Shownotes
What does it mean to belong and matter as part of God’s family?
Eric Harding shares personal stories and real struggles from work, parenting, and daily life, showing how we can embrace Jesus’ call to bring hope, healing, and truth as salt and light. You will find honest encouragement, practical examples, and bold challenges to stand firm in faith, shaping the world around you instead of shrinking back.
Whether you feel overlooked or weary, join a community seeking purpose, courage, and growth, knowing you do not walk this road alone.
Key Insights
- True belonging begins as you embrace your identity as salt and light in God’s family.
- Bringing hope means engaging the world’s darkness and brokenness with honesty and love.
- You can make a difference right where you are by living out visible, authentic faith.
- Spiritual growth requires facing uncomfortable truths, resisting apathy, and stepping into your purpose.
- Healing and change start with small acts of grace, encouragement, and righteousness in everyday conversations.
- Your struggles and doubts are welcome; you do not need to be perfect to join God’s work of redemption.
https://springhousemidweek.captivate.fm/episode/the-sermon-of-sermons-part-2
Subscribe & Follow the Podcast
Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 11:00 AM
- Thursdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcripts
Father
Speaker:God, I thank you so much. I thank you so much for
Speaker:the gift freely given, Lord, that we can come into this
Speaker:place, Lord, and we know that we're covered because of what you've done. And
Speaker:so, Father, we come under your covering tonight. Father, we have
Speaker:ready hearts. We want to learn from you tonight, Father. We want
Speaker:to be attentive to what you're doing in this place.
Speaker:So we thank you for another opportunity, another time just
Speaker:to step into your house with your people and hear what you have
Speaker:to say, Lord. We're grateful. We bless you and we thank
Speaker:you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker:Amen. God is so faithful. He's so good. Um,
Speaker:coming out of the last series, I really was just praying, Lord, we
Speaker:have so many gifted and anointed teachers in this house, and
Speaker:"Lord, what direction do you have us?" Because we just wanna
Speaker:stay in the words in red, and we wanna stay and listen to what you're
Speaker:saying. And one of the people that the Lord put on my heart was Eric
Speaker:Harding. Eric and Valerie and their children, I have watched their
Speaker:lives for so many years. And there's just this
Speaker:level of faithfulness and servanthood and commitment. And I
Speaker:knew that the Lord wanted Eric to share with us tonight. But there was
Speaker:also another side of it. There was a little bit of a selfish side,
Speaker:because I wanted to hear what the Lord was
Speaker:saying to him and through him. And I'm
Speaker:excited for Eric to bring the word to us tonight. So if you would welcome
Speaker:Elder Eric Harding.
Speaker:All right, welcome Springhouse. I
Speaker:actually have a couple more welcomes for you. So first Welcome
Speaker:back to spring. So it was 80 degrees
Speaker:last week. We had snow on Monday, and here we stand again,
Speaker:almost 80 degrees. So that's Tennessee, as they put it, or probably
Speaker:the South. And then secondly, welcome to March Madness and
Speaker:bracket-busting season. It's for all of the basketball fans in the house.
Speaker:So I hope you are having a great week.
Speaker:I also pray that you are pressing into the abiding
Speaker:opportunities that we have this Lenten season.
Speaker:I'm excited, I really am,
Speaker:genuinely excited, humbled, and honored to be with
Speaker:you this evening. Tonight we get the
Speaker:opportunity to really dig through and dig into the meat of the
Speaker:Sermon on the Mount, and what an amazing
Speaker:sermon that it is. The Holy
Speaker:Spirit has led me through what to say and what
Speaker:to teach about salt and light tonight, which is a very
Speaker:incredible topic. I'm excited to share what he's revealed to me.
Speaker:In order to get there, we are going to walk through quite a bit of
Speaker:red letters tonight. There's going to be a lot of Bible tonight.
Speaker:We're going to talk about the commands that Jesus gave to us.
Speaker:We're going to talk about the desire and the intent for our lives.
Speaker:We're gonna walk and talk through the properties of salt and light so we can
Speaker:understand why he used them as the metaphors that he did.
Speaker:And we're gonna talk about what they have in common. And along the way,
Speaker:we're gonna do a little bit of history, we're gonna do a little bit of
Speaker:biology, and we're gonna do a little bit of word analysis,
Speaker:okay? One of the bigger takeaways
Speaker:that I hope you do grab onto tonight is how
Speaker:we as his elements of righteousness
Speaker:are supposed to penetrate and are supposed to invade
Speaker:the dark spaces of this world. And
Speaker:that's enabled for us to be able to show the truth
Speaker:and to enable Jesus to change the hearts of the world.
Speaker:Oh, whoops. Before we, before we read scripture, I did want to
Speaker:say, so Pastor Ronnie introduced the Beatitudes to
Speaker:us last week, an amazing introduction to this
Speaker:sermon that gives us a ton of encouragement. It
Speaker:really leveled the playing field. It said you are all included.
Speaker:See, that was his purpose of how he introduced the Sermon on the Mount,
Speaker:breaking down all the barriers. We're all included in this.
Speaker:This is a hill in northern Israel,
Speaker:and it's on the Chorazin Plateau. It's overlooking the northwestern
Speaker:shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum. Now,
Speaker:this is believed to be the site where Jesus delivered this
Speaker:sermon. Before we stand
Speaker:and read together, I do ask that you would just give me a few
Speaker:moments to set the scene for us. Um, and
Speaker:all I ask in return, and it might be a little weird, I just ask
Speaker:us to remain seated. And if you don't mind closing your eyes
Speaker:and just listening for me, um, and let's
Speaker:just stop for just a second.
Speaker:And, uh, if you would please just listen.
Speaker:Imagine the only sound is the wind coming off the Sea of
Speaker:Galilee. There are no sirens,
Speaker:no notifications, and no hum of electricity.
Speaker:It's just the rustle of dry grass and the occasional murmur of a
Speaker:child crying. When Jesus
Speaker:speaks, his voice has to travel through the natural amphitheater of the
Speaker:rocks. You have to lean in just to catch
Speaker:every word. Open your mind's eye
Speaker:to the colors around you. This is not a
Speaker:polished sanctuary. It is a
Speaker:sea of dusty browns and sun-bleached linens.
Speaker:Look at the hands of the people sitting next to you on the grass. They
Speaker:are calloused from fishing nets, stained from the fields, and worn
Speaker:from daily labor. These aren't religious
Speaker:experts. They are people who are tired, hungry for
Speaker:hope, and probably a little bit sweaty from climbing up the hill.
Speaker:Feel the heat of the afternoon sun on your neck. In this
Speaker:world, light isn't something that you can flick on with a switch.
Speaker:It's a precious resource that disappears the moment the sun drops behind the
Speaker:horizon. And smell the air.
Speaker:You can catch the faint scent of salt from the lake below
Speaker:and the dust kicked up by 1,000 pairs of sandals.
Speaker:In a world without refrigeration or easy hygiene, salt
Speaker:isn't just a seasoning on a table. It's the only thing keeping your
Speaker:food from rotting, and it's a matter of survival.
Speaker:Now, with the heat on your skin and the silence in your ears,
Speaker:imagine this teacher looking directly at you,
Speaker:not as a crowd, but as an individual.
Speaker:And saying these next words.
Speaker:So now, church, if you would please, let's stand and read
Speaker:together and hear what he has to say to us.
Speaker:You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its
Speaker:saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
Speaker:It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and
Speaker:trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world.
Speaker:A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do
Speaker:people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Speaker:Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone
Speaker:in the house. In the same way, let your light
Speaker:shine before others, that they may see your good
Speaker:deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Speaker:Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the
Speaker:prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to
Speaker:fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until
Speaker:heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter,
Speaker:not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means
Speaker:disappear from the law until everything is
Speaker:accomplished. Therefore, Anyone who sets
Speaker:aside one of the least of these commands and teaches
Speaker:others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of
Speaker:heaven. But whoever practices
Speaker:and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of
Speaker:heaven. For I tell you that unless your
Speaker:righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and
Speaker:teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter
Speaker:the kingdom of heaven. Father, we thank
Speaker:you for your word. We thank you, Father, for the truth and the freedom that
Speaker:is in your word. Holy Spirit, you are here.
