Well, good morning, everybody. Could I ask you please to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 14? Can I ask you to stand as we read God's word? Luke chapter 14, I want to read from verse 34, just two verses this morning. Luke chapter 14, and reading from verse 34. "Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use, either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Let's pray.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give insight as we come to study your word this morning. We thank You that your word is true. But not only is it factually true, we thank You, Lord, it is true in the way it understands the hearts of men and women. And we thank You that here we have a portion that we need to take on board, and we ask, Lord, that the challenge presented in the words before us would be heard by our ears, and it would penetrate our heart. It would cause us who know and love Christ to move forward in greater reflection of His glorious image and to live in this dark world in a way that would bring honor to Him. And for those who are going through the motions, who are part of the crowd that has gathered this morning, and yet their life does not bear the marks of true saving faith. We pray that this text would reveal to them their great need to first and foremost be right with Jesus Christ. So, we are thankful as we come to this moment that You already know us fully. You know the needs of our hearts. And Lord, we ask that You would meet us at the point of our need. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [End]
Have a seat.
I don't know how much you know about history, but Roman soldiers sometimes were paid in salt. Yes, you heard me right. That little white thing that you sprinkle on your, you know, chips, the thing that adds a little flavor that sits on your table beside the pepper, they would be paid with salt. In fact, it's where our word that we still use today, salary, comes from. It's that idea of the salt. It's where we get our expression, are you worth your salt? Now, I could imagine if I was to pay you in salt, you would be a little bit disappointed. You wouldn't be too happy on that particular, you know, payday if all you received was a bag of the white stuff. But that just reminds us that we don't understand the world Jesus spoke into, because that ancient world placed an unbelievable value upon this commodity, upon salt.
So, before we even try and get into the text and break down the sentences contained here, I want to first of all kind of go off on a diatribe. That's always a good way to start a sermon, isn't it? To go down a rabbit hole and get a little bit lost. I want us to think about salt. And I want us to think about how Jesus' original hearers would have thought when He mentioned the word salt. I read a number of books, a number of articles. There's a very helpful summary by a man, Andrew Wilson, that I found online as well. But there's lots of things you can read about salt in the ancient world, but I think it's good for us to take a little bit of time to think about salt. We use it all the time, more than we realize. In the last couple of hours, you have probably come in contact with salt. We use it to make leather. We use it to make pottery, soap, detergents. Hopefully you used at least one of those this morning. Rubber, clothing, paper, cleaning products, glass, plastic, pharmaceuticals, all of them contain salt. And yet it sits largely unnoticed in millions of cafes, restaurants, sitting in the middle of the table. It's essential for your health. It's always been eaten by humans. Wherever we have settled in the world, we settle in places where we have access to salt.
You know, and we still enjoy adding it to so much of our food, we spread it across the roads when it snows, maybe not so frequently here in Texas, but in other parts of the world, they need salt to be able to drive. More than half of our chemical products that we make, salt is involved at some stage of that process. And that's without even beginning to contemplate the trillions of tons of salt that sit in our oceans covering 70% of the surface of our planet. Salt is, well, it's everywhere, isn't it? And its ordinariness, its use in every human culture around this globe makes it such an obvious candidate for Jesus to pick as the perfect illustration to tie up His sermon to the crowds.
Salt has so many purposes we've just mentioned today, but in the ancient world, you could distill it down to five main functions, okay? Five main functions. And you're thinking, why are we not having a sermon? This sounds more like a university lecture at the moment, but again, we're trying to hear what the people heard. We're trying to understand the way they thought. So, the first use of salt we probably most relate to is that of flavoring. Salt makes food taste better. It can add flavor to the dish, or it can be used to enhance, to draw out tastes that already exist. That's why we add salt to our vegetables. It enhances the flavor that's already there. So, sometimes it brings a contrast that makes something more exciting. It seemed that whenever I was at university, all of a sudden, salted caramel became the thing. The idea was that caramel is sweet, but the salt, it contrasts and it draws more attention out to the tasty flavor of the caramel. It gives that contrast. It's the only one of the five uses that probably still stands today, that of flavoring. But it reminds us, as Jesus spoke about salt, that Christians are intended to spread throughout the world and to enhance the societies, the people groups that they come in contact with. We were to add flavor where it would otherwise be bland. We were to draw out blessing and good in the places we find ourselves. We were to offer contrast to the rest of society by being distinct and by being different. So, flavoring.
