For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sean.
I'm one of the pastors of Trinity Cambridge Church.
It's my great joy and privilege to preach God's word to you this morning.
We are in the Gospel of Matthew, which is the first book in the New Testament.
We're in chapter 5 today.
We just finished the Beatitudes.
We're in Matthew 5, verses 13 to 16.
Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's word.
Heavenly Father,
Father, you have redeemed us at a steep price,
the blood of your only Son, Jesus Christ.
And we belong to you.
And you have adopted us as your children.
And as your children, it is only fitting that we resemble you and represent you.
And so we want to be, as Jesus says here, salt and light of the world.
Refresh us.
Renew us.
Help us to remember
Jesus and what he has done for us.
So that we might leave this place this morning
a little more salty,
shining a little more bright
than perhaps we have been this past week.
Glorify your name, God,
in the reading and preaching of your word.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
If you are able, please stand
to honor God as we read from his word.
Matthew 5, verses 13 to 16.
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.
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.
This is God's holy and authoritative word.
Please be seated.
John Lennon was a member
of the 20th century English rock band, The Beatles.
And in one of his most famous songs, Imagine,
he tells his listeners to imagine a world
where there is no religion.
And he says that in such a world,
there's no heaven, no hell below us.
He claims that there will be nothing to kill or die for
and that there would be worldwide peace.
Sung over a beautiful piano motif,
the sentiment seems more plausible than it actually is
because it's a hollow statement
that betrays a shallow understanding
of the human condition.
The self-centeredness that is at the root
of all social ills in the world
resides in the human heart.
The problem is man, not religion.
It's man's sin-sick heart that twists everything,
including religion, for its selfish purposes.
The solution then is not no religion,
but true religion.
Truth that sets us free.
Truth that heals our sin-sick hearts.
And that truth is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The people who believe the gospel, Jesus says,
are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Salt preserves food and it flavors food.
Imagine food that is bland and rotting without salt.
That's Jesus' provocative claim
that that's what this world would be like
without Christians.
Light, like salt, is an essential ingredient of life.
It drives out darkness.
It enables us to see.
Imagine a world without the sun
or without any of the artificial lights that we have.
Dark, dreary, cold.
That's what the world would be like
without the light of God that shines through his people.
My main point this morning is this,
that we must let our distinctive identity as Christians
shine in order to bring glory to our Father in heaven.
So first, we'll talk about the salt of the earth,
and then second, we'll talk about the light of the world.
Jesus says in verse 13,
you are the salt of the earth.
This marks an important transition from the Beatitudes.
The Beatitudes were all phrased
in the third person plural forms.
If you look back at the few verses before this,
it said, blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
But then in the second half of that last Beatitude,
verses 11 and 12,
it switched to the second person plural.
Blessed are you when others revile you
and persecute you.
This transition prepares the way for today's passage,
which says you are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
The Beatitudes described who Christians are.
Their identity.
But the rest of the Sermon on the Mount
now describes what Christians do.
How they live.
It's from our identity,
who we are in Jesus Christ,
that our obedience to his commands flow.
This follows a pattern of the Ten Commitments.
You may recall when we first started our series
in the Beatitudes seven weeks ago,
I mentioned that Jesus going up on the mountain
to speak God's new law parallels Moses going up on the mountain
to bring God's law,
to receive the Ten Commandments
and the subsequent explanations of it.
The Ten Commandments doesn't begin with the First Commandment.
It actually begins with the preamble,
which establishes who God is and who God's people are.
I am the Lord, your God,
who brought you out of Egypt from the land of slavery.
It begins with the identity of God's people
as the redeemed people of God.
And Beatitudes likewise serve as the preamble to the Sermon on the Mount.
It begins,
it tells us by showing us who we are.
We are people who are poor,
mourning,
meek,
and hungry.
We are people who have received God's mercy and purity
and peace and righteousness in Jesus Christ.
That's who we are as Christians.
It's only after telling us who we are,
Jesus goes on to tell us what we must do.
So Matthew 5, 13 to 16 is a transitional passage
to the ethical sections of the Sermon on the Mount.
You are the salt of the earth.
And that it's an emphatic you,
personal pronoun.
You, not they.
You, yourselves,
are the salt of the earth,
the light of the world.
So what does it mean to be the salt of the earth?