Speaker:I pray for my words to fall or pass clean through this place,
Speaker:Father, and your words to penetrate, surround us, to
Speaker:reveal the truth about us and how you feel. May you teach
Speaker:us something new about you tonight, Father God. Let what we
Speaker:learn help us love you, and love others more. It's in
Speaker:Jesus' name we pray, and they all said amen.
Speaker:Amen.
Speaker:So the intent of the Sermon on the Mount was to be received by
Speaker:those who wanted to be devoted followers. In
Speaker:this part of the sermon, Jesus is telling the people they are the very
Speaker:elements that keep the world from decaying and the darkness
Speaker:from winning. He is saying there are things
Speaker:you need to live up to in order— things you need to live up to
Speaker:and commands on us. Now, Jesus used
Speaker:several vivid metaphors to describe his
Speaker:followers' character, function, and relationship to him.
Speaker:And now we get to dig in a little bit and figure out
Speaker:the calls that he put on us to be salt and light.
Speaker:Jesus's intent is for us, is for
Speaker:our influence and our impact to be on a
Speaker:global level. We are not, um,
Speaker:we are not where we, we are to reflect him and, and be his
Speaker:instruments to share wherever and whenever.
Speaker:This is, this is our command. The wherever and whenever
Speaker:is not restricted at all. This is a global call, and
Speaker:there are no limits put on us.
Speaker:Practically, for each of us, it starts where we live,
Speaker:where we work, where we go to school, and especially in today's
Speaker:age, it's, it's our online lives as well. We should
Speaker:aim to influence for Jesus. Now, before we
Speaker:talk about salt and light, we could talk about the challenging part.
Speaker:Which is Christians, or us, we, we have to understand that what
Speaker:he is saying here, that it is a God-given command.
Speaker:It's a God-given command for us to move out and into our
Speaker:cultures. Too many Christians,
Speaker:including myself at times, are too consent—
Speaker:too, um, too content to
Speaker:sit on the sidelines and not get in the game.
Speaker:We are to live out our faith in such real and tangible ways
Speaker:that it is infectious to the world around us.
Speaker:I've worked in corporate America for 25 years.
Speaker:Each day, the world— I get the chance to see how the
Speaker:world confronts challenges, how the world builds relationships,
Speaker:and how the world celebrates wins or victories.
Speaker:This world can be cutthroat. Everyone
Speaker:is jockeying for position, responsibility. They're looking
Speaker:for senior roles. They're looking for added responsibility,
Speaker:while all the while, most of the time, leaving a trail of
Speaker:people and peers in their wake. I
Speaker:believe that the call, that our call is to
Speaker:be different. I believe that we can lead with
Speaker:humility, that we can show genuine care for others,
Speaker:and we can trust God's plan above our own.
Speaker:In my world, that might look like skipping out on happy hour,
Speaker:just be completely transparent. It also may look like if I do
Speaker:join, that it's joining with a glass of water or a Diet Coke.
Speaker:In my world, that might look like taking the time to really see someone.
Speaker:Making an attempt to understand their life, to
Speaker:ask them really how they're doing and if I can help them,
Speaker:and being really overt about extending recognition to others.
Speaker:Every day I'm faced with people that believe that inserting
Speaker:expletive-filled language makes them sound more
Speaker:convincing or assertive, when in
Speaker:reality the language just distracts from the substance of what they're trying to
Speaker:say. Salt and light are an absolute
Speaker:contrast to that behavior, to this, to those behaviors.
Speaker:It is hard to get comfortable being different. It
Speaker:absolutely is. I don't bat 1,000, but each
Speaker:day I get the opportunity to thank the Lord that I get another chance,
Speaker:another chance to be the salt and light to whoever I'm going to encounter that
Speaker:day. And, and we get that chance every day. Praise
Speaker:God.
Speaker:George Michael once said, "Gotta have faith."
Speaker:I felt generally comfortable making that reference in here.
Speaker:I know that the youth would not know who I was talking about, so I
Speaker:appreciate you guys coming along with me.
Speaker:The Lord did not intend for us to just hold on to our faith and
Speaker:wait till we get to heaven. Rather, it should be something that we hold
Speaker:out to others while they are here on earth.
