So at some point when I was in middle school, one of my social studies teachers gave a class assignment where one of us to talk with the oldest person that we knew to ask them just how much the world had changed during their lifetime. Well, when this happened, the oldest person that I knew, the oldest person I was aware of was my great grandmother. But even though she was born about 75 years before I was, when I was like 12 years old, it was really hard for me to imagine that the world had really been all of that different for her. So before we sat down to have this conversation, I thought that my great grandmother might tell me that she used to have to listen to music on a record player or an eight track instead of on CDs.
Or I thought that she might complain to me about how hard it was when she was growing up because she had to walk all the way across the living room to change the channel on the TV. Or I expected that she would tell me that she used to have to do her shopping for clothes and the Sears and Robux catalog because shopping malls hadn't been invented yet. So as you can probably figure what I actually sat down and talked with my great grandmother about what life was like when she was growing up and how much the world had changed, I was completely shocked by everything that she told me. Since my great grandmother was born in 1908.
That's the same year that the first Model T-4 came rolling off the assembly line. That was six years before World War I began. That was 12 years before the first commercial radio station ever had a broadcast, 46 years before we had color TVs. But what surprised me more than anything else when I was talking with my great grandmother that day about how much the world had changed in her lifetime is the way that she responded when I asked her one question, the teacher wanted us to ask.
My question was what invention had the greatest impact? What invention made the greatest difference in your life? My great grandmother's response to that question was the refrigerator. Now, refrigerators have changed a lot in my lifetime.
Like I remember when I was a kid, my parents used to have an avocado green refrigerator that was sitting out in our garage. And now I remember when I got a little bit older when my parents got our first side-by-side refrigerator, you know, with the refrigerator on one side, the freezer on the other, and the ice maker in the door. That was the best thing ever. And today you could actually buy refrigerators that have built in Wi-Fi that will tell you when you're running low on like milk or eggs.
But my great-grandmother didn't just live to see some of these changes to refrigerators. She lived in a world where there weren't refrigerators at all. And I just couldn't wrap my mind around that fact because I've always lived in a world with a refrigerator, so I asked her, why? Why is it that the refrigerator made a bigger impact on your life than any other invention?
She told me that before we had refrigerators, keeping food from spoiling was a daily battle. So in the summertime, if they had fresh meat on the farm, that meat would start to go bad within a day or two if they didn't do something to preserve it. And the fruits and vegetables that my great-grandmother and great-grandfather would pick from the farm or from their garden needed to be eaten or preserved in some way almost immediately, or they'd start to go bad. When I milked the cows, that milk wouldn't last very long if there wasn't a cold cellar for them to put it in or an ice box to keep it in.
And even then, the milk still wouldn't last very long at all. So before the refrigerator came along, my great-grandmother's life was a daily struggle and like during the harvest season, she was working days on end to try to make sure there was enough food that was preserved that she could feed her family through the entire winter when things stopped to grow. Because if they ran out of food back then, it wasn't always like they could just run out to the closest store and pick up everything that they needed. No, if they didn't have enough food preserved, that meant they could go hungry when there's nothing that they could pick.
But when the refrigerator came around, everything started to change for my great-grandmother. She no longer had to be worried every single day about if food was going to be good for her family to eat. So once the refrigerator came around, it meant that they could have larger cuts of meat and know that they would still be good for a few days afterwards. It meant that her and my great-grandfather could go out and pick from their gardens or out in the fields and the fruits and vegetables they brought into the house would still be good enough to eat four or five days later.
So the refrigerator, for my great-grandmother, it meant a little more peace of mind. It meant her life was just a little bit easier to live. It meant that she had just a little bit more security. But as I was sitting and talking with her that day when I was around 12 years old, I realized during our conversation that in my entire life, I had never really thought about refrigerators like at all.
They were just there. I've never lived in a world that doesn't have refrigerators. So I couldn't begin to imagine what the world was like before there were refrigerators. Now what does any of us have to do with us?
Because I know most of y'all didn't come to church this morning to hear me talk about my great-grandmother, although my mom's probably online and she'll be really happy that I did. So why did I spend this time talking about my great-grandmother's conversation I had with her? Well, sometimes when we are reading the Bible, we don't stop and think about just how much the world has changed since the Bible was written. And when we're reading Scripture and we don't think about what the world was like and what life was like back then, we can sometimes miss out on part of what the Bible is trying to teach us.