Salt in many ways is a humble condiment, right?
Any restaurant you go to,
any Western household you go to,
you'll find a little table salt,
shaker up full of table salt.
But it's only in the last 150 years, actually,
that salt became cheap and commonplace.
Because of the advancement in the mining technologies
and evaporating salt and all that.
But before that,
there's actually an entire book dedicated to salt
by Mark Kralansky.
It's called Salt, A World History.
I know, it sounds like I haven't read the whole thing,
but it's an interesting idea.
He writes that human civilization has been shaped by this simple mineral.
Wars were fought over salt reserves as early as 6,000 BC in China.
Salt was the first international trade good.
And ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians and Romans used salt as currency.
In fact, that's where we get the English word salary,
which is derived from the Latin word salarius,
which means of salt,
because the Romans paid their soldiers in salt.
Why was salt so valuable and cherished throughout human history?
Two main reasons.
One, salt is essential for human survival, for life.
Salt is crucial for hydration,
maintaining blood pressure,
nerve impulse transmission,
muscle contraction,
heart function,
and hormonal regulation,
digestion,
bone health,
immune function,
and so on.
Severely low sodium levels in our bodies
lead to muscle cramps and nausea
and vomiting and dizziness
and eventually to shock,
coma,
and death.
This is why many endurance athletes carry
not only water,
but salt tablets.
Salt is something that our bodies need.
And yet, interestingly enough,
it's something that our bodies are incapable of producing on its own.
It must come from an external source
in the same way we receive God's grace and mercy from elsewhere,
not from within ourselves.
So that's one reason salt is precious.
Second reason is that salt is essential for flavoring and preserving food.
Nobody likes bland food,
and salt makes food tasty.
Even more importantly,
ancient Egyptians,
I think,
were one of the earliest people to discover
that salt kills bacteria in certain foods,
and they learned that because it extracts moisture
and it kills bacteria,
it preserves food to make it last significantly longer
than it otherwise would.
That process we call curing,
which is commonly used for meats and fish and cheeses.
I'm sure you've had some cured ham recently,
or bacon.
In the days before refrigeration,
salt could mean the difference
between edible food and spoiled food,
which then would mean the difference
between life or death.
This antibacterial property of salt
was also an effective antiseptic,
made it an effective antiseptic,
and many ancient civilizations used it to clean wounds
and prevent infections,
which is where we get the expression,
rubbing wound on your salt,
which kind of has a bad connotation now.
But when you don't have other things to use,
it helps.
Even now,
I think some of you rinsed your throats,
mouths,
with salt water
when you have canker sores in your mouth.
In light of this historical background,
what does it mean that followers of Christ
are to be salt of the earth?
You know to understand that,
we must first address
what this is implying about the world.
By saying that we are the salt of the earth,
Jesus is saying that the earth,
the rest of the earth,
is not salt,
and that it needs salt.
It means first that the world is bland,
and then needs flavoring,
and it also means that the world is putrefying.
It is rotting,
and it must be preserved.
Ever since sin first entered the world,
our world has been decaying and dying,
and therefore,
it needs salt,
people who are salt,
as a preservative and an antiseptic.
The world,
left on its own,
has a tendency to fester,
unless God's people arrest
the continual decay.
In Genesis 6, 5,
it says,
the Lord saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth,
and that every intention of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually.
It's this reality that leads God
to bring down the flood judgment
during Noah's day.
And why was the world in such a state?
In Genesis 6,
it tells us in verse 8 to 9,
it says that only Noah
was a righteous man who walked with God,
while the rest of mankind was corrupt,
for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
Why did it come to such a dire point?
Because there's not enough salt on the earth.
If you do a concordance search
for the word salt in the Bible
and find references to salt in the Bible,
you'll find an interesting phrase
that occurs several times.
It's a covenant of salt.
God refers to his covenant
with his chosen people
as a covenant of salt.
The reason why is because
of salt's preserving property.
It became a symbol of endurance,
symbol of permanence.
And so when people in the Arab world,
in the ancient Near East,
would make a covenant with other people,
they would often eat salt together
to symbolize this is a covenant
that's meant to last.
Like salt.
So he says in Leviticus 2.13,
you shall season all your grain offerings
with salt.
