WWUTT 1933 You Are the Salt of the Earth, Part 1 (Matthew 5:13)

Matthew 5 .13 says, You are the salt of the earth. Verse 14 says, You are the light of the world.

Jesus is not saying you must do something to become these things. This is who we are when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that we may press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.

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Pastor Gates. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we are up to chapter 5, verses 13 -16.

I'll begin by reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and to be trampled underfoot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your

Father who is in heaven. My family and I are on vacation right now, and in preparation for going on vacation,

I had to record a lot of these devotional lessons in advance. So I'm going to cheat a little bit to save myself some time, and I hope that you'll allow me to do this.

I preached through the Sermon on the Mount twice, in 2020 and in 2021.

In 2020, I preached through it with my church in Kansas, then we moved to Texas, and I preached through it again with Pastor Tom in 2021.

So I'm going to play the sermon that I did on this particular passage regarding salt and light.

I broke this up into two sermons, the first sermon focusing on what it means to be the salt of the earth, and the second sermon on what it means to be the light of the world.

And so between today and tomorrow, we're going to listen to Part 1 and 2 of the Sermon on Being the

Salt of the Earth. I'm not going to do the Isaiah study tomorrow. We'll pick up Isaiah again next week, God willing. So this is going to be

Part 1 and 2 of Matthew 5, verse 13. And then next week on Monday and Tuesday is going to be a two -parter of the sermon that I did on you are the light of the world.

And then when I pick up again in Matthew 5, verse 17, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets.

I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. I'll pick that up with the regular devotional lessons at that point.

So this was the sermon that I preached at First Baptist Church Lindale in March of 2021.

You are the salt of the earth. Here's Part 1. Just as we have been going through the

Sermon on the Mount since January, there probably been some things here that have kind of come alive for you in a different way than the first time that you heard it.

And the same has been with me as I've been in the Sermon on the Mount over the course of the past year. There are ways that the

Lord has continued to teach me in this. I wanted to poll you as we start out this morning based on something that Pastor Tom had challenged us in when we first set out on this study of the

Sermon on the Mount. I opened the study with kind of a... Well, I read through the entire sermon and then did an overview of what we can expect as we go through this teaching.

And at the conclusion of that, Pastor Tom gave us all a challenge. I want to see if there's anybody here who has met this challenge.

He said that as we go through this series, read through the entire sermon, all three chapters,

Matthew 5, 6, and 7, once a week as we do this together. Since we began in January, how many of you have been reading through the

Sermon on the Mount once a week? Raise your hand. A little young man down here says that he's read through it once a week.

This is an honest group of people. Your dad might be talking to you later about that. I would be sitting among you with my hands in my lap as well.

I cannot honestly say that I have read through the entire sermon every week as Pastor Tom has challenged us to.

And I say that not to heap guilt on anybody, but just to remind you of that call so that we can continue to be refreshed by these things, be reminded of what our

Lord has said. And every week that you read this, something else is going to come alive for you or is going to make more sense to you than it did the week before.

As we said at the start of this series, the Sermon on the Mount is the most popular sermon ever preached anywhere.

And I don't think I need to qualify that by saying it's arguably the most popular sermon. It is the most popular sermon.

And as it is the most popular sermon that has ever been preached, it is likewise the most misunderstood sermon that has ever been preached.

And so we're going to look at some things today regarding salt, and then next week we're going to look at light.

So this is how we're breaking this up. Today we're just looking at verse 13. You are the salt of the earth.

And then next week we're going to focus on that section that says, you are the light of the world.

Surely things that you have heard since you were in Sunday school as a little kid, even if you were not a churchgoer as a child, you've probably heard the expression, you are the salt of the earth, or you are the light of the world.

They've almost become Christian platitudes. But what do these things mean? And we want to take a couple of weeks to look at that.

I'm going to be a little more structured in this service than I was in the first. As I said in the very beginning, I'm tired.

So that's why I wasn't quite as organized in the first service. But I'm going to break up what we're going to be looking at in just this one verse in this way.

If you look at that first statement there, right before the comma, you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 words.

You are the salt of the earth. We're going to break it up like this. You are, that's going to be point number one for me.

The salt, that's going to be point number two. And of the earth, that's going to be point number three.

So let's examine what it means to be the salt of the earth. First of all, first point, first two words.

