Our Mission Is To Spread The Joy And Light Of Jesus

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Steve Myler: [00:00:19] Well, hey, I'm Steve Myler, and I'm blessed to be a member of our Life Care, and our Sunday prayer teams, and to lead a men's Thursday night study where we encourage one another to abide and grow in Jesus. Well, today's Scripture reading is in Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 20. So if you have your Bibles, you could turn there. Otherwise, the words should be up on the screen, “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 underfoot. 14“You are the light of the world. A town built 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 others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. The Fulfillment of the Law 17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." This is God's Word.

Dan Franklin: [00:03:11] Amen? Thank you, Steve. So over the past, I don't know, a month, or six weeks, we as a family have been rewatching the Mission Impossible movies. Our youngest son, we decided he's finally old enough to get to watch those, and so we've been watching them through again. And there's a line that happens in every one of those movies, it happens in each film at a pivotal point, usually towards the beginning. It's a line that goes all the way back to the TV show that the movies were based on. And by the way, quick show of hands, who in here didn't know that there was a TV show that the movie was based on? A couple of you in here, the rest of you are like, how dare you? But you're old for being like, how dare you? Somebody between services let me know that. So anyway, this line goes all the way back there, it always shows up in every film, speaking to the main character, usually on recording, and it says your mission... Good job. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, and then it launches into the film for the mission that the team is sent to accomplish.

Dan Franklin: [00:04:20] Today, we as believers in Jesus are going to talk about our mission should we choose to accept it. And here's the deal, we live in a time where actually we talk a lot about the whole concept of mission. Businesses and organizations have a mission statement that always guides what they do, and there's even been a lot of books and a lot of things that have come out saying that each of us is an individual, you should have your own mission statement for life. You should have your own way that you're guiding the decisions that you make so you can decide what to do and what to say no to and how to orient your life toward that mission. And I think one of the reasons why this has come out so much is, is because we recognize living life without a mission is empty.

Dan Franklin: [00:05:05] We live in a culture where we have a lot of options for just sort of living for the moment, but we get to a point where we say living without a mission, living without a purpose, is empty, we need a mission in life. And some of you may have even gone through this process and sort of painstakingly tried to figure out how do I determine my mission for my life, How do I articulate my mission for my life? And if you've gone through this, I actually want to take a little bit of the pressure off because I want to let you know something very, very important for all of us as believers in Jesus, and this actually extends to some degree to all of us just as human beings, the mission that you have is not something that you were meant to create, it's something that you receive. Jesus is not going to tell us in this passage, go out and create your mission. He's going to tell us, here is your mission. It's not something we create, it's something that we receive from Jesus.

Dan Franklin: [00:06:03] But something beautiful that we're going to see in this passage, and you may have heard it when Steve was reading the passage earlier, is that not only is this a passage where Jesus tells us our mission, it's a passage where Jesus tells us his mission. And our mission here on the earth is bound up in his mission, and the connection between the two is deeply important. So real simple, how are we going to go through today? We're going to go through Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 20, which Steve already said. But if you have a Bible or you use your phone to follow along in the Bible, I encourage you to do that now so you can follow along. We're going to go through these verses, and in verses 13 through 16, Jesus is going to tell us our mission. And then in verses 17 through 20, he's going to tell us his mission. And then at the end, we're going to talk about how the two are connected.

Dan Franklin: [00:06:55] So we start with our mission, and this is in verses 13 through 16. And what I'm going to do is we walk through this; is I'm going to make four observations that I think will help us understand what Jesus is doing in these verses. And so here's observation number one, Jesus makes two key statements, one in verse 13 and one in verse 14. You are the salt of the earth, in verse 13, you are the light of the world, in verse 14. And so here's the first observation that I want all of us to see, Jesus makes these statements about our purpose in terms of identity, not in terms of aspiration. Here's what I mean, Jesus doesn't say go be the salt of the earth, go be the light of the world. What does he say? It says you are.

Dan Franklin: [00:07:46] Now Jesus here, if you read the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is what we're going through right now in this section in Matthew, Jesus is speaking these words to his disciples, and then there's also crowds around listening. So when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, he's not speaking to every human being on the planet, he's not speaking to every first-century Jew who's listening to him, he's speaking to those who have already embraced him by faith, they've already chosen to follow him. So those are those that he's speaking to when he says you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.

