WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.339 Now I'd like to do this evening what I haven't done for quite a long time, which is simply 00:00:07.339 --> 00:00:09.099 preach from one verse. 00:00:09.099 --> 00:00:20.539 And it's part of the Sermon on the Mount, and it follows the section and the Beatitudes 00:00:20.539 --> 00:00:24.300 at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, and it's verse 13, 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:30.359 you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:31.359 be restored? 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:35.880 It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:36.880 feet. 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.960 Now in many ways it goes a couplet with the next verses, which is you're the light of 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:45.359 the world, but I'm going to focus simply on this verse this evening. 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:55.159 Now over this last number of months we as a leadership team have been, what we've kind 00:00:55.159 --> 00:01:02.920 of entitled gearing for growth, we've been looking at longing for and working towards 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:05.599 under God growth in the city. 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:11.680 We live and we've talked a lot about this and it was mentioned on Wednesday evening 00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:20.040 about Paul and Acts and where he went that we live in a huge, comparatively huge city, 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:25.840 certainly in Scottish terms, a big city and an influential city, not just for Scotland 00:01:25.840 --> 00:01:28.960 but for the world because of who comes here. 00:01:28.960 --> 00:01:35.800 And I can't stress enough how much we should be praying about that and praying about who 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:44.439 we are in the city and why God has placed us here, both as a community and as individuals. 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:49.920 And we've spent a lot of time seeking to develop a missional outlook and an attitude in our 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:55.280 life and in our work and in our ministry so that we care about people who aren't Christians 00:01:55.280 --> 00:02:00.000 and we love them and we seek to share the gospel with them. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:10.680 And I'm sure many of you pray for the Lord of the Harvest to work in bringing a harvest 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:19.800 to the city and to see a spiritual, a powerful spiritual work being done. 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:28.039 But in that prayer, remember, the prayer is for workers, isn't it? 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:34.159 And when we pray, it's a kind of dangerous prayer because when we pray that work, we 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:37.719 are inevitably brought with the question, well, who's he going to send? 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:38.719 And who does he send? 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:41.159 Does he send angels? 00:02:41.159 --> 00:02:43.159 Does he send preachers? 00:02:43.159 --> 00:02:54.519 Well, generally speaking, he sends people and he sends you to live your lives for him 00:02:54.520 --> 00:03:00.439 in the world in which you live to bring salt and light to that world. 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:05.719 Recently, I watched two really great films. 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:12.360 They were both based on true stories and they were both very powerful films. 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:20.240 One was called The Changeling and it's set in 1920s in Los Angeles about a mother called 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:24.680 Christine Collins who goes out to work, she's a single parent, she goes out to work and 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:28.879 leaves her son at home and in the course of the day, he's abducted. 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:37.400 And it's a long story about his abduction and how she searches for him and the LA police 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:42.840 a few months later bring back another child to her and say, we found your son and she 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:47.040 immediately looks at him and realize it isn't her son. 00:03:47.039 --> 00:03:52.439 They try and persuade her and it goes into all kinds of detail about what happens. 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:56.719 But what's really significant is that her whole life is changed by this one event and 00:03:56.719 --> 00:04:05.079 she spends the rest of her life with the identity of that moment of change in her life and it 00:04:05.079 --> 00:04:10.919 was completely transformative and it becomes a lifelong search. 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:15.959 And the other film is, similarly, it's a film called Unbroken, which you may have heard 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:23.560 of and it's based on a true story about a US Olympian again in the 1920s, Louis Zamperini, 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:30.639 who ended up fighting for the American forces during the war and was shot down, ended up 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:42.439 in a dinghy for 48 days before he was picked up by the Japanese soldiers or navy and taken 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:50.439 to a Japanese prisoner of war camp when he was brutally beaten and it's a terrible story 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:51.439 in many ways. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:05:01.240 Yeah, interestingly, in that moment when maybe the 40th day or something on that dinghy, 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:06.759 where the two that were with him had died by this point on the dinghy and he prays to 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:12.639 God and says, if you take me from here, I will serve you the rest of my life and he was 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:14.439 true to that. 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:20.719 He went home, he was in the prisoner of war till the end of the war, the camp and then 00:05:20.719 --> 00:05:24.560 he was released, he went home and he served God, he became a missionary preacher and he 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:31.959 lived till he was 90 and it's an amazing story and again his whole life was changed by a sequence 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:40.399 of events, a number of events in their lives that transformed what they did and gave them 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:44.879 a whole new identity and a whole new way of thinking in their lives. 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:50.279 Their lives were dramatically changed by their experiences which then shaped how they went 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:54.679 on to live their lives and dictated what they did with their lives. 00:05:54.679 --> 00:05:59.879 Now in a less dramatic way obviously, at one level for us, that should be the same for 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:06.399 us as Christians because we have been rescued by Christ, our whole lives have been changed 00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:13.719 by him and our identity is formed by that relationship we have with God and by what 00:06:13.719 --> 00:06:20.399 he's done for us and we are given a focus and a direction and a change in life and a 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:27.159 mission to share that experience of Jesus Christ with others and it should mark every 00:06:27.159 --> 00:06:28.399 aspect of our life. 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:33.120 It should mark everything that we think, everything that we do, everything we decide, everything 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:39.599 that we consider in our lives should be marked by this mission, this ambassadorial role that 00:06:39.599 --> 00:06:47.199 we have in Jesus Christ and there's nothing, there is absolutely nothing that individuals 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:54.679 in this city or this world needs more than Christians who recognise that. 00:06:54.680 --> 00:07:01.800 There will be a revolution, a quiet revolution as we see God working when we appreciate more 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:07.040 and more all of us as individuals that we are the salt of the earth. 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:12.680 In many ways that's our mission statement, we are the salt of the earth. 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:20.480 That is a role in life which Jesus speaks of and Jesus has given us and is therefore 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:26.280 part of your identity, it is your identity as you go from here and live your life and 00:07:26.280 --> 00:07:28.240 as I live mine. 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:33.200 So he uses this illustration of being salt and being salt of the earth. 00:07:33.200 --> 00:07:40.800 Now, great thing about Jesus is that he gives very simple everyday illustrations which his 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:44.480 audience would have understood fully what he was meaning. 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:50.439 For us salt maybe has some different connotations than it would have had for Middle Eastern readers 00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:57.040 and listeners at the time because salt for us is a pretty bad press in the society in 00:07:57.040 --> 00:08:02.839 which we live, it's kind of like the new tobacco salt, it's not a good thing. 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:09.439 Primarily because we overuse it in our processed foods a great deal and it has become a substitute 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:17.959 for bland, flavourless food that is produced in great quantities in our society. 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:27.239 So we maybe have a rather jaded view of salt in a way that Jesus' original hearers wouldn't 00:08:27.239 --> 00:08:33.199 have had but he used it and it would have been a great illustration for Jesus to use 00:08:33.199 --> 00:08:39.279 because then, and you know these things, I'll just repeat them quickly for you, it was something 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:47.679 that was both a preservative and what brought flavour to food. 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:52.240 So lots of phrases that we use today come from these days and come from these times 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:56.919 so we talk about something, you listen to something, you hear a fact and you say you'll 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:58.720 take that with a pinch of salt. 00:08:58.720 --> 00:08:59.720 What is that? 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:04.720 Well, that just simply means it makes it easier to swallow, swallow gave something a bit more 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:10.800 taste made it easier to take and to believe. 00:09:10.800 --> 00:09:15.759 There was no fridges in Jesus' time so it became a real preservative, things were rubbed 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:24.680 in salt and there was salt in many foods, not just in the ancient Near East but in the 00:09:24.680 --> 00:09:28.240 West Highlands, that would have been the case when my dad was growing up. 