Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're taking a break from our Revelation series while our lead pastor, Darren Rounce, is on sabbatical. During this time, we're gonna continue to push into the Garden's mission of creating resilient disciples by working our way through the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next few weeks, we'll have some amazing pastors from all over the world coming to impart their wisdom and insight on what is the most influential and profound sermon ever given. Enjoy.
Ramin Razavi: Well, this morning, we have an incredible privilege to welcome our good friend of the garden and a friend of mine, pastor Jason Ballard, all the way from Vancouver, British Columbia. You can come
You can come on up, Jason. Jason pastors a church called The Way in Vancouver. His wife, Rachel, is here as well, and their 3 kids. And, he also leads an organization called The Pastorate, which aims to strengthen pastors. There's a podcast involved.
He's been a big part of Alpha over the years, but he is a great long term friend of the garden, and we are honored to have you here. So would you join me as we pray for Jason? Holy Spirit, we just invite you to teach us and to lead us today. We thank you for the treasures of the kingdom of God, and I pray right now for my brother, Lord, you would empower him to reveal your heart to us today, God. I thank you, God, for the life that he lives.
And I pray, Lord, that there would be an impartation of what he carries in our church today. Make us the best soil ever. Help us to receive fully everything you wanna give. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
Jason Ballard: Thank you, brother.
Ramin Razavi: Yeah. Amen.
Jason Ballard: Well, good morning, everyone. You alright? What a joy to be together. This is the 2nd service for me, and I love your church. I love the gift of being in this environment.
I'm here with my family. My wife, Rachel, is in the service. Our kids are, in kids ministry. I got a picture of my kids. I'll show you.
This was us just trying to cut down a Christmas tree a few weeks ago. That's my people. That's Hudson, and that's Mary in the middle and Millie. And we came to California because it is dark and rainy in Vancouver for 4 months straight. And we just wanna get we're gonna just get a little bit of sun, try to get into my body and just get rid of the sadness of the winter for a little bit.
I love your church. I know Darren really well, and I'm part of a church in Vancouver called The Way. And we just celebrated 4 years. We're a young church, and, I don't know when you stopped being a church plant. How old is garden?
15. 15 years. So you can't call it church plant. Somewhere between, like, 5 15, you're not a church plant anymore. Although it feels in the best way church planting in here, which I that's a compliment.
But Darren's been a great source of encouragement for me. He's been a friend that I can text on a hard pastoral day. And being able to witness the way in which he and the team at the garden have cultivated this space and trying to follow the purposes of God has been a deep source of inspiration for us. And so I say all that to say, you have brothers and sisters in Vancouver who are going after God, Not the same way exactly, each church is so unique but capturing some the same vision and values. And so it feels very at home for me here.
As a church, you are going through the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, which is the first book of the New Testament. And in Matthew chapter 5 through 7, so 3 chapters, you've got this collection of Jesus' teaching. And here's why this is really interesting. I realized that some people here, you'd be like, I'm a follower of Jesus.
I believe his teaching. I follow him. But lots of people here, maybe not lots, but some for sure, you don't know if you might not call Jesus Lord of your life, you might not subscribe to His teaching, but all of us can attest to the influence that Jesus has had on human history. Like there's no figure and there's no teaching There's no figure more influential than Jesus, and arguably there's no teaching, collection of writings as influential on human history as the Sermon on the Mount. And so we have for us this reliable source of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
And that's fascinating for us to be able to enter into that together. And so this is gonna happen over a number of months as a church as you go through different parts of the Sermon on the Mount. This week and next week, I've been assigned 2 different passage of scripture from the Surm Al Ananias. Next week, we're talking about anger. And so all week, I'll be paying attention to how angry I get, and then I'll come here and tell you what I've learned.
And, but this week, we're looking at a passage of scripture in Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 to 16. And, they'll put it on the screen, and I'll read it as well. And let's just look at this together. It says this starting in verse 13. You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl instead. They put it on its stand, 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. 2 very distinct and profound metaphors, salt, light. And Jesus pulls in 2 metaphors, 2 things that would be commonly used in the homes and day to day lives of His 1st century listener, salt and light. And He uses these metaphors to describe the kind of influence people who follow Jesus of Nazareth would have on the world. That's what he's talking about.
What is the effect of those who follow Jesus on the world? And he uses salt and light, these metaphors to describe that. In the words of John Stott, if the beatitudes, which is what we looked at previously, it's the scripture the text that precedes this in the Sermon on the Mount, If the beatitudes describe the essential character, like the the the character of the disciples of Jesus, the salt and light metaphors indicate their influence for good in the world. Now salt and light, though this is true today, more so in the 1st century, were like household essentials. So so needed and useful.
Commentators often quote an old saying that says, is there anything more useful than salt and sunshine? Because they were essential for the health, the vitality, the well-being of, like, households, of families of all of a city. You needed salt and light. Like, this is pre electricity. You know, you couldn't navigate your way through your home without a lamp.
You couldn't make your way through the world in a nutritious and healthy way without salt. And so what Jesus is saying, and this is wild, like for the first listeners, they would have gone, Us? You're calling us salt? Us light? Because of how significant the role of light and salt were in their own lives.
And what Jesus is saying is this, to those of you who would consider yourself followers of Jesus, he's saying, your life is meant to have a profound impact on the world around you. Like a significant part of the way in which the living God wants to affect the world that He loves is by pressing His people into every nook and cranny of this world to bring life, vitality, health, wholeness. And I remember when this like first clicked for me, I was probably grade 9 or 10, and I was going to Terry Fox Secondary School in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. And I don't expect any of you to be able to say that back to me, but that's the suburb just outside of Vancouver I grew up in. And I remember being a student and reading my Bible and hearing a message like this, and I believed it.
I'm salt and light in my school. And so some friends and I, we began to get together on Wednesday mornings before school, and we'd pray before school started. And we're praying for people to come to know Jesus that our school would be a better place for all and that God would use us as salt and light. And at least for a few minutes after we walked out of that classroom, I really walked through that locker decorated hallway like a missionary. And around the same time, I was working at a burger joint called A&W.
I don't know if you have A and W's down here. I get a witness from some. It's like Carl's Junior and In N Out, like somewhere in that kinda category of fast food burger. And I was a burger flipper. And I used to bike to work in grade 10.
I was getting $6 an hour. And, Canadian, which is a lot less right now.
Intro/Outro: I don't know what
Jason Ballard: the exchange rate was then. But and I I don't know how to explain this. And and what's what's bizarre is, like, more so than even my life now as a pastor, I felt called to A&W. Like, I felt like God put me there to like, I wasn't just a burger flipper. I was a flipper of men.
You know what I mean? Like like, let me do one more. One more. One more. One more.
I wasn't just salting the burgers. I was being pressed in as salt. I don't I don't feel good doing those jokes. I won't do anymore. No more puns.
No more puns for the rest of the sermon that I'm aware of. But this real sense of, like, I'm not just here to flip burgers. That, like, all of a sudden my job, which wasn't like, somebody could say is mundane. I don't think it's mundane. Had all this meaning and purpose.
Like like, my work mattered and the way I worked with guests in the restaurant and my colleagues mattered. I was being pressed in. I was salt and light at A and W on Pine Tree Avenue, Coquitlam, British Columbia. Like, it was significant. And I look back at that and I kind of go, why is it that sometimes now, even as a pastor, I'm not always aware of that same significance?
And I guess what I'm trying to get at is if we let this message click in our hearts, it will take it will make the most mundane moments of life filled with meaning and purpose. And it can cause us to live in the world in such a way that's marked with so much curiosity and creativity and wonder at what God is up to and what it means to be part of it with him. So here's what I wanna do. Here's kind of our roadmap. 1st, I wanna look a little bit more deeper at these two images of light and salt, really unpack the metaphors a bit more and they'll open up more meaning for us as we think of what this could mean.
