The Christians Hour

Ben Cachiaras: You're listening to The Christian's Hour. Welcome to our weekly program filled with teaching straight from God's word. The Christian's Hour is a ministry of Gospel Broadcasting Mission where we use radio and media to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ all around the world. Well, can I ask you? Have you ever taken a good and honest look in the mirror and asked yourself, how am I doing? Not just with how you look, but with who you are becoming and how you are living. You know, as followers of Jesus, that's a question we should be asking to ourselves regularly.

Jesus calls us to love God with all that we are, to love our neighbors and to go and make disciples. He calls us to be salt and light in a world that desperately needs him. So, how are we doing? Are we living out our faith beyond the walls of our churches and outside of our comfort zones? Are we making Christ known to the people God has placed around us? You know, it's easy to become comfortable and if we aren't careful, comfort can slowly replace obedience. Well, in today's message, Pastor Tim Harlow of Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, Illinois, he challenges us to take an honest look at our lives and consider whether we are truly living as Jesus called us to live.

Are we keeping the salt in the shaker and the light inside the church or are we allowing God to release us into the world around us? Let's now listen as Tim shares a message that's entitled Released as Salt and Light. Here's Tim to share more.

Tim Harlow: I've often said that I'd love to be the first pastor or missionary or whatever in an alien civilization. You know, if we find life on Mars or or whatever, I I I want to go. I want to be the first one. I want to be boots on the ground because the message of Jesus would be such simple good news to an alien civilization who had never been messed up by meeting a bunch of Christians. And I'm sorry if that's offensive to you. I also am a Christian, believe it or not, but you know what I'm saying, okay?

You read the stories of Jesus, what you find is that the people who are very much unlike Jesus really liked Jesus. And I say that in such a definitive way because it's not really true today, right? Why don't people who are not like Jesus like Jesus's followers? That's the question. They still may like Jesus, but Jesus's followers we're not doing such a good job, okay? I think a lot of churches for a lot of history have been like lifeboats on the Titanic. Uh you you know the Titanic story. 2,200 people, only 700 survived. What you may not know, I mean it's been a while since the you know the big movie was out.

What you what you may not realize is that the the tragedy of that Titanic was not that so many people died, it was just so many people could have been saved. Only there were 20 lifeboats that were lowered and only two of them were filled to capacity. Think about this from a church standpoint. Only two of them were filled to capacity. Several were half full and many just had a handful of passengers in them. And after the ship broke in half and sank, hundreds of people were floating in the water in life jackets. They had on life jackets.

Only one of the 20 lifeboats went back in search of survivors. Lifeboat number 14, God bless them. The rest of them with plenty of room in their boats remained at a distance comforting one another, grateful to be alive all the while. Hundreds of people died within their range of sight and earshot not by drowning but by hypothermia because the saved people didn't want to risk their own comfort or safety to save anyone else. Can I say that again? Cuz again, think about this from a church. It's because the saved people didn't want to risk their own comfort or safety to help anyone else.

Jesus said, I have come to seek and save that which was lost. That's the mission, period. And as his followers, we're supposed to be doing the same thing. There are those that choose a monastic life. They they choose to give everything up and go live in solitude and worship in a cave somewhere or whatever. You you have movements of churches like the Amish and and other people that decide to to get away from society and only only hunker down with their own people and be with them and God and just raise their children and that kind of thing.

But I wonder about those kinds of movements and I wonder about those kinds of people. If God is up in heaven just saying, hey, thanks for trying to get to know me, but if that's all I wanted, I would have just brought you up here. I left you there to actually do something like help my lost children find their way home. So, I don't know, 25 years ago or so, I ran across this poem and it became kind of the creed for my life. And the reason it's really I mean it's just just basically who I am, okay?

It's called I Stand by the Door. If you've been around, you've heard me read it before, but it's from Samuel Shoemaker who was one of the co-founders of AA. And as I as I say that and as I think about that sometimes I think AA has been a better church than the church has. Right? A welcoming place where you come in and go, you know what? I 'm not on a winning streak as Jerry Roll says, right? I 'm here. I'm messed up and everybody else says, yeah, we're here and we're messed up. Let's work together.

Let's help each other. Let's trust in a higher power. So, Samuel Shoemaker, as he was helping start AA wrote this. I stand by the door. I neither go too far in nor stay too far out. The door is the most important door in the world. It is the door through which men walk when they find God. There's no use in my going great going way inside and staying there when so many are still outside and they as much as I crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find is a wall where a door ought to be and they creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched groping hands feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door yet they never find it.

So, I stand by the door. The most tremendous thing in the world is for men to find the door, the door to God. The most important thing any man can do is take a hold of one of those blind groping hands and put it on the latch, the latch that only clicks and opens to a man's own touch. Men die outside the door as starving beggars die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter and they die for want of what is within their grasp. They live on the other side of it because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them helping you find it and open it and walk in and find God. So, I stand by the door. Go in, great saints. Go all the way in, into the cavern of cellars, into the vast spacious attics, into the vast roomy house, this house where God is. Go into the deepest casements of withdrawals, silence, and sainthood. Some must inhabit those inner rooms and know the depths and the heights of God and call out to the rest of us how wonderful he is. But my place seems to be closer to the opening.

