Upside Down Living #8 - Impact in a Time of Self-Focus
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues in the Sermon the Mount with the first passage after beatitudes where Jesus uses two metaphors, being salt of the earth and the light of the world, to show how his followers are to interact with culture.
Message Transcript
Hey, welcome to Orchard Hill. It's great to be together online. It's great to be together in-person in the Strip District, Butler County, and Wexford this weekend. Just before we jump into the teaching, I'd like to take a moment and pray together. Our country is again, going through some tension. Certainly, the shooting of Jacob Blake has led many to get amped up rightly about racial justice. And at the same time, the riots that have ensued have taken lives and have been equally as disturbing in many ways. And so, I just want to take a moment and pray together that our country can find a way to work in the midst of this time to bridge gaps to come together, and to overcome stereotypes. I know sometimes, we saw this with the shooting of the five year old white boy Cannon Hinnant, where the media didn't want to portray that, in part because they didn't want to give a stereotype of a black man shooting a white child. And yet the same stereotypes can exist with police officers where one act of violence is portrayed on the entire profession. And so, we want to just pray that we can find ways to constructively move forward right now as a nation. And so, I want to pray and I'm going to use a prayer from something that's called the daily office. It's an old way of praying and it's just going to be my prayer for us as a people right now. So, let's pray together. Father in darkness and in light, in trouble and joy. Help us Heavenly Father, to trust your love, to serve your purpose, and to praise your name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
So, let me ask you a question today. And it's in some ways, might feel very timely. What do you think our world needs right now? If you were to choose one thing and say, this is what our world needs, what is it that you would say we need? My guess is some of us would say, well, we need a vaccine. And certainly, that would be helpful. I made a list of some things that maybe we would say. Some people would say what we need is unity. We need to come together as a country and as a people. Some people would say that what drives everything is ultimately economic development. And the reason that there's the unrest and the difficulty is the economic development. Some people would say what we need is more education, because education will lift people out of whatever socioeconomic disparities that exist. Some people would say we need clean water. Some people would, perhaps speak about social justice. And certainly, that's been a theme in recent days. Some people would say what we need is we need to be able to overcome some of the social characterizations that Marxist philosophy has hoisted on our country. Some people would talk about tolerance, some people would want to talk about ending human trafficking, and all of these things are things that are vying for our attention.
But you know what very few people would probably say we need? More God, we need Jesus, we need more Christians, or more church people. And this is striking to me. Because Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, which is what we're studying over these weeks, when he comes together and he has the crowd gathered who is saying, we need something we need the end of oppression, we need a social change, and Jesus is addressing this crowd. Jesus' answer to that question is in the verses that you heard read, Matthew, chapter five, verses 13 through 16. Because here's what Jesus in essence says, He says, you are the answer. In other words, what the world needs when people are gathered looking for a military solution or a political solution, Jesus says, here's what you need, you, and he's talking to the crowd that's gathered, and he says, you are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world. And it was Jesus' way of saying, here's what the world needs. The world needs Christian people together in community because that's where the hope is found. That sounds so counter to what our world would say today. In fact, very few people even within the church would say what the world needs is church people. What the world needs is Christians together. This is why we've called this an upside down kind of living that Jesus calls His people to. And so, with that, we have this idea that Jesus says that you are the light of the world, and you are the salt of the earth.
And just as we begin to look at this, I want to point out something that's significant in the original language to this, and it's hard to see in English, because in English, our word you, is both plural and singular. And therefore, you can't say, oh you mean either plural or singular. And as a result, when Christians have read this for generations, and they hear you are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world, they've read it very individualistically. I am the salt of the earth; I am the light of the world. And it becomes about us doing something individually, and it leads even to our privatization of faith, which is a way of saying that a lot of times what happens is, people say, my faith is all about me and God, and it isn't about community. But Jesus when he says you are the salt of the earth; it was you plural. Now you could say he's saying, well, he's speaking to a large group, therefore it had to be plural, which is possible. But I believe that Jesus was being very intentional here and saying you together, you collectively, because it's plural in the original language. Which is distinct from singular, and very obvious when you read this in the original language. And so, I think what he was doing was he was saying you collectively, all of you together, are the salt of the earth. All of you together are the light of the world. Not so much just you individually.
