Salt & Light
Notes
Transcript
Last week we started the sermon on the mount.
Poor in spirit
Those who mourn
the gentle
Those that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Merciful
Pure in heart
The Peacemaker
Persecuted
Insulted and falsely accused
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Salt
Salt
Hyponatremia
Hyponatremia
● Nausea with vomiting
● Fatigue
● Headache or confusion
● Cramps or spasms in your muscles
● Irritability and restlessness
Severe cases can lead to seizures or even coma.
Everybody has an attraction, a taste for salt, because your body cannot function without it.
But, because we are Americans and we overindulge, we get too much sodium and thus the birth of salt substitutes.
I believe we all have a hunger, an appetite for genuine salt. For fellowship with our creator. We need it, we know we need it, but Christians have lost their saltiness and the world has an abundance of salt substitutes which may taste good, but bring none of the benefits of pure salt.
Jesus said that we (disciples of Christ) are the salt of the earth. We are His representatives. His ambassadors.
6 Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.
1. Salt in the shaker doesn’t taste like anything.
You have to come in contact with the world
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
Pure salt: cannot lose its saltiness. But in Jesus’ time on earth, the people didn’t have pure salt. It was possible for the sodium chloride to leach out of what they called salt and it would lose its flavor. It would lose it’s ability to preserve and had no purpose.
How do Christians lose their saltiness. Before we talk about how we need to acknowledge that for many, it has happened.
2000 - 2015 Presbyterian down 40%
2016 - 73.7 % 2019 - 65%
Evangelical Lutheran Church is down 30%
United Methodist down 16%
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
That may be part of it, but I believe the biggest part of it is because Christians are losing their saltiness.
How do we become tasteless?
The Greek word in the Bible for tasteless, or to lose taste literally means become foolish.
How: Take you focus off of God and onto yourself.
When you stop praying, stop reading scripture, stop praising, stop giving, stop worshiping.
When you are more focused on who sits in the Oval office than who sits on the Throne, you will lose your saltiness.
To love your neighbor as yourself is a great commandment. As a matter of fact, Jesus said that it is the second greatest commandment. But when you put it before the first, you lose focus. You lose purpose, and you will lose your saltiness. You will become a salt substitute.
37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.
4 ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
They didn’t keep the main thing the main thing.
And if we don’t strive to keep the first great commandment, the second has no meaning.
Repent!
Light
Light
You are the light of the world.
Light serves only one purpose. To allow you to see. We don’t have night vision. Even nocturnal animals need some light to be able to see. That is how the eye works.
Jesus points this out by saying that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden and that no one lights a lamp and then covers the light so that it cannot fulfill its purpose.
That wouldn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t turn on a lamp and then just cover it with a blanket so that the light wasn’t visible. If you were going to do that, why even turn the light on in the first place?
He says that we are the light of the world. We- his disciples.
6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
We, as light, serve one purpose- So that His salvation (Jesus) may reach to the end of the earth.
16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Most of you have had your power go out at night. And most of you probably have a flashlight stashed somewhere when you can find it. And if not, you have your phone close with the light on the back of it.
How many of you have grabbed that flashlight, or phone, and then turned it so that the light it directly in you eyes so that you can walk around and see?
That’s not the way light works.
We don’t walk around in broad daylight staring at the sun. You’d be an idiot and pretty soon, you would be blind.
Light isn’t the focus, it is what the light reflects off of that we focus on.
Jesus tells us to let our light shine (good works) so that people wont look at us, but glorify God.
Give God glory and credit.
Focus on what Christ has done, not what you have done.
Let your light show your need for a savior.
Allow your light to show them their need for a savior.