Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
October 22, 2023
INTRO
My favorite place in God’s creation is the mountains. Any mountains! But especially the Sierra Nevadas or the Rockies. I grew up as a teenager and young adult doing backpacking trips into the wilderness of California. My brothers and I would go fishing for a few days, or just explore a new place.
One very memorable experience was a hunting trip a few years ago in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho. I had never been there before. My brothers and I picked a spot on the map and decided to backpack along the Selway River in search of mule deer. (SLIDE 2) We were 3 hours by car from the nearest town, and our hike took us more than 10 miles deep into the wilderness from the nearest road.
If you have never experienced something like this, one of the most striking features of the deep wilderness is how DARK it can be at night. When the conditions are right, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. There’s no urban glow, no streetlights, no source of human-created light at all.
I’ll never forget how much I craved light. When those moments of darkness surround you, even the smallest light can become such a powerful thing.
(SLIDE 3) One morning we got up super early to get to a vantage point near the top of a mountain that loomed over 2000 feet above our camp in the valley below. We hiked up and up and arrived in the dark hours long before dawn. We sat down on the mountain-side and turned off our head-lamps and sat in pitch darkness.
The expanse in front of me was 2000 feet down, a river below, and another mountain at least 2000 feet up the other side, maybe 5 miles away.
As my eyes absorbed the darkness, searching, scouring, craving for light, I remember seeing something peculiar across the valley. Slowly, surely, disappearing and reappearing through the trees was a small light. It was another hunter, likely wearing a head lamp, moving across the mountain miles away. Yet that little light was stark and clear in the absolute blackness of that wilderness.
My eyes could not stop looking at it. I was fixated on the light. It was small and a long way off, but my whole being reached out to that light and wanted desperately to know its illuminating power.
What struck me in that moment is how even a little light made the darkness more bearable. I realized how powerful light is, how darkness cannot stop it, how my very soul needs light in the blackness of the wilderness! And I saw that particular light because it was perched up on a mountain, casting light across the expanse to draw me towards it.
(SLIDE 4, title) This morning we are going to look at a passage from the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that shows us the attractive and illuminating power of light, especially in the darkness of this world. Open with me to Matthew 5. We will be reading verses 13-16.
Here’s some quick context: Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7, which is Jesus’ central teaching about the Kingdom of God. Jesus first lists the kind of character and actions of a true disciple of His Kingdom, which we call the Beatitudes (5:3-10). Those who are blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted. These qualities mirror Jesus himself, and stand in stark contrast to the world’s ways.
This contrast, Jesus acknowledges, will likely lead to persecution and difficulty in this life. This is why Jesus says in verses 11-12 that followers of Christ will be treated like the prophets of old, but that in this we should rejoice because we look ahead to the joy of heaven.
In light of this calling to live in prophetic contrast to the world by embodying the values of God’s Kingdom, Jesus concludes the opening of the Sermon on the Mount by using two metaphors that explain the nature of our witness in the world, of how we are sent as ambassadors of His Kingdom. One metaphor is negative, the other positive. Let’s look at the text, and then we will dive into the meaning of each metaphor. READ Matthew 5:13-16.
ORG SENT — There are two complementary and related metaphors in this passage that describe followers of Christ who are sent into the world. We will examine these two metaphors, then talk about how we apply them during this unique time in the life of our church.
MAIN 1 — Salt and Light (vv. 13-16). (SLIDE 5a)
The first thing we need to do is appreciate the overall structure of these verses, recognizing that Jesus spoke them with great intention. Verses 13 and then 14-15 have a parallel structure, each beginning with a statement of identity, then concluding with a description of the opposite of that identity:
You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world
If salt loses its saltiness…a town on a hill cannot be hidden/put a lamp under a bowl
In other words, there is comparison happening here, using two common images from everyday life in the ancient world:
(SLIDE 5b) You are salt / don’t be useless salt
(SLIDE 5c) You are light / don’t be hidden light
You see, salt and light describe the disciple’s influence in the world. Let’s look at the meaning of these metaphors to help understand this. Go back to verse 13 with me.
SALT (v. 13) — (SLIDE 5d) Salt slows decay. Salt in the ancient world was primarily a preservative. There were no refrigerators, and the ancient near East could be an oppressively hot climate. Food storage was a huge challenge. And slowing the process of decay was the job of salt.
