Can you serve when you’re not celebrated? Can you rejoice even when you’re resented? This weekend Pastor Steve Andres continued our (RE)FORMATION series from the Sermon On the Mount.

Matthew 5:13
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

Discipleship is a choice to BE WITH Jesus, BECOME LIKE Jesus, and DO LIKE Jesus did. What does this passage teach us about our calling as his disciples?

1) You will bring HELP.

Salt was a preservative in the ancient world. It stopped meat from rotting and wounds from festering. Christ-followers are salt. We have a unique capacity to hold back the decay and disorder that sin causes, and to confront hurt without giving up hope. 

2) You will bring HOPE.

Many people give up when change seems impossible. That’s not like us. The Christian sees with a prophetic eye, speaks with a prophetic voice, and operates with a prophetic anticipation of God’s power at work to bring change.

3) You will be HATED.

You WILL be help and hope, but people will still insult you and say false things about you. You will get involved and your reputation will suffer. You will serve, and the ones you are serving will hurt you. Have no self-pity, because if they did this to Jesus they will do this to you.

Instead, Jesus says REJOICE! There will be a day when those who have suffered loss for Jesus will be rewarded, and the ruling against them will be overturned!

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. Those who left their mark on Earth did so precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity