You have your Bible, go to Matthew chapter number five.
Matthew chapter number five. My family is in Florida here, so I am just kind of by myself. So I have nothing to do this afternoon. And so there's no telling how I'm gonna, how long I'm gonna go today.
And so if you have plans, just buck, okay, that's a joke. And so some of you are like, you do that every week, what else is new? And so, but Matthew chapter number five, Matthew chapter number five, we are continuing. This is week number two of our series that we started a few weeks ago, entitled The Greatest Sermon Ever. And I can assure you, if you're new, you're probably like, wow, he thinks a lot of his sermons.
It has nothing to do with me. I can assure you that today is not gonna be the greatest sermon ever. But for the next couple of months, we are looking at Matthew five through seven. And we are looking at the, what most and everybody would consider this, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher ever. And that is Jesus Christ in his famous sermon on the Mount. Now, I said this a couple of weeks ago in week number one of our series that we refer to this as the sermon on the Mount. In fact, if you've been a part of church for any length of time, you probably already knew when we called, said the sermon on the Mount, you might've even known where that was in scripture.
You've heard tons of messages from Matthew five through seven it contains a lot of practical things about the Christian life. And I'll tell you this, we call it the sermon on the Mount, but as I outlined this and really looked at this, I feel like a better way to refer to this sermon is this. It's a mountain of a sermon.
It's a mountain of a sermon. And here's why I'm gonna say that when I was outlining it, I didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, but here's the things that Jesus addressed in that day. He addressed things like divorce. He addressed things like marriage. He addressed things like happiness, which is what we looked at a couple of weeks ago. He addressed things like, hey, how to control your anger.
He addressed things like loving your enemies, which is like so hard for any of us to do. He talked about all of these different real, what I would consider hot button practical issues that every single one of us really deal with in everyday Christian life. And so over the next few months, we are gonna take just portions of the sermon on the Mount and we are going to look at each one of those. So a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the beginning of the sermon, which is called the Beatitudes. And this is where Jesus is talking about happiness and being blessed and things like that. And so now we are gonna kind of move this into verses 13 through 16. And he talks to us about being salt and light. Now, in order to understand each week of this sermon, you have to understand what the overwhelming theme of Matthew five through seven, this sermon on the Mount, you gotta understand the overarching theme.
Here's what it is. It's the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven. And so with that in mind, what Jesus is doing in this sermon is Jesus is actually telling the disciples and all the many people that were gathered there, he's up on a hillside, he sits down, we learned that in Matthew four and the beginning of verse number five, he sits down and he begins to teach them. And what he's teaching them on is what the kingdom of heaven looks like and how things function in the kingdom of heaven.
And how believers, how they behave in the kingdom of heaven. And so what he's saying is this, is that the kingdom of heaven, it really looks nothing like our kingdom. And he's saying that while we're here on this earth, we cannot perfectly, but we can bring that kingdom, he's come to really bring that kingdom down on this earth through the local church and through believers, those who are committed to Jesus Christ. And he says that we can live out the kingdom of heaven in our everyday experience, but it's gonna look much different than what any kingdom on here is going to look like. In fact, he would say that it is nothing like your kingdom. And so as we think about that, we're gonna take that idea of kingdom living and we're gonna kind of put it into verses 13 through 16.
So the first thing I want you to see is this, the influence, take notes, it'll be up on the screen, the influence of kingdom living, the influence of kingdom living. Jesus in this sermon, he mentions two things and he really commands us that we as believers are two specific things. The first one is this, you are the salt of the earth. Let's look at it, verse number 13. He says this, ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted, it is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men. Now, let me say this about what he's commanding us to do.
He's gonna command us that you are salt, first of all. And here's what Jesus did, and this is important for you to understand this in context. Jesus starts with identity before he does activity. Jesus starts with who we are before he starts to address how that influences the world around you. That's important for you to understand.
And so here's what I mean. Before you can influence the world around us, the way that the kingdom should look, before you can make a difference, before you can find your purpose here on this earth, here's what you have to be before that. You have to be salt. In other words, you have to know Jesus Christ as your savior.
You have to have a relationship with him, and that's who he's speaking to. He's saying this, believers, those who have trusted in Jesus as their savior, you are the salt of the earth. Now, the purpose of salt is to preserve and to provide flavor to things. How many of you just love salt? You can't eat anything without salt, right?
