Be The Salt — Matthew 5

0:00 Pictures up there. Shelly and I went this summer. There's only one photo that really I'm going to try and use as a picture for the message. Can you go to the next one, Samuel? The next one.

0:17 Okay. Does anyone know what this is? Yes, Philip. Yeah, it's the Grand Canyon. So, felt the Lord leading me to show my wife America and introduce her to America.

0:34 I never met at the Grand Canyon, but you really, the pictures don't do it justice. I would say that if you ever have the chance, don't think twice. Just go and see the Grand Canyon. We did three different hikes into the Grand Canyon. And we learned on the second one, we learned a lot about how the canyon was formed.

0:57 And one of the lessons that we took away from that was how violent the flood was. Because the different fossil layers and you can see that all over the canyon. If you want to go back to the very first one Samuel, you can see in the wall there, that's the canyon wall. If you see up there, there's the edge and then you see the pine trees there. As you go down there's different layers of rock and those are called the sedimentary layers of rock because they're, laid down by water.

1:36 And we learned how the flood is not a record of life, but it's actually a record of death. Okay? Another thing we learned was the second slide. Go to the second slide Samuel. So if you can kind of see here, in this particular layer of rock it wasn't flat, like most of the rest of them were.

2:03 It was at a little bit of an angle some of the layers of the rock were. It was a type of sandstone And if you look here, you can kind of see what remnant remnants of some footprints are. And see the the guy that we took a tour with called Canyon Ministries. I highly recommend it. Was showing us how you can kind of see how the footprints go up but they're not straight and they're kind of off to the side.

2:33 They're not quite in a straight line. And he's making the argument about how this was maybe some sort of four legged creature that was trying to escape water, the flood, and he was trying to walk up like some sort of sand dune And, because of the current of the water, he couldn't get up there. And so that's why it's not quite in a strange, straight line. So among all of those things, we we learn about how the different layers in the Grand Canyon and all the the things about the Grand Canyon point to the flood and how it got there and everything and it's it's very interesting. It's fascinating to me and it's all biblical base what we learn And it just is another thing to confirm your faith in that what the Bible said actually happened.

3:26 We have scientific evidence and we can we can even do experiments down to the degree of which this angle of this rock was. It agrees with the fact that if a sand dune is formed, I was talking earlier about that creature crawling up. When sand dunes form underwater, they follow that degree of that particular rock layer. So it agrees with the fact that the dunes were most likely laid down by water all over the earth. Okay, go to the third one, Samuel.

4:05 We're just gonna, no, the first one, excuse me. The one with the trail there. So, this is called the Saoth Kaibab Trail. This is actually where we took our tour. If you can't see that many DSLs, but right here that's a person.

4:20 Just to give you some context. There's another one right in the middle there of the trail. Yep. So it gets larger and larger as you go in. Alright.

4:51 That He came to this earth, lived a perfect life when we couldn't. And he rose again on the third day to declare that he had power over death. Help us now as we dive into your word and help it to read our hearts and read our minds and help us to change, to walk in a better way before you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

5:18 Okay. I'd like to start off with a little review. Last time I was up here was April 17 and we went over the Sermon on the Mount. So this morning we started on that mountain and we came back down to some other things but we're going back up it today. Okay?

5:39 And as a review, the beatitudes is what we studied last time. So, Matthew five and one through 12 primarily holds the beatitudes. There are in other places but there's more detail right here. So, there's seven beatitudes and then the eighth one is sort of a response to what happens in this life. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are the meek.

6:14 Those kind of all go together and they're kind of linked and we talked about how if we're we don't admit our spiritual poverty, the fact that for one, we can't even get to heaven on on our own. We don't have what it takes and another, we don't have what it takes to live the Christian life without Christ. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. That's the key to be able to pursue all of the rest of the beatitudes. All of these character attributes that the lord is expecting and and exhorting his disciples to follow.

6:57 You have the transition one which is hungering and thirsting for righteousness that when we pursue these beatitudes, the lord can actually change our desires and we can exhibit righteousness and and yearn and want to be want to practice righteousness, want to do the right thing. And the last three were exhibits of or fruits of an outpourings of those earlier beatitudes. The fact that we would show mercy to other people, that we would be purely devoted to god in the way that we live and that we would be peacemakers. So just a little bit of review. Now also I wanna give some more context because this passage is in the book of Matthew.

