It is a wonderful thing we just sang, and it ought to move us to think that not everyone can sing that. Not everyone can say that of a truth. Not everyone has hope that is sure. that ought to move us, that ought to break us. And if there's somebody here, by the way, it's always what we say is the invitation is always open here, but if there's somebody here and that is you, you can't sing that, you couldn't sing that of a truth, then you need to see somebody, because that can be your testimony before you leave here today by God's grace. Please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter five. We've just concluded our study in the Beatitudes, but the Beatitudes are just the opening, the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. And they are beautiful sayings. I think you can see the genius of the Lord Jesus as a preacher to use these beautiful sayings to grab the attention of his listeners. I mean, what better way to grab the listen of your listeners than to begin talking about happiness? and how to be blessed, and how to, as we have seen through the scriptures, how to flourish. That's what Jesus has been talking about. And Jesus roots blessedness, human flourishing, in Christian character. He says, these are the people that flourish in life. But now, he's going to be talking about Christian influence. How can Christians, those who have this character, influence the world for good? Well, given that our world tends to see all of the things Jesus has just talked about in verses 3 through 12 as negative traits, as weaknesses. These kind of people are weak, they are passive, they are pushovers. It may surprise us then to learn that Jesus does not at all agree. Rather, Jesus understands that it is just such people, his true people that he has just described in verses three through 12. These are the people destined to change the world. We might even title these verses, verses 13 through 16, how to change the world. Changing our world. Please stand for the reading of God's word. Let's read our text, Matthew 5, 13 through 16. The Lord Jesus, speaking to his people said, You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how can 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 set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. That's the reading of God's word. You may be seated. Let's ask our Lord to change us this morning. Almighty Father, you lack no power. You are the creator of the universe, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. You spoke all things into existence by the word of your mouth. We know you have power to change the world. Father, you have an incredible message here for your people, each and every one of those indwelt by your Holy Spirit. And so Father, I pray that you would grip us with the power that you have and the power that you intend to work through your people as a result of our yieldedness to your grace. Lord, please root out unbelief, please. We pray that you would convict us of our lethargy and and just our distraction with the things of this world. And Father, wherever we have compromised, wherever we have put out the light, Father, please forgive us. We pray that today would be a new start for your people. We pray for the reviving work of your Holy Spirit to take place in our midst. Would you change us, O Lord, that you might change the world in and through us as we desire in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen. If you were looking to assemble a cabinet of people, a team of people to change the world, who would you choose for your cabinet? We must imagine you're gonna need people who will help you to reduce crime, some that will help you to overthrow corruption. This is going to be difficult. There will be challenges. You're going to need people that can reform education, even those that can reshape the moral landscape of our nation, reshape the moral landscape of our world. What kind of a challenge would that be? To literally remake the world, who would you choose for your cabinet? This is exactly what Jesus is doing in the greater context of the Sermon on the Mount. He's assembled a team of disciples and he's now telling them how his kingdom subjects are to live in this fallen world. Not to simply live to themselves, but to live out this sort of life with the expectation that they will actually transform the world around them. Now, in our culture, we do hear a lot of fluffy, inspirational talk, I know, about changing the world. Anybody can make a difference and dream big and you can do anything you set your mind to and believe in yourself. But I just want to bring us to a reality check this morning at the outset of our study. This isn't Walt Disney speaking here. This isn't Reader's Digest. This isn't Good Morning America. This is the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is his word to his church. And Jesus gives a double metaphor in these verses. They both refer to the same basic reality of Christian influence in our world. More explicitly, these metaphors nail home Jesus' conviction that his disciples are destined to change the world. Now here's why that's so shocking. Remember who it is Jesus is talking to, at least in this immediate context. This is not a room full of CEOs. It's not an assembly of all the world's