I'm not sure what you think of when you think of the word "preservative." Maybe you immediately think, "Oh no! I'm supposed to avoid preservatives!" Maybe you think, "that reminds me of a life preserver." I tend to think more in the life preserver direction as I think about the concept of preservation personally, but as I really sought to understand the ins and outs of how believers are like salt, I decided to learn more about how salt actually acts as a preservative. What I learned surprised me because of the words I was keeping in my head as I began my search. When I think of "preservation," I think of life, but the words I kept reading involved death. Salt acts as a preservative by killing off the microbes that would cause decay and disease. Salt preserves through death! Upon this discovery, I was ready to abandon such a literal comparison of ourselves to salt. After all, I was not prepared to sing the praises of preservation through death. Then, I realized that I've been doing exactly that my whole life. Of course, salt acts as a preservative through death. So did Jesus, and so must we!
Paul was much better at explaining this than I am. Romans 6:3-4&8-11 explains this relationship between death and life, between dying and preserving life.
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This passages speaks not only to how our own lives, as Christians, have been preserved by Jesus. It also speaks to how we are to continue in His mission of life-saving. We know that sin causes decay and disease in our lives. Jesus, however, has provided a way to die to that sin and then be raised to life with Him. By joining with Jesus in dying to sin and living for God, we find our own preservative role.
As we die to sin and live for God, we engage in those flavor-enhancing sorts of activities that yesterday's post mentioned. We bring out the best in others because we love them in an active way like Jesus modeled for us. We subdue bitterness in our own lives and thus in the lives around us. "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky, as you offer them the message of life." (Phil 2:14-16a GNT) You see, others aren't going to know that we have new life unless we live in a new way - being alive to God in Christ Jesus. However, when we DO count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God, when we DO live in our new way, when we DO live out our role as flavor-enhancers, then we are noticeable. We are like a light in the darkness then, and anyone looking for some light is going to start asking us questions. Our living in a new way provides us the opportunity to share the fact that Jesus offers life through death with Him.
The preservative calling of Christians is quite clearly laid out in what many refer to as the Great Commission. Jesus instructed His disciples in this way before His ascension, "Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) We are called to make disciples. That is our preservative role. This commission, this calling, mentions two-parts to disciple-making though. The first part is baptizing others in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We've already discussed that part. We have an opportunity to share the good news with others that they can join the Body of Christ in dying to sin and being resurrected to live to God, something we experience in baptism. That seems sort of like it should be the whole preservation thing then. We should be done now, right? That's the way to new life. Bam. Done. Not quite.
The Great Commission also tells us to teach disciples to obey everything Jesus commanded. It turns out that I've been keeping a little secret from you. Salt does something more than just killing off hazardous microbes. Salt continues in making an inhospitable environment so that no more microbes bent on decay or disease can come in to destroy the food. This is important both for the newly preserved food and for the newly saved believer. Jesus explained the importance of it this way, “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45) Now, I'm not going to get into talking about demon possession here. That's a whole different conversation. However, I think we can see here that the purpose of dying to sin is not just to clean the gunk and decay and disease out of a person's heart so that it can be sparkly clean. The heart needs to be filled with good things too so that evil doesn't come creeping back in! Just a teensy bit earlier in the chapter, we read that Jesus also said, "For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." (Matthew 12:34b-35) The heart needs to have plenty of good stored up in it!
Our second preservative role and the second part of the Great Commission are wound together. We need to teach those who are newer to the faith than we are how to obey God. This is part of my calling and your calling whether teaching is a spiritual gift of yours or not. Many people learn by example. So, we need to be acting out what we've been taught. My church's focus this week is "Do Stuff." It can be summarized relatively well in these sentences: "Life is not about what you know; it's about what you do with what you know. It's about turning what you're learning into action." If you have been a believer for long enough that you already were one before you started this post, then you have enough learning to start putting it into action. We have a responsibility to put what we've learned into action, not just for our own sake (though that's a good reason), not just out of gratitude to our Savior (which is the very best reason), but for the sake of those watching our lives as well.
