“The Salt of the Earth”

Grace Reformation Bible Church iconGrace Reformation Bible Church

1 view

Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 5:13

0 comments

00:02
This morning, we continue on from last week as we left the
00:07
Beatitudes and crossed the bridge of persecution, coming now to verse 13, which is coupled together, of course, with verse 14.
00:17
In fact, we rarely talk about being salt without also talking about being light, and yet that's exactly what we'll do this morning.
00:24
We'll look at salt this week and light next week, as we see that salt is presented more in a negative way, whereas light is presented in a positive way, so we want to appreciate not only how they're bound together, but also how they're slightly different.
00:38
And what we'll begin to consider in part this morning, we'll complete next week with this larger theme, this larger picture of our witness, of our testifying activity, of what it means to belong to the kingdom of the
00:54
Lord God. When we crossed that bridge last week from the Beatitudes, we remembered that the
01:01
Beatitudes are descriptive of the character of the followers of Jesus. Jesus was not, as we maintained, saying, this is how you can become one of mine.
01:13
These are the things that you can try to muster up within yourself and so be counted among my people, my flock, the sheep of my pasture.
01:21
Rather, we saw that the Beatitudes are descriptive of who actually does belong to the Lord Jesus.
01:27
Who are His sheep that hear His voice? What does it mean to belong to the kingdom of God, to be heirs of the kingdom of Christ?
01:37
And so this descriptive character now, as we head into verses 13 and 14, we begin to see that this character is beginning to act.
01:46
There's now motion. There's now activity. There's now energy. So we're not simply describing something static about the
01:53
Christian life, but something dynamic. And of course, we've just come out of considering persecution.
01:59
So it's not something new. Persecution comes not because of our interior life or our inner motivations or the things that we hold in secret before the
02:08
Lord. Persecution becomes because we are radiating, we are influencing, we are having an impact and an effect upon the world around us.
02:17
So it's not something entirely new, but we really have transitioned now to an entirely new focus and theme from the
02:24
Beatitudes. We could say it's the testifying activity of the people of Jesus, witnessed not only in word but also in deed.
02:34
In fact, we'll see as we get a few verses ahead in weeks to come that the good works, the good deeds are indeed the focus of Jesus' concern.
02:44
And that'll take us right to consider the law and how we relate to the law in this kingdom of Christ. So all of these things are held together as Jesus is walking slowly through this sermon.
02:56
Witness in word. Witness in deed. Witness radiating from who
03:03
Jesus has made His people to be. Witness that endures through persecution even as it hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
03:11
The testifying activity of what it means to belong to God, of what it means to belong to the kingdom of God.
03:20
This is how the Lord puts it in verse 13, you are the salt of the earth.
03:27
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.
03:37
So as we consider this idea of being salt of the earth, we want to look at it in three parts this morning.
03:42
First, we want to consider the salt itself. What does this metaphor mean? Why does Jesus describe
03:48
His people as salt? Secondly, we want to look at the warning that's attached to this, which are really the stakes, the stakes of this declaration, the stakes of whether we really are salt or not.
04:00
And then lastly, we want to consider the impact or the effect of this salt in ways that we end up adulterating that or mitigating that effect.
04:08
In other words, the savor of salt, the saltiness of salt. And so that's how we'll look at verse 13 this morning, the salt, the stakes, and the savor.
04:21
Matthew 5, 13, you are the salt of the earth.
04:28
Notice that this second person continues. We went from the Beatitudes in the third person, blessed are those who...
04:36
And then as we came to the eighth beatitude, there was a transition in the last elaboration of the eighth beatitude.
04:44
Blessed are you when you are persecuted for my name's sake. And so we have the second person, blessed are you, and that continues here in verse 13.
04:54
You are the salt of the earth. Jesus speaks now directly to his followers, not in a sort of general third person way, but in the direct confronting way of the second person.
05:05
Blessed are you. You are the salt of the earth. We'll see this again next week.
05:10
You are the light of the world. This is again those who belong to the kingdom.
05:17
Remember that point that Lloyd -Jones, I mentioned this a few weeks ago. You are something before you do something.
05:24
That's essentially what we're seeing as we look at Matthew 5, 3 through 13.
05:30
You are, comprises the first eight beatitudes. You are, and now you're doing something.
05:36
Salt is doing something. Light is doing something. You are something before you do something.
05:41
And so here it is. You are the salt of the earth. Christians are called many different things in scripture.
05:48
Children of God, soldiers of Christ, sheep of the shepherd, and here we're called salt.
06:01
Salt. Now, the metaphor of salt is very broad. In fact,
06:07
I was reading a technical commentary this week by W .D. Davis and Dale Allison, and they brought up 11 possible meanings behind the metaphor of salt here in Matthew 5, 13.
06:18
I think that's looking for a needle in a haystack.
06:23
It's so minute and precise that it becomes unhelpful. I don't think the hearers would have gone, oh,
06:30
Jesus just said we are salt. Well, what possible 11 meanings could this, could he mean by this?
06:35
Certainly not. That's not how communication works. I think there would have been, generally speaking, two major ways that this metaphor would have come across.
06:42
And of course, that doesn't take away from the nuance and the richness of making application from all of these other uses.
06:49
That's one of the ways we can approach scripture. But I think as far as how it would have been received initially and how we are to receive it at first glance, we don't need to be overly broad.
06:58
We don't need to be overly reductive. I think we can boil it down to two general senses in which salt works as a metaphor.
07:05
And those two are, first, as a preservative, and second, as a seasoning. Salt was incredibly common in the ancient world.
07:14
It was vital. It is vital for life. I've been enjoying these little electrolyte powders that you can put in water.
07:27
And I had gone through a few different brands. And I had this one brand called Element. And I didn't realize it was packed with sodium, like 1 ,500 milligrams of sodium.
07:38
So I've been going to like these nice, sweet electrolyte drinks. This is good. This is hydrating. This is really helpful.
