Salt, Light & Six Hard Sayings | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

2:12 I'd like to ask you a question. What is the source of your moral code? What is it that shapes how you understand what's right and wrong? In 1955, our 33rd president of the United States, he was no longer in office, Harry S. Truman, who, by the way, lived 14 minutes from here in his 20s and 30s, just due this direction, due east in Grandview, Missouri, working a family farm. But in 1933, he was asked, what is the, excuse me, in 1955, he was asked, what is the source of your moral code? And this is what he said. I believe in a moral code based on the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that a man ought to live by those precepts, and if followed, it will enable him to do right. You know, multiple presidents of the United States over the years, starting with John Adams, our second president, have said, the Sermon on the Mount reflects my moral code. It's how I determine what's right and what's wrong, or at least it shaped my moral code. So I'm gonna ask you again, what is the source of your moral code?

3:07 And by the time we're finished with this sermon series, I hope that your moral code, I believe it probably already has been, but is shaped by the words of Jesus in Matthew chapters five through seven, the most concentrated portion of Jesus' ethical teachings. So today we're going to focus, we're going to start Matthew chapter five, verses 13 through 16. And this is where Jesus gives two metaphors for what we are to be and do as individual Christians, but he uses the plural you. So he's really talking about us together. And it's really emphatic. He says, you yourselves are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. So we're going to unpack those, and then we're going to go into six of the hard sayings or teachings of Jesus as found in the Sermon on the Mount. So let's start with you are the salt of the earth. Now, you've no doubt heard people describe this way. You know, somebody's the salt of, they're just salt of the earth. Usually that means they're just really good, solid people, right? But this phrase comes directly from the Sermon on the Mount. And so we have to ask, what did Jesus have in mind by salt of the earth?

4:03 And it's an interesting metaphor. Salt, of course, was tremendously important in the ancient world as it is today, but even more so in the ancient world. And there were multiple uses for salt. So salt was used as a preservative in a time before refrigeration. Meat and fish could be coated in salt and that would kill or in essence, stop the bacteria that would call, or even fungi molds would stop these things from destroying or leading to decay for the food. So it could last a lot longer if it was coated in salt. So it was a preservative. And so perhaps Jesus was saying, you together as the church and you as my disciples and you individually are meant to preserve what's good in the world. That could be. It's also used, of course, it was used then and even today for medicinal purposes. So you gargle with salt water, it helps your throat. It was used in certain ways, solves on wounds in the body. So maybe Jesus was saying, you're meant to be instruments of healing in the world.

4:56 And that would, you know, that makes sense too. But the way he describes it here, it really seems like he's talking about the more common use of salt, and that's to season things. So he says this, you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but it's thrown out and trampled underfoot. Now, when I think of this idea of salt as bringing, you know, it enhances the taste, this is something we all understand. You know, in our daily lives, salt is a part of almost everything that we eat. And if you've had a doctors say you need to go on a low salt diet. You know how hard that is to begin with. And then you start looking for things that don't have salt. I was thinking about this Campbell's soup. This is, it says on here, unsalted cream of chicken soup. Now I've not eaten this soup and I promise you, this is not going to be eaten today at my house. I'm not on a diet that requires this, but I know one thing, it doesn't taste the same as the soup with salt on it. I love peaches and cream, corn on the cob. Oh my gosh, I love it. But you know what? When it's finished being cooked, the first thing I do is I slather, actually low-fat margarine on it, I slather margarine on it, and then I'm going to take just a little bit of salt, and I sprinkle a little salt all the way across this. And you know when I do that, it brings out the sweetness in it, it brings out the flavor, and this is one of my favorite things to eat, especially during the summertime. Or I think about french fries, which I try not to eat very often anymore, but here's a whole helping full of french fries. And my assistant picked these up for me and asked that they not put any salt on them. Let's just see how they taste.

