Agents of Change

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

4 views

0 comments

00:00
I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.
00:30
Toward the end of 2013, we began a series of messages on the Sermon on the Mount.
00:40
Our goal is to take this great message of Jesus Christ verse by verse and seek to understand the profound truths therein.
00:51
So before Christmas, what we did was we went through the Beatitudes and we got all the way to the final Beatitude, all the way up to verse 12, and we decided to take a break so that we could study the subject of the person of Jesus Christ and his dual nature, God and man.
01:09
And so after this season has passed, we are now back and ready to begin again our study of the Sermon on the Mount.
01:19
We've looked at the Beatitudes, and if you remember the Beatitude, that word means supreme blessedness.
01:26
Jesus pronounced upon a certain group a supreme blessing.
01:32
He said, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for those who extend mercy, for those who seek to make peace, and for those who are persecuted.
01:43
These are the ones who Jesus Christ said are supremely blessed.
01:48
And throughout the study of the Beatitudes, I pointed out each week something that I hope that you remember.
01:54
And that is that these are not various groups of people, but rather it is a picture of what a saved life is supposed to look like.
02:04
It's a picture of an individually saved person.
02:08
Because the saved person is the blessed man.
02:11
He is the blessed person.
02:12
He is the truly supremely blessed of God.
02:16
His life has been changed by the Gospel, and the fruit of that change is found in the Beatitudes.
02:21
He begins with his understanding of his poverty of spirit.
02:25
He has nothing he can bring to God.
02:26
He mourns over that poverty of spirit.
02:29
He is humbled by it, and as a result he hungers and thirsts for that which he does not have, which is righteousness.
02:35
He then, as a result of being born again, becomes an agent of mercy, an agent of peace, and of course, as a result of that, he becomes among the persecuted in the world.
02:46
And that's what the last Beatitude taught us, was that the world responds to believers not positively, but rather negatively.
02:57
Hatred is the natural response of people who have no affection for Christ when they are confronted by His truth.
03:05
Let me say that again.
03:06
Hatred is the natural response of people who have no affection for Christ when they are confronted with His truth.
03:15
And since believers are ambassadors for Christ, we are often objects of the world's hatred.
03:23
If you don't believe that, just look at the television, read the paper, read the magazine articles and the internet, and you will see that Christians are the scorn of the world.
03:38
Christians speak out on the truths of the Word, and they are immediately vilified by those who have no affection for God or for His Word.
03:47
It seems those who speak against God can say anything that they want with little consequence.
03:54
However, those who speak for God and His Word are called bigots, they're called narrow-minded, they're called hateful, they're called ignorant, and any other adjective you could probably think of in the negative sphere.
04:09
And that's the world we're living in.
04:11
We're living in a world which is opposed to our God.
04:16
So what are we supposed to do? We're living in a world that's opposed to the God that we serve.
04:22
What do we do? Do we retreat to the monasteries? Or maybe the wooded communes? Live apart from the world? Avoid the world? Some of you are going, sounds good.
04:40
And there is a nice thought in that.
04:42
The idea of divorcing ourselves from the world sometimes does sound kind of nice.
04:49
To leave this world and simply live as a believer with other believers? Sounds pretty good sometimes.
04:57
But the question is, is that what we are called to do? Is that what Christ has called His believers to do? To run from the world? No, it is not.
05:09
In fact, that's where we're going in the text today.
05:15
After Christ has told us the world will hate us because it first hated Him.
05:20
After Christ tells us that blessed are you when men hate you and persecute you in My name.
05:26
After He tells us these things, He then tells us something else about our place in the world.
05:34
He tells us we're not supposed to run and hide.
05:36
We're not supposed to develop the monasteries wherein we hide within its walls and avoid the people of the world.
05:42
But rather, we are supposed to be something in this world.
05:46
We are supposed to have an influence in this world.
