Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see all of you here. This morning we're continuing our series entitled Kingdom Living. And we're going through the three chapters that we find in Matthew, chapter five through seven in a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount. And many have described the Sermon on the Mount as the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived.

And certainly I agree with this. And you might consider these three little chapters as the concise summary of what it looks like for Kingdom citizens to live as Christians in this world. And so it's an important message that we're studying together.

It was first called the Sermon on the Mount by Augustine of Hippo, who noted the description in Matthew 1:1, which reads like this: “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth to teach.” And so you'll notice that he was on a mountain. And so the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount is just on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. And so we will see in this photo that we've taken several tours of Israel, taken many of you with us to Israel.

And this is the location, the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount. You'll notice the kind of natural amphitheater shape of this area where the people would be able to be seated and they would be able to see Jesus, who…the Mount is right up here. And they would be all along this area, and it was like a natural amphitheater where they could hear and see Jesus.

And because the Mother of Constantine was building churches on every site, really. And if you visit Israel, you'll see a church built on every site, just about that you find in the Bible. And she had a church built there. If you go today, it's been rebuilt because I think the original one was destroyed by fire. But it's the Church of the Beatitudes, a beautiful church, and it's built on the traditional location where Jesus preached.

It's important that we ask these kinds of questions when we're studying God's Word, like, where did this happen? How did this happen? What are the details? So I think it's always important. The Bible is about real people that took place in real history, in real places.

And so that's the reason we refer to these things now. We call it living as God's people Today, as we're looking at our message today, it reminds me of what Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson writes. He says the sermon is a description of the lifestyle of those who belong to the kingdom. So this is not, this sermon is not how to become a Christian, because we can't, by living this way, somehow earn it. Because it's impossible to live it out by earning it.

Jesus is the only one who has lived it perfectly. And so it's instead a description of those who have humbly come to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They've counted him king of their life, they've submitted their life to Him. And this is what it looks like to live as those who have Christ living in them. And so that's really what this sermon is about.

That's why we call it Kingdom living. And we've been giving out books to those of you who came in today. I hope you picked up a copy as you were coming in. We printed this little booklet up as a place where you could save all your notes during this 16 week series. We did write an introduction at the beginning to help you go deeper in your study.

So I hope you'll take advantage of that. Now, last week we studied the first 12 verses of Matthew 5, and we studied what traditionally has been called the Beatitudes, the eight blessings that Jesus opens up with. And my friend Dr. Danny Akin rightly says that today's message flows naturally out of the Beatitudes. And so those of us that are Kingdom citizens who live under the blessing of God, under a state of joyful contentment and favor from God, those of us like that now are to follow this instruction of what he says today.

If you kind of think about the Beatitudes as inward character traits, meek, peacemaker, hungry for and thirsting for righteousness, these are kind of inner Christian character traits. Now we move into, he says, you are the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world, which is more outward. This is, this is living for Christ out loud in the public sphere. And I wonder today, do you struggle with that?

Do you struggle with how to live your faith in front of others publicly? Do you struggle with that? Indeed, today we'll often hear someone say, you know, I just think that religion's a personal matter. We should keep that to ourselves. That's not for polite conversation with other people.

And so we're encouraged by people of that way of thinking to keep it to ourselves. Indeed, many have tried to remove all vestiges of Christianity from the public sphere, somehow thinking that we don't need to be talking about our faith there. And this has caused Christians more and more, I think, to be silent and to kind of live a dual lifestyle. Just see if this sounds familiar. So you live one way at church.

Oh, yeah. Glory hallelujah. We're singing, we're happy, we're studying God's Word. And then you go to work tomorrow and you live a different way, you speak a different way. And so you got one version of yourself that goes to church and believes in God and another version of yourself that goes to school as a student or as a teacher or you go to work or with your neighbors.

And so there's a version of yourself that goes to your small group during the week and studies and prays together. And another version that you take shopping to Walmart. And so there's kind of a schism between your two selves like that. But Jesus has something to say about that. I think he really wants us to live whole one life the same on the inside as we are on the outside living for him.

Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't you like to live like that? That's what we're talking about today. I wonder what Jesus has to say about this, because he has something to say. Are you ready to hear it?

Today, as we look at Matthew, chapter three, Jesus used two powerful metaphors, the metaphor of salt and of light, to describe and to call his disciples to faithfully witness to his transforming power as kingdom people. And I believe we can live as kingdom people in such a way that our lives become an outward witness to the world. How can we do this? Well, the text gives us two ways that we can faithfully live as Christ's kingdom people. So let's dig in.

Matthew, chapter 5, starting at verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand. And it gives light to all in the house in the same way. Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. This is God's word.

Amen. We're looking for two ways to live faithfully as kingdom citizens, as Christ's kingdom people. Here's the first way. Be salt. Be salt.

Portray the gospel to a world in decay. Be salt. Jesus described his disciples, those that he had declared this blessing over, with two rich and powerful metaphors, salt and light. I'm thankful to Danny Akin's commentary as I was Developing this message for some thoughts about how to develop it. Here's what he writes about this sermon.

He says, those who love and follow King Jesus are the only real salt this world will ever taste and the only authentic light it will ever see. Jesus words in these verses take it as an undeniable truth that we live in a decadent, decaying, dark world. Where there is decay, we need salt. Where there is darkness, we need light. We, the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, are God's plan to stop death and stamp out darkness.

This plan finds its crescendo in the last words of the last chapter in this Gospel with what we call the Great Commission. To the nations we go as salt and light. That's what I was thinking about when I was writing this message. I was thinking, you know, most weeks, and some of y'all know my habit, I tend to find three points. It's about the amount of information I could share in a 40 minute interval.

But as I was looking at this, it had to be two because you got to let the text speak for itself. And Jesus makes two points, doesn't he? It's very clear. And then for thinking about it, I was thinking, well, I have to decode these metaphors. What does it mean to be salt?

Do you need to get inside of a salt shaker? No, what does it mean? And so we have to think this out a little bit. We have to unpack what Jesus means here. First, I would point out to you the kind of intensity and emphasis that Jesus puts here in the Sermon on the Mount.

He'd been going, blessed are the meek, for theirs they will inherit the earth. Blessed are like that. And he was going, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But then as he was getting towards the end of those 12 verses, he goes, blessed are you when you are persecuted. Remember when he switched like that, he started pointing at people and saying, you.

Well, he's continuing it right here. Except now he does what in the Greek they call the emphatic use of the word you. You might be going, what do you mean by that, Gary? In other words, if we could literally see what the Greek says under here, it would be. It would sound like this, you, you are the salt of the earth.

It would emphasize you like that. He doesn't say, you will be the salt of the earth. Like, you know, when you get to heaven or something, or, or after you grow up more. He says, you are. He doesn't say, you should be the salt of the earth.

Like it's something to Work on. No, he says, you, you, you, you are the salt of the earth. This is familiar language for those of us who have studied the Gospel of John because Jesus described himself this way. There are seven I am statements in the book of John. He says things like this.

I, I am. It's the emphatic use of I in that case. I am the bread of life. I, I am the light of the world. I, I am the resurrection and the life.

These are the statements. He has seven of them in the book of John. So. So, but now he does something that surprises us and he says, you, you are salt of the earth, as if it is a present condition already true in you, because Christ lives in you. So let's think about this for a second.

Salt of the earth. We use that phrase today. We learned it from Jesus. That's the origin of the phrase. Except today when we say it, we say something like, my grandparents, they're the salt of the earth.

And what we mean by that is they probably work on a farm, they're hard working, they're humble, blue collar, probably honest. Those are the kind of things that we say when we say somebody's the salt of the earth. But Jesus means so much more than that. To understand what salt means, we have to really see how salt is used in the scripture. In ancient days, they had no refrigeration in order to keep meat from decaying, from going bad.

Salt was a very needed and essential ingredient for preserving food. After all, who doesn't like country ham, right? And so you have to have salt. I don't like it. It's too salty.

Somebody said, okay, but most people like it, you know? And so this idea of salt is a preservative to keep things from decaying. That's one use you'll see in scripture during ancient times. Another use you'll is it had healing properties. Healing properties.

