If there's no other announcements, why don't we turn our Bibles to Romans Chapter 10. I'll be reading again from 11 through 13. And again, this is kind of a part three of this section, Confession and Belief. Romans Chapter 10, 11 through 13. For the scripture says, "Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord is Lord over all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we thank You for the privilege. We thank You for the opportunity to fellowship and worship You corporately.

We ask, Lord God, that Your Word would go forth, and that only Your Word, Lord God, would go forth. We pray for Your grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Years ago, you know, one of the older brothers who invested in me when I was in high school and then early college.

I remember as a very, very young pastor, I remember driving to LA with him. And for whatever the reason, I forgot what context he said this, but it really stuck with me. And especially because of the person that said it to me, because he's a guy who invested a lot in me when I was a younger person, and he said, Peter, be wise in, you know, which don't engage in, I forgot the exact words.

My mind's going blank. He said, be wise in which battle you fight. Something like that. I don't know. I can't remember it. Okay. But it was something to the effect, like, don't fight over every battle. That was basically in essence what he was saying. He said, not everything requires you to stand up and fight.

You know, he said, choose your battles wisely. All right. That's what he said. Choose your, I'm a fob, right? He said, choose your battles wisely. And again, I don't remember exactly what context he said that, but I know he said that deliberately. That wasn't just something that he just randomly said or he read.

And he, I think, wanted to say that to me. I think for probably my guess is, it's because maybe I was arguing with a lot of people. You know, I was strong headed and I had strong opinions, and maybe I was getting into a lot of arguments with people.

And my guess is that's probably why he said it, because it was very intentional conversation. And he told me, like, choose your battles wisely. And that really stuck with me. You know, even to this day, that really, like, stuck with me, that you don't have to fight for everything.

And again, not to say that I've applied that well. You know, my natural inclination, I'm opinionated. You know, I have strong opinions about everything and nothing, you know. But I remember that, and I try to practice that, that you don't have to fight for everything. But there are certain things that requires a fight.

There are certain things in life that requires to gear up and need to fight. Some of us, maybe, our natural inclination is to fight. And so, maybe we need to heed that warning, that you don't really need to fight about everything. Not every opinion you have is worth getting into an argument for.

You don't have to be right about everything. Maybe some of you guys have a personality where you don't like to be in conflict over anything. So, you have a tendency to avoid any kind of conflict, and you're never fighting over anything. There are certain things in life that everybody, no matter what your inclination, what your personality type may be, requires that you are committed to this fight.

There's two particular things in church history that if our forefathers who went before us did not fight, you and I would not be here. The first, maybe 700 to about 900 years of church history, if you look at all the church councils, one of the main things that they wrestled with and fought was the identity of Christ.

And very early on, the very first church council, one of their primary debate was, "Was Jesus God?" And there was a man named Arius who was convincing, and very convincing, articulate, smart guy, who was so convincing that almost the whole church kind of went over and said, "There was a point when Jesus Christ was created." Now, it was not based on Scripture, but he was basing it on logic that he couldn't be God.

He was a created being. And as a result of that, here's this man named Athanasius who was fighting against this doctrine, that Arius was so convincing, he ended up getting disciplined and excommunicated from the church. And almost wholeheartedly, the church almost went over, but Athanasius decided that this was something worth fighting and possibly even dying for.

And as a result of this man's effort, that the church began to get convinced, as he began to apply Scripture and exposit the Scripture that they had, he began to convince them that it may not be easy to understand, but it is clearly taught, and it was clearly given to us that Jesus Christ is God.

It wasn't the only time. It would keep coming up over and over again throughout church history. And faithful men with courage fought against this false doctrine. And that's why we have the Trinity today. The other doctrine that we see have been fought for so heartily, and many people even gave their lives, is a doctrine that we've been talking about in the last few months, the doctrine of justification by faith.

You and I are Protestants because men of courage stood up against the church that began to preach that salvation is by faith and work. You have to believe and you have to have works in your life. And almost wholeheartedly, there was a period in church history where they just completely lost this doctrine.

And anybody who was propagating this doctrine, they disciplined, they maybe even beheaded, crucified. And they were martyred for this. But obviously, men of faith stood up, many of them giving their lives, in order that we may have this doctrine and to be preserved according to what Christ has done and according to Scripture.

