"Influence" Matthew 5:13 - Associate Pastor Matt Passmore - Oct. 22, 2023

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Okay, if you have your Bibles, if you open them, if you open them with me, we're gonna dive right into Genesis 12.

We're gonna kind of bounce around a little bit as we do it today, but we're gonna start off in a story of uh Abraham and Lot.

And actually, when I read it, it's gonna say Abram.

And if I mess up and call him Abram, Abraham, it's the same man.

You know what I'm saying?

His name finally changes.

But um grateful to be here today, grateful to uh get to share the word.

Um uh many people have been giving me a hard time about my coat and all that.

Well, I'm here, we're ready to preach, and we're gonna get after God's word today.

Thank you for being here.

Will you pray with me?

And then we're gonna dive in and get started.

Pray with me, please.

Dear God, we just come before you now, just so thankful for a church where we can worship, we can sing, we can uh proclaim you.

Uh a church that we can get into small groups and get our Bibles open and read it together.

And Lord, today, as we dive into your word, dive into the challenge of a calling you have on our lives, Lord.

Lord, please help my words, not distract from your words.

As we leave here, Lord, we want to be challenged.

We want to be loved, we want to be just regrouped by the words that you give us and the importance of the Bible and just what you gave us.

And Lord, help us leave here challenged by that more than anything.

Thank you for all that you do.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

So if you will, we're gonna we're gonna get to, I'm gonna give you a little back history or back information, but we're gonna be in Genesis.

If you'll go ahead and flip there, Genesis 13.

Genesis 13.

Now remember back to God met and dealt and called Abraham.

He said, Abraham, I want you to pack up your stuff.

I'm going to send you to a place away from here.

And I am going to go with you.

I'm going to take you to where I want you.

So Abraham's doing that, but also the Lord not only told him I'm going to, he also gave him a promise.

He said, Abraham, I am going to make you into a great nation.

So to start off Abraham's life, here's the promise.

Here's the vision that was cast.

I need you to pack up and go.

So Abraham does.

We know the story.

He takes off, he goes.

And in this journey, he's learning different things.

And it takes us to a point that the Lord is really blessing him.

And he's taking along with him his nephew Lot, and the Lord's blessing Lot.

So it's getting to the point of there's actually two families traveling together.

The Lord is blessing, and it's getting so big that they're having a problem.

There's so many animals they have to feed.

They're having a hard time staying together because of all the animals that they need to feed, they need to find water for.

So that takes us to the point.

Here's where we're at right now.

Read with me.

We're going to be in Genesis 13, starting in verse 8.

So Abraham said to Lot, please, let's not have quarreling between you and me, or between you and your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives.

Isn't the whole land before you separate from me?

If you go left, I'll go right.

If you go right, I'll go left.

Lot looked out and saw that the entire plain of the Jordan, as far as Zoro, was well watered everywhere, like the Lord's garden and the land of Egypt.

This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

So Lot chose the entire plain of the Jordan for himself.

Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other.

Abram lived in the land of Caden, but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and set up his tents near Sodom.

And verse 13.

Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning and mercifully against the Lord.

Before we get going, I think we can flip over to the New Testament and listen to this as I read it.

This is in 1 John.

John is writing a warning.

Listen to this warning that John writes in 1 John 2.15.

It says this 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 everything in the world.

Now listen, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of one's possession is not from the Father, but from the world.

Is this not a picture right now of Lot?

Lot gets up, he gets to make a choice.

We don't see anywhere in Scripture where Lot says, Hey Lord, which way should I go?

What does he do?

The lust of his lies, the lust of the flesh looks out and sees what?

Woo! Look how easy it will be to live over there.

Look how nice watered is, how green it is.

Forget the cities over there.

And we already know what it says about the cities right here in the scripture.

That the city is what?

Wicked.

That didn't phase it.

How easy will it be to live amongst the cities in that nice green watered area?

We see right there the warning John is saying, be careful about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the lies, and the pride of one's possession.

It also, it even says it, it reminds it was a reminder of the Lord's garden.

When else was there something that was so delightful, so distracting that you just had to have a piece of it.

Remember in the garden, Adam and Eve, the Bible says the fruit looked good.

So a warning here be careful.

Be careful.

So as we continue, we see Abraham continues through.

