Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / The Sermon On The Mount
Raising The Bar By Influencing Others 07/15/07
Message: ‘Raising the bar by influencing others’
Text: Matthew 5:13-16
Introduction: What does it mean to have an influence in someone’s life?...
ILL: A Peanuts cartoon showed Peppermint Patty talking to Charlie Brown in which she said ‘Guess what Chuck? The first day of school and I got sent to the principal’s office. It was your fault, Chuck.’ Charlie Brown responds ‘My fault? How could it be my fault? Why do you say everything is my fault? To which she declares ‘You’re my friend, aren’t you Chuck? You should have been a better influence on me.’ (Brian Bill)
Truth be told, we’re always influencing someone, either positively or negatively. People are watching you. What they observe has an influence on them. And it should.
Transition: Open your Bibles to Matthew 5:13 (pg. 740 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) It’s here that we’ll find that we raise the bar of spiritual expectations and actions in our lives by influencing others two ways…. as salt and as light.
I. We influence others as SALT. (Matt. 5:13)
Read: Matthew 5:13
In the Beatitudes, Jesus spoke and challenged us to live above spiritual mediocrity, to raise the bar of our spiritual expectations and actions because people are watching us and we are influencing them, either toward Christ or away from him.
How do I know? Because he talks about the importance of influencing others by calling his disciples, then and now,…the Salt of the Earth.
What does Jesus mean by that and in what ways does being the Salt of the Earth influence others?
1. Salt is valuable.
First, salt in Jesus’ day, was a highly valuable commodity. Roman soldiers were often paid with salt. That’s where the phrase ‘Worth his salt’ comes from. We buy salt so cheaply today that we can miss the significance of what Jesus is saying.
· You are the Salt of the Earth….You have a great value.
Do you consider yourself a great value to the cause of Christ…to Jesus himself? You should because he said you are.
Read: Matthew 6:26 ‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?’
Transition: Friends, don’t ever forget, you are deeply loved and highly valued by God. But we are also valuable to the earth, even if others don’t see it or appreciate us.
2. Salt preserves.
Second, salt preserves. Salt was used in both Jesus’ day and our own to preserve meat and other food, to slow down the process of decay.
Historically Christians have had a preserving influence on society. Here are just a few examples…
· Prior to Christianity, infanticide and the abandonment of children was a common thing.
· Hospitals as we know them began by Christians…even the Red Cross was started by a Christian.
· Almost every one of the first 123 colleges and universities in the US were founded by Christians for Christian purposes.
· Orphanages, adoption agencies, mental health facilities most had their beginnings in Christianity. (D. James Kennedy)
That was then…what about now, what about you and me? We are still called to preserve moral decay by our words and actions as Christians.
BUT…
· When our lives are virtually indistinguishable from our unsaved family and friends
· When our teens are getting pregnant
· When we or our children get drunk or high
· When our marriages fall apart
· When we lie, cheat and steal
· When we are unfaithful to our spouses
· All at the same rate as those who are not followers of Christ… something is horribly wrong!
Jesus is saying that we’re to live in such a way that our lives, salt, preserve, the morality of those around us rather than help accelerate the decay.
Transition: As salt, we are valuable and we preserve. But we’re not done yet.
3. Salt flavors.
Salt flavors. It wakes food up, it makes bland food palatable. As it relates to the Christian life, we should be the ones people want to be around.
Rather than walking around with a ‘respectable, pious, holier than thou’ attitude,
· we should be the first to smile when we make eye contact with another person
· we should be the first to show our joy in Christ because we are assured of our place in heaven.
· We should be the first to laugh…even God’s Word tells us laughter is good for us.
Remember the old camp song ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap you hand’? It was fun to sing that song and do the motions…then we grow up and become… respectable.
I think Jesus is telling us it’s OK to be happy and show it as Christians, to be pleasant and fun people… it adds flavor to life and will influence others to look more closely at Jesus.
Transition: Next Jesus says something that we have a hard time understanding. Let me illustrate first.
Unsalty Salt
ILL: When Mahatma Gandhi was the spiritual leader of India, he was asked by some missionaries ‘What is the greatest hindrance to Christianity in India?’ His reply was ‘Christians.’
What happens when Christians don’t influence others for Christ? Well the text says we’ll become unsalty, be thrown out and trampled upon.
Does this mean we’ll lose our salvation? No!. Remember, as the Salt of the Earth, you are highly valuable to God. And Paul reminds us that ‘Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ So what does Jesus mean? Scholars have debate this text and I think they’re just looking for something that’s not there. Here’s my take on it.
· Salt, unless you separate it’s molecular structure, will always remain salt and therefore salty because it’s a highly stable compound.
· I think Jesus is saying Salt can’t lose flavor any more than light can lose its light. Salt is salt and light is light…and so you are…salt and you are light.
· But to take a line from a popular book…you have to get out of the saltshaker. In other words you have to be willing to be used by God to influence others with you life…in a positive way that is.
· You have to be intentional about being salt, otherwise you’re useless…not lost, just unavailable.
· So for all intent and purpose…it would be like you are unsalty because you wouldn’t be flavoring anything.
· What Jesus is basically saying is , why would anyone not want to be salt and influence the world around them when they have so much to be thankful for them selves. It goes against your nature.
Transition: Followers of Jesus Christ influence others by being the Salt of the Earth. We also influence others by being the Light of the World.
II. We influence others as LIGHT. (Matt. 5:14-16)
Read: Matthew 5:14-16
One of the main themes in Scripture is Light…Why? Because we are continually waging war with the forces of darkness. Jesus calls us the ‘Light of the World’ and he wants us to be an influence for Christ in dark places. How?