Why is this doctrine so important? And why has Paul been pounding this over and over and over again? So if we were to summarize, at least up to this point, chapter 10 and up to chapter 11, one word or one phrase that could probably sum up everything that Paul has been saying is that salvation is by faith alone, period.

That's what he's been saying. He's been saying it in 50 different ways, but his main point is the same. Salvation is by faith alone. Now why is this so important? Because if we're not careful, if we're nonchalant about the details of this doctrine, you can either be living in faith in bondage, just as if you were never saved, that you adhere to certain doctrines, but because you don't know the details of what it means that it's by faith alone, you could still be caught in your legalism and living in bondage, thinking that somehow your efforts somehow add to your salvation and living, again, as if you were never saved.

But the other end of the spectrum is to live with false freedom, the thinking that, "Oh, it's justification by faith alone, so what we do doesn't matter," and you have a false sense of security and realizing until you meet Christ that you didn't know Christ at all. The either extreme, the either extreme of it could possibly mean that you didn't have saving faith.

You see why this doctrine is so important, that we get it right, that we do not turn from it to the left or to the right, because not having biblical saving faith ultimately means that you are not saved. So it's extremely important for us that we understand what Paul is saying, not superficially, not just a knee-jerk reaction.

I've heard this all my life, so of course I'm saved, of course I'm a believer, of course I have genuine faith, but is it biblical? Is it the faith that Paul has been describing? Is it a cultural faith? Is it a faith that I've inherited because I was raised in a Christian home?

Is it just superstition? Is it a security blanket that is like, "You know, I'm going to pretend like I have it so that after I die, at least I got a free ticket to heaven," but is it really genuine biblical faith that Paul has been describing? This morning, I'm going to be looking at these three verses, and I may not get to the third one because I didn't get to it in the first service, but again, not every sermon, I'm going to divide into three points, but I think that the three points helps us to follow along in the line, so I'm going to give you three things, and then I'm going to go to two today.

So the first one is assurance of salvation is the ultimate goal, and I'll get to that. Paul has been doing up to this point is to give assurance of salvation. Two, in verse 12, "Same God saves with the same gospel." And the third point that I'm guessing I won't be able to get to is, "Same God with the same gospel results in the same salvation," and that's going to be the outline that I follow this morning.

So let's look at the first one. Assurance of salvation is the ultimate goal. If you're not careful, you can read all of this and come out in despair and begin to ask yourself, "Oh, maybe I'm not a Christian," that maybe that's Paul's goal. Paul's goal is to shake up the church and then get people to say, "Oh, you know what?

I'm going to leave. Maybe that's not the, you know, maybe this is really ultimately for me." But you have to understand that this letter is written to the church. He's not writing to non-Christians. He's writing this to the church, and you'll see starting from next week or maybe the week after that, his ultimate goal is try to recruit some people to take him with him to preach the gospel in Spain.

That's his ultimate goal. So his goal here is not to shake up the church and weed out the church, although it may result in that possibly, but his ultimate goal is really to give them assurance of salvation. If you look at the three verses that we're looking at, he basically says the same thing.

He's been saying the same thing, but he kind of ends with this exclamation mark. The salvation is by faith alone, and he repeats that three separate times in three separate ways. Here's verse 11, "For the scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.'" So in other words, salvation is by faith alone.

Verse 12, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." Salvation are for those who call on him by faith. Same thing. Verse 13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." So again, he's saying the same thing three separate times for the purpose of emphasis.

As I've mentioned before, anything that the scripture mentions for the purpose of emphasis, they repeat once, twice, three times. And whenever you see anything being repeated, it's meant to cause us to take a step back and say, "What is he saying? Why is this so important?" It seems so simple.

Salvation is by faith alone. So what is there to dig? What is there to know? Paul has been, again, this is in summary of 10 and a half chapters. Even though it may seem like, you know, superficious, salvation by faith, of course I know that. But if we miss the details of what it means to have the saving faith, what it means to confess that he is Lord and Savior, what it means to believe that he was raised from the dead, and how that is applied, and what that means for us as a Christian, we can completely miss Christ.

There probably is, in each one of us, a defect in the way that we believe God, in what we believe about God, that is causing the anxiousness. Some things are not going right in your life, and you're not satisfied. Now we don't always connect it to God, but majority of the time, the reason why that's there is because there's some kind of defect in our faith, in the way that we view God, in what he has promised and what he has done.