faith leaders. It's not a gathering of governors or policy makers. Assembled before Christ are very literally nobodies. You wouldn't know their name today if they hadn't been recorded in scripture. They are not scholars, legislators, business executives, military generals. These are your most simple sampling of Jewish peasants. Actually, in Jesus' time, the Jews would refer sometimes to distinguished rabbis as the light of the world. But here, Jesus doesn't have a crowd of anyone distinguished. These aren't rabbis. He's just got an army of volunteers. And yet Jesus tells them, you, you are. the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. The Greek grammar here is emphatic. It's really both emphatic and exclusive, excluding all but His true disciples. Jesus says, you are, not you may be, not you can be, not you will be, but you are. the salt of the earth, the light of the world. This is a present reality. The persecution Jesus has just mentioned in verses 10 through 12 presents a situation now where we might naturally expect Christians to take flight or to go into hiding. Who wants to be persecuted? Who wants to face up to criticism, slander, persecution of the hand and tongue for the sake of Christ? But Jesus here has not ordered a retreat. He disallows any kind of backing down, any kind of going into hiding or seclusion. No, Jesus has ordered an all out charge. He is commanding his people to take the high ground. We might even hate the world for being so stupid or evil, but Jesus disallows this as well. He's calling us to enter into that world and to make a difference. to make a difference for the better. After all, God's work in us, such as he has just described in the Beatitudes, is ultimately to result in God's work through us. If you had any idea that the Christian character outlined in verses three through 12 can somehow be maintained in private without making an impact on society. Well, Jesus is about to lay that notion to rest once and for all. So listen up, Christian. If you're a Christian, Christ expects you to change the world. If you're one of his people, he expects you to change this world. And in these verses, Jesus gives us two metaphors illustrating how Christians are to change the world. First, You are the salt of the earth. Look at verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. Jesus compares his disciples to salt because after all, salt was very precious. That is, salt was a precious commodity in the ancient world. You know, the Greeks believed that there was something divine to salt. Maybe you would agree. Maybe that's how you feel when you have a bag of potato chips or something. But many claim that salt was actually substituted for a form of currency so that, for instance, Roman soldiers, it's been said, might receive their wages in salt and that this is where the expression then, worth his weight. And salt originates from the ancient world where value could literally be weighed to you in the form of salt. Now I'm not sure about how accurate that is, but we can be sure of this one thing. Salt was precious. It was considered extremely precious in the ancient world. And so Jesus' metaphor to begin with is a fine compliment for his people. Jesus is saying that like salt, my people are precious in this world. In a world full of the stench of death, we can say with the apostles in 2 Corinthians 2.15, we are the fragrance of Christ. We are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. There is something uniquely precious to God. about his people. He has salted the earth with them and they are his greatest delight in this earth. But Jesus goes on to explain how that salt is precious in terms of its properties. First, salt, well we could say generally salt makes a difference. How does it make a difference? First, salt preserves food, salt preserves food. Jesus makes this point in negative terms, the benefit of salt, the difference it makes. Verse 13, he says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Salt that doesn't make a difference would be worthless. But we know the difference salt makes, and the most obvious difference that comes to our mind is flavor, but the most obvious difference that salt would have in Jesus' time would actually be as a preservative. Salt was a preservative, and so Jesus really here, most commentators believe, is intending to convey to his people that you are to have an influence in the world as a preservative of what is good. Salt preserved meat. Now they didn't have refrigeration, you know, in Christ's time in the first century. And so in order to preserve meat, they would rub salt into the meat and the salt would kill that bacteria. It would prevent the meat from rotting. One commentator points out that the phrase has become tasteless. as in the New American Standard, or loses its saltiness, reads more literally, is defiled. So he says, this is not the scientifically impossible notion of salt becoming flavorless, but rather the common problem in the ancient world of salt being mixed with various impure substances, and therefore becoming worthless as a preservative. Well, the world is like meat. It tends to go bad. And throughout history, we see God has continually intervened to stem the tide, to slow the corruption process, to slow sins rot. Just look