Salt Church Values

But I don't have anywhere for you to go right off the bat.

So yeah, exactly. That was I I thought of that as

I was saying, I was like, I wonder if anybody will call me

on that. Bring your Bible, bring your

Bible, bring your Bible. When you get to it.

If you can keep up, good for you.

If not, you know, keep practicing.

I used to call them sword drills that that iwanas, things like

that. Sword drill.

Sword drills like who can open, who can open it?

This passage. Anybody remember sword drills?

You grew up in that church background?

I didn't have that, but I've heard a lot about it and know

enough. Been in church culture my whole

life, even though the churches I was in didn't do sword drills.

That's a good practice though. And it was like, first one, to

get to this passage, you get piece of candy or something, or

you're just the winner. Bragging rights.

I'm a better Christian than you. How about that?

Like I'm faster with my Bible. Yeah.

So like I said this morning, I'm looking forward to sharing with

you. We're going to talk about what

SALT Church is and specifically we're going to clarify if you're

for my note takers, we're saying that this one is called Church

on a mission. Church on a mission.

You should know what makes up this particular body of

believers and you should know what makes this particular body

believers different from all of the other faithful bodies of

believers out there. We've said many times families

and households have personalities.

My household is a Christian household, but that looks

different from from Dylan's household, which is also a

Christian household. Why is it different?

Because there's a different man there leading and it's not a bad

thing. It's just the natural and

obvious thing that would happen. Things would show up

differently. We do it like this, they do it

like that. None of it's wrong.

There's much freedom that the Lord has given.

The same is true in the body of Christ.

There's some non negotiables in my house that I'm sure the same

in Dylan's house and there's a lot of interchangeable through

all of our households. But then there's other things.

There's plenty of freedom. The same is true in a local

body, but you should know what salt church is in particular so

that you can say one of two things.

Number one, no thanks. I don't think I want to be a

part of that and I don't think that's what I'm called to or I

don't think that that's the right fit for me or the other.

Sign me up for that. We're we're looking for that all

in or not all out in a disgruntled way, but just a you

know what? That's enough clarity for me.

That's a gift. Clarity is a gift to know.

Hey, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing.

That's not where I'm supposed to be or man, I want to double

down. So that's my prayer and that's

my hope and that's my expectation that for, for anyone

who's saying, hey, I'm not sure. I'm wondering, I'm looking, I'm

paying attention, I'm listening. You'd be able to say, hey, you

know what, praise God, I've got clarity and I know that this

isn't where the Lord wants me or there's only one other option.

I'm removing a lukewarm option. You'll you'll notice that that

that option is strangely absent here.

The only other option is double down.

Well, I've doubled down already, Pastor.

Then the next option is triple down.

Then the next option will be quadruple down and then five

tuple down. Kayla, math people.

Can y'all tell me what quint what comes after that one?

OK, yeah, they got answers they like.

I thought I could stump them. I couldn't.

So we want, we want, I want. The Lord wants for you to know

who you are. He wants you to know where you

are and what your church is about.

As the pastor here, one of my responsibilities is to

administer the culture of this house and that includes

regularly reminding you where we're going.

You only have one life to live, and how and where you spend it

should be a dead serious decision for you.

Church attendance where I've been has always been life and

death for me and my family. Does that mean you find a

perfect church? Well, no, there's not one of

those. But I've always taken it very,

very, very, very, very seriously.

I've always taken, I need to know who this pastor is and you

know what he's about. Is this a man I can trust

because I'm literally entrusting my life into his hands?

In some ways, Scripture makes that plain.

Your elders have watch over your souls.

So there's significance to that. Not to mention this body of

believers, are these people sincere?

These are the ways that I've measured and judged.

And Natalie and my boys can tell you over the years, I'm like,

are these Saints for real? Are these people doing Sunday

worship and see you later and we'll see what happens.

I'm just here for preacher man. I've always avoided to the best

of my ability, places like that. And I told you from day one,

when I was planting this church, when we were planting this

church, when the Lord was planting this church, I want to

plant the church that I want to attend.

I don't want to plant a church that six years, then I go, I

don't like this. I don't want to be here.

I wouldn't even be in this church.

I don't want to be in that kind of church and thankfully, I'm

very joyfully able to tell you Saul Church is where I would be.

So, so far, so good. We're the pastor likes the

church. That's a good thing.

But we're three years in now. So I want to walk you through

our values. And then I want to just continue

to unpack personality for Salt and give you clarity around

these things. You've heard these before, some

of you. But what I'm praying and

expecting is that the Lord will bring revelation and that the

Lord will bring expectation. I want to place expectation upon

you. I don't want you to wonder is,

hey, was this sermon for me? Yes.

Yeah. So you're preaching this one to

me. Absolutely.

Yeah. That's the point.

I'm always preaching to you. You're the one I always have in

mind. So our first value as a church

is we say that we are noticeable.

The name of our church was deliberately chosen.

We're named salt church for particular reason.

The reason is that salt is bold. Salt is distinct, and salt

stands out. So to be specific about our

boldness, we mean that we do not intend to have a private faith.

So where do we get salt from? Specifically in Scripture,

You'll remember in Matthew chapter 5, Matthew it was.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

In Matthew chapter 5, verse 13, you are the salt of the earth.

Matthew 5:13

But if 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. The 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

those in the house. So salt and light have a

priority and a responsibility to preserve.

That is our primary function as salt.

Salt to Jesus's listeners at that time, they understood that

salt was used to preserve meat. They didn't have refrigerators.

We've hit this before. So you you could pack meat

inside of salt and then the meat is going to be preserved.

He's saying you're the salt of the world.

What would happen to the world without the body of Christ in

it? It would rot.

What? What happens to the world when

the body of Christ goes passive? The world rots.

What happens to the body? What?

What happens to the world when the body of Christ loses its

saltiness? The world decays.

So anytime you see decay, everyone bears responsibility,

but the church primarily is responsible to bring the truth.

The church is the pillar of truth for God in the earth.

The church are the ones who are supposed to say this is right,

this is wrong, not the government.

Where would they get their morality from?

They can't just invent it out of thin air.

Morality comes from God. All legislation should be godly

legislation. Everything comes from the Lord,

and the church is. The church is not the

government. They're different spheres, and

yet the church influences the government and the church

influences the household. Although they're distinct,

there's still overlap. We're bold enough to say that as

a church, we are not called to be sugar.

