If you'd open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5, we just got through two months of the Beatitudes.
And now, we're going to look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 16.
Be in salt and light. It's page 962 and 63 of your Pew Bible.
Hear God's Word.
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?
It's 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. No.
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.
May God bless the hearing of His Word.
You know, our nation's top award for soldiers in battle is the Medal of Honor.
And it's given to soldiers who have performed, quote, unquote, conspicuous acts of bravery.
Conspicuous bravery.
Courageous acts on the battlefield that are clearly seen and attested to by others.
So when Jesus tells us,
You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world,
He is calling us to live lives of conspicuous godliness.
Conspicuous righteousness.
Not a righteousness like the Pharisees who sought the praise of man,
but the conspicuous godliness of kingdom righteousness.
Kingdom citizens seeking to glorify the Father in heaven through kingdom character that shows up as kingdom conduct.
But it provides quite a contrast to the rest of the world.
We are God's salt and light in the midst of a decaying and dark world.
Here's what I'm going to try to convince you of this morning from what Jesus is saying.
God's grace causes us to be distinct from the world in order to glorify God in the world.
God's grace has called us out of the world to be light just to send us back in to glorify our God in heaven.
God's grace.
That's why we've called us out of the world to glorify God in heaven.
God's grace.
God's grace has called us out of the world to celebrate our God.
God's grace, to be poor in spirit.
No, we would deny our spiritual bankruptcy if it were not for the grace of God.
We used to celebrate sin, but now God's grace helps us to mourn sin.
blessed are those who mourn.
We used to elevate ourselves over other people
thinking that we are better than others,
but God's grace, blessed are the meek.
We are humble.
We see ourselves in light of who God is.
Do you know what happens when a kingdom citizen,
a Christian who is possessing a kingdom character
like the Beatitudes, lives out conspicuous acts
of godliness in a decaying dark world?
Do you know what happens?
Sunlight.
God's grace causes us to be distinct from the world
in order to glorify God in the world.
And to convince you of that, I want to make four points.
Our conspicuous godliness is a supernatural distinction.
Our conspicuous godliness is a functional distinction.
Our conspicuous godliness is a glorious distinction.
And our conspicuous godliness is not,
we can't make this mistake,
it's not some dysfunctional indistinction.
We are distinct from the world
in order to glorify God in the world.
So let's look at this first point.
Our conspicuous godliness is a supernatural distinction.
If you look at the passage,
in verse 13, Jesus says,
he's talking to his disciples and he says,
you are the salt of the earth.
And then in verse 14,
you are the light of the world.
And in the original language,
that you,
you can translate it,
you and only you.
Disciples,
those transferred from the domain of darkness
into the kingdom of the beloved son.
You and only you.
Among all the peoples on the earth,
of all the people in the world,
you and only you are my salt and my light.
Jesus is clearly making a distinction here
between those who've been saved by God's grace
and everybody else.
And this distinction is a supernatural distinction.
These beatitudes
are not descriptions of people
who have made themselves poor in spirit
and pure in heart.
No.
The beatitudes,
the blessedness of the beatitudes
is God's grace has come
and God's grace has made us poor in spirit.
God's grace has made us pure in heart.
God's grace is making us peacemakers
and God's grace is what causes us
to have a praise and worship time
when we are suffering for his sake.
So, I want to start off with this,
kind of this conspicuous godliness
as a supernatural distinction
because we got to be clear on the source
of our godliness.
It's not you, it's not me.
It's the grace of God.
It's Jesus shining through us.
We get a taste of this
in Ephesians chapter 2, 1 through 10.
Before Christ, we were dead
in our trespasses and sins
and we were following the course of the world.
We were following the prince of the power of the air.
We were living for our flesh,
delighting in our sin.
We were children of wrath
like the rest of mankind.
We were part of the decay.
We were living in darkness.
That's who we were.
And then verse 4 and 5,
but God, being rich in mercy
with the great love with which he loved us,
he made us alive in Christ.
