Each of us is entrusted with a sphere of influence.
The choices we make, the habits we form, and the influence we wield help shape and mold our little corner of the world, for better or worse. Jesus calls his followers to be salt and light in the world, to have a preservative influence and be a beacon of light to those around us. From Chicago, welcome to The Moody Church Hour with Pastor Philip Miller. Stay with us for a time of worship and teaching as we continue a series on the upside-down kingdom. From the book of Matthew, we'll learn about being salt and light.
Here now is worship leader Tim Stafford. Let's pray as we begin. Lord, we do pray that we would see your kingdom, that your will would be done here as it is done in heaven, that our hearts would be awakened to the realities of this upside-down world, and instead turned right side up, seeking you, seeking your face. Because with your strength, your presence, we can face these days with confidence and peace and hope.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's sing together. Oh, mystery, hearts are yearning for you. We long for you. Because when we see you, we find strength to face the day. In your presence, all our fears are washed away, washed away. Hosanna, hosanna, you are the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises. Hosanna, hosanna, on the new way above us, we welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Hear the sound of hearts returning to you, return to you.
In your kingdom, broken hearts are made new, made new. Because when we see you, we find strength to face the day. In your presence, all our fears are washed away, washed away. Hosanna, hosanna, you are the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises.
Hosanna, hosanna, on the new way above us, we welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Because when we see you, we find strength to face the day. In your presence, all our fears are washed away.
Because when we see you, we find strength to face the day. In your presence, all our fears are washed away, washed away. Hosanna, hosanna, you are the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises. Hosanna, hosanna, on the new way above us, we welcome you here, Lord Jesus.
Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna, hosanna. All the creatures of our God and King, from your voice we'll never sing. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
All our sheep, men that are so strong, weak and strong. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the Spirit divine. Oh praise Him, oh praise Him. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
This is my Father's birth and to my listening ears. All nature sings and proudly sings the music of the sweet. This is my Father's word, iron and sweet in the fall. All rocks and trees, all skies and streets, His hand the wonders fall. This is my Father's word, the blood that carols raise.
The morning light, the building light, let them make their space. This is my Father's word, He shines in all that I swear. And rest our dear members, we speak to Him everywhere. This is my Father's word, all that we never gave. And all the wrongs, sins of so strong, God is the ruler now. This is my Father's word, the blood that carols raise. This is my Father's word, the blood that carols raise.
First, Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, Lord of all and ever so. He will I cherish, He will I honor, Now my soul's glory joy and honor. Fair on the meadow, fair still the wilderness, Long in the valley, Lord must we. Jesus is ever, Jesus is ever, Who makes the both of us to see. Fair is the sunshine, fair still the moonlight, And the Lord's great, great star before us, Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines cooler than all the angels there and more. Beautiful Savior, Lord of all nations, Son of God, praise Son of man, Glory and honor, praise and revelation, Now and forevermore.
Jesus is ever the ruler. If you want to change the world, start by making your bed. Some of you may recognize that line from the 2014 commencement address that Admiral William McRaven gave at the University of Texas in Austin, which went viral a few years ago and has subsequently been made into a book. Admiral McRaven was reminding those graduates and everyone who heard his voice of the power of the little things, our choices, our habits, our influence, that every single one of us has been entrusted with a sphere of influence.
We have a home or a neighborhood, a workplace, a school, a gym, filled with people and friends and family. And the choices we make, the habits we form, the influence we wield, shapes and molds and changes our little corner of the world for better or for worse. And of course, changing the whole world is hard and almost impossible, right? But changing your world, my world, our worlds, that starts when we make our beds and set our little corner of the world to rights and bring blessing and healing and renewal into our sphere of relationships, a little order in all the chaos, a little kindness in all the criticism, a little light in all the darkness, a little hope in all the despair.
It's the little things that end up changing the world, isn't it? And it's not as if this idea is altogether new. In fact, Jesus makes much the same point in his Sermon on the Mount some 2,000 years ago. But instead of an analogy about making your bed, Jesus talks about the imagery of being salt and light.