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:33.560 He never ate herring when he grew up because he spent his childhood having to eat salt 00:09:33.559 --> 00:09:38.159 and herring which his father would have caught off the West Coast in Glenelg and would have 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:43.279 taken and it would have been putting a big barrel of salt and it was rubbed in salt to 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:47.959 preserve it from becoming rotten and they would eat that all winter and all summer to 00:09:47.959 --> 00:09:51.559 the point of repulsion. 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:59.839 It was also a disinfectant, you would rub salt in wounds, we've used that phrase often 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:05.120 rubbing salt in wounds because it would be painful but it would also have healing qualities, 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.759 I believe new babies were washed in salt. 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:14.720 It was a staple item, an important item in Jesus' time so much so that it was compared 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:21.519 with payment so that Roman soldiers either got money which enabled them to buy salt as 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:27.320 a staple or some believe that actually they got paid sometimes in salt so that a Roman 00:10:27.320 --> 00:10:33.200 soldier would need to be worth the salt which is again a phrase that is coming to our own 00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:35.960 vernacular today. 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:41.160 And so really when Jesus is speaking about being salt of the earth he is taking a specific 00:10:41.160 --> 00:10:47.960 quality from salt and recognizing and applying it spiritually and the illustration is about 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:55.320 the quality, the quality of the salt, the basic fundamental quality of the salt, he goes on 00:10:55.320 --> 00:11:04.440 to say if it's not salty anymore, if it's unsalty salt is of no value and it was important 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:13.840 that salt had its fundamental characteristic of saltiness to be pure, to be distinctive, 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:22.080 it needed to be salt, it was no good as sugar, it needed to be salt and if it became impure, 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:28.120 if it lost its basic fundamental flavor then as Jesus says it would be thrown out, it would 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:34.080 be tossed out, it would be disregarded, it would be unsalty salt, incredible salt, it 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:40.720 would be disrespected because it was of no value, it didn't do what it was bought to 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:45.879 do and what it was created to do. 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:53.759 Now Jesus applies that to our lives as Christians and wants us to be the salt of the earth. 00:11:53.759 --> 00:12:03.360 This is Jesus calling to us as Christians and these reminding us of who we are, our distinctiveness, 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:11.399 our inherent quality, our inherent flavor as those who have been touched by grace and 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:21.799 set apart to live in the world with that identity, with that deep-seated, transformed 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:30.559 life of saltiness as Christians is reminding us of who we are. 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:37.519 And the temptation I guess for us is that sometimes we don't like the character and 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:46.199 the fundamental identity of belonging to Jesus Christ because it does make us distinctive. 00:12:46.199 --> 00:12:51.639 Sometimes we'd rather be sugar, it's much easier to be sugar than it is to be salt, 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:57.840 particularly in this site in which we live in many ways and we struggle with that calling 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:01.720 to be distinctive, to be Christ-like. 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:10.759 We feel that it would be much easier to blend in, to be indistinguishable, to love like the 00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:14.680 world in order to reach the world. 00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:21.960 But we know that Jesus is saying to us that we are to be like Him and to love like Him 00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:31.160 with the unique grace that has transformed our hearts and is the challenges to live that 00:13:31.159 --> 00:13:35.120 grace as believers with each other and in the world. 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:38.600 So we're called to be salty Christians. 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:41.159 What exactly is a salty Christian? 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:49.439 Well, I think you go back to the previous verses, we look at it in context. 00:13:49.439 --> 00:13:54.480 So it's to be a, in other words, it's to be a beatitudinal Christian. 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:59.879 It's to be a Christian that reflects the beatitudes of the previous number of verses, 00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:08.559 which is simply a grace unpacked, it's grace made practical, it's grace understood for 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:12.299 us and grace that challenges us. 00:14:12.299 --> 00:14:23.399 We are driven as salty Christians by the love of Christ to be broken, to be broken and molded 00:14:23.399 --> 00:14:29.959 and reformed in His likeness into our true selves, into the selves that He created us 00:14:29.959 --> 00:14:36.919 to be and constantly to becoming more like Him. 00:14:36.919 --> 00:14:45.799 And the beatitudinal Christian is the one who, it is people who know their own hearts, 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:52.240 who understand their own, are understanding their own hearts and are, as we mentioned 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:57.720 over the last couple of weeks, continually turning back to Jesus, continually repenting 00:14:57.720 --> 00:15:02.759 and seeking forgiveness and being forgiven. 