We were dead.
He made us alive.
By grace, you've been saved.
By grace, you've been lit up.
By grace, you've been saltified.
And now, verse 10,
because we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus,
made alive in him,
well, we do good works now.
Good works doesn't save us.
We are saved for good works,
being salt and light.
It's this grace of God
that took those who were dead in their sin,
living in darkness,
and made them alive in Christ
and lit them up
as part of the kingdom of light.
That's who you are.
That's what God has done.
It's who you are.
You're salt and light.
He's radically changed your character,
and that shows up in your conduct.
But we forget.
Paul Tripp calls it gospel amnesia.
We're amnesiacs.
We roll out of bed,
and we forget
that we have been radically changed
by God's grace,
delivered from the domain of darkness,
transferred to the kingdom
of the beloved Son.
We forget our eternities have changed.
We forget that God in the flesh
shed his blood for us.
We forget we're salt and light.
How do you remind yourself of that?
How do you remind yourself every day
that you're no longer your own,
but you belong to Jesus?
You can start this way.
A daily declaration of devotion
where one of your early moves of the day,
it's real close to you waking up
because we all know how the day goes.
Real close to waking up,
you are putting a stake in the ground,
and you are saying,
Lord Jesus, I am not my own.
You've been raining on high
all throughout the night.
You were the one who died for me,
raised me from the dead
so that I can live for you,
and I now declare my purpose today
is to live for your glory,
not my own.
Great way to start the day.
And it's recognizing that
this conspicuous godliness
that we're being called to here,
the salt and light,
it's got a supernatural distinction.
It's a supernatural source.
God, by His grace,
has made us distinct from the world
in order that we would glorify Him
in the world.
Second point,
our conspicuous godliness
is a functional distinction.
And what I mean by functional
is practical.
What I mean by functional
is it's real.
It shows up.
In this passage,
just like with everything
that Jesus does,
He chooses His words
very carefully.
He's being very intentional here.
So it's not a mistake
that He's talking about
salt and light.
And what salt and light,
what they are essentially doing,
it's a functional distinction
between His people
and the rest of mankind.
It's ways of talking
about a difference.
In fact,
I think what He's getting
at are two sides
of the same coin
of conspicuous godliness.
It's about being distinct
from the world.
So when Jesus talks about salt,
do you know what He's talking about?
Okay, so you go to festival,
you go to Woodman's,
you buy some hamburger meat.
You come back home
and you put the hamburger meat
where?
The refrigerator.
Because it's cold.
Refrigerator's coldness
slows down decay.
It keeps your meat
from becoming corrupt,
putrefied.
But before there were refrigerators,
there was salt.
And so in order
to preserve meat,
what they do,
they would rub
a steak
with salt.
Get that salt
all in there.
Do you know
what salt does?
It dehydrates
moisture
in a piece of meat.
And why that matters
is because bacteria
and parasites
love the moisture.
And so by dehydrating
the moisture,
the source
of this,
of bacteria
and parasite
is removed.
And so you're able
to preserve meat.
So if you're picking up
on what Jesus is saying,
He's saying,
you're the salt
in the meat of culture.
And apart from you,
it's just going to decay,
moral decay.
And we're living in it, gang.
I'm not sure
if anybody in the room
would argue
that Romans 1
is not in effect.
in our culture.
God has
rubbed us in
in order that
we would slow
the moral decay
in our culture.
Our presence,
our salty presence
slows the decay down.
Here's the deal.
If you put,
rub salt on a steak,
the steak's not going
to say,
ouch.
Because steaks
aren't alive.
But if we're salt
in the living steak
of our culture,
it's going to sting.
Has anybody had salt
put in a wound before?
It stings.
And what Jesus
is saying here
is not only
going to flavor,
you're going to sting.
Here's how that shows up
three ways.
You ready?
You walk to work
or you're in school
or you're a family gathering
and people start to gossip.
