Salt and Light

Father, we thank you for your holy, inspired, and inerrant Word. We thank you that you speak to us through it, and that it is sufficient, and that it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in the way of righteousness, so that we would be fully equipped for every good work. We pray that that indeed would be the case in us tonight because your Spirit is working and penetrating our hearts. May it be so, we pray in Jesus' name and for His sake.

Amen. Matthew chapter 5 verse 13. 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 that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Thus far God's Word. And then turn with me, if you will, to Proverbs chapter 14 verse 34. Proverbs 14 verse 34 says this, Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Amen.

This is God's Word to us this evening. Some of you have Facebook accounts, I would imagine, a room of this many people. You have a Facebook account and you are aware if you have that account that there is a place where you can display your relationship status. So if you're married, you can say that you're married to so and so.

If you are single, you can state that. If you're in a relationship with someone, you're dating someone, you can state that. But there's also a category that you can include in that status which says it's complicated. So you can be in a it's complicated with someone. Now hopefully they agree that it's complicated because then you're really going to start complicating things. But you can be in a complicated relationship with another person.

And I think that if I had to place my relationship status with my country, with the United States of America, I might select it's complicated. Because when you look out at our nation, you see so many ways in which our nation is exceptional that God has truly blessed it. I mean the fact, listen, we are here on a Sunday evening in a room of this size with this many people and we're worshiping the one true and living God. That doesn't happen in every other country of the world because that is prohibited by the authorities and they would come in and they would at best throw us out. It's a remarkable blessing that we have those liberties here. We have privileges and opportunities in our nation that are paralleled by few if any other nations in this world. We have the ability to travel somewhat freely, get an education, pursue so many of our longings and desires and dreams.

We can be innovative. The government, however you feel about it, stays out of our business compared to many other nations so that we have some of the freedoms but they also provide protections and measure of justice that protects us as well however imperfectly they do this. We are tremendously blessed but then you also look at America and you discover that we have some really ugly parts of our country historically and in our present day and age. Where we have moved with our definition of things like marriage and family and the divorce rate and the abortion rate and the chaotic sexual issues going on in our nation and the racial tension that we have had historically and in our own day and many of the injustices that have befallen people in our nation who may not look exactly like myself and it's wrong and it's evil and these things continue to happen and then we have all sorts of other injustices that take place. We have much to celebrate and we have some things to lament as well in our nation and so you look at it and so many times you feel like it's complicated.

You go to the voting booth and you get there and you see I mean this litany of candidates it's like you look at it and it's like I've got clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right and here I am stuck in the middle with you. That's how we often times feel like where is the hope and there's great discouragement sometimes. Great discouragement at what's happening in our nation and I know that many of us feel that way.

We're overwhelmed by it. What we see when we turn on the news is it's not always good news. It's not always encouraging news and so what does it look like to be a Christian, a person who follows Jesus Christ and looks to him alone for hope in this life and the next and to be a person who is also a citizen of this earthly nation. You're a citizen of the kingdom of God and you're a citizen of the United States of America and so what does it look like to live that out? How do we love our nation? Should we love our nation?