Matthew 5 .13, you are. Now how do you make a point out of that?

Well, the study of being is a study that we call ontology. You ever heard

Rene Descartes, the 17th century philosopher, who had said, I think, therefore I am.

That is an ontological statement. I am tired. That's not so much an ontological statement.

That's just an expression of how I feel. So there's a difference between how you feel and who you really are.

But as we study what makes a person a person, we call that study ontology.

Today's modern American man might say something like, I think I am a woman, therefore

I am. That would be a wrong ontological statement. But these kinds of expressions of understanding who we are and studying what it means to be a man or be a woman or be a child or be a person, defined as a person.

Our culture attempts to change those definitions. A culture will say that you're not a human being until you're born and you take your first breath.

So those children that are in the womb are not really human beings yet. That's what our culture wants to impose on us.

Darwin changed the way that we think about what it means to be a human being. Darwinism would say, well, you're just an evolved animal.

I was evolved from an ape. But understanding that we are made in the image of God, that we have even been designed to glorify

God and enjoy Him forever, as is said in the catechisms. That's an ontological statement.

To know we are the imago Dei, made in the image of God. This is who we are. And Jesus is making a statement about who

His followers are here in Matthew 5, 13. And this follows the flow of everything that we've looked at before this.

So we just finished up the Beatitudes last week. Beatitude number 8 was in verse 10.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Let me go through these things again because we're keeping all of this in context.

And it means something when we get to the statement you are, when you understand what Jesus has said of us in the previous verses, and everything in the

Sermon on the Mount thus far. So when we started this series, even in my open introductory sermon,

I quoted Charles Spurgeon, who said, when we read the Beatitudes, this is not telling us how to be saved.

It's describing the saved. So Jesus is saying something about who we are, even as we go through these

Beatitudes here. Let's look at this again, beginning in verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. As you heard

Pastor Tom take us through these, remember that he would always emphasize the they. Because they and they alone will receive the kingdom of heaven, shall be comforted, shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

And again, Jesus is talking about Christians here. These first four Beatitudes are more horizontal.

We look at the next four, which get more vertical. Verse 7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive the mercy of God.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see

God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then from here, and Pastor Tom pointed this out last week, something shifts. It's almost like Jesus repeats the same

Beatitude again, but he directly applies it. Verse 11. Blessed are you when others revile you, and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We've gone from describing something to now Jesus is getting a lot more direct. He's getting a lot more personal, and he's applying it exactly to who?

The entire group of people, the whole crowd that was there? And we know that's not the case, because when you go back to verse 1, it says, seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, this is

Jesus speaking to those who would learn from him and follow him. Not everybody that's there.

Plenty of people who were going to sit there and listen to Jesus were going to hear him, but not do what he says, which he gets to that at the end of the

Sermon on the Mount. In chapter 7, blessed are they who hear these words of mine and do them. So there were plenty there who were going to hear this, but he's not describing every single person there.

He's describing those who follow him. And those who follow him will be persecuted, and he gets a lot more direct when he says, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Now keep this in mind, keep all this context together, because then we get to verse 13, and he says, you are the salt of the earth.

Still that direct application. Blessed are you, and you are the salt of the earth.

Jesus is not telling us how to become something. He's telling us who we are as followers of Christ.

And this is one of the ways that salt and light is often misapplied. Often what you hear in the sermons that get preached on this particular section is that you have to do something to become this.

You have to go out in love, go show charity, go do good deeds to people, make sure you're kind to everybody, and then you will be the salt of the earth.

And then you will be the light of the world. That is not what Jesus is saying here. It's the same as in the

Beatitudes before it, that we are being described here as the salt of the earth, as the light of the world.

I had a ministry in a church. Now, I didn't do the ministry. It was a ministry that was in the church that I was a part of when

I was a little kid. It was a food pantry ministry that they had. It was called SALT, and that was an acronym,

S -A -L -T. It stood for Salt and Light Today. That's kind of funny that you have the word

SALT as the acronym, and the word SALT is even in the acronym, and it's a little bit redundant. But anyway, that was the food pantry ministry that the church had.

And this was supposed to be an expression of this is what it means to be salt and light, to feed the hungry, to care for the poor.

Is that really it? Is that really what Jesus means when he says, you are the salt of the earth?

