What does the Lord mean when He says, “You are the light of the world,” or “You are the salt of the earth”? You're made of flesh and blood. You're not a beam of light consisting of invisible energy waves, nor are you a grain of salt made of a chemical compound. You have a body, skin, hair, and millions of living cells. So, what does the Lord mean when He says, “You are light; you are salt”?
Obviously, He is speaking in picture language. He is making a comparison between you and something else in nature. So you need to ask yourself, “How am I like light; how am I like salt in the Lord's eyes?”
Well, the function of light is that it lets us see what is around us. It guides us in the darkness. In a similar way, the Bible says that believers are “chosen people, belonging to God for the purpose of declaring the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.” He has called you out of the darkness of sin and unbelief into the light of salvation in the Lord Jesus. You have stepped into His light of salvation and now you reflect that light. You have become a shining beacon leading others out of the darkness of sin and unbelief to the Savior.
As for salt? It flavors your food. And, long ago when there were no refrigerators or freezers, it was a preservative, used to keep foods from spoiling. In a similar way, in your faith, you “season” a world that is hostile towards God. You “flavor” it as you “love the Lord your God with all your heart soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” You also act as a preservative, keeping this world at least somewhat in the Lord until He returns to make it new again. Such a metaphor helps us to understand what we are to be.
In our text today the Bible uses another metaphor to describe your Christian life in Him. The comparison is that of the believer to a bell. Paul goes to that comparison when he writes, “The Lord's message rang out from you.”
You're the light of the world; you're the salt of the earth; and now you are a bell for the Lord. You ring out His message . And oh, what a message you carry! The Gospel – What a Sound! May the Holy Spirit graciously guide us our study to grow in faith so that we I. Ring out with joy; and II. Ring out everywhere.
I. Ring out with joy.
Did you ever think of yourself as a bell for the Lord? Actually, it's quite a good description of what your life in Christ is. How are you like a bell?
Well, think of the purpose of a bell. It makes a sound. The greater the bell, the louder the sound, the more it can be heard. And there is often a purpose behind ringing a bell.
When I was a young boy, my brothers and I would be away from the house, playing somewhere around the neighborhood, our location unknown, unseen by our parents. When it came to supper time, they would ring a bell and miraculously we would show up at the table, each coming from a different direction, being called home by the ringing of a bell.
Or, in the church that I attended, just before the service began the ushers pulled on a rope that went through the ceiling, way up into the bell tower where it was attached to a bell. The ringing of the bell signaled the start of the service, calling people to come and worship the Lord.
Now, your life of faith as a Christian is to serve a similar purpose. You are to ring out , to call people to something. How does that happen? Well, the Thessalonians prove a good example of this. First, though, some background about them.
Their city, Thessalonica, was located in the northern part of Greece. It was a very important city of the Roman Empire. Had you lived at Paul's time, you would have known something about Thessalonica, even if you did not live there, just like people know a few things about St. Louis, although they have never visited it.
Thessalonica had a population of 200,000 people, bigger than Springfield. It was the leading city of the Roman province of Macedonia. That made it like a state capital for us in our day. So, it was a place where government officials lived and moved about.
It was also a crossroads city. The Via Egnatia, the main highway from Rome to the east, passed through here. That highway was much like our own I-44 or I-70. It carried lots of travelers, military personnel, and cargo from one end of the empire to the other. There was also a major harbor for the navy and merchant ships sailing the seas located here. So, in Thessalonica you had a city that was a political center, a military outpost, a hub of commercialism and trade, and a stopover for travelers coming from all parts of the empire. As such it was a great area for Paul to
carry out his mission endeavors. Here the sweet
sound of the Gospel rang out from him.
It rang out, like Paul said, “with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction,” working faith in the lives of the Thessalonians. The gospel grabbed hold of them and they became Christians in a relatively short space of time.
In the book of Acts we read that Paul and Silas had only 3 weeks. But, “some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas (in the faith), as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” (17:4).
What a Sound the Gospel became for them . The good news of a Savior from sin was something the Thessalonians had never heard before. It changed their hearts and lives because “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.”