07:44
And then I just was completely blown away, because I didn't realize this was if you were doing heavy workout and you needed to replenish your sodium levels.
07:52
And of course, that just isn't true of me. And so I have this huge jug of water.
07:58
I'm all excited. It smells great. It was like juicy pear or something like that. I take this swig, and I'm like spitting it out everywhere.
08:04
It's just like, oh, something went bad. I'm going to die from this. It was full of salt. Salt as a seasoning.
08:12
And if you over -season, if you have too much salt, it almost ruins everything. Salt is so pungent, so powerful.
08:19
It's amazing how a few granules can affect the flavor and taste of everything. But in the ancient world, it wasn't just for seasoning.
08:27
It wasn't just for purification. They would have salted everything quite heavily. That was good. It probably prevented them from a lot of sickness and disease.
08:35
But it was also used as a preservative. Perhaps that's the main function, the main thing that would have come across.
08:43
I want to consider both of them, both preservative and seasoning. But I think preservative perhaps is foremost in this metaphor.
08:49
Of course, in the ancient world, you lived in a day without any form of refrigeration. You couldn't go to your stainless steel whirlpool and take out your kebabs for the night.
08:59
There was no refrigeration, so everything had to be packed into salt. They had primitive forms of cold storage, but not enough to prevent corruption for meats or other goods.
09:10
And so to prevent spoil, they would pack it in with salt. It was a desiccant that drew out all of the moisture so that meat, fish, other things could be preserved.
09:20
It was so vital, in fact, a little etymological fact for you brainiacs, our term salary comes from the
09:27
Latin for salt, salus. Part of a Roman soldier's pay was given out in portions of salt.
09:34
That's how necessary salt was for daily life. So we can speak still from that etymology.
09:42
If someone does a good job, you say, oh, you're worth your salt, worth your pay, in other words, worth your salary.
09:49
So salt, this precious, vital, common commodity in the ancient world and still today.
09:56
Still today. And additionally, this idea of salt as a preservative, it has this idea of endurance or constancy bound up with it.
10:06
In fact, it's used in the Old Testament to speak to God's patience, God's constancy.
10:12
We could say God's covenant faithfulness to his people. So for example,
10:17
Numbers 18, God describes his relationship to his priests in this way. All the heave offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel offer to the
10:26
Lord, I've given to you and your sons and your daughters with you as an ordinance forever.
10:32
Notice what he's saying, an ordinance forever. It is a covenant of salt between me and you, between the
10:39
Lord and your descendants. It's another way of saying it'll be constant. This will endure.
10:46
This will be preserved. It's a covenant of salt in that way. So something forever.
10:52
We see the same thing in 2 Chronicles 13. Abijah, the king of Judah declares, Hear me,
10:58
Jeroboam, and all Israel. Should you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave dominion over Israel to David forever, to him and his sons by a covenant of salt?
11:09
You see the same idea. Something enduring, something preserved, something upheld by the promise of God.
11:17
So salt as preservation. Certainly that is front and center. But also salt as a seasoning, as a flavor additive.
11:28
And this is clear simply from verse 13 itself. If the salt, Jesus says, if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
11:37
So he's keying us in that one of the ways we need to understand salt is not only as a preserving agent, but also as a flavoring agent, as a seasoning.
11:47
Salt is meant to have this impact on whatever it's applied to. It's meant to enhance.
11:53
It's meant to bring a yield of new flavors that would otherwise be hid from the palate.
11:58
We talk about salting to taste. It's one of the most annoying things if you're following a recipe.
12:03
And if you're like me, you're almost neurotic about making sure every milligram is followed to a tea. And then you get to that last sentence, salt to taste.
12:11
You're like, what? How much? Just salt to taste. How many teaspoons?
12:16
I need to know. For one man's taste, it's another man's, you know, odious.
12:24
How many food competitions? Elisha and I watched way too many food shows when we were first married.
12:30
And it was like the only thing that ever knocked, you know, it needed more salt. It wasn't salted well.
12:36
Or it was overly salted. It can make or break a dish, as we know. In Mark chapter 9,
12:42
Jesus rather cryptically tells his disciples, everyone will be seasoned with fire.
12:48
Every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. And then he goes in, in Mark 9, verse 50, into the very thing.
12:55
Salt is good, but if salt loses its savor, what good is it then? So this seasoning of salt.
13:04
If we lived in the days of the Israelites, we would, most of us here would be subsistence farmers. The McDonald's house would be starved to death.
13:12
We could barely grow tomatoes. But most of you would be subsistence farmers. And of course, growing crops in this way wouldn't be for fun or for pickling on a fall afternoon.
13:25
It would actually be to live upon. And we would have known that from the very book of Leviticus, as faithful Israelites, that we were to take the yield of our fields, the yields of our harvest, and offer that up to the
13:38
Lord. There were several, of course, different types of offerings that were brought to the
13:43
Lord, but one of them was a grain offering. And so we read in Leviticus 2 where the different types of offering are laid out.
13:50
In Leviticus 2, he says, Every offering of your grain you shall season with salt.
13:57
You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. Do you see the idea?
14:03
I've preserved my covenant by my promise with you. It's a covenant that is enduring because of who
14:09
I am. And so when you bring an offering to me, make sure that you salt it. Make sure that you season your sacrifice.
14:16
It's this emblem to you of the fact that this covenant endures, your sacrifice is acceptable because of who
14:23
I am, because of what I'm like. And so he says, With all your offerings you will offer salt.
14:30
Every sacrifice is packed in and seasoned over with salt.
14:36
This is the first fruit sacrifice, the grain offering. It's a consecration.
14:42
It's a way of dedicating to God what he has given so richly and abundantly. And of course it must be packed in with the symbol of his provision, of his constancy.
