Take out your Bibles and turn to our Old Testament reading this morning from Isaiah chapter 58. Isaiah chapter 58, the prophet foresees a time in which people of God through their servant, through their Savior, through their Messiah shall shine like light. which if you've peeked ahead to our sermon text, you'll see already the implications for us. This is on page 785 in your pew Bibles, if you're trying to find Isaiah chapter 58. We'll read together the first 12 verses. Hear the word of the Lord. Pray aloud, do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their transgression. to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. They ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? When you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. You shall cry and he will say, here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness, your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong. You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. Thus far our Old Testament reading and now we turn to our New Testament reading. Also our sermon text this morning from Sermon on the Mount, Gospel according to Matthew chapter five. Last several times I've been with y'all in the evening, we've looked at the Beatitudes, In the Lord's good providence, we come now this morning to the next text. So if you've missed the Beatitudes, you've missed something, but you should still be able to appreciate and be fed from the Lord's word. Of course, his word will always do if we receive it with faith and open ears and hearts. So this is Matthew chapter five, beginning in verse 13. We'll just read four verses and then respond with the words printed for you in your bulletin from Deuteronomy. But again, hear the word of the Lord from gospel according to Matthew chapter five and beginning in verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Man shall not live by bread alone. Amen, and may he bless the reading and the preaching of this, his word, here today. If I could, allow me to begin by asking you a question. Do you live in a chosen nation? Are you part of a chosen people? Are you? In the year 1630, John Winthrop preached one of the most famous sermons in American history to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Usually for that day, it was a short sermon. In fact, you can go online and read it in five or so, five, 10 minutes. But as John Winthrop was setting forth his vision for that colony, in his sermon he declared that his desire, his prayer for that colony and by implication for all the people who had immigrated to this continent, to be as a city set upon a hill. Words coming straight from Jesus' words in our sermon text this morning from Matthew chapter five. And if you know much about this sermon, it's that a vision for the sort of society that Winthrop was hoping to establish in Massachusetts. And that vision has persisted. It was another person of Massachusetts. It was John Kennedy in 1961 who returned to this and declared that was still his vision for this country. In his inaugural address in January of 1961, he orated that he saw this nation as a city set upon a hill. Of course, two decades later, or decades as Kennedy would have said it, Ronald Reagan had that same vision. It wasn't merely a vision of one political party or another, but Reagan had this vision of this country multiple times in his speeches. He returned to this picture of a city set upon a hill. So I ask you again, I return to that question, are you part of a chosen people? And the answer is yes. But the yes comes not from your passport. comes not from what country you are from or what country in which you dwell. You are part of a chosen people of God because you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is his disciples as the church who are called in this text to be a city set upon a hill so that the world may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven. Now I'm not trying to make a political statement about whether our country is or not. Alan Strange loves to quote Lincoln's apt words that we are an almost chosen nation and we can talk about politics another time, but today I want to talk about the disciples of our Savior. As I introduced the Sermon on the Mount several months ago in the evening, we saw how the Sermon on the Mount is a message given to Jesus' newly constituted people. To his disciples, as he called them in chapter four of Matthew, he went upon the mountain, much like Moses did after the Lord gathered his people to him at Mount Sinai and declared to them his new law, what it meant to be his people in this world. We as the gathered disciples of Christ are a city set on a hill. We are the salt of the world. We are the light of the world. And so our sermon point is very simple this morning. You'll see it printed for you in your bulletin if you want to look at the handout that we are called to be salt and light in the world as disciples of the one who is the salt and life and light of the world. We are called to be the salt and light in the world as disciples of the One who is the light and life of the world. We also see on that handout a very complicated outline this morning. It has all of two points. Salt. And if you're following along with me as we read this text, you may have noticed that it's not like Jesus is saying some of the time you're salt, some of the time you're light, some of the times you're salt and light, which should be gunpowder or something, I don't know. He uses salt and then sort of gives negative ramifications of not being salt and light, and then he talks about light and gives the positive results of being salt and light, and so we'll do the same. We'll consider what it means to be salt, and we'll consider what it means to be light, and we'll think some in the first half of what it means if we're not, and sometime in the second half what it means