EPISODE 213 GOSPEL OF MATTHEW CHAPTER 5 Part 6 "Two Challenging Metaphors"

Welcome to Share the Word. We've reached the last episode focused on Matthew chapter 5, and in this episode, two words take center stage. They are salt and light. And I promise you that if you actively, emphatically listen and process what you hear today, not just have it on in the background simply listening to the words, your understanding of salt and light in our Christian walk will change. Paul. Matthew chapter 5, part 6.

Two challenging metaphors. Although many who heard Jesus in those early days believed he was their Messiah and expected his physical political kingdom was about to commence, those who listened well, few have been, came to understand that the kingdom he was inaugurating at his first coming was a spiritual one. To join in that kingdom meant to receive him as your spiritual Lord and allow him to rule and reign on the throne in your heart, we might say. That spiritual kingdom of God is still being built today as men and women and young people receive and follow Christ. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus' inaugural address describing what his kingdom was about and what those who would be a part of it should be like. So this is Christianity according to Christ from the source.

This was and is the challenge from the founder of our faith to all of us who would be his followers. The section I'm focused on now, chapter 5, verses 13 through 16, immediately follows the Beatitudes. Here is how Jesus continued his message that day according to Matthew, who was one of those who originally heard the Sermon on the Mount. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how could it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot 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 so that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. God has had a long-standing desire. It's been His purpose throughout history, actually, to call out a people who will be set apart to Him and who will belong to Him in a special way, will be different, who will reflect who He is to the rest of the world.

This was His purpose when He chose the Jewish people. At their outset as a nation, His challenge to them through Moses was, Remember that I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they did in the land of Egypt from which you were brought. You shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan where I'm taking you. You shall not walk in their ways, but you shall keep My ordinances, My statutes, and walk in them. I am the Lord your God.

That's Leviticus chapter 18. The history of the Old Testament is that the Jewish people did not live up to that challenge very well most of the time. When Jesus arrived in Israel in what we now call the first century, He reiterated this great challenge to the Jewish nation again, as the prophets before Him had. He called people to repentance and to a thorough change of heart and mind, to a completely different way of looking at and living from the people around them, to be God's special people again. The message of the Sermon on the Mount is a thoroughly countercultural one. Jesus addresses moral and ethical standards, what real religion should look like, what his followers should value, how they should relate to each other and to other unbelievers, and what their life's highest ambitions and goals should be.

In all of these things, he challenged those who would be his followers to be different, to be God's people, to not take their cues from society around them. He challenged them to higher standards and to reflect sincere godliness other people could see. That message is as timely for us, obviously, as it was for those who were on the mountain that day. It's a pointed challenge from Jesus Christ to live counter-culturally, to be in our generation, in our society, God's people, citizens of his kingdom, who reflect well on our heavenly Father, so well that it causes others to want to turn to him in faith and obedience and join his kingdom too. In the verses I read a moment ago, Jesus used two challenging metaphors toward that end. First, he said to his followers that day, not only to them but also to us as well if we claim to be his followers today, You are the salt of the earth.

Salt of the earth. What did he mean by that? In Jesus' day, the number one use for salt was as a preservative. In fact, it has been up until very recent times. There was no refrigeration, no chemical preservatives developed yet to give food an extended shelf life, so meat in particular had to be salted down or soaked in brine, or else it would spoil quickly in the heat of the Middle East. Eating a load of spoiled meat is not a pleasant experience.

You know what I mean. It's ever happened to you. I think Jesus was saying through that metaphor that the world is decaying, culture is constantly in danger of spoilage. God created things perfectly, yes, but sin has infected everything, and if let go, sin spoils everything. Evil is everywhere, like bacteria. We live in a world system tending toward decay.

What Jesus challenges his followers to be is the salt that can retard that spoilage. He wants us to preserve and promote what is good and stand against what is evil in our society. I think it's pretty indisputable if you look into America's past, most of what has been done for good has been done by Christians, or at least people very influenced, strongly influenced by Christianity. People who have been the salt of the earth here in America. It was committed Christians who developed the first great universities, who led in prison reform, who fought for the abolition of slavery, who established orphanages, who created organizations like the YMCA and the Scouts and the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. These things were all done by Christians.

Today, Christians are still making a big difference as the salt of the earth through organizations like Prison Fellowship, Open Doors, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, the Salvation Army, Rescue Missions, Teen Challenge, Turning Point, and through relief organizations like Samaritan's Purse or Operation Blessing or Mercy Ships. I could go on and on. Not to mention the thousands of local churches that have programs that serve their local communities. It's hard to be overestimating the preserving influence of Christianity on American culture and society. Can you imagine how quickly things would deteriorate without such salt scattered across America? All these various godly influences.

