“A Christian’s Influence” – Matthew 5:13-16

Did I tell you I was thinking about getting a couple of goats? I’m tired of mowing all the time and thought it would be interesting to get a couple goats. I was driving down the little farm road over there the other day and I saw some goats out in the field and so I stopped into the little farmhouse to ask about them. I knocked on the door and this old farmer came to the door wearing his overalls tucked into his boots – no shirt – and asked if he could help me. I asked him how much he thought one of his goats might be worth. He looked me up and down and real slowly said, “Well that depends. Are you a tax collector or did you just hit one with your car?”

And I thought that was a good question. He wanted some perspective on who I was. We all know that things change with our perspective or lack of and this old guy was trying to get the right perspective on me before he answered. It is important that we have godly perspective. Godly perspective is the difference in the men of Israel looking at Goliath and thinking, “He is so big we can never kill him.” And then David looking at Goliath and thinking, “He’s so big I can’t miss him.”

And just like that farmer’s answers were going to change based on who I was, our perspective changes how we think of our problems, our friends, our family, our church and most of all ourselves. Perspective is basically just comparing things so we can make good judgments. It’s how we all got here this morning. When we have good perspective we can see that we need to make a left hand turn, but that rock truck is coming way too fast so we make the wise decision to just wait until it passes.

The problem with our self-perspective is that we too often compare ourselves to the wrong thing, namely…everybody else. When we compare ourselves to everybody else, our perspective is warped and we will invariably see ourselves like in a funhouse mirror. We are either too fat or too thin, tall or short. That’s why I don’t like mirrors at all. I can’t find a good one. I look short, fat and bald in every mirror I try. I don’t know what it is.

But what we should do is have a godly perspective, especially when it comes to how we view ourselves. A lot of things would change if we viewed ourselves like God sees us instead of how other people see us. Scripture says a good name is better than money and my definition of a good name is the name by which you are known by God. If God says you have a good name then it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks.

The right perspective, godly perspective will allow us to see ourselves as God sees us and just like our name, that can be good or bad but it will be truthful and so we can make wise decisions based on that truth. Did you know that the faster you go the less perspective you have? The Texas Driver’s Handbook has a drawing that helps illustrate this. It shows that when we are not moving, we have a field of vision of about 180 degrees. At 20 mph the field of vision is reduced by 2/3. At 40 mph it is reduced by 2/5 and at 60 mph the field of vision is barely wider than the width of the beams of the headlights.

So, I would like to slow down and take an honest look at who we are, as God sees us and as He tells us in His Word. We are continuing to look at the book of Matthew at the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. When someone asks you, “Who are you?” what do you tell them? You tell them your name and you tell them what you do. You tell them your work history.

But we all know that is not really who we are. It is just our way of answering the question. Who we really are can be a complex and dynamic answer but the real answer comes from who God says we are.  When God says you are someone, then that’s who you are. And in this popular passage in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says that we are salt and light.

I have to say that I love to think about being able to have been there and to have seen some of the incredible incidents of the Bible. I would love to have seen God part the Red Sea or to have seen David kill Goliath. I would love to have seen Moses come down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments or Daniel walking around and petting the hungry lions in the den.

But I have to say that I would love to have seen and heard Jesus preach this sermon. He wasn’t much to look at and he didn’t have a microphone and yet He obviously had their complete attention. Nobody fell asleep or had to leave early, I’m sure. But preaching radical truth will have that effect on people.

Let’s read a very small passage from that sermon in Matthew 5:13-16 and hopefully we can glean some truth about who we are in God’s eyes.

¹³ “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 underfoot. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built 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 others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

If you are taking notes and you like an outline, the 2 main points I have for this are

· We are to be salt not sugar

· And we are to be light not shade.

Jesus used 2 common items to describe who we are. Everybody knew the qualities of salt and light. There were, no doubt, many fishermen in the audience that day and when they brought their catch in for the day, the first thing they did was put salt on it to keep it from going bad, to preserve it and keep it fresh. They knew that salt had healing properties and without antibiotics, I’m sure they often used it in that way.

