Latest / Calvary Chapel Devine, Texas Podcast / Salt & Light: Christians Preserving a Decaying World

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Salt & Light: Christians Preserving a Decaying World · Calvary Chapel Devine, Texas Podcast

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There you go. That should get it. I'm probably getting more right here.
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Poor Nico. I know. Poor little Nico. Let's pray for Nico.
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Yeah. Nico's having a rough one.
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Yeah. No, she's been kind of enjoying being in there.
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But let's pray. Before we get started, you, Father God.
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We thank you for tonight. We do pray. We pray for little Nico,
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pray for his night to get a little better, Lord, and that he would open up and begin to play.
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But we thank you, Father God, for all that you're doing. We pray that as we
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dive into your word and just continue looking at what the vision is for our
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church and that we would know and grow in the Son, Jesus Christ,
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but at the same time that we would be the salt and the light in our marriages,
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in our families, and in this community, as well as this church.
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And so, Lord, I pray as we dive into your scripture, open our hearts,
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Lord, so we can hear from you.
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Allow us to apply what we need to apply. And at the same time,
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Lord, we thank you that we finished the book of 2 Peter this past week.
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We pray as we get ready for the book of John on Sunday and then on Wednesday,
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the book of Exodus, Lord.
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We just ask that you'd be with us as we dive into those books,
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Lord, that we would have understanding of what the context of Scripture is from the author's intent.
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And so we thank you that we get to be in another book. It's definitely something to celebrate.
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And we're really just happy that we get to do that, Lord, joyful,
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especially in this time that we're in right now.
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And so, Lord, I thank you for your word that brings comfort.
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That brings healing, that brings transformation, reproof and correction and guidance.
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Lord, we thank you for your word, and we just ask that you be with us as we
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dive into the scripture tonight. We ask that in Jesus' name.
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Amen. Amen. So, Wednesday, October 22nd.
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Wednesday, October 22nd.
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We will not be meeting here, okay? The reason why is Natalia is having a Fields
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of Faith, Natalia High School.
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And they've asked for pastors and everybody to be there. So what we're going
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to do is we're going to hold church there at the high school.
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It's going to be on the football field so the kids can come and have a great
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time and play and all that wonderful stuff.
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But what we want to do is we want to be able to go support that.
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And then I believe, I have to get the dates right, but I think it was November,
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Lytle's doing their fields of faith. That's on a Friday night, though, I believe.
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And we'll get times for you to be there because they're wanting the churches
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to come out and support these kids as they're taking these steps of faith as
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a younger generation to share the gospel with others in school.
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And we want to be there to help out with that as best we can.
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And I think even if we're just there praying, it would be a good thing.
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And so we're excited about that. So we found out about that today.
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So October 22nd, I know it's a ways away, but I'll forewarn you.
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So we'll just be over there and at the football field and join that.
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So Matthew chapter 5, verse 13 is where we're at.
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And we're continuing what we were learning. And I know it seems like,
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man, we kind of took a break, a sidetrack, and we did.
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But we looked at knowing and growing in the Son, Jesus Christ.
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And that's the first part of what God has called us to do is,
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for me, it was put on my heart as we went to go plant the church.
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It was sun, salt, and light.
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And so, you know, as we finished up Calvary Chapel Distinctives,
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we were continuing, like, what is our DNA, right, for us?
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And the first is to know and grow the Son, Jesus.
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And we just learned about that this past week into growing the grace and knowledge
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of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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How important that is for every believer.
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And so how do we do that? We have to, as we know and grow in the Son,
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Jesus, we become the salt and the light, right?
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We become the salt and the light. And so Matthew 5, verse 13,
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a lot of these verses you'll be familiar with, but...
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We're going to dive into them and cover them, and you'll probably know more
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about salt than you ever wanted to know tonight, but hey, you know, it's good.
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And so it says in verse 13, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has
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lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?
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It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
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And so why salt? One of the things that was said back in the day is this guy
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was worth his weight in salt.
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I don't know who said that, but somebody said that when they were older,
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probably a couple of generations ago.
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Y'all may remember that. He's worth his weight in salt.
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Because the Romans used to pay people in salt because it was such an important
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commodity. It was actually a currency back in the time of the Romans.
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And so people would get paid in salt. And so as Jesus walked the earth,
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people were being paid in salt.
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And so, you know, what we want is we want to have salty saints is what we need.