Dan Franklin: [00:08:19] But I do love that as we read the Sermon on the Mount, throughout it, we get to remember that there are crowds of undecided people who are also listening. And one of the reasons why I love that is because that is true every Sunday. Right now, I don't always know who is who, but I know a bunch of you in here, you are disciples of Jesus, and you have chosen to follow him. And then there are some of you in here that you're like, I'm just listening right now. I'm listening, I'm not sure if I'm going to follow Jesus, that's what's going on throughout the Sermon on the Mount. So, number one, he doesn't say, go be the salt of the earth, go be the light of the world, he says, if you are a disciple of Jesus, if you have embraced him by faith, this is who you are. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Dan Franklin: [00:09:05] And now the second observation to make is that Jesus uses these two analogies, he uses these two sorts of metaphors for us, and both of them are meant to talk about an impact that is had, that we have on the world. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. We have an impact on those around us. And we'll talk about each of them, I feel like with light we're a bit more familiar with this illustration because it's really common throughout Scripture, but with salt, we might not be as familiar, this one's a little bit more tricky.

Dan Franklin: [00:09:36] So let's talk about what salt does. Now in the first century, salt was incredibly valuable, it was a high commodity for a number of different reasons. But there were two key uses of salt that stand out in that, and Jesus probably in some ways has in mind when he says this. The first one is that salt was used as a preservative. If you had a bunch of meat in the first century, what were you not able to do with it? You were not able to refrigerate it. So you didn't just get a bunch of meat and you were like, on Thursday, we'll eat this. But if you had salt, you could keep the meat good for at least a while. It was a way to preserve it, to keep it from rotting, and to keep it from going bad. And so something, at least to some degree, and I think that this is probably right to some degree when Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, he's pointing toward the idea that the presence of believers in Jesus on this earth keeps things from going bad, or at least keeps them from going as bad as they could go. That we're a preserving influence in the world, and as we uphold God's truth, and as we live lives devoted to Jesus, we help stem the tide of decomposition, that we're a preserving agent in the world, that's the first use of salt.

Dan Franklin: [00:10:53] The second one is the one that I think Jesus probably has more in mind. I think in some ways this is probably more simple than we sometimes make it. Salt is good for preservation. What else is salt really good for? Yeah, for flavor, salt is great to make things taste good now. A bunch of years ago, Karina did something really, really nice for me. She's done lots of other nice things since then, but I just have one in mind from several years ago. She knew two things, she knew that I really, really loved cashews; and she knew that I was trying to eat more healthily. And so she came home from the grocery store with a big bag of unsalted cashews, which I was like, that was really thoughtful. I was like, it was, I was like, you know, I like cashews, you know, I'm trying to eat better, what could be a better gift than this? And then I started to eat them. And you know what I quickly discovered? I don't actually like cashews. It's like I thought I did, but I'm eating them and I'm not enjoying this. It turns out that I didn't really like cashews, I liked salt, and cashews are a great delivery system for salt. And so, you know, like a week and a half is going by, the bag is still full. And Karina is like, what's happening? And I'm like, I'm sorry, it made sense that you would get these, but it turns out that I don't like them when they're not salted. I mean, just think of it for a second, try to think of what Jesus is getting at here. Who has the bigger smile on their face, the guy eating unsalted cashews, or the guy eating salted cashews? Like we all know the answer to this, it's not just the flavor, it's the idea that the flavor brings joy. This is why some of you are at a stage in life where the doctor has told you to try to avoid salt, which is like saying try to avoid happiness in your life, just don't eat the thing that actually makes food taste good. When we have something that's salted, it brings joy. And I think just at a very basic level, what Jesus is saying here is that your presence on the earth is an agent for joy. When you live out the peace that Jesus has given you in the midst of a culture that is riddled by anxiety, and people are stressed out about tests, and they're stressed out about the economy, and they're stressed out about foreign matters, that you have a peace that transcends all of that, that you have a joy that is not robbed by circumstances, that's bringing joy and spreading joy. Jesus says you are the salt of the earth.

