Kingdom Come: Salty Faith

My prayer for you is that we would remember all that God has done for us. That while we were still sinners, while we were still following our own path and seeking after the things of this world, he sent his son to die for us because that's how much he loves us. And then we think about all of the other things he's done along the way. I mean, many of you can talk about how God literally though you were a Christian and following him, he picked you up basically out of the grave and saved your life. He saved your marriage. He saved friendships. He provided for you when there was other way. He came through when no one else would. So because of the great love that he has for us, may that be the thing that fuels us, that fuels our love for you. [00:45:03] (51 seconds)  #rememberGodsGoodness

And sin, what Jesus is saying, he's magnifying the he's magnifying the seriousness of sin here for us. And he's saying, it's like a cancer inside your body that must be dealt with immediately. So if you have cancer, what happens? You go to the doctor, you find out immediately, all of the priorities in your life change, and your focus is getting that cancer out of your body as fast as possible. And what do we do? We do really radical things to deal with cancer. [00:31:49] (37 seconds)  #tackleSinLikeCancer

He's saying guard your witness. Guard your witness. We we the way in the way in which we live our lives is a direct reflection a reflection upon who Jesus is. Because you bear the name Christ, When you call yourself a Christian, you are identifying with him. And this is this is such a dangerous thing because you and I you and I have such a profound influence on others in our world, and when we bear the name Christ, we have the ability to influence them towards Christ or away from Christ. [00:25:07] (40 seconds)  #guardYourWitness

And our sin always leads to chaos. And where there is chaos, there cannot be peace. And by the way, that sin and that chaos separate us from God. So the solution then is Jesus. It is believing that he is who he says he was, that he died on the cross to pay for your sins and my sins, and the second part of that, that we often forget, is that we're going to follow him with our lives. And what does that mean? It means we wanna become more and more like Jesus. We wanna progressively, as we grow in our relationship with him, to become more like him, which means no sin. And we then we take out the chaos. [00:35:48] (46 seconds)  #JesusRemovesChaos

But that's not the case at all. Because if if we could do that, then we wouldn't need Jesus at all. The fact is we can't do that. And so, this is not a call to be better or to be more moral, but to guard your heart and stay salty, to live at peace. Because we need more peace. We need the kind of peace that that shalom, that that all encompassing peace that that covers all of our life that it really means wholeness. We need our lives to be made whole again. [00:42:31] (37 seconds)  #guardHeartFindShalom

Can I just tell you, hell is a real place? It is a very real place. And there's a lot of people in our society, there are people in other churches who will say, oh, well hell is not really hell. It's just it's a different place. Can I just tell you the Bible doesn't teach that at all? Like, teaches heaven and hell. And some of you may have grown up in maybe Catholicism or some other religion where there's like this in between, there's purgatory. Like, I'm sorry, that doesn't exist. [00:33:42] (34 seconds)  #hellIsRealTruth

Now, understand that sometimes we show up to church and we just need ministering too, but but the way that you show up to church matters. Like, if you show up grumpy and ticked off and don't wanna be here, like, you're liable to tick people off and ruin the mood of worship. But like, if you show up with a smile on your face thinking about, I'm not just here for me, but I'm also here to serve others, to encourage others, to pray for them, to be God's hands and feet and serve. [00:28:47] (28 seconds)  #showUpToServe

Now, before you get all freaked out, we're not literally talking about cutting off hands and feet. Okay? Otherwise, you would see a lot of us who had already had members detached. Okay? We're not talking about that. But what are we talking about? To rightly understand this passage, we have to rewind a little bit to a passage we talked about a few weeks ago in Mark chapter seven. And there, Jesus and his disciples are having a discussion with the religious leaders, and the religious leaders said, why don't you all follow the customs of the elders of the day? [00:30:25] (34 seconds)  #understandMark7Context