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We need salty saints for the salt of the earth. And I love that you are the salt of the earth.
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And so when you think about that, are you being the salt of the earth that seasons, right?
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When you think about meat, what do you do?
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What makes meat taste better? Salt, right? little vegetable salt,
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right? It makes everything get a little bit of taste to it, right?
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For me, it was Hawaiian ribs. I don't know if anybody's ever had those.
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I had my friend Charlie Mack come over. This is BC days.
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Charlie Mack and my friend Rob, we were all in a band at that time.
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And Charlie came over. He was Hawaiian. He said, hey, brother,
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I'm going to come over. I'm going to make ribs for you.
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And I was like, okay. I said, what do you need me to get?
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He goes, you don't need nothing bro i'm gonna make them you just you're
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gonna sit and enjoy it and i was like okay cool and
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so he comes over and all he has is a bag
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of salt hawaiian salt and i was trying to figure out like what are you gonna
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do with these ribs i'm from the south man we cover the ribs with salt and sauce
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right and then we spray throughout the process and all he did was put that salt
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on those ribs. Those are the best ribs I've ever eaten.
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If you ever find Hawaiian salt, you can get it online now. Back in the day, you couldn't get it.
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But if you put Hawaiian salt on a steak with a little bit of pepper,
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you don't need nothing else.
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But it extracts all the flavor out. And so if we're salty saints,
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we should be like, people should, you're drawing them to you, right?
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You draw them to you because they're thirsty and they're wanting like,
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I don't know what that is, but I want to know more about that.
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And so we should be remembering that we have a world right now that needs to
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see that flavor, to taste that flavor of the gospel.
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Right in Galatians chapter 4 verse 6 it says
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let your speech always be gracious and I
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love this season with salt like why
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does it why is it in there it doesn't seem to make sense right so that you may
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know how you ought to answer each person you season it with salt there's zest
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in it there's you're drawing them to the conversation right you know I I've
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had conversations with people about Charlie Kirk this week.
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Some of them are not great, but I'm not going to sit and argue points with the people, right?
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If they've already been kind of, where'd you get your news from CNN?
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I was like, well, maybe you should take a look at some other stuff because there
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is some points of him sharing the gospel and him teaching the word of God at
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Calvary Chapel, Golden Springs. He taught three services there.
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They didn't know that he taught the word of God.
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And so, So, but I could sit and argue with the person, but no,
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I'd rather season a little bit of salt on there. Hey, have you heard what Jack Kipps said?
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Have you heard what Greg Glory says? Do you know who Greg Glory is?
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Yeah. Let me send it to you.
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You're not there to argue. We're not there to butt heads with people,
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but we're there to season it with salt.
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But what happens is a lot of times when Christians get away from God's word,
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our speech is not seasoned with salt.
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We can get argumentative. We can get like we just want to win the argument,
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especially with family members.
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Like, you know, I was just saying, you know, if they want to talk politics, you don't have to.
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If you know it's going to create chaos, don't do it.
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Because it's not helping anybody right it's
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agitating them it's agitating you no it's seasoning with
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salt how are you doing how is your
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week going but you heard but no what what's going on in your life man is there
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anything i can pray for you you season it with salt just go a different direction
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and and so we need to be doing that and and so you know i i know for me the the thing that that.
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You know, that when we're in the body of Christ, it's like we should be just
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overly marinated with salt.
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We should be just gracious in the way that we speak to each other.
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Right. It should be like I'm coming here and I can't wait to be in the conversation
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because I just want to hear it. I just want to be here.
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Right. But then we're supposed to take that with us as we go.
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You know and so for us it's like we should
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be thinking about as we are to be gracious
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in our speech but we also want to think about like who
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are we hanging out with right because sometimes you'll lose your salt by the
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people you hang out with you'll lose that salt if you're hanging out with a
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bunch of unbelievers you'll start losing that salt because you start talking
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the way they talk it's just like i could pick up pigeon talk from charlie mack
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i didn't realize that was still there,
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but those were BC days. I don't need to be doing that no more. Right.
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But if, if I had to show you my friends at that time, it was not a great future
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because none of us knew the Lord, none of us.
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And, and we were all young and, and just, you know, we, we were really as,
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as friends, we were, we considered ourselves friends, but it.
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I think Rob came to know the Lord. I think Charlie went back to jail,
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but Rob came to know the Lord and I keep up with Rob.
