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Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.
I'm reminded of pronouncing those names.
I was the first church, I was an
assistant pastor, was in Beaumont
and it was a very wealthy man there.
In fact, his family owned Spindletop
when the oil boom started and
he got it one time to read.
He said Paul and his friends, he was
not about to try those names at all.
So anyways, thank you.
Good morning.
How's everybody doing?
Did you survive?
All hellos Eve.
Yes.
We, we live in a neighborhood that
doesn't have a homeowner's, you know, fee.
Our homeowners fee is buying
candy, so we must have given
out candy to about 350 kids.
Great.
Uncle Fester was in our neighborhood,
but I don't think came by our house.
So, uh, so we, we miss
seeing you in action.
But anyway, uh.
So it was beautiful evening,
a great time, and it's always
a, uh, I've always enjoyed.
Well, today is All Souls Day.
All Saints Day is November 1st.
All Souls Day is November 2nd, and we,
on Friday, we celebrated the Eve service.
Of All Saints Day.
That's for, it's all Hallow Eve,
which is where we get Halloween.
And so it's a special time for me.
We have two daughters and they were both
baptized on and around all Saint Day,
so it's always a special time for me.
I wanna thank the leadership team for
allowing me to speak once in a while.
Uh, I appreciate you guys
entrusting me to do that.
Thank you for that.
I went to a preacher's, or
actually a, a, a Covenant Pastor's,
uh, retreat a week or so ago.
And I was talking to some of
the pastors there and they said,
well, do you miss preaching?
You know, and when I was
younger, I couldn't be.
Away from preaching more in a week or two.
And I just was chomping at a bit
to get back in there and preach.
And I said, you know, I really don't
miss it as much as I thought I would.
And I said, the reason though is because
the church that Kim and I are attending
have two excellent communicators, two
excellent preachers, teachers, sharers,
whatever they wanna call themselves.
And I said, I love to hear a good sermon.
And I said, if they weren't that good.
I probably wouldn't be here.
I said, because I really like learning
something and hearing something that
inspires me, that challenges me every
week and, and I don't know if the
rest of you who have been in salt and
white longer than we have, how blessed
we are to have these two speakers.
A church is doing good if they have one.
We have two.
I mean, Ben's not bad,
but Nicole is outstanding.
So
don't tell Ben I said,
so let me, let me pray and then we'll
see what I can see what the Lord
wants to do with us this morning.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you
fill me with your Holy Spirit
so that the words of my mouth.
And the meditations of all
of our hearts and minds will
be acceptable in your sight.
Amen.
Amen.
One of the things I, I was a history
major at, at ut in Austin and Okay, you
Aggies don't get all upset, but anyway.
So I have apologized to Andrew.
They managed to beat Vanderbilt.
Imagine that Texas found
somebody they could beat.
So, uh, but one thing I heard in all
my history classes was you have to
understand a document when it's written
from the, from the context, from the
historical context of when it was written.
He said it's not fair to judge something,
uh, written in 55 ad by, you know.
2025 because we're not the same culture.
You've gotta get back into the
mindset of that time to really
understand what was going on.
So historical context
is extremely important.
We just finished, uh, first Timothy.
And first Timothy was Paul's letter
to this young pastor Timothy.
Lemme tell you a little bit
something about Timothy Timothy's.
Dad was Greek, his mother
was Jewish, and obviously his
grandmother was Jewish as well.
And he received his faith, uh,
through his mother and grandmother.
So parents, you know, we
have a responsibility.
Mm-hmm.
So.
He received that faith from
them and that's what made him
so devoted to the Lord Jesus.
Timothy was a young man and he went
around on some missionary tours, you
know, with, with Paul, you know, for
several years and whenever there was a
church having difficulty, you know, Paul
would send Timothy, you go take care
of this and, and talk to the teachers
'cause they got some false teachers.
You go and straighten 'em out,
tell 'em what the truth is, and so
you send 'em out to those kind of.
Uh, kind of tours kind of
things and helping out.
So Timothy is this young man.
He's a pastor of this church.
First Timothy was probably written
about 60, I think they say 64, 65
ad somewhere in that time period.
Second Timothy is written in 67, and
scholars believe it is his last letter
that he wrote before he was executed.
And Paul was being executed because
he was preaching this about this
new messiah, this new king who was
supreme over even the Roman emperor.
And he was disrupting commerce.
You know, people were no longer
buying meat sacrificed in temples.