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:10.120 It's people with an appetite for the character of God and for showing the mercy that they 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:13.120 themselves have received. 00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:25.320 Because a salty Christian is far from being characterized by an outward morality, which 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:30.560 you may think that the beatitudes speak about. 00:15:30.560 --> 00:15:36.720 But the beatitudes speak about a deep seated heart change. 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:49.759 Salt is salt by its very nature and the Christian must be Christlike in our very nature as from 00:15:49.759 --> 00:15:58.480 right from the inside out so that we become people who are wrestling to be peace-loving, 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:05.120 uncompromising in a dynamic growing relationship with God. 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:13.600 People who know and who battle for peace and joy in their own hearts in the battles that 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:21.360 we face from day to day and becoming more salty as it were as life goes on. 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:31.019 So in many ways the key for us of a growing church is not going to be the external Sunday 00:16:31.019 --> 00:16:36.960 worship experience, however significant and our much energy and effort we put into the 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.319 Sunday worship which is right and good. 00:16:39.319 --> 00:16:43.199 Not as it's going to be our strategy that we've been working on and wrestling with and 00:16:43.199 --> 00:16:45.439 the organisation that goes with it. 00:16:45.439 --> 00:16:52.559 Nor will it be our methodology, significant though that is our DNA and the important things 00:16:52.559 --> 00:17:04.119 that make us what we are as a people, it is you dying to yourself for Christ's sake and 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:08.599 taking up your cross to follow Him. 00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:16.319 And it's you seeing and me seeing His absolute beauty. 00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:22.919 That is what is going to transform the church is when we see His absolute beauty and when 00:17:22.919 --> 00:17:33.559 we are not driven by guilt or by failure or by popularity or by legalism, when we are 00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:40.919 driven by His absolute beauty, I love you. 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:47.200 A very, very powerful illustration that Corey finished with this morning. 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:55.300 His radical grace and your worth because of that, your great worth because of that. 00:17:55.300 --> 00:18:07.440 If we are driven by a desire to succeed or by a performance mentality or by fear or guilt, 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:19.519 we are abandoning our nature, our saltiness which is to be mimics and imitators of Jesus 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:23.039 and His great love. 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:29.080 So we are the salt, the calling is to be salt, a salt of Christians and we are to be the 00:18:29.080 --> 00:18:31.240 salt of the earth. 00:18:31.240 --> 00:18:39.319 In other words, we are to be valuable in the world that we live in by our Christ-like influence, 00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:45.480 by the flavour of grace that marks our life. 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:51.279 I read that passage about Jesus because it reminds us how radical Jesus was in His day 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:59.160 and in the things that He did and in the attitudes that He had that He rubbed people up the wrong 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:04.880 way and particularly religious people up the wrong way because of His incredible love. 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:10.200 Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.440 Why does He do that? 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:16.759 Jesus says, because I desire mercy. 00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:17.759 Learn what that means. 00:19:17.759 --> 00:19:19.440 I desire mercy, not sacrifice. 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:22.040 I came not to call the righteous but sinners. 00:19:22.040 --> 00:19:23.519 Isn't that amazing? 00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:32.799 Our tendency is always to self-righteousness and to a judgmental spirit and yet Jesus came 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:40.319 to bring His grace flavour to those who recognised and needed it most to the sinners and to the 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:46.039 public as those who were rejected and those who were constantly being judged, constantly 00:19:46.039 --> 00:19:51.400 having the finger pointed at them, constantly being rejected and yet He did so with His 00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:58.519 moral distinctiveness and His great preservative power. 