The Salt + The Light

We're going to be in Matthew 5 today. Can't wait to hop in right now with what's going on in our city. I keep on hearing Christians saying things like, man, our city needs the salt and the light. We need to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world and salt and light this and salt and light that.

I think that's true. Our city does need the salt of the earth in the light of the world. We need that all the time, not just right now. How many of you know it's not just in difficult times that we are called to be the salt and the light, but we actually get to be the salt and the light all the time.

In season, out of season, in crisis, not in crisis. And I started thinking about, yeah, that's true, salt and light. And then I started thinking, man, do I even know what that means? Or is this just a bunch of Christian language that I kind of just assume?

And so we're going to get into it of what do we actually mean and not necessarily what do we mean, but what did Jesus mean when he said, I want you to be the salt of the earth in the light of the world. So if you're in Matthew 5, say amen. All right, then we're ready to go. Jesus is talking on a mountain.

Can anybody tell me what mount he's talking on? Come on, let me know. Mount Olivette, that's right. Mount Olivette, Mount of Olives.

So Jesus is on the Mount of Olives. If you want to just kind of study in your own time, the background or the historical significance of Mount of Olives, you totally can. I'm not going to talk about it right now. But he's on the Mount of Olives.

This is his most famous sermon that's a public message. And what Jesus is doing is he's really laying out, hey, this is kind of like how my kingdom operates. And this is how I interpret the Old Testament. So in Matthew 5, he begins to lay out all of the in Matthew 5 through 7, he begins to unpack the Old Testament and what it taught.

And then he makes it more difficult. So he's speaking to Jews, right? He's not speaking to a bunch of Americans that are in the West. We got to just pause.

We agree. Jesus, his audience, is a bunch of Jewish men and women and some kids that are hanging out on the Mount of Olives. And he's preaching to them without a sound system, right? So they're all sitting down and he's teaching this message and he's unraveling to them.

This is what the Old Testament says. This is what the law says. But I say to you. And what he begins to do is he begins to make all of the laws that they know they can't fulfill.

So there's 613 laws and they know that they're actually not walking out all of them. And then he says, you know what? It's not you can't murder. You can't even be angry in your heart.

Then he says, it's not committed adultery. Even if you look at a woman lustfully, it's adultery. So what they all realize is they come to the end of themselves as they're listening to the sermon and they're basically going, it's impossible. Nobody can actually be perfect.

Nobody can fulfill the law. Nobody can walk out the law perfectly. And Jesus is helping them come to the end of themselves. And they're starting to realize it's not by our works.

It's not going to be by our righteousness. We can't boast. We need somebody to save us. Yeah?

We need the law, not just on scrolls. We need the law of the spirit of life that sets us free from the law of sin and death. We actually need the law of the spirit written and branded on our hearts. We need the Holy Spirit on the inside of us.

Yeah? So that's kind of what he's after. He's talking to a bunch of Jews. And what we're going to do is we're going to start in verse 13.

Are you there with me? All right. He says this, you are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste or saltiness, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. City on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others. Why? So that they would see your good works and that they would give glory not to you, but to your father who's in heaven. Now what I want you to know before I get into each of these phrases is that there's a lot of different opinions from theologians and teachers on the meanings of these phrases.

And so I want you to know that I'm trying to be approaching the text with integrity and trying to seek to understand contextually what Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, is actually trying to articulate to his audience, but I'm very aware that there might be other theologians that would interpret it differently within the context. And I want you to know that I'm not coming today to the text feeling like I cracked the code. I got it. Take my word for it.

I want you to listen to what I'm sharing and then seek it out yourself to figure out is that actually what Jesus is trying to articulate. What I'm not going to do though is interpret what Jesus just said and take it at face value according to my Western mindset and just apply. Well Jesus said be the salt of the earth. So just like Morton's salt, you know, on some food, we're supposed to be salty.

We're supposed to add some flavor, you know, we're like we're supposed to be like lights and we're supposed to shine. And we're supposed to shine in the dark. I think that we can look at it and go, there's some, I could preach that and that'd probably be really good. It'd be way more simple.

I'll tell you that, right? But I want to take you on a journey to what I feel like the Lord is trying to articulate to his original audience and then how that can actually apply to us because we're the Gentiles that got grafted into this thing. And I think it can apply to our lives. And so I'm excited to jump in.

