It’s Your Responsibility

Good morning, everybody. Welcome. My name is Tony. I say that every week. I know you already know who I am, but there’s some people who maybe don’t, so that’s why I say it. We are in a sermon series that we’re calling the Ministry of Jesus. We have been in this sermon series for approximately a year and a half. We will be in this sermon series for approximately a year and a half more. It is a long sermon series. We are hitting everything Jesus said, everything Jesus did. If there’s going to be one subject we’re going to live in for three years, I mean, it’s Jesus. Amen. I think it’s okay. But with that being said, there are sometimes when we’re running into passages that just require a little bit more attention. This week in preparation for the sermon that I was supposed to preach out of John 8, I realized very quickly that I wasn’t really prepared to communicate it. It’s rich beyond my understanding at this point, and I didn’t have the time to unpack it. What I decided to do was table that lesson for next week because I do think I’ll be able to digest it a little bit more next week.

Just want to let you know. Then instead of that, we’re going to look at something that we feel like we need to find spots for. And that’s just all the sayings and all of the parables of Jesus. Here’s the way it works. Jesus would engage with a large crowd and would teach them, often teaching them the same thing. So the lessons from the sermon on the Mount or the parables were repeated. They were not just repeated once or twice, but often they were repeated again and again and again and again and again. And so we find in this little point where I’m struggling what to teach on the subject, that it would be wonderful to go back to one of the sayings of Jesus and digest it a little bit. So that’s what I’m going to do. Are you guys good with that? If you said you weren’t good with it, I was going to do it anyway.

So last we found Jesus, he is teaching in the temple courts. He’s teaching in the temple courts. And what is he teaching? Well, he’s teaching what he’s always taught. And today we’re going to look at one of the most remarkable teachings of Jesus found in Matthew 5, verse 13 through 16. And as you’re turning there, I just want to set up why this text is so profoundly beautiful. Our country and our church family, I would say, are facing tragedy on every front. In the last week and a half, we have been hit with some heartbreaking news. I just mentioned our sister, Eileen, who passed. A couple of weeks ago, we lost our dear brother, Louis Avila. And it’s not just our church that’s facing tragedy, it’s the whole world. Last month, we heard of the inexplicable tragedy in a Tennessee Church as a mass shooter came in and shot and killed innocent children and then some of their caretakers and their teachers. This week, we’re not just facing those trials and violence and evil just from the humanistic world. We’re also facing it from the natural world. You were in Fort Lauderdale last couple of days where we saw 24 inches of rain in some places in the span of a couple of hours. Some of our brothers and sisters here had their homes flooded. I talked to one sister in particular who said that the water was just coming in. Every article of clothing she put at the door to try to stop it, and the water just kept coming in.

We’re facing tragedies. Turkey had an earthquake that killed so many hundreds and thousands of lives. We have been dealing with the conflict in the Ukraine for what seems like forever. Tragedy seems like it’s everywhere. This week, I want us to just take a moment to look at the advice Jesus gives to the disciples as they peer over a darkened world. He teaches them a lesson that I think we need to learn because we are so easily drawn to other lessons and drawn to other ideas about how to respond during tragedy. So we’re going to look at what Jesus taught his disciples to do. We’ll glean from it and hopefully we’ll learn a little bit about the amazing, I don’t know what the right word is, the amazing way that God takes the responsibility that really is his and passes it along to mankind. In Matthew chapter 5, verse 13, we’re actually in the sermon on the Mount. Jesus is addressing large crowds. Crowds, as you know, were always around him. People who were in desperate situations always flocked to him. Jesus, in Matthew chapter 9, tells us how he saw the crowds. The Bible says that he looked at the crowds and he saw them that they were helpless and harassed. They were like sheep without a shepherd. The word helpless there means lying face down destitute. That’s what helpless means. A word for harassed is the same word that they use in the Septuagint to talk about an idea with a man having a stake driven through his skull. It means you’re utterly bewildered. You have no power. You can’t figure out how to even get out of your situation. You are helpless and harassed. You are a sheep without a shepherd. Broken, destitute. When Jesus looked over the masses, that’s what he saw. Hey, this world is a broken, destitute, helpless place. In Matthew 5, verse 13, instead of addressing the crowds, he turns to his disciples and makes a statement to them that is so remarkable and teaches them how to affect a dying and decaying world. This is what he said. It’s one of the most popular sayings of Jesus, but I just want to unpack it a little bit today. It says this, well, I put a lot of words on the screen, I apologize. You are the salt of the earth. But if 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. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.