Speaker:We are not meant to keep our faith private. When
Speaker:Jesus in this sermon says, you are the salt and light, do you
Speaker:think he meant that he wanted us to go unnoticed? No,
Speaker:salt and light cannot go unnoticed.
Speaker:We are not supposed to be silent. Quiet,
Speaker:embarrassed, irrelevant, but speak
Speaker:truth and share this— share the truth wherever
Speaker:and whenever. The Sermon on the Mount is not
Speaker:for the faint of heart, and it did not promote
Speaker:reluctancy.
Speaker:More. So Why did he use salt and
Speaker:light? So we'll talk about each of these so we can better
Speaker:understand, um, why Jesus used these as the
Speaker:metaphors to describe who we are in the kingdom's work.
Speaker:From a high level, salt describes our role in preserving,
Speaker:adding flavor, and impacting our world for
Speaker:good. Light
Speaker:represents the calling to reflect God's glory and the truth in
Speaker:this world. Now
Speaker:we see salt as an important element in the Old Testament as well.
Speaker:Um, I've pulled out a few examples. Um, you can— I think
Speaker:these are on your paper, but if not, so we've got a few to go
Speaker:through. Um, Leviticus 2:13, it
Speaker:reads, season all your grain offerings with salt.
Speaker:Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain
Speaker:offerings. Add salt to all your offerings. Now, the
Speaker:symbolism of salt in the old covenant was meaning—
Speaker:was meant to represent an unchanging, unbinding, or an
Speaker:unchanging, everlasting binding agreement between God and Israel.
:19: Whatever is set aside from the
:holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord
:I give to you and your sons and daughters as your
:perpetual share. It is an everlasting covenant of
:salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.
:And this was directed to Aaron, his sons, and his daughters with
:respect to the priests and the Levites when
:talking about tithes and offerings. And the third,
:the third reference, the last reference here is 2 Kings chapter 2:19-22.
:The prophet Elisha, he heals a bad spring of water
:by throwing salt into it. And at that time he said,
:I have healed this water. And after that, the water in the
:land was fruitful again.
:Salt, salt in Jesus's day was
:a rare and precious commodity. Today,
:salt is on every table. It's in little disposable packets.
:We spray it on our roads, we spray it on our walkways. It's
:absolutely everywhere. We don't think twice about
:salt now unless it's something that our doctors are telling us that we
:need to limit our intake of, right?
:You have to know that you also are a rare and precious
:commodity. The Romans
:used the Latin language for their official, military,
:and legal matters. Salarium is a
:Latin word derived from the word sal, meaning salt,
:originally referring to a first-century Roman soldier's
:allowance or stipend, often used to purchase salt.
:You can refer to it really as them receiving their salt money in
:payment. This is where we get our
:English word salary, and we see that evidence. You've probably heard the saying
:that somebody is not worth their salt. It basically means they're not worth their salary.
:Now, back in this time, if someone spilled the
:salt, it was considered shameful and disgraceful.
:We see when Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper,
:he painted Judas Iscariot knocking over the salt shaker
:because it was indicative of his betrayal and something shameful.
:I'll click in, you can see it a little bit better, but trust me, it's
:there. Prior
:to preparing for this evening, I had no idea that that little Easter egg even
:existed. Did anybody already know that?
:So Wayne knew it. Okay, we got, we got one. So I was hoping I
:wasn't the last one to the party. So awesome.
:Good. All right.
:Throughout the Bible, throughout the Bible, light
:and darkness are frequently employed as powerful metaphors to
:illustrate deeper spiritual truths. Light is
:mentioned more than 200 times in the Bible, with the first being in Genesis
:1:3 when God said, let there be light. In
:5, it's the last time light is mentioned, and it
:reads, and night will be no more. They will need— they
:will need no lamp, or they will need no light of lamp or sun,
:for the Lord God will be their light. They will reign
:forever and ever. While light is
:used throughout, it is a prominent theme in the
:Gospel of John, mentioned there more than 30 times.
:John mentioned in 1:5, John says, God is light.
:And in John 8:22, Jesus said, I am the light.
:Light often symbolizes living in truth
:and having a relationship with Jesus,
:representing guidance, clarity, and moral integrity.
