 You're looking at Matthew 5, 13 through 16 today, salt and light. So let's begin reading at verse 13. I'll read to verse 16, we'll get into our study. This is what has been referred to as the similitudes, because Jesus is saying that we are similar to certain things. And so in verse 13 he says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world, the city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Let me begin this message with a story that was recounted by a former president, Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was in a barber shop, sitting in a chair when he became aware that a powerful personality had entered the room. What had impressed him was that the man was not loud and he did not demand attention. What made him powerful was the interest he was showing to the man who was serving him. Before Wilson knew it, he had attended an evangelistic service. The powerful man turned out to be D. L. Moody, the most famous evangelist in America. Wilson purposely lingered after Mr. Moody had left. The atmosphere became quiet, people speaking in hushed tones. Interestingly, they did not know the man's name, but they did know something had elevated their thoughts. Concerning that day, Wilson later said, I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship. So the point of the story is very simple. As Christians, our character affects other people, whether consciously or unconsciously, we affect people for better or for worse. And that's what we're going to be looking at here in what are called the similitudes, found in Matthew 5, 13 through 16. These verses are going to give to us insight into who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now as we begin, verses 1 through 12 describe the attributes of the one who follows Christ. Those verses basically reveal what would be called the character, the character of one of the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we use the word character for a variety of ways. We speak about somebody being a real character, but the word character is a word that speaks of moral strength. It speaks of integrity, which makes up what is called the essential qualities of a person. So character is moral, it is integrity, it is what makes you what you really are. And that's essentially what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was saying when he said that he looked forward to the day when all Americans would be judged solely by the content of their character. So character is of supreme importance and Christians are to have a morally developed character. How is this shown? How is this character shown? Well Jesus outlined that for us in the first several verses when he was giving what are called the Beatitudes. He said, he made it clear that believers in Jesus are poor in spirit and the fruit of this is that they're merciful. Believers have mourned over their sin against God, this produces purity of heart. Believers are meek, this leads them to become peacemakers and believers hunger and thirst after righteousness and thus become faithful to the very end. So this kind of person is going to have an impact on the world that they live in. So the result will be that Christians become people of influence. Now, your influence is directly proportioned to your moral character. The kind of character you have is what really elevates your influence or is what causes your influence to actually recede. Now there was a man by the name of Andrew Murray and Andrew Murray lived what would be called an exceptionally holy life. Among those whom he had the greatest influence was his own children. Five of his six sons became ministers of the gospel, four of his daughters became wives of ministers. This in turn influenced his grandchildren because ten grandsons became pastors, thirteen grandchildren became missionaries. The incredible character of this man was a tremendous influence. It was what he was, not what he told them that made the difference in their lives. And that's the strength of your influence. That's the strength that you have, that you bring into your home, into your job site, into your neighborhood. Your influence is really going to be based on your character, your integrity, your morality. We know that great numbers of people today live in what would be called an arrested character development. They reject the discipline of the Word of God and thus they become their own moral authority. And Proverbs 30, 11 and 12 seems to speak of them where it says, Some people curse their father, do not thank their mother. They feel pure but they are filthy and unwashed. God when he was speaking to ancient Israel said, My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me the spring of living water and have dug their own sisters, broken sisters that cannot hold water. He was saying your idolatry Israel, your religious philosophy will never quench your true spiritual thirst. You see the rejecting of God is what we see today. And what that has led to is what would be called an upside down morality. We're seeing it right now, this upside down morality. Isaiah 5.20 said it like this, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, Who put darkness for light and light for darkness, Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. And that's what we have today. You see we as believers when we stand up and say, But this is what the Lord says, this is what God's word says. We are called every name that you can imagine. Why? Because we are speaking out against the darkness. And the darkness doesn't always accept it. Christians have a deeper understanding of life because we understand how brief life is. My wife was just telling me yesterday she said how quickly time seems to be passing by. And indeed it does seem to go quickly sometimes. James told us in chapter 4 verse 14 that our life, speaking of our life he says your life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. So as Christians we take God's word seriously. We even build our lives around the words of Jesus. And Jesus said in John 6.27, Do not work for food that spoils but for food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval. Don't labor for the food that perishes but rather for the food that endures into eternal life. That's what Jesus taught us. And so as followers of the Lord we're not to be molded by a system that crucified Jesus Christ. Our hearts have to be set on something higher than the passing fads of this world. That's why in 1 John 2 15 through 17 John said do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves a world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away in the lust of it. But he who does the will of