Matthew 5:11-16 | Shining in the Darkness

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Could you take your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, as we spend a few moments here in Matthew's Gospel before leaving the Lord's table together.

Gospel of Matthew.

This morning we're going to be looking at verses 11 through verse 16.

Again, that is Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 11.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We'll look at verse 11 through verse 16 for a few moments.

Here's where we get to see some of Jesus recorded in the words of Scripture.

I'd like to read Matthew 5, verse 11 through 16, if you would like to follow along in your own Bible.

Matthew 5:11–16

The Word of God says from the lips of Jesus Himself, Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world.

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.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Amen.

Some of your Bibles may have a break between verse twelve and verse thirteen.

Maybe a paragraph break there with a new heading, perhaps, in between those two verses.

Some of your Bibles may have a break between verse 10 and verse 11.

I prefer to go with the break between verse 10 and verse 11.

I think it's a better transitional break, so a paragraph between verse 10 and verse 11.

That's why I'm putting these verses all together.

There's a couple of reasons for that.

One is a linguistic or a language reason.

So if you work your way through the Beatitudes, beginning in verse 3, you'll see it says, Blessed are, blessed are thou, blessed are thou, blessed are thou.

Well, we get to a break in verse 11, and it's no longer blessed are the, it's blessed are you.

There's a difference there that tells us, oh, there's a shift going on.

And then that blessed are you is continued in verses 13 and 14 where Jesus says, you are.

So those are kind of connected together.

There's also a thematic reason, I think, that these fit together.

And that is because in verse 11, Jesus begins to shift from telling us about people who belong in his kingdom to telling us what it means to belong in his kingdom.

He's beginning now to apply what he's told us in the Beatitudes.

Remember, Jesus is speaking first to his disciples.

So you can imagine on this hillside one day, perhaps it was a nice sunny day like today, and Jesus is out on the hillside, and closest around him are gathered his disciples, those who have already trusted in him.

And then scattered out beyond that are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people in a crowd.

Jesus first taught them about belonging to his kingdom.

He said, Those who belong to my kingdom are blessed.

Blessed are the.

Over and over again, he says, Here's what the ones who belong to my kingdom are like, here's who they are.

And now he begins to apply that.

And in this application, we might naturally think that there are two distinct issues, sort of running parallel.

So imagine in your mind a set of railroad tracks.

I don't recommend this to anyone.

So, kids, plug your ears, shut your ears off for a minute.

As a kid in Marmouth, North Dakota, one of the things I loved to do was to stand in the middle of the railroad tracks.

Okay, I don't recommend that, but that's what I did.

I'm still alive, thankfully.

So you're standing in the middle of the railroad tracks, and you've got parallel tracks on either side of you.

And so we might view this text like that, where we have persecution and this picture of being salt and light.

We might see it that way.

But I would like to just twist that image a little bit and ask you to instead see these as two legs on an arrow, on a point that are coming together.

Not two that are separate, but two that come together on an arrow.

Because I think these two sections, this persecution idea, and then these images of salt and light together point to a single truth that we really need to wrestle with.

Specifically, that Christians must be like Jesus.

They must live like Jesus within the sinful darkness of the culture around us.

We must be that way.

We must be like Jesus.

So as you follow Jesus, as you walk with Jesus, imitate Jesus.

So follow along with me then as we walk down these two arrows, these two legs of the arrow and bring them together.

But first, we need to establish a couple of foundational points.

First of all, Jesus is focusing on application.

He's specifically addressing us.

He says, you are.

Blessed are you, and you are.

Verses 2 through 10, in the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us, This is what you are if you follow me.

If you have come to trust in me as the one who is going to die for your sins, this is who you are.

Now in verses 11 through 16, he tells us, this is what you must be like if you follow me.

That's the first foundational point.

The second foundational point is the implied context of a dark, sin-cursed world.

The last half of this section, Jesus talks about light shining in darkness.

You see, sin reigns.

Satan rules, Satan thrives, the light of Christ is ignored, pushed out, or even extinguished in some areas.

That's why John spent so much time in his gospel talking about light and darkness.

For example, John chapter 1, verse 5, as Jesus is being presented by John as the one who has always existed but now has come into the world.

John 1:5

He says, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Great, there's light and there's darkness.