In fact, when a baby was born, a newborn baby, they would rub its body with salt, and it had a healing property. If you ever go to the beach and maybe you got some, you know, some cuticles not looking so good, you spend a couple of days at the beach in the salt water and you go, wow, my fingers look a lot better. There's something about salt water that has a healing kind of. And by the way, things just tend to taste better when you put a little salt on it, right? It has a.

It enhances flavor. I could go on, by the way. I don't want to keep going. And some of you should go ahead and say, pray for the Pastor, he's going to talk about salt for the whole sermon if you don't watch out. Because I've become somewhat of an expert on this topic.

I have read too much about salt. I have studied this too much. There are over 14,000 uses for salt. Salt. It's amazing how many things.

Salt is an essential to life. In fact, one of you, and I won't name her name, but she heard me talking about salt a couple of years ago, and she thought, I need to add to the problem. And she gave me a book, told me a book, it's the history of salt. And I was like, I need that book. So I read that book on the history of salt.

Did you know the source of the word salary is salt? They paid the Roman soldiers instead of in coin. They often paid them in salt. And that's where we get the word salary. I could go on.

I could just wear you out with how much I've studied on salt. This is a rich word. Jesus says, you're the salt. It's expensive. You ever seen or heard someone say that, Fellas?

Not worth his salt. That means he's worthless. He's not working hard to earn his salt like that. I could go on. I need to stop, don't I?

What does he mean, you are the salt of the earth? Well, there's places in the Bible where we see that salt was added to the sacrifice. So it has something to do with the sacrificial system. We see the word of God describe salt as connected to an everlasting covenant. And so that when God speaks to Israel, he says, I have a covenant of salt with you, Israel.

I will not go back on my word. He says to David, I have a covenant of salt with David and your sons, that you'll always have a son that sits on my throne. And so it has to do with everlasting covenant. I mean, I could just keep going. I need to probably stop.

One more thing I was thinking of about salt, though. Did you know on the Sabbath, which begins at 6pm on Friday and ends at 6pm on Saturday, in Jewish homes, they take bread and they dip it in salt as a reminder of the everlasting covenant they have with the Torah. That means salt's a pretty important metaphor. We probably need to stop talking about it now, though. Preservative, flavor, essential.

Okay, let's unpack that. But then he says, if salt loses its taste. So he seems to be really leaning into the flavor aspect there, wouldn't you agree? If salt lose its taste, then how shall it its saltiness be restored. It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

If you're the salt of the world, of the earth, if you're supposed to taste and add flavor and a preserving aspect of righteousness in this world, where the world doesn't have because the world's dying, if you're supposed to be the lifestyle, but you're not living it out, then your, your witness is useless. You're not being Kingdom citizens. You're not living out who you are. It's almost like he describes it in an absurd way, like, if salt loses its taste, how shall it, its saltiness be restored? Now I need to say something else about salt.

Salt is a stable mineral. It, it tastes salty, it won't break down, it won't stop tasting salty. Now it is water soluble. And so that if you have, if you add water to it, it goes into the water. But then if you put sunlight on it or heat, the water dissipates, the salt is back.

And if you taste it, it's salty again. So what is he talking about? So I tried to think, okay, here's one possibility. Go ahead and put this photo up. I've got this big hunk of salt from the Dead Sea in my office.

I tell the kids when they come in there, would you like to see part of Lot's wife? And they'll go, oh, no, I got this from the Dead Sea. And so it's a big old hunk of salt. But the thing about it is, this is probably the primary location that the Israelites got salt was from Dead Sea. It's one of the greatest deposits of salt anywhere in the world.

And so. But the thing is, it has a lot of impurities in it, you know, and so they didn't have refineries in those days. And so it would have a mixture. So if it got wet, the real sodium chloride, right? NaCl for you students that are studying chemistry.

It leeches out and goes into the water, and then all that's left is this tasteless group of minerals that are not salt and they don't taste salty. So that's one possibility that Jesus was talking about. When, when the, when the saltiness leeches out, you can't make it salty again. The other possibility, though, is true salt will always taste salty. And to even imagine it not being salty is absurd.