People were not buying
silver, but like trinkets.
They weren't buying idols.
And so the, the commercial people
got upset and so Paul was in prison
for that and eventually was executed.
So that's kind of the context of
what's going on here, and Nero was
the, the Caesar during this time.
Right.
And he was a crazy man, and
even by the Roman scholars.
And one of the things that when
we, when we studied, uh, history,
when I did several classes on the
Roman Empire, we read, you know,
texts from that period of time.
And so we didn't ha, we didn't
read from history books, we
read the actual documents that
came from that period of time.
And so we read, and even the
Romans thought Nero was crazy.
I mean, it wasn't just people
you know nowadays, but for,
he was just crazy as could be.
He took bribes, you know, he gave
favors based on whatever he felt
like he executed people, you know, he
spared people whatever he wanted to do.
That's just the way he operated.
He was just crazy as far
as as being an emperor.
And so this is the context in which Paul
is writing this letter, uh, to Timothy.
So the second letter, Paul wastes no time.
He gets right into it 'cause
he's very clear-minded.
'cause he knows it probably won't be
long before he'll be executed and with
few know that you're about to die.
I mean, I've been with, with, with
patients in hospitals that were just
looking at days before they died,
the things they said were important.
They didn't have time for
fluffy, you know, things.
It was important because they
realized it was gonna be the last
thing they were gonna communicate.
And so Paul is writing
this letter to Timothy.
So as we go through second Timothy, I'm
just gonna kick off the first chapter,
but as we continue to go through,
second Timothy realize that he's facing
his death within days, weeks, months,
very, very short period of time.
So I think I've got some pictures.
I have a picture of a map.
There's a map.
So Ephesus is in modern day Turkey.
It was a very important, uh.
Port town, very rich.
In fact, it was thought to be the
second largest city in the Roman empire.
Rome was obviously the largest Ephesus
over here on this little peninsula
over here, or this Asia minor, I guess
it is, uh, was very, very important.
It was culturally important.
They had Olympic games there, they had
theater, they had art, they had museums.
I mean, they had all kinds
of, you know, cultural things.
There were political things.
They were, you know, very important.
You know, people rule that city.
There were religious things.
A huge temple.
I think I got a picture of this is a mock
up of what the temple would look like.
One of the seven wonders of the
world was a temple to Artemis,
or the Romans called her Diana.
She was the, the, the goddess of, of
hunting, of hunting dogs and childbirth.
Now, I don't know how you put all
those together, but anyway, it, it
seemed like it made sense to them.
So.
This temple sits was situated up on
a hill overseeing the whole city.
So this whole town was dominated by
this religious, uh, what we would call
a cult, a Greek God system to begin
with, and it became a Roman system.
But this, this is kind of the, the
town in which Timothy is trying to
pastor this church, huge influences.
While these things.
And, and it was a very important church.
Not only did Paul start the church,
but Priscilla and Aquila eventually
come at some point and tea our
teachers there and then, uh.
Apollo, who was a very powerful
speaker, whatever we were told
the preacher he was there.
Uh, then Timothy himself, eventually
John the John the Saint John, apostle
John comes in is an Ephesus as well.
So it's a very important town.
And Paul is writing to Timothy.
He's a young pastor and I've been
a young pastor in a church full
of older people before, and they
treat you like you're their son.
Rather than their pastor.
So it's a, it is a weird
kind of relationship.
So he is telling Timothy, don't
let your youth get in the way.
You've, you're filled with the spirit
and you're filled with truth, and you
can, you can stand and teach these folks.
So he's, he's, uh, you
know, helping 'em do that.
But, but the problem was is that Timothy,
as all these churches who did, ended
up encountering, uh, false teachers.
People would come in and claim
to be apostles who weren't,
they were teaching other things.
People would say, well, you, you
have to believe in Jesus, but
you have to be circumcised too.
And he's like, no, no, no, no, Jesus only.
Well, you've gotta be
kosher and believe in Jesus.
No, no, no, no, no.
Jesus is enough.
You don't have to have all
these other things that Jewish
religion, you know, tax on us.
So Jesus is enough.
And so Timothy was having
to stand against that.
So what I want us to think about this
morning is that the, our faith, the
Christian faith, the church has always
been under attack from all kinds
of things, false teachings, uh, all
kinds of pressures from the outside.
And so that's what I
want us to think about.
And as a history major, I kind of
ran through my head thinking of
Constantine, didn't do the church
any good by making it legal.
