Are You a Salty Christian? - Mark 8:38-50
I love salt!!
For as long as I can remember, salt has gone on all sorts of food, morning, noon and night. However, a colleague of mine reminded me just the other day that as Christians, we are supposed to be living as temples of the Holy Spirit.
With a body like this, I thought to myself, I must be a rather large temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in or maybe I am one of the pillars of the temple!!
ILLUS: Hopefully not a pillar like Lot’s wife, who turned into a pillar of salt after disobeying the angels of the Lord and took her eyes off where they should have been…this can be easily done though can’t it, in the busyness of our lives where so many people and circumstances are clamoring for our immediate attention.
Tonight, I believe we are all challenged in the gospel message of Mark to review our focus…review our position…review our lives for Christ.
When we begin to blend in with the moral condition of an ungodly world, we begin losing God’s perspective on life.
It is easy to begin blending in with our culture and to accept what is being modeled by the ungodly. God called us to be salt in a world that needs much salt.
Jesus said in 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"
Each of us must ask ourselves if we have lost our salt. Are we having an impact on our world? Or is our world having an impact on us? Ask God to give you a vision for how you can be salt to your world today…we can only do that with a Christ-like focus.
Aahh, focus…single-minded focus…let’s see what one of my favorite movie characters has to say about focus?
ILLUS: Show Toy Story 2 DVD…
Well, we have just seen how focused Buzz was but what about us?
ILLUS: Salt symbol
For any budding chemists and students in Church tonight, you would know that sodium is an extremely active element found naturally only in combined form; it always links itself to another element. Chlorine, on the other hand, is the poisonous gas that gives bleach it offensive odor. When sodium and chlorine are combined, the result is sodium chloride…common table salt…the substance we use to preserve meat and bring out its flavor.
However, love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine can’t they?
Love without truth is flighty, fickle, sometimes blind, and willing to combine with various doctrines….no substance.
On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous…ever come across any self-righteous or holier-than-thou people in Church or your workplace or in your home lately?
Truth spoken without love can turn people away from the truths of the gospel message of Jesus Christ!
When truth and love are combined in an individual or a church, however, then we have what Jesus called “the salt of the earth,” and we’re able to preserve and bring out the beauty of our faith.
Jesus excelled at this and we should try to do likewise.
Now that’s the challenge for all Christians and is where the rubber hits the road for us tonight!
Jesus had been using salt as a very important illustration of leading an influential Christian life in the world. But very rarely was he describing the essential being and becoming of a salt as a solid element.
But in verses 49 and 50, Jesus speaks about the importance of fire in the becoming process of a salt.
The Message translation puts it this way: “Everyone’s going through a refining fire sooner or late, but you’ll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames.”
ILLUS: For the last 7 years, I have been working for a Property development company managing a busy Call Centre for one of the Gold Coast’s wealthiest and most colorful businessmen.
My career-path has been a rocky one where there have been a multitude of challenges and obstacles to overcome, oftentimes on a daily basis, most of which were entirely outside of my circle of control where I needed to trust entirely on God for the outcome.
I have managed up to 240 staff calling into 4 countries over an 18 hour window, managed computer systems and CRM systems, designed training and software programs, employed hundreds of people, worked frequently 18-20 hour days…heck I even traveled to India every month last year just to go to work!!
I have had to close our workplace on 4 occasions and have been made redundant 4 times.
I have questioned and petitioned God on many occasions and had my doubts as to why I have been in this place and always have received the same answer…”Trust in me always John and keep your eyes focused on me alone.”
I have tried to do that a lot of the time, sometimes though, not very well!!
What a furnace this has been for my family…poor Jo…what a time of refining…I could never, ever have thought that I would have done a fraction of the things that God has led me through in a lifetime, let alone in the last 7 years.
There’s something Biblical about 7 years though, isn’t there! This afternoon, I had the last of 5 meetings with a Christian businessman that I have been led to and have accepted a job with him…7 years after having been led to my prior job when I came out of Bible College…what a refining time this has been!!...God’s time, not mine!
God is so faithful!!
My point is, everyone…all of us here tonight, will be salted with fire at some time in our lives...you could be in the midst of this right now or have already been through a time of refining in the furnace!!
