Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Salt and Light

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Matthew 5, and the Gospel

If you would please stand with me. We’re gonna pray and I believe the kids have rehearsal. Lord we thank you for the opportunity to gather and worship you. We thank you for your presence here, for your promise spirit. We thank you for your word. I pray that as we open your word today Lord that you would really open the word, that you would open our minds and our hearts to receive the word. I pray that our hearts would be good soil today and I ask in Jesus name. Amen You don’t have practice? Oh, just class, just class. It’s just class, just the Bible Just God’s word just If you would open to Matthew 5 the Gospel of Matthew. We’ve been looking at some different texts relating to the church’s [audio unclear] mission or outreach or evangelism, however you want to put it. I wanted to read Matthew We’re going to read the first 16 verses. Matthew 5 verse 1, And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you, when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.“ You know, one of the problems with the way our modern Bibles are is we tend to disconnect verses and passages from one another that should be connected. You know what I mean? For example, in your Bible you have chapters and you have verses. Of course, you know those were not in the original Bible, right? Does anybody know when the chapters were introduced? No. Does anybody know when the verses were introduced? Okay. That’s your research project for this week. be graded next week. But the problem is we tended to disconnect things are actually connected. And for example, when you read Paul’s epistles, usually there’s a train of thought and in the shorter epistles it goes all the way through the whole epistle. But we’ll grab verses here, we chop it all up, and it’s easy to do because of the way the verses are. So here we have what’s called in verses three through twelve, they’re called the Beatitudes. And in verses 13 through 16 we have what’s called the similitudes. And it’s easy to separate these things, but in fact they go together. And in the Beatitudes Jesus talks about the character of a disciple, or of a disciple and then or his disciples we could say plural we could say the character of his people the church and then in verses 13 through 16 he talks about their their function or part of their function or part of their commission to be salt and lime and you can’t separate these things they’re inseparable you know when I was a young Christian I always wondered why Satan cared if I sinned. Have you ever thought about this? Now think about the gospel. The gospel is, you know, this room is really weird. Everybody’s over there. So maybe I should do this. I’m gonna get a crick in my neck. I’m gonna get a crick in my neck if I have to keep on looking over here. So maybe some, maybe some of, no, you guys go this way. What is this? Rebellion? What is it? open rebellion, open defiance. Anyway, okay, I might even look at you guys. All right, so okay, the gospel, the gospel is that God, when I heard the gospel, God, I heard the gospel that God loved me. Jesus died for me, not some of my sins, but all of my sins. Amen. Now, I was raised in a tradition that, don’t you feel lonely? I can’t look over there without feeling so sad. I just, my heart goes out in compassion to you. Now I feel better. Thank you for doing that. Do that for me, for me. So the tradition I was raised in said that when an infant was baptized their original sin was taken care of, but then their other sins later in life they had to do various things to deal with those sins. In other words, salvation wasn’t really salvation from all of our sins. Well, the gospel is that Christ died for my sins, all of them, past, present, and future. Matter of fact, when Christ died for me, all my sins are in the future. Right? Because I was way in the future. So Jesus dies for his people, he pays for their sins, past, present, and future, all of them. That’s why he says in Romans there’s no questions that those are in Christ Jesus. So I believe that the Bible teaches that we are secure in in that salvation. Jesus said that no man can pluck us out of his hand, or he said no one can pluck them out of the Father’s hand. The idea is here’s Jesus’ hand, we’re in his hand, and here’s the Father’s hand. I mean, we’re in there. No one can take them out, Jesus said. Romans Romans 8 says that nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. And I can give you many scriptures that talk about the security of the believer, or called the perseverance of the saints. But that’s not my topic. But I often thought if that’s true, then why does Satan tempt me to sin? What does he care? If I’m really secure, even if I sin, now some people think, hey, are you saying it’s okay to sin? No, no, not at all. But if I’m secure in my salvation even though I will sin at times, why does he care if I sin? He can’t undo my salvation. Now one possible explanation is because he’s insane and I think he is insane.