We confess it, we don't believe it. We confess it, but it may not be accurate, it may not be biblical. The whole reason why Paul has been expositing this is to confirm for the Christians what they believe. That's why it says in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, "Examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith.

Test yourselves, or do not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test." The reason why he says to test yourself is because this church had all kinds of problems. There's worldliness in the church. They were sweeping sin underneath the rug.

There were competition among brothers. They were having communion, and they're competing with one another, and they couldn't care about the poor. This is a divided church that's living in chaos, and he's telling them, "Possibly, are you living like that because you have defected faith?" So Paul is questioning not just their behavior, he's questioning, "Do you have Christ in you?" Now the whole reason why he's doing that, he's not saying, "I don't think you're a Christian." The goal of what he's trying to do is to remind them, "Do you not realize that Christ is in you?

Take a close look at your faith. How much of the chaos in your life, how much of the discomfort or anxiety or hatred and bitterness, wanting and not having, how much of that is because you've forgotten that Christ is in you, that you have Christ, and yet you're complaining and competing of trivial things?" And that was Paul's point.

Examine yourself to see if you're really of the faith, unless you've forgotten that Jesus Christ is in you. Again in 1 John, John lays out, here's identity of a Christian. If you are living in darkness and yet you say you have fellowship with God, you fool yourself. That God is light and there is no darkness in Him, and that you don't fool Him, that is not possible.

So he lays out in detail that this is what it means to have saving faith. You can't confess that Jesus Christ is not coming to flesh and then say that you have faith in God and it says you're not from God. So if you look at the first four or five chapters of 1 John, it kind of shakes up the church and it causes us to take a step back and say, "Well, is that me or is that not me?" But he summarizes the purpose of this letter in 1 John 5, verse 13.

He says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." So the purpose of why John writes this letter is not to cause people to say, "Maybe I'm not, maybe I am," but to reconfirm for them their assurance of salvation.

But this assurance of salvation is not a knee-jerk reaction just because somebody doubts, which is something that we need to be careful about. Because our natural reaction is if somebody says, "I'm not sure if I genuinely believe, I'm not sure if I'm genuinely saved," without knowing what the problem is, without examining their faith, our natural reaction is if that is coming from somebody who used to confess that they're Christian or they're a 10th church or they're a faithful member, our natural reaction is, "Don't ever say that.

One saved, always saved. Salvation is by faith and not by works, so don't ever say that." And we give a superficial, knee-jerk reaction to give affirmation of faith to everybody and anybody. He's trying to give assurance of salvation, but not a knee-jerk reaction, but a biblical faith, but a real faith, that after laying out 10 and a half chapters of this is what it means to have genuine faith, in order that if you are a genuine believer, that it would cause you to take a step back and examine your faith and to see that I am.

That if you've drifted away from this faith, if you maybe haven't paid attention to this faith, if you've allowed it to kind of drift out from the centrality of the saving faith, which is causing you to be frustrated, that you've placed your hope in anything else but Christ, it is to remind us of what it is that we have in Christ, but genuinely.

That's why again Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 12, "Fight the good fight of faith." To fight the good fight of faith. That this genuine saving faith is not something that just happened because you happen to choose to get on the right boat. And if we're not careful, we just choose to get on the right boat and say, "Well, you know what?

I made a decision to come to church and the rest of it, I just kind of coast along because I'm on the right boat." He says, "Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called." Take hold. Take hold meaning not just to receive it, but to hold on to it for dear life.

That's what Paul was doing in Corinthians. That's Paul's doing in Romans. That's what John is doing in 1 John. In fact, every one of these letters, these epistles are written to reaffirm for the church so that they may be strengthened in their genuine faith. That they do not just coast along on this faith that they've inherited.

They do not just coast along because they've been at church for a long time. That they don't just coast along just because you've been serving in a certain capacity, but that you have this genuine faith in Christ. Again, in Hebrews 3, 14, the author of Hebrews says, "For we share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." The words and the language that is used here isn't by accident.

He's not just casually saying the original confidence. He said, "Original confidence firm to the end." Not just starting, not just at one point, not just at the end, but firm to the end. The whole point of what Paul has been saying was for the purpose of genuine faith. That you would have assurance and reexamine where you are before God.

And that you would recommit and re-covenant to serve and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That if that's something that you did at one point in your life and you've just drifted, and you haven't been contending for your faith, the whole purpose is to give assurance to cause the church to recommit.