6:23 So let's go here. Yeah, that is not good. So, sorry, I gotta choke this thing down. So salt enhances the flavor of almost anything. And most of what we eat already has more than enough salt we don't need to add anymore. But Jesus, I think, is saying to us, when he talks about taste, he's saying, you know, you're meant to enhance. You're meant to bring out the goodness of everything that you touch, everyone that you're around, in every community that you live. You're meant to enhance the world. You're meant to help it be more like the kingdom of heaven by your presence, by what you say, what you do, how you act, how you serve, how you interact in your relationships with other people, to inspire, to move, to help people be and experience a better quality of life because you're a follower of Jesus and you're living out the gospel. I love this. You know, there's sometimes where as Christians, we maybe go overboard on that. I've met Christians, so I got to tell you the story. I was once in a restaurant and somebody, to play a little trick, before I got into the restaurant, had twisted the cap of the salt nearly off. And I went to put a little bit of salt on my dinner and I poured out the entire salt shaker on my food. It was not funny to me. But sometimes as Christians, we can actually come across too strong. I've met people who were just like, man, just slow down and back off just a little bit, buddy, because this is kind of pushing me away.

7:46 And so there are Christians who are that way. Maybe you've met them. Maybe you've been one of those Christians. I certainly was when I was a new Christian or an early Christian in my life. There are others though, I think, who have a kind of salt that they bring to the world around them that isn't, it's not like the sodium chloride Jesus was talking about. I have a jar here of the salt we use to salt the parking lots and they've added some kind of chemical to it. It's blue and, you know, it's got sodium chloride and some other things in it. And here's the thing. I looked it up. You know, what happens if you use this salt? It tastes salty. What happens if you use the salt on your food, and you know what happens? You're going to vomit, you're going to have diarrhea, and you're going to be really sick if you use this on your food. Now, I was thinking about some expressions or forms of Christianity that actually they seem like they're on the right track, but sometimes they actually have the opposite impact. They're not life-giving. They're not bringing goodness out of what's around them. And I was thinking about a book that was recommended to me by a friend. Here's a picture of the cover, and it's called Separation of Church and Hate.

8:45 Separation of church and hate. And the play on words is obvious, but this idea that sometimes in churches, we find ourselves judgmental, we find ourselves hypocritical, we find ourselves acting in ways that are the opposite of what Christ calls us to. And instead of love, what we find is people experience something most unloving and most unpleasant from us as Christians. I hope that doesn't happen with any of us here at Resurrection. But I know it's a tendency for all religious people to be judgmental, hypocritical, to end up being not a blessing, but somebody people don't even wanna be around. That's what happens sometimes when people are using the wrong kind of salt and their salt is actually toxic. So then Jesus picks up another metaphor and this other metaphor makes the same point in a slightly different way. He says, you, you together, you plural, you are the light of the world. Now, interestingly, in the Old Testament, we find that God is the light for everyone.

9:39 God is the source of light. God is the light. God comes as a pillar of fire. But then he calls the Israelites to be light for the Gentiles or light for the nations. And so God's people were meant to take the light that was from God and to live that light out in the world. And then Jesus comes along and Jesus says to his disciples in John's gospel, I am the light of the world. And then he says in Matthew's gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, now you, you are the light of the world. We remember this passage, you know, every year and the idea of Christ being the light and we being the light on candlelight Christmas Eve. And so, you know, we've got a little video of this, but the lights go down. Go ahead and run the video. The lights go down and we find the Christ candle is brought into the room. We darken all the window. We darken all the lights. The Christ candle is brought in the room. We light the Christ candle. And then we begin, we take that light from that one candle. We take that light and we begin to pass it around the room. And then by the time we're finished, you know, we've sung Silent Night.

10:33 By the time we get to the last verse of Silent Night, that light has filled the entire room. And we look around and we see all of this light. what was all, you know, it was utter darkness a few minutes before, a room filled with light, we raise up our candles and we say, this is what Jesus' picture of the world was. This is what he had in mind when he said, you are the light of the world. And then at the end of the service, we send people out. Every week I picture this at the end of worship, you know, the benediction is like throwing you out into the world, like as salt and as light to go out in the world to let your light shine before others. And this is what Jesus said, let your light so shine before others that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Like that's part of our mission. You are the light of the world. Let your light shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. And how do you let it shine? You let it shine by your good works. And I love this, the Greek word for good here. There's two Greek words for good. Agathos is one of them, but this one is kalos.