7:53 And for Matthew, what Matthew tries to do is he tries to depict Jesus as the king, as the Messiah. And he's the king and the Messiah first to the Jewish people. And so if you think about Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, it is the letter. It's the Gospel to the Jewish people. And so to really understand the Gospel of Matthew, we have to study the Old Testament because all of the stories, all of the laws, everything about the...

8:33 How the Lord was Jewish and how he was the Messiah is hidden in the Old Testament and even the prophecies. So the first four chapters of Matthew, they're an introduction and again, the Sermon on the Mount is coming off of the temptation of Jesus. Now, I want to ask this question. What other place in the Bible in the Old Testament do we find somebody going up on a mountain and receiving very important teaching? I would say critical to life.

9:14 And anyone can chime in. Go ahead, Andy. Yeah. Mount Sinai. Yeah.

9:22 And so that's that's really fascinating to me that the Lord would take his disciples up on a mountain just like the Lord called Moses up on the mountain and gave him the law. Now, there's some interesting things that are different. Right? Instead of Jesus getting the law, he's giving these attributes, these beatitudes, these teaching himself. So there's a little bit of a twist there.

9:52 And then we have who is up there on the mountain with him? The disciples, the the apostles, which we base all of our teaching on. And if you remember too last time we mentioned how the Lord had called the just called his disciples. He had just called his apostles and he started off. He took them up on the mountain and he gave them this teaching as a fundamental teaching of Christianity.

10:25 And so this is our example. This is what we look at for how to live the Christian life. Now, to remember the beatitudes, try and think of it this way. That's why I left this up here. There's seven beatitudes and then blessed are those who are persecuted.

10:46 If you look and count, there's seven switchbacks on this trail. Now it's not a mountain. So the analogy a little bit falls... It it falls apart. But the analogy would be that try and remember the beatitudes as a set of switchbacks because right after the Lord gives the beatitudes, he says, you are the light of the world, a city that set on a hill.

12:04 Matthew five and verse 13 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, a 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 lampstand 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. We at Westlake are a city set on a hill.

12:43 We're the salt of the earth in Westlake. Now salt in ancient times was used primarily for two things practically. It was used to flavor food. So if you made some sort of stew, what they would do is take a more crude form of salt and they would put it in some sort of bag and that would sit inside of the stew and it would flavor the stew. Now because it was crude, over time it low...

13:12 It lost its flavor. And so that is the teaching here. We don't want to lose our flavor and where do we get that flavor? We get it from following the beatitudes. You know, I I find myself sometimes looking at the beatitudes and and sometimes I find and I look and I'm like, wow lord, I was not meek.

13:36 How do I be meek? Start off again. Be poor in spirit and then mourn for your own sin. Acknowledge that you can't do it on your own. That's how we get to be meek and that's how we're the flavor of Christ in the world.

13:54 Another thing that salt was used for was preservation. There was no refrigeration back then. I I'm not sure when it happened. We we did end up getting refrigeration. We had like blocks of ice when you live near where you had snow and you would carve off blocks of ice but this is way pre pre even ice when they cut ice off of things and so they had to use salt to preserve things and isn't without the what isn't what isn't that what the Lord does through his word, through this teaching in our lives?

14:28 He preserves our lives in the world. Here's a third thing for salt. Some of the Roman soldiers were often paid in salt. So if you've ever heard of the term worth your salt, that's actually where it comes from. If a soldier was worth their salt, meaning they were paid for what they did.

14:54 And so we are worth our salt when we're pursuing and exhibiting the beatitudes. And and Christ desires that we would be the salt of the earth and we would be a city set on a hill in Westlake. Okay. The next section here talks about how Christ came to fulfill the law. We talked earlier about how it's there's this comparison of Jesus going up onto the mountain.

16:04 The law and the sacrifices in the law was a shadow of the good things to come. So, I like to let's read verses 17 through 20 and then we'll we'll dig into how Christ came to fulfill the law. Verse 17, it says, do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the earth till all is fulfilled.