Dan Franklin: [00:13:32] In verse 14, he says, "You are the light of the world." And again, this one might seem more obvious to us because light illuminates, light shows you reality. And there's something that probably a lot of us do at different times, I did it this morning. A lot of mornings, especially on Sunday mornings, I get going really early. And so I was up, and Karina was still asleep, and because I'm such a great guy, I try to get going without waking her up. And so I got up, I went to the bathroom, kind of got ready, and then I realized I'd forgotten something, and I had to go to the other side of the room because I sleep on the far side of the bed from the door, so I had to go all the way to the other side of the room to get my belt because I'd forgot it. And so we've got our bed here, and we've got a dresser here. And the bed, it's great, it's right like at shin level, so a good injury spot. And the dresser is like right at hip level, so those are the danger areas. So when I went through to get to the other side to get the belt, you know what I did? Yeah, I did this the whole way just to make sure that I didn't hurt myself because I didn't want to wake her up by turning on the lights. That's how good a guy I am, I just want you to know. But in the middle of the day, if I am crossing our room to get to the other side to get something and all the lights are on and the sun is out, do I do this? No, because light illuminates’ reality. In the dark, even though we've lived in the same room for several years, I'm still not sure where stuff is. In the light, I know exactly where everything is because light illuminates. And this is part of the beauty of it, the light shows us reality. And so Jesus on the one hand is saying, you know, your presence on the earth, you are the salt of the earth, your presence on the earth spreads joy to people. And you are the light of the world, your presence here on the earth spreads truth and clarity, and it leads people out of confusion and into reality. This is the impact that we have on the world.

Dan Franklin: [00:15:40] Now, here's the third observation about this passage, the third observation is that there is a warning. And so I'll put up the rest of verses verse 13, and then verses 14 and 15 here, because Jesus gives a warning for each of these realities, He says, “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 underfoot." And it's funny because in what Jesus says here about the salt losing its saltiness, there are some people who are more in the science field and they're like, no, it doesn't. Like, actually it's a compound, it doesn't lose its saltiness. And there's a degree to which that's true, but I think what Jesus is getting at here is that salt can become diluted. And when salt becomes diluted, its effectiveness is waned, it's not as strong. So Jesus is painting a scenario where he's not saying you're the salt of the earth but be careful because something could happen and you would no longer be salt. No, this is your identity, you are the salt of the earth, but he says you're the salt of the earth, but be careful, here's the warning, your saltiness can become ineffective, you can lose your effectiveness.

Dan Franklin: [00:16:57] Similarly with the light of the world, he doesn't say to be careful, or you will no longer be light. He says, "A town built 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." So Jesus doesn't say, hey, be careful because you're the light of the world, but you might just stop being the light of the world. He is saying, no, you will be the light of the world, you are the light of the world, but you can hide your light under a bowl. And if your light is hidden under the bowl, it's useless. This should be a warning in verse 13, and then in verse 15, these should be warnings that should really kind of cut us in some ways. This is who we are, and this is our mission here on the earth to live out our lives as the salt of the earth and as the light of the world. But Jesus says you can become ineffective. The salt can lose its saltiness, and the light can lose its ability to spread if we're not careful, that's the warning that he gives.

Dan Franklin: [00:17:56] And then finally, in verse 16, he gives his fourth observation, and he gives a call to action. Now he doesn't give a call to action with salt and with light, he just couches it in light, but I think it's for the whole message. So here's what he says in verse 16, "In the same way, let your light shine before others." By the way, this is the first command in the Sermon on the Mount right here in verse 16, the first one he gives, "Let your light shine before others." Why? "That they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." As being salt, and as being light, we are conduits. We don't live this way so that people are impressed with us, we live this way so that people see God more clearly and they're drawn to him, and their hearts are drawn to him, and they give him praise. And the way that we live this out is not by Jesus saying, be the salt, you are the salt. It's not by him saying be the light, you are the light. It's by him saying, "Let your light shine."