:In contrast, darkness is used
:to depict life without spiritual direction,
:signifying confusion, ignorance, and being
:influenced by the world. These
:contrasting images, they invite readers
:on to reflect on the paths that they have chosen. And
:the journeys that they are undertaking.
:In John
:3:19-21,
:it reads, this is the verdict:
:Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of
:light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who
:does evil hates light and will not come into the light
:for the fear that their deeds will be exposed. But
:whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be
:seen plainly what they have done and what has
:been done in the sight of God. The
:takeaway here is that darkness is secretive.
:It's a place of shame. Light
:is a place of— light is revealing and it's a place of power.
:Light shows the way out of darkness like a flashlight.
:Pastor Kevin just said that this past weekend with regards to the Holy Spirit.
:We should be leading men and women out of darkness through the
:work of God's love and the Spirit in us.
:So we'll talk a little bit about what salt and light have in common.
:Both are needed to sustain life. A
:couple of examples: athletes must replenish
:their body's salt if exerted.
:Our culture has popularized these drinks since the Gatorade days in
:the '60s. Light is required to sustain
:vegetation for photosynthesis,
:the essential biological process to take place —by which plants
:convert light energy, or sun, into chemical energy,
:or glucose, to fuel their growth.
:Given that, we should be offering life-giving
:hope to the corrupt and dying world.
:15 Paul
:says, so that you may become blameless and
:pure children of God without fault in a warped and
:crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like
:stars in the sky. Now, this
:encourages living a blameless life to act as
:beacons of hope to those around you.
:So we're going to dig in a little bit to that word life. For just
:a couple of minutes and do some analysis on that word.
:The two primary Greek words for life often
:discussed, particularly in the context of biblical
:times, were bios and zoe.
:Now, bios refers to the physical,
:biological, or natural life. It's defined in years.
:Zoe, on the other hand, it refers to the
:principle of life or the spiritual, eternal,
:and divine life, and it, it, and it is for
:eternity.
:Jesus came and died for our eternal sake.
:That should give us conviction not to waste the opportunity that we have.
:We must be salt and light in the world so that we can help people
:really understand that Zoe life, the eternal life that we have the
:opportunity in. So
:what else do they have in common?
:They are both purifying and they have healing qualities.
:Salt is an antiseptic. It's used to preserve meat.
:And light is a disinfectant and can be used to kill bacteria.
:When we stand for righteousness and
:promote biblical values, it can have a purifying effect in
:our world.
:What we are trying to purify is a common infection or
:a virus called sin. God can heal
:this world through us as agents of salt and
:light. In 2 Chronicles
:7:14, it says, if my people
:who are called by my name will humble themselves
:and pray and seek my face and turn away from
:their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven, and I will
:forgive their sin and heal their land.
:We can be a vehicle for the remedy. The remedy is
:Jesus. We bring healing, which is
:salt and light, whenever we sprinkle Jesus.
:Wherever we sprinkle Jesus, we are bringing a purifying
:and healing effect to the world and to this land.
:Lastly, what they have in common:
:they both have penetrating properties.
:Salt penetrates the food and gives it its flavor. Light
:penetrates the darkness and makes it brighter. They both
:invade whatever space they are introduced to, and so
:should we. There is nothing passive or
:neutral about salt and light. So
:you might ask then, how can you impact the world around you?
:I stumbled upon someone's challenge, I guess you could say answer,
:to that very question.
:John Stott, he was a highly influential
:evangelical, a British evangelical clergyman
:theologian, and author. And he
:wrote, if the house is dark when nightfall
:comes, there is no sense in blaming the house. That is what
:happens when the sun goes down. The question to ask is, where is the
:light? Similarly, if meat goes
:bad and becomes inedible, there is no sense in blaming the meat.
:That is what happens when bacteria are left alone to breed.
:The question to ask is, where is the salt?
:Yeah, just so if society
:deteriorates and its standards decline until it becomes like a dark
:night or a stinking fish, there is no sense in
:blaming society. That is what happens when fallen
:men and women are left to themselves, a
:human selfishness and a human selfishness that is
:unchecked. The question to ask is, where is the church?