Being the salt of the earth is also a call to individuals. Do you think it's important that we have Christians in government, that we have Christians in business, that we have Christians in our schools, in the entertainment industry, in sports industries? Salty Christians have a positive effect on their environment, whatever it is. Just for one small example of that, have you ever noticed how, even in conversations, how things change when someone recognized as a Christian enters in, just walks into the room? That's the immediate effect of salt. Just the presence of someone recognized as a Christian in some way reproaches sin and is a hindrance to evil.

The atmosphere changes wherever real Christians are. But one thing about salt is, although it's a powerful preservative, to be effective it has to be spread around. It has to have contact. It does not have any effect if it is in boxes in the food pantry or in unused salt shakers in the back of the cabinet. It has to be spread around. Society will always tend toward decay because of sin.

That's why it's important that Christians do not merely hide in our churches and wring our hands over the rise of evil. We should be engaged and involved in every area of our society, representing the interests of Christ and righteousness. There are a few very important, vitally important lessons I hope all of us who consider ourselves part of the kingdom of God learn from this whole Charlie Kirk thing. He's the young man who I mentioned before who was assassinated while boldly sharing his faith and values on a public university campus in September of 2025. Charlie understood very clearly that Christ has called us to be the salt of the earth. He took the gospel and his best arguments for biblical and traditional values to the places where the most damage was being done, to the hearts and minds of his generation on university campuses.

He operated under the radar for years, relentlessly going from school to school to school, just engaging young adults in open dialogue, respectfully confronting young people with the truth as he understood it. And only in his death have we realized the enormous impact for good he made. He set an example. Christians must go where the spoilage is taking place, go into even places that have become strongholds of the enemy, and be the salt of the earth there by boldly, clearly, and respectfully sharing the truth with those who need to hear it most. When Jesus spoke of salt that had lost its saltiness, he meant that there is a real danger that Christians, through adopting the values and lifestyles of the world around them, lose their ability to be agents of change for good.

If we become indistinguishable from the world around us, from people who don't even claim to be Christians, then Jesus says we're good for nothing. We need to honestly look at ourselves and ask, who is influencing whom in my life? Are we being salt to the people we work with? Do they see a positive difference in us? Young people, do you think you are salt in your school with the other kids you go to school with? Do they see a noticeable difference in you?

Can and do you share your faith when you have the opportunity? Do you live and speak in ways that are backing it up and giving it authenticity? Do you think you personally are having the effect Jesus intended for his followers when he said, You are the salt of the earth? If I could, I'd put a pause right there, a Selah button, because that's a very consequential question every one of us should think very hard about. Do I personally have the effect Jesus intends for his followers to have when he said, You are the salt of the earth? Now, in Jesus' other metaphor, he said, We 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 a stand so that it gives light to everybody in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men. I don't know about you, but I'm much more comfortable saying, Jesus is the light of the world, than what it says there in verse 14, hearing Jesus say to me, You are the light of the world. But that's what he said.

In this second metaphor, he's pointing out that much of the world is still in spiritual darkness, and his followers are the only lights. Wrap your mind around that visual. These metaphors Jesus used are complementary. They're like two sides of the same coin. In both, Jesus is saying his followers need to be noticeably different, as he was, both in how we live and in what we communicate, and be continually affecting the world around us for good. The salt metaphor may be in a more kind of defensive way, I guess you could say, of standing against evil, standing up for truth and righteousness, doing our best to prevent the encroaching decay of immorality and nihilism.

While with the light metaphor, the emphasis is a little more on the positive change we can make by illuminating and drawing others to Christ as we reflect his glory in us. Just as no one had a refrigerator in Jesus' day, neither did they have electric lights. When it was dark, it was really dark. A city at a high elevation whose walls were lit up with torches and homes within with lamplight could be seen from a great distance. If you were lost out in the wilderness somewhere at night, you came within even miles of such a city, you could see the lights and find your way to safety. As Jesus' followers, we're to be lighting the way and drawing lost people toward Him.

The light they see in us should be obvious. What does that mean exactly? Well, as Jesus' Beatitudes just have taught us, when people see in us a different attitude towards sin and a desire for real purity, when they see in us the meekness and humility of Christ, when we are peacemakers rather than just their angry opponents, when we are merciful rather than scornful and self-righteous, that's when our light is shining. My son Sam, when he was little, had a ball cap with the Spider-Man logo on the front of it. The logo was made out of some sort of material that absorbs light. He would hold it up close to a light for a few seconds, then he would drag me into a closet to show me how it glowed in the dark.

Can you see it, Dad? Is it shining, Dad? The hat had no light in itself, but it glowed in the dark because it absorbed light from another source. That's how it works with us and Jesus. We don't have the kind of light Jesus was talking about just in and of ourselves. Ours is a reflection of His.

