And I don't know about you, but
this has been a long week. It's been one of those, um, is
it over yet weeks? Sort of like the kids when you're
on a trip and they're like, are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And the answer is no. We're not We're not, and we've
not arrived. Reading out of the Psalms this
morning, I was just reminded in that that there will be a
day where we will wake up and we will rejoice in the glory
that is ours and that new state. But until then, welcome to life. Welcome to life. Continuing in our summer blitz,
if I can call it that, I wanna talk today, I was gonna talk
about being persecuted for the sake of Christ, but I'm gonna
save that until next week, because I wanna sort my thoughts and
make sure that I'm not speaking out of frustration rather than
clarity. You know how that is, you get there and you go, yeah,
I got a lot to say, I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna say that. You know
what, I'm not gonna say anything about that, because it is often
an opportunity for derailing what the Lord can do when we
let our anger and frustration get in the way of teaching. So
at the last minute I decided just to deal with a few principles
that I've been dialoguing in my own mind and with some of
you about and with some others, extended church people abroad
and for the last few years. And I want to talk a minute about
faith. So go to Hebrews chapter 11 with
me, starting in verse 1. We're not going to exegete this.
I taught Hebrews rather extensively. We'll never really get, you know,
through everything that needs to be said
when you start in the middle of a text, but we'll get back into
1 Timothy in the fall, and then I'm also gonna try to revisit
something, even if it's asynchronous, to finish the book of James,
which we were doing in 21, midweek. The Bible says in 11 chapter
of Hebrews, now faith is, and I want us to be careful how we
listen, I want you to listen to these words. Faith is the
assurance of things hoped for. Faith is the conviction of things
not seen. For by faith the people of old
received their commendation. By faith we understand that the
universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was
not made out of things that are visible. By faith, Abel offered
to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was
commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though
he died, he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken up
so that he should not see death. And he was not found because
God had taken him. Now, before he was taken, he
was commended as having pleased God. And without faith, it is
impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to
God must be confident and convicted and assured faith that he exists,
must believe. and that he rewards those who
seek him. He blesses them. By faith, Noah, being warned
by God concerning events as yet unseen, the flood and the destruction
of the world, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving
of his household. By this, he condemned the world
and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. By faith,
Abraham obeyed and he was called to go out to a place that he
was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where
he was going, unseen. By faith, he went to live in
the land of promise as in a foreign land, an unknown land, living
in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him to the same promise.
for he was looking forward to the city that had foundations,
whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah herself
received power to conceive, even when she was past the age of
conception, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him
as good as dead, Abraham, were born descendants, as many as
the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of
sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not
having received the things that were promised, but having seen
them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that
they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who
speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
If they'd been thinking of the land from which they had gone
out, they would have had an opportunity to return to it. but as it is,
they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore,
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared
for them a city. By faith, Abraham, when he was
tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises
was in the act of offering up his only son to death, of whom
it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named. He considered
that God was even able to raise Isaac from the dead. from which,
figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. By faith, Isaac
invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith, Jacob, when
dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship
over the head of his staff. By faith, Joseph, at the end
of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites
and gave directions concerning his bones. By faith, Moses, when
he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because
he saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the
king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting
pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of
Jesus Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt." That
was Moses. for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left
Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured
as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover
and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn
might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the
Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted
to do the same, were drowned. By faith, the walls of Jericho
fell down after they'd been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab
the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient
because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. And what
more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell
of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,
who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped
the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became
mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back
their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing
to accept release so that they might rise again to a better
life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with
a sword. They went about in skins of sheep
and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world
was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and
in dens and in the caves of the earth. And all these, though
commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised
to them, since God had provided something better for us, that
apart from us they should not be made perfect." So we stop. You see why I needed to pause
on the persecution part? Because Jesus, as we saw last
week in John's gospel, Jesus said that if they hate the master,
they're going to hate the servants. If they hate the father, they're
going to hate the children. Basically the sentiment that when you're
persecuted for my namesake, the problem is, is that we forget
what it means to be persecuted for the sake of Christ. It is
not dysfunctional, political, you know, Americanized Christianity
that we're standing our ground or we're doing our theological
duties that causes persecution. That's just self-inflicted stupidity. We're just, you know, if I throw
a brick at my face and it hurts, what did you expect? To be persecuted
for the sake of Christ is to rest in the context of everything
by faith. And then also to serve and to
love according to the commands of Christ that is so far into
the world that causes those, especially religious people and
humble, self-righteous people, to hate you. So parsing that out personally,
I have to find the arrogance in myself, and I have to find
the self-righteousness in me. And I have to realize that the
only way to walk forward in these things is by faith. By faith. It's the only way. It's the only
way. And so I've got 12, it just worked
out that way, I had 11, I added one this morning. Had 12 principles,
just basic principles, regarding the Christian life that I think
are foundational. This is not exhaustive. There
are a lot more that I think are more important. But as it relates
to walking, as it relates to our identity, as it relates to
living authentically, Not putting on a facade, not pretending,
not faking it until we make it, not to act and live and look
according to the culture around us, even the Christian culture
or the reform culture or the sovereign grace culture or whatever
culture we might be attached to. We need to live according
to the scripture and we need to be content. We need to be
free. And we also need to be free to
know that we're not going to get it right every time and that we're
probably going to mess it up and that we're probably going
to thumb our nose at what we know we ought to be doing and
how we ought to be living sometimes. Sometimes we're going to get
frustrated. Sometimes we're going to get aggravated. Sometimes we're going
to become fearful and worry. Sometimes we're going to doubt.
