Transcript

Hey, welcome to Arbor Church, guys. What a gorgeous week we’ve had this week in Woodinville. Hasn’t it been amazing? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe the colors on the trees and then set against the beautiful stormy—I don’t know, the lighting in the sky is so gorgeous. It just seems like if you can’t do fall in Stars Hollow, Woodinville, Washington is the next best place to do it.

If we haven’t met yet, I want to introduce myself. I’m Alison. I am on the teaching team here. Yes, got a little fan club here. Thank you. I paid them! I’m on the teaching team here, but as you can tell, my side hustle is being an influencer for Woodinville. Just such a big fan, such a big fan. And so, if you are online watching and you want to have some of the in-person goodness, we welcome you here whenever you get a chance.

The Call to Influence

Hey, we are in a series called “The Mount,” which is the Sermon on the Mount. And I don’t know about you, but for me, when I knew that we were going to be doing this series, I felt a sense of relief. I almost felt like I was going to be grabbing my picnic blanket and running off to a mountainside to sit in front of Jesus and to say, “Remind me of the stuff that’s important to you. Will you speak to me about the things that matter? How do you want me to do my life?” Just the thought of being at a mountainside in the grass at his feet, listening to his words… for me, that felt like it was life-giving.

So I want you to do that in, you know, your imagination. Imagine those crowds who were out there at his feet on the grass. In essence, they’re saying to him, “Influence me. Influence me.” You are going to hear that word “influence” more than once this morning, because the passage we’re studying in Matthew 5 has a lot to do with influence.

As folks have done for centuries, we lean in to listen to people who are wise and good. And in Matthew 5, we see that crowd surrounding the wise, good teacher, Jesus. And some of the people in that crowd are beginning to understand that this is like the Messiah—this is the Son of God. But there are lots in the crowd who are just thinking, “Wow, he’s kind of radically counter-cultural. The words he says are substantive and life-giving.” And here, in this Sermon on the Mount, he is teaching us how to be citizens of God’s kingdom, which is in essence, how do we carry the presence of God here on earth, and therefore become influencers of his kingdom?

Listeners through the ages have defined the Sermon on the Mount as the capstone of Christ’s teaching. In fact, scholars believe it’s a composite. He didn’t just start from the very first verse and run through two chapters or three chapters’ worth; it’s more of a composite of all of his teaching. And so, therefore, you see key components such as enemy love, the Golden Rule, and how to trust our good and faithful God.

As Jeff Pierce and Dallas Willard have said, we lean in and listen to Jesus also because he’s the smartest man in the world. Check out this quote: “Jesus is not just nice. He is brilliant. He’s the smartest man who’s ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of human history while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it. He always has the best information on everything, and certainly on the things that matter most in this human life. He’s not just nice, he’s brilliant. And he’s not just brilliant, but he’s God, and he loves us.”

Recap of the Beatitudes

And so here is what he says this morning. We’re in Matthew 5. Actually, I’m going to scroll back just a little bit, and we’re going to do a little recap of last week because last week was our first week in the Sermon on the Mount.

So in verse one, it says: “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and began to teach them: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn; those who are meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers; blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.’”

In these 11 verses, Jesus sets the table for the sermon. These are Beatitudes that I just listed—they’re attributes that paint a picture of a citizen who belongs to a different kingdom, God’s kingdom. And as you recall, each of those attributes is lined up against a promise—a promise such as, “Blessed are the merciful, because they will receive mercy.”

But for the sake of today, I stripped out the promise column and I just left the attributes: pure, peacemakers, mournful, meek, craving right relationship with God. These are the people who find blessing from him.

What an upside-down way to build a kingdom, isn’t it? With these kinds of attributes, I think the people on the grass listening to Jesus must have been thinking, “Toto, we’re not in Rome anymore!” What kind of king? What kind of leader champions peacemaking over power, or humility over hubris? This does not sound like the team that’s going to win the championship this year. It doesn’t sound like influencers we see on social media. However, it does sound like Jesus himself: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

That is what Scott Heatherington pulled out for us last week as he closed, and then I loved how he said this. He reminded us that the world that insults the church is the very world we’re called to serve. It’s not good. I quoted Heatherington on that one.