How if the answer is yes how do we love our country in a way that isn't just framed by politics or parties but is framed by the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ as he's revealed in his word. Well I think what Jesus is saying here in Matthew is helpful for us because what Jesus begins with instead of saying this is what you are to do he starts with this is who you are therefore this is how you live in response to that and what he calls us here is salt and light, salt and light. What does salt do? Salt I mean it does a lot of things it provides flavor right? It flavors bland tasting foods and so we are the flavor of God as we go into the world. Another metaphor that you can maybe think of that we find in scriptures that were called the aroma of Christ so there's that aroma there's that flavor that is displayed there. We also salt also purifies what it touches it it protects it from disease and bacteria and other items getting into an object that would cause disease that would cause impurity and so we function as a purifying agent in the world and in other words we reflect the holiness and justice and goodness and truth of all that God is for us of all that he reveals himself to be when we go into our nation and into our cities and into our neighborhoods and into our homes and vocations living out our union with Christ with distinctiveness and faithfulness. There's that purity there and salt also is a preservative right it preserves they would they would just based meats in salt as a means to preserve it before they had refrigeration right and so we are preserving in our world as we live faithful Christian lives publicly we're preserving all that is good and right and true and beautiful about God about what he loves and about what he is like so that's who we are and then he also calls us light he calls us light when I was when I would go visit my my grandparents when I was a kid you know like around Christmas time all my cousins were girls every single one of them I mean whenever we got together as a family it was me and the estrogen fest I mean that's what it was like with my with my family so one of the one of the things about that is I don't know I got my own room when I would stay at my grandparents house with my cousins but it wasn't really like a it probably wouldn't have been designated as an actual room because it was it was more like it was their office and so it didn't have any windows so I would I would sleep in there in on the height of bed sofa and shut the door and the carpet was kind of was kind of thick and I would shut the door and it would be pitch black I mean you couldn't see it once that door shut I mean if I were to move this much one way or the other I was I mean it could have been a 9-1-1 moment because it was completely dark in there but if I just cracked the door just a hair I could see just that much light and just that much light in that pitch black room enabled me to at least know where to go and know how to get out and know how to how to go in the direction that I needed to go and go in the direction of safety and what was good and wise and that that's what light does light light provides direction it points the way it helps us to see reality for what it actually is helps us to see clearly and we function like that in the world so when you think of what the church's role is in many respects with with regard to our political social situation what are we to be well the church is to be the conscience of the state would be the conscience of those who are are divinely called into positions of governing authority we're to be that light we're to point the way to point the way to what is good and to point the way to Christ and to point the way to to what causes life in the kingdom of this world to thrive and also honors all that God is and that's how we live as people who are followers of Christ because that's who we are he says that's who we are and so we are not doing anyone any favors if we withdraw it is no longer good for anything if salt loses its taste it's no longer good for anything except for being thrown out and trampled under people's feet and we don't put our light we don't put our light under a stand what good is a light if we this is what I talk to my family about sometimes we get ready to leave in the light it's my job on my tombstone it's going to be here lies Darren stone he turned out all the lights after the rest of the family left and the house I mean that's my role to go back and turn off light because what good does a light do to be to be on in a in a room with no one in it and it just kind of it's not it's not going out and serving any purpose right so the purpose of the yes right there you know what I'm talking about and so the the the purpose of the light is to actually go to where there are to where the people are and illumine the way illuminate the way display the way and that is who we're called to be and it's very tempting in a in a world that we look out at and we see we see discouragement we see issues going on on the right and the left and the center and every which direction politically socially culturally personally that are that are that are tremendously weighty upon us we wonder sometimes we wouldn't necessarily say it but we wonder sometimes if God has checked out if he has withdrawn his countenance from our nation from our world from our lives and it's very tempting if we believe that although we may not say it we may not even be conscious that we believe it but it's very tempting if we'd somewhere embedded in us for us to check out as well to to go into our own little quarantine to isolate so many in the church in this season have done that have isolated withdrawn from from the world and that is antithetical to who God says that we are because we are salt and light and so if we are salt and light that leads us to the proverbs right to proverbs chapter 34 if that's who we are we go into our nation that God has has divinely placed us into in his providence he has we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven but we are also citizens of the United States of America he's placed us here and we're to love the place that he has placed us in not love everything that we do as a nation not love everything that we are about but to love her people to seek her good the proverb says here that righteousness exalts a nation when we live as salt and light in our nation what we're doing is we're living for the glory of God primarily and then underneath that for the good of our nation we're displaying the righteousness of God we're keeping injustice and wickedness and foolishness at bay when Christians go into the world into the voting booth into the public arena into their vocations into their households and live out faithful Christian lives of saltiness and light in those places and when we live that out and we use the weapons that God has given to us which are the full armor of God the sword of the spirit and we don't fight with the weapons of the world then we end up having a beautiful impact for the glory of God which God uses providentially to draw people to himself to enable the church to conduct its mission with faithfulness and freedom there's great blessing that comes when we live as blessings to our nation as well and so we ought to be people who love our country we ought to be people who love our country because God has placed us here and we are salt and light in it that's who you are and so there are some practical hooks practical applications for how we go about doing that and I just there's a whole bunch that I've jotted down but I'm gonna I'm gonna just give you I'm gonna give you six said what in seminary they say just give three points