A Christian is just like…..

1. A Christian is just like….. • STORY: I heard of a little Hindu girl brought up in a strict Hindu family, who had come across Christians. Somebody asked her one day what she thought a Christian was. She thought for a few moments and replied, "Well as far as I can see, a Christian is somebody who is different from everybody else." • Would to God that it was true of me…. True of every professing Christian. • I share this story with you because this morning, we are coming to a new and fresh section in the Sermon on the Mount. • Jesus has given to His disciples a perfect description of Christian character.

2. As we move forward, Jesus makes application of that description…. Tells us what such a person would look like on a daily basis in this world. • KEY INSIGHT: (The opening section of the Sermon on the Mount = “The Beatitudes”) This portion of the Sermon on the Mount is referred to as “The Similitudes.” • A Simile is an expression comparing one thing to another. • A Similitude means “a likeness.” • Jesus is going to tells us that in relationship to the world, the man or woman described in “The Beatitudes” “is JUST LIKE” two specific things - SALT and LIGHT.

3. Both of these “similes” are packed with meaning and practical application. • They are very revealing in regards to • The nature of the world • And the nature of the believer in relationship to the world. • Let’s look at them!

4. (Mat 5:13 KJV) 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. 14Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15Neither 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. 16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. • Now by the way, it’s emphatic here and the translation is really, YOU ALONE are the salt of the earth.

5. Very important. • The JW’s are not the salt of the earth • The Hare Krishna’s are not the salt of the earth. • Neither are the Mormons, Muslims or Hindus • Life In A Rotten World • NOTE WELL: For the believer to be called “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” is a powerful indictment against the world we live in. • If the believer alone is just like SALT, it means that world is filled with every kind of spiritual and moral Rottenness, Decay, Pollution.

6. It means that the world is fallen and sinful. • It means that the tendency of the world is towards evil. • If the believer is just like LIGHT, it means that the world is living in spiritual darkness. • It is in the dark as to the person and nature of God. • It is in the dark as to the nature of mankind. • SO let’s dive into these SIMILES that were so clear to the hearers there on that hill side above the sea of Galilee

7. Just Like Salt • 13Ye 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. • 1.) SALT IS A PRESERVING AGENT • It PREVENTS putrification. • It RETARDS the process of rotting.

8. KEY INSIGHT: So when Jesus said to His disciples, YOU ARE JUST LIKE SALT - they got the picture. • In the days of Jesus there was no such thing as vacuum sealed packing and refrigeration. • Whenever they butchered their meat, the portion that they did not roast immediately would have to be heavily salted. • The salt killed the surface bacteria and acted as a preservative, keeping the meat from rotting. • KEY APPLICATION: When Jesus says that the disciple is JUST LIKE SALT, He is saying that the he/she is the preserving influence in the world in which he or she lives.

9. Wherever real disciples of Jesus have gone, there has been the preserving influence in that society. • Wherever Christians have looked like the person described in the Beatitudes, that society has been, and is being, preserved and maintained. • CONVERSELY: Where the Christian witness has diminished, that society has begun to deteriorate, and ultimately it is destroyed. • Just look at the history of our nation • There was a heavy Christian influence in forming the foundation of this nation.

10. Thus, written into our very constitution were those safe guards that protect our religious freedoms. • We have freedom of worship and assembly now, because the Christian influence at the birth of our nation was incredibly strong and they weren't afraid to say, "One nation under God." • PICTURES IN ROTUNDA - • 1 Bible study/2 prayer meetings/1 baptism • Picture of Bible Study on Mayflower - Geneva Bible….. What that picture says! • Largest church in the infant nations met in the Rotunda - used bibles paid for by congress!

11. BUT - As the Christian witness has weakened in our country, we can see to a greater degree than ever before, the rotting forces that are eating away at the very fiber of our country….. • Eating away at religious liberties • Rotting away the moral fiber of our society • (Add for desperate housewives)

12. 1.) SALT IS A PRESERVING AGENT • 2.) SALT PURIFIES • KEY INSIGHT: Salt was one of the earliest cathartic agents known to man. • A “cathartic” is something that PURGES and PURIFIES a wound. • Salt STINGS an open wound, but it also SAVES one from the danger of infection. • Even in the year 2006 salt is prescribed as a cathartic! VALERIE - and it stings • KEY APPLICATION: When Jesus says that we are JUST LIKE SALT, He is saying that the disciple is to be a PURIFYING AGENT in the world.

