This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to Day 5 of Week 4 of our look through the book of
Matthew. We're going to look at verses 13 to 16 in chapter 5 today. In fact, I'd
like to begin by reading those verses.

Listen to these verses. Jesus taught, "You are the salt of the earth, but if the
salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good
for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, neither
do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its
stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good
deeds and praise your Father in heaven. " As you read through these verses about
us being salt, about us being light, I want to share with you some scriptural
truths, scriptural keys that I see in these about confidence in your faith. How
can you confidently be salt?

Salt's pretty confident. You can taste it. How can you confidently be light?

Light's pretty confident. You can see it. Now, when I talk about confidence in
your faith, this is true about whether you're concerning, praying about whether
to have faith in the first place at all, or whether you're really praying about
how should I live out my faith in a daily way.

In both of those areas, you need confidence. The confidence to know when you
trust Christ, He is trustworthy. And the confidence to know as you trust Christ,
He is trustworthy.

So what does it mean to be salt? What does it mean to be light? To be salt is to
be distinctive.

To be light is to be visible. Let's talk about those. First, be salt.

Be distinctive. You're the salt of the earth, Jesus said. But if the salt loses
its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

Well, that's where a confidence gap comes in for many of us with our faith. A
lot of us have this confidence gap with our faith or with having faith. And it's
the distance between what you say and what you do, what you are, and what Jesus
might say He wants to be doing in your life.

And you think, "I could never become a Christian. Look at who I am. " Or then
you become a Christian and you think, "How can I be a Christian?

Look at who I am. " We have a lack of faith because of a lack of lifestyle. You
look at yourself and you know as a follower of Christ, you've accepted Christ.

You know you're different inside. But the truth is, there's not that much
obvious difference from you and the world around you as you look at the outside.
So you have a lack of confidence.

And maybe sometimes you wonder if you're really saved. Well, just to put it
bluntly, it's hard to be confident about heaven when you're living like hell.
It's just very hard to be confident.

It keeps you confused. You think, "I could be a person of faith. I know I made
that decision to trust Christ, but look at the way I'm living.

" It also stifles your witness. You find yourself hoping that people won't find
out that you're a Christian. Because you think, "Let them find out that Joe over
there is a Christian.

He's a lot better witness than I am. " And Jesus says, "I don't want you to live
that way. I want you to be salt.

" He reminds us that our confidence grows out of being distinctive, being
different. You're the salt of the earth. Now he says here, "Salt that's not
salty is thrown in the trash.

" Of course you throw it in the trash. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do
anymore. Now I know some people, they've got bad Bible study, bad interpretation
here.

They think, "Okay, that means that Jesus is going to throw me in the trash if
I'm not salty enough. " No, that's not what he's saying at all. He's not talking
about salvation in these verses.

These are verses about your influence, not your salvation. And when it comes to
influence, if it's not salty, it's worth nothing, he says. You always know that
salt is salt.

It doesn't taste sweet. It doesn't taste sour. It doesn't taste nothing.

It tastes salty. Can you imagine salt being advertised with a new, less salty
flavor? No, you get it for the salt.

And Jesus needs you to be salt in this world. Because salt is distinctive, it
has real impact, real influence. You can taste it in the food.

And the truth is this world is a tasteless place without people of confident
faith. We bring the flavor to this world. And personally, to grow in confidence
in your faith, you must realize you have this distinctive responsibility,
opportunity, flavor to give to this world.

When there's no difference between you and the world around you, no distinctive,
there's no impact, and there's no reason for confidence in your faith. Now,
listen closely. Salt can't be desalted in one sense.

You can't lose your salvation, but it can be diluted. You can't hide your
salvation in the midst of this attitude or that life or this opportunity lost.
So how do I enhance the flavor?

Well, the number one flavor enhancer, the only thing that makes me salty, you
salty, is determining it's OK to be different. It's OK to be distinctive in this
world. And yes, that means, like we talked about yesterday, sometimes you will
be insulted.

Sometimes you'll be ridiculed. Sometimes you'll be passed over for a job. Yes,
that's true.

