The Church has lost it’s taste!

Matthew 5:13–16 CSB

13 “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. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 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.

Intro:

William Murphy Video

In an article titled “American Ratings of U.S profession is at an all-time low” written from Gallup on 1/13/25 this was cited:

since the early 2000s polls have been taken about all the major professions to gauge the integrity level of each profession. Out of 23 professions “Clergy” sits at the 11 spot.

From the time Gallup started rating all 23 professions in the early 2000s through this year, there has been a 26-point decline in the perceived honesty and ethics of clergy, the most for any group. The proportion saying the clergy have high or very high ethics is down from an average 56% in 2000-2009 to 30% today.

Tell me what success the message of the cross will be spoken through men who are only 2 steps above a used car salesman in terms of trust & integrity?

There at at least 3 seats areas of public life that still have the power to shape human decision

Politics

Education Arena

Internet

Religion

My concerns in these sermons is how these other three seats of authority have seeped into the church and cause the church to adjust, augment and capitulate it’s mandate to the whims, and desires of these other entities.

As a Pastor apart of my role is to make sure the church starting with the local church I Pastor stays on mission and does not get distracted by worries of this world.

I see at least two major effective influences in the church presently:

Progressive Christianity

Christian Nationalism

-Let’s Define Each:

Progressive Christianity: This is a Christianity characterized by willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, with a strong emphasis on social justice, or care for the poor and the oppressed, and environmental stewardship of the Earth. Progressive Christian have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to “love one another” John 15:17 within the teachings of Jesus Christ. This leads to a focus on compassion, promoting justice and mercy, tolerance, and working towards solving the societal problems of poverty, discrimination, and environmental issues

Progressive Get the great commandment backwards-Progressive put love of neighbor over love of God

Christian Nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Scholars like Samuel Huntington have made a similar argument: America is defined by it’s Anglo-Protestant past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance.

Christian Nationalist get the great commission wrong-NationalismPut love of nation over Love of God and Love of Neighbor

Both of these groups Co-op Christianity and Christ for there own secular objectives.

Always: As Christian we have a divine mandate that superseedes any wordly concern. We are to contend for the purity and separateness of the church by not allowing wordly concern to become the primary objectives of the church.

In a Sunday school class, a teacher asked the kids how they could keep the church pure. One child exclaimed, 'We should all wear bubble wrap!' While their idea was humorous, it shows a simple truth: purity requires protection. Just as we need to safeguard ourselves from harm, we must also gently preserve the purity of our beloved church community. Let’s wrap it in love and accountability!

I. The Church is seasoning to the world

Matthew 5:13 CSB

13 “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.

(EXP)(13) “You are the salt of the earth” Jesus tells his disciples “They are the salt of the the earth” using the definite article in front of salt “the” tells us them that “they are the only salt of the earth. No one can do what they do. The only source of “salt”. Jesus in this text is using “Salt” as an analogy to his disciples understand their value to the world. They serve a purpose besides just preaching, teaching and shepherding.

Uses of Salt in the Ancient World

Sirach 39:26 AV 1873

26 The principal things for the whole use of man’s life Are water, fire, iron, and salt, Flour of wheat, honey, milk, And the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing.

The writer tells us that “Salt” is essential for life in the ancient world. Notice he put it in the same list as water, fire and iron.

Preservation: Salt was a preserving agent. The topography of Israel is desert and tropical and the main protein was fish. Salt was use to preserve food. It was the ancient refrigerator. It slowed down the decaying process natural to all living things. Everything is dying but salt slowed that process down.

The disciples presence in the world restrain/slows down the natural decaying that is happening on the Earth among the people.

Taste: Salt flavors the food. Food by itself is bland but Salt adds flavor to the food. Jesus tells his disciples you are the flavor to the world. This is interesting metaphor to describe the disciples role in the world.

What does Jesus mean by saying the disciples are flavor to the world? Paul can you help us with this a bit?

Colossians 4:5–6 CSB

5 Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

(EXP)(5-6) In this text Paul says to “act wisely towards outsiders” and let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person. In this text grouping Paul focus on the outsider(unbeliever) and how we are to engage them. He says “ act wisely” and then he tells us how one can do that “Let your speech be always be gracious, seasoned with salt” Paul employs the metaphor of salt he relates it to how we deal with unbelievers. So for the sake of this metaphor we are going to associate “Salt with Wisdom” Now lets look back at the Jesus use of the metaphor.

(13) “You are salt of the earth” Jesus is saying you are both a preserving agent by slowing down the decaying part of the cosmos and you are wisdom. You bring supernatural wisdom to the world. The wisdom of disciples of Christ leads the world.

Let’s define wisdom?

Skill at living-Wisdom is the practical side of knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge applied.