And your gossip alarm
goes off.
You're like,
this isn't good.
So,
as salt,
you get to say
something like this.
You know what?
I can't do this.
I can't participate in this.
If you have a problem
with someone,
you need to go
and talk to them about it,
not talk about them
to others.
Do you know what will happen
with those people right there
you just told that to?
Sting!
Ouch!
Who are you to tell me that?
But you're slow in a decay.
We want to use our speech
to build up,
not to tear down.
Or let's take abortion.
Abortion.
We will not
discriminate people
based upon
the color of their skin.
We're all image bearers, right?
Whether you're brown,
whether you're black,
whether you're yellow, red,
white,
we're not going to discriminate
based upon
your racial classification
or based upon
your gender
or based upon
what neighborhood
you live in.
Right?
We're not going to discriminate
on the basis of that
because everybody's
an image bearer.
And we cannot discriminate
whether or not
someone is a human or not
if they're in the womb
or out of the womb.
They're an image bearer
in the womb
and out of the womb.
And when we say
things like that,
you can catch some heat
for that.
But it's slowing
something down
in our culture.
the taking of lives.
Or how about this?
You get invited
to your nephew's
gay wedding.
You're torn
because
if you don't go,
you know that
it's going to create
relational tensions
across the board.
But if you do go,
you're thinking
something doesn't seem
right about this.
And so you seek counsel
and the issue
becomes crystal clear.
God
does not recognize
a marriage
between two men
and two women.
That is not a wedding
in God's eyes.
In fact,
that's grievous
in God's sight.
And so you start realizing,
I can't go
because I can't celebrate
something that is grievous
in God's eyes.
in my devotion
to God
is more important
than maintaining
the peace
in a network
of relationships.
You're going to
catch heat for that.
It's going to
sting people.
And it might
come back on you
and when you start
getting reviled
for that
and start people
selling all sorts
of falsehoods
because of that,
it's praise
and worship time.
It's praise
and worship time
because Jesus
is worth it.
There's a reward
waiting for you
in heaven
and you're
in good company.
Salt has a function,
a distinct function
and it's to slow decay.
As salt
of the earth,
you're to slow decay.
It's going to come
at risk.
But Jesus
also says
we're the light
of the world.
Not just salt,
we're light.
And we know
from our Bibles
that light,
especially Ephesians 5,
talks about
when you were saved,
you were delivered
from the domain
of darkness
and brought into
the kingdom of light.
Your children of light
walk in the light.
So no longer
do we kind of
participate
in works of darkness.
We expose them.
So there's this
exposing nature
of light.
But Jesus talks
about light
in this passage
as good works.
Look at verse 16.
In the same way,
let your light
shine before others
so that they may
see your good works.
So the rays
of the kingdom,
they shine
through us
as good works.
light.
And so where
salt
is a preservative,
it slows decay,
light,
according to Jesus here,
is revealing
God's good ways.
It's a goodness.
The rays of the kingdom
shining through
our work.
Now you might be asking,
well,
what does that look like?
What are the good works?
Jesus shows us
in the Sermon on the Mount.
If you look at 5,
chapter 5,
verse 21 through 26,
he talks about
good works
as not
kind of
getting angry
and fighting
with one another,
but pursuing
reconciliation
with one another.
In chapter 5,
verses 43 through 48,
the good works
that Jesus about,
kingdom good works,
the conspicuous
acts of godliness
of a kingdom citizen
is not hating
your enemy,
it's loving your enemy
and praying for them.
Now that will get
somebody's attention.
Furthermore,
if you look at
chapter 6,
verses 19
through 24,
some more conspicuous
acts of godliness,
it's not storing up
treasures on earth,
it's storing up
treasures in heaven
because your God
is Jesus,
not mammon.
Conspicuous acts
of godliness.
Good works.
In chapter 6,
verses 25 through 34,
we,
brothers and sisters,
live in an anxious culture.
Highly anxious.
anxious.
