Salt & Light

lord we just thank you and praise you for today for your word god we ask that uh you touch not only all the people

that are here but all the people that we reach through uh our live stream and

other sources lord we just give you all the praise and all the glory in your name we pray amen so today we're going

to talk salt and

light but before I do I want to share with you guys something brother Gary saw it this

morning you guys know that for less than a year we've been working

establishing uh nations in Pakistan right so yesterday last night actually

at 11:30 I got a message on my phone from

them they had 120 Muslims convert to Christianity yesterday for them it was

11:30 this morning because 12 hours ahead of us 120 Muslims and in less than a year actually

about a little over 6 months they went from two

people to over 2,000 we have two fully

um recognized congregations there that are part of this network and people are going there every day and

I and I wanted to share that with you because I want to encourage you guys to

keep moving forward don't stop because God is doing things uh I

share with you guys updates occasionally about our reach online we reach 3,000

people a week through Facebook and that doesn't include anybody in Pakistan that's here

77% of those people are in Tallery County with the bulk of them in

Porterville so yesterday I went to Starbucks on Henderson and Prospect and

I was there for 2 and 1/2 hours and I put a post on Facebook if anybody shows up here and says hi I'll

buy them a cup of coffee i had a lot of people in and out of there i talked to I don't know how

many people yesterday i wound up not buying any coffee because people were coming in so we stopped by to say hi but

we already had our order placed we pick it up every Saturday i don't know how many people I talked to

yesterday you have a message inside you that people need to

hear you have a message inside you that people need to know and we're going to

talk about salt and light how many of you go to the next slide Chris

salt okay Jesus said "We're the salt of the earth." And this is out of Matthew

5:13 it says "You are the salt of the earth." But if the salt have lost his

savor wherewith shall it be salted in other words if it's lost its taste

that's what savor means if it's lost its ability to do what God created it to

do it is thenforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be

trotten underfoot of men salt there's some things about salt that you should know first of all it

preserves things you can salt things with salt it preserves them it keeps them from rotting it keeps them from

decay it enhances flavor and as a retired chef

I can tell you and baker if you don't put salt in the food if you don't put salt in the bread it tastes

horrible it enhances flavor it balances in your body

electrolytes without sodium things get out of whack you need sodium to balance

the rest of the stuff that's in your bloodstream it regulates blood

pressure not enough it goes too low too much it goes too high but in the right amount it keeps it even or within a

range that's normal and if it loses its properties salt is

useless you ever you ever taken a salt shaker i don't use table salt by the way i use kosher salt and uh as a chef I

never had salt and pepper shakers on the table because like most chefs they think that the food is correctly seasoned when

it goes to the plate might be a little bit of conceitedness there but that's how they

think but have you ever had a box of salt regular table salt and you had it

for so long that when you tasted it it was no longer salty

it it's just bland it's dull that's what happens to us that's what Jesus is

talking about when he says you're the salt of the earth and it but if the salt has lost its savor it doesn't have any

value so as we spend time and as brother Tim was talking about this morning about

the necessity of spending time with God of spending time in prayer spending time

reading God's word spending time communing with God it keeps your soul

fresh it keeps you purpose focused how many of you believe that we have a

purpose-driven life okay every one of us has a purpose-driven life our

purpose is to reach a lost and dying world with the message of Jesus Christ

now he gives each and each of us talents things that we're able to do that other

people can't do as well as we do and he uses those things to reach

people but the message and the mission is the same

my mission your mission everybody who calls on the name of the Lord's

mission is to go out into the

world and seek that which is lost none of us were born

saved somebody had to tell us about Jesus without that happening we never

would have come to the understanding of who Jesus was sometimes when we're talked to about

Jesus we don't want to hear it because we're too busy but go to the next slide

Chris this is what Jesus said about the light now verse 13 he talked about

salt verse 14 he says "You are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill

cannot be hid neither do men light a candle and put it

under a bushel but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house let your light so shine before men

that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven

you're supposed to be somebody they can see you're the light of the world light

illuminates the dark have you ever been in a completely pitch dark room and taken a match not a lot of matches don't

put out a lot of light right but if you're in a completely dark room and you light that match it'll light the whole

room up a little tiny match and that light is you and that

darkness is the world and he's saying "Illuminate the

dark." It provides clarity you ever been reading the Bible and not understand

something that you're reading and the Holy Spirit illuminates it and all of a sudden it's like it jumps off the page

and you instantly understand what you just read because the Holy Spirit has

illuminated that scripture to you now your neighbor might read that

scripture and they might be darkened but God illuminated it to you he used through the Holy Spirit to illuminate