You know this saying. You’ve heard this saying. But hopefully, we’ll be able to attach this saying to the way we look at a tragically fallen world. There was a magazine that once carried a picture, a series of pictures that depicted a horrifying story. The first picture was of a vast wheat field. From horizon to horizon, all you could see was wheat waving in the wind. The second picture was a picture of a mother in duress. Her young son had somehow wandered into this vast wheat field, and she could not find him. She called her husband, the story would go on to say, and the two of them searched all day and all night for the little boy. Finally, after a night’s worth of searching, they called all of their neighbors who traveled from miles to come to their farm.

They joined together hand by hand and frantically searched through the endless wheat field. They knew the boy was too little to see above the wheat, too small to find his way out. The third photo showed the crowd of people hand in hand marching through this omnious wheat field. The last picture, the last picture was the one that was horrifying. It’s a picture of the father over his son who had died because of the bitter cold in this wheat field. And under the picture, there was a single quote that said this, if we had only joined hands sooner. Desperate desperation requires a unification of God’s people. Desperation requires a unification of people to come together and be what they were supposed to be. The son passed because the son couldn’t make his way out. The father searched, the mother searched, to no avail. What they needed was a mass of humanity to join together to become something that they couldn’t be on their own. I tell you this, to help you create the idea of what Jesus was saying, Jesus is looking at people at the field that is lost. He’s looking at people as though they are the boys lost in the wheat field.

He looks at people and he sees people wandering around and they have no chance of recovering their own or finding their own way back home. He sees people wandering as sojourners in a world of darkness and decay, a field of people lost in the grasslands. Jesus looks at the world and sees the tragedy you and I see. He sees lost men, he sees lost women. He sees lost boys and lost girls who can’t find their way home. And he sees his people standing on the sidelines, and what he says to them is intensely important for us to understand. He says this, You are the light. You are the salt. What is he saying? If they are lost, it’s your responsibility to go find them. If they can’t find a way home, it’s your responsibility to lead them back home. It’s your responsibility to do something about the tragedy you see in the world. Sweep through the field of the world, find all those who are desperately in need, and help them get back to their father. Today’s world is no different than the world Jesus lived in. People are wandering about in endless fields looking for a way home.

This world needs God’s message and God’s influence displayed by God’s people. This world needs you and me. This world needs followers of Jesus who would embrace love, embrace mercy, and embrace righteousness. This world needs people who are salt and light. As I started thinking about this lesson, I realized that it sounded a lot like an evangelism lesson. I guess I’m not really trying to communicate an evangelistic lesson. I mean, it certainly is an evangelistic lesson, but I’m actually trying to talk a little bit differently. When there’s tragedy that strikes with an earthquake, evangelism is certainly needed, but what’s actually needed is disciples of Jesus to go do something about it. When a sister has inches of water pouring into their home, what the world needs is disciples of Jesus to do something about it, to help an affected world that’s been affected by the tragedies of everything, to love somebody who’s hurting, to serve the spiritually broken. I’m talking about this idea that Jesus looks at a crowd, says, There are a lot of needs here, and then says, Pray for the workers to be sent out into the harvest field. That’s the idea. Along the way, certainly, they will see your good works and praise your father in heaven.

And certainly, we should be calling people back to their father’s house and helping them spiritually. But what I’m just talking about is this idea that we need to lift up our blinders and take a look at the tragedy of the world and think to ourselves, it’s my responsibility to do something about it.

See, this text presupposes that the world is decaying and dark. Why do you need salt? Because the world is decaying. Why do you need light? Well, because the world is full of darkness. Jesus doesn’t say this, but you can read between the lines. We are living in a rotting, darkened world. Do you agree with this? It’s like, no, I think it’s wonderful. Everyone understands this place is messed up. I mean, it’s pretty brutal out there. Everything from prejudice to violence to rape, everything from child molestation. You just heard Dorothy’s story. You think, Wow, the world is wonderful. No, it’s full of heartache and trouble and sorrow and pain and fear. It’s everywhere. It comes from inside. It comes from outside. It comes from the politicians. It comes from the people who you trust. It comes from the people who you don’t trust.

It comes from all over the place. It’s really, really, really bad out there. It’s actually worse when you start thinking how people believe they’re going to be freed from the devastation of the world. One of my favorite quotes says this, Jesus, looking out over the multitudes of his day, saw the corruption and the disintegration of life at every point. Because of his love of the multitudes, he knew that the thing they needed most was salt in order that the corruption would be arrested. He saw them wrapped in gloom, sitting in darkness, catch this line, trying to grasp fogs and mist. He knew that they needed above everything else, light. Jesus saw men trying to grasp fog and mist. Trying to grasp fog and mist. What does that mean? It means that they’re trying to find hope where there is no hope. They’re trying to find solutions in a way out where there are no solutions and there are no ways out. When tragedy strikes, you see people beginning to grasp for mist, don’t you?

