WHAT’S OUR TRUE IDENTITY
CLIP: MIKE ERUZIONE, FROM MASSACHUETTS…WHO DO YOU PLAY FOR?
I PLAY FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Who are you? How do you answer when someone asks you that question? A while back Bruce Morrill approached a young man in our congregation and asked him politely, Who are you? Young man must have had a puzzled look and Bruce elaborated, I’ve been attending DaySpring for a while and you’re the first person to get up out of the audience and come up on stage. To which my youngest son Jake, identified himself. Who are you?
The most common answer is probably just saying our name. But usually based upon the moment, climate of the moment we might elaborate, we might not.
Jerry Bridges shares these thoughts when it comes to who are we: The man sitting to my left at a dinner referred to himself as a carpenter. Carpentry is his vocation, but it’s not who he is. A lady with a broken marriage said to a friend, I am just a failure. Although she had failed in her marriage, that’s not who she is. I grew up in moderate poverty. To this day, my default answer to the question, Who am I? is, I am the little boy growing up on the dirt street alongside the railroad track. But that’s not who I am. These three responses illustrate the common tendency to answer the question, Who am I?, in terms of some subjective experience. Many of us answer in terms of our vocation. Others focus on a particularly formative or emotional experience.
Jesus provides us an answer, but I’m not sure I’ve ever used it. Not sure I’ve heard anyone use it share it. SLIDE TWO: Jesus says we ARE, 1). The Light of the World and 2). The Salt of the Earth.
Do we know this about ourselves? Jesus is talking to the crowds that have followed him from Galilee, the ten cities known as the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. That means they’ve come from everywhere. They’ve come to see this one they’ve heard about. They’ve come to listen and learn, to be healed, and to have their lives put back together. They’ve come in search of meaning, direction, and purpose.
You and I stand among that crowd. We’re one of them. We’ve come today to see this one we’ve heard about. We’ve come to listen and learn, to be healed, and to have our lives put back together. We’ve come in search of meaning, direction, and purpose. Jesus’ words are as true and applicable today as they were two thousand years ago. You are the light of the world…. You are the salt of the earth. With these words Jesus is declaring what already is. He is making a statement of fact. He’s telling us we are to become, live into, and manifest what we already are. Behold the salt that you already are. Behold the light that you already are. So how did this happen, how does this happen?
SLIDE THREE:
YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, MATTHEW 5:14-16
MAKE A QUICK DISTINCTION: THE ELEMENT OF DARKNESS
Quote: Darkness is like a blind man immersed in a pitch black cloud looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Darkness baffles, intimidates, and unnerves. It’s a shifty reality of many textures, many moods, it’s a state of absence and of presence. It badgers and binds, cripples and confuses, overwhelms us and yet at times is sought out. Why? Because darkness gives the false impression that we can be hidden, that our deeds go unnoticed, that we can’t be identified.
Biblically we see a couple pieces:
∙ What if God took away light for a period of time? He did. In Exodus 10:21-23, There is a darkness that can be felt, it’s thick. This darkness mocked the Egyptian god, RA (the god of sun/light).
∙ Genesis 1:2, the earth was formless, void, darkness was over the surface of the deep. What a darkness.
∙ Spiritually, Darkness creates a lack, lack of knowledge, lack of definition. Without light, you have to create from what you think. Romans 1:21, their foolish hearts were darkened. This as well can be felt, is a thick layer that obscures.
∙ ILLUSTRATE: Two people, go from point A to point B. Man/child. Man is blindfolded. Don’t identify where A and/or B is until blindfold is on. Watch the two. Child has no difficulty, the man struggles obviously. Darkness complicates a person’s spiritual journey, it’s confusing, not clear. Where is A, where is B. Have to create your own points, your own path.
LIGHT, MATTHEW 5:14-16 (illustrate who we are, how it happens)
Light is the gospel preached, light is the gospel received, embraced. Light is instilled in SLIDE FOUR: Acts 2:38. The forgiveness of sin (removal of darkness) and the gift of the Holy Spirit (light).
∙ Soul, heart there’s a light switch. Spirit enters, flips the switch in your life. You can now see. Creation is Light, The Word of God is Light, Christ is Light. You possess Light, You are Light.
∙ Non-Christian can experience light, be drawn to light, can participate in deeds that of Light, but they do no possess Light. The switch of their life is set to darkness.
∙ As Christians (grieving the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, is when we try and flip the switch to minimize the Light in our lives pursuing the lust of the flesh, eyes and soul. But we forget, God is light and He sees all, Psalm 139:12, Even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. Adam and Eve’s response when they sinned was attempting to turn the switch off, trying to hide from God, be concealed, not be seen by God. Foolish, right?
