Hope Church LV Sermons
ON MISSION :: SALT
Let me invite you this morning to take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament chapter 5, and we are going to continue on with our study of the greatest message ever preached, the sermon on the Mount, the words of our Lord Jesus. We took a few weeks off to focus on the big journey, but we're going to pick right back up in verse 13 here in just a few moments. So if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and find your place there, and we'll be there in just a moment. Well, we live in an extraordinary city. There's no other city like Las Vegas, amen? 40 million people a year travel to this extraordinary city. 120,000 weddings take place every year here in our city. Las Vegas boasts of 150,000 hotel rooms. I don't know if you know this stat, but I found this on the internet this week. There is enough neon lights in Las Vegas, enough neon tubing that if you were to take that and stretch it across the United States, it would go across our country five different times. That's how much neon lights are in our city. It's the only city on the planet that you can visit the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and meet Elvis on the same day. There's no other city like it in the world. It's an extraordinary city, but as residents, us who live here, even though we live in an extraordinary city, for most of us, we live somewhat ordinary lives. I mean, we live ordinary lives by the place we work. Most of us work in a pretty ordinary place here in an extraordinary city. Most of us live in a pretty ordinary neighborhood, and if you're a student and you attend a school, you attend a somewhat ordinary school. In other words, these places are just ordinary places of life, but they are very important as we're going to hear from the words of Jesus in just a moment. So I want to do a little exercise this morning just to get you thinking about these ordinary places that you and I live in every day. In the seat pocket in front of you, there's a little white card, or there should be, if you'll pull that little white card out and just hold it there for a moment, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do with that. I want us to recognize these ordinary places that we live our lives on a daily basis. So on that little card, don't put your name or anything like that, don't worry, we're not going to track you down, but just want you to put three different things on this card. The first one, I want us to see the ordinary place just where we live. So right there, just where you live, just your address and zip code, put that kind of on the first line, just the ordinary place. And then on the next line, take just a minute and write down where you work, just the name of your place of business, or if you're a homemaker, just put that down, or what is your, where do you work? And then if you're a student, or you have students in your home, write down the name of the school that you're affiliated with, or where your students attend, or someone in your home attends. You have several children, there may be different schools, but just write those down. And what you have here are just the ordinary places of life, but these ordinary places are very, very important, and what I want you to do to that card is just going to take that card and fold it or whatever, stick it in your Bible. And then at the end of our service, when we take our offering, just drop that card in the basket. And we're going to prepare something this week to have for you next week that we're going to use in the service next week as we continue this theme, but just hold onto that card and then drop it in the offering basket here in just a few moments, all right? So what you have there are basically the ordinary places of life, but it is these ordinary places of life, it is precisely these places that Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount beginning in verse 13, when he says some incredible words. With these places in mind, listen to the words of Jesus, the words will be on the screen here for you beginning in verse 13, Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth." Now we're going to spend some time today talking about that, what does he mean by that? But if the salt becomes tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone lie to lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Jesus says, verse 16, "Let your light shine before men in such a way in the ordinary places of life, in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father. Who is in heaven?" Now this weekend and next weekend, we're going to take these four verses here, we're going to unpack them and see what Jesus was saying then and what he's saying to us today. And we've entitled this little short two part series this, that we are on mission. And our mission looks like this, radical living in ordinary places, radical living in ordinary places of life and we all have those ordinary places. We just wrote them out there on that little card. Now in Matthew chapter five, we're going to continue on today as we said in the greatest message ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. Several months ago we spent weeks just breaking apart the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, seeing each of these statements that Jesus made here and you remember the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount is a section of Scripture known as the Beatitudes, remember that? And we spent several days and weeks studying these Beatitudes that Jesus gives and in fact we gave you a little statement to help us get our mind around what was Jesus saying in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount because it really lays the groundwork for everything else. It's the foundation. These Beatitudes are this, they are declarations of a radical way of life, remember that? These Beatitudes here, the Blessed are the, the Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the merciful, blessed are those who hunger. That these are not necessarily commands that were to take and try to live these out, but as a Jesus follower, as Jesus lives his life out through us, this is the life that is possible for a child of God. It's a radical way of life. It's not a natural way of life, it's a supernatural way of life. It's not a cultural way of life, this way of life is counter-cultural. Now this is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, if you are a Jesus follower, there is a radical different way of life available to you. Jesus says, as I live my life out through your life, it's a radical way of life and we spent several weeks looking at that, but if that's what the Beatitudes are all about, it's declarations of a radical way of life, then Jesus answers another question beginning in verse 13 that we're going to look at today, and here's the question. If that's the radical way of life that's available or possible for us, Jesus followers, here's the question, what impact does this radical way of life have on the world around us? If Jesus is living his life out through me and out through you in these ordinary places of life where we live, where we work, where we go to school, where we spend our time, if that's true and it is, then what impact is that going to have on our culture? What impact is that going to have on our neighborhood, on our schools, on the people around us, and he's going to answer that question here for you in 13 through 16, and he uses two words as metaphors or illustrations to let us know, here's the influence. Here's the impact that as a Jesus follower, as you walk with Jesus that you'll be having on your culture, that you'll be having on these ordinary places. He uses two words, the first one is salt, he says, you're salt, you're the salt of the earth, and you say salt, what does that mean? And there's nothing highly complimentary about salt, I mean, what does that mean? I don't get it. And then he goes on and uses another powerful illustration, he said, as you live out your life, not only are you going to be salt, you are light. And basically what he was saying to his disciples then is the same thing he's saying to his followers now, and that's this, what salt and light were to 1st century Palestine, Christians are to be to our culture in which we live today, whatever role or purpose salt was in that culture, or light provided in that culture, Jesus is saying that's what you provide to the world today, see that? So this is one of those things, the only way we'll have any idea or any application, what this means in our life today is we're going to figure out what it meant then, right? It's real dangerous to take a verse of scripture and kind of just pull it out and go, oh, here's what this means to me today, now you don't do it that way, you find out, okay, what did Jesus mean then, what did the hearers understand him to mean, and then, okay, based on that, what does it mean in my life today, Jesus, if I'm salt, what does it look like? If I'm light, what is it going to look like in these ordinary places of life? And that's what we're going to tackle this morning, today we're going to talk about salt, he said, great, I came to church to talk about salt, how exciting, and next week we're going to take a look at light, what did Jesus mean, and how does it apply to our life, because it has incredible meaning to our life, so I'm going to ask a few questions this morning about salt, and try to get our minds around what Jesus meant, and how they heard it in that day, okay, so the first question we're going to ask about salt is this, Jesus said you are the salt of the earth, okay, first question, Jesus, why salt, all the descriptions you could use, of all the metaphors you could use, why did you choose salt, again, nothing complimentary about salt, it's not a high compliment if I say to you, you know, you remind me of salt, or if I go to my wife and I say, honey, you're like a block of salt to me, that just doesn't have any meaning in our culture, right, what is it mean? We have to understand in this world, in this day when Jesus was teaching, salt had great value, in fact the Greeks had a word for salt, they called it Theon, Theon is the same word used for God, Theos, in other words they attributed divine characteristics to salt, salt was a big deal, and that day the Greeks would say nothing is more useful than salt and the sun, in this day if you were a Roman soldier you would receive your pay in salt, now how would you feel if you went to pick up your check on Friday and they handed you a bag of salt, they wouldn't be, it doesn't have the same meaning today, but it did then, that's where we get the phrase if somebody's not doing a very good job, we say they're not worth their salt, that's where that phrase comes from. So in that day salt was of great value, salt was of great value because it had three very important qualities to it, and I want you to wrap your minds around these because these qualities, remember, this is what Jesus is saying that we are to be in our culture. Salt had three important qualities, number one salt in that day was a picture of purity. Salt was a picture of purity in that day, Romans would say that salt was the purest of all things because it came from the purest of all things, from the sun and from the sea, they saw salt as something very pure, very wholesome, very upright. Salt in that day and even in our day to day was a picture of a pure friendship or a pure relationship, what do you mean? Well even today if you travel to a Middle Eastern country, often what your host would do is to greet you is they would pull out a piece of bread and a plate of salt, why? And then you would exchange salt together, and what you're saying is we've got a relationship here. This relationship is a good thing. This is a pure relationship, salt represents that. Salt also represented pure devotion to God in Leviticus chapter 2. It