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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.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How's everybody sleepy this
morning from last night.
They have the wildest
weather here in North Texas.
Uh.
I was ordained and served in four
different churches over a 40 year
time span all along the Gulf Coast,
Beaumont para land and sugar land.
So this, uh, tornadoes, inhale and
all that stuff is brand new to us.
We, we got it occasionally,
but not very often.
So this, uh, spring weather in
north Texas is a little noisy.
I know.
You know, if it wasn't, if the,
if the hail and the rain and the
lightning, the thunder wasn't bad
enough, it was the alerts on my phone.
It was crazy.
Uhhuh.
There's a tornado watch.
There's a flash flood.
I'm laying in bed.
Okay.
It's a flash flood.
I hope it doesn't flash flood right here.
But anyway, it's a crazy time.
So, uh, my name is Mike Baker, in case
those of you who don't know me, and Kim
and I have been going here about two and a
half, three years, somewhere along there.
Uh, and so, uh, like as I said, I was
ordained many, many years ago and,
and love the opportunity to, uh, get
a chance to speak in front of people.
I, I have to admit, I do miss it from time
to time, not on an every weekly basis.
That was, uh, a bit much,
but, uh, I do miss it.
So let's pray.
Heavenly Father, I am certainly unworthy
to stand before your people and speak,
but I pray that the words of my mouth and
the meditations and thoughts of all of our
hearts will be acceptable in your sight.
Amen.
Last week, Nicole got us started.
On this new series we're doing going
through the Sermon of Mount, and she,
she took us through the Beatitudes and
she and I did have a conversation before
and she said, there's so much material.
How do I do this in one week?
And I said, oh, I know.
I said, you know, one, one
beatitude would be enough to spend
a week on or, or a month on it.
So any one of those
would just be tremendous.
But I thought she did a tremendous
job as an overview, getting us
through that whole thing and
showing us, uh, the words of Jesus.
As he was trying to explain to, to the
people in front of him that the values
of the kingdom of the God are radically
different than the values of the kingdom
of this world radically different.
They're upside down, they're sideways,
completely the world and, and the
kingdom have very little connection,
and he's challenging the people
in front of him live differently.
Don't compete and live the way the world
says that you're supposed to dog eat, dog.
You know, even if you win a
dog fight, you're still a dog.
He said, live differently,
look differently.
And so, but, but he knew, Jesus knew
that for those of us who try to live
according to the kingdom values,
that we're gonna run into pushback,
we're gonna run into troubles.
Uh, and so be as he finishes
the beatitudes, he throws
in there verses 11 and 12.
I think we have it up
on the board somewhere.
Up on the screen it says, blessed
are you, when people insult you.
Blessed are you.
When people insult you and persecute
you and falsely say all kinds
of evil against you, not because
you're a jerk, but because you're
following the ways of Jesus.
Rejoice and be glad because
great is your reward in heaven.
So, in other words, if we live
according to the values of the
kingdom of God, we're gonna run
into challenges and difficulties.
There're gonna be people
who don't understand.
There're gonna be people who will
be angry and will push back on us.
And Jesus says, just be expect
that that's what's gonna happen.
We're living in some
crazy times right now.
Can, can I get an amen?
I understand a lot of you guys
were Baptist before, so you just,
there's chaos and confusion.
Unrest wars, military excursions,
attempted assassinations.
There's all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
Our politics has become tribal.
Rather than having differing,
differing ideas how to run the
country, it's become a tribal identity.
Social media, people are screaming
all kinds of nonsense and vulgarity
for that matter, on, on, on.
In public podcasters
always know what's best.
Most of them have never done anything
except tell you how you should live.
Uh, churches have split over
politics, family holidays.
Oh, aren't they fun now?
So constantly this stuff is in the
news, and that's the way of the
world, chaos and wars and rumors of
wars and all these things going on.
So we're blessed if we get pushback.
Well, Pope Leo has been getting
a lot of blessing lately.
I don't know if you've noticed the
president doesn't like his, uh,
preaching the, uh, sermon on the Mount.
He's not the first politician to
get upset with the teachings of
the church against things like how
you treat immigrants or how you go
into wars or don't go into wars.
How you treat people,
how you value people.
He's not the first, he won't be the
last, the vice president who's been
a Catholic for about five minutes.
Is lecturing a lifelong Augustinian
trained priest who's now the Pope who went
into a seminary high school as a teenager,
and who has some of the finest education,
the world, the world has to offer.
And yet he's schooling him on, you know,
the doctrine of what just war looks like.