I think he’s very, very intelligent but I think he’s morally insane. And that’s what the scripture talks about in Proverbs a lot about the fool. The fool isn’t stupid. The The Fool is morally perverted, okay, and it affects his judgment. Satan is very smart, but he’s perverse, and so his will distorts his thinking.

So it is possible, this is one of those, this is an opinion, maybe he thinks that we’re not secure. And he can read, right? Is there over and over and over. Maybe he just refuses to believe it. That’s possible. He’s in rebellion. But I don’t think that’s really it. I think the real issue is, can be illustrated in a story. This is one of my books. What is it doing up here? I was wondering where this book was the other day. Found it. So I was witnessing to this guy years ago, and you know, talking about the Lord, talking about the gospel, and just sharing Christ, you know. And so we were talking and he had to leave, he had to go somewhere. And so I said, hey man, I’d love this, why don’t you come to church sometime? I mean, I don’t usually go out and preach church, I preach Jesus, you know what I’m saying? But it’s appropriate at times to invite people to church. And so I was like, you know, what’s it come church sometime? He’s like, so what church do you go to? And so I told him the name of the church and he said, oh, I would never go to that church. I said, why? No, no, no, no, no, that’s wrong. First he said, he said, oh, that sounds familiar. He says, so does so and so go to that church? And I said, yeah, he does. He said, well, then I would never go to that church. I was like shocked. Like really? Yeah, the way that guy acts at work, the way that that guy talks at work, I would never go to that church. Well then, you know, the light bulb went off. Satan cannot steal my salvation, but he can steal my salt. He can see on my light. He can make me a bad witness to those that I work with or those in my community.

Stolen Salt and Stolen Joy

Where when people look at me, they are not attracted to Christ. [audio unclear] that. The other reason, or the other way that he steals our salt and he steals our light is that by bringing us into sin, bringing us into bondage, bringing us into darkness, he steals our joy. Now the gospel, you’ve heard this a million times if you’ve been saved for any length of time. Most Christians know a couple Greek words. They know Euengelian, which is goth. They know the meaning of the word gospel and they know the word koinonia. It’s about it. The word gospel is good news, glad tidings. We all know this. But the reality is if you looked at many, you wouldn’t know that they’re very glad. No, seriously. Why? Because they get it snared in sin, they don’t have joy, they’re not walking in communion, they’re not walking in a spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy and peace. Right? They’re feeling guilty because they feel like they’re failing, they feel like they’re under condemnation, they’re having marriage problems, they’re having kid problems, or having in-law problems, or having this problem, or having that problem, and their whole life is their problems. And their Christian life is about messes. Anybody hearing me? I understand. I’m a pastor. That’s the job description.

I understand. I understand you have to deal with God dealing with you, with God sanctifying.

You have to deal with stuff. But it is so easy for the Christian life to become so self-centered that we can sing about God’s great love for us and forget that that love goes outside the doors of the church. For God so loved us that He demonstrated it by Christ dying for us. And what did Paul say? That Christ died for the ungodly. The ungodly. Jesus didn’t start loving me when I put my faith in Him. He loved me when I was ungodly. And it’s very easy for us as Christians to personalize things in an unhealthy way.

And what I mean by that is, it’s not that God doesn’t love us or God doesn’t love his church, but his love isn’t limited to us. Because if it’s limited to us, he couldn’t have loved us when we were outside the church and we were all outside at one time whether saved as a child or as an adult because we’re not born born again, we’re just born in Adam we have to be born again into Jesus Christ so we discussed us at our staff meeting the other night and it’s it’s an odd concept but it’s easy for for Christians as individuals or families and even for communities to be self-centered but not necessarily selfish. I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but what I mean is it’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that they’re so preoccupied. And much of what they’re preoccupied with is good. I mean you should be holy. You should deal with the sin in your heart. That’s very important. If you got a bad marriage you should deal with that because that is such a bad testimony. Bad witness. Especially to your kids. So I’m not saying we don’t deal with stuff and we don’t self-examine ourselves. We should do But you have to be very careful or that falls into a kind of a, let’s call it a spiritual narcissism.