Dan Franklin: [00:18:59] I was trying to come up with a phrase that would parallel this with the saltiness, and it just got awkward. It was like, let your salt be tasty. I don't know, it just sounds weird. So let's just say, let's just stick with this one, let your light shine. Don't hide it, don't let it become diluted, let your light shine. And He seems to indicate that the way that our light shines is that our good works are seen, and our good works are how we live out obedience to Jesus in all He's called us to do. By the way, good works are not in contrast to talking. I think maybe sometimes, and maybe it's because some of us want to be let off the hook for talking to people about Jesus. We're like, I'll just do the good works and I'll let that speak for me. That is not the New Testament message, it's not like, well, either I talk about Jesus, or I do good works, no, part of the good works is that we're talking about Jesus, that's part of how we let our light shine. So it's our acts of obedience to Jesus, and he says people are going to see that and they're going to glorify God because of that.

Dan Franklin: [00:20:03] Now, quick question. Has anybody here ever done a good work just in the sense that you obeyed God in some way and the response that you got from people was not that they were glorifying God, but that they were upset with you? Has anybody ever had that happen before? Sometimes you obey Jesus in a specific way, and you don't get accolades from it, you get people who are upset. Here's why this happens. You know, light is great, light illuminates’ things. Have you ever been in a place that was dark, and somebody suddenly turned on a light? What did you do? It's too bright, it's sort of like, turn that off, it's too bright. That's what people sometimes do, sometimes you're living in a way that makes them say, that's too bright, I don't want it, I'd rather go back to the darkness. And the enemy would love to keep us in the darkness, but he says, "Let your light shine." Don't hide the fact that you have faith in Jesus, don't hide the fact that you love him, and don't live in a way that compromises the way that you're living, so that people are confused or they're saying that's the light? That's what living for Jesus is like? Let your light shine.

Dan Franklin: [00:21:16] Now, we'll talk more about this later on, but that is our mission should we choose to accept it. Our mission is to bring joy and light and to have those spread to the earth through our obedience toward Jesus in all that we do, that is our mission. But the good news is that our mission could be pretty burdensome, but Jesus doesn't want that to happen. Jesus tells us what we're called to do, and then immediately he turns to his mission and to what he does. So this is in verses 17 through 20, we'll start into his mission now, and verse 17 is really the key statement in all of this, "Do not think that I have come..." Just real quick on this, I love that Jesus talks this way. He talks this way all throughout the Gospels, he talks about the reason for which he came. And he's not here saying this is the reason why I came to this mount, he's saying this is the reason why I came to this earth. We are hearing the words of the eternal Son of God who made a conscious choice to be born, to come to this earth, and he says, I want to tell you why I've come. Do you not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets, I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

Dan Franklin: [00:22:37] And by the way, if you're familiar with the gospels, Jesus liked talking this way. This is a very Jesus-like way to talk. I haven't come to do this; I've come to do this. In Matthew chapter 9, verse 13, Jesus says, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In other words, he's saying, I didn't come here to find all the people who were already living righteously and tell them you're in, I came to find a whole bunch of broken sinners who would be humble enough to exercise faith, and I said, you're welcome. In Matthew chapter 10, verse 34, Jesus says, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." And what he means by this, and you've probably noticed this, some of you have noticed this even with your own family; if you have some family members who believe in Jesus, and some don't, that brings conflict. And what he means by the sword is he means division, he goes on to say, it's going to be members of the household, it's going to be three against two and two against three. He says that's not peace, there's actually division because Jesus rules our lives when we've come to believe in him. Jesus says, I haven't come for this, I've come for this.

Dan Franklin: [00:23:46] Here He does it again, he says, "I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." And when he says the law and the prophets, that's a shorthand way of saying the Bible. So Jesus wouldn't have used the words Old Testament, that's the words we use to refer to what he's talking about. He's saying, I did not come to abolish the Old Testament. And here's why this is important, because of what Jesus is about to do with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, someone might suspect that's what he's doing. Because several times in chapter 5, he's going to say, you have heard it said and quote the Old Testament; then say, but here's what I say to you. And so somebody might read that and say, well, Jesus is saying, here's the way God used to do things, but I've got a new idea. Almost as if we look back at the Old Testament and we're like, that was attempt number one. Like that was God trying something out, and he tried out all these laws and this sacrificial system, he tried all this stuff out, it didn't really work. And so Jesus came with effort number two. Jesus is saying that's not what's going on here. I haven't come to say, hey, we tried this, but it didn't work, so here are the new ideas. So he says, "I haven't come to abolish it, I have come to fulfill it."