The second juice that was common in Jesus' day was that of preserving. Salt was the ancient equivalent of your fridge. If you want to keep something, if you want to have it for a few days, you put it in the fridge. Well, in that world, before they had fridges in their home, if they wanted to keep meat from rotting, if they wanted to stop fish from decaying, they would rub salt all over it to preserve the eat ability for longer. The disciples, in that sense, Jesus was going to send them into the world, and part of our mission is to keep this world from decay. To preserve goodness within it, to prevent society from becoming corrupted or ruined. It's a helpful thing to bear in mind as we think about our mission, as we go to work every day, as we interact with our families. Salt doesn't just savor, it saves, it preserves. It holds back the rot; it holds back the decay. So, it flavored. It preserved.
And thirdly again remember the people that Jesus is talking to are, well they're not Gentiles they're Jews. And in the Jewish system, salt was extremely important when it came to sacrifice. We don't think of that. If you turn in your Bible to Leviticus chapter 2 verse 13, I want you to see this. For God mandated that salt was important, essential, in the use of sacrifice. Early in Israel's history, Moses, under the instruction of God, presented to the people how sacrifices were to be conducted, how it was to take place in that tabernacle and later in the temple. Leviticus chapter 2 verse 13 says, "you shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering. With all your offerings, you shall offer salt." Salt, maybe because it preserves, maybe because it added flavor, and these commodities or the sacrifices would ultimately be eaten and used by the priesthood. But all of Israel's sacrifices involve salt. You did not make a sacrifice without salt. So, there's a religious attachment, as Jesus speaks. When He talked to a Jewish audience, they thought, as they heard the word salt, of sacrifice. You think of the instruction we receive in Romans to present our bodies as living sacrifices. The Jewish mind automatically would think of salt. There's to be something salty about our life. Something that marks our thoughts, our actions. So, we're to have salty thoughts, salty actions. It's to permeate everything.
So flavoring, preserving, sacrificing, fourthly, destroying. Destroying. Now, this seems at first unfamiliar to us, and it definitely seems unappealing. We don't like to think about a function that God is calling us to of destroying, but you can't get away from it. I would say in Scripture, overwhelmingly, this is the primary function that you read about. salt being used to destroy. It's most often quoted in the context of judgment. It has a destroying effect. You think of Genesis 19, verse 26. Lot's wife, she looked back to Sodom, and she was turned into a pillar of yes, salt. And Jesus, in a few chapters, Luke 17, verse 32, He'll revert to that episode back in Genesis, and He'll use it and liken it to His coming judgment. Moses, he warns the Israelites in Deuteronomy 29, verse 23, that if they break God's covenant, their land will be, this is what it says, "burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing where no plant can sprout." When Gideon's son Abimelech, he tries to set himself up as king over Israel, that the men of Shechem, they rebel against him, and he comes to them, in Judges chapter 9 verse 45, and responds by raising the city and sowing it with salt. The psalmist, he describes in Psalm 107 verse 34, God turning a fruitful land into a salty waste because of the evil of its inhabitants. Mark chapter 9 verse 49, And Jesus Himself, in probably one of the fiercest paragraphs that you find in any of the Gospels, He says simply that "everyone will be salted with fire." Salt in the ancient East, it was used to express judgment on evil. It had a destroying function.
Now, there's a sense in which disciples today, we still have a similar function. God scatters salty Christians into the world as a way of judging evil. As a way of destroying wickedness. As a way of preventing lust or greed or murder or injustice from gripping and holding society. We have a destroying, a pressing against evil responsibility. The very existence of the church preaching and living out the gospel. It proclaims judgment against the enemies of God. And it serves, as Paul says in Philippians chapter 1 verse 28, “to be a clear sign to them of their destruction.” That's part of our function as Christians. I think this may be why Jesus says, we are the salt of the earth. Immediately after, He has described the persecution and cross-carrying that we will experience if we follow Him. We're in a war, a war against evil.