God he said abides forever. The church. The church is to influence. The church is to influence the unsaved world to Jesus Christ. And the church will not be effective if we try to convince our unsaved friends that we really are just like them. You're not going to have an effective ministry at all. If you're trying to make your friends think that you're no different than they are. You are different. You are different because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. That's something to rejoice in. The Bible tells us in Romans 12, 1 and 2, I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will. Be not conformed but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. So Jesus is teaching us that people of character will be an influence on this world. Salt is needed where there's corruption. Light is needed where there's darkness. Now when Jesus was surveying the world, he saw it in a state of moral decay and spiritual darkness. You know there is someone who once said every day and in every way things are getting better and better. That was in Jesus who said that. Jesus saw it as a world in moral decay and spiritual darkness. That's what he saw. And what he wants, and this is important, this is part of the application of this verse for us today, what he wants and wanted for his disciples and wants for us now is for us to see what he sees. And very often when you read your Bible you'll see that God will point something out to you so that you might have your attention drawn to it. He wants your attention drawn to it because we have a tendency of being distracted by so many things. So many things around us, technology is given to us a tremendous amount of things to distract us. And there's some good things related to technology of course. But there are other things that I'm amazed by because with technology comes different kinds of frustrations. I mean yesterday I was trying to go online and it was taking too much time. I mean it took four or five seconds and I'm getting like, man what's up? Hurry up, let's go. And I have to be reminded about you know the signal when you're using your phone, it'll go to a satellite, it has to come down and it takes time. But for me it's like three, four or five seconds, I don't have all day, let's get this moving. Microwaving the whole nine yards, I mean there are good things about it and then other things it causes you to be spoiled. And even with our new way of having a phone that we really don't speak on, we just send messages and all because we really don't want to talk to people that long, we just want to get our point across, you know, that kind of thing. You know and you can have your face time and you can be looking at your phone, you know. It's just an interesting thing to me how we have gotten addicted to these things that were supposed to be conveniences and now are almost owning us, you know, they own us in a variety of ways now, in ways that I would have never even thought about. These things are supposed to bring convenience to us but they've depersonalized us. They've depersonalized us. You know yesterday, Marina, I went out for breakfast and she seated across from me, she gets a text message, she takes the phone out of her purse and she's looking at it and she starts to put a, you know, a response and I look at her and I take all her food off her plate, you know, I look at her, it was good. And I say to her, why don't we spend time with each other? Is that some emergency that you have to respond to right now? Because have you seen how easy it is for us to immediately be distracted? Isn't it interesting that you can go for lunch, breakfast or spend some time with somebody and they put their phone on the table and invent that somebody more important interrupts your conversation, they could go to them and not speak to you. You know, I use my phone all the time, I'm not knocking it, I'm trying to make a point, but isn't it interesting how we have depersonalized thinking we've become more personal? We've depersonalized thinking we've become more personal when in reality we're not spending time with people at all. What we're doing is just sending them messages from our mind to theirs, not really caring about what their mind has to say to us. It's just a convenience thing for us, isn't it? And that's what we've done. Salt has to have influence and God wants us to actually permeate. We'll see that in just a moment. We need to be transformed and not conformed and the world that we see today, we need to be reminded that it's in a state of decay and the Lord Jesus Christ wants to illustrate for us so that we might see these things because he wants us to see what he sees. You go into the Old Testament, Abraham is being spoken to by God and God says to him, I want you to look at the stars or I want you to count the grains of sand. It's not possible to do that, of course it isn't, but the fact is God wants him to know that he's going to bless them and he's going to have offspring that are numerous like stars and like sand. So he uses the visible in order to communicate to somebody spiritual truth. When my son David was around eight years old or so, right in that age group, he and I went to drop his mama, drop Maria off, my wife, at a woman's retreat and the woman's retreat was up in the mountains and so we dropped Maria off and he and I were walking to the car and as we were walking to the car it was for some reason just David and me as we were walking to the car we stopped for a moment and looked at the sky. It was one of those beautiful California nights where up in the mountains where the stars were just brightly shining, there were just so many, it was just beautiful and I remember speaking to my son and saying to him, David you see those stars and he goes, yes, I said how'd they get there? He's a little boy, he says you tell me dad, how'd they get there? And I said God, God made those stars son, God made all the stars, God is the creator of all things and God created those stars, God created this earth, God created us and where to worship him. It was just a conversation that you have with an eight-year-old, it was one of those moments to teach the child something spiritual. You don't know if they connect or not, but a few years ago my son gave to me as a birthday present a poster that had been framed and it was a little boy in a baseball jacket and it was just his silhouette and you could see his little baseball hat with his father, his father was holding his hand and the father had a baseball jacket and a baseball hat and that's how I used to wear a ball cap and baseball jacket all the time when David was a little boy and it said