I mean it’s really possible as a Christian to go days and weeks and months and for some even years and never really think about the salvation of anybody’s soul. And it’s not that the Christian is being mean, they’re just preoccupied.

Well, the devil is real. And one thing I’m sure he does know is that God wants to save souls. He obviously does not want them saved, right? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled because the God of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. And so the enemy of souls is attempting to blind people’s minds so they do not see, understand, comprehend the gospel. And so he will work not only to blind their minds, he will work for the church to be blinded, if you will, to its calling. He will work for the church to be preoccupied with itself so much that it forgets its calling.

And thus men and women are left in darkness because the church is not being salt and being light. I’m not, I don’t want anybody to think that I’m not sympathetic to the trials of the Christian life or any trials you’re dealing with. But we need to beware that these things do not become a snare.

We have things to do for the kingdom. Amen? We have a message. We have good, news. Peter said to Jesus, you have the words of eternal life. Where would I go? We have the words of eternal life. I mean, do we realize, do we realize the power of the gospel? The power of the gospel, Paul says, the power unto salvation. The church has this power.

We have the words of eternal life. We have the words that saves men and women from hell. We have the words that transforms lives. We have the words that rescues marriages. We have the words that literally change societies. We have those words in the gospel. And Paul says he calls it a treasure in Corinthians. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. We’re the earthen vessels. We’re the leaky vessels, right? But the treasure’s still the treasure. We can get so preoccupied looking at the cracks in the earth and vessel that we forget, man, there’s a treasure in here. Now, if you’re just defeated as a Christian, yeah, I can see why you don’t wanna preach the gospel because you don’t have a good news. You don’t have a gospel. You’re miserable. Hey, you wanna accept Jesus and be miserable like me? – No, seriously. This is why you hear people say, Christian writers need to believe the gospel. The church needs to believe the gospel. We need to believe we have good news. Because if we’re just walking around in defeat, well we don’t have a gospel to share. Or should I say, we have a gospel to share, we won’t share it. We won’t share it. So Jesus in Matthew talks about character, then he talks about commission, and they go together. They always do. You can’t be light if you’re walking in darkness, right? It’s not possible. But what happens is we get preoccupied with the character part, we get preoccupied with the beatitudes, and then we forget the similitude. We get preoccupied with self-development, marriage development, kid development, church development, and then we forget, oh, there’s a world out there of people that are lost and don’t know Jesus Christ, and they need him. They need Jesus Christ. They need to hear the gospel that we have, that we have. None of this is to say that personal development is not important, or marriage development is not important, or parenting or any of those things. They’re all important, but they have to be balanced with the fact that in addition to that we have a calling to those around us with the gospel.

We have that calling. [audio unclear]

Salt: Come Into Contact

Salt is very interesting, the many uses of salt in the Bible. One of it is used as a condiment for a human diet. I don’t know about you, but I’m a saltaholic. Any of those people here? One, two, three, saltaholic. My wife’s like, we’ll eat dinner, I’m like, I’m sorry. It helps the flavor, right? But symbolically it means it stands for hospitality or graciousness.

So in Colossians 4 what does Paul say? He says let your speech be seasoned with salt. He says walk in wisdom toward those that are outside. He’s talking about how we interact with unbelievers, let your speech be seasoned with salt. He means graciousness, hospitality, kindness, and things of that nature. It’s also antiseptic. What that means is it keeps things from rotting. Now a couple weeks ago I was watching, I just was randomly vegging out in front of the TV. You ever do that? No, never. Wow, you guys ought to fire me because you’re a lot more spiritual than I am. watch TV. Okay. Anyway, it’s a cooking show. Never saw this cooking show. But it caught my attention because this guy was making these big old pulled pork sandwiches. I mean, you to know why. But they showed how they roasted a pig. And it was really kind of fascinating. And And so they were showing different ways to roast the pig and prepare the pig. But what was really interesting is they took these little suckling pigs. You know what a suckling pig is? It’s a little bitty baby one. So they take this dead pig and the first thing they do is they have bowls, bowls of salt. And they just show, they put these suckling pigs out on this table, this long cooking table. bowls of spices and the first thing is they take handfuls of salt and just rub it in the meat. Just cover that pig with salt. Well we know what salt does, right? It preserves, right? So you know the old days, well even now you can get What do they call the meat that’s real hard? Yeah jerky yeah. So these meats get treated in salt and they get dry and they last forever right because of the salt. So it represents durability, it represents faithfulness in Scripture. It also represents purity in the Bible. But the lesson, one of the lessons here that I want us to learn about the salt that we need to be reminded of is that if the salt is going to do its job, it has to be in close contact with the meat. Now, when I was watching a show, these big bowls of salt and these other spices, garlic and all that stuff, and they took the salt and they just rubbed it in and then they grabbed the other spice. They didn’t just like wave the pig over the bowl, say be salted, wouldn’t do it any good.