The light others see in us, the positive difference they see in us, the attraction will happen if we have been close to Christ. The closer we are to Christ, the more we'll absorb who He is into our character, into our speech, into our behavior, into how we treat others. We will then reflect His light. And in the darkness, some will see Jesus in us and be drawn to the light. If you call yourself a follower of His, do you think your peers are seeing it clearly enough in you? Charlie was a great example in our time of someone spiritually awakening his generation.

And I pray God is raising up many more in His wake. Pray for my own kids in this regard. They're getting much more serious about their faith. There have been great Christians in the past who have had the same impact on their generation, been very effective salt and light. I often think, because I live on the Delmarva Peninsula, about missionaries like Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke, who worked right here a few hundred years ago in the towns and villages where I live. They were contemporaries and partners of John Wesley in England, who taught those he trained and influenced, Do all the good you can do, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you possibly can.

With such a high purpose, no wonder those men had such a great impact in their generation. But they were influenced by Christians that burned brightly before them, like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others who ignited the First Great Awakening. And they were inspired by the heroes of the English Reformation, when biblical Christianity took hold in that country. Men like Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who were put to death, burned at the stake actually, for preaching the message of salvation through faith in Christ in the 16th century. As they were being tied to the stakes, Latimer turned to Ridley and witnesses heard him say, Be of good cheer, Brother Ridley. Today we shall light such a candle in England as by the grace of God shall never be put out.

We're all the beneficiaries, whether we realize it or not, of such great lights in the past who've shone brightly in the darkness of their generation. And the light has passed from generation to generation to generation like a torch being passed off from one runner to the next. And now we are the lights in our time. Are we drawing people toward Christ by radiating His qualities? Are we winning them by our clear presentation of the gospel? Are we like cities set on a hill, like lights shining brightly from the lampstand as Jesus challenged us to be?

The decay is always at work. The darkness is always threatening. Our Lord has challenged us to be salt and light in our place and time, and the need is urgent. Speaking in the U.S. years ago, John Stott, a prominent British theologian and writer, said this: You know what your country is like. Well, I'm a visitor here, and maybe I shouldn't presume to speak about America, but I know what my country, Great Britain, is like. I know something about the growing dishonesty in government, corruption, immorality, violence, pornography, the diminishing respect for human life, the increase in abortion, all of it.

Whose fault is it? Let me put it like this. If the house is dark at night, there's no sense in blaming the house. That's what happens when the sun goes down. The question to ask is, where is the light? If meat goes bad, there's no sense blaming the meat.

What happens when bacteria are allowed to breed unchecked? It's going to spoil. The question to ask is, where is the salt? The society becomes dark as the night and corrupt as a stinking fish. There's no sense in blaming society. That's what happens when fallen humanity is left to itself and evil is unrestrained and unchecked.

The question to ask is, where is the church? Where are Christ followers? For we are the light and salt now. Ouch. Hit the nail on the head there. Let me leave you with this encouraging thought, though.

An amazing thing to realize is just who Jesus was speaking to in his Sermon on the Mount. Who was his audience? Well, this wasn't exactly a convention of movers and shakers. It was just an obscure bunch of small-town country folks in Galilee. Yet amazingly, Jesus said to them, You. And if you could see the text exactly as Matthew wrote it, he was emphatic with this: You and you only are the salt of the earth.

You and no one else are the lights of the world. These really were the only Christians on earth at that point, the only followers of Jesus. Did he really think these humble people could make a difference? He obviously did. That's what's so amazing. He knew they could, and he challenged them to do it.

And a small group of peasants and outcasts and fishermen, a bunch of very, very ordinary people, pursued his great commission as salt and light in their world and changed the entire course of history. It's our turn now. Every generation anew needs such effective followers of Jesus. How will we respond to his challenges in the Sermon on the Mount? This is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks, Paul.

Too often we believe the lies of the enemy that one person, you, can't make a difference in this world. And if that's ever run through your mind, may I suggest you write down the list of those who've made an enormous contribution that Pastor Paul mentioned in this podcast. Write those names down and proudly display them with the name of Jesus Christ, the light of the world, at the top of the list. You see, too often we act like salt that sits on the table waiting for somebody to pick us up. But I encourage you to be the salt that deeply permeates, enhances the lives of others, and brings healing to the world. Charlie Kirk certainly did that, and he should always be a reminder of what is possible when we actively reflect Jesus' teaching in our daily lives.

Every new generation needs such extraordinary followers of Christ. And as somebody said at Charlie Kirk's memorial, rest easy, brother. We'll take it from here. It's our turn now. How will you respond to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount?