Praise God family, friends of God saints of God, family of Mt Goshen international ministries (Matthew 5:13-16)

Have you ever heard the phrase, “that person is a salt of the earth person?” Have you ever wondered what that meant?
Jesus has just finished laying out His blessings for people that demonstrate the qualities that God looks for in His followers

Now, as Jesus continues talking about how His followers should live, He gives us two metaphors for how His disciples should live: salt and light.

What a sign of God’s grace that He instructs us how to live for Him!
Matthew 5:13-16

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Jesus is following up His discussion about the beatitudes, or “the blessings,” with this discussion about salt and light.

Now, remember the behaviour that Jesus says brings blessings to the follower of God is radically different from the behaviour of the world.

So, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to think that because Jesus’ followers are to be so different from the world then they should withdraw from the world.
However, Jesus in this passage teaches the exact opposite of that.

Jesus wants us to engage the world with God’s love.
Jesus says first of all that . . .

I. We are to be salt (v. 13)

Look at verse 13 again.

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

He says that His followers are salt.

There’s a lot written about the usefulness of salt in Jesus’ time.
Some say that it was used for seasoning and taste.
Some say that it was used as a preservative.

Some say that it was used as an irritant.

Some say that it was used to kill plant life.
Here’s the point: salt was useful in Jesus’ day and age. However, if salt no longer acts like salt, it’s no longer good as salt.

Does that make sense? We don’t have to make it harder than it is.

Salt was useful to the people of ancient Palestine for taste, preservation, and other purposes.

If the salt no longer tasted like salt, or it no longer preserved, or it no longer accomplished whatever purpose it was supposed to accomplish, it was useless, and it would be thrown out as waste.

Jesus makes it clear that as salt is useful to people, so also Christians must be a blessing to those around them.

By living a life of godliness, the Christian is a blessing to those around them, as salt is useful to those that use it.

Jesus will clarify in the next few verses how we can be useful.

Let’s remember that Jesus has just prescribed a certain behaviour for His followers in the beatitudes. He’s saying that if we act that way, we are like salt. We are useful to the world. We have a positive effect.

However, if we don’t act that way, we are useless to the world. We are not helpful.

If we live like the world instead of like Jesus commands us to live, we will have a useless effect.

If we don’t display the image of Jesus, we are no good.

If we don’t live out the commands of the sermon on the mountainside, we are not what we need to be. We are like non-salty salt.
Tomorrow we shall see verses 14-16 Have a lovely week. God bless you all.