Sermon Transcript:

I feel like I just got fired.

Just kidding, I've enjoyed my time here. I still, you know, still about another month left. Thank you so much for welcoming my family. You've loved on us, and it's been reciprocated. We just feel like we really have enjoyed our time, and felt like this has been our home away from home, my family and I are members at First Baptist Church. I always tell my pastor, Mark rotramo, I said, I'm probably one of the worst members. I never go to church there. You know, I'm always preaching somewhere else. But he said to me, was really cool to him. He says, you're one of my best members. You're out there spreading the gospel wherever God has called you. And he says, so thank you for doing that. And so I go, Oh, okay, thanks. Well, good.

Most of you don't really know kind of what I do, but I'm the executive pastor for executive director for the El Paso Baptist Association, where we're a group of about 85 churches that collaborate together, including non denominational churches like Life Church, Kingdom minded looking forward to the return of Christ. That's what we're doing here in the association. And so that's what I do. I do a lot of events and Pastor training and church starting and stuff like that. But about four years ago, I've been here for five years now, God really laid it on my heart for the in between time at the churches. And so this is actually my fifth interim pastorate in the five years that I've been here and so

and what happens is it gives the opportunity for the church to stay together with a consistent voice for God through that interim time. And I know Derek is going to be great. I've watched some of his sermons and and I've been praying for him, and I'm, I'm glad that the cat's out of the bag now, you know, so we can talk about it freely, because people kept asking, Well, I was like, I don't know. We

wanted it to come from the board, and we wanted you God to be excited about what, what God's going to do starting on March the second. But check this out. I already have a date in April. I'm coming back to preach. Well, he's, got some other plans, so I'll come back here and there, if y'all allow me to and so but thank you so much.

I go, man. I graduated in December. I'm finishing this interim. I don't have so much free time on my hands, right? All right. Well, we're going to continue our sermon series called heaven on earth. Today's sermon is called the salty life. The salty life, Matthew chapter five, verses 13 through 16. I don't know if you know this, but salt is used for a lot of things. It's used to flavor our food and also preserve our food. But that's not all. It does many things that salt can be used. Here's a few things. It removes rust,

it can remove fish odor. It can perk up your coffee flavor, if you've ever put just a touch of salt as you perk your coffee. It can soothe sore throats. It can relieve bee stings. It can melt icy. I've seen people put all that, you know, in El Paso, we anticipate that there's going to be icy, and all we do is crunch on the ice or on the salt when we walk on the sidewalks, because it actually can melt ice. It can even deodorize shoes, all these kinds of things. So Jesus, when He said talking about being the salt of the earth, He knew exactly that people would understand what that meant, and so his disciples would understand this analogy that we're going to work through and through our sermon, because salt has and is still being widely used for a lot of variety of things. So we know that when Jesus says that we're the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world, it's to our ministry ought to be salt and light to this dark world that we have. It says, so we're the answers. We are the answers to the world's problems. I don't know if you knew that there's no plan B.

God didn't plan for anything else, but this plan. Jesus Christ is the salt of the earth. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. Therefore he transfers that power to us, and he says, now you're the salt of the earth, now you're the light of the world. And so that's what we're going to talk about this morning. Check out this video.

Will we allow these apathetic hearts to fall asleep in the dark? The world is crying out about how dreary all of this is. Evil surely exists. But greater is He than any enemy? Greater is He who is living in me? Jesus is our life. He gave sight to these blind eyes, and now we have seen the truth that can change everything. So we must go. Now is not the time to hide. We are the salt. We are the light. We'll give the world a taste of our Savior.

Here and will shine even brighter, so that the world will know the hope of our father.

Stand with me as we read from Matthew chapter five verses 13 through 16. Four short verses, but four verses that are so impactful.

You are the salt of the earth.

But if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill, cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Father, this morning, we give this time to you, thanking you that you've entrusted us to be the salt and light to this world. In Jesus name, I pray Amen. Please have a seat. I only got two points. I know last week I had about 12. I don't remember.