05:49
We are supposed to engage this world and not simply be hidden among the trees or behind the walls.
05:59
We're going to see today that Christ's first admonition after the Beatitudes is a very specific message of urgency to His apostles and by extension to all of us.
06:12
And that is that we are supposed to be agents of change in this world.
06:19
So let's stand and read the Word of God.
06:22
Matthew 5.
06:25
And we are going to be reading verses 13-16.
06:39
You are the salt of the earth.
06:44
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.
06:56
You are the light of the world.
06:59
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
07:07
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.
07:19
Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
07:22
We ask that even now that You would begin to open our hearts to a better understanding of it.
07:27
I pray, Lord, that You would keep me from error, help me to preach the truth, to stay true to the Word and to stay tied to its post.
07:40
And I pray that You open the hearts of the people to understand it and that Your Holy Spirit would ultimately be the teacher today.
07:48
In Christ's name we pray.
07:51
Amen.
08:04
Most people are very familiar with the term, salt of the earth.
08:11
The phrase, salt of the earth.
08:13
We use it.
08:15
It's a common colloquialism which we use to describe someone who is humble and unpretentious.
08:24
Someone will say, you should meet Job.
08:26
He's a great guy.
08:27
He's nice as they come.
08:29
He's the salt of the earth.
08:30
And that's the way that that term is usually used within our modern vernacular.
08:39
And it would probably not surprise anyone to realize that the term salt of the earth comes from the Bible.
08:46
That it comes from Scripture.
08:49
What might be surprising, though, is that this phrase is much more than just a term of endearment or a term of praise for an individual.
09:00
This phrase, which was uttered by Christ in His Sermon on the Mount, has a powerful, inherent meaning.
09:08
It's more than just saying someone is humble or that someone lacks pretentiousness.
09:14
In fact, it is much more than that.
09:17
And what we're going to do today is we're actually going to study the term salt of the earth.
09:21
We're going to see how it parallels the term light of the world.
09:25
And we're going to see the very special characteristics which belong solely to those who Christ has called the salt of the earth.
09:37
So if you're outlining the lesson today, I'll give you the three points.
09:41
I don't always have three, but sometimes.
09:43
Actually, today it's three questions.
09:46
We're going to ask this question, how was salt used in the Bible? Then we're going to ask the question, how does salt lose its taste? How does salt lose its taste? And then finally, we're going to ask the question, how is light a parallel for salt? So again, how is salt used in the Bible? How does salt lose its taste? And how is light a parallel for salt? So let's begin with the first one.
10:15
How is salt used in the Bible? Well, let's look at one of the earliest references to salt.
10:20
Turn with me to Leviticus chapter 2.
10:23
Back in the Old Testament law, we actually see a reference to salt.
10:33
Leviticus chapter 2 and verse 13.
10:40
If you remember, and some of you may or may not, but in the Old Testament you have the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, and the book of Leviticus is the giving of the Levitical law.
10:49
It's the giving of the law to the priests, the Levites.
10:52
And these are the commands of how the offerings are to be brought.
10:55
And it says in Leviticus chapter 2 and verse 13, you shall season all your grain offerings with salt.
11:01
You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering.
11:06
With all your offerings you shall offer salt.
11:10
Right there in that verse we see the term salt used three times in connection to the idea of a covenant.
11:16
That salt is part of God's covenant with man.
11:20
He's giving us this as a covenantal symbol.
11:23
It's an integral part of God's making a covenant with man.
11:29
And we see here He says, in all your offerings you shall use salt.
11:34
Now, turn over with me to Exodus chapter 30.
11:37
We were in Leviticus, you're going to take a left and go over a few pages to Exodus chapter 30.
11:44
And look at verse 34.
11:50
It says in verse 34, the Lord said to Moses, take sweet spices, stacte and anika, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense of each, shall there be an equal part, and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy.
12:09
So even back in Exodus we see God giving this command of the people of God to use salt in their offerings.
