybe Christ isn't really the center, maybe, and this is why I bring this up, maybe you just kind of forgot that it's important to balance your close friendships.

[35:11] Right? So in general, there's like three types of Christian, right? There's the private faith Christian, and so this would be the Christian that would have a lot of friends that are outside of the church. But subsequently, so they're doing really great, like they're reaching out to the world, they're in the world, but then they might, because of that, then conceal the light that's in them.

[35:31] Right? Or we have these privatized faith Christians, and these are Christians who are living, letting the light shine, right? But they're letting it shine before other Christians. Their lives are spent solely or primarily in Christian fellowship, and this is wonderful for the building up, but what the Bible calls us to be, the Bible calls us to be public faith Christians, and these are Christians that have deep relationships both inside and outside of the church.

[35:57] Inside the church where the building is spurring one another on beloved, it works outside of the church so that we may show people and point them to the God that we love and serve. And when we're in that close proximity of people, and we have been changed by Christ, they will see it, and it will impact them.

[36:15] And I say this because we put a lot of effort in this church in loving and serving one another, and it's really great. We have a lot of people that are very committed to this church and it's a wonderful thing, but I think maybe the danger is the fact that the majority of our relationships might be within this church, and God is calling us to have a light, be light and salt in the world, so you've got to be out in the world.

[36:35] You've got to be building those friendships, those relationships, so that Christ in you can affect them. But we also see a corporate and global impact. And, I mean, this is really easy to see, right?

[36:48] The salt of the earth and the light of the world. You don't get much more global than that. But what does this look like? We see this in verse 14. It says, You are the light of the world. The city set on a hill cannot be hidden. What a beautiful picture, right?

[37:00] On one hand, we have a light in a room that gives light to the whole room, right? And then you zoom back and you have a city set on a hill whose light cannot be concealed, right?

[37:11] You have a group, a corporate group of Christians whose impact and influence in the world cannot be concealed. So may Shoreline be a church, may we be a light on a hill in southeastern Connecticut where nobody can conceal that light, nobody can hide it, right?

[37:30] And practically, this teaches us a little bit about our personal ministries, right? So if we are lights in a room, right, in our sphere of influence, leading people to see God, right, and then we bring these people into a community that looks the same kind of salty and displays the same kind of light, it is only going to build validity.

[37:54] So maybe you're at a workplace where you have other Christians with you, you know, allow your coworkers that you're spending time with to interact and see, you know, this Rob Buttermore, he looks a little bit like Jordan and he has a little bit of the same kind of characteristics, right?

[38:11] Like, you know, and I wonder, right? And so in this way, we corporately can have a big impact that we as a group of individual Christians that are being changed by Christ can be a light for an area that cannot be concealed.

[38:33] Finally, we see the aim of the impact. So it is in the last verse, verse 16, the same way that the light on the stand gives light to all the other house, let your light shine before others so that they see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

[38:50] We have talked a lot about what salt looks like in a believer's life, but here our study comes full circle. We see that the aim of our lives is to bring glory to God.

[39:03] And this is the only true result for a person who is changed by Christ, right? Because if it is Christ in us, the change that he has done, the person that he is making us that makes us distinct in this world, then the world will then see that it is God in us and not us in us.

[39:20] And they will see that God who is behind our change and our lives and they will give him glory, right? And then they will turn to him and this Christian impact will grow, right?

[39:33] And so we must rejoice, right? This is the end of all creation is the glory of God. And our lives if we can be used to bring people to see the glory of God and to proclaim it, then that is a wonderful and glorious gift.

[39:50] So may we as a church live lives so distinctive that the world around us cannot hide the truth that God is in our midst. And just like Marla's husband could not ignore the light of God that was being generated in her life, may the world around us not be able to ignore the light of God that's being generated inside each one of us and inside us as a community.

[40:11] I'll pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, you've given us a beautiful task. Lord, it's a task that we can't accomplish on our own. Lord, we can't make ourselves salty.

[40:24] Lord, we can't do that kind of heart work that requires that. You, only you can change us through and through. You can change us from the inside and allow us to pour out your character. Lord, what an honor.

[40:35] What an honor to be used by you to show the world who you are. Lord, we're not worthy of that. We haven't done anything that's deserving of that. We are weak. Oftentimes, we conceal the light that you put in us.

[40:49] Lord, forgive us. May we run to our Savior and find this forgiveness and find this empowerment to continue to walk in the life you've given us. May we not conceal the good thing that you've put in us, which is your life, yourself, so that all the world may see.

[41:06] Amen. So we've talked a lot about how the beginning of Matthew shows us that Christ is making a new people.