You know, you love it. You go to a restaurant and they serve you a good meal, and here you come with all your salt and you just start lowering it. How many of you know somebody that sometimes you're like, hey, would you like some food with your salt?
They put that much on it. And they're like asking for a heart attack right there in the restaurant and things like that. And so here's what I want you to know. It's like salt, the reason why we love salt so much, I mean, I love salt, and every single morning I'm a routine person. I eat the exact same thing every single day, 365 days a year.
I'm not kidding. I take it with me on vacation. It doesn't matter when my family's eating something else. I eat the same thing. Here's what I eat every single day. Eggs and sausage every single morning.
And so I had that this morning. And so I was there and I always kind of take the salt and as I'm making it and I kind of scatter it and sprinkle it all on my food. Not everything that I have needs a ton of salt, but that in particular, every single day, I'm reminded when I was doing it this morning, I was thinking about this sermon in mind, I was scattering the salt on there.
And the reason why we do that, the reason is because it provides flavor. But here's what you have to understand. Salt without taste is useless, right? That's what Jesus is saying. Is he saying this, you are the salt of the earth.
If you know Jesus is your savior in here and that's you, then let me tell you this, just like Jesus did. You are the salt of the earth. You're supposed to be the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savor, that means it's taste and flavor. If you've lost its flavor and you've lost its taste, wherewith shall it be salted?
What good is it going to be? It's henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men. In other words, it's good for nothing. Salt without taste is useless.
In fact, it's gonna be ignored. It's not gonna have any purpose in life if you as salt have lost your saltiness. So salt without taste is useless.
And here's what I mean by that. It's like salt does nothing for you if it just sits on the table, right? Like you can be served at a restaurant today, but if that salt is just sitting on the table, it's not gonna be used for anything. It's gonna really not have a purpose.
You have to take it. No one's ordering, like when I go to lunch today, I'm not gonna say, hey, I'll just take a couple of salt packets today for lunch. That's all I need, right? No salt has to be put onto something to make it make a difference. In other words, the point that Jesus is making is that followers of Jesus, those who know Jesus, that's the salt. You should, because of your salt, make the world a better place. You should flavor the community and the world and the circle that you run in. We as salt should flavor.
We should provide flavor. But the problem is is that for many of us, we know Jesus and we know him and we are salt, but we keep the salt to ourselves. There's a lot of you that you know Jesus and you come here and it's safe to worship Jesus in this place and you love that. And then when you leave here, it's almost like when you don't take what you've learned and what Christ has done in you, he has salted you through the gospel, you don't take that with you into your community, then he's saying this is that you are like a useless thing of salt that just sits on the table that does absolutely nothing to the food because you have to take that and you have to sprinkle it and scatter it all around. He's saying that Christians that are salt but don't use their salt out into the world, that's kinda what we are and we become useless Christians. Now, I don't know about you, I don't wanna be a useless Christian, right? I don't wanna be a useless Christian, no. You see, God, it's a reminder, he did not save us and salt us just so that we can show up here on Sunday and celebrate and worship and raise our hands and sing and then just go out here and keep all of that to ourselves.
That's the point. And so I'm afraid, I know in my life is that there's a lot of us that we keep all the salt to ourself and that's not why Jesus saved you, that's not why he salted you and here's why, because salt works best when it is scattered. You see, the salt we gather here, any of you getting hungry as we're talking about this, anybody?
Is that just me? This might be a short sermon then, so I'm ready for lunch already. But salt works best when it's gathered. So when it's gathered, so with us, we gather here, right, the salt. So if you know Jesus in here, you are the salt of the earth and we're here and this is a silly illustration but we just had VBS so I'm still a little immature after that and so here's what I want you to know. It's like all of us are little salt shakers, right? We're all salt shakers and here we are, we're sitting in here and we're all our little salt shakers. We know Jesus without a doubt and here's what I want you to know. Your usefulness as a salt shaker is only going to make a difference and become useful if you leave here Monday through Saturday and you go into your community and you go into your neighborhood and you go into your place of employment and you go into your school and you go to your family and you take your salt and what you do is you scatter it, just like you're gonna do at your food at lunch, you're gonna scatter your salt into the community and the circle and the world that you live in.
