Set On a Hill

Last week we began speaking of this phenomenon, that if we don’t recognize it, we would be at a total loss because we would have missed it. This phenomenon is called unjustifiably, “the interruption.” The greatest thing about an interruption is the inconvenience it causes our lives. I mean, if you think about it, interruptions happen to us when we’re swamped or super busy and can’t take on another thing into our lives, but for some reason, in God’s providence, He throws us a curve ball to let us know that we really don’t have any control and that “interruption” does one of two things, it either makes us shells of what we need to become or they become markers of the ultimate power God holds in delivering us through life. We concluded last week that an interruption and essentially it’s meaning and impact on our lives is your choice—we choose to hold it as God’s intervention for us; or we choose to let it move past us as a waste of time. This morning, I want to switch gears from us being interrupted in our course of life into us interrupting the world in their course of ultimate destruction. So let me explain this a little bit before we get into where we need to go. 2000 years ago, Christ interrupted society by calling himself king and started a revolution. This revolution wasn’t an uprising of people, per se, it was more an uprising of patterns. So when the poor, homeless carpenter’s son from Nazareth died cruelly on a hill in Jerusalem for all the Middle East to see, at the hands of the Romans. Because obviously the Roman government considered him enough of a viable threat to execute him, he started a revolution that has ramifications even into our 21st century mindsets. So 30 years after Jesus died, most of the world didn’t know who the Christians were. They were just those really pious Jews who met at peoples’ houses and shared their belongings. That is until Emperor Nero, at 68 AD, wanted to enlarge his palace, so he set Rome on fire and then blamed the Christians. It was rumored that Nero often, when he ran out of oil in his lamp would capture Christians and have them burned alive in his backyard so that he could have light in the middle of the night. In fact, the word “Christian” was derived in this time period as a derogatory epithet. But it only took 180 years after this and perhaps 300 years after Jesus interrupted humanity, for his influence to interrupt life as we know it. At around 300AD, the known world began converting and adapting the ideas of Christ and He actually became an ideological king. He interrupted society and people from destruction of themselves; and if we are to be his followers, we are called indefinitely to “bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). The only way we can bear fruit is to interrupt the undisturbed ground and plant ourselves in the thick of things. Let’s go to Matthew 5. 13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. Jesus is talking to people who had one purpose for salt in the first century—it was a preserver. It kept food from going bad. I don’t quite understand how but the idea is that the primary function of salt in the 1st century was not just for the sake of seasoning, but also for the preservation of food through the winter months and in the summer. So we see here in verse 13 an idea we have to understand and follow for our lives. It’s not about salt if that’s where your mind is rushing. It’s about the primary function of salt. Salt, as Jesus implies, must be salty; because if salt isn’t salty, it’s not really salt. It’s just a rock that you would not think twice about. We have to first question our identity: who are we? What are we? What describes us? If we are Christians, can we truly say that our actions, thoughts and mentality can be deemed Christian? Or are we one of those forgettable Christians? A friend of mine asked me a question the other week that threw me a little off guard. He asked me, “Jon, you’re a pastor… but you don’t act like it. Are you really a pastor?” So I asked him, “what does a pastor act like?” He responds, “You know… holy…” “Oh, what does holy look like?” But that got me thinking, am I a forgettable person because I don’t have the qualities that I should have to describe me? And the second question is, do I want to be this person who is just so mediocre at who he says he is that he goes trampled on because there is nothing there at is evidence to what he says he is? That’s my question to all of you this afternoon. The reason I pose this question for us all is because in order for us to interrupt society, we have to be able to give them a reason to allow us an interruption into their lives. If we’re just another rock then, undoubtedly we will be trampled. However, if we are what we say we are, then they have to look at us and consider us. Let’s look at Colossians 2:6-7 where Paul says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” To be an interruption in society, you must be who God designed you to be. What I mean by that is simply: you received Jesus a certain way, don’t lose that way because that represents you and where God placed you to find a powerful working through that interruption in your life. When we were called to salvation in Jesus Christ, because all of us were called into salvation in Jesus Christ, we were called to interrupt the world from spoiling. We are salt that preserves and changes the course of natural things—that is, we were called to reach those who are dying and headed for spoiling into preservation with us through Jesus. That is why God interrupted the world. John says this in chapter three of his gospel, “for God so loved the world.” That was my conclusion. Now I want to work on the “why” and “how” we live out our “saltiness” or rather, our calling. Let’s go to verse 14. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. The first reason “why” we have to be salty and live a life that acts as a preserver is this: “we are the light of the world.” I know it’s abstract, so let me try to break it down to you—this sort of relates to where I tried to take the children’s church this morning. When we do life alone, we don’t see the whole picture. It’s like when we’re trying to feel our way around in the dark, we can see some things or at least shadows of some things and we avoid it, but we don’t always avoid all obstacles and it’s only after we hit them and stub our toes that we curse and say damn, I wish I could see it. I mean, how many times in our lives have we ever said, “Man, I wish I could have seen that one coming?” Yeah, there are consequences that we don’t see. This is what it means when we live in the dark. If you believe what the Bible says about who we are before we were called to salvation, you would realize that before you accepted Christ as your savior, you were sort of doing things, without rhyme or reason and most of the time, you were sucking at it and you have more scars and problems than you care to describe. Then you “saw.” But you only saw because Jesus was the light of the world to our lives and showed us a different way, lighted way. Likewise, we are light to people in the world, our worlds. Ephesians 5:8 says, “walk as children of light.” The second reason we have to be salty and live a life that acts as a preserver is because we were “set on a hill.” Let me tell you the significance of this. Back in the day, what they would do is build cities on hills. If you look at a topographical map of Israel or the middle east in general, you’ll notice that there are no mountains, you see a lot of plains. So what people did was build cities on hills so that it could be seen in the horizon. But they wouldn’t build a city on a hill, they’d build the city with limestone. Yeah, they built cities to be bright colored so that it wouldn’t be mistaken for just an outgrowth of a hill on a rocky patch. The limestone would reflect the sun’s light and be bright in the day time and at night, it would reflect the moon’s light and shine as a beacon for people looking for a place to sleep that night. The cities of the ancient near east were not designed to be hidden. Likewise, we were not built by God to be hidden in the rough patches of this world. Absolutely not! We were built and placed exactly where we are to be “set” in a specific time and location to be seen by all of those whose eyeshot we come across. Let’s not forget that. I know some of us, our tendencies are to blend into the shadows and peripheries, but that is not why we’re here. God created us and then set us on these hills. Jesus says this in verse 15—don’t hide yourself! In fact, he says it’s stupid of us to hide ourselves if we have a light. He says to us, we are light so that we would be noticed. This isn’t an ego trip so don’t confuse what I’m saying as an affirmation towards self promotion. I am not advocating that in any way. I know some people tell me, “How can I Jonathan? My place and role in this world prohibits me from being who I was called to be.” More importantly, “being a city on a hill” and a “light to the world” begs the question: “what is my light”? Verse 16, let’s go. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Your “light”, our “light” is “good works.” I know, it’s a subject answer because most of the time our “good works” are a “bad works” for others. But let me build some logic around what it means to do good works as a form of light in the darkness. That is, let me try to address how our good works interrupts people in the not annoying way because most of us will just do good works but annoy the hell out of people with our interruptions. First, we have to “love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15:12-17). This means we sacrifice ourselves for the sake and benefit of the people we are being light towards. I know this kills us because there is no reciprocity and we all hate that there isn’t any. Second, to be a light to the world we have to give and do generously in everything we do. 6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8). Let me conclude, don’t sell yourself short. Be the interruption to people’s lives that you were called to be. Be what these people who you interrupted would call an intervention. Jesus did it and therefore as Christians, we must do it. Don’t be fain or wavering on this either. Do it like Jesus did—big and bold with love and filled with grace abounding. Let’s pray.