So if you live according to the kingdom
values, you're gonna get pushback.
Now you and I are probably never gonna
be, uh, get pushed back from the president
or the vice president or anybody else.
We'll probably never hear anybody
at that level giving us a hard time.
But we will get a hard time from
our coworkers, our classmates,
our, our next door neighbors,
you know, our family members.
There will be, uh, tension if we
choose to live according to the
values of, of the kingdom, because
they're radically different.
Now, Nicole last week did something very
important that I hadn't really thought
about, and I really love her and, and
Ben's teaching because it made me remember
something or to relearn something.
Uh, he said, Jesus gathered this
crowd and she talked about the crowd.
Many times when they talked about
the crowd, Jesus would say there
were Pharisees and Sadducees and
scribes and teachers of the law.
He would list these high,
you know, you know, officials
within the, the Jewish religion.
But this crowd was made up of
just common everyday people.
People who had been healed, people
who were curious about Jesus,
people who just wanted free bread.
I mean, there were all kinds of people
showing up to, to in this crowd.
It doesn't mention any, uh, officials.
There may have been some, but, but they're
not even mentioned in this passage.
These are people just like us.
We're not high and mighty
religious of figures.
We're just people seeking to understand
how to live in a different kind of world.
Because I don't know about you.
The world feels very dark right now.
The world right now doesn't have much salt
going on right now, and it feels painful.
And the question is, as we go
through this, would you like to
live in a world where there's
no salt and there's no light?
Man?
Can you imagine McDonald's
fries with no salt?
I mean, that's the whole point.
I mean, they're just pieces
of potato to hold salt for us.
So Jesus is talking to these people and he
tells them, you are the salt of the earth.
You the common everyday person.
You're the light of the world.
What he was doing there was
commissioning them to live a
different kind of lifestyle.
He was also reminding them they
were the children of of Abraham.
And if we go way back to Genesis,
remember we studied Genesis for
a while, way back to Genesis.
Genesis 12.
God tells Abraham, I'm gonna bless you so
that you will be a blessing to the world.
And Jesus is reminding these
Jewish people in front of him.
You're the children of Abraham.
You're not just people
living in the world.
You have a purpose.
You have a mission as God's people.
Your job is to be a blessing to the world.
Now, Jesus could have, if he had wanted
to, he could have wiped out the Roman
Empire and was snapping of his fingers.
He could have totally annihilated them.
He could have melted them
like an Indiana Jones.
The Nazis melting, Wanted to
transform the Romans because Jesus
was just, was showing us, revealing
to us that God values people,
even Romans, even Roman officials.
He values them.
He didn't wanna destroy them,
he wanted to change them.
And he realized that the evil
is not what's on the outside.
It's what's on the inside.
And so Jesus calls his
people salt and life.
Now one of the things, and there are many
things, but one of the things I really
like about being part of salt and light
is that it remind us at the end of every
service that we are salt and that we
are light, and that we have a purpose.
In fact, in Jesus teaching this, he
holds up a purpose, a mission for
his people, but it's also a warning.
He says, be responsible with your salt.
Be responsible with your life.
It's not just a given.
If you have a responsibility, you have
a, there's a responsibility that you
are actively involved in being salt.
You're actively involved in being light.
So why do you think we read this
every, oh, how does it affect you
when, when we do this every Sunday?
Talk to me.
What, what, what's going through
your mind when you do this?
You just go, oh, here we go again.
Or, good, we're coming near
the end of the service.
What are you thinking when
we, when we hear every week,
you are the salt of the earth.
Come on out.
You're about me thinking something.
We're supposed to be out spread to
the rest of the world and not just
salt, you know, flavors, other things
like, uh, it's not just salt in
and of itself, doesn't do anything.
Salts cat, you know, into mm-hmm.
Preservatives.
It's, it's a use to others.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Anything.
It's a reminder of.
Our identity.
Our identity.
Mm-hmm.
Reminds us every week who we are
and what we're supposed to be about.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
That's what Jesus was trying to
do to his, that crowd there he is
trying to remind them who they were.
You are the children of Abraham.
Your job is to be a blessing to the world.
I didn't bless you just because you
were the best people in the Middle East.
I didn't bless you 'cause you were the
friendliest people in the Middle East.
I didn't bless you 'cause you're the
prettiest people in the Middle East.
I blessed you because I
want you to be a blessing.
To other people and that was the
challenge he had before them.
Now, when we're attacked, we tend to do
the, was it fight or flight kind of thing.
