Matthew 5:13-16 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Introduction: A Dark world
In 1987 Pam Tebow went on a mission trip to the Philippines and got sick. She was pregnant, and the doctors advised her to get an abortion for her own safety. She refused and went ahead and carried the baby to term, and gave birth to Tim Tebow, who became a big football star and won the Heisman Trophy in 2007. An inspirational, heart-warming story.
There is a thirty-second commercial about that story that was set to be aired during the Superbowl And that has created an uproar – even though nobody has even seen the ad. Just the idea of a woman deciding to carry her baby to term when the doctors advised her to get an abortion for her own safety is enough to infuriate people. The president of the National Organization for Women, Terry O'Neill, said that to air an ad like that would be ''extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.'' She does not even know what the ad is going to say. Yet she went on to say this: ''That's not being respectful of other people's lives. It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else's.'' Gregg Doyel is a national columnist and he was also outraged at the idea. “… that's the holiest day of the year. It's not a day to discuss abortion. … Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion.” Maybe in a less important forum, but not on the holiest day of the year when everyone is listening. What a commentary that is on our culture. A thirty-second, heart-warming story about the sanctity of life and a woman risking her life for her child – offensive, demeaning, and unworthy to be discussed on “the holiest day of the year?” We live in a dark, dark world.
Our Nature: Light
The Promised Light
God created this world as a paradise that was perfectly good. There was no sin, no death, no suffering, no disease – every part of it was good. But then came the Fall. Man sinned, and that brought God’s curse on this world. And after that it was a very short time before the whole world descended to the absolute bottom of wickedness that was so bad that God just drowned all of humanity and started over with righteous Noah. And He promised Noah He would never let it get that bad again. It was necessary for it to happen once so we would understand how wicked the human heart really is on its own. But once that had been demonstrated God promised it would not happen again.
So what was His plan for keeping that promise? How was God going to preserve the world from dropping to the bottom of depravity again? The answer comes in Genesis 12. After the flood God calls a man by the name of Abram, re-names him Abraham, and from his offspring creates a special people that would be set aside for God to function as a light that would keep the world from plunging into total darkness again. Listen carefully to what God said to Abram when He first called him.
Genesis 12:1-3 The Lord had said to Abram, "… go to the land I will show you. 2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
God is going to keep the world from total moral collapse this time by blessing every person on the planet. And the way God intends to bless every person on the planet is to start out by blessing this man Abraham and his offspring. Step one is to bless him and his offspring, and step two is to make them a blessing to the world so that eventually the whole world receives God’s blessing through them.
2 …I will bless you … you will be a blessing … 3 all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
How will that work exactly? In what way will all people be blessed through Abraham’s offspring (the Jews)? Two ways: Through the Scriptures, and through the Messiah. God would actually communicate directly with mankind in written form, and that would come through the Jews. That is the Bible – God’s Word (God’s only Word to man). Secondly, the Messiah would come through the Jews, and He would provide for forgiveness of sin and salvation for everyone in the world.
And there is a word – a single word that describes all that blessing. God’s nickname for all that blessing is the word “Light.” The promises of the coming Messiah and His kingdom were couched very often in terms of light coming into a dark world.
Isaiah 42:6 "I, the Lord, … will make you to be a … light for the Gentiles, 7 to open eyes that are blind, … to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known … I will turn the darkness into light before them
Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: … 3 He said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."
6 he says: "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth."
9 to say to the captives, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!'
Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
The people in Old Testament times were waiting for the Messiah to arrive as a light to the whole world.
The meaning of light
But what does that mean? What does the metaphor of light represent? Lets look at three things it represents.
Truth
First, light is that which exposes reality. You walk into a pitch dark room and you do not know the truth about what is in that room. You might have some guesses about what that room is like, but your guesses may or may not correspond to reality. If you believe with all your heart that you are in a library, but the reality is you are in a prison cell, then you are out of touch with reality.
But, if you flip on the light – now you are in touch with reality. You instantly know a thousand facts about that room. You know the truth about the size of it, all the things that are in it, and what sort of room it is.
