back to index2017-07-02 Confess and Believe Part 3
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If there's no other announcements, why don't we turn our Bibles to Romans Chapter 10. 00:00:10.800 |
And again, this is kind of a part three of this section, Confession and Belief. 00:00:21.640 |
For the scripture says, "Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame, for there 00:00:28.180 |
For the same Lord is Lord over all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. 00:00:32.880 |
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 00:00:36.960 |
Gracious and loving Father, we thank You for the privilege. 00:00:42.920 |
We thank You for the opportunity to fellowship and worship You corporately. 00:00:48.320 |
We ask, Lord God, that Your Word would go forth, and that only Your Word, Lord God, 00:00:57.480 |
Years ago, you know, one of the older brothers who invested in me when I was in high school 00:01:08.420 |
I remember as a very, very young pastor, I remember driving to LA with him. 00:01:13.780 |
And for whatever the reason, I forgot what context he said this, but it really stuck 00:01:19.500 |
And especially because of the person that said it to me, because he's a guy who invested 00:01:24.460 |
a lot in me when I was a younger person, and he said, Peter, be wise in, you know, which 00:01:47.420 |
But it was something to the effect, like, don't fight over every battle. 00:01:50.140 |
That was basically in essence what he was saying. 00:01:51.860 |
He said, not everything requires you to stand up and fight. 00:01:57.180 |
You know, he said, choose your battles wisely. 00:02:08.620 |
And again, I don't remember exactly what context he said that, but I know he said that deliberately. 00:02:16.980 |
That wasn't just something that he just randomly said or he read. 00:02:22.460 |
I think for probably my guess is, it's because maybe I was arguing with a lot of people. 00:02:26.660 |
You know, I was strong headed and I had strong opinions, and maybe I was getting into a lot 00:02:32.420 |
And my guess is that's probably why he said it, because it was very intentional conversation. 00:02:36.260 |
And he told me, like, choose your battles wisely. 00:02:40.820 |
You know, even to this day, that really, like, stuck with me, that you don't have to fight 00:02:46.900 |
And again, not to say that I've applied that well. 00:02:49.500 |
You know, my natural inclination, I'm opinionated. 00:02:52.980 |
You know, I have strong opinions about everything and nothing, you know. 00:02:57.620 |
But I remember that, and I try to practice that, that you don't have to fight for everything. 00:03:04.380 |
But there are certain things that requires a fight. 00:03:08.600 |
There are certain things in life that requires to gear up and need to fight. 00:03:15.860 |
Some of us, maybe, our natural inclination is to fight. 00:03:18.820 |
And so, maybe we need to heed that warning, that you don't really need to fight about 00:03:23.900 |
Not every opinion you have is worth getting into an argument for. 00:03:30.880 |
Maybe some of you guys have a personality where you don't like to be in conflict over 00:03:35.300 |
So, you have a tendency to avoid any kind of conflict, and you're never fighting over 00:03:42.260 |
There are certain things in life that everybody, no matter what your inclination, what your 00:03:47.780 |
personality type may be, requires that you are committed to this fight. 00:03:53.100 |
There's two particular things in church history that if our forefathers who went before us 00:04:04.940 |
The first, maybe 700 to about 900 years of church history, if you look at all the church 00:04:09.260 |
councils, one of the main things that they wrestled with and fought was the identity 00:04:15.780 |
And very early on, the very first church council, one of their primary debate was, "Was Jesus 00:04:23.580 |
And there was a man named Arius who was convincing, and very convincing, articulate, smart guy, 00:04:29.500 |
who was so convincing that almost the whole church kind of went over and said, "There 00:04:35.740 |
Now, it was not based on Scripture, but he was basing it on logic that he couldn't be 00:04:43.220 |
And as a result of that, here's this man named Athanasius who was fighting against this doctrine, 00:04:47.540 |
that Arius was so convincing, he ended up getting disciplined and excommunicated from 00:04:52.780 |
And almost wholeheartedly, the church almost went over, but Athanasius decided that this 00:04:57.740 |
was something worth fighting and possibly even dying for. 00:05:01.400 |
And as a result of this man's effort, that the church began to get convinced, as he began 00:05:06.220 |
to apply Scripture and exposit the Scripture that they had, he began to convince them that 00:05:12.740 |
it may not be easy to understand, but it is clearly taught, and it was clearly given to 00:05:24.020 |
It would keep coming up over and over again throughout church history. 00:05:27.260 |
And faithful men with courage fought against this false doctrine. 00:05:34.660 |
The other doctrine that we see have been fought for so heartily, and many people even gave 00:05:40.060 |
their lives, is a doctrine that we've been talking about in the last few months, the 00:05:48.500 |