We either try to get stronger and get
meaner and try to be, be bigger and
bolder than the people are attacking us.
Are we running high?
Jesus said, I don't want you when
you're attacked for the kingdom
values, to take the kingdom values
and beat somebody over the head.
I have never.
I never make people come to me.
I invite people to come to me.
I invite people.
I don't coerce people.
He said, but I don't want you
running off and hiding either.
He said, I want you to engage the world.
Mm-hmm.
Engage the world.
Salt is of no value.
If it sits in a salt shaker, it has to
engage, you know, those McDonald fries,
then something miraculous happens.
So don't fight it.
Don't hide, but engage.
And then Jesus is talking to his
Jew, these Jewish people who are
under, literally under a military
occupation of the Roman army.
And he starts talking
about salt and light.
It's like, really?
Why don't you talk about
swords and shields?
You know, salt and light.
You got, you're kidding me.
Don't you see this?
The trouble we're in.
But, but Jesus was talking about
the kingdom way of approaching,
being occupied by Roman army.
Salt in the ancient world is so
different than salt nowadays.
You know, I go to the grocery store,
I can get kosher salt, I can get co
salt, I can get, uh, sea salt, I can
get Himalayan salt, uh, and it's cheap.
I mean, just whole aisles full
of different kinds of salt.
That was not the way it
was when Jesus was talking.
Salt was extremely valuable.
In fact, sometimes the Roman
soldiers were paid in salt.
In fact is where we get
the word, our salaries.
It was their S salary.
They got salt.
They got salt.
That was their way of being paid, and
they would use that then to buy things.
It was a commodity.
It was very precious.
It was used in sacrifices.
It was used in cleansing wounds.
It was used in all different ways.
Nowadays, we just, you know,
we just sprinkle on salt.
My cardiologist says we
sprinkle it on too much.
So, so salt now seems very
different, uh, kind of thing than,
than what we normally think of.
My first year in seminary, uh,
Kim and I were in Virginia.
I went to, went to Alexandria of
Virginia to an Episcopal seminary and our
hams hanging in the gas station,
I think who in the world
buys a ham at a gas station.
So I asked a friend of mine who grew
up in the, in, in, in Virginia, and
I said, what is with these hams?
He said, oh, they're great hams.
Get you one.
So next time I was at the gas station,
I bought a ham in a gas station.
But anyway, so, so we took
it home and Kim prepared it.
It was the worst ham
I ever had in my life.
It was so salty.
It's just like, eh, this is terrible.
So I went back to my classroom.
He said, you're an idiot.
Those are horrible hams.
He goes, how did you cook it?
I said, well, we put it in the oven and
we baked it, or whatever we did to it.
I said, but it tasted terrible.
Goes, oh, no, no, no.
Our hams, you have to soak in water.
You have to almost boil it for hours
and hours and hours to draw the salt
out of it before you can eat the ham.
I said what?
I mean, my family's from East Texas.
We smoke our pork.
We don't salt it down, so,
so it preserved the hams.
That's the reason ham could hang
in a gas station for months and
still be edible because the salt
it, it prevented decay of the meat.
It slowed it down.
So that was the whole reason of salting
fish or salting, you know, hams.
The Jews did not salt hams by the
way, but anyway, they did salt fish.
So salt for us and salt in the
first century are radically
different, different concepts.
So we almost have to, I have to
explain because it doesn't make
sense in nowadays kind of work.
You know, our culture we're currently in.
But what happens as, as Christians,
we're called to be salty people.
We are to engage the world.
We are to be beside the things that
are in decay and the world is in decay.
Have you noticed?
And our calling, our mission is to
be engaged with the world and to slow
down decay, to preserve what is good.
Our temptation as salty people
is to hang around other salty
people and not engage the decay.
It happens in our churches,
it happens in our friendships.
Uh, it happens in all different ways.
I mean, so we, we, we don't want to engage
the world because we'll get pushback.
We'll get people who don't like, uh,
don't like salt, they don't like us
being a godly presence, uh, in that,
their particular situation, politicians
who do things, uh, that are unjust.
They don't like to hear from the
church saying that's injustice.
That's not right.
That's not the way the world should be.
They don't like hearing that.
They want to do the mighty want to,
you know, beat up the beat up the weak.
That's what the world wants.
But the church says, no, that's not
the way the world's supposed to be.
That there is a better way.
So that, that's our temptation.
So the greatest thing I believe that
we can do as, as salty Christians,
is to value the life of every human
being, regardless of everything.
