Sermon On The Mount: Salt and Light

Hello, my name is Eric Seegan, and I am one of the pastors of the Village Church.

The following podcast is a ministry of the Village Church.

We hope that it inspires you, that it draws you closer to Jesus, and it opens your eyes to the possibilities of living in the kingdom.

Enjoy and God bless.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, thank you for today.

Thank you for this evening.

Thank you for good food.

Thank you for comfortable couches.

Thank you for cooling weather.

Jesus, thank you for becoming a man, walking this life fully human and fully God, and dying for our sins.

The death we could not die, raising from the dead and giving us hope of life with you eternally in the kingdom.

And life now.

Holy Spirit, as we wrestle with your text, as we wrestle with the things that you're inviting us to step into, I just pray that you would give us grace to listen well, that you would give us hope and that you would give us a kindness for one another.

And I ask that in your holy name, Jesus.

Amen.

So let you know a little secret about preaching two sermons that are the same.

After you preach the first one, your brain says, Why are we doing this again?

Are you sure you remember what you were talking about?

So, with that, guess what, guys?

We're in a sermon series called Practices of a Kingdom People, and it is centered in the Sermon on the Mount.

And the Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew chapter five through seven.

It is the longest collection of sermons or sermon of Jesus.

And last week we looked at the intro, which is often called the Beatitudes, and there is tons and tons and tons of sermons and writings on the Beatitudes, but they are the eight or nine blessings that begin the Sermon on the Mount.

This week we are going to talk about what it looks like to move from blessing to identity.

So if you don't know where Matthew is, it's in the New Testament.

It's the very first uh book or gospel in the New Testament if you're looking for it.

So, chapter five to seven, Sermon on the Mount.

Now, last week I introduced this by telling you that we have a lens that we want to look at the Sermon on the Mount on.

And I also told you that I uh broke my glasses and it was gonna take two weeks to get my glasses, and so they kept sliding off my nose.

And it was pretty cool because I had taped them with electrical tape, and people would say, Oh, I didn't notice they were broken, but they literally could like bend out all the way like that.

Well, I got new glasses, and I'm older, so they are transition lenses.

Now, transition lenses mean that I can look up and down like this, so I can see far away, and if I look like this, I can read things.

And the lens that we're looking at, the Sermon on the Mount with, is a two-lens thing because you know, glasses have two lenses.

Um, and I explained that it's going to come out of Hebrews 12, verses 1 through 3, and Hebrews 12, 12 through 13.

Hebrews 12:1–3

Here's the basic breakdowns of our transitional lens.

In Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, it starts with telling us that we need to remove the entanglements of sin, the things that weigh us down, run the race put in front of us, fix our eyes on Jesus, who went to the cross, scorned the shame, and now sits at the right hand of the Father, and also consider Jesus and the opposition that he faced in order that we not lose heart.

Hebrews 12:1–3

So I summarize that part of the lens is simply fix your eyes on Jesus.

So as we read the Sermon on the Mount, it's essential that we think through this idea of fixing our eyes on Jesus.

But that transitional part, that like read close, is that we're going to remove the entanglements and consider.

Like that is part of what we're looking at when we deal with the Sermon on the Mount.

The second part of our lens jumps down to Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 and 13, where the author of Hebrews says, Hey guys, strengthen your weak knees and your flabby arms.

Hebrews 12:12

I mean, that's Eric's translation.

Um, and then make straight the path.

And my summary of the last line is help what or who.

It should be help who is struggling towards healing.

But the whole concept there is that we strengthen our arms and our weak knees and we get the things out of the way in the path so that people don't stumble over things and injure themselves, but they find healing.

So as we read the Sermon on the Mount, as we think through the Sermon on the Mount, we're gonna revisit this sometimes more, sometimes less in the sermons, thinking through, okay, how do we hang on to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?

What's he how is he inviting us to look at him?

And then what is he inviting us to do?

And where is he asking us to clear the path for one another and strengthen our weak and frivolous?

So that's that's the lens that we're looking through.

Now, last week we talked about the beatitudes or the blessings, and I want to just kind of do a little bit of work on blessing.

In the Old Testament, there's two ways to think about blessing.

The first is that God blesses us.

In Genesis 1:28, God says this.

Genesis 1:28

It does God bless them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish at the sea and the birds at the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

When God blesses human beings, what he does is he gives them something they could not get on their own, right?

Subduing and being fruitful and multiplying are not things that you can just do on your own.

They have to be given to you.

And you will see this every time God blesses someone in the Old Testament, he gives them something they couldn't gain on their own.

But then there is lines, often translated either praise or bless, where we bless God.

Psalm 103 says, Praise or bless the Lord my soul.

When we bless God, what we are doing is we are turning around, so to speak, and facing God and saying, Thank you for the thing that you gave me that I could not do on my own or have on my own, it is yours.

Thank you for it.

I praise you for it.

That's not mine.

I did not make it happen, right?

It wasn't mine.

And so you turn and say, God, this is yours.

Thank you for it.

I did not create it.

Now, when Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, when he begins it, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, he is saying something like this Blessed is Pastor Eric when the congregation signs up 30 times to volunteer in one month each.

Right?

So it's a perspective thing, right?