in sermons that's all people can handle well you're getting sick so just pretend it's two sermons right so here we go number one practical hook practical application of salt and light number one is we need to be people who first of all cultivate our love for God because if our passion for Christ is peripheral to our lives then all we are going to do is end up being partisan hacks we're gonna be swallowed up we're our affection something is going to be Lord of our lives it's either going to be Jesus or it's going to be something else it's going to be a created twisted and broken thing and so we need to be people whose whose lives are enthralled with all that Jesus is for us we need to be tethered to the word of God so that through that window of the word we're beholding the beauty and the glory and the grace of God and his and all that he is is is burrowing itself into our soul we have a white hot passion for him so that that so that we're compelled we have the fuel to go out we need to be people who who plumb the depths of his word I mean I am so let me tell you something I am so glad to be here on a Sunday evening if you came this morning your day has been bookended with the word of God the reading the singing the praying the hearing of God's holy word God speaking into your lives the answer is isn't just come to church but the point is is that Lord's Day Christians make everyday Christians who go into the world living as salt and light you become people who who delight in the things of the word in your life is is shaped by it and and when you stop to think about the about what you actually deserve you know what you deserve from God if you want to talk with about what you deserve there's one thing that you deserve from God and I'm pretty sure you and I don't want it that's all we deserve from God and that that's not what he gives us he has given us a love that will never let us go he has given us the hope of glory he promises in your deepest darkest hour where you feel alone and hopeless and helpless that that he will never leave you nor forsake you he is reigning and ruling over every point of minutia in your life and in this world his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches over me and you and if that's the case he has deposited a wealth into your account that you can never deplete I was with my family in our minivan Chrysler minivan a chick magnet if there ever was one and I pulled up we had all the kids all four of us we pull up to a red light and next to me pulls up this guy in a Lamborghini and so I rolled down my window he had his window down and I rolled it down and I said hey you want to race to the next stoplight he kind of you know did that guy you know that guy you know I'm talking about that guy look right and he he the light turns green I mean I looked up he's already there like it was it was and I'm in this you know bucket of bolts that's you know it's like zero to sixty and ninety seconds downhill with a tailwind I mean that's what I'm that's what I'm rolling I mean that's this guy's driving a half million dollar car and if he is if you spend a half million dollars on a car you are not going to go to the Walmart parking lot and park that next to someone's rusted up 1986 Pontiac Grand Am are you you are going to go instead and you are going to go way to the hinterlands of the parking lot and you're going to park sideways so that you take up three spots and you're going to make sure that there's no one within a quarter mile of you on either side you are not going to let that car get dinged up because you invested so much of your wealth into that vehicle it is a treasure and friends listen to this if you are in Christ you have a treasure that is infinitely greater and more beautiful and more powerful than someone's $500,000 Lamborghini that in 30, 50, 70 years is going to be sent to the recycling bin and it's turned into someone's belly button ring that they buy at Claire's for $9.99 that's where that Lamborghini is going to go eventually we have the hope of glory we have the gospel if you're anchored into who Jesus is then that fuels your life he fuels your life and that leads you to go out and to love this place that God has placed you in and the people that God has placed you amongst cultivate your love for God cultivate your love for God secondly don't be discouraged you are look it's easy to get discouraged I'm discouraged I look I turn on the news it's discouragement right it is discouragement and that's that's so much of what we see we feel like you know we are not on a trajectory in the church and in the world of moving in a direction that is there's a good healthy godly thing but I just want to encourage you with a few things number one just a few just a few stories number one and there's all sorts of indications throughout the course of history in the world where when things look really dark God was up to something and he was up to something good and reviving in the most biblical sense of that you look in the in the I think was the 1400s what's going on there you have in the 1400s in Europe three major things happen at the same time one the black death happens a third of Europe's population dies in that I mean what is the impact of that on the mind and heart when a third of the population dies as a result of pestilence and then on top of that you get the hundred years war the hundred years a hundred years of war the hundred years war devastating impacts and then on top of that this is all happening at the same time you have this huge rift in the church to where you have sometimes two three four popes all competing for power everything's just crumbling apart and you look at that and you think this is the end this is the end of the world everything is doomed everything is falling apart God has checked out he is off the grid and yet what happens out of that in a few short years you get actual real revival you get the Protestant Reformation you get a return to the gospel you get a church that is starting to be renewed and restored and invested and entranced in God's holy word and the gospel goes out and people are actually redeemed and churches start all over the place and we sitting here 500 years later are the beneficiaries of that you go forward a couple hundred years more in England 1640s there is this great revival this influence of Christ in all of the spheres of influence of culture Oxford and Cambridge universities the two of the premier universities in the world it was part of the reading list that they read Calvin's Institute of the Christian religion you had to read that in order to graduate from those schools some of the great theologians of the era went to those schools there this was the time when Parliament came together at the Westminster assembly and drafted something called the Westminster confession of faith and the larger and shorter catechisms the summary of what it is that we believe here in this church the Christians are having tremendous influence in spears of political and social and academic arenas and then what happens 1662 and it's all gone it all crumbles in fact in just that amount of time people who believed in the doctrines of grace who looked to Christ in that way they were not even permitted to attend the best universities in the country and many of them are expelled they're expelled from the land and where do they go they come here to this nation and they settle up in New England and they settle in the Chesapeake Bay and they settle in the Carolinas and they start churches and however imperfectly they may have even lived the Christian life they have this great impact for the gospel in our nation that has had residual effects to this very day for our good