My first point is Add salt. Add salt to your life. Verse 13, you're the salt of the earth. Jesus wants you to know, and he intends for you to be a kingdom person, for you to actually receive what He tells us and share it with the world, not just anything, but to share about what's going to happen in the here and now, but in the future with our life with Christ, He you are his representation on this earth. You represent Christ. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus, you've asked him to be the Lord of your of your life. I don't know if you knew this, but he tagged you on his Facebook post, and he said, now you're with me, and you're going to do great things in my name, on my behalf. You're going to be a kingdom person. You are created in His image so that you can be a person that makes a difference in this world. In Exodus, chapter 30 verses, 34 through 38 it says The Lord said to Moses, take fragrant spices, gum, resin,

angstrom and galbunin and put frankincense in all equal amounts and make a fragrant blend of incense. The work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. Grind some of it into powder and place it in front of the Ark of the Covenant, the law in the tent of meeting. Well, I'm going to meet with you. It shall be most holy to you. Do not make any incense with this formula for yourselves. Consider it holy to the Lord. Whoever makes this incense like it, to enjoy its fragrance must be cut off from their people. So God is talking about this incense that was specifically made for a specific purpose. That's why Jesus says You're the light of the Earth or the salt of the earth. They understood what that meant, because in that time, everybody studied the Old Testament. They knew what the Old Testament said. They were taught. They went to to Sunday school, they went to church, they went to all of these things. And they were taught who Moses was. He was the author of the first five books of the Bible. And so they knew what that would mean. And so Jesus saying, You're the salt of the earth. They were like, Wait a minute.

I know that. It probably brought them back to this text where they said, but we're not supposed to mess with this incense, because the incense that God created was for himself. When we meet with him, see Moses was told to do this, and said, When you come and meet with me, it's going to be a holy time.

When we meet with Jesus, it's a holy time.

He says, Listen, your life needs to be salty. Your life needs to be flavored with who I am in your life. So when we meet together, and he says, don't use this at any other time, it's for me and for you. Holy to God, you see, he would have this glow about him, Moses, when he would meet with God. And everybody noticed, even everyone knew that when Moses was with God. So when we go meet with God, when we come from our tent meeting or our time with God, everybody should know, because I can tell you this church, everybody knows when you ain't walking with God, right? Everybody knows, because they go, Well, that's I thought they were a Christian. I thought they went to Life Church. I thought they did this, and I thought they people know when you're not walking with Christ, but do they know when you are walking with Christ? Do you do you have that salt about you? Do you have that flavor about you? This is what happened with Moses in Exodus. CHAPTER 34 verses 33 through 35

when Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with him, he removed.

Veil until he came out. And when he came out, he told the Israelites what had been commanded. They saw his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face, until he went to speak with the Lord again.

Now when you read that, and you think about that, and you go, why did he do that? Because you know you may have seen a documentary or something on the ultimate the Old Testament, when Moses met and he went to Mount Sinai, met with God, he came back and he had this glow about him, this amazing sense that he had been speaking with somebody that made a difference in his life, and that was God. And the people were just like it was, just like you ever seen Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer, when his nose went everywhere? I always think of that when I think about the stacks. I don't know why I'm a kid. We used to watch Ruth Red Nose Reindeer all the time. It was always on TV every year, in his light, his nose would light up, and people would go think about that. When Moses did the same thing when he came out for meeting with God, he was so shiny. And people were just like, dude, and so he would put a veil over his face. Second, Corinthians three speaks about this in 12 through 18.

Therefore, since we have such hope,

we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

But in their minds, their minds were made dull. For to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read, it has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. You see how he transferred it from it's on his face, but now he says, Listen, we can put a veil over our heart so nobody sees it, even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their heart. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

It's taken away.

Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is what?

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is there's freedom. And we all who, with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord's glory and are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. So when Jesus says to us, You are the salt of the earth,

what he is saying that we are to resent represent Him to all people, not just to some people, but to all people. We are to add flavor to people's lives. So when you're in conversation with somebody. Are you adding something to their lives? Are you just talking about the cowboys who aren't in the playoffs? Breaks my heart.

Man, it breaks my heart. Somebody said, Hey, there's some good games on today. I said, Hey, the Cowboys playing. I was quickly told they were not playing today. Why aren't we playing today?

When you have conversation with somebody, you just talking about things that don't matter?

Excuse me, because we

want to make sure when we have these conversations that people understand about how we get our salt, how we get our light, we're to preserve the morality and the effectiveness of the gospel. We preserve it.