11:26 And kalos is a word that means beautiful. It's like attractive, it's beautiful. Let your light shine through your beautiful works. And in the process of doing that, you're not gonna receive glory for yourself. The goal isn't to show people how beautiful you are and how beautiful your works are. The goal is to let them see how beautiful God is and God's light shining through you. This is part of our mission every single day to let Christ's light shine through us. And I love how in the scriptures, we find this picture of Jesus goes on to say, you know, you're a city, you together are a city set upon a hill that can't be hidden, right? We as a community are meant to be a city set upon a hill. Here at our Leawood location, this building sits up on a hill. And when we designed our sanctuary, It's like, that's the highest point. And what we hope is the building is just a sign of what we really hope is the light of the world. It's not our building. It's we together as we live our faith out in the world. That's what Christianity is meant to look like.

12:20 And you see, we go out and we knock holes in the darkness when we leave this place every week. When you leave church, whether you're watching online, on TV, at any of our locations, we're going out to take Christ's light into the world. This, he said, is our mission. So when we think about doing this, Jesus is clear. We're meant to be this light, this goodness. And John in his epistle, 1 John says this when he's describing what that looks like. He says, whoever says I am in the light while hating brother or sister, a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light. And in such a person, there is no cause for stumbling, but whoever hates another believer is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. All right. So that leads to six hard sayings that we find in the next few verses of Matthew chapter five. This starts at verse 17, and we're gonna go all the way through verse 48. And I hope you have your Bible with you.

13:11 If you do, I'd like for you to open it up to Matthew 5, 17 through 48. If you forgot to bring a Bible today, would you bring it next week? Because each week we're gonna be going through these verses, these various passages. And it really helps, I find, if you can see the context and you can follow along with what I'm doing. So if you can, if you got a pocket testament with you, I always carry mine in my back pocket, get that out. Turn to Matthew chapter five, or if you've got your Bible, that's great. And here we go. So as we look at these, these are six, really seven hard sayings of Jesus. These hard sayings, you look at them and go, that's impossible. I mean, that just seems almost overwhelming. I don't know how I could possibly live up to this high ideal that you have. And then Jesus says some pretty tough things in the middle of that. As he's teaching about these things, he's like, cut off your hand or pluck out your eye. So I want you to know how Jesus preaches and teaches. It's really important to understand this. And then it helps you make sense of everything else he says. He often speaks in what's called prophetic hyperbole. Prophetic is like, it's a very strong word.

14:06 It's lifting up the highest ideals. And hyperbole is an exaggeration to make a point, right? Like, I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse. Well, no, you aren't. And you wouldn't eat a horse anyway. But it's just, it's a statement to make a point. And so when Jesus speaks in prophetic hyperbole, he's not talking about all the nuances, all the exceptions to the rule. He's not asking you to take him literally. You're meant to take him seriously. No, you're not meant to cut off your hand or to pluck out your eye. You're meant to hear just the strength of that statement. And then through that to go, okay, what's the real point? What am I trying to do? And what Jesus is going to try to do is now that we know that we're the light of the world and we're the salt of the earth and we've heard the Beatitudes and we're trying to live those, he's going to say, let me lift up for you a higher ideal, a greater righteousness. So he starts off and he's talking about the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders. And he's saying, he comes to this verse, he says this, I say to you, this is verse 20, I say to you that unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the legal experts, that is the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And most people heard that and they're like, what? What do you mean? I mean, the scribes and the Pharisees were the most pious people in the first century. I mean, and Jesus shared a lot in common with how they looked at things. They were the most pious people in the first century. I mean, they tithed everything, even the herbs in their garden. They were They were prayed constantly.

15:26 Most people looked at them and said, we're really glad they're there, but we could never be that. And Jesus says, unless your righteousness exceeds theirs, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. That seemed overwhelming. Now, Jesus is speaking in prophetic hyperbole. He wants to be taken not literally, but seriously here. And he wants us to understand. Now he's gonna lay out for us what that looks like. And he says, he talks about the law. And he says, not one iota of the law is gonna be taken away. you know, I've come to fulfill the law, not to diminish the law, well, or abrogate the law. When he's talking about these, he's probably talking about the Ten Commandments, because he's going to go into the Ten Commandments, and maybe the love your neighbors, you love yourself. He is going to go into these commandments, and he's going to help us see the greater righteousness. So he's going to show us that it's not just about what you do with your actions, but it's what's going on in your heart and in your mind. That's the greater righteousness. So we're going to unpack this just a little bit. By the way, the Jewish people in the first century or in the ancient world, they had developed their interpretation of the law. So there were 613 laws. And then they interpreted those laws, the oral interpretation, which was eventually written down. That's the Hebrew Talmud. And the Talmud is, I don't know, 10, 12 volumes of interpretation. Just to give you an idea, the third or fourth commandment, they're counted differently. Some people divide commandment one into two, and some people divide commandment 10 into two. And so either the third or fourth commandment, depending on how you're counting it, is honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

16:50 Now, in the Talmud, there's 39 laws related to that one commandment to say, well, this is what, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. And then there's more that kind of went alongside that. So in Jesus' day, there were a whole lot of things. It wasn't 613 laws. It was thousands of laws. You know, as people try to say, this is what that looks like. And Jesus is saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's not that hard. And so I want us to see what he says. So here we go. we're going to look at what he says. And by the way, these are sometimes called the six antitheses, as though Jesus is saying, here's what it was said, here's what you all have said, here's what the law says, but I say to you. That's how he often starts these. You've heard that it was said long ago, but I say to you. But these are not really antitheses. He's not disagreeing with the first statement. He's just unpacking it and taking it deeper and not with 39 more rules that go along with the first one. He's saying, just look to the heart, right? It's not just what you do, but it's actually what you think and who you are on the inside that God is after.

17:47 So pay attention to these. So here we go. Here's the first one. This is the, among the commandments, this is the fifth commandment or the sixth commandment, depending on how you're numbering them. And so that is don't murder, don't murder. So here's what Jesus says, Matthew 5, 21 and 22. You've heard that it was said to those who live long ago, don't commit murder. And all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. You see, he's moved to the heart, not just the actions. Moved to the heart. If they say to their brother or sister, you idiot, they'll be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say you fool, they will be in danger of the fiery hell. Let me just ask you this question. Maybe you haven't called somebody a fool, but I bet you've called somebody a name somewhere along the way, you jerk or whatever it is. You don't have to raise your hand. I'll just raise my hand for you because I have done this before in the past. If I didn't say it, I thought it. I try not to.

18:40 But you know, how is it that you're never gonna get angry with somebody else? Like if you get angry with somebody, you're in danger of the fiery hell. Like it's like you committed murder already. It's just like, come on, Jesus, seriously? This seems super duper hard. But you know, he's saying, again, this is prophetic hyperbole. He's saying, look, don't take me literally, but take me seriously that God cares about what's in your heart. And the greater righteousness, yeah, sure. So you was stained from murdering somebody. Good for you. Like most of us are not gonna murder somebody, but he says, if you want the real righteousness, you're gonna be looking at how you're inviting the Holy Spirit to train your heart so that you're not hating people. You're not angry all the time. You don't find yourself in the car, you know, cursing at people as you're driving down the road. And I know that happens with a number of you. And just the ability to say, Lord, please change my heart. Holy Spirit, help me. So that I recognize, you know, he's lifting up this higher ideal.