So this has everything to do with influence—the influence of citizens of a different kingdom—and we’re going to talk about that today. The Beatitudes listed those kinds of citizenship qualities, like who is a citizen and what are they made of. But picking up in verse 11, then we’re going to talk about what is it that they do. So, not who they are, but what do they do? And as the church, we’re going to ask that question:

Arbor, are we that? Are we the influencers, individually and as a church corporately, according to Jesus?

We are. We are influencers. He says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It’s no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Salt of the Earth

So, two descriptors of these citizens, these Christ-followers. We may or may not resonate with much of them, but it’s salt and it’s light. And I have a little statue of you under here! Salt and light. You guys know what this is? This is a salt lamp. How cool is that, huh? Salt lamp. All right.

That was it as you—Jesus. Jesus lists salt first as one of the descriptors of us. And on some level we click with that because we love salt, right? We’re like, “I just told John this week, like, five guys—French fries are so good!” So they’re just like the best, and I think—I know I’m foolish when I say—I think it’s because of the salt, because everybody’s using salt on the French fries. So there’s so much more than that, but I love how salt brings out the flavor of what I’m eating.

But more than that, the first-century Judeans who are listening on the mountainside would understand that salt had powerful properties that went far beyond flavor. Salt preserves, and salt protects.

Salt preserves. It’s a preservative, the thing that fish and meat were packed in back then. This is a world before refrigeration. Remember, you didn’t have a freezer full of hamburger patties ready to go for your next barbecue. Salt was needed to protect your food from decay. It was a barrier against bacteria, microbes, and maggots. Far beyond simple food and flavor enhancement, salt was a critical mainstay for public health in the ancient world. In fact, over 2,000 years ago, a historian/scientist guy named Pliny the Elder—and he was in Rome—stated, and he stated unequivocally, “Without salt, by Hercules, one cannot have a civilized life.” Pliny the Elder! By Hercules! We couldn’t.

2,000 years ago, man, it’s fun. Okay, so from postpartum care, postpartum care, wound care, respiratory breathing treatments, treating dandruff and eczema, creating cleaning solutions, and stimulating appetite—not just for humans, but for cattle. The role of salt in the ancient world provided them with hygiene, sanitation, purity, and safety.

Natural salt includes minerals. I thought this was really interesting: it includes minerals such as calcium, potassium, and magnesium—nutrients that modern-day scientists can identify and sell. But I think about how, before God created the microscope, people were going over to the Dead Sea, where it’s so full of salt, and they were sticking their feet in there for the day, and later that night, they’re like, “Dude, what a night’s sleep!” Right? They don’t know magnesium is in there, and it’s like an Epsom salt bath. It’s just amazing. Something about that salt. They were putting it together, though.

So for the ancient Israelites who lived near the Dead Sea, natural sea salt was accessible, but it was also a valuable commodity in trade. In fact, the root of the word “salary” is salt. And have you heard that phrase, “He’s worth his salt”? That means that his work ethic and competence is commensurate with his paycheck. He is worth his salt. So you have great value when you are called salt.

These mountainside visitors would not just casually be listening like, “Yeah, I’m salt.” They would be sitting up straight, kind of glowing, stoked, high-fiving their people like, “I’m salt! I’m salt, man!” My gosh, thank you. I’m salt. Because to be salt is to be one of the “good guys” in this world. It’s to be a citizen of Christ’s kingdom. That means you’re part of a team that sets up a defense against stuff that kills, steals, and destroys human or cattle flourishing.

Being salt of the earth means that our presence and influence draws out impurities and it protects what is good, true, and beautiful in creation. So citizens of the kingdom are agents of what is good, true, and beautiful. Our presence should have that healing, beneficial effect—not just on ourselves, not just our families, but everyone in our sphere of influence.

The Missio Dei

Get it? Get this: we are fulfilling the mission of God as we do this. And in a nutshell, that mission of blessing has been the intention of God since day one—that His people, through God, would flourish and redeem the whole world. It’s a global outreach of a global people of a global God.

So, quick seminary moment here. I want to introduce to you the Missio Dei, which is the mission of God. That’s just what I was saying before: that God, through His people, would flourish and redeem the whole world. And so, here’s how this shows up in Scripture, starting from page one with Adam. The first page of the story, God’s purpose for Adam was to be fruitful and multiply, cultivate this garden—which back then was the whole world, right?—so cultivate it, cultivate that, flourish this thing.