Dan Franklin: [00:25:06] And when Jesus uses the word fulfill, this is a word Matthew has been using a whole bunch of times already throughout the gospel, when the Old Testament is quoted, and it somehow has come to completion. In other words, Jesus is saying this, he's saying, I'm a huge fan of the Old Testament. I love the law and the prophets, I love Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, I love all that stuff. Do you know why? Because all of it culminates in me. Do you guys get the difference between somebody getting up and saying, I'm going to teach you from the Bible because I love the Bible, and somebody getting up and saying the whole Bible is about me? This is a big statement, I've asked this several times so far throughout this series, but who does Jesus think he is? Do you know what the answer is? Yeah. He thinks he's the King, he thinks he is the son of God. He's saying, oh, the Bible, I love the Bible because it's all about me, and I have come as the culmination for all of it.

Dan Franklin: [00:26:09] So what he says later on now in verses 18 and 19 is sort of commentary on that, so let's look at these. In verse 18 he says, "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." So he's doubling down on this now, he's saying, I didn't come to get rid of the Old Testament, I didn't come to get rid of the scriptures, I came as the fulfillment. None of this is going to be done, we're not going to be done with any of this until everything is accomplished, until even heaven and earth pass away.

Dan Franklin: [00:26:42] Now, verses 19 and 20 are tough, but let's look at these together, I think together we can discern what Jesus is saying here. Verse 19, "Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." So a couple of things before getting to Jesus's main point here. The kingdom of heaven is not equal with heaven, the Kingdom of Heaven is a way of Jesus talking about this is the realm in which God rules. If you're part of the kingdom, you have come to treat Jesus as the King. So he's saying, all right, in the kingdom, there will be some who will be great and some who will be least. And we might read that and be like, well, to be least in the kingdom, does that mean I'm not a Christian? And to be great, like, what does it mean between the least and the great? And there is a little bit of debate, and some people just say, no, if you're least you're still in the kingdom, but you're doing something wrong, if you're great, you're in the kingdom and you're getting rewarded. I'm not actually sure, but here's the important part, it's better to be great than to be least. So Jesus has given a warning here. He's saying you don't want to be least in the kingdom, so don't do this. You want to be great in the kingdom, so do this. And what he says is you will be least in the kingdom if you disregard, or let's look at his exact words, "If you set aside one of the least of these commands and teach others to do so."

Dan Franklin: [00:28:10] And the big question that we need to spend a couple of minutes now talking about is, are we doing what Jesus is warning about? Have we set aside some of those commands, some of even the small commands in the Old Testament? What I want to say is on the surface, we should be concerned that maybe we have, because I don't know if we have any Old Testament scholars in here, but are there any rules in the Old Testament that we as Christians don't obey today? Yeah, there definitely are. And this is why some people say, well, Christians just pick and choose what they're going to follow. Because there are certain commands in the Old Testament that we do not follow today. And if this is confusing to you, or you're like, no, I think I do follow all of them. Let me give you three examples of commands in the Old Testament that we do not follow today.

Dan Franklin: [00:28:59] Number one, the dietary laws. Read the Old Testament, there are all kinds of food restrictions for the Jewish people. Today, as believers in Jesus, we don't observe those, we don't observe the kosher laws. We're like bacon, go for it. So that's an area, that's a command in the Old Testament, but we don't follow it.

Dan Franklin: [00:29:19] Example number two is the Sabbath. We do not keep the Sabbath today. Some of you are like, yes, I do, I'm here at church on Sunday. A couple of problems, first of all, the Sabbath is not Sunday, the Sabbath is Saturday. But maybe you're like, okay, well, I got the day wrong, but I still worship on a day of the week, and I don't go into the office on that day of the week. If you go through the Old Testament and read the Sabbath laws, it was not just saying go to a worship service and don't go into the office, there are all kinds of things that you were not allowed to do on the Sabbath that meant you were resting. So we are not keeping the Sabbath today.