So when he says the poor in spirit are blessed because the kingdom of God is theirs, it's of the at the perspective of the poor in spirit.

They are blessed because the kingdom of God is theirs.

So it's it's not he's bestowing a blessing on them, he's saying they are blessed.

Now, why are they blessed and how is the kingdom of God near them?

What does that mean?

Well, as I explained last week, the kingdom of God has come near, and there's a relief in that.

So at the beginning, right before the Sermon on the Mount, it says this in Matthew 4, 17, from that time on, Jesus began to preach, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

Then when Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the peacemakers, those who show mercy, those who are persecuted, he's saying the kingdom of God has come near to them, and they are blessed because of they have the kingdom, they are comforted, right?

It's from their perspective because the king has come near.

Because there is no way for them to actually have that blessing unless Jesus has come near them.

So he's saying, I've come near them, so from their perspective, they're blessed.

And I said, It's a relief.

Right?

The blessing is a relief.

So you have to think about these in that way.

The poor in spirit, those who are desperate, theirs is the kingdom.

The mourner, the one who is struggling over what they've done, is comforted.

So this is kind of the idea that we're working with in the introduction.

Now, what I want to work with today a little bit is that from relief or from blessing, we move to identity.

There's an interesting shift.

If you are reading along in the Sermon on the Mount, you get to verse 11, and all of a sudden Jesus shifts things, right?

He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are persecuted, but in 11, he shifts and says, you.

And he begins to say you, and we get to verse 13, and he says, You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.

You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.

So let me just for a moment talk about identity.

Because when you say somebody is something, that is an identity.

And it is identity is really, really important.

And to understand who you are is really, really important because it will dictate what you do.

If you think that, oh, my identity is a terrible person, liar, whatever, if you have these negative identities and you own them as defining who you are, then you will live into them.

They will dictate who you are.

They have a power because they link up with your internal brokenness and with the enemy, and they are powerful things when they're in that negative space, when you own them as identities.

Now, Jesus takes the blue the poor in spirit, the person hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and he says, You are salt, you are light.

You are salt of the earth, you are light of the world.

This is what gives you then a vocation.

Identity always gives you a job.

There's a thing you do because of who you are.

And so when Jesus tells you you're salt and light, then there are things that he's saying you will naturally be and do in the world.

So I want to talk about salt and I want to talk about light for a minute and just process them with you a little bit.

So to start with that, I I want to also make a health announcement for you.

Okay.

So if you if you are suffering from blood pressure issues or your doctor has said, hey, you need to lower your sodium, I would like to recommend that you not ever go to a restaurant.

You stay home and make your own food and just take that salt shaker and salt it on there as much as you want, because it will not have any effect compared to what happens at a restaurant.

So when I was growing up, my mom said, Oh, well, you put salt in your water when you're boiling water to put, you know, do potatoes or you're doing pasta, right?

So you put a pinch of salt, right?

That flavors the pasta.

If you go to a restaurant, I was taught that you put a handful of salt and sometimes two handfuls of salt in that boiling water.

So if you get mashed potatoes, there's a couple things you should know.

If you get mashed potatoes or pasta, that person back there hopefully washed their hands because they're not using a scooper.

They just grabbed that and dumped it in.

It was boiling water, so it's fine.

But I just want you to salt.

Why is going to the restaurant tasty?

Because salt flavors things.

It also in the first century, though, salt wasn't just a good flavoring thing, salt preserved things all the time and for everything.

So it was a preservative, it gave bland food flavor.

But it's interesting, is that also salt is a distinctive, right?

It's not salty or it is salty.

So I grew up with a southerner, not grew up.

I I guess I moved into a house.

I really did grow up because I was 28 years old when I moved in with Keith and Julie.

So those of you who don't know, some of you, most of you do, but I lived in a community, I live in a community house with Keith and Julie.

Our kids grew up in that house, and Keith does not like salt.

And so he's had to live with my cooking, and I love salt.

So I start, I've realized recently I just apologized when I put it on in front of him.

I'm sorry.

But his kids, the victory is his kids love salt.

So poor Keith.

Like he serves people his food to his children now, and they're like, it's not salty enough, Dad.

That's my fault, right?

He's not here today, so he's out on a cruise.

But victory.

Um salt makes things distinct.

Now, I need you to understand, I don't need you to understand this, but I want you to understand it.

Is that what's happening in this little thing that he says where he says, you are salt of the earth, and then he goes on to say, 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.

I want to be very clear that if you have an identity of salt, you personally, individually, you cannot then become unsalty.

So what's happening here?

Why is it then that Jesus is saying, well, but you can, and then you'll be thrown out.

Because he's shifting between you, our salt, and that's your identity, to the community, Israel, who is salt, right?

The individual cannot be thrown out and trampled, but the community of God can lose its saltiness.

And what Jesus is saying is poor in spirit, merciful person, peacemaker, persecuted.

You are the new kingdom of God.

This is where I'm starting.

And Israel, larger kingdom of God, you've lost your saltiness, you can be thrown out.

And you're going to be.

And I'm going to start in a different way.

Now, this is really important for us to understand as a church, okay, because I think there is a when it comes to saltiness, a lot of times we think, okay, I'm the salt of the earth.

I need to be distinct in comparison to the world.