19:33 Now there's plenty of grace, right? He has lots of grace. Do you think all those people that Jesus cared for all the sinners and tax collectors that they didn't call people you jerk and you fool and get angry at people? Of course they did. And he's not going around condemning them, but he's saying, but let me just tell you what we're really after in your sanctification or you're being made holy is that the Holy Spirit would move you to where you're not saying that anymore and where you're not bitter and angry all the time. Because you know what? If you're one of those people who drives your car angry all the time, can I just tell you you're shortening your own life? None of those people can hear you in those other cars, right? But you're shortening your own life and you're creating some bitterness in your own heart, if this is the rhythm of your life and God's saying, let's not do that, right? That's the greater righteousness. Okay, so let's look at the next one. This is the sixth commandment or the seventh commandment, depending on how you number them. And he says this, and this is adultery, right? So this is a very serious commandment. You've heard that it was said, don't commit adultery.

20:26 So that's what the 10 commandments say. But I say to you that every man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to fall into sin, tear it out and throw it away. It's better that you lose a part of your body than that your whole body is thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, to fall into sin, chop it off and throw it away. It's better that you lose a part of your body than that your whole body go into hell. All right. So listen, this again seems, you know, I can't speak for you, but I can just say over the course of my life, you know, did you ever find an impulse? You found yourself drawn to somebody who wasn't your mate? That's just, I mean, if you never had that happen, you're probably not alive. You don't have a pulse. But for most of us, this is going to happen somewhere along the way. And what do you do with this? And what Jesus is saying, like everybody, you know, most people could say, okay, I haven't had an affair. I mean, that's not true for everybody. I can't remember the statistics, but there's like 20% of Americans who confess to having an affair, an actual literal affair somewhere along the way. But for many people, maybe it's 30%. I don't remember the number, but you know, most of us, I've never cheated on Levon, not physically, right? But have thoughts come into my mind every once in a while. Not lately, but you know, there are places and times that's just, that's just being human, a desire. The question is, what are you going to do about that? Do you dismiss it? And I love, I've shared this with you many times in sermons, but Walter Wengerin's book, As For Me and My House, he's a Lutheran, he was a Lutheran pastor, retired now. And he talked about the moment of the maybe. And he described in his own heart moments where he had that maybe, that thought, you know, where it just plays with it for a little while. This idea that, you know, right now my wife and I are not getting along very well.

22:01 And, you know, that person seems to be attracted to me or seems very kind to me. And so you begin to play in your mind. Well, I wonder what it would be like to be with that person. And what Wengerin said is the moment you start to play with the maybe, you're several steps away from saying yes. And maybe not with that person, but maybe with somebody else. And so being in control of your secret thought life, that's what Jesus is saying. So the greater righteousness is being faithful in your secret thought life. And maybe you're not married, but somebody else is married, you know, and you're having some thoughts about this person and to be able to say, okay, I understand what you're calling for me to do, Jesus. That you're asking for me to have a righteousness in my own heart and my mind to gain control of my thoughts, right? And so this is what he's asking for here. Now, I want you to notice he's not saying for us literally to cut off our hands and to pluck out our eyes. If that was the case, then most of you couldn't see me because you would have plucked out your eyes a long time ago if you were taking them literally.

22:54 You would have cut off your hands, right? He's not asking us to do that. He's saying, this is serious business. And when I think about this, I think about, I've had multiple conversations with people over the years who were either on the edge of an affair or were involved in an affair. And multiple times people say, you know, it's somebody that I'm working with and I'm really struggling and I can't, you know, please, you know, help me. And I'm like, well, have you considered changing jobs? Oh, no, I couldn't do that. Or I remember on two different occasions, people who said it was a neighbor. and I said, I'm gonna make what sounds like a radical, you know, crazy idea, but I'm gonna ask, have you thought about selling your house and moving somewhere else? Moving somewhere else in the city where you're not right next door to this person because this is not gonna lead in a positive direction. This is not, you know, it's not gonna work out. Well, I couldn't do that. You know, we can't sell our house. And I'm like, here's the deal.