train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it and David was telling me I remember that lesson you gave me so long ago when I was a little boy about the creator of this universe and that's how you do it and Jesus would teach us to see by sometimes pointing out. In John chapter 4 verse 35 he said do you not say there are still four months and then comes harvest? Behold I say to you lift up your eyes look at the fields they are already white for harvest so he points you up he points this to you so that we can see and so to be influenced for redemption his disciples need to know what they are and this is of tremendous importance for them to know just who are they and what are they to know who you are allows you to become what you are there was a philosopher his name was Schopenhauer and Schopenhauer was walking in the botanical gardens in Dresden Germany when he was asked who are you he replied if you could tell me who I am I would be greatly indebted to you who am I that was his question who am I you know the sad thing about him is he never discovered who he is he was an atheist he died of heart failure well sitting at home on his couch with his cat Schopenhauer he still studied today in philosophy classes he had a terrible end he died alone he never discovered who he is well the Lord wants us to know who we are and so here in verses 13 and 14 of Matthew 5 he says you are the salt of the earth you are the light of the world so when he says you the word you is in what is called the emphatic he is saying you are the only salt you are the only light the world he is saying will not be saved from corruption the world will not be illuminated in its darkness without you without the church salvation from corruption or darkness will come no other way and through no other source God for some reason has chosen to use us to bring a message to this world he could align the stars if he wanted to in every language known to man with a simple message Jesus saves but he chooses not to do that he chooses to reveal himself through the church and so Jesus is speaking to us concerning this and he gives us a description of what and who we are he says you are the salt of the world now salt during that day was very valuable it was greatly prized the word solarium is a latin word where you get the word salary from your pay it's also where we get the word salt and salt being valuable was actually encapsulated in a saying you are worth your salt so salt was of great value and so he is saying to us, to his followers you have a very important function in this world you have a high value now when you look at salt it has characteristics that makes it a good likeness for the church when you look at salt one it is white so white obviously represents purity so in order to have influence Christians must guard and cultivate their moral purity again your character determines the quality of your influence and the sad fact is impure lives have no influence for good in Ephesians chapter 5 verses 3 and 4 it says there let there be no sexual immorality impurity or greed among you such sins have no place among God's people obscene stories foolish talk and coarse jokes these are not for you instead let there be thankfulness to God I am not to live an impure life and think I am going to have a tremendous impact and some of you have friends as I have had in the past who you might be sharing with and you want to tell them about the Lord and they are busy trying to get you to do something that you used to do before you got saved I had a friend his name was Art Art and I were together and at a party I had just gotten saved and I was there with my friend I was trying to tell him about the Lord and what God had done in my life I hadn't been a Christian more than a week or so I was brand new in my faith in Christ and so I went to hang with some friends and there they were drinking as normal and as we were talking he said do you want a beer and I said no and he says why not he said what can't a Christian drink a beer and while I am a week old what am I a theologian I am not Billy Graham you know what do I know so I say to him I said you know if you want I mean I don't why don't you drink a beer I said I don't want a beer just a glass you don't have to drink the whole court because he knew me I used to start my Friday nights with a quart of beer and a half gallon of wine that is how I started that was the beginning and that started when I was 17 years old I was a confirmed alcoholic when I was 18 I mean I did not drink a beer I drank a six pack and that was my starter that's how it was that's what I did I could drink my father under the table when I was 17 I did one time so I could drink a lot so he knew that he and I partied a lot together and I said no I don't want one why not can't Christians drink I said I guess they could I said I don't I don't want it oh come on David you are talking to me you know just to have a long story he pours me a glass I drink some beer with him and my witness is gone gone the minute I start drinking with him he wanted me to move back into what I was so he could point to me he didn't say this but I knew him I'd known him for many years and he's basically just saying yep haven't changed at all have you listen if you think that you can impact people by being just a little bit better than them or just like them you're wrong you're wrong it doesn't work that way somebody once said one of the most damnable heresies that has ever been foisted upon the thinking of any age is that a man may be pure in public influence if impure in private life what we are determines the character of our influence in the world whether we desire it or not with this in mind the character of the influence to be exerted by those who are in the kingdom is the influence of the character so one he says that we are white representing purity second salt provides flavor it's a substance that permeates Job chapter 6 verse 6 is interesting how it says there can flavorless food be eaten without salt or is there any taste in the white of an egg now let me bring it up and make it more cultural can you eat beans without salt no anybody here ever eat beans without salt they're horrible they're horrible they're horrible you have to put salt right a little garlic some onions little tortillas of meat anyway um no flavorless food needs salt the world is flavorless without us we exert influence Colossians tells us I'm sorry when Job says can flavorless food be eaten without salt he's speaking about the influence we exert influence in religious thought in literature in morals in education we exert influence in philosophy music drama law athletics