And then I don't know if you noticed, but there's these cautions in there as well like, but don't be hidden and don't lose your saltiness. We'll look at both those cautions as well. But before we do either of those things, looking at the images and the cautions, I want to do something very ambitious. I I wanna take a long detour. And I want to in the detour, I want to summarize all of the Bible and all of human history, past, present, and future.
And the reason why I wanna do it because the summary of the Bible is a summary of the human story past, present, and future, where it all began, where we are right now, and where it's all going. And the reason why I wanna do it is I think if we can place this teaching in the context of the whole story of what the living God is doing in human history, I think it will open it it will open up to us in a more profound way. So I'm gonna attempt to do this in about 6 and a half minutes, summarize the whole of the Bible, and I'm gonna do it using a framework Darren and I's friend Pete Hughes often uses. It's a 3 part framework. It's almost like taking the story of human history and the story of scripture and looking at it in 3 acts, like 3 parts.
And so we'll look at each of those 3 acts. So act number 1 is creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The beginning of the story is not abstract randomness or chance. It's not God's at war.
It's a good God, lacking nothing, making a world in love and beauty. If you go to the very first chapters of the Bible in Genesis 1 and 2, there's like this explosive light and life in it. Like it's literally saying, let there be light and there was light. Let there be and there was. And then there's life, like the whole world is teeming with life as the source of all life, God, speaks more life into being.
But it's not just like God giving force to light and life. He invites his world to get in on the life and light action. And so he says to his people, you go be fruitful and multiply. It's almost like this life giving birth to more life, this light giving birth to more light action is what we're all meant to be part of. And so he invites the first people, like, go and be fruitful and multiply.
And we see a world teeming with life and light. And this is the world we inhabit. Like you woke up today in a world made by the living God, and it's filled with beauty. Like I saw the sunrise driving in this morning, just the canvas of the sky filled with colors, just the scale. And like it's hard in day to day life to pause to really take in the beauty, in part because it's so much, but there's also some we're just so like on to the next thing.
But when you slow down and look at like a sunrise or if you slow down and look at the face of someone you love, it's just like, it'll take your breath away when you see the beauty. Or like, have you ever tried, like, toasted sourdough with butter on it? Like, it blows my mind. I'm like, how many ingredients are here? Three ingredients?
How did they how did they but you gotta slow down for that a little bit. We live my point is we live in a beautiful world. But that's not the whole story, is it? Because I feel like if we stop there, it wouldn't we wouldn't be able to reconcile the world in which we inhabit. I mean, we're so aware of the fact that our world fails us.
Creation seems to fail us. Our bodies fail us. There's so much brokenness and pain. Decay, like this good world filled with light and life is also filled with death and darkness and decay. And that's the second act.
Act 2, de creation. If the first act is marked by life and light, the second act of the story of human history and the story of scripture is decay and darkness enter the scene. So what we see in Genesis chapter 3 is men and women reject God. They essentially say this, we aren't gonna, like, do life without you, but we're gonna do life on our own terms. You can be part of it, but we will be the central character deciding our fate.
And when they do that, they untether themselves from the source of life. So we were made to be tethered into the source of life. And what Genesis 3 shows us is what happens when we untether ourselves. And so for the first time in the story of Scripture, we see decay and death enter the story, the opposite of life and light. So they reject God.
And here we are today, experienced this on a global level, nations at war, corruption in corporations exploiting the weak for profits. We see this in our own country, in our own city, in our own schools, in our own streets, in our own homes, even in our own lives, darkness and decay, act 2. But that's not the end of the story. What scripture says is God who made this world set a rescue plan in motion that will ultimately put an end to decay and darkness. Act 3, new creation.
The God who made the heavens and the earth proclaims he will renew and make new his sin stained creation. And we see this thread through the story of scripture unfold that in the midst of decay and darkness, God sets apart a covenant people for Himself, a special people in the people of Israel. He says, I will use you to be a blessing of life to the nations. Sets apart a people for Himself. And He says, you see this in the Old Testament, from your line will come one who'll be the ultimate rescuer.
