Weekly Seed of Faith 3/18/23

Seed of Faith – Salt and Light   By Pastor Dave  

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:13-16

 

Dear Faithful Seed-Sowers,

It is my prayer that you are staying healthy and are walking with Jesus as you season your world.

This a two-part message. This week will talk about being a little salty. Next week, we will see how light can shine.

In the days of Jesus, and for many centuries thereafter, salt was the most common preservative used. There were no refrigerators, no deep freezers in ancient times. Salt was used to keep things from going bad and becoming rotten, particularly meat. When Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot” Jesus was telling His disciples that they were called to be the preserving agent in a decaying world.

This simple principle from Jesus is that you and I are called to be a preserving force in our world–wherever we are called to live, work, play and worship.

Think of it this way — salt that never leaves the box on the shelf will do no good in preserving anything. To be effective, salt has to be rubbed into the meat. Have you gone into the grocery store and looked at all of the “rubs” they have for seasoning your steak? In this same way, we must allow God to use us as flavorful seasoning (rub) for our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, families, and churches. A small amount of love and kindness goes a long way in making our world a better place.

Sodium is an extremely active element found naturally only in combined form; it always links itself to another element. Chlorine, on the other hand, is the poisonous gas that gives bleach its offensive odor. When sodium and chlorine are combined, the result is sodium chloride–common table salt–the substance we use to preserve meat and bring out its flavor.

Love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine. Love without truth is flighty, sometimes blind, willing to combine with various, contrary doctrines. On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous. Spoken without love, truth can turn people away from the gospel. But when truth and love are combined in an individual or in a church then we have what Jesus called “the salt of the earth,” and we are able to preserve and bring out the beauty of our faith.

The other day I went to the grocery store to do some shopping. I went to buy juice for home communions, I came across an insight on flavoring. I was holding a bottle of Blueberry Pomegranate Juice. There was a picture of a ripe pomegranate spilling its exotic, glistening seeds onto mounds of fat, perfect blueberries. I read the ingredient list: “Filtered water, pear juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, grape juice concentrate.” Where was the blueberry? Where was the pomegranate? Finally, I found them, fifth and seventh in a list of nine ingredients.

By law, food ingredients are listed in descending order of weight. Meaning a product contains the greatest proportion of the first ingredient on the list and successively less of those farther down the list. According to the jug in my hand, it contained mostly water—a few other juices, with just enough blueberry and pomegranate for flavor and color.

In the bottom corner of the front label in small, easy-to-miss, were the tell-tale words: “Flavored juice blend with other natural ingredients.” The enticing pictures and clever labeling were decoys used to sell a diluted, blueberry-pomegranate flavored product convincingly disguised to look like something it was not. I put the juice back on the shelf. I chose the juice that was more costly—but it had more of what I was looking for.

So What?

That jug of juice made me think, what if we had an ingredients list printed on us?

Would Jesus be the main ingredient?

If not, how far down the list would He be?

Would our “label” accurately represent our contents?

Or would we falsely project a misleading outward-appearance that cleverly masked our diluted ingredients? Our packaging may be convincing. We may look and sound like the real thing but what if someone came looking for Jesus and found something else?

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertaker.” (Today In The Word, June, 1988, p. 13).

More than a hundred years ago the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reproached a group of Christians. Nietzsche said: “Yuck, you make me sick!” When their spokesman asked why, he answered, “because you redeemed don’t look like you are redeemed. You are as fearful, guilt-ridden, anxious confused, and adrift in an alien environment as I am. I am allowed. I do not believe. I have nothing to hope for. But you people claim you have a Savior. Why don’t you look like you are saved?” (Brennan Manning, Souvenirs of Solitude, 2009, Colorado Springs, NavPress)

Every Sunday my loving wife prays for me before church. Every Sunday she concludes with the same prayer, “Lord, help Dave to be funny. Let him reflect the peace and joy he has in knowing you. Amen.” Knowing Jesus really is the best part of my life. And Jesus wants us to be SALT to our world. He wants us to RUB off on others. It only takes a small amount of salt to flavor whatever we are using it on; the same way with us—it only takes a small amount of the love of Jesus to rub off on those in our tiny sector of the world. That’s our job: to be the SALT of the earth.

I leave you with your “SO WHAT?” homework:

  • Am I the SALT of the Savior? Divide my life into who I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m going—and let’s spread the love of God everywhere we are.
  • What if I had an ingredients list printed on me? Would Jesus be the main ingredient? What do I need to do in order to be more like Christ?

My prayer for you today: Be funny! (Just kidding.) Seriously, let’s take some time to sit with this SEED OF FAITH. Let’s look at our lives. If I’m the SALT of the EARTH, am I RUBBING off on those I live with? work with? worship with? Everywhere I go, am I seasoning others with God’s tremendous love? “Dear Father, I want others to know you and to experience your grace and love and forgiveness. Help me to fill my heart, mind, soul, spirit, body and strength with your living words of life so that I can be a living, walking, talking gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t want Jesus to be the last ingredient on my label; I want Jesus listed first. Help me to be more like Jesus. Amen.” 

See you Sunday! 

God loves you and so do I,

Pastor Dave

www,theseedchristianfellowship.com

Copyright © 2018 THE SEED CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP, All rights reserved. May you be blessed by God’s grace and love. You are receiving this email because you signed up for our weekly devotionals.   Our mailing address is: 6450 Emerald Street Alta Loma, California 91701   Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 End-Times Dangers

Together with the book of Revelation and Jesus’ Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians provide the most detailed New Testament teaching about the events preceding the second coming of Christ. As we begin our study of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, it may be helpful to recap Paul’s teaching so far on this subject.