as we are called to be. But we begin by thinking about salt, and we have to put ourselves in our time machines, if you will, and go back to Jesus' day and think about what it would mean for these disciples on that place to hear themselves described as salt. We have to think about what good was salt, what purpose was salt given in that day and age. And there are multiple ways in which salt could be used. Maybe we'll list them in ascending order of importance. So we'll begin at the bottom, at maybe the most basic. Salt was used for flavoring. Now, that wasn't its most important or integral use, but we can identify with that. I think salt was used for flavoring. That's still the case today, of course. In fact, I was recently reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about some of the larger snack manufacturers seeking to cut back on the amount of salt in snacks, which, okay, that's a good goal. The problem is they couldn't do it. I mean, they could cut back a little, but when they really tried to reduce the salt, they realized their snacks had no flavor. Cheetos don't taste like Cheetos if there's not salt on them. nuts and chips and all sorts of snacks, but not even salty snacks. Like hostess cakes, if they took the salt out, wouldn't it taste right? Salt gives almost everything that is manufactured, at least today, its flavor. Salt was used then and now for flavoring. But more importantly, salt was also used for preservation. of food, preservation of food. Of course, no refrigerators, no Coleman coolers, no fridges, no unnatural chemicals that you could just put in there with a syringe and make your food last forever. No, instead they would cure the meats. They would sometimes literally coat them in salt and dry them to remove the excess moisture. where bacteria and other things would grow to retard the growth, especially of botulism. Now I recognize today we inject our faces with botulism and call it Botox, but really we should stay away from botulism as much as possible. And that was an important use of salt to retard the growth of such toxins. But third, even more important, salt was necessary for life. You look on an atlas and find all the different places that have salt in their names, and that's because animals went there and people named them for the salt licks, et cetera, because salt is a necessary nutrient for life. This was known in that day and age. If you read some of the intertestamental non-inspired works that people read in those days, they would say things such as this. Basic to all the necessities of human life is salt. Sodium serves a vital purpose in your very body. It helps your nerves to function properly. Your muscles will not behave themselves if they are without salt. It's one of the, of course, processes of water regulation in your body. You don't want too much water, you don't want not enough water. Water, salt, will help you and keep you alive. But there is an additional use of salt that God's people would have known from the Old Testament. Salt was used as a covenant marker. Sometimes you may be reading along in the Old Testament and you'll find a reference to salt, perhaps in Leviticus or in Numbers, and you wonder, what does salt have to do with making a covenant or with offering a sacrifice? Well, it's tied to that use of salt as a preservative. Salt was used in the making of covenants as a marker of their permanence. So you can read about this in Exodus 30. In Numbers 18, the Lord says, all the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you. Salt was so noted as a preservative, as a marker of covenant, a long-lastedness, that the Lord could simply call it a covenant of salt. Now today that almost sounds like a negative thing, that guy ripped me off, it was a salt covenant. But no, a covenant of salt was a sign that when the Lord made these promises to his people, that they would be his people, that he would be their God, that he would bless them and multiply them, that he would give them a king to rule over them forever in that patch of land that he was promising to their descendants. By marking it with salt, He was saying that this is a promise that will last. This is a promise that will last. We see the same thing in Leviticus and 2 Chronicles, a covenant that David is participating in marked with salt. So if Jesus comes to his disciples, Jesus comes to us and says, you are those things to the world. You are the salt of the earth. Well, what is he saying to us? Think about those uses that we just thought about. We thought about the use of salt as a flavoring. You may wonder what does it mean to provide flavor to the world? Does it mean I dress in a bright and colorful way? I play my music loud and I add a little spice to life? Well, no, that's of course silly. Perhaps salt is tied closely as flavoring in the world to our wisdom, to the way in which we live in the world. And I say this because Paul says in Colossians chapter four, maybe you know this verse, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. They wonder what does he mean, seasoned with salt? Well, he told us. Either side of that phrase clues us into what he means. Let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you always know how to answer each person. You don't have to watch television, listen to the radio very long to know how desperately the world needs people that speak graciously. People, that first instinct is not to bite off your conversation partner's head. To know how to answer each person when somebody needs strengthened. Someone perhaps needs challenged graciously. Someone perhaps needs encouraged. Let your speech be seasoned. In conversing with somebody like that, you will stand out from those around them who are judgmental, always comparing others to themselves, or who think anyone with an iota difference in their political views is anathema to that