We’re in good company though aren’t we? Remember in the book of Daniel where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in the furnace and the Son of God was with them?
ILLUS: During hard times, though, we may feel overwhelmed with the fear that our faith is decomposing. Ronald Dunn, a Bible teacher who has experienced much personal tragedy, knows what we are going through. He writes, “I’m often mystified. I don’t understand why it is that as I endeavor to live for God and pray and believe, everything seems to be falling apart. Sometimes I struggle, and I say, ‘Dear Lord, why are You allowing this to happen?’” Dunn concludes, “It’s good for us to remember that God is not an arsonist; He’s a refiner.”
Remember that salt is a type of element that dissolves in water. When it dissolves, it grows weaker depending on the amount of water used to dissolve a certain amount of salt. When the amount of water exceeds the amount of salt used, that salt will grow weaker in its identity and loses its saltiness.
So what does this mean for us?
Well, Mark’s Gospel has been giving us excellent glimpses into the character of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
As we have read in Mark’s gospel, Jesus warns us as His disciples against the pitfalls of stumbling.
Jesus has, I believe, a two fold concern about stumbling.
He does not want any of His disciples to cause another Christian to stumble; but neither does He want any of His us to stumble in our personal walk of faith.
Jesus treats both matters very seriously.
In our day of prized individuality and an attitude of “it’s nobody’s business but mine”, or “it’s all about me” we tend to trip each other up in more ways than we know.
Stumbling blocks may be unkind or harsh words we speak, unchristian-like actions we may perform, and or rather questionable habits we cling to.
There are plenty of fruit-inspectors in the secular world who examine what the Christians are doing you know!! You know the sort of people?
Is there some stumbling block you have placed in another Christian’s pathway that the Holy Spirit is directing you to surrender to Jesus today?
Disciples are not to be stumbling blocks, but we are to be salt.
As we have read in Mark 9:50: “Salt is good, but if loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one each other”
Salt purifies, cleanses, and preserves from corruption, and Jesus wants to use us as His disciples as agents of purification if you like…cleansing and preserving the world in which we live and work.
God commands in Leviticus 2:13, “Season all your grain offerings with salt, to remind you of God’s covenant.”
As His disciples we remember His faithfulness to us just as the salt in sacrifices reminded Israel of His covenant and faithfulness to them.
Just as salt adds flavor to tasteless food, the Holy Spirit uses disciples of Jesus to influence this present, godless world through the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we both “talk the talk and walk the walk.”
ILLUS: Recently, a friend from South Africa explained to me that whenever a plant lives in an arid climate, the roots drive deeper and deeper into the soil to get the water they need. This forces the plant to develop a root system that is far beyond the normal plant because it is forced to go deeper to gain the water it needs. Sometimes God forces us to go deeper into the grace of His love in order to build a greater foundation in our own lives. These lean times are designed to accomplish this in us.
If you find yourself in this condition, ask the Lord who provides the water for our soul for the grace you need today to continue to bear fruit in the desert.
Salt prevents food from decaying, so as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must be agents of the Holy Spirit to reverse the moral decay in our society today.
Just as in Jesus’ words: “If salt loses its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?” or in His Sermon on the Mount where He said: "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"
Are you a stumbling block or salt in the hands of Jesus?
As you know, Jesus used parables to communicate principles of the Kingdom of God. He said each believer’s life should have the same impact on his or her world as salt has on food. Salt gives food flavor and brings out the best, while at the same time it serves as a preservative.
What allows a Christian to become salty?
Fire does.
God knows that each believer needs a degree of testing by fire in order for Christ’s fragrance to be manifested. We cannot become salty without this deeper work of the Holy Spirit’s fire in our lives. Fire purifies all that is not of Christ. It takes away all the impurities that prevent His nature from being revealed in us.
We are told in 1 Peter 1:6-7: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Are you a salty Christian or have you lost you head and think that the game is over?
If not, pray a prayer with me tonight that the immature are unwilling to pray. Pray that God makes you a salty Christian. It will result in praise and glory at the throne of God….in Jesus’ Name…AMEN!