that word for you that you would understand completely what God was

trying to tell you and light gives

direction if you're in the dark tracing through the woods and there's a campfire

a quarter of a mile away you can see that campfire and you're going to make a beline to that

campfire that is who you are supposed to be we all are supposed to be that

light yeah we all have jobs how How many of you work 16 hours a

day i get up between 4 and 5 in the morning when the men at my father's

house get up which is 6:00 in the morning I have to be

awake and I have to be awake until they go to bed at 10:00 at

night okay i work 16 hours a day and in that 16 hour workday while they're at

work I'm spending time studying and reading and preparing messages because I

preach here on Sunday morning i preach midweek insights i teach a men's disciplehip class on Thursday morning

which lasts an hour i'm a counselor i work with men and I still have other

things that I have to do as well i still have to go to the grocery store and buy groceries or I would just continue to

shrink nobody's too

busy for Jesus i brought up Pakistan because I

want to share something with you and it's not it it's to realize what Jesus

should mean you have people that work 14 hours a day for $60 to $100 a month and

they work six to seven days a week and they go out every

day and tell somebody about Jesus even if it's just one person because it meant that much to

them when they heard it i'm not saying that to put anybody down i'm saying we all have

time no matter where we're at in the world to tell somebody about

Jesus have you ever been healed have you ever been healed do you have something do you have

something to share you can tell somebody when they say you know I'm going through such and such you can say God healed me

of that let me pray for you you know what it took for you to receive it you should be able to pray for them for them

to receive the same thing you received why because you have

experience you ever been set free you got something to give

somebody you have a way to show them how to get out of the darkness you have salt to add to their

life to give them purpose

everything we do as a Christian as a person as a

believer should be Christ centered in other words he needs to be at the center of your will you ever seen any any of

you ever ride bicycles before you ever seen what happens when a bicycles rim gets out of true or the

spokes are are whacked you start riding down the road and the wheels going like

this doing this number and you're right and you can't quite pedal it or it's wobbling like this and when you squeeze

on the brakes it won't stop when you put Jesus in the center it

trs the wheel it centers the spokes everything in

life surrounds it everything in life if he's centralized in

everything your relationships if you're married Jesus should be in the center he should be the

foundation of your relationship cuz without him you just a couple of people in there they're going

to fight and brawl and cuss and you but when he's in the middle of it there's

peace that starts out in that relationship

every purp everything in our life there is a purpose for

it there is a purpose brother Gary how many years do

you work construction

45 plus right yeah and you make these amazing signs and crosses and and so

I've got two of them in my house one hanging on the wall one sitting on my desk i love them everybody comes into my

office wow where'd you get that i said "Well one of the men in my church makes those his name's

Gary." But you didn't learn how to do that without practice

right and it takes a lot of time and dedication on your part to make one of

those signs right how many hours you think he got in one of them signs

okay two or three days two or three days okay when I was a chef some of the

dishes we prepared you worked on it for 3 days before you ever cooked the first

thing preparation dedication perseverance this is all part

of having a successful walk with Christ this is all part of salt and

light and and I I want you guys to catch

fire in such a way that when you see somebody's who's hurting and you can

identify the fact that they're hurting the Holy Spirit moves on you to go and do something about it

trina I still laugh about you coming in and tell me "Guess what i gave away my

shoes." Why because that's exactly what God asks us to do to give away our

shoes to provide water for somebody to give them something to eat when they're hungry he said "If you've done it to the

least of these you've done it unto me." I cannot express to you how crucial how

critical that is to your walk with Christ it's absolutely

necessary that you figure that out because if you've done it to the

least of these you've done it unto Jesus he will use it as a vehicle for you to

reach more and more and more people but he can't do that if you aren't focused

on it that doesn't mean you don't go to work that doesn't mean you don't do your

job because you have I was telling this to the men the other day and it used to be it was it was a

difficulty in my marriage because this is how I feel about a job okay for

however many hours a day I agreed to work for that employer my time belongs

to them for that number of hours per day

okay and my according to the word of God I am supposed to do that job as if I'm

doing it unto the Lord and I'm supposed to give that employer my absolute very best when I'm doing work for him would

you all agree with that that is how you're supposed to work for someone but my

wife would get mad at me because I wouldn't take any time off and I would

tell her "He pays me to work x number of hours per week so many hours per day and

um I gave my word I would be there." And uh sorry I'm going to

work she would get mad she call the boss you're not feeling well stay home i want

you to stay home with me and I said "No what you want me to do is you want me to call my employer and lie to him cuz I'm

not sick and tell him I'm sick and skip work to stay home with you."

