2020.6.21 Be Salt & Light Part 4 "City Set on Hill" Part A

we can’t tell folk nothing these days!!!

Re-entry july 12th - building out the landing page. Next sunday.

survey

your giving keeps you connected!

Happy Father’s Day - “it’s not single mom’s day”

sermon set up: started 2nd guessing myself - I realized it may not look like a father’s day sermon, but I know that I’m a father.

Intro

Matthew 5:14a is ideal-ic You are 1) Salt 2) Light

how can we argue w Jesus. The only option is to ignore Him. And to ignore Him is to ignore your own personal power.

These past 2 weeks have been about. this is about identity. you have no idea what God’s packed in you!!!!

Ill: Milton Swain - took care of dad - in between services was the glass - one day he stopped paying attention and as he was washing the goblet…the brass goblet. It was been. - Hall’s response “what have you done? you’ve bent the glass!”

Pt.: He didn’t know his own strength. Do I have your attention?

God’s telling us. He’s not giving us a goal. He’s telling us our potential.

When YOU, When I, When WE discovery who we are we’ll end up in the right place.

“You’re city set on the hill.”

“set” - situated in a particular spot.

app: If it looks like this now, can you imagine?!

The only reason you aren’t locked and loaded and trying to get there is because you’ve never had the experience or you’ve gotten used to not living in it perpetually!

Q: What experience?

A: What it’s like to live w other light and salt.

Ex. Jeff and Jane were missionaries. One day they found the church. I was preaching the movie about the dog. I used the illustration of “the pack”. Jeff said “we’re so glad that we’ve found our pack.”

He’s getting us ready for something but we’ve got to be prepared.

I’m in the gym. Looking in mirror. “Could I have been a Power Lifter?”

I have the build. i’ve never trained. but i have the potential.

Passion: To be put in place you’ve got to want it.

Clear Purpose - Salt/Light

Personally Unpack your Potential

Philippians 3:14 NKJV

14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

“press” to pursue (activity) v. — to carry out or participate in an activity.

What am I supposed to be doing?

when was the last time you read the phone book

when your spirit sees what it looks like it responds.

Partner to Unpack

what doctor operates on himself?

Paul and Silas - He assisted Paul there in his evangelistic labours, and was also chosen by him to be his companion on his second missionary tour

M. G. Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893).

Paul and Timothy

Paul and Peter - they had assignment together

Be in for the Press

Dorthy Norwood - “i’m coming up the rough side of the mountain.”

Word of Faith - speak to the mountain and it will move

w/o rough terrain you can’t get traction. who do you know that got up a smooth mountain. Every tried to go up the sliding board?

The Party

it’ll ultimately culminate in a party

there’s nothing like the feeling of meeting a goal. I call it a journey…journeys never end.

The essence of this passage and “city on a hill” is the Body being in place unified and shining. that can’t happen if you’re not in place

Close

Easton’s Bible Dictionary Redemption

REDEMPTION—the purchase back of something that had been lost, by the payment of a ransom. The Greek word so rendered is apolutrosis, a word occurring nine times in Scripture, and always with the idea of a ransom or price paid,

visit to grandparents: coke bottles. if you picked one up you’d noticed “redeemed value 5 cents” Point: His blood was worth far more than 5 cents!

Potential is about

Seeing what you can be

I’ve got a new home, over in zion and it’s mine mine all mine!

But that’s not all.

v 14 “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

a city is what you think…large, dense populated urban area.

Revelation: Before they can taste us, they’ll see us.

He speaks to us a child, but then He speaks to us as His children.

As a child: I’ve got to get my seasoning togheter and I’ve got to get lit

We’ve got to get our seasoning together and we’ve got to get lit

b/c w/o me there is no you in the city and with you there is no me in the city!!!

You have the Potential but we’re facing a Pandemic.

define sin … it’s a pandemic from sin.

Identity is challenged

our spirituality is challeged

God Gambles - God’s betting it all on black!