I know that sounds strange, but.
You know, next thing you know that the
bishops who were meek and mild and leading
congregations and several congregations
started wearing purple robes, wearing big
silver crosses, started looking more like
emperors rather than followers of Jesus.
Then you had a Spanish inquisition where
they were gonna make everyone become
Christian, whether you liked it or not.
If you didn't, we'll kill you.
So the, the political monarch
decided that we're gonna be in charge
and we're gonna make you be like
Jesus, whether you like it or not.
It's a great way, great
way to grow a church.
Hitler did the same thing in the thirties.
In 1930s, he germin eyes,
the Protestant church.
He turned Jesus into, you know, you
know, a blue-eyed blonde, six foot
three, you know, image that carried a
sword that he was the powerful Jesus.
That in fact, the Hitler told
the, the, the, uh, churches.
You can't preach from the Old Testament
'cause it's too Jewish and we don't want
you referring to Jesus as being Jewish.
And certainly we don't want you to refer
to Jesus as having empathy and sympathy
and care for the poor and the orphans.
The widows and aliens don't
teach any of that stuff.
Teach about power and
power of the German Empire.
And many of those people did that.
But then there were a group of people
like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was part of
the confessing church and they said No.
We hold the cross, not the swastika
that will stand up for what's the truth.
One of the greatest threats to the
church in, in my lifetime, in your
lifetime was the, was the consumerism
of the eighties and the nineties when
the, our idols became getting and,
you know, buying and spending and,
you know, making money, buying stuff.
That's what has snuffed out Christianity
in many ways in our lifetime.
And in recent times, we've a new group
that they're being, they're being called
Christian Nationalist scares me because
it resembles very much what Hitler did
with the church in Germany, trying to
turn Jesus into this macho guy with big
muscles and carrying a sword, rather
than being the person who cared for the
poor, cared for the widows, you know.
If we were realistic,
we think about Jesus.
He was probably about
five foot, maybe five two.
If he was really tall, he had black hair.
He had very dark brown
eyes and he was much more.
Darkly com had much darker complexion
than any of us in this room.
That was Jesus.
He wasn't six foot three.
He didn't have blue eyes.
He looked like the people of his time.
I always picture him as having
really warm eyes and, and always a
little bit of a smile on his face.
I mean, even kids wanted to come
to him and he talked about the
power of the kingdom of God as, as
a kingdom that cared for the poor.
Exactly what Nicole was leading us
to do this morning, to be concerned
for the needs of people around us.
Bonhoeffer even said the church
is not the church unless it's,
you know, helping other people.
The church is not here for itself.
Yes, it's here for the people outside.
So that's what the church is called to be.
So any of this, you know, you
know, anytime politics gets
wrapped up with Christianity, it
turns out bad every single time.
Plymouth, you know, burning
Witches politics and Christianity
getting mixed together.
Every time we do it, it messes up.
Because what we wanna do is we want
other people to be conformed into our
image rather than the image of Jesus.
We have to keep Jesus in the church.
And that's exactly what Paul
is encouraging, uh, Timothy to
do, keep Jesus in the church.
He says, don't be ashamed
that I'm in prison.
Don't be ashamed that I'm being
persecuted because of the faith.
Be proud of that.
Be encouraged.
You know, so what he says,
second Timothy, um, he says, fan
the flame of the gift of God.
For God did not give you a
spirit of fear, but of power.
Some translations say courage,
love, and self-discipline.
He says, don't be ashamed of the gospel.
Don't be ashamed that you're following.
You know, the son of God who
was crucified like a criminal.
Poor who cared for the poor.
Don't be ashamed of that.
Be proud of that.
That's who we are.
And he says, and be, become an
encourager, like on this ferous,
whatever his guy's name is.
O owning.
Be like owning.
That's what Paul was trying to
say in, in all of second Timothy.
If you wanna boil it down,
that's what he's trying to say.
Stand up against the
threats to the church.
Whether it's false teaching or
whether it's heresies or whatever
it is, stand up for the church.
Stand up for the faith.
He says, you receive this faith from
your mother and your grandmother, and
I know that you believe it, and I know
that you're filled with the spirit.
He says, stand strong.
Hold on to the faith.
And that's what, that's what I think
Paul is trying to say to us now.
You know, 2000 years later,
thousands of miles from here.
Paul is saying the same thing to you and
to me, stand strong against the threats
of the, the threats to the church.
But I think I have another
text from Revelation.
