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When I was a kid, I really, really, really wanted to have glasses. Okay? As an adult, I lagged behind actually getting the test done. But let me tell you, let me tell you about this. I I had a friend growing up in church. Um there weren't a lot of kids my age in in our church when I was growing up. In fact, there were really none my particular age, but I did have this friend who was two or three years older than I was. His name was Jonathan. And Jonathan was like, you know, I I think what kids want to be when they're young is to be just a little bit older than they actually are. They're always looking up to the kind of people who are next in their stage of life. And so if you're 17, you can't wait to be 20. If you're 10, you can't wait to be 13, etc., etc. So Jonathan was just old enough to be that person who was just ahead of me. And I thought Jonathan was cool. He did all the things I wanted to do. He played on the best hockey teams and the best baseball teams. He was fit, you know, he was good looking, and he had glasses. So once when I went, my mom worked for an optometrist when I was a kid. She was part of the reception team there. And when I went to take my eye exam around the age of 14 or 15, I tried really, really hard to fail the eye exam so they would give me glasses. I didn't know how annoying they are when you're standing up and have lights in your face or things like that when I was a kid. I tell you that because I think that it speaks to something that maybe we've all experienced. And last week, if you were here, we talked about this idea that we're we're made for more, that we're created to make a difference. Today, I want to talk a little bit about how our identity in Jesus actually points us in that direction. And how it's important for us to know who we are because if we don't understand who we are, we'll spend our life trying to earn belonging in the wrong places. Like clearly, it's not a good idea for you to fake your eye exam and fail. Right? It didn't work, praise the Lord. But I tried really hard. And my hunch, my hunch is that you can identify with that. My hunch is that all of us have tried to get into the right group. The right group. The cool kids, you know, think back to high school. Perform our way into people believing we're something that we're not so that they'll accept us. Or change who we are for somebody else so that they'll think we're more like them. It's part of our journey into, I think, adulthood, into being certain about who we are. I think we're supposed to get to a place where our sense of self and our identity is well established. But see, while culture says you can find those things in all kinds of other places, Jesus steps in and says, you don't achieve your identity, you receive it. If you look at early parts of the Sermon on the Mount, right, and we've talked about this a lot, that this is like Jesus' most critical teaching. Because what we believe now is that this wasn't just one sermon that he gave one time that somebody happened to be there with papyrus and wrote the whole thing down. It was something that Jesus taught everywhere he went. This was his core message. This was the thing that he continued to repeat over and over and over again. It was so important to him that it was like his TED talk that he would go everywhere and do so that people would know what he was about. And it starts off with a fairly famous passage. If you're not a follower of Jesus, you you may have even heard this passage before. You know, blessed are those who do this, right? And he's got this list of things that you'll be blessed if you are, and it's kind of like upside down, and it's really meant to draw us in. Like, what is Jesus talking about? Because none of these things seem like blessings to me. Immediately following that, Jesus actually pulls away from the crowd. So you've got to think that, like, you know, in the beginning, Jesus is here, and there's a whole bunch of people scattered over this big hill, and he's teaching, okay? Which, by the way, is like should point us in a direction that like sometimes we get confused that like crowds are a bad thing for churches. Like growth is a bad thing. It's like, I don't see a place in scripture where Jesus seems to like turn people away just because there was a large crowd. I think Jesus is okay with crowds, but he did also need this time to form a group of people who would become the leaders of the movement that he was trying to spark. And that's what he's doing in Matthew chapter 5, verse 13, when he says these words, you are the salt of the earth. Right? And emphasize those first two words. You are the salt of the earth. Not, you are called to be the salt of the earth. Not, I need you to try to be the salt of the earth. Not one day you will become the salt of the earth, right? Like there was no implication in what Jesus said that being salt of the earth was something you could earn. You are. And in that moment we recognize that identity, at least for Jesus, precedes activity. It's why we sing songs like, you know, who the sun sets free is free indeed. I know who I am because that's who you made me. Identity precedes activity. And if you're here exploring faith, I just want you to know that this isn't, it's not like pressure, you know. This is just what Jesus says about the people who are who are already following him. If you've already come to Jesus, this is who you are. Right? The big idea that we're exploring last week and this week is this: that God uses everyday people to do extraordinary things. That what he is going to accomplish