Okay, you guys ready? Let's start with verse 13. It says you're the salt of the earth. You can write if you're one of those people that writes in your Bible, you can write next to Matthew 513 Leviticus 2, Leviticus 2, 13.

And Leviticus 2, 13, it introduces to the priesthood. So there's priests in the nation of Israel and their whole call was to minister to God and then represent him to his people. And one of the things that he had them do is he had them set up a thing, like a room in the temple called the chamber of salt. You guys know in our city, this is very easy for us to understand.

You know when you're driving in your city, wherever your city is, and you drive past that building that's owned by your city. And there's a big canopy and then there's a mountain of salt in there for our winter roads. You know what I'm talking about? Okay.

They had one of those, but it was a room inside the temple and it wasn't salt for the roads. Okay. It was called the salt of the covenant. So it was covenantal salt.

And what that salt was used for is it was applied on all of the offerings in the temple. It's called salt of the covenant. And that salt was representative of making things distinct and holy. Okay.

So it would preserve the meat. But it was also the salt of the covenant that represented distinctness and holiness and set apartness. Okay. So as Jesus is saying, you are the salt of the earth.

He's using this word picture of your to be priests that are distinct and holy. I have set up a kingdom. Listen, I know that I don't want us to get lost here. He's telling all of his Jewish brothers and sisters, you are a kingdom of priests and priests minister to God, but they're also to minister to the entire earth.

Okay. The whole nation of Israel was meant to be a kingdom of priests that know God and make him known to the entire earth to all of the other people groups. He's saying you're a chosen people to be priests so that the whole world knows who I am, but they're not going to know. This is important.

They're not going to know who I am unless you're different, unless you're different and distinct. And if you're not distinct and if you're not holy and you don't see yourselves as covenanted like I'm taken and you're immoral and you're adulterous, then Daniel eight happens. You can write also next to trampled under people's feet. You can write Daniel eight thirteen.

You can look at that at that in your own time. This is a picture in Daniel where that phrase trampled under feet is used and it's this picture of because you were not distinct, set apart and holy as a people. You got conquered by Babylon and other people groups. Okay.

But the trampled under foot is this picture not of like you're trampled under foot, you're going to go to hell. But instead it's this picture of the temple again where if the salt got diluted because the salt, oh, this is kind of fun. The salt could only come from one location for the temple and it was from the Dead Sea. And tradition holds that the Dead Sea was actually originally Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so God pours out his judgment on immorality. The whole city crumbles and turns into salt. Then it becomes the Dead Sea and they could only get salt of the covenant from the Dead Sea. So in the case of immorality, God actually restores and brings redemption.

And that's just our story in a nutshell, right? We're all just like Sodom and Gomorrah. We're just like the Dead Sea without hope. And then he goes, but I'm going to take that and it's actually going to represent a people that are distinguished and set apart from me.

But if you're not, I want you to know that you're like the salt that got diluted by moisture in the temple and the priest would take that salt and they'd throw it on the ground of the temple to serve the same purpose that we use salt for on our streets to actually provide attraction so the priest would walk on the salt that had become diluted and they would use it for traction on the ramp for the sacrifices that go up because they're carrying heavy sacrifices up, didn't want to slip. They'd use salt and they'd trample on it, right? And so Jesus, they all listen, all of the Jewish listeners that are listening, they know this. They understand this.

This is part of their culture. It's part of the system, right? This isn't like, wow, no, they just like get it. Yeah?

And so Jesus is saying, I want you to not be deluded as a people. I want you to be wholly unto me and distinguished among all of the peoples of the earth because you're set apart priests. You're a priesthood. How many of you know that if a pastor has a moral failure, it's a bigger deal than just a Joe Schmo having a moral failure?

Is that right? Because there's a different responsibility that the pastor carries. How many of you know that there's an expectation if you're a priest, you carry character? What we often forget is that within our systems, we think that the pastor's and the priest, they are held at a higher level than they need to actually, there's like a fear and a trembling around that for me, right?

For us as leaders in this house, we have a sobriety around that. But Jesus is saying, your whole people group Israel is to be priests. All of you are to be set apart unto me, to represent me, right? And then in Revelation 1, he says, it's a kingdom of priests.

In other words, from every tribe, nation, tongue and people, you're all the priesthood. We're going to look at that in a little bit. But we're through Matthew 5, 13, all right? You're the salt of the earth.

I don't want you to lose your saltiness. It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out, trampled under people's feet. I want you to remember. I want us to understand Jesus is going, these are identity pieces.