This is about 30 years later,
slide presenter.
That's a picture of the what?
The, the Church of Ephesus back
in the, about fifth century.
Okay, and here are the points.
The next one, fan into flames.
The gift of God, for we did not give
you a spirit of fear, but of courage,
love, and just self-discipline.
Don't be ashamed of the gospel.
In fact, guard it.
Be encouragers, like nie.
Then the next slide, about 30 years
later, Jesus says to the church,
he says to the angel, the Church of
Ephesus, you know, from Revelation,
he talks about the seven churches.
He says to the Church of Ephesus Wright,
these are the words of him who hold
the seven stars in his right hand and
walks among the seven golden lampstands.
I know your deeds, your hard
work, and your perseverance.
I know that you cannot tolerate
wicked people, that you have tested
those who claim to be apostles but
are not and have found them false.
You have persevered and you
have endured hardships for my
name and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you.
You have forsaken the
love you had at first.
Consider how far you've fallen, repent,
and do the things you did it first.
If you do not repent, I will
come and come to you and remove
your lamps down from its place.
What Paul is, or what Jesus is saying
there in Revelation is that this
church is doing a great job at being,
you know, accurate about theology
and, and testing, you know, false
teachers and those kind of things.
They're doing the great on
that, but they've lost the
heart of, of following Jesus.
They've lost the, the emotion they've
lost the, the heart part of being part
of the church, the heart of worship.
God, we've missed that.
We've gotten so involved in legalistic,
you know, make sure we know all
the right things, and Christianity
is not about keeping rules only.
Yes, there's some rules we follow, not
because we have to, but because we want
to, but the heart of Christianity is
a relationship with the Father through
Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's a relationship.
And how easy it is to get distracted
and, and, and, and have attacks, if you
will, and, and lose to lose our focus.
So.
Friday afternoon, I was, you know,
working on those texts during the week
and kind of bits and pieces, not, you
know, it's nice to have a computer.
You kind of put in there and add
delete and, and you know, include
and all these kind of things.
So I'm doing that as the week goes along.
It percolates in my head as the
week goes along and I just gotta
the point, like, I just don't
know how to, what to do with this.
It, I got all this stuff,
but I don't know what to do.
I said, I'm gonna go for a walk.
So I decided to go for a walk.
It's Friday afternoon, remember
what happens Friday night.
It's all, hello Eve.
So as I'm walking along, I decided to go
through and I started off really good.
I said, okay, God, here's what
I want us to ponder together.
What is it you want me to say to the
people of salt and light this Sunday?
What is it you want me to say?
I know what Paul said to Timothy.
What do you want me to say to all
of us as as from those words, what
is it that we need to hear from you?
And I just started off really good.
I was thinking about God and Jesus and
walking along and, and then I saw a couple
of kitty cats and I stopped down and kind
of scratched their ears a little bit.
And then I kept walking along
and I ran into a couple, walking,
a couple of really cute dogs.
I had to stop and pet the dogs, you know.
And then there was a letter carrier
that wanted to talk a lot, and they
were spooky things all around me,
how easy it was to get distracted.
And I'd come back, say, okay, God.
Okay, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I petted the dog.
Okay.
What is it you want me to say?
Oh, look at that.
You know, those creepy things
in a person's yard Say, what
kind of person would do that?
But anyway, so I said, okay, okay.
God, I, I'm back thinking
about what I supposed to say.
It's just a constant battle.
Just a barrage wasn't necessarily
bad things or evil things.
Well, some of 'em look pretty evil, but
anyway, but how easy it is to forget
our relationship with the father.
You know, it, it's, it's
a lot like a marriage.
I mean, if I told you I was married to
Kim, because I've got a wedding ring
and I've, we've got a wedding license,
you know, a marriage license, and, and
I remember the days, there's pictures
of we got married and that if that was
all there was to our relationship, we
wouldn't have much of a relationship.
But it's, it's spending time
together, talking and listening
and doing things together, that's
what creates the relationship.
And I think what Jesus is saying
to church in Ephe, you got the
head stuff right, but you're not
walking with me with your heart.
And I think that's what God wants
to say to you and me this morning.
There's all kinds of attacks out there.
Busy schedules, you know, not even
necessarily bad things, not necessarily
evil things, just things that get in
our way and we can't stay, you know,
can't stay focused on the father.
And there's a variety of things.
You know, people say,
well, read the Bible.
You can find you'll be close to God.
And for some people it really works.