So, the people listening to Jesus, they thought of flavoring, they thought of preserving, they thought of sacrifice, they thought of salt destroying, and lastly, of fertilizing, of fertilizing. Several ancient civilizations used salt as a fertilizer in small parts, but as a fertilizer in soil. Depending on the conditions of the soil that you find, it could either help the earth retain water, it could cause the fields to be easier to plow, it could release minerals for the plant, it could kill weeds, protect crops from disease, stimulate growth, increase yields, all of those things. Now the reason that matters is that Jesus specifically describes people, His people, as the salt of the earth, of the earth, which meant something to a rural community. Meant something in a farming context. It meant something specific to them. Disciples are a fertilizer. I bet you've never been called that before. You're a fertilizer. We're meant to be in those places where the conditions are challenging, where life is hard. We're to enrich the soil around us, to kill the weeds, to protect against disease, to stimulate growth. As we scatter, life springs up in unexpected places. Barren lands become fruitful when the people of God are redeemed. As the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 35, verse 1, "the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus."
So, think of all of those things. The word salt, it created in the mind or conjured up in the mind of Jesus' listeners this tapestry of images, flavoring, preserving, sacrificing, destroying, and fertilizing. All of that is at the front of the mind of those hanging on Jesus' words. And in that context, Jesus speaks. Let me read again from verse 25 so you hear the flow of His presentation. "Now great crowds accompanied Him, and He turned and said to them, if anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he is enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he's laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Do you see the context? Jesus has just spelled out the significant cost of following him. He has to come first. over family, over parents, over your wife, over your children, over even your life itself. He comes first, before all the things that we naturally love and are drawn to. And though He is worth the cost, He demands your full commitment. He is to be Lord over his followers. As he says in verse 33, "So therefore, if any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, he cannot be My disciple." Now he underlines that fact by highlighting just as salt is distinct and it affects everything it touches in a noticeable way so His followers will not be bland. They will stand in contrast to the society around them. They will affect the world around them. There will be a noticeable difference between a Christian and everybody else. They will be salty. And then there's everybody else. They will be bland.
Now, let me give you a very important qualifier. You will misunderstand the whole sermon if you don't look at me right now and listen to this important qualifier. He's not talking about how to become a Christian. He's not saying if you are salty enough, you're in the club. He's not saying if you can produce enough salty behavior, you're going to get into heaven. Rather, He's talking about a mark, a mark that sits on every Christian. There's no such thing, Jesus says, as an unsalty Christian. That's His point. He's not saying how to become a Christian. If you want to become a Christian, you don't start acting salty. If you want to become a Christian, you repent and believe the gospel. That's how you become a Christian. But what He is doing is he's giving us a wonderful test, a way for the crowd this morning to test themselves, a way to discern whether you are right with God, whether you have been affected by Jesus Christ.
And that's important. When He forgives us, He transforms us. But when He saves us, He gives us a new heart that desires to serve Him. And so, his point is not that you are too sinful for God. That is true. You are far too sinful. But He's saying that if your life, though you are a sinner, bears no marks of his touch upon you, you aren't saved. If you don't have something of the flavoring of Jesus marking your condition, you've never been touched by Him. For everything Jesus touches, bears the salty marks of Jesus.
So, with that important qualifier, so that we hear His words accurately, let me make a few very simple points from the very simple words Jesus gives us. Here's the first point this morning. God's work is distinctly good. God's work is distinctly good. Look at the beginning of verse 34, the first three words. It says, "salt is good." Salt is good. When we talk about following God, when we read a passage that we've just read about having to carry your cross, when we begin to speak about Lordship, His Lordship over you, about submission to Jesus, that there's a temptation that grows in the heart to get the idea in our head that His rule is a cruel one. That Christianity is actually an oppressive thing. But that's not true. And it's not true because God is good. God is good. In every way, God is good. He's kind. He gives good things to His children. He provides them at the point of their need. They do not have to worry about their life, what they will eat or drink, or about their bodies, but what they will wear. The Lord is in control of it all. And He loves His children. "What father, if a child asks him for bread, gives him a stone?" Our Father in heaven, He is good in His very essence. In all that He is, He is good.