Everyone born is created in the
image and the lightness of God, and
they have value because of that.
Not because of what they achieve.
They may be the richest
person in the world.
They may be living on the streets
here in Fort Worth, they have
value because they're created in
the image and the likeness of God.
God cares about all people, and
if we're God's people, we too
should care about all people.
So, and we see situations where
people are being dehumanized.
We as salty Christians just
say, no, that's not right.
It's not right.
These people are not, they're not animals.
They're not worse than we are.
They are like us.
Only by the grace of God, we
might be in that same situation.
So that's one of the ways that we as,
as salt in the world, we can stand up
for what is true and what is right.
Of course, the kingdom values now
it's gonna sting sometimes, sometimes
us, sometimes them, uh, but we have
to speak truth, but we do it in love.
We don't do it to win to score points,
we don't do it to beat up other people.
We do it because it's the
truth and we hold up the truth.
Then Jesus goes on after
he talks about salt.
He says, you're the light of the world.
And I don't know if you know,
that's another thing that's so
difficult for us to understand.
I was reading an article just this morning
in the New York Times about there's a
desert in Chile, which is supposed to
be the darkest place on the planet now,
and they go there to observe the stars.
Because we live with so much
light pollution, especially in
the cities, we can't see anything.
And so that's the world Jesus lived in.
They didn't have streetlights.
They didn't have, you know, these
flashlights that can shoot a hundred yards
and, and, and, and burn something up.
They didn't have any of
those kind of things.
They had a little bitty clay pots
with olive oil and a wick, and it
gave off a little bit of light.
So at, he said, you're
the light of the world.
So that's the kind of
light he's talking about.
He's not talking about a, a
beam of light, a laser beam.
What we're trying to persecute somebody,
he's talking about that you are
the light, so that you light up the
situation around you so that people
can see clearly what is going on.
We are to illumine the whole world.
Our temptation for some who
call themselves Christians.
Is to use a light to kind of blind other
people or, or to harm other people.
And Jesus said, you're the
light of the world again.
He's reminding these people,
you're the children of Abraham.
You're to be a blessing.
So as you produce this
light, you are to bless.
Do it in a way that blesses
the people around you.
Not harming you, not coercing you.
So.
Our light, as I said, can be
times when we see injustice.
We live in a country where
we can speak our peace.
At least at this point, we can still
go to the streets and tell people we
protest something, that we can still
vote, we can still call, we can still
email, text, or whatever other people say.
No.
The the things that are you're,
you're doing are not in accordance
with the, with the kingdom of God.
We can speak.
And, you know, as, as God's
representatives, all of us, not
just religious people, not just
poses, but you and I remember,
you are the salt of the earth.
You, we are the light of the world,
and that we have been called to
this mission to make a difference.
Would you like to live in a
world with no salt and no light?
Another classmate of mine in
seminary on another event.
Uh, we were in Central Pennsylvania
and he said, you wanna see a coal mine?
Well, I'm from Texas.
I haven't really seen a coal mine.
I said, sure, let's go see a coal mine.
So we went to see a coal mine, and I
cannot believe I did this as a father
and a husband, but I paid money to a
guy for us to put on some nasty coats,
who knows how many other people have
worn, and to get inside of these little
cold cars and go down into a coal mine.
And we were told we were
a mile under the ground.
And that.
After we got down there, it's
like, what am I thinking?
And then he said, Hey, I want
you to experience what it's like.
You know when the lights go out and
they turned off all the lights that
were inside the mine, you could not see
your, I mean, it was total darkness.
Absolute darkness.
You couldn't see anything and you
would be amazed, the fear that
comes up inside of you automatically
to be in that kind of darkness.
It's like you, you can't
even comprehend it.
It's like it instantly, it's like there's
this fear of like, how, you know, if
something happens, how am I gonna get
my wife and two daughters out of this
stinking coal mine with no light?
I mean, it was frightening.
And then a guy turned on one little
lamp on his, on his hard hat.
And I cannot tell you the difference that
one little lamp made in total darkness.
All of a sudden, there was hope
again in the, in the coal mine.
And then he turned all the lights on.
It was a lot of hope and we got out, or we
wouldn't be here today to talk about it.
But anyway, it's amazing how frightening
being in the dark is in total darkness.
And so many times you and I go
through dark times or people
around us go through dark times.
It can be in our workplace, it
could be our health, it could
be, uh, employment, it could be,
you know, all kinds of things.
We go through darkness.
