The Witness of the Kingdom

In this sermon, the speaker discusses the Beatitudes and the importance of being converted and saved. They explain the significance of each Beatitude and how it relates to our relationship with God. The speaker also emphasizes the need for a craving for Jesus and the desire to know Him more. They discuss the importance of being merciful to others and having a pure heart to see God. The speaker then discusses the difference between being a peacekeeper and a peacemaker, and how our relationship with God can bring true peace. They also talk about the importance of being salt and light in the world, and how our actions and testimony can impact those around us. We finished up going through the Beatitudes that all of us as Christians should have, and what we should be presenting to the world that is out there. And now we've come into the section of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus Christ is now talking about our witness and what we will become because of that. And if you want to be blessed, we know that first of all, you have to be converted. There has to be salvation, and we see that process into us, into the Beatitudes. We see the very first one as the blasphemy of a foreign spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of our earth. And that is that being that spiritually faithful, realizing that there is absolutely no goodness whatsoever in us. We're sinners, and we need a Savior. And when we realize that, the next step is that we mourn over our condition. It shouldn't bother us, and it's not just to mourn. You know, a lot of people mourn because they're being caught in their sin, right? No, we're mourning because we realize our sin. We realize that we are sinners, not only within our own personal life, but also in the life of the world. We live in a life full of sin, and he tells us there that those that mourn shall be comforted. And that word comfort is a very neat word because it means bacillus with strength. And so, you know, it's not like he's coming and having an arm around us, but it's telling us that if we mourn and recognize our condition, that God will come in, even in our hatefulness, and give us strength to stand in this wicked world. And then we see the next one was brokenness for our condition that leads to repentance. In other words, as we are mortars, we're broken because of that condition. Then he says the meat shall inherit the earth, and that has to do with yielding to God as we dwell here in this earth. How do we take a fleshly sinful body and live for God, be spiritually pure? And he tells us there we have to yield. The only way that we can do that is as we yield to Jesus Christ. And then he told us that we need to also praise Jesus Christ, that hope and thirst for righteousness fail. And so then, once we get to that point of yielding to Christ, there should be this craving. There should be this desire to want more and more of Jesus. If you are a child of God, you didn't have to be fed to want to read your Bible, to pray, to come to church. These are things that the more we know of Jesus, the more we desire of Jesus. And so it is a natural process. Nobody is going to have to make you here in a little bit and force you to eat lunch, right? Some of you are already making your plans for lunch, but why? Because you've tasted food, you know the results of food, you know the energy that food gives you. Some of you, maybe like me, knows what now the food will also help you with an afternoon nap, right? So in either way, it benefits us. For what? It makes us desire. And so every single day, what happens eventually, our mind tells us that first of all in time, what is food? The same thing holds true with Jesus Christ. And then he tells us there that he says that then we shall become merciful, shall obtain mercy. And because God has showed us mercy, because God has not pronounced death upon us spiritually, then we ought to be merciful to others. And then the last one is that he gives us there that the pure in heart shall see God. God is made real in our life because of the change of heart. And the closer we get to God, the more real God gets. And so, you know, I'm reminded every time I think about that passage of Scripture, I'm reminded the psalmist in the day that he said taste and see that the Lord is good. In other words, when you try God, when you test God, you will find out that God is faithful. God is just and God will deliver us. And so what will happen is we will become peacemakers. And that's where we ended last week because our hearts are pure. We now become peacemakers. And there's a big difference between being a peacekeeper and being a peacemaker. And I think so many times we look at this and we think that we are to be peacekeepers. We're not. We're to be peacemakers. And how do we make peace? The only way to make peace, and I don't know if I brought this out fully last week or not, and so I'm going to mention it here and we'll tie it in and make more sense here in just a minute. But what I want you to understand is the only way that we can have peace with God is by recognizing that we are poor in spirit, that we are spiritually bankrupt, that we are sinners. And when we realize that, what happens? We mourn and we turn to God. We kneel to God. Christ is the only one that can give us peace with God because He's a holy God and we're sinners. And so the truth has to be told. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. And so we can't go about changing the truth and lowering what the Bible says and watering down what the Bible says in order to make peace with those that are around us. No, Jesus Christ said, I didn't come for peace. I come to stir up families. I come to drive us forward between you and your families because why? Not that I'm just wanting y'all not to get along, but what did Jesus say? The same thing that John the Baptist did when Jesus taught his ministers, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. God's result is always wanting repentance in our lives. Everything that God does for us is to bring us to repentance so that we will yield our lives to Him and we will follow Him. And so as we look at this today, I want you to understand that Jesus uses two very common objects that He's fixing to tell us about our weakness. And Jesus was very good at this about bringing people together and taking some common object in order to illustrate or in order to drive a point home that is there. I was wanting to cover both of these in one message, but it's not going to happen this morning. And so you can say amen because that means the long sermon is not going to be real long because of doing two things at once. But as I looked at these things, as we get into them, I want you to notice two different differences between the salt and the light. He says there in Matthew chapter 5 in verse 11, He said, Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Now that doesn't sound like a blessing to me. That doesn't sound like, OK, I'm going to give my life to Jesus Christ and the ultimate thing that's going to come out of it is people are going to persecute me, people are going to revile me, people are going to call evil about me. There's enough of that going around today without me doing it because I'm living for Christ. But why? Because, listen, when we come, if you go back to John 3, 16, you remember that it says that Jesus Christ was the God who loved the world and had his only begotten Son and whosoever believed from him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You know that verse? Not below that, in verse 17 and 18, it says that Jesus Christ is also the light. But men hate the light because they think we're evil. And so instead of coming to Jesus Christ and repenting, which is what we're supposed to be doing, what we do is we actually shrink away from Jesus Christ and we try to cover up our sins, we try to hide our sins away from God. And when that happens, what happens? Our testimony is no good, our lives are no good, our witness is no good, and so what does God want us to do? He wants us to repent and come out of the darkness into the light. And so we think of evil things that happen because of our hearts. And so now he says, and he comes with this idea in mind, he says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is his forthgood for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of man. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but out on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now I want you to notice a couple of things as we get into this this morning. He said, you are, first of all, in verse 13, you are the salt of what? Earth. Notice that word earth because we're making a distinction. Why use two illustrations and two objects? Why take salt and light and put these two together and tell them that you are both of them? And he says that salt, you are the salt of the earth, but then notice what he says about the light. He changes it from the earth and he says you are the light of the world. And so what I want you to understand is that earth is this place that we call home. This third rock from the sun. This earth is what we live on and what we dwell on. Salt comes from the earth and it's earthly, right? It's created in the earth. Light, on the other hand, comes from where? An outside source and it radiates. It permeates. That's there. And so as we look at this, I want us to understand that salt permeates. Salt does this locally where we are at. But light goes globally. Light goes everywhere. It benefits everybody. And so there is a difference in this salt and this light that Jesus Christ is telling us. And he goes and proves it at the end of Matthew when he says, here's my covenant with you. Here's my commandment to you. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. But where did they start out with the gospel in Acts? At home in Jerusalem. Locally. And then they went globally. That's God's idea. You cannot radiate globally if you are not permeating locally. And so let's get into this salt this morning. And notice what Jesus Christ has to say about this. Dr. James Stewart, who was a great British preacher, he said this. He said the greatest threat to Christianity is not communism. It's not atheism. It's not materialism. It's not humanism, which are the major controversies and problems that we have in society today, right, that we love to blame our Christianity and our problems with. He said the greatest threat to Christianity is Christians trying to sneak into heaven incognito without ever sharing their faith, without ever living out the Christian life, without ever becoming involved in what most significant work of God is doing on planet earth. That's our problem. That's our problem. Sister Darlene, Wednesday night, our young people, everyone encouraging you to wear camouflage. Wednesday night. This is going to go perfect with our lesson because that's what we're talking about. Hiding in the world. That's what we as Christians have done over the last several years is what? We get to keep peace with everybody because why? I cannot preach the Word of God without offending. It's not me trying to offend you. It's the Word of God that offends you because the Word of God is true. All I can do is preach the Word of God. It's what becomes offensive. But what have we done? We don't like to be offensive. We don't like to be at war with anybody. So what have we done? We've hauled up in our beautiful sanctuaries together, one another, and what happened? We've become ineffective for Jesus Christ. See, you've got to get out there and permeate. You've got to get out there and radiate. And listen, it's what caused problems. People are not going to be happy with you. People are not going to like you. Not every sermon that I preach does everybody come out and say, boy, that was a great sermon. Sometimes people come out and say, preacher, you messed with my toes today. I say, I wasn't aiming for your toes. I was aiming for your heart, right? And so we need to work on that by next week. And so this idea here of Christianity, Jesus Christ made this statement in John 12, verse 32. He said, If I will be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me. We have to stick to the truth. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no other way to heaven but by Jesus Christ. And we've got to stick to that. And so we've got to quit lifting up ourselves and our ministries, and we've got to start lifting up Jesus Christ. And so this morning I want to deal with this subject of salt. Why use salt? And salt has this idea of permeating locally. In other words, it saturates. It seeps in. Whenever salt touches, salt begins to get salty, right? My wife, it drives her nuts to go out and eat with people that never taste their food. And it's all of a sudden she starts slapping salt on it, right? How do you know it's not already salty before, right? And now you add some salt and you've ruined your entire meal. Because once you put the salt in, you can't take the salt back out. So she always tells me, taste it first before you slap salt on it. Well, I know, I like salt, right? You can't really have too much salt. But notice what he says, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, wherewith shall it be salty? It is therefore good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of many. Notice, first of all, the phenomenon of salt. Salt, if you didn't know this or not, we're going to have a little bit of science this morning and then we're going to move on. But salt is a chemical compound of sodium and chloride. Now, I'm going to take some of you way back to chemistry in school, and I had to go back and research some of this myself. Because sodium is actually a metal. And way back under in school, one of our lab tests is we would take this sodium, and it's kind of a metal, but it's salt, like butter kind of, but again, it is a solid. And you take that and you put that in water, and what happens? All of a sudden, that sodium reacts with that water, and you get this explosion of hydrogen that comes out of the glass. And so it's really, really cool. And your teachers really watch that. I got kicked out of the lab because of this experiment, right? Because I put too much sodium and didn't follow the directions. If a little's good, a lot's better, right? That's my motto. But then the other part of that is not only the sodium, but then there's also the chloride. Chloride is a green poisonous gas. Chloride is very, very deadly. If you walk into a room full of chloride without a mask and protection, you will die very quickly because it's very poisonous. And here's the phenomenal thing. God took sodium that makes hydrogen. He took chloride, two poisonous, deadly chemicals, elements, and He put these two together to what we have today as common table salt. You can ingest it. You can eat it. You can do so many things with it. And God put these two elements together to make sodium chloride. It's a common element today. It is a useful compound that is necessary for our life. And when I think about that, when I think about the two dangerous attributes of both of these chemicals, but when put together, you cannot help but think about the chemistry of God. You cannot help but think about the cross of Calvary where God took the wickedness of sin. He took all of our wickednesses and everything that's there in the deadliest part of our nature and He merged it with His blood. And He's made something precious. He's made something good and something that is there. And so sodium chloride got a new name. Do you realize that? Do you accept that Jesus