at Genesis 6, where sin multiplies so fast that God has to literally wash the face of the earth. Or the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, where God literally scatters man to mitigate his evil devices. You know, thank God for every restraining influence he has had and left on our society. Did you know God instituted government to restrain evil? He also instituted marriage in the family to preserve good, the common good in our community. Which is why, by the way, it absolutely matters that marriage as defined between one man and one woman is preserved. It is for the well-being as a preservative for the good of society. And yet more potent than all this, God has chosen his own people as preservatives. Preservatives of what is morally good in this world. So practically speaking, how can Christians function in this way? How can we counteract moral decay in our world? Just as salt, that preserved meat must be rubbed into the meat, we also, brothers and sisters, must be rubbed into this world. I don't think that's a stretch. Just look at Christ and his apostles. They are constantly interacting with people. They didn't stay in the salt shaker. They were poured out. They poured themselves out and salted even those purses, yes, and places where they were most hated. We need to get out of the salt shaker, out of our comfort zones if we're gonna salt this world for Jesus. But also, just as salt kills bacteria and preserves what is wholesome in need, we must put to death sinful habits. We must kill sin wherever we find it. Colossians 3.5 says, you must put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Now, by God's grace, we can only kill the sin that is in ourselves, right? We can't kill what is in someone else, but we, by God's grace, can only kill the sin in ourselves. But I believe that Jesus is saying, while we must, like salt, be rubbed into this earth to make a difference for his name, If we do not kill the sin in us, that sin will contaminate us. It will destroy the influence that Christ intends to make through us. We must not end up merely adapting then the habits of the culture around us, but our habits of following Christ must change the culture. Now maybe that sounds a bit unrealistic or idealistic. Come on, Pastor, how are we, who don't hold any political office or kind of, you know, real popular celebrity status clout, how are we going to change the world? How are we going to have an impact on a culture so ungodly as our society is? But just imagine this morning trying to minister to a society full of cannibalistic demon worshipers with no knowledge of the Bible. Would that probably be a little bit harder, you think? I think so, okay. So that's what John and Charlotte Getty were up against. In the 1840s, John Getty left his pastorate in Canada, a church in Canada, to take his wife and two small children 20,000 miles to the South Sea Islands. And there, They came to these islands that they might salt them for Jesus. The islands were filled with cannibals and more than 20 crew members of a British ship had been killed and eaten just months before the Gettys arrived. I mean, that's enough to keep you up at night, wouldn't you say? They had to overcome learning a language that had no written form and the constant threat of being killed. And for many years, the Gettys labored without help, without work from home. But their salt was at work. And in the island church where John Getty poured out his life, there stands a plaque in his honor. It says when he landed in 1848, there were no Christians here. When he left in 1872, there were no heathen. There was no heathen. That's what salt does to have a salty effect on our culture. We don't have to be in Washington. We don't have to hold some public office. Now, I think we should certainly pray for that. I think we should pray for more Christians in Washington and in political places. But to have a salty effect on our culture, we need to genuinely live out all the eight Beatitudes we just recently studied. That character that Jesus has just described needs to be real and obvious in your life. And if you've forgotten them, you can, of course, go back and listen to those studies or study them. on your own through the scriptures, verses 3 through 12. But let's stop whining, brothers and sisters, because I hear a lot of whining from Christians all over. You can hear it on Christian media. You can read it online. You hear it from Christians complaining about the trend of our culture, the trend of our political state landscape, our moral landscape. Let's just covenant with one another to stop whining about corruption running rampant. I mean, what do we expect of the world? What do we expect of our culture? What do we expect of meat that's left out, meat that's unsalted? It's gonna go bad. It's going to rot. That is always the case. Of course, unsalted meat will tend to decay. We need to stop blaming sinners then for being sinners and instead show them a better way. If you're a Christian, you are salt. That's what Jesus is saying. He's saying you are part of God's solution to restrain evil and preserve what is wholesome in our world. So what kind of difference are you making? Are you having an impact on any level in your sphere of influence? That's what Christ would