And it's nice to have somebody
with a little bit of light
that can make a difference.
And as God's people, we are
called to be, to have that light.
And sometimes we need the light and
sometimes we can be the light for somebody
else to help people through dark times.
And the point of this is, as this
passage goes on, it says, let
your light so shine that others.
We will see your good deeds
and gloor glorify your father
or our father in heaven.
So salt and light is not for our benefit.
Salt and light is for the
benefit of those around us.
We are blessed to be a blessing.
We're made salt and we're made light to
be a blessing to the people around us,
not just for our sake, but for around us.
So how do you cultivate?
I think you can cultivate, I think you
can grow more and more salty as you,
as you grow in your spiritual life.
Oh.
Or you can become a brighter light.
This particular passage has
always resonated with me.
I came to faith through
serving other people.
A mission trip in, in, in the Valley
of Texas, in, in the mission, uh,
in like Brownsville and, and Nuevo
Progressive across the border.
That's where I, that's where
faith made sense to me.
I had heard the Bible lessons, I had sung
the songs, I had said the prayers, but
it didn't really click, it didn't really
make sense until there was blood, sweat,
and tears connected, uh, to those words.
That's when it made sense that my faith
wasn't just about me reading the Bible,
although reading the Bible's good, it
wasn't just about me singing songs.
Sorry, Matt.
But there's more to singing songs.
Uh, it wasn't just about saying prayers.
It's about helping other people
taking what I have received to
be a blessing for other people.
That's the point of it.
And so salt and light passage
has always been important to me.
When I first got outta seminary
and went to Beaumont, I
helped start a a soup kitchen.
I got some pushback from
the senior pastor, actually.
But anyway, we started a soup
kitchen and they said, well,
how are we gonna advertise this?
I said, no problem, because there were
lots of people living on the streets
in Beaumont during that period of time.
Like I got a little three by five card
and wrote free food, you know, Tuesdays,
Thursday, put the time and took it to the
bus station, put it on the bulletin board.
We had a hundred people the first day.
Wow.
And it grew from there, in fact, some,
and eventually we hired the, the women
that were running the thing, hired some
of the people, street people to actually
help in the kitchen preparing food.
So, and to me that was so exciting
to see, you know, in Beaumont, we
were the affluent church in town,
an Episcopal church, and here was a
chance for us to make a difference.
In this community, and
it was well received.
You know, everybody would, people
started donating food to our kitchen
so that we could prepare food for
other people, so it helped other
people become salt and light as well.
Then when we went to Sugar Land, I
started a church, uh, in Sugar Land.
Uh, I wanted to call it Hope.
I know when naming churches
is really important.
I wanted to call it Hope, but the
Bishop said it sounded too Lutheran.
So we called it Holy Cross, which
certainly sounds more Episcopal than
anyway, uh, because I wanted the
church to be hope in that community.
It was an affluent community,
but they still needed hope.
Everybody in that community,
we still needed hope.
We, we may be successful.
We may, may have the big
house, we may have the 2.5
kids.
I mean, we may have everything you're
supposed to have, but still there
was a sense of of hopelessness.
So we became Holy Cross.
But anyway, but Hope was
still our primary mission.
We started going on some mission
trips to, to Guatemala, uh, and
ended up before it was all over with.
We started in 2001.
The last one was 2019,
so we did it 20 times.
We actually went to Guatemala and so.
What happened in doing that, as the more
people in the congregation got involved
in this, this mission trip once a year,
we had people sewing things for us to
make it easier on our trip to be there.
We had people donating
money so that we could go.
We had people giving us things that we
could take to, to the people in Guatemala.
So the whole church became involved in
preparing for this event, and then as our
people were in Guatemala serving other
people, they all of a sudden they woke up
and said, wait, we've got people in our
community that could use that help too.
So we got involved, uh, in a, in a local
area, uh, north Rosenberg, which is not
too far from Sugarland, which is a fairly
economically, you know, a lower class,
you know, folks and, and lower income and
a lot of people don't have any income.
And so we got involved in
there in about the year.
I guess it was 20, was it 2017?
We had a, a spring rain
just like we had last night.
It was a lot of water and a lot of people
living along the Brazos River or African
Americans living along the Brazos River,
and they had been there ever since.
Their family members were freed
from the plantations there.
So they had been on that property for a,
a good while and it always floods along
to Burbank and they got flooded out.
So we went in and tore out a bunch
of sheet rock outta mobile homes and
tore it all apart, clean it all up,
killed a bunch of black mold, and
then began to put sheet rock back on.