And to the surprise of everyone else, there wasn't just another human that entered the scene, but God wrote himself into the redemptive story coming in the person of his son, Jesus. 2000 years ago, the Son of God walks on planet Earth fully God, fully man, born of a virgin and He comes with Him, ushering in a new era of God's kingdom work on planet Earth. And on the cross, the Son of God hangs in the place of sinful humanity where all the darkness, death and decay is poured out on the God man, Jesus. But death doesn't have the last word. 3 days later, Jesus burst forth from the grave in resurrection life.
And through his death and resurrection, Jesus deals a deadly blow to death, decay, and darkness. And then he establishes a people for himself, the church. People call from every tribe, tongue and nation to himself. He says, I'm building a people for myself and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Jesus ascends to heaven.
He sends his spirit to fill his church with power from on high to live the Sermon on the Mount, to follow his ways in the power of the spirit. And that's where we find ourselves in the story. But that's not the end of the story we have in scripture because scripture also tells us where this is all going. And what we discover is that Jesus says, I will come again. And on the heels of his return, he will bring about in some profound and mysterious way a new heavens and a new earth.
And in Revelation 21, we get a glimpse of what that will look like. And when you read the text, it's stunning in light of what we've been talking about it says. What what does it say? That there will be no more death, no more sickness, no more tears. God will be with his people.
Where is all of this going? God is gonna make all things new. No sickness, no death, no dying, God with his people, life and light. And it's in the context of this story of creation, de creation and new creation that Jesus says to those who would follow him, you're the light of the world. That's pretty cool.
Like, consider how light dispels darkness. So much darkness in this world, so much darkness in act 2. Oh, that darkness would be dispelled in our cities, in our schools, on our streets, And God invites his people to join him in dispelling darkness in the city. Consider how light guides. It shows a path.
Have you ever tried to wander somewhere? Maybe you've been camping before and trying to find your way to the bathrooms in the middle of the night without a light. I mean, you just stub your toe, you trip, you fall. And how many of us and our friends are stumbling through this world trying to navigate a path for life? You find yourself getting burned and hurt and wounded.
And in scripture, this idea of light often speaks to God's truth. And in the Sermon on the Mount, we get a beautiful expression of Jesus interpreting all of God's truth for us. And what's so beautiful is that actually as we embody the teaching of Jesus through our lives, as we invite our as we are invited to follow Jesus, we actually illuminate a path for others. Ultimately, a path to following Jesus. Consider how light is essential for life.
Life cannot grow without light. And if God is making all things new, and he says to his followers, I am lighting you up. What about salt? Salt, definitely, we understand enhances flavor. You need to put a little salt on something.
I made some steak last night. Lots of salt being crushed onto that steak. And so you might say, okay. God is saying my people are meant to be, like, sprinkled on to enhance flavor and beauty, and that could be there. That could be part of it.
I think that these metaphors have layers of meaning. I wanna emphasis the one layer of meaning of this metaphor that would have been very much on the mind of the 1st century listeners, but less on our mind today. Because, like, this was written in a different time. And so it was written at a time where there wasn't refrigerators. We take those for granted.
How good are refrigerators? See, without refrigerators, things that are good rot. And so before refrigeration or even ice boxes, one of the primary tools to prevent decay is salt. So, like, fishermen would take their catch of fish, and if they weren't gonna eat it soon, they would pack it with salt to prevent it from rotting. So if the fish rot, you wouldn't say, what's wrong with this fish?
That's what fish do, they rot. You go, what's wrong with the salt? Like, we didn't pack it well or there was mixture contamination in the salt. And if this is the picture on the mind of the 1st century listeners, Jesus is saying, I wanna press you, my church, into the cities of this world as a means by which I will confront decay. You are salt.
You are light. Here to bring life, dispel darkness, confront decay. In Southern California, in Vancouver, the people of God lit up, pressed in. Let's connect the dots. I'll summarize all of this, quoting my friend, Daryl Johnson, whom I owe a great deal of credit for helping me understand this text.