We had this shooting that’s horrible, horrible shooting in Tennessee. Right away, the political circle is clear, the political lines are divided. We need more guns. We need less guns. We need more shooters. We need less shooters. We need more doors. We need whatever we need. We need better politicians. We need better people who are in power to tell people who are sinners, what to do. You see it happen right away when things break out, we just start looking, grasping at anything to drive us out of the despair, right? Anything to drive us back into the light. You can tell it’s really bad when we start grasping for mist to give us hope in the place, or rather, trying to grasp the people who brought us into the gloom to bring us out of the gloom. That’s when you know it’s real bad. When we’re like, you know what we need is more human intervention for a human problem. That’s what we need. The world needs a new program. That would be wonderful. What Jesus looks when he looks at the world is that there is no political solution to any of these world problems. But the solution is very clear. Disciples need to be light. Followers of Jesus need to be salt. The world is full of people who are wrapped in gloom, and it’s time for brothers and sisters, for disciples of Jesus Christ, for people who hold up the banner of Christianity to love the world like it ought to be loved, to care for the world like it ought to be cared for.

Periodically, the church will send some people down to Brazil. We support Brazil mission teams in Brazil, and we plant a bunch of churches in Brazil, and we love our brothers and sisters in Brazil. A couple of years ago, a bunch of the interns and I and Cassandra, we went to the University of Salvador in Brazil. It’s one of the most amazing cities. It’s so beautiful. But one of the most impactful aspects of the trip is that we get to know the people who are in the church, not just the young students, but the people who have been coming for years and years and years. The people who take three or four busses to get to service, the people who take two hours to get to church. One of the people that I spent a lot of time talking to was an older lady who lived in what they call the favelas. They actually call them Comunities now, but these are favelas or communities. They’re a place where a mass of humanity is loaded into. The stories of the favelas are quite amazing. First off, there are about a million people typically that live in about 10,000 houses in these places.

It is a little bit overwhelming to even think about the sheer humanity in these places. A bout half of the church in Salvador lives in a place like this. But the history of these places is quite interesting. The story goes that the favelas were first built as military barracks. They allowed soldiers to live on the hillside. In the late 19th century, the Brazilian government promised any person who went to fight in the war, they would get a plot of land. Many military soldiers and families putting their faith in the government went to war and then were like, Where’s my land? There was no land. There was no land. It was all a ruse. With no land and no ownership opportunities, what they did was move it back into their old barracks. They built homes on the hillside with whatever material they could find. Whatever was there, they just built homes. Some of these homes are made of tin. And so eventually, the government promised them, because Favella’s bred Crime in the 1960s, the government promised them, Hey, look, get out of these places, go into the suburbs, and we’ll build great roads for you. We’ll build you great roads.

So, okay, a lot of these guys moved out into suburban areas and they said, Okay, where’s our roads? Of course, the government did not build them any roads. And so looking for jobs, they moved back into the city. And because the cost of living in the city was too expensive, they eventually moved back into those old military barracks. People in Brazil put a lot of their faith in the government to bring them out of the tragedy. But the government was a mist. It was a fog. They grasped for a way out, but they found no way out. So the drug lords came in and the drug lords said, Hey, the government gives you nothing. You know what I’ll give you? I’ll provide you electricity, water, just allow me to run my crime empire. The people in the Felvelas put their faith in the drug lords. What they got was some of the most violent crime rings, the highest murder rates, and the largest amount of devastation that really the world has ever seen. I left Brazil with one thought. The people of this country, the people of this country, need a better light and a better salt than the government and drug lords.

Then I started thinking, That country is just like our country. We got the same stuff. We do the same stuff. We put our hope in the same people. They’re no different than us. And it made me think that human nature is to put our faith in mists, in political movements when what the world really needs is disciples. I’m just telling you this, you can fight as much as you want for us to figure out how to make this wonderful American Empire better. There’s things that we need to improve on. I think we actually have… Do your civic duty, all that stuff is wonderful. But if you’re expecting the government to be the light of the world, you have failed. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. When tragedy strikes, when we see tragedy, when we see it, what we should do is elevate our love and elevate our kindness and elevate our mercy and become the people we were called to be.