Dan Franklin: [00:29:58] Example number three is the sacrificial system. The Jews were commanded to bring all kinds of sacrifices, including animal sacrifices. We don't do any of that today. So we could say, have we done what Jesus warned against here? Have we just looked back in the Old Testament and said, hey, we're going to hold on to some of it? The whole Do not murder, yeah, we still want to hold on to that, we think that's good. But some of these other ones, you know, they just seem archaic, they seem out of date, they seem kind of unpleasant, so we'll just stop doing those. Is that what's happened? And what Jesus is telling us is, no, that's not what happened, the reason we don't follow those anymore is because Jesus came to fulfill them, Jesus fulfilled everything that was written.

Dan Franklin: [00:30:40] In fact, you can't read the New Testament and think we're still supposed to follow all of those laws because the New Testament authors say, no, that's finished. It's not that it doesn't have use, it's that Jesus came and completed it. So you know why we don't follow the dietary laws anymore? It's because those laws were meant to point to the fact that we need to be made clean, that we are unclean, and we need some kind of cleansing. And then Jesus came and threw his sacrifice on the cross, he made us clean forever, we're in a new era. And do you know why we don't celebrate the Sabbath anymore? Because the Sabbath is about rest, and it's about resting in God, and once Jesus came and died for all of our sins so that we were completely forgiven, we entered into a Sabbath age. I love this, as Christians, every day is the Sabbath. As believers in Jesus, every day we wake up and we say it's the Sabbath because I don't have to work my way in good with God, I have all my sins forgiven. I can go to God freely, I am at rest and at peace, because today, like every day, is the Sabbath. And do you know why we don't offer the sacrifice of animals anymore? It's because all of that pointed toward the fact that blood must be shed for our sins to be forgiven, and Jesus came as the once and final sacrifice. When he died for our sins, he said those three great words at the end of the Gospel of John, "It is finished." We're not offering sacrifices anymore because the greatest sacrifice came.

Dan Franklin: [00:32:17] Jesus is saying, I've come to fulfill it all, I've come as the fulfillment of everything that was written before me. So there are certain Old Testament regulations that it's not that they go away, it's that they're not binding on us in the way that they were in the Old Testament. We still read about them, and we still take them seriously as part of God's word, but we take them seriously as part of God's word in the way that they are pointing us forward to Jesus. Do you want to know Jesus really well? Read the Gospels. Do you want to know Jesus even better? Read the Gospels, and read the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is all about Jesus.

Dan Franklin: [00:32:56] And so right now we need to look at verse 20, verse 20 is tricky also. Jesus says, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Now we're used to the Pharisees being kind of the bad guys, so this doesn't shock us in the way that this would have shocked Jesus' original hearers. Because some of them might have said, well, I'm not a huge fan of the Pharisees, but nobody is more rigorous in keeping rules than they are. Like, nobody is more righteous in that way than they are. And Jesus is saying, no, you've got to have a better righteousness than theirs. This would be a little bit like a manager of a baseball team saying you've got to be better than Mike Trout, otherwise, why even try out? You'd have a bunch of guys walking away sad from that tryout because they'd be like, It's impossible, I'm never going to be that good. And just like, this is impossible, I'm never going to be that good. And they would be right if what Jesus meant was, you have to have a greater righteousness by their standards, by their methods, but Jesus is talking about a whole different kind of righteousness.

Dan Franklin: [00:34:09] You know, next week we'll go through verses 21 through 30 of Matthew 5, where Jesus talks about the difference between internal and external righteousness. He says, you've heard you're not supposed to murder, and that's right, but if you're harboring hatred or anger in your heart, you're a murderer. And he says, you've heard you're not supposed to commit adultery, and that's right, but if you're harboring and indulging lust in your life, you're an adulterer. Jesus talks about a righteousness that is not just external, but that's an inside-out righteousness. And the only way that that happens is if we get the Holy Spirit, and the only way we get the Holy Spirit is if Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit, and the only way Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit is if we humbly come to him by faith and He makes us new. Jesus says the righteousness about my kingdom is not just a bunch of distant rule-keeping, the righteousness of my kingdom is about people being transformed from the inside out so that they're made new, and that's a righteousness that surpasses the scribes and the Pharisees.

