“The Case for Christ - Influences: Good or Evil”

The story goes of a minister who took notice of a little girl’s enthusiasm about her Sunday School class one day.

He asked her: ‘What did you do at Sunday School this morning?’

‘We sang some songs’, she said, ‘and then the teacher talked to us.’

Who was she?’, the minister asked.

‘Well - I do not know her name,’ she replied, ‘but she must be the mother of Jesus, because she talked about Him all the time!’

The teacher’s name meant nothing or little to the young child, but what she said about Jesus so impressed her that she saw a close kinship between the teacher and Jesus.

This is ‘influence’ - influence that counts and makes a mark upon the heart. 

Mothers are known for this kind of influence upon their children.

And - since today is Mother’s Day - and I hope every mother here had a very blessed day - I would like to spend our time together this evening in concentrating upon the influence each Christian - not just mothers - but each Christian has in this world and the import of it.

And we continue with Mk 9 in which is recorded what Jesus said about influence in verse 50: ‘Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it?’

Thus far, in this passage, we have seen how Jesus knew the need for a pure testimony of the glory of God in the church effective only through His name.

We must be ‘salted’, infused with the pure testimony of Christ, and that with the ‘fire’ of His refining process.

The ‘salt with fire’ widens His followers.

It changes them within themselves. 

It affects their relationship among themselves. 

And it reaches out to others. 

To put it into one, all-inclusive effect: it preserves the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!   
        
Thus, we have seen how highly significant this passage of Mk 9 is in God’s plan of salvation!

To heighten its significance, Jesus closed with the matter of influence in the world.

The very character of Christ within the heart of His disciples makes each one such an influence that in the very presence of each Christian there stands, or - at least, should stand - a rebuke to the corruption of the world.

And - we thank God for this - for it attests to the rightful and proper testimony of Jesus within His followers.

Christ was this example in Mk 9:34. In His presence, the disciples were shamed into silence before Him.

They were all caught up in the same selfish corruption: ‘Who should be the greatest among us?’ 

But - the very character of Christ among them subdued them, put an end to their corrupting influence among them.

Yes - it is no secret that every man who lowers his standard of morality in his own life helps lower the standard in the community of which he is a part.

It catches on quickly once it starts. And then it takes a thousand and more different turns that foster corruption.

Having salt within would keep the disciples on course, however. The ‘fire’ would see to that!  

In Lu 12:49, we see that Jesus came for this very reason.

There He told His disciples: ‘I am come to send fire on the earth.’

What was the divine intention to this?

This ‘fire’ was the higher spiritual element of life that He came to bring to earth. 

This was what predetermined the character of His redemptive work in His people.

He would use this element of fire upon the earth to penetrate human hearts.

The ‘fire’ would energize everything related to the divine purpose of life and it would destroy everything opposing that purpose. 
  
If you read through in the passage of Luke 12, you will see how Jesus saw it working. 

He was looking toward His own bloody ‘baptism’ of death. It was causing a tremendous pressure of spirit in Him as He faced the agonies associated with His work on the Cross.

In His redemptive work, He was finishing His bodily testimony of God upon the earth. 

It is that testimony that has been destined to go on through to the place where Christ is ‘all and in all’ in the world.

And that testimony - carried on by His own through ‘salt with fire’(Col 1:24) - is the testimony of the divine life, the mystery of God, that is to be completed through to the end of the age. 

Thus - His followers must regard their service less in relation to themselves and more as part of the grand whole in carrying out God’s perfect design of salvation. (Eph 1:22-23) 

For which of them would know when the testimony of Christ is complete upon the earth?

Or who would know which of His followers or what is  destined to close the final door when there will be ‘no time no longer’? (Rev 10:7)

For this to happen, ‘salt with fire’ is still needed now. 

So when Jesus spoke of that element to the disciples, it was with the concern of its effect on the world through them.

Salt will do its pervading, preserving good. But - if it does not do its job, its effect is lost!

Jesus knew that every disciple of His faces plenty of evil and wickedness upon the earth.

It never ends - does it?

But it does call for an influence of righteousness within its very midst.

For the only way salt can preserve and influence is by being rubbed into that which can corrupt.

Thus, Jesus told the disciples, in Lu 12:35, ‘Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning...’.

‘Always be prepared by becoming men of full spiritual stature whose lights burn brightly in the world,’ He said.  

Such a pure, mature example is the by-product of ‘salt with fire’. 

It works silently, inconspicuously! It is what checks corruption and works its work of influence in the earth.  

When Jesus censured Peter in Mt 16:23, He was showing the disciples how it worked!