And because of that, He affects the people He touches in a good way, and He causes them to produce good. He makes us able to forgive because he forgives. He makes us kind because He is kind. He causes us to grow in patience because He is patient. He causes us to be helpful because there's nobody as helpful as God. He causes us to love because God is love. And He causes us to do good and to bring good and to foster good in the world around us because, well, fundamentally, He is good. So just as everything on the dinner plate tastes good when a little bit of salt is added, Christians are good, are meant to bring good, because their new heart that comes from God is marked by His goodness.
Remember the context. Jesus is talking about what it means to follow Him, what it means to walk the walk, and because His walk was a good one, those who follow after Him will walk a good walk. They will go a good direction. They will be marked by goodness. But what about you? Are the fingerprints of a good God seen in your life? You think of your speech compared to somebody else in the workplace. Is it good? Is there evidence of goodness in the way that you talk? What about the wideness of your compassion? Are you miserly and narrow? Or are you warm and broad and kind in your compassion, like our good, compassionate Savior? Those of you who have children, here's a test. How much patience marks your interaction with your children?
Our Lord is so patient with us. Surely as we grow and walk His way, we will be marked by growth in that area. What about even the thoughtfulness you showed your colleagues at work? Does it reflect that your person has been affected by a good God? Jesus, where it says very simply, "salt is good." That is simple. Three words. "Salt is good." He's not saying we as His followers are perfect, but there must be marks of goodness in our lives.
And maybe you say, well, when I look at my life, that's very hard to discern. And does it really matter anyway? Sure, God is compassionate. God is good. He's gracious. He'll make up where I lack. Why does it matter anyway? Well, Jesus continues. And the second point I want you to see in the text is pretend faith is irredeemable. Pretend faith is irredeemable. Look immediately at what Jesus says in the rest of verse 34. "But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored. It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile."
You know, I thought this morning about having some salt up here and maybe some sugar and maybe some other white substance, but Sarah told me that's, you know, very dangerous in a modern context to have any other white powder at the front. People will panic. And I thought about bringing up children, which would also make them panic, and asking them, how do you know what the salt is? Well, how do you know what the salt is? You know, there's lots of white stuff out there, isn't there? How do you know what the salt is? Well, salt is revealed in its taste. That's how we know. Nothing tastes quite like salt. You know, we have the flavor, we talk about a salty flavor. There's nothing like salt. And the reality is salt never gets unsalty. You know, salt never, you don't get degrees of saltiness. It is salty or it's not salty. It's salt or it's something else.
That's just a reality. But in Israel, what happened if you went to somewhere like the Dead Sea? Where they have extremely salty water, it is around it people would harvest salt, and they would dig out troughs in the clay, and then they would grab buckets of water and they would pour them into these clay troughs, and they would allow the sun to do its work and to evaporate away the H2O, and what would be left behind were these crystals. Mainly salt crystals, but there would be other substances in there. Other things that looked like salt, but were different. And actually, whenever the people would scoop it up, there would inevitably be little pieces of clay that would get into the mix. And so, whenever that would then be taken to the market and sold, there was quality control issues.
You know, you wanted to make sure that what you got was the authentic thing. You wanted real salt. And some shrewd operators out there would pad the salt with these other things, these useless things, these pretend things. And so, the happy customer would go home with their bag of white stuff, and they would bring it into the area of their home, their kitchen, and inevitably over time, things would happen. Moisture would come, and it would cause the salt, the true salt, to leach away. And what would end up being in the bag was the other stuff. The pretend stuff, and the unknowing customer would take that and try and sprinkle it on their fish and chips, and they would go to take a bite, and they would be horrified because their whole dish had been ruined. Then they would taste something bitter instead, or something tasteless instead, and they would know that what was left in the bag was not worth its salt. It was pretend. It was empty. It was void of usefulness altogether. It wasn't that it was lesser salt. It just wasn't salt.
And that's what Jesus is picturing here, because look at what He says. That salt that has lost its taste, "how shall its saltiness be restored?" It can't because it's not even salt to begin with. Verse 35, "it is of no use, either for the soil or the manure pile." If I can't use it on my dinner, naturally, we would think, well, maybe I could use it in a lesser way. Maybe I could use it out on the field. But if it's not salt, it's not useful. That won't do anything. It's all pretend. It's all fake.