You and I are Protestants because men of courage stood up against the church that began to 00:05:57.820 |
You have to believe and you have to have works in your life. 00:06:02.460 |
And almost wholeheartedly, there was a period in church history where they just completely 00:06:07.460 |
And anybody who was propagating this doctrine, they disciplined, they maybe even beheaded, 00:06:17.900 |
But obviously, men of faith stood up, many of them giving their lives, in order that 00:06:23.140 |
we may have this doctrine and to be preserved according to what Christ has done and according 00:06:34.100 |
And why has Paul been pounding this over and over and over again? 00:06:38.260 |
So if we were to summarize, at least up to this point, chapter 10 and up to chapter 11, 00:06:44.300 |
one word or one phrase that could probably sum up everything that Paul has been saying 00:06:53.540 |
He's been saying it in 50 different ways, but his main point is the same. 00:07:03.240 |
Because if we're not careful, if we're nonchalant about the details of this doctrine, you can 00:07:09.820 |
either be living in faith in bondage, just as if you were never saved, that you adhere 00:07:18.060 |
to certain doctrines, but because you don't know the details of what it means that it's 00:07:22.020 |
by faith alone, you could still be caught in your legalism and living in bondage, thinking 00:07:27.700 |
that somehow your efforts somehow add to your salvation and living, again, as if you were 00:07:34.460 |
But the other end of the spectrum is to live with false freedom, the thinking that, "Oh, 00:07:41.060 |
it's justification by faith alone, so what we do doesn't matter," and you have a false 00:07:45.300 |
sense of security and realizing until you meet Christ that you didn't know Christ at 00:07:54.020 |
The either extreme, the either extreme of it could possibly mean that you didn't have 00:08:03.060 |
You see why this doctrine is so important, that we get it right, that we do not turn 00:08:07.820 |
from it to the left or to the right, because not having biblical saving faith ultimately 00:08:18.780 |
So it's extremely important for us that we understand what Paul is saying, not superficially, 00:08:25.540 |
I've heard this all my life, so of course I'm saved, of course I'm a believer, of course 00:08:33.120 |
Is it the faith that Paul has been describing? 00:08:38.420 |
Is it a faith that I've inherited because I was raised in a Christian home? 00:08:45.580 |
Is it a security blanket that is like, "You know, I'm going to pretend like I have it 00:08:49.500 |
so that after I die, at least I got a free ticket to heaven," but is it really genuine 00:08:55.380 |
biblical faith that Paul has been describing? 00:08:58.520 |
This morning, I'm going to be looking at these three verses, and I may not get to the third 00:09:02.620 |
one because I didn't get to it in the first service, but again, not every sermon, I'm 00:09:08.460 |
going to divide into three points, but I think that the three points helps us to follow along 00:09:12.520 |
in the line, so I'm going to give you three things, and then I'm going to go to two today. 00:09:18.260 |
So the first one is assurance of salvation is the ultimate goal, and I'll get to that. 00:09:25.300 |
Paul has been doing up to this point is to give assurance of salvation. 00:09:29.940 |
Two, in verse 12, "Same God saves with the same gospel." 00:09:39.740 |
And the third point that I'm guessing I won't be able to get to is, "Same God with the same 00:09:43.980 |
gospel results in the same salvation," and that's going to be the outline that I follow 00:09:55.480 |
If you're not careful, you can read all of this and come out in despair and begin to 00:10:00.040 |
ask yourself, "Oh, maybe I'm not a Christian," that maybe that's Paul's goal. 00:10:04.280 |
Paul's goal is to shake up the church and then get people to say, "Oh, you know what? 00:10:09.940 |
Maybe that's not the, you know, maybe this is really ultimately for me." 00:10:16.440 |
But you have to understand that this letter is written to the church. 00:10:21.920 |
He's writing this to the church, and you'll see starting from next week or maybe the week 00:10:26.200 |
after that, his ultimate goal is try to recruit some people to take him with him to preach 00:10:35.900 |
So his goal here is not to shake up the church and weed out the church, although it may result 00:10:40.640 |
in that possibly, but his ultimate goal is really to give them assurance of salvation. 00:10:46.960 |
If you look at the three verses that we're looking at, he basically says the same thing. 00:10:52.160 |
He's been saying the same thing, but he kind of ends with this exclamation mark. 00:10:56.640 |
The salvation is by faith alone, and he repeats that three separate times in three separate 00:11:02.200 |
Here's verse 11, "For the scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be 00:11:07.380 |
So in other words, salvation is by faith alone. 00:11:11.120 |
Verse 12, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord 00:11:15.100 |
of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." 00:11:19.160 |
Salvation are for those who call on him by faith. 00:11:23.700 |