Many have tried to make the gospel of the Kingdom more

appetizing to the world. So they removed the salt and the

message became one that was equal to the message of the

world. And then then it became just as

worthless as the world's message.

So we're determined to be distinct.

And the problem, which is not a problem at all really, the

problem is whenever you're distinct, you always be accused

of being mean, being cruel, being unkind by those who are

actually rotting. So the very people that you're

trying to love and you're trying to put salt around, to preserve

and to protect and to help and to bless, will simultaneously,

at times, not always, but the spirit of the age in particular,

the satanic force that's at work in the earth, will always accuse

you of wrongdoing in that area. So the world needs help.

People are abused. People are literally prisoners

of Satan and his system. The salt is their only hope.

Love for God and love for them is what causes us to go speak

boldly even when it's not welcome.

So you're going to notice a theme throughout all of our

values that we talked about. You're going to see boldness

continues to show up over and over and over again.

It's something that's a priority for us as a body.

Why? Because the the opposite is so

easily attained. Passivity is our natural

default. It's the it's the natural state

to just sit and do nothing. So it takes encouragement, it

takes reminders to actually pursue God's good design for us.

In first Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 17, Paul is writing,

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

he says, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the

gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross

be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is

folly or foolishness. For to those who are perishing,

but to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

Where is the one who is wise? Where's the scribe?

Where's the debater of this age? Has not God?

Has not? Has not God made foolish the

wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God

the world did not know God through wisdom, it please God

through the folly of what we preach to save those who

believe. For the Jews demanded signs and

the Greeks demanded wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a

stumbling block to the Jews, a folly to the Gentiles.

But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the

power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness

of God is stronger than men. We are not going to cater our

message to any group. He says the Jews, what do they

want? Remember Jesus Master, show us a

sign and he says, I'll give you a sign.

And then you know the Greeks, they go, well, let's prove this

out. Let's let's reason and logic our

way through this thing. And Paul said, we're not going

to cater to the audience and the audience's demands.

You're going to get the cross, you're going to get the gospel,

you're going to get the the revelation of the word of God.

Preach. Why?

Because it is the power of God unto salvation.

That's where the power is. So as a church, we say we're not

going to cater to the demands of our culture.

Our culture will paint us in a corner and never let us out.

Answer me this, answer me this Riddle, tell me that I'll give

you this. God is king.

He sent his Son to die for sinners like me and you.

He is coming back to judge the living in the dead.

And by the way, this is all good news for you because here's the

best part, this is the crazy part.

He actually loves you and he will rescue you from your sin if

you will submit and bow your knee to Him and give your life

to him holy and fully. And then by the way, that's not

just a go to heaven when you die thing, that's a walk with him

all the days of your life thing. That's what I'll give you.

Or what about this? I'm not answering all those

other things. I'm giving you the only thing

that really has power because all the things that they demand

of you won't be enough. So, so that's one way that salt

looks salty. We're proud of Jesus.

We're proud of his Kingdom. Jesus is king, Jesus is

champion. So we're the people of

celebration. We're the people of joy.

We're the people of victory. And 2nd Corinthians chapter 2

verse 14, Paul saying thanks be to God, who in Christ always

leads us in triumphal procession, and through US

spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being

saved and among those who are perishing to 1A fragrance from

death to death to another, a fragrance from life to life who

is sufficient for these things. So the point that he's making

here again is that we're going to go out and we're going to be

pleasing to the Lord. To some, it'll be the stench of

death. They'll go.

These Christians, they stink in my nostrils.

What do we do with those people? We pray for them and we move on

to someone who is actually open, someone who's actually willing,

someone who actually pay attention.

But we can't be manipulated or led by them.

We are not. We are.

We are not enslaved by this broken and dark place.

We are not stuck in it. We are living in the Kingdom

framework and we're not retreating.

We are joyfully advancing. We believe that Jesus matters in

the real world. Jesus is for everybody.

Our Jesus talk is not secretive and private.

It is joyfully public. Our friends, our family, our

acquaintances are convinced that we're more enthusiastic about

King Jesus than we are. Our hobby, our business, our

grandkids, our football team, our insert potential idol here.

This is what it looks like to be Salt and to be bold.

Another one of our values as a church is we love God for real,

for real. That is our in depth theological

explanation of loving God. We love God for real, for real.

What does that mean? It means Salt Church is a body

of Jesus who genuinely loves and worships God.

Why would you say that? Why do we have to say that we're

a church who loves God? Isn't that like a restaurant

saying they serve food? Yes, it absolutely is.

But it needs to be said because we want to make sure that we

never lose what matters most. We want to make sure we never

lose sight of the most important command.

So it needs to be said, we don't want to be a restaurant that

just seats people at tables, and we don't want to be a church

that doesn't loyally, courageously, joyfully and

faithfully follow Jesus. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

four and five say hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the

Lord is 1. You shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your

might. So this is the greatest command.

Therefore it should be met with the greatest obedience.

Love for God is what makes us want to love others.

We are to love God fiercely. If somebody doesn't think that

we love God too much, then we probably definitely don't love

him enough. There's a famous quote that said

5 minutes on the other side of eternity.

I believe every one of us will have wished that we had

sacrificed more, prayed more, loved more, sweated more,

grieved more, and wept more. 5 minutes on the other side.

Can you imagine? Right now it's easy to get

distracted with my day and everything else that's going on.

But 5 minutes on the other side? What would you give actually to

go back and go if I could have done it more and better for him?

I'm simply saying we'll just say I wish I had loved more.

We will love and we will be thankful, but we want our lives

poured out. And it looks like something to

say that you're a Christian who loves Jesus, right?

I'm a Christian who loves God. Isn't that redundant?

Absolutely, you better believe it.

That's redundant. And absolutely that should be

said. That should be something that we

carry. I'm a Christian, I'm a Christ

follower. I love God, I love King Jesus.

Why? Well, because everything's

Christian, right? Everything, everybody, every

president we've ever had is Christian.

Every, you know, there's, there's leaders in our social

sphere who are all Christian. So we don't want them hijacking

something good and pure and true and, and devaluing it.

So This is why we're going to emphasize we really do love God,

another one of our values as a church.

We believe God is good. Doesn't every Christian believe

God is good? Yes, they do.

But we're going to clearly define that every Christian

would believe and agree that God is good.

But we define good without any complexity and without any

qualifiers. We define good, and we believe

that a 7 year old knows what good means.

More specifically, we believe that God does not want evil, God

does not want tragic. God does not want bad things to

happen, and he does not create them.