through us collectively, not just Burnett Church, but like his big universal church, right? The way he changes the world has been and will continue to change the world through those who follow him, is extraordinary. Not any one of us, regardless of how talented or capable we are, will be able to do what God has already done and what he is going to continue to do in the world. He empowers us, even in our seemingly everyday, mundane, repetitive lives, to accomplish something extraordinary. And what we want you to know, what we want you to hear right now, is that it doesn't require this massive change of life. Sometimes that's what people do, but Jesus doesn't need you to have a platform. He's already got one. Right? He doesn't need you to be perfect, he already is perfect. He doesn't need you to go to seminary or go across the world or, you know, live like a beggar. Like, you know, he might call you to do some of those things, but he doesn't need you to do it. And so we don't need to hesitate to play a part in what he's doing until we're ready. Because he's already given you the identity. What you need is to be clear about who and whose you are. Which leads us to ask, why did he call us salt? That's actually not something I've ever aspired to be. Wouldn't you find something cooler? You know? Like what like salt is pretty ordinary, isn't it? Except salt in the ancient world was much different than salt is today. Right? Today, we throw salt on the ground so we don't slip. You know, like we literally throw it away and just let it melt into the ground, you know? In the ancient world, salt was very, very different. And I'm gonna highlight four things. I think we can pull from this identity that Jesus is trying to give us. And each one needs to inform how we live every day. And part of the reason we're having this conversation right now is because, you know, I feel like spirituality in our culture, you know, ebbs and flows, okay? And there are times of the year when people are interested in having a conversation with you naturally about your faith. There are times when when when your saltiness needs to be on display for people, especially. You need to be ready to like, you know, pour the salt on, okay? Um, coming up to Easter is one of those moments. It's one of those moments where people are tuned in, right? I heard some wild statistics this week. Now they're American, so they're not exactly right, but you know, these statistics tend to hold fairly true across our um our border. So here's the first statistic. 39% of people are planning to attend church on Easter. Right? So take 10% away, just to be 30%, one in three people that you live with are planning to go to church on Easter Sunday. 30, oh sorry, that's 42%, so we'll dumb it down to 33%. It works really well for my analogy. One in three. Because 39% is the number of people who have no plan to go to church on Easter Sunday. But half of that 39% say if you would just invite them, they would come. Which means 20% of the population, one in five, would show up to Sunday morning service on Easter Sunday if somebody who's planning to attend just invited them to attend. One in five. Okay. There's the nerdy statistics for the morning, I'll move on. What's with this salt thing? Well, you know, there's some things we know about salt intuitively. First thing we know is that salt is a seasoning, right? Um, if you don't salt your steak, it's not as good. You can argue with me about that, but you'd be wrong. Salt is supposed to, the intention of using salt in our foods is partially to get water out of it, but also um to enhance what it touches, right? And and when you use the right amount of salt, it's not supposed to be overpowering. I went out for dinner the other night and it's like they coated it in salt and it burned on the way down, my French fries. It's not good. You're not supposed to use that much salt, right? It's bad for your heart, it's bad for the flavor. But when you use the right amount of salt, it enhances what it touches. What doesn't overpower, it brings out what's already there. And so part of your identity is recognizing that you're supposed to be bringing out and enhancing things in the places that you are, in your office, as a part of that team, in your neighborhood, with your extended family, on that sports team, in that circle of friends, you are the one who's intended to bring out the best in others, to see it, recognize it, call it out, encourage it. This is what we, as followers of Jesus, are supposed to be doing showing the beauty of God in everyday circumstances, showing how life with Christ enhances the rest of our life. It's unfortunate that sometimes Christians often have the opposite reputation. I'll address that in a little bit. But I think if we go about actually living the way that Jesus calls us to live, we speak encouragement, we see potential, we recognize that the people around us are made in the image of God, they are gifted by God, they have been given things by God to contribute to the world. We become hopeful when others are cynical. We see gifts in other people that they don't see themselves. And in our world, in our existence here as residents of Maple Ridge, guys, negativity is so easy. I know because my inner monologue is full of it. I don't bring it out. Sometimes my wife has said to me, um, you know, you would be a you should have a podcast for sports, because I talk about sports too much. So I think this is a way for me to shut up at her and talk to somebody else about it. And I said, Sweetie, you just wouldn't like the person I would become if I talked about sports all the time. Because