tells of a grain offering that the Israelites would offer, one of the particular type of offerings, and they would present this offering with salt, why? Well salt represented pure devotion to God. Now there was a strange verse, you've probably not read it recently, but in Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 4, another picture of salt, it's something that the Israelite ladies would do is they would, when a newborn baby, when there was a newborn baby, even before they clipped the umbilical cord, moms, and I don't recommend this, but moms would take salt and they would rub it all over their newborn baby. Why? Well salt represents purity and cleanliness and wholesome and upright and pure. So in that day when Jesus here has heard salt, they thought salt represents purity. Another thing salt does is salt adds flavor. We know this, right? When you go to lunch today and you sit down at wherever you're going to go to lunch and you pull your plate up to you, probably, if you're like me, what's the first thing you're going to reach for? Salt shaker. Why? Slavor. And in that day there wasn't a lot of things that added flavor to the food, so they were dependent on salt to add flavor to the food they ate. So salt was a symbol of purity, it added flavor, but probably the most important one that I think Jesus is alluding to was this one. In that day, salt was a powerful preservative. What do you mean by that? Well in that day, remember, they had no refrigerators, right? No deep freeze. How did you preserve meat from rotting? How did you preserve food from decay? In that day there was only one force that could restrain decay and rot. You know what it was? Salt. That was it. They were totally dependent upon salt to preserve things and to keep things from decay and rot. So when Jesus here has heard this, that's what they thought of. Now salt in another important characteristic or something important about salt, salt only had value and salt could only function properly when it came in contact with something else. In other words, nobody took a can of salt and set it up on their shelf and just looked at it, go look at that salt, it's just so beautiful. Salt only had function and value when it came in contact with something else. See that? Salt could only preserve meat if you put it in the meat and sprinkled it on the meat and rubbed it into the meat. Only when it came in contact with other things, it saw to have value. So when Jesus said to this hearers of his day, he said, "You are the salt of the earth." They heard this. Something of great value and something that has an extremely important role and function in our culture. We have a role to play is what they heard. It's something of great value but it's something of great value in our culture and that's what they heard. Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." Now if that's why he used salt, and that's just your first question, that's why he used this descriptor. Obviously there's a next question. Jesus said, "That's what salt meant then." If that's the way they heard it then, here's the next question. How are we the salt of the earth today? In other words, how does this practically flesh out in my life and your life? If Jesus is saying to them and to you and to me, "Jesus, follower, you are the salt of the earth," what does that look like in these ordinary places of life? I want to suggest just a few things to you of what it looks like for us to be salt. You read this verse again, verse 13, Jesus says, "You're the salt of the earth." But if the salt has become tasteless, if it's lost it's flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything or it no longer has any function except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. How are we today the salt of the earth? Now let me point out a couple of things in this verse. If you write in your Bible, you might want to mark this, a couple of important words here. First one, Jesus says, "You need to know this." He says, "You are the salt of the earth." That "are" is a present indicative. What does that mean? That means this is not something that he's hoping you'll accept as an invitation. He doesn't say, "Would you consider being the salt of the earth as my people?" No. He says, "You are." It's a statement of a reality that's true of you and true of me. Whatever role salt is to play in our culture, we play that role. Not only does he say it that way, the word "you" here, you are, it is an emphatic pronoun. What does that mean? It would be as if he were saying, "You and you only are the salt." That's very important because whatever role salt plays in the culture, whatever this role is that where to play, Jesus is saying, "You're the only ones capable of playing that role. Nobody else can. You are it. There is no other salt. There is no other light to the world. You, people of God, are it. It's what you are and you're the only ones in the culture who are capable of doing it. So what does it look like then if we're to be the salt and give you three things? How are we the salt of the earth? Number one, we are the salt of the earth by demonstrating purity before the world." I'll tell you what I mean by that. Paul said to Timothy, 1 Timothy 4, he said, "Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. Know yourself an example of those who believe." Paul is saying to this young Timothy and he is saying to you and me, "We are the examples to the world in these ordinary places of what a life of purity looks like." Salt was that in that day. The people of God are that in this day. How does the world, how does Las Vegas, how does your neighborhood, how does your school, how does your place of employment even know what a life of purity looks like? You're it and you're the only thing that can be it. How does Las Vegas know what purity in conversation, purity in relationships, purity in business dealings, purity of character, purity in your marriage? How does our culture even know what