Please pray with me: Father in heaven, may the love that Your Son showed to us, move us to share His Gospel message with everyone and to serve Your kingdom faithfully, AMEN.
Our text for this morning is a portion of the Gospel lesson from Mark chapter 9,
“for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.
For the one who is not against us is for us…Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
If you look on the front of your bulletin this morning, the words say, “Salted for service.”
Rev. Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, designed this liturgy and chose the title. While the title, itself, is a little vague, it appears to me that this statement is describing a process by which we are purified, at the start, and this leads to service, in the end. A recipe for success.
To be “salted” means to be purified. Our Gospel lesson goes into some detail about salt that has lost it’s saltiness. It is good for nothing! Another Gospel account says it is good for nothing but to be trampled under foot. Only salt that is pure, and truly salty, is worth having around. Can salt that has lost it’s saltiness get it back by itself? No! Someone has to refine it, to make it pure, before it can be salty again. So, to say that we must be “salted” is to say that we must be made pure. Can we make ourselves pure? No! We cannot make ourselves pure again, any more than salt can make itself salty again. We cant do it! If it were up to us to make ourselves pure, again, we would be lost forever. Jesus, the pure Son of God, has made us pure!
He has refined us and purified us so that we can be pure and refined in the sight of our Father in heaven. That is the first step in this recipe: we are to be “salted” (purified) before we can serve.
But, being pure does not make you into someone who serves the Lord. The Pharisees were living proof of that. They were as pure as any Jew could be, but they were only interested in themselves. They did not want to serve. So, how do we get from being purified to serving?
After we are purified, we must be justified. To be justified is to be made right with God: to be measured out correctly. To be made right with God means that someone had to make payment for all our sins, to make us right: to justify us. Well, we know that someone was Jesus Christ. He willingly went to the cross to make payment for your sins and mine. He made sure that you, and all the other children of God, were made right in the sight of our Father in heaven. We are justified, we are right with God. And being justified means that we have been given the gift of life eternal in heaven with Jesus forever. But, this does not automatically make us into the kind of followers of God that serves others. We have been given these gifts! They are ours! They belong to us! This is the next essential step in the process: we need to be justified with God before we can serve His kingdom.
But, being justified does not make you into someone who serves the Lord. Justification is the personal gift of salvation that God gives to each one of us who have been chosen to be His children. Where justification is concerned, everything comes down from God to us. We cannot

do anything to justify ourselves. But, being saved does not make us into Christians who serve others. Being justified, we must listen to God’s word for us, that tells us to share this gift with others. Being justified leads to being sanctified. The sanctified life of a Christian is where we share the love of God, given freely to us, with others. We are to tell them about the Gospel message of Jesus Christ for their salvation, and then the Holy Spirit can enter into their hearts.
The Bible says,
“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
We have to share this word of God with others. That is the life of sanctification. That is what being sanctified means to us. And, while this sanctified life is a very important service to others, it only helps them with their eternal life. What about their daily life? A person who is sanctified is well on his way to being a servant but not there yet. The recipe is not complete, yet.
Being sanctified does not make a person into someone who serves the Lord. Being sanctified leads a person to humility. When we truly ponder the gifts and sacrifices that Jesus
Christ made for us, we cannot help but to be humbled. This is the next step in the recipe of service. Just as Jesus did when He washed the feet of His disciples during the Last Supper that
He would have with them on earth, we are asked to humble ourselves to put the needs of God and the needs of our neighbors; before our own needs. This means giving of ourselves, our time, and our treasures to do God’s work, here on earth, and placing these as priorities before doing things for ourselves. How impossible this is to do. When we are tired, at the end of a long hard day, the last thing that comes to any of our minds is this, “What can I do this evening, at the end of my hard day, to further the kingdom of God and to help my neighbor? A life of humility is the only answer to that question. And this is the last important step that our Lord leads each of us to, so that we can lead lives of service to Him. Humility is the last ingredient. We must choose to humble ourselves before God in order to put His needs, and the needs of others, in front of our own needs. We must choose to follow His commands for us, so that we can show Him how much His love and sacrifice means to us.
In the phrase “salted for service” we see all the steps necessary for us to be led to a life of service by our Lord. The whole recipe. He chose us! He purified us; He justified us before our
Father in heaven; He showed us how to lead a sanctified life; He gave us the greatest example of humility by His life, His suffering, and His death on the cross; and He shows us how to serve others by putting our needs ahead of His own needs. Our needs, your needs and my needs, He put them ahead of His own needs when He proved to the whole world how much He loves His children: when He gave His life, willingly, for your life and for my life. Jesus has done it all! He has salted us for service! He has led us through each step of the process and has made sure that we have everything we need, every possible thing, so that we can serve Him in our world.
But, there is one step that He cannot make for you. There is one step that you have to make for yourself: you have to choose to serve Him. You have to choose, for yourself, to serve
Him. No one can make that choice for you. You have to take all that has been given to you, all the steps in the process, and choose to serve Him. He has salted you for service, He has helped you see each part of the process, but you have to choose for yourself to serve Him. His gospel