Christ is your personal Savior? Do you have a new name? We don't know what it is. We don't know what it is. If you go to Revelation, you will know our name because it's going to be written. That's what God's going to call us when we get to heaven in eternity. And so I was kind of anxious to find out what my name is. But notice that not only the phenomenal salt, but notice the price of salt. How many of you have ever heard the saying, you're not worth your salt? You ever heard that saying? How many of you older ones are not? You younger ones, like, I've never heard that. Don't have a clue what you're talking about. And so let me help you today. Do you realize that there was a time when salt was more valuable than gold? Before we had electricity, before we had refrigerators and freezers, before we had all these, you know what they would do? They would use salt to preserve their food. And one thing about it, guess what? You can have all the gold in the world, but try eating it. Try living off of it. That's why in Revelation, Jesus Christ said in the latter days, gold is going to be worth nothing but bread. Food, on the other hand, that's going to become important because we've got to have food to live. We don't have to have gold to live. We've got to have food to live. And so back in this day, what they would do is they actually, literally, the Romans were actually paid. Their salaries were actually paid in salt. And if they didn't fulfill all of their obligations and do what they were supposed to be doing, they would use this phrase, you are not worth your salt, your salary, your wage, and they would hold back some of the salt. And when they would hold back some of the salt, then guess what? By the end of the week, they understood that guess what? Next week I'm going to work a little harder because I didn't have enough salt to survive this week. And so that's where we get this phrase, he's not worth his salt. And it means he didn't do a good day's work. And so notice the purpose of salt. We see the phenomenal part. We see the great price of salt. But notice the purpose of salt. And this is where it gets really interesting because some salt has this provoking quality. And what I mean by this provoking quality is salt irritates. Have you ever got salt in your eye? It burns, right? Have you ever got salt in a cut or a wound, you know? When we're deer hunting and everything and we clean and you nick yourself and everything and you start salting down your meat, guess what? Your hands start to burn because that salt gets in there. Salt is this irritant. It steams. It burns. And that's the nature of our testimony. That's what he's talking about. When we are sharing Jesus Christ and the truth of Jesus Christ, guess what? We're going to become irritated. People are not going to like this because it burns. It hurts. You know, how many times have we been told, stand still, I'll put the salt on you or whatever, you know, and we don't like it but we know that it's for our good. But not only does it have a provoking quality but it has a pungent quality. What I mean by pungent is the flavor. Flavor. It's flavorful. Try to eat eggs without salt, right? I mean, the salt just brings their pill out. I think it was Adriana, she's not here this morning, but I was talking to her and she said, I just heard somebody put salt on their watermelon. And I'm like, salt, watermelon is no good without salt, right? You can take a good watermelon and put salt on it and it comes even better, right? It just brings out the sweetness of it. It brings out the flavor of it. And so salt is a good thing. And God gave us salt in order to, we don't want our lives to be dull and boring and uninteresting. We all make people thirsty for Jesus Christ. Just like we like salt, the world ought to like us and want us to be attracted to us. Salt is provoking, it's irritating, it's pungent, it's flavorful. But the last thing, it's permeating. It's permeating. And what I mean by that is salt has a way of stopping decay in life. I mentioned salting down meat and stuff before refrigeration. And you take salt and you rub it into this meat and what does it do? It permeates into that meat. That's why if you go to Cracker Barrel for lunch, don't get the sugar cured ham, get the salt cured ham, right? There's a difference and that salt permeates into that meat and if you add no salt to your country ham, I pastored a church and every year for Christmas, that's what they'd give me was a country ham. And man, I loved that. But man, it's awesome because even in the middle, that salt just permeates into the meat and it does so to keep it from spoiling, to going bad. And several of the disciples that he called up here on this mountain were fishermen, right? What did they do at the end of the day when they caught their load of fish? The first thing they did was salt them down real heavy to preserve them so that they could go to the market to be able to sell them, to be able to do that, and it would keep it from dead. You could go down to Jerusalem today and there is what's called the fish gate. One of the gates there is in Jerusalem and that's where they would come to sell their fish and stuff and it was all salted down that was