person. No, when they hear you talk to them, they will kind of get that taste of salt. Oh, that's good, that's different. And they'll want more. We'll see that in a minute. But also, not merely outside the church, but even in the church, that that salt can have that same effect, making the world take notice. And I get this directly from Jesus. Jesus turns to the topic of salt again, at least in Mark chapter nine. He says, salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will it make it salty again? Perhaps this is another version of the sermon he gave here. But then he says, have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. So Jesus says, not merely are you the salt of the earth, but you're supposed to have salt with each other. You're supposed to, again, he just explains what that means. You're supposed to be at peace with one another. A people living in true peace will be salty, will be noticeable, will be a picture of people whose allegiance must be different from a world that longs for peace but just can't find it. Jesus calls us here amongst ourselves to have salt, to live at peace with one another. Again, that's not a peace that is ungracious, nor is it a peace that ignores truth, ignores the need to challenge one another lovingly when we err. It's a peace that is given to us ultimately by our Savior, the Prince of Peace. As our living out that reality shows us to be the salt of the earth. Not merely does salt provide flavoring as we saw, we also saw it helps prevent corruption. Helps prevent corruption, helps preserve life. I hope you can apply this one yourselves. Think of what it means in this world for the church to exist. Think of how it is the Lord's common grace to his creation to place right in the middle of it, millions of people that call upon his name and seek to love others as they love themselves or as they have been loved by their heavenly father. Think of the grace in this world that the Lord gives to it through us, his servants, us, his handiwork, us, his salt of the earth. If you're having trouble thinking of how the world would be different without Christians, that's a conviction of us. But if you can imagine or recognize or see in others or even in yourselves way in which as Christians the world receives truth, receives mercy. Jesus says receives even a meal or a cold cup of water or the visit of a prisoner. Pulling forward to life, we have it won on ourselves. It has been given to us. The third, as we saw, was necessary to life. God saves his elect, but he does so through the church. Regularly, normally. Typically, the way in which the Lord saves those whom he has chosen is by preaching in a church. It's through the witness of a church and its missionaries. It's through the witness of a church and its outreach. It's through the witness of each and every one of these members as you go out and share the gospel with your friends and your family and your neighbors and your coworkers and your rec team teammates. The world is saved by Christ and his work, ultimately, usually through his church. This has been the testimony of the church for 2,000 years. And outside of it, there's usually no means of salvation. The world receives life. The Lord blesses it, yes, through his word, but where is the word proclaimed? Where is the word preached? Where is the word disseminated and heralded? But in the church, necessary to life. And lastly, we recall that salt was used as a marker of the permanence of God's promises to his people. Now Jesus in Matthew chapter five challenges his disciples to be that permanent reminder. Again, that the world may know there is a God who has covenanted with the sons of Abraham, with those who respond to him in faith. All that we say, all that we do, The disciples were very familiar with the sacrificial system. They would have recognized the use of salt. You may recall in the Old Testament when the Lord was giving his law, he said, what were the purposes of giving his law? So the nations would sit up, and they would look at Israel, and they would ask this question, what sort of nation has a God like this God that would bless them in this way, that would give them such law, that would be with them in such a way? So when we are that reminder that we have such a God who is covenanted with us, the world should make that same remark. What sort of people has a God like this who loves them unconditionally and yet calls them into a life of obedience and holiness and saltiness? Think about it this way. How does our life as salty Christians make the world thirsty? We know how salt makes us thirsty. How does our witness in the world make the world thirsty for Christ? Make the world thirsty for the one who went to that center at the well and said, I am the living water. Drink of me, you'll never be thirsty again. By our witness, by our daily lives, we make the world thirsty for Christ. What sort of people has a God like this? The answer is no other people, except those who have been loved with a love that is incorruptible, a love that stands on the covenant promises of our Heavenly Father, a love that reached down into human existence, took on flesh, went even to the point of humiliation and torture and death and burial for us, that our sins may be covered, our guilt may be wiped away, our shame may be expunged. And as he rose again to everlasting life, our hope be put firmly and only in that resurrected king. This world desperately wants a king. The more I follow politics, the more I read about wars and rumors of wars, I read of ways in which political coalitions shift and change. It's so clear the world wants a leader it can trust. The world wants somebody that can get behind and know that he has their best interests at heart. The world wants a king, but friends, kings don't live in White Houses. Kings don't live in Parliament buildings. Kings don't live in Hollywood