12:18
We see this again in Numbers chapter 18 and verse 19.
12:22
Over in Numbers 18 and verse 19 it says, all the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and your daughters with you as a perpetual due, it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.
12:44
And then again that term covenant of salt is used of David's covenant in 2 Chronicles chapter 13 and verse 5.
12:52
So what's the significance? Well we see that salt does many things because of its natural properties, and we're going to talk about those in a little while, but we must also recognize that it has a spiritual significance because of its use in the holy offerings and worship activities of Israel.
13:11
So when Christ speaks to the people of God and He speaks to the apostles, people who were Jews by the way, people who would have understood the Old Testament, He says you are the salt of the earth.
13:21
He's making reference to something that was a vital part of covenant making in the Old Testament.
13:27
So when He talks about them being salt, we're going to get to the fact that He's referencing the fact that there's a seasoning value in salt and that there's a preserving value in salt, but there's also a covenantal value in salt.
13:41
That this tool has been used in all of the offerings from the beginning of the time of Israel.
13:47
Thus salt in a sense is a picture of God's covenant.
13:52
So too are the followers of Christ a picture of God's covenant.
13:57
We are the recipients, we are the members of God's covenant.
14:02
In that sense we are the salt of the earth.
14:05
By the way, Christ didn't say you should be the salt of the earth.
14:09
He said you are the salt of the earth.
14:12
You are the light of the world.
14:13
He didn't say you should be or you're going to be.
14:15
If you do X, Y, and Z, you're going to be the salt of the earth.
14:18
He said you are.
14:22
That's an important point.
14:25
Later He says, so let your light shine before men.
14:28
That's where it becomes in the imperative.
14:31
Now here's what you must do.
14:35
But in the first instance it's you are.
14:39
This is what you already are.
14:40
You're already a member of this covenant.
14:42
You're already the salt of the earth.
14:44
You're already the church in the world.
14:46
If you follow me, you are already this thing.
14:51
You're already the covenant.
14:52
You're already the salt.
14:56
Interesting.
14:57
So we see salt was an integral part of covenant making in the Bible.
15:03
What else was salt for? Well, I've mentioned already salt was also a flavoring.
15:08
That's the way most of us think of salt today.
15:10
Most of us have a little can of salt in our cabinets.
15:14
We have the jar of salt, the little shaker of salt in our cabinets.
15:17
And we use it on our food.
15:19
Some people more than others.
15:20
Some people probably shouldn't use as much.
15:22
But we do.
15:27
And using salt as a flavoring is not a modern thing.
15:30
Using salt as a flavoring goes all the way back.
15:32
In fact, it goes back to the oldest book of the Bible.
15:35
Actually, I can't say for certain it's the oldest book of the Bible.
15:39
But many scholars believe that Job was the first book of the Bible.
15:44
Because Job would have lived during the time of contemporary Abraham.
15:50
And you remember the other books of the Bible started being written by Moses.
15:53
Which was some 500 years after Abraham.
15:56
So you go all the way back there to the time of Job.
15:59
So probably the oldest book of the Bible.
16:00
And this is what he says in Job chapter 6 verse 6.
16:03
He said, can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt? I kind of like that because the answer is no.
16:10
I've had chicken and rice without salt.
16:13
And it's not good.
16:15
At least to me.
16:16
But this is what he says.
16:17
Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the juice of the mallow? By the way, the term mallow here in some translation says the white of the egg.
16:26
He said, you know, food that is bland.
16:28
What do we do with food that's bland? We add salt.
16:31
We give it a season.
16:32
We give it something that makes it palatable.
16:34
And Job is making a point that salt makes food palatable.
16:37
Paul also references this in Colossians 4, 6.
16:42
He said, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
16:50
He said, season your language with salt.
16:53
So he's using salt there as a seasoning.
16:57
In Matthew 5, Jesus uses the phrase taste.