there. Our world is decaying. Our world is rotting. And it's our job to salt or preserve the holiness of God. See, God left us here to be the holy representatives of him up there. The problem is that Adam and Eve broke that holiness. Remember when they ate the fruit and sin entered into the world? And because of Adam and Eve, sin, what? Sin has been passed down to every one of us and so the world is rotten because of sin. But salt is a preservative. And so as bad as things are, can you imagine how bad this world would be if there were absolutely no churches in this world? My wife made the comment this morning. She said, can you imagine being our age and never being a part of a church? I've been a part of a church since I was nine months in my mother's womb, right? I've been in church my entire life. And so I cannot even begin to imagine life without church. But guess what? As bad as some of our churches are getting today, can you imagine the world if there were no churches? Can you imagine how bad the world would be today if there were absolutely no Christians? Nobody standing up for Jesus Christ or sharing Jesus Christ. Can you imagine how bad the world would get if there were not any Bibles in the world today? Can you imagine how bad things would be if there was no preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ? See, the difference between salt and life, and we'll look at this next topic next Sunday, but salt has to be put on the content in order for it to be good. How many of you have a salt shaker at your house? If your salt is in a shaker, guess what? It does absolutely no good or no benefit sitting in that shaker. Right? My wife likes things neat and tidy, right? So we keep the salt in this cabinet. I tell her the salt is going to do no good in the cabinet. It needs to stay on the table, right? But every meal we've got to get the salt out and put the salt back because it does absolutely no good in that shaker. It's got to be shaked out. If you have this and you understand this, it's not the shaker that flavors your food. It's the salt. The salt is what is good. But that salt has to make contact with what you are salting before it can become effective. That's why we call it permeating, that close contact that is there. Light, on the other hand, does not have to have contact to be beneficial. None of us are touching these lights this morning, but aren't we glad they're on? Right? They give us light. Salt has to be touched. Light does not. And so, guys, man, Jesus Christ is a genius. To be able to take these two illustrations and show us that our testimony, our witness, does not only have to be in contact with people, but our witness can also be effective when we don't have any contact with people. The problem is that too many of us are trying to be alive without any salt. And notice he mentions salt first. It's not about wearing a Christian T-shirt or slapping a Christian ball and letting everybody know that you're a Christian. You know what I want to make that makes an impact in people's lives? I've been wearing Christian T-shirts for 50 years. Everywhere I go, I'll wear a church shirt, a Christian shirt, or something, and while 30-something years of standing in the lines and bashing screens and still a $4.80, a six-flag, all that we've been through, I've had one single people come up to me and ask about my shirt. One individual that wanted to know what that Christian shirt did. See, they saw it. That gave them the lightness. The shirt attracted them. Do you know how many people that I went to the Lord and called the praise of contact with? That's where it matters. That's where it counts. It's not what we say. It's what we do. It is that salt that permeates, that starts this. And the more that we permeate, and the more effective the salt gets, then what begins to happen? Then we begin to radiate. Then we begin to share all over the world. What did Jesus Christ do? When he came on the scene, what was the first thing Jesus Christ did? He started healing people, didn't he? He started healing people. Why? This man touched lepers, right? This man did this. And what happened? Because he had contact with sinners, the work of his glory is. And in the next thing you read there in Matthew chapter 4, before he called the disciples up, he said what? People were coming from all over the rich regions to be touched by Jesus Christ. See, first of all, he had to touch people. Then he radiated people and he radiated people. The problem with the church is we're going to radiate people. We don't want to touch people. We don't want to come in contact with people. We want to sit down and do all this stuff, and we want to invite people, and we want to encourage people to come, but we don't want to personally go to their house and invite them to come to church. We don't want to personally ask them, hey, come to church, and let's go eat lunch in a library lunch, right, and visit with you. So we don't want to contact with people. We want to fill our back porch and our finished guitar and live by ourselves, right, and engage it. We don't think we'll get to know or preach in this here, right, and put a church sign in the front yard and say, we're here to discuss this with