You Are the Salt of the Earth
Matthew 5:13
Turn with me to Matthew 5 for our study tonight; we are continuing, rather patiently, to work our way through the Sermon on the Mount in connection with the study of the entire gospel of Matthew. It will take us quite a long time, but it is so wonderful and rich that we are not at all adverse in spending plenty of time in this tremendous book.
Let me read you the text that we'll be working through tonight. Matthew 5:13-16. "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
What you have in these very simple four verses is the picture that our Lord gives of the Christian in the world, the function of the believer in the world. If I could reduce it to one word, it would be the word 'influence.' Our Lord is saying that the Christian who lives according to the Beatitudes is going to influence the world as salt and light. In all that a person does and is (or is not), the sum total of our character, consciously or otherwise, affects other people. Philosophers have put it this way: "No man is an island."
One of my favorite stories in Greek mythology is recorded by Dr. Biederwolf in a rather old book, and this is what he says. "The story is told in mythology of a goddess who came unseen but was always known by the blessings she left in her pathway. Trees blackened by forest fires put forth new leaves as she passed by. In her footprints at the brookside, violets sprang up. The stagnant pool became a spring of sparkling water; the parched fields blossomed as the rose, and every hillside and valley blushed with new life and beauty when she passed.
"The story is also told of another beautiful princess, who was sent as a present to a particular king. About her was an atmosphere as sweet-smelling as the garments of Aphrodite. She seemed as beautiful and as pure as if fresh from a bath of dew, and her breath was as sweet perfume of the richest rose. But, strange enough, in the atmosphere that she carried about with her was the contagion of death. From her infancy, this beautiful woman had known no food but poison. She had been reared on it, and had become so permeated with it that she herself became the very essence of it. She would breathe her fragrant breath into a swarm of insects, and behold, they lie dead at her feet. She would place the loveliest flower upon her bosom and lo, it would fade and fall apart. Into her presence came a hummingbird; it fluttered, poised a moment, shuddered, and fell dead."
How like this poisoned princess is every man whose influence is a blight, a curse upon his fellow men. "We live," says Biederwolf, "and the atmosphere we exhale is richly laden with the fragrance of virtue or with a poisonous perfume that consumes the people around us." One other writer put it this way, "You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day, by deeds that you do and words that you say. Men read what you write, whether faultless or true. Say, what is the gospel according to you?"
Andrew Murray evidently lived a holy life before his children. I was reading about Andrew Murray, a great man of God, and about the effect he had on his children. The biographer says, "Eleven of his children grew to adult life. Five of the six sons became ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Four of his daughters became ministers' wives." Not bad, nine out of eleven. Even the second generation made a good showing. Ten grandsons became ministers of Christ and thirteen became missionaries. Influence.
President Woodrow Wilson told this story. He said, "I was in a very common place. I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself, to have his hair cut, and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. Before I got through with what was being done for me, I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. D. L. Moody was in that chair.
I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop. They talked in undertones; they didn't know his name, but they knew that something had elevated their thoughts. I felt that I left that place as I should have left the place of worship. My admiration and esteem for Mr. Moody became very deep indeed."
Influence. What message do you leave the world? When you pass by, what are you saying? Years ago, Elihu Burritt wrote this, "No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness. Not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world. Everywhere, his presence or absence will be felt. Everywhere, he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him. It is an old saying," says Burritt, "And one of the fearful and fathomless statements of import, that we are forming characters for eternity.
"Forming characters? Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and the responsibility of our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought? Thousands of my fellow beings will yearly enter eternity with characters differing from those they would have carried thither had I never lived. The sunlight of that world will reveal my finger marks in their primary formations, and in their successive strata of thought and life."
This is precisely what Jesus is teaching in Matthew 5:13-16; He is talking about influence, about how you and I affect the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, at this point, He is saying, "You who are characterized by Beatitude-quality life, you who are the sons and daughters of the Kingdom are the salt and light of the world to influence the world for good and for God." Our Lord is calling on us to influence the world that we live in, just as He was those disciples gathered with Him as He preached to the multitudes.
It isn't easy, you know? In fact, in many ways, it is an almost impossible task. Think about it this way: in a prayer to the Father, in John 17, our Lord once said regarding those who believe and enter the Kingdom, "I pray not that You would take them out of the world." In the very next sentence, He said, "They are not of the world." One verse later, He said, "So I have sent them into the world." Later on, the Holy Spirit said to John, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." The sum of those verses goes like this. "I want you in the world, but not of the world. I've sent you to the world, but don't love the world." I don't know about you, but to me, that feels like a thin line. How could believers be in the world but not of the world; sent to the world but not permitted to love it? What a paradox.