23:48 There's a good chance you're gonna sell your house anyway. but the way you're gonna end up selling your house, you're also gonna have your spouse and your kids living in another house. So I just gonna ask you, maybe you might wanna suggest that you have a desire to get another house somewhere else than stay in that house and lose it in a divorce, right? I mean, that's the kind of thing that Jesus is saying, cut off your hand, pluck out your eye. What price are you willing to pay to preserve your family or someone else's family or to preserve your soul, right? Now, I wanna mention this. When it comes to hearing what Jesus is saying, okay, maybe you're somebody who has violated your marriage vows or somebody else's marriage vows. I want you to read what Jesus says in these hard sayings in the light of how he actually treats people, what he actually does. So do you remember that there was a woman who was caught in the very act of adultery? This is John chapter eight.

24:40 Woman is caught in the act of adultery and she comes, she's actually dragged before Jesus by the religious leaders. and they think he's soft on sin. And so they bring this woman, they throw her down in front of them and they say, Jesus, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. By the way, where's the man? They didn't bring the man there, just the woman. So caught in the act of adultery. And you know what the law says? The law says she has to be stoned to death. And there they are. They've got their rocks in their hands. They're ready to go. right? And you remember Jesus kneels down and he starts to draw in the dirt. Nobody knows exactly what he said. Different commentators have, you know, over the centuries, millennia have, you know, speculated what maybe he was saying. But this is what he actually says with his lips. He sees this woman there who's terrified. She's about to be put to death. And these guys all have their rocks there. And you remember what he says, the one of you without sin, you cast the first stone. Whichever of you has no sin, you cast the first stone. And you remember what happens one by one.

25:44 they drop their stones and they walk away. And Jesus looks at the woman and I picture him with gentleness and compassion and mercy saying, where are your accusers? I don't see them anymore. Neither do I condemn thee, but go and sin no more. He doesn't tell her to cut off her hand or pluck out her eye. He just shows mercy to her. So he shows mercy and grace. And then he calls us to a higher standard. He calls us to live a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. And this relates to all of us. This is a call for all of us to live according to this greater righteousness. All right, here's another one of those hard sayings. It was said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a divorce certificate.

26:37 Now, this isn't one of the 10 commandments, but it's sort of tied into that in how Jesus interprets it. but it was said whoever divorces his wife must give her a divorce certificate. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual unfaithfulness, forces her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. A couple of things to note about this passage. This is a really hard passage. And, you know, I don't know what percentage in our congregation, but I'm thinking, you know, maybe 30% of our people have been divorced. And so, you know, what's he saying? And, you know, what happens when you're in a marriage that's broken or a marriage that's painful? Is marriage a life sentence to misery? What happens if, I mean, you know, if you have an abusive spouse? I mean, Jesus doesn't talk about any of those exceptions. He gives one exception, and that is adultery. Why is this that he's speaking this way? You need to understand in Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 1, Moses says, really in essence, gives permission for a man to give a certificate of divorce for a woman when she's done something that he finds unacceptable.

27:40 And so notice the woman couldn't give a certificate of divorce for the man. The man gave a certificate of divorce for the woman. Now, who had the job? The man. Who had the income? The man. Who owned the possessions? The man. What happens when the man gives a certificate of divorce to the woman? She's left with nothing, right? She may be destitute after this, right? This is a matter of justice. And so the debate in Jesus' day between the religious leaders is when Moses says this in Deuteronomy 24, 1, does it mean you can divorce her for any reason, anything you find unacceptable, or does it have to be something very, very serious like infidelity? So Jesus is gonna weigh in on this on one side. But you see, there were some who said, in essence, if she burns the toast, she's out of here. If I don't like the way she's with me, she's out of here. If I don't like the way she looks today, she might've been fine 10 years ago, I don't look how she looks today, she's out of here. And the woman could do nothing about that.

