Salt and Light: Living the Upside-Down Kingdom

We don't withdraw from the world as Christians. We need to influence the world. Yes, sir. We don't conform to the world. We change the world, and it starts right here with us. Salt doesn't help by staying in the salt shaker. Just because you have salt on your dinner table doesn't mean it's gonna make your food more flavorful. You still have to use that salt. Point to which brings us to point two. Salt adds flavor to a tasteless world. Salt also enhances the flavor. The gospel makes life meaningful. [00:37:17] (43 seconds)  #SaltAddsFlavor

And so Moses went up to the mountain to receive the law from god and Jesus went up to the mountain as god to reveal the heart of the law to man. And now, Jesus is about to show us this. He's not just interested in us changing our behavior. The last three weeks, he's been interested in changing our hearts because in an upside down kingdom, it's not about looking right on the outside. It's about being transformed on the inside. [00:28:58] (29 seconds)  #InsideTransformation

Christians, we are meant to slow the decay. We are meant to slow this spiritual death. In Philippians two fifteen, Paul tells us that that you may be blameless, that you may be blameless and innocent children of god without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. Man, don't we live in a twisted and crooked generation? Yes. He's saying that you need to look blameless and innocent. Children of god. In this generation of this evil, and here's what he says, among whom you shine as a light in the world. [00:36:32] (46 seconds)  #ShineAsLight

go ahead and be salt. No, he he says, be salt. He didn't say, work on becoming a light. He says, you are the light. He says, very, you know, there's some things that Jesus just says very plainly, you are the salt, you are the light. And this means it is not optional. This is our identity as a Christian. So the real question is, do I isn't do I believe this? The question is, am I living like the am I living like it? Because a salt that stays in the shaker is useless. Salt that stays hidden is pointless. And I think that sometimes if we're all honest, we get a little bit comfortable and we get a little bit blended in to what's going on around us. For one, we like to play it safe. But Jesus didn't save us to play it safe. He saved us to shine. [00:52:42] (66 seconds)  #YouAreSaltYouAreLight

for the first time. They come up on a wave and they look across and they say, there's the lighthouse. Can you imagine how good that would must make their hearts feel that now we know the way? What a relief. Now we know now we have a decision. We can either go to the lighthouse or go back out into the sea. We are called to be the light of the world. So when there's a lot of people in our community that's walking in the darkness, isn't there? There's a lot. I mean, it we can walk down the street and see people living in darkness. And we're the light of the world. We're called to be the light of the world. Here's why because light reveals the truth. [00:42:24] (53 seconds)  #LighthouseForTheLost

And here's the thing, you can try to be a better person on your own. You can try to clean things up on your own. You can try to figure out this life on your own, but deep down, deep down, deep down, you already know that you can't. It's not working. It's not going to work either. Because the problem isn't just what you've done. It's your heart. The Bible says that we are dead in our sin. Not that we're struggling in our sin, not improving but before you come to Christ, the Bible says that we're dead in our sin and dead people don't resurrect themselves. Jesus is the one that resurrects you. That's why he came. Not to make bad people better, but to make dead people alive. Maybe you're dead this morning. I wanna invite you to life. I want you to invite you into a relationship with Jesus. [00:56:04] (63 seconds)  #ResurrectionBringsLife

When we become a Christian and we follow Jesus who he is the light of the world, it tells us right here that we will have the light of life. We won't walk in darkness no more. We don't have to walk in darkness no more. We get to walk in his light but we also get to have the light of life. We need to reflect the light of Christ when we become Christians. When we're walking into this dark world, people should look at us and say, that's something different. There's hope there. There's a light there. Here's the thing. Just because we're the light don't mean they're gonna come to the light. They have to make a decision. But we still are called to be the light of the world. Darkness doesn't come overcome the light, but light exposes the darkness. [00:43:42] (63 seconds)  #ReflectTheLightOfChrist

yeah. So there's two reasons that salt was very important back in Jesus' time is to preserve flavor and to slow the decay, to make it last. Look around our world today. Our society is dying. Spiritually dying. It is getting the spirit. It it is decaying and and we know that the Earth is dying. The Bible tells us that the Earth is fading away but the world is decaying spiritually and it's decaying morally. And Jesus knew that. Jesus knew that and that's why I think Jesus says, you are the salt of the world. You need to help save the dying. [00:35:35] (48 seconds)  #SaltToPreserveTheWorld