mansions. The only true king is at the father's right hand. The world is thirsty for him, let us point it to him. For he is our king and will be the king of all. Either in faith now or bowing the knee in submission when he returns, but may it be in faith now. As I said, Jesus, in this first half, pointed out ways, the negative ramifications, if we're not salt and light. We'll look at those quickly before we turn to light. He says, if you lose your saltiness, how can it be restored? It can't be. How can salt lose its saltiness? Well, in one sense, it can't. Salt doesn't stop being salty. Saltless salt is kind of like dry water. And that's the whole point. If you are a disciple, you are a disciple. Someone who's not being these things in the world is no disciple at all. If you are God's children, if you're a disciple of Christ, you will be salty. Jesus says in Luke 14 that saltless salt is worse than manure. I mean, he gets pretty graphic in Luke 14. The verb translated lost at salt has literally become foolish. Salt that's reverted. Salt that's lost the wisdom of God. That's a warning to us. That's why it's thrown out and trampled underfoot. Salt that has lost its saltiness is salt that was evidently never salt. Likewise, someone who claims to be a disciple of Christ but is not living in these ways, shows by his confession that he's not salt at all. If you are his disciple, you are the salt of the earth. That's why Jesus says that. In this reality, that if you are salt, you will be salt, it actually helps us understand the second point as well, as Jesus turns his attention to what it means to be light. He says again, the light of the world. Many people actually, I think, misinterpret this part of the Sermon on the Mount. They think all Jesus is saying, don't hide your light under the bushel basket. But that's actually not quite what Jesus says, is it? I mean, read it again, verse 14. You are the light of the world. The city set on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket, they put it on a stand. And it will, it does, it gives light to all in the house. You are the light of the world. We don't have a choice in the matter. Some days I'm gonna hide my light under a bushel basket, some day I'm gonna set it on a stake. No, to be a light, to be a disciple means that you will be that city set on a hill. Dark light is as absurd as saltless salt. It's as absurd as trying to hide a city set on a hill. No curtain, no cloud would be big enough to hide a city on a hill. It's just as absurd as lighting a lamp with oil that was precious in that day and then immediately stuffing the lamp in a basket so no one can see it. Or you waste your oil. Or you set your house on fire. Not a good idea anywhere you look at it. That's why the Apostle Paul will say in Ephesians 5, again, you are light in the Lord. You are like the world. Walk, therefore, Paul says, as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern, Paul concludes, what is pleasing to the Lord. In other words, as light, we ought to please and thus glorify God, which is why Jesus says what he says in verse 16. Just as these things are obviously true about light in verses 14 and 15, verse 16, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Instead of focusing so much on let your light shine, which is what we are as light, we should not miss the reason, the so that, the purpose that we are called as disciples in the first place. Our reason for existence as those who have been called the children of God. What is it? Right there in the second half of that verse 16. So the world would see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. That's the reason we shine. That's the positive consequence of being salt and light. Are any of us allergic to the phrase good works? I think maybe. And we understand why. There can be a way of understanding so-called salvation that's based on good works, that I'm just good enough and I'll get into heaven if I'm better than my neighbors, whoever I compare myself to, I'll be fine with God. I'm generally a good person, I do good deeds. We sometimes perhaps overreact to that false teaching, but by having a bad taste in our mouth we hear Good works at all, but this is Jesus talking. We should probably pay attention. Good works are, well, good. We're afraid of them, perhaps, because we don't want to give the impression that we think we're saved by them, but we understand that that's an unbiblical doctrine that seems to be taught in some quarters of the visible church. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Good works are mandatory once we're saved. To be saved is to be someone who has been created for good works, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter two. You know that verse, right? Where Paul makes this clear distinction that we are not saved by works, but oh yes, we are saved for good works. Chapter two of Ephesians beginning in verse eight, by grace you have been saved through faith, This not your own doing is a gift of God, not a result of works. We know good works save no one, so that no one may boast. See, for we are his workmanship. Paul goes right on. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Created for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And then you could append Matthew 5.16 to that. And why were we created for good works? Why were we created for good works? So that we may walk in them, that people may give glory to our Father in heaven. You see, people who try to be saved by good works, the good works are all about themselves. They're all about, have I done enough? Have I cleaned myself up enough? Have I given enough tithes and offerings to undo all the wickedness of my business dealings with others? Have I earned enough brownie points for St. Peter at the pearly gates? Those good works are all about me. But, shall we say, regenerated good works, born-again good works, works as a result of being secure in God's good work in Christ for us, His life, death, and resurrection, are all about Him, because they're what empower them. They're what give them their motivating force. God is what gives us the directions in his word, the spirit to carry them out, the spiritual maturity and ever-increasing muscle tone to do good works that glorify him. You sit down and play a beautiful piece of music. Ultimately, that beautiful piece of music points back to the one who wrote it. People say, yes, yes, you played it well. Yes, you did the job that the page told you to do when you sat down and did exactly what the music told you to do, but ultimately it was Chopin or Beethoven. It was the creator of that work that receives the greater glory. So yes, we do what the page tells us to do, but we give glory to the one who wrote the page. Glory to our Father who is in heaven. So really there are only two kinds of lights. There are those surrounded by mirrors, seeking to glorify themselves. Or there are those where the mirror points outward, like those old lanterns with a brass or copper plate behind it where the light went out. So apply this to yourself. Think about the good works that you do. Why do you give? Is it so that your name will be in light? So that it will do good and give glory to the one who gave you all things to start with? Or even why do you obey the Lord and his word or his shepherds that he gives you in your life? So they'll like you more? So that God will pat you on the head and say, all right, I guess you're okay. Or should the world will see and give glory to your father who gave you such commandments that were given to be his salt and light? Why do you witness? So people will say, man, he's a really good arguer. Wow, that guy, he's got his logic all in a row. Skills and those things are good, but ultimately we witness so that the world would glorify the one whose truths we witness about. Why do you worship? Why do you gather here? So others will say, oh good, he came today, or oh good, look at that new car he drove up in, or oh, boy, that guy must be pious, he always looks really into it when he prays. Nothing wrong with new cars, nothing wrong with reeling into it when you worship. But ultimately, it's not about what others see in you, it's what they see through you. I see the God who has redeemed you in Christ, one whom you delight to honor and praise and sing as one who's been washed new in the blood of the Lamb. Sing your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. To know what kind of light you are, think about what is the source of your light. The world tells you that your light comes from within. That's the world's message, is it not? Our family was listening to a sermon this week in which a pastor was remarking on, he started keeping track, he and his wife would watch movies, he started keeping track at some key crux point of the film where the hero was going through a crisis. How many times did he say or someone come to him or her with this advice? You gotta follow your heart. You gotta listen to your heart. You gotta do whatever you think your own self tells you is true or right about yourself. He said, I stopped counting after 70 movies that advice was given. That's the world's message. Your light comes from within. Let your inner self shine. Yuck. I know what my inner self can be like. I don't want that to shine. But there is of another source of light. You know that festival in John chapter eight, where John gets up and announces to the people that he is the light of the world? John 8 chapter 12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. He says in the next chapter, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. So when Jesus tells us now in Matthew five that you are light of the world, we recognize it's a reflected light. It's Christ who is the light of the world. We are merely His mirrors reflecting it perhaps. We're His prisms focusing it where it needs to go in this world. For the world ought to look at us and see Christ. Ought to see our Savior and His love for the world and His willingness to sacrifice all things for His people. It is righteousness, it is holiness, and his understanding that his kingdom was not of this world, that he was a king above, greater than, over this world. So just as the salt leaves the world thirsty for Christ, so the light ought to point to Christ. No wonder the Father is glorified by that. That was Jesus' goal all along. What did he say? I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. If his will was to glorify his father who is in heaven, how much more so ought we, the reflectors of that light, glorify that same father in heaven. He's done it all. He's called us. He's saved us. He's illuminated us by his word and spirit. So that makes us the city on the hill. That makes us the beacon for all around to see, to come, to see Christ, to see him in all his beauty, see him in the antithetical beauty of suffering unto death, to see him in his glorious beauty of resurrected and ascended. to see his beauty in your daily life, that all you do and say would bring glory to your Father who is in heaven. Let us pray. The great God, our heavenly Father, we praise and thank you that you have given this great benefit that we may be called sons of God. that we may be called your children, we may be called your heirs, those who have been given all that you have given Christ. Lord, may we be obedient to this word. May it pierce all the way to our hearts, that we would truly be the salt and light, that we would not be trampled out, thrown out and trampled, but instead the world would be drawn to the beauty that is not us, but that is Christ reflected in us. through our beautiful words, beautiful acts, that all the world may see our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.