14:53
So we see that even as a seasoning, this is symbolizing not only preservation, not only cleansing, not only purification, but really the idea of God's faithfulness,
15:06
God's devotion, God's constancy. And in turn, the worshiper then is to remember,
15:12
I need to be constant toward God. I need to endure in my walk before the Lord.
15:18
I need to be faithful in every respect. I need to be a salt -seasoned sacrifice. When Paul says in Romans 12 that the
15:26
Christian is a living sacrifice, he would have known from Leviticus, every offering must be offered with salt.
15:34
A Christian is a salt -seasoned sacrifice. And so believers are agents of preservation.
15:44
Believers are agents of seasoning. The world, in other words, would otherwise be very insipid and bland if it weren't for Christians.
15:55
In fact, I really do believe that. I think if the Marxist vision for humanity ever becomes a realization, we can expect some sort of gray, indistinguishable mass.
16:06
Wasn't this what the sort of secular prophets of the past century warned us about? That eventually names would be replaced with numbers.
16:13
You would no longer belong to a family of genealogical origin, but rather the whole commune together would sort of have this collective sense of belonging.
16:21
Your work would be allotted to you. You're alienated from your labor. It really is completely bland.
16:27
That's why most of the films and novels that came out of the last half of the last century are dismal in their sort of apocalyptic sense of the things to come.
16:37
Christians are the seasoning that prevents that from happening. Christians are the preservative agent that prevents the insipid decay of the world from becoming replete.
16:49
And just a few granules, just a small presence of Christians in a society can have that kind of impact, that kind of effect.
17:01
You are the salt of the earth. Even in a good society, Christians have this effect.
17:07
You put salt on something good. It doesn't just prevent decay from things that would otherwise be corrupted, but even it enhances things that are good.
17:16
Have you ever had a piece of chocolate? That's good. Have you ever had a piece of chocolate with sea salt on the top?
17:23
That is amazing. That's just a completely different level of experience. That's what Christians are like, even in good things.
17:30
A Christian is like salt. It enhances the best aspects of it. You think of...
17:36
Some of you maybe can't relate, but if you get a nice isle of scotch, a little note of iodine, it's just almost divine.
17:44
Or you could think of it in this way. Have you ever had French fries without salt?
17:51
What kind of travesty is that? That's a crime. That's a criminal offense to serve
17:57
French fries without salt. Christians are the salt of the earth. And that altering impact of salt, again, if you have a huge stockpot of broth and you just put a small teaspoon, something minuscule in relation to that broth, it completely changes it.
18:14
It's not something other than broth, but it's been transformed. It's been affected by the presence of salt within it.
18:21
And so Christians as salt, relationally. Christians as salt, ethically. Christians as salt, vocationally.
18:28
Christians as salt, artistically. They impact the world around them. We are the salt of the earth.
18:36
And in this way, believers are a great blessing to the world. The world would be otherwise rotten, otherwise insipid, otherwise bland, otherwise decaying if it weren't for the presence of believers.
18:49
Christians are a great blessing to the world. And this is the irony coming out of verses 11 and 12 to this statement in verse 13.
18:57
The world, in the logic of verses 11 and 12, in the logic of what we considered last week, does not view the followers of Jesus as a blessing.
19:05
Get out of our way! You're the corruption, rather than the preventative of corruption.
19:13
You're what's making this great quest, this great vision for improvement and progress, impossible.
19:19
And so rather than being viewed as a blessing, as a preservative, as a vital seasoning, Christians are reviled, persecuted.
19:27
All manner of evil is spoken against them. That's the great irony. How many of the disciples that Jesus speaks to in Matthew 5 were fishermen?
19:37
Several of them. I used to work at a seafood counter. We didn't have to pack anything in salt.
19:43
We had a big freezer and these refrigerated cases that we had to scoop the ice out of every night. But that fish, it would come in, even though we're right here, not far from the docks of Boston, if it came in fresh and we couldn't get rid of it in two days, into the dumpster it goes.
20:02
Even with refrigeration, something like fish, something like meat, can't last very long.
20:08
Salt, to pack it in with salt, it increases this lifespan.
20:13
Now you can take it with you. It doesn't matter what the climate is. Now it can move around, as it were, and be preserved.
20:21
And so these fishermen hearing Jesus say, you are salt, they would have immediately known what it felt like to take their catch and pack it in with salt, knowing that if they didn't do that quickly, if they didn't do that carefully, all of that would be lost and ruined.
20:35
It would be this muck and goop, this stench of decay and corruption.
20:42
This is what salt does. It preserves. Remember that God blesses
20:48
Laban. Why? Because Laban was this star in the firmament. Laban was this stand -up guy full of integrity.
20:55
Why does God bless Laban? For Jacob's sake. Why does
21:00
God bless Potiphar? For Joseph's sake. This is the effect of Christians in the world.
21:08
Some people are blessed. People that don't deserve preservation, seasoning, blessing, nevertheless have it because of the presence of Christians among them.
21:20
You are this very morning, perhaps even those who revile you and persecute you, you as salt are preserving them, blessing them.
21:31
It's one of the things that can help you not bear a grudge or be vindictive. It's to recognize that, in fact, you're meant to be salt in this way.
21:42
The world, of course, thinks very little of the church. Generally speaking, the church is despised by the world.
21:49
Maybe at best, at least in former days, the church was just irrelevant to the world. But I think those days are quickly coming to an end.
21:55
More and more, our society is becoming hostile to Christianity. We see that, of course, looking at the
22:01
UK, perhaps our closest cousin in terms of society and shared value. And we see the hostility, the way that Christianity is openly despised in terms of government policy.
22:12
We could look just north of the border and see in Canada the impact of this hostility, of this sort of persecution, reviling of the church.
22:22
Now, of course, this is never true of state -approved Christianity. You can always have that. There's state -approved churches.
22:28
You can identify it by a multicolored banner hanging over their front entrance. Of course, those churches aren't despised.