So light is our connection with reality and truth. It reveals what is true and enables us to see what the state of affairs actually is. And in the spiritual realm it works the same way. Spiritual light enables you to discover the truth about what God is like, the truth about what this world is like, and the truth about your own heart. Most people are not in touch with reality when it comes to those three things.
And by the way – that is the definition of insanity. That is what the word “schizophrenia” means – a schism, or separation between what you are thinking and reality. If you are hearing voices that are not there in reality, or you are seeing hallucinations that are not there in reality, or whatever – when what you think is going on does not correspond with what is actually true – that is what they refer to as insanity. And so by their own definition the world is schizophrenic when it comes to God, the world, and themselves – what they believe is not the same as what is true. And the solution to that is light, because light reveals truth.
Righteousness
But that is not all there is to the metaphor of light. It is more than just an intellectual thing. Light also represents righteousness and moral beauty in Scripture. You see, when your eyes are opened to really see moral beauty, it changes you. It has a transforming effect on your nature. Once your eyes are opened to how beautiful God’s way is, it becomes attractive and appealing to you, and you start to desire it. So the light does more than just give you information – it changes your desires. And that is huge because your desires shape everything else about you – what you believe, what you choose to do, how you think – everything. So when light shines spiritually it brings about knowledge of truth and it generates righteousness.
Ephesians 5:9 the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth
(Not just truth – also goodness and righteousness)
Joy
And when the light shines and exposes the beauty of the truth, and brings about righteousness and moral beauty, the result is joy. That is why the metaphor of light is so often used in contexts of joy.
Psalm 4:6-7 Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
God shining light on you means filling your heart with great joy. And when the light is gone, instead of joy there is sorrow. In Psalm 38:10 when the psalmist talks about his sorrow he says, “the light has gone from my eyes.” When the joy is gone they say the light is gone. In fact, sometimes the Hebrew word for light is translated joy.
Esther 8:16 For the Jews it was a time of happiness (lit. light) and joy, gladness and honor.
The ESV translates it “light.” The NET Bible translates it “radiant happiness.”
So what does the metaphor of light refer to? – Truth being exposed as beautiful and desirable, resulting in righteousness and joy. The prophets kept promising there would come a day when the Messiah would arrive as the light of the whole world – a light even to the Gentiles. That is how Abraham’s offspring would end up being a blessing to the whole world. He would come into this dark, blind, schizophrenic, lost, unrighteous, joyless, hopeless world and shine His light. He would come and reveal the truth about God and about ourselves, and in doing so He would draw people into righteousness and fill them with deep and rich happiness.
That is what was promised. So it was not any big mystery what Jesus meant when He arrived on the scene and said…
John 8:12 I am the light of the world.
Or when Matthew quoted Isaiah 9:2 to describe Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.
Matthew 4:16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise about the coming light. So Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” But look at verse 14.
14 You are the light of the world.
First Jesus said He is the light of the world, but here He says we are the light of the world. And that makes sense because in John 9:5 Jesus said this:
John 9:5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
During His earthly ministry Jesus was the light of the world. But now He has delegated that role to us. That is the whole point of the book of Acts. Luke wrote two books – the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. The Gospel starts out saying, “These are the things Jesus began to do and teach..,” then the book of Acts picks up after Jesus ascends into heaven to show us the things Jesus continued to do and teach – through the Church. So now that He is gone we are the light of the world. Now it is our task to expose the truth to the world and bring about righteousness and joy. That is what being salt and light is all about.
The only light
And when you understand that, Jesus’ statement becomes all the more astonishing, because the “you” is emphatic, so the meaning is “you alone are the light of the world.” Think about that. Jesus looks at this little, ragtag bunch of average nobodies and says, “You guys are the only light this whole world has.” No one else can point the world to truth.
What about the great philosophers? Some of the people standing there listening to Jesus had no doubt studied Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and all the other great thinkers and philosophers that had lived prior to that time. And Jesus says His disciples are the only light the world has. Plato and Aristotle and all the most brilliant thinkers provided zero light.