Again, in 1 Timothy 6, 19, it's thus storing up treasure for themselves as good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life, to take hold of it. What have you been fighting for? There's a lot of things. Again, as I told you, that warning or encouragement, exhortation that this older brother told me, and I knew it was deliberate, and I knew it was very specific to me, because I was already in ministry and I was passionate about everything.

I was passionate about prayer, I was passionate about evangelism, I was passionate about everything. So I was getting into it with everybody and say, "Peter, choose your battles wisely." Everybody in some degree is fighting for something. You might be fighting for your children's attention, you might be fighting with your wife to see who's right and wrong, you might be fighting to get a better job, and you might be fighting to save up enough time for your vacation.

Whatever it is we're fighting, every single one of us is struggling and fighting for something. So we need to be careful that we choose our battles wisely. See, where you and I live, our primary fight, at least in a tangible way, is not against some false gospel or false teaching.

Because you're at church, you have the scripture. So you might hear about it, maybe possibly in the church every once in a while, you might hear it maybe outside the church. Maybe you voted for Trump and you're getting persecuted somewhere. Or somebody is saying, "How dare you believe in that?" I don't know if some of you guys heard the hearing a while back.

It was on the internet all over the place. Bernie Sanders was basically questioning this guy for an office in the White House. He said, "Do you really believe that Jesus is the only way and that all the religions are condemned?" And the guy basically answered, "I'm a believer and I'm an evangelical Christian." And Bernie Sanders just straight up said, "Then you're not fit to serve in the government.

We don't need people like you." And obviously the internet blew up. He basically is saying, "You can't be a Christian and serve this country." As crazy as that is, that may be the environment that you are working in. And so you might be fighting, maybe, but we can easily avoid that.

Just avoid all these people. Don't say crazy things. Don't talk about politics. You can talk about religion, about Jesus, but don't try to proselytize. So we can easily avoid those situations, which I think many of us may be doing if we're not careful. But the day-to-day fight that you and I have oftentimes is in the church.

The day-to-day fight that you and I have, the danger that you and I live under, is within our own hearts to just drift. To just drift. You don't have to make a decision to drift. You just don't have to fight. You don't have to sign a doctrinal statement saying that I'm going to agree and I'm going to compromise.

You don't have to do that. Just stop fighting. Stop contending. Stop standing up for stuff. Just avoid conflict. All you have to do is just go along with the flow, which is our natural temptation anyway. I mean, ever since we're young, I mean, we're a teenager, wasn't it? The greatest temptation is peer pressure.

Because you want to fit in. You don't want to be bullied. You don't want to be a weirdo. You don't want to be bullied at work, even as an adult. So just go along. The danger, again, for all of us, the Christianity that you and I experience, is stop fighting.

Just coast along. The danger that the author of Hebrews was addressing is that very thing. How can we escape if we ignore, neglect such a great salvation? Hebrews 2.3. How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? All you have to do is ignore it. All you have to do is not fight.

All you have to do is just give yourself to raise your kids. Now, is that sinful? Get a job, pay your bills. Why is that sinful? Buy a house, travel a little bit, eat some, serve the church. Why is that sinful? It may not be sinful, but if those things entangle us and we're no longer fighting and contending for the faith, we may have easily have drifted away.

And then when we examine ourselves and look at what the biblical faith looks like, we're nowhere near what it is. So the whole point that Paul has been trying to make and why he's been pounding this doctrine of justification by faith alone is not to give a superficial nod to say, it is not by your works that everybody is saved.

That's not the point. The point that Paul's trying to make is that this is what genuine faith looks like. It is not by what you do, but it's by genuine faith that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe with your heart that He's been raised from the dead, then you will be saved.

Is that true of you? Is that true of us? Is that true of our church? So the first and the most important thing that you and I need to understand, what Paul has been doing, why he's been pounding this, is to give assurance of salvation, but real assurance, not a security blanket.

Real assurance that saves us, that changes us, that empowers us. And that's why Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation." Not simply a security blanket, not simply a free ticket to save us from hell, but it is the power.

Do we have this assurance? Or is it enough? Is it enough just pick and choose certain things that the scripture says, and it's like, "Well, I feel good about it." See, I think every believer that hears what Paul says, hears what John says about all of this, would be shaken.

If you don't have real faith, what I say to you is not relevant to you. So you can hear it, and say, "Okay, you know, he says that a lot, and he's saying it again." And it will have no effect on you, because it doesn't matter if it's true or not.