:Why are the salt and light of Jesus Christ not permeating and
:changing our society?
:As salt and light to the world, we're not trying to pull people left
:and we're not trying to pull people right. We're trying to pull people up
:to God so that the Holy Spirit could come down and do amazing works in
:their life. It's not about anything else other than that.
:Other than that, that's where we're supposed to be pointing people.
:As the salt and light to the world, we're not trying to— sorry, it
:is our command, and we have to consult the Holy Spirit
:to know what it means for each of us in our circles and in our
:culture. That might look like voting. That might look like running for
:office. That might look like getting involved in school policies.
:And that might just simply look like helping somebody that can't help themselves.
:We are called to shape the culture and not be shaped by it.
:As Christians and disciples of Jesus, don't be disengaged in
:the culture. Get in the game. And this is our
:wake-up call. There is not an army coming behind us to raise our
:family. That is the charge that's been put on us.
:Allow me to read Matthew
:5:15-16 again.
:Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they
:put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
:In the same way, let your light shine before others, that
:they may see your good deeds and glorify your
:Father in heaven. That they may see your good deeds and
:glorify your Father in heaven.
:People inside the church read the Bible, and people outside of the
:church are reading your life. So they need to see your good
:deeds to glorify your Father in heaven.
:The Holy Spirit, um, guided me to share and
:educate us on something tonight. It's in our culture. It is
:very real and it might be happening in our homes.
:It might be controversial,
:but I believe it's better to be pleasing to heaven and controversial to the world
:than controversial to heaven and pleasing to the world. I think I said that right.
:It looks like we didn't get our slide. One second.
:Okay, there are two streaming services in the
:world. The world wants you to consume its streaming
:services, and the Lord wants you to consume his streaming service.
:The world's streaming services can lead to isolation,
:sin, shame, complacency, and
:cultural acceptance. God's streaming service
:always leads to community, holiness,
:freedom, and advocacy for righteousness.
:The world's streaming services is offering our kids
:platforms like Roblox, VRChat, and Discord servers.
:Here's the wake-up or did-you-know portion of tonight.
:I'm going to double-click on one of those for just a minute. And you might
:have heard this topic. It's been a semi-popular topic
:amongst podcasters and other folks. Um,
:Roblox is a very popular online platform and
:game creation system. It allows users to
:create, play, and share millions of
:user-generated games and experiences.
:One of those experiences is a first-person shooter game that
:allows the player to play the role of a school shooter.
:Now, the other players or the other characters in this game
:have the names of actual kids that have fallen victim in school shootings.
:I'm going to let that marinate for just a second.
:Glorification has been given to sin.
:The legacy of these terrible events lives on electronically.
:And now kids can see and walk through these legacies.
:I can't believe what our society has allowed, and it
:genuinely makes me sick. Um,
:this was the hardest part of putting this together. When I
:did get to this point, I reached
:this point and I was reminded of a quote.
:Hopefully it comes up. Yeah. Angels go where they are
:asked and demons go where they are not
:resisted. Now,
:I'm not bashing gaming or any other platforms with
:social features, but what we have to realize that these games and
:experiences are not like Zelda, Madden,
:or Mario Brothers, and they're definitely not like Tony Hawk's Pro
:Skater. That's a little shout out to my '90s and early 2000s
:gamers. We must take back
:our kids. We must illuminate the
:world's streaming services with the light that Jesus offers us.
:As a dad, I feel called to teach and point my kids
:to the standard that Jesus set for us. I see their
:potential. I see the opportunity before them, and I want to
:give them all the tools that they need to succeed and live lives of righteousness.
:The best tool that I can give them is showing them how to love the
:word of the Lord.
:11 says, I have hidden your— I have hidden your
:word in my heart. That I might not sin against you.
:The Bible is both a mirror that we should examine ourselves,
:but it is also a pair of glasses that we can use to look at
:the world through.
:5-7 says,
:love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with
:all your strength. These commandments that I give you today
:are to be on your hearts. Impress them on
:your children, full stop. Talk
:about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the
:road, when you lie down and when you get up.
:Basically all the time, without question. There's a full
:stop at the end of that sentence as well.
