We’re going to be looking at Matthew 5 today. In January, we’re in a series entitled Back to the Basics: All In. Today we’re going to consider how God calls us to witness together. It’s to bring the Gospel message to our world, to be salt, to be light and witness together. The Back to the Basics this year, we’re really focusing on the basics that we hold in common together, that really we can’t do on our own apart from a togetherness, a union with our brothers and sisters in Christ. How precious is the church of God!

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus has just begun this great Sermon on the Mount. He tracks through a life that is blessed by God, a life that is happy, a life that is eternally meaningful. He comes to this section in verses 13-16, where He tells us the mission of the blessed life. So let’s read this together.

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 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. 16 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.

May God encourage us through His Word, today!

Let’s pray and ask that God will allow us to receive the Word by faith. Every Sunday, people have mixed responses to the same message. One will leave saying, “That was transformative, what God taught me or spoke through that section of Scripture. It changed the way I think, the way I live.” Others in the same message are going to leave saying, “I didn’t really like it that much.” What’s the difference? I do believe that the difference is when we receive the Word of God by faith, God does something life giving. So it’s the call upon us, and I’m one of the listeners as well as the speaker, to receive the Word by faith every Sunday so that something vital happens. So let’s pray that that would be so.

One of my favorite poems is from Robert Frost. He says

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

When I read that poem, I hear some truth about our world. Our world is indeed lovely, as God created it. He created it good. Creation still reflects so much of God’s majesty, so much of God’s goodness. Yet, our world is also dark because our world also reflects in so many ways the corruption of man’s sin.

In this poem, I also hear a yearning in the soul to live in such a way so as to make a difference in this world. That longing is universal. It is planted there as image bearers of God. Mr. Frost, like us, doesn’t want to die without having his life count for something important. He wants the opportunity to travel those miles so that he can keep his promises and so that he can ultimately end at a destination of completion.

Frost’s poem however, fails to give direction as to how to walk those miles with purpose. It fails to give direction as to which path leads to purpose and leads to meaning. So we ask the question, how can we live a life in such a way as to make a difference, to complete the mission? For the answer to that question, we must leave Frost and listen to Jesus. In this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus unlocks the secret of life for us. Jesus describes the kind of person who lives with eternal value. Jesus says blessed, happy, joyful, purposeful,

Matthew 5:3-10 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

What a list! When we think of people who are social influencers, people who are important and who are making an impact in this world, we often think of character traits that are quite different from those that Jesus listed. We tend to think of world-changers as being people who are super-talented or really confident and bold and even tough and successful and a bit pushy. Yet, Jesus lists qualities of world-changers that contradicts man’s list of qualities. These qualities in Matthew 5 challenge us to make a choice between two paths, the path the world lays out for us of influence and the path that Jesus lays out for us for influence. Whom will we trust to lead us as we walk through the woods that are lovely, dark, and deep?

Today, we open up our Bibles to Matthew 5:13-16 where Jesus calls us to spiritually impact our world through our relationship with Him and through our life for Him or unto Him. Jesus does not intend for His disciples to live quietly on some mountain top, separated from the pains of this world, needs of this world. Jesus calls us to walk on that path which is connected to the world and to dig into the world that is dark, the world that is corrupted and to make a difference for the Lord. Jesus uses two metaphors to call us to action. Those metaphors are first salt and then light. Jesus first says
13 “You are the salt of the earth,

Then Jesus, our Lord, says

14 “You are the light of the world.

We are right at this moment to slow our minds down to dwell deeply over these two metaphors. They are meaningful. They are impactful. They are vital. They teach really important lessons about who we are as God’s people, what our connection is to be to this present world, and what God would have us to do with our time and energy and resources. Let’s first look at that metaphor of salt.

We are Salt: God’s family hinders spiritual decay in this world.

Our very presence and the way we live our lives unto God is a preventative to moral and spiritual corruption. Jesus says

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

If you put your Greek glasses on with me for a moment, you will notice that the “you” Jesus uses is plural. Jesus is saying to His disciples, “Y’all” are the salt of the earth and y’all are the light of the world.” Jesus is not suggesting that each of us act independently from one another in order to make an impact on the world. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Jesus is looking at this little group of disciples and at this point, it’s a small group. He says, “Y’all, my disciples, are this world’s hope for preservation and this world’s hope for spiritual life. Y’all are the salt of the earth. Y’all are the light of the world.” It’s together that we are salt. Together we are light.