What is God doing right now when he sees the devastation of the world? I think he’s looking at us like he looked at the disciples before and he says, Hey, okay, you see rotting? Guess what? You are the salt. Guess what? When he sees darkness, he says, Guess what? You are the light. What’s God’s plan for this terrible world? Ready? You. But I don’t want it to be me. Well, it’s you. But I’m under qualified. You certainly are. But it’s still you. It isn’t given to anybody else. You can’t hide from the responsibility. You cannot hide from it. It’s your task. It doesn’t belong to the media. It doesn’t belong to radio or television. It doesn’t belong to those who write books. It doesn’t just belong to the person who preaches on Sunday. It belongs to you. It belongs to you, to you, to you, to you. I can look at everyone. That would take a long time. To you, you, you, you. You have been chosen by God to be to shine brightly in the area you have been called and to actually have an effect on the world. You have been called. You are the salt of the earth. The earth is a rotting carcass, slowly deteriorating. You know what it needs? Some salt. Get in there, make a difference. Salt will change a world by infiltration. That’s what you have to do. Get in. Get into the world. But I work on Zoom. Okay, get into your workplaces. Infiltrate. Get in. Get in there. Oh, but I haven’t really met my neighbors. Go meet them. I can’t really help because the Red Cross is helping. Why don’t you go and volunteer for the Red Cross and infiltrate a little bit? Salt helps by infiltration. You have to get in. That’s your job. That’s what God has called you to do. Salt, infiltrating with Godliness, with righteousness, with holiness. Salt affects from the inside out. Get inside, get involved.

Brothers and sisters, here’s also just a little bit of a warning. Don’t become dealers of the world’s mist. Instead of talking about politics, show people some purity. Instead of being angry, show the world some peace. Instead of hating a political party, instead of hating someone else, instead bring in compassion and justice and love that the world is dying for. The power of salt is to infiltrate from the inside out. Don’t be a dealer of the mist, of the fog. Be a dealer of the words of Jesus Christ.

I just want to say it one more time. God uses everyday people. He uses everyday people to accomplish these tasks. That’s how the church grew from the very, very, very beginning. Everyday people were salt and light. Everyday people. You might wonder, when you were in the garden, or rather when God was in the garden making mankind, you noticed that he didn’t use gold? He’s not like, I’m going to make my favorite thing. I’m going to make it out of gold. We could have been made of gold. We could have been made of silver. We could have been made of iron. But instead, the Bible says God takes the dirt and he makes man. That should give you an idea of how this works. When he calls David to deliver Israel from the Philistines, he doesn’t call Saul, right? Sol, the big King. He calls the little shepherd boy. He doesn’t call the guy with all the power and with all the armor. He calls the little kid who’s a shepherd, who can collect some stones from a stream. When God goes into the world, or rather when God wants to make a difference in the world, he does not call the wealthy, he does not call the noble, he does not call those who have been born with high pedigree.

He says, You know what? I’m going to call the girl who was a peasant born girl to give birth to the savior of the world. That’s the way it works. He calls a group of unschooled, ordinary people to make an actual difference. The Bible says, Not many of you were noble when you were called. Not many of you were mighty. He says, None of you were intelligent. He says this, He called the foolish things to convict the wise. It’s pretty intense. That passage is so funny. He actually says he calls the things that were not. So you’re a nothing. That’s literally what it says. So I just want to encourage you, you’re not awesome, special, amazing. But what God does is he says, No, you can make a difference. Come on. Come on. Be a light, be some salt. You can make a difference. You can make a difference. Here’s the question. Do you have the faith that God wants to use you? That’s the question you have to ask. Do I have the faith that God wants to use me? Do I have the faith? I love the analogy that he goes from salt, he goes from salt into light.

I want to talk a little bit about light because light is interesting. The way he describes light is quite interesting. He says this, he says, A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. So he says, Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. Then he says, Hey, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. If we traveled around during Jesus times, what we would see is that cities were built upon hills. When night came, it was common for people to light their own individual lamp. Each individual light would join with the rest of the lights to make the city that is glistening. Does that make sense? Everyone individually would light their lamp and so the city would shine. That’s the way it works in the church also. For we were once children of darkness, but now you are in the light of the Lord. You are children of darkness now you’re in the light of the Lord. What was the point of building the cities on the hill? It’s so that when people traveled, they could find home. They could find a way back. Foreigners looking for asylum could find peace there. Here’s just a little point. The church is a city built on a hill. Everyone individually has a light, and when you let it shine, we shine together and then everyone goes, I want to go where those people are.