Yes.

But it is not talking, I don't think about that fully.

I think it's actually talking about internally that us as a church, you and I, are meant to be salt, distinct between each other, so that we actually are a prophetic voice to one another.

Here's what I mean about that.

You have an identity of salt.

You cannot change that.

You will always be salty.

But you can be in a community of God with whom the lampstand can be removed, if you know what I'm referring to in Revelation.

We can become a community that is unsalty, not distinct, and thrown out.

If we are not willing to be a prophetic people to one another, what do I mean by being prophetic?

Being prophetic simply means that I am living a distinct enough life around you and you are me that we are actually sharpening each other.

The phrase I used in the morning that I've used for a long time at the village is that we are invited to be sandpaper on skin, right?

We are invited as a community of God to shape each other, smooth each other, form each other.

The Sermon on the Mount begins that process for us.

So when Jesus says, you are salt, he then begins to say, and salt looks like this.

It doesn't look like anger, it looks like reconciliation.

It doesn't look like lust, it looks like faithfulness, truthfulness, love, generosity, trust, merciful.

So when I'm angry and I'm like, oh man, I gotta go at this, I gotta get Ron to understand things.

Sorry, Ron.

And someone else is like, hey, wait a minute.

You need to work things out.

Like, no, can you look at it from where Ron is coming from?

You need to reconcile, like just having that is a distinctive, or it confronts me and confronts my anger and says, Oh, this you actually are losing your saltiness, right?

But as a community, we want to have this prophetic kind of way of being together in order that we can be have an impact in the world, that as a community, that we can help shape and form and bring the gospel into the world.

So I think that as we step into the nitty-gritty of the Sermon on the Mount over the next eight weeks, we'll begin to see what God is inviting us into and what it looks like to be people who are salty.

And that has nothing to do with getting hot and sweaty.

Now he talks about salt, but he then says that we are also the light of the world.

And Israel understands this.

Everybody who's listening to him, poor, rich, uneducated, not well educated, they all know that God has told Israel that they are the light of the world.

Isaiah brings this um out in Isaiah 42, 6.

It says, I will keep you and I will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

Israel is called to be a light to the world.

They're to continually be pointing towards God.

This is the way of God, this is how God operates.

They were given the law of the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, like a story of what it means to be in relationship with God and a way of being in relationship with God.

And they were supposed to be pointing.

Exodus 18 tells them they're supposed to be priests to the nations.

Jesus says, You're not doing that.

And so he looks at an unlikely group of people, not the brightest and the best, but the poor in spirit, those who are mourning over their decisions, the meek, those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemaker, the persecuted, the unlikely group of people.

He says, You guys, you are the light of the world.

You're the ones who are going to point to Jesus because the kingdom of God has come near to you.

Now I've learned a few things about light in that the older I get, the more I understand that a well-lit room is good.

All right.

I was out to dinner with some people yesterday.

It was not a romantic dinner, but we were sitting in what I would call a romantically lit space.

And I was trying to see the menu, even with my brand new glasses.

And they had to inform me how much things cost.

But here's what I've learned about lighting and dating and going, you know, and older you get, you want to go to a dim lip space because you're like, you think you're 25 and you think your wife is 25.

You're like, wow, everything we were all our skin is smooth and everything.

Right?

Even with new glasses.

Thank you.

But Jesus says, You're the light of the world.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it on its stand and give and it gives light to everyone in the house.

Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Let me say, read that again to you.

You are the light of the world.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead They put it on its stand and give it gives light to everyone in the house.

Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Now, your identity is light.

That is what he said.

You are the light of the world.

But the only reason you're light of the world is because Jesus is with you.

So here's the idea that I have in my mind about what it looks like to put a lamp over something or not put a lamp over something.

It is realizing that because the kingdom of God has come near to you, meaning Jesus is with you, Jesus is also in every single room you walk into and every single situation you walk into.

And I would argue to you that you have a choice to, in the sense, put a bushel or a barrel over you and him, or you have a choice to proclaim what he's doing.

Sometimes in a very direct manner, and sometimes it requires a skill of friendship and articulation and all of that.

But your goal is to over and over and over again be saying, Oh, this is Jesus, pointing to Jesus over and over again.

That is who we're called to be.

We're called to say, That's Jesus.

Jesus is doing this.

This is who he is, this is what he's done in my life.

This is what's happening.

So we're given this identity, right?

Given a set of blessings, and then Jesus says, You are the salt and you are the light.

Now, saltiness is distinctive, right?

So we're in being invited to be distinct.

Light is visible, so we're being invited to be visible, but the temptation is really to integrate or withdraw, right?

And what I mean by integrate is just kind of go with the flow of whatever, right?

As long as attention is not being called to us, and as long as we don't really have to deal with anything, or to just pull back and hide, right?

Because there's a tension to being distinct and visible, right?

People point at you, people ask awkward questions, you might have to say awkward things or be an awkward person.

I think Larry Crab says it way better than I do in Inside Out when he speaks about salt and light and the church.

Says, rather than being salt and light, we've become a theologically diverse community of powerless Pharisees.

Let me read that to you again.

Just that first part.

Rather than being salt and light, rather than being visible and distinct, we've become a theologically diverse community of powerless Pharisees, right?