The salt can be right next to it, but if it’s not on it, it doesn’t do it any good.

None whatsoever. So in order for the salt to be effective, it has, to come into close contact with the meat, right? Or otherwise it doesn’t preserve. We see this in the Old Testament, we don’t have time, but you can read about the priests and the sacrificial system and the use of salt and how they applied salt to the meat in the Old Testament. So Jesus says, you are the salt. Well, if you are the salt, if we are the salt, then that means at some point we have to be making contact, with the meat. Meaning, of course, the world, right? The world. Now I’ve already mentioned, and I’ll probably continue to mention the fact that our attitude toward the world is that we need to understand we are in the world but not of the world. And it’s a very fine distinction, two simple prepositions but it’s the consequences of understanding that are huge because we need to see the world as in one sense a challenge and threat to our faith in one sense. And some texts speak that way. And in another sense we need to see the world as an opportunity and a challenge. Right? If, you know, in heaven we will not be able to be salt in this sense of the word. Because heaven is going to be perfect, right? the The reason you apply the salt to the pig or to the meat is so the meat doesn’t rot.

It preserves it from going bad. So you have to apply it directly to it. So in order for the church to be the salt, or should I say, that’s not the right way to say it, because Jesus says we are the salt. order for the the church which is the salt to not lose its saltiness is to come in direct contact, direct contact. So the question is where do you make close contact with unbelievers? Where do you make contact? Lauren where do you make conduct? Work. Where? It could be home. Your children may not be saved. You may have a spouse that’s not saved. Maybe you have an elderly parent. My mother lived with me for years. My wife and I, and for years she wasn’t saved. But basically work, home, community. Now maybe even a church. There may be some people here that don’t know Christ, but overall it’s not here, right? It’s there. So that’s where we are sold.

And so we need to learn to see our employment as a mission field. I’m going to say that again. We need to see our employment as a mission field. I got one I I’m going to keep on going. We need to see our employment as a mission field. All right, that’s how you get me to stop. You all say amen. He’s like, okay, he won’t repeat that. He won’t repeat that. That means that every soul that you see is a potential convert. Every person that you work with is a potential follower of Jesus Christ if they repent. Are you hearing me? There is no lack of opportunity for the church in America anyway. There’s no lack of opportunity to share the gospel because we are surrounded daily by people that don’t know Jesus Christ. And we need to change our attitude about our employment and change our attitude about secular work and realized that when Jesus saved me, he could’ve taken me right to heaven. But he didn’t. He left me here because he has a mission for me. And before I was in ministry full time, I worked secular jobs and I shared the gospel at all those jobs. As a matter of fact, that’s what made going to work fun. That’s what made it exciting. Because there were people at my job I was sharing Christ with. Otherwise it was just a job to me. And so it is where we make contact. That closed contact. That’s where we are going to be sold. We need to learn that we need to not just be next to the unbeliever, we need to make contact with the unbeliever. Do you understand the difference? Being next to the unbeliever means you could sit in a cubicle next to somebody for 20 years and never really know that person. You can have neighbors in your neighborhood for 20 years and never really know the person. That’s not really contact. Contact isn’t hello in the morning and goodbye in the evening. That’s not contact. Contact means you actually have a conversation. Now there’s a radical idea. Actually have a conversation. I’m not saying walk up to everybody in my morning and give them tracks, although I’d I’d rather have you do that and get fired than do nothing. But the point is that you have to converse with people. You have, to talk to people. You have to take the time to get to know people.