You see, salt changes flavor and what he's saying, Jesus in this sermon is he's telling them, hey listen, you should make a difference in the community that you live. You know what's amazing to me? You know, I've been around church my entire life and for a lot of us, here's what I hear and it's like we're shocked with what our world does, right?
We're all frustrated and we all like watch the news and we get mad and so what we do a lot of times is we take all those emotions that we experience because the world is not living up to what we like and what we believe and things like that and I get that and trust me, I have those same emotions and feelings and so what we do is a lot of times is we take our anger and our rage and our frustration and we take it to things like Facebook, don't we, right? Okay, some of you know, you're like, oh boy, I hope so and so's here, right? You know, you're kind of thinking that but here's what I'm telling you. Here's what Jesus is saying and don't miss this.
He's saying this. Yes, the world, why do we expect the world to look and act like us? They haven't been salted yet. What he's saying to us, the salt, all of you that know Jesus, he's saying that the difference should be you should go into your community and you should go into those places and instead of just getting angry and have all these different emotions and going to Facebook about it, what would it look like if you actually took your salt and you went into there and you started sprinkling and scattering your salt into the world in which we live in? That is what's gonna make the world change. That is what's gonna make the world different. That is what's gonna make the world more look like what Christ wants.
It's when the church stops thinking that the church is just for us in here, right? Listen, if you're a Christian in here, you're salty, right? That's what he's saying, we're salt. You know who doesn't need more salt? Other salt. Like I don't take salt and find, hey, anybody else got another salt shaker and just say, okay, I'm gonna put some salt on my salt.
Nobody does that. But that's how a lot of Christians are acting. You think all there is to a relationship with Christ is to come here and you salt other Christians. No, no, no, what he's saying is when God saved you and he made you salty, that salt is for the world and it's up to us, the church, to go out and provide flavor to the world in which we live. That's the first thing he commands us to do.
That's the influence of kingdom living. He says that his kingdom looks much different. It's a place where salt is lived out. But the second thing he says is this. Verses 14 through 16. Not only are you the salt of the earth, you're the light of the world. He says, verse 14, you're the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and if giveth light unto all that are in the house, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
Let me reiterate this again. Verse 14, you are the light of the world. Before he talks about the impact of your light, you have to have light.
Do you understand that? So for some of you, here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you, if you don't know Jesus, I don't want you to leave here and think, man, I'm gonna salt up the earth, I'm gonna light up the world. If you don't know Jesus, you haven't been salted. If you don't know Jesus, you haven't been lit up. That's where it starts. Your next step is for you to come forward today and say, man, I need God to save my soul today and for him to salt me and for him to light me up so that I can take the salt that he's given me and the light that he's given me into my world. Do you understand that?
So it's identity before activity. But if you think about light, so if you're a believer in here, you're the light of the world. What does light do? It brightens up a dark place. If we didn't have all these like windows, I would turn off the lights in here and make it really dark and that kind of thing. But the reason why we have these windows is because we could turn off the lights in this place.
And those windows, the light that is shining in, it's gonna brighten up a dark place. Now, the candlestick, he makes reference to that. For his audience, his Jewish audience, for many of them, this candlestick was so important, it made sense to them.
Because for many of them, they knew all about the candlestick. The candlestick was very important with the tabernacle. You remember the Old Testament? The tabernacle, there were three different sections of the tabernacle, right? You had the outer court, then you had the holy place, and then you had that holy of holies, which could only be accessed by the high priest once a year, right? But the holy place had daily activity. The priest would go in there and there were daily things that he had to do.
But here's what I want you to know. There was a piece of furniture in there called the candlestick. So for his Jewish audience, they knew right away, and here's what the candlestick was, there were no windows in the tabernacle.
The tabernacle was completely dark. And so as the high priest went into that holy place, he would go into the holy place and the candlestick would be lit and it would burn continually. The light never went out and it was always lighting up the place. So as the priest went in to do his business, the candlestick was always there providing light for them.