28:33 And Jesus says, this is not how it was meant to be. So this isn't about the hard situations. It's not about the moments when, you know, 10 years have gone by and you have had a loveless marriage and you feel abused. I mean, Jesus is saying, men, when you married her, you committed to love her and to cherish her until you were parted by death. And that's what God was counting on. He's not giving us all the exceptions to the rule. He's not giving his pastoral, you know, but look, I understand where you're at. And I, you know, no, he's just saying, this is a matter of justice and fairness and how God looks at us as humans. And so, so here's what I love. He's giving this, this high expectation, right? We live in a time where, where it becomes, you know, easier and more acceptable just to walk away. It's just easy to walk away. Had I walked away, had LaVon walked away, we've been married 44 years this December, there were three or four times it would have been so easy to walk away.

29:30 You know why we didn't? because Jesus said, you know, here's this lofty ideal that you're supposed to live into. And you know what we did, you know, it worked for us. And, you know, sometimes we get counseling, other things to help us through difficult times earlier in our marriage. And today we look at each other and, you know, I think I'm so grateful that we had these words of Jesus that challenged us to just keep at it. But I've also been with people where their marriages had died a long time ago and where there was such misery and sadness that I understood, you know, and I felt compassion for them. And I felt compassion for them because Jesus felt compassion for them as well. Remember, we interpret Jesus in the light of, we interpret the hard sayings of Jesus in the light of what he actually does. So if you go to Luke chapter seven, you're gonna find that Jesus goes to a well in Samaria and he waits there for a woman. And that woman comes midday and she's been divorced and remarried and divorced again five times.

30:25 And now she's living with a man who won't even dignify her by marrying her. And we don't know what all the circumstances were. Maybe some were deaths, maybe they're, we don't know. But there were, because she couldn't have asked for a divorce, at least a few of those were men asking for a divorce from her and leaving her, you know, leaving her to struggle, right? And so here she is, and in that community, there's a lot of people who undoubtedly cast judgment on her, not Jesus. He finds this woman and he offers her living water so that she'd never thirst again. and then he makes her the first missionary to the Samaritans. I love that. There's no, you know, you're a terrible person. There's no condemnation. There's no, well, what happened here? And what happened here? No, it's just Jesus offers her living water. He just loves her. And he offers her his grace and his mercy and his understanding. I think he knew all the pain that she had been through, right? And he just extends that to her.

31:19 We interpret Jesus' words, his hard sayings in the light of his actions. So mercy and grace. And then he's going to lift up this high ideal that I think most of us start off. When we get married, nobody says, you know, I think if it doesn't work out in a few weeks, I'm going to do something different. And what I know is that for many people who are divorced, it was a battle. And it was something they tried so hard at. And what I know is Jesus understands and knows. And from the story in Luke chapter 7, I have a feeling that his heart and his compassion for you is great. And he says, and here's the ideal that I want you to strive for. All right. So there are so many other things that I wish we had time to cover in the sermon. You're going to read them this week. If you read our GPS, you'll read all of these hard sayings of Jesus. But I want to mention just, you know, briefly some of these other things that he says. So here you're going to find when he talks about this greater righteousness, he's going to say, when somebody strikes you on the cheek, you turn the other cheek. Don't take somebody to court, right, when they've wronged you. He's saying, don't get vengeance. Now, is there ever a time to go to court? Of course there is. There are certain times where you would need to do that.

32:19 Jesus isn't talking about all the exceptions, but he's saying, listen, you're gonna turn the other cheek when somebody takes advantage of you. They want your coat, give them your cloak also. He's gonna say, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don't speak oaths. He's gonna say, don't swear by anything. Does that mean when you're in a courtroom, you can't put your hand on the Bible and swear so help me God? No, he's not saying that. But what he is saying is, make sure that when you're saying something, you mean to, you know, when you're gonna say yes, make sure it's yes. No, make sure it's no. And make sure you're telling the truth. Be honest, right? And don't finagle around with how you're defining your words. And then he says this. He says, you've heard that it was said of old that you're to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Actually, the Old Testament doesn't say hate your enemy, just love your neighbor. And your enemy was the Romans. And some people thought it was okay to hate the Romans. But Jesus says, no, I say something different. I'm gonna tell you, you have to love your enemy and pray for those who wrong you.