16:39 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. So there we have right from verse 20. You look at verse 20, it says, unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, meaning, perfection, we can't get into heaven.

17:19 So, if we look at the law, we cannot keep the law. Galatians says that the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ. So, the law is there to show us our sin. Christ came to fulfill the law for us. I'd like to look at one section of the law of ceremonial law and talk about how Christ fulfilled that law.

17:45 So, let's go back to Leviticus. We're going to go to Leviticus chapter 16. And in Leviticus chapter 16, it talks about atonement. And Christ came to be the atonement for us. He came to buy us back.

18:05 Now, I think it's verse. So, in in this section, it talks about the two goats to offer atonement and in verse seven, it says, he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord and to make atonement upon it and let it go as a scapegoat into the wilderness.

18:46 So, you have these two goats. They cast lots which is just a fancy way of saying, we're going to let god choose which goat is going to be for which. Now, the scapegoat doesn't get killed. It's the other goat that's offered for the lord that gets killed. What is the scapegoat represent?

19:09 Well, what they did with the scapegoat is it says, they let it go into the wilderness and so, they took the the goat and it was a picture of the goat having our sin laid on the goat and it says that they let it out into the wilderness showing that when the lord pays for our sin, he separates our sin far as far from the east is from the West like in Psalms. So, there is a picture of how Christ in the Old Testament, we see just that shadow of what Christ was gonna do in fulfilling the law. He was going to take our sin and put it far away from us and take the penalty. The other goat was the one that was to be offered. Now, when they selected these goats before they cast lots for them, it was supposed to be a goat that was absolutely perfect.

20:10 No blemishes on it. Didn't have any any sort of disease. All the organs were working properly. And so it was blameless. The same word, I was listening to a podcast and it was saying how the same word that is used for blameless or unblemished for the goat is used as blameless for a person.

20:37 And what they would do is they would take that to the altar and they would cut its throat and the blood would come out and if you remember in other time, in in other sections of the Bible, it says that the the life of the the life is in the blood and so, they would actually collect that blood and use that blood and think about that relationship to what we practice in the lord's supper. They collected the blood and they actually took that blood and because of our sin, we could not... The Israelites in the Old Testament could not come to a holy God. The blood actually went into the tabernacle and they... What they would what they would do is they would sprinkle it on different things as a cleansing agent.

21:29 And it would be closer to God than we ever could be. And that is exactly what the blood of Christ does. The Lord Jesus was our mediator and he shed his blood on our behalf. He was the blameless one. He was absolutely sinless and went to the cross for us.

21:50 And then they took the body of that goat and later offered it as a burnt offering. His body was given and broken for us. So that's how there's just one example of how the Lord fulfilled the ceremonial law of the Old Testament for us. And it's just so rich to be able to look at the Old Testament. I know personally looking at the Old Testament, looking at Leviticus, Exodus, and Numbers, it can be really hard to read those chapters.

22:27 But there's so much meaning for our salvation and what Christ did for us and the fact that we don't have to keep the law. And I encourage you to read the Old Testament and look at it and look for what Jesus did for us. And so, praise the lord this morning that we don't have to keep the law. These teachings in Matthew are things that the lord works in our heart to do to be a light for him in the world and we're doing it out of love for him. Okay.

23:52 In other sections of the Bible, it says that when they saw the works that Jesus did, when they saw him heal, when they saw him give his teaching, they acknowledged and who god was and they praised him in heaven and so, I think the way in which the lord is glorified in heaven through unbelievers is by them recognizing that god actually exists. That that was god himself in Jesus and they saw an act of god and said, wow, where else can this come from but through god. Another way I think that this could be taken is it says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. So, the idea would be, okay, just like in the Old Testament, what I just was saying is they would see Jesus's works and they glorified and said, he's different and it must be from god. When we pursue the beatitudes and do the good works of the beatitudes, the goal would be that people looking at us would say the exact same thing and want to glorify the lord in heaven But I think that it even goes further than that.