Darkness can't push out the light.

John 3, verse 19, so this is in the context of John 3, 16.

John 3:19

Jesus is speaking, and he says, This is the judgment that light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

It's the world in which we live.

John 8, verse 12, you're familiar with this one most likely.

John 8:12

Jesus spoke to people saying, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me won't walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

So we have two options, walking in darkness or walking in the light of Jesus.

And the two exist simultaneously together.

Then in John chapter 12, verse 46, Jesus says, I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

John 12:46

Jesus says, I've come so that you can escape that darkness and come to the light.

And that context then of light and dark is assumed by Jesus in this passage.

There is an inherent contrast that exists.

Jesus is light, and the world in which you live is dark.

You have to have that foundational point in your mind as we look at this passage.

You know, the darkness may show itself in different ways depending on your situation in life.

For some, for example, a Christian author.

Today it means having Amazon refuse to sell your book.

That's happened just this last week.

For some, it may be Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram shutting down your accounts or deleting your posts because they're too Christian.

The darkness may be a non-Christian roommate or a non-Christian spouse making life a living hell for you.

The darkness impacting you may be an employer who refuses to let you speak of Christ.

It may be friends ditching you because you won't party with them.

As a follower of Jesus, hear me clearly, as a follower of Jesus, you live in a dark, sin-cursed world that will not like you if you walk with Jesus.

The key question is then, how should these blessed ones in verses 2 through 10, how should they live out their position in Christ in a world that hates Jesus?

Because I don't know if you've noticed, but we're still here.

Jesus hasn't yet raptured us out of this place.

So in his goodness, he has placed us here in this darkness for a reason, for a purpose.

In case you don't remember, Jesus prays for us, and one of the prayers that he prays for us is recorded in John 17.

Here's what he says to the Father.

He says, I have given them, my disciples, your word.

And the world has hated them.

You have the word of Christ dwelling within you, and the world automatically hates you, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They're not of the world, just as I am not of the world, so sanctify them, set them apart in the truth.

Your word is truth.

So how do you be sanctified?

How are you set apart from the world right here?

By what God has given you in his word.

This is the word of truth.

And then he says, As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

What's happening?

Jesus is saying, I've set you apart in the truth.

The truth is light, light doesn't fit with darkness.

Now I'm sending you out into the darkness to be light in the darkness.

So here we are, blessed ones in a cursed world.

As Francis Schaeffer once wrote, How shall we then live?

Jesus answers that in the two legs of our arrowhead.

The two legs are at once simple and very complex.

First, in verses 11 and 12, Jesus says we are to think like a Christian.

That is, have the mindset, have the mental processes of someone who follows Christ.

You see, conflict is inevitable when light invades a dark place.

If police invade a gang holdout, conflict is inevitable.

If righteousness invades a sinful place, sin cannot remain peaceable.

That's why Jesus said, when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of despicable things against you falsely.

Not if when.

Much that, if if used improperly, could hurt you, perhaps even kill you.

Even when used properly, some could still hurt you.

I had a foreman who had was fond of commenting on the use of nail guns.

If you don't know what a nail gun is, it's it's a it's a little tool that uses the force of air pressure to drive a nail.

Okay.

So my foreman, speaking about nail guns, was fond of saying, it's not if you shoot yourself, it's when.

He was right.

I can tell you by experience it hurts.

If you are one of the blessed ones who has come to Christ humbly, asking him to save you from your sin, it's not if you get hurt by darkness.

It's when.

It may come in emotional pain.

It may come in words uttered by careless tongues or in untrue accusations made against you because of your Christian character.

You will be hurt.

Now, when that happens, don't go around making a big stink over it.

Don't carry it proudly like a badge so that everyone knows that you're suffering as a Christian.

No, Jesus says, rejoice and be glad.

Rejoice and be glad.

Do you know that that's the first commandment given in the Sermon on the Mount?

That's the first commandment, it's the first imperative in the Sermon on the Mount.

That's another point towards this is application.

All before this, Jesus has been telling us, this is who you are if you belong to me.

Now he's telling us, here's what you go and do, here's what you are to be like.

Everything so far has been descriptive of a follower of Jesus.

Now he gives us a prescription.

Here's what you do when the darkness of sin impacts your Christian world.

Rejoice and be glad.

