This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 19, 1986.
About this sermon
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Jesus speaks to his church, persecuted yet called to be merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers. The salt and light are not first an evangelism program; they are the Beatitudes lived out. If believers can show mercy while the world hates them, they have no excuse not to abound in it when persecution eases. As 1 Peter 2 teaches, such good works lead others to glorify God, and the church needs no special programs to show them.
Sermon transcript
This morning we are reading from 1 Peter 2. We are reading the first twelve verses of this chapter, and then we will be looking at Matthew 5. Therefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.
If so, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” unto a living stone, this allowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. He also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Wherefore, also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.” and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which have not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles. that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
And then from chapter five in Matthew, verses fourteen through sixteen. of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father.” which is in heaven.
Let’s pray. Father, you feed us from the beginning of the service to the end, from the call to worship to the benediction. You feed us, Lord, in the reading of your word. and in the offering up of our prayers. You feed us as we give gifts, as we offer our tithes and offerings to you. Father, you feed us, we are nourished according to your appointment in the preaching of the humble servants, then, Lord, your preachers should be, that they might expound your word, making plain your gospel. And, Father, may it be plain as well that this church is your church, and you are Lord here.
We pray and for Jesus’ sake, amen. As we move along in the Sermon on the Mount, it is so easy for us to lose our way. It is so easy for us to lose our orientation, forget what has been said, and become confused. what is presently said. I suppose it’s something along the lines of the old adage about the forest and the trees. We take stock of the particularities of the various verses. It’s possible for us to be lost. So here we are, moving along with Jesus’ words. And as we do, it is important for us to keep certain things in mind. And I wish to remind you this morning of three things, by way of introduction of our consideration now of these verses in Matthew 5, which we read.
First of all, I hope you performed that little exercise that I gave you quite some time ago. I hope that when I suggested to you one Sunday morning that you go home and do a little bit of scissor and paste exercise with your Bible, that you did that. Now, I had in mind at that time that you take verses three through nine in chapter five, the Beatitudes proper. and you put them in one column, and then you match that column with verses 10 through 16, and that you read the one column in light of the other. Now, if you did that, I hope you saved the piece of paper that you wrote those parallel columns down upon. You have it and can refer to it. It’s important. And it’s especially important to us now, for you remember what I said.
Verses three through nine are as the text, and verses ten through sixteen as the commentary. So if you have confusion about something in the text, with the attitudes proper, the best thing to do is to turn to the commentary. Now, we’re concerned with the latter verses in the commentary, verses thirteen through sixteen. And you might recall that as we went through our little exercise, I said to you that these verses about salt of the earth, light of the world, the city set on a hill that can’t be hid, that they are to be seen as a parallel to what we find in verses 7 through 9 in the Beatitudes, and that you should match them across the line in the parallel columns.
Now that means that in understanding what Jesus intends, when he speaks about salt of the earth, light of the world, you are going to penetrate his meaning by seeing them, those passages or those verses, in the commentary in light of what he has said in the Beatitudes themselves. In other words, what does it mean to Jesus that we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world?
It means that we are merciful. It means that we are pure in heart. It means that we are peacemakers. All right. You’re with me so far. There are other things that are important for us to remember. It is important for us to remember precisely to whom Jesus speaks. Now here you have to split your vision. I’ve already suggested to you a bit of split vision with regard to the Beatitudes and the Commentary. But here, once more, There’s a bit of split vision involved.
Well, you see, Jesus is speaking to those who are his contemporaries. Those who we’ve described as expectant Israel, faithful, waiting, anticipating the coming of God’s salvation. Jesus speaks to them. And upon them he pronounces his blessing. Those then in Israel who have waited for the visitation of God and the appearance of his kingdom, Jesus speaks to them, but the split vision. For Jesus isn’t simply speaking to the faithful of Israel. He is speaking to his church, who are resident within those who at that time were hearing Jesus’ voice and believing.
Now, I have tried to point that out to you by taking stock of the way in which Matthew introduces the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve noted this for you on a number of occasions. Once more won’t hurt. Jesus goes up into a mountain, and when he sat down, now Matthew is very deliberate in his description, for that ascent of the mountain in the days of Jesus’ ministry in the flesh parallels his ascent in the Spirit, in which he sits down at the right hand of God.
And just as he taught those people who came to him on the mountain in Galilee, so now he teaches his church, who are congregated unto Mount Zion in the heavens. Alright, the split vision. Jesus’ contemporaries and also his church. Jesus is saying the same thing now from heaven that he said from the mountain in Galilee.
One more thing I want you to remember. My, aren’t I organized this morning. The third thing that is important for us to remember is the situation. And this is, I would say, the thing that gives us the most difficulty in understanding and appreciating the force, the impact of Jesus’ words. You see, the situation is this. We must keep it in mind.