Here’s the truth that I believe it’s important for us to grasp. Our ability to spiritually impact the world requires our togetherness with others in Jesus’ church. I say that because perhaps never in all of church history has it been more tempting for believers to think that we could act independently, alone, separated from vital union with others in the body of Christ. So when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, He’s not saying you individually, so just be a little tiny salt shaker in your little world. He’s saying y’all. You’re part of something. You’re part of a church body and y’all gather together into one salt shaker and be that salt. He’s not saying you have this little tiny ray of light and just shine it just a little bit wherever you go and that’s good enough. No, He says “I put you together to be light, to be a spotlight upon the revelation of God’s glory in the face of Jesus.”

God designs for His people to influence the world as we pray together, as we obey God together, as we do good works together, and as we proclaim the Gospel together. When we separate ourselves from togetherness with Jesus’ church we negate our ability to be salt and light. We remove ourselves from that position. Such is the mission of Christ that we cannot accomplish it apart from really vital, significant relationship, connectedness, union with the church of Jesus. But what exactly is Jesus teaching us when He says, “Y’all are the salt of the earth”?

It helps us to remember that in the ancient world, they had no refrigeration. So if you harvested a deer in the field and you wanted to feed your family for several weeks from that deer, you had no place to store it. In order to keep that meat preserved and from rotting, the ancients used salt as a preservative. So they packed it with salt. So fish that were caught were packed in salt and then they were soaked in brine so that they could be preserved, so that they wouldn’t rot before their usefulness was able to be enjoyed. I think this is the main point Jesus is making when He says “Y’all are the salt of the earth.”

Of course, salt is used as a flavoring agent and there may be some of that that Jesus is intending, that we’re flavoring agents in this world. Salt is also used to create thirst. Certainly we are to create spiritual thirst in people around us. But here, I believe Jesus’ main point is that God’s people are to act as a preservative in a world that is morally and spiritually rotting from sin and idolatry.

There are two lessons that stand out to me. The first is that this world is spiritually decaying and it needs preserving. The reason why salt needs to be applied to a dead fish is because the moment that fish dies, its flesh starts to decay. It’s not very long before it becomes useless. So when sin entered the world, the souls of men died. From that time on, mankind is in a state of growing decay. Jesus wouldn’t send His disciples into the world to be salt if the world didn’t need preservation, if the world weren’t presently decaying.

Now, of course the world doesn’t know that it’s in a state of spiritual and moral corruption, spiritual and moral putrefaction. In fact, the world thinks as it looks at itself, that it is currently in a state of evolutionary moral advance, that we’re becoming better and better people. Never in my lifetime has the world touted its own righteousness as it does now. Virtue signaling has become a modern day hymn book. Now, this claim by the world to righteousness is not new. That claim to be righteous is as old as Adam.

Interestingly, Time Magazine commented on this problem in the December 5 edition. Listen to what Time Magazine writes. “It is the particular heresy of Americans that they see themselves as potential saints more than real-life sinners. Today’s young radicals, in particular, are almost painfully sensitive to the wrongs of their society, and denounce them violently. But at the same time they are typically American in that they fail to place evil in its historic and human perspective. To them, evil is not an irreducible component of man, an inescapable fact of life, but it’s something committed by the older generation, attributable to a particular class or the ‘Establishment,’ and that evil is eradicable through love and revolution.”

That’s interesting that Time Magazine would comment that way. It’s very much aligned with what Jesus says, isn’t it? Now that was the December 5, 1969 edition. (Laughter!) What was true in 1969 is true of course in the year 2022. But isn’t it interesting that again, the generations look and say, “Evil is present, but that’s an older generation. If we just had enough revolution, if we really loved each other.” They actually used that language in 1969. “We can solve our problem. We don’t have to be a decaying society. That’s someone else’s fault and we have the answer.” The answer however, only leads to greater putrefaction. Our whole world is rotten and it’s rotting. This moral stench of spiritual corruption is not less because all mankind plugs its collective nose and denies it.