We and have sit around, and Larry likes to poke people, but we we've been sitting around and we we talk about nothing when it comes to meaningful things, right?

And we have become powerless rule keepers.

Then he says, penetrating very little of society because we refuse to grapple honestly with experience of life.

I think that when Jesus points at the poor in spirit and the one who's desperately trying to figure out what righteousness is, and he says, You're the salt and you're the light, right?

He's talking to people who honestly understand their brokenness and who they are, and a willingness to wrestle with things, right?

A willingness to really go after what saltiness and light is.

And I think the Sermon on the Mount is gonna help us think that through because Jesus is gonna go after not what's on the surface, but what's in our heart and why we do what we do, right?

And what our motivations are and how we might be building a firm foundation.

So to kind of wrap this up, as I was thinking about all of this and going back to fixing our eyes on things and thinking through saltiness and light, first I thought about Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

And it says, Imitate God, this is verse 1, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children, live a life filled with love, follow the example of Christ.

He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.

Well, you will find in Hebrews what you find when Peter is writing, what you find when Paul is writing, is that they're always saying, Imitate Jesus, fix your eyes on the one who gave his life up for you.

Before he ever says, and do X, Y, and Z.

Before he says, basically, this is what saltiness looks like, this is what salty people do.

He says, fix your eyes on Jesus who loved you and died for you.

Right?

Who already walked into these things.

And then verse 3 says, Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you.

Such sins have no place among God's people.

Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes.

These are not for you.

Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.

It's interesting.

I think the thing that makes it clear like that the entanglements that we have to remove, a lot of times we read this and we think, okay, Jesus loved us.

Now I've got to stop telling all those bad jokes, stop talking foolishly.

And I think actually the invitation when you read Paul is to always work backwards in these lists.

And in verse four, the end says, instead, be thankful to God, because when you're thankful to God, it is very hard to tell a coarse joke.

When you're being thankful for what God has done, it is very difficult for you to be greedy.

And so the invitation to being salty is to be a people who are thankful and focused on God, which will then help you as a community keep the impurities out and to sharpen one another.

So fixing our eyes on Jesus, removing the entanglements, and clear the path.

1 Peter 2 9 says, But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into the wonderful light.

Part of strengthening our knees and our arms and clearing the path is learning to be people who talk about our story of darkness and how we moved into light.

But to really talk about how we moved into light, we have to talk about the person who is light and how he cleared the path so that we might clear other paths, other parts of the path, the blockades in the path for other people.

So part of what it means to clear a path is simply to be consistently pointing to the one who lights the path, right?

Jesus.

Over and over again.

As a priest, how we moved out of darkness and into light was that we followed Jesus out.

And so we're continually pointing to him.

All right.

I intentionally, wow, only two minutes longer than this morning.

All right.

I intentionally tried to make this as short as possible because I want a lot of time to talk to you about what it means to be salt and light and what God might be inviting us into.

So, and anything else and any other questions in context of the sermon.

So, with that said, let's talk.

What has the Holy Spirit kind of pricked in you?

What is he making you think about?

What is it that what questions might you have?

We actually have lots of time.

So, someone grab the mic for me.

All right.

Alright.

Elliot's got the mic.

Can we got all right?

There you go, sir.

I don't know.

Turn it.

Is it on, Elliot?

Push the button.

It's it's dark.

It's green.

Alright, good.

Well, when I first came in here, there we go.

When I first came in here, I well, first of all, I learned about salt and light right now today.

I mean tonight.

Anyway, when I first came in, my first salt and light was I call him New York, but his name is David.

And then I was talking to your father, and he showed me light, and all the people in here really showed me that there was light.

Um when you go into a place where you don't know anybody, they showed me the type of person they were, and I felt comfortable.

But when uh you talked about something like that, really spoke to me that um that there is a difference, and you gotta be different when you're on the world, you gotta be distinctful, you gotta be distinct, you gotta show and not just show them, but you naturally you are different, and then uh some people are attracted to you or not, but it's an opening for an invitation is to talk about the Lord itself.

But this place, I could see light right away.

Thank you, sir.

I liked that you talked about this sermon because when you read that, you're like, you are salt, but uh it's if salt loses its saltiness, then you're like, what the heck is going on?

Um and so I really appreciated that you were talking about like individually you have an identity of salt, and you're not gonna lose that identity, but that also um that if the people are not following god and Jesus, then they're getting less salty and probably have less people who are salt in them.

Anyway, I appreciated that to be like oh, this is two separate things.

I was thinking about salt and light.

Thank you, Eric, for your hard work doing this twice.

That's fine.

Um salt and light and the two great commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and that maybe I wonder if Jesus is saying, I'm going to teach you how to love.

And that is your light people will praise God because of your good deeds by being a light by how you love.

And your salt is by how you love.

So uh it just didn't strike me this morning, but it did tonight.

Uh there's well, I was part of a church for a long time.

They made a big deal about being separate, be coming out and being separate from the world.

How um is that being salty?

I mean I I want to know if if and that's not Jesus didn't say that, that's that's Paul that was teaching that.

Is that being salty?

I guess or light?

Well, I think that a couple things.

First, you have John 17 where Jesus, right?

We're supposed to um be in the world, but not of the world.