17:00
As we've already noticed, he says that if salt loses its taste, what good is it? So we know that salt is a seasoning.
17:11
And somebody might say, well, how does that matter? What does it matter? We're called salt of the earth.
17:16
Are we seasoning the earth well? In a sense, yes.
17:21
I don't really want to get to the application portion too quickly because, you know, the way that we're supposed to, we read the text, we explain the text, and then we apply the text.
17:29
But just to quickly make you understand how this applies to us, God would have no reason to stomach this world were it not for believers.
17:45
I want you to just think about that.
17:47
God would have no reason to stomach this world if he didn't have his people in this world.
17:58
It would be an entirely loathsome thing to him were it not for the precious few that he calls his own.
18:06
Believers are the only ones who are keeping God from spewing this entire world out of his mouth.
18:15
So when we are called salt, that's an interesting point.
18:20
Because we are the seasoning of this world.
18:23
We are the only thing that's keeping this world from being spit out of the mouth of God.
18:31
So salt is a flavoring.
18:32
Salt is also used in the Bible for purification and cleansing.
18:38
Prior to the refrigerator, which I know some of you may remember, prior to the refrigerator, there was the ice box.
18:46
But prior to the, you know what I'm talking about, they'd take the big piece of ice and they'd put it in there and they'd have to have new ice brought in all the time.
18:52
That was prior to the electric refrigerator.
18:55
Well, prior to that, you had to use preservation means, ways of keeping things preserved without the ice.
19:07
One of the ways that it was used was to salt things.
19:11
You would salt meat.
19:13
Because salt has a natural ability to kill the microbes and the fungus that cause food to spoil quickly.
19:21
So it's been used for thousands of years as a natural tool of preservation for food.
19:28
It was actually used in ancient times.
19:31
It was used for children when they were born.
19:35
They would rub the baby with salt.
19:37
This is biblical.
19:38
Ezekiel chapter 16 and verse 4, he talks about the fact that they would rub the babies with salt so as to ensure that they were clean, to ensure that there was nothing that was on them that could create any sickness or any type of ailment as a result of a fungus or something that had been on their bodies.
19:57
They'd salt their kids.
20:02
Salt has a purification purpose.
20:04
Mark 9 and 49 says this.
20:08
It's kind of a cryptic passage.
20:10
Some people don't understand what it means.
20:12
Mark 9, 49 says, Everyone will be salted with fire.
20:18
What does that mean? Well, Jesus is talking about judgment.
20:25
Fire purifies.
20:27
Salt purifies.
20:29
And the picture that He's saying here is that we are all going to be salted with fire.
20:34
We're all going to be, in some form or fashion, judged.
20:41
Unbelievers will be delivered up to hell and as a result, the world itself will be purified through fire.
20:52
Believers will also go through a time where we are judged.
20:56
And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3 that our works will be put through the fire.
21:01
It says that some of our works will be of gold and silver and precious stones and other works will be of wood, hay and stubble.
21:08
They will all be put through the fire of purification.
21:11
They will all be put through the fire of testing.
21:13
We will all be salted with fire.
21:18
So we see salt has reference to purification.
21:24
Andrew Bonar, in his commentary on Leviticus, makes the point that the reason for the consistent use of salt in the covenantal offerings was that it had the properties of a preservative.
21:36
He says, and I quote, this salt indicates corruption removed and prevented and in the case of the meat offering, it was as if to say, thy body and thy substance are become healthy now.
21:46
They shall not rot.
21:48
So why is the salt a part of the covenantal offering? It's part of the preserving of the offering.
21:53
That this is an eternal offering.
21:55
This is not a temporary offering.
21:56
This is an offering to God forever.
22:02
So we see salt has an amazing amount of symbolic significance.
22:10
It's a covenantal tool.
22:12
It's a seasoning agent.
22:14
It's a natural preservative.
22:16
And Jesus tells His disciples, you are that salt.