Now, the ancient world knew all of that. Salt doesn't get unsalty. But they knew that sometimes, especially in the deceptiveness of men who were just trying to make more money, they could end up with something that was useless and fake. Now, as the crowd listened to Jesus preach, what was He saying? Well, He's saying, crowd, you can be here. You can hear the preaching. You can dress and look the part. But if you are not made of the right chemistry, it'll show itself in your lack of saltiness. You aren't worth your salt. Jesus is saying that often in the Christian church, it was from the beginning, and certainly it is true in Dallas in 2025. You have many people who will be in church this morning that look on the surface like the white stuff. They look on the surface like believers, but it's a pretense. And the evidence that it is a pretense is to be seen in the indistinct nature of their life. They're bland. True believers have changed hearts, and it'll show itself. It demands. It has to. The chemistry essentially will show itself in a changed engagement with the world around us. That has to happen.
There may be some who look and for a time, maybe even deceived the majority. They look like the right stuff, but in time, the evidence of their pretense will be seen in their lack of a distinct life. Jesus is not saying that true Christians are perfect. Believe me, we are not perfect. There's a battle that continues to wage within us. But He is saying that true Christians are changed, and they will bear the marks, they will bear the evidence in the distinct way they live amongst the world. Now, we've got a lot of rabbit trails this morning. Let me put a pastoral caution on what I've just said, okay? Let me give a balance because in pastoral ministry, I've come across many sincere believers who battle with assurance, struggle with assurance. Maybe I have a disposition more prone to a depressed manner. And for those individuals, sometimes when they hear these clear calls in Scripture to examine, they're full simply of despair.
Now, let me tell you, it is hard sometimes to see saltiness in your own life. You think of Paul in Romans. He's full of despair about the old man he still sees within. "The things I want to do, I don't. The things I don't want to do, I still find myself doing." And there is a true sense where this fight of eternity, believers should be frustrated and conscious and saddened by the deadness that still sits within, by the sin that they still have to wage war with. So sometimes those amongst us who have a more sensitive disposition, when we hear the clear call of Scripture to measure ourselves, to examine, are we salty, we can fall into a place of serious despair. And what I want to say is that's why, in God's good design, He has placed us in the church. There's never meant to be a lone ranger Christian because we need one another. God has designed us to be found in a community of believers, accountable to one another, known by one another. You will never find assurance in the bedroom by yourself. You find assurance by being part and entwined with the body. So those of you who have a more sensitive disposition can have other believers around you highlighting the salt that they see, praying for you and encouraging you in the good that you're doing.
So, let us examine ourselves, but let us do it in the context of a community of believers so that we can press forward in the way that God has designed. God's work is distinctly good. Pretend faith is irredeemable. Thirdly, look at the end of pretend faith. Look at the end of pretend faith. Verse 35, it finishes by saying, "it is thrown away." This pretend salt is thrown away. And the point is very simple. It's useless. It's thrown away. In the end, it serves no point. It looks like something, but it has no value that it brings. And very simply, Jesus is saying, God will remove the pretend. God will remove the pretend. As our Savior said in another place, "there is no way to the Father except through Him." You can't pretend your way into the kingdom. That's the sobering note He's presenting to this crowd. You can't attend your way into heaven. You can't serve or perform your way into eternity. The Bible says our best deeds are as filthy rags. It's a hopeless endeavor. Only through confession of sin and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ is true forgiveness and real transformation found.
I love Pilgrim's Progress. The story of Pilgrim's Progress is full of pictures that show the common failures and mistakes of Christians on their pilgrimage, but also those who for a time and season will associate with the faith. There's a scene in Pilgrim's Progress where Christian, after a long and humbling move to come through the wicket gate, and to plod on to the place of the cross where the burden falls off his back, he continues to walk along the narrow way beside a wall. And then over the wall, a bag falls beside him and two bodies come over. Two other men come and join. Formalist and Hypocrisy. And they pick up their bag, and they begin to walk with Christian down the narrow way. Christian's horrified. How are they here? They came over the wall. And casually and, you know, in a confident way, they begin to talk. And Christian, he brings up his concern. He tells him, man, you haven't come the way designed by the king. How are you going to get into the heavenly kingdom, the celestial city, if you haven't come his direction, if you haven't followed his instruction? And with confidence, Hypocrisy, and Formalist, they say, look, "we're going down the same road. We're walking the same walk as you. What does it matter that we started differently? What does it matter that we did it our way?" Christian, is horrified, because how do you go the way of the King without first recognizing your wickedness? How can you make progress on the road to the Celestial City if you haven't first bowed at the cross and had that burden removed? And of course, as the narrative begins, the two men, in hope of a shortcut, very quickly reveal their true colors and disappear from the pages of the story. While only the true Christian presses on.