You shall not let the salt of the covenant
with your God be missing
from your grain offering.
With all your offerings,
you shall offer salt.
Salt had to accompany
every grain offering.
In this way,
in Scripture,
salt becomes a powerful symbol
of our covenant relationship with God.
So in light of that,
then what does it mean for us
to be salt of the earth?
It means to be a people
who are loyal to God.
People who are obedient to God.
To be representatives of God.
To be people who preserve the earth
as it should be,
reflecting on the earth
the righteousness of God
and resisting
the decay and death
of sin.
But we can only do that
if we remain salty.
Jesus says in verse 13,
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.
The chemists in the room
can tell you guys
that salt doesn't lose its saltiness
because as soon as,
Bailey's nodding over there,
as soon as salt loses its saltiness,
it would cease to be salt
because its chemical composition
would be changed.
But that defeats the point
of the metaphor,
so don't go there.
In this part of the ancient world,
salt was likely derived
from the Dead Sea
or from the ocean nearby
and there would often be
other residue and minerals
that are mixed in with salt.
So there would be
some salt-like things,
minerals that are extracted
that people would use as salt
but they would actually have no taste
because it wasn't salt.
So if salt has been diluted
or it has been mixed
with these other minerals,
it would be useless
for preserving or flavoring food.
And once salt loses its taste,
its saltiness cannot be restored.
It's really good for nothing.
The phrase lost its taste,
interestingly in Greek,
which is the language
that the New Testament
is written in,
the phrase lost its taste
literally means
to become foolish.
Isn't that fascinating?
The reason why
this unusual Greek word
is used
to mean lose its taste
is because
in the original Aramaic
that Jesus would have spoken
and in the related language
of Hebrew,
the word for tasteless
also means foolish
or wrong.
For example,
in Jeremiah 23, 13,
the Lord says,
in the prophets of Samaria,
I saw an unsavory thing,
a tasteless thing.
They prophesied by Baal
and led my people Israel astray.
That tasteless thing
is translated
by other translations
as folly
or that offensive thing
or the repulsive thing.
In Lamentations 2, 14,
that same word
is translated
as deceptive visions
or worthless things
or foolish things
that prophets,
the false prophets prophesy.
In Job 1, 22,
and 24, 12,
that tasteless thing
is used to refer to
an offense
or a wrong
that someone
can be charged with.
And perhaps
most suggestively,
throughout the prophetic literature,
especially in Ezekiel 13,
that same word,
that tasteless thing
refers to the whitewash
that people use
to hide blemishes
and dirt
and grime
and mold
on walls
because that's an unseemly
and an offensive practice
to whitewash
something like that
instead of actually
cleaning it
and getting rid of
the mold
and the grime.
So that's what it means
for the salt
to lose its taste,
for it to be tasteless.
To lose our taste
as salt,
as believers,
is to become foolish.
To lose sight
of the wisdom of God.
To become complicit
with the repulsiveness
and the offensiveness
of idolatry
in our world.
to lose our distinctive
identity as Christians.
To blend in
to this sinful world
instead of
standing out.
It means to whitewash
the evils
of our world
and to call them good.
G.K. Chesterton
once wrote about
this folly
in his book,
Orthodoxy.
He says,
what is the evil
of the man
commonly called
an optimist?
Obviously,
it is felt
that the optimist
wishing to defend
the honor of this world
will defend
the indefensible.
He will not
wash the world
but whitewash
the world.
That's what it looks like
for salt
to lose its taste.
Christians who have
lost their saltiness
are no longer
distinguishable
from the rest
of the world.
They justify
the sins of the world.
Their values
and priorities
are not aligned
with God's
unchanging word.
Rather,
it is aligned
with the ever-changing
culture.
But the church
that represents
God and Jesus
must be set apart,
must be holy.
In order for us
to be a city
on a hill
and light in the darkness,
the salt of the earth,
we must be
an alternate community,
a contrast community.
Let me give a few
examples
as practical application
points.
Does the way
you talk
distinguish you
from the way
the world speaks?
Maybe the conversations
in your workplace
are usually vulgar
and obscene
and profane.
Maybe it's full
of gossip
and slander
about your coworkers,
but when you come
into the office space,
people start
talking differently.
They start
watching what
they say.
They stop
taking the Lord's
name in vain.