Because you don't believe it anyway, whether it's true or not, you don't believe it anyway, so it doesn't matter. I can say it a thousand times, I can say it one time, it's just not relevant to you. But if you do have saving faith, and you are concerned that this is true, wouldn't it cause us to take a step back and examine, exactly like Paul says in 2 Corinthians?

Only people who have genuine faith would take a step back and actually examine their faith. And by examining, it would cause us to question, and to recommit, and re-covenant, to make sure that when we say that we believe in Jesus, that we actually believe it. That our assurance is true assurance, and not a security blanket.

Secondly, he says that the same God saves with the same gospel. In verse 12, he says, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him." You know, that passage here is a quote from Joel, chapter 232.

And again, let me read the whole thing straight out of the Old Testament. It says, "And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." What's interesting here is Joel is referring to Yahweh. The word for Lord is capital L, capital O, capital R, and capital D.

So you already know that in the Hebrew, when there's the word Yahweh, they translate it into Adonai, Lord, so they don't use the Lord's name in vain. So clearly, Joel is in reference to Yahweh. But Paul here is using the same reference to refer to Jesus, that he is Lord.

Now if you did not believe that Jesus Christ is God, this would have been utterly blasphemous. There's a reason why Athanasius was able to convince the church that Jesus Christ is God, because of these verses and many other verses in the scripture that identify Jesus Christ as the God of the Old Testament.

So when Paul is referring to this passage, he's basically saying that that statement in Joel chapter 232 was not only in reference to the things of the Old Testament, but it is also relevant to the New Testament. The same God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament.

Same Lord that's saved by faith in the Old Testament is the same Lord that's saved in the New Testament. That the same Lord saves with the same gospel. There is no different gospel for the poor and the rich. There is no different gospel from the past generation to this generation.

There isn't a different gospel for the educated and uneducated. Now you and I may sit here in the safety of this room, you know, and we say, "Well, I mean, that's really not a temptation. What are you talking about?" That temptation is all around us, to compromise, to kind of cut the edges off the gospel so it's not as offensive.

So again, there's a reason why we are eager to jump to the grace of God without convicting the sin and repentance, because it's easily acceptable. If we present the gospel as the apostles presented the gospel in exactly the way that they presented it, exactly the way that Jesus said it, it would be offensive.

Just like Jesus said, it would be offensive. And so we have a version of the gospel for this group of people, for this generation, for the educated and uneducated. And again, at the core of it, we have the tenets of the gospel, but the presentation, what's being highlighted, what's not being highlighted, it all differs depending on who we're talking to.

And we call that contextualization. And not to say that context and contextualization culture isn't important, but there's always this temptation to alter a little bit in order that it wouldn't be as offensive. That we can live in the culture and continue to pursue what we pursue and not to be rejected from our society and still follow Christ, still pick up the cross, even though everything in the scripture says you are light in darkness.

They didn't know me, they're not going to know you. They rejected me, they're going to reject you. But we've been trying, we try so hard to prove Jesus wrong, that it is possible. The same Lord with the same baptism, with the same preaching of the cross. See, that's why Paul says in Galatians chapter 6, verse 1-6, he says, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel." You know the gospel, the different gospel that Paul is talking about here is Judaizers.

Judaizers within the church did not reject Jesus' crucifixion. The Judaizers in the church did not reject his resurrection. They didn't reject his lordship. They didn't reject his deity. You know what caused them to be Judaizers and perverting the gospel? And he says, "This is not the Lord at all.

It's a completely different gospel." You know why? Because they were saying that we had to maintain some of the Old Testament laws. You still needed to observe the Sabbath. You still needed to observe the dietary laws. You still needed to be circumcised. So basically they were taking the truth of the gospel and they were cutting off some of the edges.

And the reason why is because the persecution in the early church primarily came from the Jews because the first group of Christians were Jews who converted to Christianity and they were moving away. And so in order for them to maintain their old life while embracing the lordship of Christ is to just adjust a little bit, to add a little bit of the old culture into the new culture and so they don't lose anything.

They can still be in the synagogue, still practice some of the laws, still practice the dietary laws, and yet still call Jesus. And that's the perverted gospel that Paul is pointing to in Galatians. He says, let me read that again, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you." He doesn't say, "Hey, hey, stop compromising." He says, "You're deserting him in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel." That if you add to the gospel, if you take away from the gospel, he says, "It's not the gospel at all." A little perversion, a little compromise, a little taking off of the edge, in the end we are no longer representing Christ.

