Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about living in such a way that people can see what God is like.
Speaker 1: Have you ever done something wrong?
Speaker 1: Though you were meaning to do it right, it actually did damage because of the way you did it.
Speaker 1: When I was a very young pastor, a woman came to me and she was concerned.
Speaker 1: Her daughter was getting married and she was like I don't know about this guy.
Speaker 1: Now, this guy was a Christian.
Speaker 1: I knew them a little and I said to her I don't think it's a problem.
Speaker 1: You know what's the big deal?
Speaker 1: It seems like you know it's better, as the Bible says, to marry than to burn, so why don't you?
Speaker 1: Just I mean, it sounds good to me.
Speaker 1: And guys, I regret speaking so fast because for years after that, though they were both Christians, they had incredible tension and that mom was coming to me to ask my opinion Now I don't know that they wouldn't have gotten married anyway.
Speaker 1: But what did I do?
Speaker 1: I was trying to be helpful but I ended up not, at least not being as helpful as I might've been, because I was just moving too fast.
Speaker 1: You ever done that.
Speaker 1: You ever try to do something good and you end up doing something bad.
Speaker 1: Maybe for some.
Speaker 1: You know you were trying to demonstrate your own independence with parents but you broke trust a little bit because you were trying so hard and that created distance.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're one who you're really trying to work, you're trying to bring it home for the family, but because you're working so much, you're actually neglecting family and it's turning out bad and resentment is beginning to build.
Speaker 1: What about some parents and parents?
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to diss you, but some parents you so want to control every little thing that your kid does, that even as they grow, you're trying to shape every environment, every decision and what happens is you actually hold them back and they underdevelop their responsibility and you wanted to help, but you ended up hurting a little bit.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever done that?
Speaker 1: I know I have Some couples.
Speaker 1: You know what this is like.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a couple, but it's especially hard in marriage.
Speaker 1: You want to not bring conflict into the situation, and so you just zip it and what you do is you sweep it under the rug.
Speaker 1: The problem is, everything stays under the rug.
Speaker 1: The rug doesn't magically make it go somewhere, it just piles up under the rug and then at some point there is an explosion because you've dealt with it for so long and all the stuff comes out at the same time.
Speaker 1: You wanted to be helpful by not engaging in conflict, but actually that potentially made it worse.
Speaker 1: We all know what that's like.
Speaker 1: We're in this series called the applause of heaven We've been going through so far.
Speaker 1: The first part of the sermon on the mount.
Speaker 1: This was the beatitudes.
Speaker 1: Remember what the beatitudes are?
Speaker 1: These are truth statements where Jesus is saying this is what it's like for those who are going to live in proximity to Yahweh.
Speaker 1: If they're going to get to know him and develop his heart more and more, they're actually going to start acting more and more like Jesus.
Speaker 1: They're going to be merciful when they're tempted to not be.
Speaker 1: They're going to be courageous and confident in God when they're tempted to not be.
Speaker 1: They're going to try to bring peace.
Speaker 1: Where there's already division forming.
Speaker 1: They're going to be meek when everyone else would try to weigh in very heavy-handed.
Speaker 1: They're going to be very different, and we talked about last week.
Speaker 1: If you are going to be very different, you're going to experience ridicule and rejection.
Speaker 1: If you keep doing this thing, where you're getting closer to Jesus, you're going to start acting more like him and it just comes with a little bit of antagonism.
Speaker 1: Now, being like Jesus man, that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Jesus is said to be the very image of the invisible God.
Speaker 1: It says in Colossians 1.15,.
Speaker 1: The son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Speaker 1: What is this image of God thing?
Speaker 1: There's a theologian named Athanasius in the fourth century.
Speaker 1: He had a great way of explaining how to understand Jesus as the image of God.
Speaker 1: He said when Adam was made, he was said to be this he's made in God's image and it's kind of like a portrait was made of Adam and a portrait of Adam was really, in some ways, a portrait of God.
Speaker 1: You know what God is like because Adam was made of Adam and a portrait of Adam was really, in some ways, a portrait of God.
Speaker 1: You know what God is like because Adam was made in his image.
