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Matthew 5:16, “…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Short Thoughts:
Christians ought to be explicit about Jesus When our good works are flavored and illumined by the supremacy of the slain and risen Lord, they become pointers to the beauty of the Father whom He reveals.
Long Thoughts:
Last weekend I finished preaching through the final Beatitude and am planning to move on to “salt and light” this weekend. Not yet sure if I’ll do both in one message or spread them out….however, I wanted to do today’s verse picture based on some of the thoughts I’ve had while considering Matthew 5:13-16.
The main thing I wanted to communicate in this picture—and that I hope to show in my sermon—is that the saltiness of the salt in verse 13 and the brightness of the light in 14-17 both refer to the same thing, namely, the Christian’s joyful and radical Christocentrism. Why do I say this?
First off, the Beatitudes themselves are simply a call to emulate the affections and actions of Christ such that a disciple who grows in conformity to them will grow in likeness to Him.
Secondly, with the final Beatitude (5:10-12), Jesus makes Himself the defining characteristic of His followers…..if they are to be persecuted, it will be on account of Him. Then—having spent 10 verses calling His disciples to emulate Him, climaxing with a summary of “righteousness” as identification with Himself—Jesus calls His followers the salt and light of the world…In this context, what do those labels entail? Well, if His disciples are walking in obedience to the Beatitudes—which is to say, if they are hoping in, clinging to, and imaging forth the character of God in Christ—then their “saltiness” and “brightness” (which is to say, the unique element of their character) must be CHRIST Himself.
Disciples are the salt of the earth by treasuring, knowing, and showing Christ….they are the light of the world by being so closely identified with their savior that—by the work of the Spirit—to see them is to see Him…
Much more could be said, but the point I wanted to make in today’s picture is this: The Christian’s “light” is not primarily their good works….their “light” is their association with and imaging of Jesus Christ which illuminates their good works and so turns them into witnesses of God’s glory in the Son. Our good works—like the miraculous signs Jesus performed—are of no lasting value if they are not received as witnesses to the beauty and reality of the One who sent us.
So may we be radiant with the light of Christ, may we be explicit in our treasuring of the Son, so that our good works (which MUST be present!) would bear faithful witness to the glory of our Father in heaven.