Verse 13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 00:11:26.760 |
So again, he's saying the same thing three separate times for the purpose of emphasis. 00:11:32.080 |
As I've mentioned before, anything that the scripture mentions for the purpose of emphasis, 00:11:40.120 |
And whenever you see anything being repeated, it's meant to cause us to take a step back 00:11:57.240 |
Paul has been, again, this is in summary of 10 and a half chapters. 00:12:03.000 |
Even though it may seem like, you know, superficious, salvation by faith, of course I know that. 00:12:07.820 |
But if we miss the details of what it means to have the saving faith, what it means to 00:12:14.440 |
confess that he is Lord and Savior, what it means to believe that he was raised from the 00:12:18.160 |
dead, and how that is applied, and what that means for us as a Christian, we can completely 00:12:26.760 |
There probably is, in each one of us, a defect in the way that we believe God, in what we 00:12:34.640 |
believe about God, that is causing the anxiousness. 00:12:39.360 |
Some things are not going right in your life, and you're not satisfied. 00:12:43.320 |
Now we don't always connect it to God, but majority of the time, the reason why that's 00:12:48.240 |
there is because there's some kind of defect in our faith, in the way that we view God, 00:12:52.920 |
in what he has promised and what he has done. 00:12:58.240 |
We confess it, but it may not be accurate, it may not be biblical. 00:13:02.800 |
The whole reason why Paul has been expositing this is to confirm for the Christians what 00:13:10.320 |
That's why it says in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, "Examine yourself to see whether you are in 00:13:16.020 |
Test yourselves, or do not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless 00:13:23.560 |
The reason why he says to test yourself is because this church had all kinds of problems. 00:13:34.960 |
They were having communion, and they're competing with one another, and they couldn't care about 00:13:39.640 |
This is a divided church that's living in chaos, and he's telling them, "Possibly, are you 00:13:46.200 |
living like that because you have defected faith?" 00:13:51.720 |
So Paul is questioning not just their behavior, he's questioning, "Do you have Christ in you?" 00:13:58.360 |
Now the whole reason why he's doing that, he's not saying, "I don't think you're a Christian." 00:14:03.200 |
The goal of what he's trying to do is to remind them, "Do you not realize that Christ is in 00:14:14.200 |
How much of the chaos in your life, how much of the discomfort or anxiety or hatred and 00:14:20.960 |
bitterness, wanting and not having, how much of that is because you've forgotten that Christ 00:14:28.280 |
is in you, that you have Christ, and yet you're complaining and competing of trivial things?" 00:14:36.920 |
Examine yourself to see if you're really of the faith, unless you've forgotten that Jesus 00:14:42.960 |
Again in 1 John, John lays out, here's identity of a Christian. 00:14:48.600 |
If you are living in darkness and yet you say you have fellowship with God, you fool 00:14:53.840 |
That God is light and there is no darkness in Him, and that you don't fool Him, that 00:15:00.560 |
So he lays out in detail that this is what it means to have saving faith. 00:15:05.480 |
You can't confess that Jesus Christ is not coming to flesh and then say that you have 00:15:09.520 |
faith in God and it says you're not from God. 00:15:12.680 |
So if you look at the first four or five chapters of 1 John, it kind of shakes up the church 00:15:18.800 |
and it causes us to take a step back and say, "Well, is that me or is that not me?" 00:15:23.080 |
But he summarizes the purpose of this letter in 1 John 5, verse 13. 00:15:28.780 |
He says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that 00:15:37.640 |
So the purpose of why John writes this letter is not to cause people to say, "Maybe I'm 00:15:42.120 |
not, maybe I am," but to reconfirm for them their assurance of salvation. 00:15:49.040 |
But this assurance of salvation is not a knee-jerk reaction just because somebody doubts, which 00:15:54.520 |
is something that we need to be careful about. 00:15:57.600 |
Because our natural reaction is if somebody says, "I'm not sure if I genuinely believe, 00:16:02.920 |
I'm not sure if I'm genuinely saved," without knowing what the problem is, without 00:16:09.560 |
examining their faith, our natural reaction is if that is coming from somebody who used 00:16:15.280 |
to confess that they're Christian or they're a 10th church or they're a faithful member, 00:16:20.120 |
our natural reaction is, "Don't ever say that. 00:16:25.720 |
Salvation is by faith and not by works, so don't ever say that." 00:16:28.760 |
And we give a superficial, knee-jerk reaction to give affirmation of faith to everybody 00:16:36.840 |
He's trying to give assurance of salvation, but not a knee-jerk reaction, but a biblical 00:16:42.560 |
faith, but a real faith, that after laying out 10 and a half chapters of this is what 00:16:50.640 |
it means to have genuine faith, in order that if you are a genuine believer, that it would 00:16:56.760 |