Speaker 1: But then the fall happened.
Speaker 1: And when the fall happened, human nature fell and got corrupted and corroded and Adam became something that he wasn't at all.
Speaker 1: He became vicious, he became angry, he became adulterous, he became murderous, he became all these things, and it marred the image of God.
Speaker 1: In fact, it marred it so much that nobody remembers what the original image looked like.
Speaker 1: The painting got so strange that everyone would try and they'd try to like, invent different religions.
Speaker 1: Let's try to get back to what the original image looked like.
Speaker 1: But nobody knew what it looked like.
Speaker 1: And so they try, and they try, and they try really hard.
Speaker 1: They'd have rules and they'd try, but no one could get back there.
Speaker 1: Until one day God said I'll tell you what I need to do.
Speaker 1: I need to send my son.
Speaker 1: He is the image of God and he will show everybody.
Speaker 1: This is what God is like.
Speaker 1: You've lost the image.
Speaker 1: Here it is again.
Speaker 1: It's in the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: When we see the image of the invisible God in Jesus Christ, now we understand what God is trying to say.
Speaker 1: And now we understand this is what we're trying to, with his help, be conformed to.
Speaker 1: This is what we're supposed to be like this is the man who always loved the Lord as God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength.
Speaker 1: He always loved his neighbor as himself.
Speaker 1: He's the one doing it right.
Speaker 1: That's the one we're supposed to be synchronizing to Now.
Speaker 1: When we're synchronizing to Jesus, not everybody likes it and sometimes we're tempted to hide.
Speaker 1: Nicodemus was actually a good example of this.
Speaker 1: Some of you remember Nicodemus.
Speaker 1: He was a Pharisee, he was one of the leading people, and he was also a little bit embarrassed or ashamed of Jesus or something, because he went to meet him at night.
Speaker 1: He wanted to like kind of get near Jesus, but it was too costly to come out in public and be understood as one of the disciples of Jesus, and so he kind of hid away until Jesus had already been murdered on the cross, and then he finally started to help out a little bit.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been like Nicodemus, where you want to be Jesus's person, but you don't want anyone to necessarily, you don't want to flaunt it, you don't want to create any waves, you don't want anyone to know.
Speaker 1: That's one temptation that comes along with knowing Jesus, as you might be tempted to veil it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But there's another temptation, and we see this in the ruling class, the Pharisees.
Speaker 1: They were the ruling party and just so we know.
Speaker 1: Not every Pharisee was bad.
Speaker 1: There were certainly some good Pharisees.
Speaker 1: But when the Bible, primarily the New Testament, is referring to Pharisees, it's talking about the folks who were in charge and they were doing all the things wrong.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to be like the religious go-betweens, but they were giving an image of God that was not correct and it created very negative culture for the people of the time, the people listening to the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: They've had some really not healthy spiritual models.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever had something like that.
Speaker 1: You've been in an environment you're like I don't know that.
Speaker 1: This is the image, I don't know that this is what I'm supposed to be synchronizing to.
Speaker 1: So maybe you experienced something like these early listeners of the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: Maybe what they experienced listeners of the Sermon on the Mount, what they experienced they probably experienced the fruit of the Pharisees being so meticulous about the law that they forgot the people that the law was training them to love.
Speaker 1: They were so involved in the details that they missed the heart of compassion that God was trying to create and they would get hung up on little things and they'd miss giant things.
Speaker 1: They were so desiring to separate.
Speaker 1: They wanted okay, the goodies are over here.
Speaker 1: We're the goodies and those are the baddies.
Speaker 1: These are the pure ones and those are the not pure ones.
Speaker 1: And it created a culture of division where half the people walk around feeling like I'm just not enough and the others walk around feeling like they're super awesome and important.
Speaker 1: And they really focused on exteriors instead of interiors and they made everybody afraid, because if you step out of bounds, we're going to point it out and it's creating distance from God rather than closeness to God.
Speaker 1: They were trying to do something good, but it ended up being bad.
Speaker 1: Some of you might've had spiritual models who, many of them maybe, were trying to do something good.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was just what they were modeled and so they were just doing what they saw to do.