And Jesus says,
hey,
let this light shine
where you're not anxious
but seeking first
the kingdom,
you have this
settledness
knowing that your God
is going to take care
of you.
These are the good works.
John 13,
Jesus says to his disciples,
a new commandment
I give to you,
you love one another
just as I have loved you,
you are to love one another
and everyone will know
that you're my disciples
if you have love
for one another.
Do you know what this means,
brothers and sisters?
Our love for one another
as members of this church,
it is a corporate shining.
It's this corporate good we do
where we love one another.
salt is a preservative
where light is a revealer.
Reveals good works
of kingdom citizens
who've been radically changed
by God's grace.
So in both salt and light,
there are these conspicuous acts
of godliness
that make for a functional distinction
from the rest of the world.
It's where it shows up.
And there's no denying it.
We are functionally distinct
from the world
in order to glorify God
in the world.
Point three.
Our conspicuous godliness
is a glorious distinction.
Looking back at Matthew 5, 16,
we see,
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.
God uses our saltiness
and God uses our shininess
in order to bring glory
to his name.
The goal of these good works
is God's glory.
In other words,
when people see our good works,
and you're like,
why are you doing that?
We don't say,
because I'm great,
we say,
the Christ-shaped life
you see in me,
that's God at work in me.
That's his grace changing me.
You're just giving credit.
You're just citing your source.
That language there,
when Jesus says,
so that they may see
your good works,
for some of you,
that might make you
a little uncomfortable
because you know
what Jesus has said
to the Pharisees.
If you flip in your Bibles
to Matthew 23,
Jesus goes into
a series of woes,
not blessedness,
woes on the Pharisees.
And in chapter 23,
verse 5,
Jesus says of these things,
they do all their deeds
to be seen by others.
For they make their phylacteries broad
and their fringes long,
and they love the place of honor
at feasts,
and best seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the marketplaces,
and being called rabbi by others.
So what we have here is
the Pharisees want to be seen by others,
and here Jesus is saying,
you're the light of the world,
you need to be seen by others.
What's going on here?
The issue isn't being seen by others.
The issue is why you want to be seen by others.
The motive of being seen by others.
The Pharisees wanted to be seen by others.
Their version of righteousness
was designed for self-glory.
To draw your attention to them.
To be esteemed.
To be well thought of.
To get as many likes as possible.
But Christians practice conspicuous acts
of kingdom righteousness,
not to, like, be worshipped,
but for God to be glorified.
We're salt and light for the glory of God.
Has anybody seen the moon
the last couple nights?
Phenomenal.
So I texted the moon last night.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Hey, moon, you look great.
Very brilliant.
I hope you're well.
Bing, bing.
Comes back.
Thanks.
Period.
That would be a mistake of the moon.
What if I said,
hey, you look great tonight, moon.
I hope you're well.
And the moon responds to me by saying,
yeah, just to be clear,
the brilliance you see
is not my own brilliance.
It's the sun's brilliance on me.
I'm just reflecting the brilliance of the sun.
We've got to be clear
on the source of our brilliance,
of our glory.
As Christians,
our good works don't bear witness to us.
Our good works bear witness
to the glorious grace of God
who can change people.
How do you go from seeing good works
to glorifying our Father in heaven?
Is there a,
it seems like Jesus is kind of missing a step here.
What is he assuming here?
For someone to see your life
and to see kind of what God is doing in you
and then to give glory to our Father in heaven,
what needs to happen?
We need to say something.
That's what needs to happen.
Our good works
plus a gospel word
will bring glory to God.
Let me show you how that works.
Let's say someone comes up to you
and they say,
you know what,
I've noticed
that when everybody attacks you,
you don't attack them back,
but you're kind to them.
Now you could say at that point,
yeah, you know,
it's just in the home I was raised in
and I'm just a nice person.
That would be a mistake
because now you get to speak a gospel word.