The second lesson we learn from this metaphor is that Jesus calls His disciples to preserve the world from spiritual decay. The world may hate Christians, but if Jesus’ church were removed from the world, the world’s corruption would multiply at an accelerated rate. In fact, the Bible tells us there is going to be a day when that’s going to actually happen. It’s called the day of tribulation. Right before the day of tribulation, God takes away the church and the time of tribulation is a time of trouble, a time of corruption like none other because there is no preserving agent in the world that keeps the runaway train from going faster and farther than it ever has before. So if Jesus’ church were removed from this world, the corruption of the world…

What do I mean by corruption? Let’s list some of them. There is violent crime, horrific acts of man against man. There is conflict that reaches at the most central relationships to families, neighborhoods. There is hatred, envy, idolatries and false religion, divisions among people, abuse of people, abuse of children, abuse of spouses, enslavement and hostilities would multiply. So here’s the truth. Jesus’ church is designed by God to protect the world from the world and from sin, to protect the world from the runaway rottenness.

I wonder how often we think of our obligation as Jesus’ church, to do that together. It’s easy, isn’t it, to read the newspaper about these kinds of corruptions and we read about them every day. Whether it’s a hostage situation down in Texas or whether it’s another murder in one of our cities or whether it’s racial divisions or false religions that are on the rise, or whether it’s suicide rates that are alarming or wars and rumors of wars or sexual immoralities of every variety, we must not read these things and shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, I guess that’s the way the world is.” We read these things and we mourn.

Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn,

Then we say God has placed us here to be a preserving agent to keep the corruption from just rolling down the hill. God calls us to connect to our world in a way that acts as a spiritual hindrance to all of that. Of course, the world doesn’t want to be hindered from its full sprint towards spiritual rottenness, but the world doesn’t get to determine our mission. We’re not asking the world and saying, “Hey, do you want us here as the church to prevent you from moral decay?” We’re not asking the world that. The world doesn’t get to define our mission. Jesus does. Jesus says

13 “You are the salt of the earth,

That’s who you are if you’re Jesus’ disciples. That’s what you will be in this world. So how do we act as salt? How do we hinder moral and spiritual corruption that is all around us? The applications are nearly without number, but let’s get started by naming several salty actions.

The first salty action is to talk about the righteousness of God with your Christian friends. I put this here because it’s impossible for us to be salt in a world that we are rather casual about its wickedness. We grow more and more casual about its wickedness when we together, collectively lose the clarity and rightness of the infinite holiness of God and of His justice. When we fail to talk about His justice among ourselves because it is an uncomfortable topic for us as sinners, we lose its meaning and its power in our community. So what I’m encouraging to be salt is that we open up our Bibles with one another and we build our faithfulness to our salt mission by growing to love the holiness of God. By talking about the stories of God’s righteous response to sin that are written over and over and over from Genesis all the way to Revelation. You might be sitting here thinking, “Really, Pastor? Shouldn’t we talk about the stories of grace and love and hope?” To that, I say yes! Talk more about those stories, too. But those are the stories that are the only stories that are being told among Christians. We need to stop and take sober contemplation upon these stories that hit us just like a load of bricks.

In Luke 17, Jesus says something to His disciples as He is preparing them for the end of the age. He says these three words: “Remember Lot’s wife.” If you were going to prepare a brother or sister for the end of the age and you were thinking of some story to help them prepare for that, what story would you bring up? I’ll tell you that one of the last stories that I would think about is the story of Lot’s wife. Yet, it’s the one that Jesus remarks on. What happened to Lot’s wife?

You remember Lot and his wife lived in Sodom and Gomorrah. There weren’t ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. God says, “Get out because I am going to rain judgment upon these two cities.” Then He does. Lot and his wife leave the city and they are told, “Don’t look back.” But Lot’s wife still has such affection, such fondness for the world that is behind her that she doesn’t want to leave. As she is fleeing and she is in a place of safety now, away from the fire and brimstone, she looks back. What happens? God strikes her dead. He turns her into a pillar of salt. That is the story that Jesus says to remember. Why would Jesus have us remember such a horrible story? So that we would understand the real consequences of our sin, the true justice of God, His infinite purity and holiness, and that we wouldn’t forget that. If we forget that, we will not be prepared for the Day of Judgment. So one of the great things that we can do to help one another be salt and light is when we get together, let’s talk about some of these stories that are sobering, that are hard to talk about, that we often even change the meaning of, and let’s talk about them in their biblical context to help us understand more about the perfection of God and His holiness.