After He explained the divine plan of His redemption, Peter stepped in with his own bit of inspiration.

Jesus sharply rebuked him: ‘Thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.’

‘You are being carried away by the human views of setting up God’s kingdom, Peter. You are an offense, a stumbling block to Me,’ Jesus had to tell him.

The difference of thought has to be clear-cut. It must be uniquely divine. ‘He who is not with Me is against Me’, Jesus had to remind them at another time.  

Either we are an influence for Christ’s sake or we are influenced against Him. There is no other alternative!

When you take a piece of metal from the refining fire, what happens?

First, the metal is influenced by the outside air and the metal starts to cool down.

But, if it stays in the fire, the heat rays warm the air around the furnace. The hotter the fire, the more the rays radiate the surrounding area.

So, which of the two portrays the effective Christian? 

I say again, we either are influences or we are influenced!

We are either affecting the world or the world is infecting us!

Many, many times I have cautioned - particularly our young people who are exposed to so many corrupt influences and teachings - that it is all right to hear, know, and study about these things the world promotes.

Just do not ingest them as your own. They lead to the  corruption of Christ’s pure testimony within if taken as one’s own. 

If we are submitting to the work of Christ, by the Holy Spirit’s refining power, then that purifying process promises to affect the world’s corruption.

But if there are more and mightier influences we ingest of the world, then we become infected.

And we become poor, powerless testimonies who are being developed at the mercy of our own circumstances. 

And the world about us gains nothing from the truth of Jesus Christ.

And this life of Christ in us - more and more - will show less and less of His likeness!

Let me repeat that: more and more will the life of Christ in us show less and less of Him to others!

Does this thought alone shock and startle us? I hope so! 

For - if it does - we are showing genuine concern of the testimony of Jesus in the world!

I hope we will always see that clearly and remember that for the rest of our lives!

Stop to think about this: is there any difference from the way the world’s morality standards are held and how we apply the standard of morality Christ is in our daily living that makes Him and His life in us distinct?

Is there? I will leave that for the Lord to search out in our hearts!

You well know - it is when we are low in physical resistance that we are so prone to catch all the diseases going around! 

So - the inconsistent Christian, the feeble type whose life is only a rote ‘Sunday morning’ duty, yields to the example of Diotrephes given to us in the third letter of John. 

We saw, several weeks ago, how his prating character was only a similitude of ‘Christian’ that left the world without the salt and light of Christ in it.

The example of the Christian ought to be one that encourages the very best, the highest, the purest in all those we contact daily.

Is Christ in us asking too much of us when He asks that?

Listen! The high calling of the Lord’s church is to be the world’s pervading, preserving, purifying influence.

I have said it before, and I say it now again: we need to proclaim and live the Good News of Christ in such a way that His true nature is understood and received with the divine glory that it is!

Yes - we need to show the world His overcoming truth by walking in His unchangeable light!

All of we Christians who live aright in Christ Jesus like this will influence public opinion to do right.

But all of us who lower our standards of morality in our own lives help lower it in the community in which we live.

In this time of the church’s history, it is important that the righteousness of the Christian ‘goes forth as brightness’ and the salvation of Christ is seen as a ‘lamp that burneth’.

We - His church - are destined to be the ‘crown of glory in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.’

That will be when the testimony of God in Christ upon the earth is finished: only then will it be completely fulfilled!

When we - who are His own and who are fully committed to Him  - see this, we will gladly yield and react out from the Lord Himself, trust and leave ourselves in His refining hand!

And our heart’s cry will be: ‘Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Finish Your testimony upon the earth through us!’ 

Oh - that His power becomes ours as we learn to live in His beauty and character, in His purity of life.       

Oh - that the work of His Spirit will be that witnessing influence to all that Christ lives and rules in us as the ‘supreme barrier’ against the world’s corruption!

We will stop here for tonight but let me leave you with this thought.

The story goes of a well-known Welsh preacher who went to deliver the address at the funeral of an esteemed and very effective influential Christian.

Hundreds of miners of the village were gathered around the grave in silence.

The first words they heard from this faithful preacher were: ’Gentlemen, the greatest obstacle on the road to hell has been now removed from your presence.’

That is the kind of influence the world needs! 

This man’s living testimony was powerful enough to be felt in his absence!
 
I trust each of us will ponder these things before the Lord once more as we move on throughout this week. 

Do not be afraid to seek the Lord about the effectiveness of your influence at work, at home, at school, with whomever you are this week.  

‘Now - to Him that is of power to stablish you according to...the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

But now is made manifest,...according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:

To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever.

Amen.’ 

Let us pray.