They weren’t too far from the Dead Sea as Jesus preached to them and I’m sure that a lot of their salt came from there. I have been there and actually swam in the Dead Sea, which was fun, but I saw that there was so much salt that it would wash up on shore and then the wind and the sun would actually leach all the saltiness out of it and this is basically what Jesus was talking about when the salt would lose its saltiness.

I have said many times that everybody wants to know the truth. Nobody wants to go through life deceived and so deep down they long for the saltiness of truth. The sad fact, though, is that while they long for the salt, they are attracted to the sugar. They love to hear about God’s love and patience and forgiveness. Everybody has a sweet tooth when it comes to God. They crave the sweetness of having somebody to fall back on when they are in a jam. When they hit rock bottom from making poor decisions, it’s so sweet to know that God will save them.

And while that is true; God will save and forgive; there is a time and place for the sweetness. Have you ever mixed up salt and sugar? Have you ever put salt in your coffee or sugar on your popcorn? It’s awful. It’s just wrong. It ruins the whole thing. And while there is nothing wrong with a little sugar used in the right way, Jesus is encouraging us to be salt even when people wish we were sugar.

Salt is the truth that keeps this world from going bad and preserves it from corruption. Salt is used as truth to cure and heal and is what is needed in this sin-sick world that is dying with festering and putrid wounds of sin. The world is dying in their sin and the only thing they want from the doctor is a lollipop.

When Jesus says we are to be salt, He is saying that we are to be the medicine that saves by speaking the truth that saves. The truth is that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father except through Him. And when the world hears that they say, “Oh, that’s just too salty. I need a little sugar with that.” And then they go find someone who will sweeten that truth to the point that all the truth is leached out of it.

2 Timothy 4:3 says, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” Do you think that’s true? Do you think we are in that time? Let me give you some proof that we are in the time of people gathering teachers around them to sugar up the truth of the Gospel until it is not good for anything.

There are a million different illustrations of this but I saw an article a while back out of the Star-Telegram from Monday, June 3, 2013. In it the new pope, Pope Francis is quoted. Now, it’s no big secret that I’m not a big fan of the pope. For starters, I was pretty disappointed that I was not elected to be the first Baptist pope. I think I could have done well. But also, what kind of name is Francis for a guy, even a pope?

I even had a name picked out had I been elected pope. I would have called myself Pope Hank. That’s a good, solid name, one that can be appreciated by the common man. Anyhow, if I had been elected you would not have read this about Pope Hank: Pope Francis made headlines for saying that all people are redeemed by Christ, whether they’re Catholics or even nonbelievers. If someone says they are an atheist, the pope was quoted as saying, “Do good and we’ll meet there.” He said, “The Lord has redeemed all of us…all of us, not just Catholics.”

How’s that for not putting up with sound doctrine and saying what itching ears want to hear? How’s that for sugar? There’s so much sugar there that not only did I get diabetes just reading it, but it has sweetened up the Gospel until the Gospel is good for nothing. In fact, if what he says were true, then not only is the Gospel of Jesus worthless but the suffering of Jesus on the cross was worthless and the pope’s job is worthless as well.

Nowhere does Jesus tell us to be sugar. Jesus wasn’t sugar. He never glossed over things to make his teachings appealing. He told the rich young ruler that the man couldn’t get into Heaven and love the world. He told the woman about to be stoned to go and sin no more. He told His disciples that in following Him they may not even have a place to lay their heads. The Gospel is sweet and wonderful on its own. Don’t sacrifice truth for attraction.

Now, the only thing worse than not having enough salt is too much salt. Have you ever for some reason gotten a mouth full of salt? Don’t use this as an excuse to be harsh and caustic. Colossians 4:6 tells us to let our conversations always be full of grace. But even then it says that our conversations should be “seasoned with salt”.