So sometimes we need to understand history before we can understand the story. Sometimes we need to understand the history of what's happening in the Bible before we can really understand the stories that we read inside of the Bible. And I think that's the case for the passage of Scripture I want us to take a closer look at today. So if you've got a Bible close by or you've got a Bible app on your phone, I encourage you to open it to Matthew chapter 5.
And as you're finding it, I'll point out to you that Matthew 5 is part of the longest recorded sermon that Jesus ever preached. We usually call it the Sermon on the Mount. And the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going to tell us and teach us about what it means to follow Him, what we're supposed to do as His followers. So let's take a look at a little bit of what Jesus teaches us in Matthew chapter 5.
And I want to start reading in verse 13. Matthew 5 verse 13, this is what Jesus says. He says, you are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? It's good for nothing except to be thrown away and trampled under people's feet.
You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can't be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead they put it on top of a lampstand and it shines on all who are in the house.
In the same way, let's your light shine before people so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven. Now in these verses that we just read, Jesus used us to analogies here, salt and light. And these two analogies that Jesus used us meant something very different 2,000 years ago when He first preached the sermon that I mean to us today. But before we can start talking about the salt and the light, there's something else in this passage we need to spend a little bit of time talking about first.
The first thing we need to talk about in this passage is who the you is that Jesus is talking to because Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. So who's the you? Well the answer to that question we got to go back just a little bit because Jesus doesn't begin the sermon on the mount by talking about salt and light. Now Jesus begins the sermon on the mount by talking about who it is that God blesses.
And who does God bless? Well Jesus tells us that God blesses the poor in spirit and that God blesses us those who mourn. Jesus tells us that God blesses the meek and that God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus tells us that God blesses the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted.
And these are the people that Jesus is talking to in this passage. But when you stop and you think for just a second about all the people that Jesus says God blesses, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted, those aren't the people that we would usually say are blessed, are they? No, the people that we say are blessed are usually people who are wealthy, people who are successful. People who are famous, people who have security.
But the people that Jesus is talking about, when he tells us who God blesses are people who are overlooked. They're people who are struggling to survive. They're people who are trying to do the right thing in a world that doesn't reward them for it. And you know what?
That would have described almost every single person that was in the crowd listening to Jesus as he was preaching that day. Because the people that were in the crowd listening to Jesus as he delivered the sermon on the Mount. They weren't rich. They weren't famous.
They weren't powerful people. You know, the people that were listening to Jesus while he was preaching the sermon on the Mount were ordinary Jewish people who were living under Roman oppression. These were people who were overwhelmed by the heavy tax burden that roamed place on all of its citizens. These were people who felt like they had limited options in this world.
These are people who were constantly reminded that they didn't really have control over their own lives. These are the people that Jesus is talking to. So when Jesus talks about who God blesses what he says, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
He's not talking to just a couple of people, a few select folks that are in the crowd that day. No, Jesus is talking to everyone that is listening. Jesus is talking to everyone there who wants to be part of the Kingdom of God and everyone who wants to follow him. And the same thing is true for us today.
When we read the sermon on the Mount today, Jesus is speaking to everyone who wants to be part of God's Kingdom and everyone who wants to follow him. So that means that if you want to be part of God's Kingdom, if you want to follow Jesus and the sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking to you. And there's one more thing that I need to point out in this passage before we move on to talk more about the salt and the light. And that's what I want to make sure that you actually notice exactly what Jesus says here.
Because in these verses, Jesus doesn't say, you might become the salt of the earth someday. Jesus doesn't say, you can be the light of the world if you try hard enough. No, Jesus says you already are. So what Jesus wants us to understand here is that you don't have to wait someday to be useful in the Kingdom of God.
Just like salt doesn't have to wait until it's salty enough before it can preserve food. Just like light doesn't have to wait until it's bright enough before it can shine into the darkness. You don't have to wait until you're good enough or smart enough or holy enough to make a difference in God's Kingdom. You don't have to wait until you are good enough or smart enough or holy enough to make a difference in God's Kingdom.
You can do it now because you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. So now we've talked about who the you is that Jesus is talking to and the sermon on Mount. Let's talk about what else Jesus has to say.