Speaker 1: But whatever it was, it created a culture that you began to suspect and you're like I don't know that this is right.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're supposed to be divided like this.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're supposed to be angry at everybody out there.
Speaker 1: I wonder if I'm not supposed to be afraid of them.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're supposed to all like, feel like family, and maybe this is supposed to be closing the distance between us and God instead of creating distance.
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, that's what they were like, and so the question for them and us becomes what are the characteristics of the kingdom subjects, and how do we do that differently than the ruling class Pharisees did it?
Speaker 1: How do we buck our models and do it in a different way that actually does begin to image the son of God again?
Speaker 1: Jesus has got our answer.
Speaker 1: It's right here, in verse 13 of chapter five.
Speaker 1: You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again?
Speaker 1: It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Speaker 1: You are the light of the world.
Speaker 1: A city on a hill can't be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but put it on a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house.
Speaker 1: Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, who is in heaven.
Speaker 1: Do not think I came to abolish the law and the prophets.
Speaker 1: I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
Speaker 1: Jesus says hey, just in case there's questions about this, I'm not getting rid of the law.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm fulfilling it.
Speaker 1: For, truly, I said to you until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law.
Speaker 1: Until it's all accomplished, whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments he's talking to the Pharisees and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1: But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1: For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: And we've mentioned before this had to make every heart out on the mount sink because they're like these are our best guys, these are the all-stars, and we have to be better than them.
Speaker 1: I can't even be them.
Speaker 1: And yet Jesus is showing a different way, a way that isn't by the way the Pharisees do it with laws.
Speaker 1: He's doing it with grace, and he says he fulfills, he fulfills it.
Speaker 1: I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, on one level, it means Jesus obeyed in every way that we disobeyed.
Speaker 1: So he was the perfect image of God and instead of doing all the things wrong that marred up the portrait, he did everything right and he gave it to us.
Speaker 1: But there's something else that he did.
Speaker 1: He made sense of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1: He said all these laws, all the things the prophets were saying.
Speaker 1: That was actually about me, in fact.
Speaker 1: Once he was resurrected, he appeared to some disciples who were walking on the road to Emmaus and they didn't know that it was him.
Speaker 1: He was kind of veiling himself at first and this is what he said to them they're kind of depressed because they're like man, you know the Messiah.
Speaker 1: We thought it was him and now they put Jesus to death.
Speaker 1: It's really kind of sad.
Speaker 1: And he says this in Luke 24, how foolish you are and slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
Speaker 1: Suffer these things and enter his glory.
Speaker 1: And, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that's got to be the most awesome Bible study in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: Jesus is taking these guys line by line.
Speaker 1: This is about me, this is about me.
Speaker 1: Do you not see?
Speaker 1: This is all about me.
Speaker 1: It had to happen this way.
Speaker 1: It was already foretold it would happen this way.
Speaker 1: Jesus says this was all about me and I'm bringing the resolution to the cord.
Speaker 1: Everyone was wondering when it's finally going to be okay.
Speaker 1: I make it okay.
Speaker 1: I'm the one who obeys all the laws and explains to you the way God really is.
Speaker 1: And see, once these people got this, once these people listening to the sermon, once they can get this, they get free.
Speaker 1: See, now, unlike their instructors and the people that were modeling for them, now they don't have to be preoccupied with getting every little thing right.
Speaker 1: They don't have to be preoccupied with creating divisions between people because some are better than others.
Speaker 1: They don't have to be preoccupied with their moral record, because Jesus Christ has already solved that problem and fulfilled the law on their behalf.
Speaker 1: They don't need to go back and now fill up something with regard to the law.
Speaker 1: That's empty.
Speaker 1: Jesus already did the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Now you can just walk as someone who is forgiven.
Speaker 1: You're just forgiven now.
Speaker 1: If you've trusted Jesus Christ, you are just forgiven.
Speaker 1: You're just forgiven now.
Speaker 1: You're just.
Speaker 1: If you've trusted Jesus Christ, you are just forgiven.
Speaker 1: That's your identity.
