Text: Matthew 5:10–16
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé

Salted Earth, Blazing City

Though we read the entirety of the Beatitudes last week, we only examined through verse 9. Let’s pick up in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, then, in his final Beatitude and the section that follows—where we will learn how to be hated properly.

Look with me, if you would, at Matthew 5:10. This is the Word of the Living God:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

-Matthew 5:10-16

Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith. Let’s pray.

A Word on Pronouns

Now, it may seem awkward to deal this portion of Jesus’ sermon on the mount with this division of the text. Most of the time, you would deal with the whole section of the Beatitudes, that series of “Blessed are the [blank], for theirs is/they will be [blank]” statements, then move into the next section on salt and light and so forth.

But there are good reasons to divide up the text this way, and it has everything to do with how Jesus transitions from the Beatitudes into his teaching on salt and light, connecting the two like links in a chain.

The Beatitudes are set like books on a shelf between two bookends—one in verse 3 and one in verse 10. In verse 3, Jesus promises the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven, and then in verse 10 he promises those persecuted for righteousness sake the same thing, the kingdom of heaven. 

Even though Jesus gives another statement promising blessedness after verse 10, that section, verses 11 and 12, aren’t even really a new Beatitude, but an expansion on the final Beatitude of verse 10.

In verse 11, Jesus expands his blessing for those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, explaining that this persecution will look like reviling and false charges and all around being detested. And something interesting happens grammatically as he moves from the final Beatitude of verse 10 into the next section: He changes from using third person pronouns to using second person pronouns.

He goes from saying, “Blessed are [some group of people], for theirs is [some blessing].” To saying “Blessed are you when others revile you... for so they persecuted the prophets.” 

And then he continues using that second person “you,” speaking directly to these people who are persecuted for his sake, and says in verse 13, “You are the salt of the earth” and in verse 14, “You are the light of the world.”

So note carefully: The people he’s calling the salt of the earth and light of the world are the same people he addressed in verses 11 and 12, those who are persecuted and reviled for his name’s sake. 

It’s even important to note that in Greek, the “you” he is using is the second-person plural, which we don’t have in English except in the Southern “y’all.” It means “you all,” as in a group of people.

So it is right for us to deal with the final Beatitude of verse 10–12 alongside verses 13–16, because the group he calls salt and light in that second section are the same group of people who are being persecuted for his sake in verses 10–12.

Salted Earth, Blazing City

That said, let’s walk through the text a sentence or two at a time and get a feel for this important teaching of the Lord. Verse 10,

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

-Matthew 5:10–12

If I could give you a summary statement of this paragraph, it might be something like this: If people hate you; if you are known to start kerfuffles of various sorts—from passive aggressive emails at work reminding everyone that the workplace is a “religiously neutral environment” to riots in the streets… Then you may just be doing this whole Christianity thing right.

If you are known to be occasionally cussed out by strangers or cut off from family members… You may just be doing this whole Christianity thing right.

If you are considered weird, strange, uncouth, radical, extreme, and crazy… You may just be doing this whole Christianity thing right.

And note well that the inverse of this Beatitude is also true, as Jesus said in Luke 6:26, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

If everyone likes you, beware… You might not be doing this whole Christianity thing right.

If everyone who’s ever met you thinks you’re really reasonable… You might not be doing this whole Christianity thing right.

See, there is a chasmic antithesis yawning at the center of reality, a great gulf between the Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son. And as Christians, we have been transferred from the one to the other. 

Our allegiances are changed. Our ways are changed. Our law is changed. Our political, sexual, ethical, interpersonal, social, and familial values have changed. And not only that, but we are not free to be undercover sort of secret Christians—you know, deep down in our hearts.

No, we are commanded to teach the nations to obey all Jesus commanded. We are commanded to be public Christians. So rejoice when you are cursed. Sing. Throw a feast. Open a really good bottle of wine for dinner if you get a nasty email at work after sharing the gospel with a coworker. 

Throw a party that weekend if you get cussed out for the sake of the Lord. Sing a Psalm. Get some of those streamers. Whatever it takes. We are to be a potent people, ambassadors of a potent Kingdom. Which brings us to the second half of the text:

“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

You are likely very familiar with this portion of Jesus’ sermon. Christians often refer to this portion of the sermon, that we are salt and light. And whenever that happens, whenever a verse or picture from Scripture becomes popular in isolation from its context, we should pause and make sure we understand what it means.

As with most of the New Testament, this section grows up out of the symbolic world of the Old Testament. Salt played an important role in the worship and community of God’s people in the Old Testament.