It lit everything else up. If you think about this, without light, we cannot see what we are doing, right? You ever like, listen, I've lived in the house that I'm in for the last few years. And when you live in a house for any length of time, you feel like you know that house well, right? You feel like you know it, you feel like you know where everything is or whatever, until the middle of the night, when you have to get up and go to the kitchen and you realize that lights are off, you're thinking, man, I've lived here for plenty of time. I know exactly where everything is. And you realize you don't, okay? And in our house, there's a going into the kitchen. This gets me every time.
That's why I don't even bother trying to prove anything. I just turn on the light, okay? Because this took me a long time. Is, you know, from time to time I have to get up, go get a drink of water or something middle of the night and or my dog or whatever had to get up in the middle of the night. So we're going and through the kitchen and here's what our house has. There's this step into the kitchen, okay?
And so it took me a long time to just forfeit the fact that I'm never gonna learn about that step ever. And so it'd be pitch black in the house, you know, it's middle of the night and I'm just going and I'm thinking, man, I've lived here long enough to know I'm gonna remember this thing. And then bam, you hit the step and you stub your toe and you say some very not pastoral things in the middle of the night, who knows?
And you get all upset and everything and you're frustrated and things like that. Here's what I'm gonna tell you is that light illuminates where you're going, right? When I turn on the lights, that step, I see the step, but when things are dark, I can't see what is happening or what is going on in front of me. So Jesus, in this sermon, he says, you're the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
Now this one's kind of wild to me and here's why. It's because in John chapter eight, Jesus said, he is the light of the world. You remember the I am statements? Jesus said, I am the light of the world.
I am the candlestick. I am the light of the world. So here's what I want you to know is that when every one of us, we were all born into this world into one family, it was a lost family, okay? And here's what's true, anytime in scripture, when it kind of depicts what that life was like when we were born into this world, here's what you will find, darkness, darkness. When every single one of us was born into this world, we were all born into darkness.
Ephesians chapter two talks about that. And there's nothing that you can do to get out of the darkness. There's not enough good works that light things up around you.
There's nothing that I can do to get out of my darkness. And so because of that, what God did, he saw me and he saw you and he realized, man, none of them could get out of the darkness by themselves. And so what I'm going to do is I, God the father, is going to send God the son, Jesus, and Jesus is going to come into this dark world and through him dying on the cross, paying for all of the sin that you've committed and taking away all of the guilt that you feel when you do those things, right? And for dying for all the brokenness, it's through trusting in him, he now is the light of the world. And so by trusting in him, here's what happens. We trust in the light of the world, that's what Jesus did for you, right? And by trusting in him, we now walk out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And when that happens, here's what's awesome. He lights you up. When Jesus is in you, because he's the light of the world, it's going to light you up. He's going to light all of us up. And that's what he's saying. He's saying, you're the light of the world. But here's the problem, is that he's saying that light, when it's covered up under a bushel, it becomes useless. Like there's nothing that, it's not going to be effective.
It loses its purpose. And here's the problem, is that for many Christians, we are the light of the world, but for many of us, it's like we're walking around out there with the light, the answer to the world's problems. We're walking around with it. And it's as if you just are walking around with this basket over your light and nobody can see it. You say, what does that mean? Here's the baskets, I think.
I was thinking about what that looks like practically. The baskets that I think we use are things like this, fear of what people think about us. You ever been out in the world and you see something, maybe some part of darkness in our world and in the midst of that, you know that you have the answer, the light of the world. And you begin to maybe say something and then you're afraid of what they're gonna think about you, right?
You ever been there? Like God impresses upon your heart to tell maybe a waitress or waiter about the light of the world and you get all excited about it and then you just fear what they're gonna think about you. Or maybe it's a friend or maybe it's a coworker. I think fear, a lot of times it's like a basket that we put over our light. Or how about this one, pride. You care way too much about what everybody thinks about you.
Right? And so what you do is you'd rather just go into your place of employment, you'd rather go to your friends, you'd rather go to your school, you'd rather go everywhere and try to impress them with certain things. And the pride that you have is like a basket that you're putting over your light so that when you go out, you don't illuminate anything. Or how about this one, the approval of people around us. We wanna be accepted. Isn't that what all of us want? Students, you wanna be accepted by the people around you and you wanna be in the, what we used to call years ago, they probably have new terminology for this, we wanna be in the in crowd.