Dan Franklin: [00:35:19] So Jesus says, all right, I've got a mission for you. I've got a mission for you, you're the salt of the earth, you're meant to spread joy; you're the light of the world, you're meant to spread illumination, don't let anything get in the way of that. And then he says, but by the way, you're calling, and really take this in right now, you're calling as a believer in Jesus is not to save anyone. And if you need to take just a breath of relief right now, you're welcome to do that. If you right now want to be like, oh, my job, my mission is not to save anyone, and thank God, because I can't. Some of you are like, I've been working on this person for a long time, and you've realized you cannot save them, you're not smart enough, you're not godly enough, you don't have the arguments, sometimes you're like if I just got them to read the right book, You cannot change another person, you cannot save another person. Do you know who can? Man, Jesus can. You can't save the world, Jesus came, and he did save the world through his death on the cross, all sins are taken care of through his resurrection from the dead, death is conquered. Jesus came to be the fulfillment of all things, that is his mission, our mission is just to spread the word about him.

Dan Franklin: [00:36:33] And so the good news is that our mission, even though sometimes it feels daunting to be the salt of the earth, sometimes it feels daunting to let our light shine, you are not carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders because your mission is wrapped up in Jesus' mission. Your light is not a self-generated light. In fact, this might be one of the biggest points of application. You know, when I was a kid, I remember seeing a commercial for a product that I immediately bought. I don't know if I had my own money to buy it, or if I talked my mom into getting it, but I was so excited about this. It was these little, you know, I was probably like 7 or 8 years old, it was these little glow sticks. And when I saw the commercial for them, I was like, magic is real because there are these little glow sticks. You don't have to plug them in, they have no batteries, and they just emanate light. And I was like, my room is going to be so cool, I'm going to do all sorts of things, this is going to be awesome. And I got some of these glow sticks, and I was quickly disappointed. And here's why, if you're about my age, you might remember this happening. These glow sticks that I got came in a box, and when I opened the box, you know what the glow sticks weren't doing? They were not glowing. I was like, where's the magic? This is not like on the commercial. And then I read the instructions and read that what you needed to do is you needed to put the glow sticks right up to the light for a long time, and then after that, if you went into a room and turned off the lights, they would glow. Now, when you did that, it was like magic, it was great. But what I quickly realized is that these glow sticks were not self-generating lights, they were lights that only shined because they were absorbing the light from something else.

Dan Franklin: [00:38:26] I hope you all see where this is going, you are not a self-generating light. Jesus says here, you are the light of the world. But you know what he says in John 8:12? He says, "I am the light of the world." We are not the sun; we are the moon. We are glow sticks, and we only shine brightly to the degree to which we have been connected, we have been in the presence of the one who is truly the light of the world. So some of you right now you're hearing the sermon and you're like, here's what I need to do, I need to walk out of this room, and I need to shine more brightly. I need to shine more brightly because I want people to come to faith in Jesus. I love Jesus, I want to be obedient to him, and I want more people to see the light and to come to light, so I need to shine more brightly, I need to be more obedient.

Dan Franklin: [00:39:16] The first thing that you need to do is you need to be with Jesus, you need to be with the light of the world, and you need to recognize that you will fail on your own. Jesus said that He is the vine, we are the branches, and we can't bear fruit unless we're connected to him. And you can only shine light to the degree to which you have been connected, you have been in the presence of the one who is the light of the world.

Dan Franklin: [00:39:42] So I know some of you are like, Gosh, you guys talk a lot about reading the Bible and praying and sort of having that personal time with God. And, you know, there are bigger things, aren't there bigger things than just read the Bible and pray every day? And in some ways the answer is no, there's not. You're not better than the rest of us, you're not better than the many Christians who have come before you, you need to be with Jesus. And just reading your Bible and saying a prayer is not necessarily being with Jesus, but you can't be with Jesus without reading his word and spending time with him in prayer. And if we're going to be the light of the world, we need to recognize that we are only capable of doing this to the degree to which we have been with Jesus. Our mission is wrapped up in his mission.

Dan Franklin: [00:40:33] Now, here's what I want to do now. You know, every Sunday when we close the service, we have people up here ready to pray with you. We have pastors, elders, and prayer team members ready to pray with anybody who's going to come forward. And so in a little while, I'm going to invite them to come forward. But I want to prime us for it, to say that there are a few reasons why today may be a day where obedience to Jesus means you're going to come forward and you're going to get some prayer about something going on in your life. So I'm going to ask two questions of us as we look to put this into practice.