And as I already mentioned to you, Jesus to analogies says that we are salt and we are light. And these are two analogies that we think we fully understand. So for most of us when we read this passage and we hear Jesus tell us that we are the salt of the earth, what we're going to think about are like the little salt shakers that sit on restaurant tables. You know the ones that are there in case you need to add a little extra flavor when your french fries come out in the two bland or we think about the containers of mortons that we've got someplace close to our stove at home so that we can add in a little seasoning while we're doing a little bit of cooking.
But that's not what salt was in the ancient world. In the ancient world in biblical times salt was not primarily used as a seasoning. It wasn't primarily used to add flavor. No salt was used primarily to preserve food.
That was salt's purpose because remember what my great grandmother told us about what life was like before there were refrigerators before there were refrigerators food would go bad pretty quickly. You had a if you had fresh meat you had a day or two before you had to use it or it would be going bad if you picked fresh fruits or vegetables you didn't have very long before you either needed to eat them or preserve them or they were going to rot and in biblical times there weren't refrigerators either. I know shocking revelation there weren't refrigerators back in biblical times. So how do they preserve food?
With salt. With salt. Salt is what they used to preserve whatever it was they needed to eat. Salt was used to keep meat a little bit fresher a little bit longer.
Salt was what allowed people to be able to preserve food so that they had something to feed their families with once the winter came and things were no longer growing. Salt literally made the difference between people having enough to eat and going hungry. So when Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth, Jesus isn't telling you that you add a little bit of flavor to life. He doesn't make things a little spicy.
No, Jesus is saying here you are essential. You are what preserve life. You are what keep things from falling apart. But you know the interesting thing about salt.
Salt only works when it's mixed in. Salt only works when it's mixed in. So you can have the biggest box of mortons that you can buy sitting someplace in your pantry but it's not doing any good there. Salt doesn't do any good until it's used.
So until salt is added to whatever food you're trying to preserve until it's mixed in with whatever it is you're trying to keep from going bad. Salt is useless. Until salt is mixed in it's just not worth much at all to us. And what about the light?
Because Jesus says we are the light of the world. Well, we all know that light is still pretty important for us today. Like it was nice to walk into a building today where you're able to see where you're going. It's nice to have spotlights on to make me a little bit more visible on the camera screen.
It's nice that we have headlights that we can turn on to make it safe for us to be able to drive when we're out at night. When we get home after dark it's nice to have a light switch that we can flip on that will keep us from bumping into any furniture. And how many times have you been grateful that you have a little flashlight built into your cell phone these days that you can pull out whenever you need a little extra illumination. But because we have light available to us almost instantaneously any place that we are in 2026 we don't understand how precious light would have been in the ancient world.
Because the light bulb that we all enjoy it wasn't invented until 1879. Prior to that there weren't gas powered streetlands anywhere in the world before 1807. So before that when it got dark it got really dark. So in biblical times people would have wanted to make sure that they were home before the sun set so that they would be safe.
Because once the sun went down if you were walking along you couldn't tell if there was a stone in your path that you might fall over. You couldn't tell if there was a neighbor in the street just ahead that you might accidentally bump into. You couldn't tell if there was a predator that was working waiting to attack you. So light is more precious in the ancient world than we could possibly begin to imagine.
Because light made things visible. Light kept you safe. Light lets you find your way when you got a little turned around and confused. But you know the interesting thing about light?
Light only works when you shine it. Light only works when you shine it. So what does this mean for us? Since Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and we are the light of the world.
What does this mean for us? If we are the salt of the earth what this means is that we need to be asking ourselves the question. Who in our world is rotting? Who is languishing?
Who is suffering in our world today? Because that's what salt prevents salt keeps things from rotting from languishing salt keeps things from falling apart. So who in our world is being left to fall apart? Who is being consumed by things like poverty?
By addiction? By despair? Whose dignity is deteriorating away because no one will stand with them? Whose life is falling apart because they've been abandoned by everyone else?
Being salt means that we show up for those people. It means that we step in before they fall apart. It means that we preserve the humanity and the dignity of every person. And especially those people that everyone else has written off.
Being salt means that we can't do that from a distance because salt only works when it's mixed in. And what does it mean for us to be the light of the world? Well if we are the light of the world and Jesus says that we are that we need to be asking ourselves questions like who is being kept in darkness in our world today? What problems are we allowing to remain hidden in the shadows?
What are we trying to keep out of sight in our world today? Because that's what light does. Light reveals and makes visible those things that we try to keep hidden away in the darkness. So if we're the light of the world we need to be figuring out who it is in our world that is being ignored?