We also understand that in his goodness, God can and does judge

and punish people on the earth. Both true at the same time.

God is completely good, and God also judges because God is

completely good. We believe Jesus perfectly and

fully reveals the will of God. Jesus is the exact imprint of

the Father's nature. Jesus is the full manifestation

of God's will. Jesus is perfect theology, and

Jesus shows us that God is good. I've been showing you as we walk

through Matthew, we've been counting up all the people who

came to him and asked for healing, and he turned them all

away. What is our total so far?

Oh, we're still at 0, right? And all the people who wanted a

demon cast out and he turned them away.

What's our total? Zero.

So Jesus wanted people healed, and Jesus didn't want people to

have demons. So we see the will of God

revealed through Jesus. God is also good.

Let's clarify his judgment. God is also good when he judges,

and we have room to clearly interpret those works.

God flooded the earth because he was good and he promised to do

so. Never again.

He judged and killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying because God

is good and the Holy Spirit made it abundantly clear that

judgment was taking place. So This is why we pray in

confidence. This is why when I pray for you,

by the way, as your pastor, when I pray for you for healing, I'm

not praying. Fingers crossed I don't end my

prayer with God. Please heal so and so.

Notice how we prayed for Asher. We didn't say God, please heal

him if you want to. Why would you put that in there,

Joe? Michael, don't you know what God

wants? Who do you think you are to

Michael? Well, I don't think I'm anybody.

I just think I know how to read. And I know what would happen if

Bradley and Brittany took Asher to Jesus one day.

What would have happened? How can you say that, church?

How can you say that you weren't there?

Why? Because you have a Bible and you

have eyes and you have ears and some basic deduction would tell

you what the Lord wanted because He did it over and over and over

and over and over and over again.

Pastor, I got questions about that because I've seen people

not be healed saying to me too, me too.

But that would be us if we start to follow those questions that

we have. Let's just be let's be fair and

let's be honest. That would be us following our

circumstance. Agreed.

As opposed to following the word.

Pastor, I pray for somebody and they died.

Saints, me too. So I got questions and I've got

discouragements and I've got things that I've grieved.

But if we're going to hold up the Scriptures as the standard,

then we can't compromise on this area.

And this is where faith comes from when you pray, because

praying with fingers crossed, just so you know, is not

actually praying in faith at all.

And we're to go to the Lord in faith.

Faith is an expectation. You can't have faith unless you

already know what the will of God is.

For an example, like healing, maybe God wants us to get in a

car wreck today. You don't have any basis or

grounds for that. Well, couldn't the Lord do

something like that in judgment? He most certainly could.

But again, the pattern in Scripture when the Lord judges,

he marks it clearly as judgment. So you know that judgment is

taking place and the Lord reveals, hey, this is judgment.

And if you don't, and if you're not sure, then you certainly

shouldn't seek to remove the will of God for your life.

Agreed. So if it's the will of the Lord

for me to pull out of here and get in a car wreck, well, that

was God's will for my life. If we're following this faulty

line of reasoning, well, I've got a broken arm.

Follow me. I've got a broken arm.

Am I allowed to get it fixed? Why would you get it fixed?

I'm not being facetious. I'm being fair.

And I'm following the logic all the way through.

Your arm's broken. Why should you get it fixed?

Wasn't it God's will for your arm to be broken?

Joe. Michael.

Well yeah, but don't fight the will of the Lord, dude.

I mean, God's, he's going to teach you something beautiful.

You're almost going to be jacked up for the rest of your life.

But like, something awesome will come from it.

You'll be more spiritual or something, right?

No, this is faulty reasoning. I'm going to get in the

ambulance. I'm going to go to the hospital.

I'm going to be praying the whole time.

God heal this thing, strengthen this thing, bless this thing.

Yeah, Doc put a cast on it, whatever.

Like, I'm going to walk through that process.

A lot of folks haven't thought through in that way.

But again, back to our point of judgment.

I got under the other under the other issue.

There another thing about God's goodness.

He will burn His enemies forever in hell, and He is good.

Why? Because God's enemies deserve

this for their continued wickedness outside of Christ.

You and I deserve this as well. God destroyed Sodom and

Gomorrah, and God is good when the disciples want to destroy a

village in the same way Jesus corrected them and rebuked them

for it. So we see God does the right

thing at the right time, but it's wrong to assume and

attribute all tragic circumstances as God's will.

And if we truly believe that all tragedy was the will of God, we

would be in rebellion when trying to remedy it.

I think God's doing this to me. OK.

You think God gave you that awful disease, right?

Yes. So why are you seeking

treatment? I'm fair question, friend.

I'm just walk me through it. Well, I don't know.

OK, fair enough. I don't condemn you.

I just wanted, I just wanted to stump you a bit there and make

you face that. Go back to the Scriptures.

We go back to Jesus. We really believe that God is

good. And we say it with a smile, even

though this has been intense because I'm referencing judgment

as well. But the world is broken.

That's why things happen. That's why bad things happen.

People are foolish. That's why bad things happen.

The devil is bad. That's why bad things happen,

and our sin is why bad things happen.

But God is good. God is good, and we say it

joyfully and boldly. So when we pray, we pray in

faith with expectation that God is moving and that he actually

wants to do the thing that we're praying for because of His Word,

not because of our wishful thinking.

Another value of our church is that we want the gifts of the

Spirit to be in operation. Why?

Because the Scripture tells us that we should eagerly desire

the gifts of the Spirit, 1st Corinthians 14 one says, pursue

love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that

you may prophecy. What are the spiritual gifts?

What are the gifts of the Spirit?

These are demonstrations. These are actions.

These are impressions or revelations that the Holy Spirit

gives to His people for the purpose of building up the body

of Christ and witnessing to the unsaved.

These gifts serve to accomplish God's will and establish His

Kingdom. The fruits of the Spirit are

important, and they display God's character.

The gifts of the Spirit are important, and they display

God's power. So we want the fruits of the

Spirit, all nine of them, and we want the gifts of the Spirit,

all nine of them. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are

given by the Holy Spirit. These are not gifts that any one

of us possess personally. I possess the gift of well, no.

The Holy Spirit gives and he operates as He chooses.

Now there's this strange correlation between people who

seek to operate in the gifts and those who actually do operate in

the gifts. So if I sit back my whole life,

arms crossed, gone, I'll do it if the Lord makes me.

Well, you never will because the Lord won't make you do anything.

