I want to begin looking at our theme for 2014, which is “Learning to be the light.” We’ll start by looking a passage in Matthew 5 and before we look at the idea of being light I believe we need to look at this concept of being salt. Since Jesus added salt to light, here, that’s where we’ll start.
I believe that before we can understand what it means to be the light we, first, must understand what it means to be salt.
Peppermint Patty was talking to Charlie Brown. She said, "Guess what, Chuck. The first day of school, and I got sent to the principal’s office. It was your fault, Chuck."
He said, "My fault? How could it be my fault? Why do you say everything is my fault?"
Peppermint Pattie said, "You’re my friend, aren’t you, Chuck? You should have been a better influence on me."
Now, Peppermint Patty was trying to make her problem Charlie Brown’s fault but she was, in a very real sense, right.
We should be a good influence on our friends.
Whether we want admit it or not, we all influence those around us. Some are good influences while others are bad.
Jesus’ teaching style here is different from the Parable of the Sower in chapter thirteen. In chapter 13 Jesus tells us exactly what He wants us to understand, much like the teacher who tells you exactly what is on the exam. But here, in chapter 5, Jesus allows us to come to an understanding of salt and light, based on how they are used in the world around us.
What it is That We need to understand about Salt and How Are Christian’s Like Salt?
1. Christians Like Salt Are Of Infinite Value.
When Jesus said to His followers You are the salt of the earth, we can miss something in the modern English translation, if we’re not careful.
The KJV translates this verse Ye are the salt of the earth. Now Ye the way it’s used here, means You all. When Jesus is says, You, He means all of you are the salt of the earth.
Jesus calls this handful of semi uneducated disciples “the salt of the earth.” What Jesus did was to give a compliment those who follow Him! Because salt was a necessity of life in ancient times and great value was placed in it.
Salt was so valuable. In those days, that it was sometimes used for money. The Roman soldiers of Jesus day were at times paid with it
We don’t think much about salt, these days, because we can get as much of it in pure form as we want.
It is just that little bottle with holes in the top on the table. But when you are completely dependent on salt to preserve your food, and when it is so valuable that it is used in the place of money, you get a completely different perspective on salt.
Christians Like Salt Are Of Infinite Value and
2. Christians Like Salt Are To Be A Preservative.
Salt was important for survival, because it was the only way they had to preserve meat.
They were not as privileged as we are today. When we go to the grocery store, we can pick up a couple of juicy steaks and when we get them home we throw them in the refrigerator/freezer.
But salt was the only thing that gave them their ability to preserve their food.
Salt was used to slow or stop the process of decay, much like when we freeze food today.
Just like salt, Christians are given the task of slowing or stopping the decay of our world.
Christianity has had a profound positive effect on the world. The most dramatic being how the world values human life.
Before Christianity came to the world things like infanticide, and child abandonment was a common practice.
Hospitals as we now know them began through influence of Christianity.
The Red Cross was started by an evangelical Christian. Almost every one of the first 123 colleges and universities in the United States has Christian origins, founded by Christians for Christian purposes.
The same could be said of orphanages, adoption agencies, humane treatment of the insane, the list goes on and on of dramatic impact of Christianity in our world. [D. James Kennedy. What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1994) pp. 3- 4]
And today, Christian’s continue to have a positive impact on our world. As a moral antiseptic.
Christians keep the corruption of society at bay by opposing moral decay.
But today there is a terrifying new trend in the world.
George Barna’s, says that research shows that, the average Christian in the average church is almost indistinguishable from the rest of society. What that means is that it is nearly impossible to tell the Christian from the Non-Christian these days.
The fundamental moral and ethical difference that Christ can make in how we live, is missing.
