Salt and Fire: The Duality of Sacrifice in Christian Faith

Mark Chapter nine.

I want to continue on with this theme of practical Christianity in a slightly different way this morning.

And if my slide clicker here will work through it, we'll be able to be in a good place.

But this morning, what I want to talk to you about is this a precious sacrifice.

That's what we read out of Romans chapter 12.

He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

I don't know about any of you, but sacrifice is hard, and to God that means everything.

It is a precious sacrifice, and it will be a precious sacrifice to you just as much as it is to God.

Under the Old Covenant, we get some insights into how God thinks, how God works, the principles of how God interacts with man, what God thinks about.

We see it all throughout the Law in Leviticus, and we get a picture, not necessarily of the things that we are supposed to do verbatim, but.

But we get a picture of how God thinks, what is important to God.

And under the Old Covenant, no sacrifice was accepted unless it was seasoned with salt.

Paul tells us that we ourselves, in Romans chapter 12 here, are now living sacrifice.

And then Jesus shocks us here in Mark chapter nine with this saying, every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, salted with fire.

This morning I want us to see that God often uses the fires of life, the trials, the persecution, the utter hardships that we go through, from the smallest things to the very great.

He uses every single bit of that in our life in order to work in us good, in order to make us into a pleasing sacrifice, in order to conform us to the image of Christ.

What we're going to see in Mark chapter nine is number one, an essential call to turn away from sin and what that would lead us to, but also the countercultural understanding of what it means for a Christian to place themselves on the altar of God.

You're there.

In Mark chapter nine, we're going to read verse number 43, Mark chapter nine, verse 43.

We get a series of shocking statements that Jesus begins to speak on.

He says, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off.

Is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off.

It is better for thee to enter whole into life than having two feet be cast into hell for and to the fire that never shall be quenched where Their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

When their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.

For every one shall be salted with fire and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

Salt is good.

But if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will you season it?

Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another.

Let's pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the grace that you would give to us, the grace that you showed us on the cross, Lord, the grace that you daily work in us.

Lord, I pray and ask that you would help us to understand what it means to be a living sacrifice.

This morning I pray and ask that you would help us with this hard, impossible thing of giving our all to you, laid it up on the altar.

Lord, I pray that we would do that willingly and become that living sacrifice that you desire us to be, which is our reasonable service because of how merciful you have been to us.

So, Lord, I pray that you'd help us this morning to understand your Word.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

That sacrifice there, in that saying of verse number 49, he says, Everyone shall be salted with fire and every sacrifice salted with salt.

So you bring something to God, but the question is, what is acceptable to God?

You know, we.

We hear messages.

Leftover Christianity, you gave your leftovers to God.

You didn't give your first fruits.

And we're supposed to give our first fruits.

What is acceptable to God?

What would be acceptable to you as a present?

Would you like something that was mangled and completely used but touted as something that was brand new?

Well, no.

You would say, oh, thank you.

Is it really acceptable?

What's acceptable to us in general?

Think about how we measure success in the world.

The post Office.

I don't know how many of you have had run ins with the Post Office.

The Post Office has not always been kind to me.

The Post Office and shipping companies deliver millions of packages every day.

They boast success rates above 90% success.

Now, if you're in school and you get a 90 on your test, that's an A.

Some of you aren't happy with that.

I would be happy with that.

Some of you were probably just happy to get Cs.

Like, I made it.

I remember the last day of school in the ninth grade.

I took French and I went in for extra credit because I needed it.

I passed that, that last little bit of extra credit thing and my French teacher just looked at me and he said this is horrible.

And he passed it and I passed that class.

Barely.

Just barely.

What a success.

90%.

That sounds pretty good.

If 90% is truly the measure, that means over a million packages arrive late or are misdelivered or not delivered at all, man.

Ninety percent.

A million packages.

That's the package that you didn't get.

And I actually ended up four states over your ups.

Same way.

All right, let's up the ante here.

Brain surgery.

What kind of success rate do you want your brain surgeon to have?

100% Please.

Would be nice.

A brain surgeon with a 99 success rate.

Now I don't know about you.

99 On the test, that is gold.

I didn't get 199.

It's just as good.

Brain surgeon with a 99% success rate.

If that surgeon performed a thousand operation over the course of their career, which the average brain surgeon performs about a little over 5,700 operations over the course of their lifetime.

But let's just say normal number a thousand, that would still mean 10 patients lost their lives in surgery.

That would be the course of over 50 people that died.

Now we would have called malpractice practice after the first couple.