And I would say to become out of the to be separate is not to separate myself.

Yeah, I I think that um there's no way for me to be a light if I separate myself from everybody.

But I do not have to I mean Paul says this over and over again in so many different places, or just even in our pa in Ephesians, like he he's clearly saying in verse three, this is the way that the the the world operates.

Don't operate like that.

Like um, and so yeah, that is being separate when someone tells a coarse joke and I don't like that's being separate.

Um I mean at least in behavior.

Um But I also think like what we talked about this morning about what it means to understand that you to be separate is to understand that you have a whole different narrative that you're living by because you are living in the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God has come near to you, and wherever you go, the kingdom of God is.

So being separate is not allowing not going and living in a different kingdom's value system.

But living out the way of the king in front of people and pointing out where the king is.

So I don't know if that that makes a lot of sense, but just to piggyback off of that and a nod to Larry Crab, that last the last book he wrote was called Way for Heaven, and he just talked a lot about the larger story, not the smaller story, which now his son runs an organization where they talk a lot about that.

And so yeah, living in the larger story of like doing your own narrative working narrative work in your story, where is God taking me, and then seeing myself also in the larger story of creation, you know, fall, redemption.

How does that only say that's I I think what you're saying is that part of them being separate is is or I mean we're piggybacking up that, but really we're living in a different story, and it is a the bigger story of God.

Right.

I just wanted to draw that out because it's not super complicated.

It's just living in the bigger story of where are we at in Christ's second coming and yeah.

Jeremy I like I like how you frame this this verse here, this verse three, and uh like reading it backwards.

And I think this goes to someone we're talking about I think in Sue's sermon a few weeks ago about like posture.

Like if you have a posture of thankfulness to God, like those other things follow, or you'll you're you'll certainly correct yourself if you get tempted by these things or you see yourself falling into those things.

Like if you have an attitude or your postured or the big picture of your life is thankfulness to God, right?

I think I think those things will will fall away.

I I like that.

Um, and then I'm gonna share this.

It's kind of weird, but last night uh in her sleep, Karen, this is my wife, Karen here, she sang, she sang in her sleep, Be in the light, and there was some other in unintelligible things around that.

And I asked her this morning, like, what like do you know a song that's that?

And I played her like the old like DC talk, be in the lights is that it and she's like, I've never heard this song before.

So I don't know.

She she was subconsciously thinking about being in the light in your sermon.

You know, we'll probably write this.

I yeah, I don't I do sometimes talk in my sleep.

Usually it's not good stuff, like it's not spiritual, it's just like you know, explosion.

So so this was much more of a holy spiritual talking in your sleep.

Oh, yeah.

I found it encouraging because I've been kind of I've been kind of the you know, low end, like I've been kind of down for a few weeks.

So it's kind of cool that my subconscious is like, yeah, it's all right.

Be in the light.

Be in the light.

It just it sounded so like positive in a way that like that doesn't sound like me.

That's awesome.

Well, the Holy Spirit.

That's cool.

I did want to say, um, I was thinking about a couple of things when you were talking.

One of them is so the the thing about he makes such an extreme statement saying if the salt loses its saltiness, that's like a non sequitur.

Like that that doesn't make sense.

So he's saying, Y'all, it doesn't make any sense.

You're salty and you're not being salt.

What the heck?

You know, right?

Yeah.

That's something like what he's saying.

It doesn't make any sense.

Right.

How can you not make sense?

Right is what he's saying.

Yeah, no, there's a bit of that, yeah.

Um, and then the other thing I was thinking about, like the people in ancient times wouldn't know this necessarily directly, but we like I learned this in AP biology.

Everything that happens in your body is about salt.

Salt and water in combination are creating all the cell the cellular processes of life.

So Jesus knows that when he's making the statement.

I mean, we we have this relationship with salt, it's like, you know, flavoring in food, but sure there's something like at a core level, he's making a really strong statement about us being essential to life.

I I have a thought on Bob's question.

Um what what strikes me about salt is that you don't want to keep it all in the pantry.

And about light is you don't want all the lamps in your house in one room.

So it seems like both of these images have to do with us behaving like the kingdom of God, like we're living in the kingdom of God when we're gathered with people who are in the kingdom of God, but also when we're out in the world, because part of what we're doing is we are acting as preservatives in the culture as well, right?

Like we are bringing the culture of the kingdom of God wherever we go at some level.

And um yeah, so I feel like we are inherently more salty and more light if we are participating in the larger society and bringing the kingdom of God to bear in each of the places that we go.

Yeah, that's my thought on it.

I like that.

That's good.

Thank you, Mr.

Stephen.

Yeah, I want to bring uh bring something up that maybe on the other side of this.

Uh many, many, many years ago at Southern Colorado College, I don't think it's now a university, but I had been sharing my faith, brand new believer, and um with many people.

I just had that, you know, I felt anointed that summer to do that.

And um we made friends with a non-Christian couple who invited us to go to the dog races, you know, watch the Greyhounds run.

We had no money, of course, we're not gonna do any betting, but I was out there, we had a good time, we went to their house for a light meal.

Uh, the following week on campus, one of the people I was sharing Christ with walked up to me and said, I saw you at the dog track.