The early church gave us an example of this.

They lived it out daily in real life.

Acts chapter 5 describes the apostles being arrested for preaching about Jesus.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

They were thrown into jail.

And then that night an angel came and released them from jail and told them, you know, when the sun comes up, I want you to go to the temple and start preaching again.

Okay.

So when the sun rises, they're found preaching in the temple again.

And you can imagine the confusion on the jailer's face.

They were brought before the authorities again and commanded not to preach anymore.

A Pharisee named Gamaliel warned his fellow Pharisees not to oppose the preaching, but simply to let God deal with them.

Now listen to what happened next.

This is Acts chapter 5, beginning in verse 40.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

When they called in the apostles, they beat them.

That's beating with a rod, with a whip.

They beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus.

And then they let them go.

How kind, right?

They beat them and then they let them go.

But that's not the end of the story.

Then the apostles left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.

Now some might call that a little twisted.

No one in their right mind rejoices or is glad for pain.

Well, that may be true, except when the pain comes as a result of following Jesus.

We can rejoice in the pain of persecution because Jesus gives hope to the pain.

You see, there's a reason to be glad and rejoice over mistreatment because of Jesus.

You have a reward in heaven.

That's what he says.

For your reward is great in heaven.

Now we we need to think about that a little bit.

I like the idea of a great reward, right?

That sounds good.

That's positive.

I can get on board with that.

Sort of like participating in a contest.

Why does someone go through the rigors of training for the Olympics?

Because there's a reward in it, right?

They're pursuing a reward, they strive for that.

And in the same way, Jesus says, there is a reward for those blessed ones who endure mistreatment for him.

And it's not just any reward, it's a great reward.

Now, if God tells me, if God tells me that my reward is great, then it's probably greater than anything I can personally imagine.

That's definitely something I can get behind.

But then Jesus says that the reward is delayed.

Yes, the reward is great.

It's real and it's great, but you don't get the reward until you get to heaven.

My son loves cookies.

Bear with me.

My son loves cookies.

Specifically thin Oreos of all flavors.

Rarely does a meal go by, even breakfast.

Where he asks, Can I have a treat?

And the treat is automatically cookies.

Sometimes it's it's before he even takes a bite.

Right?

Sometimes you parents know what I'm talking about.

Sometimes it's halfway through the meal, and you gotta you tell him, No, you have to finish your supper first.

Then we'll have a treat.

Cookies are coming, but you have to eat your meal first.

Great is your reward.

Great is your reward, but you have to understand that the reward is not here.

You get it when you see Jesus.

Now, what does that tell us?

It tells us that we need to think like a Christian should think.

Well, how does a Christian think?

We think in terms of eternity.

A Christian thinks in terms of eternity.

We don't view God through the lens of our dark world, but we view the world through the lens, through the eyes of an eternal God.

This world is not our home.

Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so we think the way God thinks.

What can man do to us?

We think in terms of trust.

When we're facing persecution, we know that Jesus promised to keep us safe in Him.

Therefore, no matter what comes in this life, I'm safe in Jesus.

Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, my Lord.

Nothing.

No unkind words, no physical pain, no inaccurate accusations against my character.

We think in terms of promises.

Great is your reward in heaven.

Do you remember the Hall of Fame of faith in Hebrews 11?

That long list of faithful saints that followed Christ.

You know, we remember the big ones like uh.

Abraham and Moses and those kinds of names.

And then there's the ones that we don't really want to think about, those ones that were covered in animal skins so that they might be torn in two.

Those that were sawn into, those that were destitute and had to live in caves.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 tells us that that's like a great cloud of witnesses that's sort of surrounding us as we live the Christian life.

Hebrews 12:1

Reminding us that those saints have run the race before us.

They've already finished the race, and they are a reminder and an encouragement to us to do the same.

So when we rejoice and are glad about suffering for Jesus, we join them.

We become part of that group, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

My friends, proper perspective in life enables us to have joy-filled hope and endurance.

No matter what this dark world throws at us.

You will crash and burn if you're not prepared for what Satan will bring your way.

You might crash and burn anyway, but that's part of life.

But Jesus says, start thinking like a Christian.

Be prepared.

You see, Jesus enables us to endure opposition that comes because of Jesus.