cause you to take a step back and examine your faith and to see that I am. 00:17:04.440 |
That if you've drifted away from this faith, if you maybe haven't paid attention to this 00:17:10.160 |
faith, if you've allowed it to kind of drift out from the centrality of the saving faith, 00:17:17.440 |
which is causing you to be frustrated, that you've placed your hope in anything else but 00:17:21.800 |
Christ, it is to remind us of what it is that we have in Christ, but genuinely. 00:17:30.200 |
That's why again Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 12, "Fight the good fight of faith." 00:17:40.480 |
That this genuine saving faith is not something that just happened because you happen to choose 00:17:48.680 |
And if we're not careful, we just choose to get on the right boat and say, "Well, you 00:17:52.600 |
I made a decision to come to church and the rest of it, I just kind of coast along because 00:18:00.240 |
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called." 00:18:05.720 |
Take hold meaning not just to receive it, but to hold on to it for dear life. 00:18:17.240 |
In fact, every one of these letters, these epistles are written to reaffirm for the church 00:18:24.160 |
so that they may be strengthened in their genuine faith. 00:18:28.880 |
That they do not just coast along on this faith that they've inherited. 00:18:32.200 |
They do not just coast along because they've been at church for a long time. 00:18:35.500 |
That they don't just coast along just because you've been serving in a certain capacity, 00:18:40.200 |
but that you have this genuine faith in Christ. 00:18:43.400 |
Again, in Hebrews 3, 14, the author of Hebrews says, "For we share in Christ if indeed we 00:18:49.920 |
hold our original confidence firm to the end." 00:18:54.800 |
The words and the language that is used here isn't by accident. 00:18:59.440 |
He's not just casually saying the original confidence. 00:19:02.120 |
He said, "Original confidence firm to the end." 00:19:07.920 |
Not just starting, not just at one point, not just at the end, but firm to the end. 00:19:15.120 |
The whole point of what Paul has been saying was for the purpose of genuine faith. 00:19:21.160 |
That you would have assurance and reexamine where you are before God. 00:19:27.360 |
And that you would recommit and re-covenant to serve and love God with all your heart, 00:19:33.240 |
That if that's something that you did at one point in your life and you've just drifted, 00:19:38.060 |
and you haven't been contending for your faith, the whole purpose is to give assurance to 00:19:46.560 |
Again, in 1 Timothy 6, 19, it's thus storing up treasure for themselves as good foundation 00:19:52.640 |
for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life, to take hold 00:20:07.000 |
Again, as I told you, that warning or encouragement, exhortation that this older brother told me, 00:20:14.200 |
and I knew it was deliberate, and I knew it was very specific to me, because I was already 00:20:18.900 |
in ministry and I was passionate about everything. 00:20:23.080 |
I was passionate about prayer, I was passionate about evangelism, I was passionate about everything. 00:20:27.260 |
So I was getting into it with everybody and say, "Peter, choose your battles wisely." 00:20:35.140 |
Everybody in some degree is fighting for something. 00:20:40.760 |
You might be fighting for your children's attention, you might be fighting with your 00:20:45.840 |
wife to see who's right and wrong, you might be fighting to get a better job, and you might 00:20:55.200 |
be fighting to save up enough time for your vacation. 00:21:01.160 |
Whatever it is we're fighting, every single one of us is struggling and fighting for something. 00:21:07.000 |
So we need to be careful that we choose our battles wisely. 00:21:11.320 |
See, where you and I live, our primary fight, at least in a tangible way, is not against 00:21:27.640 |
Because you're at church, you have the scripture. 00:21:31.040 |
So you might hear about it, maybe possibly in the church every once in a while, you might 00:21:37.840 |
Maybe you voted for Trump and you're getting persecuted somewhere. 00:21:41.440 |
Or somebody is saying, "How dare you believe in that?" 00:21:44.240 |
I don't know if some of you guys heard the hearing a while back. 00:21:51.640 |
Bernie Sanders was basically questioning this guy for an office in the White House. 00:21:58.800 |
He said, "Do you really believe that Jesus is the only way and that all the religions 00:22:03.960 |
And the guy basically answered, "I'm a believer and I'm an evangelical Christian." 00:22:11.360 |
And Bernie Sanders just straight up said, "Then you're not fit to serve in the government. 00:22:18.400 |
He basically is saying, "You can't be a Christian and serve this country." 00:22:22.200 |
As crazy as that is, that may be the environment that you are working in. 00:22:27.960 |
And so you might be fighting, maybe, but we can easily avoid that. 00:22:40.760 |
You can talk about religion, about Jesus, but don't try to proselytize. 00:22:45.040 |
So we can easily avoid those situations, which I think many of us may be doing if we're not 00:22:52.360 |
