You Are Salt and Light (Phil Hamm)

Today we are looking at Matthew. Chapter 513 to 16 is a part of

our series on the Sermon of the Mount.

And this is a setting of identification of who we are.

And then the rest of the next three chapters are are going to

be a process of of finding out how God wants us to live.

So this is to identify who you are.

And he starts out in verse 13. You are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt loses its savour, how shall it be

seasoned? It is then good for nothing but

to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

Verse 14. You are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they

light a lamp and put it under a basket, but the lamp about on a

lampstand stand, and it gives light to all who are in the

house. Let your light shine before men,

that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in

heaven. When we first got to Japan, we

couldn't read Japanese, which made it difficult for us to go

shopping. But we stayed in a Center for

Christian for missionaries during the first six months of

our language study, and we were excited that there was a little

grocery store on the main floor. When we were given a tour of the

store, Lydia tried to memorize where all the items that she

knew she would need to pick up. Lydia picked up some salt, but

we couldn't figure out that it didn't seem to be all that

salty. We figured out Japanese salt

must not be the same as Canadian salt, and it just tasted bland.

No matter how much we would dump on it, it didn't seem to get

salty. Maybe this is what Matthew 513

is telling us about here we thought.

I thought at least. But when we asked one of the

more seasoned missionaries whether Japanese salt was so

bland, they kind of were puzzled and and she said she'd never

experienced this, so she asked if she could see the package

that that he had picked up. And then started to laugh.

We had been flavoring our food with laundry starch, not salt.

Oh yeah, maybe you've gotten mixed up at times.

I needed others to help you sort a few things out, but that was a

interesting experience for us last Sunday.

Our passage ended up with talking about being persecuted

for righteousness sake. Matthew 5 verse 12 tells us

Matthew 5:12

rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in

heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before

you. So why do you think Jesus spoke

of being salt and light after just talking about being

persecuted for righteousness sake?

When we face struggles or even persecution our character is

tested. How will we respond to the

challenges of persecution? Will our character be able to

depend on Jesus as we grow in our spiritual life or will we

buckle under the onslaught? The church is it is being

attacked in the world today. According to a report released

on August the 10th, but a month ago, more than 7000 Nigerian

Christians have been killed in 2025 in the 1st 220 days days of

2025. That's an average of 32 deaths a

day. Additionally, 7800 followers of

Jesus have been abducted, have been abducted by for their

faith, and over 1100 Christian communities are now dealing with

what's happening in their community.

Persecution is happening in the world.

How do we respond in our cozy homes to what our brothers and

sisters are experiencing in Nigeria, in China, in Pakistan,

in Afghanistan, in Syria, and many other places where

persecution is real? Jesus tells his followers what

their response to persecution is to be by telling them who they

are. Jesus reminds us that we are the

salt of the earth and the light of the world before he explains

in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount how we are to live our

lives. So how does Jesus see you?

How do you identify yourself? Are you an agent of the evil

one? Or are you going to make a

difference in this confused and aggressive angry world?

You will not make much of a difference in this world Just

coming to church here on Sunday morning for an hour.

You are a little bit like that light that is hid under the

basket. Yes, there's a light, but it

doesn't do any good under a basket.

In the passage we see that our Creator Jesus has declared that

you are salt and you are light, not becoming, but are.

That is your identity today. What does that mean for us then?

Well, 2000 years ago people would create shallow ponds and

those ponds would hold seawater. The heats from the sun would

would evaporate the water and leave behind salt crystals that

they would have to rake up into piles and then put into bags for

sale. This was a long and arduous

task. Today we have discovered huge

salt deposits under the ground and we can mine it very cheaply.

The biggest salt mine in the world is Godrej, Ontario.

The salt mine in Windsor has been in operation for over 100

years and pulls out hundreds of tons of salt each year, not just

a few pounds of evaporated salt water.