The apostle first mentioned Christ’s return because of believers who had died. He taught his readers “not [to] grieve as others who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13), since all believers will be rejoined with Christ forever when He returns. His second point taught that Christ will return “like a thief in the night”; the second coming will be unexpected by the world but anticipated by His people (1 Thess. 5: 1-5). Third, Paul began his second letter by encouraging Persecuted believers to trust Christ to “repay will affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you” when He comes again in power (2 Thess. 1:6-7). Christ’s return, Paul insisted, is the ringing of good news for His people and the knelling of doom for the evil world.

Paul’s fourth and final teaching on Christ’s return came in response to false report that the Lord had somehow already come: “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind and alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thess 2:1-2). Word had spread, perhaps by a misinterpretation of Paul’s first letter or a message falsely ascribed to him – Paul indicates that he does not know exactly how this word has spread – saying that Christ had already returned. The apostle therefore wrote to assure his readers that they had not missed out on Christ’s coming and the consummation of their salvation.

From this statement, we learn that the Thessalonians suffered not only from outward persecution but also from false teaching from inside. False doctrine disturbs God’s people, which is why it must be corrected by true biblical teaching in order to bring believers to peace. Paul’s concern on this occasion points out a problem common to end-times teaching, namely, that many are “shaken in mind” and “alarmed.” This effect happens when end-times schemes make Christians fear that they might somehow miss out when Jesus returns, having failed in some way to rightly anticipate the end. One way to avoid being wrongly disturbed about Christ’s return, Paul emphasizes, is to know the Bible’s teaching about the events associated with the second coming.

Since we are told by our Lord Jesus to expect Him soon, we can understand why Christians are anxious to be certain about their salvation when Christ returns. Paul describes Christ’s coming as the time of “our being gathered together to him” (2 Thess. 2:1). What a tragedy it would be to live for Christ and even suffer for His gospel, but somehow to miss out on Christ’s return and not be gathered into His glory! The primary answer to this concern is the inseparable link between faith in Christ now and our future gathering to Him on the day of the Lord. Jesus made it clear that to believe on Him in this life is to gain eternal life in the next (John 6:37-40). Therefore, a true and saving faith in Christ now assures the believer of being gathered to Christ for salvation on the day of His return.

Paul asserts that we can be certain that Christ’s coming has not yet happened by knowing the signs that precede Christ’s return. He explains: “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2:3).

In considering Paul’s teaching on the events preceding Christ’s return, we see that he is drawing on Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. Jesus gave this teaching shortly before His crucifixion. Seeing His disciples gaping at the splendor of the temple buildings, Jesus predicted their destruction. In reply, the disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” (Matt. 24:3). Jesus’ answer followed the order of these questions, first predicting the fall of Jerusalem and then telling about His second coming.

Paul begins the material in 2 Thessalonians 2 with a concern that the believers should not be “quickly shaken in mind or alarmed” (v. 2) by false reports of Christ’s coming. He points out the signs of Christ’s coming that had not yet been fulfilled. In concluding this introduction to Paul’s teaching on the delay of Christ’s return, we can note additional dangers and draw applications on how rightly to await the return of our Lord.

The first danger when it comes to the signs that precede Christ’s coming is the wrong idea that we can be certain when He will return. Jesus warned the Jewish leaders that it is easy to miss the signs of His coming (Matt. 16:3), which shows that the signs might not be obvious in their first appearing. We should observe, by way of analogy, how hard it would have been to make precise sense of the prophecies of Christ’s first coming: He would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), “out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos. 11:1), and “he shall be called a Nazarene” (Matt. 2:23). Similarly, a precise calculation of the events preceding Christ’s second coming is impossible before their fulfillment.

With this in mind, our first attitude in awaiting Christ’s return must be patience. Just as many great Christians (i.e., Augustine, Martin Luther, the Puritans, Jonathan Edwards) were mistaken in the certainty that Christ would come in their time, the same conviction today is potentially mistaken. And yet, on the other extreme, we should never assume that Christ is not coming simply because certain signs seem yet to be fulfilled.

Another danger pertaining to the signs of the end involves our need to be prepared. Thus, in addition to a posture of patience, Christians must maintain readiness for Christ’s coming. It might or might not be possible for us to immediately recognize the final events before Christ’s coming, but we can know how we should always respond to such occurrences. Christians must never betray our Lord despite persecution; we must never follow any false christs who claim to have come; and we must never worship any government or church leader in the place of Jesus our only Lord. The message is that we must always keep our faith vibrant, in communion with Christ through the Holy Spirit, by means of God’s Word and prayer. “Watch therefore,” Jesus said, “for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:13).

Can we know when Christ is coming? No, although we learn much form His prophecies about what to expect both now and at the end: signs of salvation through the spread of the gospel; signs of judgment through wars, famines, and disasters; signs of opposition through persecution and apostasy. Christ’s people should expect all of these without dismay. And while we patiently wait for our Savior to come, He calls us to maintain the readiness of a living faith and to occupy the time He has given us in the work of His kingdom. By being faithful to Jesus, we can be certain to hear from Him, whenever He returns: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 Study Questions:

What do verses 1-2 suggest might be the reason that Paul writes this second letter to the Thessalonians?

Obviously, if by “the day of the Lord” (v. 2) Paul meant “the end of the world,” the Thessalonians wouldn’t have had to be informed by letter that such an event had already occurred. The Old Testament prophets used “the day of the Lord” to refer to catastrophes that befell Jerusalem within continuing history. So, what might Paul be referring to by using this Old Testament phrase?