08. The Salt And Light Of The World (Part 2) Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD

www.mycrossway.org

On this Resurrection Sunday we are celebrating the glorious defeat of death and our eternal suffering by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his death on the Cross and his defeat over death through his resurrection that we are able to look forward to an eternity in His Kingdom. It is through Christ that we are the adopted children of God and inherit His Kingdom as citizens of heaven.

Over the last few months, we’ve gone through the first part of the Sermon on the Mount and studied the beatitudes. Here we found that there was a progression, a ladder to climb if you will to the realization of who we are and our place in the Kingdom of God. The first rung of the ladder is the realization of our spiritual poverty. We have nothing to offer God and we have done nothing to earn our citizenship of heaven. It is only at the realization of our spiritual poverty that we understand that we are in desperate need of a savior to save us, redeem us, and who paid our ransom to be counted as God’s children.

As we climb that rung of the ladder our spiritual poverty leads to our grief and sorrow over sin. Jesus said, in Matthew 5:4 “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” It is the stain and curse of sin that separates us from God and so we mourn over that sin. Not only that sin but the sin and corruption of the world. This sorrow brings us to a place of meekness (Matthew 5:5), strength under control to bring our sin and our nature under the headship of God

From there we find ourselves hungry and thirsty for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). The more we grow in our faith, the more we desire to walk more closely and deeply with God. That brings us to a place of extending that mercy to others because we understand we lack merit, just as every man does. If God can have mercy on us for our iniquities, then we too will have mercy on others for how they’ve wronged us (Matthew 5:7).

All of this leads to the development of godly character, purity, holiness, and a life of living at peace with God and with others, but the world will hate us and persecute us for our walk with God. All of this is part of our necessary influence on the world. As Jesus describes us in Matthew 5:13-16:

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out to be trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:13–16)

Now last week, I shared with you the key characteristics of us being salt. And of the many uses of salt described, the key influential characteristic of salt that should be seen in the Christian’s life should be an agent to prevent decay. Yes, we season the earth with God’s grace, and yes we heal wounds, but most importantly, salt was the preserving agent used in Jesus’ day to prevent the food from rotting. Likewise, the Church is the only thing God put in this world to keep the corrupting power of evil at bay.

This week we’re going to talk about light and being this is Easter Sunday, I think it is a powerful connection to us as the light of the world.

Now, Jesus said in verse 14, “You are the light of the world” and just as he used the emphatic voice in his reference to salt, Jesus uses it to refer to us as light. Literally, he is saying, ‘you and only you are the light of the world’ with ‘you’ being in plural form. And at the conclusion of his statement at the end of verse 16, he reemphasizes the notion, that we live in the darkness of the world and with the Church as the only light in the darkness that we are to let our light shine.

I think it is important to realize here that the property of being light isn’t something that we obtain to be or something we can hope to be; it is in our very character and nature that we are light. God’s plan to bring hope to people isn’t through systems, programs, or buildings. His plan is for us. All of us.