Whose salt and light does the world really need?

I’m sure you’ve been told before that, as a Christian, you are to “be salt and light” to the world. Because you’re aware of Jesus’ sermon given on the mount, you understand that this means to love your neighbour, forgive your brother from your heart, avoid sin, and love God. As believers, as disciples, as children of God, it is right that we should live out Jesus’ words in Matthew 5-7 with heart-felt obedience. All of these things are salt and light indeed. They provide visible evidence of the supernatural work God has done in your life.

But don’t ever move beyond the gospel in your attempt to be salt and light. The gospel we’re sharing is not that you and I are wonderful people. Remember, as you seek to demonstrate the holiness God has worked in you, that the reality of this holiness rests entirely upon his Son. Being salt and light isn’t a response to the gospel, it is the direct result of it. Your righteousness is God’s victorious, conquering kingdom work in the anarchy of your heart. Your testimony is this: “Look how God through Christ is triumphing over the power of sin in my life!”

Jesus said that your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees if you hope to enter the kingdom of heaven (v. 20). That statement alone should drive you again and again back to the Son, who is the only person ever to have achieved the requirements of the Law, which the Pharisees so fervently sought to meet. Even as a Christian, there will be days and seasons when your salt grows unsalty and your light grows dim. Why? Partly because God wants to turn you back to his Son. As the author and finisher of your faith, God will never allow you in this life to stray too far from the saving gospel of grace. The world doesn’t need your salt and light nearly as much as it needs Jesus’. I think God allows us those low points along the way because he doesn’t ever want us to forget his Son, who is the prized centrepiece of his plan and the only hope for sinners.

Perhaps the best way you can be salt and light is to try first and foremost to live out the beginning of Jesus’ sermon, the beatitudes. Be humble, knowing your sin. Be poor, knowing your need for Christ. Grieve for the wicked ignorance of the world towards its creator-king. Be hungry, craving nothing more than to be satisfied with good things in the presence of God your Father. Be thirsty, seeking to experience the continually refreshing presence of the Holy Spirit.

These pains—hunger, poverty, grief—are naturally integrated into our lives here and now. God has left it so because he wants to drive us to his Son, through whom all blessings flow. Even on your driest day, on the day of your worst sinful blunder, you can accomplish hunger, sorrow, and a profound sense of need for Christ.

What would the world say to such humility? In our weakness, God performs great displays of power (2 Cor 12:9-10). Maybe those you know aren’t supposed to look to you for salt and light; maybe instead they should be seeing where you go when you are looking for salt and light. Do they know you sometimes feel saltless and dim? They should. Otherwise, how will they look beyond you for the one who can save them? Show them your need. Model biblical saving faith by coming to Christ daily, hungry, poor, and grieved. Abide in him, and from that position strive to point others to the one who feeds and comforts you.