So, I stand by the door. I admire the people who go way in but I wish they would not forget how it was before they got in. Then they would be able to help the people who have not yet found the door. You can go in too deeply and stay in too long and forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my older custom place near enough to God to hear him and know he is there, but not so far from men as not to hear them and remember that they are there too outside the door.

Thousands of them, millions of them. But more importantly for me, one of them, two of them, 10 of them whose hands I'm intended to put on the latch. So, I shall stand by the door and wait for those who seek it. I'd rather be a doorkeeper. So, I stand by the door. How does the church release its people to go and change the world? I'm I'm going to give you two very simple things and the first one you're going to go okay duh. But I don't want it pass it over because prayer is the most important thing we can do as a church to pray about how we can reach those people outside the door and help them find it.

The first thing you do is ask God for help. Prayer can warm up a cold heart. Prayer can activate and arouse an an apathetic heart. Prayer can change a stubborn heart. I've seen it done time and time again. Here's what here's what Paul said. Pray for us that God will give us the opportunity to tell people his message. That's all that's all we want to do because here's what happens. As you pray for the opportunity, you know what happens? You start seeing opportunities, right? Pastor Rick Warren used to say prayer makes me aware. You notice things around you.

When I start praying for my wife, I start seeing the needs of my wife. And shockingly, I don't know if this happens to you, sometimes God says, hey dummy, why don't you meet those needs? Is that ever happen to you? When when I pray for my family, then I start to see the needs of my family. When I pray for my friends and my coworkers, I see the needs of my friends and my coworkers and I'm concerned about them. And here's the thing. People can reject your arguments and they can refuse your logic, but they are powerless against the power of prayer.

So, here's the super easy way for us to release you and help you go change the world. All right? I I know you're like, whoa, I didn't sign up for this. No, wait wait. Don't get don't get freaked out. You don't have to memorize Bible verses. You don't have to do anything. One simple thing you can do ask people how can I pray for you? I I'm I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I pray and I I'd like to pray for you. I've never known anyone who took a pass to that. 90% of our country believe in God still.

I mean some of them believe in a pretty weird, you know, kind of a God, whatever. But we've all got our GPS down inside that knows that God is there. I've had atheists say, well, yeah, I don't believe in God, but if you want to pray for me, knock yourself out, right? Because anybody's going to take it. So, ask your friends or neighbors how you can pray for them. Most of them will come up with something because life is hard and we all need help. And as I've been thinking about this, what if your social media feed was just that?

How can I pray for you? And you're supposed to be my friend, right? On Facebook or you know whatever you know, Instagram or wherever you are Can I pray for you? Because the truth of the matter is whatever you post if it's inflammatory, if it's polarizing in some way, you've just alienated a whole bunch of people that probably are still outside the door and you're not helping them get to the door that leads them to God. Most people in the world today react to Christians like like the the the farmer one day was coming out of the field.

He had a mule on his cart and he was coming out of the field and had his dog with him and a cart came by and side swiped him and knocked him into the ditch and then drove on their way. And the farmer's laying there with a cart over him and and and the mule's over hurt in one ditch and the dog's over hurt in another ditch. And pretty soon he hears a car pull up. He's like, oh good, somebody's here. And then he realizes this is sheriff and he's like, oh good, the sheriff's here.

Now everything's going to be okay. Well, the sheriff walks up and the first thing he comes to is the mule. It's got a broken leg. It's really hurting. And he's like, well, I I I don't want that. So, he pulls out his you know his revolver and he shoots the mule puts it out of his misery. The next thing he sees is the dog and the dog's all busted up and not going to be able to make it. So, he shoots the dog. Then he finally walks over to the farmer and he's like, how you doing?

The farmer said, I've never been better in my life. That's how most people react to Christianity and we need to change that. Like stop shooting everything and just be a representation of Jesus. Let me give you a simple analogy that should make it easy for you to understand. It comes from the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. You are the salt of the earth. Process this, okay? If salt loses its saltiness, can it be made salty again? No, it's it's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

Okay? What I'm saying is it does no good for the salt to be in the shaker. It does no good for the salt to be applied to the meat when it's still got the butcher paper on it. It does no good for the salt to be on the egg when it's still in the shell, okay? Jesus basically said the same thing about light. He said, you are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. This is this is my point with with movements of Christians and people that just want to hang out all by themselves and be under a bowl and keep their little light to themselves.

Instead, you put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. As as you look around, there are probably several lights on and if one of them went out, it really wouldn't matter. But if you're in a very dark place and there's only one light, if you're driving down the road and it's dark out and one of your two headlights goes out, you're going to notice it. So, what are we supposed to do? We supposed to be hanging out with the other lights all the time? Are we supposed to go out into the world and brine it?