All ordinary things, salt and light, with massive extraordinary influence on its surroundings. And according to Jesus, if we want to change the world, we start off by being salt and light, salt and light. Grab your Bibles. We're going to be in Matthew 5 verses 13 to 16 this morning. Let's read these four verses and jump in together. Matthew 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 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. Thanks be to the Lord for the reading of his word. In these four verses, Jesus is giving us a road map. He's teaching us how to change our world. And in order to do that, to understand what he's saying here, we need to examine the overlap of the kingdoms, the dynamics of salt and light, and the calling of holy presence.
Those are our three buckets for this morning. The overlap of the kingdoms, the dynamics of salt and light, and the calling of holy presence. Would you bow your heads as we turn to God's word and ask him to be our teacher? Father, we come here today, and we pray that the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ would break through into our lives. Help us see ourselves with clarity. Help us live boldly and courageously in the light of the kingdom of heaven. For Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen.
Amen. First of all, the overlap of the kingdoms, the overlap of the kingdoms. Before we jump into these four verses, what I want to do is remind us of what Jesus has been saying. Jesus has announced that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, the kingdom is on offer in himself. He said this in chapter 4, verse 17.
If anyone would reach out to him, take his hand, follow him, they will experience the abundant life of the kingdom of heaven. It will be theirs. It's theirs for the taking.
It's a remarkable offer, isn't it? You may not be much in the kingdoms of earth. You may be poor.
You may be mourning. You may be meek and powerless and persecuted. And yet in the kingdom of heaven that is on offer in Jesus Christ, there is a blessedness of abundant life that can be yours now and forever. You can be penniless in the kingdom of earth and have a treasure in the kingdom of heaven. Amen. You can be scorned in the kingdom of earth and yet be crowned with glory in the kingdom of heaven. Amen. You can be a nobody in the kingdom of earth and yet be an eternal child of God in the kingdom of heaven.
Amen. You see, Jesus is showing us that the universe as it really is has two overlapping kingdoms. Two overlapping kingdom realities. There's the kingdom of earth and then there's the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of earth, that's the one we know so very well. It's the material world. It's the world we perceive with our senses.
It's the world of politics and survival and conflict over limited resources. It's the dog-eat-dog kingdom of earth. But according to Jesus, there's another kingdom. The kingdom of heaven. A spiritual kingdom.
One we can perceive with our souls. Where God reigns as king and he lavishes his good gifts in abundance. It's a grace upon grace kingdom of heaven. And we don't have an option whether we're going to live in the kingdom of earth.
We're simply born into this world. But we do have the option of whether we will live in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is at hand in Jesus Christ.
If we will follow him into the life of the abundance of the kingdom of heaven, everything changes. It's one thing to be alive in the kingdom of earth. To live in the reality and resources that are on offer in this kingdom.
But it's another thing altogether to be alive in the kingdom of heaven. To live in the reality and resources that are on offer and available in Jesus Christ. When Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he's inviting us, don't you see?
He's inviting us to take him up on his offer. To step with him into a bigger, wider, fuller way of life. To live in ultimate reality. To live in the abundance of resources that are available in the kingdom of heaven. And it's theirs for the taking.
It's right here, right now. If Jesus is right, there's more to life than meets the eye. And we can spend all of our lives living for this world, for this kingdom, this kingdom of earth. As if this is all there really is in life. But if we do that, we're not living in reality.
Not all of it. Because we were meant to live for so much more. We were meant to live in the kingdom of heaven. We were meant to be alive to the presence and power of God himself.
Drawing resources into ourselves from the kingdom of heaven so that we might live. Every moment, friends, of every day is an opportunity to be with Jesus. And live in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven.
Every moment of every day is an opportunity to be with Jesus. And to live in the reality and the resources of the kingdom of heaven. And as we've seen, that's what all these blessed people are doing.
These people, these nine-fold lists of blessed people that Jesus opens his Sermon on the Mount listing here. These people are living in a bigger universe. They're not just living in the kingdom of earth. They're living in light of the kingdom of heaven. They're living in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven. Even as they live on earth.