To be The Salt of the earth is to be the preservers and purveyors of wisdom throughout the globe.

Matthew 5:13 CSB

13 “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.

Jesus ask a question in (13b)

But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty?

The Gospel of Matthew 3. The Distinctiveness of the Disciples (5:11–16)

Unsalty salt is a contradiction in terms (“like water losing its wetness,” Betz); if it is not salty, it is not salt. But salt as used in the ancient world was seldom pure sodium chloride. The “salt” collected around the Dead Sea contained a mixture of other minerals,14 and it is possible to imagine the true salt content being washed out, leaving a useless residue.

Jesus introduces an impossibility. He says once Salt has lost its distinctiveness how can you bring it back? This is an impossibility that Jesus knew his disciples would understand. Once your credibility and distinctiveness has been lost as an individual or church what can bring it back.

Sidenote: Saints this is why church disciplines is so important. This is why we lovingly confront those who are living in sin. If the church becomes putrified from the world and ceases to be distinct you are no longer in a church you are in a mason hall, or fraternity, but it’s not a church. It is simple an organization without any power, draw or persuade the members of the non-members.

Jesus ends this metaphor with a warning: “Its no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” Let me show you what this looks like in real-time what happens when we as individuals and as churches become so ingrained in this world system by compromising with the world system thereby losing our distinctiveness:

Individuals

1 Corinthians 5:1–6 CSB

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among the Gentiles—a man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are arrogant! Shouldn’t you be filled with grief and remove from your congregation the one who did this? 3 Even though I am absent in the body, I am present in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who has been doing such a thing. 4 When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough?

(5) Hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. This is person who lived in patterned unrepented sin. Paul says remove him from the church and let kill before he does anymore damage to the church of God. His individual behavior is impacting the church of God.

(6) Unconfronted sin spreads throughout the whole body. God has charged the leadership of the church to be Surgeon’s when it comes to this.

Surgeon’s a sterile saline solution to clean out the bacteria in wounds so that the bacteria does not infiltrate the body. This is called wound irrigation. God has charge the leadership of the church to practice this same thing. No one person is more important than the cleanliness of the whole body. God knows if you allow patterned sin to be accepted the saltiness of the church will be eventually be compromised.

Our desire to live Holy is should not primarily for our own sanctification. Our job is make God look great!

What other Metaphor’s did Jesus use when referencing our lives as believers

II. The Church is light to the world

Matthew 5:14–16 CSB

14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 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.

(EXP)(14) “You are the light of the world” Jesus uses the definite article again to describe the disciples. He calls them “the light” which it to say the only light. This is role no one else can fulfill. We are the only vessel through which God will shine his light to the world through. It is our responsibility be “The Light”. In the same way a city that sits above sea level that is full of lantern from people living in that city will serve as a guide to people who are looking for guidance.

(15) in the previous statement in (13-14) Jesus uses a question to cause us to think but in this metaphor he uses basic logic. Who would buy a lamp then light the lamp only to put it underneath a basket. If saw someone do that we would wonder about their mental acuity. Jesus is being logical. As disciples why would you dampen, dull or coverup light of a life committed to Christ, that is guiding folks to God.

(16) Jesus then answer his logical conundrum by stating “let your light shine before others” don’t dull, don’t mute or do anything to dim your light and why?

(16) “So that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” Remember you don’t produce light. That comes from the Lord. Our job is to not let our lives obscure, or dim that light. By putting a lampstand on it.

Earlier we went to a scripture in Corinthians where an individual sin was causing disrepute to the body of Christ, but what about when the it is systemic and the church at large is complicit. Turn to Revelations 2:1-5

2. Churches

Revelation 2:1–5 CSB

1 “Write to the angel of the church in Ephesus: Thus says the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands: 2 I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars. 3 I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

(EXP)(5) When sin becomes pervasive and widespread in the church the Lord will “remove the lampstand from it’s place unless you repent” You remember when I said he is the source of the light. This is the removal of the HS from the church leaving them to fin for themselves. There are some churches in the world operating right now “who’s lampstand has been taken!” they don’t know it because they may have some successful ministries or still are able to pay their bills but those things are not the best indicators of a church that is still operating under the power and anointing of the spirit.

Application:

Our presence in the world slow’s down the decaying process of the Earth

Our presence in the world brings supernatural wisdom to carnal people

Our presence in the world is a guiding light in the midst of abject darkness.

In a Sunday school class, a teacher asked the kids how they could keep the church pure. One child exclaimed, 'We should all wear bubble wrap!' While their idea was humorous, it shows a simple truth: purity requires protection. Just as we need to safeguard ourselves from harm, we must also gently preserve the purity of our beloved church community. Let’s wrap it in love and accountability!

Open the doors of the church