The Secret to Real Transformation
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Today we celebrate that Jesus is alive, right? It's a celebration. Not only that, but because he lives, his life is now in us. And what I wanna explore today is that that life should be seen operating through us. I have realized something about myself over the years. I have a deep love of salt Minia chips.
I'm sorry if you thought it was gonna be a bit more profound. I, I love them. They are simply irresistible. It's not a casual appreciation, guys. It is like a solid commitment to the cause. But every now and then, I think Ruth, you need to do a bit better. It's time, it's time to turn over a new page and start a new chapter and like just.
Let 'em go and the first few days, I'm totally fine. Don't even think about them. I can walk straight through the tip aisle at Kohl's. No problem. Then a few days later, I pick 'em up and I look at them. You know, I'm one of those people in that aisle, and then I put them back because I do have a little bit of self-control.
Day four. Anita brings them into the office because that's my love language. I still resist day five, they're in the trolley and they are walking around with me until finally good, Ruth wins and I have to circle all the way back to the chip. To return them a few days after that, I'm sitting on the couch and I am eating salt and ring chips dipped in French onion dip because that is a killer combination.
It starts well. It always starts well, and I wonder sometimes if my inability to resist salt and vinegar chips is actually a picture of something a little bit deeper in every single one of us. Have you ever had a moment where you thought, I'm gonna do better, I'm gonna be more patient, more generous, more loving, more like Jesus.
Then life happens. Someone cuts you off on the M1 or your kids push every button that you have and maybe work gets stressful or you are just tired. And we realize a tension in that moment, something pretty uncomfortable that on my own, I'm not very good at being like Jesus. Not very good at all, and that's where Easter becomes more than just a, an historical event that we celebrate because the cross did not just bring forgiveness.
The resurrection makes transformation possible. A new kind of life available to each and every one of us because of his resurrection power. And so whether you have been a Jesus follower for decades, maybe you are just new to this journey of faith and you were just baptized even just in the last few weeks, or maybe you're in the room or you're watching online this morning and you're just curious and you're just trying to figure out this whole faith thing.
I think that there's something in all of us that makes us want to live a little bit differently. Would you agree? The problem is that left to ourselves. We don't consistently do that. We get in the way. Well, that's my experience anyway, but as followers of Jesus, we can actually slip into this pattern as well.
We believe in Jesus and we try though to live this Christian life mostly through effort, and that usually leads to two places, exhaustion or pretending. And neither of those things are good. 'cause deep down, I think we all realize it's actually a different source that we need to live from, and that's why Easter matters so much.
We celebrate what Jesus has done for us, and we celebrate that his risen life is now available for each and every one of us to live in. But what does that actually look like? What does the resurrection life look like in ordinary people? This morning I wanna take us to a passage. A passage, a passage, um, where Jesus pretty much unpacks just that.
Um, Matthew at this point is writing his letter and he is writing mostly to a Jewish audience. And what he's trying to do is to help them realize that Jesus. Is the Messiah. He's the long promised King. And in Matthew five we read a passage that we now know today as the Sermon on the Mount. And basically he is speaking to everyday people.
Everyday people like you and I, people that we're dealing with a whole bunch of pressures and life. And he's describing for them. The kind of life that God forms in his people, the kind of people, and he calls it the beatitudes. And it would be beautiful to go and read when you have the chance. At the start of this chapter, he talks about people who are humble and who are meek, and who are pure in heart, and who are peacemakers.
And then straight after reading this well saying, we read it, he was saying this beautiful passage. He says these words and this is what I wanna focus on this morning. He says, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world. And so he's saying to them, these are not something that you aspire to be.
This is who you are. This is actually identity before function. In a way, they are the natural outcomes. Of a life that is being formed and shaped by Jesus. And so when we walk like Jesus and we abide in him, this is what the resurrection life starts to look like in the world that we live in. You are the salt of the earth.
He doesn't say try to be salt. One day you will be salt. He says, you are the salt of the earth. Now when we hear this word, we normally think of table salt. That's kind of our reference point, right? Something that you put on your lunch or your, probably some of you've got fancier salt than this, like pink Himalayan.
But this is just Cole's table salt sourced in South Australia. Um, but this is what, this is our reference point. It's something that brings seasoning or flavor to what we enjoy, like on salting chips. That's why I like it so much. Um, but in the ancient world to the people that Jesus was speaking to, salt meant so much more than just this salt was valuable.
It was so valuable. Salt preserved food, um, before refrigeration. Salt was the thing that enabled them to keep their meat or their fish, um, lasting a little bit longer. Stopped it from rotting. It slowed decay years ago. Um, I was on a missions trip in India. I'm trying to look around and see who else was with me.
We were visiting a orphanage that we had sponsor kids at in a little town called Kata in Andra Pradesh. And. When you go on a missions trip, those of you who've been on one would know that when they bring you a meal, you know that that is sacrifice. You know that they have probably gone without right in order to serve you that meal.
