WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.799 So, what I'm going to look at this morning for a few minutes is one verse, really, from 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:11.839 this passage. And I've preached this sermon before, so it's a while ago now, probably 00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:17.000 quite a lot of you weren't here. But I'm going to preach on verse, what Jesus says in the 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:22.000 sermon on the Mount in verse 13, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt is lost, 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.440 it's taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It's no longer good for anything, it's set 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:32.399 to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. And really what I want to do this morning 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:39.600 for a little while is just give a little bit of a rallying call as we come out of lockdown 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:48.040 and to encourage you and your Christian faith and privileges that you have as a Christian, 00:00:48.040 --> 00:00:54.000 you may have a degree of fear, the whole idea of things opening up, maybe a bit of anxiety, 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.280 you may be struggling with the thought as a Christian in your connections with the church 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:06.680 of commitment again and what that will look like, what that will mean. And you may just 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:12.599 wonder about the social interaction and the demands that are made of you in that. And 00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:19.319 you may be sensing a lack of the felt presence of God in your life because of the isolation 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:27.359 of lockdown and what goes with it. And I really just want to spend a few moments reminding 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:35.439 ourselves of what we have as believers. You know, sometimes you watch a film or you hear 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:43.399 a story about someone who met someone else and it changed the whole course of their life, 00:01:43.399 --> 00:01:49.199 this meeting that they had with someone. It's the beginning of a great change in their life. 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:56.359 And I believe that that's true for every one of us as Christians. It might not have been 00:01:56.359 --> 00:02:03.320 dramatic and it might be developing knowledge and relationship we have with Jesus Christ. 00:02:03.320 --> 00:02:10.840 But nonetheless, we have met with and have put our trust in as believers, someone who 00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:17.719 has undoubtedly and will undoubtedly continue to change the course of our lives and the 00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:25.520 direction and the focus and the perspective of our lives. 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:33.719 And I also think sometimes that our relationship with Jesus is a little bit like what happens 00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:39.280 sometimes on the Antiques Roadshow. Now, I'm sure that none of you really watch that very 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:45.159 much. But when you get, anytime you kind of go over 50, that's the kind of program you 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:51.840 start enjoying watching. So I quite enjoy secretly when no one else is looking watching 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:57.039 the Antiques Roadshow. Okay. And what's great about it is there's always a little bit of 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:03.800 a surprise. Someone comes up with a clarit jug and it's been in their granny's wardrobe 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:08.479 or attic or somewhere for a long time and they just, they were clearing out the house 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:17.719 and they found this jug and they wanted to get the price of it. Or an old car, toy car 00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:22.679 that their children and their grandchildren, their great grandchildren all played with and 00:03:22.679 --> 00:03:26.519 they were just wondering how much it is worth. It's maybe been on a shelf or it's maybe 00:03:26.519 --> 00:03:33.719 been in a darkened room or a cupboard or somewhere. And this guy with a posh voice usually says, 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:38.520 wow, this is a wonderful piece of work. And it looks at it and says in pristine condition, 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:42.759 yes, I think you'll probably get about 10,000 pounds for it. And it's always amazing, their 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:48.319 eyes are open wide, 10,000 pounds for something that was just lying in a cupboard. That's 00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:52.680 amazing. And I always think that's really exciting. And it's sometimes that's a little 00:03:52.680 --> 00:04:00.400 bit like what we've done with Jesus in our lives. They've kind of stuck him a little 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:06.840 bit in a cupboard or he's on a shelf. We've forgotten or we haven't, we don't realize 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:14.560 his value and what it means to be followers of Jesus and how that enables us then to be 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.600 in his own word salt of the earth. It's a great mission statement. And if you're not 