How can we influence it, then? How are we to influence this world? How can we be in it and not of it? How can we be sent to it and not love it? The solution comes in verses 13-16. We have to be salt and light. Salt, in order to be effective, has to be mingled with the substance it's affecting, and yet salt is distinct from that substance. Light, in order to dispel darkness, must shine upon the darkness, yet is distinct from the darkness.
It's going to take us a few weeks to get through these four verses because they are so pregnant with meaning, but we'll begin to at least look at the characteristics of salt and light tonight. Remember, our Lord has outlined magnificently the qualities and principles that make Kingdom people distinctive. We are the beggarly ones, who mourn over our sin, who are meek before a holy God, who hunger and thirst for righteousness and are consequently merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers. Thereby, we are persecuted. This is the distinctiveness of our lifestyle.
Remember that in the first part of this sermon, in verses 1-12, the Lord defines the character of a believer. He says, "This is the kind of character that you now must use to influence the world." So you see, in order for us to influence the world, it presupposes the kind of character defined in the first section of the Sermon on the Mount. As we enter the Kingdom on these conditions, as we become Kingdom people, and manifest these characteristics. We who are the sons of the Kingdom will have a profound effect on the world. As we live out the reality of the Beatitudes, we will affect the world. The world will react negatively many times, and persecute us, but some will react positively and believe and be saved.
It fascinates me, I guess, as perhaps it does you, if you think about it. This follows right after verses 10-12. Verses 10-12 say, "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, blessed are you when men revile you," or abuse you to the face, "And persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven. So persecuted they the prophets who were before you."
In other words, the point is this: you're going to live a Beatitude kind of life, a godly life in the world, and you can anticipate, gild-edge guarantee, that at some point in time, if you really live a godly life in this present world, you will be persecuted. However, when that happens, that doesn't mean you change your function. Immediately He says, "You are still the salt of the earth. Do not forfeit your saltiness; you are still the light of the world. Don't mitigate or minimize or turn out or hide under a bushel that light." The point is this: don't let persecution alter your function in the world. Your influence is to be what God designed it to be, and it must not be altered even though you would be persecuted.
In I Peter 2:9, Peter says, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people of His own." Look at the distinctions. A chosen genos, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own. For what purpose? "In order that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." The reason you are what you are in His Kingdom is to manifest this influence. Christians cannot bend to the world; we cannot bow to the world, even when the world sets about to persecute us. We do not alter our committment.
It is like Martin Luther, when confronted by those who were branding him as a heretic and about to take his life, he said, "I cannot recant, I will not deny that which is true." That is the way we all are to live. The whole point of the passage is that we who are the sons of the Kingdom are to be salt and light in the world, and never, under any condition, be it persecution, face-to-face abuse, behind the back, malicious slander, never are we to alter that function one whit. We have to face the music (in the vernacular), or, in biblical terms, we have to take up the Cross and follow Christ.
By the way, I feel that this is directed, not to the whole multitude seated on the side of the hill as Jesus preaches, but this is directed to the disciples, the ones who believe. Listen, I still think He has the multitude in His heart. The reason He wants the ones who believe to be salt and light is to win the multitude, you see. So He never loses the perspective. The King, for a moment, leaves the crowd and talks to the saints, the disciples, sitting before Him. But it isn't for their sakes only that He talks, He loves the vast multitude, the unheeding mob, if you will. He realizes that if that unheeding mob is to be reached, it is to be reached because the believing community is salt and light. This is a mandate, beloved, to influence the world.
Jesus is saying we are to be different; poor in spirit, mournful and meek, thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking. And even though we are all those things, we don't crawl off into a monastery somewhere. We get out in the world and we live it right there where they can see it.
The final Beatitude in verses 10-12 is transitional. We see, in verses 10-12, the attitude of the world toward the believer, and in 13-16, the attitude of the believer toward the world. The world is going to hate us, but we still have to be salt and light to influence them. The important truth is revealed that the people the world hates are the very ones they desperately need to be influenced by. Did you hear that? Even the quasi-religious, quasi-pious scribes and pharisees who hated the representatives of Jesus Christ were totally dependent on their influence to know the truth of God. The world may hate us and persecute us, but the world is absolutely dependent on us being the influence and the verbal manifestation of the Gospel of God.
We alone are the salt of the earth; there is no other. That's it, just us. If we lose our saltiness, it's lost. We are the light; that's it, just us. Nobody else. If our light is under a bushel, there is no other alternative.
&nbs