Matthew Chapter 5 Verse 13

• Salt in our day has become a common thing. Something you see on every table in every restaurant but it was a different story in Biblical times. Salt was extremely valuable. So much so that Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt. That’s where we get the saying, “He’s worth his salt,” (if you’ve ever heard that). In fact the word “salary” comes from the practice of making payment with salt. That term or action is called giving one a “salarium.”
• Even though salt is quite common to us today, its qualities and intrinsic values have not changed. Salt is needed by all known living creatures. And I love this because although I’m going to share a few things about what is meant by Jesus in this statement that He is making to His disciples…what He really meant is so much more! I mean He created salt…thought it up! When He was putting his Hand to bringing all things living to life, one part of the puzzle was this substance…salt. Salt has curative and sanitary properties. The Hebrews would take salt and rub newborn babies with it to clean them and toughen their skin after birth. I didn’t know this but salt is a natural antihistamine. A pinch of salt on the tongue can help to fight an allergic reaction or even and asthma attack. I didn’t know this either (what I don’t know could fill a book! – HA) but salt lowers adrenaline spikes and improves sleep quality. (A little calm, and a little rest)
• Salt, of course, preserves so that things that are perishable remain. Salt enhances the flavor of food and brings a richness to a meal and I love this thought that adequate salt content in food makes it easier to enjoy quality instead of quantity. Finally, I think my favorite quality of salt to share this morning, salt creates thirst.
• Jesus looks towards His disciples, in the presence of the multitude, and proclaims to them (doesn’t command them, simply proclaims to them) this is how you will be if you are Mine. You will clean and sanitize situations. You will be the cure for the world, for folks looking for a cure. You will block the allergy and decay of sin. You will calm the issue, even the room. You will bring rest because you will bring people to Me! You will upgrade the lives of My children, for Me!
• But isn’t too much salt…well, a bad thing? Oh yea…too much salt can cause hypertension and even heart failure. Well here’s the deal. Salt is essential to life but salt by itself is hard to ingest! The message I want to get across here is that religion without love (lite/light) is like pouring salt into cereal! YUCK! All Word knowledge and no life is like heavily salted ice water…gross!

• And so practically speaking to be the salt of the world we are to be like Christ and we are to follow Him…to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength AND to love others as ourselves. To not only tell folks what is right but to live out what is right. Knowing the path and walking the path are two different things. But a heart given over to God, the outcome of that, (the outcome of the fruit of the Spirit), is peace! Jesus said in Mark Chapter 9 verse 50, “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.”

• Lots of folks have lots and lots of salt…they know the Word and they have heard countless sermons…made countless intellectual connections and man their hearts are filled with truth, and yet that Word doesn’t get mixed with faith and therefore the Word profits them nothing. Hebrews 4:2. Jesus didn’t say go be salt…He said, “You are the salt of the earth.” Just going and being salt makes a bunch of folks salt seas…

• I don’t want this sermon to be only about salt so I won’t spend but a few minutes more on this but the salt sea, the Dead Sea as you might know it, has such a high salt content that no fish can live in it…and it’s the lowest point on the earth that’s not an ocean. It sits at 1,388 feet below sea level. And I love that because the sea is a term used for peoples/nations in the Bible. Christians that take in and take in and take in, learn about the path and never walk it, Christians that don’t give their lives to God…man their hearts shrivel up and before they know it they are even lower than the people on the earth in terms of bringing love and flavor and preserving!!!

• Zephaniah 2:9 speaks of salt pits and man some folks are. Truth without love is cruel and love without truth is fake…we have to have both…Jesus said you are to make life possible, to preserve life, to cleanse life and fortify life and you are to create thirst in the hearts of the people for the truth and love of Jesus. We are the Kingdom of God’s salary to His creation. Cash rules everything around me, CREAM, get the money, dollah dollah bill y’all! For real! HA! Because man salt of the earth, cash in hand in terms of building the kingdom…

• But even salt is perishable…did you know that…well it doesn’t decay but it can get watered down can’t it…? And if the salt is no longer good to ingest then what’s it good for? If the flavor is gone from a grain of salt then it is just sand…and sand is common. It’s only good to mix with plaster for a floor and be walked all over and that’s about it…and that’s the thing…folks lose their flavor, their richness, their saltiness sometimes because they’re tired of being walked all over but the truth is, that’s when you really become the enemy’s dance floor…

Matthew Chapter 5 Verses 14 – 16

• This is cool because as Christians we are to be salt and light. Light reveals and yet it brings warmth. Light gives power. Light gives security. Light, lights up the darkness, if I may quote Bob Marley! I mean think of this passage this way. We have the Holy Spirit within us! He is within us! He knows truth! He is eternally wise! His heart is forever for man and for their good, (I mean, He is God!) We gotta let that light out!
• Why would we suppress God under layers of foolishness and flesh!? I just don’t get it, personally. One thing I know about Christians is that we want to be exactly who God wants us to be. Deep down, we are dying to bring glory and honor to God and to walk in power proclaiming Him to this world…let your light out and let God make you into precisely what you yearn to be anyway…
• And I love this, Jesus was like this, the things He did, the miracles He performed, the life He lived, He did it in such a way to always bring attention to the Father. He didn’t pose for a photo shoot with Lazarus or a selfie with the wine pots at the wedding in Cana! HA! Folks would see what He did and they would glorify the Father in heaven…we are to do the same!

Matthew Chapter 5 Verses 17 – 20

• I love this and this is so gear-changing when you grasp it! Jesus didn’t come to chase away the debt of sin on mankind. He came to pay it. Chase away an enemy and they will plot and plan and come back stronger…convert an enemy to a friend and they will stick around and love you…This is what Jesus did on the cross!
• And until it’s all over, until heaven and earth pass away, the law is going to stick around with men…either as a friend, walking with you completely paid and fulfilled by your relationship with Jesus Christ, or, as an enemy, perfectly revealing that your sin is upon you…and nothing you do on your own will ever be enough.
• Jesus says here that you have to be more righteous than the most perfect people around…the scribes and the Pharisees and I’m sure everyone gasped because these were perfect in the eyes of men. There was a saying at this time in the Jewish culture that went, “If only two men get into heaven, one will be a scribe and the other will be a Pharisee,”…but Jesus was saying and you gotta know…that you don’t have to be perfect in the eyes of men…that’s not enough…you have to be perfect in the presence of God…