the church. The kind of people you have coming to your house asking you, hey, tell me about your church. But I guarantee you if you go over to that neighbor enough times and help them pick up a limb, help them mow their yard, help them change a flat tire, and get into their lives and get in contact with their lives and find out what's in it for them, and help them through that mess, that's what all the literature, everything that's on here is about that. And I don't know what you can do to build a house, but you can do anything you want. And so notice what it says here. It has this terminating quality. But here's the problem of salt. See, the thing that Jesus Christ says, you are the salt of the earth, but then there's that three-letter word there, but, but, you are the salt of the earth. You are. God made us that way. He's the one that made us pure in heart. He's the one that made us peacemakers. He's the one that has placed us in this world to be a witness. But, but. Notice what he says. He says, but if the salt has lost its flavor, wherewith shall it be salted? If the salt loses its flavor, if salt loses its effectiveness, then why are you seasoning with it? Why are you using it? See, what he tells us here is that salt can become powerless. Salt can become powerless. Now, many chemistry teachers will tell you that this is absolutely impossible. But I was watching a video just this week, a documentary on TV about Sodom and Gomorrah and the Dead Sea, and so they did a lot of talking about the Dead Sea. And even though science teachers will tell you that it's impossible for salt to lose its saltiness, listen, it does happen. Because what happens is sodium chloride lives, like a science teacher tells you, the most stable substance in all the world. It is virtually impossible to mess it up and to get it out of the deal. However, however, Jesus Christ is here, and he's sharing a truth with them that all of them know living close by the Dead Sea. And here's the truth that they know. What happens is, is the Dead Sea is more than a mile and a half below sea level. So it is way down there at the lowest part of our earth that is there. The Sea of Galilee flows into, through the Jordan River that Jesus baptized in, into the Dead Sea. And it's at the bottom of the earth. Everything goes down to the Dead Sea. And once the water gets there, there's no place for it to go. And so you know what begins to happen? The Dead Sea has so much salt concentration that literally people try to fly all around the world to go there because of its intense properties. You cannot sink and drown in the Dead Sea. It is impossible. They were looking for Solomon Gomorrah, and they had this submarine built. And the boat had to have over 3,000 pounds of weight added to the submarine and it would just begin to go under the water. It was amazing. It was amazing. We don't know how long it would be, but they started adding weight to it. They started adding weight. They started adding weight. And eventually they came to the end of the finished ship. I'm like, wow. But what happens is, is all of that salt in the Dead Sea, the sun comes and beats down on it. You know what happens? As the sun beats down on that water that is so infused with all of that salt, it begins to evaporate. And when it begins to evaporate, then what begins to happen is all of a sudden this combination of salt begins to absorb all of these other minerals. And when it takes in these other minerals, guess what? It begins to lose its properties. That's all. And so it's kind of amazing because, you know, with all of these minerals, it's not pure sodium chloride. And so when it got to that point, guess what? A lot of the salt, it's amazing. They show some different metal things in boats that have been in the Dead Sea and how the salt just absorbs to it. It sticks to that metal and everything. But I was reading, and even though they got a lot of salt out of the Dead Sea, it's hard because of all of the additives. If you go look at the salt today in the Dead Sea, you will see that it's not but about 70 to 80 percent pure because of all of the other minerals and stuff that is in it. And when it loses its saltiness and its effectiveness, you know what they did with it? It wasn't good for food. It wasn't good for preservation. It wasn't flavorful. So you know what they did? The only thing that it was good for was to be thrown out in the road. And I think interstate 30, I'll start taking lessons from the Romans, right? Because the Romans built roads and they filled it up, right? I think salt being crafted on and hardened and stuff, it gets harder than asphalt. And so what they would do is they would take it and they would throw it out on these roads and they were literally painting their roads in salt because that's all that it was good for. Jesus Christ is saying, you know, when salt loses its savor, it is absolutely good for nothing but to be walked upon, just to be thrown out in the hard. Notice what Jesus goes on to say about this powerless salt. He says, You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt is lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? Now notice this phrase, it is this for it, good for nothing, but