The brightest lights this world ever produced are black holes. The only light this world has is those lowly nobodies from the beatitudes - the poor in spirit. The most valuable people in the world are the poor spiritual beggars who have absolutely nothing to offer in themselves. If you empty yourself of all your notions of self-worth, Jesus will make you the most valuable commodity in existence – the only light in a pitch dark world. It is not a contradiction to have a tiny view of yourself and a giant view of your mission.
What an honor! And what a staggering responsibility! We are the only light this world has! You may have heard the poem by Leroy Brownlow:
There's a Gospel according to Matthew;
To Mark; To Luke; and John too.
There's another gospel that many are reading...
The Gospel according to You.
You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day;
By things that you do; By things you say.
People read that gospel, whether faithless or true!
Say! What is the Gospel According To You?
Blessed to be a blessing
Notice the similarity between what God originally said to Abraham and the way Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount. To Abraham God said, “I am going to bless you, and then I am going to make you a blessing to the world.” Now think of the Sermon on the Mount. What is the very first word in the sermon? Blessed. It starts with the beatitudes: “You are blessed, you are blessed, you are blessed…” nine times. In other words, “I will bless you.” Then immediately after that, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” In other words, “You will be a blessing to the world.” Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying exactly the same thing to us that He said to Abraham. I will bless you and then I will make you a blessing to the rest of the world.
Our Task: Shining
So the first statement in this passage reveals our nature. We are light – revealers of truth resulting in righteousness and joy in Christ. That is what we are by nature. And from there Jesus speaks of our task: Let your light shine. He gives two illustrations and a command. Illustration #1 is about a city (v.14), illustration #2 is about a lamp (v.15), and then the command in verse 16.
A city on a hill
We will start with verse 14.
14 …. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
God’s design is for us to be a city on a hill. His design is not for us to be in a cave or down in a valley or back in the woods somewhere – we are to be conspicuous – right out there in the open. We will see in verse 16 that God’s desire is for the world to see us and observe our lives and draw some conclusions about God. God’s intention was never for the Church to just kind of exist quietly in the background as the world goes about its business. We are to be right out there in the mix in plain view.
And the picture is kind of a majestic one – isn’t it? A city on a hill. The Church is to be a beautiful, majestic, striking, shining city that the world can look to for its bearings.
You don’t have to create a new image
And that is what we are if we are functioning as light. If we are righteous, then all we have to do is get into a conspicuous place and our righteousness will do the rest. Once you get the city up on the hill it cannot be hidden. You do not have to get up on a hill and then come up with ingenious strategies to get the light to go out. Once a city is on a hill the properties of light will take care of the rest.
We do not have to rack our brains to come up with anything new to reach the world. You do not have to worry about the delivery. We do not need a PR firm. It is not necessary to go around taking surveys in the community to find out what people like and what turns them off about church and what might attract them. We do not have to re-invent the church every generation. We do not have to keep up with Hollywood and Madison Avenue. We do not have to dream up a new image. All we have to do is be righteous and then get up on a hill where they can see us.
To the degree that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing within the church, the way to be light to the world is to just do that exact same thing out in the world. And what is that? Righteousness! That is what the world needs – just to see and hear us living righteous lives.
When we come up with all our brilliant tricks for bringing people into the church who normally would never dream of setting foot in a church, we need to be very careful. If they are not interested in God and are not interested in spiritual things and we draw them in with some other appeal, what have we accomplished? Yes, we got them to set foot in a church building, but what good is that if we do it by appealing to the wrong part of them? Somewhere deep down inside them is a hunger for God. But at the same time their flesh has a hunger for Hollywood and Madison Avenue. They have a hunger for God and they have an appetite for the glitz and glitter of this world. And when we try to use the glitz and glitter of this world to attract them into the church, we are appealing to the wrong part of them. We are appealing to the very part of them that keeps them from God.