Sometimes we're just going to be apathetic and not care at
all. But in all of those things, Christ never changes. And the
gospel is still power unto life. And the light will always overcome
the darkness. And that's where faith comes
in. The nature of faith is having assurance in what you
can't see, having conviction to know. Like Paul would use
the terms, he would say, I think he wrote this, but he would say
in Romans, you know, I am persuaded, I am convinced. Nothing can shake
me in this context. Well, prove it. You can't. You can't prove unto faith. You can prove logically. You
can prove academically. You can prove philosophically
through argumentation. You can do all sorts of things.
Pastor Trey's out of town, so I can't talk about mathematics
right now, probability, so I'll just let that go, because he's
not there to give me your wrong eye. But you can prove all sorts
of things, but you can't prove faith. Faith is or it is not. And some people say, well, you
can prove faith by questioning, by inquiring, by digging in to
what someone thinks that they think they know about what they
think. And then based on your interpretations of your godlike
divine eye, you can then discern whether they're born again by
their answers. No, you can't. And I'm going to give some extremely
Simple explanations, simple examples. For example, I know that the
scripture concurs that there are children who are born again. There are two year olds who are
born again. There are one year olds who are
born again. There are five year olds who are born again. It is
not about our cognitive ability to absorb context, information,
and logical precepts that gives us eternal life. And God, the
Spirit, is not in the business of making us knowledgeable without
study. And study takes time. Folks,
two weeks ago, I read over 800 pages in two days and absorbed
all the material. 90% accurate. No, most people
can't do that. Last year, I couldn't have read
eight pages in 800 days and gotten 2% accurate. It just depends on where we are.
Some people can't even read. Did you know that? And some people
that can read can't comprehend. If salvation, if regeneration,
If the work of God is dependent upon the cognitive and academic
abilities of his people, we are damned in our seats. We are condemned
before God this very day. If James Tippins has to give
philosophical or theological seminary explanations to everything
that we might discern that we are truly in the faith, not only
are we becoming God ourselves, we have no hope. What does it mean to have faith
as assurance and conviction? That means barring everything
we comprehend, we rest in the center of our soul. I don't know,
but I do know that Christ is my righteousness. And some people
can't even articulate that because they don't have the vocabulary
to express it. And I absolutely refuse to be
party to this nonsense for your sake. We preach the gospel according
to the word. We preach the gospel in all of
its context. We preach the gospel in all of
its rich theological precepts. We teach the gospel preposition
by preposition. And God, the Spirit, will cause
you to agree. And sometimes you're like, well,
I've never thought of it that way before. Let me struggle with
it. And sometimes you might get on
social media, you might watch a video, some well-meaning, you
know, do-gooder might come along and say, well, you know, if you're
really in the faith, you might think about not watching TV.