Those in Israel who are faithful, who have waited for God’s salvation and deferred to those who promised some other kind of deliverance, who have turned their backs upon that kind of salvation or the promises that men might make, those who have set their vision upon God and God only, I wait for the Lord. He will do it, and him only. The people who have this kind of vision are not popular with those who love the world. Be it that they arise out of Israel, or they be congregated unto Christ as citizens of the heavenly realm.
And therefore the situation which Jesus addresses here is one in which those who love God and are numbered with the Savior are those upon whom persecution and abuse come. This is what then magnifies the significance of Jesus’ blessings. Because it is particularly in that circumstance of oppression, persecution, abuse, that Jesus says, blessed are those who are being persecuted. Blessed are the ones who are abused. And that blessing has a significance that cannot be calculated.
For you will remember how we have expressed the content of that blessing that now Jesus confirms. The theme of Matthew as it pertains to Christ is that we are to understand Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, and the blessing is nothing less than that. In the midst of our tribulation, the persecution we endure, there comes this message of blessedness. The blessedness is nothing less than the presence of God in Christ with us to sanctify to us our every distress.
That should be clear to us now. Alright, wonderful blessings. But you see, Jesus doesn’t end there. And here comes the real grabber. Here comes that element that even beyond the blessing and the blessedness of those who are numbered in God and with Christ. At this point it is seen, its power takes its toll.
Alright, I’m persecuted. in the midst of my persecution, but how do I respond to those who abuse me? And that’s the force of 7 through 9. I persist in mercy. I persist in purity. I persist in peacemaking, even though I’m hated. Now, there’s no other power to do that than that which is found in Christ. No other place will we find it.
Those are the three things that I want you to remember as we take stock of the verses we’ve read this morning in Matthew 5. And I want you to keep these things in mind Because as we’re moving along with Jesus’ message, as I said at the outset, the pressure is for us to forget the things we’ve learned and to lose ourselves in the particulars of the text. Jumping into our word studies and trying to understand everything, their various relationships, but losing our grip on the whole. So we come to verses 13 through 16, and the pressure to misread it. Well, just what is the pressure exerted here that takes us in a wrong direction?
You see, if you are like me, you have been raised in conservative circles. You have been raised in an evangelical environment, and you are acquainted with having been exposed to the evangelical hermeneutics, that is, their principle of interpretation. I’ve been reading commentaries this last week, and in that exercise I found that these men, Ph.D.’d as they were, were running in a direction with these verses that invariably missed the point, lead us off in the wrong direction.
For in their reading of these verses, they find here in Jesus’ images of the salt and the light in the city, they find here in these images an evangelistic imperative. Now please, before I start, may I make an apology, or an apologetic, more to the point. You all know well enough that I’m not here to stand before you and denigrate the evangelistic calling of the Church of Jesus Christ, and certainly no one can immerse themselves in the Gospel of Matthew and not be impressed with the evangelistic imperative that is laid upon the Church of Jesus Christ. But the question isn’t whether there’s an evangelistic imperative for the Church, the issue is whether that’s what these verses are speaking about. Now hang with me. And if you’re a bit irritated, sit on your ire for a bit, hold it in, and we can get together. Have me over for dinner and we’ll have it out. The evangelistic imperative attached to these images.
These commentators would see the salt and the light as essentially related to the evangelistic ministry of the Church. Here they would see, then, that Jesus has isolated the evangelistic mission of his people, as they, then, are both salt and the light to the earth and to the world. But this isn’t quite going far enough in terms of their explanation, for not only do they wish to see here the evangelistic imperative at the center of these verses, but then they construe the entire community, and that is, each individual within that community as evangelistically responsible and obliged You then are an evangelist.
You are the missionary. You have the calling and the appointment and even the ordination to go out and preach the gospel. Not only is that your calling, it is your obligation. And if you fail in that obligation, you have disobeyed Christ and you are under his displeasure and even his wrath.
Now, which one of us has not felt the guilt of that kind, the guilt brought about by that kind of exegesis and interpretation? Each one of us has. Now, I’m not against visiting guilt upon you, but I want you to feel guilty for the right And I think by the time we’re done with this passage, I’ve laid a little bit of guilt on you. But you get the drift. You know the exegesis, you know the interpretation. But I want you to note that such A construction of these verses strains the intent of Matthew in his writing, and even misconstrues Jesus’ purpose in these verses. First of all, take stock of this.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to separate the evangelistic task and relate it to those who are specifically called to do just that. All you need do is read Matthew 10, and here he is laying particular evangelistic obligation upon the disciples as they are preachers of the kingdom, heralds of Christ. We can turn to Matthew 28 and the Great Commission, and I know how that passage has been used in the past. to lay a guilt trip uniformly on the people of God.
But Jesus here is speaking to the disciples as he is commissioning them, as evangelists, as proclaimers of the gospel. And that’s why he speaks about their ministry in terms of baptizing. Are you baptizing anybody these days? Baptizing and teaching. and the teaching and the baptizing go together, they are part and parcel of the proclamation that goes out by Christ’s official heralds of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus in Matthew’s gospel does not hesitate to separate the evangelistic task of his church, causing it to reside in those who are especially called to proclaim the gospel with power and in the unction of the Holy Spirit.
But secondly now, take stock of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The force and power of this sermon is totally inclusive. There isn’t a part of it that can be specially applied to evangelists, or those who have special evangelistic ministries, or to the task of the ministry of the few. It is inclusive of all of God’s people. There is nothing there to separate preachers and evangelists and missionaries. The things that are spoken of here are spoken to all of God’s people indiscriminately. They are all obliged with regard to the things that are said here.
The evangelistic interpretation of these verses is a clear contradiction of Jesus’ objective. You see the direction Jesus is going in his comments. He’s building up to that sixteenth verse and his pronouncement about good works. Good works, the doing of good. That’s the focus. Now, there’s power in these words that registers itself upon us when we take stock of the things of which we’ve reminded ourselves at the beginning.
Specifically, all of God’s people are obliged to do good. especially as they are visited by persecution. It is the doing of good in the face of opposition and hostility by all of God’s people as a uniform objective of the people of God that is in view here by the Lord. And, what shall we say about our parallel construction, verses 3-9 and 10-16? The good works in view, in verse 16, are nothing else than doing mercy, being pure in heart, and persisting in the making of peace.
Now, for a few concluding observations. First of all, I want you to feel the force of Jesus’ statement. In his argument, or in his message, he is taking the most extreme. But by taking the most extreme, he includes that which is less extreme. Let me illustrate. He places before you the picture of the people of God persecuted. And he is declaring to you his blessing and his promises in light of that persecution and your determination in conformity to him to be merciful, pure in heart, and a peacemaker. You see what Jesus is doing?
By seeing you in the light of the extreme situation of persecution, he is saying to you, in effect, if you can be merciful when you’re being persecuted, then you can be merciful when you’re not. In fact, there’s no excuse for you when you’re not. But what a comfort. If I am trained by my Lord to be merciful while I’m being hated for it, if I can be pure in When the strain is so extreme, a maker of peace and sane circumstance, then when persecution is abated, ought I not to abound in mercy and the purity of heart? This is the school of Jesus. That’s my first observation. The extreme includes that which is less extreme. Secondly, I want you to see my way of conclusion, the way in which Jesus exalts good works.
Please, you may be coming the route that I have traveled, and my experience has been that good works have been denigrated, denigrated in my church experience, in the theology that I’ve embraced, because invariably I am told that good works are useless, since they won’t save you.
Therefore, ignore them. But do you see what those who are constrained to move in keeping with the evangelistic interpretation of this passage, you see what they do, where they end. They move in such a way that the only good work of value to them is that work in which they tell everybody that their good works are useless. And that is just the opposite of what Jesus is intending here, and certainly is contrary to everything that Jesus’ prized disciple Peter said in 1 Peter 2.
Can I suggest to you that with the Reformation at its best, not at its worst, There was a revival of good works the likes of which the world had never seen, so that the doing of good was not placed in opposition to justification by faith and salvation by grace, but rather was seen as the expression of those who had been saved and returned.
Finally, last observation. All right, you’ve convinced me. Boy, this is great. I don’t have to be an evangelist, but we’d better organize. You’ve convinced me so Let’s get busy and organize salt-and-white team ministries. We’ll incorporate. We’ll get a board of directors. We’ll send out flyers. We’ll develop a whole infrastructure within our society for promulgation of good works We’ll have Presidents and Vice-Presidents, we’ll have annual meetings, we’ll have banquets in which we award the Academy Award winner in good works for the year. We’ll organize a lamp and lampstand club. Do you really think that Jesus Christ had any such thing in mind? Really? Do you think Peter, when he was speaking in the second chapter of that first letter, had any such thing in mind?
Societies and organizations that congratulate their members and congratulate each other for all the good they are doing. wonderfully organized, machine-like operations? Or did he have the simple kindnesses in mind that needed no program? No president or vice president. Just the simple kindness and grace, the demonstration of mercy. the loving heart, the open hand, the open home, the magnanimity of the people of God, expressed genuinely.
I choose the latter. And it is this love and this graciousness this mercy, be there persecution or not, that is a light before the world, by which others are constrained to glorify God, our Father, in heaven. Okay. Father, may we hear the words of our Savior and hear them clearly. May we see the significance of our life in light of his words, salt, light of the world. And Lord, we pray that as we understand these things, it will be in keeping with what he has said about doing good, performing good to others, even in the face of opposition and oppression. And in this fashion, our God, we know in keeping with his word, you will be glorified by many in the day of your visitation. Give us strength, Lord, now, we pray.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.