Let’s talk about Noah and the flood descending upon all mankind to take the lives of every man, woman and child who chooses not to enter the ark. Let’s talk about the Israelites complaining and God sending poisonous snakes to bite them. Let’s talk about Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron who offered strange fire on the altar of the Lord and God responded by sending fire upon them to consume them. Let’s talk about Uzzah. They were bringing the ark back into Jerusalem and it begins to rock. He puts his hand against it and instantly, God strikes him dead. Let’s talk about Ananias and Sapphira whom God strikes dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. Let’s get together and talk about these doctrines of hell and God’s retributive justice. I know that these are uncomfortable stories and doctrines for us sinners to think about, but these stories are placed here so that we would love God more and hate our sin more. We will lose our saltiness if we become embarrassed by God’s wrath. We talk so little of God’s righteousness that some verses in the New Testament confuse us and we walk away from them quickly as we wonder what they are even doing in the text. Those verses are verses like

Hebrews 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 12:29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”

Secondly, let’s talk about the righteousness of God with our unsaved friends. Again, let’s
open up God’s Word with them and talk about how our world and our very souls are fallen and sinful and in need of God’s grace and repentance. Let us tell them of the Judge before whom we must all stand to give an account, every one of us, of everything we’ve said and everything we’ve done. We lose our saltiness when we decide that we must not speak about God’s righteous demands and the consequences of our own disobedience. I know it’s hard and I know the world is often offended by it. But this is what it means to be salt. God Himself took on the punishment that our sins deserved. In Jesus, God has opened the door of His infinite mercy to flow to us. But people must hear the message that they need God’s mercy before they would be interested in it.

A couple months ago, I had a neighbor who passed away. I didn’t know this neighbor well, but I’m the pastor in the cul-de-sac, so the surviving wife called me and asked, “Would you do a funeral for my husband?” I was honored by the request. I said, of course. I went over there to talk with her. I had never really had a long conversation with her, let alone a spiritual conversation. She was telling me a little bit about what she hoped for in a funeral and she told me that they hadn’t really been in church for thirty years. That’s why I was the pastor they were choosing. I asked her to tell me a little more about that. She told me about her husband who, at his mom’s funeral, the pastor said at the funeral that his mom was a sinner. That so offended him that he never went to church ever again. I thought, Oh, no, because that’s what I’m going to say. (Laughter!) I said, let me tell you what I do at a funeral and see if this is okay for you. But I have to tell you that I was tempted to just say, let’s just make this funeral about saying a couple nice things, pray some prayers, read some verses, and let’s go. That’s where I wanted to go. Here is this grieving woman and I didn’t want to add pain to her grief. But I also wanted to bring hope to her grief. I wanted to bring hope for herself.

So I told her what I do. I often will take John 14. That’s what I plan to do. I said, let’s read these verses together. As I read them, she had this longtime memory. She said, “I remember when I went to church, that those verses were read.” In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” I told her why Jesus says that is because of our sin and how Jesus is the open way. I told her at the funeral, I just want to talk about how God has opened a way for us to get to heaven so we all could have a hope after we die, that we have eternal life. She looked at me and she said, “That would be great.” If we pushed away from the concepts of the righteousness of God, of the judgment of God, we get pushed away from being salt. There is no preserving agent for a quiet people about those things.

Third, I would say do not yield your thoughts to the world’s morality and message. We can’t be salt to a world that we’re in agreement with about its morality and message. So it’s very important for us to not listen to the voices of this world about these matters, but to listen to God’s clear revelation, God’s voice as He has written it for us for all time, for all of eternity. What was moral at the beginning of time is moral now and will be moral all the way into eternity future. God’s values and God’s morals do not change, so let’s not yield our thoughts.

When we think about the subject of abortion, for instance, let’s not yield our thoughts to our culture. Let’s say, what does God’s word say? When we think of issues related to fornication, sexual relationship outside of marriage, let’s not yield our thoughts to the world, but to the Word. When we think of issues like homosexuality and transgenderism and racial conflict, all of these things, the world has a message for and the world has a gospel about. Let’s not listen to the world. Let’s say, if it comes from the world, I don’t trust it. I’m going to go to the Word. I’m going to the testimony of God for these things. That’s where I’m going to find truth. These are all matters that the world boldly stands against the Lord and actually accuses God of being corrupt. It accuses God’s Book, God’s Word of being impure. We lose our saltiness if we shrink away from biblical morality out of fear of persecution or out of a desire to be accepted by this world.