They stop
talking about
lewd subjects.
They stop
swearing nonstop.
They stop
gossiping
about their coworkers
because they know
that you don't join
in on that kind
of talk.
you are being
salt of the earth,
restraining sin
and preserving
the earth.
How do you
interact with people
that you disagree
strongly with?
Do you
caricature
your opponent's
position
to make it
sound as
unreasonable
as possible?
Do you
cancel
and dox them?
when you
listen well
to your opponents
and you represent
their positions
fairly and when
you reason with
them instead of
canceling them,
you are functioning
as salt and
slowing the rapid
deterioration of
dialogue in our
culture.
Is your media
consumption different
from that of the
rest of the world?
According to the
Pew Research Center,
62% of U.S.
adults identify
as Christians.
Christians.
That number is
very, very
inflated because
there are many
cultural and
nominal Christians
who on surveys
like that say
they are Christian
but don't actually
do anything in
their life that
resembles what a
Christian should
look like because
they don't actually
believe what the
Bible teaches and
don't actually live
according to what
the Bible says.
But imagine
with me,
if 62% of
U.S.
adults were
really Christians,
if 62% of
U.S.
Christians
refused to,
U.S.
adults refused to
watch gratuitously
violent and
sexually explicit
and or occultic
horror films and
shows,
do you think that
Hollywood keep
churning out those
kinds of movies
when 62% of the
population refuses to
watch them?
Of course not.
It affects their
bottom line way too
much.
they produce those
kinds of shows and
movies because
Christians gobble
them up like the
rest of the world
because their salt
has lost its taste.
Does the way you
spend your money
distinguish you from
the way the world
spends money?
Of course some
basic things and
basic needs are
going to look the
same.
We all need food and
clothing and shelter.
But beyond those
basic needs, if we
really store up our
treasures in heaven
and not on earth, if
we are invested in
not just temporal
priorities but in
eternal priorities,
then it should show
in our budget.
It should show in our
generosity toward the
needy around us.
It should be apparent
to the people of this
world that, oh,
these Christians don't
treasure the same
thing that I
treasure.
If we are
indistinguishable from
unbelievers at this
point, then the salt
has lost its taste.
How sad it is when
those who are called
by the name
Christian are the
indistinguishable from
the non-Christians.
A tasteless salt cannot
flavor.
It no longer absorbs
water and kills
bacteria.
It cannot preserve
food.
And a Christian who
exhibits no Christian
character, a Christian
who does not uphold
Christian convictions,
is no longer good for
anything except to be
thrown out and trampled
under people's feet.
This is a fearful
warning.
That's not a good
thing.
Being trampled under
people's feet is a
mark of destruction.
In Luke 8, the
parable of the sower,
the seed that falls
along the path and
is subsequently
trampled by men and
then consumed by
birds, Jesus says, is
an illustration of
people who hear the
gospel, but then that
gospel seed is snatched
away by the devil and
it does not, they do
not believe from their
hearts.
Salt that has lost its
taste is useless salt.
In fact, it's no true
salt at all.
Jesus switches metaphors
in verse 14.
He says, you are the
light of the world.
Once again, what we do
flows from who we are.
Our identity is you are
the light of the world
and that's a remarkable
claim because Jesus is
speaking here to his
ragtag group of
disciples, the ordinary
fishermen, the tax
collector.
Jesus didn't say, oh,
Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Homer,
Caesar, Augustus,
they're the light of the
world.
The world speaks often
of enlightenment.
It speaks often of
luminaries or geniuses of
history who are the light
of the world.
The world speaks often of
stars, but it's not the
Grammy winners and the
Oscar winners and the
election winners and the
gold medal winners and
championship winners and
the billionaires in the
world that they, the
people who have their
names on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame, who have a
star on the walk of
them.
They are not the stars of
this world.
They are not the light of
this world.
You are the people of
God.
You are the light of the
world.
You are the people who can
shine the light of Jesus
Christ in this dark world.
You are the people whose
good deeds, whose
righteousness will check the
progress of death and
decay in our world.
You are the hope of the
earth.
Do you believe this,
brothers and sisters?
I believe that with all
my heart, and that's why
I've given my life to
serve the church of
Christ.
But, brothers and
sisters, I did not choose
a humble profession.