Look at these. Listen, you can handle spiritual bankruptcy in the kingdom of earth if you are trusting in the riches of grace that are yours in the kingdom of heaven. You can mourn openly in the kingdom of earth. If you know that the God of all comfort is near and is at hand in the kingdom of heaven and will never leave you or forsake you. You can meekly let other people go first in the kingdom of earth if you know you have an unshakable inheritance in the kingdom of heaven that will never perish, spoil, or fade that is kept for you. You can endure unrighteousness in this kingdom of earth if you know that one day justice will be satisfied in the kingdom of heaven. You can keep giving mercy to undeserving people in the kingdom of earth if you know there is an unending fountain of mercy that is yours in the kingdom of heaven. You can be modest and pure, never turning ahead in the kingdom of earth if you know that you will see the face of God in the kingdom of heaven.
You can absorb wrongs, the wrongdoing of other people with forgiveness in the kingdom of earth if it means you will become ultimately like your father in the kingdom of heaven. You can face all kinds of persecution and rejection in the kingdom of earth if you know there will be honor and glory forever in the kingdom of heaven. See, this list that Jesus opens up with, this list of blessed people, they're simply blessed not because they have anything particularly going for them in this earth, but because they're alive to the reality and the resources of the kingdom of heaven that are on offer in Jesus Christ. These people are living in the kingdom of earth, but they are living for the kingdom of heaven. And it is these upside down kingdom blessed people that Jesus has in mind when he says in verses 13 and 14, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.
You, you who live in the overlap of these kingdoms who live on earth with an eye on heaven. Now, let's look at the dynamics of salt and light. Verse 13, you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how should saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. Now, what does it mean when Jesus says those who follow him in the abundant life of the kingdom of heaven are like the salt of the earth?
What does this mean? Well, in the ancient world, salt had two primary functions. Salt served as both a preservative and a seasoning, a preservative and a seasoning.
First, a preservative. Salt acts, I don't know if you know this, salt acts as a kind of antiseptic. It prevents decay. It keeps decay from setting in.
In the days before refrigeration, salt was the essential way that people cured and preserved their meat. Jesus is saying that his followers, when they live in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven in this world, have a preserving influence on the decay of the world around them. Wherever the world is breaking, we are there to mend. Wherever it is decaying, we are there to heal. Wherever it is faltering, we are there to strengthen.
This is why, by the way, that followers of Jesus Christ have always been at the forefront of medicine, building hospitals and orphanages and homeless shelters and disaster relief and crisis pregnancy centers. That is to be a preservative in the decaying world around us. That's the first image, preservative, a preservation presence. The second idea here is seasoning. Salt, we did this today, we salt our food in order to bring out the flavor, don't we? It accentuates the palate.
It seasons for taste. So in this idea, Jesus is saying that his followers, when they live in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven right here in this world, are drawing out the flavor of the world around them. We are here to cultivate the beauty of God's creation. We are here to draw out its goodness. We are here to enhance the wonder of all that God has made. This is why, again, followers of Jesus have always been invested in the forefront of music and the arts because as dark as this world is, there's still much light to be found. We are here to draw out the beauty of the world around us. We are here to adorn the darkness. We are here to season and savor this world. To be salt is to be a seasoning in the world around us.
That's the first metaphor. You are the salt of the earth. Let's look at the second one, verse 14. You are the light of the world. A city 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. What does Jesus mean when he says that those who follow him in the abundant life of the kingdom of heaven are like the light of the world?
What does that mean? Well, just like salt had two primary uses, light had two primary features in the ancient world. Light served as both a deterrent and a beacon, a deterrent and a beacon, first deterrent. Light, if you think about it, light keeps the darkness at bay, doesn't it? That's why we turn on the lights when we go on vacation. You leave a light on with the timer, right?
Why do you do that? Light keeps the darkness at bay. That's why we have security lamps outside our homes. Light drives the darkness away. Jesus is saying that his followers, when we live in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven right here, right now, we are like light that drives the darkness into the shadows. That evil is arrested when goodness is around. That by our very presence in the world, God's people, we drive the darkness back.