And you're talking to me about Christ, about Jesus.

So I had an opportunity to really, I you know, not even defend myself, but say, huh, you know, apparently, you know, obviously it impacted you, yeah, because this person felt that that was unholy, ungodly, you know, verse three, maybe.

So God taught me avoid all appearance of evil out of out of Thessalonians.

And what occurred to me also is in the body of Christ, while we're here, I mean, here in this body, I need to be careful not to be a stumbling block to other people in the community here on how I live.

I can strut about saying, I am free to do this or do that.

And one of the big things within the church, and I'll just say it right out, is hey, I am free to partake of alcohol.

And by the way, there's no prohibition.

However, there are many warnings.

I've got to be really careful about people around me.

I may have freedom, but my freedom may cause a younger believer to stumble.

So this idea of it really Yeah, I like those statements.

I don't know what you'd think about that.

And the other thing, the third thing is if you have time to integrate into maybe unpack a little bit more about in community about how we lose salt and light.

Thanks, Dad.

Love having you in church.

It's the best.

Um but yeah, yeah, I can I can unpack it really fast in one minute.

Um so a couple things.

I I was sitting with somebody at our church um for coffee and they were talking about how their heart had been pricked about something that was going on and they didn't do anything about it.

But then someone else walked in and had an immediate uncomfortability and acted on it.

Like dealt with the situation, and they felt very convicted.

They they were like, I should have listened to the Holy Spirit.

That's saltiness, like they they were invited to be salty and they and and he knew that the Holy Spirit was telling him that he was uncomfortable, right?

And and I think that that's part of what it looks like in community.

Because he didn't feel judged by the other person, he actually felt relieved and then was given an example to follow and how you do that.

And so I think that's part of it is how how that happens, how saltiness happens in our community, how we become prophetic voices to one another um to invite us to into holiness.

I think one of the things is the light one is that in community we have to practice recognizing Jesus.

I think it is one of the hardest things to do is to walk out of this building and believe that Jesus is doing it.

That he's acting in people's lives and that he is wanting us to be part of that and to join him.

Um, but I think in community we have to actually practice identifying Jesus in other people's lives and saying as we're sitting over across the table and somebody's telling a story and you stop and say, ah, no, that's Jesus there.

Like Jesus did that, said that, was acting there, and so to help one another be like by practicing identifying Jesus here in community so that you can be ready to see that.

Um I think there's there's sort of two temptations when we think about being salt and light.

One is to conform, right?

To to hide ourselves.

The other one is to be souph superficially superficially salt and light.

Yes, right.

Um, and I think a lot of the Sermon on the Mount is actually addressing that that second one, like don't don't just don't pray on the street corner or don't give your offerings loudly.

Right.

Um and I think that's an important distinction that and I think what we're called to from the sermon is is depth.

And I think that's even like a Dallas Willard line is like people we're we're attempting to become people of depth.

Um depth, not death.

No, no, no.

I just want to make sure that yeah, we already got that straight.

Yeah, and depth of compassion and love, depth of character, um fidelity to God, all of that.

And I think that that in and itself is a distinction from the world that is largely just superficial.

Yeah, no, thank you, Matthew.

That's really good.

All right, so I think what comes to mind for me is um where are my shame points?

Like where in my life do I want to hide and take control of the thing that's hard?

How do I bring that to the light?

How do I do that in community?

How do people speak into it?

And then how does that equip me to stand more with the truth of the gospel to go out and like be light?

And so how does that intersect with the Sermon on the Mount?

Do there any like phrases come like any pieces of it?

It seems like you end up going through the progression like you had that progression last week.

It seems like you start doing that when you start saying, Where am I hiding?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

Um I appreciate your continued invitation to be prophetic um and to be a prophetic people.

I I think I hesitate to do this.

I mean, I think this is riffing off of Matthew with the two temptations that we have.

Um, but with salt and light, it's like you're bringing out the what's real.

So like with salt, you're bringing out the flavor of whatever it is, whether it's good or bad.

Um, and then with light, you're showing what really is, whether it's good or bad.

And so I think I appreciated your invitation as well to like bring out what's good and notice the areas where you're like, hey, this is a good thing in our world.

Um, I think that was last week, or yeah.

Um and so I think it's just that continued invitation to be willing to point out the good things as salty and illuminated people, um, and then also bring out the hard things um and walking the balance of what that looks like.

So not really a question, but I just really appreciate that.

Thank you.

So the word power is sufficiently unclear that you may not even agree with what I'm about to say.

That's okay, it's why the floor is open.

So go.

I liked the uh quote about powerless Pharisees.

And I actually think it's interesting that it was tied with the uh Sermon on the Mount here, because I think that Christians are often uncomfortable with amassing power, and that a lot of that is actually downstream of the Sermon on the Mount, where many types of weakness are described as good and edifying.

And yet I think a lot of what enables one to maybe not have, but display and used the way you're describing salt and light is facilitated by power, and that Christians often sort of lean away from that in a way that is counterproductive.

You want to expand a little on that for me, just so that I can respond to it?

Sure.

So I don't have a fully fleshed-out thought here, which is why I trailed off at the end.

But I think that there is an element of one can be more effectual with their salt and light when you pair it with some amount of power.

Yeah, it's good.