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But otherwise, it's like you realize that you really didn't have that much in common.
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But when you have the Lord, man, it just draws you together.
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And so have it seasoned with salt. Mark 9, verse 49 says, for everyone will be salted with fire.
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The meaning of this difficult birth seems to be
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that believers are purified through suffering and
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persecution like they if you
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think about the when when they would do the sacrifice it would be seasoned with
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salt right and but they were going through the fire and so there you have that
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that that seasoning that happens where they're seasoned with salt and so there
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is going to be some suffering there is going to be some persecution.
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But through that, there's a benefit to it because of the power of God and the Holy Spirit.
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It's like you're going to go through some of that and it's going to be seasoned with salt.
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And through that, you have to remember that God is with you in those times of
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suffering and persecution.
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We also know that salt was a preservative. It prevented decay.
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So salt should actually prevent decay in
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your life as a believer right you know
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you ever seen any of those shows where they they'll like they
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have all these shows now back in the day you didn't know anything about that
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but when you watch those shows they'll be they'll be taking care
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of fish saving fish and what do they do they season it with salt the salmon
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you know they have no refrigerators they can eat that salmon all year long because
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it was it was cured with salt and so it that was the only way they could eat
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any kind of meat if they didn't eat it quickly.
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And so they had to have salt to be a preservative.
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But again, if we don't have saltiness in us, then what happens is we start the
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decaying process in our own life.
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And so we get on, like, how many of y'all have been on the news this week?
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As you're scrolling around and you just, man, you're just losing that saltiness as you, right?
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And it's like, you're just losing it because you're getting angry.
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Because you're seeing things and you're like, what is wrong with these people?
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Like, I saw one person, she was demonically possessed.
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I'm sorry. like I straight up
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and the cackle and the way that she was just making fun and and I was like Lord
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you need to free her of whatever's going on in her life you know to want people
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murdered and this is just the beginning of the blood in the street and I'm like
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man what is wrong with you,
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how dark does your life need to be right or to see you know the University of
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North Carolina and they have the mural there that they did on the rock.
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They did a mural, the United States. And then the girl comes in and throws paint all over it.
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And then the one girl takes her shirt and she goes, look, she goes,
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well, and the lady goes, hey, I'm going to pray for you.
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Jesus loves you. And she goes, look at my shirt.
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It had Satan on it. She's worshiping Satan.
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And that's what we're dealing with right now. What you're dealing with right
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now is the only thing preserving this world right now is Christians.
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God is using you to preserve this world. If not, it would be a lot darker.
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You kind of think about that just for a second.
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Imagine if the Christians weren't here.
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There's going to come a time when that happens. And so, you know,
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we look at this and we go, man, at the end of the day, we think about,
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you know, why does God allow these things to happen in our lives?
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And why do we see, you know, bad things happen to good people?
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And we know that there are no good people. We know that sin entered the world.
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And so we can't allow our lives to become decayed because of sin.
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You need that salt. Genesis chapter 3, verses 6 and 7. So when the woman saw
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that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that
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the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took up its fruit and ate.
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And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
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Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they
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sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
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That's the moment decay began.
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That's the moment decay begins. That's the moment that we have sin,
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we have illness, we have death, we have wars, right?
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We have all those things because of that sin.
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And so we have to be very careful in our own lives that we don't allow decay in our lives, okay?
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We have to be very careful. So you need that salt. You need to be preserved
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by what? The word, truth.
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How do you prevent decay on bacteria,
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That's building on the heart You actually use
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the salt that preserves the heart It's the word of God You got to keep that
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flavor We have to remember there is a world that is decayed We see unfortunately
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a lot of hate and evil that's around And we know this has been the progression of our world,
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Like we know that they took the prayer out of school in 1962, right?
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And then they made it to where in 1963 that you were not allowed to read your Bible at school, right?
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In the 80s, they took away the Ten Commandments.
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Decay. Decay. It's decay. I just talked to a young man today.
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He was Leonard's grandson, and I think it was his niece, or no,
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the cousin, is going to school at Palo Alto.
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And they're teaching a book that is, I think, something about the bowl of spaghetti.
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And it's witchcraft. And they made fun of Proverbs, because they said, Prob hers.
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And then they have a thing for it. And I was like, that's demonic.
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But they're teaching that and you have to take that and read that.
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And they can't figure out why we're upset, right? Or why we're saying,
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hey, but see, that's what SALT does. SALT says, hey, that's not right.