You might think about whether or not your baptism was authentic. You might worry about what version
of the Bible you're using. Or they may play with the divinity
of Jesus, the eternality of Jesus, the immutability of Jesus. If
you don't know what I mean there, don't worry about it. It's not
important under life. Christ is who He is at all times,
and nothing that we think is going to change that. So if Christ
is the Savior of His people, beloved, we rest in the sufficiency
of His sacrifice, of His life, of His righteousness, of His
promises. And regeneration and faith is not knowing the details
of all of that. When Jesus in John 4 spoke to
the woman at Sychar, she just argued over and over
and over and argued and argued and argued. She was arguing with
God like Jacob, wrestling with God. like Moses, like Jonah. And then all of a sudden, out
of nowhere, out of nowhere, she breathes in her lungs and says,
I just guess I'm going to have to wait and just trust that Messiah
will teach me all these things. And her resolve Her resolve, that's faith. She didn't apprehend any of the
details that Jesus was laying down, the theological richness
that He was laying down. God the Spirit gave her repentance. And she was alive. And she didn't even know it was
Him until He said it. That's why Jesus makes it very
clear in all the examples he gives the disciples, unless your
faith is like a little child, you cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Unless, Nicodemus, you are a
teensy, teensy baby born of the Spirit, like an infant needing
its mother, you will never see the kingdom of heaven. And I hear it, oh, they're so
mystical, supernatural. Absolutely. The work of God is
mystical and supernatural. That's the point of it being
divine. I mean, God didn't write the Bible as an instruction manual
for us to dig for the treasure, and when we find it, hee-haw,
we made it. No, that is law-keeping. I don't care how you, if you
apply sovereign grace, principles, and theology as necessary for
life, you're a law-keeper. And if you impose what I'm not
saying on what I am saying based on the years of all the work
and the teaching that I've done, then shame on you. I'm not concerned
with the way you or someone else might twist what I'm trying to
say. If you have a question, ask it. I am happy to answer
it. But you, beloved, will not be condemned for questions. You,
beloved, will not be condemned for error, you, beloved, will
not be condemned for mistakes. You will not be condemned for
wrong doctrine. You will not be condemned. Because
Christ. Christ set the record straight.
Do you see that it's subtle? It's very subtle and it invokes
a whole lot of thought and people, they're just like, oh, my goodness,
and some of, you know, and you've experienced some of the stuff,
but it's just very frustrating. And just because people are struggling
with it doesn't mean they're our enemies. Brothers and sisters,
we will struggle with these things of learning to rest versus learning
to know what everybody's told us we must know in order to rest.
You just heard Hebrews 11 in its entirety. Not one thing there
had anything to do with theological things. And if that is the Apostle Paul's
explanation to Jewish Christians on their resting, you know what
they were struggling with? I mean, all the stuff we've done
on the hundreds and hundreds of years of doing and being and
all the things that we it's all for nothing, Paul says it well,
yeah, it's all for nothing. Except that God purposed it for.
Pointing to the Christ, as Paul would say. We, these guys didn't
receive the promise. Apart from us, they would not
be made perfect. The power of faith. The power
of faith. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul, don't turn there. Just
go there. Let's just look all these up. We got time. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And I came to you, brothers,
I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty
speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing except Christ
Jesus and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my message
were not in plausible words of wisdom. In other words, I wasn't
a smart guy, figuring it all out, giving you all the instructions
that you needed to get. I wasn't the mansplainer of Christ. But my speech and my wisdom were
a demonstration of the spirit of power. So that your faith might not
rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And then people go, well, yeah,
you got it. I got you. Romans chapter 1 verse 16 says,
For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto
life, unto salvation, first to the Jew, then the Greek. Absolutely. The problem is, is people think
the gospel is something written on a page. And I'm going to fix your fear
at the very end, you know. Number eight, number nine of
my points today. This is number two. All Scripture
is read out by God. Scripture is the full and only
and final revelation of God. So everything that we know concerning
God is from Scripture. But the problem is sometimes
people forget that it's the work of God that puts us into the
place of understanding Scripture. If we're not born again, we're
not going to understand it anyway. And God doesn't use the written
scripture to regenerate us. His Spirit regenerates us. Sometimes
while we're hearing it, sometimes before we hear it, sometimes
after we hear it. That's His wish. Romans 3, right? Being born again is a spiritual
matter. I mean, if we all, in the context of historically,
in the tradition we believe that regeneration precedes faith,
and you can't understand anything until you've been born of God. And if your understanding causes
you to be born of God, then you're the guy, you're the girl, you're
the one, you're the power. It's not the gospel. The gospel
literally means the good report of Jesus, the good report about
this man from Nazareth named Jesus, who was the son of God,
who created the world and everything in it, who is God and who came
to the world and created the womb from which he was born and
born into the world with a human body and live for 34 years. for
three and a half, four years, made himself known to the world,
and he taught about the kingdom of God, he taught about the grace
of God, he taught about the promises of God, and then to fulfill all
promises, because you know that's what a prophecy is, right? It's
just a promise. To fulfill all promises for the sake of God's
people, for the elect, for the saints, for the gathered ones,
for the bride, for the beautiful ones, for the family, for the
adoptions, for the adopted. He laid down his life as a sacrifice
for the sake of the Father's righteous justice, so it would
be upheld that we could be called the righteousness of God. And
so we are now the children of God. We are the children of God. And God the Spirit will never
allow his children to leave this world without understanding that
they are his. But people are so fearful of
not understanding the power of Christ, the power of faith, the
power of God to impart repentance, which literally means a change
of disposition of the thinking brain, of the thinking mind.
