Cultural Influencers

If you have your Bibles with you this morning,

and I hope that you do,

I wanna ask you to turn to Matthew chapter five.

Matthew chapter five.

So you can turn your Bible on or open it up,

whatever you do to get God's word in front of you.

I want you to turn to Matthew chapter five.

And as you're doing that,

last year I came across a term that I had to look up

because I wanted to make sure I had a good understanding

of what this was, okay?

And I wanna ask you this morning,

does anybody here know what a social media influencer is?

Raise your hand if you know

what a social media influencer is.

There's only a handful of hands up right now.

So either you are ashamed to let us all know

that you know what a social media influencer is,

or you're like me, you're just ignorant.

You don't know, you've never heard that term before.

That was me last year.

And so I looked it up.

I wanted to know what a social media influencer is.

How could it be so important?

That it would be an actual term, an actual thing.

A social media influencer is a user on social media

who has established credibility in a specific industry.

All right, so they're already losing me

calling social media an industry, okay?

But it says he or she has access to a large audience

and can persuade others by virtue

of his or her authenticity and reach.

Now, if you're like me and you go this afternoon

and you start investigating

who some of these social media influencers actually are,

you're gonna be thinking to yourself,

these people are flakes.

These people, I can't believe that anyone

would generate income that would support

this kind of behavior, this kind of so-called work,

this kind of activity.

But I want you to consider

some of the top social media influencers in our day

and what kind of money they bring down.

Number one is Dan TDM.

I don't know, maybe some of you kids out there,

teenagers, you might know who Dan TDM is.

I had never seen him before.

I Googled some pictures of him

just so I would have some kind of idea

of what he looked like.

But he brings in $16.5 million a year

and he is a gamer.

So he plays video games all day, every day

and he videos himself playing video games

and puts it online and people go and watch that

and the advertisers and the people that give

and all this kind of stuff

racks up $16.5 million a year.

A young lady by the name of Kayla,

it seems, is making $150,000 not per year

but per sponsored post.

So when she puts up a post on social media

and it gets sponsored by some business

or some brand or this kind of thing,

she gets $150,000 every time she puts that up there.

Selena Gomez, you may know as a celebrity,

she makes $550,000 every time she puts something up

on social media.

I would be more than happy

to start publishing on social media

multiple times a day

if somebody would agree to give me $550,000 a time for it.

I don't know about you

but that seems like easy money.

And you go read these things

and it's not really substantive stuff.

It's not anything that you can use.

It's just gossip.

It's just totally useless knowledge.

There's a fellow named Tyler Oakley.

He's an LGBTQ activist

and he makes $6 million a year

just on being social on social media.

The last one is a fellow named Ryan.

He has a page or an account called Ryan Toys Reviews.

And I don't know if any of you parents

have ever seen Ryan Toys Reviews

but I'm going to make you feel guilty about it

because Ryan Toys Reviews

makes $1 million per month

doing toy reviews for kids.

The kicker is Ryan is five years old.

Why have we wasted our lives?

Right?

You know, the rise of the social influencer

points us to our culture's desire

to improve the self

or at least to change the self in some way.

And we have this deep-seated desire

to change ourself in every aspect of life

from the video games that we play

to the health that we promote in our lives

all the way down to sexuality in our culture.

This also indicates how desperate people are to be led.

You know, we live in a culture

where people are saying,

I don't want to be led.

I don't want anybody telling me

how to do my life

or where to go

or what to think

or how to speak

or any of those things.

Yet our culture at its heart

is desperate to be led.

It wants to be led

and it's looking for anyone

or anything that will lead it.

Now, centuries before YouTube

began catapulting

these normal and boring people to stardom

and before Hollywood

ever captivated the world's attention

with a few larger-than-life personalities,

Jesus announced that its followers

would have an impact on the world.

In fact, he says

that they're going to influence

every culture on the planet.