to be cast out, to be trodden under the foot of men. So not only does salt can become powerless, but it can also become profitless. Who wants to get paid in salt that's not effective, right? It becomes worthless, it's not worth nothing. He said it is good for nothing. You can't use it for salary, you can't use it for preservation, you can't use it for irritation, you can't use it for anything because it is good for nothing. Which kind of tells me that here's how we make this application. Our culture is sinners, right? Our churches are sinners, right? Whoever wanted to appear this morning are sinners. You're either a sinner that is unconverted and underpinned, or you are a sinner that has been saved by the grace and mercy of God. But you're still a sinner. We're all sinners. And so this world is made up of sinners. But what happens when the Christians, those who have been saved by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, what happens to them when they become good for nothing? Usually how this happens is it's the same way that salt becomes bad. The salt only becomes bad when it's a beast that takes in the minerals that it's stuck in and around in. I think Paul, after writing an entire letter about the doctrine of grace, right, in the book of Romans, did you read the book of Romans? You remember what he said in Romans chapter 12, after giving us all of this doctrine about grace? He tells us, he says, Therefore, present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. In other words, you just narrow all that down to say, God has made us all to say through God what we saw. What we saw. Don't make yourself a living sacrifice. Now here's what the second verse says. The second verse says, And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That's why Jesus says, It is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under the foot of man. What does this mean? Whenever salt is brought out of that dead sea and is contaminated with all of these other minerals that would make it taste flat or even repulsive, the salt becomes worthless. And Jesus Christ is telling them, You are salt. You have an effective ministry. You are going to be able to reach and touch lives because of me. If I will be lifted up, I will draw all men. However, you better be very, very careful because you can lose your softness. And you can lose your testimony. You can boil it. Do you realize people are watching you? People are watching you. People are observing you. You don't realize that you're raising an enemy. But when we're advertising that we're appreciative, even when we don't advertise that we're appreciative, guess what? People are smart. They can watch you when you leave house every single Sunday and you're dressed up. They're probably going to church and not to the lake. If you get up every Sunday and they're going to the lake, then guess what? They're probably not very appreciative, right? And so we can make some observations about people without even talking to people. And so listen, a compromised Christian that is no longer permeating the society for the Lord Jesus Christ but is influenced by society, that has compromised their testimony, they become, for all practical purposes, good for nothing. Good for nothing. Let me ask you a question today. Is the church permeating the world? Or are we being walked on by America? Let's bring this a little bit even closer home. Are you permeating the world with Jesus? Or are you being walked upon? Have you lost your saltiness? Or are you still being effective for Christ? The church, I believe, and many Christians today, I believe, are being walked on by the world. We've lost our testimony. We've become peacekeepers rather than peacemakers. We no longer draw people to repent. We say, well, if you want to be that way, if you want to think that way, it's good for you. It may not be good for me, right? No, Jesus said, guess what? The Word of God divides. None of us would take some math teacher serious that said 2 plus 2 equals 7. Would you? No, she would be fired quickly, right? But then all of a sudden we can say math is factual, right? You get the same answer every single time. That's all of my teachers when I went to school. They didn't care about even how we got to it. We memorized. We memorized our multiplication tables. And if I didn't know it, then I would just go to bed. Do you know what I did that day? Is write multiplication facts. And I would write them, and I would write them, and I would write them. Until now, 40-something years later since I've been in school. Do you know what I still know? My multiplication facts. 3 times 2 equals 6. 