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| Rev. Brian Wilkie |
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, November 12th, 2017:
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Broadcast Notes:
Good News in the Morning is sponsored by Good News Christian
Ministries and has been broadcast weekly since 1999. Do visit our web site
gncm.ca. Here you will find podcasts of the programs, and introductions to the
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financially. And now, here is today’s presentation.
Good Morning! I'm your host
today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian Church in Rockland. As we begin today, my prayer is that The Good
News of the Lord Jesus Christ would encourage and strengthen you today! I'd
like to thank Tony Copple for his sponsorship of today's program, and on behalf
of the Board of Good News Ministry's wish tony and his wife Laurie Ann all of
God's Blessings as they embark on a new chapter in their lives, following the
call of God to service in South Africa with through Iris Ministries. Tony has
been a crucial part of GNCM for many years, serving on the board, as our chair,
and organising sponsorships and much of our web presence. Thank you Tony!
Salt of the
Earth
Today I want to speak to you about the theme of being the salt of the
earth. It’s a familiar expression in the English language and we say it about
people that are really good solid people, and this expression, salt of the
earth, comes from the fifth chapter of Matthew reading from verses 13 to 16
where Jesus is teaching, in the sermon on the mount.
(Mt 5:13–16).
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no
longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
“You are the light of the world.
A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it
under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone
in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may
see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Jesus gives us some encouraging and challenging words in the sermon on
the mount and this passage coming right from the beginning of the sermon on the
mount, just after the beatitudes places its importance before us as a summary
in a way of what kind of people we ought to be.
In this passage being salt is a good thing, like being light in a room
giving light to everyone in the house, and so perhaps we need to like at what
salt is not, in this context. Because the image of salt has many different
meanings in different situations.
Well, we’ll get a chance to take
a look at what this is and what Jesus is saying to us in a few moments, but I’d
like to focus for a moment on the idea of being light of the world in which a
song is sung by Marantha! Music, “Shine Jesus Shine”, focuses on Jesus as the
soul force of the light as we are light of the world. Would you listen to it
with me?
I’ve always enjoyed that song, Shine Jesus Shine, it’s really a prayer
that we would see God's glory break out into the world, But God seems to be
saying in this passage, that we are one of the sources of his glory breaking
out into the world.
That we will be the light of the world, and it seems conditional on the
idea of obedience to the way of Jesus, because otherwise we’re light that’s put
under a bowl.
He starts by saying we’re salt of the earth and that’s what I want to
focus on. The idea of salt and what does that mean to us and how can we
understand its purpose in directing our lives, because salt, as I said in the
introduction, can have negative ideas.
If we say someone is salty, we might not mean it’s such a good thing. In
fact, I think the expression is derived from the character of sailors in days
gone by when sailors could be counted on for some pretty coarse language and
pretty raucous behavior in the port towns. That was a characterization in the
past and the idea of being salty in our language, that is using coarse language,
is something that we’re specifically instructed not to be. We’re not to be
coarse and offensive, and of course, the idea of course language can be kind of
a sliding scale. What’s impolite in one context, might be perfectly normal in
another place, because the language changes from place to place. But God calls
us not to be coarse with the people that we’re with, not to be rude or impolite
in the way that we converse with other people.
The idea of being salty in others ways can be a negative image, even
within scripture you can see where the writers of the New Testament through
these people God instructs the Christian church, not to be salty in another
way. For instance, both Paul and James talk about people who criticize and
curse other people with their words, and then go on to praise God, and they
say, ”can fresh water and salt water flow from the same fountain, from the same
spring?” And they say.. of course not. This should not be, that our mouths
should be used for only praise, and that praise would be considered as fresh
water, giving life to the world around it, not salt water.
And so we’re not to be salty in being negative, and being slanderous,
gossipy, in having malicious talk come out of our mouths in cursing, but
instead, we ought to be filled with blessing and speaking the things that edify
other people. In both these contexts, salt has something to do with what comes
out of our mouth, our spoken words. And that’s an important part of the
instructions we are given in scripture is not to be poisonous with our words.
For that’s another meaning of the word salt. That’s not intended when Jesus
says you’re to be salt of the earth.
In the old testament one of the
hardships that the people of Israel faced when they were invaded by foreign
armies, is that armies had a tendency to try and ruin the land so that the
country that they invaded wouldn’t be able to recover from their invasion well.
And they would salt the earth. They would put salt onto the fields to a degree
that would prevent them from flourishing and producing fruitful harvests. And
that’s clearly not the meaning of the scripture today when God calls us to be
salt in the earth.
In fact, he’s obviously speaking about a good thing. So what is it that Jesus is talking about?
He’s talking about salt in some of its other functions.
The metaphor has this meaning, that salt is used in two major beneficial
ways. Salt is used as a preservative. The very thing that can make it a poison
in too great a concentration, is what’s able to keep some things good over the
long term and prevent bacteria from decaying and corrupting things. Salt is a
preservative is one of the things that God is calling his church to be. To be
able to preserve goodness and to keep things fresh and useful over the long term.