mandate is for you. Jesus asks you to
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
He commands you to “GO” and do this but you have to decide to. Jesus has given you all the things that you need. He has made sure that you have everything you need. He has taken care of everything for you. You have to decide.
How will you show Him your love, and your thanks, and your commitment to Him?
So, we started out with what God does for us: He purifies us, He justifies us, and
He sanctifies us. We then moved to our response to Him: following His example of humility and service. But, what is our ultimate goal here on earth? Besides serving God and each other, what are we working towards? What is the final product of this recipe? We are working towards the final step in this process: and that is to be glorified. God glorified Jesus when He raised Him from the dead. God, our Father, glorified His Son for giving Himself for you. And God will glorify you and me because of the sacrifice of Jesus for us. That is what we are working towards, that is what makes all the hard work and service “worthwhile.” God will glorify us because of
Jesus Christ, His Son. Not that we deserve to be glorified for what we have done, but that we are glorified because Jesus deserves everything and He shares it with us.
Like our text says, God has given you mighty works to do in His name. Are you for Him or against Him? There is no middle ground. No neutral position. You either work for the good of His kingdom or you oppose Him by your silence and lack of action. The salt that God is offering you comes in the form of Christian values and morals that shape your life. The service
He is asking from you is sharing your faith with others and showing them God’s love through your faithful, humble service. And the last part of our text is like the star on the top of the
Christmas tree, the crowning touch. He says,
“be at peace with one another.”
Maybe the hardest part of all. Do all these things for others and do not have any thoughts about yourself and what you might think you deserve for your efforts. Put away all thoughts of yourself and be at peace with one another. The gifts that God has given to you are your reward. There is no need for any of us to seek out recognition and reward for our actions. If this comes to us, okay. But we cannot seek it. That is selfish, and has nothing to do with God and His peace. Selfish and selfless cannot stand together: you are either for God or you are against Him. There is no middle ground.
Purified to glorified! Salted for service! Re-made in the image of Christ! Equipped for service and every other good work. And the promise of God waiting at the end of it all: to be glorified with Him in heaven. What an awesome reward awaits us at the end of this recipe! What will you do? How will you show Jesus what He means to you? Will you choose to make the most of His gifts to you? Or will you keep them for yourself and ignore His mandate? Will you live at peace with others? What will you do? Are you worth your salt?
On this Sunday celebrating the work of the LWML, we remember the sacrifices made by countless women who are, now, sainted with God, and countless others that continue in service to Jesus and His work on earth. These women give of themselves tirelessly, selflessly, and put

the needs of others ahead of their own needs. They are truly “salted for service” in the best sense of the phrase. They know the process of being led from being purified to serving God. They prove it to each one of us when we eat a sandwich prepared at a funeral for someone that they might know well or not well at all. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they are raising money for people whom they don’t know, in places they will never visit. That is just what they do. And they choose to serve the Lord with gladness. You should have heard the wonderful singing the other night at the Fall Zone Rally. They are faithful in their service and joyful in the worship. A great example to us all of being in service to our Lord. And we thank you all for your hard work and dedication.
Salted for service. Following the example of Christ for our lives. Humbling ourselves for
His service. Living in peace with one another through it all. Not asking much, is it? Yes, it is!
Jesus is asking for everything you’ve got. He gave everything for you, AMEN.