The impressions of the Holy Spirit for the gifts of the

Spirit are subtle and gentle. It'll be a simple impression.

It'll be a gentle thing. You'll, you'll be at the gas

station and the Lord will say, I want you to go tell that person

I love them. Let me obey the Lord.

Was it the devil telling you to do that, by the way?

I mean, let's speak. Let's be careful, right?

You got to be really wise here. So we also say that the Canon is

closed, the scripture is secure. There's really no there there's

we're not trying to add to Scripture and yet the will of

the Lord could still influence and still bring instruction,

direction, encouragement, edification.

He would want to do that in the body, in the gathering.

That's why Paul was even writing to the Corinthians.

They were experiencing so frequent manifestation of the

gifts. He put parameters around.

He said, guys, I love what you're doing.

I love that you're zealous for the gifts.

However, we're going to put a limit on this.

We'll say that two or the most three can prophecy during one

during one setting. He's saying because the spirit

of the prophets, the Saints, the spirit of the prophet is subject

to the prophet. That's like saying the right

hand of John Michael is subject to Jim Michael.

I just can't help it. I just got to slap people.

No, no, you control your hand. And while pastor, I just got

this thing welling up in me. Hey, you know what?

We'll we'll do that in a way that's decent and in order and

edifying and a blessing. Oh, we want it all.

We want to do it. Well, some people have described

themselves as they say, I'm Pentecostal with a seat belt.

And I said, well, I'm just in a castle and the Holy Spirit's not

going to put me in a car crash, so I don't need a seat belt.

But I'm going to continue to drive forward and I want to

continue to say, Lord use me. Lord use me.

And if you pray that prayer, you expect that the Lord is actually

going to, he's going to bring directions and impressions.

Well, I don't know which gift it was.

I don't know which gift. Just obey the Lord.

We don't need to categorize. We don't need to.

We don't need to get caught up in anything.

Just go or that's you. That's you.

Hey, so and so I just want to encourage you.

I feel like the Lord is saying this.

Does that bless you? Does that sit with you?

And we test it. We always weigh it through the

word. We always weigh it by the word.

There's nothing that can't, that can be said and done that

wouldn't agree with the scriptures.

So we talk about these gifts, though these aren't gifts.

Like, man, she's a great singer. She's got a great gift.

She could use that gift at any moment, but that's not the same

thing as the gifts of the Spirit.

We are commanded earnestly to to desire the gifts.

So we will earnestly desire the gifts.

First Corinthians 12/1 says now about spiritual gift.

Brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.

That means untaught or misinformed.

I don't want you to be misled. So the Bible makes no mention of

these gifts ceasing or stopping. It's a very popular view among

many Christians who are faithful Saints who I love and who I also

love to fight with. And it's super fun because I

just get to go to the Scripture and they have to point to

circumstance and excesses, which will always happen to those

conversations. By the way, anytime you've got a

believer, faithful believers love the Lord, Very, very

sincere. But whenever they say those are

the gifts of the Spirit don't operate anymore, I'll say show

me the word. So it becomes a funny and silly

conversation at times, but their concern is faithfulness to the

word of God, which I appreciate. And yet at the same time, when

when they claim sola scriptura, they're still not deferring to

the scripture that says these gifts are an operation in the

body of Christ. So we seek these things.

We want these things. Why?

Because the Lord does, because they're one of the ways.

They're one of the means that he uses to bless, edify, and build

up his body. The Holy Spirit has has to

distribute the gift he distributes to each one for the

good of everyone. We can minister in any gift at

any time as the Holy Spirit directs and allows.

We don't have an anointing flowing from ourselves.

It flows from Him. The gifts of the Spirit only

operate through His power. So like we said, rather than

thinking I have the gift, we would say the Holy Spirit often

manifests or maybe has manifested this gift in my life

to bless His people. Gifts should never puff up the

individual operating in the gift.

If you've ever met a believer who's like I this or I that pipe

down, Bob, like settle down like it's for the body, it's for the

body. So that's a blessing that you're

that you operate that way. But the most mature Saints who

I've seen operating the gifts are the most subtle about it.

Absolutely. Have you seen that?

Those of you who are familiar, you've been around this the most

subtle. They're the most low key.

They're the most gentle and the most profound words.

The words from the Lord that I've ever received from anybody

were very low key. They weren't over the

microphone. They were during a greeting

time. Hey, brother, can I share

something with you? Yeah.

Yeah. What's up?

I think I've told you a story many times before.

The most profound word I ever heard was Jesus loves you.

It was during a grieving time. The sister came up to me.

She said I felt like the Lord me to tell you Jesus loves you.

And I was undone because the Lord met me.

He saw me. She said he hasn't forgotten you

don't cry. Then I'll cry.

Then Don's going to cry. Then Matt's going to cry.

Then we're all going to be crying.

So that was a word from the Lord and thankfully she obeyed the

Lord. There have been other times

where somebody said, Hey, I got I was praying for you this week.

I feel like the Lord said this and I say, what is it?

And they said, do the obvious thing.

I was like, what a freedom. I was weighing a big decision.

This sister knew nothing of it, knew nothing about any of it.

And I was like feeling I'm supposed to do this.

I don't really know. And I'm just all hung up and

torn up and hung up. And she was I should feel like

the Lord said do the obvious thing.

I was like, I knew exactly what to do, knew exactly what it

meant. I didn't say, sister, do you got

a verse for that? I said thank God.

Thank God that the Holy Spirit was speaking to the Saints and I

was edified and blessed. I'm talking major life

trajectory. You want to know what it was?

It was literally starting the family captain years ago.

It was four years back, a little, a little over that now.

And I was like, I'm not supposed to sure if I'm supposed to, am I

supposed to go run around with my resume and see who will take

me in? Or am I just supposed to bet on,

bet on me and just go all in on this family captain thing?

And that's what I was waiting. She didn't know anything about

any of it. And here we are today, hundreds

of families later have been blessed and helped by the family

captain because why? Because the Lord helped to

direct me in that way. We eagerly desire the gifts of

the Spirit because it displays the Lord's power.

It's also a testimony to the non believer.

Paul gives the example that even when non believers would come

into a gathering of Saints that their sin could even be

prophesied and laid out in front of them.

How's that for a hospitality ministry?

Hey, good morning. We just want to tell you what

you were doing last night. The Lord revealed it to us.

Welcome, come on in, he said. But what would their response

be? They will fall before you and

say, surely the Spirit of God is among you.