Okay, they're going through different things.

Then it comes to a time, and I encourage you to go read through Genesis.

This is a great story.

I'm skipping for time, but Genesis 18, it talks about God meets with Abraham again.

And he says, Abraham, I'm about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

Remember, they're having this conversation?

And Abraham pleads with him, what if there's 50 righteous?

Remember that?

What about 45?

What about it gets all the way down to what?

If you can find 10 righteous people, will you please not destroy Sodom?

God goes, if I can find 10.

But we see that there was not 10 righteous people.

So the Lord's gonna destroy it.

So the Lord sends two angels to Sodom to get Lot out.

So if you flip over just a little bit more, I want to read again.

Look in Genesis 19.

Genesis 19, we're gonna start reading in verse 1.

The two angels entered Sodom in the evening as Lot was setting in Sodom's gateway.

When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them.

He bowed with his face to the ground and said, My lords, turn aside to your servant's house, wash your feet and spend the night.

Then you can get up early and go on your way.

No, they said, We would rather spend the night in the square.

But he urged them strongly that they would follow him, and they went to his house.

He prepared a feast and baked unleavened bread for them, and they ate.

Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population surrounded the house.

They called out to Lot and said, Where are the men who come to you, come to you tonight?

Send them out.

What do we say about when we go back?

What'd they say about the city, how wicked it was?

Send them out so that we can have sex with them.

Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him.

He said, Don't do this evil thing, my brothers.

Look, I've got two daughters who haven't, I cannot imagine who have not been intimate with a man.

I will bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them.

However, do not do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.

Get out of the way, they said, adding, This one came here as an alien, but now he's acting like a judge.

Now we'll do more harm to you than to them.

They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door.

But the angels reached out, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

They struck the men down who were at the entrance of the house, both young and old, with blindness, so that they weren't able to find the entrance.

Wow.

Not too long ago, Lot's choosing a place to live, and now we got to this point.

Listen to this.

Peter, so many times we forget, Peter in 2 Peter 2 talks about Lot.

He says Lot is a righteous man.

Peter said Lot was a righteous man.

I got a question here.

If we're describing Lot as a righteous man, how far has he fallen to the compromise that he is right now?

We're to the point of he's setting at the gate.

Can you imagine the picture of him sitting at the gate like, this is my city?

I'm confident in this city.

This is my city.

I'm sitting at the gate.

And if we can if we keep going down there, he when the angels said they were not sitting at their house and they were going to go stay in the city square, it bugged him and it concerned him.

He begged them to do what?

He knew there was a problem.

No, come stay with me.

And then it's to the point.

When he's talking to the people of Sodom, he says this, please don't do this.

My brothers.

He'd come to the point that what?

These were more than just friends, these were like his brothers.

Then he even came to the point in the middle of all this to even do what?

Offer his daughters.

And then I think it's kind of funny that they even said this.

He came as an alien and now he wants to be our judge?

Had Lot ever stood up for anything?

I mean, this is like a new concept to them from Lot.

And then if you continue to read that, he goes, the angel says, okay, the time's going.

You need to get your family and get out of here.

If there's anyone you want to get, like sons-in-laws, Lot's daughters were about to get married or they were promised.

So he goes to his future son-in-laws, and the Bible says when he asked them to go, they thought he was joking.

He thought it was funny.

Had Lot not had these conversations, just completely new that everyone around Lot had no idea what was going on.

And then we know the story is as they were leaving, what did the angel tell them not to do?

Look back.

And we see in the story, someone looked back.

Who was that?

Lot's wife.

And when she looked back, she instantly became a pillar of salt.

I want to stop today and look at the word influence.

Look at the word influence.

When we hear the word influence, it kind of just, we, it's a great word.

It's probably not a biblical word.

However, it is a huge biblical concept.

Because as Christians, we're supposed to what?

Be careful who influences us and who we influence others.

But here's the definition of influence.

Listen to the definition of influence.

The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something.

Listen to it again.

Influence.

The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something.

So really the bottom line is this influence is what causes change, whether for the good or for the bad.

So we look at that, what look at the word influence, and then all of a sudden I want to throw out a warning.

Warning, warning.

How can a righteous man be influenced by the world?

I had a friend that my dad, well, he was in, he was uh not really a friend, he's a lot older than me.