So, here's what I'd like us to do. And that is, I'd like us to look at the two metaphors that Jesus uses. You are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world and just talk about how Jesus sees collectively, his people being the answer to the world's problems. So, first salt, well, salt, clearly in ancient times was used to prevent corruption. Now, we could talk about how salt is not just something that prevents corruption but creates thirst and how it in a sense, improves tastes, but certainly the dominant way that people would have thought about salt then would have been to prevent corruption. And the reason that this is significant in that culture was because people didn't have refrigeration. So if they ever had meat or wanted to preserve something, what they would do is they would usually hang it and put salt on it so that it would last longer, and they could use it for a longer period of time. And the idea that would have immediately gone through people's minds when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, if they would have said, we know that salt prevents corruption and that without salt, things decay and rot faster. And so, Jesus' image here is saying, you collectively help to prevent the decay of society that is inevitable without salt. That's what Jesus is saying.
One commentator Helmut Thielicke, who was writing on this says, "Too often what Christians want to be instead of salt preserving decay and preventing decay, is they want to be a honey pot. They see their main thing is to sweeten and sugar the bitterness of life with an all too easy conception of God." In other words, what a lot of people do is they say, it isn't to prevent decay, isn't what God calls Christians to be a part of, but he calls them to just make life more palatable for people.
Now, certainly our world is a world that left to itself will rot. And Christians have, in many ways, not been historically, always on the right side of that. And yet, at the same time, Christians have been incredibly on the right side of it. And all you have to do is look back at our country's history with slavery to get a picture of this. It was largely Christians who were abolitionists who worked tirelessly for civil rights, who the church moved to help things move in a healthy direction. It was Christians in our country who often were part of the Civil War and saying we want to end slavery and yet there were churches that were complicit.
And so how is the church part of this? This is something Scott Saul's wrote a couple years ago. He said, "History is peppered with the kinds of lives that have changed, and basically preserved and made the world better. For example, Christians have shown groundbreaking leadership in science." And then he lists these names Pascal, Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Meitner, and Francis Collins. "Christians have shown groundbreaking leadership in healthcare. All of the hospitals named after saints. They've, shown groundbreaking leadership in arts and culture, think of Rembrandt, Bach, Dorothy Sayers, Dostoevsky, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Johnny Cash, and Bono." He says, "They've shown it in the academy, all of the Ivy League universities were founded by Christians. They showed great leadership, mercy, and justice, William Wilberforce, Hannah More, Dorothy Day, George Muller, and Martin Luther King, Jr." This is how he summarizes it. "The identifying mark of the city of God is when its citizens of the heavenly city become the very best citizens of the earthly one. To be on the side of Jesus is to be on the side of the world and it's flourishing."
And here's why I take a moment just to dive into this because it's so easy sometimes for people of faith and people not of faith to say that what faith is, is it's this personal journey, where you get yourself right with Jesus, and then you punch your ticket to eternity and you live your life here and now exactly how you want to live your life, and it really isn't that different from anything else. But Jesus says, collectively, my people are the salt of the earth, meaning they aren't self-focused. They aren't just simply living their life to say, I'm punching my ticket for eternity and getting my best life here and now, and no matter what else happens, but they're saying, I have a purpose from God, and part of my purpose from God is to make this world better, and to ensure its flourishing. That to live in mission, if you want to use that terminology, isn't merely to help people come to faith in Jesus Christ, but it's also to help make the world a better place to prevent decay. That's what Jesus is saying when he talks about the salt of the earth. And then he uses this analogy of saying that salt, when it loses its saltiness, becomes good for nothing. Here's how he says it. You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Now technically, salt never loses its properties of saltiness. I think Jesus is speaking practically here. And what he's saying, is that when salt ceases to be useful, it becomes completely worthless. In other words when it doesn't fulfill its function. Salt is something that if it's just kept in a container together, doesn't actually have its intended purpose. The way that salt works is when it's spread out, then it actually fulfills its purpose.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, who was a pastor in England back in the 1950s or so, put it this way. He 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, even though at first, she might hate it." And so that's the analogy or metaphor that Jesus used to say, you are the salt of the earth, and then he uses a second one. He says you are the light of the world. Very simple concept here that he basically uses. And he says, not only are you salt but your light. And here's how Don Carson writes about this. He says, "If salt exercises the negative function of delaying decay, and warns disciples of the danger of compromising conformity to the world, then light speaks positively of illumining a sin darkened world and warns against the withdrawal from the world that does not lead others to glorify the God in heaven." In other words, what he's saying is that light is an outward focused ideal.
