Salt & Light : Are You Really?

Salt & Light : Are You Really?                              Kelly Durant 10-19-03

Did you notice you got something interesting with your bulletin today? A candle with some salt! This is for you to take home to remind you that you are salt & light in a perverse and wicked generation! Look up..        Matt 5:13-16

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Do you remember the last time we had a family night and everyone dressed up? I have been thinking about salt and light for some time now and I want us to reflect on it’s meaning. What do we usually use salt for today? For flavoring food, right?

But let’s do what we always do when we reflect on the Bible, let’s go back to the cultural context. Before the days of refrigeration, what was salt used for? It was a preservative. You could put it on meat and make jerky. In Bolivia I use to make my own jerky; you cut the meat thin and then you cover it in salt and let the sun dry it out. Have you ever done that?

Or maybe you didn’t live without a refrigerator like I did several months one time! Or maybe you have done this if you have worked on a farm and a cow dies; how many of you have ever buried a dead cow? Well, the way we did it was we would pour a lot of salt on top of the body and it would prevent it from smelling and decaying. Do you realize that is a parallel to us as Christians, we are in a dying, decaying, putrid world, and we are the salt to preserve and save.

But what happens when Christians do not do their job of saving, preserving and shining?    Phil 2:15

15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

My concern for you and myself is, that we must ask our selves are being an outstanding example of the love of God? Do you think you are an outstanding Christian? We are going to discuss some of the points in which the church in the US and, or I should say Christians are failing in.

+Did you know that the divorce rate in the church is the same as it is in the world?

+Did you know that Christians often suffer from depression?

+Did you know that Christians are often dishonest and do not have clean hearts?

All of this probably does not surprise you because you have seen some of it here. But what is the solution? It is not any worse here than it is in any of the other churches; No! And how do I know that?  I have asked other pastors in other American churches and they have many of the same trials that we have. We are not any worse or any better.

But the solution is to stand up and shine foe your Christian values. Christians should not be trading relationships and spouses like they trade cars! There are devastating consequences to this and believe me I have spent hundreds of hours with dozens of disturbed and agonizing people who have suffered a divorce or abandonment.

Well, here I want to tell you the solution, here, amoungst those of us who are salt and light, is the place where these hurting people should be able to come and grieve and cry. They should feel the confidence they are loved by God and they must know they are loved by God because they can feel a sincere love from us!

Do you know how many people have been driven away from Christianity by the Christians who are dead candles by their unloving, condemning, ‘well I told you so’, attitude? When someone sins in the camp and they are hurting, it is not time to throw stones, it is time to do what Jesus did, to go down and hug that person and let them know they can have a new life and not continue down that road that is almost getting them killed!

Like with Mary Magdalene! And Everytime we hear a story about someone doing a wrong thing, it is not time to start getting proud like, well, I would never do such a thing, but it is time to check your own heart! It hurts God when we sin and fail! And it also hurts us and those around us!

Despite how the Word of God brings life, and holy living guided by the Holy Spirit brings peace, there are still too many Christians out there depressed and that is against the word to worry about the morrow. Look up     Matt 6:34

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

I think we can all feel what people have inside them and what a poor testimony when the desperate people of the world come into church and find the people inside no better off than them selves! There are Christians that have never practiced all they have read. Christianity is not a belief, it is a lifestyle! We must practice our faith! (repeat)

John 14:27

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

What causes depression is worry about the material things, or internal conflicts over not getting all you lust for and desire. What causes depression also is bitterness in a heart that cannot forgive someone who wronged them in the past. Also, some people come to church but inside they have bitterness against God over their situation which is humbling them and that is what their pride may need to be humbled!

The only way out is to fight and we must fight like Don Quixote de la Mancha and conquer our obstacles and inner fears! Prayer and the Word in the Bible really work if they are sincerely applied!

And lastly, if we will be salt and light, we must maintain a high standard of honesty and purity. I don’t know about you, but if I tell a lie, or do a wrong thing, I lay awake at night unable to sleep with that thing replaying again in my head until I confess if to God and go back and right the wrong I have done! If your conscience is not clean, you will not get your prayers answered, much in the same way a parent will not want to take his son to the movies when they know the son that has stolen $20 from his wallet and acts like it never happened!

The only way to be right with God is to be in communion with Him, reviewing all you do at the end of the day if it was done right or not! To burn bright, you must be in the light! To be salty, you must be near other salt granules! Ask your self, am I a Christian others love to be with? Or do people avoid you because you preach at them but they feel you don’t really love the?

Ask yourself, am I full of the spirit, full of joy, full of love, looking for ways to serve others? Many times it has happened that the spouse who is a Christian, married to one who is not, will preach and correct and condemn them for years for not seeking God, but only after all of that fails do they try serving them with love; and it never fails that a loving, meek, and serving spirit wins others more by actions than by words! Are you being salt and light?