And that Christians lean away from that in a way that causes them not to be as effective as they might otherwise be.

And I actually think it's interesting that the excuse for that is often downstream of the Sermon on the Mount that you have paired with this quote, which I found interesting.

Yeah.

Now, if you say power or powerless, like maybe the Pharisees being described us, their powerlessness is spiritual, yeah.

Um, then you could say, well, Jay, this sort of doesn't apply.

But you may or may not think that, because again, the word power can mean a heck of a lot of things.

Sure.

No, it's good.

So I I think um first, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Meek is distinctively means to have the ability to take what you want um out of your own power and choosing to not do that, but wait on the Lord for that.

It's interesting that my my dad called me um last week and he's like, hey, I I really wanted to say this, but I I just didn't have time, or it seemed like other things were happening during the sermon.

But he said, I identify with the meek.

I want to take what's mine, and when things are not going the way they're supposed to for other people, I want to use my power to act.

And I think what he was saying was, I don't want to wait on the Lord to do it, or for him to tell me when I'm supposed to go with the power that I have.

Um, I would like to figure it out on my own and do it.

And I think that um part of being salt and light is is both spiritual and physical, how we choose to use power.

Do we use it for our own gain and for our own kind of um creating of kingdom?

Or are we going to wait on God and use that power when we are invited to by God Himself, usually for the sake of another?

So that would be my short answer to that.

And I I was it was it was very cool to have my dad call me and just talk through that a little bit for him.

So for that, but and similarly, oh I'm sorry.

Oh, there's Northern Mike is a voice.

I think there's a giant difference between power that is taken and power that is given.

Yeah.

That David was very powerful, and he had a responsibility given by God to use that power in the ways that God would use it.

But most of the time, certainly not universally, most of the time when we think about power, what we think about is what can I do to grasp power in order to control someone else?

And almost always the mechanisms by which we grasp power are the devil's virtue systems, not Jesus'.

And so, like, if Jesus puts you in a position of power, then use it the way Jesus would.

And if Jesus puts you in a position of weakness, then respond the way Jesus did when he was weak, you know?

Yeah, I think the fix keeping your eyes fixed on Heather.

Um, in the quote, like the end of the quote, I don't remember the whole quote, but I remember it saying something about um grappling, grappling honesty or with honesty.

Um and I think that's also an important distinction, too, when you think about being salt and light and actually stepping up and into that identity.

Um, and that's something where like pride and pride in the form of like shame um can hold us back.

I know for me personally, that has held me back um from like particularly from being honest about the things that are shameful, right?

Um like the things that I do that um I need to face and be honest about before I can actually even move forward in the identity of being salt and being a light.

And um yeah, so um honesty in in my opinion is is crucial.

You know, we have to be honest with ourselves and then again be honest with each other so that we can pray for each other, so that we can change, just like it says in the book of James, I think.

Um, you know, um, because yeah, because then that's how we can all give each other the courage, therefore, to you know, be honest and then walk in that identity of salt and light or being a light.

Yeah, that's good.

Thank you, Heather.

I think I have two things, but we'll just start with what we'll get to that.

Um I this hasn't been so much of an issue, I think, recently, but I think it's still something that comes up and I think would be curious to talk about is I feel sometimes, and maybe this is just particularly in the healthcare field, where it feels like those who are non-Christians and Christians are ended up doing a lot of the same thing.

You know, we're taking care of people, we're trying to help them, generally speaking.

We get angry sometimes, but that just happens with people.

And it sometimes it's hard for me to see how I can be that distinct salt in this society, which in some ways I think is a good thing, right?

That means like we probably are doing okay.

Obviously, we're not a perfect society, but what my point is is that I think sometimes it's hard for me to find how I can be that distinctest distinctness that God is calling me to be.

So I I think if I I would go backwards a little bit and talk about it from the perspective of light, and that the difference in healthcare is the reason that you're there.

Right?

That yes, you all have a very similar now.

Maybe everybody's like in their humanness, it's like, yeah, I want to help people.

But the narrative there is for you is very much this is who Christ has told me I am, light and salt priest.

And so I'm here as a priest and a doctor, as a priest and as a nurse.

Like, so I come in with a double vocation and a different identity.

So you're telling a bit of a different story for why you're there.

It also invites you to point out, I would argue, as I said last week, as you watch the people who are alongside you act like Jesus, even if they're not following Jesus per se, to say, hey, you know, that's like Jesus, to like renarrate for them why they're doing what they're doing.

And that doesn't mean like you walk in and you're helping the patient or whatever it is, and you're like, oh, hey, good job being Jesus, but it is looking for moments to say, hey, you know, when someone is expressing the heart of Jesus as they talk about a patient and you have that opportunity, and the and you can you can move that narrative that way, or say, oh yeah, that's why I'm doing this, is because Jesus, those are the values of Jesus.

Like so, in some ways, internally, at least you're telling a different narrative, and that's probably why you are different.

Does that make sense?

I think so.

I I think to what I'm hearing is you're kind of suggesting that although the actions might look the same, the motivation might be different, and you're encouraging for us to point and say this is actually where the underlying source of the goodness is coming from, and making that clear to everyone else that that's where that is appropriately.