So salt had a lot more value in Jesus Day, not only because it

took a lot of work to get it, but because they didn't have any

refrigeration. Now I'm just old enough to

remember the ice chest. Have some of you know about the

ice chest? OK, we would get a big and I, I

can still remember my parents having one of those ice chests

where we would get a chunk of ice and that would go into our

refrigerator and that would get changed out when it went down to

the bottom. But in today's age, we have

refrigeration. We, we, we don't even think

about it anymore. I can remember the freezer being

at a cold storage in town. And anytime we wanted to get

some meat that we had in the cold storage, we'd have to go

into town to pick it up. So things have changed

drastically. So things are very the the salt

that we have today is very cheap.

Before the refrigeration we have today, salt was the main way

they preserve preserve food. Meat, fish, peef, pork was

packed in salt and dried much like our beef jerky is today and

just kept for years. But just as the meat was dead

and could putrefy, so the world around us is dead.

But if we treat the meat, it can be preserved.

Some foods just taste better with salt.

Could you imagine opening up a bag of potato chips and it

didn't have any salt on the chip?

You can buy them by the way, but somehow salt just brings out the

flavor in foods. Colossians 3 verse sorry 4 verse

6 says let your speech always be with grace as those seasoned

with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each

person. A person that is following Jesus

has joy and peace. Jesus said in John chapter 15

John 15:11

verse 11 that if we abide in him we will have complete joy.

Joy that remakes makes our relationship so much better.

When we bring that joy into our relationship we bring hope and

transformation. But some Christians are

tasteless. They lack wisdom and class.

They might be vulgar and insipid.

We don't want to be those kind of Christians.

The salt as salt of the earth. We preserve society from

destruction. Just like in the days of Noah or

Sodom and Gomorrah. Noah witnessed for 120 years and

sought to keep his neighbors that mocked and jeered him from

the destruction that was coming. He kept going, obeying God, and

in the end saved his family and mankind.

Whenever there's a revival in society, like the Welsh Revival

in Britain or the revivals that took place in New England in the

1700s, there were transformations of society.

On February 8th, 2023, a routine 50 minute Chapel at Asbury

University in Kentucky turned into a 16 day revival that

captured attention around the world, transformed the lives of

students and the community. They even made a movie on that

one. Back in the 1970s, there was a

revival in Leamington here. When the Cetera twins came and

visited for several weeks, it changed the hearts of people.

Salt also disinfects and destroys harmful bacteria and

germs. Salt keeps disease at Bay.

When people are sweating in intense heat, they take salt

tablets to keep from muscle cramps, dizziness and fatigue.

Salt replenishes the electrolytes in our body, and if

someone is dehydrated and taken to the hospital, one of the

first things they do is to give them an IV of a saline solution.

So what do you do? Do you preserve?

Do you stop decay or do you add flavor or all of the above?

Salt that stays in the shaker doesn't do much good.

And when you salt others with the love of Jesus, you could end

up preserving them for eternity. Salt doesn't do anything sitting

in the sea or the ground. Are you working for the Lord or

just sitting there? We need to get out of the shaker

and create some thirst so that people will drink from the

fountain of Jesus's love and forgiveness.

Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking back at the

lifestyle that they had enjoyed in Sodom.

Gomorrah, Never look back to your old lifestyle with regret

or go back to it. We are never to live like the

world, but we are to bring a new kind of life that radiates and

lifts up those around us. God wants us to live a pure life

that looks forward to the future.

God has an eternity. Look forward to the life that

God has for us in eternity as we live our salty life here.

Can you preach and say nothing? I think you can.

Have you ever been around others when they said, oh, he's a

Christian or she's a Christian? We should watch our language.

Yeah, you can be salty in that kind of an environment too.

Matthew 5 verse 14 goes on to say you are the light of the

Matthew 5:14

world, your salt and light. But Jesus also said in in John

John 8:12

chapter 8 verse 12, I am the light of the world.

He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but will have the

light of life. That sounds like a bit of a

contradiction, but if we consider that we are a little

bit like a moon and we are lit up by the sun and we reflect the

light from the sun. Jesus, if we think of how the

moon reflects the light of the sun, the moon has no light of

its own, but can light up a landscape in on a clear, dark

night. Every morning the sunflower

turns its face to the sun. It rotates slowly as the sun

moves to the West. It was very interesting going

through, I think it was Manitoba area, southern Manitoba.