22:35
Those churches aren't treated as hostile by the government, the powers that be. It's only the hateful, the extremist
22:43
Christians, the salt. And these hateful, extremist
22:49
Christians, the type of smears that you must prepare for, that you must prepare your children for, are in fact the salt that's holding together the very peace and stability of the society it's in.
23:01
Otherwise, the corruption and decay would be a train without brakes. You are the salt of the earth.
23:14
In a world, in a land, in a time, in a place that you are most reviled, you are most necessary to preserve it.
23:21
You are the salt of the earth. Even in the midst of hostility, the church of God is the very thing the world needs most when the world is convinced, if only we could get rid of the church altogether.
23:43
Why is this the case? It's because God has so designated His people,
23:48
His body on earth to be salt so that the world would not devolve into moral corruption and decay.
23:55
We are the salt of the earth in this way. Listen, Sodom would exist to this day if God had found ten righteous men in it.
24:05
If there had been ten righteous men, that would have been enough salt to preserve the city of Sodom.
24:11
Do you see what I'm saying? Lot was salt of the earth.
24:19
But it wasn't enough salt to prevent that corruption, that decay. It didn't prevent God's judgment in that way.
24:25
You are the salt of the earth. Do we have more than ten righteous here? Can we not assume that some reasons we've seen the judgment of God being very patient and forlorn in our own day is because there's still those that have devoted themselves to God and not bent their knees to Baal?
24:45
Is that not why God has restrained so much of His judgment? You are the salt of the earth.
24:54
And Jesus, of course, is making a point that those in His kingdom make an impact in their surrounding.
25:00
Notice that. You are the salt of the earth. That's the key. You're not just salt to be in some cellar, in some glass shaker, never to be brought out into the light of day, to be in the very back of the cupboard, useless.
25:15
Jesus says you are the salt of the earth. We're already beginning to front load where He's going in terms of the mission.
25:22
If we connect Matthew 5 -7 all the way to the Great Commission of 28, this is Jesus' concern.
25:29
There's going to be an inheritance of the earth, and you are the salt of the earth. That's the concern. Are you making an impact?
25:35
Do you have an effect upon the world around you? Notice that He doesn't say, you are the salt of your inner life.
25:47
Notice that Jesus doesn't say, you are the salt of that one person you send a text message to three times a year. You're the salt of the earth.
25:56
Everything you do is salty. You're a Christian. All of your ways are salt. You can't help but season anything you touch.
26:06
You're the salt of the earth. All of your ways are salty ways. You season everything you come into the presence of.
26:14
That's what Christians are. That's what Christians do. That might not be very flashy.
26:20
It might not be very obvious. In fact, it might seem very weak, almost unnoticeable, as unnoticeable as a grain falling into a stock pot.
26:29
And yet that grain has an impact, has an effect. And so looking now to the warning, the stakes,
26:39
Jesus says again, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
26:47
It is then good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
26:55
Well, we've already seen this sort of tension in the Beatitudes. Jesus is giving these kingdom blessings, which at first glance seems like the opposite of blessing.
27:05
Mourning, hungering, thirsting, being persecuted, and yet Jesus says, blessed, blessed, blessed.
27:12
Well, here in verse 13, Jesus is again pressing a challenge to His hearers. And perhaps this is the most forthright challenge we've seen this far in Matthew chapter 5.
27:23
Of course, you've come out of the Beatitudes in all of these declarations of blessing. This is really the first time we've seen a warning, a direct warning, not implied in the logic of the blessing, but actually directly from the mouth of Jesus.
27:37
And we would do well to receive it as such. We would do well to receive it as such.
27:43
You're just not hearing the Sermon on the Mount if it's not challenging to you. Never sit under the word of the
27:52
Lord if it's not a challenge to you. If the salt loses its flavor, how can it be seasoned?
28:03
What is it good for? That's the challenge of Jesus. You are salt, but if salt loses its flavor, what is it good for?
28:14
If salt ceases to be salty, of what use is it? Jesus is showing us the stakes of those who claim to be in His kingdom, of those who say, yes,
28:29
I am salt, Lord. He's showing us the stakes of those who claim to be heirs, claim to be the salt that is making this kind of impact.
28:39
And He says to them, if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
28:46
But what does Jesus mean by salt losing its flavor? There's no shortage of debate in commentaries over this very verse.
28:53
I take it for granted that the creator of sodium chloride doesn't need chemistry lessons from modern men.
29:00
I think he understands the nature of salt. It's rather modern man who doesn't understand the way that salt was harvested and how sodium chloride, though that can never lose, it's a stable compound, it can never lose its saltiness, it can be adulterated by other minerals and compounds that end up negating its saltiness.
29:17
And I think that's at the very heart of Jesus' point. When any salt was harvested in antiquity, they would often dig a pit, they would pour seawater, salt water, into those pits, and then as the water evaporated, what you're left with is the salt.
29:37
But, of course, you're also taking up with it sand, soil, all sorts of other minerals. And so modern table salt maybe has something like 97 % purity as sodium chloride.
29:47
In antiquity, it was probably 10%, 15%, 20 % at best. So the idea of salt that wasn't pure, salt that was so mixed in and blended and adulterated and corrupted by sand and other minerals, that had lost its flavor, that had lost its saltiness.
30:08
If you went to the market and bought a bag of that, you would not be a happy customer. You would say,
30:14
I've been cheated, I've been frauded. This is more who knows what than it is salt. And, of course, any moisture content, where and how you stored salt mattered.
30:23
Any moisture content would clump and degrade that salt over time. It would dilute it as it began to ebb away the salt.
30:32
In fact, some of you from an older vintage would remember Morton Salt. Morton Salt had an ad campaign still on their paper canisters.
30:41
Morton Salt, when it rains, it pours. The idea was they were able to manufacture it in such a way that even when there was moisture in the air, it wouldn't clump, it would still pour.
30:52
So salt has changed a lot, but the point remains the same. What salt is, in and of itself, is always salt.