Speaker 1: You don't need to keep going back to the law and and I got to do this so that God's finally pleased with me I got to be like those spiritual leaders over there, maybe, or someone else that was really impactful to me.
Speaker 1: No, you do not Stop.
Speaker 1: You need to go directly to the throne of Jesus and say I accept your gift of perfection.
Speaker 1: I am now viewed by God as having obeyed just like Jesus, and I just receive it.
Speaker 1: And that makes everybody, even Everyone's, even Everyone's level, at the foot of the cross.
Speaker 1: Everybody's now forgiven, not to mention, I mean, jesus has already told these people did you see this External righteousness, like the righteousness that the Pharisees have?
Speaker 1: That doesn't even help you.
Speaker 1: So even if, like you're the dope jam in that, even if you're doing it great, he says in verse 20, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1: It's not helping you to work so hard and your example doesn't help anybody else.
Speaker 1: So why don't you just stop it?
Speaker 1: Why don't you just let that go?
Speaker 1: Why don't you let Jesus be enough?
Speaker 1: Because there's another way.
Speaker 1: There's a non-law way, and it's Romans 8.1.
Speaker 1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ.
Speaker 1: As we decide.
Speaker 1: I'm not going by law, I'm going by grace.
Speaker 1: I'm becoming Jesus's little woman, I'm becoming Jesus's little man.
Speaker 1: Paul said in Romans, chapter 10, for Jesus Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes.
Speaker 1: If you're going to go the law way, baby, you got to obey the whole thing perfectly and sorry, you're already disqualified.
Speaker 1: So let's just go the Jesus way.
Speaker 1: Somebody say Jesus way, say Carter.
Speaker 1: But the thing is I can tell I'm actually better than people.
Speaker 1: I can tell See, doesn't that count for anything?
Speaker 1: I'm better than some of these other people Like I know that they're okay, but I'm way better than so-and-so.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's people somewhere better than me.
Speaker 1: But I know the people around me and I can't help but notice that I'm just.
Speaker 1: I'm more loving, I'm more obedient, I'm more walking in the fear of God.
Speaker 1: And okay, possibly, that's true, you're definitely going to find people that are further along than you and you're further along than some.
Speaker 1: But let me give you this illustration that I've given before.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like everyone's in a swim contest and you can say dude, I can swim two whole doggone miles, and that little pud, he can barely swim across the swimming pool.
Speaker 1: Now you might even say I know there's people somewhere they can swim 10 miles, but I can still swim two, and that's pretty doggone good.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that count for something?
Speaker 1: And the answer is no, it doesn't count for anything, because the contest is not against them.
Speaker 1: The contest was can you love the Lord, your God, perfectly?
Speaker 1: Can you image Jesus, the way that Jesus was?
Speaker 1: What that means is, my friend, you'd have to swim to the moon and you'll never do it.
Speaker 1: Now the good news is you don't have to.
Speaker 1: But once you recognize none of us can swim to the moon, we're all in trouble without Jesus.
Speaker 1: He's the only one that can come, get us and bring us where we need to go.
Speaker 1: And once we're ready to do that, we're ready to live in such a way that people can sense what God is like through us.
Speaker 1: So I just think for some, for some, we might want to get a little more confidence and you got to practice it a little bit, man.
Speaker 1: Get a little more confidence in I'm going to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to let him love me.
Speaker 1: That means, when I sin and I'm aware of it, yes, I'm going to go straight to Jesus and say Lord, I'm sorry I did it again.
Speaker 1: Please forgive me.
Speaker 1: I know your blood covers me and then I'm going to.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to strut, but I'm going to walk confidently.
Speaker 1: I can't get the favor to rub off man.
Speaker 1: I keep trying to get it off, but the blood doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: I am covered, I am forgiven, I am accepted and loved by my God and I don't need to keep working for it.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to walk.
Speaker 1: How happy do you think it makes the enemy when you go and ask God for forgiveness and then you beat yourself up for like three days?
Speaker 1: He's like this person is not going to love anybody.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because they're going to be so focused on themselves.
Speaker 1: They're going to be so focused on oh man, I got to do a little better and I got to be so focused on this.