Right? We wanna be cool. And walking around, lighting things up for Jesus doesn't seem cool. And so what we do is we allow the approval that we desire from everybody around us. Here's what Jesus is saying. That's like you putting a basket over your light and you are becoming ineffective.
Or how about this one? We're distracted. We're just focused on everything else. We focus on sports and we focus on all these other things and we don't have any time to let our light shine.
Right? And what he's saying is this, is that when we are the light of the world, when we trust in Jesus through the light of the world, we now are lit up. And what he's saying is when we go into the community, we're supposed to light it up. When we go into, you know, when I go to the ball field, I'm supposed to use my light. My light should be shining bright. When you go to your place of employment, your light should shine. When you go to your school, people around you, the darkness should see the light because light always stands out. And sometimes we don't wanna stand out, right? And so we take all these things.
And when you choose that pride and fear and you don't want controversy and you desire approval and you're afraid of the awkward moments and you're afraid of all these different things, it's like Jesus is saying this, is like what happens when you do that is you just put a basket over your light and then what do we have? More and more darkness. Listen, I'll tell you this. This is just me, you know, speaking for just a moment. The problem in our world has nothing to do with politics.
We think it does, right? We get the right person in in November, everything's gonna change. Listen, it's not. The world's gonna be dark. You're still gonna be mad at the news. We're gonna be upset.
We're gonna complain, all these kinds of things. The problem with our world is not politics. It's not Washington.
It's not a political party or anything like that. Here's what the problem is. Too many Christians have been salted and they've been lit up and what happens is they take all that salt and light and they keep it inside their church buildings and it makes no difference out in this world. That's what's happened to our world. Too many Christians and what happens is it's just darkness and darkness and darkness but we are out there scattered amongst our community with so much light.
Look around, look at this place. What if every single one of us went out there and said, you know what? Who cares about what people think of me? Who cares about my pride? Who cares about all these different feelings that we have?
We're gonna take the baskets off and we're gonna let our light shine for him. One pastor said it this way. So many believers, don't miss this, are theologically Christian. In other words, you believe it. But when it comes to practicing it out there, you're a practical atheist.
In other words, you hide it. You don't let anybody know that you are salt and light. Listen, don't be a useless Christian. Take what you believe into your neighborhood, your community, the ballpark, the gym, the school, your place of work, your family. Listen, the local church should be the beacon of light that lights up the dark world that we live in. The local church should be the city that is set on a hill that you can see all around.
Listen, that should be the local church. It should shine bright. And I know that the world is dark, I get it. I know that there's things in our world that don't align with what we believe.
I understand that. But what Jesus is saying is that the church should show up and light up the darkness, not to avoid it. You know what he didn't say in this sermon? It's to wherever you see darkness, run the other way. That's what a lot of Christians think. Man, if we can just keep everything away from the dark.
No, you know what he says? Is once you've been salted and once you've been lit up, we don't run from it. We actually go into it and make a difference and light it up.
That's the point. When I was studying this, I was thinking about one in particular. Over the last year, we tried to really deepen our involvement with the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission. And the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission is a mission here in Winston-Salem.
And so it's making an incredible difference. And so what we do, we have two different groups that go to the mission regularly. I know Kathy takes the helping hands. Ministry, and they are there serving and being a part of the ministry. Lomax leads a team that we do through our Bible Fellowship classes every single month so that we're serving down at the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission. But over the last year, I've been on the board of the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission.
So I've got a little bit of a deeper kind of look into the mission and the purpose of the mission. The mission's always been close to our ministry. I mean, Pastor Fletcher, we don't say this enough, but this is just wild to me and I think it's incredible. He was in a car one time, I believe is how the story is, and him and some other pastors, they were driving somewhere and they were like, you know what, we got all these problems in our city in Winston-Salem, what can we do to make a difference? And that's where the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission was born in that car. They had a vision for it, and so they were the original board of the very first board for the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission.
So our church has always been deeply involved in the Rescue Mission, but I want you to see the point. It's like we have a problem in our city, in our community, where there are, you go into Winston-Salem, there's a problem with homelessness, right? You see that, right?
There's a problem with drugs, there's a problem with violence, there's a problem with sex addicts, there's a problem with alcoholism, and all of these different problems. Like if you wanna know that our world is dark, stop watching the news and drive through our community. And you can see very quick that the world is dark, okay? The world is dark.