But the day-to-day fight that you and I have oftentimes is in the church. 00:22:59.920 |
The day-to-day fight that you and I have, the danger that you and I live under, is within 00:23:19.220 |
You don't have to sign a doctrinal statement saying that I'm going to agree and I'm going 00:23:32.280 |
All you have to do is just go along with the flow, which is our natural temptation anyway. 00:23:39.960 |
I mean, ever since we're young, I mean, we're a teenager, wasn't it? 00:23:49.600 |
You don't want to be bullied at work, even as an adult. 00:23:55.640 |
The danger, again, for all of us, the Christianity that you and I experience, is stop fighting. 00:24:09.620 |
The danger that the author of Hebrews was addressing is that very thing. 00:24:15.840 |
How can we escape if we ignore, neglect such a great salvation? 00:24:25.040 |
How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? 00:24:33.680 |
All you have to do is just give yourself to raise your kids. 00:24:46.400 |
Buy a house, travel a little bit, eat some, serve the church. 00:24:52.040 |
It may not be sinful, but if those things entangle us and we're no longer fighting 00:24:58.200 |
and contending for the faith, we may have easily have drifted away. 00:25:02.600 |
And then when we examine ourselves and look at what the biblical faith looks like, we're 00:25:08.580 |
So the whole point that Paul has been trying to make and why he's been pounding this 00:25:11.840 |
doctrine of justification by faith alone is not to give a superficial nod to say, it is 00:25:21.920 |
The point that Paul's trying to make is that this is what genuine faith looks like. 00:25:25.920 |
It is not by what you do, but it's by genuine faith that if you confess with your mouth 00:25:31.480 |
that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe with your heart that He's been raised from the 00:25:46.100 |
So the first and the most important thing that you and I need to understand, what Paul 00:25:50.440 |
has been doing, why he's been pounding this, is to give assurance of salvation, but real 00:26:01.480 |
Real assurance that saves us, that changes us, that empowers us. 00:26:07.680 |
And that's why Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God 00:26:13.120 |
Not simply a security blanket, not simply a free ticket to save us from hell, but it 00:26:29.560 |
Is it enough just pick and choose certain things that the scripture says, and it's 00:26:33.920 |
See, I think every believer that hears what Paul says, hears what John says about all 00:26:50.040 |
If you don't have real faith, what I say to you is not relevant to you. 00:26:57.600 |
So you can hear it, and say, "Okay, you know, he says that a lot, and he's saying it again." 00:27:03.680 |
And it will have no effect on you, because it doesn't matter if it's true or not. 00:27:07.320 |
Because you don't believe it anyway, whether it's true or not, you don't believe it anyway, 00:27:13.080 |
I can say it a thousand times, I can say it one time, it's just not relevant to you. 00:27:20.160 |
But if you do have saving faith, and you are concerned that this is true, wouldn't it cause 00:27:30.340 |
us to take a step back and examine, exactly like Paul says in 2 Corinthians? 00:27:36.100 |
Only people who have genuine faith would take a step back and actually examine their faith. 00:27:42.340 |
And by examining, it would cause us to question, and to recommit, and re-covenant, to make 00:27:49.500 |
sure that when we say that we believe in Jesus, that we actually believe it. 00:27:57.420 |
That our assurance is true assurance, and not a security blanket. 00:28:03.620 |
Secondly, he says that the same God saves with the same gospel. 00:28:08.780 |
In verse 12, he says, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is 00:28:13.140 |
the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." 00:28:18.380 |
You know, that passage here is a quote from Joel, chapter 232. 00:28:22.540 |
And again, let me read the whole thing straight out of the Old Testament. 00:28:24.700 |
It says, "And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord 00:28:29.380 |
What's interesting here is Joel is referring to Yahweh. 00:28:33.300 |
The word for Lord is capital L, capital O, capital R, and capital D. 00:28:37.980 |
So you already know that in the Hebrew, when there's the word Yahweh, they translate it 00:28:42.580 |
into Adonai, Lord, so they don't use the Lord's name in vain. 00:28:51.180 |
But Paul here is using the same reference to refer to Jesus, that he is Lord. 00:28:58.180 |
Now if you did not believe that Jesus Christ is God, this would have been utterly blasphemous. 00:29:02.860 |
There's a reason why Athanasius was able to convince the church that Jesus Christ is God, 00:29:08.540 |
because of these verses and many other verses in the scripture that identify Jesus Christ 00:29:16.460 |
So when Paul is referring to this passage, he's basically saying that that statement 00:29:22.420 |
in Joel chapter 232 was not only in reference to the things of the Old Testament, but it 00:29:29.980 |
The same God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. 00:29:33.760 |
Same Lord that's saved by faith in the Old Testament is the same Lord that's saved in 00:29:39.740 |
