"TASTELESS FLAVORING!"
Written and preached by David P. Nolte

MATTHEW 5:13

1. JESUS SAID WE MUST BE SALTY:
1. What would it mean to be "salty?" Certainly not what is implied when we say of someone whose speech is less than pure, and is full of profanity and expletives: "He is a really salty old fellow!" Consider, then, salt and how we should be salty.
1. Salt is a seasoning and has a distinct flavor. No confusing it with sugar or curry. It adds zest and tang to foods.
2. Salt is a powerful antiseptic because of the chlorine content.
3. Salt is a preservative and for years has been used to salt pork or fish.
4. Salt helps keep our bodily fluids in proper density, not too thick or thin.
5. Salt melts ice and is used in ice cream freezers to make the delicious dessert; it is used on sidewalks and roadways to eliminate the slippery hazard.
2. According to Dr. Vine, salt is symbolic of that "spiritual health and vigor essential to Christian virtue and counteractive of the corruption that is in the world."
3. So let's apply all that; we must be salty and that means that
1. we must be seasoning and add flavor to the world and to lives of others:
1. Call on the grieving with comfort.
2. Help the unemployed and genuinely needy with food and money.
3. Help a tired single mother by taking her children for a day.
4. "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person." Colossians 4:6 (NASB).
2. We must be antiseptic:
1. Teach our children right from wrong and the benefits of right and the consequences of wrong.
2. Help heal the wounds life inflicts on the weak.
3. We must be a preservative:
1. Be a positive, pure influence in society.
2. Do what you can to counteract the corruption of morals, ethics and values of our culture.
3. Participate influentially and positively in things like PTA, City Council meetings, Foster Care programs and service organizations.
4. Be salty! Impact, influence, change and better this world.  I had a good friend in Albany; his name was Russ Archer.  He was salt in my life.  He seasoned, flavored and improved it.  He seemed to sense when I was discouraged or extra tired or just depressed.  He'd lay a huge hand on my shoulder and say, "Hang in there, Chief!"  and things just didn't seem so bad.  Let's be that kind of salt in the world and in other's lives.

2. JESUS INDICATED THAT SALT MAY LOSE ITS SALTINESS:
1. Salt may be corrupted with foreign chemicals and substances so that it is no longer pure and wholesome. Salt may become useless when it is washed out and watered down. Jesus is referring to the fact that salt that is long exposed to the damp air tends to lose saltiness. In ancient days, people put a thick bed of salt underneath the bricks in ovens to help retain heat; after a time the salt "perished" and was cast out as useless.
2. The word for "become tasteless" (NASB) or "loses its saltiness" (NIV) means "to become insipid" or "to become foolish" in the sense that salt that is not salty is a foolish thing.
3. Let's apply this to the Christian as salt: If we want to avoid losing our saltiness:
1. We must be free of the contamination and corruption of the world. That is, the godless morals, the pride and materialism and secularism and skepticism of our culture.
1. "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." 1 John 2:15-16 (NASB).
2. James says, "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." James 4:4 (NASB).
2. We must not water down our convictions or lose our distinctiveness for Christ:
1. "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong." Exodus 23:2 (NIV).
2. "My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them." Proverbs 1:10 (NIV).
3. "but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12 (NIV).
4. Talk about losing saltiness.  A woman wrote to a preacher saying, "Will you please help me?  The agony I feel in my conscience is like an awful grinding, grinding, as I reap the results of my wasted years.  I accepted Jesus at an early age, but later because I was told I was attractive and had a natural singing voice, I took a job in a nightclub. At 17 I married a man I met there.  Christian friends urged me to use my talents for Christ, but I ignored them.  I now have a girl 14 years old with an incurable disease.  And listen, she has never been to church!  God seems so far away, and I don't know how to reach my daughter.  Please help me stop the terrible grinding of remorse!"  The letter was signed, "A broken hearted mother!"  Be salty! Do not lose your saltiness through corruption by the world or by loss of distinctive Christlikeness.  

3. JESUS WARNED THAT SALT THAT LOSES SALTINESS WILL BE CAST OUT:
1. This is an incentive, a motivation, an urging to faithfulness and stability in the Christian life. There is great need for that because the word for "thrown out" means "to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls!" It means "to dispose of as useless."
2. What is the application here?
1. It certainly is a contradiction to the heresy of unconditional eternal security: "once saved, always saved" or "once in grace, always in grace."
1. God said to Ezekiel, the prophet, "When I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but in that same iniquity of his which he has committed he will die." Ezekiel 33:13 (NASB).
2. "And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach -- if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, ..." Colossians 1:21-23 (NASB).
2. It is clearly a call to faithfulness.
1. "... it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved." Matthew 10:22 (NASB).
2. "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." Revelation 2:10 (NASB).
3. There are two striking truths in these words:
1. Jesus Christ does not want us to be cast out; His is a warning of concern to preserve our saltiness.
2. Salvation and usefulness belongs to those who remain faithful and steadfast to Jesus Christ!
4. Be salty! Be faithful!  Be steadfast!  Be useful, unlike the apple pie that was delivered to the pastor's home.  The lady, nearsighted and forgetful, had baked it using cayenne pepper instead of cinnamon.  When the pastor and his family eagerly dived in after supper, they gasped, gagged and hastened to the sink.  The pie was useless and was thrown into the garbage.  They wrote a thank-you note, however, saying, tactfully, "Thank you for being so kind and thoughtful. I can assure you that a pie like yours never lasts long around our house!"  But sadly, in its useless condition it was cast out.

We are to be salty salt; we are to make a difference, to have an influence and to make an impact. Perhaps you are a little watered down; perhaps you have been contaminated and corrupted; perhaps you have lost your influence for Christ. There is hope. A chemist can take corrupted salt and remove the defilement; Jesus can renew your saltiness. Paul reminds us that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV). A life surrendered to Jesus can be useful, serviceable, and beneficial no matter what it was up until that surrender. A life consecrated can be made salty; it can help this world be a better place and can prepare others for the world to come. Take this opportunity, seize this moment. Give your life to Jesus. Commit your days to Jesus. Dedicate yourself to Jesus. He can then change you, cleanse you, and use you as salt.

Return To Archive

Return To Home Page