I could take it either way. I could. I think when we look at the next one, we'll see another kind of unbelievable absurdity. That light could somehow be hidden. Why would it do that?

But let's stay on salt a little longer. Here's something that Paul says to the church at Colossae about being salty. He says, walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Let your speech, especially with outsiders who are outsiders outside the faith.

Let your speech have the flavor of salt. So what's that? The flavor of Jesus? The flavor of being a kingdom citizen so that your lifestyle leaks. Jesus.

Just the character traits of how you live and the decisions you make. Jesus in the Book of Mark is talking about the same topic here. He says, salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another. And he seems to be connecting one of the character traits from the Beatitudes and saying peacemakers and being reconciled to one another.

Another is connected to salty living, to living in such a way that people get a taste of the kingdom by observing your life, that your life portrays by your character, the way you respond to life's storms and difficulties so that people look at you and go. You seem to always have a smile on your face. You seem to always be hopeful. I really admire the way you're raising your children. The way you talk about your spouse is so loving.

And they come to you and at first, maybe, maybe because of your salty way of life, they're offended by your righteousness. As soon as one of them gets in a little bit of trouble, instead of going to their own friends, they'll come to you and they'll go, why are you like that? Can you tell me what you know to live as salt? Not that you should live as salt, not that someday you will. Jesus says, you already are if you have me in you.

So let me be the mark of your life. The character traits of Jesus. Now I want to talk about salt like this. Salt is not sweet, but it is good. Okay?

Salt is not sweet. Now you can live without sugar. You think you can't, but you can live without sugar. It's not an essential to life. In fact, I did some research on this topic and you don't have to have sugar in your diet.

In order to have sugar, your body will make its own sugar. Guess where it gets it? It makes glucose by burning fat cells. This seems like a win win to me. So sugar as a dietary supplement is not a necessity.

However, salt is A necessity for life. Your body has to have it. It can't make its own. It's necessary. Salt is an essential nutrient.

A complete lack of salt could cause you to die. You need salt. It's an essential. You have to have it. And salt, as the church is salty in a city is an essential to the health of a city.

Do you know that? Think about this story back in the book of Genesis where the Lord came and talked to Abram and he said, abram, I'm about to go down into Sodom and Gomorrah and judge. Sodom and Gomorrah. You remember the story in the book of Genesis? And Abram goes, hey, wait a minute.

My nephew Lot and his wife and daughters, they live down there. Lord, you're. You're a righteous judge for 50s sake. If there were 50 righteous people down there, would you still judge Sodom and Gomorrah? He goes, no, not for 50 sake.

For 50 sake, I would preserve Sodom and Gomorrah. I wouldn't judge. And Abram goes, lord, what about for 40 sake? For 40 sake, I'll not judge it. Lord, don't get.

I'm sorry to keep interrupting you, but for 30's sake. For 30's sake, I would not. He gets him all the way down to 10. Lord, please forgive me. I just got to say, if you find 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, would you.

Would you hold back your judgment? He goes, For 10 sake, I'll not judge it. He couldn't find 10. But here's a principle I want to draw out from that. If he could have found 10, they would have had a preserving saltiness.

They would have had a witness in that place where God would still be waiting to see how many people would come to him. I think that's what our church is supposed to be in this city. And not just our church, but all the churches in this city that are preaching the gospel of Jesus. We're to have a preserving, portraying the love of Jesus, the salt of Jesus to this city, and to be real with people about what that means. Martin Luther emphasized that when we witness that denunciation and proclamation go hand in hand by denunciation.

He says this about salt. He says, salt has a bite.

It's not sweet, it's salty. And so to live salty, your righteousness itself, by your very righteousness, will offend people because they will call you Goody two shoes. They'll call you. Well, you know, they'll look down. I've mentioned this last week when I was witnessing in my dormitory when I was in college.

They, some of the guys started calling me Billy Graham, making fun of me. And I was like, I like Billy Graham. And that's not really persecution so much, is it just them. You won't get invited to all the cool parties. You might not get that promotion at work.