Before hearing that sound, many of these people had worshipped the Greek gods and followed the Greek ways, which could be very hedonistic, a love of pleasure. But the gospel grabbed hold of them, and my, what a change it worked. Paul writes, “You became imitators of us and of the Lord…you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.”
These people were now living for their Savior, not themselves and their pleasure, but living for their Savior. It was a joy for them to do that.
Ah, dear friends, don't you know what that joy is like, too? If you recognize your sin before God, and realize that in it you are nothing before Him who is holy and demands holiness, a holiness that you can't produce, then you can't feel happiness. You've sinned against God; you haven't loved Him as you should; you deserve His wrath and displeasure.
But in the gospel you hear that He caused all of that to fall on His Son, taking Him to the sorrow of the cross in our place so that our sins could be forgiven. Instead of death, you have life in Him; instead of fear, you have peace with God. What a joy that gospel becomes! What a sweet sound it makes in your ear! It is a sound that we are happy to hear.
It had found the Thessalonians and filled them with such joy , that, like a bell they rang out with it. Paul writes, “You welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia – your faith in God has become known everywhere.” How did that happen? How did their joy become known everywhere ?
II. Ring out everywhere.
Well, let's go back a minute to their circumstances. Remember, their city was a crossroads of travel and trade. People who came to know them, many of whom were travelers in the city, saw the sweetness of the gospel in them. Perhaps people saw it in their faces. These were not sad people. How could they be sad and sour, knowing about the Savior and His gift of forgiveness and eternal life? People could see that in them. And it had an effect.
Perhaps their joy in the Gospel was evident by their works of kindness and love for the Savior. People saw it in what they did with their lives. They were not selfish and all business, like everything else that came through this city. For them there was more to life than doing business, and making money, and serving Caesar. They lived for God, loving Him with all their heart, soul, and mind. Somehow people could see that. And it had an effect on them as they went elsewhere.
But their joy in the gospel was evident most of all in their words. As Paul said, “The Lord's message rang out from you...your faith in God has become known everywhere.”
Faith and the object of our faith only becomes known when we sound forth the gospel, when it rings out verbally from us. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ....How can people believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone telling them?” (10:16f).
No doubt many travelers and traders had dealings with these Christians. These Christians did not let the opportunity go by to sound out the joy that the Savior from sin had brought them. And when these travelers and traders moved on, they carried with them the sweet sound of the gospel that they had heard.
You see, dear friends, foreign mission work can be done like Paul did it, by taking the gospel out to the world. But foreign mission work can also be done at home, as you share the gospel with those you come into contact with. They go back home to wherever they come from, and the gospel has effect in their lives. In such a way Christians ring out everywhere . And it starts with their joy in a Savior, a joy that is there even in the worst of times.
Paul writes, “In spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit, and so you became a model to all the believers...your faith has become known everywhere.” This ringing out with joy everywhere was all done in the context of severe suffering.
What that “severe suffering” was, we aren't specifically told. But we do know from the book of Acts that some of the believers were dragged out of their homes and thrown before a riotous mob. We also know that Paul and Silas were chased out of the city by unbelievers. So, these newly-won Christians had no pastors, no teachers to guide them. They had an angry crowd of unbelievers breathing down their necks. Yet, the joy which Christ had brought into their lives was theirs. They had found “the pearl of great price,” and with the help of the Spirit they would not let it go. In fact, they shared it everywhere.
You see, dear Christian friend, when the rest of the world moans and groans about hard times and how difficult things have gotten, the believer trusts that in God's hands it will all turn out for his good. Instead of fear and anxiety and faithlessness, the Christian rings out with joy and trust and thankfulness in a Savior. What a powerful testimony that becomes everywhere it is heard and seen.
So, remember, in your faith you're not only the light of the world; you're not only the salt of the earth; now you know you are a bell for the Lord. Ring out His message . And, oh, what a message you carry! The Gospel – What a Sound! Ring it out with joy; and ring it out everywhere. God grant it in our lives of faith for Jesus' sake. Amen.