I chose to serve the
king of kings.
I chose to be associated
with and to work among
the stars, the light of
the world.
In fact, the only light.
The fact that the
follower of Christ are the
light of the world implies
something obvious, again,
that this sinful world is
now lost.
It's plunged in darkness.
It is full of sin and
evil.
The world is full of
knowledge of various
kinds.
Every time a PhD
dissertation is written,
it seems like we make
some marginal progress
toward more knowledge.
Yet, for all of its
knowledge, the world
profoundly lacks the
wisdom of God.
It understands much
about things that are
immediate, but it
understands very little
about the things that
are ultimate.
Think about this.
People are more
connected to each other
than they ever were
before, by fast travel,
by social media, by
distance communication.
Yet, people are
lonelier than they ever
were.
No matter how
intelligent or rich or
talented the people of
this world might be,
Ephesians 4.18
describes those who
live apart from Christ as
darkened in their
understanding, alienated
from the life of God
because of the
ignorance that is in
them due to their
hardness of heart.
For this reason, only
those who humbly
acknowledge their
ignorance and darkness
and come to Christ can
receive his light and
become the light of the
world.
That's why in the
Beatitudes, Jesus
describes Christians as
those who are poor and
mourning and meek and
hungering and thirsting
for righteousness because
they recognize their
deficiency.
They recognize their
neediness.
They recognize their
lack.
And those who have
become the light of the
world, they shine.
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.
When a city is nestled in
a valley, it can be
hidden by the hills that
surround it, but if a
city is on top of a
hill, all eyes gravitate
toward it.
There's nothing you can do
to hide it.
Likewise, people do not
light a lamp and then
put it under a basket.
They put it on a stand
so that it gives light to
everyone in the house.
That is the very purpose
of light, to shine.
If you're going to put
your light under a basket
and hide it, why have it
turned on in the first
place?
Jesus is saying that this
is the very nature and
purpose of Christians.
As salt that has lost its
taste is useless, so a
light that is hidden and
fails to give light is
useless.
What good is an
extinguished candle or a
burnt-out light bulb?
So a Christian who is
indistinguishable from the
world, whose life bears no
witness to Jesus Christ, is
useless.
The best way to understand
what it means to be the
light of the world is to
make the connection that
Matthew himself makes in
his gospel because earlier
in chapter 4, verse 16, he
wrote that Jesus, about the
coming of Jesus, that Jesus
himself is the one who
fulfills the prophecy of
Isaiah 9, verse 2, which
says that people dwelling in
darkness have seen a great
light.
And that's why Jesus claimed,
an audacious claim really,
if it's, he said in John 8,
12, I am the light of the
world.
Whoever follows me will not
walk in darkness, but will
have the light of life.
In order to have the light
of life, you must follow
Jesus, the light of the
world.
Second Corinthians 4, 4-6,
Paul speaks of the light of
the gospel of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of
God.
So Christians are those who
have believed in the gospel or
the good news of Jesus
Christ.
Do you acknowledge that the
world is dark?
Do you acknowledge that your
ways are darkness?
God the Father sent his only
son, Jesus Christ, into this
world in order to deliver us,
deliver us, as it says in
Colossians, from the dominion
of darkness into the kingdom
of his beloved son.
God, we were, no matter how
much we claim to say, well, I
have eyes, I am not blind.
No matter how good your
eyesight is, without light, you
can not see a thing.
So it is in the spiritual world.
Unless the light of Jesus
Christ shines upon us, you
cannot see.
We were groping about in the
darkness, lost in sin and
destined for death and hell and
unable to save ourselves,
unable to pull ourselves up by
our own bootstraps.
And it's in that place that
Jesus came.
God the Father sent his son,
Jesus Christ, as the light of
the world to illumine our
darkness so that we might
believe in him who died on the
cross for our sins, who bore
our darkness and carried our
darkness and buried it and
rose from the dead so that we
can sing and say, I once was
blind, but now I see.
And it's when our spiritual eyes
are open to the light of the
gospel of Jesus Christ that we
too begin to shine.
It's like we are all a thousand
candles being brought to Jesus,
the light of the world, and being
lit aflame.
It's by our union with Jesus
Christ, by faith, that we become
light of the world.