You actually might not make an A. Instead you'll make a B in some class in school because your teacher doesn't like the way you live. It might cost you something to be salty, but salt has a bite. But I think the way I'm talking about this maybe is best Described by Ephesians 4:15, where it says, speak the truth in love. It's the right mixture.

To live in a salty way means to live in a truthful way with people, but not forgetting to be loving like that. You are the salt of the earth. You who? You. You are the salt of the earth.

Ask yourself, are you being salt in your relationships? Are you being salt in the situations around you at work and at school, in your neighborhood? Are you standing firm for truth in places that others are compromising? When we embrace our identity as salt, we stop passively watching the world go by. We stop passively watching the world decay and run down.

We start caring about being part of God's redemptive work. Our lives are to portray the life giving gospel to a world in decay. Here's the second word that Jesus gives to us today. Be light. Be light.

Be salt. You are the salt. Then he says, you, you are the light of the world. Be light. Now light.

How is it different than salt? We said salt preserves. Salt adds flavor. Salt has healing properties. And we didn't go into all 14,000, but we touched on a few more.

What about light? Well, light reveals. Salt preserves and adds flavor. But light reveals and shows forth truth. Light causes people in darkness to be able to see.

It causes blind people to be able to open their eyes. That's light. We see the word light four times in our final verses here 14 through 16. It's in each of the verses 14, 15 and 16 to light a light. The word in the Greek is phos, P H O S.

If you are taking notes, it's where we get the word phosphorus and, and other kinds of photosynthesis and a lot of other English words. Foss is like. Interestingly enough, one of the words here is really a great Greek word. Maybe you'll recognize it. It's in verse 15.

Nor do people light a lampos. That one's pretty easy to access. Kind of easy. Nor do people light a lamp and then put it under a basket. And so we see here he says, you, you are the light of the world.

Remember what I talked about earlier from the book of John, that in the book of John, he used the emphatic use of I, I, I am. And he says, the light of the world in John 8:12. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. How remarkable, how stunning is the declaration that the one who says, I am the light of the world would then turn to you and I and say, you, you are the light of the world. How's this possible?

It's only possible if the light of the world, by his Spirit, lives inside of you. Then you become one who reflects his light into a darkened world. That's how it's possible. Jesus has ascended back to the right hand of the Father. His plan for those that are walking in darkness today is that you and I, as witnesses, would bear this light.

So if being salty has to do with portraying and putting on display the character traits of a kingdom citizen, then being light has to do with proclaiming what it means to be a kingdom citizen, to bring people into the light. He says this, talking about this, a city on a hill cannot be hidden. Perhaps he was thinking of the city of Jerusalem, which is up on the Temple Mount. And from any direction that you're coming to Jerusalem, you have to go uphill to get there. Especially if you're coming from Jericho, it's uphill all the way up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

And so if you look at the Temple Mount during those days, everything was made with this white stone, this white marble. And so no matter the time of day, there was kind of a glow to it. Perhaps this is what he had in mind when he was saying, a city on a hill cannot be hidden. We're to be like that. The church is to be like that.

Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. The word basket there has to do with a measuring basket. Some call it a bushel basket. And the King James, I think, actually translated a bushel like that. And so, like, how absurd.

So it's dark in your house, so you take the time to put some oil in your lamp and you light it, and then you go and then put a bushel basket over it. That's absurd. Why would you do that? What use would light be? It would be useless.

Why would you do that? That's what he says. He goes, it's supposed to be something that you Actually, instead of covering it up, you're supposed to put it on a stand. Like, put it up high so it lights up the whole house so that it gives light to all the house. How much light do you need before darkness begins to disappear?

Just one light. Just one candle. Just one little light. One little lamp. Let's see if any of y'all went to Sunday school growing up.

This little light of mine.

All right, kids, hide it under a. No, I'm gonna let it shine. Yeah. It's not just a kid's song. It's not just a kid's song.

We're supposed to let our light shine. He says it's ridiculous that you would put it under a basket. No, put it on a stand. And then he says in verse 16, in the same way, let your light shine before others. When he says others, he means those outside of the kingdom of God.