1. Jesus is the true Light of the World
First we influence others by pointing to the true Light.
Read: John 8:12a ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.”
Understand that we are not replacing Jesus as the Light of the World. He alone is the Light that dispels the darkness of sin.
Read: John 1:9a Jesus is ‘The true light that gives light to every man…’
2. You are the Light of the World.
Second, we influence others by accepting that we who follow Jesus are also the ‘Light of the World’ How can that be?
Read: John 8:12a ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.”
Read: John 8:12b ‘Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Read: 1 Thess. 5:5 ‘You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.’
Read: 2 Cor. 4:6 ‘For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’
Christians, you and I, are the Light of the World because we have the Living Christ in us…who is the ‘Light of the World.
What a great honor. Just as we are valuable to God as the Salt of the earth, we are valuable to him because we have the living Light of the World in us. Christians are truly blessed.
3. You are the Light of the WORLD.
Third, we influence others by understanding the scope of being the ‘Light of the World’. As Christians, followers of Jesus Christ:
· We are the Light of our families
· We are the Light of Calvary Baptist Church
· We are the Light of New Jersey
· We are the Light of the USA
· We are the Light of the World
What this means is that it’s not just important how we walk into these doors on Sunday mornings, it’s how we walk out of these doors and influence our world for Jesus Christ. That includes your own piece of the world and the whole world, which is why we support kingdom builders who take the Light of Jesus to the dark places we can’t go.
4. Light exposes darkness
Fourth, we influence others by exposing darkness.
ILL: Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity a miserly old farmer was confronting his hired hand for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to visit his girlfriend. He said ‘When I went a courting I never carried one of them things, I always went in the dark.’ ‘Yes’ the hired man said ‘and look at what you got.’
(Jeffrey Anselmi)
The purpose of light is to show what’s around us. People are living in fear of what’s happening around them because they feel like they are in the ‘dark’, if you will. And truth be told, apart from Christ, they are.
Being the “Light of the World’ means we shine light in darkness…in other words, we expose sin. How can we do that?
· When you’re planning time with your friends and they want to do something that you know is not good for you or them…it’s sinful, do you say no I don’t want to do that or do you just give in?
· Do you support organizations, businesses, websites, that promote sinful behavior or do you go somewhere else?
· Do you use your right to vote to help promote morality in our country?
This doesn’t mean we a re witch hunters. We always expose sin with great grace and humility remembering, as Scripture puts it… ‘you were once like them.’ As the ‘Light of the World’ we are to influence our world by exposing sin.
5. Display your light
Fifth, we influence others by displaying our Light.
Read: Matt. 5:14-16
Do you see it?
· A city on a hill can be seen at night because it’s light make it visible.
· People light a lamp and put it on a stand to give the room the most light.
Then Jesus says…in the same way…shine your light. It goes against it’s very nature for light to be hidden. (Just like salt can’t be unsalty…see the connection?) Bottom line, there should be no such thing as a secret Christian. When God saved you, he expected you to be seen by others as His child.
6. Guiding Light
Sixth, we influence others when we shine our light to guide people to Jesus.
· Airport runways use lights to guide the pilots during takeoffs and landings.
· Cars, trucks and motorcycles use headlights to guide them on the roads at night.
· Christians are the lights who guide those walking in the darkness to find Christ.
Read: Psalm 119:130 ‘The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.’
Read: Psalm 119:105 ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.’
The Word of Truth living in us and shining through us guides the lost to faith in Christ.
8. Light and Glory
Last, we influence others by shining our light and it will bring glory to God.
· It’s not about how many people you lead to Christ
· It’s not about how spiritual you look doing it.
· It’s not about how big our church gets
· It’s always about giving glory to God.
Jesus is saying, you are the Light of the World…make it count, be a positive influence for Christ, and in all you do (your good works) give God the glory.
When you do, the end result will not be that people will think that you’re great, but they’ll be influenced to think God’s great and will give him praise.
Conclusion
ILL: A zealous Christian woman once came to her small group for prayer. She was a healthcare professional working in a public school where one of the students had terminal cancer. Here was a child who needed the Light of the world desperately, but she was a public employee and not permitted to evangelize. We prayed for her and gave the only advice the Bible gives, “When they tell you to speak no more in this name, speak anyway.” Her courageous witness had much to do with young Harry trusting in Jesus. But it did not stop there. Whenever Patty would encourage Harry with words of Scripture, Patty’s two co-workers would listen; Harry himself began to be a bold witness among his friends and once even shared his faith in a public meeting. Patty got invited to his home and was able to meet his Buddhist parents. And to this day, Patty has never been fired, demoted, or reprimanded. But what if she had? Wouldn’t Harry on his way to heaven be worth it?
Patty, you are the light of the world. Not just because of your work of mercy, not because of your faithful witness, but because Christ Jesus, the Light of the world, lives in you and you refuse to hide it. (Colin McDougall)
Take a chance. Be salt and light to your world.
In a oft dark and scary world, anxious and frightened people eagerly look for a light, however din it may seem, that is able to give them hope, comfort and a sense of security.
· For people who have lost loved ones
· For people who are struggling to make ends meet
· For people who feel they are at the end of their rope.
· For people who are questioning their worth and value
· For people who are facing serious medical conditions
· For people who are facing marital trouble
· For these people and many more like them
Display the twin towers of influence…be the salt of the earth and the light of the world…. All for the glory of God.