You are the salt of the earth. You are distinguished. You are holy. You are a covenanted people, right?

Then he goes into another identity statement for his people. He says, you're the light of the world. You're the light of the world. And he's quoting Isaiah 42, verse 6.

He's quoting Isaiah 49, verse 6. I'm going to just turn to one of them. They're very similar. So you can write that next to in your margin if you want to in your Bible.

Isaiah 49, verse 6. He says, I'm going to make you as a light for the nations. And my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Isaiah 42, he says, in verse 6, this is like a messianic prophecy as well.

He says, I'm the Lord. I've called you in righteousness. I'm going to take you by the hand. I'm going to keep you.

I'm going to give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. And then Isaiah 60, verse 3, it's kind of a similar thing that he says. So he's basically saying to the people, hey, you're to be distinguished and you're to be light to the world. And then he goes on and he says, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

I want to break down verse 15 and then we're going to tackle city on the hill. In verse 15, it's kind of like the hided under the bushel. Hided under a bushel? Yeah, there you go.

All right. All my kids that grew up in Sunday school. And so there's only one time in the Old Testament where light is concealed or hidden. And I think Jesus might be, listen, I don't take my word for it, but I wonder if Jesus might be drawing attention to a passage in the book of Judges in Judges 7.

And in Judges 7 Gideon, who's a very fun character, Gideon, he's got his 300 men. Yeah. And they're going to go after the Midianites and the Amalekites and there's a lot of them. And God says, I only want you to have 300.

And he says, I want you to take jars and I want you to conceal the light of the torches that I've given you or that you got. And so the 300 go and they've got these torches that are concealed with jars or coverings. And then they break the jars and they hold up the torches. And the light actually causes destruction.

Yeah? So the light that they've got that Gideon's army wielded, it brought destruction to those other people groups. Are you following? So the light destroyed.

Now hang with me. Now we're going to go back to the second part of verse 14. Look at what it says. It says, a city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Whenever I've seen the city on the hill cannot be hidden. It's like, yes, cities on hills would be bright. Can't hide them. We are a city on a hill.

Right? Can't hide this light. We're a city on a hill. I'm just like a city built on a hill.

I'm bright. Can't hide me. I'm going to let my light shine. And when we look at the scriptures, there's only one time or one city that's actually noted as being built on a hill.

There's the city that's built on the mountain, Mount Zion, which is Jerusalem. There's only one city that's built on a hill. Do you know where it is? Oh, man.

You've been tracking for a while at every day. This is going to hit you and you're going to say, oh, no. It's from 1 Kings 1624. And it's the city of Samaria, the city of Samaria.

So I want to read this again and see if we can make sense of what Jesus might be saying. He says, you're the light of the world. Remember that is you're the light of the world. That you're even the light of the world to the people group that you're racist towards that you hate.

The Samaritans. Don't be deceived because right when I said you're the light of the world and then I said a city on a hill can't be hidden. I want you to know that Samaria can't be hidden from you being the light of the world. And I don't want you, then you really went sideways in your minds because you're like, oh, light of the world to Samaria, like how Gideon's light destroyed.

And Jesus is going, no, that's not the light that I'm talking about, not light that destroys. I don't want you to bring light that destroys like Gideon to the Samaritans. I actually want you to give light like the light in the temple of God that shines and refreshes and gives illumination to who I am. That's the light that's on a stand.

That's not what I thought. And then what does he say? He says in the same way as the light that's on a stand in the temple of the Most High that illuminates who I am and the Torah and my understanding, the revelation of the knowledge of me, I want you to illuminate the whole world like that light illuminates the house of God and it never goes out. I want your light to shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who's in heaven.

So there's not any exceptions to where the light is meant to shine. And this is just repeating in a different way, things that Jesus does that all the time. He kind of just repeats in a different way so that we get it. Yeah?

He keeps on hammering us as a community. Yes, it's loving good works. Yes, you are called to be priests. You're called to minister to me and then minister to the world.

I want us to turn to, what do I want us to turn to? First Peter, first Peter to let your light shine before others. And maybe I'll give you a little bit more context. If you want to put your hand in Matthew 5, you can.

The Jews as they're listening to Jesus in Matthew 5, they start going sideways like some of us do in their mind because they start going, they start freaking out a little bit. They're like, Samaria really? Samaria is deceived because Samaria only believes in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. They don't actually accept the prophets.