I know the conversation that's going on in my head and it doesn't need to come out, right? That doesn't help. But what should help is the conversation that's going on in my head that's affected by Jesus. That's meant to stop spiritual apathy, that's meant to encourage people towards a life of meaning. See, salt is intended to enhance life. And when we live for joy, which is what we talked about last week, that the simple moments of your life can encourage other people. Did you catch it in Jordan's story when she talked about Ernie and Judy? One of the things that I loved, sorry to pick on you guys, I hope it's okay. I should have asked you before. Um, but it's good, so just let me go, okay? Jordan didn't say that Ernie preached a message to her. And in fact, I asked her, did Ernie say anything to you as you observed him out in the world of our town? She said, no. He just lived his life, and I knew that there was resonance between us. You, in the simple moments of your life carrying Jesus with you, have the ability to bring joy into other people, to affect them, right? And guys, like I love it, and I want you to bring people in and fill up these seats and build the church, but you have to understand that, like, even then, you're still gonna need to play a part, right? Because I might not meet the people that you bring. I hope I do, but I might not, right? There are tables that I'm never gonna sit at. There are conversations that I will never have that maybe nobody else here or no other follower of Jesus will have with those people. And if you don't bring the salt to the table, no one will. And I don't mean for that to be, oh gosh, like another thing I have to do. I mean for it to help you understand that even the most simple parts of your life are made for purpose and meaning. And it might feel as ordinary as salt, but salt has an important purpose. It's also a preservative, right? In the ancient world, salt was how you could keep meat without a refrigerator. Right? You could actually put meat in a bucket, stuff it full of salt, and it would last for months and months. You could travel across the ocean with it, right? Salt has a way of slowing decay to preserve what was important. And God has placed us in the places that we are to preserve, to show value, to highlight what is good in the world. Right? He's placed you there to preserve and to and to bring out value in your kids, in your spouse, your workplace, your friends, your extended family. Right? And it's important for us to understand that like we have to bring this and do this regularly, right? Like if you stop exposing the meat to the salt, then it doesn't have as much preservation, right? And it's important for us to remember that because when people drift away from faith, it happens slowly over time. Most of the time, people don't just reject faith dramatically, they drift really quietly. They get busy. Something unfortunate happens to them, they get disillusioned or they get distracted. And if nobody is regularly bringing the salt to their table, helping them stay in contact, one day we wake up and go, how did that happen? That was a person that I used to to be well connected to. And sometimes, you know, reintroducing the salt is the callback. It's like the it's like the shock that we need to see somebody who's drifted come back. Right? Sometimes it just takes like like one person to remind them of what they're missing. When when I was a kid, uh the area of uh New Brunswick that we lived in was having a, I don't know, there was a guy who was stealing children or something. Um and and and my mom um my mom tends to be a little bit of a worrier. She grew up with a worrier, she tends to be a bit of a worrier. So when I was two years old, my parents went out and bought two, not just one, two, dogs. At the same time. German shepherd lab crosses. Um and one of them was a Labrador in a sissy and totally useless when it came to guarding the house. The other one got all the shepherd genes, it's like they split them at birth. And the other one got all the shepherd jeans and he protected us. We moved when I was about five years old to Nova Scotia from New Brunswick. And because the dog was so used to being asked to protect the house, he never made the move well. And our new house was um it shared backyards with the church that my dad worked at. Okay? So when people would come visit our house, they would come to the back door first most of the time, except when the dog was out there, and there were a few people who refused to come visit our house from the church because we had that dog there. And so we ended up giving him away. And it was really sad for me. I love that dog. He was a German Shepherd. Um, I got to name him when I was two years old, and so his name was Shep. Thank you. We gave Shep away, and it broke my heart. And it broke my heart so much that my mom and dad arranged to go take a visit to see Shep about a year after we gave him away. Because we gave away to this farmer. So we go to this farmer's farm, and uh there's this long road uh that comes down from where he lives, trees on either side. I can still see it in my mind, and a gate. So we had to park the car because he hadn't opened the gate for us. He knew we were coming, but he didn't open the gate for us. So we had to park the car at the end of the laneway and start walking towards the farmhouse. And as we were walking towards the farmhouse, here comes Shep, who has, by the way, put on probably 50 pounds. Like the farmer was feeding him well. Okay? And he's coming at us in full guard dog mode. Like, teeth are out, bark is loud. And my dad stands in