We would have said this guy doesn't know what he's doing.

He is failing.

Now I really shouldn't say this one because my mother in law is going to fly out here this afternoon.

But airlines safely transport millions of passengers every day.

But even if 1% of the flights crashed, thousands of people would die every day.

A 99.99% success rate with the airlines would mean that out of every 10,000 flights, over 100,000 commercial flights operating each day, 10 plane crashes would happen every single day.

Thousands of people would be dying from plane crashes.

Would you fly anymore?

No.

You want 100%?

We understand that in some areas almost right is not good enough.

The question to this is what is acceptable to a holy perfect God when it comes to our sin?

Do good works, our efforts, or our sincerity make us acceptable before him?

The answer to that is no.

99% Almost right will cause you to get almost heaven and then fall straight down to hell.

So 99% is not good enough.

Even if our works were able to do that, we fall infinitely short of his perfect standard.

Only Christ makes us acceptable.

And that is why we need Christ and why Paul urges believers in light of God's mercy to present their body, that living sacrifice.

I present you.

I beseech you brother, present by the mercies of God.

So Christians, God desires commitment and as Paul puts it, the mercy of God.

Because of that, because of him bringing into you're his family.

The question that we pose to you this morning is, is your sacrifice acceptable to God?

And in some ways, some people in this room may be holding on to their sin, to where they are hoping that that 99% will get them to God or in God's favor, to where they can go to heaven or have a a time where they miss hell.

And yet they're holding on to a 99%, a false security.

Even if it was 99.99 a false security that I think everything will be okay.

Now turn in your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 2.

Because I want to go back to the Old Testament and I want to go to a passage of scripture that in the Old Testament it begins to describe what this sacrifice would do.

It says In Leviticus chapter 2, verse number 13 is where we get this.

It says in Leviticus chapter 2 and every ablation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt.

Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering.

With all thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt.

So immediately, whenever you come to these three statements in Mark chapter nine, and just lucky for me, these are by commentators, supposed to be some of the most difficult verses to actually explain these last three little statements.

We get three separate statements that we'll talk about, but salt is involved in every single one of them.

Some of them can be explained in similar terms, but all three of them are going to be slightly talking about something different.

But what is the purpose of salt?

So any good research as you start looking up salt, or maybe you get a reference and you start getting into your concordance of where does salt come in?

Why is salt being talked about here?

Why is Jesus mentioning salt?

Why are Christians supposed to be the salt of the earth?

What is the purpose of salt?

We get Leviticus chapter 2, verse 13 immediately.

It's talking about in the context of the sacrifices.

In Numbers chapter 18, it says, all the heave offerings, the holy things with the children of Israel offer unto the Lord have I given thee, and the sons and the daughters with thee by statute forever.

It is a covenant of salt forever.

For the Lord unto thee, and to thy seed with thee.

Second Chronicles, chapter 13.

Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and his sons, by a covenant of salt.

In Ezekiel, it talks about the salt for the offerings, for the heave offerings, for how they are to bring these peace offerings you shall sprinkle and cast them with salt.

They shall offer them up to the burnt offering unto the Lord.

Shall not let the salt be lacking.

Salt, salt, salt.

What is the significance of salt?

Why was it an important part of the offerings and sacrifices that Israel was supposed to offer?

Well, number one, it's a symbol of purity and cleansing.

But lasting, perpetual and unending is also part of that.

But you look here in our verse, In Leviticus, chapter 2, we see here three separate times the same idea being presented.

Offerings shall be seasoned with salt.

Don't let the salt be lacking.

All thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt.

God repeats this phrase three separate times.

And so we get this idea of, number one, purity and cleansing from salt.

And what it naturally does, endurance and perseverance keeps preserves.

And then the value and the cost, number one is purity.

Salt is pure.

It has a very pure compound.

It has a cleansing compound.

I remember one time, time we were out on a boat in the, the sea down in Florida, and we hit a big wave and we, me and my dad were sitting at the front of the boat.

We crashed onto the floor of the, the, the boat.

And that boat had a rough texture to, you know, help with grip.

And on my dad's knee, it, it gripped the skin.

Nice good little ripping of the skin, Just, just great.

And I remember my dad, he took his shirt dipped in the salt water, trying to cleanse and purify that wound.

He put that on there.

You just feel the pain.

Salt.

Ever had a gargle with salt water with a sore in your mouth?

Salt cleanses.

They would put salt on newborn babes to cleanse them as they came from the womb.

So salt and its purity, salt purifies.