Who it is that is suffering where no one notices or sees them? We need to be asking ourselves what injustices are happening in the shadows that the public's not meant to see? We need to ask who the people are that our society has decided to keep hidden away in the darkness. And being the light means that we bring those people and their situations into the light.
It means that we refuse to let people remain invisible. It means that we shine a light on the injustices that people are experiencing rather than allowing them to remain in the darkness. It means showing up for those people even in dangerous places so that vulnerable people will know that they are not alone. Because light only works when you shine it.
And over the last several weeks as we've been making our way through the sermon series and through the season of Epiphany, this season where Jesus reveals to us the nature of God showing us who God is and what God values. We've been talking about who some of these people are. These people are the people that we usually consider to be outsiders. These are people who come from different places than we're from.
Like the wise men who came to visit Jesus. These people are people that we would sometimes label as being unclean or impure. Just like the people that Jesus was baptized along with in the Jordan River. These people are the people that we sometimes say are unworthy.
Just like the first people that Jesus called to follow him is his disciples. These people are the people that we try to push to the margins of our society. The same margins where Jesus chose to begin his ministry. And this is something that we see over and over again throughout the gospels.
Over and over again throughout Jesus' time on this earth. Time and time again we are shown that God has a heart for these people. God has a heart for people who are excluded. God has a heart for people who are overlooked.
God has a heart for people that we try to push to the margins. Because there are no outsiders in God's kingdom. There are no outsiders in God's kingdom and there never will be. And now today Jesus is not just telling us that there are no outsiders in God's kingdom.
Jesus is calling us to go and do the same things for these so-called outsiders that God did for them. Jesus tells us that we need to be the salt of the earth. That we need to preserve people and keep them from falling apart. Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world.
That we need to shine into the darkness so that no person remains invisible and so that no evils and ills in this world can remain hidden. But most of us, we'd rather remain comfortable. They do what Jesus calls us to do. We would rather keep people in an arm's length that we think of as being rot.
People whose lives we think are a little messy. We'd rather avoid any place that we think is dangerous. So if we are the salt of the earth, a lot of us would rather remain safe in our salt jakers. Then get mixed in where life is messy and people are hurting and falling apart.
If we are the light of the world, a lot of us would rather shine in places where things are already safe and secure instead of shining into the darkness around us. But when we do that, we're not being the salt of the earth. We're not being the light of the world. When we do those things, we're just being religious people who have forgotten what God calls us to do.
So this week, I want to challenge you to do better. I want to challenge you this week to spend some time asking yourself a few questions. I want you to ask yourself, who needs you to be salt in their life, preserving them, protecting them, keeping them from falling apart? Who needs you to be white in their life?
Who feels like they are invisible, overlooked, and like no one cares about their problems at all? Who needs you to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world? Because there are people right now that are counting on you to be salt and to be the light that Jesus says you are. My great grandmother's world was completely changed because of one invention that kept food from spoiling.
Other people's lives can be completely changed by you. And not because you're going to go out and invent some kind of new appliance that everyone's going to have in their house 60, 70 years from now. Now people's lives can be completely changed by you if you will be who Jesus says you are. Because Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.
And there are people out there who are falling apart, there are people out there who feel like they are hidden away in the darkness who need you to be who Jesus says you are. So this week, don't just ask yourself the question, who needs me to be salt, who needs me to be light, find someone and do something to help them. Pick someone whose life looks like it's falling apart, pick someone who's being kept in the darkness and then do what salt and light do. Show up, mix in, shine your light because that's what you're here for.
Let's pray together. God, as we come to you now in this time of prayer, I hope that everyone who can hear my voice feels a little overwhelmed by who you say that we are. As people who want to be part of God's kingdom, as people who want to follow you, God, you say that we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world. But God, we don't always do a very good job of being either of those things.
God, if we're the salt of the earth, most of us spend our lives hidden away in salt shakers. If we are the light of the world, most of us spend a lot of time with our light switch turned off. But God, that's not who you want us to be. That's not what you created us to do.
It's God, let us find people whose lives are falling apart and get involved. God, let us find those people who feel like they are invisible in this world and shine our lights onto their situations and do what we can to help them because God, you have shown us time and time again that you are a God that loves and cares for all of us. Every single person is created in your image and you want the best for all of us, God. You don't want anyone to be falling apart.
You don't want anyone to be suffering. You don't want anyone to feel invisible. So God help us to make your will be done on this earth as it is in heaven. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.