00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.360 a Christian this morning, if you're watching maybe for, you just happen to tune in or if 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:29.120 you're here today and you're not a Christian, I would really encourage you to listen like 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:37.480 you've never listened before. Because I am speaking primarily to Christians, but I would 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:44.840 appeal to you to listen and to consider what's being said. Because already, even if you're 00:04:44.840 --> 00:04:54.199 not a Christian, God has poured out lots and lots of life, just even just your life as 00:04:54.199 --> 00:05:01.000 you have it. But He also says you're living in the shadows and you're standing on dangerous 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:12.039 ground until you realize his calling on your life and the redemption, the salvation that 00:05:12.039 --> 00:05:22.079 He lovingly offers to you, infinitely better than anything your life might have at the 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:27.439 moment. So I just want to challenge you with that and encourage you to think about that. 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:31.919 And we're going to think about this picture that Jesus gives of Christians here being 00:05:31.919 --> 00:05:40.279 salt of the earth and what that means. Because I think we often give, today we give salt 00:05:40.279 --> 00:05:50.399 a bad press. Our idea of salt is very different I think from an ancient Roman idea in the 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:57.839 ancient Middle Near East idea of what salt was useful for. We tend to use it just to 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:06.719 pour on flavorless food to give it a bit of flavor. Because salt is salty, it's flavorful, 00:06:06.719 --> 00:06:14.000 but we're told, you know, again you get to a certain age, you've got a less in your 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:18.560 salt intake, you've got to minimize it, it's not healthy, it's not good for you. It'll 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:26.319 clog up your arteries and you'll die. So it doesn't get a great press in many ways today, 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:37.360 but it's a great substance and it was much more so relied upon in Jesus' day. And so 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:44.040 He uses it as an illustration. And you know the story about salt then, it was a preservative 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:52.360 and it did also add flavor. They talked about, you know we talk about, I'll take that with 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:58.160 a pinch of salt, meaning that you'll not take, maybe it's either usually something bad that 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:02.360 you've heard or maybe something unbelievable and you say, oh I'm not going to believe that. 00:07:02.360 --> 00:07:07.560 And they reckon that comes from days when they put salt in poison, either to make it 00:07:07.560 --> 00:07:14.959 taste better or as an antidote against poison. So it was like it worked against the poison 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:23.560 and so the phrase came from that. And it was used very much as a preservative, you know 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:28.840 when it wasn't fridges and freezers in these days and it was rubbed into food. Some of 00:07:28.840 --> 00:07:33.519 the older people here might remember growing up eating a lot of salt herring which was 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:38.759 put in a barrel and there was no fridges and so the salt was rubbed into the fish and it 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:45.479 preserved it. It was used as a disinfectant, you know, if you're rubbing salt in someone's 00:07:45.479 --> 00:07:52.399 wounds. That's where that phrase comes from. And again we've got a kind of, that tends to 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:56.519 make things worse for us if you say, oh you're rubbing salt in their wounds. But actually 00:07:56.519 --> 00:08:00.479 it's probably because the salt in a wound would be very painful but it was actually 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:07.680 healing of course because it was antiseptic qualities there. It was a staple item so that 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:14.319 Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt, in a weight of salt. So if someone was worth 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:20.439 their salt then that was because they were worth getting paid, it was valuable. And really 00:08:20.439 --> 00:08:31.279 all these pictures Jesus is leaning into to remind people that salt properly was valuable, 00:08:31.279 --> 00:08:37.480 it was useful, it was important. The quality of the salt was important for it to be useful, 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:43.679 wasn't it? We would say it's not any old salt, it's Marks and Spencer's salt. It's proper 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:50.200 salt, it's really good salt and it's useful for what it's intended to be. And he's saying 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:57.120 unsalty salt in this picture isn't of any use. You know, it doesn't do what it's supposed 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:04.400 to do. It needs to be pure and distinctive. It needs to be salt and not impure. Because 00:09:04.400 --> 00:09:10.360 if it's impure it just gets thrown out and people walk in it, it loses any usefulness. 