You can't be an ambassador and go to UN and say, "You know what? The president told me to say this, but I have my own opinions. I don't think this is going to go off well, so I'm not going to say what he said, so this is what I think." Then you would no longer be an ambassador.

An ambassador is to call and reiterate, even with the tone, even with emotion, the exact same thing that he was ordered to do, and that's what an ambassador is. So Paul says in verse 7, "Not that there is another one, but there is some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed." Paul says, "Even the apostles are not standing above the gospel." He says, "As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one we receive, let him be accursed, for I am now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ, but of man." God has given us one Lord for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the early church today and tomorrow, that the core of what saves an individual has not changed, and it cannot change.

And if there's anything that we're going to stick a flag on the ground and say, "Here I stand, I will not move," it is the gospel. Because only by faith in Christ alone can an individual be saved. And if we compromise that, if we pervert that, if we add to that, if we take away from that, it is no longer the gospel.

There was a man that I really looked up to, and again, some of you guys may know his name, man named Tony Campolo. He was a very popular preacher, in fact, probably one of my favorite preachers when I was in college. He was dynamic, he was funny, he was powerful, and he had so many powerful stories about how he was living his Christian life, and I remember one particular story that he told often of how he invited prostitutes, and he threw a birthday party for them, and how he challenged my generation to pick up the cross and go to the streets and evangelize and welcome them into your home.

And I remember being so moved that this is the Christianity that I want to participate in. Years later, I heard that he began to preach a gospel that wasn't the gospel at all. He began to preach the social justice gospel, meaning that Jesus' primary reason why he came is to set the captives free, and he'd identified this bondage as social injustice.

Injustice of poverty, injustice of this, injustice of that, and as a result of that, he was disciplined. I remember J.I. Packer, Chuck Swindoll, the men who had some kind of fellowship with him, these were men of prominence, that they were concerned because here's a guy who was influencing our generation, and he was saying strange things.

So they sat him aside and said, "This is not the gospel. You're perverting the gospel." And so he actually publicly repented. He wrote a letter, and this is before the internet, so he wrote a letter, and it got passed around, and we heard about it, and I was so encouraged by that.

One, that these men had enough concern to contact him and to love him enough to sit him down and correct him. And secondly, that this man of prominence that so many thousands, hundreds of thousands of people looked up to was willing to humble himself and admit that he was an error.

And so we were very encouraged by all of it, but then some years went by, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years went by, next thing I hear is that Tony Campolo has basically left his faith, and he's beginning to preach the false gospel again, back to his origin.

He was so ingrained, so desiring to wake up the church to this social gospel, he began to change the gospel, period. And he began to preach again that Jesus Christ, our primary duty as Christians is to alleviate people from poverty. And then recently, he started marching and standing with the homosexual community and saying, "That's not the Bible.

The Bible has called us to stand with them who are oppressed." And again, it kind of opened the door to all kinds of stuff. We don't hear about him much anymore in the evangelical community because he walked away from it. He's basically shunned the evangelical community, and he's no longer preaching the same gospel.

Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 4, 1 and 2, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season." Preach the word, be ready in season, out of season.

Now when Paul says to Timothy to preach the word, he's not saying, "Exposit," verse 3, you know, "What does it say?" You know, obviously that could be a part of it. But when he says, "Preach in the word," he's talking about preach the gospel, to go to these villages and these towns and these churches and these synagogues to preach the gospel of faith in Christ, the atonement in his blood, to preach that, to preach it in season and out of season.

You know what that means? Whether it's popular or not. Whether that grows a church or shrinks the church. Whether that causes you to have many friends or no friends. Whether that promotes you to a better job or demotes you to a worse job. That's what it means by in season and out of season.

The temptation that we have is we want to be bold when it is in season. We want to fight when it is in season. Because who doesn't want to go to work and bring people to Christ and start a Bible study and they thank you for their salvation? Who doesn't want that?

Who doesn't want to plant the church and see it grow and mature and people thanking you for preaching the gospel in season? Who doesn't want to go to foreign lands and bring non-Christians to Christ and see the movement of God and participate in that work? Who doesn't want that?

But from my experience, there are more times when it is not in season than it is in season. It is when it's not in season where we are tempted to compromise. It is when it is not in season where we are tempted to quit. It is when it is not in season, when it is not popular, when the church is not growing and people are not thanking you.