When I was growing up, my dad was in ministry, so there was always people coming to the house, and there was a group of guys that my dad discipled as I was in kindergarten.

Went on a ski trip.

I skied with these guys.

These were my these were guys I looked up to.

These guys cried and they wept and they they they cared for each other and they they witnessed to their, and I saw this as a kindergarten.

What a testimony that I saw as I saw this.

This guy goes into the ministry and he was doing great things.

His church was growing, and he had an affair with his secretary.

How could that guy that I saw growing up get to that point?

Here's a warning.

How can a righteous man be influenced by the world?

I think it starts.

Here we go.

Number one, compromise is a process.

Compromise is a, I don't think Lot came to Sodom just like, okay, I'm one of you.

I do think when Lot first got there, there were things that happened that probably made the back of his hair stand up.

Like, whoo, I shouldn't be seeing that.

Ooh, I shouldn't be hearing that.

How is it sometimes when I'm watching TV, they can cuss like crazy and it doesn't bother me, but then other times I flinch.

Compromise is a process.

Number two, the more invested we are, the harder it is to break away.

Lot and his family did not want to leave.

We saw that by the wife.

Number three, your attention always rests on your heart's affection.

Where was Lot's heart affection?

He was wrapped up into Sodom.

And when your heart affection is there, what's it do?

Your attentions always rest there.

You know, think about it just for a second.

Where's your heart affection?

I can tell you what, I can talk to you in five minutes and I can tell you where your heart affection is.

And I'm not really smart.

You know what I'm saying?

That's not me sitting up here going, ooh, look, I can read your mind.

It's not reading mine.

I can tell you your heart affection by the things you say pretty quick.

You can do the same thing with me.

And then number four, silence robs you of your power to influence.

Silence robs you as your power to influence.

I heard a story one time, and it fits so perfect here.

There was this, there was this uh this guy, he loves sports, he wasn't very good at sports, and he was going to a big university, he knew he couldn't play there, but he thought, you know what, if I could be on the training team, the trainer that helped on the trainer, I could be a part of it.

So he goes and he's doing his training, had to take a test to do all this different thing.

But it came down to the last thing they had to do.

They had to just part of the haze, part of the deal, they had to, he had to, they went down the line, whoever could drink the beer the fastest was had more points, and he's gonna do it.

So the guy's sitting there, the first guy goes, and then this guy's sitting here waiting for his turn.

He's thinking, I can't do this.

I'm a Christian, and I've told the Lord, I am not going to give in.

I don't want to be a part of something if it changes who you've called me to be, God.

So he's struggling.

First person goes, second person, and it finally gets his turn.

He grabs the beer and he goes to start to drink it and he puts it down.

He says, I can't do that.

He said, I'm a Christian, and I've committed that I am not going to compromise who the Lord's made me to be just to be a part of something.

I can't do it.

The person next to him, guess what they do?

I'm the same way.

Did you know what?

The rest of the people that went through the line did not drink.

His influence.

He did not even know he was influencing anyone, but what did he do?

He just stood up, he did what was right, and then all of a sudden it's decided.

Silence robs you of your power.

He could have easily went against what God's called him to do, the Lord would have forgave him.

You see my picture here?

But he stood up and he had influence.

Then we also look at Abraham.

Can you imagine Abraham?

Abraham had every right at the beginning of the story to walk up with Lot and say, hey, Lot, I'm the oldest.

I want to go there and you go there.

Right?

But we see here in Abraham, Abraham trusted and realized that living with God was better than making that choice.

Think about this statement right here.

I want you to fill in the blank.

Abraham trusted and realized, so let's go to us.

We trust and we are, are we to the point where we can trust and realize that living with God is better than whatever it is.

The struggle that you're having.

So today I really want to stop and I want to continue to look at the the word influence.

And I want to kind of make a tweak to it.

I've got you in the process of thinking influence and being careful about the outside influence in you, but I want to look at what the Bible also explains about influence.

If you will, and we're jumping around if you want to write this down.

Listen to what, well, we see this.

In John 17, in John 17, Jesus is praying.

And he starts off praying for himself.

Then he leads into, he's praying for the disciples.

He's praying for the followers of Christ.

Okay?

And in John 17, 15, Jesus prays this.