It's not even brain back then. Mind is an abstract. Your brain
is the organ. Your mind is your existence,
really. It's just so hard sometimes. Because we want to be in control
of it all. We want to make sure that we have a foundation that's
visible. We want to make sure we have something to stand on,
something to tether ourselves to. That's got a little bit more
security than the invisible promise of God. And beloved, there's nothing
in the Bible that teaches us that we can stand on anything
but the invisible promise of God. And if we're standing on
anything but the invisible promise of God, we're just like Israel.
We're putting one foot on Moses and the other foot on Abraham,
and we're saying, look here, look at what I've got. Jesus
came and bowled over both of those pens and they had nowhere
to stand. And he said, if you're not standing
on me because Abraham looked to me and Moses wrote of me. You can't see the father, I don't
care what you say. And I'm an academic. I've got
16 years of education. It's a lot of study. And you
know what it's worth? Zero. Well, it's worth a lot
in the context of the economy, but it's worth zero. And what it taught me is that
I didn't need it. But I fell prey back in the day
of being in these circles, these great debaters, these great philosophers,
and I'm not an idiot, but I felt like an idiot. I'm like, you
know what, I gotta study this stuff. Well, if I'm gonna study this stuff,
I might as well get credit for it. That's me. Well, I learned how
to make a widget. I might as well make a business
out of it. What I learned is, I know where
this stuff comes from. I know where these ideas come
from. They come from man. They come from history. They
come from antiquity. There's nothing new. This doctrinal
perfectionism isn't new. This new law keeping isn't new.
It was happening in the days of Jesus. It's been happening
throughout history. And all the people who continually rise up
on the clouds of ego and say, this is the way and y'all follow
me. They're not following Christ. They're following history. It
just seems a little more pious. That's why the Puritans were
so powerful. They were so prominent. Because in the eyes of everybody,
they were so perfect in the context of the picture of Christ. But
yet they weren't. They were just neo-Pharisees. I love music. I love classical
music. I love ancient music. I love all sorts of stuff. I
love chants. I listen to that stuff every
now and then. But I also listen to contemporary music. into the
pop culture of Mozart's day was Mozart. That was pop music. Yet when I got into music school,
we learned how to hold our sneezes, we learned how to dress appropriately,
had to wear tuxedos. I don't even think they do that
anymore. But in music school, I mean, you know, if it was classical
in nature, it was some pop. There was some pomp. There was
some regalia to be had. Certain color cummerbunds. And,
you know, as bougie as I am, Fancy James, I won't go wear
no clip-on tie. I learned how to tie those things. Because
it was always the joke, you know, trombone players come up and
snatch your tie off and throw it right before the concert.
Ha ha! But they couldn't snatch mine.
What does that matter? The point I'm making is in Mozart
Day it wasn't a formal affair, it was a rock concert. But we want to recreate that
in the context of today as if it's the proper way of doing
it. It's just the way things were. Could you imagine a Van Halen
crowd in a Mozart concert? Yeah, I've seen it. And that's
what we've done with our faith. We've let history dictate what
was more pure, what was more pious, what was more perfect
because it was prominent. And instead of just being authentic
who we are today, I mean, I have like one suit left. I don't even
know if it fits. The last four weddings I've done, I didn't
even wear one because I got that big robe I paid a quarter million
dollars for. I'm going to wear that. It needs to be formal. And we
just put on the show, we just put on the garb, we put on the
garment. Beloved, this is what's happening
if we don't understand the idea of faith and repentance. The
third thing today is repentance. What is repentance? I mean, we
see it in the scripture a lot. Repent, therefore, turn back
that your sins may be blotted out. See, that's in Acts chapter
3, I think. And that's a historical story,
that's a story of something that happened historically in the
lives of the apostles. And they are, that is not prescriptive. And believe it or not, the word
repentance wasn't used there. It wasn't used there. When Peter's talking in that
context. Brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance. Yeah,
it's Acts chapter three, verse 17. as did also those who rule
over you. But what God foretold, what God
promised by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Messiah,
His Christ, would suffer, He thus fulfilled. I want you to
hear the context. And Peter did not use the word
repent. He used a word that would literally
be translated in our English today, change your thinking,
people. Change the way you're thinking,
man, you gotta change your mind. Change the way you're thinking.
I don't even like change your mind, change your thinking. And in that, he's telling them
to change their thinking. That's not God granting change
of thinking. That'd be like Jesus saying to
the disciples, hey, wash your hands. And people thinking, oh, I've
got to wash my hands. OK, now I'm clean. No, Jesus
was going to wash their feet. And Peter refused. And Jesus
says, hey, listen, if I don't wash you, you have no place with
me. Then wash all of me, man. Wash my head, my hands, my feet.