There were fields of sunflowers and it was really kind of cute

to see all those sunflower heads pointing toward the sun.

We should be focusing our face on Jesus so that we can absorb

his goodness throughout the day. The Bible also compares us with

a city that is built on top of a hill, one that cannot be hid.

It's very difficult to hide some of the castles in Japan.

They're not built in the valley, but on top of a high hill.

They could see the enemy coming from afar.

On the other hand, the enemy can see their target from a long way

off, but they have to climb a steep hills and on one side

usually is a Cliff, so that it's impossible to attack from the

back. In our Modern Warfare today, the

enemy is trying to hide deep in tunnels in the ground.

They hide because their deeds are evil.

How does it feel to be in the dark?

You can't see anything. You can stumble on anything and

fall and scrape yourself, hurt yourself.

You might even feel lost. We are to bring the light of

Jesus into the darkness in the souls of the people around you.

When Moses went up on Mount Sinai and spent 40 days with

God, he returned with his face aglow.

Does not does our countenance glow with a joy and radiate

God's glory when you spend time with Him?

Perhaps we are not spending enough time with God for a hymn

to transform us. How much light does it take to

light up the darkness? One photon, and that's just one

small particle of light, is all that is needed.

Darkness is the absence of light, and so when light enters

darkness, darkness is dispelled. God created light even before he

created the sun and the moon and the other stars in the universe.

You know, it doesn't take a lot of light to light up the

darkness. I've seen stories or pictures

of, of people getting out their cell phones at a dark stadium

when the lights went out one time and they all turned on

their got their cell phones out and, and started to shine their

lights out so that soon the whole place was lit up with cell

phones. So we can, it doesn't take a

whole lot, but we can light up the world around us.

If the electricity, electricity goes out at your house, what do

you do? Some of you get out your cell

phones now. But in the old days, which I am

part of, we used to, well, we still do.

We have candles, right, and most of you probably have candles at

home and you find a match and and if you're having trouble

finding out where it is, you get yourself went out and use a

flashlight, right? But we we grab a match or a

lighter and we get that that candle lit.

Now what if you would grab a container and put it over top of

that candle? It would be foolish, wouldn't

it? You would be back in the

darkness and in reality that candle would go out is the

oxygen under the can under the container depletes and the light

then goes out. You suffocate the light of the

candle. Taking that container and

putting it over the candle is like going back to your old ways

when Jesus, the light of Jesus, wasn't shining in your life.

Some people live in darkness so that they cannot see the chaos

around them. When the light shines brightly.

Even dust on the table is seen and reminds us that we need to

do some dusting in our life to get good air quality.

You are the light of the world. How does God shine in this

world? He needs lights like you and I

God wants us to use. God wants to use us to be His

light in this Dark World. God works through His people and

His word. God's light can be hidden if

your lives don't reflect. His character Joe Stowell told

the story of a stressed out woman who was tailgating a man

as they drove down a busy St. When he slowed down to stop at a

yellow light, the woman hit the horn, cursing and screaming in

frustration and gesturing angrily.

As she was still in her rant, she heard a tap on her window

and looked up into the face of a police officer who ordered her

to exit the car with her hands up.

He took her to the police station and placed her in a

holding cell. An hour later, the officer

returned and said, I'm sorry, I miss this has been a big

mistake. When I pulled up behind you, I

noticed that you're What would Jesus do license plate holder

and follow me to Sunday school bumper sticker and I assumed

that the car was stolen. So letting our lights shine

might be illustrated with the idea of a lighthouse.

Lighthouses have saved many ships from being destroyed on

dangerous rocks. Light from a lighthouse is used

as a warning and as a guide. Today, lighthouses guide ships

along the coast of the sea to find a harbor or to mark the

way. Are you like a lighthouse

shining forth with a brilliant light into The Dark World?

