I want to write this not as a person who has learned this lesson well and can attest to living it completely and fully, but as a fellow traveler and a student who is still learning the lesson.
From before time as we know it began God knew what the human condition would be. He knew Adam and Eve would fall into sin and he knew that from that moment on every created being would need a savior. If you look around today you see the affect that sin has on our culture. The profane has become profound, the idiots are called geniuses, and any kindergartener with a box of crayon can be considered a great artist. In our world ideas are not gained. We are consumed by the television, We do not read and formulate our own ideas, we are told what to believe and beliefs can change depending on who is espousing the idea.
In his book “The Divine Conspiracy” Dallas Willard tells the story of a young woman from the Midwest that goes to Harvard for college. While she is there she becomes part of a study in the behavior and morality of students. Harvard is know as one of the best schools in the country. Its prestige alone gives its graduates a jump on success that 98% of the other schools in the United States can not offer. During the course of this study the young girl took a job cleaning the dorm rooms of fellow students. While she was doing this job she was treated horribly by other students. She was called names, lied to, and even propositioned for sex. She ended up leaving school and in her exit interview for the study she recalled being in class with these same people and being taught what was true and what was good and what morality was supposed to be. Her most poignant question was this, “How do you teach people to be good, what is the need for learning what is good when you don’t try to become a good person?” That is the world we are faced with every day and in many of their eyes the church at large is no different. They look at people like the Dali Lama and say if he can be a good person without Jesus then why do I need Jesus? The here and now is what they see because they have no sense of the eternal. So how are we to respond to a world so ravaged by sin?
In Matthew 5: 13-14 Jesus says this, 13″You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14″You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither 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. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
The first way we can respond to our world today is to be like salt.
A few years ago I remember just starting to see Stickers on the back of car and truck windows that said Salt Life. I thought they were for Christians who were committing to live the salt life Christ calls us to, but I was terribly wrong. If you are not familiar with the Salt Life brand it is a clothing line based in Ponte Vedra Florida that make beach and ocean wear. One of their biggest promotional items are those stickers for the windows in cars. I wanted one because I knew what the salt life entailed for a Christian. I knew it symbolized a needed change in our society.
The problem with salt is that it can do any number of things. One of those is kill, to much salt water will shut down your kidneys. Or salty earth will not grow vegetation. Where I grew up in Arkansas we had bear spots in the ground where and if you would put a little of the dirt on your tongue you could taste the salt in it. One thing we did with it in school was to scoop some of the dirt up, put it in a bucket and mix it in water. We then Put a string in the water the dirt would settle to the bottom and the salt crystals would form on the string. What had we done, we had made the salt useful. Imagine that in your life. If you are the salt of the earth Jesus has taken you out of the mire and dirt and made you useful again.
Which leads us to my favorite use for salt. I am a huge fan of Bar-B-Que. If you have ever done much barbecuing you know that salt is used for two things, the first is flavor. As with all cooking salt flavors the barbecue. But the more important use is that it penetrates the meat and takes the other flavors with it. If we are the salt of the Earth and Jesus has raised us up and made us useful salt we need to penetrate the world we live in. Don’t put this off because I am using food analogies because that is exactly what he was doing.
The second way we can have an affect on our world is by being a light.
Today we flip a switch and we can light an entire home so Jesus’ analogy is sometimes lost. In Jesus day they used little oil lamps most of which were no bigger than the palm of your hand Those lamps lit only a small area but when placed up high they would at least give some light to a small home. Wherever you go you are taking the light of Christ that is within you. Everyone you come in contact with should see a noticeable difference in your life as a Christian than the life of a non-Christian.
When Paul writes in Romans 10:15, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.” We begin to see how wonderful it is when we bring the gospel into our world. Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” The uniqueness of Christianity is our salvation in Christ. His resurrection assures us that one day we will rise again with him. But we should not wait until we die to serve him. We must use our little light to open up the world to its true light Jesus Christ.
A few years ago the diaries of the famed atheist Madeline Murray O’Hare were sold. In those diaries were penned these words, “Will somebody somewhere please love me? Will somebody somewhere please love me?” If you are reading this and that is your cry, love is closer than you might think. In the book of Romans Chapter 10 starting at verse 9 Paul tells us, 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. While the Christian life is started with that trust he will continue to change your heart and mind the more you give it over to him. Just start a conversation with him and he will make himself known to you.