We do that by focusing on the sovereign, eternal purposes of God in Jesus.

Perspective enables us to say that Satan may win the battle.

But in Jesus, we're going to crush his head in the end.

We must think like a Christian, which means that we must direct our minds to an eternal perspective.

That's the first leg of our arrow.

Now let's go to the second leg in verses 13 through 16.

First we think like a Christian, then we act like a Christian.

Jesus makes an emphatic statement here in verses 13 and 14.

We don't see it in our English translations because it was, it's sort of redundant, but Jesus says, You yourselves, you yourselves are the salt of the earth.

You yourselves are the light of the world.

Two images detailing the same truth.

Speaking directly to those who are blessed by faith in him, to those whose sins are forgiven by the mercy of the king, he says, you exist as salt of the earth, and as light in this world.

He's describing a state of being.

A state of being.

Think of water.

You're familiar with the three typical forms of water, right?

It can be a liquid, it can be a solid or a gas, a vapor.

Those are states of being.

When water is frozen, it's in the state of being, of being solid, right?

When it's thawed, its state of being is a liquid.

When it's heated enough, it's in the state of being of a gas, of a vapor.

When you come to Jesus, humbly recognizing your sin and your need for him to rescue you from your sin and its judgment, your state of being changes.

You are no longer darkness, but light.

You become the salt of the earth.

What does that mean?

Well, on the surface, it's really simple and it's, I think, easy to overthink.

And I've heard a lot of sermons that have, I think, overthought what's going on here.

I think if I have kept track of them all, I've come across about nine different ways that preachers have said salt can function.

Nine different ways.

Salt can have many functions, many uses.

It's a flavoring, it's been used as a preservative.

At some points in history, it's been a commodity and a form of currency.

We could go on.

But Jesus tells us what he means.

We don't have to go trying to figure out what he's talking about, what use of salt he's talking about.

He tells us if salt has lost its taste.

Taste, he's referring to the flavoring aspect of salt.

There's only one use that Jesus had in mind, how it tastes.

And he's using that flavoring aspect of salt as an illustration.

If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

Now, as I understand it, I'm not a scientist, but as I understand it scientifically, salt never ceases to be salt.

If something is identified as sodium chloride, then it remains sodium chloride.

If it's no longer sodium chloride, then it's not salt.

So what is Jesus talking about?

What does he mean by this?

I meant to bring a salt shaker up here this morning.

I completely forgot.

So you're going to have to use your imaginations with me, all right?

You're sitting at the table and you have a salt shaker in your hand.

Your food is a little bland, and so you shake on a little bit of salt, right?

You do that because you know that salt imparts some flavoring.

That's what you expect, that's what you anticipate.

But when you take a bite, you can't taste the salt.

What do you do?

Well, if you're like me, you pick up the salt shaker and you put more on, right?

You shake some more on.

Well, what if what if you got to the point of unscrewing the lid, because the salt isn't giving you enough flavoring, and you start pouring out the salt on your food.

You're no longer shaking it on, but you're pouring it out.

And you take a bite, and even then it's not salty, even then it's not flavoring your food.

What do you do?

If you've gone to the point of beyond shaking salt on to pouring it on, and you still can't taste the salt, what are you going to do?

I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I'm going to pick up that salt shaker, I'm going to go over to the trash can and I'm going to dump it out.

And then I'm going to go find some fresh salt and put it in the shaker and start all over again.

If salt is not effective as a flavoring agent, I'm going to toss it.

I'm going to throw it out.

Because tasteless salt has no effect as a flavoring agent.

You are salt, Jesus says.

You are salt.

That is your state of being.

You exist as salt in this world.

That is your state of being.

And Jesus, you exist in this world as a flavoring agent for the world.

Can your flavor be tasted?

Act like a Christian.

Then Jesus says, You are the light of the world.

Stop there.

Full stop, period.

You are the light of the world.

Are you grasping what Jesus is saying?

If you're not, let me walk through it with you.

What did let me remind you what Jesus said in John 8, verse 12.

John 8:12

In front of all of the people at the temple, standing before giant candle obras that are being lit to give light to the city of Jerusalem, Jesus stands there and says, I am the light of the world.

One of the seven I am statements in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, This is me.

I am the light of the world.

You yourselves are the light of the world.