Now, this is the disciples, the followers of Christ that he's praying for right here.

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

Christians are not.

I'm sorry, Christians are called to be in the world, but what?

Not of the world.

Jesus didn't say, Lord, take them out to protect them.

He said, keep them there because what?

They're the ones sharing the gospel, but Lord, please, as they do that, do what?

Protect them.

I grew up all the time that my mom was always telling me as I walked out the door, be careful who's influencing you.

Be careful of those bad influences.

And so many times we think about the influence people have on us, and we forget sometimes as Christians that we have an influence.

Matthew 5.13, a verse that you're gonna know.

Matthew 5.13, a verse that you're gonna know.

Listen to what it says.

You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty?

It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

See, so many times we're so busy trying to protect us that the Lord's saying, hey, hey, you are an influence on the world.

You are the salt of the earth.

And if you just think about that statement for a second.

You are the salt of the earth.

I think there's three things we can pull out of it.

First off, Christians are to be the salt.

You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is salt?

What do you mean by salt?

Well, back in the Bible times, what was salt used for?

They didn't have refrigeration, so it was to preserve the food.

They had put extra salt on it and it preserved it so that they could eat it later.

But it was also for, and I think we're looking a little bit here, a seasoning.

Have you ever gone to McDonald's and said, give me French fries with no salt?

Okay, I know you guys don't experience this, but we do not feed you here without salt because everyone wants what?

If you notice, every time we feed, there is salt.

Because why?

It's the flavor, it's the seasoning.

Christians are called to season or enhance our surroundings by being obedient and faithful in Christ.

In other words, our influence is vital.

Back at my other church, at the beginning of the year, we would always go, visitation, we'd always go try to visit everyone in our church.

And so we divvy it up, and we would our main goal was just to go in and pray at the homes.

So this particular day, I had with Lisa and I, we had seven, we had seven people.

So we were going around, we go up to this door, and I knock on the door, and this lady opens the door, and it's probably the ugliest, harshest answer of the door that I've ever had.

I open the, she opens the door and she goes, Do you know what time it is?

I hadn't even said anything yet.

Do you know what time it is?

And I'm thinking, am I supposed to answer that?

Or is that just so I'm sitting there and I said, Well, my name is Matt Passmore from First Baptist East.

She goes, Do you know what time it is?

I just put my kid to bed.

Do you know how hard it is for my kid to go to sleep?

And when you rang the doorbell that woke him up, and by the way, she starts just listening all kinds of stuff.

So I did what every pastor would do and says, You know what, I am so sorry to bug you.

And I started walking back to the car.

You know, and I'm thinking, I'm sorry that I woke your kid up.

I mean, I there's not I I and I turn around as I'm turning the corner, and Lisa's at the door with the lady, and she says, How can we help you?

The lady just breaks.

She starts crying.

And I'm sitting back from a distance as Lisa's just asking simple questions.

Come to find out, this was the second tour to Iraq that her husband was in back to back.

She showed up for a Christmas Eve service at our church, not knowing we didn't have a Christmas Eve service.

She wanted somewhere to go at Christmas, and there was nobody.

She had just moved there.

When we finally went into her house, she had boxes everywhere.

Her kids weren't even in school.

She was broken.

And just Lisa just taking a few seconds to just say, What can I do to help?

Sprinkled a little salt in the situation, and come to find out, they joined our church.

We spent holidays together.

We went and visited them.

And it's the joke of the way she treated me the first time I came to the door, and I had to apologize that I was not very good.

But you see what I mean?

Just how how just the influence of just a little time.

Just like it says, Christians are to be salt.

Think about your friends.

Think about your partners at work or the people you work with.

Think about your family.

Pastor's been doing a series on the family.

What influence do you have?

Oh, I'm sorry, sorry.

When was the last time you realized you had influence in that situation?

So then that takes us to number two.

Seasoning our surroundings is not about just being morally good.

We might be tempted to focus on good works.

Yeah, and these are good things.

I mean, this is what we should do, but so many times we forget the idea of when it comes to being assault.

It's not about just us being good.

It's not about just us being moral.

Because if we're not careful, our world takes being moral as being a Christian.

As being a follower of Christ.

I had a guy come in my office the other day, and we're talking about quiet time, and he goes, you know what I do in the mornings?