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:16.120 And Jesus is therefore taking that and applying it to how we should be as Christians. He's 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:22.960 calling just as salt has to be salt, he's saying so Christians have to be Christians, 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:28.759 followers of Jesus. He's calling us to be distinctive. He's saying we're set apart. He's 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:35.200 saying that we have a specific flavour and a specific calling and we are to know who 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:43.960 we are and we're to know who we follow and we are to know what we have and what we possess 00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:49.639 in Jesus and we're also to know what we're not as Christians. So our calling is to be 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:56.879 salty Christians. And the encouragement is for us to just remind ourselves of that as 00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:06.440 we are challenged by new times and new perspectives and new way of doing things, coming out of 00:10:06.440 --> 00:10:12.400 lockdown and the face of the church congregation changing again. We're calling our call to be 00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:20.279 salty Christians. Well, what does that really mean? Well, I think it clearly comes after 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:28.959 what he has taught in the early section of Matthew chapter 5 where he speaks of the beatitudes, 00:10:28.959 --> 00:10:33.959 you know, a very famous passage, the beatitudes of Jesus, blessed are the poor in spirit, 00:10:33.959 --> 00:10:38.279 blessed are those who mourn. And then there's context therefore, I think Jesus is saying 00:10:38.279 --> 00:10:45.319 salty Christians are Christians who are beatitudinal Christians. And the beatitudes are really 00:10:45.319 --> 00:10:51.759 just reflecting who Jesus is, His character. And so we are to reflect that same character 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:57.480 in our lives as Christians. And that's what I want the emphasis of this sermon to end 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:03.399 for you or to focus, to be the central part of the sermon for you. I want you to consider 00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:13.840 and I want myself to consider the worth that we have because of who Jesus is and what He's 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:22.319 done for us and His love for us and the reflection therefore of Him in our lives. I want us therefore 00:11:22.319 --> 00:11:30.759 moving forward to be driven by the love of Jesus Christ for you in your life because 00:11:30.759 --> 00:11:38.720 He has taken you and me and He has broken us and molded us and reformed us and is reforming 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:46.360 us into His own likeness to be your true self. You see that? It is so that you become your 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:53.559 true self as you reflect the characteristics of what Jesus created you to be and what He 00:11:53.559 --> 00:12:02.879 is restoring you to be in His redemptive purposes. And sometimes that's difficult, isn't it? 00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:07.239 Because we don't sense that. And we don't sense, maybe you don't sense His presence 00:12:07.239 --> 00:12:11.839 in your life. You know the promises, you know the word, you know what you should think, 00:12:11.839 --> 00:12:16.839 you know what you should feel, but you don't sense that. Actually, Neil's got a really 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:25.080 interesting bit about that sense of absence that we have of God in our society that sometimes 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:30.399 reflected also in our own thinking in the church. You know God isn't at the forefront 00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:37.920 of society's thinking, far from it, isn't he? And that sometimes tumbles into our own 00:12:37.920 --> 00:12:44.259 mindset and into the mindset of the church so that actually God and His presence is something 00:12:44.259 --> 00:12:53.360 that's far from our everyday realities. But He's the one who encourages us to know our 00:12:53.360 --> 00:13:02.159 own hearts, to move from the course we're looking at on Sunday night has got a great 00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:07.439 distinction, Christian sexuality course that we've been doing. Some of us, the difference 00:13:07.439 --> 00:13:12.439 between guilt and shame. And He's saying we move away from shame because shame makes 00:13:12.440 --> 00:13:19.160 us run away from God. But we recognize our guilt before Him and come to Him for His grace 00:13:19.160 --> 00:13:23.800 and His forgiveness and His acceptance and love because He has paid the price for our 00:13:23.800 --> 00:13:30.000 sins. And therefore we find that our hearts are being transformed and renewed and forgiven 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:37.520 and renewed with a different appetite so that we begin to show some of these beatitudinal 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:42.639 characteristics in our Christian life so that we know our own heart and there's that 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:48.879 poverty of spirit that drives us to the riches that He gives us, that we are hungry and thirsty 00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:54.840 for Him, that we show mercy, that we look for a heart change, that we're peace-loving, 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:59.199 grace-filled, generous, standing up for the truth even if it means that we're going to 00:13:59.199 --> 00:14:05.439 get persecuted