When you get to the book of Acts,

the criticism is that

these people are literally

turning the world upside down

and it all starts

when Jesus begins to preach

in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew chapter 5,

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

listen to what he has to say

starting in verse 13.

He says,

You're the salt of the earth,

but if the salt has lost its taste,

how shall its saltiness be restored?

It's no longer good for anything

except to be thrown out

and trampled under people's feet.

You're the light of the world.

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,

nor do people light a lamp

and put it under a basket,

but on a stand,

and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way,

let your light shine before others

so that they may see your good works

and give glory to your Father

who is in heaven.

Now, as I was thinking about these verses

in the most recent installment of my life,

I ran across a statement.

Tim Keller, a famous preacher

up in New York City,

he says that we shouldn't underestimate

what Jesus is doing

when he stands up to preach

before this group of people

on that mountain.

You see, we read about it

in the Sermon on the Mount.

We read about it in Matthew 5, 6, and 7,

and it just seems like a string of good advice,

a string of platitudes, if you will.

But Keller says, listen,

don't miss the importance

and the significance

of what's going on here.

Jesus is not just coaching people

on how to have a better life.

He took those people to the mountain,

and he began to teach them

because revolutions were started

in the mountains.

In Jesus' day,

when somebody had a bright idea,

when they wanted to see something change

in their culture,

when they wanted to gather a group of people

and start a movement in the culture,

they would take them out of the town.

They would gather them up.

They would kind of sell their idea

to people in the community.

And then they would take these people out,

if you will, on a retreat

into the mountains.

And that's where they would do their teaching

and they're indoctrinating.

And they would literally start revolutions

in the mountains.

And so Jesus takes these guys out there,

and when he stands up to speak,

he's not just trying to tell them

how to have peace and harmony at home

or how to pay their bills supernaturally

or any of that kind of stuff.

He's actually ushering in a brand new kingdom,

a brand new kingdom of people

who will be completely different

than any other kingdom on earth.

It doesn't matter how long this earth lasts.

There will never be another kingdom

like the one that he's ushering in

in these verses.

He's ushering in a kingdom of a people

who would ultimately influence

every culture on the planet.

It doesn't matter where we're from.

It doesn't matter where we go.

God's kingdom spreads out across all of it.

And so, as I mentioned earlier this morning,

the Romans had their day,

and the Greeks had their day.

And if the Lord lingers,

people will look back and say,

the Americans had their day.

But Jesus' kingdom will never end.

The sun will never set on his kingdom.

And so later in the Sermon on the Mount,

he will unpack what those differences look like.

He'll show you what your life,

how it looks different from everyone else

if you're part of his kingdom

versus being part of just your community

in which you live and this kind of thing.

And I would encourage you to look ahead

and read through that again.

I'm sure many of you have spent time

in the Sermon on the Mount,

but I would encourage you to take a look at it again

this afternoon, sometime this week,

and begin to see how God calls us out

to be a people separated for his glory

and for our good.

But just look at the headings, if you will,

in your Bible this morning.

Just in Matthew chapter 5 here,

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

the headings aren't inspired by the Holy Spirit,

but they are good summaries.

Jesus is going to go on to talk about anger

and lust and divorce and oaths and retaliation

and loving your enemies.

And that's way more than any of us

can handle all at one time today.

There's going to be a difference

in how his people act and how they live

and how they relate to their community.

And he'll unpack that.

But first he explains the impact

that they're supposed to have.

And I believe that if he came here

and stood before us today,

I think if he had the opportunity to stand here

and we had the opportunity to see him

and hear him like you're seeing

and hearing me right now,

I think that he would tell us,

he would take us to these verses

and he would say, this is who you are.

Church, this is what you're supposed to be doing.

This is who you are.

You may think that you're a carpenter

or a truck driver.

You may think that you're a school teacher

or a business owner.

You may think that you're a politician

or a community servant

or a public servant of some sort,

but he would say, no,

this is who you are.

And this is what you should be doing.