He says, as fishermen rub salt into their fish to preserve them, so the savior of the world rubs his followers into the fabric of society to preserve it. As a candle or flashlight reveals the obstacles in the way and illuminates the path before us, so the savior of the world places his followers in every sector of life to reveal the stumbling blocks and to point the way towards the true light, which is Christ. I wanna look at 3 implications of this. Implication number 1, Jesus using the metaphor of salt and light asserts that the world organizing itself without God, left to itself will move in the direction of decay and darkness. Jesus is saying that without the work of God, human existence, human society left to itself runs itself down.
And this is actually a little bit hard for our minds to grab hold of and might actually feel like even a confrontational message. And that's because we have all been born into a culture that fundamentally believes that across the board, things are just getting better. Like, if we just have a little bit more human effort and time, inevitably, things will move towards life and light. And so the idea is like we don't need those archaic things like God or prayer. We just need to keep developing our technology, our politics.
We just need to vote the right person in. We just need to keep advancing our education, just more time and effort. And I'm not cynical on those things. Like, I think it's important to pay attention to all of those things. And I'm not like, I'm thankful.
Like, we live in an amazing time with fast chips and brighter screens and all this incredible technology. And the reason I really want you to notice, like, I'm not cynical about being thoughtful and creative. Like, my I have friends, like a friend that was in the hospital recently, and he's alive because of modern advancements in technology. So I'm thankful for that. I just think we need to also acknowledge that those things in of themselves will not save the world.
Do you know what I mean? Like, think about it. We can fly to the moon and back, But we can't stop child exploitation. Like, we have technology in our pockets that we couldn't imagine a room sized computer doing, And yet we're watching as it robs the mental health of a young generation right before our eyes. So, like, the issue is not more technology.
It is a issue on a soul level. Like we need help from outside. We need a balm for our souls that no amount of research or progress or time and human ingenuity can get to. But here's the good news of this text. God does not leave the world to itself.
Like no matter I don't know where you're at in following Jesus. What we want you to hear is God has not given up on the human project. He is not leaning away from this world. He's leaning towards it and he's redeeming it. God has not left the world to itself.
It's not all on our shoulders. For God so loved the world, He gave Himself. He came Himself to heal hearts at scale and bring wholeness and healing to the world. And this is the second implication I want you to see, that Jesus is the true salt and light of the world. I mean, you felt that.
Like we feel it being like, we are salt and light? Jesus is the true salt and light of the world. The Sermon on the Mount is a fascinating passage of text to study. It's a path laid out for followers of Jesus. It's a manifesto for a different kind of kingdom invading earth.
And it serves in a very real way as a portrait of Jesus because He's the only one who's lived in the most fullest sense the Sermon on the Mount. And so He is the light of the world. He's the salt of the earth. In the gospel of John, Jesus is recorded saying in John chapter 8, I'm the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Matthew describing Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah. And he says the people living in darkness have seen a great light. And those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. Look at Jesus' life and ministry through the lens of creation, decreation, and new creation. In the midst of darkness and decay and sickness, what does Jesus come doing?
Where are the sick? Leprosy, healed. Blind eyes, opened. Lazarus, come back to life. In the midst of darkness, he goes to those oppressed by demonic powers and he says, be free.
He says to the demons, go and they listen because Jesus came to end decay and darkness. His authority over sickness and darkness. And even through his teaching disarms the lies that hold people captive and to bring liberty and life. Think about his death and resurrection. On the cross of Calvary, Jesus let death and decay and evil do everything it possibly could do to a body to him.
Jesus didn't like go into death and then right at the edge before He died just sort of peel back. He didn't go into death, die for a few days, and then rewind. No. He went into death and then went all the way through death and came out the other side victorious in resurrection life. This is why the distinction between, like, resuscitation and resurrection is important.
Because Jesus just wasn't resuscitated. No. He resurrected. He beat death and decay. He let death and decay and darkness and sin and sickness do everything it possibly could, and then He pushed on through it, defanged its power, and came out the other side in resurrected body and life, which is the hope for everyone that follows Jesus and the world that he's making new.