Let's keep in mind first that Jesus is describing us as something before we've even done anything.

It's Jesus has done this work, and now we are because of what he has done.

I made some ontological statements to you earlier to kind of give you an example of what ontology is.

For me to say, I am born again, that's an ontological statement.

Because it tells you something about my identity. It's actually changed. I once was someone else.

I was something else. But in Christ, I've become someone new. And I am born again.

When I was in college, my late teens, early 20s, I went to college to find myself.

Anybody else do this? What do I need to do to go find who I am? I want to know what my hopes and dreams are.

What am I going to be? How do I make something of myself? And so you go to find yourself.

There are even movies and books that are written about this. Somebody who is on some sort of life course or journey to go and find themselves.

But more often than not, whenever somebody says they're going to go find themselves, what it means is, I'm going to go live in wanton sin and debauchery.

And maybe through fulfilling the passions of my flesh, I'm going to find out who I am. That's always a self -centered journey.

You start that self -centered. You go through that self -centered. You finish that self -centered. Unless somebody has come in with the gospel in the middle of that.

And the Holy Spirit has transformed your heart to repent of your self -centeredness. And now you die to yourself and you live for Christ.

Otherwise, you go through that entire journey all for yourself. It's a great thing about self -righteousness.

Whether you do good or you do bad, you're always righteous as long as you say you're good. Proverbs says that a man thinks that he is right in his own eyes.

And you've also heard the proverb that says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is the way of death.

And I went through this when I went to college. Trying to find myself. Really just chasing the passions after my own flesh.

And I'm grateful that God did not lead me to destruction in that.

Because that was certainly the way that I was headed if I continued in my own course. But there were good men of God that came to me and reminded me of the gospel that my parents taught me when

I was young. They reminded me of the precepts that I had heard from a very young age.

And I realized and was filled with guilt over the stupid things that I was doing.

And I repented and gave my life to Christ. And my identity was no longer in the dumb sins that I was wandering away in.

But rather in Christ himself who is my life. As Paul says in Colossians chapter 4,

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Fast forward about six years after I got done with college.

My brother was graduating from high school. And on that day when he graduated from high school, it was a big gathering at our house.

All kinds of friends and family. He was a pretty popular guy in high school. So we had a house full of people.

And on that same day, the exact same day that my brother had walked down the aisle and he received his diploma.

I said to him, can you and I go take a walk? I'd just like to talk with you about some things. And he was willing, in admiration for his older brother, to leave that gathering of people and we just walked around the block.

And I said to him, I've heard the way that you've talked about what you're looking for when you go to college.

And you want to go find yourself. Brother, I hear you making exactly the same statements that I made when

I graduated high school. You might even think you're coming up with something new and revolutionary for yourself.

You're not. As it says in Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. And so you're going to go off to college and you're going to want to try to find yourself.

And I just want to encourage you not to do that. Because I went the same way and it almost destroyed me if it were not for the grace of God.

I would have been a completely different person today if it was not for God's grace. And I said to him,

I never found myself more or understood myself better than when

I found myself in Christ. And I want to tell you to do the thing that I didn't do when

I went to college. And that's pursue Christ. Not yourself.

Go after Jesus. I said this thing of trying to find yourself, it's a dog chasing his tail.

You're going to end up in the same place as where you started or worse. Go after Jesus.

And he said to me that he appreciated my words. He said that he could tell that I loved him because I would want to take that time to say something so privately and so passionately to him in that way.

But unfortunately he didn't heed the advice. And my brother is not to this day walking with the

Lord. But I pray that he would. He knows it. He's heard it his entire life.

And I pray the Holy Spirit would convict his heart and lead him to the path of righteousness.

Lead him to the way, the truth, and the life who is Jesus. And no one comes to the

Father but by me. Jesus said in John 14 6, I love my siblings, those who are not walking with the

Lord, I still love them. But I am not going to soften my message to make it easier on myself in knowing that they are not walking with Christ.

It is important that everyone knows that apart from Christ, who you are is a child of wrath.

And in Christ, who you are is a child of God. That concludes part 1 and we'll pick up with part 2 of You are the

Salt of the Earth tomorrow. Heavenly Father, thank you for what we've read here and what we have considered.

And help us to recognize and understand what it means to be called the

Salt of the Earth and serve you faithfully in these present days. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word, when we understand the text.