Your Family Can Change the World
Right now Ray is preaching through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount on Sunday mornings. This past Sunday his topic was our being salt and light.
Jesus said:
“You are the salt of the earth;
but if the salt has become tasteless,
how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything,
except to be thrown out
and trampled under foot by men.
“You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
nor does anyone light a lamp
and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand,
and it gives light to all who are in the house.
Let your light shine before men in such a way
that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:13-16
Ray taught us that, in the time of the New Testament, salt was much more than something in a shaker on a table. It was so important that Roman soldiers were even paid in salt. The Latin word sal is the basis for our word salary.
So, how does salt lose its saltiness? By getting contaminated. If you put half salt and half sand in a salt shaker and shake up the shaker, how would you ever separate the salt from the sand so that the salt could be useful again? We must be careful not to be a mixed up mess of salt and worldliness. Paul taught the church in Rome:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice,Â
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may prove what the will of God is,
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2
Perhaps the most exciting thing that Ray shared with us on Sunday is that we can change the world. It has happened before. Jesus told His disciples that they were salt and light. After His resurrection, they changed the world. The powerful Roman Empire crucified Jesus. God raised Him for the dead and His followers went out to be the salt and light Jesus had declared them to be.
In a few hundred years, the powerful Roman Empire was finished. Christ’s church remains.
Our world needs godly parents rearing godly children in godly families as they prepare them to live powerfully as salt and light. That is how our families can change the world.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing;
so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent,
children of God above reproach
in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,
among whom you appear as lights in the world . . . .
Philippians 2:14-15