So if you need to hang
sheet rock, I can help you.
If you wanna float and tape
it, that's, that's art.
That's somebody else.
But anyway, so we started doing
that about a month later we had
a little storm called Harvey.
Harvey came through and took out all
of the sheet rock we had just put in.
So there we were Not too long after
that, tearing out the sheet rock
that we put in months before tore it
all out and redid the whole process.
But the congregation, it became
part of the DNA of the whole
congregation to serve other people.
And we had some little ladies that,
you know, obviously couldn't hang sheet
rock, but they could, you know, they
could make sandwiches that we could eat
when we were doing that or there's all
kinds of ways that people got involved.
It became kind of the, our culture,
if you will, of being salt and light.
We didn't have the name, but that's
what, that's kind of what the church
was, was salt and light helping
other people in Guatemala, plus
in North Rosenberg, right nearby.
After I left the church, moved to
North Rosenberg and they began to
have meals like once or twice a week
for the people in North Rosenberg.
So it's just something that evolves.
So I think you and I can
grow in our saltiness.
I think we can grow brighter in
our light as we serve other people.
We grow, we benefit not just uh,
not just the people around us.
So we live in some crazy and crazy times,
and the world does not need the church,
our Christianity, for that matter,
to be the loudest voice in the room.
It needs the church to be the
godliest voice in the room.
It needs to be the one who
constantly reminds all everyone
of the presence of God that there
is a different way of living.
There's a different approach
to life than the dog eat dog.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the strong beat up on the weak.
There's a different way because it's a
way that people are, are valued and, and
be, and that the world becomes something
pleasant and, and there's enough,
there's enough bad stuff in the world
that happens naturally without having
to create more bad stuff in the world.
And as God's people, you and I are
called to, to engage the world, not
to beat them up, not to coerce them
into doing, believing this or doing
this or, but to hold up for the world,
the, the values of the kingdom of God.
So my question again, would you like to
live in a world with salt or without salt?
Would you like to live
in a world of darkness?
Are one of light,
you and I, we, the
children of is of Israel.
The children of Abraham who are
blessed to be a blessing are called
to be the light and called to be
the salt and to make a difference.
The leadership team of our church
has decided that maybe this
summer that our DNA groups can do.
Something in addition to our DNA groups
or maybe in instead of our DNA groups,
but to get out and do some, some kind
of activities in the community to
let the communities so see our light,
to see our saltiness, to make the
difference, but maybe we can do those
kind of things and, and I'm gonna
start looking for those ways too.
I mean, I had 'em obviously when a church
before, but I don't have 'em as much
here in, in Fort Worth in North Texas.
So I'm looking for opportunities to
get out and figure out a way to serve
other people to make a difference.
You and I are the salt of the earth,
where the light of the world we
can help preserve what is decaying.
And we can help illuminate what's
unjust and call people to justice.
You and I can do that.
In fact, that's the reason
we're followers of Jesus.
He didn't say, you can become salt.
You can become light.
He said, you are.
You already are.
So the question is, are we using that?
Are we putting our light
under a, under a bushel?
Which seems kind of weird to me.
But anyways, that, you know,
are we hiding our light?
Are we holding it on a lampstands?
What makes a difference?
Are we hiding it now?
Hiding it is a lot safer.
Nobody's gonna give you a hard
time for hiding your light.
No one's gonna give you a hard
time for never applying salt.
But that's, is that really
the world we wanna live in?
And here's the deal, if we want
the world to be better, we can't
wait for somebody else to do it.
We can't wait for a
politician to get it right.
They will never get it right.
No political party has ever been
an example of the kingdom of God.
Totally.
None of them ever throughout
history, they've all stand
in critique of the kingdom.
It's not gonna come from the
government, it's not gonna come
from some superpower person.
It's gonna become, it's
gonna come from God's people.
God's children, you and me.
So if we want the world to be different,
it's up to us by the power of the
Holy Spirit to make a difference.
And I think we can do it now.
We may not be able to, you
know, do huge things to change
the world, but you know what?
We can make an impact to Fort Worth,
or your neighborhood, or your family,
or your workplace, or in your school.
We can make a difference.
It's up to us.
Jesus had confidence in us
when he said, you are the salt.
You are the light.
You can make a difference.
So Father, we pray that we can regain, um.
Our understanding of being salt and light,
that we can see the kingdom according
to your values, and that we can, uh,
become your people more and more in a
bold way in this place, in this time.
I pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.