And the amazing thing about light
and the amazing thing about fire
is when you spread it, it doesn't
get extinguished in its original
source, no, it multiplies.
And once we have this light, we can't
help but shine.
That's why following Christ is not
merely about personal, private
holiness.
There's always a public witness
component.
In fact, if there is true, genuine
personal holiness, inevitably there
will be interpersonal witness.
Because people will notice.
It says in 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.
What does it mean that we are to
shine before others so that they
praise their Father?
It tells us, it tells us that they
will see our good works and give
glory to our Father who is in
heaven.
So the emphasis on this passage is
on the good works that we do in
response to the good news that we
believe in.
Light's primary function is to
enable us to see, as we mentioned,
right?
And how do we point people to the
saving light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ?
Titus 2.10 says that one of the
ways we do that is by adorning the
doctrine of God our Savior with the
good works that we do.
So yes, as Christians, we must speak
the good news, but we are also to
adorn that good news that we speak by
the good works that we do.
And what do these good works look
like?
It looks like what Jesus talks about
in the rest of the Sermon on the
Mount.
It's not always spectacular things.
It looks like being patient and
gentle when you can lash out at
somebody in sinful anger.
It looks like being self-controlled
rather than lustful.
It looks like being faithful to your
spouse for a lifetime rather than
divorcing him or her or committing
adultery.
It looks like not retaliating, but
loving and praying for your enemies.
It looks like giving to the needy in
secret.
It looks like trusting God rather than
being anxious.
It looks like serving God rather than
serving money.
It looks like praying for God's will to
be done on earth as it is in heaven.
It looks like, in short, loving God with
our whole hearts and loving our neighbors
as we love ourselves.
That's what it looks like for us to do
good works that shine, that shine our
light.
I can also point to many examples from
history that are maybe perhaps a little
more spectacular, although they didn't
happen necessarily in spectacular ways.
Looking back, they look spectacular.
Historian Alvin Schmidt points this out in
his book, How Christianity Changed the
World, and he says that Christian
influence on government and not all of
these happen through the legislations.
It just happened by multiplying
Christians in these places so that more
and more people thought these ways and
started acting these ways.
But he says that Christian influence in
the world is primarily responsible for, he
says, outlawing infanticide, child
abandonment and abortion and gladiatorial
games in the Roman Empire, instituting
prison reforms, something as basic as
segregating male and female prisoners,
stopping the practice of human sacrifice
among the Irish, the Prusians, and the
Lithuanians as well as among other
nations, outlawing pedophilia, granting
of property rights and other protections to
women, banning polygamy, prohibiting the
burning alive of widows in India after their
husbands are deceased, outlawing the painful
and crippling practice of binding young
women's feet in China, persuading government
officials to begin a system of public schools in
Germany.
Two-thirds of the abolitionists in America in
the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, not
just Christians, but clergymen.
In fact, English historian Tom Holland writes in
his book, Dominion, How the Christian Revolution
Remade the World, that every abolitionist movement
throughout all of human history, or at least the last
2,000 years since Christ, from Gregory of Nyssa in the
fourth century to Martin Luther King Jr. in the
20th century, every single one of them has been
Christian movements.
But I do want to add one qualifier here.
This doesn't mean that it is the mission of the church
as a whole or the church as an institution to specialize in
these public good works.
It's the church's mission to proclaim the gospel and make
disciples of Jesus Christ who will then obey everything
Christ has commanded them, including doing all these good
works.
It's not our mission as a church to build orphanages, but it
is our mission to produce disciples like George Mueller,
who built many orphanages and cared for 10,024 orphans during
his lifetime.
That's what Christian disciples do when they are rightly
discipled and they shine as light in the world.
It is not the mission of the church to collectively stage
protests and lobby lawmakers.
But it is our mission to produce disciples like William
Wilberforce, who led the charge in the UK of abolishing slavery.
I pray and hope and I trust that some of you will be
professors and scientists and lawyers and judges and
diplomats and legislators and teachers and financial
advisors and nurses and doctors who will make all kinds of
difference in the world.
But if the church as an institution, the collective church's
mission becomes merely the betterment of society, then we
will eventually lose sight of the gospel, which is the driving
engine of all our good works.
That's why he says in Philippians 2, 14 to 16, Paul tells us the
secret to shining as lights in the world.
And this is what he says.