And here's what I love, and this is the point that I wanna drive home. You know what those guys in the car could have said that day? They could have said, as Pastor Fletcher's talking to his friends, he could have said something like this.
He could have said, man, the world, it's a dark place. We need to do whatever we can to keep our church out of it so it doesn't affect them. Like we don't want the darkness that is our world to impact them and so we're just gonna stay away, stay away and abstain and run the other way or whatever. But you know what those guys decided to do?
They decided that in that moment we can do that, but that is contrary to what Christ has told us to do. So what they decided to do is let's start the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission and let's plant that right in the middle of the brokenness, right in the middle of the darkness. And it's through a ministry like that that is helping and we get to see it. I'll tell you this, if you haven't been, let me tell you, talk to Kathy, talk to Lomax, get a part of one of their teams so that you can go down to the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission and what you're gonna find is you're gonna find that the Rescue Mission is a beacon of light in our community, so much to the point that the mayor, who's not a believer, but you know what he'll at least recognize?
When he talks to our executive director, he's like, listen, we need the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission there, why? Even unbelievers can see it, here's why, is when we take our salt and when we take our light and we take it into our community, it will make a difference in the community in which we live. And you know what all of us need to be doing? Just like the Winston-Salem Rescue Mission is a beacon in Winston-Salem, every single one of you that claimed to know Jesus as your savior, you should be a beacon. You should be a beacon of light that shines like a city on a hill that lights up the community in which we live. I wonder, what circle in our community is being lit up because you're there? What circle can see your salt?
What circle can see your light? Last thing, purpose of kingdom living. I just want you to see, it's found in verse 16, let your light, so he says, don't put a basket over it, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Listen very quickly, the purpose for being salt and light in this world, it's to glorify our heavenly Father in heaven, that's the purpose. You say, why do we have to live like the kingdom? It's to glorify Him.
Why do we have to be salt? To glorify Him. Why do you gotta let your light shine? To glorify Him.
You see, the word glorify means to extol or to praise. You see, so many of us miss this because the reason why we do good works a lot of times is why, is we wanna be praised, right? We wanna be seen of men. We want someone to come up to us and say, wow, what a great job you did this week at VBS.
VBS, right? And that's what we desire a lot of times because that's our flesh, right? And what the scripture says about if that's you, he says, you've got your reward, the praise of man. But he says, for believers, the reward that we should be shooting for isn't on this earth, it's in the kingdom of heaven.
He says, we serve not to bring glory to ourself but to bring glory to Him. Remember, this sermon is all about the future kingdom in which we live. And when you see the kingdom mentioned in scripture, here's what I'm gonna tell you. I mean, you can see it in the book of Revelation.
Remember, John, he wrote the book of Revelation and he was the apostle and he got a vision from God about all these different things. And when he saw into heaven, he saw all these elders and saints and they're gathered around the throne and they're worshiping and singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. You see, in the kingdom of heaven, all of us are pointed in one direction, to Him. Every single one, it's not about us, right?
Pride is the reason why the fallen angels left heaven, right, and got kicked out of heaven. So it's not about you, it's not about me in His kingdom. So what Jesus is saying is, remember, His kingdom looks nothing like your kingdom.
His kingdom looks nothing like our kingdom. Our kingdom, what do we want? All about us. What do we want? We want it to appease us.
We want life to be about us. And when Jesus says this here, He says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If you live for your kingdom, you're gonna have your reward here on this earth. He says this, no, you should be living like His kingdom where all of it is to glorify God and extol God. So listen, if you served at VBS and nobody patted you on the back, but God got glory, it should have been worth it for you.
If you serve in our church and you make a difference in this community and you show up at the ball field or at the gym and you light something up because you took your light from in this room out there and nobody saw it and nobody can come up to you and say, wow, what a great Christian you are. But God gets glory, it should have been worth it. At the end of His sermon, Matthew 7, and I'm gonna bring this up about every week of the sermon. Matthew 7, it's very end of the sermon. Jesus says, He's concluding all these different things. He says in verse 24, we know this story well. He says, therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings. In other words, everything He said in this sermon, in our context today, the salt and the light, He says, whoever hears that and doeth them.