Then Abraham is next, and God promises Abraham that all peoples on earth would be blessed through him. Okay, then we have Israel, or Jacob—Jacob who also is known as Israel. God says, “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.” Okay, so you see God is using people to flourish, cultivate, and bless everyone around them.

And then Jesus enters, and in John 3:16, of course, we see His mission: the God is going to love the world by giving His Son for us, that everyone who believes wouldn’t perish but have eternal life.

Jesus’ purpose was to redeem the world, and then He passes the baton to the church. Capital C, Church. He says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, teach them to find and follow me,” basically.

Okay, so Adam, Abraham, Israel, Jesus, and the church are all on the mission of God to bless the world and make Him known. That is called the Missio Dei, the mission of God. So it’s kind of mind-blowing to think that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We’re bigger than just our own lives or our family’s lives. We’re even bigger than this church, right? Christians all around who carry God’s light are to be a blessing to the whole world.

God intends for us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt sellers. Our place is to be rubbed into the secular community. As salt is rubbed into meat to stop it from going bad, when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and we approach the non-Christian world. But should we not rather reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It can’t do anything else. The real question is to ask: where is the salt? Is it in the shaker or out in the world?

I don’t know if you caught the little cautionary note Jesus said when he talked about salt’s influence. It’s a temporal condition. Our influence is temporal in verse 13. He had said, “If a salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It’s no longer good for anything.”

Which sounds so rough, like “not to be good for anything.”

Salt that loses its salty properties can no longer do what it was purposed for. It’s no longer a preservative. It’s no longer flavorful. It’s no longer medicinal. But I don’t want us to read this as transactional love. Like, Jesus is not saying, “Dude, as soon as you’re not productive in my kingdom, you’re not with any sort of value. You’re out.” That is not His purpose here.

But it can mean one of two things. For salt to lose its saltiness—first, scholars and scientists say that salt can’t be corrupted; it’s a chemical compound, sodium chloride, which is unchangeable. It’s unchangeable. So if this is true, then verse 13 could be read as hyperbole or as an exaggerated example, such as when Jesus talked about a camel passing through the eye of a needle. That was like hyperbole, right? Maybe. Stefan and Julie, I’m looking at you guys. You guys can research the chemical compounds for me—can sodium chloride lose its saltiness? I got into a little rabbit hole at that point, but I entrust you guys to come report back to me about the chemistry, please.

But if it’s not that—if it’s not hyperbole—unsalty salt can be seen as a caution that our influence can be removed from us. Which I feel like is super sobering. So how could that happen? How could we have our influence taken from us? Well, I started thinking about the opposite of the Beatitudes. Like, maybe that’s where it could be. So instead of being pure or peacemaking, we would be impure and peacebreaking. Instead of seeing evil or loss and being mournful about that, we could see evil or loss and be mirthful about it. Instead of being meek, you get cocky.

This works for us as individuals and as the church. Are we pure or impure? Peacemaking or peacebreaking? Mournful or mirthful? Salted or unsalted? It’s food for thought.

Being the Light of the World

But dude, we’re also more than salt. Jesus calls us light. Jesus calls us light. So let’s look at the second analogy. And he is describing citizens of the kingdom—this different kingdom. He says, “You’re the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.”

I feel like he’s so gracious to use this word “light” with us, because this is the most frequent word that we hear associated with Jesus himself all throughout Scripture. He has referenced us: “the light of the world,” “light to the nations,” “our light and salvation,” “the light of Israel.” He is a light that appears to people walking in darkness. He’s the light to the Gentiles, and his life was the light to all mankind. So it’s a really, super legitimate word, and he’s associating it with us.

And here’s a secret of how that all comes to be: it’s Christ’s light in us that is radiating and illuminating to a dark world, right? We are influencing for his purposes. Recall the Missio Dei: that spreading impact of a faith bearer existing in the world. There was Adam, Abraham, Israel, Christ, and the church, all working to bless and illuminate and warm the whole world—or at least everyone in the house, which I would like to research a little bit more and see what that means. Everyone in your sphere of influence, everyone in your domain? Probably.