We all volunteer in a place. People at the end of it will go, Where do you guys go? We’re part of a small church. I’ve never seen people volunteer like you guys volunteer. Those are my happiest moments. It’s not us individually. It’s when we come together. The church is not a secret society. It’s a city built on a hill, and it requires every single person to let their light shine. Let your light shine. You wonder how do you let your light shine? Well, the Bible says it very clearly. It says that they will see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. How do you do it? By how you act. By how you act. Then the warning, and then we’ll land the plane right here. The warning is this. This is the first warning. You’re the salt of the earth, you’re the light of the world. But if salt loses its saltiness, what does that mean? If you are called to infiltrate and impact the world, but you don’t do anything, you actually act like the rest of the world. There’s a carcass of meat, there’s a bit of meat, and the meat and the meat is decaying and rotting and you go, I’m going to go help it and you step into it and you become decaying and rotting yourself, you lose your saltiness. It says then, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything. A disciple who acts like the world, a follower of Jesus who acts like the world is no longer good for anything. I’m going to let Jesus’s words sit in your heart for a second. No longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Thrown out and trampled underfoot.

If you’ve been called by God, impact the world. Let your light shine. Impact the world. Do something with what you have been given. Otherwise, what is the purpose of you being here? Don’t become like everybody else. Stand out. Teens, stand out. Campus students, stand out. Married people, stand out. Show the world. Single people, sorry, stand out. I forgot about you. Let your good deeds, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

I want to just leave you with a little bit of a thought, and then we’ll pray for communion. A request. Some of us have lost our saltiness, but I don’t think we’re that far gone. We can be made salty again, even though the Bible says you can. You get what I’m saying? Get salty again. Do it. Here’s the other thing. Is there some of you guys who are going, I actually want to have an impact on the world. We have little QR codes, if you’re brand new here, little QR codes in the back of the chairs. If you’re like, Look, I want to make an impact. Scan the QR code, fill out your information. We will contact you. We will contact you, we’ll get you into the fold of things. I want to let you know this congregation is not here for ourselves. We are here to impact the world. We are here to be a light in the darkness so that when there are people wandering in the wheat fields of the world, wondering where they’re going to go next, scared, cold, desperate, and destitute, they can look up and find a city set, shining, and glistening. And with that, they can find their way home. If we join hands, I think we can save a world that’s living in tragedy, but it’s going to require every single one of us to act as Jesus asked us to act.

Father, we just want to praise you, Lord, for who you are. We want to say, God, that we are… Father, in some ways we know we have no ability to do this on our own. I can’t imagine feeling like I have the capacity to impact the world. I feel like that’s such an arrogant thought. And then you speak to me and you tell me that I am the salt, that I am the light. You, Lord, say you are the light of the world. And then you pass that job off to us. Father, I don’t want to end up before you. And then you tell me that I could have done much more than I did. That I was living in a world of like false arrogance, sorry, false humility that really was just my own insecurity, right? A false sense of like, I can’t do anything. I’m not that important. And then realizing that you actually gave me a… It’s true, I’m not important, but you gave me an important task, and it’s my responsibility to do something about it. God, I just pray that I never lose that heart, that I never lose that part of what you’ve called me to. God, that you can just work in my heart to believe that. I know God, if I struggle with that, that there will be people in this congregation who are struggling with that same thing. God, infuse in everyone here a sense of purpose. Infuse in everyone here a sense and a belief that you have called them to impact Broward County. God, I pray that when people look upon Broward County, maybe because of the work of this congregation, that people will say, That place is unlike any other place in the world. God, I pray that the disciples here will impact the crime rate. I pray that the disciples here will impact the foster care system here. That there will be no children in foster care because of the impact of the Broward Church. God, that there’ll be lives saved. Lord, I pray that there is a percentage of people who live in Broward County that are a part of a congregation like ours that will say, 20 % of all the people in Broward are disciples of Jesus.

God, I pray we have that type of impact. God, sometimes I don’t even believe that that’s possible, but I pray you can instill in me the faith to believe you are doing a good work here, that you want to do a good work here, that it’s not for the glory of man, but it is for the glory of your son. I pray I can move my character and we can all move our character in such a way where we do not care about glory given to us, but we care about the glory being given to the Holy One, the God of all things. Father, I pray as we take communion today, as we think about the sacrifice of Christ, I pray that we can think about what’s required for us to have that type of impact. What type of sacrifice that’s going to require of us as we take the bread that represents his body broken, I pray that we can think about the fact that our bodies will be tired if we do the responsibility we have called to, that we have been called into. And if we think about the the juice that represents the blood, I pray that we’ll think about the blood and sweat that’s going to be required if we are going to have the type of impact you want us to have.

God, I pray we can believe that great things are before us and we can stand out like a city on a hill. We love you, Lord. We praise your holy name. It’s in Jesus name we pray, Amen.