25:16 I think that when when we can exhibit our works for the glory of the lord and other people, unbelievers, see them, they see it, they want to know more, they hear the gospel, they convert, they put their faith in the lord Jesus, and then, they continue in doing the exact same things that Christ calls all of his disciples to do, to exhibit the the beatitudes, to exhibit the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and that's how the lord is glorified. He said in John 15, he said, by this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and that your fruit would remain. And so that's just another way to look at that how the lord can be glorified when people come to Christ and they through their good works as an outpouring of what Christ did in their lives, they can then glorify the lord in heaven. I'm running out of time here. So I'm gonna finish with the very first section right after this.

26:54 Verse 22, it says, but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raqqa, shall be in danger of the council, but whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge.

27:33 The judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will be by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny penny. So, from this section, Christ's new focus for us is that we would be at peace with all men. That's the beatitude. Christ calls us to be a peacemaker.

28:01 So, he says, before you even bring your gift to the altar, if you feel in your heart or know of something that maybe you wronged or someone wronged you. He says, go make it right before you offer your gift at the altar in worship. Jesus takes this this law in the Old Testament of not murdering and uses it and says, look, it's not just about the outward action. It's about your heart. He wants it to come from the heart because anger he says, it's the same as murdering.

28:45 It's the same thing in the eyes of the lord. One final question. Where in the Old Testament does it have a story about murder and about people offering things to the Lord? Anyone? Cain and Abel.

29:16 And that's absolutely fascinating to me, right? Genesis four is the very beginning. Jesus Christ is taking his disciples to the very beginning at the very beginning of him calling his disciples. He's saying, he's taking and likening anger to murder. Where was the first murder?

29:40 All the way back in Genesis. What did it have to do with? It had to do with Cain and Abel taking their offerings to the Lord. And you just... Wow.

29:50 The... It's just so impressive that the Old Testament is so connected with the New Testament. And so we cannot understand this without going back and looking at Genesis four and looking at what happened with Cain. Such a fundamental teaching. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of god.

30:14 So, just few applications from from the anger passage. Don't get angry easily. And be reconciled to your brother. I think that when we're not right with someone here on Earth, when we have a relationship that needs to be reconciled, It's because we are not quite right in our relationship with the lord. Just one final story.

31:18 When you're at odds with someone, it's so easy to not like that person. Right? But... And and that's what the Lord is saying. Anger is like murder.

31:29 But what I analyzed was the fact that I was not right with the Lord. And because I was not right with the Lord in my fellowship with him and doing the things that he called me to do about reading his word daily, learning more about him, it affected my relationships with other people. And it actually wasn't just me not getting along with my dad. It was other people as well. And so once I recognize that, I could I could go to my dad and say, the reason this is happening is because I'm not right with the Lord.

32:08 And isn't that what the Lord would want us to do? He wants us to be a light in the world and he wants us to be the salt of the earth here in Westlake. Pray that this would be encouraging. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we're so grateful this morning for your son, the Lord Jesus.

32:31 We thank you that he came. We thank you that he was perfect. Lord, we thank you for the... This fundamental teaching that we learn that we can pursue the beatitudes. And when we pursue the beatitudes, these virtues that we can be poor in spirit.

32:49 Lord, we know we cannot have a right relationship with you. That's why you had to send your son, the Lord Jesus, Lord. We know that we're sinful. Help us to be sorry about our sin. And when we can pursue these, we can be your light in the world.

33:04 We can reflect you. Help us to do that in our everyday lives. Help us to have that affect every aspect of our life, Lord. Our relationships, our relationships with our friends and our brothers and sisters in Christ, our relationships and our families, our marriages, Lord, from father to son, and from son to father, Lord. Help it to permeate each and every part of our life so that when people see the way we act for your glory that we would not take the credit that they could give that to the lord and that they would point it, be pointed to the lord.

33:43 We pray lord that through our actions, through the things that we do every day that people might come to Christ and be able to say that that person is different and would wanna know more. Lord, I pray that we would have opportunities this week that people would come to each one of us and say, why are you different? And that you would give us the courage to answer with the hope that is within us, with meekness and fear, Lord. Help us now this week and every day of our lives. In Jesus' name we pray.

34:18 Amen.