But it’s not the first time. There’s an older occurrence. Lucifer kicked out - 1/3 chose to follow him - God steps in and says since you won’t give me what I want my glory, i’m got to create a project named Adam - mankind. Not make them obey love them w no strings attached

Hebrews 2:7 NKJV

7 You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands.

There’s another dynamic - if they think there’s something better than My perfect I’ll give this little thing called “human will” they will have the option to take what i’m offering or go and try to find something better. And they don’t… when they decide to change their minds, I’ll go them, cause they could never come me.

Luke 15:15–18 NKJV

15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you,

Luke 15:20 NKJV

20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

and now we’re back to the text “let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and give me what I created them to do…but I need you to light the way!

And now He’s doing it again and He’s waiting for us to.

Ill: We’re packing the car for fam to hit the road Jordan chimed in from the sideline if she had something to say or had a question about how we were loading the car. If she thought it could be done a better way, but she wasn’t offering any help. Instead she was standing there on her phone.

I’d made provisions for the trip. PA and I set the budget, hotel bill, 3 meals, snacks, alloted gas and she is helping us by chatting w her friends in GroupMe!!!

app: God’s saying I’ve given you the keys to the K, told you whatever you bind on earth I’ll do it in heaven, promised to provide for all of your needs according to what He has which is limitless and we’re sharing silly FB post,

Here’s the greater concern. We need your salt in the city we’re all supposed to be in!!!!!

Where God wants

It’s in a predetermined place

What I’ve been describing is ideallic this isn’t what

You don’t have to look far to know that I’m right. The most asked question is “where’s the church? what is the church doing about the race issue? Transacting business w a lady. She reached out “my 18 daughter asked me to ask you “why aren’t pastors saying more?”

There wasn’t enough spiritual awareness to keep the protest from turning violent.

Conclusion: It was only supposed to take 3 words (Greek) for the Theory to be presented. The remainder of the

He has to explain what they could observe for themselves…pure salt and processed salt

the possibility AND reality that salt can lose it’s flavor

ask a rhetorcial question “how is the meat I’m putting you going to have my reciepe of flavor. BTW, His flavoring is your life.

stimulating the common sense nerve “nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel”

The City

There is a difference in Theory vs. Reality!

The City

What do you think of when you think of “the city?”

when we moved to Gwinnett, we’d find ourselves going in the city to eat. There weren’t as many or as varied restaurants in Gwinnett.

One of our favorite places to go is New York. Great food, culture, a “sound”, traffic, historic places to see.

The Power of Light

A modern scientific discovery is of thrilling interest. The so-called death ray with which the French army experimented consists of a light of tremendous candle-power, a beam of which striking the eye causes a temporary paralysis. Troops advancing would be mowed into unconsciousness, later to recover in captivity. What an illustration of the power of light! "Let there be light: and there was light." M. de Christmas, inventor of this ray, believes that cities can be protected by a curtain of light which airmen could not face. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." What a symbol, this curtain of light, of the protecting care of God!

You can’t eat if you can’t see how to cook!

You can’t shine until you first get lit. When you get lit, you’re house to be able to see the difference. Then you need an external force to put you up on a lampstand. Then you need a moving company to move into “a city that is set on a hill that can’t be hidden.”

Transition:

You have the Potential but we’re facing a Pandemic.

define sin … it’s a pandemic from sin.

Identity is challenged

our spirituality is challeged

we look w/i ourselves to set a moral compass

b/c culture we’ve redefined based on culture what God says family is or isn’t, where and who we’re to be responsible for and to, what feels best to our flesh

THE ONLY WAY WE’LL GET TO THE CITY IS IF WE LEAVE THE ONE WE’VE BEEN TRAPPED IN!!!

be transformed

When you change the way you think, you can have what you didn’t know to think you could have.

-Abraham fath

Potential

Part 2

Statue of Liberty

Even when the light in the city goes out, when you’re plugged into a different power grid and set in a place, you can provide light for the city, direction, etc

Option 2: Statue of Liberty

v 14 “You are the light of the world.”

when you don’t know your potential, you’re liable to break something.

ill: drug dealers don’t know their potential. they choose an illegal and danger good to set up a network to move product. That’s potential used for the wrong thing.

What happens in the city

Life