Right yeah this ain't happening i'll see you

in the morning i'm going to work and she'd be angry at me for

days but I'm a man of my word my word means something when I tell

people that I will do something I do it that's character that's integrity you

need both when I told Jesus if he would save

me I will serve you for the rest of my life which I did tell him that I have

done so now I've had better days and I've had worse days but I have remained

serving God and I've always come back to the point of God I don't feel like I'm doing

enough what else can I do how else can I reach

somebody how can I change somebody's life who's hurting and

brokenhearted and needs healing who's sick because Mark in the book of Mark

chapter 16 if you got your Bibles turn over there with me because it's so

important what he said mark chapter 16 starts in verse 15 he says "Go ye,"

that's where the word go comes from that's the motto of this church "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel

to every creature and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he

that believeth not shall be damned." And these signs shall follow them that believe does it say these signs shall

follow the apostles does it say these signs shall follow prophets does it say these signs shall

follow evangelists does it say these signs shall follow pastors and teachers or does it say these signs shall follow

them that believe do you

believe if you believe those signs need to be following you and here's the

signs in my name they shall cast out devils they shall speak with new

tongues they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them and they shall lay hands

on the sick and they shall recover that word shall is the biggest word in the

Bible because that word shall means cannot fail it will not

fail if you lay hands on the sick they shall recover how many people have you

prayed for that came out of the hospital that got over being sick that all these kind of

things because those signs should be following

you not the apostle not the prophet not the evangelist not the

pastor not the teacher those that believe those signs follow those that believe

when I went into the hospital to pray for Jason Dudy who scrambled his eggs on Mooney Boulevard I wasn't a

pastor i went and I prayed for him and God raised him back he was brain dead

literally his EEG was flat and they were telling the parent

and the sister the mom and the sister if he doesn't wake up in 48 hours we got to unplug him because he's not coming back

yet the next day his sister calls me screaming and shouting "God has performed a miracle he's

awake." When I was working at the mission there was a guy there he had

cancer it was in his heart and lungs stage

4 doctor told him "You got six months to live." He asked me "Will you pray for

me?" I said "Of course I'll pray for you." And I did he went to the doctor 2

days later and they reran the test and there was no cancer it was gone

completely this guy had had six stints put in his heart he's like stage four

cancer in his heart and lungs god healed him instantly friend of his first miracle that

happened on the streets tore all the ligaments all the

ligaments and stuff in his left leg from his knee to his ankle showed up to mission on a pair of

crutches god spoke to me and says "When he gets over here pray for him." His name is Dave

Green um he's about your age Gary now he wasn't then

um and when he's sitting there I want you I want you to wrap your mind around this because this is what happens when

you ask people if you can pray for them he'd been prayed for that day by 10 or

15 different people every one of them that prayed for him prayed that he would have strength

to get to his time through his time of trouble i asked him "Do you believe in

the healing power of Jesus?" And he says 'Yes I

do i said ' Then I'm going to pray for you that God is going to instantly and miraculously heal that

leg i said 'I want to pray that you have strength to get your time of testing or whatever i want you to receive a miracle

today and I prayed for him and I said "Do you believe that God healed you?" He goes "I do." And I stuck my hand out i

said and he grasped my hand and I said "Then rise up in the name of Jesus Christ and walk."

He goes to the emergency room the next day with the crutches over his shoulder doctor asks him "Why are you

walking on that leg i told you yesterday it was you couldn't put any weight on it." He goes "God healed my leg." He

goes "I don't believe that." And he goes "Do the do the medical procedure." So they sent him back in MRIs

X-rays it was healed completely doctor tells him "We must have screw

missed we must have gotten your X-rays and MRIs uh mixed up with somebody

else's." He goes "No." He says "You just have trouble accepting the fact that God is who he says he

is." Same God then same God

now God has not

changed at all not one

iota we just we were just here singing songs about at the

cross about the healing power of God do you believe the songs you

sing i mean honestly do you believe those songs do you believe what God's word says about you do you believe what

Jesus said about you

the church is a safe harbor for the lost the dying the hurt

it's a hospital for the sick it's a recovery center for those

that are hurting and addicted that's who the church is

and when you lose that the church becomes a religious

institution that has nothing in it but dead men's bones and that's not what Jesus called

us to be he called us to be the salt and light of the earth

he called us to reach out to be a city set on a

hill to be that burning candle on a candlestick jesus said "If I be lifted

up I will draw all men unto me." Do you guys believe that you

believe it you know Johnny's a blessing he lives

here in Papa and even though he's gone through some health struggles and still is

facing some but I'm believing God's going to get you through those and you're going to come out way better on

the other side i already prayed for you and I I believe trust and believe in the power of