Speaker 1: No, you don't need to be so focused on that.
Speaker 1: Be a little focused on that, but instead just say okay, forgiven on to loving people better, on to making it about other people.
Speaker 1: That's what I was forgiven for.
Speaker 1: That's why Jesus came.
Speaker 1: He came to empower me to be just like him in a little mini way.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm going to get after, and what we find is that, once kingdom subjects are no longer preoccupied with themselves and when you're preoccupied with yourself.
Speaker 1: So let's just clarify you're not serving anybody when you're focused on you.
Speaker 1: Even if you're kind of playing like you are, even if you're serving somewhere, you're not really serving if you're really just focusing on you Now.
Speaker 1: Once your focus is not on you, because you don't have to keep your moral record perfect, jesus is already doing that for you.
Speaker 1: Once you're there, now you can focus on glorifying God by doing good.
Speaker 1: Glory means when we glorify God, that means we do things in such a way that people can tell where it really came from.
Speaker 1: People can tell, ah, whoa, that is something different than what is on earth.
Speaker 1: Most of the time you probably heard this before you saw somebody maybe somebody said it to you but you meet somebody and they've just got really good manners, like they're just, they're kind of like super nice, they'll hold the door for you, they always say the right thing at the right time.
Speaker 1: They've got a lot of integrity.
Speaker 1: They'll sometimes speak to you in a way that's like yes, sir, or yes, ma'am, and occasionally someone will notice that and they'll say, wow, you were just raised right.
Speaker 1: You must've been raised right Now.
Speaker 1: When they say that to you, they're not really complimenting you as much as they're complimenting your parents.
Speaker 1: They're saying somebody else, whoever raised you, they did something really right.
Speaker 1: That's why you're like this and we want to have our good that we're doing in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: We don't want to do it in such a way that people say you know, I know a lot about your God by the way.
Speaker 1: You're doing that and it's not a pharisaical version.
Speaker 1: I'm not learning that God is very angry at everyone who's not getting it perfectly right.
Speaker 1: I'm not learning that God is primarily focused on exteriors.
Speaker 1: I'm learning what God is really like and he looks a whole lot like, exactly like, jesus Christ, by what you do.
Speaker 1: I learn about God by looking at you.
Speaker 1: That's glorifying the Father as we go.
Speaker 1: So how do we glorify God?
Speaker 1: Great question here's number one Transformed people.
Speaker 1: Those are the folks that have come and asked Jesus Christ to forgive them.
Speaker 1: Transformed people now resist now, resist now.
Speaker 1: They resist moral decay.
Speaker 1: You are the salt of the earth, salt in Jesus' time.
Speaker 1: It's not that it was never used for flavoring, but it was primarily used as a preservative, meaning folks.
Speaker 1: They didn't have any refrigerator, so if they're going to have some fish or beef or whatever they've got, they're going to have to salt it.
Speaker 1: So salt is understood as this is a preservative.
Speaker 1: It keeps the moral decay away and my people, jesus, says you're going to be that preservative for the world.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example, because you might be Christians kind of have a bad reputation right now in world history, but it has not always been so, and I want to show you one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: Why is because Christians have consistently improved society.
Speaker 1: As moral decay happens, they've consistently stepped up and they said this isn't right, I'm not comfortable with this, this isn't what should be happening.
Speaker 1: You might've heard of William Wilberforce In 1785, he became a Christian.
Speaker 1: He had been raised in wealth and money, but he became a Christian.
Speaker 1: And as he became a Christian he began to see the slave trade and he said this is not right.
Speaker 1: And so he joined an abolitionist movement and he spent the rest of his life petitioning and trying to get bills signed and trying to come against the idea that humans should be sold and used by one another.
Speaker 1: Now check it out, guys.
Speaker 1: For all of history before that, no one really seemed to have a problem with slavery.
Speaker 1: Slavery was everywhere, all over the world, and yet a Christian, because of his confidence in Jesus and his looking at the real image, saying this isn't what God would do, this isn't what Jesus wants.
Speaker 1: And so he spent the rest of his life, right up until just before he died.