And so, here's what you get. You get Jesus saying, you are together, the salt of the earth, you should prevent decay, and you are the light of the world. And what light does is it illumines, or it shows the way in darkness. Now he does say right in this section that you should do your good works so that they're seen. And then in Matthew chapter six, which is still part of the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "Don't do your good deeds before people." And so, there's a legitimate question here well, which is it? Do you do things so that they're seen or not seen? And I think what's important is that the intention, are you doing things so that you're seeing, or so that God's seen? Are you doing things that are personal and private in a way that displays them because you're trying to make a display? Or are you simply saying, I live in such a way that my life is noticed. Not because I want to be noticed for me, but I want to point to Jesus Christ.
You know, there's a real tendency today to want to live an extraordinary life. And what I mean by that is, is not that ordinary is what we should all aspire to. But sometimes what happens, especially in Christian circles, is people don't think that being salt and light, which are very ordinary things, is enough. And so, what they want to do is they want to say I've got to do something extraordinary, something that blows everybody away so that they know how great I am. Instead of saying that the call of God to live in mission and to be part of the solution in our world, is simply to say, how do I make the world that I'm in better (salt)? And how do I point people to the true light of the world, Jesus Christ, with my life?
You know, if you've ever been on a sports team or been part of a band or something, there's usually one or two people who are the virtuosos in the band or the superstar on the sports team. But what those bands and teams need, ultimately, are not 25 superstars, but people who say I'm willing if it's a football team to block and tackle. Or I'm willing if I'm in a band to play the baseline and the harmonies and not necessarily always have the solo or the starring role. And the point that I'm making here is that somewhere in the Christian subculture of our world, there's come to be this attitude that says, if I can't be great and do something great, if I can't be extraordinary, if I can't start my own nonprofit and eradicate world hunger or something like that, then my life doesn't matter. And Jesus in these analogies is saying the exact opposite he's saying, if you are part of a group of people and you play the harmony, the baseline, if you're the one who blocks and tackles, you make a huge difference because you together are the salt of the earth, and you together are the light of the world. This isn't about how great you can be. It's about how great God is. And in the purpose of your life saying, I'm going to prevent decay where I can, and I'm going to point people to Jesus. This is what Jesus is driving at, I believe with these two metaphors.
And what we need to understand is that if we ever tried to kind of keep our sense of faith, from culture, that in a sense we're living in a protectionist mindset. This is what Jesus means when he says, who lights a lamp and puts it under a bucket or a bushel, and who tries to hide a city on a hill? He says, you can't do it. Now, some of us may hear this and say, well, one of the reasons that I'm not a follower of Jesus, I don't believe, is because I've known Christians, and they were the very people who added to the decay of the world. Or I've known Christians and they didn't point me to Jesus. They pointed me to something that was so messed up that I want no part of faith. I want no part of Christianity. And I certainly understand that, and, in many ways, I sympathize with that way of thinking. Because when you've had a bad experience with somebody, it's hard to say, oh, I love what you love. But let me just put it in this frame.
A couple years ago, I bought for my wife, a series of experiences as a gift. And so, we went to several concerts down in the cultural district in Pittsburgh. We went to the ballet several times in one year. Just to be truly forthcoming here, ballet is not something I would choose to do for an evening generally if it weren’t for my wife. I do it because she likes it, it's a way to get dressed up, take my wife out, and have a good night without it being about me in any substantial way. And so, we went to several ballets, and we ended up in the same seats because I bought the subscription that year. And the seats that were around us sometimes had the same people and sometimes did not. And there was one night that we were there, and there was a family that was in front of us, and they had brought these young kids to the ballet. Probably trying to give them a cultural experience, but they were less into the ballet than I was into the ballet. And what the mom did to try to like to have the kids keep it together during the ballet is she started getting out candy. She would unwrap the candy, and then hand the kids the candy. But every time she would unwrap the candy, you would hear the noise of that and would seem disproportional. You couldn't even hardly watch because all of a sudden, you're hearing this candy getting unwrapped, and the kids were asking for candy, and it was this whole scene.