22:21
You are the salt of the earth.
22:24
And He's speaking to His apostles.
22:26
He's speaking immediately to them.
22:28
But by extension, He is speaking to every one of us when He says, you are the salt of the earth.
22:35
You are the representatives of the new covenant.
22:38
You are the seasoning which makes the world palatable to God.
22:42
You are the agent of preservation which keeps the world system from spiraling into utter depravity.
22:50
You are that agent of change.
22:53
That's what you are.
22:57
Before I go any further, I want to ask a question.
23:02
What would the world be without believers? What would the world be without Christianity? Now, if you ask an atheist, they will tell you it would be heaven.
23:16
It would be the best place ever.
23:18
It would be the utopia of utopias.
23:21
If we could just get rid of Christianity.
23:26
That's what they'd say.
23:30
But, beloved, there's a reason why hospitals are called Baptist, Methodist, St.
23:40
Vincent's.
23:44
The world has been influenced for the good by those who follow Christ.
23:54
Orphanages, assisted living facilities, food pantries, and all kinds of other philanthropic institutions have been inspired by people who are themselves inspired by their faith in Jesus Christ.
24:12
He told them that they were salt and they believed it.
24:18
So they went out and changed the world.
24:25
Conversely, the utopias which men try to create outside of Christ never establish themselves in reality.
24:36
Think of communism.
24:37
Oh, it's a utopia.
24:38
Every man will have everything that he needs and not any man will have any needs except for the hundreds in bread lines who are begging for scraps.
24:50
Brian Swartley wrote in regard to the Enlightenment period.
24:54
I don't know how many historians I have in the room, but the latter part of the 1800s, you have the rise in the Enlightenment period.
25:02
As a result of that, there was this belief that, well, we're putting away the old superstitions, we're putting away the superstition, especially of religion, and we're going to start living everything scientifically.
25:12
And through this modern Enlightenment, we're going to make all these changes and we're going to see the coming of the modern utopia.
25:17
That was the belief.
25:19
This is what Brian Swartley made the point.
25:21
I want to quote him on this.
25:22
He said, All man-made schemes of utopia or an earthly paradise are doomed to failure.
25:31
After the elites of the Western powers abandoned the Christian worldview, there was a great sense of optimism among humanists.
25:39
Without religious superstition, they thought, and with the amazing strides of science, technology, medicine, agriculture, industry, and education, it was only a matter of time until poverty, warfare, illiteracy, disease, and conflict were conquered.
25:53
This view was widespread among Western intellectuals during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century.
26:00
But this secular humanistic fantasy came crashing down with two bloody world wars, the inhumanity of communism, the Holocaust, and the other horrors of the 20th century.
26:13
Virtually no secular intellectuals speak about such a utopia anymore.
26:19
The reason for this is simple.
26:21
The earth of fallen man is a putrefying pile of filth without Christ.
26:29
End quote.
26:30
You see, they want to have a utopia, but they don't want God.
26:40
And without Christ, there's no salt and light in the world.
26:47
So we've seen the statement that we are salt.
26:50
Not we're supposed to be, we are.
26:55
And we see what salt is.
26:59
Now for the next question, question number two.
27:01
We spent a lot of time on question number one.
27:03
But question number two, how does salt lose its saltiness? Because Jesus says in Matthew five, he says, you're the salt of the earth.
27:12
But if salt loses its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? Jesus tells us that our being salt in the world can be hindered, with salt failing to perform its function.
27:33
But how? Well, if you look at it purely from an analogy viewpoint, when Jesus said you're the salt of the earth, salt itself is sodium chloride.
27:49
And modern salt, which you have on your table, which you have in your cupboards, is very pure.
27:55
And it never goes bad, really.
27:59
However, during the time of the Bible, it wasn't so.
28:04
You couldn't find pure salt.
28:06
It was often harvested from the marshes and the lagoons near the Dead Sea.