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It's not right. But see, we see this removal of these things from our schools.
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And then what we do is we start accommodating, like we're going to give you
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contraception in the school.
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Now, yeah, now they want to, hey, I can talk to your child about gender, right?
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And y'all need to be praying because that bill ab495 went
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through the california is sitting on the governor's desk waiting to be signed
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so y'all need to y'all need to be praying that that bill does not go through
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because if it does guess what you're going to have a lot of people from california
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moving here they're going to be packing up and leaving especially the ones with kiddos,
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but we see all these different things and and yet we've removed the salt from
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the schools We remove the salt from the government, right?
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And we see this decay happening in our culture.
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And so we as believers in Christ, we need to be that salt in the light.
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We need the work of the Lord in our lives. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit.
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And, you know, Colossians 3.16 says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
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teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns
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and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts.
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And Isaiah 55, 11 says, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
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It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
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and shall succeed in the thing for which I'm sent.
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So we know that when we look at our lives, we have God's word,
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and that should be the thing that should be preserving our lives.
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And if it's preserving our lives, we're able to speak with that salt,
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with that grace and season, and it draws people to your conversations instead
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of pushing them away. Right?
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And that goes back to what happens to the salt if it loses its taste.
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Right? And when you think about that, it's a reminder to us that it's no longer
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good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
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And so I told you all about the lifeguard that was drowned in New Orleans.
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He's supposed to be surrounded by all these lifeguards and he drowned in the pool at a party.
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And and so you know for us as christians we
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have to remember like for us it's like our
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our salt can lose its effectiveness and and
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and can lose its flavor and it's
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you know the salt that's in the dead sea is
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contaminated right and and
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so we have to for ourselves
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remember that that people are watching us and and
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we don't want to be the ones like having
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people that are that are in our lives and they drown because
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you've lost your saltiness you're not that salty saint anymore like they don't
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come to you anymore to for wisdom or prayer right and and so you know you have
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all these things that salt does and and it's it's important for us as as christians to remember Like,
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I love what Oliver Wendell Holmes said.
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He said, I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not
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looked and acted so much like undertakers.
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Like, there should be a zest in our life, right?
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Like, it should be different. There should be, like, man, it should be joy.
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I know last week we came in and everybody was hurt and beat down, but there should be joy.
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Charlie's worshiping God. He ain't worried about this world no more,
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right? We know where he went.
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And we know that his wife and those two beautiful children will join him one day.
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Now, we pray for her and we don't, that hurts, right?
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But guess what? I love, you know, I've been waiting for somebody in Nashville to say something.
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Finally, Michael W. Smith said something at a vigil.
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He said, you know what? And he goes, right now it's so easy to grab the stone,
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And I thought about those kids Those kids were worshipping the Lord And they
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had these little kids come up and start trying to throw paint,
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And yet, they didn't hit nobody.
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They didn't have any stones in their hand ready to throw. And I'm like,
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man, praise God for them, because I would have been clocking somebody.
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Somebody had been wearing that blue paint.
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I'm sorry. I would have grabbed that blue paint.
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Somebody would have been in that blue paint. Because I was just like,
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man, praise God for their patience and their love and their grace and their mercy.
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Right? And when we think about that, it's like, you know, and then after it's
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all done, Jesus loves you.
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I'll be praying for you. And I'm like, wow, there's joy in that.
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Now, what happened is not joyful, but there's salt in that because that went out everywhere.
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Went out everywhere. And it should encourage us that there are these young kids
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and these schools that are willing to stand up for Christ. For Christ.
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And that's what we should be doing. it tells us like that that that it's no
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longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's
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feet it's like what believers want is they just want the honey,
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they go to churches with for the honey they don't go to churches for the salt,
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think about it what does salt do when you put it on an open moon it actually heals,
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but it burns right you go on the beach after you cut man if you ever been at
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the beach and You cut your legs on oyster beds.
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They tell you the first thing they tell you to do is put your feet in the water because of salt.
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Salt helps it heal up.
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And so, you know, but what happens is we have a bunch of people that come to
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church because they just want honey.
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They just want the sweet stuff. They don't want the salt.
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Right. They don't want the thing that's going to hurt a little bit and because
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they need to be corrected. it.
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And so what we have to do as followers of Christ is we need to remember like
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we have the word of God and sometimes it's going to sting.