33:14 This little book I've mentioned, and I showed the picture of it on the screen a few moments ago, John Fugel saying separation of church and hate. In it, he says, if your church isn't telling you to love your enemies, but keeps telling you who your enemies are, you're not really in a church. I love that. We're called to love our enemies, right? We're called, and you know what? That's super hard. And it's not a warm, fuzzy feeling. It's just simply saying, how do I act with kindness towards people who have wronged me? How do I not slander or hurt other people when they've hurt me? How do I not return evil for evil, as scripture says, but blessing instead, right? This is what we're called to do in that greater righteousness. Is it easy? No. Are you gonna mess up sometimes? Absolutely. But this is the ideal you work towards as you seek to be salt and light in this world. I wanna show you something real quick.

34:07 So this is what these lamps looked like in the first century. And I'm gonna go ahead and light this one here. So, you know, at night, the whole house was dark and these lamps are pretty small, right? But the whole house was dark, but you had this one lamp. Well, you'd had many of them, probably one in each room. And Jesus says, this is what you're meant to be. In the darkness, you're meant to be light. And don't hide your lamp under a bushel, but instead let your light shine for other people. Put it on a lampstand, let them see it. And you remember what that light was, right? that was beautiful works. Be the salt. I think about this salt and you know, we come to church, we're in the salt shaker here. But this salt is worthless if it stays in the salt shaker, right? We're meant to go out and we're meant to be salt every day this week, right?

34:59 To look around and see, how can I flavor what's happening in my world? How can I take the gospel with me? How can I pay attention and look around and see where I can be light, where I can be salt? Because when you do that, you're going to find life. And the world has changed because you heard the words of Jesus and they became your moral compass and your daily mission. And when you do that, you find life. I want to end with this. So this week I was going to Dayton, Ohio to speak at a conference, a Change the World conference. That was the name of the conference, Change the World. And I was going to speak on the Holy Spirit's work in our lives and helping us to change the world. And I'm flying out of Kansas City to Atlanta because you can't get to Dayton from here. So I was flying to Atlanta. Before I got on the plane, I look around and there's a group of resurrection people. And I'm like, hey, what are you all doing here? And they're like, we're on our mission trip to Malawi. I'm like, oh, how cool is that? I'm so glad to see you here. And so we stopped and we prayed. Here's a picture of me with them at the airport.

35:51 This is actually in Atlanta when we got off the plane. And there were three or four more joining them at their next flight. But I just love seeing these folks, right? And the joy on their faces and the excitement as they were going to La Longue. It was gonna take them 26 hours to get there from Kansas City. And they finally, the next picture shows they'd finally got there. I got this picture this week. And they're with Hugo, who is one of our staff members who is from Malawi, and he coordinates all the work there. And they're on a medical mission, and they're praying as they first got there. I just love this picture. And then because they, by the time I was preparing the sermon, I didn't have the pictures yet. What I have for you is some pictures from their trip last year. So let me just show you a few of these pictures. Last year, so there's Dr. Mattiel, one of the leaders on this team, and meeting with people. They met with, in one week, they met with, go ahead and go to the next one. They went to 1600, they ministered to and cared for 1600 patients. Many of them had not seen a doctor in a long time. And you know, in the middle of all of this, 1,600 people. What are they doing?

36:44 You know what they're doing. They're taking the salt out of the salt shaker. They're taking the light into the world. They're letting others see the love of Christ through them. I just want to ask you a question. You don't have to travel 26 hours to do this. You can do it every day this week. As you remember that Christ called you to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. let's pray oh God we thank you and praise you for your love for us for your mercy and grace we thank you that you sent Jesus to show us who we're meant to be who you are and who we're meant to be we thank you Lord for the way that you showed mercy to people when they didn't live up to these lofty standards but at the same time as you showed mercy you called all of us to a greater righteousness please forgive us for the ways that we have failed you wash us clean and make us new help us each day this week to go out as salt to bring goodness out of the world around us and to let the light that's in us from you shine before others through our good works our beautiful works that they might give glory to you Lord help us to pursue the greater righteousness help us to be your people use us we pray in Jesus name Amen