28:10
And much of it was corrupted by undesirable substances like gypsum.
28:16
As a result, salt could turn.
28:19
It could go from being good salt to salt that didn't have any flavor.
28:23
It could go from being salt to tasteless salt.
28:26
And it no longer bore any of its valuable qualities.
28:28
This is why Jesus makes the point that salt could, in fact, lose its taste.
28:36
He says in Matthew 5 again, He says, You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
28:45
Once the salt has lost its taste, what good is it? He says the same thing in Mark 9.50.
28:51
He says salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.
29:00
Now, I want to make a note.
29:02
On the Matthew 5 and the Mark 9 passages, this is important.
29:06
Some people look at that and they use that as an argument that you can lose your salvation.
29:12
They'll say salt represents the believer.
29:15
If salt can lose its saltiness, then a believer can lose his salvation.
29:19
But, beloved, that is taking the analogy further than Christ meant for it to be taken.
29:24
It's taking it out of context.
29:25
It's taking the analogy too far.
29:28
The salt represents the believer's influence in the world as a member of God's covenant.
29:32
If a person is claiming to be a Christian, but is not being an influence in this world, then his position within the covenant is worthless.
29:41
That's the point.
29:46
He's not being the representative of the covenant that he's supposed to be.
29:49
He's not being the agent of change that he's supposed to be.
29:52
And if we're not doing those things, it's worthless.
29:59
How does that happen? Christians stop evangelizing.
30:05
That's one way.
30:10
Christians stop trying to influence social change.
30:14
People ask me all the time, do you think we should be a part of the social system? How else can we be salt if we don't engage? How else can we be salt if we don't have some men and women of God who are willing to stand up and be part of it? Christians stop seeking change within themselves.
30:44
I'd say that's probably the one that's so hard, but yet so common today.
30:52
Christians seem to have given up.
30:56
Holiness is impossible in the sense that we can't be perfect, so they don't even try to seek for holiness.
31:08
And beloved, sadly, many churches have arrived at that point.
31:12
Their saltiness is all gone.
31:15
They're no longer an influence in the world.
31:18
They've stopped preaching the gospel.
31:20
They've replaced it with a man-centered self-help message.
31:24
They have stopped preaching sin.
31:26
They have stopped preaching Christ.
31:27
They have stopped preaching the truth.
31:29
And as a result, they are no longer salt.
31:34
They have given in to the culture and approved of every type of social sin, and they have stopped being salt.
31:42
They have stopped the call of God toward personal holiness.
31:46
They've replaced it with a worthless, easy believism, and they have stopped being salt.
31:54
And beloved, this is not individuals.
31:56
This is whole denominations have stopped being salt.
31:59
I'm at a loss.
32:02
I am at a loss for words to speak about the atrocities which go on in what used to be called Protestantism in America, the Protestant powers of Presbyterianism and Methodism and these denominations.
32:20
And I know that there's the PCA, the good Presbyterians, and I know there's good in the bad.
32:25
But as a generality, we see in these groups this great allowance of sin that just continues to postulate itself within the movements.
32:38
And as a result, we don't affect change anymore because we've stopped being salt.
32:48
Believers are the salt to the earth, but unfortunately, in many modern churches, the salt has turned, and it's no longer making change in the world.
33:06
Finally, I want to answer one last question, and that's this.
33:09
How is light a parallel for salt? What we see in verse 13 and verse 14 is what we call Hebrew parallelism.
33:18
You are the salt of the earth.
33:20
You are the light of the world.
33:22
You can't get a more closely parallel term than those two.
33:26
You are, you are.
33:28
Salt, light of the earth, of the world.
33:35
Why are they compared? Why are they used together? Why are they synonymous in this context? Very simple.
33:43
Both salt and light change the environments which they are in.
33:52
Salt flavors, it cleanses, it purifies.
33:55
And light exposes and chases away darkness.