Uh, for me, gardening, I
like digging in the dirt.
'cause I always remind myself,
you know, from dust, you come
until dust, you shall return.
I remember my own mortality.
I'm digging around in the dirt.
Uh, walking, if you don't run
into kitty cats and puppies,
you can, your prayer meditation.
For me, it, one of the things that's
always brought me close to God is serving
other people, whether it's a Habitat for
Humanity build, you know, or if it's,
you know, we did a lot of hurricane
restoration work and Gulf Coast, uh, lots
of hurricane restoration in Gulf Coast.
We had two, three hurricanes in a row.
Um, been to Gu, Guatemala several
times, serving other people.
That's when I really feel close to
God is when I'm hot and tired and
sweaty and been serving the Lord and
serving other people the same kind of
thing Nicole was saying this morning.
Remembering that we are here not to just
listen to good people talk and not just
sing songs about Jesus and God, but we are
here to make a difference in this world.
And so many things can
take that away from us.
We're not here to take
over the political powers.
We're not here to take
over the government.
Paul never said take over.
You know, throw Caesar out and we'll
establish a, uh, you know, king Jesus.
He never said that.
He said, king Jesus is humble
and he's always serving the
poor and caring for people.
That's who King Jesus is, and
that's what he's called us to be.
Not to pull the levers of power,
but to influence as best we can,
our community, to care for our
community, to love our community.
I think that's the reason the
leadership team when they got together
called this place Salt and light.
'cause salt, you know, is
to preserve what is good.
Salt is brings taste, makes
things, you know, taste better.
Not too much salt 'cause
then you have heart problems.
But anyway, salt and then light.
To bring light to the darkness.
We are here to make a
difference in this community.
Okay, but we're under attack.
There's some people that want us to,
to march to wrap the flag around Jesus.
That's not correct.
That's not the real Jesus.
Some people we're distracted
by our, by our schedules and
what everything we're doing.
We just kind of get, kind
of, get distracted from our,
our, our, our love for Jesus.
That's what he's calling us to be,
to stay focused on what's important.
So what Paul is saying is the
same thing he said to Timothy.
Fan into flame, the gift of God, the gift
that God, that you, that God gave you.
What is your gift?
He says, do not give into a spirit
of fear, but remember that you have
power, you have courage and love, and
self-discipline to care for others.
He says, don't be ashamed of the gospel.
Don't be ashamed of
being a Christ follower.
Oh, people say, oh, you're just, there's
just stupid people are Christ followers.
Okay, call me stupid.
I don't care.
Call me whatever you want.
Don't be ashamed of it.
Be proud to carry the name of Jesus
and be an encourager to other people.
Get out there and care for other people.
It's interesting.
Jesus never set people down
and said, okay, here's what you
have to do to be my followers.
He just said, follow me.
Walk with me.
Listen to me, talk with me.
Spend time with me.
And what happens over time, it's not
quick, but what happens over time is
we walk with Jesus and we do the things
that Jesus would do, our values, our
attitudes, our actions become more
and more like Jesus all the time.
It takes time, and God has called
every one of us in this room to care
for the poor, to care for the orphans,
and that aliens are not our enemies.
You know, the constantly the
Jewish people were, were being
reminded you were once an alien.
So remember, to care for those
who are living among you.
Those, those are the ways of Jesus.
That's what Jesus looks like.
That's what I wanna look like.
How about you?
You wanna look like that?
You wanna look like, you know?
Yes.
It, he's the suffering, suffering servant.
All right.
But we're called to suffer.
A lot of Protestants don't like Jesus
on the cross, and I don't wanna leave
Jesus on the cross, but we need to
remember Jesus on the cross because
there's an example of a God who loves
you, who loves me with unbelievable
love, that's willing to sacrifice,
willing to die in our place so that
we can have a relationship with him.
What is God calling you to?
You know, you, you get somebody like Elon
Musk, he's one of my favorite people.
Uh, he has everything and
he will never be satisfied.
He'll never have enough.
He'll never be powerful enough.
He'll never, he thinks he's
gonna live for everybody won't.
And then you have somebody
like, say like Jimmy Carter, who
works with habitat's, humanity.
What's the difference in those two men?
One has a moral compass, one has none.
One knows contentment.
One will never find contentment.
One who wants to be like Jesus and one who
could care less about being like Jesus.
As the church, you and I are
called to walk with Jesus.
And your life and my life and
the and the world around us
will be changed because of that.