the middle of the road and goes, Shep! And Shep freezes. Because he remembered my dad's voice. Right? Sometimes that's that's our that's our calling, that's our purpose in the lives of people who have drifted, right? To be the one, the one voice that has the capacity to say, remember. Remember whose you are. Sometimes we are the last person in the world who can still talk in that person's world, who can still talk about church as something that is life-giving. And and that's not random, that's an assignment. The third thing about salt is that it's intended to purify. I want to be really, really clear here because I've gone to churches before where um people take too much pride in this particular thing that salt does. Like our job as those who are salty is to be salty. Like to be aggressive and rude. Like it's supposed to sting, like the gospel is supposed to be grumpy. And and I don't think that's what we should take out of this. Right? I don't think that's our job. As far as I can tell, God asks us to love. And if there's stinging parts, I think that's up to him and the Holy Spirit to sort out. Right? But as salt does its work, it does have a way of purifying. And I think this is why we've all been called to be disciples, right? To help people as we love them, as we live life next to them, to clarify what Jesus is about, what we've learned about him, what we've seen him do in our life, the things that he's asked us to put away because they weren't helpful for us or the people around us. Right? To help people take next steps. So we definitely need to be people who are truthful about the things that are harmful. But I just want to be really clear I think you can still be a good person and do that at the same time. Right? You don't have to force people into it. You don't have to argue with people necessarily. Right? You don't have to be weird. Please don't. But be influential. Be clear. Be committed. Right? Make your primary purpose giving glory to God. And when we do that, and we invite people to live next to us who are interested in on the journey and trying to figure things out, man, good things happen. And God wants to leverage and use the things that you're already doing and that you're already good at to do that. In fact, I would say the things that you're most good at are probably the things that He most wants to leverage. Right? So if you're a great coach, be a great coach. And be in that environment and invite people into your life. If you're great at hosting, host. If you're great at encouraging, encourage. If you're great at leading, lead, organizing, please help. Listening, do that too. None of those are random talents. They are markers designed to point to your maker. Right? But markers can get off course if we're not intentional about it. Right? And let me say this. I think that it's important for us to own this and to do this. Because the reputation of the church without intention tends to drift, right? We can sometimes get a bad rap. And so sometimes the purification that's required is the purification of us banding together and go, man, we know that that church is trustworthy, and we do a work of purification of the reputation of the church. The last thing I want to say about salt is that it's precious. Because of all of this that salt did in the ancient world, it was not something we threw on the ground and never thought of again. In fact, in Jesus' day, salt would have been about as valuable as gold. And it's a part of what Jesus is saying. You are the salt of the earth. You're precious. God's placement of you in the places that He has you is an investment on His part. Right? Don't miss it. Don't let your modern perspective on how easy it is to mine salt to ruin the analogy for you, right? Jesus is not throwing you on the sidewalk. He's placing you in places on purpose. Because you have value, because you're precious to him, and because your involvement in the lives that he's put you next to is mission critical. And I just want to reiterate, I don't think that this requires some big program, some big marketing plan. Right? Doesn't require you to go to Bible college for the next four years and figure your theology out. Doesn't need to be free from every imperfection. You just need to be intentional. Wake up in the morning with a sense of, like, God, what do you want me to do today? Because I know I'm going to come in contact with other human beings. And I know that that means that you have some purpose for me. Right? And as we approach Easter, I just want to encourage you to think about how I can be extra intentional at this time of year. Why? Because people are extra interested in listening to what you have to say. People who would normally say no will say yes to somebody that's invested in them, to somebody that they trust. Right? They're not going to come because the show is clever, right? There are better shows in town, but they'll come because of you and your relationship with them. So what would it look like? What would it look like if we were all intentional about the investment of our time and our purpose in the next month or so? What would that look like? Well, I just want to give you a really quick and simple tool that you can use that somebody gave me a number of years ago, and I think that it's helpful. It's just using the word bless to create some things that you can do to help bless other people and invest in them. So the first one is to begin with prayer, right? Which is probably where we should start with just about everything in life, right? If we're not praying for people, then why are we expecting God to move in their lives? Right? So, so