And so you, you eat it doesn't matter if you like it or not, like you just eat it. So they serve us this meal. Guys, I think this moment was maybe. F 12 years ago, and it's, I'm still there. I go straight back there. Um, how do I describe the taste of the prawn curry to you? Other than it tasted like the smell of off prawns, like literally you could taste.
The smell of decay, and so I am trying to chew politely and just do everything in my power to swallow those prawns. The issue was not that the curry had no flavor. The issue was that the flavor had gone wrong. Decay had already set in. Salt brings out what is good. Salt enhances and salt preserves. And that is what Jesus is saying to us when he says, you are the salt of the earth.
He is saying, don't be bland. Don't be harsh. Don't be off putting. Be life giving. Be life giving. Which raises a good question for us all here this morning. Are you salt? Do the people in your world feel like the environment is made better because of your presence? Or do you leave people bracing themselves because Jesus is saying, let's be a people who make the environment better.
Now, Jesus continues, and he says, if salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Now again, this would've made so much sense to the people listening in his context because in this region where Jesus was teaching, especially around the Dead Sea, people were really familiar with the deposits of salt.
That were left, but the thing that happened would be that other minerals would mix with those salt deposits and the salt would leach out, and then what you would be left with was this pile of white stuff that looked like salt but didn't behave like it. And so it looked the part, but it had lost its power.
And so that's what Jesus is saying here. He's saying, that's not who my followers are meant to be. My people are meant to be people who change the environment, people who slow decay, people who preserve what is good, and people who bring life. That's Jesus, right? He was someone who completely changed the environment that he was in.
Good. Is being a nice person. Greater is being someone who carries the life of Jesus into every single environment that you enter. Now I'm putting my science hat on for a minute, and I want to show you what that looks like because I think sometimes visuals help. Here's one I prepared earlier. This is a glass of water.
This. Now I understand it doesn't look exactly appealing, which didn't go the way that I wanted it to go. 'cause salt should be appealing, but salt changes the environment. This one is glass. This one I literally just poured a chunk of salt into earlier and I mixed it up. I'm gonna just add a bit more in for good measure.
Because I want this experiment to work. Um, here I have two eggs. They're just raw eggs, straight outta the fridge. They're not boiled. And here's what we're gonna look at, because salt changes the environment, right? When I pop this egg into normal water, what happens? It sinks. But if I put the same egg. Into the same environment.
Only salt has been added. What happens? Little science buff down there? Good job. It floats. When salt enters an environment, things begin to rise.
I just think. That. That's a really cool Easter visual, isn't it? Because what is the resurrection all about? It's about the great rising Jesus rose from the grave and now through his Holy Spirit, he begins to lift the very things that death held down on his life is in you. And if his life is in you, then you don't just exist in environments.
You go into an environment and because of his power at work in you, things begin to rise. Hope begins to rise. Faith begins to rise. Love begins to rise. Peace begins to rise. That is what Jesus does in people, and that is what Jesus does. Through people when they are walking in his resurrection life. So Jesus says if the lo, if the salt loses its saltiness.
In saying that, he's not saying like, how do I say this? How do you not lose your saltiness? You have to stay connected to the source because the way that salt stays salty, spiritually thinking. Put aside the scientific properties now, but spiritually thinking salt stays salty. Not by trying harder to be salt, but by just staying more connected to the risen savior to the one.
To Jesus. Proximity matters, and we see this so clearly in the life of Jesus because when you read through the gospels, you discover that Jesus was irresistible. He was irresistible to people who were searching and people who were hurting, and people who were curious, and people that were hungry for something real.
Those kind of people were drawn to him. And he was tempted and he was misunderstood, and he was rejected, and he was opposed. All of those things happened, but he never lost his saltiness, did he? He stayed anchored in his father, and when we stay close to him, we don't lose our saltiness either, and that's why this message today on Resurrection Sunday is not go and try harder.
It's simply stay closer. Stay closer to him because the more that we stay close to Jesus. The more his life becomes irresistible to others through us. Alright, so that's salt. But he goes on, he gives us another visual 'cause he, we must need it. And he says, um, you are the light of the world. Now, later on as he's sharing, he actually goes on to say that I am the light of the world, but in this moment he's saying my followers.
You guys get to reflect my light. What does light do? It reveals things. It helps guide. It makes it possible to see, and so when we are the light of the world, we get to go out and help others see Jesus. He's calling his people not to hide, but to shine. Not in like a performative look at me kind of way, but in a way that reveals Jesus to the people in your world.
And then he keeps on going. And he says, A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, and neither do people light a lamp. And put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. The light of Jesus gives. Us the ability to go into our homes and our workplaces and our schools and the local shopping center and the sports club that we're involved in and all of these different areas.
And we get to be his light, reflect his light, and in so doing, um, reveal him. It's pretty awesome. I love it. He's saying to each and every one of us live in such a way that people might catch a glimpse of me. That's powerful. When his life is present, darkness does not get the final word. And that's exactly what Easter morning declares, isn't it?