And he chooses two metaphors

to articulate how we as his followers

are supposed to relate to our culture,

how we're supposed to influence our culture.

The first one he mentions is salt.

He says in verse 13, he says,

you're the salt of the earth.

Now there are a lot of uses

in the ancient world for salt

and all those uses kind of spill over in today.

We could have a Sunday school lesson

on any one of these uses of salt

and we could find meaning in our life.

Uses like seasoning or healing or destruction

or making of covenants

and this kind of thing.

And all those things can be applied

in some way in our lives.

But I believe that Jesus is really talking here

about this idea of preservation.

Salt is used in preserving things

that would spoil otherwise.

And so like salt would be rubbed

into the meat of his day

so that it wouldn't turn foul,

I believe that Jesus would say

that Christians are rubbed

into the fabric of our culture

to be a preserving agent

in the lives of those around us

and the cultures in which we live.

And this is what it looks like.

It looks like Christians

being rubbed into the schools,

administrators, teachers, and students.

They're being rubbed into the fabric

of that school system,

that education system

for the glory of God

and for the good of all who participate.

And I want you to know,

some of you that have been to Sedona,

you know that we work in the schools

a great deal.

We spend a lot of time

just loving on the schools.

We'll go and do landscaping for them

and I don't want you to be

under any false notions, okay?

When you go do landscaping in the desert,

you're not trimming hedges.

You're digging up cactus, all right?

It is a major effort of love

to go and to serve these people this way.

But we spend a lot of time

working in the schools

and when we arrived in Sedona in 2014,

the first principal that I met

was a very skeptical Jewish woman

who didn't want to hear anything

I had to say about Jesus

and really was a little uncertain

as to whether she should let us

even be nice to her, okay?

Over time, we won her over

and the next principal was a friend of mine.

And what I want to share with you today

is that this past school year,

at the beginning of this past school year,

we were given a new superintendent.

They hired a new superintendent.

The elementary school received a new principal

and in the next school year,

our high school is going to have another principal

and all three of those administrators

are going to be numbered among the people of God.

They're all going to be believers.

Now, they're not going to run a Christian school

as we would know a Christian school,

but they're going to be the salt

that's being rubbed into the fabric

of that school system

so that it begins to look different

and sound different and smell different.

Christians are rubbed into businesses

as CEOs and managers

and laborers.

Like I said,

you think you have a job to make money,

but God has given you a job

to give you a context

to act as a preservative of the culture.

And so one of the things I love to tell,

and he's not here today,

so I get to tell it,

my dad was a truck driver

for I don't even know how many years.

From the time I was in kindergarten

until February a year ago,

I think is when he retired.

He was a truck driver.

For most of my growing up years,

he drove on a team.

He and a partner would leave on Sunday night at midnight

and they'd get home on Friday afternoon.

I want you to know that as I was growing up,

my dad's never preached a sermon.

He's led a few prayers and worship

and this kind of thing,

but at least two, if not three,

of the riding partners that he had

over the course of those years

became Christians

because he was being rubbed into the fabric

of the trucking industry.

And so whatever you do,

you're being rubbed into the fabric.

Christians are rubbed into the communities

that we live in as neighbors

and public servants,

as little league coaches,

and the list could go on and on and on,

but don't miss the fact that Jesus says here,

you are the salt of the earth.

So whatever you do and wherever you go,

you are the salt of the earth.

Not you're gonna be the salt of the earth

or you have the potential

to be the salt of the earth,

but you are the salt of the earth.

This is what you are.

And notice here,

he's speaking to all the people

that are following him that day.

This is not something

that he pulled the 12 aside

to just give them a little private devotion

and try to kind of encourage them

to be better disciples.

This is not,

this is certainly not something

that he's just given

to the religious leaders of his day.

This is something that he is sharing

with all the people

that are following him on that day.

And so I want you to know that today,

I'm not preaching this sermon to Fred Stone.

I'm not preaching it to your staff.