That the same Lord saves with the same gospel. 00:29:44.500 |
There is no different gospel for the poor and the rich. 00:29:48.660 |
There is no different gospel from the past generation to this generation. 00:29:52.880 |
There isn't a different gospel for the educated and uneducated. 00:29:58.820 |
Now you and I may sit here in the safety of this room, you know, and we say, "Well, I 00:30:10.220 |
That temptation is all around us, to compromise, to kind of cut the edges off the gospel so 00:30:20.660 |
So again, there's a reason why we are eager to jump to the grace of God without convicting 00:30:25.700 |
the sin and repentance, because it's easily acceptable. 00:30:31.300 |
If we present the gospel as the apostles presented the gospel in exactly the way that they presented 00:30:36.100 |
it, exactly the way that Jesus said it, it would be offensive. 00:30:42.500 |
And so we have a version of the gospel for this group of people, for this generation, 00:30:51.260 |
And again, at the core of it, we have the tenets of the gospel, but the presentation, 00:30:57.060 |
what's being highlighted, what's not being highlighted, it all differs depending on who 00:31:04.380 |
And not to say that context and contextualization culture isn't important, but there's always 00:31:11.180 |
this temptation to alter a little bit in order that it wouldn't be as offensive. 00:31:19.340 |
That we can live in the culture and continue to pursue what we pursue and not to be rejected 00:31:24.500 |
from our society and still follow Christ, still pick up the cross, even though everything 00:31:30.980 |
in the scripture says you are light in darkness. 00:31:34.080 |
They didn't know me, they're not going to know you. 00:31:35.500 |
They rejected me, they're going to reject you. 00:31:37.380 |
But we've been trying, we try so hard to prove Jesus wrong, that it is possible. 00:31:43.340 |
The same Lord with the same baptism, with the same preaching of the cross. 00:31:50.540 |
See, that's why Paul says in Galatians chapter 6, verse 1-6, he says, "I am astonished that 00:31:57.220 |
you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning 00:32:05.900 |
You know the gospel, the different gospel that Paul is talking about here is Judaizers. 00:32:11.500 |
Judaizers within the church did not reject Jesus' crucifixion. 00:32:16.180 |
The Judaizers in the church did not reject his resurrection. 00:32:26.780 |
You know what caused them to be Judaizers and perverting the gospel? 00:32:35.700 |
Because they were saying that we had to maintain some of the Old Testament laws. 00:32:42.860 |
You still needed to observe the dietary laws. 00:32:47.180 |
So basically they were taking the truth of the gospel and they were cutting off some 00:32:53.760 |
And the reason why is because the persecution in the early church primarily came from the 00:32:58.420 |
Jews because the first group of Christians were Jews who converted to Christianity and 00:33:07.440 |
And so in order for them to maintain their old life while embracing the lordship of Christ 00:33:13.220 |
is to just adjust a little bit, to add a little bit of the old culture into the new culture 00:33:20.860 |
They can still be in the synagogue, still practice some of the laws, still practice 00:33:28.060 |
And that's the perverted gospel that Paul is pointing to in Galatians. 00:33:32.460 |
He says, let me read that again, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who 00:33:37.220 |
He doesn't say, "Hey, hey, stop compromising." 00:33:39.300 |
He says, "You're deserting him in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel." 00:33:47.300 |
That if you add to the gospel, if you take away from the gospel, he says, "It's not the 00:33:53.060 |
A little perversion, a little compromise, a little taking off of the edge, in the end 00:34:00.880 |
You can't be an ambassador and go to UN and say, "You know what? 00:34:04.420 |
The president told me to say this, but I have my own opinions. 00:34:08.580 |
I don't think this is going to go off well, so I'm not going to say what he said, so this 00:34:15.340 |
An ambassador is to call and reiterate, even with the tone, even with emotion, the exact 00:34:21.260 |
same thing that he was ordered to do, and that's what an ambassador is. 00:34:27.300 |
So Paul says in verse 7, "Not that there is another one, but there is some who trouble 00:34:31.340 |
you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 00:34:33.980 |
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one 00:34:41.660 |
Paul says, "Even the apostles are not standing above the gospel." 00:34:44.580 |
He says, "As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a 00:34:49.460 |
gospel contrary to the one we receive, let him be accursed, for I am now seeking the 00:34:53.700 |
approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? 00:34:57.380 |
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ, but of man." 00:35:06.300 |
God has given us one Lord for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the early church today and 00:35:13.660 |
tomorrow, that the core of what saves an individual has not changed, and it cannot change. 00:35:23.100 |