for it and knowing the joy and peace that comes from Him. And that I 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:10.880 think is what we're longing to see and to know and to experience more as we move forward 00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:16.880 as a church and as a community of believers. So the key to the church growing again and 00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:23.520 for us growing again is not the external Sunday worship experience primarily, nor is 00:14:23.520 --> 00:14:34.600 it the strategy, the organization or the methodology. It is you and me dying to Christ, taking 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:45.360 up our cross and following Him and coming alive in Him, seeing His absolute beauty, 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:57.519 His radical grace and being worth following and being sought for. And it's useless to 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:10.000 be driven by fear or by guilt or by performance, but rather it's this growing individual but 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:18.279 corporately supported relationship with Jesus Christ and knowing He will not let us go in 00:15:18.279 --> 00:15:22.720 all the changes and none of us like the changes, none of us like saying farewell, none of us 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:29.200 like having to lose people we've loved and who have been important in the work here and 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:34.200 who we've been friendships with and the thought of starting afresh and growing and developing 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:41.200 and planting more churches and all these things, it's tough, but He will not let us go and 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:46.080 it's His great Kingdom work. So we are the salt of the earth and we are to recognize 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:52.200 that Jesus wants us to be valuable in this world and that means being like Christ. Now 00:15:52.200 --> 00:15:57.960 what does that not mean? It doesn't mean that we are Christ's and that we're not going to 00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:08.280 do the things Christ does or did when He was on earth, but it means that we share the core 00:16:08.280 --> 00:16:15.120 values of His life, of His life as He showed it to us. The two major principles of His 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:23.679 life that He perfectly outworked, He loved God and He loved other people. He loved God 00:16:23.679 --> 00:16:31.200 and He loved His neighbour and that is how we're salt of the earth. By loving God, by 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:38.200 loving one another and by loving our neighbours with our own unique characters, we're not 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:42.720 all going to do it the same way, we don't all have the same gifts, we don't all walk 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:50.560 the same road at that level, but we are united in these principles, the commands that He 00:16:50.560 --> 00:16:55.360 gives us that we can only fulfill by grace and by having a new heart, by being born again, 00:16:55.360 --> 00:17:02.920 by His Spirit that we love God and love one another and do that with your own unique personality. 00:17:02.920 --> 00:17:09.160 And there's two dangers, isn't there? In doing that, one we can not be salt of the 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:15.320 world by being afraid of the world, by being monastic, by remaining in the cupboard or 00:17:15.320 --> 00:17:21.440 in the shelf as mentioned earlier, either in Christ there or just being there ourselves 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:25.279 and not getting involved. You know that I think I mentioned this before, Michael McIntyre's 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:31.759 great sketch about five spice or sage and paprika who never get out of the cupboard, 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:36.400 the spice cupboard, who are never used the envious of the salt and the pepper, who are 00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:40.160 always being used. If you haven't seen that, try and get and watch that, it's one of the 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:45.680 funniest things you'll ever see. But we're not to be stuck in a cupboard, we're not 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:50.680 to be monastic with our faith, we're not just to surround ourselves with other Christians, 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:55.720 heaven before heaven, the bullet room rather than the front line, the changing room rather 00:17:55.720 --> 00:18:02.720 than being on the field, talking a good game just in theory and so becoming defensive and 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:07.519 aggressive and full of fear and guilt, that's not what He wants for us. He doesn't want 00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:14.519 us to be at that extreme afraid of the world and monastic. But on the other extreme, He 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:20.240 doesn't also want us to be in love with the world to such an extent that we find holiness 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:26.799 and inconvenience and where sinful selfishness still rules our hearts and our desires, where 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:38.960 we love the world without looking at the world with Christ's eyes in a way that is not recognizing 00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:45.519 the brokenness and the darkness either in our own hearts or in the world around us. Christians 