Let me take off all my clothes. You just bathe me, OK? Because
I want to be where you are. I want to be known in you. He didn't get it. But yet in
John 17, Jesus does say what he says, the word that I've spoken
to you made you clean. The context always listen, the
context always defines the meaning. The definition is just a halfhearted
attempt at allowing people to understand what a word could
mean. The context tells you what it means. And Peter says, repent, change
the way you're thinking, turn back, that your sins may be blotted
out. See, the context here, speaking
to those Jews, they understood about the blotting out of sins. They understood
the sacrificial system. Peter didn't have to explain it to
them. And constantly, we don't have to explain it to people
either, even if they are ignorant of it. They can learn it as they
grow in their understanding. If they ask questions, surely,
but their apprehension of the sacrificial system and its purposes
is not what being born again is about. It's not what faith
rests in. It's just the depths of this
wonderful, powerful report of God's promises from creation
to revelation to glorification. So change the way you're thinking.
Remember, you want your sins to be blotted out. You're here
at these festivals, you're doing all this kind of stuff, But if
you don't change the way you're thinking, you're not gonna understand
it. You're not gonna see it. Your
sin's gonna remain. that times of refreshing may
come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ
appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the
time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the
mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, the Lord God
will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You
shall listen to him and whatever he tells you, and it shall be
that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall
be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken
from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaim these
days. And you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant
of God made with your father, saying to Abraham, and in your
offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God,
having raised up his servants, sent him first to you to bless
you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. And then we're speaking to the
people, Peter and John. And the captain of the temple
of the Sadducees, this is Acts chapter 4, came upon them greatly
annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in
Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested him and put
him in custody until the next day. Because many who had heard the story
of Christ believed. And the number of men who came
was about 5,000. I've had friends who were arrested
for doing things on the street in certain places, some of them
unjustly, some of them justly. They violated the law and they
spoke ill and they attacked people verbally. Go to jail. But I've never ever in my life
seen anyone be arrested because 5,000 people believe the story
of Jesus on an open street. That's the power of the gospel. The call to repentance. It's just a challenge to change
your thinking. The gift of repentance is faith. Because a lot of people
have changed their thinking and are lost as a ball in high weeds. As a black cricket on a dark
night. I can't see. The good news is,
as the scripture teaches us, the fourth thing is that the
word of God is transformative. The word of God is powerful.
The word of God is Hebrews, living and breathing, sharper than any
two-edged sword. It does what it needs to do.
The prophets would say that. God would say, I send my word
and it will not return to me empty. It will do that for which
I sent it. So when the word of God is established in the hearts
of his people, when the word of God is preached to those who
profess to be in Christ and those people receive it, we praise
God for it. When others in the same group
say, well, I'm just not with you there. That is not our problem. Well, let's learn, let's walk,
let's talk, and then we don't get to be the educators of the
one of determining who is saved, when and where. We just get to
be Objects of mercy. To continue to disciple each
other and look forward to the day when people are truly living
the new birth that they've been granted in the knowledge of the
gospel of Christ deeply. The Word of God in the beginning
was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. This is how we understand the
depths of the gospel. This is how we understand sovereign
grace. when we've been made alive, when
we've been born of God, and God the Spirit teaches us when we're
doing the disciplines of the faith. But you know, there are
so many people in their journey of seeking out truth that they
believe lie over here, and they believe lie over here, and they
believe lie over here. And they could or could not have
been born again. during that process. Some people
who are not born again come to the truth and they realize, wow,
I have been seeking out law and lies and God has shown me the
truth. I'm alive today. And others have
been alive and been just like the churches of Galatia, just
like the churches of Thessalonica, just like the churches of Rome. And they've been confused and
they've been railroaded and they've been doing stupid stuff and believing
silly things. Because there's always going
to be a group of perfectionists coming along, trying to teach
silly things. And then God will teach his people
rightly. But no one has a right to come
along and say, you know, because yesterday you had an error today,
now you're born of God. Because you know what they say
a week later when you change your mind on that? You never
were. And we're not talking about ridiculous things. We're not talking about people
who never heard the story of Jesus. We're not talking about
people who have been involved in cults or whatever, but yet
I have met people born of God in cults. who got into cults because they
never had a church that taught them the truth. They never had
a church that cared for them and oversaw their growth. They never
had a congregation that they felt free to say, you know what
I've been thinking? That Jesus wasn't God. Okay, let's walk
through that. Can a born again person think
that? Yes, sir, they can. Because they can sit at night
and they can think, they can get on YouTube, they can think, they
can think about what their grandma told them 70 years ago. And they
go, you know, I'm just been thinking. It's called thinking. We all
think. And so what we do is we arrest
our thinking, we judge it by the word of God, but the scriptures
are not even taught to be read correctly. Most of the people
I know aren't reading the Bible. Most of the people I know love
to read the prophets. But never the instruction to
the church. And yet they want to live a Christian life. Read
both, please. And some people that I know,
they piecemeal the scripture. Or they go in and they're trying
to develop theological systems in the scripture. The Word is
transformative. It teaches us to learn itself,
to learn it. The Word is God. The Word is
living. And the Word commands us to do
something. That's number six. What are we to do? Grow in our
knowledge and grow in our love. And there is an incredibly silly
misapplication of what it means to love somebody by thinking
that keeps it real, speak the truth in love is to condemn a
person because of their error or their unbelief. That's why so many, I'm not even
gonna exaggerate. Let's just say four or five people
a week will message me from the internet, through the church
website or social media. And I don't answer them all,
I just sort of send them links to the answers that I've done over the
years. And out of those four or five,
these four or five specific, I get more questions than that,
but these four or five questions always relate to I don't think
I'm saved. I don't think I'm safe because
I was reading on a blog today that unless I ever came to the
knowledge that what I believed when I was seven was a lie, then
I couldn't be born again today, and I'm 29. What did you eat yesterday morning?