Number two, what else does salt do is it endures.

All of us have had beef jerky, yeah, that's made with lots of salt.

Lots and lots and lots of salt.

Salt has something that in it, that purifies, that cleanses, that it does and preserves meat.

Without it, meat will spoil and go rotten and go bad.

But then lastly, its value and cost.

Now, the salt that you have today, that you probably have on your counter, it's not real salt, I hate to break that to you.

It lacks all the minerals and all the good things that salt really would have had in it.

Salt was mine.

Salt comes obviously from seawater.

Even the Sea salt that you buy at the store is not always fully pure of the minerals.

That's a different story for a different day.

Salt, though, was a commodity that was hard to get.

It was not bought at the grocery store.

It was mined.

It was harvested from the seawater.

Diligent care had to be taken.

It was valuable.

And not everyone had salt.

Can you imagine your meals without salt?

Saul spoke of friendship.

Why?

Because it's expensive.

And if you don't like that person and call them your friend, you're not giving them your salt.

They come to your house and you're not really that keen on them.

No salt for you, Saul was too expensive for people that you would not call your friends.

So, Zach, he said that once you had eaten a person's salt, you were his friend for life because he didn't give that stuff away lightly.

So God wanted every sacrifice to be a reminder of covenant, to be a reminder of relationship.

It was a sign of the covenant.

There in numbers, chapter 18, salt sealed the agreement.

The salt of the covenant of your God.

Therefore, that covenant and its characteristics was a pure covenant.

It was an enduring covenant, and then it was a valuable covenant.

You think about the way that we put value, endurance and purity on marriages.

Why have a wedding ring?

You have wedding rings, and what does that symbolize?

Well, it symbolizes your marriage that it's pure, that it's enduring, it's going to last.

You only use precious stones and precious meter metals to make a wedding band because you want that thing to last forever as the continual reminder of what that means.

So the covenant of the salt meant the imperishableness and the irrevocable of the engagement made between two parties to the covenant.

That's what God wanted the salt to represent.

Then we come to the New Testament.

The New Testament we are the sacrifices, as is in Romans, chapter 12 and here in your verse and chapters of Mark, chapter nine.

We have the understanding of a few different points that I want to look at our covenant with God, though, as a precious sacrifice, as a living sacrifice, should be number one, worth something.

It should be worth something.

Number two, it should be pure.

Number three, it should be lasting.

And all that we give to God.

When we look here in Mark, chapter 9, verse 43 through 50, we see a few different statements.

Back in the very first verses, we see God's drastic measure to escape hell.

We see at all cost, leave everything to escape hell.

So this is a call to sinners.

This is a call to those who have not the blood of Jesus Christ.

Washing and cleansing them from their sin.

This is a call to those who are not leaving their sin behind to have the relationship with Christ, because that's really what it is.

The battle is not do I want to go to heaven or hell?

The battle is, do I want my sin or do I want Jesus?

It's choosing Jesus over our sin.

And Jesus in these verses is constantly trying to paint this picture of get away from your sin at all cost.

And he goes into drastic measures to try to help us to understand what we should be willing to give up to forsake sin.

Now, Jesus is not per se calling us to mutilate our flesh here.

This is not a call to go and cut your arm off.

It is not a call to beat yourself daily.

To purge yourself from sin is not a cause, a call for you to take your.

Your arm and chop it off because it's causing you to sin.

But it is to drive home a point.

If this is the case, if your hand causes you to sin, if your foot causes you to sin, if your eye causes you to sin, it really would be better to cut the thing off than to allow it to drag you into hell, because hell is to be avoided at all costs, whatever it takes.

The seriousness of the fire, the seriousness of the judgment of the God of God, we then see in verse number 49, every one, everyone is to be salted with fire.

And that means that's the unsaved and the saved alike.

But then how are those two things different?

And then we see that Christians are to be salted with salt.

Sacrifices to God are salted with salt.

We see salt can lose its saltness.

We see it can become good for nothing.

And then we see Jesus command to have salt.

The salty salt, the salt that Jesus commands us to have is in ourselves.

And this salt in ourselves does something to the world, but it also does something between you and I as Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ.

It brings peace.

A salty Christian brings peace.

Therefore, what is salty Christianity?

What is salty Christianity or salt Christianity?

That got tied there wrong.

Number one.

We can say it in five different things here.

Number one, we get from this.

Repentant, Repentant in trials, repentant Christians.

That makes a salty Christian.

In James chapter one, we understand that we have to have that repentance in our life.