When our teens who claim to be saved, get pregnant and do drugs at the same rate as the general teenage population…When Christians choose to live together in the same way that married couples do at the same rate of the general population…When the marriages of Christians end in divorce at the same rate as the rest of society… When drugs and alcohol invades the homes of God’s people in the same manner as those say God doesn’t exist or when a growing number of the people in the pews on any given Sunday are under the influence of some sort of chemical...When Christians lie, steal, and cheat at the same statistical level as those who say they are not Christians – SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG!!
If we as Christian’s lose the qualities of Christlikeness that make us distinct and become like the society around us, we no longer have a positive impact. We become a hindrance instead of a preservative.
Christians like Salt Act as a Preservative and
3. Christians Like Salt Are to Promote Thirst.
In arid climate and athletic competition salt is used to promote thirst…
Christians are to make Christ attractive and desirable.
Titus 2:9-10 NKJV - 9 [Exhort] bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all [things], not answering back, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
In these verses the Apostle Paul tells Christian servants that they must act in such a way that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Adorn is the Greek word that we get the word cosmetics from and is used to describe the arrangements of jewels in a manner to set off their full beauty. The idea here is that Christians have the power through their “Christ-like” behavior to make the Christian life and faith beautiful to those on the outside.
No matter where we, as Christians, find ourselves, whether it’s social or work related, the unbelievers around us should see evidence of the difference that Jesus Christ makes in our lives.
They should be able to look at us and say, I don’t know what they have but I want it.
Are you promoting an unquenchable thirst in those around you?
Christians Like Salt Should Promote Thirst and
4. Christians Like Salt Can Lose Their Usefulness. (v. 13b)
Jesus says that if the salt loses its flavor, (v. 13b) It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Technically speaking, salt, as we know it, cannot lose its saltiness; sodium chloride is a stable compound.
But in the part of the world where Jesus lived, salt was collected from around the Dead Sea where the crystals were often contaminated with other minerals. These crystalized formations were full of impurities, and since the actual salt was more soluble than the impurities, the rain could wash out the salt, which made what was left of little value since it lost its saltiness. When this happened, the salt was thrown out.
When the salt was leached out it still looked like salt, but it lost its taste.
When the Christian allows the constant flow of the worlds’ values to flow through them, the necessary difference will be leached out of that Christian’s life.
The peculiar property of salt is that even though it may have lost its pungency, it still retains one very devastating potency.
This rare and remarkable material can still… destroy plant life on the land.
The same principle applies in the case of the Christian.
We either make an impact for God or we WILL make an impact for evil and the enemy.
The way we live, the things we say the attitudes we entertain, the life style we adopt are continuously producing either positive or negative results in society. Our lives, whether we are aware or not either count FOR God or against Him. There simply is no middle ground. [W. Phillip Keller. Salt for Society. (Waco: Word Books, 1981) p. 145-149]
Christians Like Salt Can Lose Their Usefulness and.
5. Christians Like Salt Must Have Contact To Have An Influence!
The Christian is to be a preserving force in the world wherever God has placed them. But salt will never be any good when it is left sitting on the counter.
To be effective, salt had to be rubbed into the meat. Salt must be poured out to be useful.
If we are to make a difference we must allow God to use us wherever he puts us.
Whenever the church becomes a storehouse for salt, we’ve has missed the point of lesson that salt must make contact to have an effect.
I’ve heard a lot of people say how they want their family and friends to know Jesus and how they want this church to be filled. Here’s my question to the church… What are you willing to do in order to make this happen?
The truth is, unless you are willing to do something the dream may never come true.
Conclusion
I want you to notice what Jesus says and does not say, He does not say, You all CAN be the salt of the earth. Nor does he say, You all SHOULD be the salt of the earth.
Jesus says You ARE the salt of the earth. Maybe you feel like you might be the wrong brand of salt.
Some believe that if that little girl isn’t on the box the salt isn’t good enough BUT let me say to you…
To be salt, we do not have to be spectacular
To be salt, we do not have to be sensational
To be salt, we do not have to be successful (by the world’s standards)
To be salt, we just have to IMPACT our little corner of the world.