So, but what would that be? Is that to shame and expose

them? No, no, no, It's to draw them to

the blood, to draw them to the cross.

Go, hey, hey, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to freak you out right

now, friend. But the Lord wanted to say this

and they're like good news. Jesus loves you and he wants to

forgive you and cleanse you. Wow, wow.

What's up with you people? It's not us, it's our king.

It's not us, it's not us. Don't worship us.

Don't get excited about us. Get excited about Jesus with us

because we're really excited about him.

Another value of ours is we fight where the fight is.

We fight where the fight is. I want to read a quote to you.

It's a little bit wordy. This guy's way smarter than me

or this, this woman's way smarter than me.

And then I'm going to read another one in a few minutes

from a guy who's way smarter than me.

But listen to this. It is the truth which is

assailed or attacked. It's the truth that's being

attacked in any age which tests our fidelity, our faithfulness.

We are called to confess, not merely to profess.

If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest

exposition, every portion of truth of God, except precisely

that little point that the world and the devil are at any moment

attacking, then I'm not professing Christ, however

boldly I may be professing Christianity.

Where the battle rages, the loyalty of the soldier is proved

and to be steady on all the battlefield is mere flight and a

disgrace to man if he flinches at that one point.

Elizabeth Rundle Charles said that what does that mean in Joe

Michael words? That means if if the enemy's

attacking over here, but I staunchly defend this position,

then I haven't been faithful. Well, I'm going to stand up for

this truth. Dude.

Nobody's attacking that. I mean like it's important.

It's still important. We're not saying it didn't

matter. We're not saying that at all,

but we're just saying hey, we could use some help over here.

We could help. We, we the, the hordes are

coming in this way. The demonic hordes are attacking

right here. 500 years ago, Martin Luther fought where the

fight was. He didn't fight for the things

that we need to fight for now because the attacks are

different. In the same way.

If one of my son, if Brock was being attacked by somebody, I'm

not going to go and shelter Hudson.

I'm not going to go shelter Elijah fame.

I'm going to go to war for Brock because that's where the threat

is. If somebody's breaking into one

of your windows in your house, you're not going to go check all

the other ones. It's foolishness when we pointed

out that way. The same thing is true in the

body of Christ. It's the ignorant who say, why

do you talk about hot button issues?

Well, it's not because I think it's clever or fun.

It's just because I want to be faithful and we have to speak

the truth because that is our responsibility in the church.

That's what salt does. So salt, the implication of

being salt is you have to fight where the fight is.

You can't go. Well, I don't really talk about

those things. I'm going to stay in my lane.

As one pastor famously said when asked point blank about

homosexuality and asked point blank about abortion.

I just want to stay in my lane and do this thing, bro.

Your lane is to be faithful to the Lord and faithful to the

mission. Answer, answer Bible questions

with Bible answers. Man, please come on.

Like you're not a meanie poo poo head for doing that.

You're just faithful. You're just doing the right

thing. We want what's good.

We want what's true. We want what's beautiful.

We want what's best. If you don't believe that God's

ways are best, then you won't actually be bold for the

Kingdom. And I'm convinced that's the

problem with many Christians. I don't think it's always just a

fear thing. I think a lot of Christians

don't even think that the Bible's ways are best.

They think it's a limitation. They think it's a penalty.

Many Saints think that it's a penalty to live in the ways that

God has commanded us to live, instead of the absolute freedom

and the absolute ticket, the absolute fast track to human

flourishing. You want to be happy?

Yeah, I do, and I'm not sorry for it.

I do want to be happy. Well, let me introduce you to

the word of God. It is God's design for mankind,

and there's no better way to live.

But Christians feel like I'm really sorry.

Hey you sinners, I see you're having a really good time.

I hate to be that guy, but I have to ruin your fun.

No, you're slaves and I want to see you set free by the King of

kings who loves you. But a church?

If you don't believe that, that you won't act like that.

You won't speak that way. You'll carry your Christianity

in your pocket and you'll pull it out sometime maybe, but

you'll try to stay in your lane otherwise.

But we've got to fight where the fight is, because we love what's

good and true and beautiful, and we love people.

God's ways are better, and we're not sorry for it.

We're thankful for it. Wherever something is attacking,

that's where we want to show up with what's good, with what's

true and what's beautiful. We're going to defend.

Another word for controversial could simply be faithful.

Look throughout the Scriptures. Who gets killed?

Who gets solved in half? Who gets their head cut off?

Who gets crucified? It's just faithfulness, whoever

stands up and speaks up for the Lord first.

1 John 2:15–17

John 2 verses 15 through 17 do not love the world or the things

in the world. If anyone loves the world, the

love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the

desires of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father,

but it's from the world. And the world is passing away

along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God

abides forever. So what does it mean that we, we

don't love the world? He's not referencing the people

there. He's referencing the God of the

world, the lowercase God of the world, the temporary

jurisdiction that Satan has, the world system.

So you are supposed to hate the world, and of course you're

supposed to love every single human being all throughout the

planet, but we're to hate the world and the Antichrist system

of the world. So where is our fight today,

Pastor? What, what?

What does this mean very practically for us, For Martin

Luther? He had a fight for the doctrines

of grace. Hey, you can't pay the church

money for the sin that you did last night.

That's not how this works. It's by the grace of God.

It is by faith and God's grace that you're saved.

That's it. So Martin Luther was faithful to

fight and that's why they wanted to kill him.

Does anybody want to kill you? Does anybody hate you?

Maybe that's an indicator of where we need to be more

faithful. So here's a here's a smart guy.

His name's non tenant faithful brother.

He says if Martin Luther were alive today, he would not be

preaching faith alone. He would be preaching the Father

rule of God, the creation order of Adam and Eve then and the

culturally despised theology of sexuality which flows from

these. What is the doctrine which the

world and the devil are today are attacking?

Where is the point where the battle rages in the 21st century

that we may test our loyalty and courage on this point?

The world does not very much mind Christian piety or

godliness. Faithfully living our God-given

duties, provided we perform them as androgynous persons, that

means genderless. The duties that are common to

all Christians. These do not offend them.

It is the duties which are unique to each sex that require

silencing. The apologist for the inerrancy

of scripture? He's not a problem.

The young earth creationists? These aren't pariahs in the

secular workforce, men who preach the Lordship of Jesus in

the coming judgement. Those are not the men who are

protested on university campuses.