SLIDE FIVE: HOLY SPIRIT DWELLING IN US – I L L U M I N A T E S put 3 pts below
∙ Begins to bring clarity, definition to us in prayer. There is a clearer picture of the world, of people, of our plight, our position, our possession and our purpose. The Holy Spirit illuminates not just a way, but the Way, His way. There’s a shift in focus, there’s a different setting of the mind. Why would you want to dwell in the darkness of earth?
∙ Begins to bring clarity, definition to us through scripture. David shares, open my eyes that I might see wonderful things. We can’t see wonderful by ourselves. Things of God are hidden from those where the switch is turned off. It’s foolishness to those perishing. Scripture begins to leap off the page, make sense, pieces go together, meaning is illuminated and clarity comes and goes with the clarity and definition of we gain in prayer.
∙ Begins to helps shape us, conform us into the image of Christ. When the switch is set to off, the life of Christ, the person of Christ is obscured, diminished.
∙ Vs 14-16 indicates that you have to work at not being seen if you are indeed light. Light in the greatest sense of the world is attractional. Why? Because it reveals, brings clarity, definition. You are light by the very fact the switch of your spiritual life is set to ON. YOUR ARE LIGHT
SLIDE SIX: YOU ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH, MATTHEW 5:13
SALT IS A COMPLIMENT TO LIGHT
Being the Light of the world, we can go anywhere, be among whatever people and light (contrast) will be seen, experienced. But light by itself needs to be explained, shared, communicated. Philip and the eunuch, how can I know unless someone tells me. Salt is love, salt is hope, salt is joy, salt is peace, salt is serving, salt is allowing a person who has been enlightened (seen, experienced light) to then have the opportunity, ability to taste of the heavenly gift and become a partaker. Notice the distinction of phrases: light of the world and salt of the earth.
Light of the world: the light of Acts 2:38 is ever present, ever working, ever seeking, searching into the depths. The light of the world is the perpetuation of faith, the promised remnant of Christianity. When God said, let there be light, it went way beyond that moment. Quantum physics has found that in fact we are surrounded by light we cannot see. They share that true darkness does not exist. Light particles-photons exist throughout the known universe. This ever present light then is complimented by the salt in our lives.
Salt of the earth: Christians are a kind of moral antibiotic, think about it, at any point upon the time line of history, past, present, future, salt helps bring about a moral clarity. As well, Christians present a restraining influence upon society – there are definitions, boundaries, accountability and consequences. William Wilberforce who was the light of the world used his salt to help abolish slavery in England. If the church doesn’t preach about lust, immorality, hatred, stealing, coveting, marriage, family, identity, wrong/right, heaven/hell, faith, hope and love. . .then who will? As light AND salt, there’s a sanctifying influence that Christians possess, are.
The world is flavorless without the salt of our lives. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid with special salt rations. That is where our word, salary, actually comes from. It’s also why, when someone is not doing their job, we sometimes say they’re not worth their salt.
Grasp this, Salt doesn’t exist for itself. If we’re just salt shakers and never shaken out, applied upon the landscape of the earth, how does Christ’s love have a chance? How else is hope realized? Salt is activated when used.
ILLUSTRATION: William Booth was greatly stirred by the needs of the poor of London, and realized that most churches were doing nothing to reach those that were labeled unreachable and/or undesirable to even try; the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the prostitutes, gamblers, swindelers and the least of these. He set out to reach them initially with soup. Then he added soap and he finally reached out with the opportunity for salvation. The power of light and salt.
Salt and water can clean wounds, prevent infection, promote healing. Salt is our compassion expressed to a fallen, tasteless world. YOU ARE SALT!
CONCLUSION
IS ILLUMINATION IMPORTANT, NEEDED?
In his novel, This Is Happiness, Niall Williams’ elderly narrator, Noe (pronounced No), remembers when electricity and light came to their little Irish village of Faha:
I’m aware here that it may be hard to imagine the enormity of this moment, the threshold that once crossed would leave behind a world that had endured for
centuries, and that this moment was only sixty years ago.
Consider this: when the electricity did finally come, it was discovered that the 100-watt bulb was too bright for Faha. The instant revealing, being able to see was too shocking. Dust and cobwebs were discovered to have been thickening on every surface since the sixteenth century. Reality was appalling. It turned out Siney Dunne’s fine head of hair was a wig, not even close in color to the scruff of his neck.
In the week following the switch-on, (store owner) Tom Clohessy couldn’t keep mirrors in stock, as people came in from out the country and bought looking glasses of all variety, went home, and in merciless illumination endured the chastening of all flesh when they saw what they looked like for the first time.
TAKE THE BLINDFOLD OFF PERSON
Have them now go from A to B
WE WANT ALL YOU TO GO TO HEAVEN
SLIDE SEVEN: WHO ARE YOU YOU?
You are the light of the world, You are the salt of the earth.