By holding onto the values of the gospel. By preventing the corruption and
decay that is so common in the world today. Preventing that from entering into
the fellowship of believers and trying to be salt in the world and prevent the
world from sliding down dangerous slopes into decay and destruction. That’s an
important function of the people of God, the disciples of Jesus Christ. That
God calls us to work as a preservative in the world.
Salt also adds flavour. I think that’s the major thing we think about
salt. Many people have a habit, even before tasting their food, of sprinkling a
little more salt on it because it always taste just a little bit better that
way. We can use too much salt for our health. But it’s also possible to use too
much salt for flavour. But many of us have gotten so accustomed to salt, that
we do end up using too much. Salt adds flavour, and brings out the flavour in
the food that we’re eating, and Christians, disciples of Christ, people who are
following Jesus were intended to bring out a particular flavour in the food
that is the world, in the goodness of the world.
There are different spices. Some bring sharpness, some bring out a
spiciness, some cause bitterness, others cause sourness. What does salt do? We
would probably describe it as bringing out the good flavours that all ready
exist in the food, emphasizing the good, and bringing that to the attention of
the palette. We can be salt of the earth in that way. We can bring out the good
and emphasize what God has blessed the world with, as we are salt of the earth.
The main message here, is indeed, that we can make a difference in the
world. And that’s why I’ve chosen for our next song today, a song by Jaci
Velasquez, with precisely that title. We Can Make a Difference. Jaci sings from
her album Heavenly Place. Let’s listen to it now.
Yes we can make a difference. And the idea of bringing out the goodness
of the world is an important part of being salt in the earth. But what exactly
is the characteristic in us, as followers of Jesus, that can help us be salt in
the earth?
Well Jesus is giving us a clue because he’s imbedded this in the middle
of the sermon on the mount. Or the beginning of the sermon on the mount, and
he’s just spoken on the beatitudes. It would be wonderful to spend a great deal
of time just analyzing the beatitudes for what characteristics Jesus wants to
see in his people.
He said blessed are the meek. Blessed are those that who mourn, who are
able to look at their problems and face them with compassion. Blessed are the
poor in spirit, and even to his disciples in one version of the Beatitudes, it
says blessed are you who are poor. People who have given up and made sacrifices
in order to be God's blessing in the world. Blessed are you if you endure
persecution and keep faithful to God. Blessed are the people who have let their
lives and their character be shaped by God. The Beatitudes are often neglected
as part of Jesus’ teaching because they go against our innate sense of wanting
to be important; Wanting to be powerful; Wanting to have our own way.
Instead, Jesus calls his people to submit to God's way, and to be strong
in weakness and to let the strength of God shine through. That’s part of being
salt in the earth and everything that follows in terms of Jesus teaching about
how to treat our neighbors with love: How to honour God in our prayers, and how
to give generously and to serve faithfully and joyfully in the world around
us. This is all about what it looks like
to be salt.
But God emphasizes right in this passage that there is a danger, that
salt could lose it saltiness! What happens if salt loses its saltiness?
Now with salt, itself, it’s true... If you take the salt out of salt,
then there's nothing left. You can take the glitter out of diamonds and you’ll
still have a strong, hard material that’s useful for all kinds of industrial
purposes. You can take the glitter out
of diamonds and they’re still diamonds. But if you take the salt out of salt,
you’ve got nothing left. Can salt be restored? If it’s been diluted in water
the chemical salt can be re-concentrated by evaporation or reverse osmosis, or
electrolysis.
But how can we be restored if we’ve lost the characteristics that mark
us as Christ's?
Well the scripture is full of stories of restoration and instructions on
being restored. About being devoted to prayer. About accepting the forgiveness
of Christ and believing, trusting God that there is a new start available.
There is the grace of God that gives us a new heart and a new life. For those who have never embarked on this new
life, it’s coming to accept Jesus as Lord and letting him renew you, because no
other power on earth can renew you, and give you this new life. For those of us
who are Christians, and sometimes discouraged in our capacity to love, we just
need to continue to press on, to trust God, to be devoted to him in prayer, and
to continue to pursue him. One thing about salt, is that it works better in
concentration.
Not a single grain of salt do we put on our food, but we put many grains
of salt. Salt has its best effect when it’s gathered together and encouraging
one another. And so in these ways we can be restored as salt of the earth.
But we need to take some time now to pray to God and be devoted to
prayer. So would you bow with me?
“Almighty God, we give you thanks and praise that we can make a
difference in the world if we allow your Holy Spirit, and your renewing power,
to work in us. And so we ask you to renew us. Make us devoted followers of
Christ. Make us salt in the world, light to the world, so that we may glorify
you, our Father in Heaven. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
As we close today you will hear the song, My Lighthouse, by the Rend
Collective Experiment.
And I do hope you’ll take this beautiful message home, that Jesus is,
and can be eternally your lighthouse.
Rev. Brian Wilkie
St.
Andrew's Christian Community, Rockland, Ontario
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To listen to the
above broadcast, click on the following link:
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