Then you can begin to understand how the gospel applies to them. Now we know it applies because they all need, everyone needs Christ, right? But when you get to know people, You can start seeing how the gospel applies specifically to them. And what aspect of the gospel you ought to share with them, you see? Because you’re getting to know them. This is illustrated in John 4 when Jesus talks to the woman at the well. He talks about her serial marriages and living with a man that she was a marriage to. He talks about her life. He applies the gospel to her life. As you get to know people and spend time with them, you’ll be able to ask them questions like, so tell me about your spiritual journey. I love that one. Sounds so new-agey, you know what I mean? No one objects to that. Or a conversation will come up and maybe there’s a project to work and they need some people to come in on Sunday and you’re like, man, I really don’t wanna come in on Sunday, because I go to church every Sunday. You got a church? Simple, you got a church? You can say so many things that begins, it opens a conversation regarding this spiritual area. It’s not really that hard. And so as you begin to converse and open up these conversations, and you begin to, you’re making that close contact. And then you can communicate by the time you spend with people that you care about them. And then you can begin to communicate to communicate the gospel in such a way that they understand the relevance of the gospel to where they are at, to where they’re at. The truth is many. People will never and this is something my my first pastor taught me and He said it all the time He said there there are people that you know That will never darken the door of a preclude And they’ll never darken they just won’t go to church fed it back experience maybe they’re raised in some Legalistic situation. They’re just not going to go to church So that means you have opportunities to show the gospel to people that a preacher can never reach. Never. They’re not going to come here. So we go there. Right? The church goes there. That’s how I got saved. There’s no way I was going to go to the church. The church had to come to me. it did. Praise God. So we need to closely apply the gospel. And this requires spending time with people, unsaved people. It’s often referred to as friendship evangelism. But salt is also a spice and as I’ve already commented, it talks about hospitality, hospitality or friendliness or graciousness. Okay. Now at this point in in our history, in this country, that is not the perception that people have of Christians. Right? The perception is that Christians are legalistic and judgmental. Unfortunately, many of them are. And so the result of that is that there’s a very negative perception of a very negative perception of Christianity in the church, thus people are not open to the gospel. But the problem is they’ve never met a gracious Christian. Maybe they’ve never even met a Christian. I mean, I’ve talked to people and I tell them I’m a Christian and they’re like, oh really? Like I didn’t know they’re actually flesh and blood people that were Christians. All of their exposure to Christianity has been, maybe through the media. It’s all stereotypical. They’ve never met a real person that’s a Christian. And when they do it’s like a revelation. It really is. And so they can learn from you that Christians are not the weird stereotypes that we often see, but nor are Christians hateful, nor are they mean. that they can be kind, that they can be giving, that they can be giving. Of course you have to be that way, right?

But if you’re not, then well, clearly you’re not salt. But I’m assuming you are. I’m assuming you’re not mean and hateful.

I’m assuming you’re not judgmental. I’m assuming that if you think about it long enough, you realize you need to take time and spend it with the people you know at work who don’t know Christ. That you’ll give them up your lunchtime. That maybe you’ll even do something radical like invite them over for dinner. Into your home. Into your home. So we need to be this spice. We need to be gracious and kind. And, [audio unclear] And let me just say this, at your employment, you ought to have a reputation. And the reputation is that he or she will go the extra mile, will do the extra I work, will stay late, will come in early, will not complain, will not crumble, will not gossip. You should have a reputation. for being the very best worker, very best attitude. And when you are that kind of Christian, you’re being a spice and you are gaining a hearing for the gospel. As my story illustrated earlier, that man I was witnessing to did not want to hear the gospel once he realized the gospel produced the kind of person he knew at work. Our lives ought to be such that when people see work, they see our attitude. They say, hmm, this is something I could emulate. This is something that I respect.