I'm not preaching it to your Sunday school teachers

or your deacons

or your small group leaders

or your youth chaperones.

It's for every single one of you.

You are the salt of the earth.

And at some point in your life,

when you chose to follow Christ,

you by definition are the salt of the earth.

Unfortunately,

that does not necessarily mean

that you will be a good preservative

because Jesus tells us here

that sometimes the salt loses its saltiness.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, it doesn't mean that it stops being salt.

It just means that it loses its effectiveness

because it has become contaminated.

And what Jesus tells us here

is that when the salt became contaminated,

people would just toss it out into the street.

And it would get packed down

as people walked over and treaded on it.

It would just get packed down

and become part of the ground.

Before long, you can't tell the salt from the dirt.

This salt that was so important

and used in so many homes

is now just part of the ground,

part of the dirt that people are walking on

day in and day out

is no longer useful as salt.

So in the summer of 1995,

I was 19 years old.

That's been a long time ago.

But at 19 years old,

I was on the camp staff at McCall up the road,

up 178.

And I sat at the same table in the dining hall

every single meal.

My table happened to be on the porch

and it was an open air building at that time.

And so every morning I would come in,

I'd pick up these little disposable salt shakers

that they had put on the table

and I'd try to take some salt out

on my eggs and my grits, right?

What do you think happened?

Nothing.

I'm gonna tell you,

nobody spoke up, by the way.

Nothing came out.

Those salt shakers would sit there overnight

and the moisture and the air would get in there

and it would just clog them up

and it would make it to where the salt

would not come out.

And so for about a week that summer,

as the summer kicked off,

for about a week, every morning,

I would walk around about half of breakfast time

looking for a salt shaker that worked

because everybody needs salt on their grits, okay?

Nobody has an amen to that.

Yeah, I know who you are.

So finally one morning,

I got up, I go to breakfast,

I get my eggs and grits and sausage,

I got it all on the plate,

I'm ready to go and I hit the salt.

No salt comes out.

I set it down and said, forget it.

I have not picked up a salt shaker since.

And it's not because I'm health conscious,

I'm worried about my heart,

or because I'm holy,

or any of those kinds of things.

It was because the salt had become contaminated,

it was useless,

and it wasn't worth my effort.

Right?

And I want you to think about that

in terms of how insignificant the contamination seems.

That salt shaker was contaminated

by the moisture in the air.

It wasn't dropped in a puddle of water.

Nobody spilt anything on it.

It was simply the moisture that came out of the air

that made that salt useless.

Jesus makes you salty.

But you have to avoid contamination

if you're going to be a preservative for him in this world.

And here's where it gets a little personal for us, okay?

Because it's real popular these days

for us to be transparent and honest

and open about our struggles

and the sin that is in our life

and this kind of thing.

And I'm all for transparency,

and I think that's a good thing for the most part.

I probably feel like that most of the church

is hiding far too much

that they could be released from

if people were willing to share

and accept some accountability

and ask for some help.

The truth of the matter is

is that the sin in your life

that you struggle with

can be an encouragement to others

who struggle with that same kind of sin.

If they see you walking with Christ,

they can have hope for themselves.

It can become a powerful part of your testimony.

However, if you continue in your rebellion against Christ,

that may or may not endear you to other people,

but it will certainly hinder them from coming to Christ.

All right?

And I want you to think about this in two ways.

If you continue in your rebellion today

in the sins of commission in your life,

the things that you do that you know displease God

and keep you separated from Him,

it may or may not make other people think,

oh, yeah, he's just a regular old Joe,

and he's a lot of fun to be around,

and if there's hope for him,

there's hope for me,

and that kind of thing.

But it could hinder them from coming to Christ

if they don't see a difference in your life.

If they see you acting like they do

and living like they do

and just being here on Sunday morning,

it could be a hindrance to them actually embracing the gospel

and giving their life

and trusting Christ for their salvation.

But it's not just the things that we do

that we don't want anybody else to know about.