And a great example of this is the role that someone like William Wilberforce provided in the abolition movement getting rid of the slave trade. It was the light of the gospel that drove out so much darkness. To be the light is to be a deterrent to keep the darkness at bay. Secondly, it's to be a beacon, a beacon.
Think about it. If you're lost in the desert, outside of Jerusalem, you're out in the middle of the desert somewhere and all of a sudden you look up and you see a city of light on the hill in the dead of night. That's a beacon, isn't it? It's a beacon of hope, of refuge. It's a vision of life. I'm not going to die in the darkness. There's future. There's salvation.
It's right there. Jesus is saying that his followers, when we live in the life of the kingdom of heaven and the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven right here, right now, we're like a light shining a way of hope and life and salvation in a dark world. Jesus is the way that abundant life is on offer in him and the kingdom of heaven is at hand shining in this dark world, which is why followers of Jesus Christ build so many churches and send so many resources to make sure that the good news of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to every nation on this earth.
To be light is to be a beacon of hope to the world. Do you see what Jesus is doing here in these metaphors? He's showing us how to change the world.
This is so much better than just get up and make your bed in the morning as helpful as that really is. It gets you moving. Jesus is telling us wherever you go, wherever you live, work, learn or play, you go with the resources and the reality of the kingdom of heaven. You bear those resources in the world that are poured in you through Jesus Christ. So you go, you go to arrest the decay of the world that is falling apart, you go to adorn the beauty of this world around you, you go to drive back the darkness wherever you see it, you go to shine hope for a lost world. If you want to change the world, Jesus says, start off by being salt and light, salt and light. Now, to be this kind of salt and light that changes the world, we've got to avoid two things. There's two errors we've got to avoid.
The first one, Jesus talks about both of them. The first one is syncretism. That's a big word, syncretism. Syncretism is when we try to fit into the world around us and go with the flow and compromise. It's when we try to blend in with the world around us. It's like a chameleon, a chameleon that blends in with its surrounding and loses.
You can't even distinguish it from its surroundings. We act this way when we want to be so accepted by those in the kingdom of this earth that we slowly give in. We slowly fade. We slowly become like everyone else around us. And in the end, we find ourselves disloyal to the way and teachings of Jesus.
So many have gone down this path. And to use the language of Jesus, what happens is we lose our saltiness. We lose our saltiness, our flavor, our preservative influence.
We're good for nothing, Jesus says. In Jesus' day, salt was mined or scraped off the Dead Sea shores and so it wasn't 100% pure. And when the salt had leached out of it, they just had dirt and they just threw it out.
Jesus says, look, salt only works if it's salty. If it's distinct, it has to be different from the world around it or it's useless. It can't arrest decay.
It can't season. If it loses its distinction from the surrounding world, it is utter uselessness. Friends, syncretism means losing our holiness, our identity as the people of God and it's way too big a price to pay.
We can't go there. The second error is an equal but opposite error and that's separatism. Separatism. Separatism is when we separate, when we hide out from the big bad world around us where we form a Christian bubble for protection.
If syncretism is a chameleon, separatism is a turtle. Pull into the shell, form a hard barrier and stay inside where it's safe. Hide out from our surroundings.
Turtle posture people are so concerned about being tainted by those in the kingdom of earth that we disengage and we lose contact with the very people Jesus has sent us to be salt and light to. To use the language of Jesus, we hide our light. We put it under a basket and keep it for ourselves.
This is of course dangerous because the basket usually lights on fire. Our light was always meant to shine. Friends, it was meant to come into contact with the darkness and drive it back and be a beacon of hope. It's meant to be seen, it's meant to be showered out into the universe so that others might see and give glory to God our Father who is in heaven. It only works if it shines.
It only works if it's pushing back the darkness. It only works if it's giving hope to the lost. Friends, separatism means losing our presence in the lost world that Jesus has sent us to be a light to redeem and draw to himself.
And friends, that is too big a price to pay. To be salt and light, we've got to avoid both syncretism and separatism. Instead, Jesus calls us to embrace the calling of holy presence, the calling of holy presence. Friends, Jesus calls us to be a people holy unto the Lord who are also fully present in this lost world.