Recently, John MacArthur issued a call for pastors to stand today for biblical morality. He did that because last week in Canada, there was a Bill C4 that made it a felony crime to counsel anyone away from homosexuality or transgenderism. So the penalty for counseling a person who comes to a pastor’s office and says, “Here’s a problem. What do I do?” In counseling them to repent of sin and to believe in Christ and then to begin to walk with Christ to overcome the power of sin in a person’s life, the penalty is a felony conviction and has up to five years of prison time. So anyone who shares God’s design for our sexuality, that is that God designs for marriage to be between one man and one woman for life and that God designs for us to receive the gender that He assigns to us at birth, is now guilty in the eyes of Canada’s courts of a felony crime. So what are we to do? Here’s the issue. I don’t think that the church has access to change that law, but I do think the church can be the church, to be salt, to not fold, to not fade, but to proclaim the truth that God has revealed in His holy Word and see what God does with that.

The fourth action is do not yield your behavior to the world’s morals and message. The first was our thinking, but now our behavior. The world squeezes us and squeezes in such seductive ways that we don’t even know that we’re becoming more like the world. So it’s vital that we present our bodies as living sacrifices to God every day and that we do not allow ourselves to be conformed to this world. We will lose our saltiness when we conform our lives and our habits and our behaviors. Jesus says

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

Now, salt is a very stable compound. So we ask how does salt, this stable compound, lose its saltiness? What I think is happening practically is the salt that is used to preserve meat gets adulterated. It gets sand in it or dirt in it or rocks in it. It has so little salt content in it when it’s pressed against fish, for instance. Trusting that it’s going to preserve the fish, they come back a week later and the fish is all rotten. What happened? Well, the salt lost its saltiness. It became adulterated with things other than salt. That’s the idea. When our souls become adulterated through behaviors and through lifestyles and through behaviors of relationships, with stuff that the world says, we lose our saltiness. We no longer have a preserving ability in this world. Our disobedience to God has vast spiritual and social damage beyond what it does to our own souls. Our preserving influence in this world rests upon our following Jesus together. That is speaking Jesus’ truth, living Jesus’ life and proclaiming Jesus’ message.

The fifth salty action is to be real friends to unbelievers. Have real relationships; opening our homes, opening our lives. Our greatest influence comes through relationships. God does not want us to isolate ourselves from unbelievers who are decaying, who are rotting right before us. We lose our saltiness if we isolate ourselves from the people of this world. Salt must be in contact with meat to preserve it. We must be in contact with the people of the world to make a difference. So let us be in relationships where the world is able to see the real us for all of our flaws and for all our weakness, but with Christ at the center.

Finally, salty action number six, be active in moral and spiritual matters in your community. Again, salt has to get out of the salt shaker. There are hundreds of applications the church can do together. They’re all legitimate. Not one person can do them all, but all of us can do some, in some way, being active in moral and spiritual matters in our communities. So for instance, some in this church might go to school board meetings and speak up for what is truth and what is right regarding curriculum, regarding books, regarding morals. Others may run for elected offices. Others may pray outside of abortion clinics and counsel those who would come over and talk. Others would work at food banks, helping with the issue of poverty. The list is literally endless, but let’s be active

We are Light: God’s family brings spiritual life into this world.

Light and life are always connected in Scripture. God calls us to be light so we can bring the life of God into this world. Look at what Jesus says.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket,

He says that because some churches and some believers actually do that with their lives. They have the life of God inside of them. They have this spiritual life, but they isolate themselves and they hide from the world. But here’s what you do with a light. You put it

but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

There is great benefit and great influence.

16 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.

Let your light shine before the outside world so that they would be led to seeing God as being great and good.

There are two light lessons that I want to draw for us this morning. The first is that the world is in total spiritual darkness. The world has no spiritual light in itself. Spiritual blindness is the malady of the day, covering everyone everywhere. Spiritual blindness brings so much pain, so much hardship and hopelessness. So, because of spiritual blindness, for instance, mankind cannot see and make the discernment between good and evil. Because of spiritual blindness, mankind cannot know his or her own purpose. It’s on a forever unending quest and is never satisfied. Because of spiritual blindness, man becomes confused about his or her identity in this world. Because of spiritual blindness, man has no hope and certainty for what happens after we die. Because of spiritual blindness, man cannot be free of conflicts and hostilities that rage inside and outside. All these are terrible consequences of spiritual blindness, but there is a consequence that is infinitely greater than everything I just mentioned. The worst consequence of spiritual blindness is that it keeps every person from seeing God. It cuts us off from knowing Him, our Creator, and enjoying Him, giving praise to Him, of entering into relationship with Him, of receiving His love. When sin entered the world, darkness fell upon every corner of our planet. God chose to send light into the world in the person of Jesus. Jesus says in

John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Again, you see the connection between light and life. Jesus again says

John 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

John 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Once again, where there is light, we find life. Where there is darkness, there is only death. So when Jesus says that we are the light of the world, He tells us that it’s our mission to bring His spiritual life into this world.