that looks like? Where are they getting the examples? Where are they getting the models? Jesus says one place and only one place. You're it. You're the salt of the earth. That's true. What does this practically flesh at? Let me give you even some more examples. Jesus says, "You're the salt of the earth. You're this example of purity, number one, in your word." Say what? Jesus said later on the Sermon on the Mount, he makes an incredible statement. He says, "Listen, let your yes be yes and your no be no." You know what that means? Keep your word. Jesus says basically, "How's the world ever going to see a model of a person who does what they say they're going to do and that you can trust and that is upright and is dependable? How are they ever going to see a person like that?" You're it. Purity in your speech, listen to Colossians chapter 4 verse 6, the Bible says, "Let your speech or your conversation always be with grace as though seasoned with salt." Listen, how's the world ever going to know the model of the pure conversation or pure speech or you at your workplace, at your school? In other words, is your speech the kind of speech that builds other people up and focuses on other people or is your kind of speech the kind of speech that only focuses on yourself or is your the kind of speech that's focused on the truth and what's upright and what's wholesome or is it gossip and backbiting and slander and how's the world ever going to see a model of purity and speech? You're the salt of the earth, I'm the salt of the earth. How about purity and relationships? How's the world ever going to see a model of a healthy relationship? How's the world ever going to see what it means to, like Jesus said, Jesus makes a big deal about this in Matthew 5 as you read on the Sermon on the Mount, he says, "Hey, if you're coming to church," I'm paraphrasing, "and you're presenting your offering there at the altar and your cross ways with a brother or a friend," he says, "Don't bother worshipping. It's fake, leave church and go make it right with your friend," right? You've heard that. Jesus is saying, "Look, purity of relationships, faithfulness in relationships, seeking the best for the other person in the relationships, how in the world is the world around us supposed to ever know what pure relationships look like?" You, me, Jesus says you're the salt of the earth. How about this one? How about purity and marriage? It's really easy for us to bemoan where our culture currently stands on marriage. Our culture is so confused on the role of marriage, what marriage looks like, even trying to redefine what a marriage is. How is our culture supposed to see a healthy model of a man and a woman together for a lifetime? Where do they see that model? Where is the salt of the earth? You and me. Where are the models for the world to be able to look at and say, "That's what I want." That's the way it's supposed to be. I get it. Just like salt creates a hunger and a thirst. When they see that, it creates a thirst in their life for Christ. We are the salt, the earth in business practices. How is the world ever going to see a model of a boss who treats his employees like Jesus was working for him? Or an employee who serves that boss and those authorities over them, as though they were working for Jesus? That's what the Bible says, right? Ephesians, Colossians, two different places. We serve as unto Christ, not just for men. Listen, if you're disgruntled with your job right now, remember who your boss really is. It changes things around a little. See? How about purity and character? How is the world ever supposed to see a model of a man or of a woman who the person they see publicly is the exact same person privately? There's integrity and a character there. How is the world ever supposed to know what that looks like? One way and only one way, you and me. Jesus says, "You're the salt of the earth, and you're the salt of the earth by pursuing purity in our world." You're the salt of the earth, and you're the only salt of the earth. Secondly, he says this, "How else are we the salt of the earth?" Number two, we're the salt of the earth by adding flavor to the world, by adding flavor to the world. What does that mean? Well, I think what Jesus might be alluding to here is this reality. Ephesians chapter two says this, "We are His workmanship," the workmanship of Christ, "created in Christ Jesus for good works." That word "workmanship" there literally means the way God has put you together, the way God has crafted you. God has given you, child of God, certain gifts, certain abilities, certain passions, certain talents to be used to honor God by being a blessing to the world. Did you get that? In other words, God has put you together in a certain way. You have these abilities and talents and gifts, and God wants to bless the world through those and make a difference in the world and be salt in the world through you. What does that practically mean? That practically means to say you're a schoolteacher, for example. When God's giving you the passion and the ability to be a schoolteacher, and God wants to take you like salt and put you in that school system, that you will be the best school teacher you can be, you will honor and glorify God in the way you teach school, and you by doing that are being the salt of the earth. You are adding flavor to the world. You're a police officer, or a fireman, or an artist, or a rider, or a homemaker, or whatever capacity God's gifted and giving you a passion for. Listen, we are the salt of the earth by using the abilities and passions and gifts God's giving us not to pull out of the world, but to be seasoning to the world. He says, "You are the salt of the earth." Let me give you a couple of examples. You ever heard of a guy named Eric Liddell? Eric Liddell was an Olympic runner for Great Britain several years ago, and Eric Liddell was a Jesus follower. He was a Christian. He taught this, and he understood that