We have to be.

I'm sorry, patient, impatient in trials in Christianity, James, chapter one, we have to have that patience.

What does James says?

Let patience have her perfect work.

Be patient about the trials and the fires that would come into your Life number two Repentant.

There it is in heart and Christianity.

Psalm chapter 51.

What does God desire over sacrifices of repentant and a contrite heart is what God desires.

Having that attitude of being pure and clean in God's eyes.

Keeping a short account on sin.

Number two.

Number three.

Sin steadfast persevering in faith and Christianity.

My beloved, think it not strange the fiery trial that comes about?

You therefore persevere through those trials.

Persevere through the fire that may come.

It's interesting how many people talk about fire coming into the life of Christians.

Fire hurts.

Fire is destruction.

Fire consume.

We are to be spirit filled Christians as Galatians chapter 5, verse 25 tells us that we are to be Christians that are spirit led.

Ephesians chapter 5 tells us this to be filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit.

And then lastly peacemaking Christians.

We are to have peace with one another.

There is nothing that tears up the body of Christ and believers like disunity.

This is the reason why Jesus prays.

In John chapter 17 does a whole prayer dedicated to God.

Let them be one.

Why?

Because disunity breaks up the body of Christ.

Salty Christians, Seasoned Christians.

They are Christians who have been through the fires of life, who have come to be conformed to the image of Christ and who are exhibiting.

Exhibiting Christ like behavior, Christlike behavior that allows the body of believers to work together.

Mature believers in the faith.

Mature Christians able to go through storms with still peace in their life.

Able to teach and disciple other Christians to become more mature in their faith.

And then we come to that great understanding of everyone shall be salted with fire.

The two fires.

And there's two different fires here because one fire consumes and that's the judgment and then the other is for the fire that refines, that is sanctification.

The fire.

In the life of the unsaved and in the life of Christians.

You have number one, the fire that is judgment.

This is that destructive fire.

So everyone will be salted with fire.

Everyone.

It's just what fire is that going to be in your life?

Is it going to be the fire that consumes you utterly in the life of the unsaved?

That is what that fire is.

It is a destructive fire.

It is the fire of hell.

Everyone will be salted with fire.

In the life of the Christian.

It is the fire that refine, not intending to burn you up and consume you, but rather to consume the dross that comes around the precious or the precious metal so that that can be revealed.

But as we look at this, we have to understand, number one, there is the fire that consumes the loss.

Those who are destined because of their sin, they are on that path to hell.

There is that great truth that if we die without Christ, we are on our way to hell.

Christ is the lifeboat.

Christ is the salvation of the world.

Calling out to sinners.

Cut it off.

Escape hell.

Do all you can follow after Christ.

Choose Christ rather than your sin, because that is the only sane thing to do.

That great saying of John the Baptist, In Luke chapter three, verses 17, he says in precisely similar fashion to this burning up and this salting of fire.

He set side by side 2 conceptions of the chaff and the wheat.

How many of you are familiar with that in Luke chapter three?

Go there in your Bibles.

Luke chapter three and verse number 17.

Luke chapter 3 and verse 17.

It says in Luke chapter 3, John the Baptist answering, preaching that hellfire sermon, if you will.

He was a rough preacher.

He was a. I'm not holding anything back preacher.

He was the axes laid up against the roots of the tree.

He was preaching it like it was.

He was calling for repentance, that people would change.

He said, John answered, saying unto them, I indeed baptize you with water.

But one mightier than I cometh the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.

He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand.

And he will thoroughly purge his floor, and he will gather the wheat into his garner.

But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

And that's what we see here, that gathering of the wheat, that picking up the whole.

The whole grain stuff, the heavy stuff, and allowing that light chaff to fall out so that it gets blown over to the side, that all that remains is the good stuff.

So imagine that farmer just harvesting that field of wheat.

He has to separate the wheat from the chaff because the chaff is no good.

And this is the exact example that John the Baptist uses in referring to believers.

The wheat unbelievers the chaff, just as the heavy wheat kernels would be falling behind.

The chaff being useless, unwanted, good for nothing.

It's thrown into the fire to be burned.

You remember the parable of the wheat and the tears, the enemy.

It's like one of my favorite parables, the wheat and the tears.

Enemy comes in through the night.

Plants in this guy's garden, weeds.

This is some petty, petty stuff.

Like, you really got to hate someone to do this.

He Plants weeds in the dude's garden.

This grows up.

And the servants said.

And he said, we.

I know we didn't plant this bad stuff.

