The Disciple’s Task in the World

In this message we are going to Consider the Task Jesus charges His Disciples with as Salt and Light.

We’ll ask what a disciple is? What does Salt represent and mean? and what does Light represent and mean?

As we ask ourselves “are we His disciples?”
Let us let His word answer that question as our spirit bears witness with His Spirit that inspired His Word.

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A Disciple’s Task in the World

Mat 5:3  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Mat 5:5  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Mat 5:6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Mat 5:7  Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Mat 5:8  Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Mat 5:9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Mat 5:10  Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:11  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Mat 5:12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Mat_5:13  Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Mat 5:14  Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Mat 5:15  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.
Mat 5:16  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Mat 5:17  Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19  Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:20  For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Let us here end in the reading of God’s Holy Word as it has been written to us.

And let us ask for understanding of it in the Name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

The world that the Lord Jesus lived in was like our own world today, not an ideal world, the Roman’s who occupied Jerusalem and Judah, the small remaining country of Israel left to God’s people were a Godless pagan people, idolaters and fornicators, abortionists and homo-sexuals and the like… not perfect at all.

If the Government of the world were perfect, both priest and prince would have received Christ as the rightful KING of kings and LORD of Lord’s but as Scripture teaches us in 1Co_2:8  that none of the princes of this world knew the wisdom of God: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Here also is the setting of the 5th chapter of the Book of Mathew.
And as Matthew 5:1 tells us so the Apostle Paul continues to explain, why this is in:

1Co_2:9  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
1Co 2:10  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

Jesus is speaking this to a great multitude who followed Him as said in:

Mat 5:1  And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

The point I am drawing attention to is that as Christians, specifically as his disciples.
We have a problem as American Christians in the 21st century, the problem is this we use words with out understanding and having slight knowledge of their meaning.

Verse 1 told us, that the beatitudes and the follow statement of Salt and light and of God’s law were spoken to “multitudes”, but it was the disciples that “came unto Him”

How many here thought about the meaning of disciple when I this verse just now?

A disciple is one who is under discipline:

Noah Webster’s 1828

DISCIPLE, n. [L., to learn.]
1. A learner; a scholar; one who receives or professes to receive instruction from another…
2. A follower; an adherent to the doctrines of another. Hence the constant attendants of Christ were called his disciples; and hence all Christians are called his disciples, as they profess to learn and receive his doctrines and precepts.
DISCIPLINE, n. [L., to learn.]
1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.
2. Instruction and government, comprehending the communication of knowledge and the regulation of practice…

DISCIPLINE, v.t.
1. To instruct or educate; to inform the mind; to prepare by instructing in correct principles and habits; as, to discipline youth for a profession, or for future usefulness.
2. To instruct and govern; to teach rules and practice, and accustom to order and subordination; as, to discipline troops or an army.
3. To correct; to chastise; to punish.

There were men and women and children who were in that great multitude sitting with Christ.

The disciples however came out of that multitude and sat, these where they who were learning his discipline and preparing their minds to be disciplined, they were not just sitting on the mount listening to Jesus with their ears made of flesh and cartilage, they were there listening to the Word of God, the Word of the Son of God, the very creator Christ who had come down from heaven, the Son of man Jesus Christ-

He that spoke was the Master of all principalities and powers.

Here is One that when He speaks He is not speaking of a Law that has come from an earthly origin, his beatitudes, are the attitude that we are to be, were not derived from the best ideals and deep thoughts of men, they are God’s thoughts God’s Words, Gods discipline, Word’s and laws of life designed to discipline our lives in this world as to produce an effect, and that effect is the effects of Salt and Light.

Salt which preserves and give a pleasantness of task and light that vanquishes, that is conquers darkness.
Concerning the lesson we are recieve from the person of Christ and His coming to us as a man we are instructed in this discipline by Paul the Apostle:

Php 2:5  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Php 2:6  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Php 2:7  But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Php 2:8  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Php 2:9  Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
Php 2:10  That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
Php 2:11  And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Apostle is telling us that hear is the mind we must have as disciples, as Christians, we are resolved that Christ Jesus the Christ of this bible was God come down from heaven, who took upon himself the form of a servant, He humbled Himself through the death of the cross the death of a worthless criminal, and yet it is this Jesus, who is highly exalted by God the Father whom He in God head is equal to, it is this crucified Jesus resurrected in power who has a name that the whole world, every created thing in heaven and earth will bow to and will Confess Him Lord YHWH almighty to the glory of His Father.

• Here is the mind of a disciple, here is were it start in the ways of discipline,                                 here is the doctrine that gives richness to the poor in spirit.
• Here is the comfort of they who mourn:
• Here is inheritance of the meek
• Here is the nourishment for the one hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
• Here is the mercy for the merciful. 
• Here is the pure sight of the heart able to see God. 
• Here is where peace made that we might be called the children of God. 
• Here is the king of Righteousness the Lord of the kingdom of Heaven worth being persecuted for persecuted for.

All is in the Name of Jesus Christ, who is God and who is equal with God though He took on the form of a servant to die for His Elect
And what
And what saith the Apostle that this mind is to do for us ?

..work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Php 2:14  Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
Php 2:15  That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world…

“shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we are in the world…”
What a discipline this mind of Christ calls us to, wills us to, for if we have it, it is God working in us to do two things:
1. To will
2. and to do of his good pleasure.
Php_2:14  Do all things without murmurings and disputing:

The 1394 Wycliff translation says it like this:
Php 2:14 And do ye all things without grouchings and doubtings…

What things? What Good pleasure are we to be doing as disciples under a disipline?
What things does God work in our willingness and doings?

Go bank to Matthew 5

Mat 5:14  Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Mat 5:15  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.
Mat 5:16  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Salt and Light
There two foundational principles of Christ’s dominion, that is His Government or Kingdom of which we have spoken, that are to be proclaimed in every Holy convocation as commanded by God to be upon our Sabbath day of Rest, and that is because if these two principles are not proclaimed, your spirit will not have any rest at all, and that is what these words of the Lord Christ is saying the Salt, that is to say the Covenant by which mercy and grace comes to us from heavenly places, the Gospel.

Let me simply show you Christ the Son of David’s covenant of Salt: and let me ask in the word’s of Abijah:

Salt
2Ch_13:5  Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?

Turn with me to Isaiah

Now consider the discipline taught in those beatitudes.

Light
Isa_8:20  To the law and to the testimony (the witness of the covenant): if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Isa 8:21  And they (the people for saking law and testimony) shall pass through it, hardly bestead (distressed) and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
Isa 8:22  And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

And the Light, that is to say the Word of God, the Law of God, by which we might know what God has saved us from as Sin, and what God expects of us as his disciples.
With out the Salt and the Light, the Covenant and the Word, with out the Gospel and the Law we are not Christians, and with out both of these principles working in us, willing and doing not according to our good pleasure but of God’s good pleasure, SALT: preserving or saving, the covenant of Salt through the come son of David.
Willing and working in us to do His good works and pleasure by graciously teaching us His Law.

It is the constant theme of the Word of God to proclaim God’s Word and especially his law, his rule to live by that is his discipline as light:

SMP
Psalm 119:

105 Thy word is to my feet a lamp, and to my path a light.
106 I sworn have, and I will perform, to keep thy judgments right.

107 I am with sore affliction ev’n overwhelm’d, O Lord:
In mercy raise and quicken me, according to thy word.

Here is the answer to America and the West’s problems, here is what we have done in the last few years of our personal history, in the last 200 years in Americas history, in the last 1500 years in civil history, the last 300 years in the protestant reformed churches history, and the last 3000 years in Israel History, and for the last 7000 years in Adam’s history- we have not considered that to not be a disciple of the Covenant of Salt the Gospel Grace sworn as an Oath before the foundations of the world in hand and glove with the proclamation of the light of the Word of God, the very Law of Gospel Spoken by the Lord Christ on Mt. Sinai to Moses in all its fiery glory , to be without the Salt and the Light is to be worthless, rotten, trodden under foot, hard pressed and hungry, to be a people and land of people in trouble and in darkness, in dimness in anguish, a people driven to darkness.

The Mind which is in Christ that we are to also have, the very incarnation of the King and God unto whom the World in heaven and earth will bow, teaches us that we are to Shine as Lights in the World reflecting the salvation from darkness which God has worked in us.
Proclaiming to the Gospels saving Salt Covenant in Christ Jesus, and not forgetting or the Light bearing Law of God which gives us the source illumination in its fire.
Why else would Jesus teach His disciples this discipline as part of there task in this world?
to Think not that Christ came to destroy the law, or the prophets testimony of the covenant: for He says, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

Mat 5:18  For He truly says to us, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
there for:
Mat 5:19  Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Here is our task in the world disciples, here is our discipline to give us light to shine!
And why? Why Does Jesus tell us the beatitudes of the Christian Faith and then remind us that his Kingdom’s Law contained in the Light od God’s word needs be not broken, and needs be taught?
because even as a Christian who is saved by Grace, this Law of Light is going to be discussed on judgment day:

Act_17:31  Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

2Co_5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
2Co 5:11  Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men

Mat 5:20  For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Now let me make this clear. The righteousness referred to in Mat 5:20, is not the Righteousness that is according to the Law. No, it can not be that righteousness, because the Scripture has concluded all are under sin, and not righteous by that law. The pharasees who are hypocrites trust in works to save them and allow them enterance into the kingdom of heaven, but God has made that clear, that such salvation by the works of the law is impossiple for mere man.

No, the righteousness here spoken of is the righteousness of Christ through imputation.

That is this, that Jesus took of his righteousness and shielded you with it, covered you with it, to render you righteous or just before the judgment seat of God the Father, Who’s glorious Wrath would consume you were it not for the only Mediator who can stand between God and Man, the Man Jesus Christ.

This is the great exchange, God giving you of Christ’s righteousness and give Christ your sin to bear upon the Cross.

Here is how we have peace with God and can be called righteous by God and not be like the Pharisees who are hypocrites trusting in their own righteousness by a law, a law so perfect, that they cannot keep perfectly unto salvation, for no man can, for we know that all our foundation of righteousness in Jesus blood justifying us.

But as one declared righteous, we absolutely see and know our task in this world as disciples, to preach the Light and spread the salt of the Gospel and the Law.

Are we His disciples? Are we under his discipline?