what's one person, what's one person that you could pray for by name over the next month, thinking about maybe saying, hey, why don't you come with me? Why don't you come and see what the church is all about? Right? Don't be vague. Don't be um don't be, you know, don't let yourself just kind of like, you know, uh do that, well, God, I hope, I hope somebody comes my way. Ask him. Ask him for somebody that you can pray for. Be specific. And then when you pray, be specific about your prayer. God, open a door, soften a heart, give me the courage I need so that I can L listen and have a conversation with people, right? Um, this is hard for some of us, you know, me especially. Um, we were laughing in the office this week. My brain tends to work about five sentences ahead of other people. And so I so I find it hard to be quiet. You probably never thought that about me, but I find it hard to be quiet. But I think it's an important skill for us to have when it comes to investing in other people, right? Just having the interest and the patience to stop answering questions that nobody's asked, and to build a genuine relationship with somebody. Because what should be true is that our lives should be the message. As we follow Jesus, as we follow others who follow Jesus, then our life will reflect the love and beauty of Jesus. Uh the third one is probably your favorite. It's eat. Eat with other people. Right? Like, like think of this person and try to get a chance to have a conversation with them and listen. One really great way you could do that would bribe them with food. It's my experience that when you offer food to people, they will come and hang out with you, even if they don't like you. Um they will come. If you offer them free coffee, they will come. You know, if you offer to make them a meal, they'll come, right? You could also do this without eating, although that would be less fun. You could go for a walk, you know, someday when it's not raining. Um, you know, you could go to a game together, right? There are lots of ways that you could just the point is have a way to spend time with people, right? And and and don't do it because they're a project, please. Do it because you see the value God has placed in them and you love them. S is a serve in need. Uh meet somebody in a tangible way, right? And and and sometimes when we think of serving people, we think of like, you know, there has to be a huge disparity gap between us and them. Like they're obviously poor in this area, and I'm obviously rich in this area, so so I'll serve those people. Now, you can serve people that live next door to you. Right? Help somebody move. Um one of the one of the coolest stories from our, and I won't tell you the whole thing right now, but I'll just highlight this. One of the coolest stories of somebody coming to faith that ever happened when we were church planting in Toronto for those six years that we lived there. Started with a Saturday when somebody called me up and said, Hey, I have a friend who's moving. Can you come help? And my immediate thought was, why in the heck would I do that? It's Saturday. Like, I don't want to go do that. Fast forward three years, they're getting baptized, they're serving in the church, their lives are changed, they have community. It was such a beautiful thing. Help people move. Offer to watch their kids. Um, fix something. I always need help with that, by the way, uh, because I can't fix anything. Just show up. Show up in somebody's life and love them practically. And the last thing is when the time is right, share your story. Right? You've already started by listening to their story, right? There will be a moment when they will ask you. If you do this well and you do this with authenticity, they will ask you about your life. And the beautiful thing about your story is it doesn't, it doesn't invite an argument. Right? Like you can argue with somebody's doctrine, you can argue, you know, the the the things that they believe. You can't argue transformation. And when people see it in you, they get curious about it. Right? 42% of people are planning to show up already. You don't even have to work on them. 39%, half of those, 20%, one in five of the people who live next to you, would come if somebody asked them to. So let me let me push back on an assumption we often make. People are searching. Full stop. It's 100% true. How do I know it's true? Not just because of somebody else's statistics. At our church in the fall, we started working with an organization that helps us get the news about our church out to other people, mostly through social media, some through the web. Okay? In the last six months, 300 plus people have indicated an interest in coming and visiting our church through a Facebook advertisement. Now, they don't all come, right? Like one in three probably show up. There's still a hundred people, and nobody, there was no personal investment. Like if you start asking around, there are people here who's like, I only heard about Burnett Church because I got a pop-up on my Instagram feed. And I filled out this form, and then somebody got in touch with me, and I came and I checked it out, and I was greeted warmly. 