Speaker 1: And that's when the abolition you can look it up the abolitionist act or something Finally they were free.
Speaker 1: Slaves were free in the UK, but not only that.
Speaker 1: Because of his work, the entire British Navy spent what was it?
Speaker 1: 52?
Speaker 1: 52 years policing the Atlantic, finding folks who were slave trading, arresting them and freeing those slaves.
Speaker 1: And over that 52 years, they freed 150,000 slaves, and they did it at their own expense.
Speaker 1: They were just like we did something wrong, we need to do something right.
Speaker 1: And there was also a compounding effect, as that affected other nations and they said, wow, this is wrong.
Speaker 1: And it was because a Christian said I need to preserve.
Speaker 1: This is moral decay, I need to step in and we need to make this right.
Speaker 1: We need to turn this back to the way God wants it to be.
Speaker 1: Guys, do you see your lineage?
Speaker 1: Do you see where you come from?
Speaker 1: Do you see the kind of people you are?
Speaker 1: So it's not time to be quiet right now.
Speaker 1: Now you do it with gentleness and you do it with respect, but we speak up and we say you know, that's just really not the way of God.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want it to go that way.
Speaker 1: He wants it to go this way, and we start with us, and when we do that, we begin to leave a Jesus-y taste in people's mouths.
Speaker 1: That's what he wants.
Speaker 1: That's how he wants us to be the salt of the earth.
Speaker 1: He wants people to be around us and they go wow, you're just different.
Speaker 1: There's something different about you.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you some of the most impactful people in my life.
Speaker 1: It's not that they were super obedient, it's not that they were like, wow, you just really obey better than anybody else.
Speaker 1: Now, in many cases they did obey, but it was coming from somewhere else.
Speaker 1: It was coming from dude.
Speaker 1: They were just big hearted.
Speaker 1: They just loved God.
Speaker 1: They just had passion.
Speaker 1: They were the folks that were generous.
Speaker 1: They were the folks that when you walk in the room, they make you feel like the room is about you.
Speaker 1: They're always into your thing.
Speaker 1: They're always wanting to know how they can help you.
Speaker 1: Those are the kinds of people that, as I began to meet them in my life.
Speaker 1: I was like doggone.
Speaker 1: I taste something and I don't taste it anywhere else and I want it.
Speaker 1: You see, jesus wants us to live life in such a way that people get a sense of what God is like and they start to say I want it, I want that.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, and they might have to watch you for 10 years at work, but they're still like.
Speaker 1: This always tastes different, though, man, they're doing something different.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: One of the things that they're doing is they're recognizing that a disciple without saltiness is worthless.
Speaker 1: Uh-oh, I didn't say it, jesus did.
Speaker 1: But if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again?
Speaker 1: It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't value that person.
Speaker 1: He just says you're super unhelpful to what the kingdom is actually trying to do.
Speaker 1: If you're not salty, you're not helping.
Speaker 1: You're just kind of standing there, or maybe you're hiding like Nicodemus, but you're so diluted.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean diluted like you're delusional, I mean you're diluted like you're too mixed.
Speaker 1: You're so mixed with the world that nobody can taste any difference around you, and so it's not helping me Now, we don't all have to be at the same level, but Jesus wants the crowd of hearts.
Speaker 1: What did he say?
Speaker 1: He said you are the salt of the world.
Speaker 1: See, he's not saying like the Pharisees, why don't you come up and finally get your act together?
Speaker 1: He says look, you're already this.
Speaker 1: I just need you to behave like it.
Speaker 1: I already made you this.
Speaker 1: Now begin to cooperate with me and stay salty.
Speaker 1: Slap your neighbors, tell them, stay salty.
Speaker 1: And they do it differently than the Pharisees did it.
Speaker 1: They do it differently than the Pharisees did it Because the Pharisees loved God's law.
Speaker 1: They put it first and salty kingdom bringers.
Speaker 1: They also love God's law, but they include grace.
Speaker 1: They make grace the primary operating system and they say yes, we do love this law because it informs us.
Speaker 1: Now, it's not how we understand ourselves, it informs us how we love, so that we can do it according to God's ways.