00:19:58.519 --> 00:20:04.280 We take that into our own lives, into how we are and into the society in which we live. 00:20:04.280 --> 00:20:09.240 And I think there's opposite dangers in being salt of the world or our attitude to the world 00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:12.519 and again a bit similarly to what we mentioned last week. 00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:19.640 One is that we are afraid of the world as Christians and we become monastic and we separate 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:25.720 ourselves from unbelievers and it's like the salt that remains in the cupboard that 00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:33.600 it's not poured out as some of you might occasionally now and again slip into comedy 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:43.400 and like Michael McIntyre and he's got a great sketch about five spices that he speaks 00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:51.920 about different condiments that are left in the cupboard and some of them never get out 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:56.360 of the cupboard, they never get out of their packet, they never get onto the table, they're 00:20:56.360 --> 00:21:04.240 never poured out in food and he just personalises them and speaks about them and the five spice 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:08.560 is this very, I'll not go into it, you listen to it sometime, okay? 00:21:08.560 --> 00:21:13.240 But he gives this illustration of so often the spices, you know you go into your spice 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:20.039 rack and they're there for years and they're never poured out and really they have no effect 00:21:20.039 --> 00:21:27.920 therefore they're just remaining in their, the cellar or in the little glass container 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:33.960 that you buy them in and the illustrations there for us isn't it that we are the same 00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:39.799 as Christians that we stay in our spiritual cellars and don't mean prison cells there 00:21:39.799 --> 00:21:45.399 but as in salt cellar and we only surround ourselves with other salt and we're just at 00:21:45.399 --> 00:21:54.279 a pile of salt together and we're like soldiers who never leave the billet room to go onto 00:21:54.279 --> 00:22:02.599 the front line or sports people that never leave the changing room to go onto the field, 00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:09.759 we can talk a good game from the safety of our little containers and we kind of dam the 00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:16.759 world from the position that we're in but even within that which is not really what 00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:23.399 salt is about, salt is useless in a cellar on its own, often within that even with, if 00:22:23.399 --> 00:22:29.599 I could, you can mix your illustration and recognise that even within that often as Christians 00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:35.639 when we think like that and we're afraid of the world we actually leave Christ out of 00:22:35.639 --> 00:22:45.919 our Christian subculture and ironically we become more worldly, our guards go down and 00:22:45.919 --> 00:22:53.319 we act almost more un-Christian when we're in our Christian bubble, that's a bit paradoxical 00:22:53.319 --> 00:22:59.559 speak, maybe you don't know what I mean, I know what I mean when I think of that, that 00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:06.319 often we simply lower our standards as we distance ourselves from the realities of the 00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:08.200 world in which we live. 00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:13.480 So that's one extreme, the other extreme is being not afraid of the world but in love 00:23:13.480 --> 00:23:22.159 with the world, involved up to our next in the world but again without bringing Christ 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:26.960 into our experience and our interaction with the world. 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:33.880 We enjoy its pleasures but we have no thankfulness to the Christ of these pleasures and no thought 00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:42.160 for the Christ who's redeemed us from a wrong perspective towards these pleasures, freed 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:49.440 from the moral parameters and accountability and conscience and simply loving the world 00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:56.799 without recognizing how He seeks us to be salt and light within the world. 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:01.120 So a salt of the earth, briefly how does that reveal itself? 00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:08.360 Well it reveals itself I think and as I've hinted at being poured out, being poured out 00:24:08.360 --> 00:24:17.920 and the picture is very much of being in the world, you know, salt is poured out, in Jesus 00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:25.440 time it was rubbed in, rubbed into the meat to protect it, part of the dish. 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:36.560 It's not a pleasant food item, if you call it a food item on its own, its beauty comes 00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:48.159 from it being broken from where it is and rubbed into whatever food substance it goes into 00:24:48.159 --> 00:24:58.759 and the beauty of grace in our lives, the perfume, the flavor, the loveliness is only 00:24:58.759 --> 00:25:07.839 understood as it's practiced, as it's rubbed in, as it's used and as we strengthen and 00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:14.640 mature the characteristics of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice, the acts of love, the neighborliness, 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:20.680 the prayer, the using of opportunities, the doing of life. 00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:25.839 That's where our strength comes from, that's where the grace muscles are flexed and become 00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:27.799 strong and are challenged. 00:25:27.799 --> 00:25:36.240 We never find that in a bubble, we never find that when we remain just simply unchallenged 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:37.740 in our lives. 