And here's my point, even as a non-ballet lover, here's what I didn't do. I didn't walk out of the ballet that day and go the ballet stinks. The ballet is awful because that fan who was there was inconsiderate. No, I walked out and said, you know what, that was better than I thought. That that was reasonable. I actually through the year, came to enjoy the ballet. But I didn't let the experience of the people around me dictate what I thought of the ballet. And sometimes what happens even though God's call here is to say Christians together collectively, you're to be the salt of the earth, you're to be the light of the world, and sometimes when Christians aren't, people outside of faith will say I don't want to be part of that because of. But what you're doing is you're going to the ballet and saying I'm judging the ballet based on the other people who are part of the audience. And maybe you're going to miss who God really is, who Jesus really is, who is the light of the world, and who will help navigate the darkness and the difficulty of our world if you will come to embrace Him to help you to navigate that. And so that's part of that.
So here are just a couple things that these metaphors point to and just a few things I'd like to point out. The first is this and that is there seems to be a little bit of a tension in today's world between what I would call social justice and gospel proclamation. In other words, some people say, here's what we need to do. We just need to talk about Jesus, preach the gospel, point people to Jesus, and let the social issues take care of themselves. And other people say if we don't engage in social issues, we have no credibility when it comes to gospel proclamation. What we're doing in some ways, is saying we either need to be all salt or all light.
There's been a whole debate that's gone on between certain people around this issue. And so, I just want to read you something that was in a commentary that I read. And this was written in 1978, by a man named John Stott. And the reason I point out when it's written, is that 40 plus years ago now that John Stott wrote this, so he was not writing about our current cultural moment, he was writing about his cultural moment. But listen to how relevant these words are. This is a little lengthy, but how he says this, I think, and the gravity of the time period and who he was, helps just to speak to our current moment.
He says, "Alongside this condemnation of what is false and evil, talking about how salt sometimes needs to in order to prevent decay, call out some things that are wrong. We should take our stand boldly for what's true, good, and decent. Whether in our neighborhood, in our college, profession, or business, or in the wider sphere of national life, including the mass media, Christian salt takes effect by deeds as well as words. We've already seen that God has created both the state and the family of social structures to restrain evil and encouraged goodness. And Christians have a responsibility to see that these structures are not only preserved but are also operated with justice. Too often, evangelical Christians have interpreted their social responsibility in terms of only helping the casualties of the sixth society and have done nothing to change the structures which caused the casualties. Just as doctors are concerned not only with the treatment of patients but also with Preventative Medicine and Public Health, so we should concern ourselves with what might be called preventative social medicine and higher standards of moral hygiene. However small our part may be, we cannot opt out of seeking to create better social structures which guaranteed justice in legislation and law enforcement, the freedom and dignity of the individual, civil rights for minorities, and the abolition of social and racial discrimination. We should neither despise these things nor avoid our responsibilities for them." And then he continues, a little later he says, "We are called both to spread the gospel, and to frame our manner of life in a way that is worthy of the gospel. So, we should never put our two vocations to be salt and light, our Christian Social and evangelistic responsibilities over against each other as if we had to choose between them. We should not exaggerate either, or disparage either, at the expense of the other. Neither can be substituted for the other. The world needs both and it is bad and needs salt, it's dark and needs light. Our Christian vocation is to be both Jesus Christ said so and that should be enough."
And again, I when I read that and realize it was written in 1978, my response was just to say that could have been written about our current moment. And what he's saying is that the call, the mission of the collective group of Christians, is to say we are working to make the world better while pointing the world to the true light in the midst of darkness. Now, there are some who've objected in different ways to this whole idea of Christians taking mission or responsibility seriously or trying to tell people about Jesus and how they can have eternal life through the saving work of Jesus Christ. Some people have said, all we need to do is just simply love. You know, just love people. That's all we're called to do, but it misses the track teaching here of Jesus.