Paul is saying, "Preach, preach the same gospel from the same Lord in season and out of season." Paul is saying that to Timothy here because it wasn't in season. There was a season for Paul, which we study in the book of Acts, and we always look at the book of Acts and say, "Why can't people be more like the book of Acts?" If Christianity was like the book of Acts, Jesus would already be here.

Because everybody would have been converted. Everybody would have come to Christ. It wouldn't have taken 2,000 years. It was because there's long chunks of seasons where it wasn't in season. There's hundreds of years where people were not interested in the gospel. Decades, years, even in your life. There are some seasons in your life where you are willing to do anything for Christ, and then you hit a dry patch, which is a long period of time, and it's not in season.

And so we're looking to say, "Well, how can we change this? Is it a better system? Maybe a better man? Maybe a better school? Maybe a better system?" And we're trying to change things around so we can be successful. But the only thing that God had called us to do is to preach the same gospel from the same Lord in season and out of season.

If we're faithful enough, there will come a time when it is in season. But our faithfulness is not tested when it is in season. Our faithfulness is tested. Our faith is tested when it is not in season. Maybe it's not season in your life now, and you're trying to make it in season.

You're looking for man to solve your problems. You're looking for systems, possibly. You're thinking, "If you change your circumstance, maybe it'll be in season." Let me read what he says again, verse 12. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all.

Bestow on His riches on all who call on Him." The challenge, again, I'll get to point three next week, but the challenge for us, as we examine our faith, are you calling upon Him? And I'm not talking about, "Did you sing this morning?" I'm not talking about, "Did you pray before you ate?" I'm not talking about praying with your kids before you go to sleep at night and instilling in them a habit of prayer.

Have you been calling upon the Lord? Consider the height from which we have fallen. The same desperate need that we had because you had no answer for your sins. The same desperateness that you had that brought you to your knees and you cried out, "Abba, Father, forgive me." That same desperation that caused you to be justified in your sins is the same desperate call that will cause us to be connected.

No man, no amount of man's words, no amount of system, no amount of money, no amount of order can take a man's heart that's been hardened and make it into flesh other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith comes from hearing and the hearing of the Word of Christ, not by a system, not by change of circumstance, not by joining a group, not by finding the right church, but meeting Christ.

And that's why he says to believe and to call upon the Lord. Have you been just wishful thinking upon the Lord? Have you just been silently hoping inwardly in the Lord? Have you been looking to other people to somehow change so that you can come to the Lord? Are you waiting for somebody to grab your hands and drag you to the Lord?

The call is to call upon the Lord, to call upon the Lord, to confess Him as Lord and Savior. I only know one way. I only know one way to reconnect with this God. I only know one way, is to come to Him in desperate prayer, just like I did when I first became a Christian.

In desperateness. Forgive me. Forgive me of my heart and heart. Forgive me of my worldliness. Forgive me for taking you for granted. Forgive me for keeping you in my back pocket and just taking it out whenever I need you. Forgive me, Lord, for depending on other people. Forgive me for looking for life in vacations.

Forgive me for finding hope in the future of my children. Forgive me for being lukewarm and not caring. I only know one way to meet this Lord. In desperateness, to call out to our Father. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. I believe with all my heart that the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, it dwells in us.

That the same Spirit that gave courage to the Reformers to stand up and even give their life to preserve this doctrine, is the same Lord that we are praying to today. So I want to encourage you to join me in prayer. Join me today. Join me tonight. On Monday, Tuesday morning, Friday night, Saturday, to call upon the Lord.

I think every single one of you know, because I've had so many conversations with so many of you who are discontent with the Christianity that you see around us. I agree with you. And then what? And then what? Are you going to just say it's wrong and throw up your hand?

Are you going to just see what's going on and say, "Oh well?" Or is that going to drive you to your knees? The only one who can do anything about it, to call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved. Let's take some time as I ask the worship team to come up to pray, to examine our faith.

All that you see around you. Have you been complaining to people? Have you been looking to things? And you've been going to everything and everyone else except Christ. Yeah, you and I live in a place in the world where there's hundreds of churches, hundreds of services, hundreds of preaching, hundreds of Bible studies in small groups and short-term missions, hundreds, maybe even thousands.

And yet we are so desperate for Christ. Let's take some time to cry out to the Lord that He may hear us and save us. Let's pray. Thank you.