ILLUST — And so New Testament scholar Don Carson explains that this is the meaning of this metaphor: (SLIDE 5e) “When Christians live out the way of the Kingdom, they are aiding to delay moral and spiritual decay in the world. Apart from Christians, the world would turn ever more rotten.”
And yet friends, if we’re honest, this world seems to be so very rotten right now. But we aren’t the first ones to experience a generation of upheaval.
ILLUST — The great preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was born in 1899, and began his ministry in 1927 and served until 1968. He observed first-hand the ravages of two world wars, the Great Depression, and the radical cultural changes of the 1960s.
Jones once reflected on the optimism that existed in his childhood in the early 1900s, before the tragedies of the 20th century: “The controlling idea was that the whole of life was advancing, developing and going upwards… Wars were going to be abolished, Diseases were being cured, suffering was going to be not only ameliorated but finally eradicated…The whole world was very soon going to be paradise.”
Sounds like the promises of today too. But there’s a problem.
Jones goes on to say: “As a result of sin and the fall, life in the world in general tends to get into a putrid state…Far from there being a tendency in life and the world to go upwards, it is the exact opposite. The world, left to itself, is something that tends to fester…There is a sense, therefore, in which no Christian should be in the least surprised at what has taken place.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote these words in 1959. How much more could we say them today! But one of our roles as Christians in a world prone to rot is to slow the decay, to be salt in our workplaces, communities, and families. It is to stand in prophetic contrast, finding ways to unbendingly walk in faithfulness to Christ, making our lives Kingdom-minded as individuals and as a church family. We do this by living with integrity, by embodying the values of the Kingdom we see in the Beatitudes, through prayer, by the power of the Spirit, and in daily communion with the Lord. In this way, we can be a preserving influence in the world.
But as Jesus warns, salt can lose its saltiness. (SLIDE 6a) It can become useless for preserving anything. What does he mean by this?
KEY: (SLIDE 6b) Salt becomes useless when it is diluted or compromised.
ILLUST — Salt in the ancient world was not as purely refined as we have today. It was harvested from sources like the Dead Sea, and was dustier and prone to having contaminates that looked like salt, but were in fact just useless white dust. And when you tried to use it to preserve your food, it would be ineffective, and both your food and the salt would only be worthy to be thrown into the trash or out onto the dusty streets where it belongs.
This is so important: (SLIDE 6c) When Christians become contaminated by the world, we lose our influence. When we start to speak like the world, look like the world, and act like the world, we lose the ability to stand in prophetic contrast for the sake of God’s Kingdom. We need to be unique, Kingdom-minded, and peculiar!
LIGHT (vv. 14-16) — (SLIDE 6d) Light overcomes darkness. Light is something we need, something we crave, something that brings clarity, safety, and goodness. It should be attractive, drawing us into its illuminating power, just like my experience in the wilderness of Idaho.
Light in the Old Testament symbolized overlapping ideas: (SLIDE 6e) revelation from God, instruction, the law, righteousness, God’s presence.
It is represents all things good, but we must emphasize where this light comes from.
REMEMBER — (SLIDE 6f) Jesus is the ultimate Light of the World, the perfect revelation of God.
John 8:12 — When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
This is the only “I AM” statement of Jesus that he connects to us. We are not the bread of life, the door of the sheep pen, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way/truth/life, or the true vine! But when we are “in Christ” we are light in this world just as He is the True Light. When we are born again and filled with the Spirit, we are now his living witnesses, his ambassadors.
ILLUST — A few of you may remember Dorothy Reese. When I arrived here at New Life, Dorothy had just turned 102. She had been attending New Life for decades and was in the nursing home in Hastings. I used to visit with her and I would ask her questions about what Hastings was like in the 1930s and 40s, we would talk about Jesus, and we would pray together.
I’ll never forget one moment when we were talking about God’s faithfulness to New Life over the last 40 years. She looked me right in the eye, and she said, “I pray every day that God will use that little dome church to be a light for Christ in this community.”
That has become my prayer too. Our community needs the light of Christ. Our friends, our families, our neighbors, our co-workers…everyone needs to see the light of the gospel shining bright!
KEY: That means we can’t hide it. (SLIDE 6g) We can’t be ashamed of the gospel. We can’t be afraid to speak the name of Jesus or do the works Jesus has called us to do.