You can say something like,
you know what,
I can't take credit for that
because there was a time
where I'd attack people back,
but God's grace in me has changed me
and so I'm actually
trying to love my enemies there.
And then that person can say,
wait, hold on a second,
God does that in people
and now we're on our way
to glorifying our God in heaven.
Or your work group
is under the knife,
under the axe
and everybody in your work group
at work,
they're living in anxiety.
They're like,
I don't know if we're going to have
our job next week.
But they notice you,
you're not flipping out,
you're actually marked by joy.
And they're like,
come up to you,
hey, why aren't you flipping out?
And you're like,
well, you know what,
I am just temperamentally
an even-keeled person.
That would be a mistake
because if you, in fact,
have been crying out to God
and saying things,
I'm trying to seek first
your kingdom, God,
would you meet all of our needs?
And you have this settled assurance
that he will.
You get to sell people,
you know,
that's God's grace at work in me
because normally I would be
flipping out right now.
And now people can be like,
wait, what?
God does that in human beings?
And you're like, yeah,
if you can do it for me,
he can do it for you.
Now, if you want more information
on how to actually share
the gospel of Jesus with people,
I would recommend
Greg Gilbert's book,
What is the Gospel?
Short little book,
very helpful,
and it hits four points,
God, sin, Christ,
and respond,
very helpful.
What I want to make sure
you're seeing, though,
is that the glory
of the salt
and the light
is not the salt
and the light.
The glory of the salt
and the light
is our God.
There's two mistakes.
One is the hypocrisy mistake.
That's where you speak
a good gospel word,
but there is no good works
to substantiate it.
You say, God is good.
He changes lives.
But your life's a mess
in the sense of like,
okay,
Jesus loves his enemies,
but you are hating yours.
People will hear that
and they'll be confused by it.
Like, what?
Jesus doesn't make a difference
in your life.
You're like everybody else.
So the first mistake here
is some kind of
hypocritical mistake.
The second mistake
is the plagiarism mistake.
Plagiarism is when
someone will write something
and they'll use
somebody else's ideas
or words
and they won't
give them credit for it.
And so people,
the audience
of the person
who's written something
or speaking about something,
they will draw
the conclusion
that, oh,
this is their stuff.
It's academic
kind of falsehood.
It's a lack of integrity.
And when God
is at work in us
and we don't give him
credit for it,
it's a theological
lack of integrity.
We're not giving him credit.
We've got to cite our source.
We've got to say,
what you're seeing in me
is not my doing.
It is God's grace
at work in me.
I'm not the son.
I'm the moon.
I'm glad you're noticing.
I've got to give credit
to where credit's due.
Kingdom character,
the beatitudes,
show up in kingdom conduct
being salt and light.
And when there is
a word of the kingdom
added at just the right time,
God gets the glory
and then God's kingdom expands.
We're not the sun.
We're the moon.
We're his salt and light.
And he has called us
to be distinct from the world
in order to glorify him
in the world.
ours is a reflective glory.
Which brings me to the last point.
Our conspicuous godliness
cannot be confused
with dysfunctional indistinction.
In this passage,
Jesus actually provides
a couple warnings.
I'm sure you picked up on it.
You're the salt of the earth,
but if salt
has lost its taste,
how shall its saltiness
be restored?
It's good for nothing.
Jesus says of light,
a city on a hill
cannot be hidden.
It defeats its purpose.
You don't light a lamp
and then put it under a basket.
It defeats its purpose.
Salt is meant to be salty.
It's its purpose.
It's a preservative.
Do you know how the church
loses its saltiness?
It's...
By becoming like the world.
We become indistinct
from the world
when we love the world
and want to be like the world.
You see,
worldliness in the church
is a dysfunction
in the church.
It grieves God.
It's...
You're living
not who you were
meant to be.
Salt and light.
To be distinct
from the world.
So instead of being
distinct from,
we...
We're...
End up being part
of the decay.
It's not God's design
for us.
Have you lost your saltiness
because of worldliness?
Are you trying to
store up treasures
on earth
thinking that
that is going to
give you security?
Are you kind of
imbibing entertainment
without discernment
and content
and volume
just like the world?
Are you living in anxiety
just like the world?
Does your family schedule
look like the world's
family schedules?
does your conversations...
Do they...
What do they smell like?
Life or death?
Do you know
how to become salty again
if you've...
If you're feeling
the encroachment
of worldliness?
Do you know
how you become salty again?
You turn from worldliness
and you turn to God's grace.
You treasure Jesus
above all else
and he will saltify you.
It's just a matter of time
after treasuring Jesus
with everything you've got.
It's just a matter of time
before the conspicuous acts
of godliness
start showing up.
Just a matter of time.
When it comes to
the light of the world,
in verses 14 and 15,
I think Jesus is moving
not to talking about worldliness
as so much he's talking
about something else.
Hiddenness.
Hiding.
Covering up.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill
cannot be hidden.
Back in the first century,
you have a city
on a mountain.
At night,
it's lit up
and there's no denying it.
You cannot ignore that.
It can't be hidden.
It would be defeating its purpose.
Or,
you don't light a lamp
and then put it under a basket.
No.
Cities on hills are high up.
Lamps are to be put on lampstands
high up
and they give light
to all.
that they're to be seen.
Christian,
salt of the earth,
light of the world,
are you hiding
who you are?
are you ashamed
to cite the glorious
source
of your good works?
When was the last time
you spoke the word
Jesus
in the presence
of a non-Christian?
solution.
This little light of mine,
I'm going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I'm going to let it shine.
I'm not going to put
a bushel on it.
No,
I'm going to let it shine.
I'm not going to put
worldliness over it.
No,
I'm going to let it shine.
I'm not going to let
fear of man
be a basket
over my light.
Nope,
I'm going to let it shine.
I'm not going to let shame of what other people think about me because I'm a follower of Jesus.
I'm not going to let that hide my light.
Don't hide, Christian.
Shine, Christian.
You were saved for.
God's grace has made you distinct from the world.
God's grace has made me in order so that you would glorify God in the world.
Do you know how to stop hiding your light?
You admit your fear and shame to the light of the world, Jesus.
You say, forgive me, Lord Jesus, for being fearful of what other people think about me.
In light of what you have done on my behalf.
I am really sorry.
And then you start praying prayers like this.
God, would you light me up?
Would you show me your glory?
Would you help me to treasure you above all else?
Would you be the controlling center of my life?
Would you be my one consuming passion, my all-governing reality?
And out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth will speak.
I can't take credit for that.
That's God's grace in me.
All glory to his name.
God has saved us by his grace, called us out of the world.
He has made us salty and lit us up to send us back into the world for the glory of the name of Jesus.
Distinct from, to bear witness to.
Coming off the Beatitudes, Jesus describes our distinct relationship to the world as being salt and light.
We are supernaturally distinct.
It's by his grace that's the source of our saltiness, the source of our brilliance.
We are a functional distinction.
We slow the moral corruption, the sinful corruption in our culture, and we shine.
We reveal God's goodness.
And we are gloriously distinct.
We cite our source.
We don't plagiarize.
We say, it's his doing, not mine.
I'm a moon.
He's the sun.
And we say no to the dysfunction of indistinction.
We don't blend in.
We stand out.
We say no to worldliness.
We say no to the fear of man.
We say no to shame.
God has made us distinct from the world so that we would glorify God in the world.
And it's our privilege.
Let's pray together.
God in heaven, whether we live in the city of Kenosha or we live in Union Grove, we live in Africa,
you have graciously and radically changed us from the inside out.
And now we get to be your salt and light.
Lord Jesus, you are the light of the world.
You are the great sun of our solar system.
And now it's our joy to reflect your glory,
to live out the good works you've called us to and prepared for us,
so that more and more people would come to see you and trust you
and live for you and for who you are.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.