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:43.440 We can never defend Christ if we don't hear the arguments and the thinking of people who 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:48.919 don't believe in Christ and we will never love these people if we don't see them as 00:25:48.919 --> 00:25:53.039 broken image bearers of the living God. 00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:58.319 So we are poured out into lives and that's really been all our philosophy, isn't it, 00:25:58.319 --> 00:26:03.960 right from the beginning for city groups that not that we bring unbelievers to the Bible 00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:10.559 studies in the sallag, you know, that's not easy, but that we introduce our friends to 00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:16.000 the Christian community in which we're apart and we do life with them. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:21.440 So it's been poured out, it's enriching the world in which we live. 00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:26.559 You all go into very often a difficult workplace or maybe a different study environment tomorrow, 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:28.840 or a different difficult neighborhood. 00:26:28.840 --> 00:26:34.840 You're to enrich that neighborhood and that community in which you live by your grace 00:26:34.840 --> 00:26:43.799 flavor, by the taste of Jesus that you bring into it, by the joy and the wholeness, the 00:26:43.799 --> 00:26:51.400 innocence and the energy and the thankfulness and the grace that is attracted, that is attractive 00:26:51.400 --> 00:26:59.800 and that is appreciated most where it is needed most. 00:26:59.800 --> 00:27:11.200 You saw it as best used where it is most needed and so the flavor of Christ where forgiveness 00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:12.680 and forgiving is powerful. 00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:16.759 We're good deeds as Jesus goes on to say, being the light of the world. 00:27:16.759 --> 00:27:21.359 It really powerfully worked out. 00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:23.200 You see Jesus life, don't you? 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:25.039 And we see Jesus life. 00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:31.319 He had meals, he went to weddings, he had dubious company that he kept, accusations were made, 00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:38.799 yet he brought something that was so attractive to people who had known a life of rejection 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:42.440 from the church and from religious authorities. 00:27:42.440 --> 00:27:52.240 They were attracted by him and he didn't compromise when I ought on his perfection and yet the 00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:59.880 flavor of his life was such that it had a powerful effect. 00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:08.920 Therefore we are to change the ethic of the company we keep by the flavor of grace that 00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:09.920 we share. 00:28:09.920 --> 00:28:15.200 We have an influence for good in other words in the company we keep and we can do that. 00:28:15.200 --> 00:28:21.480 And can I tell you, it's more powerful than any placard to go into a staff room or to 00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:29.880 go into a workplace and to enrich that workplace with grace will change the ethic because Jesus 00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:32.360 says you are the salt of the earth. 00:28:32.360 --> 00:28:33.360 You're the light of the world. 00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:40.240 You're the light of the world to bring his flavor and that flavor will create a thirst. 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:45.879 Just as surely a salt creates a thirst, so will the flavor of grace create an attraction 00:28:45.879 --> 00:28:53.479 in people to know about the Savior that makes you fundamentally different because of his 00:28:53.479 --> 00:28:55.319 grace in your life. 00:28:55.319 --> 00:29:03.200 Therefore it's to enrich, to be poured out and to engage with people, there is a cost 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:10.480 to living for Christ because as we've seen salt both cleanses and as it cleanses it also 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:12.679 hurts. 00:29:12.679 --> 00:29:17.359 And we know, as Christians we know that the message we have and that we share of Jesus 00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:23.679 Christ is both graceful but also provocative and it's an exclusive love and it's a love 00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:30.560 that speaks of change and it's the deepest challenge to people's sinful selfhood. 00:29:30.560 --> 00:29:35.080 But we should never just be obnoxious, ever. 00:29:35.080 --> 00:29:43.400 So often we hide behind the truth in a very commas but actually we're just being obnoxious, 00:29:43.400 --> 00:29:47.400 proud, judgmental, self-righteous. 00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:57.720 It's not the offense we are to give of self-righteous churchgoers but the offense of stumbling, 00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:05.600 grace-filled willingness not to abandon the truth of Jesus whoever we're with and whatever 00:30:05.600 --> 00:30:08.120 we're with. 00:30:08.120 --> 00:30:09.560 And that's a challenge. 00:30:09.559 --> 00:30:19.279 And the reality is Jesus' scary alternative and he speaks of it here where he says, if 00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:22.720 it's loose, it's salty, it's social, it's no longer good for anything, it's set to 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:25.759 be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:35.799 If we are Christians that don't reflect the humble dependence on Jesus Christ and the 00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:42.319 grace that has transformed us, if we choose to hide that or suppress it, Jesus is saying 00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:47.319 that really our lives are, as Christians are worthless that they have no use, they'll 00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:52.159 be unnoticed, they'll be trodden underfoot, they'll not be respected. 