33:59
And together, these two are both agents of change, which cannot and should not be held from the world.
34:06
There was a lady who wrote a book a few years ago called Out of the Salt Shaker.
34:11
I thought it was kind of just a neat title.
34:13
I haven't read the book, so I can't commend its reading to you, but I can say it was a clever title.
34:18
But it was about evangelism.
34:20
And it was the idea that we're so stuck in the salt shaker.
34:26
We're so stuck in the church.
34:28
We're not going out and seasoning the world.
34:30
We're not going out and seeking to be purifying agents.
34:33
We're not seeking to be light.
34:34
We're not seeking to be agents of change.
34:38
And it's hard to argue with her.
34:42
When you examine Christian history, you see men and women who rocked the world with their convictions.
34:50
And now we are being told to shut up and stay in.
34:54
Don't speak out because you'll be considered a hater.
34:56
You'll be considered a bigot.
34:58
You'll be considered ignorant.
34:59
You'll be considered a Bible thumper and this and that and the other.
35:02
Don't speak out for heaven's sake.
35:05
Don't offend.
35:06
You know, the early church fathers, they didn't have good paper.
35:16
They didn't have good pens.
35:18
They didn't have good anything.
35:19
They certainly didn't have a brother printer.
35:24
But the early church fathers wrote volumes which still continue to influence the world today.
35:34
The great ecumenical councils that came together to solidify proper Christian orthodoxy in the earliest years of the church and the centuries which followed the ascension of Jesus Christ still influence the church today.
35:48
The salt that they were continues to influence the church today.
35:53
The light that they gave continues on.
35:55
The great teachers of history, Wycliffe and Huss and Luther and Calvin and Knox and Edwards and Spurgeon and the list goes on and on and on.
36:05
These men were agents of change.
36:08
And it didn't just happen with pastors and theologians.
36:11
It happened with artists and musicians and scholars and doctors and political figures.
36:16
Men and women who believed that it was their job to influence the earth for Christ.
36:26
They understood what Jesus had called them to.
36:29
He had called them to be salt and light and to let that light shine and refuse that it be hidden.
36:37
So too should we all.
36:42
No matter our calling.
36:44
From the pastor to the plumber, from the elder to the electrician, from the deacon to the delivery man, we are all supposed to be agents of change wherever God has placed us.
37:02
So I want to end with this simple thought.
37:04
How can we be agents of change? Jesus says you are the light of the world.
37:16
You are the salt of the earth.
37:17
You are the light of the world.
37:19
But here's the thing.
37:22
Jesus said that also about Himself.
37:25
John 8, 12.
37:27
He said I am the light of the world.
37:30
I am the light of the world.
37:32
But then He said it about you.
37:34
He said you are the light of the world.
37:40
So I want to give you an analogy to put in your mind and take home with you today.
37:43
How is Christ the light of the world and so are you? In the same way that the moon gives its light, so too do you give the light of the sun to the world.
37:57
You don't have light within yourself, but rather you reflect the light of the sun.
38:05
How can I be an agent of change? How can I be salt and light? I reflect the sun of God.
38:23
Our Father and our God, we thank You for Your Word.
38:26
We thank You for this time of study together.
38:29
I pray, O God, that it has been an influence on Your people in a good way, that it would lead them and guide them and direct them towards a stronger desire to be salt and light in their families and their communities and in this world.
38:42
I pray, O Lord, that You would move on us now to draw closer to You so that we would walk closely with You and that the world would see that walk.
38:57
I pray, Lord, if there's anyone here who's never heard the Gospel, that they have heard it today, that they have heard the fact that we are sinners, that we are in desperate need of salvation and that Christ is the only Savior, and that You would open their hearts to believe.
39:16
We praise You and we thank You for all that You have done and are going to do.
39:21
In Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen.
39:27
Beloved, please stand with us as we sing.
39:29
And if you have a need for prayer, you may come forward as we sing.