In the next verse in our passage this morning, verse 14, Jesus tells us we are the light of the world. I would imagine that to be told that was quite a shock for them. They were simple fishermen and shopkeepers, housewives and workers. How were they supposed to be light? And not only light but light to the whole world! And while they were probably astonished by it, I think most of the time, we just don’t believe it.

WA Criswell said, “It just never occurs to us to believe that God’s people are the light of the world. For to us, we have unconsciously become persuaded that reason is the light of the world; enlightened self-interest is the light of the world, science is the light of the world, ingenuity and human inventiveness is the light of the world, but not God’s people. They are not the light of the world. But the Lord said so, “Ye are the light of the world.”

And Jesus clarifies what it means to be the light of the world. The light is our good works. In verse 16 He tells us to let our lights shine before men that they will see our good works and (not give us glory) but praise our Father in Heaven. And how is it that when we do good works that God will get glory? How is it that people will see what we do and know that we are Jesus-followers?

Jesus tells us the answer to that in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When we do good deeds and show that we love each other by doing good to people who hate us and showing love to people who can’t pay us back then we will stand out from the rest of the world. It’s not uncommon for unbelievers to do good in this world but it is uncommon for them to do good with no hope of being paid back or getting something out of it.

And so the problem is that most of us are not really standing out from the world. Oh, we’re not evil. We aren’t darkness necessarily. We are more like shade. When people see us they see that we are good people. They feel comfortable around us and like to be around us and that’s good. And sometimes there is a break in our leaves and some light actually falls on them but most of the time we just allow them to be whoever they want to be and we will shield them from the light and the truth because we don’t want to offend them.

And they don’t ever feel the warmth of the light but they don’t get the coldness of the darkness from us either. And in doing so it’s hard to tell us from them. God has a subtle little word for people who are like that. The original Greek word is “Blech!” In Revelation 3:16, God says, “So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

And just like the salt that has lost its saltiness and is good for nothing, if you settle for being shade instead of light, God wants to have nothing to do with you. There is all the difference in the world between believers and non-believers and it should be obvious. Everything Jesus taught was countercultural. The first will be last and last first. If you want to have riches, give them away. If you are feeling bad, do something good for somebody else. All that goes against the grain of the world and so it should be obvious to people when they are around us that something is very different.

John Stott says, “Probably the greatest tragedy of the church throughout its long and chequered history has been its constant tendency to conform to the prevailing culture instead of developing a Christian counter-culture.” Do you know what the prevailing culture thinks about church most of the time? They’re ok with it. It’s not hurting anything. They can do their thing as long as they don’t bother me. That’s what they think. They even like to come every so often and enjoy the shade.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be that kind of church. I don’t want to be that kind of believer. I want when people see us for them to shield their eyes because they see our selfless good works and can’t help but see the glory of God. I want them to feel the sting of the salt as it heals their wounds. If it doesn’t then it’s not healing their sin-sickness. We aren’t called to be sugar or shade. We are called to be salt and light. God calls us salt and light and when we see ourselves as He sees us, it changes our perspective. And when we have the right perspective, it changes how we make choices.

Ask God what choices He wants you to make today.  Is today the day you make the choice to be salt to your neighbor or co-worker and tell them the truth about Jesus?  Is there something good you could do for a friend or a fellow church-member; something for which you could do and not get any credit or be paid back?  When you have the right perspective, you will make those choices.

Maybe today you don’t make the right choices or have the right perspective because you don’t have the Holy Spirit living in your life as a follower and disciple of Jesus. The Bible says that we can ask Him to come into our lives to live and that when we ask Him to do that then we are also in Him. The Bible says that for those in Christ there is no condemnation. The Bible says that the sting of death is gone for those that are in Christ.  You don’t have to worry.  You don’t have to live in frustration anymore.  You don’t have to have any more fear.

Ask God to forgive your sins and then repent of those sins and that lifestyle and allow God to change you. All you have to do is believe. Do that today. Maybe you want to join the church or make some other big decision. I’d love to pray with you about that right now as the music plays.