Dan Franklin: [00:41:04] Here's the first question. The first question is where has God placed you? And here's where this question is coming from. We are the light of the world, we are the salt of the earth, that is meant to spread. Where has God placed you so that you can shine the light, so that you can bring the joy? Is it in a classroom? Is it in a workplace? Is it in a neighborhood? Is it in a family? Where has God placed you? What are your circumstances where God has placed you? And where He's placed you, that's where He's calling you to shine the light. Now I'm going to ask for an honest moment right now. How many of you are either actively trying or even maybe actively praying to change some circumstance in your life? All right, a whole bunch of honest people right there. A lot of us are, you're like, I'm in that classroom trying to get out of it. I'm employed here, trying to find a different job. Some of you are like, I'm still living with my parents, but hopefully not for long. And some of you maybe wouldn't say this out loud, but you're like, I'm in this marriage now, but hopefully not for long. You're maybe even praying for God to get you out of the exact place He has called you to shine the light. This does not mean that you're going to be there forever, I don't know what God's going to do, but what it means is this. If you are praying for God to change those circumstances, that should at the very least be accompanied by a prayer of use me, God, while I'm here. God, shine the light through me while I'm here, and pray for the people that you're around. Some of you need to come forward for prayer later on because there's a circumstance in your life, maybe even some of you are like, I'm at the hospital all the time because of a sickness, maybe God has you going there because that hospital needs light. And so one of the first ways we can respond is by coming to God and saying, please help me to shine the light in a place that I kind of want to get out of right now.

Dan Franklin: [00:43:13] And now here's the second question for us to ask. Have you lost your impact? Has the salt become diluted? Is the light hiding under a bowl right now? You're still the salt of the earth. You're still the light of the world. But some of us might be at a place where, because of compromise and because of sin and because of cowardice, we're like, well, the light's there, but man, it's dim. Like the salt is there, but you can barely taste it. And right now we are losing our impact. For some of us, there's some repentance that's needed because there are people in your life that would say there's no light coming from them because I see how they're living. And you are frankly, one of the most beautiful ways we as believers in Jesus can shine the light is when we come back after we failed and apologize and ask people for forgiveness. Because the only way you have the humility to do that on a regular basis is if you believe that the God of the universe has granted you forgiveness. So for some of us right now, this is a moment for repentance to say, I have hidden the light, I have diluted the salt. And man, I love Jesus, I want to shine his light, and I want to spread his message, but that's not going to happen if I don't repent of some of the ways that the light is being hidden.

Dan Franklin: [00:44:38] So right now I'm going to invite the elders, pastors, and prayer team members who are here to go ahead and come forward to either side of the stage. We want to have some folks up here for the end. And I'm actually, as they're coming up in a moment, I'm going to let them get out of there, and then once they're out, I'm going to invite all of us. You can go ahead and stand right now because in a moment I'm going to pray for us. But even as I'm saying this, in a moment, I'm going to pray for us. And after that, you can come forward, especially if you're saying, man, I need help in prayer for the circumstance I'm in that I want out of, or I need to pray about something that I need to repent of. You don't have to wait till I'm done talking, if right now you're like, I'm going to start coming. If while I'm praying, you're like, I'm going to start coming, that's fine also. But let's join in prayer together right now for God to move in us in this way.

Dan Franklin: [00:45:28] Father, I want to especially pray, I believe that there are people in here right now that you are on the move and that it would be disobedient for them to walk out of here without coming forward. And so I pray that you embolden them, so that they would not see this as a casual moment, but they would see this as your Spirit being at work and them simply taking the next step of obedience. Father, thank you that you have given us the gift, the privilege of being salt and light in this world. We haven't earned it, and we are not up to the task, but we believe that you are adequate for all things. Father, we want to see people know Jesus. We want to see people experience joy and peace. We want to see people no longer confused but to see clearly, and we pray that you use us for that. And Father, we pray that you eradicate from our lives any compromise or sin that is stunting the light, that's diluting the salt. We pray that you move in us now, and we pray that you move in us as we close this service. In Jesus' name. Amen. And like I said, if Jesus is moving right now, take the next step of obedience. But God bless you, thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful and blessed rest of your Sunday today.



Recorded in Upland, California.