16 equals nothing else. The problem is taking that philosophy and giving it away. We can have facts in math, but then when it comes to our real life, there is no truth. Truth is all that you need. You can make those up for any time of day. Right? You can decide if you're a mailer. I mean, you can decide if you want to be it or not. You get to decide what you want to go to. And we say, man, you Christians are narrow-minded. Yeah, I can't believe it. How many people lash out at their math teacher when their brother says, boy, you are so narrow-minded. Go easy on me this time, man. 3 times 2 equals 8 now. No, we don't do that. We don't have to be ridiculous. But then all of a sudden, it comes to the mind of philosophy, and then it makes sense. And what a Christian's going to do. That's the way you want to think you do things. Oh, God said it. Guess what? There is a truth. God said He made us in the beginning male and female. Right there. There is a truth. We've got to hang on to the truth. He created Adam for ease. And He put Adam to be her helpmate. And God has given us an entire Bible of truth, multiplication facts, addition and subtraction facts. And guess what? He really doesn't care if we understand how we got these facts. The thing He wants us to do is make sure that we know the facts. And then all of a sudden, what begins to happen? When we know the facts, then guess what? You know what, man? As much as I hated my teacher's multiplication stuff, when I got to algebra, I was sure glad I knew my multiplication facts, right? Because guess what? He would give me a homework assignment of about 15 to 20 equations. And if you're sitting down having to try to figure out your multiplication and division and addition and subtraction, you know how long it takes to do one of them math problems? It takes a while. But you know what? I didn't have to sit down on paper and try to figure out all of that. Man, I could go through the equations with my mind. I memorized the facts. And so when it got to the hard stuff, then all of a sudden, I could see it because I knew the facts. And that's what we as Christians need to say. But let me give you a little bit of advice right quick, and we're fixing to close. What happens if you have lost your softness? Because Jesus said it's possible. It is possible. The good thing is, is guess what? If you are a Christian and you have lost your softness, do you realize that Jesus Christ can lift your softness even? You go right back to the beginning of the Beatitudes and recognize that you are in sin. You mourn over that sin. You yield to Jesus Christ. You seek Jesus Christ. You make God real in your life. And guess what? God will restore your softness. He said in 1 John 1, He made a man who confessed his sins. I am faithful and just to forgive his sins and to cleanse him of all unrighteousness. See, what we cannot do, we cannot be one with Him. God, through Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, said it's possible. It's true. I could be a good Christian. Well, alright. But I wish every single day that Jesus Christ doesn't do this. Why? Because He was wrong. Don't lose your softness. You've got to hang in there. You've got to face the truth. You've got to permeate the world. And those that are around you, I know a kid that would like to go over to Brown University because he's an English student. And they go to some really cool places. But I always have a rule. You can go to Michigan if you need help out right there in the church. Well, guess what? Just because you go a hundred miles or a thousand miles, that's not going to change who you are from what you are a little. If you're not serving and living for Christ's sake, you're not going to live this heartful life until you get on the mission trip. And so there's no need to go. There's families that are called to go to Brown University. And initially, what we're going to do is we're going to get one person off. We're going to go permeate the world. We have all the tools to get ready to go to school. And every single day that comes to my mind, people begin to show up and talk about Jesus. Because it's no longer about me teaching the Bible. It's about Jesus. And it's not about Jesus. It's about Jesus and how he was a Christian. And the more I can see it, the more I can recognize it. He's been unbroken and permeated. And as you said, it's not about Jesus. It's about him. He stands for a lot of good things in this world. And he met this whole world. And he's permeating the world with Jesus Christ. And there are so many people who Jesus Christ is taking from your attention. Right? He says, none of you, your family, your friends, your people, because they're not going to be willing to repeat it. They say, your love for me has to be more greater than your love for me. Not that you're supposed to have kids. Your mom and kids. But they don't have kids yet. And then you have to go to a proper mom and honor her mom and dad. Right? That was the commandment. But if mom and dad won't repeat it, you shouldn't have to make a choice. I don't want a daughter. I don't want a son. I don't want a baby. So sometimes you don't hear a change, do you? But sometimes when they're called to labor, and when they're called to work, when they arrive, they're going to be bored. They're going to be distraught. They're going to be hopeless. And they're going to want to give up. But what do you have in your life? You say, man, I'm not going to be able to do it. Well, maybe there's something in you that can do it. Maybe there's something in you that can turn to God and fix your sin. Maybe. And you are. That's all I've learned. And here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to try and do everything I can to walk out of this. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.