Embodying Christ: The Call to Be Salt and Light

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The Beatitudes are not merely things that we should do; they are things that we should be. We should be these things. He doesn't say blessed is he who now and then shows mercy, but blessed is the merciful, and so forth with all of them. [00:10:28]

I just think it is so important that we keep these characteristics of God before us and recognize them and pray and strive and long to have those in us. If we try to go around and try to keep Jesus's other commands without these, we're pretty sure to get a bunch of things wrong. [00:11:31]

Jesus follows those characteristics, those blessings, by saying you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. There's a point that I hope to drive home today. It's a certain dynamic about salvation that I think often eludes us. [00:15:21]

Salt is not just savor, but it saves. It's a preservative. The properties of salt keep meat from rotting. Before the days of refrigeration, fisheries and people who butchered animals would salt down their fish and their meat real good and could preserve it for a long time. [00:24:31]

The decline of this world is the result of worthless salt. We see this pattern through scripture that once godliness dwindles down too far, the judgment of God is poured out. I think that's what's going to happen on the final judgment day once the earth is too void of salt. [00:30:24]

We are the salt of the earth. Those who have these characteristics of the Beatitudes are who give the earth flavor and preserve it. It's what God made us to start with. He put us in the garden to dress it and keep it. He told us to be fruitful and multiply. [00:29:21]

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 a 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. [00:41:05]

The value of light is not in the light itself but in what it does to its surroundings. You don't walk into a room too often in a dark room and turn on the light so you can sit down and look at the bulbs. No, you turn it on so that the surroundings become visible. [00:43:31]

The way to let your light shine and to have your surroundings become visible is to live out these Beatitudes, to have these characteristics that Jesus wants us to have. If we do that, it can't be hidden. He says a city set on a hill can't be hidden. [00:52:21]

If we as an assembly are blessed with these characteristics that he talked about in the Beatitudes and we live out in a real tangible way the teachings of the kingdom of heaven, we're presenting to the world a real viable alternative to their dark setting. [00:58:18]

The gospel of the kingdom of God does not go unnoticed. It has an effect on the earth like salt does to whatever it contacts. It makes visible that which is of darkness. In the 1500s, the Anabaptist movement was a return to radical Christianity after nearly a thousand years of dark ages. [01:02:28]

If we want to be genuine light and genuine salt, let's stop focusing on our salt and our light and how to preserve ourselves but rather lose ourselves for Christ's sake and from our hearts love one another as Christ loved us. [01:02:28]

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