Just in case you're hoping that you're completely off the hook now regarding teaching others with words because you can focus solely on teaching by example, I need to add something. In the context of doing good, Peter reminded believers to "in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience." (1 Peter 3:15-16a) In our role as preservers, we are to die to sin, live to God with hearts revering Christ as Lord, turn what we learn into action, and then be prepared to give an answer to anyone that asks what this hopefulness that we're living out is based on. Even if talking just isn't your "thing," you need to be prepared to do so. If you're living out what you've learned, someone is probably going to ask you about it at some point. Whether it's someone who has no clue why Jesus should matter to her or whether it's a believer that's trying to figure out what you're living out that he doesn't know yet, don't miss the opportunity to be a part of God's preserving plan for his/her life through your words too!
At the top of this post, I declared my hesitancy to "sing the praises of preservation through death" before I realized that I had "been doing exactly that my whole life." I meant this singing thing both figuratively and literally. In high school, I attended a Christian school whose unofficial school song was titled "If Any Man Come After Me" according to us students. However, as an adult with access to youtube, I discovered that the song's title originally seemed to be "Matthew 16:24." When you turn to that verse in the Bible, you read, "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'" (Matthew 16:24-25) To be a disciple yourself, to live for God, and to turn what you've learned into action requires denying yourself and taking up your cross.
At the top of this post, I declared my hesitancy to "sing the praises of preservation through death" before I realized that I had "been doing exactly that my whole life." I meant this singing thing both figuratively and literally. In high school, I attended a Christian school whose unofficial school song was titled "If Any Man Come After Me" according to us students. However, as an adult with access to youtube, I discovered that the song's title originally seemed to be "Matthew 16:24." When you turn to that verse in the Bible, you read, "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'" (Matthew 16:24-25) To be a disciple yourself, to live for God, and to turn what you've learned into action requires denying yourself and taking up your cross.
I'm going to be blunt with you now. I didn't want to write this series of posts. For whatever reason, I had decided that I didn't write series, and I had no interest in changing that position. When it became clear that God wanted me to prepare a lesson on what it meant to be the salt of the earth and when it become obvious to me that it would require a series of smaller lessons, I was not happy. I did not want to do it. I tried putting many different objections before God. He patiently refuted each one. Everytime, I would think that I had submitted to His plan finally and was starting to get to work on this, I'd run up against another wall that I realized was caused by something I was refusing to submit to Him. First, I didn't want to do it at all. Then, I thought about how I didn't really even like the ending to that salt verse anyways. Then, I thought about how THICK this concept is with material and how nobody would really want to read a blog post this crammed full with challenging Biblical teaching. Then, I settled on doing it, but I didn't want to do it as a series. Then, I wrote a draft with it all crammed together and packed full of my own cranky attitude. Then, I took out the attitude but left it all crammed together. Then, I submitted to doing it as a series, but I didn't want to share the series until I had already finished writing every post. He challenged me on each objection. He was gentle. He was loving, but He was persistent in requiring me to take up this cross. Remember those people I mentioned in yesterday's post that help me to be the best me that I can be? Well, I knew I was struggling with God's direction in this whole thing, so I let 4 of those people in on my struggle. They prayed for me. They read drafts for me. They checked up on how I was progressing. They lovingly told me to cut the attitude and get on with the meat of it, and they straight up laughed at me when appropriate. They helped me to get to the point of submitting in obedience to God completely. Once I really submitted in obedience to where He was leading me, I was able to more clearly see Him meeting me in the midst of the struggle. I still haven't been able to coherently put together one post until I've published the one before it. For a planner such as myself, taking it one step at a time is definitely an exercise in faith, but He has faithfully met me in the next lesson each time it's time to actually write it.
What God asks you to do as you agree to be used by Him in His preservative plan for the world will require you to take up your cross. It will require you to deny yourself. I have no idea why He was so persistent in me preparing this series right now, but I do know that it is both a part of me being His disciple and a part of me being obedient to disciple others. Agreeing to the Great Commission, agreeing to His two-part preservative role for us, agreeing to disciple others even as we are being discipled requires denying yourself and taking up your cross and following Jesus. It's the only real way to live this life He's given us, and it's the only way to really be able to share it with others.
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.In the next post, we'll get to explore our value as the salt of the earth, but for now I want to leave you with the opportunity to hear the song that I have been striving to sing for many years. (The video says it's 5 minutes, but really you can hear the whole song if you jump to 0:55 and stop at 3:25 or even earlier.) The cost of disciple-making is real, but the rewards are everlasting. Let's be salty enough to embrace our preservative role. Let's watch our life and our doctrine closely. Let's turn what we've learned into action and watch the results! It's a matter of life or death!
Command and teach these things. Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.
Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:10-16)
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