We planted good things.

This is an enemy have done this.

An enemy has done this.

What do we do?

Believe it.

If we rip up the tares and it'll.

It'll rip out the wheat as well.

Whenever it all comes to harvest.

Yeah, it'll be a smaller harvest, possibly because the tares will take from it.

But we will save the wheat.

And whenever that happens, we'll gather up the wheat and the tares separate.

The wheat will go into my barn, and the tares will burn with unquenchable fire.

In the same way, John describes Jesus as one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

And with fire, the Holy Spirit purges and cleanses us, separating the good from the bad, just as the farmer separates the wheat from the chaff.

The fire symbolizes judgment and purification, separating true followers of Jesus from those who would only give lip service.

That is the difference.

You know, everybody's going to heaven in the South.

Y' all know that, right?

Everybody's going to heaven.

We all go to church.

Mama made us.

And we all go to Sunday service and we go home.

And.

And because of that, we're all going to heaven because we're all saved.

We're all Christians.

We all believe in Jesus.

Everybody's a Christian.

Is that the truth?

After many Satans, the disciples came to the understanding and asked the question, Jesus, are there few that be saved?

And the answer was yes.

Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord knows I know.

Not everyone who calls upon my name saying they believe the Holy Spirit is the one who does that work in the life of a person so that they can be saved.

They are wooed by the calling of the Holy Spirit.

And without God the Father calling out to them, wooing their heart, they have no option to get saved.

They will not.

They hate God.

There is none that do with good.

No, not one.

God has to call out to man.

And he does this graciously with the cross.

All of man can see the cross lifted up.

Yet the rejection sometimes is so magnificent and terrible that becomes the chaff.

To choose in these few sayings here, to choose to keep our sin because it's fun or it's pleasurable, or it feels good and be cast into hell is a suicide fool is what it is.

The.

The fire symbolizes judgment and purification separating the true followers.

Then we come to the fire of purification for the saved.

The fire of purification the refining of the saints.

You see, you and I are saved as Christians.

We are absolutely accepted into the family of God.

That is a wonderful thing.

And there are certain things that at the moment of salvation that God immediately does in your life, but there's still a lot of refining that comes afterwards.

We know we're not perfect.

We know that we don't look like Christ.

We know that we don't exhibit Christlike behavior all the time.

We know the fruit of the Spirit doesn't always come out of us when we are squeezed in this life.

And so there's a refining that that has to be done.

The fire of purification in the life of the saints.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, living, sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

That you may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

That you may prove what is the good, perfect and acceptable of God.

You cannot prove what is the good, perfect and acceptable will of God until you are transformed.

That sacrifice has to be refined.

We as Christians should then therefore desire to be before our God a living sacrifice.

And that living sacrifice, we have to understand, is very precious to our God.

And what he wants is a sacrifice that is salted well, a sacrifice that has been through the refining of the fire of life, of discipline, of persecution, of trials, of.

Of hardships, because it is better reflecting of our Savior.

It conforms us to our Savior seasoned with salt.

That salt is hard times.

It's roughness.

It's going through trials, roughness in our life that would bring us to our needs.

Times in our life where patience breaks moment by moment.

Our journey out of Egypt, it seemed like to come over here, that was some patient.

Okay, that was moments of God.

I know you can do this, God, you can't do this.

This is.

This is impossible.

They've just made the game completely, much harder.

A few moments later.

All right, God can do this.

I know he can.

Wow.

I've seen God work in my life before.

I've seen him do this.

All right, God's got this.

Oh, there's another email from the realtor saying that they want something different that we can't give them.

I mean, it was just an up and down roller coaster we had at one point.

Everything was good and in the clear, and we were thinking ourselves, all right, we're good.

We've got.

We've got this.

The Lord has opened the way start praising and shouting.

And then all of a sudden the realtor emailed us back and said, oh, there was a mistake.

The person false alarm, gave us the wrong email.

And the person was like, sorry, I put my foot in my mouth and I spoke too soon.

They're actually wanting you to do something else.

That is absolutely ridiculous.

And it was like, wow, now what's happening?

What's, what's going to happen now?

That's what life is on the edge of your seat.

The patience, the wearing thin.

The places where you believe.

All the world hates me and my friends hate me.

Those who I would call my brothers and sisters in Christ are doing me harm.

Where's the unity at God?

Where is the peace?

Lord, where are you?

Where, where is my advocate?

Where is my comfort from you, God?

Are you fighting for me through this?

Are you seeing what I'm going through?