Now, we are light only as we reflect the light of Jesus. Jesus alone is the true light. He is the source of light and life. So the difference is that Jesus is as the sun. The sun has light in itself and it emanates light from its own nature. We are as the moon. The moon is dark. It has no light in and of itself. The only way it is able to bring light to our planet as it does, is by receiving and then reflecting the light of the sun. That’s the way in which we are the light of the world. We constantly receive the light of Jesus into our soul through daily communion, through worship together. That’s how we glow. It’s by having Christ present in our community, experiencing and enjoying and receiving Him together, that then we walk out of here and we’re able to reflect His light to our world. Understand that you are the light of the world. You are the means by which God brings the light of Christ into your neighborhood, into your schools, among your friends and into your family and throughout the nations.

The second lesson of light is Jesus calls His disciples to shine the light of life into this world. Here are some light shining actions. Again, how do we shine light? Jesus says

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others,

How do we do that? There are dozens and dozens of applications that can be made. Again, I park on a few. Number one, and this has been on my heart recently, and really throughout the past two years. Uproot and expel our dark thoughts. Whatever those dark thoughts may be, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you must rid yourself of them or you will not be light in this world. Dark thoughts keep us from shining Jesus to others. Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with all our minds. That is to give God the full use of our minds and not yield any thoughts into our minds that are unworthy of Him or don’t originate from Him.

You might be saying, “Pastor, what are you talking about when you say, ‘dark thoughts’?” Again, they are thoughts that do not originate in God, nor glorify Him as God. What are they? Let’s list a few. There are anxious thoughts. Do you know anybody in the last two years who has been fearful and anxious about the future? We cannot shine as lights and have anxious thoughts roll through our soul. There are despairing thoughts. There are lustful thoughts, thoughts that roll through and say, “I want more stuff,” whether it’s the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the boastful pride of life. There are self-pitying thoughts. “Woe is me. I have it harder than everybody.” There are bitter thoughts. “That person has done me wrong. I can’t believe that they would act that way toward me.” There are critical thoughts. “Well, those bozos need to shape up. This is what they need to do. If I were there, this is what I would do. At every level of authority, there are bozos.” Those are critical thoughts. There are envious and covetous thoughts.

Let me ask you, over the last two years, have any of those thoughts plagued your heart? Have you had any conversations even with believers that would reflect any of those things? I observe that it is a great temptation of our age and of just where we are in culture, where we are in government, where we are in everywhere. If we’re to be light, if we’re to keep from hiding our light under a basket, then we must give ourselves to thoughts that originate in God, thoughts that as Philippians 4:8 says

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

The second light-shining action is to fix your heart and mind on Jesus. Again, it’s only as we receive His light for ourselves and enjoy Him as the great Messiah-King-High Priest that He is, that we can reflect. So if we want to be light, we need to keep feeding ourselves and helping one another feed into our hearts this light that is bright from Christ. Let’s daily ask the Holy Spirit to fill us so that the Word of Christ would dwell in us.

Third, be generous with your resources. Use your money and possessions to bless others and to point them to Jesus, to shine light. I want to use my resources, whether it’s money or energy or time, whatever it is, I want to use that so that others would understand the light that I already know about Christ, about God.

I love this parable that Jesus tells in Luke 16 of this unrighteous steward. It’s a hard one. The guy cheats his employer. It doesn’t sound like it’s a great parable at all, and then here is Jesus’ application.

Luke 16:9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

So whatever you do, think about money as a means to establish forever friends, friends that are benefited for all of eternity. Do that! That’s shining light. Let’s do that together. Let’s do it as a church. Let’s go out and be generous with our resources.

Fourth, be generous with your time. Use your time to care for others. By that, I mean genuinely care. Open your schedule to give friendship and encouragement. There is too much care even within the body of Christ for any one person to be part of. But again, God will use us as together we’re all generous with our time. Open your schedule to give friendship and encouragement to lonely people. Join with other brothers and sisters in serving in Jesus’ ministry. Open your home to people that you don’t know well. Send cards. Write texts. Make visits to people whose aging bodies don’t allow them to get out. Take a meal to someone who is sick. Be generous.