We need to appeal to that hunger for God – and the way to do that is by living righteous lives and speaking the truth of God’s Word. And it seems to me that was exactly the strategy Jesus used in the beatitudes. I believe one of the purposes of the beatitudes is to present the gospel in such a way that it will be appealing to those who have a heart for God and repulsive to those who do not. People with humble, ready hearts hear the beatitudes as fantastic promises. People with proud, full, self-confident hearts hear the beatitudes as a rebuke. And that is Jesus’ model for how to present His message. The modern approach of presenting the gospel in a way that sounds appealing to everyone is a mistake. If you come up with a way of presenting the gospel that offends no one, and that appeals even to people with no heart for God at all, that is a perversion of the gospel. And it is incredibly unloving, because it makes people who are closed to the true gospel think that they are actually open to it.
And so my goal in preaching is not to draw the biggest possible crowd. My goal is to draw the biggest crowd of people whose hearts are receptive to God’s Word. It is to make the gospel sound attractive to those in whose hearts God is working – the people God is drawing to Himself, while at the same time making it sound repulsive and offensive to everyone else. And I want to do that because the Scripture says the true gospel is repulsive and offensive to natural man. So if we present something that is appealing to those who are rejecting God, we have perverted the true gospel. We are the salt of the earth, not the sugar of the earth. And sugar coating the gospel to trick people into “accepting” it when they do not really even know what it is, is cruel.
Paul described the Philippians as shining like stars in the universe. They were letting their light shine in a dark world. How? What were they doing?
Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16 holding forth the word of life
What were they offering the world? What is it they were holding forth? Were they holding forth glitz and glamour and entertainment and amusement? No, they were holding forth the Word of life.
And how were they shining as lights in the darkness? Look at verse 14. They were shining as lights by doing everything without complaining or arguing and becoming blameless and pure. In other words, righteousness.
And if we do that – hold forth the Word of God while living righteous lives, nothing can stop us. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, and there is nothing this world can do about that. If they wanted to put out our light they could put forth every effort and would utterly fail. They could pass laws making evangelism illegal, make the Bible illegal, make preaching illegal – they could bring the full force of the United States military to bear trying to suppress our influence – and it would not work. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. You cannot hide righteousness, which means - if they cannot see our righteousness, then it is not righteousness. Light that you cannot see is not light. Covert Christianity is not Christianity.
A Lamp on a Stand
And even if it were – what would be the point? We would have to be out of our minds to hide our righteousness, because that is our only reason for existing.
Matthew 5:15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
What could be more ridiculous than lighting a lamp and putting it under a bowl? If you do not want to see the light then do not get a lamp in the first place. Lighting a lamp and then covering it up defeats the whole purpose of having the lamp.
If your life is full of private righteousness, and you have all kinds of devotion to Christ in the privacy of your own home, but out in the world you look just like everyone else – what good is that? Covert Christianity is worthless.
When the world persecutes us for righteousness we will face two temptations. We will want the suffering to stop, and there are two ways that we will be tempted to try to stop it. Either by compromise or by withdrawal. Either get rid of the righteousness, or hide the righteousness. Last week Jesus warned us against compromise – do not let yourself lose your saltiness because it makes you worthless. This week He warns us about withdrawal – do not hide your righteousness because that makes you just as worthless.
Withdrawal from the world tends to be the error of the conservatives. The liberals just throw out righteousness altogether and become just like the world. They are the salt that loses its flavor. But the conservatives do not want to give up their righteousness, so when they want to avoid persecution they just withdraw from the world and hide. Or they obscure the gospel to the point where it is unrecognizable.
To save a life or to postpone a death?
Several weeks ago Todd and Glory and Tracy and I were invited to see an advance screening of a new “Christian” movie called To Save a Life. The producers had one goal in mind for this movie – the words they used were that they want to be salt and light. This movie was their effort at being salt and light. We went and watched the movie and afterward there was a discussion with one of the producers. And all these youth workers and pastors who were there were just gushing on and on about how powerful this movie was and how excited they were to promote it. I was dismayed that not one person had anything negative to say about the movie – and so I finally spoke up. I told her directly that I would not recommend that movie to anyone in my church.