13. When Jesus says that we are JUST LIKE SALT, He is saying that the disciple is to be a PURIFYING AGENT in the world. • KEY APPLICATION: : We are called to be, not the honey of the world, but the salt of the earth. • The truth that you SPEAK in love, and the truth that you LIVE, will be a PURIFYING AGENT to the world around you. • Sometimes, your most loving words will STING. • This morning’s Bible Bus • Col.4:5 Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

14. Sometimes, your very presence will be like “salt on a wound.” (me playing tennis w/ jim pohl at CSUF) • SEASONED with salt - difference between mexican hot and Indian hot - • Mexican hot…. You can only taste the heat… what’t the point. • But Indian can be really hot (runing nose/sweating) but the flavor is so good that you want MORE • THAT is how our speech should be SEASONED with salt - it might sting but they want to come back for more!!

15. We should be salty • QUOTE: Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) • A Christian is salt… It is a disadvantage to be salt. Think of the action of salt on a wound. If you get salt into a wound, it hurts, and when God's children are amongst those who are "raw" toward God, their presence hurts. The man who is wrong with God is like an open wound, and when "salt" gets in, it causes annoyance and distress and he is spiteful and bitter. The disciples of Jesus preserve society from corruption; the "salt" causes excessive irritation which spells persecution for the saint. • PROBLEM: This week’s Bible Bus (Thursday)

16. Jer. 6:14-15 They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace. 15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. • QUOTE: BOSTON, Mass. (BP) -- Joel Osteen is one of America's most well-known preachers, but his less-than-direct comments recently on "gay marriage" turned a few evangelical heads. Osteen, pastor of the nondenominational Lakewood Church in Houston and the author of "Your Best Life Now," was at a Boston bookstore signing books when he was asked his opinion about "gay marriage," which has been legal in Massachusetts since 2004. According to the Boston Herald, Osteen "suddenly got sheepish."

17. "I don't think it's God's best," Osteen said, according to the Sept. 2 edition of the Herald. "I never feel like homosexuality is God's best." Pressed further, Osteen added, "I don't feel like that's my thrust ... you know, some of the issues that divide us, and I'm here to let people know that God is for them and He's on their side." ……It is not the first time Osteen has given a somewhat evasive answer to a moral question. In June 2005, during an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," Osteen was asked about his positions on "gay marriage" and abortion."You know what, Larry? I don't go there. I just ...," he said, according to a transcript. "...

18. I just, you know, I don't think that a same-sex marriage is the way God intended it to be. I don't think abortion is the best. I think there are other, you know, a better way to live your life. But I'm not going to condemn those people. I tell them all the time our church is open for everybody.""You don't call them sinners?" King asked."I don't," Osteen said."Is that a word you don't use?" King asked."I don't use it," Osteen responded. "I never thought about it. But I probably don't. But most people already know what they're doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change. There can be a difference in your life. So I don't go down the road of condemning." • GOD HELP THE CHURCH TO BE SALT!!

19. THAT is Exactly what was happening in the days of Jeremiah - • The shepherds were saying “Peace” when the people NEEDED to know that they had offended God! • Why would Paul say - I beseech you, be RECONCILED to God. • The very word reconcile implies that something is terribly wrong and needs to be fixed. • Today the problem is not so much what is being said - it is what is NOT being said. • The SALT has been left out!!

20. 1.) SALT IS A PRESERVING AGENT • 2.) SALT PURIFIES • 3.) SALT PROVIDES FLAVOR • The man or woman described in the Beatitudes not only acts as a preserving agent and a purifying agent in the world, they ADD FLAVOR to the world. • KEY INSIGHT: Their characteris not to be passive! • They are to be an ACTIVE INGREDIENT in the fabric of life. • They are to FLAVOR the world in which they live. • They are to give a new and more wholesome flavor to human existence.

21. KEY POINT: There is no use in saving salt for heaven. • It will not be needed there. • The believer’s mission is to PERMEATE this world and PROVIDE a heavenly flavorto things on earth! • KEY APPLICATION: The point of salt is to get it out of the shaker!! • OUT of the “Christian” box - • Get to where the world is rotting, where the open wounds are, where there is no savor. • It is not what you DO but who you are that is the salt…. Use what you DO to get who you ARE where the world lives!!

22. 1.) SALT IS A PRESERVING AGENT • 2.) SALT PURIFIES • 3.) SALT PROVIDES FLAVOR • 4.) SALT PROVOKES THIRST • Again, the very nature of the man and woman described in the Beatitudes STIMULATES a response from the world. • For some, the response will be adverse, even hostile. • For others, the life of the disciple will STIMULATE a THIRST for a relationship with this Jesus. • I WANT WHAT YOU HAVE

23. KEY APPLICATION: As individuals who have been transformed (Beatitudes) and now are of a totally different substance than this world, you and I are to have this life-preserving, life-giving influence upon this world. • Our presence here is to have an effect! • KEY QUESTION: IF our lives do NOT have the effect of preserving, purifying, providing flavor and provoking thirst, what does Jesus say? • 13Ye 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.