But you'll also have joy. You'll also be salty. You'll also be living for
eternity.

It's OK to be different. It's OK to speak different. The Bible teaches us to
sprinkle our conversation with grace, to salt our conversation with grace.

You don't have to be heavy-handed about this. Just put a little of the flavor
in. Wow, God was good to me this week.

And just tell somebody how good God was. They're going to think about that the
rest of the day in ways that you don't even imagine. Because the Holy Spirit's
going to help them to think about that.

It enhances our distinctiveness when you and I decide to be what we believe. In
order to do that, you need other believers around you to encourage you to be
that. Something interesting about salt and saltiness with believers.

You can't be salty just as one grain. You got to get in the whole group. You got
to be salty with everybody else.

There's something about being together that encourages and challenges our
confidence in being distinctive. Be salt. Be distinctive.

And then Jesus said, "I also want you to be visible. I want you to be light. "
You're the light of the world.

Let your light shine before people. Faith loses its confidence whenever it's
hidden. You might even be distinctive.

You know you're different. You don't do the things that the world does. You
don't act in the ways that the world does.

But no one around you really knows that you're a Christian, unless they're a
Christian too. You sort of hide out. You escape from the world.

And Jesus said, "You don't take light and put it under a bushel. You put it up
on the stand where it can be seen. " You might remember, you may have sung as a
child that old, old song, "This Little Light of Mine.

" And when you did, you'd use your finger as the light and you'd hold it up
high. You didn't hide it. And that verse in the song, "Was hide it under a
bushel?

" No. I'm going to let it shine. I won't sing it for you.

I will spare you of that. But the truth is, the world needs light. And the world
is a dark place without people of confident faith.

And the truth is, faith is a light wherever it's shown. You may not see it. You
may not even know it or understand it, but that is absolutely the truth.

You take one small candle and you light it in a dark room. I don't care how big
the room is. You're going to see that candle.

You see the light. And God's put the light of His Spirit into your life. I know
you're not perfect.

I know you struggle like I struggle with things. But God has put the light of
His Spirit, His life into you. And when you let that shine, it is seen.

Now, as you think about this, God's light shining through you, being seen
through you, a couple of truths to remember in these verses. First, He says,
"They will see your good deeds. They'll see your good works.

" Faith needs to be explained by good words. No doubt about that. We're supposed
to preach.

But it shines in our good deeds. We're supposed to let people see. Now, as
people see, you need to let them know who you are.

Not just hope that somehow they'll figure out you're a Christian. Jesus,
Himself, told people who He was. He stood up for the truth, and you have to
stand up for the truth.

It shines in our good deeds. And then a second truth in these verses is whenever
light is visible, it's easy to spot the source. And the source here, notice what
He says is, "They're going to see your good deeds and praise your Father in
heaven.

" Not you, praise your Father in heaven. When you honestly live a life of faith,
and people see that light, they're going to see I know something is different,
and they're not going to give you the credit because they know you couldn't do
that. They know no human being could have that kind of attitude.

They're going to see there's something else in their life. What is it? How could
I have it?

They glorify God who is in heaven. And your prayer is that the ultimate glory
will come as they come to Him and spend eternity with Him in heaven. So when you
look at your life, to live with confident faith, be salt, be light, be
distinctive, be visible.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we want to grow in faith. We want to grow in
our confidence in You.

We want to grow in confidence in living the life You've given us to live. We
want to grow in confidence in sharing that with other people, letting other
people see that in us. Not because we're prideful, but because we love You and
we want other people to love You too.

So help us to grow. Help us to grow in being distinctive. Help us to grow in
being visible.

We want to be the salt. We want to be the light in this world that You've made
us to be. And Lord, instead of worrying about trying to be that this week, teach
us to trust You to be that.

Because it's You that they're going to see in us. It's You. That's where the
change comes.

That's where the life comes. So let people see You in us this week, we pray. In
one small way, one certain circumstance, one word, one conversation.

Let that happen, we pray, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Join us next week in
Jesus' Life Management Seminar.

We're going to move from talking about attitudes to talking about relationships.