Light: Let Your Works Be Seen

Quickly, Jesus says we’re light. We could literally spend hours studying this this metaphor in the Bible and it’s fascinating but if you if you boil it all down light is simply goodness good and never respect Jesus it’s use of God it’s use of the gospel choose the moral purity light is good darkness is bad right darkness of sin darkness is falsehood air calamity darkness is bad, light is good. And of course light is visible and light is attractive. Light is attractive. And of course this is why the sim Rilitudes and the Beatitudes are together because our character makes us attractive or doesn’t. or doesn’t. Jesus said let your good work shine so that they can be seen. So we’re [audio unclear] not to live in such a way that we’re good simply in private, although we should be good in private. We should be good at home, but we should be good and be seen. People should be able to see you at work and realize something is different about you. I mean I remember when I worked in the world people would at times people would say so what’s your story something’s different about people should be asking you that if you’re shining your light. Now some people, I want to clarify this before we close, some people don’t like light. You know what I mean? In fact Jesus even says in John 3 that men whose deeds are evil, they don’t want to come to the light. So don’t misunderstand and think what I’m saying that if you really salt and light it, it’ll work every view. But if you’re going to be hated, be hated for the right reason. I’m serious. Don’t be hated because you have a bad attitude, because you’re coming in late, because you’re leaving early, because you’re playing video games at work when you’re supposed to be working, because you’re always whining when the boss gives a directive. Don’t be like that and have a bad reputation. If you have a bad reputation, have a bad reputation because you love Christ And you speak of him and for him But you can’t do that and then work and live a different way Because then you would just be despised as a hypocrite That’s different than Conducting people because the light that’s in your life. You hear me? That’s a completely different thing No, you know, I’ve told you many times in my hair salon stories, right?

No? Yeah, so I go to a hair salon to get my hair cut and the gal always says, so what do you do for a living? I say I’m a pedophile. No, I don’t say that. I say I’m a pastor and I get a reaction like I said I’m a pedophile. [audio unclear] like, oh really? Where’s your charge? [audio unclear] And two minutes before I told them they were as friendly as could be. Well that’s what Jesus is talking about men who don’t want to come to life. They’re already so predisposed that, boom, you can’t control that. Now if I had time to, if-I was working with people that were like that, but they can be won over, some of them. They can be won over. They’re watching, they’re watching, they’re watching, they’re assuming you’re a hypocrite. watching. And as you walk it out in front of them faithfully some of those people can be one to Christ. But it takes time. It takes fidelity. It takes the light being consistent in your life before them. And they can be one. Some will not be one. Some don’t want to be one. Okay. And that’s why in this text Jesus talks about blessing you when you’re persecuted.

Because some people will respond negatively. But I just want to close with this. We American evangelicals, so I’m going to be real broad, but it includes us. It includes this church.

Fear of Man, and Real Persecution

We are so pampered. I mean I know you’re thinking, oh you don’t know my life, I I’ve got a hard situation. Well, I’ll tell you my story sometime. And I’ll tell you about abuse, and I’ll tell you about suffering, and I’ll tell you about suicide, and I’ll tell you about violence, and I’ll tell you about pain. I understand pain. Okay, I get it. But, you know, we have a joke in our house when we’re complaining about something. First world problem. My cell phone’s not working. First world problem. So we complain about our blessings.

My $800 TV isn’t working right today.

Put it in perspective. Put it in perspective. No, really. And I’m not saying, hey, God bless you if he wants to give you boatloads of money and you want to buy big screens. You know, that’s between you and God. I think there’s better things you can do with your money, but they’re between you and God. But the reason I bring this up isn’t about money. It’s about the mentality that we have. I mean, friends, our brothers and sisters in Jesus, who we are united with in spirit, because there’s only one body, are dying. They’re being beheaded. Christian girls are being raped every day, all day.

And then we’re like, well, if I share the gospel, he might frown at me.

I mean, the text in the New Testament that talk about sharing the gospel, and talk about being ready. It’s all in the context of persecution. It’s not in the context of American affluence.