government the media we exert influence in every element of life that's what you do and you will be surprised at the amount of influence you really have you would be surprised parents sometimes think that you do not have influence you have such incredible influence grandparents think oh I really don't influence us no you have incredible influence as a believer on the job you have such influence you just don't know you don't even know the people who are watching you you don't you're not even aware of it I was sharing with before I was a full-time minister I was working on a job site I loaded and unloaded semis and I had shared with my supervisor about the Lord he had spoken to me and he was open I told him about Jesus how Jesus changes lives and this and that I told him the gospel he was my supervisor gave me opportunity I shared with him about the Lord and he listened he shook his head and kind of like he walks away a few days later I was in the in a truck I was loading some pallets and I picked up one of these boxes I turned around and I was walking towards the pallet to place it on a pallet and there was a box in front of me that I hit and started stumbling over so when I hit it I pulled back the foot and I shoved it across to get it out of my way so I could put the carton I was carrying on this pallet right when I kicked the box out of my way here comes my supervisor and all he sees is me pushing this box and he yells at me and he says I thought Christians weren't supposed to lose their temper ha ha ha I said I didn't lose my temper man then I hit him I just wanted to but you don't even know you do not know when people are noticing you you don't it's the unconscious things that you do it's the things that you're not conscious about that you do just as habit or as a way of life that people are noticing and that's really where your life lines up with your words and that's how you're influencing so salt provides flavor salt provides the spread of corruption it was used as a preservative it affects that which is not yet corrupt it provides a foundation for goodness to be expressed like what it says in Colossians 4-6 let your speech always be with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer each one so salt is a symbol of purity it provides flavor it prevents the spread of corruption verse 13 Jesus said if the salt loses its flavor how can it how can the world be seasoned salt that is contaminated and no longer useful he says it simply walked upon so if you do not exert moral influence you ultimately are disregarded and disrespected Ephesians 4-1 Paul speaking there says as a prisoner for the Lord then I urge you live a life worthy of the calling you have received do not live in such a way that the world disrespects you he says again in verse 14 you are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do they light a lamp that is put under a and put it under a basket but on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house light is obvious it's revealed by the quality of your life it is seen from great distances where Jesus is speaking here the Sermon on the Mount more than likely is sitting on a sloped area just north of the Sea of Galilee just directly north of him and a little to the west there was a city that was on a hill and if you're there at night and somebody has a lamp that's in the house and the window is open no matter how far away that is you're going to see the light shining so Jesus could use that as an illustration I was reading about just light and darkness and how far can I see a light and in the darkness and one the site said under impossibly ideal conditions meaning that it's clear and completely dark a match can be seen 50 miles away a match in ideal conditions when my father was in the Navy they had times where they had what are called blackouts and he said on the ship they would be on the ship and it was total blackout so everything all the ships would be would be shut down and all the lights were off he said it was eerie how dark it would be out there it's yet if you were 50 miles away we'll say 10 miles away and you had a flashlight and you just started light you could see that light as clear as if it was right next to you so in the darkness light shines most brightly so people without Jesus are living in spiritual darkness they don't have any enlightenment and they have no illumination and that's why Jesus would speak at night as Christians we have the role of manifesting the light of Christ we are designed by God to be spiritual mentors and to bring moral guidance to the entire world we are to walk in His light and the quality of our lives will bring glory to God notice verse 16 let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works we are light and we give light we give the gospel of Jesus to those in darkness and we do so through the pronouncing of the word of God as we communicate it and the living out of the word of God in Titus 3.8 it says this is a faithful saying in these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works these things are good and profitable to man my father and my mom came to faith in Christ and a large portion of why they did very simply put my mom told me we saw you change we saw your life change what you were was changed to what you were becoming and we saw it you know mom and dad if they spend any time with the kids at all they know their habits they know the things that make them what they are they can tell they are changing in them and all they can see that and my mom and my dad saw these incredible changes taking place in me and that was part of what the Lord did to bring them to faith in Christ what I became needed an explanation what I was needed to be explained how did you become what you are and so the changes were communicated through the message of the gospel well I was lost I was sinful you know that but God has changed my life and my mom and my dad saw that because what I am spoke so loudly they really weren't listening to what I was saying and it's still true you are salt you are light let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven a life that is known for holiness and purity for righteousness for love for God and others be open about it and don't be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ testify when given opportunity share your faith with others and live for Christ in these last days which are very dark because if there's ever been a time when man needs the light of the gospel and the salt it's today and God wants to do that work through us there's no reason why he can't and he will there's no reason why he won't if we yield ourselves to him may we yield to him