30:59
It cannot be otherwise. Salt, in and of itself, salt is always salty.
31:06
Salt doesn't degrade over time. If you find a packet of salt, you know, if Kenny's at the
31:13
Gazette building and he takes down some horsehair plaster in a corner and he finds some little jar of salt from the 1880s and he dips his finger in that, guess what?
31:22
It's still going to be salty. Salt doesn't degrade. It doesn't lose its flavor.
31:28
Unless it's corrupted. Unless it's adulterated. Unless it's mixed in.
31:34
Unless something is added to it that takes away its very nature, its very properties as salt.
31:39
Salt, in and of itself, cannot lose its flavor. So Jesus is saying, well, what happens if you, being salt, lose your saltiness, lose your flavor?
31:47
What's happened in that situation? Jesus is challenging us as his followers to examine whether we're truly salt.
32:02
Do we flavor? Do we season? Do we preserve? Do we make an impact? Not in the most obvious and flashy ways, but in every way that we seek to live our lives, order our walks before Him, care and walk in His ways in our relationships, in our vocations, in whatever thing we encounter.
32:20
Is there some way in which we season that? Some way in which just by not going the way that others go, we become a vital preservative to that moral decay.
32:29
Is there something about our lives that is truly salty? Or are we so thoroughly compromised and mixed in with the sand and the stain of the world that we're no longer salt at all?
32:39
And Jesus says in that scenario, well, what good are you then? Of what use is salt that isn't salty?
32:49
Well, He tells us. It's good for nothing. There is no use for it.
32:55
It's just a waste of space. It's good for nothing. In fact, there's one thing you can do with that.
33:01
You can throw it out. And that's judgment language. We'll see it again in Matthew 25. That's judgment language.
33:07
So this is a very stark and storm warning to the very disciples.
33:12
Remember, He's addressing them in the second person. You are the salt of the earth. And He says to the same disciples,
33:19
He's saying to us this morning, what if you no longer are salty? Of what use are you then in my kingdom?
33:26
Why should you belong as an heir? If you no longer have an impact or an effect in this world, can it be that I've made you to be salt without saltiness?
33:35
Without savor? No, it could not be. Jesus is saying to His disciples, if you had salt with absolutely no power to preserve, absolutely no influence of change, no seasoning capacity whatsoever, you wouldn't keep it in your cupboard.
33:49
You'd throw it out. And so it is in my kingdom. If you claim to be salt and you're not salty, you have no part with me.
33:55
That's what Jesus is saying. And so we're challenged by this, convicted, rebuked even.
34:05
Are we useful in His service? Do we make an effect? Do we have an impact as salt does?
34:13
Are we flavoring the relationships around us more than they are flavoring us?
34:19
Are we seasoning the environment around us more than it's seasoning us?
34:26
Are we impacting and affecting the relationships closest to us and the opportunities closest to us while more than those things are impacting and changing us?
34:36
That's the challenge. If you belong to the kingdom of Christ, you are salt.
34:43
And salt has a savor that preserves and seasons everything it comes into contact with.
34:55
So Christians are to be more effective in the world then than the world is effective in the life of a Christian. That's the first point.
35:05
You are to have more impact on the world than the world has an impact on you. And you cannot have an impact, you cannot have an effect toward the world if the world has such a grip on your imagination and your affections.
35:20
If the world is what you're hungering and thirsting for, you'll never be salt in this way. And how do we understand the world in this way?
35:31
Well, of course, please remember, Jesus is not saying, we have nothing to do with the world, let's go form a monastic community and just be all salt together in our nice pure salt cellar.
35:41
No, you are the salt of the earth, for the earth. So it's not something world denying, in fact, it's very much world embracing, but it's embracing the world as salt, bearing the scoffing and the mockery that comes with that.
35:55
It's world embracing and yet not in such a way that our allegiance, our loyalties, our affections become bound up or entangled with the world.
36:05
And so as we understand the world, we understand it in the negative sense. I love this sort of running definition by David Wells, he says, we understand the world as that which makes sin seem normal and righteousness seem strange.
36:19
That's what we mean by worldliness or the world. You're salt in the earth in such a way that the world cannot understand.
36:29
You don't run in the way that they're running. You don't walk, talk, maneuver, carry yourself, occupy and pursue the things that we pursue, at least not in the way we pursue them, but something different, something impactful.
36:41
Righteousness seems strange rather than sin seeming normal.
36:46
This is just how everyone is. I just have this teensy little compartment in my life as a Christian, but everything else is the same.
36:54
No, you are salt if you belong to Christ. And so that means the world has no absolute sway over you.
37:04
It has sway, the salt's going into it, the salt is being added to it, the salt's in the broth, the salt is on the meat.
37:11
It has sway, but it doesn't have absolute sway. The meat doesn't impact the salt nearly as much as the salt is impacting the meat, do you see?
37:19
That's the picture. And even though the meat may at times stain the salt or transform the appearance of the salt, even as it does so, it's drawing away those properties so unique to salt that it's being transformed, it's being preserved, it's being seasoned.
37:43
So the salt remains salty, but what it's applied to becomes transformed.
37:50
That's the imagery that Jesus gives to His people. Now this follows naturally from Christ's calling.
37:56
It follows naturally from, as we'll see where we're going in the next several verses, from the fact that the people of Christ respond to His commandments.
38:04
And if we're responding to His calling and we're responding to His commandments, that means we really do have a part with Him.
38:10
He's done something in our lives that has rendered us to be salt. This is not something we became in and of ourselves, this is something that He made us to be when
38:18
He called us, when we responded to Him in repentance and faith, when we said, I now lay down my life to walk in Your ways and serve
38:25
You as my Savior and my God. In Mark 9, which is in a very different context and yet parallel to this,
38:32
Jesus says, have salt in yourselves. Have salt in yourselves. The point here is, again, you don't make yourself to be salt of the earth.