:At the start of the year, the elders were asked, a few of
:us were asked to come in and speak about the various roles of the
:elders in this house. I had the opportunity
:to share about the role of being a watchman and shepherd.
:I wanted to pull something from what I shared that day as I felt it
:was pretty relevant to our topic tonight.
:Another audience participation opportunity. Has anyone read
:the book Art of War? And in full transparency, I've not made
:it all the way through either. So I got a couple.
:In that book, the author Sun Tzu, he
:says, "If you know the enemy and you know
:yourself, you need not fear the result of
:100 battles." So you know who you are, you know who you're
:going up against, you shouldn't worry 'cause you're gonna win.
:If you know yourself but not the enemy, for
:every victory you will also suffer a defeat.
:So you're gonna lose some, but you're probably gonna win.
:If you neither know the enemy nor yourself, you
:will succumb in every battle. You're gonna lose.
:Now, this emphasizes that knowledge is the
:foundation of success. In really any competitive
:situation, whether that's warfare, business,
:leadership, families.
:And that knowledge comes from the word of God.
:So now that we've sufficiently unpacked
:salt and light, their properties, why they were the metaphors
:that he used, How about the law part of this?
:Before we get there, I wanna nerd out a little bit with you guys and
:do some science together. This is the Dead Sea.
:Scientifically, sodium chloride is a stable
:compound. It does not just stop
:being salty. However,
:salt, the salt Jesus's audience used
:It wasn't the purified stuff that we're used to from the grocery store.
:It was gathered from the shores of the Dead Sea, and it was full of
:impurities like gypsum, lime, and sand.
:The Dead Sea is about 10 times more salty than your regular body
:of saltwater. Regular body of saltwater is 3%. The Dead Sea
:is 33%. And yes,
:you can float in the Dead Sea. That is not anybody you know, that's just
:a random guy. Okay? So,
:to collect salt from the Dead Sea, materials were gathered,
:and then they went through this leaching process where moisture was added to it.
:And what dripped out of the bottom was pure sodium chloride,
:the part that provides flavor and preservation power.
:It dissolved out first because it was more soluble than the other minerals.
:What was left behind still looked like salt.
:It was perhaps white and powdery, but it was just sand, a
:little bit of lime, some other things.
:The lesson here is that you can look like a disciple on
:the outside. You could be white and powdery,
:but you have none of the kingdom flavor inside.
:Now, when Jesus was talking about being thrown out and trampled
:underfoot in what we read, he was referencing
:this leaching process. The leftover minerals, once the
:sodium chloride was extracted, was used to harden
:roads, trampled underfoot. It was also used to patch
:roofs and ceilings and stuff.
:For a Jewish audience, The law was what made them
:distinct from the surrounding nations. The law
:was their flavor at that time.
:The warning here from Jesus is if
:they kept the appearance of the law like the Pharisees
:but lost the heart of the law, which he came to fulfill,
:they were just like that leeched-out Dead Sea salt.
:They had the religious look but not the actual power to preserve the
:world or change hearts. Jesus here is giving
the ultimatum:you can be the purifying
the ultimatum:influence, or you can find yourself under the weight of a
the ultimatum:fallen society. Without the law,
the ultimatum:salt and light becomes a vague call to be a good person.
the ultimatum:With the law, it becomes a specific call, a command, like we talked
the ultimatum:about, to reflect God's character, which is rooted in the word
the ultimatum:of God. Jesus
the ultimatum:didn't come out to— didn't come to toss out the law.
the ultimatum:He came to be the perfect embodiment of it. When he
the ultimatum:lived, when we live out the greater righteousness that he
the ultimatum:describes, a righteousness that moves from the heart outward.
the ultimatum:That is when our salt is most potent and our light is most
the ultimatum:brilliant. We don't
the ultimatum:shine simply because we are clever.
the ultimatum:We shine because we reflect the one who fulfilled the law perfectly on our
the ultimatum:behalf.
the ultimatum:John 1, John 1, Verse
the ultimatum:29 says, the next day John saw
the ultimatum:Jesus coming toward him and said, look,
the ultimatum:the Lamb of God who takes away the sin in the world.
the ultimatum:This means there is no, there is no more need for sacrifice.
