Title: Believers, the Salt of the Earth

Scripture Reading: Mark 9:49-50
“For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.”

Main idea: Salt preserves. It keeps things from decaying. Salt flavors. It influences the taste of things. There is no one other than Christ who can salt and save a person from decay.

“everyone will be seasoned with fire”
This saying “everyone will be seasoned with fire” is found only in Mark’s Gospel. It must have held special significance for Mark. Jesus affirms that “everyone will be salted with fire.” “Salt” is a preservative. Thus all will be “salted with fire” in a manner consistent with their relationship to Christ. For unbelievers it will be the perpetual fires of final judgment in hell. For believers it will be the preserving and refining fires of trials and suffering that mark the road to true greatness. Sinclair Ferguson says, “unless we maintain the purity of our own lives (plucking out the eye, etc.) and are purified by the flames of testing, and remain faithful to Christ, our lives will have no preserving influence on this corrupt world” (Mark, 155).

“every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.”
Temple sacrifices in the Old Testament had to be offered with salt (Ezek 43:24; Exod 30:35), and the Israelites are warned not to insult God with offerings that lack “the salt of the covenant of your God” (Lev 2:13)—that is, offerings that are mere ritual, devoid of genuine zeal for God and his covenant. Jesus is speaking of salt as a necessary quality in his disciples.

“salt loses its flavor, how will you season it?”
Salt is what seasons everything else; if even salt becomes tasteless, what is left to season it? Jesus is warning his disciples against falling into a bland spirituality that has no power to attract others. They are the salt of the earth (Matt 5:13); if they become tasteless in their Christian life, what is left for the world? If salt fails to salt food, it is not salt and is worthless. The same applies to believers. If they do not manifest the characteristics Jesus requires, they are worthless to him.

Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another.”
Peace (shalom) means not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of all that is meant to be in a relationship: the fullness of communion. The idea is similar to what Paul said in (Colossians 4:6), “Let your speech always be grace, seasoned with salt.” The disciples’ conversations with one another and with outsiders (Mark 9:38) must be marked by the fervent love for Christ that leads to humility. Saint Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian monk, said: “Acquire the Spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved.” The reward for being a man of peace and therefore a peacemaker is stated in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Application
What can make the salt tasteless is worldliness, the desire for human recognition, and the compromise with sin to which we can so easily succumb. Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves” (Mark 9:50), which means that we must retain our distinctive flavor. If the disciples had the “salt” in themselves, then they would not be arguing about who would be the greatest in Christ’s kingdom (Mark 9:34). We must preserve the distinction between disciples and the world. The godliness of Christ’s true followers, though they are few, makes them a potent force to preserve good and restrain evil in the world.

Let’s pray together
Heavenly Father, we are the salt of the earth. Help us Lord, to preserve the distinction that we are the salt of the earth. Help us Lord to be true followers of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Name Amen.