38:42
We're not life coaching here and saying, just go out and be salty, try to be more salty than you. No. You've repented and trusted in the
38:50
One who therefore has made you to be salt. This is just who you are as a Christian. Because you're in communion with Him, you are this.
38:57
You cannot be otherwise. Salt can't lose what it means to be salt. So the
39:06
Christian repents and returns to the Lord. They become salty in this way. The Christian abiding in faith, persevering in the thorny and difficult way of discipleship, they become salt.
39:17
It's not so much because of what they're doing, but because of what has been done in and through them. That's the radiance that is the light.
39:23
That's the pungence that is the salt. And so it's this radical calling for us to be holy.
39:33
To recognize we are holy. Isn't that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5? You are unleavened.
39:40
Purge out the leaven from among you. Why? You are unleavened. Isn't that what Peter says in 1 Peter 2?
39:45
You are holy. This is what you are. Isn't this what Jesus is saying? You are salt. And so what's the sand that's mixed in in your life?
39:54
Purge it. What's the leaven that needs to be swept out? Get rid of it. Holiness is the culp here.
40:04
Jesus says, have salt in yourselves. You'll never be salt for the earth if you don't have salt in yourselves. Charles Spurgeon in his sermon from Mark 9 makes this point.
40:14
He says, if we would be salt to others, we must have salt in ourselves. How can we give a light we've never seen?
40:22
How can we have seed as sowers if we've never had bread as eaters? Wherever you go, he says, keep in mind you're salt.
40:31
It should never be that someone says, is this one of those tabernacle people? He's a poor, lukewarm creature.
40:40
So it should be among us. It should never be said, isn't that someone who goes to GRBC? What a lukewarm, bland person he is.
40:51
What a worldly compromiser. We must be holy.
40:57
We're salt. If the salt loses its flavor, it's good for nothing.
41:05
So if we're not, as it were, communing with the Lord in this way, obeying all that He has commanded, being led by His Spirit, walking together as His disciples, then our salt is no longer salt at all.
41:18
It's been washed away. It's become minerals and sand and mud. And so we ask the question,
41:26
Paul asks this question rhetorically, who made you to differ? What makes you different? Who made you salt?
41:33
That's your starting point as a Christian. And of course, you can't answer that if you're not different.
41:43
If it is not salty, it is not salt. That's the main point. If it's not preserving, if it's not seasoning, if it's not having that kind of differentiated impact, then it's not salt.
41:54
Whatever it is, whatever's being added, however you're bearing your life before others, you're not salt. And Jesus says, throw it out.
42:09
Throw it out. These are the stakes.
42:16
We'll see them again and again through the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus declares great blessings, manifold blessings that belong to the
42:25
Christian. And then he gives the stakes. You see him doing that in his ministry quite often, don't you?
42:36
Allowing for days, maybe weeks on end for great crowds to follow him, declaring wonderful things, performing great signs, and then he begins to give some hard teaching and winnow all of that away.
42:48
You see him doing that, don't you? These are hard things,
42:54
Lord. Hard things. Who can bear them? So here's a mirror to examine our faith.
43:04
When you look in the mirror of Matthew 5 .13, what do you see? When you taste and see, not in this instance that the
43:13
Lord is good, but you taste and see what your life is like, what do you find? Do you find it to be salty?
43:20
Salty? Or bland? Can you survey that your affection, your desires, your ambitions in this life accord with the
43:30
Beatitudes in this direction? Or do you find that there's all sorts of compromise and sand mixed in with a few grains of salt here or there?
43:38
Is there a usefulness, in other words, in your life? That's Jesus' concern. Is the salt useful?
43:44
Will it make an impact? Will it be fruitful in my kingdom? Another way of asking the question is simply this.
43:51
Are you trusting in Christ? Walking with Him in such a way that by His grace you are preserving and seasoning the things around you.
44:00
That's the stakes. If you're not, what does He say? And so third and last we come to the savor.
44:12
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?
44:19
That's either the saltiness, the savor, the taste. Again, Jesus is encouraging
44:24
His disciples not to lose their true identity. And part of that identity that's been described to us in eight
44:30
Beatitudes is an identity on mission. It's an identity with a purpose.
44:36
It's a character that's going somewhere. It's a description that has hands and feet. That's what we're seeing in these verses.
44:43
And Jesus is encouraging His disciples when you begin with these Beatitudes, you don't stop there. You carry it forward in the logic of the kingdom.
44:51
You go forward as seasoning, as preservation. You do that first corporately.
44:56
There's a sense in which you'll never be salty if you don't come into this refining fire, as it were.
45:02
You come in here, and this is where a lot of the water and other mineral content is purged and evaporated.
45:08
This is a place where salt becomes more salty. That's God's design for the corporate body. That's God's design for the means of grace at work in us as we gather and worship and praise.
45:18
In the time that we fellowship together as a body, our salt becomes more pungent, more flavorful, more effective.
45:26
And part of this preservation of salt is it's not just what the church is able to do when we gather together as a sort of preservative agent in society, but actually think this through a little bit.
45:38
It's because we're gathered as salt that we're able to purify. In 2
45:45
Kings 2, Elisha is in Jericho, and there's this water that's causing everyone to become sick, and it's breeding all sorts of disease and death.
45:55
And so the men come to this prophet now who's received this double mantle, and they say, purify this water.
46:03
It's killing us. And he says, get a bowl of salt and throw it into the water.
46:12
And we read, it was clean, it was pure from that day until now. So the idea is this salt.
46:18
And he doesn't say, throw a grain of salt in. Throw the individual toward. That kind of death and corruption. He says, get a bowl of it.
46:26
I like that. It's corporate imagery. The church has a bowl of salt. Christians are salty, but our impact toward preservation is so profound when we're bowled together.
46:37
In that sense, not just a local congregation, but churches in a region become a bowl of salt that prevents death and decay.