Yeah, and that's not necessarily walking into the room and saying, Oh, Jesus is you know taking care of you today, or something like that.

Right.

But I also think the other thing is that you walk into wherever, I mean, we all do when we're just talking about healthcare.

So you walk into the space that you're working in.

Jesus is the the great physician, and so there's something unique about you and joining him in that, and that when you go to listen to someone, you are not doing it on your own.

As a follower of Jesus, Jesus is there in that person's life, so you're not just listening for the medical diagnostic, you are hopefully asking the question, Well, Jesus, what are you just doing with this person?

Like, how do I join you in that as I help them?

As the as you are the great physician, and I'm just sort of being your kid and imitating you as best I can with my skills.

So, like this, there's this is a whole huge different narrative.

I think you're invited to tell.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

I would also offer to that um there's a lot of like cynicism and in in healthcare and gossip, and the culture is generally very jaded.

And that is a way that we can be distinctly different from others that work in healthcare is to push against that and try to represent Christ to our coworkers in that way.

Because we are pointed the same direction towards caring for people, but in how we interact with each other, we can be distinctly different, I would say.

Anyway.

I have to keep going back to I am salt, and I am light.

It's not I have to do something to become salty, or I have to do something to be light, or I have to practice like I am.

Yes, and then I think my mom always used to say, you're always an example.

The only question is, are you a good one or a bad one?

Right.

Like it's um and and I think um if as I try to put a bushel over my light, or I add stuff to my saltiness to try to water it down and make it worthless, those are the actions that but but my identity and I've I have to remember I don't have to become those things, I am those things.

Yeah, no, it's interesting.

Uh when we're talking about I don't know why we're on medical things, but um when I was in the hospital for uh my kidney stone, once they released me, they had to walk, somebody had to walk me out, you know, and wait for my ride.

And the guy who walked me out had basically been helping me most of the weekend, and he's like, What do you do for a living?

And I said, Oh, I'm a pastor, and he's like, uh, that makes sense.

And I said, Why?

He's like, You're just so peaceful.

It's nice to be around you.

And I was like, I didn't feel peaceful, and I was not trying to be peaceful, I was just yeah, not happy.

So it's interesting that like that the identity is there, even when you're not trying to do that, good for it.

Um, yeah, and I think this is from God just a story that came to mind, and I think it's fitting with what other folks are saying.

Um when I was living overseas, my two mates and I we wanted to like live well together, and so we'd practice being in community and especially for like forgiveness and walking through conflict.

Um and my friend one time had like a hard interaction with just a random shopkeeper that he didn't know, and I don't know if he ever saw him again, but he thinking about that like being sandpaper on each other to the point of being shaped and formed in a certain way, he felt convicted to go back and apologize, which was a very bizarre thing to do, I think, from everybody's perspective.

And I just I go back to that a lot because I have no idea what came of that, but it felt like a moment of like my friend had become such a person in community that that's just who he felt he needed to be in that moment.

And so yeah, just thinking about that bridge between being in community and then what that ends up looking like, even if we're not feeling peaceful or particularly vulnerable at those moments.

Yeah.

Oh thank you, Andrew.

All right, we probably have time for one more and then I I think in modern societies we don't realize how important salt was back then.

There were like creeds and agreements of salt.

And if you didn't do these things, the the meat would rot and you didn't do it enough.

Yeah, you know, it it would just it would rot too, but it'd be too much.

And you know, we're gonna make mistakes.

We are, we're gonna put too much salt out, too much light out, and then we become the Pharisees that Larry Crab says.

And so we gotta give us ourselves some grace too.

And like I I would I would remember like my stepfather's mother.

My stepfather's mother was this old Italian woman, and she never used recipes.

Never.

And but she because of practice, she always got it right.

You know, it's like, how did grandma, how do you know this?

I just do.

You know, yeah, how do you how do you how do you know when to get the thing out of uh just do it and because she did it over and over and over again.

My stepfather had eight brothers, so you know she never got it wrong.

Well, I'm sure at some point at the beginning, she always got it wrong.

But by the time I got there, you know, she always got it right.

And and because she had done it over and over again.

I think if we do give ourselves some grace and do it over and over again, we're gonna do it right.

Yeah, no, that's that's good.

I I think the picture, and we'll close with this, that I have uh tried to give last week of the Sermon on the Mount is that the beatitudes or the the blessings, our Jesus inviting us to sit on his lap.

He puts his arms around us and he says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there's the kingdom of God.

And he's just saying it's gonna it's gonna be okay, guys.

It's gonna be okay, guys.

You are light and you are salt.

All right, now we're gonna work that out together, and it's gonna be kind of hard.

So I think that's the invitation is to sit in Jesus' lap, know who you are, and then he's gonna invite us to kind of begin to process things out.

So with that thought, let's pray.

Father Jesus Jesus, thank you for this community.

Thanks for just their wisdom and uh their willingness to wrestle with things and add what they know and um listen to your spirit.

So as we sing and as we pray and as we eat together, I ask that we would be able to keep our ears keen to your uh uh movement, Jesus, through your spirit.

Yep.

And that we would join you in one another's lives um to praise you, um, to be salt to each other, um, to invite each other to proclaim the light.

I ask that in your holy name, Jesus.

Amen.