want us to think about. But now salt not only was used as a preservative, but also, of course, for flavoring. This would be the thing that most obviously comes to our minds when we think about salt. Salt gives flavor. Salt flavors food. Salt certainly makes a difference when it comes to flavor, and it's a difference that we all appreciate. I mean, I don't know that I'm aware of anybody who enjoys flat, tasteless food, right? That just isn't natural. We consider salt basically as a necessity. We could live without it perhaps, but in another sense we really couldn't. Our food needs some salt. But Jesus isn't talking about salting food, he's talking about salting the earth then. And the earth, not as the planet itself, but as the people that occupy it. So Jesus is saying, my disciples, are to flavor this tasteless world, Christians are to flavor the lives of those around them for good. For my sake. to point them to me. Jesus has just said a lot about true happiness and blessing, flourishing, yes, but our world is so flat and devoid of happiness, is it not, that it must constantly devise new ways of trying to get a thrill, new ways of trying to make people happy. We've got amusement parks. People are willing to pay all this kind of money to get thrown around like a pinball and be sick because they want a new thrill. We've got every kind of food, every kind of with every kind of taste and spice you could imagine right here within driving distance. We've got sports of every kind. And if you don't like to get out, no problem. I mean, we've got video games and all kinds of virtual realities. You can today virtually live a life virtually that would otherwise be impossible to you. I mean, people have all these kinds of fantasies. They're living. We've got Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, you name it. There is no lack of entertainment, no lack of spices in the cupboard of this world, to spice up life and make it enjoyable and make it interesting and give you a thrill. And no, I don't have anything against these things that are themselves, but I'm just saying, these are not the things that make life worth living. Without God, all this world's amusements are like food without salt. It's sad. It's tasteless. It's really tragic. So let me ask you, Christian, is your life so full of God, so full of His influence, that you bring the flavor of God into your relationships, into your conversations, into the room. Do you light the room with the presence of God? And I'm not getting all mystical here. I'm saying the Holy Spirit is real. God is real. What kind of difference does your presence bring into a relationship, into a conversation? Are you flavoring other people for the sake of Christ? If God is more real than any pleasure this world has to offer, Are your friends and acquaintances picking up on that reality? Or do they get the impression, rather, that this is something that you do on Sunday? Because that is not going to change their life, most likely. Does your life give off the vibes that life is about worshiping the one true God? We all know that one effect of salty foods is they make us thirsty. You eat food flavored with a lot of salt, get ready, you're gonna be thirsty sooner or later. You know how it is, you have some delicious pizza for dinner, and sooner or later you wake up in the night and you are parched. Because salt is doing its work, it's making you thirsty. Salt creates thirst. How is your life, as the salt of the earth, making people thirsty for God? Making people thirsty to pursue Jesus Christ, is it? Is it making a difference? Now Jesus mentions, if the salt, he says, has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? And science tells us now that sodium chloride does not lose its flavor with time. So what does Jesus mean by salt becoming tasteless? John Stott explains, what was then popularly called salt was in fact a white powder, perhaps from around the Dead Sea, which while containing sodium chloride, also contained much else, since in those days there were no refineries. Of this dust, the sodium chloride was probably the most soluble component, and so the most easily washed out. The residue of white powder still looked like salt, and was doubtless still called salt, but it neither tasted nor acted like salt. It was just row dust. Christ isn't talking about losing your salvation here, but losing your influence. losing your influence for his sake. It happens when contaminants, the contaminants of this world infiltrate our life and the result of this is that God snuffs out the candlestick. God is the one who chastises his followers as such. If we lose our saltiness, Christ is saying we are virtually worthless and promoting Christ in this world. Sometimes businesses go out of business because they fail to adapt. They feel to adapt to the demands of the changing market. That is true. But there are other businesses that are no longer around because they lost something integral to what defined them as a business, to what defined their establishment to begin with. They lost something so fundamental to their brand that they ceased to be. I mean, it would be like Pizza Hut saying, we're no longer going to make pizza. I don't know how they would recover. Or Dunkin, they dropped the name donuts, right? But