In the Mosaic system of worship, salt was to be added to nearly every sacrifice and offering the people brought. In Leviticus 2:13, God commands them to put salt on all their offerings. This included grain, or bread, offerings, animal offerings, etc. It was called the “salt of the covenant.”

Why? Well, part of the picture was that of a shared meal. The people were eating with God, they were communing over a table with God. Salt was both preservative and seasoning: In a world without refrigeration, salt was the universal preservative, keeping the food for the table from spoiling. And salt gave all food its savor. 

So as they took a tithe of the grain that would sustain them through the year and set a plate for God, they seasoned it to taste. They took an animal from their herd, and they set a plate for God, seasoned to taste. And as the fire consumed the offering, it was to be a picture of God eating their offering.

Additionally, salt represented judgment, a total and cleansing break from the past. So the rich, garden-like plain surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah became a salted, infertile wasteland after God’s judgment, per Genesis 19:26 and Jeremiah 17:6. So Jesus speaks of people being “salted with fire” in Mark 9:49.

Salt was sowed into the soil of a conquered land to prevent them from cultivating the land and reinhabiting it—a clean break from what once dwelt in a place. So salted offerings set a meal before God, a meal that represents a clean break with sin, a territory no longer belonging to sin, its previous inhabitant.

Salt as a symbol is complex, just like the sacrifices it was involved in were complex: Sin and judgment meet and kiss with fellowship and friendship and the family table in sacrifices. So in this symbol, judgment and friendship kiss. 

We are the salt of the earth. We, the reviled and rejected community of the Church, are a symbol of friendship and judgment to the world. God will sow the cities of the kingdoms of men with us, and he will make them infertile to the idolatries that formerly grew up there like weeds. We will make the silversmiths of Artemis’s temple go broke. We will put the pornographers out of business. 

And we are like salt on the offerings, a table laid for friendship, for the family meal. We are therefore an invitation to feast with God, to be reconciled to him by the sacrifice of the Lamb. 

But beware to those who will hear his message and refuse to take up their own cross, refuse to follow him. They will be useless and trampled underfoot. They will be like salt that isn’t salty, good for nothing but to be thrown out into the streets and trampled down.

Beware, lest you say, “I am the salt of the earth,” yet never welcome any to the table of God’s friendship, never serve as God’s judgment to the world, calling them to repent of their sin, never preserve anything. Jesus will tell us how specifically he wants his people to be salt and light in just a moment in verse 16, but first let’s see the other half of this symbolic pair. You are the salt of the earth, and, verse 14:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

-Matthew 5:14-16

Again, this is straight out of the symbolic world of the Old Testament. We move from the salt on the offering at the altar into the very Holy Place, where the seven lamps gave their light, the menorah.

Jesus, the light of the world, has come as light dawning in Galilee of the Gentiles. He is the light that reveals, that judges, that saves, that teaches, and that banishes the darkness. And when he leaves, when he returns to the house of his Father, he will send the Oil of his Spirit to burn in a new, world-menorah—he is making a people who will be a whole city of lights, a whole polis of radiant glory. We, his people, are the light of the world, a city on a hill.

And so we are to be and will be and are that which Israel pointed to as a sign: As Jerusalem was a city on a mountain, to which the nations would stream for instruction, as Isaiah 2:1–4 promised, so the people of God will make the whole world a mountain city, a city on a hill, to which the gentile nations will stream for salvation and instruction in the truth of Scripture—the lamp to our feet and light to our path. 

This is why the people of God are called by symbols like the heavenly Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem, the city descending from heaven to earth. We are that city. You are that city, if you take up your cross and follow the Lord of light.

And he tells us what it is that chiefly constitutes our seasoning, illuminating work, right in verse 16: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

It is the good works of God’s people that displays the light. 

Here is the implication, the open secret of the world: The culture is downstream from the sanctuary. If the world now lacks light, it is because the people of God have hidden under a bushel. If the world is without savor, it is because the people of God are not potent in their saltiness. And that brings us to the point of the matter, doesn’t it?

Why are Christians so Unhated?

So for the rest of this sermon, I want to try to answer just one question. It is, in my mind, the single most important question that you and I could deal with in response to this teaching of our Lord, the most pressing issue confronting us in this text. It is the question of why so many Christians are so unhated? And we will answer it in rapid succession in six ways:

1. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because we love the glory that comes from men more than the glory that comes from God.

We want to be liked. We want to be seen as reasonable people. We want people’s renown, their love, their approval.

But to the world, the gospel is unreasonable. The Kingdom of God is unreasonable. It’s irrational to the world. They will think you are out of your mind, as Festus did Paul in Acts 26 as Paul proclaimed the gospel. He said, “Paul, you are out of your mind!”