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I am not going to hold back from sharing anything at this church. I don't do that.
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If it's in God's word, we're getting into it.
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We're not going to go, okay, well, this may offend this person.
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So I need to be gentle over here. I got to share it. What does God's word say?
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And so we have to remember like salt has a purpose to heal. and if you're in
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sin, it should burn a little bit.
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If you need to be corrected, it should burn a little bit. If you got an open
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wound because you've hurt somebody, a little salt.
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You walk out of here. But it's like it needs to be for correction, for reproof.
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And so we have to remember what the cost of discipleship is.
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In Luke chapter 14, verse 25, it says, now the great crowds accompanying him
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and he turned and said to him if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own
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father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters yes even his
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own life he cannot be my disciple,
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He's like, the calling that you have on your life is exclusive to me.
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So when I hear people say, I am Charlie Kirk. No, I am a follower of Christ.
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Man, I love Charlie Kirk.
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But Charlie Kirk wouldn't want people saying that. He would want them to say,
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no, I'm a follower of Christ.
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Right? I'm a follower of Christ. Man, that is my exclusive commitment, even before my wife.
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And and you know i remember when i first
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came to faith i was like that's almost like cheating
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i can't do that but then
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you find out like your marriage is not going to be what it needs
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to be if you don't put christ first your family
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doesn't become what it needs to become if you don't put christ first
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and he's exclusive or if you allow
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your your in-laws or your your mom
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or dad to become and like they're
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in the number one thing there's a lot of young men that cling
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to their mothers you know and and
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they need to grow up they need to grow up what
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i've seen this this last few weeks is there's been
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a whole generation that didn't get spanked and i'll
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gladly line them up because i'm like i would
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have gotten in trouble for even saying something like that at school my
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teacher would have hit me you know it's like back in
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the day they would come on corporal punishment you're gonna
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go see the principal and you'd be like and then they're gonna
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call your dad too so you get hit at school and
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then you get hit when you get home and if
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you get in trouble in your neighborhood you got beat by the neighbor and then
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you got beat by your dad my sons that's what my dad would say my sons are doing
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anything wrong you're more than welcome to pull the belt out and go at them
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it's hey it's a different world that we live in right but we do put things above
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of Christ, and we have to be very careful of that.
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Luke 14, 27 says, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
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For which of you are desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count
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the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
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Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish,
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all who see it begin to mock him, saying the man began to build and was not able to finish.
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You have to count the cost of what you're doing.
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It says, Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit
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down and first deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes
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against him with 20,000?
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If not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
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So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
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That's why Paul said in Philippians chapter 1 verse 21 for me it is to live
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as Christ and and to die as gain so no king goes to battle with a bunch of saltless saints.
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You have all these young kids that are stepping out in faith and they're starting
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all these different turning points and all that. You need to keep all that in prayer.
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In the schools and everything that's happening, that's an amazing thing and
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we need to be praying for that.
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But there comes a time when our hearts get so hardened that the salt can't penetrate it anymore.
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You think about ice. Ice usually could melt salt, right? But when it's no longer
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any good, it can't even melt salt.
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Matthew 7, verse 21 and 23 says, Not everyone who says to me,
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Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will
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of my Father who is in heaven.
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On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name
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and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?
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And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.
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Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
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Many people will call on his name, and yet they were in those churches with
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all the honey and never really truly followed.
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Truly follow. So we are the body of Jesus. We are his bride.
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We are his church, and we are his salt.
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So in order for us to continue to maintain that seasoning and that preservation,
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is we need to be in the word of God. We need to be in fellowship. We need to be in prayer.
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And then we need to be the light. And I'll go through this pretty quickly.
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Matthew 5, 14 says, you are the light of the world.
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A city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under
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a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all the house, all in the house.
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In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your
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good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. So why light?
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Well, that's one of the things we're going to find out this weekend,
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because that's one of the statements of Christ.
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I am the light, right i'm the light of the world first
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john chapter 1 verse 5 says this is
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the message which we have heard from him and and
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to declare to you that god is light and in him is no darkness at all and then
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john 3 verses 18 through 21 he who believes him in him is not condemned but
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he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in
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the name of the only begotten Son of God,
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and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world.
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And men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
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For everyone practicing evil hates the light, and does not come to the light,
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lest his deeds should be exposed.
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But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may clearly be
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seen, and that they have been done in God.
