Are You Salty? Adapted from a Jeffery Anselmi sermon http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonID=37762

1. Adapted from a Jeffery Anselmi sermon
http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonID=37762

2. ESV

3. Salt, why did Jesus call these disciples
?
First of all, Jesus tells His disciples the way
that they should be when He started them out
with the beatitudes, then, He tells them of the
relationship of the citizens of the kingdom to
the world from God’s point of view.
.

4. The beatitudes have to do with two things:
a. faith—beginning, growing, maturity and
testing.
b. character of people who would be disciples
of Jesus.
It is important to remember the Beatitudes
because they set up a foundation upon which
the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is built.

5. Why did Jesus use the metaphor of salt when
He told His disciples what they were to be?
Let us look at some interesting things that salt
does.

6. Why would Jesus tell His disciples that they
were the salt of the earth?
If we understand that salt was used as a
preservative, then we can see one thing Jesus
was telling us about the world that we live in.

7. The reason food needs a preservative is the
fact it decays with time, meat will rot and will
have a foul odor if it has no preservative.
Because many germs cannot live in salt, it has
been used to preserve food since the earliest
times.

8. Its use as a food preservative helped large
amounts of food to be stored, sent a long way,
and eaten all through the year.
Jesus is telling us the world around us is in a
state of decay, and it needs something to keep
it from rotting and stinking.
Can you imagine what the world would be like
without Christian influence.

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To the choirmaster. Of David.

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15. Salt cannot make something good, it can only
keep it from going bad.
If something is full of decay, then there are
diseases that accompany the decay.
The world is bent toward sin.
The Christian is to help to be a preservative by
trying to show people they need to follow
Jesus, and to stop as much decay as possible.

16. When God decided to flood the world in the
time of Noah, the world was in full decay, and
God decided to cleanse it.
Jesus is telling the disciples they are to slow
the decay.

17. In the Beatitudes the disciples were taught to
be different.
The reason salt will preserve is because it is
different than that which it is applied to. In
order to act as a preservative, we must be
different than the world.
We cannot preserve it if we are the same as
the world.
We are called to be in the world, not of the
world.

22. We are called to bring folks to be forever
secure with Jesus.
Just like the preserving salt mine, heaven will
not be entered except if Jesus is the owner of
the soul.

23. In this metaphor Jesus is also saying His
disciples are to make the world palatable to
God and to others as well.
The righteous few can make the world better
for the rest of the world.

24. Abraham and God over Sodom.
ESV

28. I don’t mean any disrespect, but do you reckon
Abraham’s pleading with the Lord is the source
of the phrase, “Jew’em down?”

29. Salt can give flavor to that which is bland. We
do not want to present the gospel as a bland
boring message.
The message of salvation is exciting.
If we cannot get excited about God, then we
are missing the boat!
Salt by itself is not very good, but when used in
the correct proportions it can make things taste
very good.

30. We need to make sure when we tell people
they are lost we balance that with God’s love
for them and the fact He desires all to be
saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
We must season our message with love and
the realities of judgment.

31. We do not gargle salt-water to stay healthy!
We do it for relief and to kill germs.
We are to keep sin out of our lives as much as
possible by living faithfully to God.
The world will see what a positive effect living a
faithful life to God will do for them and they will
want to be a part of that also.

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34. When people see your life it can help stop the
trend of living in sin in their lives also when
they decide to follow Christ!
We are to take the message of the gospel to
people to help heal the sickness of sin in their
lives.
Jesus said He came for sinners, not the
righteous.
ESV

35. Salt cannot lose its saltiness, sodium chloride
is a stable compound.
What would happen to the salt is it would
become so contaminated with impurities that it
no longer tasted salty.
Salt seems to disappear when stirred into
water in a glass and diluting it until there is no
trace of salt left.
Is the salt gone? So it seems, but looks can be
deceiving! Take a big drink & prove to yourself
it has lost its saltiness.

36. The word that is translated “ ” is
also translated “Fools” and “Foolish”
G3471 μωραίνω mōrainō mo-rah'ee-no
From G3474; to become insipid; figuratively
to make (passively act) as a simpleton: -
become fool, make foolish, lose savour.
(Strongs)
ESV
ESV

37. Disciples who lose their “saltiness” are making
fools of themselves according to this passage.
Jesus says when a disciple loses their
saltiness, they are good for nothing.
When a thing loses its essential quality and
fails to perform its essential duty, it is fit for
nothing but to be thrown away!

38. In the Eastern countries the salt that had
become so impure that it could not do what it
was supposed to do was used on the roads for
people to trample on.
As Christian’s we lose our saltiness when we
become too much like the world.

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40. Salt lowers the freezing level so what is frozen
is returned to its former soft liquid state.
In the same way when we live for Jesus it can
soften the cold, calloused heart.

41. Why did Jesus say that you are the salt of the
earth?
If we understand the uses of salt, we can
understand that Jesus expects Christians,
those who lay claim to being in the family of
God to:

42. 1. Help keep the world from going into total
decay by being an influence in the world.
2. We are to season the world, make it more
palatable to man and God by being involved in
all areas of life.
3. We are to take the cleansing message of the
gospel to the world.
4. We are to always be salty. This can only
happen when we do not allow ourselves to be
the same as the world, we must be unstained
by the world.