700 Salt and Light Part 1 - Matthew 5:13

Do you put salt on your food before you taste it? Or do you wait until after you've tasted it? Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast today, we're talking about Matthew 5:13, and we'll talk again tomorrow, about 14 and 15 about being salt and light.

My dad used to salt this food pretty regularly, right? He consumed a lot of salt. We were talking about that the other day, but I wanted to talk about this passage because this passage sums up a lot of what we teach in Follower of One about how we live in the world as Christ followers. And this is our 700th episode. This is episode number 700. We did some bonus episodes. So we've done a little more than 700, but it's exciting to know that, your list. It's exciting to have made this kind of progress. God is the one who's bringing about all this fruit from just talking about the scriptures and challenging us. Challenging you and me to go to work today and make a difference for Jesus.

Today's passage is Matthew 5:13 from the English Standard Version. "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." I often talk about us making Jesus visible by the way we live. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow because that's actually an analogy to the light. But the salt is different, the salt actually changes the flavor of what it's put on.

When someone chooses to put salt on something, it changes its taste. It changes it a little bit. God chooses to leave us here when he saves us. And part of the reason why he does that is so that we would make a difference on the earth. That we would be the salt of the earth. If our saltiness doesn't make a difference, then, what can we do? There's nothing we can do to, to restore that. It's no longer good for anything. Our lives are designed to be lived in public.

We're designed to be difference makers in the world, but I feel like we started for so many years by talking first. And of course, I talk a bunch on this podcast and everywhere else, but the talk doesn't mean nearly as much. If the actions aren't there. If we're not salt, if we're not making a difference in the lives of the people around us if we don't change the taste of the organizations, that we're a part of, if we don't make a difference or change the taste of the community, where we live or the country where we live, we're not fulfilling our purpose. Part of our purpose is to be a difference maker for God, wherever he has placed us. In this time, and in this place, he chose our time. He chose our place. He chose our background and our experiences. He's chosen so much for us. And this is our opportunity to be salt of the earth means that we want to go into every situation, finding a way to change the taste and the texture and the flavor of that circumstance, in that situation.

We want to change that just a little bit and move it a little closer to Jesus. Our goal and Follower of One is to help people move one notch closer to Jesus. When we change the taste of something, it should attract people to the holy spirit, to Jesus Christ through the holy spirit. Because that's our goal. Our goal is to help other people find him. And the reason why that's our goal, we were created for that purpose. But we also get great joy when we do it.

If you've taken part in anything that we do in Follower of One if you've tried to be active about living your faith in the workplace. Even if you mess up, God gives you a little bit of joy in doing that. And let's lean on that joy. Let's lean on our relationship with our brothers and sisters and make a difference in our workplaces today simply because we can. Simply because we have the holy spirit living in us. We don't have to lose our taste. We can make a difference in the world.

Join a community of people who are interested about making a difference in the world as well. You can join all of us at https://community.followerofone.org. Our goal is to help. As to move other people one notch closer to Jesus and to move ourselves one notch closer to Jesus. And we do that together in community at https://community.followerofone.org.

Thanks very much.