By: Dale Weckbacher
2 Corinthians 5:20
Therefore, we
are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
(ESV)
One of the most spiritually
moving things one can experience, is a candlelight service. These services generally occur during
Christmas and serve as a visual illustration of how the small light of a single
candle can illuminate a dark room and how sharing that light multiplies to fully
illuminate the room. However, if the
light lacks a lasting quality due to the candle being short, the room will
return to darkness before the light spreads to everyone in the room. For God’s people to serve as ambassadors of
preservation and illumination requires balancing the preservation of biblical
truth under the illumination and empowerment of the Holy Spirit (John
4:24).
The text of Matthew
5:13-16 occurs in the context of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This occurs near the beginning of Jesus’
ministry, providing a foundation for the other teachings and miracles that
would occur. Jesus uses the symbols of
salt and life to illustrate the importance of preserving scriptural truth and letting
the light of godliness shine for all to see.
Jesus would later encounter the women at the well and teach that true
worship of God occurs in spirit and truth (John
4:24). Jesus teaching to the woman
at the well builds upon the foundation of salt and light provided in the Sermon
on the Mount with salt symbolizing the importance of preserving biblical truth
and light reminding us to declare biblical truth in love and grace through the illumination
and empowerment of the Holy Spirit (Acts
1:8; 1 Corinthians 16:14; Romans 1:1-5).
God’s people are more effective in fulfilling the “Great Commission” when
they become familiar and proficient in using the tools of salt and light.
1) Salt
(Matthew
5:13) – During the time of Christ, people did not have the luxury of refrigeration
to preserve food and depended on the use of salt as a preservative. This differs from our view of salt today as
something only used to add flavor to food.
Those listening to Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee would have
equated Jesus' symbolic use of salt as a call to preserve the biblical truth as
it is tasty to the soul. God’s Word is
the guardrail that keeps our way pure quenching the thirst for God in our souls
(Psalm
42:1; 119:9). As ambassadors for
Christ, God’s people must be diligent students of the Bible allowing biblical
truth to fill the void in their souls and not attempting to fill the void with
the things of the world (Romans
12:2).
2) Light
(Matthew
5:14-16) – We live in an extremely dark world that is in dire need of the
illumination of the light of the Gospel.
God’s people that are students of the Bible must not fear to let the
light of the Gospel within them shine, bringing illumination to a dark
world. Fortunately, this does not
require one having great theological knowledge for even the light of a small
candle can illuminate a dark room. The
woman at the well took the nugget of the light of truth she received from her
encounter with Jesus and lit up her community by sharing it with others (John
4:25-26; 28-30). The woman at the
well was not someone with great theological knowledge but someone that
experienced the light of God’s grace and shared it with others.
If you are reading this and have had
an encounter with Jesus in your life and accepted Jesus as your savior, I
encourage you to let that light shine by sharing it with others, telling them
what Jesus has done for you. For those
that have not had an encounter with Jesus and accepted Him as savior, I want to
share some of the light of the Gospel in my life. Raised in a godly home where I went to church
each Sunday, my life had the appearance of one having their act together and
having favor with God. While the
atmosphere of a godly home is a good thing, it can also lead to one believing
their good works and lack of involvement in the grievous sins of the world give
them favor with God. However, the biblical
truth is that salvation is a work of God’s grace through Christ and not our
good works (Ephesians
2:8-9). The Bible also teaches that everyone
has sinned and that all sin comes with a death penalty (Romans
3:23; 6:23). However, our situation
is not hopeless for Jesus took our death penalty on the cross so that we might
be saved (Romans
5:8). Realizing the salt of this
truth illuminated by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I prayed to accept
Christ in my home and made that public through baptism and teaching in this
blog. Perhaps you are reading this and
have the fortune of an upbringing in a godly home but have never formally
accepted Jesus as your savior and now feel the convicting power of the Holy
Spirit to accept Jesus as your savior.
If that is you, I invite you to pray with me now,
Dear Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned (Romans
3:23) and know that the penalty for my sin is death (Romans
6:23). I ask you to forgive me of my
sin and cleanse me as you promise in your Word (1
John 1:9). I believe you died, spent
three days in the grave, and resurrected from the dead and now declare you Lord
of my life.
I now invite everyone, including
those that just prayed to, like the woman at the well, share the candle of the
light of the Gospel in their lives with others.
I also invite you to take in the preservative and tasty salt of God’s
truth through regular study of the Bible both through individual study and
study under the leadership of one possessing theological knowledge in a church
or bible study that teaches the Bible. This
will not only preserve the light of the Gospel in your life but increase its brightness. I encourage everyone to become ambassadors of
preservation and illumination bringing salt and light to a lost world. May God bless everyone reading this
post.
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