You shine as lights in the world.
How?
Holding fast to the word of life.
What is the word of life?
It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The good news of Jesus Christ.
When we gather together, that's what we're doing.
We're holding fast to the word of life.
Being renewed and transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Receiving God's mercy so that we become more merciful people.
Receiving God's forgiveness so that we become more forgiving
people.
Receiving God's generosity so that we become more generous
people.
We hold fast to the word of life when we gather together so that
when we are scattered, we shine as bright lights in the world.
There's one more question that this passage raises and I'll
close with this.
Jesus says in verse 16,
let your light shine before others so that they may see your
good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.
Does this mean then we should do our good works in order to be
seen by people?
So they can see our good works and then glorify God?
Because that seems to contradict what Jesus says repeatedly in the
gospel of Matthew, including in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6,
verse 1 to 4 when Jesus says,
beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen
by them.
For then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven.
When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know.
Sorry, this is your left.
So left hand know what your right hand is doing so that you're giving may be in
secret.
And your father who sees in secret will reward you.
Jesus says this multiple times.
He says, don't pray and fast in a manner to be seen by others.
Don't announce it to the world when you do it.
In Matthew 23, 5, Jesus denounces the scribes and the Pharisees for precisely this
thing because they do all their deeds in order to be seen by others.
So are we supposed to do our good deeds to be seen by others or not?
I think virtue signaling is never for the Christian.
We should never announce our good deeds on social media in order to be seen by others
and praised by men.
You might have other purpose, other reasons for doing that, but it should not be for the
purpose of being seen by men and would be praised by them.
That is consistently denounced in scripture.
There are some good works, however, that simply cannot be hidden, at least not from the people
that you are doing good to.
He says in 1 Timothy 5, 25, good works are conspicuous.
And even those that are not cannot remain hidden.
Don't worry about broadcasting your good works.
If you do your good works in secret before the Father who alone sees in heaven above,
eventually things come to light.
Sometimes it comes to light after you die.
All the better.
Yeah.
I think what matters is your heart's disposition.
Why do we do the glory?
Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works.
Is that the ultimate purpose?
Is that the reason why we let our shine light before others?
No, that's not.
Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your
Father who is in heaven.
Again, that's the reason.
That's the purpose.
If we are doing good deeds before others to be seen by men so that they give glory to us,
then that's, our heart's not in the right place.
Our goal is to give glory to God the Father in heaven.
And this is important because sometimes the good works that we do are not going to be praised by people.
Right?
We just talked about it in the last beatitude and that context is important because it immediately precedes this.
Jesus said,
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
Jesus said,
If you do righteous deeds,
if you do good deeds and obedience to God,
that the world will hate us and that it will persecute us.
And if we are out to get the world's praise,
if we are out to be seen by people so that they would praise us and glorify us,
then we will not do the works that will gain us infamy
and revulsion and slander from the world.
Because there are many good works that are like that.
So then what does it mean that people will see our good works and give glory to the Father in heaven?
Of course, there is some common grace.
And there are good works that we do that the world will agree are good works.
They'll see that, oh, that is good.
And that will bring some glory to God the Father.
But even when they don't recognize them,
they revile us as evildoers,
eventually the good works that we do will elicit praise and glory from all the world
when Christ returns.
And that's what we see in 1 Peter 2, 12.
He says,
We should keep our conduct among the Gentiles honorable,
even when they speak against us as evildoers,
so that they will see our good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
It's speaking of the return of Christ,
the final day of visitation.
Even if we are maligned here on earth because of the good works that we do,
even if we are persecuted on account of righteousness,
there will be a day when every knee will bow before Christ
and every tongue will confess that he is God.
There will be a day when all the good deeds that you have done,
they will not have been in vain and they will be seen
and they will result in redounding glory to God, our heavenly Father.
That's why.
That's why we persevere.
So let's hold fast to the good news
and shine our light and do good works.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father,
we are so lost apart from you.
in utter blindness,
groping about in the darkness,
unable to help ourselves from our sin.
Lord, that's who you were.
God, thank you
that in Jesus the light of the gospel has dawned.
And thank you that you now call us
the salt of the earth,
the light of the world.
What a privilege
and honor.
Father, thank you.
Help us to wear it well.
Help us to represent you well.
all for your glory.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.