Do you see the tension? We are a people holy unto the Lord. We are to maintain our distinctiveness, our saltiness, the purity of our light. And, and we are to be fully present in this lost world.
We are to maintain proximity, to be in full contact with a decaying world, to drive back the darkness, to give a light of hope to those who are lost. Don't you see Jesus models for us this kind of life in the incarnation? Jesus, when he came and became fully human, fully proximate, all the way down to be with us in our brokenness and sin, he never lost his holiness before God, did he? He never lost his identity as the son of God, and yet he was fully present and engaged with lost people.
He ate with sinners and tax collectors, and yet he never became a sinner himself. Holiness and presence at once, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And so you and me, we are called to be holy unto the Lord, to maintain our saltiness and to be fully present in this lost world. And to let our light shine, or to say it another way, the old way, we are to be in the world, but not of the world.
In the world, but not of the world. We are to be fully engaged citizens, residents of the kingdom of earth, and yet maintain a life wholly in our ultimate citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. This is a tension, friends. It's a balance, like an arch, like an arch that is held up in the middle by two opposing forces that seem like opposites, and yet in the tension, support and provide stability and structure, we are to be both holy and present. It is the tension of an incarnational life. This is what we're called to. Now, here's the challenge.
Jesus is probably the only one who managed to integrate heavenly holiness and earthly presence with perfect balance and precision. Okay? Anybody else feel like they've got that down? The rest of us, we lean, don't we? We lean toward one side or the other. The tension in the arch is stronger maybe on one side or the other, and so we tip and we list one way or the other. Do you know which way you lean? Do you lean toward syncretism or separatism? You probably lean one of those two ways. I do. Now, maybe you don't know which way you lean.
Here's a helpful test. Which of the two errors do you tend to think is more dangerous? Separatism, where you hide out from the world and have no contact? Is that the thing you fear the most?
Think that's the thing that the church gets wrong? Or do you most fear syncretism, being sucked in and becoming like the world around you? Whichever one you think is more dangerous, you're probably overreacting the opposite way.
Does that make sense? Whichever one you think is the biggest threat, you're probably doing the opposite. So once you know which way you lean, the question is what will you do about it? If you lean toward syncretism, the question is where is God calling you to live in radical holiness before him? If you lean toward separatism, the question is where is God calling you toward radical presence in this world?
The takeaway is simple. Go and be the church. We say it every week. Now you know what we mean when we say go and be the church.
This is what it means. It means go and scatter and be like salt and light in the universe. Go be the holy people of God. Wherever you go, shine, be salty, go and be fully present in a lost and dying world, shining the light of Christ. Go scatter, shine, go live in the reality and resources of the kingdom of heaven that are yours in Jesus Christ. Drink deeply of the kingdom of heaven that is yours in Jesus.
Be filled with the life of the kingdom of heaven and then go pour yourself out. Go arrest the decay of the world that is falling apart wherever you live. Go adorn the darkness wherever you reside. Go drive back the corners of darkness wherever you live. Go shine hope to lost people everywhere.
Go and be the church. Friends, if you want to change the world, start off by being salt and light. We are the people of God called by his name, commissioned on mission with Jesus, filled with the spirit, tethered to the resources of the kingdom of heaven who are scattered out to change the world. Salt and light in the kingdom of heaven.
Let's pray. Father, everybody wants to change the world and nobody wants to make their bed. Teach us to do the little things in the power and presence of Jesus Christ. To love difficult people, to forgive those who wound us, to let others go first, to bring healing and blessing and renewal into all of our spaces, into all of our relationships. There's so many people in Chicago and in this world and a huge number of them will never come to church. But the good news is the church goes to every single one of them. We gather here to be filled up and we scatter to pour ourselves out for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. May our lives matter. May our souls be contagious. May people far from Jesus but near to us be drawn to the life and light and salt of the kingdom of heaven. Fill us, we pray.
Use us for Jesus' sake. Help us change our world for the glory of your name. Amen. Amen. On today's Moody Church Hour, we heard Pastor Phillip Miller teaching on Salt and Light, the third in a 24-part series from the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Matthew.
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