Are you working on my behalf?

It's all of those questions.

It is the struggle with God, if you will.

We though these things bring us to our tears, though these things bring us to our knees, we should desire God to have us and to use us as he would see fit.

We should desire God to refine us.

We should desire God to burn away the draw so that our Savior can be shown in all the fullness and the greatness of the work that he has done.

We should desire to be conformed to Jesus and show Christ at every turn of our life, no matter what that means.

And that means that we have to go away.

As John the Baptist said, he must increase.

I must decrease, but he must increase.

And right now, as a Christian, either as a new believer or as a baby Christian, or as a Christian who is 20 years in their faith, or even as a seasoned, mature believer, you still have flesh that covers up the image of Christ, flesh that still gets in the way from showing all that God has done for you.

We do not desire the pain.

We desire not the pain for pain's sake.

But we should desire whatever God must use to make us useful to him.

So this is not a call of God.

Bring on the persecution, God.

Bring on the pain in our life.

I want some unexpected bill to come that makes me have to trust in you.

I want my house to burn down.

I want my family to go into poverty.

I want what Job had in his life.

I don't think any one of us are praying for the life of Job, okay?

And neither should we.

That is not what the call is.

We are not praying that God would literally take us to the bottom of Our breaking point.

But there is a desire that God would change us.

The question is, how do you think that's going to happen?

How do you think you are going to show love if you're never put into a position to actually show love?

And there's never an inconvenient need for you to have to show what true love is?

How do you think that you're ever going to show patience or peace if you're never put into a position where you actually have to show patience or peace?

That annoying neighbor, that annoying coworker that completely does their job wrong.

That is an opportunity to show patience.

That is an opportunity to show gentleness, the fruit of the spirit, rather than the work of the flesh.

Harshness.

That is an opportunity that the fruit of the spirit has to come out.

Without those opportunities, the fruit of the spirit can't come out with you just sitting in a chair at home.

You have to be put into position for that squeezing, if you will, of the sponge to happen.

And what is inside of you, the work of the Holy Spirit, day in, day out, before you get to those circumstances, what is inside of you when you are squeezed by the trials of life, it then comes out in full.

We don't desire pain for pain's sake, but we desire to be useful to our God.

Psalm 119 said, it is good for me that I've been afflicted.

It is good for me that I've been afflicted that I might learn thy Statutes.

Verse 75.

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that in Thou, that thou in thy faithfulness hast afflicted me, beloved.

Why you think it's strange, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to us.

You see, we do think it's strange when persecution happens.

We do think it's strange when the fiery trials come into our life.

Well, why did this happen?

Why bad things happening?

We think it's so strange.

Why we're constantly praying for peace.

We're constantly praying not the peace of the Holy Spirit.

We're praying for peaceful, calm circumstances.

We're praying that nothing bad would happen to us.

We pray for traveling mercies.

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't be praying for these things, but we do pray that God would keep us absolutely safe and secure, that nothing bad would happen.

Protect my family, God.

Protect my house.

Protect my job.

Protect me here.

Put a hedge of protection around me, God.

Keep me from harm's way.

Keep me out of the fire, keep me from this, keep me from that.

We're constantly doing that.

Where's the opportunity for us to grow, though?

If that is constant prayer?

How are we to be conformed to the image of Christ if there is never any opportunity for God to squeeze us, us and make us and mold us into something else?

Do you think if you're a piece of clay and God takes your head and pops it off and puts it somewhere else and molds you into something different or changes some feature and presses on you, you think that that is painless?

Do you think that it is gentle and soft to have an arm removed and placed and adjusted somewhere else?

Do you think that it is easy and painless for God to bring a circumstance in your life that you can do nothing but cry, help God.

My faith is in you.

That is anything but painless.

And the Bible tells us this in Romans chapter 8, verses 28.

It tells us the work of the fire teaching of our statutes.

It proves our faith.

It removes our sin.

But the work that is to be done in our life is, In Romans chapter 8, considered good towards us.

The refining work of the fire.

It makes us useful to God.

Many of us know Romans chapter 8:28, though we probably quote it wrong at times or out of context or maybe in a.

A way that isn't exactly accurate, but it says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.

Usually we stop at for.

Well, there's three different points that we can stop here.

Most people say we know that all things work together for good and that's where they stop.

If you are a little bit more spiritual and understand the verse more, you keep going to them that love God.

Oh, you have to love God for this good thing to work out.

But then that second last part.

To them who are the called according to his purpose and what is his purpose?