You see, the gospel has been adulterated all across this country, all across the globe. Is it really God's word? I don't believe it. How could Jesus have done that? Why would I believe in something like that? Jesus is just a crutch for people. All kinds of things are said about the gospel, but does it matter in your life? Is what really matters. Does it matter to you when you have conversation with somebody, when you say, I don't care what you say, I know what Jesus has done for me. This is how it changed my life. This is why I carry around the salt of the earth. You see the second part of verse 13. It says, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You know, I read this. You read it, did a little study. This is confusing. Salt is a stable compound. It doesn't lose its flavor, it doesn't lose its power. It doesn't lose the ability to preserve things. It's a stable compound. It never really loses its saltiness. So I think what Jesus's point is here is, if you're a true believer, even if you've kind of walked away and you haven't really been connected to God, he's trying to tell you, you don't lose your saltiness, because if you did, it would be useless. And you're not useless in the kingdom of God. You're useful for God's kingdom. He wants to use you to change this globe. He wants to use you to change your family. He wants to use you to change your marriage. He wants.

Use you to change your job. He wants to use you to change everything that's going on in your life that you think sometimes is not going right. The one thing we can count on is Jesus right. No matter what happens, we can always say, but I got Jesus, and we can count on him. So Jesus is reminding us about this free gift of eternal life, and it's a gift that cannot be useless. It'll never be trampled on, because once Jesus gives you that free gift, it's yours forever.

You don't have to walk around wondering if you're saved. You can know you're saved. You don't have to wonder if you can lose your salvation. The Word of God says you can never lose your salvation if you don't believe me, read John chapter 10, read the entire chapter, and he will tell you, I have placed you in the palm of my hand. Nobody can snatch you away from me. And so you don't lose your saltiness. You keep it forever. Now you may not be walking with Christ, but that doesn't lose your salvation. He's calling you back to him and say, Hey, I got the salt shaker on the dining room table. We can still add some salt and get some flavor back into it. Amen,

we live the full flavor that has been preserved for us, the true salvation

in a Peanuts cartoon. How many like Charlie Brown and peanuts? Yeah, you know you do.

Peppermint Patty

was talking to Charlie Brown.

She said, Guess what? Chuck. We know him as Charlie Brown, but Peppermint Patty called him chuck the first day of school, and I got sent to the principal's office. She says it was your fault, Chuck.

He said, My fault. How could it be my fault?

Why do you say everything is my fault? You're my friend, aren't you, Chuck, you should have been a better influence on me.

You know, she's right.

She's right. We should be a great influence on the people that God has placed in our sphere of influence. We must be better influences to this world. Are you wondering if your life matters? Are you adding flavor to your sphere of influence to you, the people that God has placed in your life, or adding flavor to whatever God has called you to do, you can do it. My second point is, add life. Add light. Excuse me, add light. In the second part of our text, you're the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way, let your light, light, light shine before others so that they may see good your good deeds, not because they want to say you're doing a great job, but be so they can glorify God in heaven, amen. Because when you do good things, you represent the kingdom of God. And go and people go, Wow. And you just go, yeah, all credit to God, all credit to Jesus. You know, it's really strange that whenever my brothers and sisters call me up here, you know, and people clap, and I always go, I hope you're clapping for Jesus, because it's not about me,

it's about him. I just represent Him. But so do you. I hope when people clap for you, you go, man, and I'll credit to you. I'll credit to Jesus. In verse 14 of our text, he says, You're the light of the world. Powerful words from our Savior. You see in John, chapter eight, verse 12, he says, when Jesus spoke to the people, he said, I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And now here's Jesus transferring the power to us, and he says, Guess what? Now, you're the light of the world. You're it. I've done my part. I became the light. I'm going to go be seated at the right hand of the Father. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. He's going to comfort you, he's going to be your guide, and he's going to be your convictor. But before I go, let me tell you, I want you to be the light of the world too. I want you to take Jesus with you. He's transferring this power. I'm the light of the world. But for him to say that, that it's just mystifying to me to go, because I think sometimes we go, but I don't want that power God, right? We can be honest, right? I really don't want to be your representative here, because, man, I mess up all the time,

but that's why we get to say we're an imperfect people serving a perfect God.