00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:51.440 without Christ kind of, which is horrible. It's kind of the ugliest thing of all, isn't 00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:57.360 it? Christians without Christ, Jesus spoke about it a lot when he spoke to the religious 00:18:57.360 --> 00:19:03.759 leaders of his days. So as salt of the earth, He doesn't want these extremes for us, but 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:11.720 what He does want, He does want us to be poured out. Now that's making it a modern, I'm taking 00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:15.840 that analogy and modernize it because probably salt in the same way wouldn't have been an 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:21.639 assault seller as such in the same way and poured out, but nonetheless, we need to be mixed in, 00:19:21.639 --> 00:19:29.720 rubbed in part of the dish, the people that we interact with. We are to do so with love 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:35.839 and with effort and with sacrifice and with neighborliness and with prayer and using the 00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:42.199 opportunities, doing life with other people in the name of Jesus, just loving them for 00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:49.160 the sake of loving them in a world where there's so much division and so much hatred 00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:57.519 and so much judgment and so much division we seek to love them, being poured out as 00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:08.120 Christians serving and living as Christ lived among the world. And you know, this is always 00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:16.279 difficult to do, but not as that lone grain of sand, grain of salt, you know, one tiny 00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:21.119 grain of salt is not nearly as effective as a handful of salt. And I think there's the 00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:29.879 image there that God uses us, not just as individuals, but together there's a powerful 00:20:29.879 --> 00:20:35.279 influence as we are poured out into community together. And that's always hard to work out 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:42.160 how to do. Be poured out and then enrich the world in which we live with the enrichment 00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:48.920 we've received from Jesus, with the joy, the flavor, the holiness, the energy, the 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:57.000 thankfulness and the grace that is so much needed and where it's needed most, you know, 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:02.960 we often go and do the things that please us, that make us happy, that give us enjoyment, 00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:08.440 but He says go and be poured out what is needed most in this broken world. Look at the example 00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:19.160 of Jesus and the company He kept and the things He did and the people that He cared for. And 00:21:19.160 --> 00:21:25.039 see His life, the meals that He shared, the weddings that He attended, the dubious company 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:32.920 that He kept, the accusations that the religious leaders brought against Him, yet He was absolutely 00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:43.400 pure. And those who recognized Him were attracted and changed dramatically by who He was. And 00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:48.600 maybe sometimes having many of us grown up in the church and grown up with the Word and 00:21:48.600 --> 00:21:58.920 grown up among Christians, we've lost sight of that amazing, dynamic danger of living on 00:21:58.920 --> 00:22:04.759 the edge for Jesus Christ with His love. It's, He changed the ethic of all the company that 00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:12.000 He kept and we are to strive graciously to do so as we live and love and are committed 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:18.880 to others who don't know Jesus and who may be tremendously needy. It's more powerful 00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:30.400 than any placard. I believe it creates a thirst for the one in whom we trust. Telling people 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:37.840 about the love of Jesus Christ that has transformed our lives, not just inviting them to church, 00:22:37.840 --> 00:22:43.320 because there is a difference. Because what you're saying is, the love that has transformed 00:22:43.319 --> 00:22:50.279 my life can transform yours. And we're telling people directly, not about a lifestyle, not 00:22:50.279 --> 00:22:54.720 about something we do on a Sunday, not about a religious observance, none of these things 00:22:54.720 --> 00:23:00.599 are wrong. But we're saying, can I introduce you to the one whose love has been so deep 00:23:00.599 --> 00:23:09.759 that my life has transformed and He can transform your. That's very disarming. They may reject 00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:16.680 that, but it's very disarming. And it comes from your own and my own experience. So be 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:24.960 poured out, enrich and just engage as we live as salt, like salt, like Jesus wants us to 00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:34.319 live. It will provoke a reaction. It will. It will. Jesus' life always provoked a reaction 00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:41.319 because it was truth. And there is a cost because the salt that tastes and preserves 00:23:41.319 --> 00:23:46.399 and purifies, and I've only just