Because the only salt in this world, the only light in this world for people outside the kingdom is you. God doesn't have a plan B. The church is plan A. It's the only plan he has. And he says that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

The church is us. The church is you and I, with Christ in us. And he says, you're the salt. You're the light. And in this dark world, we are to be the source of.

Of revelation about the gospel. And what happens when we do that? It says, in the same way, your light will shine before others. So that. That's a purpose clause.

It's telling you the purpose. They'll see what you do, your good works, and instead of giving you credit for it because it's so otherworldly, they'll give glory to God. And so then you become what he meant for you to be from creation, the imago dei, the image of God reflecting the glory of God to a dark world. Because the light you shine doesn't come from you. You're a reflection of his light to a dark world, and it causes people to glorify God.

And so Jesus says in Mark 16, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Go and be a light to the world. In the book of Philippians, Paul describes it like this. He says, do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless, innocent children of God without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. So in this dark world, this twisted world, this decaying world, instead of going around grumbling and complaining with the rest of the world.

Shine like lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Now, in the field of physics, the science of physics, we recognize and we learn that darkness is not a force. Darkness, in fact, is the absence of a force. It's the absence of light. Light, on the other hand, has measurable properties.

For instance, you can measure its speed. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. You can measure it. When you turn on a light, you don't have to watch your clock to see how long it's going to take for the room to brighten. No, it's.

It seems instantaneous. And you don't have to watch it move, like, okay, you turn on the light and you go watching the light. No, it's instantaneous. Darkness is the absence of light. Light has its own properties.

The minute a light is turned on, darkness vanishes instantly because darkness cannot resist light. And Jesus says, you, you, you, you.

You're the light of the world. And may I say it another way, the world has no other light but you. Because Jesus has chosen you, his church, to be the light of the world. And the world will remain in darkness without you being the light. So why would you possibly even consider hiding the light of Jesus which lives in you?

It's important because this world is spiritually in darkness. But we are the light of the world. Are you letting the light of Jesus shine from you? Are you the same everywhere you go? The same person you take to church?

Is that the person you take to work, the person you take to school, so that you've got this wholeness? I mean, that with a wh. There's holiness which is set apart, but a wholeness to you, that you're the same person willing to talk about Jesus anywhere you are. In fact, it's on the tip of your tongue. And does your life match up with your story?

In other words, does your walk and your talk line up, the walk being the salt and the talk being the light? Because your walk and your talk are to look like Jesus in this world. For he is the head and we are the body. And in this world, the hands of Jesus are ours. We have the hands.

The feet of Jesus that carries the gospel to the nations are our feet. The voice of Christ is our voice. We're to say to ourselves, you are the salt. You are the light. Our lives are to be a living proclamation of the Gospel to a world in darkness.

Jesus calls us to live as kingdom people by being salt and light in this world. We are to portray the gospel of salt in a decaying world of light in a dark world. We are to reflect his glory so that God gets all the glory for how we live. Let's pray.

Lord, I first of all want to pray for that person who's never come into the kingdom. They've never come into the kingdom of God. There is an entry point that's a narrow door. Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth. I am the life.

No one comes to the Father except by me. Jesus tells us he's the door. He says, I am the door.

Have you ever come through the door? Have you ever said yes to Jesus? If that's you, my friend, you're seated here in this room or in the next room. Maybe you're watching online. The Lord is listening.

You can ask him to come into your life. You can profess his name right now by praying to him. Pray like this. Pray with me right where you are. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.

I've been living in darkness.

But I repent of my sin and I turn my life over to you. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, that you were raised from the grave and that you live today. Come and live in me. I invite you to be my king. I want you to be my king and my Lord and my Savior.

I pray that you would adopt me into your family. I want to be a citizen of the kingdom, a child of God. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing he will save you, others are here and you're a believer. You're a follower of Jesus. But have you lost your saltiness?

Have you been hiding your light?

Oh, Lord, we repent of that right now. Help us to be the same everywhere we go so that we live as salt and light in this decaying and dark world. In Jesus name, amen.