His purpose in your life is the conforming of the sun to make you into that image.

The refining work of the fire is for us as Christians to be poked through with holes, if you will.

We are as Christians, supposed to show the light that is within us.

If you are a Christian, you have the light of the world inside of you, right?

Right.

You have Jesus Christ living inside of you.

You have his spirit and you are that clay pot.

Don't get so consumed over your clay pot.

We have this treasure in earth and vessels.

Paul says sometimes we can get consumed over the clay pot.

And what happens when the fruit of the Spirit is trying to come out of you.

That is the light coming out the holes of Jesus cut into our lives not to display us, but to allow his glory to shine through.

And you know what we like to do as Christians?

When we get hurt by people, we, when there's an opportunity to show love rather than self love or whether we have an opportunity to show gentleness or meekness in our life or temperance, someone hurts us.

And now the Holy Spirit says, okay, you are in this predicament.

You are in this situation.

I as a sovereign God have ordained this situation to be in your life for the one purpose of conformity, conforming you to the image of Jesus Christ.

I want you to now act like this.

You know what we do?

We cover that hole.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

How dare you hurt me.

How dare you do that to me.

Instead of gentleness, harshness comes out.

Instead of love, oh, here's an opportunity to show love.

But I'm going to show self love instead.

I'll do this for you, but you've got to get me next time.

Peace.

Here's an opportunity for you to show all the people around you in this horrible situation the peace of God that passes all understanding, the comfort of God in your life.

Here's that opportunity.

The Holy Spirit says, I have ordained it.

I have caused you to go through this fire right now.

And peace is supposed to come out of that hole that I just opened up.

And what we like to do in our flesh is we like to cover that hole as soon as we possibly can because now we're vulnerable.

Now we have a empty place where we are not covered up.

And what Jesus would say is, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, take, take your hands away.

Don't cover that up.

I'm trying to do something in your life.

I'm trying to show for Christ.

I'm trying to show forth the love of God.

Let men see your good works and glorify the Father that is above.

How can men see your good works if you cover the whole?

If you say, I don't want the fire of life, God, I don't want this circumstance.

I don't want this salt.

This salt hurts.

This salt burns.

This situation in my life is painful.

God, don't you understand the pain that I'm in?

Take me away from it, God.

And God says, I've done all this.

I have ordained this for you to go through for a purpose.

Know the purpose.

The purpose is to be conformed.

The image of Christ.

The holes cut into our lives Jesus counseled the church at Laodicea to buy of him gold refined in the fire.

Real spiritual fruit, real spiritual wealth.

He wanted them to know real fruit.

He wanted them to desire true maturity in their walk with him.

You don't get that by not reading your Bible.

You don't get that by spending zero time with God throughout the week.

You don't get real maturity in your faith and able to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in your life when the circumstances become drastic.

Whenever there is no relationship between you and your Savior throughout the day to day, you must buy that real spiritual well, it is worth it.

That is the discipline of every day, saying, I value my relationship with God.

I'm going to give up my time.

This is a precious sacrifice that I'm going to give up.

Not the leftovers, the precious sacrifice.

It costs something and we give that up daily in, day out so that we can have that real spiritual wealth, so that we can allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to know real fruit to be worth something.

McLaren said, Just as we take a piece of foul clay and put it into the furnace and you can see as it gets red hot, I don't know how many of you are smiths or have seen smiths work.

It melts stuff away.

You know, they put that, that, that hot iron, iron rod into the fire and it, it begins heating up that, that metal.

And as they would make a sword and they start to beat on it or compress and crush it, there's always stuff that cracks and breaks off.

That's not the pure metal.

That's the dross.

That's the excess.

That's the garbage.

That's the stuff you don't want in your steel.

It crushes it and that metal flakes off.

They put it back in the fire, bring it back out, crush it some more, beat on it some more.

We should desire the stains to melt away.

So if we will plunge ourselves into the relationship of the one that died for our sins, who gloriously saved us by the cross, our sin and our impurities will melt off from us and we shall be clean.

Part of Christians don't care about their sin like they should.

And then you have another part that are so fed up with their sin, but they don't know how to be free from it.

Struggling in sin, struggling to be free from sin.

And the answer to this is no amount of scrubbing with soap and water.

It's going to do.

You cannot do this in your own power.

You cannot do this in your own strength.

This is Not a message to try to do better.

This is not a message that you just got to work harder.

Some of us need to work because we're not doing anything in our walk with Christ.

We don't offer any sacrifice.

Some of us need to offer that sacrifice.