Don’t live for their glory. Don’t live for their approval. The world approves of what is evil and hates what is good—why value its assessment of you? Rather, rejoice when it assesses you as not that great, as unworthy, as unlearned. Rejoice when it tells you to get educated. Rejoice when it thinks you are a kook. So they did the prophets who were before you.

2. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because of our ungodly fears and anxieties.

See, we don’t just love the glory of men, we also fear men and what men can do. We fear losing our jobs, losing the possibility of advancement, not being able to pay the bills. But if we understood who it is we serve and what it is that he has promised, we wouldn’t fear them. And we wouldn’t fear the future. He promises that if we seek first this Kingdom and its righteousness, friends, he will add to us that which we need. 

3. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because of sheer apathy.

We may be lulled into apathy, because we feel that we have no need, and so we don’t need God’s blessing. This is a particular danger to the wealthy, which is to say, to most of us. 

It is so easy to think, “Why heed this call to live for God’s blessing when I have what I need already? I can bless myself just fine.” 

4. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because we have a false understanding of the nature of biblical love.

We might misdefine love as not making anyone uncomfortable. We think that love means not rocking the boat, making waves, or causing problems.

But listen: Wherever the gospel and its ambassadors have gone, there have soon followed riots and rejection. If we love our neighbors, we will make them uncomfortable rather than leaving them comfortably lost in their sin.

5. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because we love comfort and idolize safety.

If bodily safety is your highest priority, you will not be hated. If comfort is your highest priority, you will not be hated. 

6. We fail to be salt and light, and so fail to be properly hated, because we functionally treat the Bible like Thomas Jefferson did.

Thomas Jefferson cut out those parts of the Bible he didn’t like. He had, to use a phrase we often do around here, problem passages.

We fail to be salt and light, because we have problem passages. We don’t know and love and cling to and obey the Scriptures. We don’t believe they have claim on every part of our lives, on all of life and doctrine.

We believe the lie that the Bible is for church matters, and that the rest of life is to be governed by autonomous human reason, the cunning of human philosophy, and the deified thoughts of fallen men. But the Scriptures are clear: 

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

-2 Timothy 3:16–17

All of life is governed by the Word of God. That means that in any conversation, in any category of human existence and the common domain of human life—in all of it, we have the Word and wisdom of God. What does this have to do with being hated?

Well, if you reason politically like an atheist, you’ll probably do ok. But if you walk into the public square and say, “No, I don’t care what the Supreme Court said; I don’t care what the Legislature decreed; I don’t care what the governor ordered—abortion is an abomination, gay marriage isn’t marriage, and whatever else—because the Bible says so.”

Well you’ve just upset the apple cart, now.

If you say, “No, respectfully, I won’t call you by your preferred pronoun, because God commands me not to lie,” well now you’re in trouble. Prepare to be fired, reviled, and uninvited from all future company picnics.

The Word of God is divisive. If you refuse to edit it, you will find the world dividing around it in front of you. This was the mark of the prophets, by the way. This was the thing for which they were constantly assaulted: It was for saying, “Thus saith the LORD!”

And they were hated for it. The world had no reward for them. But before we leave, I want to make sure you don’t miss a key part of Jesus’ teaching to us, here: It’s not that they got no reward, but that they didn’t settle for the world’s reward.

But Not Like Buddhists

In fact, I’d like to end our time in the text this morning by aiming to inflame your thirst for reward, for the right glory, to sharpen your hunger for what it is that Jesus would have you hunger for. 

Maybe you hear a text like this, and you think that the Lord Jesus is calling you to grit your teeth and put to death all desire, to aim for this kind of Buddhist state of non-desire—as if the problem you and I chiefly face is that we want to be happy, that we want reward, that we want joy, that we want satisfaction, and so the Lord comes in like a nun with a ruler to smack you on the hand and say, “Stop it!”

That is the opposite of what Jesus is teaching here. Just listen to him, guys,

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

-Matthew 5:10-16

Why rejoice when people hate you and refuse to reward you with their love and approval and inclusion and membership in their inner rings and cool tables? 

Because of how great your reward is. Because rather than trusting gin men to reward you, to satisfy you—you have trusted in God to do so. The question is plain: Who gives better rewards, impotent men or omnipotent God?

So seek for glory. Seek for reward. Ask for it. Aim for it. Long for it. But just make sure that it is the proper glory and the right reward. Don’t settle for mud pies in a slum when you are being offered a holiday at the seashore. Don’t settle for the attaboys of mortals when you could have the approval of immortal God.