it'd be like Dunkin saying, we're no longer serving any donuts, just coffee. I mean, good luck with that. I have a feeling a company that made such a change wouldn't be able to survive that kind of a rebranding. But that's exactly what happened to the nation of Israel, brothers and sisters. Israel was redeemed by God out of Egypt and commissioned to be different from all nations of the world so that they could salt the world. They could draw the world, give the world a flavor of God that would entice them, attract them to the one true God. But Israel wanted to be like all of the nations of the world. It was a nation that lost its saltiness. And that is why it was trampled underfoot by the other nations. Brothers and sisters, are you the salt of the earth? Are you one of Christ's people? If you belong to Jesus Christ, Jesus is saying to you, you are the salt of the earth. You are precious to God. What difference then are you making? Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. But Jesus offers a second metaphor in verses 14 through 16. You are the light of the world. Verse 14, Jesus says, you are the light of the world. Jesus' metaphor of Christians as light suggests four realities regarding Christian influence. First, the Christian influence is imitative. This should come to mind because Jesus is the one who famously said, John 8, 12, I am the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world. The only reason he could ever say to his disciples, you are the light of the world, is because he first is himself the light of the world. So because Christ is the light of the world, the Bible says he has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, 2 Corinthians 4, 6. So we bear light that is not original with us. It is derived, it is mimicked, it is reflected from Christ. He is the sun. We are the moon. He's the true source of light. We are merely reflectors of his light. Ephesians 5, 8 reminds us, for you were formerly children, or formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Christian, let this reality humble you. If there's any good shining from your life, any selfless good, That is from the grace of the Lord Jesus. That's a fruit of the Spirit of God being born out in your life. That's a reflection of Christ's goodness. It's not to our credit then, but it's to the glory of our awesome God. That's why men who see our good works, not that there are good works, they glorify our Father who is in heaven. Because this light, this influence, is merely imitative of Christ. The Christian's influence is imitative and The Christian's influence is obvious. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Jesus is saying, my people are light to the world. They shine. And scholars have speculated that Jesus may have actually been referring to some particular synod there on a hill in Galilee. But the truth is, any city on a hilltop cannot escape notice. It's obvious. At some point, then, if no one seems to notice that you are a Christian, if no one seems to notice that you are devoted to Jesus Christ, it's worth asking yourself, am I? Am I the genuine article, or am I merely a counterfeit? The Bible has much to say about such sort of examination. But Jesus knows there will be times when we will want to hide our light. And so he continues in verse 15. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Those in Jesus' times used oil lamps. They were lamps. that varied in different sizes, and this little clay lamp would have a hole in the center, and they would pour the oil into it, and there would be a wick coming out of one end, and they would light that, and they would put that in the most prominent places they could in the house to give light to all who were there. And so there'd be no sense, Jesus is saying, in lighting that lamp and throwing a basket over it. The whole purpose of a lamp is to give light. Verses 14 and 15 then are simple. If you received Christ, who is the light of the world, that you can't really conceal his light. At least there's no reason to. If Jesus has lit your lamp, let your light shine. Let your life shine. For instance, Christian, the Bible says, do all things without grumbling and disputing so that, now here's the purpose, you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as? lights in the world. Philippians 2, 14 and 15. That's right, the world is watching, God's saying, and he's saying this is one obvious way to let the light of Jesus shine in the world. Do your work without complaining. Do your work without any grumbling and without any bickering. Don't be causing strife, adding to strife. Be a peacemaker, right? This is practical, isn't it? Here's another convicting thought. Jesus said here, that our light gives all to, it gives light, our light gives light to all who are in the house. Now, I don't wanna take this too literally, but what does your relationship with Jesus give off in the house? Does your relationship to Jesus Christ give off light to all that are in your home? Sometimes it's easier to be a light in the world than it is to be a light in the house. Right? It's easier to be a light for those that don't really know us, but then with those who really do, like our intimate family members, it's harder. And I have to admit, this one really is convicting for