What did you eat Friday? What pair of socks did you wear
Monday? How are you going to know what you did 20 years ago? I meditate, I think, I clear
my mind, I pray, I do a lot of cool stuff to keep my body and
my mind sharp. And it's hard, it's not easy.
And sometimes when I'm just sort of laying there looking at the
sky, I remember things from my childhood. And I get up and I go, oh wow,
I'm gonna write that down. And I haven't remembered those
things for 40 years. I remember some things we experienced,
Levi, a couple of weeks ago, some of those ping pong days.
I've got to share that story with somebody. And if somebody
had said something to me about that a week ago, I'd say, hey,
you remember? I'd go, I don't think I do. And if they explain
it again, I'm going to go, oh, yeah. It has nothing to do with you being
born again. You can know and be wrong and forget all sorts
of things. Now I hear it, well, people can come to faith in a
false gospel. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Or false practice,
I didn't say that. But believe it or not, beloved,
very few people have a spiritual background or a church background.
I was not raised in church as a child. When I was in 10th grade
and got my driver's license, I found a church to attend. having
been born again for years, studying the scripture with a
family member, not a pastor in a congregation. You don't need a pastor to be
born again either. You know that, right? It's the Spirit's work. So we're
taught to live the word. We're taught to live it out.
to understand that we're to grow in love and knowledge. And my
prayer, as Paul told the Philippians, is that your love may abound
more and more with knowledge and discrimination, discernment,
so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and
blameless for the day of Christ. Now, the crazy thing is this
includes being careful for error. Error is dangerous in the church,
and the pastors and the overseers of the church have that charge.
But when it comes, we have the divine commandment to maintain
the peace and to work through it systematically and patiently
if it takes 25 years. And nobody but Jesus himself
gets to tell us how we deal with it. And we are to be looking to learn
how to love. Practically abiding in the love
of God, while growing in the knowledge of Christ, which creates
discernment. The more we know, the easier
it is for us to go, yeah, I don't think that sounds right. And
learning to love then allows us to go, all right, brother,
let's talk more about that when we have time. And they get upset
and you go, wait a minute, why are you upset? Are you not trusting
in the power of Christ? You're not trusting in the sovereignty
of God? God doesn't need our zeal and
our anger and our frustration. As a matter of fact, those are
sinful things. Especially when they get in the
way of what God has called us to do. I'm not saying that it's
always sin, but it can be. And as we learn and discern,
then we continually grow in Christ. Grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both
now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3, 18. How do we do that? Well, we do
that, I mean, Peter would tell us. Peter would tell us, wouldn't
he? 2 Peter. He talks about being careful
of false prophets and false teachers. He tells the elders to shepherd
the flock in the context of humility and patience. Clothing ourselves
with all humility. Peter gives a lot. He gives a lot. He talks about
being set apart in our lives, suffering for the sake of righteousness.
I'll be in 1 Peter some next week. In 2 Peter, he talks about
confirming your calling, confirming your salvation, confirming your
election. Let's hear the Word of the Lord. Verse 3 of 2 Peter
1. His divine power has granted
to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. His divine
power has granted to us all. Isn't that funny? When we get upset with other
people, we're regularly getting mad at God because he hasn't
done something with his divine power. But this is what he's done in
us. This is what he's done for you, beloved. His divine power
is granted to you all things that pertain to life and godliness.
through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory
and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and
very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers
of the divine nature, which means you have escaped from the corruption
that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very
reason," here's a command, make every effort to supplement your
faith with virtue. with virtue, with knowledge,
knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness,
steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection,
brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours
and are increasing, they keep you from becoming ineffective
or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. See,
if we're not living out the instruction of the Bible, we're not growing
in the knowledge of grace. If all we're doing is sitting
around and constantly regurgitating theological things, listening
to theological debates, having theological sermons, then we're
missing 90% of the entirety of the Bible's instruction to the
church. And at the flip side of that,
we don't negate the immensely important and foundational realities
of who Christ is and what the Bible teaches us. But do you
need to understand, beloved, it took 90-something years for
the New Testament to be finished. There is no exhaustive gospel. It's immeasurable. There's no bullet point, these
are the five things you must know in order to be credible.