the abilities God had given him was to be used for the glory of God, and he was the salt of the earth by adding seasoning and flavor to the world. He said this, "God made me fast." It's the movie, "The Chariots of Fire," if you've ever seen that. He said, "God made me fast. When I run, I feel His pleasure." He recognized God had put him together in a certain way to be salt to the earth by adding flavor to the earth, to the world. I'm going to give you another example. Have you ever heard of a man named S. Truett Kathy? Anybody know who that is? Well, S. Truett Kathy is a Jesus follower. He's a businessman, and he's the inventor of the chicken sandwich. Not just any chicken sandwich. In other words, S. Truett Kathy recognizes the giftings God's given him, and the abilities God's given him, he's taken that, and he's added immeasurable flavor to the world by starting a chain of restaurants called Chick-fil-A. He's a Christian who adds flavor to the world by using the talents and abilities God's given him to be the salt of the earth. And thank God, S. Truett Kathy, didn't keep it to himself, amen? Listen, God's given you talents and abilities, and he's placed you in certain settings and environments to use the abilities and talents and gifts and personality and character that you have to be flavor, and add flavor and seasoning to the earth. Jesus says, "You and you alone are the salt." So as we pursue purity, we're the salt of the earth. We add flavor to the world, we're the salt of the earth, but finally, I want to show you a third one, we'll be done. We're the salt of the earth by restraining the evil of the world. What does that mean? Well, let me tell you what I think that doesn't mean, okay? I don't think Jesus is saying, "You're the salt of the earth, and as Jesus followers, you are to be characterized by the signs you hold up and what you stand against." That's not what we're to be characterized by. Do we stand against things? Sure. Do we speak against evil? Sure. But we also love people deeply, and for their good. Jesus is saying, "By your life in the world, child of God, you are the force, and really the only force, as Jesus lives through you, to restrain evil and this world from going down a path of total destruction." I think this is true on a broad scale. I think this is true on an individual scale. Let me picture this for you, all right? Give you the word picture. I want you to picture the world in which we live as a big old slab of meat, all right? And what happens if you take a big old slab of meat, and you just throw it out on your sidewalk in front of your house? What's going to happen to that slab of meat, naturally, without any effort, that slab of meat is going to, what, rot and decay and deteriorate, and it's the meat like that that McDonald's makes chicken nuggets out of, but anyway, it goes from, it decays, it decays naturally, right? And this day, what was the only force capable of stopping that decay, salt. And you add salt to that meat, and you put salt in that meat, and it becomes a force to restrain evil. And do you understand that's really part of our role in the world? The world doesn't always see it like that, but if there was ever a day that God pulled out all the salt of the world and took out all the believers from the world, that wouldn't be a good thing. In fact, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 says that's going to happen one day, Paul says that which now restraineth, talking about evil, and most commentators believe he's talking about the church, he says there's going to be a day when that which restraineth is taken out of the way, and then literally all hell is going to break loose. You think the world's on a bad course now, imagine if every believer was immediately taken out of the world, imagine if all the salt was removed from the earth, the force which restrains evil would be gone completely. That's part of the role we play, but I think we play that role also on an individual basis. What do you mean by that? Let me just give you an example, let's say your workplace, all right, the place where you work, and you're in a certain meeting or whatever, and there's decisions that are being made about the future of that company, and you hear the decisions that are being made, and there are some decisions that are being made that are just to be honest, unethical, and simply not right, and in your heart you know, if we follow that path as a company, it's going to lead to destruction. It's going to lead to our demise, and you are the lone voice, you are the only salt that's there restraining that path or that direction. We provide that sometimes, sometimes we're the only voice that says, no, that's going to lead to destruction, don't you understand? Not preaching against things necessarily, but trying to protect people from the end that sin always brings about. Say you're a school teacher or a coach, and God puts a group of people around you, and you're the only Christian in their lives. That means you're the only force in their lives, if you will, to restrain them from making really bad decisions, or going down a course that you know is going to lead to their destruction. Relationships, you probably have some relationships in your life right now, and you go, I don't know why God has me in this person's life, or you may have somebody in your life right now and you say, I don't know why this person's in my life, they're really annoying me, always saying this stuff to me and trying to, you know what, God may have salt in your life through that person. Or you may be the salt in somebody's life protecting them from some really bad decisions. Listen, when I was in high school, this was true for me. Like all of us, we kind of went through a season where I was making some bad decisions going on a path. I had no idea it was at the end of that path, but there was an algebra teacher in my high school, she knew where that path was going to take me, and she lovingly was