Speaker 1: And what that looks like, my friend, is there's going to be, as you know, there's people in your life and they're sinning in different ways than you are and you're a little bit like I don't know if I should be around that.
Speaker 1: What you should do is you don't need to embrace that sin.
Speaker 1: But you need to stay warm, you need to stay inviting.
Speaker 1: You need to remember that acceptance is where the conversation begins.
Speaker 1: You need to be the salt of Jesus's love and affection around them.
Speaker 1: As we get into the next couple of weeks and people are talking about their political ideas and aims, you can stay chill.
Speaker 1: You can say, hey, I love you, no matter what you think about anything, and I think a lot of different people understand different things about different things.
Speaker 1: But I just want you to know I'm going to explain my case.
Speaker 1: I'll make my case, maybe like William Wilberforce, but I like you just the way you are and your life, your real life, is more than this life and your real life isn't decided in the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: They keep on loving.
Speaker 1: Here's what else they do Transform people.
Speaker 1: Now they illuminate the way they illuminate the way You're the light of the world.
Speaker 1: City on the hill can't be hidden.
Speaker 1: What does light do?
Speaker 1: Light makes clear what's actually there and it casts out darkness.
Speaker 1: That's who God says his people are.
Speaker 1: You make people aware of what's really there and you cast out darkness.
Speaker 1: Now, in Jesus' time, remember there's no like street lamps.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like around you know the wilderness like oh, here's where we are.
Speaker 1: It's all pitch black, man.
Speaker 1: So when you see a city at night, it's lit up.
Speaker 1: So they didn't have streetlights there either.
Speaker 1: But many of the cities were made of limestone and they were very bright, and so, even like torchlight, it'd shine off the sides of those buildings and it would be very bright.
Speaker 1: You'd be off in the distance.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, oh my gosh, there's a city over there.
Speaker 1: It's obvious, and that city is telling you something.
Speaker 1: One of the things it's telling you is you might want to camp here, you might want to come in here because there's safety here.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that people that are lighting the way do is they tell the truth.
Speaker 1: They tell the truth about Jesus.
Speaker 1: They don't veil it, they don't hold it, they're not trying to offend anybody, but they recognize my purpose is to be a light, so I have to be salty and act like it, but I'm also supposed to tell people this is the way, this is how it goes, this is what is right.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad.
Speaker 1: When I first met my wife, she was my girlfriend and guys, I did not do everything right, I wasn't super tactful, but I made very clear to her hey, sweetheart, all of your religious stuff and your background.
Speaker 1: That's fine and I'm sure it's meaningful, but it doesn't do anything for your soul.
Speaker 1: If you want to be in heaven with Jesus, jesus himself needs to save you.
Speaker 1: Now I was kind of tactless.
Speaker 1: I would say it in a very discourteous way, because I was just so fiery and dumb then.
Speaker 1: But you know, what's interesting is that because the power is in the gospel and not me, let me say that again the power is in the gospel, not me.
Speaker 1: That's why Paul says in Romans 1 16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes.
Speaker 1: It's the content of the gospel itself.
Speaker 1: The Spirit anoints that.
Speaker 1: He doesn't really anoint us.
Speaker 1: He anoints the gospel.
Speaker 1: And when people hear the gospel, it doesn't matter if you did it kind of good or really good or even pretty poor.
Speaker 1: He still honors it and empowers the gospel to help people come to know Christ.
Speaker 1: And what we need to be able to say to them is hey, if I could go say it friendly again to Kenzie Beck in the day, I'll say God loves you more than anybody else.
Speaker 1: He super loves you.
Speaker 1: But one of the things he needs you to know, because he loves you, is your soul is in danger.
Speaker 1: Until you entrust it to Jesus for eternity, your soul is in danger.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want it in danger.
Speaker 1: I don't want it in danger and you know you're not lobbing that into the middle of Thanksgiving table, unless that's kind of what's going on.
Speaker 1: But as people are, you see, people begin to look for the light.
Speaker 1: People begin to be like man, it is dark around me and you're just not quiet about it.
