Welcome to the Together on Mission Podcast, where we seek to be with and we seek to be like Jesus as we begin our conversations each day with Jesus through scripture, prayer and meditation. And then we continue that conversation with him throughout the rest of our day. Your host is Travis Twynman, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we will be traveling through the Sermon on the Mount, which is Jesus' most famous teaching.
And we will be talking about what it looks like to be citizens of heaven while living in America. Good morning and welcome to the Together on Mission Podcast. My name is Kelvin. It is a pleasure to be with you all today.
The title of the podcast today is The Salt That Seasons. The Salt The Seasons. And I was reading a news article the other day and it was about holiday traveling and vacationing and whatnot and vacationing abroad. And it was kind of like a comical or humorous article about how Americans can be so distinctive when they're on vacation or when they're on holiday.
And there was a few things that they mentioned, but one of the, one of the, I'll tell you some of the things that identified that you were an American when you're on vacation among the natives. One of the things were that you keep your sunglasses on your head when you're not wearing them. I found that to be so funny. Or when you see someone walking and drinking a coffee, you know that they're American when you're the native person of that country.
Mostly this was mostly statistics taken from European countries. Or the infamous holiday shirt that we've all worn at least one time. So that leads to the question that I have today to ask you all is would people be able to know that you're a Christian when you're out in the world, when you're at work, when you're on holiday, when you're in your sphere of the world that you live in. Would people know that you have your citizenship in heaven?
And it is a difficult and it is a tough question to ask ourselves. But I think it's a good question that we need to ask. It's a good question that I think we need to roll around with. I think that's part of the Christian life.
And when we read some of the letters from Paul the Apostle, he gives us inclination that we should be testing ourselves daily. We should be examining ourselves in the faith that we live in that we walk in. And that may seem like a lot for some, but Jesus didn't teach us anything about taking shortcuts in life. Here's he's teaching Jesus is teaching his new followers what life following this rabbi is all about.
How there to be amongst the other other people in society, the others, how we choose to live on a daily basis is going to determine if God can use us that day. If we've examined ourselves, if we come and we wake up, if we come to our days with the same type of approach with fervor in prayer and we started days with prayer or we started days in devotion and reading our scripture, connecting with God in a true way, on a true level is what he desires. And I think that's what he wants us to be every single day ready, ready for the world as they say. I mean, he's trying to teach as a rabbi to his students how they are to live, how they are to be amongst others in society.
And how we choose to live on a daily basis is going to determine how much God can really use us. He's trying to look down the little cryptic to think of it like this, but think of a star player on a soccer team. He can't contribute to what's happening on the field if he has a broken leg. He may have contributed in the past.
He may desire to contribute. He may be able to even give words of insight, but he can't actually contribute to what's going on in the field. Now, it's not that God is calling us to something on a minute by minute basis or a daily basis. That could be the case as well, but it's up to us to live and act like abstaining citizens of heaven while living in America so that we can be useful in any time, any place, any situation, any scenario.
If God is ready for us and he needs us to be in a certain moment prepared and we don't wake up that day prepared, we wake up that day, you know, having a distortion of feelings, confused, maybe arguments took place, you didn't get to pray or read the word like you wanted to, you can become unuseful. And I think that's what he's trying to teach us and show us as citizens of heaven, no matter what citizen we are of any country in the world that we can be useful for God in the moment. And in the early portion of the message that we're covering on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking to them in a way that they can understand in ways that they need. Well, you know how we have our modern terms and words that we can deeply relate to, they have theirs.
And Jesus is speaking to them in that way right now. We're in Matthew chapter five still and we're going to be starting from verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
Or how is it useful? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
Whether do people like to land and put it under a bowl instead they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. That's Matthew five from thirteen to sixteen. You know, salt was a great commodity in those days.
It seasoned food. It was also a food preserver. Salt was extremely necessary. It was valued if salt loses its saltiness.
It's useless. It's just little rocks of dead sodium bicarbonate. And also those two elements separated on their own would be extremely dangerous if not deadly to us. Or to satisfy us.
But salt that has its saltiness. It's full of sodium and bicarbonate combined together which creates a preservative. It can preserve things. It can improve things.
Think of what Jesus is trying to teach them right now. Maybe we have to use the term of like a Habanero pepper or cayenne or paprika or something to that nature so he can understand in our generation, in our world what he's trying to say. We need to be the salt of the earth. We need to be that preservation for the world.
We need to be that thing that helps improve the flavor of life. That's what the salt is. That's who we are to be. And just as the light as well that we receive from the Holy Spirit isn't a light that can be hidden or extinguished.
It can't be hidden. It must be shared. Do you know that if you're in a completely dark room, completely dark environment, no matter what amount of light that you bring into that dark environment, the night, the darkness is now extinguished. It has the light has to spread.
Darkness cannot overtake light if light is present. They're not experienced a few power out. I've experienced a few power outages over the years as I'm sure you have. And never did I ever think to place the one candle in the room that I needed or that we needed for light in the cupboard or in a drawer while it was still lit or maybe in the refrigerator because we all know there's a light in the refrigerator.
That was the last thing that we saw it is putting the light somewhere where we can't experience it, where it can't be exposed. We desire the light. We need the light, especially in those moments. And of course, that's silly thinking, but the world can sometimes create an unhealthy fear within us to prevent us from going out and doing that part that Jesus calls us to do.
See he needs us to be citizens of heaven, to be citizens of the light, to be citizens seasoned with salt, to walk in step with our calling alongside the Holy Spirit who's guiding us in the light to be the salt of the earth. He wants us to be and he actually feels and treats us as the most valued commodity, the most necessary thing that is valued for life, valued for existence, valued to preserve life. And what are the most valued commodities of the earth in almost every case we have water, we have salt, we have light or fire and not only a salt but a salt that's full of flavor and desired and not only a light but a light that can't be distinguished or put out who we are, what we've been given, how we've been blessed, God wants us to share that with others. God wants to extend that out into the whole world through us.
But we need to be ready, our temples need to be prepared, we need to be part of the preserved and we also need to be full of flavor and full of salt and full of light for those who are able to hear and receive the Word of God when he puts us in that moment or that situation. See, I think it's incredible when we truly understand that we can be salt of the earth but lose its flavor and I challenge everyone to not only just mentally avoid that but we can actually physically impact that by the things that we do on a daily basis. When we're in difficult times and we don't want, we have a hard time to get ourselves going and to get that one leg in front of the other, that's when prayer, that's when we need to come and bring our heart and our thoughts to Jesus so we can help provide us, help replenish us and help get us through the day. He's not trying to ask us to climb Mount Everest overnight.
He's willing to walk with us step by step friends. Remember that beautiful picture, why I always seen it as a picture was in my home, a picture but that poem footprints in the sand. You know, he wants to take us somewhere, he desires to take us somewhere. We may not be able to take every single step but that moment when we thought that there was force, that moment when the four steps became two steps, we need to understand that he didn't leave us but he's carrying us, guiding us.
So my prayer for all of us today friends is let's walk and be full of season and be full of flavor and be full of light so that others can receive the goodness of God in you today. Take care friends. Be blessed. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Together on Mission podcast.
We hope that you are truly blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions about Inland Vineyard, our ministries are Sunday services, connect with us on our app which you can find in the Apple and Google Play App Stores. We also have a social media page which you can find with the tag Atland Vineyard just to see what's going on with our community. Within our church events, our revival used be as well as our children's ministry.
Or you can just check us out on our website at Inland Vineyard.org.