00:30:52.159 --> 00:30:57.839 I think often we as Christians have not been respected because we've been foolish and we've 00:30:57.839 --> 00:31:02.919 been arrogant and we've been proud and we have brought disrespect to Jesus. 00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:14.039 I think it's hugely significant that we seek to recognize in our lives the motive of our 00:31:14.039 --> 00:31:21.920 soul, what evokes our loves, what redeems our day, what is it, what is the flavor that 00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:25.000 we go out into the world with, what is our identity. 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:31.240 And as Christians, Jesus challenges us to be beatitudinal and all that that means in 00:31:31.240 --> 00:31:37.240 our lives. 00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:44.319 We don't want to be unnoticed by the one eye that needs to see you. 00:31:44.319 --> 00:31:54.519 We spend much of our time maybe self-examining for various reasons or looking for acceptance 00:31:54.519 --> 00:32:02.839 by many others, but there's Jesus is the eye that is on us in great love like a father. 00:32:02.839 --> 00:32:10.720 And if we are hiding our relationship with Him, we're hiding our true self and the Christ 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:13.440 who redeemed us. 00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:24.759 And our lives will not be filled with doing His good works which are of lasting value 00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:29.600 and that's what He is encouraging us to do and to recognize that in our lives. 00:32:29.600 --> 00:32:37.920 You are all ambassadors and messengers on the front line and we believe that as we are 00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:46.039 salt of the earth and living out grace, we don't need to be burdened about saving people. 00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:47.720 That's His task. 00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:49.240 That's His work. 00:32:49.240 --> 00:32:51.120 He will transform. 00:32:51.120 --> 00:32:59.720 Our task is to be salt, to have that glorious flavor that is unique. 00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:02.279 There's nothing like it in this world. 00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:04.360 It is not moralism. 00:33:04.360 --> 00:33:07.200 It is not cold obedience. 00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:11.519 It is not dragging our free obedience. 00:33:11.519 --> 00:33:18.120 It is out of gratitude and love, recognizing and following Him for who He is. 00:33:18.120 --> 00:33:24.480 That is life to the full and it's important, I think, that we don't settle for anything 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:30.559 else or anything less, nor shift responsibility to others. 00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:38.519 We praise God for Jesus Christ who promises to empower us, who promises that the impossibility 00:33:38.519 --> 00:33:46.240 of living by grace as salt of the earth is His gift if we will come to Him, if we will 00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:54.919 continue to rely on Him to daily seek His strength and will and Holy Spirit in our lives 00:33:54.919 --> 00:33:56.079 to live for Him. 00:33:56.079 --> 00:34:05.359 I do think that's the simplicity of the gospel and that it involves all of us to be salt 00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:06.759 of the earth and the city. 00:34:06.759 --> 00:34:15.119 May that be our calling and may the Spirit apply that to us as we go into this week that 00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:16.119 He gifts us. 00:34:16.119 --> 00:34:17.119 Amen. 00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:18.119 Let's pray. 00:34:18.119 --> 00:34:25.319 Father God, we ask and pray that you would help us to hear your word, to be convicted, 00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:29.760 encouraged, challenged, moved, repentant under it. 00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:41.360 We would see the simplicity of your pictures and yet the great depth of reality that they 00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:49.400 express, the profoundity of these truths. 00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:57.539 As we throw up our hands sometimes in despair and say, who is worthy or who can do this? 00:34:57.539 --> 00:35:06.880 May we find great comfort from your smile and from your acknowledgement that that is 00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:15.119 exactly where you want us to be as we simply come to you and seek to be people who live 00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:24.880 out what we've experienced and know your forgiveness and your unconditional love in 00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:26.039 our lives. 00:35:26.039 --> 00:35:29.519 So help us God, we pray, guide us into this week. 00:35:29.519 --> 00:35:38.799 We long for fruit, we long for a harvest, we long to see days when our friends respond 00:35:38.799 --> 00:35:44.000 to the truth that we have shared with them maybe many times and they seem to reject it 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:48.599 and we are frustrated by that rejection. 00:35:48.599 --> 00:35:55.239 Lord help us to keep praying for our friends, to keep praying for the days that we live, 00:35:55.239 --> 00:36:00.840 the contacts we make, the God appointments that will come our way day to day and may 00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:11.880 we use them gently, respectfully, humbly, courageously, stumblingly but may we use them 00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:16.079 to God's glory and with God's grace and help in our lives. 00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:42.920 For Jesus' sake, amen.