It is those who dare to preach the masculine and feminine,

feminine piety grounded in the creation order rooted in the

fatherhood of God. They are the ones who are

cancelled, who are ghosted, who are defunded and de platformed.

They are slandered as misogynists and they are

vilified as evil because this is where the battle rages.

I'll put it in John Michael, terms for you.

Said differently, what's most likely to offend the spirit of

the age? I love Jesus or I submit to my

husband. I'm going to fight for the love

of Jesus. Well, that is the most important

thing, literally. But also, is that where the

fight is? What's more likely to offend the

devil and his opposition at this moment?

To say God created heaven and earth or to say homosexuality is

sinful and unacceptable to the Lord?

What's more unacceptable, to say Jesus died for our sins or to

say God made people male and female and they cannot and

should not oppose his design? What would be worse to say it's

a sin to murder, or for a husband to say I'm the head of

my wife? What's worse to say Jesus

commands us all to love one another?

Or to say men and men and women have different designs and

different roles in life? What's worse, to say God has

good plans for people's lives, or to say boys should be

masculine and girls should be feminine?

So we fight where the fight is there.

This isn't the only fight that matters.

We're also very outspoken about the right of babies to stay

alive while they're in their mother's wombs without anyone

killing them. So there's a lot of things that

our culture embraces and prioritizes and builds upon.

But this value as a church shapes us in at least two ways.

First, So what I want to do is make it very practical.

What does that mean for us? Like very, very tangibly, first,

we as a church, we emphasize gender roles as a means of

worship to God and as the path of flourishing for us as

individuals. That's an emphasis.

It's something that I talk about regularly.

It's something that you're talking about and discipleship

groups and conversations. And I'm always encouraging that.

Why? Because we are so bad at that as

a culture. We're way worse than we even

know. And you think, man, we're, we're

doing pretty good. Don't compare yourself to

anybody. Compare yourself to the

scriptures. We got a lot of growing to do

and it's OK. We're going to keep walking

faithfully with the Lord. We're going to keep growing.

God is for us, God's with us. But that, that's the first

thing. Second, this also shapes the way

as a church that we think about kids ministry.

Why? Because we believe that fathers

should take the primary responsibility for the

discipleship of their children and that parents who love God

and teach their children an example and in words are the

best kids ministry to ever exist.

So we don't think kids ministry is evil or wicked or unfaithful

or anything like that. But as a household in this

house, Dylan does it different in his house.

Michael does it different in his house, Salt does it different in

their church, Pure life does it different in their church.

But in this house, we prioritize that our children are with us in

worship. So they see daddy and mommy in

worship. Of course, we also have a room

where you know the wiggle room, you know, where you can say, you

know what? This little guy needs a few

minutes to to be able to go wiggle.

He needs to be able to run around.

That's all normal. That's all good.

It's just family, y'all. We're a family.

This is how family operates. Hey, so and so's a little

stirred up right now. That's why we've got a place for

them to go get their wiggles out.

Let's bring them back in. The good news on this?

Your children will not resent you for this.

You know what makes children resent the Kingdom?

You know what makes children resent church?

It's hypocritical, parents. I've seen it over and over and

over and over and over and over and over.

The thing that makes kids hate church.

As a kid who grew up on the pews and grew up under the pews with

some Pentecostal meetings that went real long.

Yeah, I was a part of I as a pastor's kid.

So all the things I never hated church, not once.

Why? Because my mom and dad love the

Lord, and they were the same people at church as they were in

the car on the way home, and they were the same people at

church as they were at the house.

Everything was just all the same.

Jesus is King. We love him.

Of course we're going to be with the Saints.

We love the Saints. Where else would we go?

What else would we do? There was just no question, of

course. So the good news is your kids

will follow that genuine love. Your kids will follow that

genuine example. So this shapes us in many

different ways. Those are just a couple

practical ones. Another value is we multiply as

individuals and as a church. This one's super fun because God

commands us to be fruitful and multiply.

That in itself is fun. We won't go in too much detail

there, but God commands Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply.

He commands us to expand, to subdue the earth.

But growth and reproduction is God's default.

That is his normal. That's not the exception.

Should we have kids? Should we not have kids?

Hey, hey, St. That question all in itself just

shows how much you and I have been shaped by our Western and

modern moment. That's never been a question

throughout human history. Never.

Children were always seen as a blessing from the Lord.

Always. It's a very brand new thing to

human history to go should we have kids?

I shamefully tell you that Natalie and I intended to wait

till we were 30 years old to have kids.

By design. That was our plan.

And thank God the Lord and His sovereignty changed that for us.

But This is why whenever we're not having babies, there are

many couples in this church who are trying for babies.

This is why we're not having babies.

We give special attention to that and we go, hey, there's

something needs attention here. What's going on?

What's going on? Because we know God's default,

we know his normative. And that's why we pray and we

expect, we're praying for, for, for you couples to have those

babies. But that's our expectation

because reproduction should happen in a healthy environment.

The same thing should happen with a healthy disciple of

Jesus. A disciple of Jesus multiplies

to make disciples of Jesus. And if that's not happening,

that should get our attention to go, hey, something's off here.

We don't have to panic. We don't need to induce shame.

But we need to go. What's up?

What's going on? Do you have that desire?

Do you have an impulse? Not really.

OK, maybe there's needs to be some instruction there.

Oh, I have that desire and impulse now.

Good. Because that should be online.

You should not want to be content to see the whole world

around you go to hell. That would be a strange thing

for someone who's full of the love of God, to not love people

enough to go. I really want to see them come

into the Kingdom. So this is something we're

expecting. This is something we're praying

for. Jesus said that he will build

his church. Jesus sends out people who

multiply. That's his building method.

He's not using bricks to build. He's using you.

You are the ministers of the gospel.

So this is this shapes salt in a very particular way because it

is very important to me that you do not defer disciple making to

me because disciple making is my responsibility.

But that's my responsibility as I join you.

I'm a Christian, so yes, I'm a disciple maker.

I have the added responsibility and joyful responsibility of

shepherding the flock, but I don't make disciples because I'm

a preacher. I don't make disciples because

I'm a pastor. I make disciples because I'm a

Christian. And that's the same thing that

you're doing. And do you know what my primary

responsibility is, according to Ephesians 4, is to equip the

Saints to do the work of the ministry, to do the work of the

ministry. What's the work of the ministry?

Well, it's making disciples. That's the whole point.

That's the whole mission. So the good news is there.