touched the surface of some of the things that Jesus would 00:23:46.399 --> 00:23:54.480 have meant by that image. It cleanses, but it also stings a little bit. And therefore, 00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:00.359 we know that, don't we? Today that the truth of Jesus Christ is provocative, and it will 00:24:00.359 --> 00:24:08.759 sting a society and individuals that maybe have rejected what they think the gospel is 00:24:08.759 --> 00:24:17.599 or have rejected religion or the institution or the church. But it is a jealous love. It's 00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:25.039 an exclusive love. I did a wedding here yesterday and read Mother of the Bride, read from Song 00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:31.759 of Solomon and spoke there about the love, read about the love that is unyielding as 00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:39.200 the grave, as jealousy is known. But that's not the negative connotation of jealousy that 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:47.839 we often have. It's the protective, precious care of uniqueness and of exclusivity that 00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:56.720 is reflected in marriage. And Jesus' love is provocative and exclusive. It does demand 00:24:56.720 --> 00:25:03.839 change in our hearts. Healing change. He's the surgeon who puts the surgeon's knife into 00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:10.079 our heart, but it's the healing heart that he wants to give us. And there's a deep, deep 00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:22.519 challenge to our self, selfish selfhood and self-identity. But that engagement and that 00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:29.839 interaction that sometimes provokes a response should never look for that response. And it 00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:35.079 should never be obnoxious in order to get that response. And I think sometimes we've 00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:42.559 gone down that road where we have been provocative to the point of looking to be opposed because 00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:49.679 we feel that that persecution makes us righteous. That should never be our attitude. It may 00:25:49.679 --> 00:25:59.759 come. It may happen. We may need to recognize that in our lives. You know, somehow we need 00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:05.359 to rejoice and be glad even when we're reviled and persecuted in Jesus' name, but not just, 00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:14.440 not for being obnoxious, please. Because remember those who were most offended by what Jesus 00:26:14.440 --> 00:26:23.720 had to say within the church. The self-righteous who believed they didn't need the Redeemer 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:32.799 as Savior, it was within the church. The religious people who were most offended by Jesus. And 00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:42.839 that might often still be the case. And we recognize the importance of not provoking 00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:50.720 offence for the wrong motives. So we don't want to be bland, do we? We don't want to 00:26:50.720 --> 00:27:00.279 be tasteless. We don't want to be unlike Jesus. Do we think about and recognize the value 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:05.880 of Jesus in our lives? You know, is He on the shelf or is He in a cupboard? Have we forgotten 00:27:05.880 --> 00:27:11.279 His value so that it isn't what motivates and drives our lives so easy, isn't it for 00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:17.759 us? But what is it that drives you? What is it that motivates? What evokes your love? 00:27:17.759 --> 00:27:24.759 What redeems your day? What offers you hope and life and uneness and forgiveness? I pray 00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:37.359 that as we come out of the pandemic, we may be challenged to revalue our lives and revalue 00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:43.599 or recognize our worth in Jesus and the mission that He gives us, a mission that subsumes 00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:53.639 all others and know that it's such a precious thing we have in Jesus and that He will within 00:27:53.639 --> 00:27:59.439 us provoke that response. He's called us here. He's called us for this, such a time 00:27:59.439 --> 00:28:05.480 as this as we reform and recreate the work of the gospel and the progress. We'll never 00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:13.519 live our lives again. Let's live it to the full and be salt and light for Jesus. Amen. 00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:20.000 Lord, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for the pictures You give. I love the fact 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.599 that You give pictures to us. It makes it easier to understand. I pray that You would 00:28:24.599 --> 00:28:31.119 bless us. I pray especially for any who might not be Christians who have listened today, 00:28:31.119 --> 00:28:37.920 who are here or who are online. I pray for them. We pray for them and we ask that You 00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:46.360 would touch their lives and their hearts with the gospel message today so that they will 00:28:46.360 --> 00:28:53.640 maybe reassess what they think of Jesus and what He is both challenging and offering and 00:28:53.640 --> 00:29:00.160 His great love and His truth, that it would capture their hearts and that today they would 00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:08.440 come to Jesus to redeem and renew and give them new life in Him. Amen.