In other words, practices it. It'll be, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And then in verse 26, He says that, but, there's a flip side, every one of you that heareth the sayings of mine and doeth them not.
In other words, you don't put them into practice, you keep your salt here, you keep your light here, you put all the baskets over it during the week, take them off for Sunday and you just keep it right here, you're gonna be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And we all know, here's what's true of both of those. Storms are coming, right?
We know that. Storms are coming. They're gonna come to either house, but only one house is gonna be standing. It's the one that built their house upon the rock.
Listen, here's the big idea you can leave with. When you become salt and light, your life will be like a firm foundation that cannot be shaken. And here's why, is because you realize that we're living for his kingdom, not our own. And when you realize that, it doesn't matter what comes into your life, if he gets glory, it's worth it. It doesn't matter the challenges and trials that we experience, the storms that come into our life, listen, we're not all about our comfort, remember, that's our kingdom, we're about him and in his kingdom, Jesus is central. And listen, if you have Jesus, you have the reward that you need.
You have everything that you need. It's what the choir reminded us about here today. And so let me just tell you, be salt and be light. Would you bow your heads with me?
Nobody's looking around. I'm gonna invite you, if you would, to just stand for just a moment. Everybody's standing, if you're able. And I don't want anybody looking around. This is what we call a response, an invitation. It's an opportunity for us to, what we just heard, to be able to respond and to apply and to really put it into practice. And here's what I want you to know, nobody's looking around.
There's two responses today. For some of you, you're in here and you say this. You say, man, I'm not salt, I'm not light, because you've never trusted in Jesus as your savior. You've never had the light of the world. You've never had him light you up.
You've never been salted by him. And what you're doing is you're going about Christianity all the wrong way. You're trying to go out and work in the world before you've been changed by him.
It's identity before activity. Let me just challenge you. Listen, today, stop trying to do before you try to be. Listen, Christ can change your life through the gospel. I'm so thankful that when I leave here today, I don't have to work really hard to be salt and work really hard to be light. No, all I gotta do is trust in the one that lives inside of me. And it's his strength working in me that can salt me. It's his strength that's in me that can light me up when I go into the world. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor Josh, I've never trusted in this Jesus. I've never trusted in the light of the world. I'm trying to work, but I've never been changed by the gospel, which is simply the message that Christ has come and he has paid your penalty and he has taken your sin.
If you've never trusted in that and you've tried to trust in other things, if you're in here today and you say, Pastor, I'm not a Christian, would you be honest before God and me, would you slip up your hand anywhere, anybody listening to this most important question any of us could ever be asked? If you don't feel comfortable raising your hand, I get it, maybe make eye contact with me. I'd love to pray with you. I'm not gonna embarrass you. I'm not gonna call you out. I just love to pray with you and help you in any way that I can.
The second thing, this is where most of us live today. Say, Pastor, I've kept my salt to myself. And listen, I'm there.
Okay, so I don't want you to think Pastor's preaching at you, I'm with you. I feel you, I get it. It's not always I look like salt and light when I'm down at the ball field. It's not always salt light when I go to the gym, when I'm in the stands, when I'm out and about at a restaurant, things don't go my way.
Ugh, I get it. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor, I've not been salt, I've not been light the way that I should be, I've maybe put a basket over it. If that's you, would you just slip up your hand and hear, oh man, a bunch of us. Listen, keep your hand raised.
Keep your hand raised. Here's all I want you to know. We're together in this. All of us are right here together, okay? Here's what I want you to know.
I'm looking at hands going up all around the room. Here's what I want you to know. We can change this world. If all of us with hands up say, not running from the darkness, I'm running into it because I have the light of the world inside of me. I'm gonna pray the altar's open. If your hand was raised, you can come and you can pray and ask God to give you the courage to be salt in life. Father, bless in this response time, speak to our hearts. Give us the courage to respond. I pray, God, that our decision is not just a hand raised today, but that it is a life change that we can recognize that we need to take the message of the gospel into our community, into our family, into our city, into everything that we are in. Father, bless in this invitation time, for it's in your name. Listen, if God spoke to you, maybe your hand was raised, this altar is open. I wanna invite you to pray, maybe to come down front and to ask God to help you as you go into your world and salt it up and light it up.