You can clap for that. It's good news. I really appreciate those that held back the clap to let me finish the thought, because I'm in Vancouver, my church, like, they're they're excited about Jesus, but they're very, like, excited, like like like, very kinda chill. And so, like, when I'm in environments that kinda talk back a little bit, I sometimes don't, like, I lose my spot a little bit. And so you guys were kind.
You're like, I think he needs to finish. We'll unfish. And then it was like, okay. Thanks. Thank you.
That's so exciting. Jesus is the true salt and light of the world, and he says to his followers, come and join me in the work. 3rd implication, Jesus invites his followers to join him in his salt and light work in the world. So this is an invitation for you and I, salt and light in this city, in this region, lit up like light and pressed in like salt. Like, those of you who are going to school, you're not just going to school.
You're being pressed in. Like, I know how it feels. Some people have the job of your dream. Most of you don't have the job of your dream. Some of you got the job of your dreams.
It turns out it's not the job of your dreams. But you're not just working that job. You're not just flipping those burgers. That's a good thing to do. Make food for you.
It's a beautiful thing too, but you're not just doing that. You're being pressed in, lit up. Salt and light in that place. Like, you're not just on the street you live. Some of you are like, I can't afford to live in this neighborhood.
I'm in this neighborhood or whatever it might be. You're not just on that street. You're you're neighboring. Your life you're being pressed in, solved in life. Like, let's just do a thought experiment.
Let's say somebody who's a lawyer. Maybe lawyer in Southern California has a measure of influence that's really affecting people through policy and all kinds of things. Let's just imagine this capable, smart lawyer. Let's just imagine she becomes a Christian. What does that mean for her life now?
Is the good news of salt and light just that now she can give a tithe and volunteer at church and then go do her job? I mean, I think it's great that we give to fuel the life of the church. It's important value for me. It's important to serve. But what's most exciting is that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount would get a hold of her, and it would affect the way she treats her clients.
How she organizes her affairs, treats her employees, all of the things. And this is true in every field. Like one of the ways that God brings transformation at scale in a city is by grabbing holds of artists, of baristas, of teachers, of bakers, of frontline workers, of parents, of caregivers, of neighbors, of business owners, even politicians and pastors, grabs hold of them and then presses them in like salt and light in the world. So every day, every room you walk into, our response or the invitation, Jesus, you have me here. What are you up to?
Let's look at the cautions because that's a big part of this text as well. The first, we'll look at verse 15, talking about, you know, you're the light of the world. Neither do people light up a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put on its stand. It gives light to everyone in the house.
So the the caution here is don't be hidden. Don't be hidden. Because there is a temptation, for churches or followers of Jesus to bend inward, to turn towards themselves. So often in the story of scripture, we see the people of God being blessed by God, but then them losing the plot on their fundamental calling that that blessing was always meant to be, remember we talked about earlier, a blessing for the nations. But when they turn inwards, it kind of goes sideways.
And this happens in churches in the life of followers of Jesus. We find ourselves, for any numbers of reasons, turning inward. Kind of protection is the name of the game and preservation. But but our very purpose is that we might be transformed, that we would follow the narrow path in the language of the sermon, not the narrow path that leads to life, that it would bring life not just to your household, but to the community around you. This is the purpose of the people of God, to be pressed in, to be lit up.
So the first caution is don't be hidden. Don't be hidden. The second caution, and you need both of these held intention. That's really important. The second is don't lose your saltiness.
Don't lose your saltiness. This one, again, because the metaphor plays off of a first century reality, that's not as alive for us today. We have to do a little bit of work. And so what does it mean to lose your saltiness? So here's the best I understand it.
1st century salt, it wasn't uncommon that it would have some measure of mixture to it, that there might be sand or other minerals like gypsum or whatever it might be in the salt. If there's too much mixture, the salt no longer does what salt is meant to do, which is to prevent decay, keep life, you know, prevent it from rot. So best case scenario, salt with mixture just doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Worst case scenario, though, if there's so much mixture, it actually perpetuates decay. And so Jesus says, like, but don't lose your saltiness.