This just doesn't happen. We embark on a journey to walk
together and we do it in love and in such a way that we are
growing. Because if we know the love of
God, we will live the love of God. And when I say that, I imitate
John in his first epistle. It doesn't mean that you're not
in Christ or that you're not born again or that you're not
saved. It means that you're just living in a manner that's in
conflict with the very gospel that you believe. We are to continually grow, and
we do so by handling the word of truth. Let's continue to read
in 1 Peter. Whoever lacks these qualities
is nearsighted and he is blind, having forgotten that he was
cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the
more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if
you practice these qualities, you will never fail. For in this
way there will be richly provided for you an interest in the eternal
kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I intend
to remind you of these qualities though you know them and you
are established, listen, in the truth that you have. I think
it right as long as I'm in this body to stir you up by way of
reminder since I know that putting off my body will be soon as our
Lord Jesus Christ has made it clear to me and I will make every
effort so that after my departure you may be able to have time
to recall these things. And then what does he do in verse
16? He undergirds the scripture. We're not making this stuff up.
This is not a clever, devised myth. when we made known to you
the power of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory
from God the Father, and the voice was born to him from the
majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."
We heard this voice. We heard this voice from heaven,
and we were with Jesus on the mountain, and we have the prophetic
word more fully confirmed. That which we've been reading
since we were children, oh my, this is what they were talking
about. You would do well to pay attention
to that word as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day
dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing first
of all, these are saved people, knowing first of all that no
prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation,
for no prophecy was produced by the will of men, but men spoke
from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, but
there's going to be some false prophets, there's going to be
some people come in, and you know what? We're going to be those
false prophets from time to time, and we get these inclinations
and these ideas, and we just lovingly correct one another,
and the correction is evident. We handle the Word of Truth.
Do your best to present to God. This is instruction to elders
specifically, but it has application. Do your best to present yourself
to one as God, approved and approved worker who has no need of shame,
rightly handling the word of truth. We have to practice interpreting
the Bible. We have to practice loving and
serving so that God, the Spirit, will give us the understanding
of the knowledge of grace so that we will grow in love and prove we are the followers
of Christ. Why does it matter? Because all
scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness
in its context. My commentary is not powerful
over you. My commentary is explicative.
My commentary is oversight. My commentary is nuanced. My commentary is minutiae. Sometimes
it's humorous, but it's not power over you. It's the Word of God
and that engagement and that conversation and that life together
that makes the difference. We always go back. Well, James,
what you said last week, I don't mind being pushed on that. What
you said last week, it seemed to conflict. Okay, let's go to
the Word of God. You know what? I stand corrected. You know what? I'm
not understanding this right. You know what? I think I'm right, but
I'm going to have to give me a few more months or a couple
years to figure that out. And that's how you should be. Because we are to obey the commandments
of Christ. The Bible says we are to obey
the commandments of Christ. What am I talking about? Love your
neighbor as yourself. When you love your neighbor as
yourself, you're loving God. And when you're doing that, you're
fulfilling all the prophets. You're fulfilling all the requirements
of the law. But yet, fulfilling all the requirements of the law
is not us loving. It's Christ's love for us. That's
Christ's love for us because His righteousness is our righteousness. The Bible, the gospel, the good
news is not about what Christ did to show us the way that we
could follow by doing as He did and earn salvation. The gospel
message is that Christ is salvation and that in His death, the reason
He was raised to life is because He was sinless. And when He said it is finished,
He meant it. It wasn't a euphemism. It's finished. I finished the
work that I was sent to do. I paid for the sins of my people. Who
are your people? You'll know them by their love
for one another. You'll know them by their faith. What about all these knuckleheads
that are running around as people of God and they're not loving?
Then we just correct them. What if they don't change? Then
we disassociate with them until they do. Every time I come to
your house, you slap me in the face and throw dirt in my eye. I'm probably not going to come
around until I know you're not going to do that anymore. Or worse, you invite me over
and I open the door and throw sand in your face. I'm going to fix that. We're to obey Christ's commands.
Why? Because the power of Christ's
resurrection is ours. God's love for us is proven in
the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's really
the critical reality of things. I mean, see, we believe everything.