Did you catch that?

He's not talking about himself, he's talking about you, and he's talking about me.

Here he said, You yourselves are the light of the world.

Isn't that glorious?

When you come to Jesus, you become like Jesus.

You become what you follow.

If you trust in Jesus and you follow him and you listen to him and you obey him, you become like Jesus.

You are the light of the world because of Jesus.

He makes you like him.

Your state of being in another picture is one of light shining in the darkness.

Ancient cities were built on hills.

That's why when you read a lot of Middle Eastern archaeology, it'll reference the location with the word tell.

It's the word for hill.

Ancient cities were built on hills, in part because it was a natural defense.

But Jesus says a city sitting on a hill filled with lights can't be hidden.

Light, by its very nature, is used to make things visible.

That's why the light guys, when I get up here to preach, they turn on the lights.

They don't want you to look so much at the screen, but here, right?

It's to make it visible.

They want you to see your Bibles.

Light makes things visible.

And so Jesus says, in the same way, let your light shine before others.

Let your light, which is in reality the light of Jesus, in you, so that they may see.

Jesus says, here's the purpose of my light in you.

It's so that others living in darkness might see.

They don't have light.

They can't see.

They're blind in the darkness.

Give them light.

How do you give them light?

Act like Jesus.

Live like a Christian.

Live like Jesus.

Because when we live like Jesus, others see the light of Jesus in us in the midst of a dark world.

Douglas O'Donnell, in his commentary on Matthew, quotes an old writer, William Barclay.

William Barclay said, a person's Christianity should be perfectly visible to all people.

A person's Christianity should be perfectly visible to all people.

Then Douglas O'Donnell comments on that.

He says, Let me ask you, are you invisible?

Are you a closet Christian?

If it were against the law to be a Christian, would you be arrested?

And if so, if you were put on trial, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Live like Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor during World War II, wrote the followers of Jesus are the visible community of faith.

Their discipleship is a visible act which separates them from the world.

Or it's not discipleship.

And discipleship is as visible as light in the night, as a mountain in the flatland.

We can understand that here in North Dakota.

Imagine a mountain just showed up outside of town tomorrow.

That's the point.

He says, that's what we're to be like.

Bonhoeffer goes on to flee into invisibility is to deny the call.

Any community of Jesus wanting to be invisible is no longer a community that follows him.

Ouch.

What a convicting challenge as a follow-up to the Beatitudes.

Jesus says, In me you are blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who, because of the poorness of spirit, mourn over their sin.

Blessed are those who in meekness come to me in hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And I'm going to satisfy them and make them a part of my kingdom.

I'm going to give them my mercy.

I'm going to purify their hearts.

But as a result of that purification, they're going to go out into the world and be peacemakers in the world, and the world's going to hate them.

Rejoice and be glad.

Rejoice and be glad.

In Jesus, you are blessed.

Now show it.

Now show it.

Is it clear that you follow Jesus?

I think it's important that we start with the Beatitudes in verses 2 through 10.

Jesus says, This is who you are.

These are your blessings in me.

These are my promises to you.

Our future is secure.

God's promises will be completed.

If you have embraced Jesus, then embrace the love that He has for you to face the darkness of this world with all joy because of Jesus and in Him.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we come before you, confessing our sin.

Lord, if there is someone here this morning who has not taken that step of confessing their sin and coming to faith in you, to trust in you with all of their heart as their Redeemer, may they do that right now.

May you call them to yourself, give them the gift of faith to believe.

Keep the evil one from them long enough to develop some depth in their life so that they might trust and rest in your sovereign power.

Lord Jesus, for those of us who have walked with you for years, perhaps decades, it's easy to forget that we need to be distinct.

Renew our minds by your word.

Enable us to get a new sight of Jesus, a new vision of what He has done for us so that we might in turn be salt and light in our world.

Wherever you've placed us in this dark world, enable us to be the people that you've called us to be.

We recognize, Lord Jesus, that that all starts because of what you've done.

We come to faith in you because you died for us and you paid the price for our sin.

We live for you because you died for us.

We love because you first loved us.

So much of our lives as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ come as a result of what you've done for us.

So we have this wonderful privilege now to come as your people to remember you.

As we do so, enable us to see you, to know you, and to love you more.

In Jesus' name.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.