Salt & Light in the 21st Century

This week’s passage: Matthew 5:17-20 Christ Came to Fulfill the Law Many churches today never teach or study the Old Testament. They claim that Jesus’s fulfillment of the Old Testament laws means that we are no longer held to those laws and therefore do not need to understand them. But Jesus tells the disciples and those who are gathering that He did not come to destroy or remove the laws, but to refocus people and to provide new ways to understand and apply the original laws until such time as He accomplishes a complete fulfillment of them. “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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18 ESV) God provided moral laws to help the Israelites to stay in His grace (Ten Commandments), knowing they were unable to follow the...

This week’s passage: Matthew 5:13-16 Salt and Light We have visited these passages previously because they are the inspiration for this blog. If you want to review my thoughts from that post, you can read it here .  As are the other lessons in the sermon, this one on salt and light gives us an illustration of how the followers of Christ should approach life and shares the consequences for believers who toss the information to the side or half-heartedly attempt to comply. “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Matthew 5:13 ESV) Any seasoning you add to food during the last step of cooking adds its own distinct flavor that does not blend with but enhances the food​. As Christians we should be like this, not blending with the world but affecting others in a positive way that encourages t...

This week’s passage: Matthew 5:3-12 The Beatitudes Last week we looked at what it means to be blessed. In His first lesson during the Sermon on the Mount Jesus explains the attitudes and traits that will bring blessing to believers. These traits are known as the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:3-4) To be poor in spirit is to be humble before God, understanding that we are inherently sinners, full of pride and arrogance who need Christ to intercede on our behalf. As Christians, we are saved, we are righteous – not because of anything we do but everything Christ has done for us. We come to Christ as we are, and the Holy Spirit goes to work creating a richness of spirit in our hearts that we absolutely cannot create on our own. When we finally let go and see that we are unworthy to be blessed by God, that is when...

This week’s passage: Matthew 5:1-2 Teaching the Disciples After His crucifixion Jesus instructed the disciples to go and make other disciples, this instruction is known as the Great Commission and is expected of every follower of Christ until He returns for us. "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” " Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20) As we open Matthew Chapter 5, we know that Jesus had been traveling and preaching, proclaiming the gospel to all who would listen, and that many were responding. I believe the Sermon on the Mount provides an example to churches on how they cannot consider it a job well done once a perso...

This week’s passage: Matthew 4:12-25 Jesus Begins His Ministry In the first part of chapter 4 we saw Jesus’s complete reliance upon God’s provision, protection and promise to fend off the temptations of Satan and hopefully we learned by that account that the power of God’s Word is in submitting to it, not simply quoting from it as Satan does. Now Matthew closes out chapter 4 with a summary of Jesus’s ministry, giving us a quick rundown of where He was and who He was preaching to. After hearing that John the Baptist had been arrested, Jesus leaves Nazareth (His hometown in Galilee) and goes to Capernaum which is along the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, to continue spreading the message that John was, to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” In true Matthew style, it is pointed out that this move by Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to this region (as written in Isaiah 9:1-2) that He would send a light for their darkness. ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus is Tempted Throughout the Old Testament we see a pattern of God’s provision and humanity’s pride. When the people are oppressed or sick, they cry out to God who rescues them by conquering their enemies and healing their sickness. When the people are blessed, they forget it is by God’s hand and turn away from Him, causing Him to allow the oppression and sickness to return. The Pharisees chose to focus on this pattern, believing the Messiah to be a warrior who would come to annihilate the Romans who had been ruling over the Israelites. They missed the truth about who the Messiah really was, but we don’t have to make the same mistake! Desires of the Flesh After His baptism Jesus has been in the wilderness fasting and praying for 40 days and 40 nights when Satan shows up to tempt Him. You might see this event as something God did to Jesus causing Him to suffer, but James tells us that God does not ...

This week’s passage: Matthew 3:1-17 John The Baptist Matthew’s first mention of John the Baptist introduces him as a preacher in the wilderness of Judea who is preparing people to know Christ, his message proclaimed so boldly that people were coming from Jerusalem, Judea, and the region around the Jordan river, to see what he was about and to be baptized by him. However, Luke introduces us to John the Baptist before he is even conceived (Luke 1:5-25), and Jesus and John meet while they are both still in the womb…lets go back to that time for a moment. Zechariah was a priest in the days when Herod the Great ruled in Jerusalem. He and his wife Elizabeth were among those the bible says were upright in the sight of God because they followed His commandments and regulations. They are both old, and have no children because Elizabeth is barren. While Zechariah is in the temple praying and burning incense, he is visited by an angel who says he and Elizabeth...