I love the story in Luke 19. Jesus has a busy schedule. He’s a busy man. He has a mission to accomplish. He’s walking through Jericho and there is a guy in Jericho, a little tiny guy. He’s a short guy who says, “I hope to only have fifteen seconds to see Jesus just pass by.” He climbs up in this sycamore tree hoping just to have fifteen seconds to see Jesus. That would be awesome! He is a tax collector, a really wealthy guy. Jesus comes by and Jesus is on a mission. He has His busy schedule. But what does He do? He says, “Zacchaeus, come down. I’m not just going to just give you five minutes, here. I’m not going to just sign an autograph. I’m going to go to your house and I’m going to spend an afternoon with you.” Now, how did Jesus have the freedom to do that? He had the freedom to do that because He recognized His mission to be light and that God was ordaining His schedule, and nothing else. What happened because He spent an afternoon with Zacchaeus? The story says later Zacchaeus repents.

Luke 19:9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house,

So to be light means we’re generous with our time and we align it according to God’s priorities, submitting to God’s will.

Then fifth and sixth, these are probably the most direct. Let’s ask God for open doors to share the Gospel. Plead with God for this! Want it and say, “God, I know that the light has its fullest expression in the Gospel of Jesus and that the Gospel of God has the power of God to bring salvation and I trust that. I believe it. Lord, I need open doors.” As you pray, look for God to answer those prayers. I believe God will answer that prayer.

Perhaps God will answer your prayer by having you join with other brothers and sisters in the church to go down to the Peoria Rescue Mission for a worship service. That’s where you’ll be able to share the Gospel. Perhaps God will answer your prayer by joining with other brothers and sisters and going on Wednesday nights with AWANA and being able to share with children, the Gospel. Perhaps God will answer your prayer by leading you to knock on your sick neighbor’s door with some soup and a Gospel book and say, “I know you’re sick. This book is a book of hope. When you read it, I’d love to talk with you about what you think about it.” Perhaps God will answer your prayer by you meeting a new person at church and that person doesn’t know the Lord, but you’re taking time to talk with them and build relationship and that opens a door. Perhaps God will answer your prayer by opening a door to talk with your waiter or waitress at a restaurant you frequent. Perhaps God will answer your prayer by allowing your grandkids to come over to your house and you have time to open up Bible story books and share with them the meaning of the Gospel. I don’t know how God will answer your prayer. I just know that He will.

There was this great story that a lady in our church came up to me to share this week. I was so encouraged by it. I pray the Benediction at the end, and it’s coming, by the way. (Laughter!) I pray the Benediction at the end and I always say something at the very end before I say “Amen.” This day, the Lord sort of led me to say, “And all those who commit to sharing the Gospel with some person this week would say.” I had never said that before and I haven’t said it since. But I was just led to say, “All those who commit to sharing the Gospel.” This lady told me that her husband shouted out, “Amen!” She asked him, “Do you know what you just said ‘Amen,’ to? (Laughter!) He said, “No. What?” (Laughter!) His mind was somewhere else. He heard me say, “Say Amen,” and he said Amen. She told him, you just committed to sharing the Gospel with someone this week. He said, “I did?” He started sweating. (Laughter!)

He woke up the next morning, Monday morning, and he started praying. He was convicted. He said, “I committed. There had to have been a reason, but I committed. Lord, open up a door for me. Please allow me to bump into someone today that I would be able to share the hope of the Gospel with.” That afternoon, as he is driving his truck, a thing happened where he literally bumps into somebody at a stoplight. He literally bumps into them. They get out of their cars and exchange insurance information. He starts talking with this person and the person shares how they had a close relative who just passed away from cancer. They started unfolding some of the pain of that. He finds out that he knew this person’s grandpa. When he was little, he knew the grandpa when the grandpa was older. They started talking and they started having a spiritual conversation. He came home to his wife and said, “You won’t believe what just happened.” I say that just to encourage you. It was born out of prayer. I think we’ll see more miracles as we pray.

Last, be bold in sharing the Gospel! Let’s not cower before the world’s demands. The world needs salt because it is decaying. The world needs light because it is dark. Beloved, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. So let us shine our light in such a way that we will connect with people and they will then glorify our Father who is worthy of worship.