I mean, I really believe that Paul would be pretty surprised that the church today is afraid in a society like ours, I can understand the 12-year-old girl who’s being told to renounce Jesus and confess Allah, I can understand her fear. I can’t understand the fear that that we have that someone might actually frown at us. That’s what I mean by how we’re so pampered, we’re so insulated, we’re so, excuse me, but we’re spoiled.

You know, we have a little problem here or there, and we hold up our banner and we talk like we’re these great soldiers of Jesus. enduring for the faith. I thank God, and I’m not saying that rhetorically, I have thanked God, and I do thank God, that I’ve never been confronted with being beheaded. It’s easy for us to sit in the comfort of our homes and our padded churches and talk like we would we would pass the test would we if we can’t pass the test of a couple people at work not liking us we you’re gonna pass that test no really no I don’t mean to be insulting to anybody I understand fear I don’t like it when you know the girls cut my hair and all of a sudden she treats me like I’m a leper, I don’t like it. But hurting my feelings is a lot R different than killing me. This is what the New Testament saints were talking about. Jesus said when people, when he said when people persecute you, he meant their lives were, their lives after they were kicked out of their family, then kicked out of the synagogue, then their lives were in danger. literally rejoice. Well, if he can say that, then I can say to you rejoice if some of your co-workers don’t like you. Rejoice if some of them gossip about you. Rejoice. And that’s just a small taste of what our brothers and sisters are experiencing around the world. Man, let me just sum it up this way. We need to get over ourselves. I mean, we really do.

We need to get over our feelings. We need to get over our being disappointed by someone, or someone frowning, or someone cracking a joke behind your back at work. We need to get over ourselves because we’re just not that important. No, I’m serious. Jesus saved you. He died and it was literal. He suffered and it was literal. He was beaten and it was literal. The nails were real, the tree was wood, it was real, it was all real and it all hurt. And so then he says, come and follow me. It doesn’t mean put on a necklace of the cross. It means be willing to endure what I endured. And the reality is most of us will never experiencing anything remotely close to real persecution in our whole lives, not even remotely close.

So I think we need to repent of self centeredness and fear of man, which the Bible says is a snare. and we need to begin to live like we really are salt and light because Jesus says we are, but we are. You don’t cease to be the salt if you lost your savor. You’re just useless salt.

That’s what he says. What do you do with it? You throw out the window, throw out the front door, throw it on the ground. It’s not good for anything. The light is not meant to be hidden. It’s to be exposed. So you are the light.

Go as Salt and Light

When you drive to work tomorrow, you need to say, I am the light of this office. I am the light of this office. I am the light of this classroom. I am the light of this place where I’m going. Because Jesus says you are. And as you begin to be salt and be light, you will be amazed at what God does. You will be amazed at the things that can happen. at your workplace, in your neighborhood, in your community, as you take your calling serious. Let’s just close in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the high and holy calling of being salt and light. I pray that you’d help us understand what it really means and not just understand it, but live it, to walk it. I do pray for all of us, myself included, my family included, that we would get over ourselves, that we would stop thinking about ourselves all the time, and we’d start caring about other people, that we would remember the goodness of the good news. The goodness of the good news. And Lord, I pray for each of us that if we are hindering the joy of our salvation, I pray Lord that you would show us where to repent. If we are hindering or choosing not to be salt or be light, whether it’s at home or work or community, I pray Lord that you would show us where to repent. Lord, You’ve given us the words of eternal life. Eternal life. What a gift we can give other people. So I pray, Lord, that You would use us. If you want to be used, stand up. people got to use you just stand up right now. Lord your people are confessing before you at this this moment that they want you to use them. I pray God that you would hear that prayer, see that intention. I ask that you would honor it by empowering them with your spirit, empowering them with faith, I believe that if we are willing you [audio unclear] were able. And so Lord, these all here standing have confessed that they are willing, so make them able. And I ask it for your glory, Jesus, that you would receive your inheritance. And we pray these things in your name, all God’s people said, Amen.