The movie is about preventing teen suicide. It is about a guy whose buddy shoots himself in high school, and how everyone responds. This guy is rattled by the friend shooting himself because he realizes he was a terrible friend to this kid. And as he sinks more and more into sin and debauchery, a local youth pastor reaches out to him with deeds of kindness – giving him rides, etc. Eventually this kid agrees to go to this youth group, interacts with the students in the group, and eventually turns his back on the debauchery and cleans up his act. And then he starts using his influence as a popular kid to show kindness to the unpopular kids, which ends up preventing at least one suicide.
It is a nice story, and normally I would not discourage people from seeing a movie with a nice, wholesome story like that. But I would discourage people from seeing this movie because the message of the movie is, in my estimation, a dangerous message. The message of the movie is this: The message of the Church is: “be friendly.”
In the whole movie Jesus is never mentioned (except in a prayer at a funeral). The gospel is never even hinted at. And they show the pastor preaching in the church – so there is a clear message that is being presented. And that message has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The message is, Be nice to people and they will not commit suicide.
When I mentioned some of these things to the producer she said their goal was to draw unbelievers in and start conversations. But my question is why draw people in with a message that is the opposite of the Christian message? Why mislead them about what the Church is all about and what our message is?
Being friendly to an unpopular kid at school is nice, and it might make him a little bit happier on his way to hell, but if it is divorced from the gospel it is not righteousness. It is not salt or light. Postponing death is not the same thing as saving life. Being nice, preventing suicides, preventing abortions, moments of silence in schools, public service, volunteerism, feeding the poor, – none of that is salt and light unless it is done in a way that brings glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the world and not of the world
In John 17 Jesus taught His disciples that they are to be in the world but not of the world.
John 17:15-18 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world…18 …I have sent them into the world.
In the world but not of the world - what does in but not of look like exactly? It looks like salt and light.
Do not compromise and do not withdraw. When it comes to their influence on us…
2 Corinthians 6:17 come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing
But when it comes to our influence on them…
Matthew 5:16 let your light shine before men
World is dark by our permission
Remember last week when I said living as salt and light does not mean complaining about the darkness? When all we do is complain about the darkness of the world in some ways we are indicting ourselves. Think about it. If the sun goes down and a house is completely dark you do not criticize the house for being dark. You just ask, “Why aren’t the lamps on?” And that is especially true if you are the lamp! Why would a lamp complain about how dark the room is? If it is dark, then it is because the lamp is not doing its job.
A friend of mine once said, “The world is dark only by our permission.” I think there is a lot of truth in that. Now, obviously you as a single individual are not responsible for lighting up the entire population of the world. However, each time we are tempted to complain about the darkness of the world I think we would do well to ask ourselves, “Am I at least doing my part in lighting the place up?” Probably if we all put as much energy into lighting the world up as we do complaining about the darkness, there might not be as much darkness to complain about.
Exposing truth
First we expose the truth by proclaiming the Word of God. Does being salt and light mean getting involved in politics? Sure, if you proclaim the truth of God’s word in the political arena. Does being salt and light mean producing Christian movies? Sure if those movies proclaim the truth of God’s Word.
The dark world is confused about truth. They are out of touch with the reality about God and about the world and about themselves. They are in the dark. And if we do all kinds of good deeds but we do not ever do anything about their wrong ideas about God and themselves, then they are still in the dark, which means we are not functioning as salt and light.