In fact, one commentator put it this way. So, to try to improve society is not worldliness but love and to wash your hands of society is not love, but worldliness. In other words, you missed the whole idea of love. If you say I'm not going to try to improve society, or I'm not going to tell you about ultimate eternal life. Some people will object, and they'll say, well, you can't really change anyone. And it's not really your job to change anyone. But again, I think this misses the metaphor that Jesus uses. He doesn't say salt is responsible to make all the changes or light is. He just simply says, this is what you are. And then some people will say, well, the responsibility is Gods, it's not yours, you don't need to do anything. But again, God not just takes the responsibility ultimately, because he's in control, but he also ordains the means by saying I want the people who are my followers to take this sense of mission, this sense of calling seriously.
Here's what's true, and that is salt doesn't need to try to be salt, and light doesn't need to try to be light. It is. And Jesus is saying when you live according to my principles in community together, you will naturally change the trajectory of the society around you. And that is exactly what he calls us to do.
And so, here's the simple idea. And that is, are you committed to just the notion of saying, if I'm a follower of Jesus have a mission. And if you're not committed to the cause of Jesus, the invitation isn't just to get your life lined up so one day you can punch a ticket to heaven, it's to say, I want you to be a part of this mission. When Jesus spoke this, he spoke it to a mixed crowd that was gathered with military and political agendas. And he said, I've got a different agenda and upside down agenda. It's not saying that politics and military events don't matter. But what he's saying is, if you want real change, it's not going to come from education or economic development. It's not going to come from a political agenda. It's not going to come from simply getting all of these things lined up because the human heart is still at play. And so, do your part to make things better, while at the same time pointing people to the ultimate hope and truth that exists. That's where the hope is found.
You know, there's an account that has come out of when the Titanic sank in 1912. A survivor, a woman named Everhart later told the story of being on lifeboat number 14. And lifeboat 14 was famed because of the 20 or so lifeboats that made it into the water and the people who survived. Lifeboat 14 was the one boat that returned over and over again to as close as they could to try to rescue people who were in the water. What happened was when the Titanic went down and people didn't have lifeboats, you could hear people screaming. You could hear people shouting, hoping for some deliverance. Most of the boats chose to stay at a safe distance because they said our safe distance will keep our boat from being swamped. If we want to survive, the only way we can survive is to not risk anything. But lifeboat 14 said we can't simply sit here while people's lives are lost, simply to protect ourselves. And they returned over and over and rescued many. And their boat eventually was not entirely swamped, and they too were rescued. And that's a little bit of a picture of the choice that Christians have to make throughout history. Well, I simply say, I'm going to take my salt and light and sit at a safe distance or will I use what God has given me and all that God has given me and risk something to help others come into this kingdom and to point people to Jesus.
You know, we live in a time of a global pandemic right now. And it's really easy in a time of a pandemic to say, well, nobody wants to go to church because it might be dangerous. Nobody wants to be invited to a group in my home because people are social distancing. And that may be true, but it also means that people are asking profound questions. They're feeling a deep sense of loneliness. I don't know if you saw this, but the CDC came out recently and said that, I think it was a quarter of young adults, people 18 to age 25, have contemplated suicide in the United States since the pandemic began. I mean, think about that. Talk about people asking huge questions. And the question is, will the church say oh, we've got our hope figured out? This world isn't our home. We're good. Or will the church say, no, we'll return to where people are struggling and hurting and say we want to point you to the true light of the world. You see, Jesus ultimately his point was to say, I don't have another plan. My plan is my people, and it's my people living in community and pointing others to Jesus. It's saying, we will accept the mission. And his invitation is to say to people who say, I'm not sure that I'm part of that, come and join the mission. Don't just punch ticket for something in the future, out of theory, but join the revolution in a sense, that will turn the world upside down. And it has been Christians throughout history together, who have made the greatest societal changes. And it is Christians who have helped others come to faith and know that they have an eternity that is better than their present because of what Jesus Christ has done.
Father, we thank you for just these simple metaphors that point us to what it is that you call every person to be a part of. And God, it's easy to try to avoid mission for a variety of reasons. Often just because we want to be focused on our own ends. And I pray that for me, for those who call Orchard Hill their church home, for Christians throughout this region and our country, that we wouldn't be satisfied sitting in a lifeboat when there is opportunity to help others come to an ultimate knowledge of you, and real hope, and real societal healing. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