He's the one that's perfected through our lives. You want people to see Jesus? Jesus is giving permission to be his light to this dark world. He's saying, You can do it. I give you the permission to do it. I say, I give you the go ahead.

So don't be alarmed by his calling in your life. Don't be afraid. Be excited and joyous that he's given you this opportunity to be this power of light. You're the light of the world. And all the people say,

oh, man, I got that's we got to do that one again. You're the light of the world.

Amen. You are First John one seven says this, this is, this is my life verse is my favorite verse. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light,

we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we get to fellowship with one another, and he purifies us from all sin. Isn't that a great verse, verse 15, the obvious is obvious. Here, a city that is built on a hill cannot hide everyone around. Can see it, especially when the lights are on at night. You can see it from far away. Lucy and I and our family have been blessed to live. We actually live in the Northeast, and we actually purchased a house that's kind of up on a on on the cliff, a little bit up from normal, normal people down there. You know,

you know what's funny when we come back to El Paso, I told, I told my wife, I said, Hey, I want to, I want to view, I mean, we grew up in El Paso, and it's like, not always the prettiest place to be. You know, we've been in places that have trees and green and water and all that. And the Lord was calling us back, and I was like, really the desert Lord, but thank God we got the Franklin Mountains right. And I said, if we're going to go back to El Paso, I would love to have a view, just kind of an overview. And we do, we have, we get to, we overlook the northeast of El Paso and Fort Bliss and the airport and all that. I can't hide where my house is at. People know it's like it's up there. Do you see it as you're driving up? You can see where your house is at, and that's what happens, is a city that's built on a hill, cannot hide

in the Christian community. I've heard this a lot. Let my church be a light

or a city on a hill. Have you heard people say that? I hope my church is a city on a hill, a light to this world? Well, it's only going to be that as is, if you make it that you see it's not up to the church as in the building, but it's up to the church, as in the people.

I hope when you speak about the church, you're thinking about the people. And we said, hey, let's go to the church. And I said, No, let's go to the building. Is what we mean. You see, there is no church without the people. There are empty churches

this Sunday not being worshiped in right now, there are churches that are sitting empty because we call them churches. Doesn't make them the church,

man, you're going to just get mean this morning, Pastor, right? We're the church. We're the ones that God has called to spread the gospel. You can't expect it to always be inside these walls, because guess what? We have a real life out there with real people that need a real Jesus, and it's up to us to spread that.

And so I'm going to let you listen to this text. I want you to really listen in on this is an Old Testament text out of Isaiah, chapter two, verses two through five, and this is what he says in the last days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains. It will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in his paths. The law will go out from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes. For many people, they will beat

their swords into the plowshares and their spears into the pruning hooks. Nations will take up sword against nation.

Excuse me, nations will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come descendants of Jacob. Let us walk in the light of the Lord. Isn't that a beautiful text? One day,

one day there will be no more wars. One day there will be no more fighting and bickering and telling who's this and gossiping and backbiting and telling you you're no good. No, that's going to go away when Jesus comes back to this planet, and he's going to set his feet on this planet, and the real peace is going to come. You see, you can create a priest peace treaty, if you want, between nations, but the only peace treaty is Jesus the Christ. He's the only one that can create a real peace. And we have to understand that. And so in the meantime, we're going to have wards, we're going to have arguments, we're going to have disagreements, we're going to have gossiping, we're going to have backbiting, we're going to have all of that. But it shouldn't be with his body. It shouldn't be like that with especially within the body of Christ. We should.

All be in love with each other because Jesus loved us.

You see, we're the light of the world. People stream to us because we have the answers that they're seeking.