But this is not a message that if you just read your Bible more and more and more, you'll automatically grow.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

This is the act of you yielding in that day to day reading your Bible.

That yielding to God allows God to work on you.

Think of it like a heart surgeon.

Do you think you're going to get heart surgery in the waiting room?

No, you have to go into the operating room.

Go into the operating room is like going in there to do your devotion.

You go in there but you don't do the work.

I don't think there's anyone that's operated on their heart while they were awake.

No, you allow the heart surgeon to do that.

That is the yielding to God.

Going into the operating room.

We cannot chisel our sin away like we would want.

Because the sin is not just on the outside, as Alexander McLaren said, it's mechanically.

It's not mechanically bonded, but chemically it.

Only by the fire can the iron be separated from the rock that it's bound.

If we desire to be delivered, let us go into the fire.

It will burn up our evil, burn up that sin and nothing else.

Keep close to Christ.

Why?

We are as Christ had set before him, a great joy.

There is a great joy that was set before him.

There's a great joy that is set before us.

All that we do is to glorify God, because he is worthy to be put on the spotlight, to be shown through us.

To make the world glorify the Father because of our daily conversation.

To make the world glorify the Father, because of our daily reaction to the troubles of life.

And then we see here that as Christ acted, so should we for the joy that was set before Him.

Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.

In Hebrews, chapter 2012 Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which the death easily beset us.

And let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross.

See, the joy comes after the cross.

He despised the shame, sat down on the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lets you be weary in your mind.

Consider Christ.

See what he went through.

For the joy that was set before him.

He went to the cross.

For the joy that is set for us.

Before us we go and pick up our cross for the joy of the result, the joy of the outcome.

This is the motivation of what Jesus had in himself as he bore that cross to Mount Calvary to pay for our sins, to make a worthy sacrifice.

The joy of the reward according to him was considered too great.

He despised the shame.

He thought very little of the cost.

It was not about the cost to him, it was about the outcome.

To say that it was worth it was an understatement to Jesus.

To say that you and I were worth saving, that was very little.

Wow.

The cross.

I'll do that.

That's exactly what I'll do.

For the sake of my.

Of these people, for the sake of dying for those whom I have loved, I will gladly lay down my life.

That was the joy that was set before him.

And for us as Christians, we have a joy set before us.

We have a great reward set before us as in Christ, a great opportunity to show forth a precious sacrifice.

Practical Christianity means we are led by the Holy Spirit in all areas of our life so that we are able to go through fire of life that he ordains.

And that will bring us to a place where we are made into the perfect dear image of God's only Son.

That is the goal.

That is the predestination of every single Christian.

That's not a well.

God may throw you out if it just doesn't work out.

That's not a well.

If.

If you get halfway into your maturity of Christianity, God will say, well, it's just not working.

No, he's the author and finisher of your faith.

And you have been predestined at the moment of salvation to be like Christ.

Therefore you will be like Christ.

We will get you there one way or another.

God says.

And to do that, this is what I want you to go through.

To be led by the Holy Spirit in all areas of our life is a practical Christianity.

But if you don't have Christ, how can you offer the perfect sacrifice?

You can't give enough to save yourself.

We know that.

That's what the Bible says.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

If you're here today and you don't know Christ, how can you offer the sacrifice?

It's meaningless to you to do good things.

Jesus gives that solemn warning.

It is utter suicide to keep hold of your sin just for the pleasure of it and lose your whole life?

What will a man give for his soul?

What will a man do?

Is there anything too small that you would say my soul is worth?

Is there any price that we could put on your soul that you would say, yeah, it's worth this much?

No, you would say, it's priceless.

God says to those who would choose their sin, forsake it.

Choose to follow me.

Pick up your cross and follow Christ.

Choose Christ over your sin.

That is the option for salvation.

Repent from your sin and follow Christ and make that choice today.

Have every head bowed, every eye closed.

If you're a Christian, you are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

The answer is, are you yielding to that work of the Holy Spirit?

Do you want that work of God in your life?

It's not easy.

It's never going to be easy.

And there are hardships and trials all along the way.

But that is the reason why in this uncomfortable life, you have been given the comforter.

Not to make life easy, but to help you through uncomfortable situations.

He is called to comforter because we need the comfort.

We need to be brought through the trials.

Lie.

What is God leading us to do in our life as Christians, as the whole?

As the piano plays, what does the Holy Spirit want you to do?

Let us pray in our seats or come down the altar.

But let us come to God and make a decision to follow Christ.