Jesus guarantees victory. Nothing is going to stop His

church from building and growing.

You don't have any pressure on you to build the church.

You just need to obey the builder and the original

cornerstone of the church. He was set first, the chief

disciple Maker. He multiplied.

We continue exponentially to multiply to fulfill the purpose

until His Kingdom fully comes and the will of the Father is

fully done. You're listening too slow.

We're running out of time. To be a disciple of Jesus is to

make disciples for Jesus. And that also means as a church,

to be a church for King Jesus means we plant churches for King

Jesus. It is our desire to aggressively

plant churches. We want to plant other churches

by design. Salt Church is never going to

grow beyond 200 people. That's our plan to never grow

beyond that. And every time we get there,

roughly, who knows, we'll see when we get there.

We're going to take a group and we're going to seed out and say

y'all go and plant there. Y'all go and start in Urbana,

y'all go and Gloucester, wherever.

Hey, who lives closest? Make it work.

Make it happen. And we're going to send another

pastor, another elder, and we want to plant that church who

multiplies and multiplies and multiplies.

Why? Because the name of salt does

not need to grow. Those won't be campuses.

They won't be beaming in Joe Michael's face all over the

region. John Michael will be the pastor

of Salt and somebody else will be the pastor somewhere else.

But the name of Jesus will be expanding and multiplying and

he'll be getting more glory. But why?

Because people should multiply and churches should multiply.

We're three years old. I'm discouraged that we haven't

planted a church yet. I'll be honest, all my pastor

friends like, bro, that's, that's aggressive.

And I'm like, OK, I'm still discouraged.

I refuse to be encouraged by you.

I'll be happy when we plant a church.

So how do we do that, though? Well, we don't just plant a

church the way you plant churches.

You make disciples, make disciples, make disciples.

So that means, what does that look like?

That means you invite friends into your home.

I've told you many times, don't you dare invite somebody here,

kind of tongue in cheek. Don't you dare invite somebody

here until you've invited them to your living room.

You got to come here. My preacher.

They don't care about your preacher.

They don't care about your church.

If they're not in the Kingdom, they don't care.

I think they might. If they might, then by all means

bring them. We'd love to bless them and love

them and worship with them. But primarily you need to take

ownership of that individual. Hey, man, we do this Bible study

on Wednesday nights in my house. You don't yet do it, but you

could start. So now it'll be a truthful

statement. Hey, man, you want to come over?

We open the Scriptures. You know, me and my wife, me and

my husband, we do this stuff and you ought to come check it out.

OK, cool, I'll do that. Open the Scriptures together.

You don't have to get fancy. You can keep it simple.

We use that discipleship, the Discovery Bible study method.

Just read the passage, ask some simple questions.

God will bless it. God will make disciples through

you. You are well able and you're

overqualified to disciple people for Christ.

We're going to move along. We are deeply committed to each

other. It's our last one.

We are deeply committed to each other.

Love for the church is the evidence of loving and following

King Jesus. I'm going to read to you in John

John 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13, John 1334, a new commandment.

I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved

you. You're also to love one another.

By this all people will know that you're my disciples.

If you have love for one another, how will the world know

that I'm a disciple of Jesus? Will it be the fish magnet on my

truck? Will it be my cross necklace?

How will people really know that I'm a disciple of Jesus?

It'll be my love for the body of Christ.

Yo I'm super suspicious of a Christian who does not love

Christians. That's putting it lightly.

I love Jesus but I don't know about his church.

I'm like, I don't know about you.

That's some shady stuff, That's some non Bible stuff, that's

some non Jesus stuff right there.

The world who is ready to kill each other looks at the church

and sees people who are instead who are ready to die for each

other. This is the New Testament

standard. This is the Jesus way.

If you were dragged into court and you were accused of being a

disciple of Jesus, would they have enough evidence to convict

you just by looking at your relationships with other

Christians? This will be the marker of salt

church, our love and commitment to one another made obvious by

our actions. And that's deep love.

That's real stuff. That's real care.

In Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother.

He kills Abel, and God asks him, where is Abel, your brother?

And Cain famously replies, am I my brother's keeper?

Yes, Cain, that was the point. That was what was implied.

And if your heart was devoted to God, then you would have been

devoted to your brother as well. And that's true of everybody.

If your heart is really devoted to God, you're going to love

Jesus church. Why?

Because you sense the presence of Jesus in the body of Christ

and you go, I want the full body.

I feel closer to the Lord and I love these Saints.

We have a unity. We talked about that last week

where Jesus said, who's my family?

Who's my family, my mother and my brothers outside the door

trying to pull me away from the will of God or the people who

are doing the will of God? He said.

That's who my family is. What am I responsible for others

in the body of Christ? Yes, absolutely.

Anyone who says they don't that anyone who says they love Jesus

but they don't care for his church, they revealed they are

not in fact in fellowship with the King because they have the

same attitude as the first murderer.

Am I responsible for others? So we have this gift of a simple

test when it comes to money. We could ask, do I love money

more than God? God has given us this simple

measurement. Do you tithe?

Do you give offerings? There's a way to detach your

heart from money and go, oh, that helps me.

That helps to clarify where my heart is.

Tithing 10% of my income can tell me the truth about where my

heart is. Jesus said wherever your

treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Do I love God? No need to wonder, loving the

church is the test to tell me whether or not my heart is in

the right place. And of course, laying down your

life would be the test of of ultimate discipleship for the

one who laid down his life. I told you the story before.

There's a pastor in California, Southern California who they had

seen a young gang member coming to their church and get saved.

And whenever he got baptized after a few months, they hadn't

seen him anymore. The pastor said, hey, what

happened to so and so? And he followed up with him.

He checked in on him and said, hey, man, what happened?

I hadn't been seeing you anymore.

And the guy said, oh, man. I thought, like when I, when I

got jumped into a gang, we were like a family.

And I thought when I got baptized that I was going to

like enter into a family. I didn't know.

We were just going to like, see each other at church on Sundays.

And the pastor was like, so convicted and he repented.

He's like, no, no, no, you're right.

We're supposed to be doing gangs are doing fellowship better than

the body at times. See you next Sunday.

I'm going to just live a life totally detached from you.

We'll gather and hear the same sermon and we'll just do that 52

* a year instead of, hey, your life is my life.

And you can't be that for everybody.