the ultimatum:Jesus became the sin sacrifice for the world as the
the ultimatum:Lamb of God. It is his salt
the ultimatum:and it is his light. That we are empowered to
the ultimatum:use whenever and wherever.
the ultimatum:Now, I'd like to leave you this evening with
the ultimatum:some thoughts and some questions. The questions are on the handouts if you got
the ultimatum:one there. They're not meant to answer real time. They're meant to be
the ultimatum:something that we can take home and, and ponder on.
the ultimatum:Being salt isn't about being the loudest person in the room.
the ultimatum:Let me move ahead here. Okay.
the ultimatum:Um, it's about being the person who
the ultimatum:replaces a bitter conversation with a word of encouragement.
the ultimatum:It's a person who stops a decaying rumor in its tracks and refuses to
the ultimatum:pass it on. It also adds flavor
the ultimatum:to a hopeless situation.
the ultimatum:The question to us: where can you diffuse grace
the ultimatum:this week and preserve
the ultimatum:peace in your home or your neighborhood?
the ultimatum:You can consider the process of learning something beautiful—
the ultimatum:and I told my kids I was going to insert this for them— like a
the ultimatum:violin or a guitar. For years, the
the ultimatum:practice happens in the dark. Squeaky
the ultimatum:notes, awkward string plucks, frustrated
the ultimatum:starts. The practice that's happening in the dark
the ultimatum:also includes many, many repetitive scales.
the ultimatum:But when the student finally stands up to play a masterpiece,
the ultimatum:the light of that music fills the room.
the ultimatum:Our good works aren't meant to be a spotlight on us.
the ultimatum:They are like that music. They are the result of a life being tuned to
the ultimatum:the Father. When we— when people see our
the ultimatum:patience, our kindness, or our sacrifice,
the ultimatum:they shouldn't just think, wow, that's a good person.
the ultimatum:They should think there must be a great composer behind that life.
the ultimatum:The question for us: are you
the ultimatum:hiding your music because you're afraid of hitting the wrong note,
the ultimatum:or are you willing to let your life be the song that points back to
the ultimatum:the Creator? And now the law.
the ultimatum:Imagine that you have a massive—
the ultimatum:you have a detailed recipe for a massive multi-course holiday
the ultimatum:feast. Easter dinners are coming up, so this shouldn't be hard to
the ultimatum:stretch our minds around. The recipe is
the ultimatum:the law. It is perfect. It is
the ultimatum:precise, and it is necessary. If you
the ultimatum:ignore the recipe, the bread won't rise and the meat will likely burn.
the ultimatum:But here's the thing: you can't eat the recipe.
the ultimatum:You can read it. You can study it and you can memorize it,
the ultimatum:but it will never satisfy your hunger.
the ultimatum:When Jesus says he came to fulfill the law,
the ultimatum:he's saying, I am the feast that the recipe was
the ultimatum:describing. He didn't come to throw the recipe away.
the ultimatum:He came so that we could finally stop reading the instructions and just start sitting
the ultimatum:at the table.
the ultimatum:The question to us: are you spending your life trying
the ultimatum:to perfect a recipe of rules to be good enough for God,
the ultimatum:or are you actually sitting down to enjoy the feast of grace
the ultimatum:that Jesus has already prepared for us?
the ultimatum:I'd like to pray for us now. Let's bring—
the ultimatum:Father, we thank you for the presence of the Holy Spirit tonight.
the ultimatum:We bend our knee, Father, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ,
the ultimatum:and we ask that you would continue to work inside us, changing our
the ultimatum:hearts, Father, in ways that are needed to be the salt and light
the ultimatum:that strongly reflects the goodness of Jesus. Please
the ultimatum:give us strength to stand with our faith out for others to see.
the ultimatum:Encourage us, Father, not to be shy or
the ultimatum:timid, but to be respectful and true to your
the ultimatum:word. Thank you, God, for what you're doing in this house.
the ultimatum:And I pray blessings over the people that are able to hear these words tonight,
the ultimatum:Father. We thank you so much for your goodness in our
the ultimatum:lives. It's in Jesus' holy name we pray.
the ultimatum:And they all said amen. Thank you, Springhouse.