We were watching a TV drama recently in which two characters on the show were contrasted. One was a doctor, and he was called a man of science. And then there was another guy who acted irrationally who was called a man of faith. He believed the world would come to an end if he didn’t press a particular button every 105 minutes. He had no reason for believing that, no evidence, no basis for his faith – just blind faith that it was true. That is the world’s idea of faith. But that is blindness. Faith is not to believe that which has no evidence. True faith is to believe that which the evidence shows to be true. So this world produces TV shows that lie about what faith is, and convinces a lot of people to believe that lie, so more and more people get detached from reality with regard to the meaning of faith. People are detached from reality with regard to God. They think He is a giant Santa Claus who would not hurt a flea, and that all religions lead to Him. People are detached from reality with regard to the value of human life. They think an unborn baby is only human if you want it to be human. People are detached from reality with regard to the Creation. They think this universe created itself, and that the wisdom and power seen in the creation is the product of evolution. They think you can earn your way to heaven by being a decent person. They think it is ridiculous to restrict sex to marriage. They think they are actually pretty good, and that they deserve no eternal punishment. They think Judgment Day will never come – and if it does it is not going to be a problem. They are in pitch darkness imagining the room is one thing when it is something completely different. They are totally separated from reality and desperately in need of light.
And so are we, in many areas. That is why we continually study God’s Word. One of the reasons why I open up the Bible every morning is because I am fighting off pockets of insanity in my own heart. There are things I know to be true but I do not live like they are true. And when that happens, you know your heart is not really fully convinced. And so I have these little vestiges of insanity hanging on here and there in my heart that need to have some light shined on them. So I study God’s Word.
But unbelievers do not just have little pockets here and there – they are utterly in the dark. And so our job is to turn on the lights by speaking the truth of God’s Word to them about all those subjects.
Righteousness
And when we do that, the ones who are willing to open their eyes will not only see what is true, but they will also see that what is true is beautiful. They will see the goodness of the way of Christ and turn to Him, and He will in turn make them righteous. That is how you change the culture. If you try to skip to the part about making them righteous without speaking the truth it will not work, because as long as they believe all those lies they will continue to operate on the assumption that those lies are true. And that is what sin is. They are not going to change what they do until they change what they believe. And so we can live out a righteous life in front of them all day long, but it will not do any good if we do not proclaim the truth to them, and demolish the strongholds of error that they are believing.
However, for that message to have credibility we have to live it out. If our mouths say, “Yes, this is true!” and our lives say, “No, it’s really not” they will listen to our lives more than our mouths. D.L. Moody preached the truth and people by the thousands believed what he was saying. What made his message so persuasive? No doubt a lot of it was the way he lived his life. President Woodrow Wilson was once in the same barber shop with Moody. Here is what he said:
"I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a powerful personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself to have his hair cut and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done to me I was aware I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. D. L. Moody was in that chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular affect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop. They talked in undertones. They did not know his name, but they knew something had elevated their thoughts, and I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship."
Woodrow Wilson gets his hair cut and no one notices. D.L. Moody visits the place and there is a powerful impact. That is salt and light.
Joy
We turn on the lights intellectually by speaking the truth of God’s Word. And that turns on the lights morally by showing people the beauty of righteousness, and attracting them to Christ. And the result is joy. I love the purpose statement of Bethlehem Baptist Church: “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” The purpose of all we do in the world is for the joy of all peoples.
Psalm 67:1 May God be gracious to us and bless us … 2 that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. … 4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy
Our Purpose: the Glory of God
So Jesus tells us to let our light shine. And the implication is if we do so the world will not be such a dark place. However that is not the outcome that Jesus zeros in on as being most important. We tend to think the main goal of being salt and light is for the world’s benefit. But listen to what Jesus gave as the main goal:
16 let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
The purpose of our good works is to cause men to see them and respond by glorifying God.
But is that really how the world responds when they see righteousness? Didn’t Jesus just get done saying that when they see our righteousness they will insult us and persecute us and falsely say all kinds of evil against us because of our righteousness? I thought the darkness hated the light. Since when do non-Christians see righteousness and say, “Wow, praise God!”?
It sounds a little farfetched, doesn’t it? And if it is possible, how is it done? In chapter 6 we are warned against doing our righteous deeds in front of men to be seen by them if we do so in a way that glorifies us. So how do you do good works in a way that does not glorify you and does glorify God? And that is our topic for next time.
Benediction: 1 Thessalonians 5:2-6 you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.