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So when we come to the light, we're coming to the into the light as his child
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We're his children and we're coming into the light knowing that hey,
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we're not perfect We're coming into the light with all our warts.
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And the things that god is working on each of us with Right god is doing work
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in each of our hearts. He's doing work in our marriages.
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He's doing work in our families Right And because we're in the light,
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We christ is helping us with every bit of that You're not going through that alone,
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Like we're children of the light In Ephesians 5, 8 it says For you were once
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darkness But now you are light in the world Walk as children of light Like we
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are the light bearers in this world,
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We can bring Like when we see darkness You bring light to it Like we're going to fields of faith,
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Natalia was actually They had kids a couple years ago that we're actually casting
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spells in the hallways and casting spells at teachers.
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Lights fixing to come in and we were me and leonard were laughing this is what we do as pastors,
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because the last the last event that happened on
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the football field was by this church when we had christafari come in austin
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carlisle and we baptized five people on that field and now they have a million
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dollar field they have brand new grass you know texas spares no expense for
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their for their football fields, but not for anything else.
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But now the kids in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, they didn't have that
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years ago. This has all started back up again.
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And now they're doing the fields of faith.
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Man, that's a praise God moment. Me and Leonard were just like, wow.
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We want to be there because we're not hiding our light, right?
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We want to be there. We want to shine that light throughout
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natalia and then it goes to lytle
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and divine and and it's like man praise god
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that these events are happening and we need
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it right now if if anything's been exposed what's been exposed darkness it's
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so prevalent right now and the reason the light is going out is because guess
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what god doesn't want that next generation of little ones that are coming up
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for the darkness to get darker,
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right? This can all change.
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It requires revival in our hearts as a church, as the body of Christ,
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and that's when that great spiritual awakening happens and people start coming to faith.
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It's happening in Ohio State University right now.
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It's been going on. They've been baptizing people every day.
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It's going on. It's happening, right? You're seeing it, but you have a chance to be a part of it.
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I'm like, let's go. You know, man, I love that.
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But I love when he says, he says, you are a light of the world.
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A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
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Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand.
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And it gives light to all who are in the house. You need to highlight that in your Bible.
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Every time somebody comes into your house, That light should shine For everyone
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in the house They should know This house belongs to God.
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This house belongs to God. You may be bringing a little darkness in,
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but the light's going to outshine that.
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You're going to be loved as you're in here.
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Right? And I like that he says, let your light so shine before men that they
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may see your good works and what happens and glorify your Father in heaven.
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Your light shines so God gets the glory.
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Philippians chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. do all things without grumbling and disputing,
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that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the
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midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.
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You are in probably one of the hardest times in the most crooked and twisted,
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generation that we've seen, and yet you're the light.
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God has called you to be the light. how awesome is
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that right so if
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you know if you're you're a salty saint you know you
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don't be all grumbling right salty saint just means that you're bringing drawing
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people to you but what we want to do is like we want to be able to shine the
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light to this crooked and twisted generation but again to be blameless and innocent
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that goes back to what we learned this past week that we should be without spot and blemish.
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And what does that mean? We're just pursuing, we're pursuing righteousness and
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holiness because you're still gonna, you know, what did Paul say?
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I do the things I don't want to do. You wretched man.
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And you go, Paul said that.
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The man who's stuck, I heard, you know, somebody was sharing and it had nothing
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to do with Charlie Kirk, but he was sharing the moment Paul stuck his hand to get the wood,
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that snake's purpose was to bite him. Because God's sovereign.
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Paul just got from being in a shipwreck.
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Like, and he goes to get wood and boom, he gets bit by a snake.
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He just shakes it off because he knows he's got to go to Rome, right?
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And that should be our attitude. Like God's sovereign. And I just thought to
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myself, man, what happened?
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God's going to use for good. God's sovereign.
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We're seeing, what is it now? 56, who knows the count now for the turning points that have started up?
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It's 56,000, I think now.
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Let it keep going let the light continue to
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go out right romans 13 12
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says the night is far spent and the day is at hand therefore let
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us cast off the works of darkness and let
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us put on the armor of light so we are to
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put on the armor of light and so that's my
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hope for you is like as you understand like for us
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to be the salt and the light means that we should be
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drawing people to the conversation drawing people and
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it should be sprinkled with with salt it should
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also preserve us but at the same time we should be the
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light in this very dark world and then
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the rest of the stuff that i have on here is just that light when
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we think about it the light of the world light are used to make things
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evident light are used to guide lights are
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used as a warning lights are used
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to bring cheer and lights are used to make things safe where's your kids one
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all the time can you turn the light on I'm scared yeah you are the light you
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know and it's like that we need to remember that because I think sometimes what
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happens is we forget we are the light,
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sometimes we get beaten up by this world and we see all the things but look
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hey turn it off for a little bit shut it down for a little bit we're finding
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out like for the first time I've heard real conversations about why the phones are bad for children,
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and that's just the adults.