It's the things that we should do

that everybody assumes we're doing,

but we're not doing.

It's sharing our faith.

It's proclaiming the gospel

when we're given opportunity.

We spend our lives building rapport with people

and investing in relationships

and building relational capital

and this kind of thing,

and then we never spend it on the gospel.

And if you continue in your rebellion,

and when I say rebellion,

I mean refusing to share the gospel

with your neighbor or your family member

or your coworker

or the person at the ball field

or whoever it may be,

then that may endear them to you.

They may not think you're a religious fanatic

or anything like that,

but it could very well

cause them to stumble over the kingdom

and miss it altogether.

As I always want to ask you,

are you sharing the gospel

with those in your circle of influence?

The people there around you

that God has put you in their lives

and he's rubbing you

into the fabric of their existence.

Are you using that for his glory

by sharing the gospel with them?

The second metaphor that he uses here is light.

And he says that you are the light of the world.

And whether we're talking about oil lamps

in Jesus' day

or the flick of a switch

or the push of a button on our phone

in our own day,

the lights come on

and the lights come on

and the lights come on

for one purpose

and that is illumination,

revelation.

And again,

Jesus says to his people,

you are the light of the world.

This is not something

you need to go to a class for.

This is something you are.

By your nature,

as a believer in Jesus,

you are the light of the world.

And this is so significant

because in John 8, verse 12,

John 8:12

Jesus says,

I am the light of the world.

And can,

you know,

if Jesus walked in today

and he said,

I'm the light of the world,

we'd be like,

hallelujah,

praise the Lord.

Everybody look to the light.

Thank you for showing us the way.

But then he turns around and says,

you are the light of the world.

And so I wonder

what you're shining on today.

I wonder what people see

because you're the light

of the world today.

He goes on to say

that a city set on a hill

cannot be hidden.

Some of you have been

to Sedona before

and I don't know

if you've made the trip

to Cottonwood,

to Walmart,

in the dark or not,

but we don't have

a Walmart in Sedona

because we're too good for that.

People like me,

we still drive over

to Cottonwood

so that we can get

to Walmart, okay?

But if you go

to Cottonwood at night,

there's this mountain range

behind Cottonwood

and over to the right

as you're driving

toward Cottonwood,

you can see these lights

on the hill.

It's just dark

all the way across

and then there's

this little section

of flickering lamps,

lights.

That little town

is Jerome.

Now, Jerome

only has 400

and something residents,

okay?

It's a tiny little

used up

copper mining town

is what it is.

And nobody would know

Jerome is there

probably

except when you go

to Cottonwood at night,

there's no mistaking

that there's people

over there

on that mountain.

And I would venture

to say even

at only 400 strong,

they'd never get

enough people

to turn their lights off

to hide themselves.

Jesus says

a city set on a hill

cannot be hidden.

And like all the

little individual lights

that make that town

visible to those of us

driving to Cottonwood

at night,

so all of us

who belong to Jesus

are little lights

that are peppered

across our culture

for the purpose

of shining on Jesus

for our community.

Specifically,

so people will see Jesus.

not so they'll see

how to manage

their retirement better,

not so they'll figure out

how to have more harmony.

All those things

are fine and good

and wonderful,

but people don't need

the gospel for that.

People don't need

to come here

and hear God's word

for that.

But so people

will see Jesus

and so the question

will come,

what are we illuminating?

What are we shining?

What do people see?

Because we are shining.

Well, you will expose

sin and evil

in the world around you.

Some of you

who go to work

and you're not willing

to cut the corners

or you're not willing

to fudge the deals

and this kind of thing,

your life,

your light

will reveal

faulty and dishonest

business practices

in your industry.

And some people

are not going to like you

for it,

but the Lord's honored

by it.

And others

will be compelled

to listen to what

you have to say

about Christ

because he's made

this difference

in your life.

For you teenagers

and kids

that go to school

day in and day out,

if you're living

for Christ

and you're shining

as the light

of the world

and what you're

going to be revealing

is gossip

and careless talk.

I want you to know

that when I went

to Spartanburg

to pastor at Philadelphia

within the first

six months,

I got a call

on a Sunday night

and it was from

a lady in our church

but she was calling

on behalf of her neighbor

who was frantic

and couldn't talk

about anything

at the moment

and what had happened

is this lady's

little girl

who was in the sixth grade

had just hung herself

and they wanted somebody

to come talk

to this family.

And I can think

of a hundred

other people I know

that would have been

better at that than me

but God called me

to that place

and what I found out

as I talked

to the family

and as we listened

and unraveled

the knots

and the cords

of all this tragedy,

what we found out

was this little girl

in sixth grade

was being shamed

and gossiped about

and kind of ill-treated

at school

and this kind of thing.

And I don't see bullies

behind every bush

but something made

this little girl

so sad

and so down on herself

that in the sixth grade

she hung herself.

And I wonder

when you go to school

guys,

are you shining light

on that stuff

to where it's exposed

and squelched

or do you actually

pour fire

on those,

pour gas

on those fires?

Are you actually

part of the problem

with that?

You know,

it could be that

you being the light

of the world

shines light

on immoral living

but whatever it is

you will have

the answer

for escaping

that slavish behavior.

People know

that they're enslaved.

They may not want

to admit it

but they know

that they're enslaved.

They're looking

for somebody

to lead them

out of it

and it could be

that you're here

this morning

and you realize

that these things

are true of you.

You do pour gas

on the gossip.

You are tied up

in immoral living.

You are guilty

of improper

and scandalous

and dishonest

business practices

and it comes

to your attention

today that

you are these things

because you've never

been redeemed.

You've never been

let out of it.

You've never been

bought out

of that sin

and that's the message

of the gospel

this morning

is that if you will

turn from that sin

and if you will

turn to Christ

and cry out to him

for the forgiveness

of your sin

then he will

buy you out.

And he will

rescue you

and give you

hope for eternity.

You'll help others

grow in their faith.

I just want to

ask you a question.

You take a mental

inventory right now.

Do the people

in your home,

do the people

in this church,

do the people

in your workplace

or your school,

are they growing

in their understanding

and faith in Christ

because they're

being around you?

If not,

it might be

that you're not

really shining

light on Jesus

at all.

You're shining

Jesus on

how to encourage

other people

to live better

and that might

make them feel

better for a day

or for a season

but it won't

last them for

eternity.

And then finally

you'll see that

people begin

to follow Jesus

because of your

testimony,

because of the

light that you're

willing to shine,

because being rubbed

into the fabric

is a salty

preservative of

this culture.

And I want you

to know that

there is no

greater experience

in life than

to lead somebody

to Jesus.

I hope every

single one of you

have had the

opportunity to lead

somebody to Christ.

But if you

haven't, I want

you to know that

the day you got

married, the day

you retired from

your job,

the day your

child was born,

all those things

pale in comparison.

And those are

significant things.

I've gone through

every one of those

except for the

retirement.

I've been through

every one of those

things.

They're significant

things but all those

things pale in

comparison to seeing

a sinner cry out

to Christ and

receive new life

in Jesus and hope

for eternity.

There is just

nothing in the

world like it.

And this should be

the natural result

of us living our

lives around those

who are close to

us.

Jesus says it would

have been terribly

wasteful to light

the lamp and to

cover it up with a

basket.

People didn't do

that.

People had sense

back then.

People in my house

leave lights on all

the time.

They don't have any

sense.

In Jesus' day they had

sense.

When they lit the

lamp they put it on

the stand so that

everybody in the

house could see.

And Jesus says this

is the way that we

should function in

our culture.

Verse 16 says in the

same way let your

light shine before

others so that they

may see your good

works and give glory

to your Father who is

in heaven.

Our very lives should

function as a light

that leads others to

Jesus.