And if there's anything that we're going to stick a flag on the ground and say, "Here 00:35:33.100 |
Because only by faith in Christ alone can an individual be saved. 00:35:39.240 |
And if we compromise that, if we pervert that, if we add to that, if we take away from that, 00:35:48.340 |
There was a man that I really looked up to, and again, some of you guys may know his name, 00:35:55.660 |
He was a very popular preacher, in fact, probably one of my favorite preachers when I was in 00:36:01.620 |
He was dynamic, he was funny, he was powerful, and he had so many powerful stories about 00:36:06.860 |
how he was living his Christian life, and I remember one particular story that he told 00:36:10.980 |
often of how he invited prostitutes, and he threw a birthday party for them, and how he 00:36:18.500 |
challenged my generation to pick up the cross and go to the streets and evangelize and welcome 00:36:25.740 |
And I remember being so moved that this is the Christianity that I want to participate 00:36:32.700 |
Years later, I heard that he began to preach a gospel that wasn't the gospel at all. 00:36:39.660 |
He began to preach the social justice gospel, meaning that Jesus' primary reason why he 00:36:44.780 |
came is to set the captives free, and he'd identified this bondage as social injustice. 00:36:51.740 |
Injustice of poverty, injustice of this, injustice of that, and as a result of that, he was disciplined. 00:36:58.660 |
I remember J.I. Packer, Chuck Swindoll, the men who had some kind of fellowship with him, 00:37:04.700 |
these were men of prominence, that they were concerned because here's a guy who was influencing 00:37:09.340 |
our generation, and he was saying strange things. 00:37:12.060 |
So they sat him aside and said, "This is not the gospel. 00:37:18.600 |
He wrote a letter, and this is before the internet, so he wrote a letter, and it got 00:37:23.540 |
passed around, and we heard about it, and I was so encouraged by that. 00:37:28.500 |
One, that these men had enough concern to contact him and to love him enough to sit 00:37:37.620 |
And secondly, that this man of prominence that so many thousands, hundreds of thousands 00:37:42.900 |
of people looked up to was willing to humble himself and admit that he was an error. 00:37:47.980 |
And so we were very encouraged by all of it, but then some years went by, five, six, seven, 00:37:54.780 |
eight, nine, ten years went by, next thing I hear is that Tony Campolo has basically 00:37:59.460 |
left his faith, and he's beginning to preach the false gospel again, back to his origin. 00:38:05.780 |
He was so ingrained, so desiring to wake up the church to this social gospel, he began 00:38:15.160 |
And he began to preach again that Jesus Christ, our primary duty as Christians is to alleviate 00:38:22.240 |
And then recently, he started marching and standing with the homosexual community and 00:38:28.700 |
The Bible has called us to stand with them who are oppressed." 00:38:32.340 |
And again, it kind of opened the door to all kinds of stuff. 00:38:37.580 |
We don't hear about him much anymore in the evangelical community because he walked away 00:38:41.820 |
He's basically shunned the evangelical community, and he's no longer preaching the same gospel. 00:38:49.540 |
Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 4, 1 and 2, "I charge you in the presence 00:38:56.060 |
of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing 00:39:02.060 |
and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season." 00:39:10.300 |
Preach the word, be ready in season, out of season. 00:39:13.340 |
Now when Paul says to Timothy to preach the word, he's not saying, "Exposit," verse 00:39:20.460 |
You know, obviously that could be a part of it. 00:39:22.540 |
But when he says, "Preach in the word," he's talking about preach the gospel, to go to 00:39:26.780 |
these villages and these towns and these churches and these synagogues to preach the gospel 00:39:31.760 |
of faith in Christ, the atonement in his blood, to preach that, to preach it in season and 00:39:45.980 |
Whether that grows a church or shrinks the church. 00:39:50.140 |
Whether that causes you to have many friends or no friends. 00:39:55.260 |
Whether that promotes you to a better job or demotes you to a worse job. 00:40:01.780 |
That's what it means by in season and out of season. 00:40:05.580 |
The temptation that we have is we want to be bold when it is in season. 00:40:16.100 |
Because who doesn't want to go to work and bring people to Christ and start a Bible study 00:40:25.660 |
Who doesn't want to plant the church and see it grow and mature and people thanking you 00:40:31.780 |
Who doesn't want to go to foreign lands and bring non-Christians to Christ and see the 00:40:36.220 |
movement of God and participate in that work? 00:40:41.340 |
But from my experience, there are more times when it is not in season than it is in season. 00:40:48.980 |
It is when it's not in season where we are tempted to compromise. 00:40:54.220 |
It is when it is not in season where we are tempted to quit. 00:40:58.100 |
It is when it is not in season, when it is not popular, when the church is not growing 00:41:05.740 |