That darkness does not get the final word. Now, Paul makes this super practical. I'm saying to you, go be salt. Go be light. Cool. What does that look like? Well, thankfully Paul tells us, Colossians three 17, he says, whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
In other words, life with Jesus is not compartmentalized. You don't come here on a Sunday and then go and live a whole different way Monday to Saturday. Whatever you do work. The emails that you're sending, parenting, responding every conversation, salt and light show up in everything that we do. Sounds amazing, right?
How do we do it? Because if you are anything like me and my salt and vinegar chips, we don't do very well on our own. Day one, we're strong. Day five we're on the couch, right? Like you've all experienced it. Maybe not with so Omega chips, but this is where Easter is the game changer for us all. Romans eight 11, the verse that has been central to this entire series of greater things.
And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because the spirit lives in you. And I love remembering who wrote this. Paul the Apostle was not always Paul the Apostle. He was Saul, the persecutor of the church, the guy that would go out trying to.
Literally kill Christians until he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and his life was completely transformed. So when he writes about the kind of power that lives within us, he's not writing theory. He's riding from lived experience his own life completely transformed by Jesus. And so now he reminds us that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in each and every one of us as followers of Jesus.
Our life is never meant to be lived by human strength, but by the power of Jesus, the divine life. Within each and every one of us. Oh, sorry. I get a bit excited when I think about that. Jesus says, remain in me because apart from me, you can do nothing like branches connected to a vine, right? That's the imagery he gives us.
His life simply flows into ours, not by our own effort. But by remaining connected to him, it's like a lamp, like we are designed to shine, but only when we are connected to the power source. That's what he's saying in these verses. And we stay connected to Jesus and his life begins to flow in and through us.
There's a really cool picture of this in the old Covenant in Exodus, and we read about Moses actually going up Mount Sinai and he's in the presence of God and he comes back down from the mountain and his face is. Glowing scripture says that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. He didn't try to glow and he didn't like work really hard at trying to be radiant.
He. It happened because he'd been with God. And then when we come across into the new Covenant, Paul, again, he picks up this same theme when he is writing, uh, the letter to the Corinthians in two Corinthians three, and he says, we are all being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory. Do you know what that means?
It means that that same thing that was momentary for Moses is now something we experience across our whole lives As we surrender to Jesus and we stay connected to his, um, source, we don't try and shine for Jesus. We shine because we've been with him. Proximity. So what do we do? We stay close to Jesus. We abide.
You cannot walk like Jesus until you walk with Jesus. You can't carry the heart of Jesus into the world until you allow Jesus to begin shaping your heart abiding. Sounds like this religious concept, but it's really not complicated. It's simply staying connected to Jesus in the everyday rhythms of your life.
Transformation can never come just simply from admiration of Jesus. It only comes from intimacy from surrender. From time in his presence, from reading what he has for us and then living it out and applying it. And then as you abide, something begins to change. Not instantly, certainly not perfectly, at least in my life, but genuinely, you slowly become more like him.
You begin to bring his salt and his light into the world in which he has placed us. You become more honest, more patient, more generous, more loving, more kind. And the more you walk with him, the more his life starts to show through yours. Wherever you go, you begin to be a people who make things better because of his power at work within us, not ours.
You begin to be a people who help. The environment rise, not in a self-righteous way, but in a way that points other people to Jesus. And maybe that's the Easter invitation for each and every one of us today to stop asking, how can I try harder? And to simply start asking, how can I stay closer? How can I stay closer to Jesus?
Because Jesus never asked us to live this life in our own strength. He invites us to abide. He invites us to remain in him, and as we do that, his life begins to shape ours. Because Jesus is alive, his life can now be seen through ours. I'm gonna ask the team to come up as we sort of wrap this up, but I want you just to imagine for a minute what our city would look like if we began to live like that.
Can you imagine? I. A whole bunch of people no longer striving, no longer pretending, but just abiding, showing up as salt, showing up as light. Imagine homes where peace rises. Imagine workplaces where integrity rises. Imagine schools where kindness rises. Imagine neighborhoods, your neighborhood where compassion rises.
Because wherever the life of Jesus is present, things begin to rise. Because of the cross, we are forgiven. That is what we celebrate on this resurrection Sunday. We are made new. But because the spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. We also live differently. We live the resurrection life, and so this morning we are going to take communion.
But before we do that, I just wanna ask you, just this simple question, are you trying to do it on your own? Because his invitation to you this morning. Is just surrender and allow me to do it through you and maybe your most honest prayer, if that's you this morning, would just be this like, Jesus, I've been trying, thank you, Jackie, to live for you, but I haven't really been living with you.
Would you bring me back and maybe you're in the room or you're online this morning and you're just exploring faith, and if so, I am so glad. That you're joining us. Easter is the reason that we know that knowing God is possible. Jesus gave his life so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be justified and restored into relationship with God.
He died and he rose again to make a way for us to come home to him. No longer separated, and if that's you in the room or online this morning, then maybe your prayer is simply this. Jesus, if you are real, let me know.
I want to know you.