Furthermore when they

witness our lives when

they see our good

works they shouldn't

be saying attaboy

patting Josh on the

back.

That's not what they

should be doing.

Jesus says they need

to see your good works

and they need to see

your life so that they

will be compelled to

give glory not to me

not to us not to you

but to God who is in

heaven.

So as we close this

morning Keller has

another thought that I

like for us to think

about as we close.

He says Christians are

attractive to and

attracted to people who

are not like them.

And I wonder if you are

attractive to and

attracted to people who

are not like you.

Let's just unpack that

for one second here.

Are you attracted to

people who are not like

you?

Do you long to be rubbed

into the lives of those

around you so that they

can see Jesus and embrace

him as their Lord and

Savior?

You know when I first

moved to Sedona I

realized these people

aren't like me.

They don't talk like me.

They don't think like me.

They don't eat like me.

I really just don't even

enjoy being around these

people.

You know they don't want

to eat meat and they you

know it's just tough some

days right.

But then the Lord just kind

of broke my heart over and

he said I didn't bring you

here because all these

people are like you.

I brought you here because

they're not like you.

And I brought you here so

that I could rub you and

your family into the fabric of

this culture so that they

might see me and come to

me for salvation.

Are you attractive to

others because you shine

brightly for Jesus?

Not just because you're nice

and easy going not because

you like to have fun or tell

funny jokes and this kind of

thing but because you're

committed to Jesus and

reflecting him to those

people.

You see my fear is is that

the people in Pickens that

are not sitting in this

building today are not

sitting in a building like

this today.

They're not sitting in a

building like this today

because they're not

attracted to it.

And believe me I'm not

saying that you need to

bring in the smoke and the

lights and all that garbage

to get people come in.

I'm talking about how you

live your life on a daily

basis before these people.

Do they look at you and

scratch their head and say

what in the world is

different about that guy?

Why is that gal so happy all

the time?

Are you attractive to

others or have you or have

you put them off because all

you do is demean other

people around you that

aren't like you?

Here's the truth.

What you have to offer a

hungry lost and dying world

is infinitely more valuable

than anything that all the

social media influencers are

peddling all put together.

People in our culture are

longing to see change in their

lives.

They're desperate to be led to

something that is better than

this present.

They deeply want to be led

and I wonder this morning and

this is what I'm asking you to

do.

Will you commit to be a

cultural influencer for the

glory of Jesus Christ by being

the salt and light that he has

made you and called you to be?

Let's pray.

Father God, we're thankful that

you did not leave us in our

sinful state, Lord, that when we

didn't want to be pursued, when

we weren't even concerned about

being saved, Father, when we

didn't even realize we were

lost, you were coming after us.

We're thankful that you saved

us by the blood of your son,

Jesus Christ.

And Lord, this morning,

hopefully we've been reminded of

just how significant that is and

just how urgent it is for those

around us in our culture.

Lord, in our school, in our

workplace, in our community, our

neighborhoods, our ball fields,

Lord, there are people that are

desperately longing to be led and

they're going to be led somewhere.

The question is whether or not

we're going to be ready to lead

them to the gospel.

And so, Father, we ask you this

morning to do your work in our

hearts that we might realize where

we are failing to be attracted to

people that aren't like us.

Father, would you help us to tear

down those barriers and would you

help us to have a longing in our

heart to be rubbed into the fabric

of their life that they might know

Christ and have hope for eternity?

And Lord, if there's anything in our

life outside of the gospel of Jesus

Christ and his glory that is pushing

people away, Father, would you help us

have the boldness and the courage to

identify it and be honest about it?

Would you help us to have the strength

to turn from it that we might be used

mightily in these people's lives to

draw them to Jesus?

Father, only you can do this work in

our lives.

Only you can make us salty and use us

as light.

And we're asking you to do that.

We're going to be faithful to be

obedient in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I'm going to ask Fred to come up and

lead us as we go.