ILLUST — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a pastor who stood up to the Nazis in the 1930s wrote this in his classic book The Cost of Discipleship: “A community of Jesus that seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow Him.”
KEY: We need to let the light of Christ shine through us. This means we actively engage in shining light into this dark world. It is our words and deeds, our proclamation and stewardship, our truth-telling and our loving-care, our mouths and our hands. In these ways, people will see Jesus.
This is why Jesus explains the result in verses 16: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Here’s what this means:
We don’t conceal who we are: (SLIDE 7a) We are blood-bought children of God who belong to a different kingdom. We have the Spirit, we are co-heirs with Christ, and we live to please our Heavenly Father.
We also don’t conceal what we know is true: (SLIDE 7b) Jesus really is King. God’s Word is a lamp for our feet. We know that the gospel message is good and beautiful, and that Christ calls us to repentance and faith.
ILLUST — Pastor and theologian John Stott wrote, “When we live the life described in the Beatitudes…people will see us and our good works, and seeing us will glorify God. For they will inevitably recognize that it is by the grace of God we are what we are, that our light is his light, and that our works are his works done in us and through us. So it is the Light they will praise, not the lamp which bears it.”
This is what our witness is all about. This is what it means to be sent, to embody the gospel in word and deed, to begin to see every opportunity as a way to point to Christ.
MAIN 2 — Application. (SLIDE 8a)
We’ve been talking about how important it is at this moment in the life of our church to ensure we are on the same page with our vision and our priorities for ministry. We are a gospel-centered church, and we’ve been talking about a gospel-centered approach to Welcoming, Transforming, and Sending.
(SLIDE 8b) We are a Welcoming Church because we are all sinners saved by grace. Our hands our open to receive the gift of salvation in full surrender, boasting in Christ alone, and we now welcome each other as a community of sinner-saints, on level ground at the foot of the cross!
(SLIDE 8c) We are a Transforming Church, which means we want to take the precious treasure we have in the gospel and steward it for a Kingdom return that glorifies God.
(SLIDE 8d) We are a Sending Church, freely we received, we freely give away the gospel to others. We received Christ with open hands when we were in desperate need, so we give with open hands to others who are in desperate need of the light of Christ.
In this gospel-centered approach, I want you to see something critically important that underlies all this: We serve a generous God. (SLIDE 8e)
Our Heavenly Father is generous in his love. He is generous in his care. He is generous in his patience. He is generous in his provision. He is generous in his promises, both for this life and the next.
And his ultimate act of generosity and love, the ultimate gift that he gave, is his Son Jesus Christ. As John 3:16 says, (SLIDE 8f) “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Generosity out of love. God’s love is a compassionate and self-giving love. He so generously gave to us his precious Son, purely by grace when we were dead in our sin! And what it means to be a Sending Church is that we have the privilege of generously serving our generous God!
We are facing an inflection point in the life of our church. We are living in a world of decay and darkness that needs us to be salt and light. We have been given so much; we have been entrusted with God’s resources, with skills, with time, with energy, and ultimately with the precious treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we’ve been planted here in this community, on these 10 acres, and in our own neighborhoods and workplaces, to shine the light of Christ so that others will glorify our Father in heaven.
As we look ahead to next Sunday when we celebrate what God is doing now and in the future at our church, my invitation is this: Let us be a church that sows generously for God’s Kingdom, seeing this unique opportunity to deepen our roots and extend our branches to be salt and light for another 40 years.
Let’s generously invest in the 60 kids we have each Sunday in Kids church learning the Scriptures and being taught the gospel.
Let’s generously train up teenagers to rightly discern truth from error and to live with integrity in this challenging world.
Let’s generously pour into each other through Bible studies, prayer groups, accountability groups, and training seminars so that we can walk faithfully side-by-side as a vibrant community of faith.
Let’s generously reach out in evangelism and missions, partnering with others near and far to spread the gospel.
Let’s generously develop our land and our facility so that we put on display how God is sovereign over his creation and over every part of our lives. This will mean embedding the study of Scripture into cultivating our prairie and forest, growing gardens, learning skills, and doing science, music, art, and theater for the glory of God! Let’s make the Bible come alive through hands-on discipleship and training!
Friends, God can do all these things. He is generous and he has already lavished us with his grace in our salvation through Jesus Christ. Freely we have received, so freely with give our lives back to him.
Ultimately, I pray that these words would be true of my life, as well as yours: Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee.