The city on a hill (Matthew 5:14-16) "A City has a name to recognize it"
Pull up any map and you are going to see little dots along roadways that have words written beside them, these are the town or cities located along the travel ways. Once a community is founded and it becomes a central hub of a society’s existence and there must be a way of identifying its location, so it must be given a name. The name makes it unique and sets it apart from other locations while allowing people to immediately recognize that you are a part of that community if you say that is where you live. A city over time will develop a reputation for it name based upon what happens within that city and how the community within its borders conducts them self. As we begin to study the parable of the city on the hill, we must realize that when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we now become a citizen of the city of Heaven and our job it to represent it well, while also seeking to grow its population and boarders.
When driving at night as you begin to approach a city the first thing you begin to see is the lights in the distance as they shine bright against the dark sky, this is what we are to be to this world. We are meant to stand out in darkness and shine the light of God’s love all around us. We are to be identified easily based upon our home’s uniqueness, we are to shine a positive light upon its name, and we should make others envious of our home. There are certain cities and towns across our nation where you have no desire to go based upon their reputation, if the church is doing its job elevating the light of Christ in this world everyone should desire to move to our city. As John 12:32 says, if Jesus is lifted high then all people will be drawn unto him. Most cities have marketing teams that are paid to draw in visitors, tourists, and new residents; the church is the marketing team of Heaven.