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, man, this is the real way of Jesus.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to accident you into getting saved.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to like, I'm just going to be salt and never say anything about it.
Speaker 1: No, there comes a time pay attention when Jesus is teeing you up, my precious.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be like one of these online people.
Speaker 1: You don't have to know all the answers, you don't have to be right.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is say this is what I've seen, this is what I believe, this is what Jesus did for me and I know he'll do it for anybody.
Speaker 1: And you, let Jesus take that man.
Speaker 1: Just let him take it.
Speaker 1: And the one thing you need to do, differently than the Pharisees, I need to do it.
Speaker 1: You need to do it Is when you say Jesus is the way and I am not is the way and I am not.
Speaker 1: I'm not the way.
Speaker 1: Jesus alone is the way.
Speaker 1: Our church isn't the way.
Speaker 1: The way our culture behaves around here isn't the way.
Speaker 1: The things you've seen at other churches, that's not the way.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the way.
Speaker 1: So if you've seen any other ways and it doesn't quite do the portrait, right, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Just look at the portrait.
Speaker 1: Look at Jesus, the son of God, the image of God.
Speaker 1: He is the way.
Speaker 1: Don't cling to me, I'm going to get it wrong.
Speaker 1: Cling to him every day of your doggone life.
Speaker 1: Jesus alone is the way.
Speaker 1: I think there'd be a lot less church hurt if people like started there.
Speaker 1: If they're like these bozos, they're going to get a lot wrong.
Speaker 1: But I'm looking at the image of God in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm going.
Speaker 1: Pharisees point to themselves, beatitudes, people, kingdom people point to Jesus and they talk about.
Speaker 1: Here's one more way you can do it.
Speaker 1: You're going to be in trial, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: You know this.
Speaker 1: You're going to have difficult stuff.
Speaker 1: There's going to be bad stuff happening in your life and the distinctiveness of God, people of kingdom people is.
Speaker 1: While they're going through that, they radiate light because they do it trusting God, they do it speaking highly of God.
Speaker 1: They say this is just as hard as it would be for you, but I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1: Hang on to my God, who is faithful, because I can trust him.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest about how hard it is, but I'm going to let everyone know, because the point is don't waste your trials.
Speaker 1: When you're in a trial, express when it's appropriate.
Speaker 1: I trust my God.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen, but I know my God and I know he's good.
Speaker 1: I know somehow he's going to get the glory out of this.
Speaker 1: You say, carter, you know, not everyone's going to like that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you this is top shelf spiritual stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is like the best stuff.
Speaker 1: This is the good stuff that we keep stashed away.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it to you right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, when someone doesn't really like that, here's what you do.
Speaker 1: In your heart you just say I don't care.
Speaker 1: I don't care, dude.
Speaker 1: That's a powerful spiritual perspective.
Speaker 1: When you can finally get to the place where honey, I love you.
Speaker 1: I hope it goes well.
Speaker 1: But I just don't care what you think, I just don't care.
Speaker 1: Think whatever you want, because on a lot of levels, baby, you are a vapor and this is going to be over half a second.
Speaker 1: You have nothing to do with where I'm going eternally, and so my way to serve you is just to tell you what it is, and if you don't like it, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'm not even mad at you, I just don't care.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people here and I'm going to get out of the ones that care.
Speaker 1: If you don't care, well, I'll pray that you start caring, but until then I'm not going to worry about it.
Speaker 1: Guys, jesus is we're realizing now.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the portrait we're supposed to synchronize to Jesus.
Speaker 1: But we have to remember that even though Jesus is the subject of the portrait, he actually is also the painter, and so that means we can't repaint ourselves into his image.
Speaker 1: All we can do is ask him to do it and cooperate with him doing it.
Speaker 1: But we've got to have that humility.
Speaker 1: We've got to say I'm not going to be this Pharisee that thinks I can master this.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 1: Jesus is the master, and if I invite him to, he will repaint me in the image of God so that I can live in such a way that people understand God better and they glorify him because of it.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.
Speaker 1: It's because of you that this is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit fiercechurch for more information.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe?
Speaker 1: Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or wherever you would share such things.
Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.