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Do you know one of charlie's rules were once a
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week their phones were put away they weren't there
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yep they would not have their phones for the whole day now you think about it
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could you know we should phones be like we should all go to foot phones again
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but you you know you think about it that's that seems so silly right like really
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you would do something like that but it's need it so badly today.
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And so like our kids, don't give your kids devices, spend time with them face to face.
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Okay. Talk with them, especially as they get older.
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I was there with my grandson today, you know, just to spend that time with them
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one-on-one talking with them.
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And, and, you know, it's so important.
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Like we, we, we forget like we're our light only shines for a little bit.
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It's a very, when you think about time and you look at eternity,
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your light's only like and eternity goes.
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And you're only here for this little bit of time.
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And you only have this little bit of time to live for the Lord here and glorify
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God here and share the gospel here and make disciples here. Right?
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Once you're in heaven, that's done. That's done.
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Like God's saying, look, I didn't just save you. I want to use you.
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I want you to be the salt and the light in this dark world.
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Like you're my child and everything you need to go out and share the gospel
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and everything you need to disciple someone and everything you need to live
39:50
your life for your family, for your marriage,
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I equip you through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we forget that.
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So, sun, salt, light. Know and grow in the sun.
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Be the salt and the light in your marriages, in your families,
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in the community, and in this church.
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So it's not just a radio station. It actually has purpose.
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So let's pray and we'll call it a night. I thank you and I promise you next week is Exodus.
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Okay? We had to finish this up. I was like, I can't just leave it.
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You know, we have to, we have to finish up the last little part here.
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So hopefully y'all sprinkle your, your conversations with salt this week. Okay.
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Not to throw it in their eyes, you know, let me give my opinion.
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And you're like, ah, right. Cause I know this has been hard.
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I know some of it's been hard. I had some stuff that was thrown at me and I
40:46
was like, wow, that's, you know, what it is is a lot of hurt and,
40:50
and stuff that's going on in here and they don't know how to, how to get that out.
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The belt always helps that. Get that out. No, let's pray. Father God,
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we thank you so much. And I do pray. I pray for our teachers.
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Lord, for the world that they've inherited in the schools, the kids that they
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have. Lord, be with them.
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Give them strength. Let them be the salt and the light in the schools.
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We thank you so much for their hearts. We thank you for the time that they spend with these kids.
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And I pray, Lord, that you just give them the perseverance and the strength
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to get through this year.
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We also pray, Lord, for this event coming up. What an amazing testimony that
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there's going to be a Fields of Faith in Italian and then also a Faith Night
41:34
in Midal at the football field in November.
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Lord, we thank you for these events. We thank you for the work that you're doing
41:41
in these young people. We thank you, Lord, that you're moving throughout the schools.
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Leonard spoke yesterday to the Youth Alive Club in Divine, and they had over 60 kids there.
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Praise God for that. We thank you, Lord, for the work that you're doing in these young people's life.
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We pray. We know that this thing was horrific But we pray,
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Lord, that it would be used for your good That it would draw people to you And
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that they would come to know Who Jesus Christ is personally They would repent
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and turn from their sins And ask Christ into their hearts.
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And begin to walk with you And that they would understand what the cost is And
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Lord, help us be the salt and the light in this world In our marriages,
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in our families, in this church In this community We thank you for everyone
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who's here tonight We pray for their week, the remainder of their week.
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We pray, Lord, that you'd be with them, keep them safe. And we pray that Lord
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willing, we all are back here on Sunday.
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We thank you so much for the work that you're doing in the lives of everyone here.
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We pray blessings over them and just continue to provide for them.
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We thank you for all that you do. We ask these things in Jesus name.
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Amen. Amen. So Saturday, men's eight o'clock.
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Just FYI, Kirk's teaching. he said i'll keep it under an hour but we promise
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we love y'all god bless y'all i hope y'all have a wonderful wonderful week.