Live According to God’s Word!

5th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/5/17
Matthew 5:13-20


Live According to God’s Word!
I. To lead others to Christ
II. To receive life with Christ


If you are currently employed or have been employed at some point in your life, what’s your impression of your fellow employee who tells others how hard he works at his job, when you know that he spends countless hours every week on personal business?

If you’re a student, what’s your impression of your fellow student who lets you know how diligently she studies when you know she can’t block-out a single distraction; in fact, she looks for other things to pay attention to when she should be studying?

If you’re a Christian, (and I assume all of you are or you wouldn’t be here today), what’s your impression of the person you know who tells you what a devout Christian he is, but you know that his Christianity is only something he pays attention to when he doesn’t have anything better to do?

Not one of the people I just described is attractive to you, are they? They’re phonies in one way or another. And that’s putting it nicely. Honestly? They’re either delusional or they’re liars. They’re not doing what they say they are doing.

Is it possible anyone has ever thought or said the same thing about me? About you? Indeed it’s possible. Is it likely? I suppose so. And it’s bad enough when our work habits or study habits are involved. It’s infinitely worse when it involves our Christianity. God have mercy on us if in fact we’ve given someone reason to disparage Christianity in general or our Savior specifically.

That won’t happen when we take to heart the words of our Savior before us this morning. In this section of his Sermon on the Mount Jesus encourages us to live according to God’s word. When we do, blessings abound. Let’s see what those blessings are.

Part I.

The mother of a little boy has just witnessed her son misbehave in a way that disturbs her deeply. He has never seen her model that behavior—just the opposite. She has made it crystal clear to him the kind of behavior she expects and she just witnessed him obliterate that deportment boundary. As she glares at him, her righteous anger rises to her face. And she tells him in no uncertain terms, “That’s not the way we behave! You know that!” Her statement is full of parental meaning. What she’s telling him is that other children might behave that way, but he is not allowed to. That’s not who he is. She wants him to know that his behavior reflects his inner being.

On this day in our Savior’s life according to Matthew’s account, Jesus was preaching to a crowd of people on a mountainside. The way that Jesus preaches to them indicates that these are people who are looking to him as the promised Messiah. For the present, at least, they believe he is their Savior. And he tells them plainly who they are. He states, “You are the salt of the earth.” And a little later he states, “You are the light of the world.” He doesn’t tell them they might be salt and light. He doesn’t tell them they have the potential to be salt and light. He tells them that they are salt and light. Why would he tell them that?

Why would he call them salt? Most of us use salt almost exclusively as a seasoning. It makes food taste better. Manufacturers of food products are keenly aware of the fact that salt enhances the taste of food and so they load an unhealthy amount of sodium in what they put on the shelves of retailers. But salt has another use. It’s a preservative. In the days before refrigerators and freezers, meat was often cured with salt to preserve it. When Jesus calls you and me salt, he’s telling us that’s who we are and he wants to use us to preserve his world. He wants to use us to keep his world from spoiling, becoming completely rotten, immoral, and sinful. You are the salt of the earth. And that happens as we live according to God’s word.

Why would he refer to his people as light? That’s an easier question to answer. A light gives us the ability to see our way in the darkness. I’m telling you the obvious when I state that we live in a very spiritually dark world. If you’re not convinced of that, just watch or read the news for a single day. Jesus is the light of our salvation. He has revealed his light to us and now he wants to use us to light the way for a world full of sinners to see him as their Savior, too.

That happens as we live according to God’s word. Our world has completely lost its moral compass. What was formerly recognized as sinful by the vast majority of people is now not only tolerated, but celebrated. Our world needs Christians now more than ever to live according to what God says in his word, to proclaim, “Thus says the Lord!” and live by it.

But more importantly, we need to use our way of life to lead others to Jesus. We want people to ask us, “What is it that makes you different? Why are you always honest? Where do you find your strength to carry on in such a heartbreaking situation? Why do you have hope in a hopeless world?” The answer to every one of those questions is simple. It’s Jesus. And he wants every sinner to believe in him.

That happens when we live according to God’s word. It leads others to Christ.

So let me ask you. How salty are you? Would someone watching you or listening to you conclude that you are a Christian, or would they get the impression that you couldn’t possibly be one? Wow! That’s pretty heavy, isn’t it? To think that it’s possible I’ve lost my saltiness? To think that I could have said or done something so unchristian that I appeared to others to be just that—not a Christian? But I have. And if you’re honest, so have you. We lose our saltiness. We hide our light under a bushel. But Jesus never did. He was the perfect salt and light. That was part of his work as our Savior—being perfect in our place. And then he won our forgiveness for not always being salt and light with his death on the cross. He made you a new person spiritually—a person who loves him and loves to live for him. That’s what your baptism means for you every day of your life. Live according to God’s word and watch how you lead others to Christ.

Part II.

Here’s a statement that goes contrary to everything that is truly Lutheran: You are saved by your good works. As Lutherans we know and believe that we are saved solely by the grace of God through the merits and work of Jesus. We can do nothing to save ourselves.

But listen to what Jesus said, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The people who first heard these words might have concluded that Jesus was asking them to do the impossible. Those same people regarded the Pharisees as the most righteous people among God’s people. They prided themselves on how well they kept God’s law. How could the common Jewish person possibly attain a righteousness greater than that?

Listen to what Jesus said about obeying the law of God. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” One of the reasons the Pharisees despised Jesus was because they thought he was encouraging the people not to keep the law of God. Jesus repeatedly pointed out to them how they themselves violated God’s law. Only Jesus kept it perfectly. He fulfilled it. His righteousness surpassed the righteousness of the Pharisees.

And his righteousness is our righteousness by faith in him. Do you recall the name that Jeremiah in the Old Testament used for the promised Savior? “This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). By faith in Jesus his righteousness becomes our righteousness. Paul once wrote, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). With Jesus, in Jesus, because of Jesus, by faith in Jesus, your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees. In fact, it’s perfect.

And when you believe that truth, then you are living according to God’s word. St. John wrote, “The one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17). What is that will of God? To believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. That’s something the Holy Spirit works in us through the word of God.

Live according to God’s word to receive life with Christ.

We have eternal life with Christ because of the righteousness he gives to us. That’s the greatest news any sinner could hear. But we struggle with that truth at times. We struggle with it when we come to the conclusion that someone else’s sins are far worse than ours. In fact, we’re fairly proud of our record before God. On the other extreme, we struggle with the truth that Jesus’ righteousness is ours every time guilt crushes our hearts. So what should sinners like you and me do? Live according to God’s word. By that, I mean believe the central truth of God’s word. That central truth is that Jesus is your Savior from sin. He gives you the righteousness that God requires. All is well between you and the holy God. Believe that glorious truth and let that glorious truth shine into the lives of others. Amen.