me. This is really convicting. Because if we are the light of the world, we are gonna shine in the house. We're gonna shine at work. We're gonna shine wherever we go, because that's where Christ is. He never leaves us or forsakes us. The Christian influence is imitative. We draw on Christ and the Christian's influence is obvious. We can't avoid it. But thirdly, Jesus would have us know the Christian's influence is attractive. It is beautiful. Verse 16, he says, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works. Now stop right there. Notice how our light is to shine before men. It is through a medium of good works. It's not how you're feeling, it's how you're living before others, right? And so yes, I know we're a Protestant evangelical church, that we understand that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. but lighten up, it's time to talk about good works. We're gonna talk about works, because God is concerned about works. That's what he produces in his people. Good works are not your ticket to heaven, the Bible nowhere teaches that, but your good works may be the light that catches some sinner's eye. How dare we take good works lightly, when that could be the very thing God uses to draw people to Christ. How could we belittle good works? How dare we do so? While at Southern Seminary, I heard from a brother who years ago moved into one of the worst crime-ridden neighborhoods anywhere in the country. The local public school was an absolute disaster, and he studied the damning statistics that showed just how likely a kid is to end up in prison if he's not reading by the third grade. Let me ask you, should Christians have any concern for the welfare of their society? Well, this brother, rather than feeling bad about it, he decided to do something crazy because he believed God wanted him to. And my friends, sometimes God will tell you to do something crazy. He will lead you to do something that the world believes is crazy. This man quit his job, told his boss, I'm gonna start a school. He said, we had no teachers, no students, no parents, no building, not even a promise of financial support. What we did have was a clear conviction that God cares about the youth of our city. and calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Long story short, God answered prayer, funding came in, students came in, the work grew to over 600 kids, and they are seeing three times the academic results as the public school at half the price. Now, locals who were once indifferent to this Christian began to open up to him. Prior to starting the school, he said, I could count on hand the number of authentic gospel conversations I had with people in my neighborhood. Now I typically have that many authentic gospel conversations before lunch every day. That's not the social gospel. That's the true gospel of Jesus Christ at work in society. And you know what? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's attractive. Christians should realize here, the word good in verse 16 is translated from the Greek word kolos, which means good in the sense of beautiful. And we should ask, how beautiful, how attractive are your works to others? I'm not suggesting that we blow a trumpet like the Pharisees, right? And try to get everyone to see what we're doing. But Jesus is talking about the kind of works that are undeniably attractive. Christian in the early church. We see believers showing such compassion to their neighbors that their good works could not be denied. As a plague ravaged the fourth century empire, most left their own friends and family to die in the streets. But Christians braved the plague and cared for the sick in such a way that even Emperor Julian, who persecuted them, was forced to admit the impious Galileans, that was his word for Christians, relieved both their own poor and ours. He went on to see that the Christians have put them to shame. I mean, this would be like having China's president dictator Xi publicly admit that he wished his loyal communists were as compassionate as the Christians. I mean, this is quite an omission. It's one that proves the salt was making a difference. The light was shining in the world in an undeniably beautiful way. And don't forget what makes these good works so attractive is that they really do cut against the way of our culture. This is not the way everyone else thinks. It's not what everyone else is doing. As Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones has said, the glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first. It's true that many in this world will hate, our Christianity. They will hate our message. They will hate what we stand for. They will hate us for how our good works expose their evil. We've talked about that. Even in verses 10 through 12, we will experience persecution for the sake of Christ. But light, beloved, light always beats darkness. It always overcomes the darkness. If you're in a dark room, you don't need to chase the darkness away. All you need to do is flip on the light. And that's a very good image. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You have something that the godless of this society, as well-meaning as they do, and their idea of wanting to improve society and care for men, you have something they don't. You have the true light of the world. You have the spirit of God, the author of life dwelling inside you. What difference are you making for the sake of Christ? Do people see that? You only need to step into the dark room and let your light shine. Christian, let your light shine before men. The Christian's influence is imitative, obvious, and attractive, but finally, from our Lord's words, we derive here, the Christian's influence is doxological. That's a fancy term, but it means it brings glory to God. It brings glory to God. Verse 16, Jesus says, let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Now, please don't miss this. Jesus is not calling us to mere moralism, where we live a moral life without pointing people to God. That would be a shame if we didn't point people to Christ, who's the source of our light. That would be like basically trying to pantomime the gospel and leading to the world to guess or figure out why it is we're different, or why it is we do what we do. Instead, here Jesus is making plain, people ought to know why you do the good works you do. God ought to get the credit. People ought to see what you do, and wow, that's amazing, but instead of praising you, they should praise God. That says something about the way we carry ourselves, doesn't it? It says something about the fact that our works, our service in society should not be divorced from the name of Jesus Christ. We should do it for Christ. We should do it to represent him. We should do it to point others to his glory. As we've already said, whatever works we do are imitative. And so we are merely the instruments. We aren't the artist, we are the instrument. As Isaiah 10, 15 says, shall the ax boast over him who hews with it? Or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it? Or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood? Of course not. Of course the instrument can't take credit over the artist. And when people see your good works, they ought to know She's a nobody. He's a nobody serving an awesome God, an awesome, benevolent, wonderful Savior. The world may not know your name, they do not need to, but they must worship the name of Jesus. And you can have an influence to that end. What Christ is telling us here is that if you are one of my people, if you are a Christian, I expect you to change the world. Christ expects his people to change the world. He intends to change the world through you. The world ought to be a better place then because of the Christians here in this room. Port Washington ought to be a better, safer, more enjoyable community to live because we live here, because of this church's presence here, or wherever you hail from exactly. You and I ought to make a difference in our community for the sake of Jesus, not about us, but for his namesake. And this means we're gonna have to play our part as salt and light. We must have insulation without isolation. We must have contact with the world without contamination from it. Now, I know we've got plenty of books about what we must do and be in order to grow as a church, in order to reach the new generation. And there are plenty of ministry consultants that we could pay to come in and You know, they would tell us how to develop a new marketing strategy for our church. And so many say this very common thing, hey, let's hire out a band. Let's reorient our worship to be like a concert. It'll attract more people. Let's reorient our preaching to feel more like a sanctified late night show, you know, more comedy routine, more lighthearted jokes and inspirational feel good stories. And so on. I'm not even saying God can't ever or doesn't ever use such churches to bring people to himself. But what Jesus is saying here, brothers and sisters, is that God intends to change the world around you by virtue of what makes you different from those around you. You are different. You have something the world does not have. You're not trying to imitate the world. You're trying to imitate Christ. and it is your imitation of Jesus. It is the light of Jesus. It is the flavor of Jesus coming out that changes people around you. Praise God. If someone hired out a personal investigator to closely observe your manner of life then, would that investigator be able to discover this man, this woman is a devoted follower of Christ? What can you do in your home in your community, in your sphere of influence, to be the salt of the earth, to be the light of the world, to make a difference for Christ, to point others to Jesus, to make them hungry and thirsty for who it is you know as your Savior. And lastly, if you're here and you've any doubt that you've received the light of the world, you don't know you've received the light of God's salvation in your own life, and you have confusion as to what that even means, perhaps, I would love the chance to speak with you before you leave today. Please don't leave before you give the Lord a chance to speak to you from his word about how you can know this light of the world yourself. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for this holy word from your scriptures, and we pray that we would be faithful to be salt of the earth, the light of the world for your name's sake. Let us make a difference, oh God, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.