God was up to something when it all looked lost China communism comes in to China there's a church in China communism comes in China goes under the radar and it just seems like well that's the end of the church in China it's all gone now the communists have come in they're wiping churches out they're burning them down they're throwing people in prison they're executing them there's no church left in China and then what happens you start to capitalism starts to come in there which opens it up to the world and then we're able to look underneath the hood of China and what's happened in all of that time the church has grown exponentially under a profoundly harsh and an inhospitable political environment God did that in the midst of all of those horrible circumstances so I want you to not be discouraged because God is up to something and he is doing his work in the midst of discouraging days number three pray for your leaders that's another way that you can be salt and light pray for your leaders what Tim but Paul says to Timothy the pastoral letters is that he calls them to calls the church to pray for those who are in governing authority so that what we might be able to live peaceful and quiet lives godly and dignified in every way pray for your leaders pray for them to have the wisdom and the courage to make decisions that are good and wise and right and in line with the things that God honors see the Christian life listen the Christian life is a political life it's a political life because you're a citizen of this nation and you've been affected by by government in a myriad of ways that we haven't even been conscious of even throughout this day but ultimately it's a political life because we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven and we serve a heavenly king and he reigns and rules he's the ruler and so when things are going wrong and when things are at odds with the things of God what we do is we take those we take those issues and we bring those people who God has placed in in authority and we bring them to the throne of grace and we say God transform their hearts thy will be done let your wisdom be poured out upon these people help them to come to know Christ do your work in them help them to to rule so that righteousness flows down like waters and justice like an ever flowing stream may that be the case in their lives and in our nation we pray for them number four teach your children teach your children the things of God teach your children ways in which they can practically love their neighbors and their nation protect them but don't sequester them point them to Christ point them to ways in which they can they can grow and become men and women as they grow up to love their neighbors and love their nation in Deuteronomy six we see that it was God reminding parents to bring this word to bear upon their children so that they wouldn't forget it and listen if there is ever a time in which children needed it it is now because when your kids go to school or your grandkids go to school they are pummeled with ideas not even school just in the world okay they are pummeled with ideas that are foreign to how it was when maybe you and I were growing up and looking when I was growing up and I grew up in California not the Bible belt by any stretch of the imagination but in that time the mantra of the day was tolerance you didn't have to agree with everything you didn't have to celebrate everything but you did have to at least tolerate it not be a jerk about it well that ship sailed like twenty something years ago it's not tolerance it's full-blown celebration and embracing of it and if you don't celebrate it and you don't embrace it with every bone in your body you will be marginalized you will lose friends I tell my high school daughter if you are anchored to the Word of God and you have views about sexuality marriage and so forth that are in line with scripture instead of in line with what you may be hearing and seeing in the world you not only might lose some friends and might have some people that think that you're a bigot and close-minded fool you will have that you will have that and that is no small thing for a 15 year old young woman that's no small thing for a 45 year old man and the only way and what she's going to stay anchored and you are going to stay anchored is if we are are just poured in to who God is and what he's like and praying them through that teach your children five get engaged get engaged some of us are maybe too engaged with the news were were maybe discipled by it because we spend so much time in front of it when I that's not what I mean what I mean when I say get engaged is think about your neighbors think about your community think about your nation ways in which you can practically go out and live that salty and illuminating life that God calls us to live because of that's who we are we are called in that direction and fifth and finally never forget that you are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven first you are citizen of the kingdom of heaven for some of us may have grown up in a time where there was there was not a sharp distinction between being a follower of Christ and being an American you know in the 60s 70s 80s during the time of the Cold War where the great evil of the world was communism which was characterized by atheism the the antidote to that was was a cultural at least form of Christianity that was at least valued if not actually believed it was in other words the bias of the world of our nation was a favorable bias towards the things of Christianity well the thing is is that in the 90s and thereafter that shifted the Cold War came to an end and what was the great what became our great enemy in our nation radical Islamic terrorism religious a religious issue and then secularism continues to to take off and these in the world sees Christians standing for for certain positions in our culture that the secular mind couldn't couldn't embrace didn't embrace doesn't embrace and now it's God and the things of God that are seen as evil and what we need to remember is that when everything comes crashing down and when everything comes bearing down against the church and against you for who you are in Christ ultimately we need to remember that our citizenship is in heaven first we ultimately serve him we don't serve the Republican Party we don't serve the Democratic Party we don't serve an ideology in the world we ultimately serve Christ and that informs all the other identities that we may lean into in this life but ultimately who we are in Christ shapes our whole life so that we go out and live for his glory and that because we are Kingdom people first we have no promises in scripture and I'll just finish with this we have no promises in scripture that the United States will prevail it may be here another 245 years and may only last another 245 days but what we have the promises of that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church the church's one foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord and we can rejoice that his kingdom will not fail he rules over earth and heaven the keys of death and hell are to our Jesus given we have that hope you will love America best if you seek his kingdom and his righteousness first righteousness will exalt a nation when the church lives in consistent repentance and faith with our gaze set on him who came such a distance for us our Lord Jesus Christ amen let's pray Jesus we thank you for your word write it on our hearts change our lives help us to love our communities in our nation for your glory for the good of those who've yet to come to know you and also even for our joy pray it in Jesus' name amen.