Paul is saying, "Preach, preach the same gospel from the same Lord in season and out of season." 00:41:14.900 |
Paul is saying that to Timothy here because it wasn't in season. 00:41:19.860 |
There was a season for Paul, which we study in the book of Acts, and we always look at 00:41:24.060 |
the book of Acts and say, "Why can't people be more like the book of Acts?" 00:41:28.220 |
If Christianity was like the book of Acts, Jesus would already be here. 00:41:39.980 |
It was because there's long chunks of seasons where it wasn't in season. 00:41:43.940 |
There's hundreds of years where people were not interested in the gospel. 00:41:53.940 |
There are some seasons in your life where you are willing to do anything for Christ, 00:41:58.740 |
and then you hit a dry patch, which is a long period of time, and it's not in season. 00:42:08.300 |
And so we're looking to say, "Well, how can we change this? 00:42:17.420 |
And we're trying to change things around so we can be successful. 00:42:24.500 |
But the only thing that God had called us to do is to preach the same gospel from the 00:42:35.180 |
If we're faithful enough, there will come a time when it is in season. 00:42:40.440 |
But our faithfulness is not tested when it is in season. 00:42:46.580 |
Our faith is tested when it is not in season. 00:42:53.260 |
Maybe it's not season in your life now, and you're trying to make it in season. 00:43:01.820 |
You're looking for man to solve your problems. 00:43:10.260 |
You're thinking, "If you change your circumstance, maybe it'll be in season." 00:43:22.380 |
"For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of 00:43:28.780 |
Bestow on His riches on all who call on Him." 00:43:35.260 |
The challenge, again, I'll get to point three next week, but the challenge for us, as we 00:43:49.540 |
And I'm not talking about, "Did you sing this morning?" 00:43:55.020 |
I'm not talking about, "Did you pray before you ate?" 00:43:58.100 |
I'm not talking about praying with your kids before you go to sleep at night and instilling 00:44:12.180 |
Consider the height from which we have fallen. 00:44:16.420 |
The same desperate need that we had because you had no answer for your sins. 00:44:24.000 |
The same desperateness that you had that brought you to your knees and you cried out, "Abba, 00:44:36.980 |
That same desperation that caused you to be justified in your sins is the same desperate 00:44:49.700 |
No man, no amount of man's words, no amount of system, no amount of money, no amount of 00:44:55.500 |
order can take a man's heart that's been hardened and make it into flesh other than the gospel 00:45:05.780 |
Faith comes from hearing and the hearing of the Word of Christ, not by a system, not by 00:45:11.500 |
change of circumstance, not by joining a group, not by finding the right church, but meeting 00:45:18.740 |
And that's why he says to believe and to call upon the Lord. 00:45:26.060 |
Have you been just wishful thinking upon the Lord? 00:45:32.180 |
Have you just been silently hoping inwardly in the Lord? 00:45:38.140 |
Have you been looking to other people to somehow change so that you can come to the Lord? 00:45:42.940 |
Are you waiting for somebody to grab your hands and drag you to the Lord? 00:45:49.180 |
The call is to call upon the Lord, to call upon the Lord, to confess Him as Lord and 00:46:04.620 |
I only know one way to reconnect with this God. 00:46:11.060 |
I only know one way, is to come to Him in desperate prayer, just like I did when I first 00:46:37.620 |
Forgive me for keeping you in my back pocket and just taking it out whenever I need you. 00:46:43.340 |
Forgive me, Lord, for depending on other people. 00:46:47.860 |
Forgive me for looking for life in vacations. 00:46:52.500 |
Forgive me for finding hope in the future of my children. 00:46:57.340 |
Forgive me for being lukewarm and not caring. 00:47:17.380 |
I believe with all my heart that the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, 00:47:27.700 |
That the same Spirit that gave courage to the Reformers to stand up and even give their 00:47:33.780 |
life to preserve this doctrine, is the same Lord that we are praying to today. 00:47:41.100 |
So I want to encourage you to join me in prayer. 00:47:51.180 |
On Monday, Tuesday morning, Friday night, Saturday, to call upon the Lord. 00:48:00.660 |
I think every single one of you know, because I've had so many conversations with so many 00:48:06.380 |
of you who are discontent with the Christianity that you see around us. 00:48:21.020 |
Are you going to just say it's wrong and throw up your hand? 00:48:25.780 |
Are you going to just see what's going on and say, "Oh well?" 00:48:33.820 |
The only one who can do anything about it, to call upon the name of the Lord and you 00:48:42.980 |
Let's take some time as I ask the worship team to come up to pray, to examine our faith. 00:49:02.160 |
And you've been going to everything and everyone else except Christ. 00:49:08.260 |
Yeah, you and I live in a place in the world where there's hundreds of churches, hundreds 00:49:14.780 |
of services, hundreds of preaching, hundreds of Bible studies in small groups and short-term 00:49:31.900 |
Let's take some time to cry out to the Lord that He may hear us and save us.