God's work is distinctly good. Pretend faith is irredeemable. The end of pretend faith. And the last point I want you to see is really the summary, the salty challenge. Look at how Jesus finishes his instruction. Verse 35, "he who has ears to hear, let him hear." Jesus says at the end, if you hear the challenge, respond today. If you see there is something lacking, act on it. And the implication of His words, "he who has ears to hear, let him hear." The implication is there's many who won't hear. There's many who won't listen. And because they won't listen, they'll never act. They'll never truly repent. They'll never truly entrust themselves to Christ. Jesus says in another place "today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart."
Have you ever thought about how amazing it is that a child, a child that normally doesn't even sit in this room goes and sits in the nursery. Yet as they're told about Jesus, and they're presented forgiveness, and they're told about a God who so loved that He sent His one and only Son. "That whoever believes in Him won't perish, but have everlasting life." That little child can call upon God for salvation, and their life immediately is transformed. And yet, there will be adults in this room no matter how much they hear it spoken, do not hear it, and do not get it, and do not humble themselves, and never convert. It's not complicated. The gospel is not complicated, and yet the majority of people in our world do not respond to it. Why is that? Well, it's not a lack of intellectual capability. They can or they could humanly understand the truth. The problem is their heart. Their heart is hardened. And because their heart is hardened in stubbornness, they refuse to truly hear. "He who has ears to hear in this room this morning, let him hear." God does forgive to the uttermost all who come to Him, because as we said earlier, God is good.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Are you salty this morning? If not, you need Jesus. When I was about Isla's age, around 12 or so, I remember us going on a holiday, a vacation. Gotta get the right language for the right place. A vacation as a family to Spain. And we were in Spain, and we were staying in this little tiny apartment somebody had allowed us to use. And, you know, it was a small apartment. We were kind of self-catering, and, you know, we'd wash our own dishes. But after about day two or three, we started to all think, what is wrong? Because everything, no matter what we made, whether it was pasta, whether it was, you know, steak and, I was gonna say chips, steak and chips, whether it was, you know, just bread itself and, you know, cheese, everything tasted salty, like overly salty. And we couldn't work it out. Until, you know, we panicked and started really investigating because we could not work out why everything was so salty. Do you know what it was? It was the water that we washed our dishes in. We would wash the dishes in the sink. We, you know, thought we were being really thorough and, you know, getting them all clean and rinsing off the suds and leaving them out to dry. And the water itself was salty. So, every dish, before we ever put anything on it, it was salty.
It was marked. No matter what we were going to do, anything that had been washed, which it's a good thing we washed, isn't it? Anything we washed were the marks of the salty water. Jesus very simply is saying the same thing. He is good. He is salty. And anything He has touched, anything He has washed will bear salty marks because of that. If you're not marked by a salty life, you have never been washed by Jesus, and today you need His forgiveness. Today you need to seek Him. Let's pray.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you don't just forgive, but you transform. And Lord, we pray and ask that you would help us all to hear the call of Christ. We ask, Lord, that You would give us the grace to be able to examine our lives and to discern whether the fingerprints of Christ may be seen amongst us, whether there is goodness that You have brought about in our lives through the transformation You have rendered in our hearts. We do pray for our brothers and sisters who so often tend to despair, and we ask, Lord, that this call to examine themselves, that they would do it in the context of the community of believers, that they would find a protection from that place of despair, and where there is true faith, you would grant that glorious gift of assurance that only the Holy Spirit can truly administer. But Lord, we also ask that where there are some who have got caught in a pretense, that You would cause them to see that their life reveals that they have not been washed by Christ, and that here and now they would seek Him while He may be found. Lord, we are so thankful for salvation and for sanctification, that that which you have begun, You will indeed bring to completion, that you are the God at work within us. So, give us hope and cause us to persevere, for it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [End]