You see, it's a real challenge for people today to live in this crazy world,

and sometimes this is their only refuge when they come to a place of worship, this

is where everything can be put aside and say, at least we can agree on this, because out there who

it's crazy, I know

verse 16, we're the light. We are the light. Let our light shine before others. And the reason that we have them in a really good reflection of Jesus is that it provokes and causes persecution. And we don't like that. We don't, we don't. Nobody likes conflict. I did a study of I do a lot of study on Church

Health, how healthy a church is. I want you to hear this. Did you know like 75%

of the church is what we call a passive attitude,

Oh, it's okay. They never really get totally involved in church. They never want to ruffle feathers, they never want to rock the boat, because they have a passive attitude. They didn't come to church to do any of that stuff. And so the leadership usually comes from the other 25%

that do all the stuff at the church, and so I want to challenge you today to really think about yourself. Am I passive? Am I proactive? To say, What can I do to be a better member of the Body of Christ? I can't just sit by and come and sit in a chair every week. We call em pews. Hardly any churches have pews anymore, but I can't. You can't just come and sit in the chair and expect things to happen. You have to get involved. When we say shine for Jesus, we have to actually include words, not just deeds. You see, we have a lot of missionaries that go all over this country or the planet, and they do things like create clean water and do different things, but sometimes they don't ever present the gospel. All they do is do the good deed. Well, we just become a humanitarian like Red Cross, and that's okay. We need that. I'm not saying not to do that, but the gospel has got to be interwoven in there somewhere, and we actually have to say it. Why do we do this? Because Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's what he's asked us to do. If we continue to use God's resources without God,

if we continue to use his resources with no God, then we're just a humanitarian effort needed. But it ain't gospel.

We are to not to sacrifice commuting, communicating people's lives. Can

everybody take out their phone and turn on your light?

And for you that don't know how, just ask the 10 year old next to you, and they'll get that phone. They'll get that light on for you. I

You

see as you're shining your light.

This is how we're supposed to be. You're supposed to be able to notice that we live for Jesus. I can see all of your lights right now, but I want to see it in your life. The world wants to see it in your life. Amen. You're the light of the world. Go out and tell people about Jesus. You have the power. You know how to do it. If you can turn on this phone light, you can turn on the light in your life. You can do it. Amen. Now I

can see if I can turn this thing off.

There we go.

Are you shining your light?

Are you doing what God has asked you to do?

If not, why not start today? Maybe you don't really have the light in your life. Maybe you've never truly surrendered your life to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. I always tell people, it's as simple as teaching the ABCs to kids. Admit that you're a sinner. Believe that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and confess Him as your Lord. ABC, pretty easy, huh? I like simplicity. I don't know if you notice that my teaching. I like it to be like, You know what I can if I can understand it, I know other people can understand it, and we need that today. You see Kingdom norms, the Beatitudes, work out the lives and kingdom errors. That's us and kingdom witness. We are the light of the world. The normal is,

you are this. And the Beatitudes, remember, God says, Blessed are these, and blessed are them, for they will have this. Blessed are them, they will have this. And that's what he's getting at here. And then he says, because of all of that, you're the light of the world. You're the salt of the world. He says, you've got a work to do if salt exercises a negative function

for the delaying of decay and warns us of the compromise and conformity to this world. That's what salt does. It preserves. Jesus said, I want to preserve your life.

So that I can use you, not just today, but tomorrow and next week and next month and even next year. Would you pray with me,

father? We, thank you so much for your word. We, thank you that today we can be the salt and light and Father, I pray this morning that I know in a crowd this size, there are those that are here that have never confessed you as their Lord and Savior. Oh, they've heard about you. They've thought about you, but they've never asked you, would you come into my life? You see, the word of God is clear. In Romans 10, nine, it says, if you will confess You as our Lord and believe that you were raised from the dead, the word of God says we will be saved. Doesn't say we might be, could be or should be. It says we will be. And so Father, I'm praying that prayer over this church this morning, that the people that are here, that if there are people here that need Jesus, that they would confess Him as their Lord. And Father, I know that they're in a crowd this size. There are those that have been unconnected, unplugged from the source. They can't power up their light. They don't have salt. They are unsalted right now, not because they're not saved, but because they've walked away from whatever you've asked them to do. So, Father, God, I pray that you would reconnect with them, that they would have the

humility

and the courage to say, That's me Pastor,

and I want to get reconnected with the source so that I can shine for others, that I could be salty for others, so that can be preserved for whatever good work you have for me and father. I don't know what else is going on in people's lives. Maybe it's a marriage that needs to be resolved and healed as I pray this morning, this husband and wife would come and pray over their covenant relationship that they have with each other, that you've called them to be light even in their marriage, Father God, whatever you want to do during this imitation you do. Would you stand with me?

Stand with me. You.