They don't actually believe in the rest of the Old Testament. And so Jesus, we're ready to pick up our stones. You think you're a good rabbi and your first sermon? And now you're calling us to love the Samaritans.

So you agree with the Samaritans. And then Jesus right after that, look in verses 17, he says, don't think I've come to abolish the law in the prophets. Don't think I agree with the Samaritans theologically. Don't be deceived.

I'm still theologically sound, but that doesn't excuse us from even loving those that we disagree with. Yeah? I want, that doesn't excuse us from loving people that we disagree with. That doesn't excuse us from loving people that are the other, that disagree with us in our stance.

That doesn't excuse us from being patient and kind and being content and humble and not arrogant and rude and insisting on our own way and being irritable and resentful and rejoicing with wrongdoing for people that don't agree with us. That's from 1 Corinthians 13 for all of you wedding attenders. Yeah? It's like how we love.

It's the expression of love. So, sorry. I just wanted to be really clear. I felt like he was really clear.

Where are you guys at right now? Are you 1st Peter? What's the chapter again? 1st Peter 2, okay.

It's good. Would you put your hand in Hebrews 10? Hebrews 10? It's just a couple pages earlier.

Hebrews 10, 24. I figured it'd be fun to read this one first. Let's consider how to stir up one another in love and good works. Don't neglect meeting together as is the habit of some.

I feel like I've read this recently. But encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near. He says, hey, and this is all in the context of your priests. If you look earlier in the passage, he's saying you got confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, priests.

He says, there's a new and living way. I want you to know that you're all priests, that you actually get to approach the holy of holy is like a priest could and it's through my flesh. Now you get a cleanse conscience from my blood and the water from my side. You've been cleansed.

Now you got hope. But here's the deal. You got to stay faithful because you're the salt of the earth and you got to be distinct. And I know what you need.

You need to not give up meeting together. You got to keep on gathering, gathering in your homes, gathering, having small gatherings and large gatherings. Why? Because you need to be agitated with each other into love and good works.

Why? So that they can see me. The only way that they can see me when he says they, it's every tribe, nation, tongue and people group, the other. The only way that they can see me is if you actually are distinct and holy and you live lives of character and you don't look like your coworker that hasn't surrendered to Jesus and that you don't live the same lifestyle that the world is living and you don't believe the same things that the world is believing and you don't think the way that the world thinks because you're a distinct, you're a priest.

You're part of a kingdom of priests. So you got, hey, remember, you need to be agitated into loving as a covenantal people. And let your light shine through how good works. But that's not how you become a priest.

You don't become a priest through your good works because you might get arrogant. I want you to know it's not by your works that you got into priesthood, but I want you to know that they'll know my glory by your good works that don't have strings attached to them. So I love and good work. Okay, let's turn it for speed or two.

I know you guys have been waiting for this. I just want you to look at verse five. I think this is so cool. Actually, verse four is good.

As you come to Jesus as a living stone, Jesus rejected by men, but in the sight of God, yeah, chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. And you don't have to apply salt to animal meat anymore. Praise God. Oh my goodness.

I'm so glad. Me having to take your animals, your sacrificial animals, all of the cows and all the lambs and me having to slaughter them as the priest in this house. I'm so glad. You know, I hear friends of my hunting.

I hear stories of my hunting friends and they're is it called dressing an animal? Oh man, I've never done that before. And I don't want to. My son got like a book knife for his birthday and I was like, man, I've never owned one of those and I don't want, I don't want to use it, right?

I am so glad that all the sacrifices that are left are in that verse says spiritual sacrifices, not animal because his blood has spoken a better word than the blood of condemnation. He's removed our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. He's the great scapegoat of history and he's taken all of our sins away. His blood doesn't just cover our sins.

His blood takes away since. His blood isn't like animal blood. It's God blood and now for once and for all, he's finished the work. He's seated in heaven as the high priest of all of history and he finished the work.

So now all the sacrifices that we can give our spiritual sacrifices praise God. Man, in America in some church circles, there's so many people that are like, yeah, I want to be a pastor. Can you imagine if that was still the job description? There would be like, no, by all of the Bible schools is going out of business, right?

Okay. There's just like abandoned. Let's move on. At least for Americans, you know.

Okay. I want us to skip to verse nine. That was just a side tangent, but it's the good news. We're done right here.