46:44
Another image of this is how the church gathered together becomes a preventative. It's not just that we purify, it's also we prevent bad and negative things from growing.
46:55
We read in Judges 9 of King Abimelech when he finally overthrew his enemies, he commanded that salt was sown into the fields.
47:03
This was true, by the way, at least according to urban legend, that the Romans did this in Carthage. Once they defeated
47:10
Carthage, they finally sowed all the fields with salt. And the idea was there'll be so much salt in the field that they'll never be able to rebuild their civilization again.
47:18
They won't be able to grow food. The irony is that a little bit of salt was used as a fertilizer in the ancient world.
47:26
Some of you gardeners know a little bit of salt can prevent blight or crop disease. It can collect moisture, so that brings a better yield.
47:34
It has all sorts of benefits. It maybe increases mineral content and saturation for the plants. So a little bit of salt is a great thing in soil.
47:41
A little Christian influence in society goes a long way, like fertilizer. But one of the things we do when we're gathered together, is we pack salt into the fallen, decaying soil of the world, and we say, no longer will you grow what is dark, what is disfiguring, what is dehumanizing.
47:59
Like salt, we're going to kill it off. And you can't do it as a few disconnected flakes.
48:06
You need to really be sown in great numbers into the soil of a fallen world in order to have that kind of preventative preservation.
48:16
And where I see this taking place, I rejoice. It's a wonderful thing to see. When gathered churches have this kind of impact, when they're sown into the soil that would otherwise breed and grow and crop up all manner of decay and death.
48:30
Not only do Christians purify, but they prevent things from growing. But we do that corporately.
48:35
We do that as a gathered church. So there's that corporate picture of salt, but also there's this individual application.
48:43
And here's where I really want to bring us toward a close. Salt, speaking to the individual
48:51
Christian, Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. And salt does its work by being brought into contact.
49:01
As you look at your life and you say, what kind of contact do I presently have? Who do
49:06
I live with? That's area one. That's zone one of your saltiness.
49:12
Who do you live with? Who do you live next to? Maybe that's zone two.
49:19
Who do you work with? What does it mean for salt to be brought into close contact with something?
49:31
It means that though it's miniscule, though it's not flashing obvious, that salt, when it's applied, when it's consistently making contact, will begin to have an effect.
49:44
And so you here this morning, consider your life as an individual. You say, in God's wise providence, he has put me in this home with these neighbors and these coworkers and in this church body and with these kinds of friendships and these kinds of relationships and these kinds of encounters and these kinds of opportunities so that I can be applied like salt, so that I can have a contact that makes an effect.
50:18
I cannot do that if I don't have salt in myself. But having that salt in myself, having that kind of proximity to the
50:24
Lord, I am salty. I cannot be otherwise. If I belong to him and commune with him,
50:30
I'm salty. Lloyd -Jones, you come tonight.
50:35
We're going to pick apart, I think, some interesting passages that I'm expecting maybe a little bit to push back or controversy on, but I'm excited for that.
50:44
But Lloyd -Jones, nothing controversial here, Lloyd -Jones says that the business of this salt which is rubbed into meat is to preserve it against any agency that would cause it to decay.
50:54
So he speaks of the world in this way. He says you begin with taking sin seriously and saying sin and fallen nature wants to, in short order, make the world putrid, make human life putrid.
51:05
He doesn't see that that's what it's doing, but that's what sin does. And Christians are salt as it were, preventing and purifying and preserving that meat from heading into this putrid stench that warrants the judgment of God.
51:19
And so he says, I wonder how often we think of ourselves in this way. I wonder how often we think of ourselves as being in the world to prevent decay.
51:35
I don't think of myself very often in this way. We often think about ourselves as light.
51:42
That's where we're going in verse 14 next week. When we pray, when we talk about witnessing, we almost instinctively say, well, it's good, you know, you've been a light to them, or pray that I'll be able to be a light, or pray that somehow that light makes an impact.
51:55
We almost never connect it to salt because salt has this negative function, doesn't it?
52:05
Salt is preserving something from getting far, far worse. So we sometimes are discouraged because we're going, well,
52:13
I spent that time with them and it didn't go so well. I was trying to be a light, but obviously they're not walking with the
52:22
Lord and don't seem to have any further interest in Him. And we're all discouraged because we feel that our light hasn't made a difference, our light hasn't made an impact.
52:30
Well, let me tell you something, Christian. Your salt has made a difference. Your salt has so informed and maybe sharpened the pang of conscience that it may be you've prevented their life, or at least delayed their life from being far more corrupted and decayed and far gone than it would be otherwise.
52:48
Your presence has made a difference. And so never be discouraged that the light hasn't translated someone out of darkness into this new kingdom.
52:57
Be encouraged that as salt, you've prevented, you've preserved something that would otherwise be completely gone.
53:05
Salt has that kind of impact. You are salt. And I wonder how often you think of yourself in that way.
53:15
Sometimes we feel that, again, the light of the church might as well be a black light. We can barely shine light on any of the major issues of our day.
53:22
We feel so weak. We feel as though we've made no difference to the larger things at play. Well, maybe that's true at the highest levels.
53:30
Maybe having Russell Moore put out ERLC blogs or Evangelicals for Harris campaigns, maybe that has just shown how completely corrupted and how negative our light has become as the church at large.
53:43
But consider what it means to be salt. Consider what it means to go to the factory and be the guy that doesn't slur and swear like the rest, who doesn't use a lunch break to look at pornography or revile all sorts of managers and bosses and sort of gripe with the rest.
53:58
You're salt in that very place. Salt has this kind of impact.
54:06
Salt has this kind of effect. Salt in this way goes in places, in relationships, in forms that the church at large, the grandiose talking heads, the great conferences and parachurch ministries could never reach.
54:26
And if we could view salt in this way, what a profound effect we would have on the world around us.