You can't be that for everybody. But you got to be that for

somebody. And that takes time, but it

doesn't take three years, and you can insert yourself into the

right place. So Salt Church will not be a

church that people are disappointed by a lack of love

and commitment, because of course, no such church should

even exist that way. You've got to show your love,

you've got to indicate your love, and you've got to think

creatively to do so. It will take prayer, it will

take devotion. What does it look like in the

New Testament for Saints to be committed to each other?

They give everything. They they brought all their

money. That was a unique moment.

But they brought all their money to the apostles and they said

distribute among the whole body, however anybody needs it.

They said what? What's mine is theirs.

So that's the question you should ask yourself.

What could I do? Where can I insert myself deeper

into fellowship to connect with this body that I love?

Many of you do this well. Some of you need to do it

better. Some of you need to just begin,

but this devotion means that there's a difference between I

go to church there and salt is my church.

And for those of us who say salt is my church, I want you to know

there are some things to do and some commitments to make.

And we're going to close with this some practical things.

What would it look like? One thing it means is it means

regularly gathering with the body for worship.

Super low bar. It's like that's, that's not

college level Christianity. That's really kindergarten level

Christianity, just gathering with the Saints.

It means being a producer and not only a consumer.

In a family, everyone should seek the good of the household,

from the youngest to the oldest. The same is true in a church.

Responsibilities are different. Hudson has different

responsibilities in my family than Elijah Fayne does, and they

all had. But they've all had

responsibilities for a long time.

A four year old can do something.

He can put his plate. He can scrape his plate into the

trash. He can load a fork into the

dishwasher. Of course, it's more annoying to

help a four year old do stuff because you end up redoing it,

but still, he needs to do something.

He needs some responsibility. He needs to start to grow and

take ownership of his family and not just be if I just consume

everything that's provided, I'm only here to consume.

What do you have for me, mom and dad?

What do you have for me, mom and dad?

I want to see my sons contribute.

I want to see them bring something into the family, bring

something into the household. So the same thing is true in a

local body. What?

What can you bring to another believer?

What can you bring to the other Saints?

Well, your presence. Your presence is is something.

Oh, nobody's going to miss me. You're wrong.

You're wrong. We do.

We need you and you need us. But let's go beyond a Sunday

morning attendance. What else could it look like?

There's a few needs in particular that we have at the

moment that I want to make you aware of when it comes to

hospitality on a Sunday morning. I want us to have greeters

established on a schedule and on a rhythm where folks are just at

the front door. Nothing crazy, but just some

folks who are here early and able to consistently welcome

folks as they come in the door. It's just a simple housekeeping

need that the body has right now.

Another housekeeping need, this one is a much more higher

commitment. We've talked about this for a

long time is I want a man who can lead us in worship live

without the Youtubes. And then the other need that we

have is the wiggle room, as I called it earlier, just some way

to bring some structure to that. And I don't even have the the

full blueprint for what that would look like yet, because

it's always been my motive to keep, to keep the burden of a

Sunday morning worship service low.

I don't, I'm not, I'm being very careful.

The way I say that. Notice I don't say I don't want

to call you to high commitment. That's not true at all.

I'm going to call you to the highest commitment.

I want to call you to the highest commitment.

Make no mistake about it, but the highest commitment doesn't

necessarily mean 72 hours a week here in our facility or here in

the YMCA. There's a big difference.

So there's some church culture where we, we want you to be

committed Christians and that that's code for we want you on

all the teams doing all the work.

That's not what I'm saying. And at the same time, I am

saying, hey, the house, the family has some needs.

Trash needs to be taken out like that.

That has to happen. And me and Adam and Don can't do

everything. And so we're happy to serve and

we do so. And many others serve, by the

way. There's many, there's many

people in this room who are serving and working.

But if you don't know, you can't even help.

So those are a couple of things I have in mind right off the

bat. We want to see greeters get

established. We want to see a praised team

get established, or at least a praised leader get established.

And we want that wiggle room to have some structure, maybe some

relief from moms and dads, maybe a couple people on rotation on

different weeks. Nothing crazy, just enough to

help out. What else does it mean?

It means being in fellowship. Loving and being devoted to the

body means being in fellowship with the body outside of Sunday

worship, being known and knowing others.

It means bringing your financial worship.

It means a lot of things that I could go on and on a list, but

we're out of time. I want to read a quote to you.

It might be fictional. We don't even know for sure.

Ernest Shackleton was an Antarctic explorer and the the

story goes something like this, that he put an ad in a newspaper

before he began his expedition. Men wanted for hazardous

journey, low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.

Safer turn. Doubtful.

Honor and recognition in event of success.

I don't promise you honor and recognition on earth, but I do

just echo what the Lord says, that you're storing up treasures

in heaven as you follow Jesus. So to be devoted to Jesus means

that you should devote to a local body somewhere.

I could. I could preach this sermon in

any pulpit. I could take the values of any

church and tell that whole congregation, if you're here, be

all in. That would apply to any local

body anyway. Hey, all in for me looks like

this. Whatever all in looks like, it

ought to look like something. So I don't want to give you the

full script of what all in looks like, but I do want to ask you

to ask yourself what is all in look like for you.

And you go, man, I'm I'm doing it.

So if you are, then, then, then, then don't go fishing for

something that's not there. But if you go, man, that sits

with me. That one hits me.

That one stepped on my toes a little bit this morning, pastor.

Well, I did that and loved them. I did that because I only want

good for you. I only want blessing for you.

It's a hazardous journey. It's low wages, it's good or

cold. It's long hours.

So complete darkness. Safe return is doubtful.

None of us are going to make it out of this thing alive.

And yet the king is going to get riches.

The king is going to get glory. The king is going to get honor

for it. And of course, what's his is

ours. We share his inheritance.

God, I thank you so much for your church.

I thank you for what you've birthed and I thank you for what

you're growing up. This church that's, you know,

just over three years old in May.

We continue to grow. You continue to mature us.

You continue to equip us. I pray for every every person

under the sound of my voice that you would bring them a clarity,

that you would bring them a peace, that you would bring them

a conviction, a revelation that leads to a conviction and a

conviction that leads to a discipline.

Just make it practical for each one.

Help them each to walk out and know that their pastor doesn't

condemn them and then my heart is full of love towards each of

them and help them to know God what you want next for them.

What is the next step? Glorify your name among us.

Help us to pour out our lives as a living sacrifice.

We love you Lord, We thank you for loving us in Jesus name and

now the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face Shinedown upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you great

peace in Jesus name. Amen.

Don and Karen are going to be available for prayer.

You are dismissed.