Spiritual Adult Leadership Template
Our Place In The World
Matthew 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the 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 by men.
Mark 9:50 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."
Luke 14:34-35 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
"Salt is good. You are the salt of the earth. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other. But if the 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 by men. It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Some Statistics:
§ Teen Pregnancies this year – 436,335
§ STD’s – 65 million uncurable, 15 million each year that are cureable
§ Divorce rate – 40%, for Baptist – 29% (highest of protestant denominations)
§ Unmarried couples – 3.3 million in US. 30-40% of college students are co-habitating at one time or another.
A famous king, depressed by circumstances in his realm and feeling rejected by many of his subjects, called for his three daughters to comfort and reassure him. After they had talked awhile, he asked how much they loved him. Two of them answered that they cared for him more than all the gold and silver in the world; but Mary, the youngest, said she loved him like salt. The king wasn’t pleased with her answer, for he considered salt to be of very little value. The cook, who overheard the conversation, knew that the child’s reply had more significance than the father imagined. She dared not speak to the monarch about the matter, but devised a subtle way to emphasize the true meaning of the young girl’s words. The next morning at breakfast she withheld the salt from everything she served, and the meal was so insipid that the king didn’t enjoy it at all. Then he realized the full force of his daughter’s remark. She loved him so much that nothing was good without him! With a smile he said, “1 understand now, Mary. Your love is the greatest of all!”
Salt is really the unsung hero of the culinary world. It is used in just about everything you and I eat. Before the advent of modern conveniences we used salt as a preserving aid.
Salt has the capacity to change everything it comes in contact with, if only it will come in contact with it.
God in His wise insight calls the disciple of Christ salt. Wouldn’t it be good to see what God has to say about the situation
I WE ARE SALT
A Salt is our PRESENT Condition
1 Simple statement of fact
2 Jesus is not looking at our past
3 Jesus is not looking at our future
The question is what kind of salt will we be?
§ Salt can enhance the flavor of just about anything
§ Salt can also make us sick (salt water for instance)
B Salt is our ASSUMED Condition
1 Jesus does not say you and I are the salt or the pepper, or the Garlic powder.
2 Salt is the only condition God sees for us, and assumes that we are just that
C Salt is our DEFINITE Condition
1 We are not a salt
2 We are THE salt
3 There is no OTHER salt
D Salt is our LIMITED Condition
1 Salt of the Earth
2 Not salt of the Heavens
3 Not Self-salting
4 We are to salt the earth – affect the planet!
E Salt is our POSITIVE condition
1 Good for the purpose described
2 We are good for the earth
3 Our inherent ability is to change this world for Christ.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS ABOUT SALT:
§ Salt is distinctive from the food it is used on. This is what makes salt so powerful – its difference. What makes the Christian so effective in this world is not his compromising with the world BUT his difference from the world.
§ Salt preserves. It has the ability to both protect and to cleanse. The truth you have as part of your “saltiness” can cleanse this world.
§ Salt penetrates. As salt get into what it is put on, it changes that food. We have the ability to change those we come in contact with
§ Salt flavors. Salt takes what is bland and gives it a kick. This world is nothing without Jesus. It is all going to perish. Jesus is the change, you and I are the vessels for that change!
§ Salt spreads – A little salt goes a long way. All it takes is a little action from each of us to produce a profound affect!
SO EITHER WE SHAKE OR CAKE!
II SALTINESS CAN BE LOST -- A warning about how important God thinks this is!
A Salt can lose its SAVOR
1 Literally, this word means to make foolish
2 Foolishness comes from squandering the resources and opportunities God has given us
a When we allow our life and testimony to be hurt.
b When we allow the gifts and abilities God has given us to go unused.
c When we try to keep ourselves in contact with the world when we should be closer to God
B Salt can lose its SALTINESS
1 Literally, the ability to affect change
2 What good is salt that does not taste salty. NOTHING
There is a story of a merchant who was able to bring to the holy land a great deal of salt, enough it was said to supply the needs of the people for many years. In an effort to avoid the tax of bringing it directly into the city, he sought a town in the hills where he rented 64 houses and promptly filled them all with salt. What happened though was that the salt once in constant contact with the ground very quickly lost all of its saltiness, to the point that it simply had to be thrown out.
You and I stand the danger of losing that which is ours by right if we maintain a constant contact with the world we are to change.
WE ARE TOLD TO LOOK AT OUR CONDITION! WE ARE TOLD TO BE CAREFUL THAT WE DO NOT LOSE OUR “SALTINESS”
C Saltlessness is DETRIMENTAL to the Body of Christ
1 If we lose our ability to affect change in this world, we become useless to God
2 If we lose our ability to affect change in this world, we risk the judgment of God
3 If we lose our ability to affect change in this world we become rejected by men – trodden means to reject with disdain
By modest estimate, more than a quarter of the entire population of the United States have professed an evangelical conversion experience. William Iverson wryly observes that “A pound of meat would surely be affected by a quarter pound of salt. If this is real Christianity, the ‘salt of the earth,’ where is the effect of which Jesus spoke?” (Christianity Today, June 6, 1980, p.33)
WE CAN DO BETTER, WE WILL DO BETTER.
Perhaps the greatest struggle facing the christian today is the fact that he or she is becoming progressively less and less salty. It takes an act of God – a miracle to reverse the process. In the next four weeks we will look, step by step at what it takes to enhance our ability to change our world.
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