Go out into the world and shine the light of Jesus. In Jesus's day, how did they know where they were going, man? They had to have a fire, uh a candle. They had to have something in every port so that you knew where you were if you were on the Sea of Galilee. That's why Jesus chose this analogy. And imagine you're listening to this 2,000 years ago before electricity. You're like, okay, I get it. He said, let your light shine and make sure it's on a hill so everybody can see it. Peter said, but you're a chosen He's not writing to a select group of people.

He 's writing to the whole church. He says, you're a chosen people, a royal priesthood, all of you. You're a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Yay. Why? That you may declare that you may shine, that you may salt the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. That you may put the hands of somebody else on the door and help them find their way in to God. Here's the deal with salt and light. It's about balance. Salt doesn't usually draw attention to itself, right? You you you wouldn't go into a restaurant and say, hey, I'd like to talk to the chef.

Hey, this is really really good. Do you use Himalayan sea salt or do you use Morton's? I'm I'm really curious. You're not going to ask that because salt the nature of salt is just supposed to enhance its surroundings. But you're not supposed to actually know it's there. If you know it's there, you've got a problem. Right? Were you ever in junior high and somebody left the cap unscrewed and you dumped it on your mystery meat, right? You know what happens? You can't undo that. You could scrape it off if you want, but it's ruined. So, you can always add salt, but you can't correct oversalt.

So, when Jesus says, go be the salt of the earth he means go out there and carefully sprinkle the love of Jesus to the people around you and try not to get in his way. What does he mean about not being salty enough and being thrown out and trampled by men? Can salt become unsalty? Anybody remember chemistry? Sodium chloride is very stable compound, okay? Salt cannot lose its saltiness, but it can become contaminated. That's what he's talking about. We can get so much other junk mixed in with our salt that it becomes worthless and it might as well be thrown out and and be made into gravel, okay?

So, it's about balance. Salt is effective in small doses, but if it gets contaminated, then it's worthless. So, it's about balance. Listen at I think this sums it up. Paul told Titus, here's what I want in every way that they will make the teaching about God, our Savior offensive? No. Political? Attractive? Our church and our interpretation of Christianity ought to be like a magnet that's attracting people, not a repellent that's turning them away like it is so many times. So, just be an example. Just make Jesus look good. That's what you're supposed to do. We are supposed to be placed into our world, into our society that people would know the appearance of Jesus who died for their freedom.

Here's another way that Here's another way that Peter said it. Live such good lives among the nonbelievers that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good. They may see your good, your salt and your light, your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. Salt makes you thirsty. That's why they serve pretzels and peanuts and bars for free, right? They make you drink more. So, my encouragement to you is stay salty, my friends. Stay salty. Become blameless and pure, Paul said. Children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life and so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Listen, you can paint John 3:16 on your eyelids all day long. They're not going to care. They're watching how you play. All right? There was another large ship in the vicinity of the Titanic that night. Not only did the lifeboat people fail but the Californian was only 12 miles away. And and they could see the emergency flares. They could see that something was going on, but the telegraph officer had retired for the night and the officers and the crew watching from the deck for some reason nobody told anybody else. Nobody did anything about it. And they were only 12 miles away.

They could have saved them. And a Senate subcommittee literally met a a few weeks after the Titanic disaster. And here's what they said. They said, in our opinion such conduct, whether arising from gross indifference or carelessness, is reprehensible. The Californian failed to respond to the dictates of humanity international usage and the requirements of law. Now listen to this. Had assistance been promptly offered, that ship might have had the proud distinction of rescuing the passengers of crew from the Titanic. But because they failed to act the only other ship that was near the Titanic situation was 58 miles away, the Carpathia and it couldn't reach the scene until it was too late and most of those people were already frozen in the water.

And they could only save the people that were already in the lifeboats. It's an indictment of an unfortunate history of Christianity in our world. And we just started caring about our own stuff and we forgot what we're here for. I think for those churches and movements and Christians who just decided to keep Jesus to themselves they're going to get to heaven and God's going to give them a golf clap and say, hey thanks for trying to work out that whole predestination thing and thanks for all that work you did trying to understand the Trinity. I never really meant for you to figure that stuff out down there, but that's cool.

Welcome. And for those churches and movements and Christians who lived release who went out and lived as salt and light I think the Father is going to give you a standing ovation. And he's going to say, thank you for rescuing my lost children and bringing them home. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit be with us now and forever. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us here. Help us go out and represent you well. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.

Well, how about you? Are you becoming salt and light to the people around you? Are you actively living out your faith so that the light of Christ can be seen through your life? Are you willing to be released from the comfort of the shaker and used by God wherever he's placed you? Jesus calls us to live in such a way that others can see our good works and ultimately glorify our Father in heaven. So, let me encourage you today. Don't simply keep the light within the walls of the church. Don't keep the salt in the shaker.

Allow God to use your life to point others towards Jesus and invite them to discover for themselves that the Lord is good. Well, our thanks to Tim for that powerful teaching today. And our thanks as well to Joshua Wright for that music of worship. If you'd like to hear this message again or listen to previous programs, visit our website at the ChristiansHour.org. There you'll find every message from this year and you can stream them or download them for free. You can also find us on Apple Podcast and Google Play. Simply search for The Christian's Hour.

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