Okay. But you are a chosen race. Whoever's on keys, you can come up. You're a chosen race.

You're a royal priesthood. You're a holy nation. You're a people for his own possession. And you are going to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness.

Into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy like in Isaiah 62, but now you have received mercy. Beloved ones loved of God, priests of the Lord, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh and be distinct and set apart like the salts of the earth.

You're a covenant people. You're abstain from those passions and be different. Wage war. Those things wage war against your soul.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Jesus just doing such an excellent job in Matthew 5. Summing it up. This is why you're alive.

You're alive to know me. You're alive to be distinct. You're taken. All the other lovers.

All of the other vices they don't compare. You're to be mine. And you are meant to shine. How are you going to shine?

How are they going to see my glory? The glory of a heavenly Father that loves them. They're going to see it through your good works. And oftentimes, maybe you're like me and when I think good works, I just think serving at the soup kitchen.

But I want you, yes, it's doing what we've been doing as a people. And I want us to continue to be serving the least of these. And that's how God defines many good works. Bringing forth justice, feeding the poor.

It's like Matthew 25. It's giving drink to those that don't have drink. It's clothing. Those that don't have clothes.

It's all those things. But good works in crisis and in not. Looks like you serving the other. It might be the other in your house.

It might be the other in your workplace. It might be the other that you usually have exceptions in your brain set up. And that might be what God is saying to some of you today is you better start loving them with good deeds because you've been thinking about them as Samaritans. I don't know who that other is right now.

I don't know who that other is, but it's time to serve them. It's time to have love and good works just bubble over your priest of God. How are they going to know his glorious love through his people? Do you know that the world has no hope of knowing God, knowing the message unless there's people that got beautiful feet with good news and they actually through faith are working out their salvation and their actually faith is combined with works and then it's on the move.

You're called to be on the move. You're called to be serving people. You're called to be loving people. You're called to be doing good works.

Okay. Would you close your eyes? This is your sitting. I don't even want you to stand.

I just want you to sit. I want you to, as your sitting, I want you to hear the message that there's an expectation from heaven that you would carry yourself as a priest before God. You might want to just say, Lord, thank you for making me a priest. You might want to just whisper that.

Lord, thank you that I'm a priest that I minister to you. I'm different than the people that don't know Jesus in my life. I'm distinct. You're the one that makes me different and distinct.

Thank you that I am to be like the salt of the covenant. I'm to be holy in my conduct. You made me holy. Just speak that over you.

Jesus has made you holy and set apart and righteous at the spirit level, but your conduct is to be holy and I want you to just begin to ask the Lord, Lord, what kind of good works do you have prepared for me this week? Says that he's got good works prepared for us in the Word. You got some good works prepared for me, Lord. You want me to know about any of them for this week?

I want you to just ask the Lord. Lord, is there any good works that you've got for me this week? What do you want me to do? Just ask him in your own words.

Commission you out. If you're on the altar team, you can come to the front. I want you to know that our city needs some priests that know God and make him known and mediate who God is to whole cities and people groups, right? I want you to know that it's nobody else's job.

Nobody else is coming. Nobody else is going to walk in good deeds. There's no church from New York City that's coming over to Minneapolis to actually do the good deeds. There's no other backup from another country that's going, hey, we're going to go to Minneapolis to really make, to prepare Minneapolis for the day of visitation when Jesus returns.

As the day draws near, there's not anyone else that's coming. It's just the church of the Twin Cities. It's just the church that sees themselves as the priests that are part of a kingdom of priests and they actually serve practically with good deeds and have a distinguished uniqueness about them as they're set apart to the Lord and live different lifestyles. So Lord, we just put out your hands if you're willing, if you want to.

Lord, I thank you that these sons and daughters of God are priests that minister to you and are actually set apart for good deeds and good works. Lord, I thank you that you've called them a kingdom of priests here in our city. And I ask that you strengthen them to actually walk out those good deeds so that people see you, get a sight line to you and see your glory, the glory of the Father that they would see and get a picture of who you are before the day of visitation, before you split the clouds, before you split the sky and right on the clouds, would you actually give them visibility into who you are through us as your church in Jesus name. It's off the bench, into the game.

It's the end of spectator Christianity. Lord help us and empower us to walk in loving good works in Jesus name. And everybody said amen. Amen.

We'll see you guys in the prayer room this week. And there's people up front after the service if you'd like to receive prayer.