God but we've reached someone in this town where we felt like there was nobody

that that was listening they're listening

i was surprised yesterday i actually thought nobody was going to show up at

Starbucks yet there were people at Starbucks come in says "We saw your Facebook post we we we already had our

order done but we come by to say hi." I wound up not having to buy a cup of coffee which I I had money in my pocket

i was ready to go i must have talked to 50 60 people

yesterday and you know what they told me we see your messages online i go to this

church or I go to that church but we watch your message every week we took a church in

obscurity and if you don't know what that word means it means

unknown we're reaching 3,000 people a week 77% of them live in Tallery County

the largest number of that 77% and if you haven't done the math on it that's over 2,000

people live in Porterville the next largest group's in

Vicelia the next largest group's in Springville and the next group after that's in

Tiller over 2,000 people a week we're reaching in Tiller County

we're not counting anything we're doing anywhere else in the world just Till Larry County and to walk into Starbucks

yesterday with no idea who I was going to run into at all and receive a

testimony that what this church is doing is impacting

people in a profound way means we're doing what Jesus said to

do go to the last slide Chris so Jesus spoke to us to be the

salt of the earth the light of the world a set city set upon a hill a candle set

upon a candlestick with one purpose to draw people to him now I want you to

think about this if we have reached one person from popular there's a whole bunch more people out here in

popular that need to be reached we may not think so we may not

We may think it's burned out field but I promise you it's not it is not a burned

out field and we have to come to a place where the burning desire to reach

people with the message of Jesus Christ moves into the

center because if it's not you're not going to reach people

you're not going to change lives how many How many of you ever fired up a

barbecue pit you ever fired a barbecue pit up Brother Tim there's a couple of ways you can put charcoal in a barbecue

pit to make it work okay you can take a charcoal can dump all the charcoal in it light it from the bottom with newspaper

or what they call a tumble weed and then shake it out into your um barbecue pit

and you can cook on it right well there's another way of doing it is called a snake

and what you do is you take and you line two layers of barbecue of charcoal

briquettes around around the inside of your barbecue pit and on one end of

it use tumble weeds and you light the charcoal from there and then every so

often there'll be a couple more tumble weeds and what happens is those tumble weeds catch on fire and then they light

the charcoal and as you're cooking the charcoal burns and when it gets to the next set of tumble weeds it ignites

again and it burns the next round and what happens is you take the same amount of charcoal briquettes that you put in

your charcoal can which holds roughly 5 lb and you turn 5 lb of charcoal which

will burn out in about 2 hours use the same 5 lbs of charcoal and it burns for

15 no difference in the amount of charcoal no difference in the brand of the charcoal no difference in anything

other than the way you lit it

so I want you to think about that because next weekend is Memorial

Day and June the 8th is Pentecost and I brought up Pentecost and I said

"Pentecost?" You guys do realize the three there's three dates in the Christian calendar that are of absolute

importance the first one of course is Christmas that's Jesus's birth easter is

the death burial and resurrection of Christ right pentecost which takes place 50

days later is the birth of the church that's when the church was born

that's when the Holy Ghost was poured out that's when people went out and spread the message of Jesus Christ the

very first message converted 3,000 people

4 days later that message converted 4,000 plus women and

kids and the church grew from 120 people in the upper room to over

13,000 in the city of Jerusalem in 4 days 4

days and I'm telling you today that it has been Pentecost

now for over 2,000 years we're still on Pentecost we're

still supposed to be setting the world on fire reaching the lost the mission has

not changed only the missionary has changed that's you and me the mission is

still the same go ye therefore into all the world preach the

gospel teaching them to observe all things which I commanded you baptizing in the name of the Father Son and the

Holy Spirit and lo I am with you until the end of the age is that not what it says in Matthew 28:18 19 and

20 the mission has not changed only the missionaries the carriers of the message

so I want to remind you today that when you leave

here you're not just a psychic you're not just an optical

technician you're not just an office manager you're not just a dad or a mom

you're not just a retired uh construction

guy you're a missionary with a purpose

and God uses what he gave you gifts in because those are truly

gifts as a vehicle to share the gospel because I am

definitely not a psychic i ain't going over there and I'm not passing out methadone all day

long i'm not a surgical nurse you don't want me in there okay

i was a chef food that was my vehicle i made a

lot of people fat and

happy each and every one of us has a gift god gave you those gifts for a

reason and he gave those gifts to be used to build his

kingdom and to be that light in the darkness and that

salt that the world needs so I'm going to ask you guys to

stand with me chris fire that song up