I wake up, I look in the mirror, and I say, it's gonna be a good day.

It's gonna be a good day.

So we're gonna force it into being a good day.

What's the difference?

Looking in the mirror and saying, Lord, I need your help today.

Lord, I'm walking out in this world and I want to be the salt.

I want to be an influence.

Lord, can you help me make it a good day?

See how many times as Christians, it's like, I'm gonna be good because I choose to be good.

And we know where that gets us.

The next day we're having to say it again, Lord, today, yesterday I messed up.

Can you make it a good day today?

Or I'm gonna make it a good day today.

So number two, seizing our surrounding is not about being morally good.

Number three, seizing our surrounding is only possible when the Holy Spirit is doing the work through you.

In Philippians 3, we see this when our relationship with the Lord is our most treasured possession, the ultimate prize is deeper, fuller, better knowledge of Him.

When our ultimate prize is knowing more about Christ, it changes everything.

I went to a conference one time and the guy's preaching, and he goes, Your goal is not to be a better preacher.

And then he says, Your goal is not to be a better father.

I'm thinking, where is this guy going?

He said, Your goal is to be a better follower of Christ because then it changes everything else.

It's not about just salt and the earth, it's about letting the Lord live in us and then it becomes what?

Just who we are and what we're doing.

Who we're following.

About a year ago, I go to the hospital, and I'm visiting Kenna Blancett.

Ralph is laying in the bed, not doing very well, and Ken is there, and I just probably one of the worst things that I have to do in ministry at times is this.

I happen to be there, and the doctor comes in while Ken is sitting there and we're talking, and the doctor basically says, There's nothing else we can do.

We need you to almost just sign away to put Ralph in hospice.

There's nothing else we can do.

And I'll never forget Kenna.

She looks at the doctor, and the doctor was just so like an easy decision, like you're gonna make at Walmart.

That's how it just came across.

And Kenna looks at the doctor and looks at the doctor and says, Have you ever loved someone for 60 years?

This is a lot harder than you're just making it sound to be.

And Kenna just, I could see in her voice, she wasn't angry, but just the love she had for her husband and the words that she that she had just heard, and the struggle that just instantly it took me back right then.

We were neighbors to them, and how much Ralph would come help me with my leaves, and he'd help me mow my yard, he helped me do different things.

But everything I saw was how much he loved his wife, how much he cared for his wife.

And that particular day, I was just struggling, just in the in hearing that, I'm trying to comfort Kenna.

So we're sitting around, talked a little bit.

When I say, you know what, it's time for me to go.

So I said, Can we circle around Ralph?

And I'm gonna pray for you guys.

So I start praying.

And in the middle of my prayer, I can't even pray anymore.

I start crying.

I'm I'm thinking about the love, I'm thinking about the news she just had, and I'm so broken that I cannot even speak.

I am bawling right there.

My eyes are closed, I can't even say anything.

I'm on this side of the bed, and Kenna is on the other side of the bed.

Ralph is in the middle of us, and while I'm praying at a spot where I cannot say another word, Kenna comes around the bed, puts her hands on me.

Now, do you remember the word she just got?

She puts her hands on me and she said, Matt, it's gonna be okay.

She didn't just stop there.

According to God's word, when Ralph dies, he's going to heaven.

Once again, Kenna got the worst news she could possibly have.

She had every reason to be mad.

You name it.

She comes around, comforts me, and I'm just there to comfort her.

Seizing our surrounding is only possible when the Holy Spirit is doing the work through you.

That day, when I walked out of the hospital, I was walking in my car.

The Lord used Kenna.

That day, the Holy Spirit was in Kenna.

The way she cared for me, the way she spoke to me.

And it influenced me in a great way.

We see in Colossians, Paul's writing, I want to get, I do want you to look this verse up.

Look up, if you will, look up Colossians 4, verse 2.

Colossians 4:2

Colossians 4, verse 2.

Colossians 4:2

We see in Colossians here, Paul's writing to the church in Colossians, and he points out throughout the whole book, he's pointing out some mistakes they're making, but he also tells them that in everything they do, they need to do it in Christ.

So we've talked a little bit about influence.

We've talked about being the salt.

And so many times at church we can say, hey, we need to do this, this, and this, and we forget how to tell you how to do it sometimes.