Don't be so mixed that you lose the power. Like, the way of Jesus is a narrow path. It's a fundamentally different way of existing in this world. And it's set apart. Like, the way of Jesus is set apart from the ways of this world, but it's so easy to become enamored by the ways of this world, the structures of this world, the things of this world.
And so we can find ourselves losing our saltiness, our ability to be a blessing to the world by preserving decay because we've become complicit in the value structures and the patterns of this world. My friend Chris puts it this way. It's like when we're mixed, instead of being a prophet to culture, we become a parent of it. And all throughout human history, we've seen people, at least in Jesus' name, co opt the idea of Christianity in Jesus' name to do a very worldly thing, like gain power or control, and as a result, perpetuate decay and darkness in this world. And Jesus has a tough word for that.
He says it's no longer good for anything. And the good news is he wants us to be good for the world around us. That through our lives and our life, that it would bring life and light. What I love about Jesus' life is you see a pattern in his life of engagement and disengagement. Like you see Jesus engaging with people that religious folk are like, how are you with those people?
But then you also see Jesus and you can't miss this because that, some of you, that's your heart and you're wired that way. I love that about you. But then we also have to observe Jesus intentionally disengaging himself in the quiet hours of the morning to be alone by himself in God's word, in the presence of God. And this is the life of the believer. Deep deep roots in Christian community.
Deep deep roots like eating the word every day. Letting your whole mind be permeated with the presence and ways of Jesus that allows you to engage in this world without being contaminated by it. And not for your own, although it does bring joy and wholeness to your life, but it's for the glory of God and the good of others. Here's the point. When we follow Jesus in his ways by the power of the spirit work in life, we get to be part of Jesus' light and life work in the world.
Like followers of Jesus, walking with him, becoming more and more like Him, and then joining Him in His salt and light work in the world. There's an invitation for us in the next couple weeks, as you do Sermon on the Mount to look at our lives, to say is there a mixture? Because the Sermon on the Mount, topically speaking, brings us into, like, very real on the ground territory. Like, next week, it's anger, and all of us this week will get angry. And then I think the person after that is doing lust.
And, that was originally my assignment was anger and lust, and then the weeks changed, and I got salt and light and anger. I'm really thankful for that. I would have been here for it, but I just think it's like this is like I'm just getting to know you. I don't wanna start with lust. But, like, those sermons are now gonna give us, like, a lot of opportunities.
And here's the posture I wanna encourage you with, is just to have an open heart before God. God doesn't trade in, like, shame tactics. That's usually how we get things done. But it's always love and invitation. And the the incredible thing is God always like, if he does come to convict our hearts, he's he's also come with the power to lead us to wholeness of life.
So we don't have to be afraid, but I think the invitation is to come each week, and then maybe even throughout the week, just say, god, I just wanna let the Sermon on the Mount do a work on me. And if there's mixture in my life, if there's compromise, which I have in my life, and you do as well, say, god, would you reveal it to me and then give me power to take a step in a life of an integrated life with you. So it's a great invitation. No guilt, no shame, but God wanting to light us up and press us in. Here's how I wanna end.
I wanna tell you a story, and then I wanna pray together. We pastor a church in a neighborhood called Strathcona in Vancouver. It's in a part of Vancouver called the Downtown Eastside. It's a very diverse neighborhood. And so we find ourselves often praying like, Lord, could you help us know how to how might we as a church affect and impact the community?
And there's lots of ways we've been able to do that. But what really excites me is like the in the day to day life of the people of God stories, not just what we do organization as a church, but just the people of God doing Jesus y stuff. And there's just one story that's really fun that I heard recently. I think I think this woman in our church, she's maybe walking home from church or walking in the neighborhood of our church, and she found a wallet. Has anyone here lost a wallet before?
It's the worst. It's like it's like it's not just the thought of, like, someone, like, stealing or the stuff. It's like, I gotta I'm gonna get identity theft. I've gotta call these people. It's just brutal.
It's a brutal feeling. And so she finds this wallet, and her instinct is to check the driver's license and look at the address. And so she follows maps. It's walking distance from where it was. Like, the person lives in the neighborhood.