always there to try to speak truth into my life, and prayed for me for four years in high school, and God used that salt in my life to restrain me from the course I was going on, to protect me from myself. Are you that in somebody's life? You probably are, and you may not even realize it. Is somebody that in your life? Jesus said you are the salt of the earth, and you're the only salt of the earth. What does it look like for us to be salt, straining evil, demonstrating purity, adding flavor to the world? But I want to ask a third question, and we're done, this is quick. Jesus goes on, and he makes some very interesting statements about salt that maybe we don't fully understand. The third question is this, what can happen to salt? Well Jesus says in verse 13 he says you are the salt of the earth. He says but if the salt has become tasteless, or lost its flavor, or lost its distinctive characteristics as salt, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Now Jesus, when they heard that, they knew what Jesus meant somehow in that day, the salt of that day, over time perhaps through usefulness, perhaps through environmental reasons, perhaps through even inactivity, different reasons, salt could become tasteless. And it could lose its distinctive characteristics, it was no longer preservative, it no longer had any taste, and all it was was a big lump of crystals. And you know what they would do with those crystals? They'd take them out, they had no function in the society anymore, so they'd take those crystals out and they'd just throw them along the path, they'd throw them along the road, as people came along they'd just walk right over top of them, because they had no purpose on the earth anymore. What are you saying Jesus? What's that mean? Well listen, let me be very clear, Jesus is not saying that salt will ever not be salt. Salt always is salt, in other words he's not saying to the child of God, if you're a Christian you may end up one day and you're no longer a child of God, because if you're sealed in the blood of Christ, you are seated in Christ in the heavenlies forever and ever and ever because of the righteousness of Christ, but he says even though salt will never not be salt, it is possible for salt to lose its distinctive characteristics. He says of us then, he's not saying that we would ever cease to have that relationship with Christ if we have a genuine relationship with Christ, but it is possible for believers to lose their distinctive characteristics, its believers in the world, that were no longer that picture of purity, our relationships, our marriage, our speech, it's just like everybody else's. Evil around us, we just kind of applaud it, look at you, it's possible for us to lose our distinctive characteristics, this believer is George Truett said this, you are either being corrupted by the world or you are salting it, there is no middle ground, it's tough statement. The message paraphrase takes this verse and I want to close with this, Matthew 5, 13, here's what he translates this verse, message paraphrase says, let me tell you why you are here, you are here to be salt seasoning that brings out the God flavors of this earth, if you lose your saltiness, how will people ever taste godliness, you have lost your usefulness on earth? So what's Jesus saying to us this morning? He's saying you, child of God, are the salt of the earth, you and you alone, you are the symbol of purity, you bring flavor, you are the only force on earth to restrain evil on a big scale and on a small scale, but watch out, it's possible to be in the world and to be so affected by the world that you become just like the world, Jesus says if you lose your saltiness, you have lost your function to the earth, is that true of you, then have to be, Jesus says come to me and let's make it right and I will restore your saltiness because your saltiness is Jesus in you, it's not you, it's Christ in you, Jesus said you are the salt of the earth and we are to live out this mission in the ordinary places of life, you bow your heads with me this morning, just a moment our team is going to come and lead us and we are going to stand and sing in just a moment, but as they are coming right there in your seat I will ask you a couple questions, just you and the Lord do business right there, first of all you may be here this morning and you hear all this talk about a relationship with Jesus and following Jesus and you really have no idea what that means or you say I am a church goer, I am a good person, but a relationship with Jesus, listen Jesus down on a cross he rose from the dead to take away every sin in your life and make you whole and complete from the inside out, he loves you and is a harsh and intimate growing relationship with you and this morning you can begin that, when we stand and sing in just a moment we are going to have pastors along the sides, prayer volunteers along the back, they are simply there for you, if you want to step out from where you are seated go take one of them by the hand or grab one of them after the service and say I want that relationship with Christ, they will walk you through what that means, for the rest of us you may be here and you are Jesus following and for the first time you realize that is why I work there, that is why I live where I do, that is why I am in that relationship, I am the salt of the earth, you may be here and you realize I have lost my saltiness, I am just like everybody around me, listen Jesus already knows that, just telling, Lord show me anything in my heart or my life right now that is diminishing my role in the world or is keeping me from being that symbol of purity or that agent to hold back evil or whatever you are calling me show me anything in my life Lord and you and God make it right right there, Jesus we love you, we thank you for this truth, thank you for allowing us to be the salt of the earth, we praise you this morning in Jesus name, amen. (gentle music)