We've got Marvel movies. We've got thousands of years
of incredible Greek and Roman writings, powerful things, just
all sorts of supernatural stuff. But Jesus, historically, is just
this man, came from a town nobody wanted to associate with, and
claimed to be the son of God, and he died, and he rose from
the dead, and hundreds and hundreds of people saw him, and they wrote
about it. And God the Spirit in the story
of Christ shows us that the power of the resurrection is ours.
We became like Him in His death. In other words, He died, so we
died. So our justice is satisfied, or God's justice is satisfied
in the death of Christ. The record's clean. The wall of hostility
is gone. So therefore, the final thing I want to say, I've already
preached about probably a dozen times this summer, is that we are free.
For freedom, Christ has set us free, Galatians 5.1. Stand firm,
therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. There is no slavery in the life
of the Christian, so much so that Paul has to warn us, hey
now, wait a minute, we know what is good and prudent, we know
what is wicked, let's avoid the wicked. Don't use this freedom,
this amazing grace, don't use this absolute, just no shackles
and no boundaries as an excuse to sin. But it also includes freedom
of our conscience, freedom from fear, freedom from anxiety, freedom
from worry, which fits right in line with the commandments
of the apostles, thus Christ, who says, do not worry, rejoice.
I mean, Jesus, don't worry about
tomorrow. What are you doing? Yesterday is over, tomorrow?
Look at the birds. Look at the flowers. Why are we worried? It's a commandment. So until we find that authentic
freedom to be ourselves in a community without shame, we're just not free. I didn't
say we weren't saved. I just said we're not free. Beloved, I want you to be free.
I want you to be free. I don't want you to be shackled.
And I want to sound antinomian. I want to sound universal. Because
that's how the gospel portrays it. That's how the story expresses
it. And then we learn, no, no, no,
no, no. There are good and prudent boundaries. There are good and
practical ways of having safety. That's why we don't let toddlers
run in the freeway. But we might let them run in
the backyard knowing they're going to hit their heads on something
if it isn't but the grass. We don't let 10-year-olds play
with candles for a reason until you buy them the LED candles.
There's always prudence. There's always wisdom. There's
always learning. There's always living. But, beloved,
we've got to grow in freedom. We have to have the freedom.
You and I have to have the freedom to engage each other in life,
knowing we're going to rub each other the wrong way, or we're
going to say or experience things, or we're not going to want to
be honest, and that's okay. We just have to have the freedom.
Because until we are really resting, we're not fully embracing the
gift of faith. And I've not figured that out
yet. So according to the Bible then, I've just got to do it
every day. I've just got to remind myself every day, you've got
to remind me when you talk, and I have to remind you. We've got
to be reminded of the freedom, of the love of God that overcomes
fear. Let's pray. Father, these things, oh, I know,
I know I have said things this morning that when I listen to
them, well, that doesn't really work, or that's going to open
up a can of worms, and I might have worded that better. But
Father, You know what I'm trying to say. You know what we need. You know
where we need to go. You know what we've been through.
You know everything. all at once, all the time, forever. Father, you've known us before
the world began. We haven't always known you, so we thank you for that knowledge.
We thank you for the sovereignty of your work in our lives. We
thank you, Lord, for giving us rest. We thank you, Lord, for
giving us true doctrine and deep theology. And Father, we thank
you, Lord, for giving us practical instruction and loving commands. And so, Father, I pray for my
brothers and sisters. I pray that we would all be free to
live authentically, to not worry about the self-imposed boundaries
or the cultural boundaries that we put on ourselves concerning
our faith in the Christian life, that we would heed the warnings
of Scripture, but at the same time, live and breathe in the
depths of that grace that is ours that we would be ignited and
compelled by the love that you've shown us in Jesus rather than
the fear of wrath which is not ours to bear. Father, there are some of us
who have struggled with emotions and our bodies and relationships
and with other things in life that we just can't seem to overcome
them. Lord, be the healer of our minds,
of our bodies. Be the healer of our hope. that we might praise you for
it, that we might be present with others in our lives to give
them the promise of hope. Father, help us as your people
to stop living in seminary mindset, to stop living in this just rigidity
of study that's not holistic, that's not
the full counsel of your word. Give us life abundantly that
we may grow, that we may grow into the knowledge of love and
grace. And so, Father, I thank you that
your perfection will not fail and my faithfulness is as good
as dead when it starts. So we trust in you and your promise,
we trust in you and your power, we trust in you and the person
of Jesus Christ, your son, whom you have sent to save us. And
in him alone do we rest by your divine work. Teach us, Christ. Help us to change our minds about
the errors that we have, help us to grow and be patient and
loving as we help others patiently traverse this great life. In
Christ, we pray. Amen.