You know what I mean?

So I think this verse in Colossians explains what it takes to be the salt of the earth.

Read with me in Colossians 4, starting in verse 2.

Devote yourself to prayer.

Wow, what a sentence just right there.

How many of us are truly devoted to prayer?

When it's who we are, what we're doing, how we make it through the day.

Devote yourself to prayer.

Stay alert in it with Thanksgiving.

I think Thanksgiving is a huge piece.

I think it's important to put there because when we pray a prayer at Thanksgiving, it takes everything off us and it says, What?

Wow! Look how big God is.

Sometimes we can say it's easy to pray.

And boy, we can rattle off some prayers, but when we stop and thank God for who he is, what he's got us through, how he's done that, it reminds us that he is our God.

At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains, so that I may make it known as I should.

How many of you pray in the morning, myself included, pray in the morning and say, Lord, I am leaving here.

Help me be able to share your word and do it right.

Help me when someone comes up and has a problem, help me answer and respond to them like you want me to respond.

Act wisely toward others.

Make the most of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious.

Here we go, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Let the way you carry yourselves and let your talk be full of grace and seasoning.

There should be something about Christ in all that you do, in your conversations, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself.

Now, mind you, I'm preparing for this message.

So my mom calls, my birthday's coming up, and she goes, hey, why don't you go to Dillard's, pick some things out, Lisa will buy it, and I want to be able to get you a birthday present.

So the other day, I we went into Dillard's, and now I knew exactly what I wanted to go look for, so I was heading straight there.

So I go in there, and there's a guy working there, and he was awesome, he took good care of us, and he's talking to us and saying, What about this shirt?

What about this shirt?

You know, and he was being really good.

And um I basically I was like, okay, I I know what I want.

I'm telling my wife, and I'm about to leave so they can buy the stuff and all this.

Mind you, we're supposed to be being salt, right?

And I and I've I and I have not I'm preparing for this, right?

God in his humor, the guy asked me, He says, What do you do?

I said, Well, I'm a pastor at First Baptist Church.

He goes, listen to this.

He goes, Me and my mom are looking for a church home.

It was like the Lord going, do I have to do everything for you?

You're preparing for this message.

If you would have gone in there with a little different intention, maybe he would have had to ask you, you could do what?

Ask him.

Today, as we're thinking about closing, I do I do want you to think about that verse that we just read.

Devote yourself to prayer.

Stay alert in it with thanksgiving.

At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the Word to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains, so that I may make it known as I should, act wisely toward others, making the most of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Someone asked me the other day, do you have any ideas how we can grow First Baptist Church?

You know, the first thing you think about is programs and all that.

But do you want me to tell you how we can grow First Baptist Church to be the church that God wants it to be?

We live this out.

When we're walking into Walmart, just regular old conversation, when the Lord is in his rightful place, we will not be able to not talk about him.

And when we care for people in a way that we want to season them with salt, we are going to become like something they're gonna have to have to put on their food.

And when we become that, they're gonna want to what?

Come where we get fed.

And they're gonna want to be a part, not because of our programs, not because we're First Baptist Church, not because you fill in the blank.

It's because the Holy Spirit is living through us and we can't help to do what?

Influence those around us with his word.

Will you bow your heads with me today?

As we think for just a second, I want to challenge you.

When was the last time you woke up in the morning and said, Lord, help me be that influence you call me to be?

As I go through, as I work, as I think, Lord, make me an influence for you.

Help me be short-tongued on the things I shouldn't talk about.

Help me be able to speak in the things that I should speak about.

And maybe someone today is saying this, man, I want to be salt.

But you know what?

We've talked today just about believers.

Maybe someone in here the room is convicted of their sins, and today when we have men at the front, you need to come and give your life to Jesus.

Maybe you need to come and you just need to be prayed for.

But today, as we sing, I want you to be thinking about the calling Christ has on your life to be salt of the earth.

Dear God, thank you for your word.

Thank you for just a picture of it.

Lord, thank you just uh for who you are.

Lord, help us be a church.

That our eyes are fixed on you, and we enter a conversation.

You can't help.

People can't help but to know how much we love you.

Lord, as we uh sit here today and sing, Lord, as we uh we we cry out to you, Lord, hear our prayers.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.