24. KEY QUESTION: Do any of us have any doubt as to the fact that Christianity in America is NOT very salty? • QUOTE:JOHN STOTT – • You know what your own country is like. I'm a visitor, and I wouldn't presume to speak about America. But I know what Great Britain is like. I know something about the growing dishonesty, corruption, immorality, violence, pornography, the diminishing respect for human life, and the increase in abortion. “Whose fault is it?”Let me put it like this: “ If meat goes bad, there is no sense in blaming the meat. That is what happens when the bacteria are allowed to breed unchecked. The question to ask is, "Where is the salt?…..

25. If society becomes corrupt like a… stinking fish, there's no sense in blaming society. That's what happens when fallen human society is left to itself and human evil is unrestrained and unchecked. The question to ask is, "Where is the church?" • We can NOT hide the fact that the Church has LOST its savor! • Not only does the rotted, impure, flavorless, barren state of our society declare it, but we must also admit that by and large the Church is being trodden under foot. • There was a time when some things were considered “sacred,” even if not believed in or practiced.

26. The strength of the Christian witness kept even its harshest opponents at bay. • Today, Christianity is being walked on in the news, on the radio, on the TV and in the movies. • Rosie O’Donnell - "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam.” • Christians are always depicted in movies or TV as weak-minded, bigoted, hypocrites who need to learn lessons from the more compassionate/humane atheists or homosexuals. • EXAMPLE: The “Blonde” intern on ER overnearing and out of step with the other doctors… in contrast to caring/compassionate, gay man

27. Just Like Light • 14Ye are the light of the world. • KEY INSIGHT: By using this Simile Jesus is saying that the world is not only in a state of decay, it is in darkness! • God’s remedy for this DARK world is YOU! • YOU and YOU ALONE can give it light. • The miraculous thing is that the same Jesus that said, “You are the light of the world”also said, “I am the light of the world!” • (John 8:12 NKJV)Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

28. KEY INSIGHT: A Christian is only “the light of the world”because of his relationship to Him who is Himself “the light of the world”. • The Christian not only WALKED in darkness before Christ, but was darkness! • (Eph 5:8 NKJV)For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. • The moon gives light to a dark world ONLY because of its relationship to the sun. • Jesus came to be the light of the world. • KEY INSIGHT #1 - Light EXPOSES darkness. • That is seen nowhere as clearly as in the life of Christ, both in His WORDS and DEEDS!

29. KEY INSIGHT #2 -Light does more than expose darkness, IT SHOWS THE WAY OUT of darkness! • Jesus came and said,“You must be born again!” • As we live in this world, our lives and our words should EXPOSE the darkness, and then we need to lead people out of the darkness - • The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way out! • We should, with our lives and words be saying - FOLLOW ME out of the darkness and into the light!

30. Just Like Light 3616 cresta ct oc ca 92056 • 14Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. • a city set on a hill cannot be hidden was a perfect teaching moment there on the Mt. of Beatitudes • Behind and above Jesus was Safed - a city that could be seen on top of a mountain above Capernaum in the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. • It can still be seen there today - • KEY INSIGHT: If it was overcast when the men went to fish by night on Galilee - they couldn’t see the stars - but they could could take their bearings off of Safed.

31. KEY POINT: Jesus used Safed to illustrate the spiritual light that only the Church brings to the world. • In a spiritually dark world, the believer is to be someone by whom men and women can get there bearings • QUOTE: “Some people may never read the Bible…. But they will read you like a book” • 15Neither 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.

32. God did not save us to hide, but to shine! • We are NOT called to RETREAT from the world. • We are NOT called to HIDE from the world. • We are called to LIGHT the world. • 16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. • KEY INSIGHT:So shinedoes NOT mean, “I’m gonna let my light shine SO MUCH.” • It means - Let you light shine in such a way, in such a manner, that they will see YOUR good works and glorify YOUR FATHER in Heaven.

33. KEY APPLICATION: A Christian (the salt of the earth and the light of the world) is NEVER to draw attention to himself!! • Our lives are to be lived in such a way that other people may glorify God. • Point them to the One who is responsible for every good work in your life. • It all comes down to this - • As a result of the Holy Spirit transforming our lives - You and I are to become JUST LIKE JESUSin this world.