54:33
To actually begin to think of ourselves as salt in this way. We are the salt of the earth. We see the meat.
54:40
We know it's rotting. And yet we know if we're not present, if we're not making contact, it'll be putrid by tomorrow.
54:49
We are salt in this very way. If you're a
54:56
Christian and your life has been converted unto God and your life has been transformed by His Spirit dwelling within you, you are salt for everyone you come into contact with, for better or for worse.
55:08
They may hate you because you're salt. Sometimes you don't know you have a paper cut until what?
55:14
Until you touch something salty. Sometimes Christian salt is so obnoxious and offensive because it's like salting a wound.
55:24
Maybe a wounded conscience. Maybe someone who sees, if I could just get rid of the presence of Christians, I wouldn't feel so guilty and dirty and I shouldn't feel this way.
55:35
They're the problem. I need to get rid of them. And we're like salt in that very way. Salting their wound.
55:41
Painting their conscience. That's a good use of salt. And as Christians allow, as we allow our presence, our testimony, our conduct.
55:54
Sometimes that's all you need is just a testimony. This is why I can't do the things that you're going to do. This is why
56:00
I won't go the way that you're going. This is why I don't talk and walk the way that you talk and walk. This is why
56:05
I won't engage in most of the things you engage with. This is why I, in a way that seems so foolish to you,
56:11
I'm going to guard my imagination. I'm going to put a guard at my eyes. I'm not going to even expose my ears. I'm not going to give mental energy to the things that could hold me captive or make the world have a sway over me.
56:22
I'm a Christian. I'm salt. I can't do it. And you look foolish.
56:28
You know what Jesus says here in Matthew 5? He says, salt loses its flavor.
56:35
How can it be seasoned again? It is useless. The word useless there is another translation would be foolish. In fact, foolish virgins is the same
56:41
Greek term. The world looks at you as foolish because you won't engage or be entertained by the things of the world.
56:48
They say, you're so foolish, so prudish, so naive. Jesus is actually your salt.
56:54
And to do otherwise would be foolish. Foolish in the sense of you're useless. So we walk with the
57:07
Lord. Our presence is salt. Our testimony is salt. Our conduct, salt.
57:13
The things we say are salt. The things we refuse to say are salt. Whatever we do is salty.
57:19
The things that we don't do is especially salty. And in this way, you as a
57:24
Christian season, preserve, restrain, purify, prevent all the corrupting and decaying influences of the world around you.
57:32
And if this is not the case, if this is not true of you here this morning, then it is a lost and dying and rotting world that is seasoning your life, seasoning your imagination, poisoning your affections, and dragging you down into its own inevitable corruption.
57:49
These are the stakes. This is what it means to have savor as a Christian. So remember, there is no salt without saltiness.
58:02
Remember that as salt we both fertilize the culture around us, but also we pack into that soil and prevent wicked things from growing.
58:11
We sow as salt what is good and true and beautiful because we are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
58:17
We are salt first and foremost because with salty tears as those poor in spirit, we mourned over our sin.
58:25
And in being meek because of humility, we began to find the Lord's mercy and therefore were flooded with mercy in such a way that our lives were transformed.
58:33
We're now pure in heart. And in that purity of heart, we seek to make peace. And in that way, we're salty.
58:40
The grace that saved us has made us so. And so therefore that grace that makes us salty is a sanctification.
58:47
It's a sanctifying presence of God in our lives. That's our salt. We must have salt in ourselves if we would be salty.
58:56
That means that if you're not salty here this morning, if you look at your life, look at your contact, look at your presence and see so much sand, so much delusion, so much adulteration, so much worldly compromise, there's only one direction you can go with that.
59:13
You can turn back to the Lord. Back to the one who made you salt in the first place. Ask Him to refine and purify you.
59:20
To renew all these things in your life that you have contact with and you have no effect upon. To say,
59:25
Lord, give me a pure heart. Give me a saltiness, Lord, that though it seems so weak and obscure, though it often bears reviling,
59:33
Lord, let me take heart because that often is proof it's making a difference. Listen, one of the ways you may know that you're just not being salty is no one's reviling you.
59:44
Hold verse 11 and 12 very closely to verse 13. You'll know you're being salt if people are upset with you, don't like to be around you.
59:54
Why? You're salty. And in that sense, as you return to Christ, abide with Him.
01:00:05
You want to be salt? Abide with Christ. Acknowledge your sins before Him.
01:00:12
Confess your sins. Ask for His forgiveness. Recognize that it's His blood that cleanses you from all of your sin.
01:00:20
Praise Him for His mercy. Follow Him out of a thankful heart. You walk with Christ in this way, it's the sweetness of His communion that becomes the saltiness in your life toward others.
01:00:35
It's the sweetness of who Christ is to you that makes you profoundly salty to everyone else.
01:00:45
You will never be as savory, as pungent in your life toward others as when
01:00:54
Christ is your greatest savor and relish in this life. You are the salt of the earth.
01:01:03
Let's pray. Father, we thank
01:01:11
You for Your Word, Lord. Bless it to us. Let us not be forgetful hearers, Lord.
01:01:16
Let us ponder very carefully where You have us and who You have us with. Faces and names that we know.
01:01:24
Opportunities You put before us, Lord. If we can't be salt in the people we see day in and day out,
01:01:31
Lord, how will we be salt to the passing stranger or to the persecutor? And so,
01:01:38
Lord, give us the salt in ourselves. Reveal all the ways You've made us to be salt,
01:01:43
Lord. As individual as we are, show us these ways. Let us repent for the sand, for the stain, for anything that's mingled and corrupted what
01:01:53
You intend to be for the earth. Give us this desire,
01:01:59
Lord, to be used of You, to be useful, to be a savor, Lord.
01:02:05
To be a preservant in a world that is lost and dying and full of corruption,
01:02:12
Lord. Enhance and strengthen Your bride to be salty as she clings to the sweetness she's found in You.