Sailors can see light from afar, but you know that the light

itself isn't very strong. Actually, the first light that

lit up lighthouses were candles. These candles were magnified by

the use of mirrors and lenses. Thus, the light was focused to

shine out to the sea. And by this means, even a weak

light shines a long way. With reflectors, they can double

the power of a lighthouse lamp. The Bible can be likened to

those reflectors which make our light shine even brighter.

The brighter, the bigger the reflector and lens, the brighter

the light, and the farther away it can be seen.

If we use the God Word of God wisely, we can let our light

shine and our testimony is magnified.

Now light needs a source of energy.

As believers, the Holy Spirit empowers us.

We can run out of power if we don't feed on the Word of God.

The more we immerse ourselves in Jesus, the brighter we will

shine. Also, since we're reflecting the

light of Jesus like the moon reflects the sun, the purer the

reflector, the stronger the light that shines from you.

Some people's light is going out, but they're not aware that

their lamp is getting dimmer and dimmer because they're asleep.

Jesus told the story of the five virgin, foolish virgins waiting

for the bride, and they fell asleep.

And when the announcement came that the bridegroom was coming,

they awoke, but their lamps were going out and they couldn't join

in the procession to the bridegroom's house.

I trust that you have plenty of oil in your lamps and that

you're on fire for Jesus. Being asleep, being at the

sleep, being asleep at the wheel is a dangerous situation.

Now, Peak Fair taught me that the more sunshine there is, the

healthier that the healthy plants.

I'm sorry. The more sunshine that healthy

plants get and if they are is adequate water and fertilizer,

they will produce more fruit. You can always see Pete checking

his phone. What is the sunlight like at the

greenhouse? He has sensors there and seeing

how much light the plants are getting.

If he knows how much light they're getting, he knows how

much they will have to pick how much crop there will be.

Light gives life to the plants and they turn that light into

energy which is stored in the fruit of the plants.

How much fruit are you producing?

Who can you be a light to in your family or in your

community? I'd just like to take, have you

reflect just a moment and say to yourself, who is it that I can

be a light to? Is there somebody that God has

brought into my sphere of, of influence that I can possibly

share Jesus with? I'd like to write, I'd like you

to write that person's name on your heart.

I'd like you to pray for that person and wait for

opportunities that God will give you.

If you really are desiring to be a light to that person.

Use your assets to transform the society around you.

If God reveals truth to to you and gives you an idea to

explore, research it, develop it, and share it with others.

Let's make this a very different community and a very different

world. We've been going over those who

call LEMC their home church, but how can it be a home church if

you are never at home? It pains the leadership and

Jesus when the light is so dim that no one can see it.

For a while we had major problem with different colors lighting

the skies over Leamington from the greenhouses at night.

We need your light to be shining in the darkness so that others

actually know that you are Christian and you love the Lord.

Jesus said to his listeners. You are salt and you are the

light of the world. So ask the question, have you

believed what Jesus said? Are you salt and light?

If not, why not? What's holding you back?

It's very simple. Believe that Jesus died for your

sins, Admit that you're a Sinner, repent, change your

ways, and Jesus will flood your heart with His love and

forgiveness. He will send His Holy Spirit to

cleanse you and to make your light shine for the world to see

that you have become a radiant believer.

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good

works and glorify your Father in heaven.

If you are truly salt and light, become pure, tastier, preserving

your family and community, shining the light of Jesus in

the dark corners of the sinful world, and the whole world can

know that you are a believer in Jesus Christ.

When they see what God is doing in your life, they should give

God glory. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you that you made us salt.

You made us light as followers of Jesus.

I pray, Lord, that if there's anybody here today or watching

on TVI pray that your spirit will be at work in their hearts.

And if they have never made that commitment to follow Jesus, I

pray that they can become salt or light today, become a

follower of Jesus. Thank you, Lord, that You've

worked in our hearts, many of us, and that you are

transforming us, making us taste better, allowing us to shine

your light into the world around us and bring hope and joy.

Thank you that you guide us into the truth, and I pray that the

truth will set us free. Amen.