Well, I was thinking about light therapy in 2020. It was really having its day. I feel light therapy—and we all can resonate with that one hour in March where we kind of see the sun show back up again after a long winter, and we all think that this is the best day ever. We have a surge of energy, right? We feel happy. We didn’t know we were depressed until the sun showed back up again. But it’s more than that euphoria moment. In that one hour in March, light therapy is showing up at the dermatologist’s office; yes, it is stimulating cell growth and keeping acne bacteria at bay. We have “happy lights” that we use to combat depression or low mood, and long-lifers are recommending that we start our day outdoors in the blue light of morning.

But to first-century Judeans, light was more than hope for a clear skin day or a steady mood. A lightbringer on a dark path meant safety and direction. A light source in a dark home gave a chance for interaction, warmth, and food. And light on towers at the edge of the sea—lighthouses as we call them now—they were established 300 years before Christ. They prevented shipwrecks and prevented lives being lost. So this is far more than just cosmetic improvement. These mountainside listeners, they are understanding light to be a quality and quantity of life impact.

So this is who we are. Do we give quality and quantity of life impact? Are we impacting others? How can we do that?

In verse 16, he continues. So he said, “You’re the light of the world. Don’t hide it under a lamp. Put it on the stand. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

So it’s by good deeds that that light is showing. It’s done by citizens of God’s kingdom who are meek and mournful, those who yearn to be right with God, the peacemakers, and the pure. These citizens of a different kingdom are influencing this earth with saltiness and radiant light through good works. And it’s not good works just done for brownie points or [unclear]. They are good deeds. Their goodness shines a light on a good God and introduces a dark world to him. That has been the point since the first page of Scripture. This is quality and quantity of life impact—our life-giving quality and quantity of life. Enhancing light shines when our good deeds are seen and God gets the credit for them.

Okay, all nations are blessed because of these good deeds: our creation care, our community care, our outrageous benevolence, our sacrificial love, our playground kindness, our radical forgiveness, and bottomless grace. We shine light when we amplify vulnerable voices. When we run more than our fair share of the carpool. When we do our roommate’s dishes. When we show up for the suffering. Show up to vote. Serve the marginalized. Bring the main dish at a potluck. Can I hear an amen? When we tithe our time, not just our paycheck, to our church. We shine light when we buy a boatload of Girl Scout cookies. When we help the hungry at the storehouse. When we send big fatty DoorDash gift cards because you’re a terrible cook. When you stop overthinking and you just contribute to GoFundMe’s, even if it’s just 20 bucks. You are showing up. Church, that is what showing up looks like: shining a light through your good deeds. Are those kinds of actions as epic as lighthouses, home fires, and pathway lanterns? Those descriptions seem so much more epic, far more life-or-deathish, but yeah, they are the more of what we see on this earth. And knowing that we are salt and light, it does seem that any act of kindness or generosity does matter, no matter how big or small.

Because here’s why: salt and light are acts of protest to a dark, decaying world. With our lives, we are saying, “Goodness exists, and we know His name.” We know Him by name. So when you bless others and they are like, “Whoa dude, I cannot believe you just did that for me,” you don’t have to preach. You all just need to be able to say, “Yeah, I think God wanted me to do that for you.” It’s not cringy. It’s just super simple. You’re low-key. You’re just pointing the goodness not to yourself, but to God. Goodness exists and we know Him by name. And maybe as a result, they will too. This is a quality and quantity of life issue. This is a quality and quantity of life matter, just like a lighthouse.

Conclusion and Prayer

So friends, this week as we seek to put salt and light into the practical, living out of our faith as citizens of a different kingdom, I’m going to suggest simply doing this:

We're going to offer one intentional act of encouragement each day. You're going to notice where God has placed you, and you're going to ask yourself the question, "How can I shine here?"

Kingdom people influence not because they want to impress, but because Christ’s spirit is forming us to be the people that naturally bless others. It’s the Missio Dei. This is His calling card; this is the mission of God.

So let’s close our eyes and we’ll pray.

God, I didn’t know that being salt and light was a life-giving thing until this week. Lord, I just really humbly apologize for that kind of not taking the mission of God seriously in the world around me. Lord, I ask that you would call us individually and as a church into your mission. Lord, would you show us ways that we can shine? And not be cringy, but that we can use our influence for good, Lord. That we would boldly explain with our lives: goodness does exist, we know Him by name, and it’s You, Lord. It’s You, Jesus. And it’s in Your name, we pray. Amen.