So she walks to the house. She knocks on the door. Person comes to the door. He says she says, is this yours? And he's like, that's my wallet.
And and and she's just thrilled. Like, you could imagine that. Like, how stressed. He's probably on the phone with the credit agency being like, can you block my cards? All those things.
And gets this and it's just amazing. It's beautiful. And as this woman from our church is walking away, she has this thought. The thought is, go and tell him you came in Jesus' name. She's already walked away.
And then she kind of shoos away the thought, but then the thought emerges again in such a way that she's curious, is this a God thought? You know, sometimes I don't know, like, is the voice of God or not, but, like, you can sort of, like, there's sort of sometimes a substantively different feeling of it might be. And so she's curious enough that it's God that she does it. So she goes back to this house, she knocks on the door, same guy, and he's like, you're back. And she goes, I felt like I was supposed to come back and tell you that I came in Jesus name.
And the man begins to cry. And we we discover that for the weeks before, through, like, YouTube and reels, he was exploring God and Christianity. And and so when he lost his wallet, he's like, well, I don't know how this works, but I'll give it a try. Jesus, if you're real, he helped me find my wallet. And then this woman drops off a wallet, walks away, comes back, and says, oh, I was supposed to tell you, I came in Jesus' name.
And this is not always how the stories go, but this particular guy has found himself in the life of our church, in a small group, in a running group with Christian guys in the church. It's beautiful. It's just amazing. And this is why I tell you that because cause I think that the invitation of living a salt life is really going into our days in Jesus' name. Because in Jesus' name speaks to His character, His ways, His being, and it speaks to this reality that like, what I love about this story is it's not a story about human effort to contrive something.
It's a story about God doing more in any given moment than we're fully aware of. Do you know what I mean? And this is the curiosity and wonder we get to live in. It's like, what could he be doing around me right now? What's he up to?
And here's not what I'm saying. Like, after church, if you go for lunch and you tip, I'm not saying you need to tell the waitress, by the way. I tip in Jesus' name. I mean, you can. I'm just saying, like, it's not that's not my point.
My point is there's a way of being in the world where we go, I I come in Jesus' name. And almost like when I say that, I almost feel like I'm deserving to carry that name, but this is what he this is the good news of what he's inviting us to, to to live in his name, to to be his salt, to be light. He does the heavy lifting, but he invites you and I into it. Let me pray. If you're comfortable, you could bow your head and close your eyes really just to help serve to put your attention on God.
And if you're comfortable, I invite you to just say a real simple prayer. The prayer could be something like, God, here I am. I'm open to meeting with you. And as a prayer, you might even ask a question like, God, what do you want to do in my heart this morning, or what do you want to speak to me? I'm open.
I see some brothers and sisters in the front opening their hands. I love that posture, that instinct to say like, our hands often reflect our hearts, so maybe you're comfortable following these teenagers' example, just hands open before God. And And just a simple prayer, God, would you come and fill me afresh. Draw me deeper into what you're doing in the world and your call in my life. Well, just just make some space.
We bless you, God. Just all that you wanna do in our lives, in our hearts
Ramin Razavi: this morning, we bless you.
Jason Ballard: Maybe you've been in a service before, where like a missionary or a minister was brought up. And the elders surrounded him or her and the church stretch out their hands and they commissioned them to go. And I my sense is that for many here, this is a commissioning moment that you're invited to go as one who is sent. Not the burden of trying to bring about the kingdom of God in your own strength, but the delight of being a sent one. And so I just want to bless you with, like, a commissioning prayer.
So, God, in the name of the father and the son of the holy spirit, I pray that you would commission brothers and sisters across this room. I pray that you would fill them afresh with the power of the holy spirit. You'd give them an otherworldly love for the people you've called them to. You'd give them discernment and wisdom, that you would lead the way, that you'd open doors, that you mark their lives with peace and power, and you'd provide for everything they need to follow you. We bless them to go to the place you've called them to their home, their street, their workplace, their school.
And I pray as a collective, as a church, you would also commission us that our life together as a community would be a witness to you living God. In Jesus name.
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