300 people, 2,500 people a month are visiting our website through advertisements that are designed to help people get curious about faith. Hey guys, like people are searching. So if the narrative in our head is that nobody's interested, change the narrative in your head. Change the narrative, right? If people don't come, it won't be because they're not interested. Sadly, it will mostly become because we stayed quiet. And I don't believe that's who we are. I don't believe that's who we want to be. You know, I don't I don't care if people walk away from here talking about our production value or some of the things that we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get right around here. You know, even the building, as much focus as we've been putting on that lady, and as important as it is, I want them to think about us and think about you. And think about the value that you bring to their life. If if 70% of us did this over the next four weeks, Easter would be bonkers. It would honestly be a problem, but it's a problem I'll accept. Okay? It's a problem and a challenge I would love for us to have. So I'm not asking you right now to like run out and grab a soapbox and stand on the street and invite everybody. I'm asking you to think about one person. Right? So, here, I would love for you to do this if you're willing. I know every once in a while I do these things, and you know, some of you won't do it, but that's okay. If you would, um, could you pull out your phone? Okay, pull out your phone. Come on, come on, pull out your phone. Great. I'm not gonna ask you to do anything weird. I promise. Just pull out your phone, okay? You have a notes app on your phone? Open it. Start a new note, and write down one name. One name. One person. And pray about it. Hey God, is there somebody you would like me to invite to church on Easter? You don't have to say it out loud even. You just say it in your head. One name. One person who used to come but drifted. One person you know got burned and hasn't been back and might just need somebody to call them back. One person who you've already had a conversation with and you know is curious about faith, but the curiosity might need a little bit of a boost. One person who's disconnected and needs to be connected, right? I'm not asking you to go force feed somebody who doesn't want it.

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It's not what I'm asking you to do. I don't really believe in that kind of evangelism. But I do think there are people in your life who fall into these categories. And I think that we are especially good at connecting with people like that. Right? Who need to know that there is a place, that they don't have to be perfect. They don't even have to believe before they belong. They can come as they are. And I'm just gonna ask you to pray for that person until Easter. Think about beginning with prayer, listening, eating, serving, sharing. Because the thing about salt is it only works if it leads the shaker. Right? It only works if it comes in contact with somebody else. Now, if that wasn't helpful enough, I just want to give you one more quick thing that you could do. And we've done this for a couple years in a row now, leading up to Easter. Some of you did it at Christmas time too. We do this at the major holidays. It's like a like a digital mission trip. So at Easter time, we call it 21 Days of Hope. Um, and uh it's an opportunity for you to get some encouragement, right? We want it, we want hope to come to you in the days leading up to Easter. We want to guide your experience going towards Easter, but we also want you to become a conduit of hope for other people. So this is a series of emails and text messages you'll get over the 21 days leading up. So I think that starts on the 15th uh of uh of March. Um and it just helps tune us in to what's going on. So if you text the word hope, not hope with a like an exclamation port or hope in quotations or just the word hope. It doesn't require any punctuation of any kind, just the word hope to the number on the screen, right? You can sign up for this. We'll have it out in the foyer. Um but if you're standing there, you've already got your phone out, right? Because you were writing somebody's name down in your notes app. So you could just like send this text message in and join us as we just kind of as a community, you know, like different communities have different ways that are trying to dial themselves in as we come to some of these important markers on our spiritual journey. And so we just invite you to join us in this. Um and uh I think if you ask around, if you're not sure about it, ask some people. We did it at Easter, or sorry, at Christmas time this year, Easter last year. It's an encouraging thing. I loved at Christmas time how many messages I got back from people who are like, that's so encouraging. And just to let you know, uh that all the emails and text messages come from me, uh, but it's not me emailing and texting each one of you individually every day. Um it's it's it's preset. But thank you for thinking that I do that much work. Um that's a that's a wonderful compliment. Guys, just let me pray for us and for our friends and for our community as we wrap up today. Jesus, thank you that we don't have to try to be who you have made us to be. That you, in your living and dying and resurrection, claimed and displayed all the power required to change lives, to give an identity to us, and to help us to find meaning, purpose, and significance in the everyday activities of life. I thank you that you made us for more than the ordinary. That even in the ordinary, because we carry the image of God in us, that has been activated by the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, we have purpose. Every day, at every moment, in every place. So God help us to help us to embrace that, help us to be intentional about it, help us to get the salt out of the salt shaker. To season and flavor and preserve and purify as you've called us to do, we ask in Jesus' good and precious name. Amen.