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Book: Acts

  • Two Essentials Necessary for Biblical Salvation

    Two Essentials Necessary for Biblical Salvation

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    Note: This rough transcript was automatically generated by YouTube’s AI algorithm. We provide it here for your convenience, but know it will surely contain errors as it has not been proofread or edited by a human.

    take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 20 Acts chapter 20 in Acts chapter 20 is is of course Paul is um he’s speaking to the church he’s ready to to leave on another trip heading to Jerusalem and um actually heading off to Rome and uh he comes to the church and he is telling the church listen I didn’t hold back preaching the whole gospel I preach to you the whole Council of God and um then he calls the elders together and he tells the elders listen um I’m going to be leaving uh be careful there could be people in the church that are going to want to make disciples of themselves and um they’re going to pull people away okay so he warns them about the wolves and then he tells them in chapter 20 verse number 21 um he says this acts 20: 21 it says Solly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ so in other words what Paul does is he gives them two essential things needed if you are to have part in Salvation and that’s a very important those two uh Essentials are extremely important when it comes to sharing the gospel uh because we all have to know the gospel right to be able to share the gospel and we also if we don’t have not receive the Gospel we need to understand these two things so we can properly receive the gospel and become a real genuine Christian where the spirit of God indwells that person and they start bearing fruit unto repentance now it’s not uncommon for people to conclude in their thinking that to become a Christian can mean many different things to different people they summarize because they from time to time think about God in religious matters that they are a Christian or that because they are trying to very hard to live a good life that they are a Christian I have heard media personalities say wherever you find love and kindness you find God if you find love and kindness among uh if I find love and kindness among my family and friends isn’t that the spirit of Christianity so I believe I am a Christian and sometimes you hear people say oh I have always believed that therefore I have always been a Christian I was born a Christian or they say I have always the best intention for people and have never desired harm to harm anybody and have always been a person who uh lived my life that way so because of that I am a Christian some are thought to be religious and because they wear religious symbols on their body like jewelry and Tattoos stuff like that uh or have religious symbols in their automobiles or on their front Lawns and because they are bent to that kind of public display of faith they consider themselves a Christian but when you consider this passage of scripture that I just read in Acts chapter 20 if you are honest if you are honest you must conclude that becoming a Christian means to undergo a complete change a change in thinking a change in action and a change in Direction sometimes something happens in other words to you and something takes place in you one is moved from one place to another from the place of not being a Christian to the place of actually becoming a real Christian because faith comes from hearing the word of God that’s how it comes so one has to hear the word of God it happens when we come under the spotlight of the word of God the scriptures itself and scripture the message of the Gospel is driven into the minds the hearts and consciences of people who are paying attention in other words God is doing something he is bringing them he’s making them uh able to start listening to what the message is so they can actually respond to it in the right way and it becomes evident in our text this morning that the Apostle Paul assures the people that through repentance and Faith they would receive salvation he taught that in God’s name and his Mercy through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ would come to all who would turn from from their sin believe in and follow Jesus Christ as their lord and savior so I want you to see that we cannot do without either of these any more than these Jews and Greeks in our text can do without them so if you have not repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you have to conclude that that person has no part in the matter of Salvation because this is what God’s put in the word of God to actually become a Christian and it’s my desire that you have part of that especially that of Eternal salvation so I want to to look really a little bit more closely at these two Essentials that you cannot be without in the matter of eternal salvation so let’s examine the First Essential you cannot be without in order to partake in biblical salvation number one in verse number 21 you must have repentance towards God now what what does that mean repentance towards god well what repentance is not first of all in other words there is a repentance that is not towards God it is a it is uh the kinds of repentance that have been taken or been mistaken as biblical repentance and all of these are actually counterfeits now if you just take your Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 7 then we’ll come back to acts verse number 10 there are actually Four counterfeits of repentance which amount only to the sorrow of the world in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse number 10 it says this for the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation but the sorrow of the world produces death now there’s there’s two different results there there’s a repentance that leads to Salvation And there’s a repentance that leads to death so what are some of the counterfeit repentances well first of all it’s a repentance of sin produced by a sense of just shame some get caught in their sin and they’re ashamed for it they are grieved at having been discovered and they sorrow now because of it they are sorry not because of the evil that they committed but that the evil had been dragged into the light and exposed their secret evil sinning heart and so they are ashamed now and if they had not been found out by the Light then they would have probably continue in their sin so don’t be fooled shame over sin is not biblical repentance a second counterfeit would be a repentance that comes of grief because of painful the painful consequences of sin someone who gives up sin for a time like drinking or taking drugs or pornography or sexual immorality or homosexuality or cheating lighting stealing gossiping an outburst of anger any sins like that if they just give it up for a period of time he or she gives it up not because they dislike it but because it is ruining their life and it’s ruining the lives of those around them it is a repentance of regret for the adverse consequences of their own actions and it is not sorrow for sin it’s not specially sorrow for sin against God and this repent repentance rep also is a sham and not true true biblical repentance this kind will never be acceptable in God’s sight it’s it’s it’s like some people who who through some kind of rehab program are told they must believe in a higher power well what a higher power can mean nothing that’s that’s actually a lie uh because they are leading people to a place where whatever you want to believe in a higher whatever you want if you believe in that then that’s how you’re going to get through that and if you believe in that then you can overcome your addiction well that’s not true maybe they can turn over a new Leaf maybe they can lay it aside for a while because it’s causing issues in their life and the lives of others but that is not that is not true repentance as as David understood in Psalm 51 he said this he says against you and you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight so he had a different perspective on what real repentance was when he understood that he sinned against yes people but he sinned against God and that has ramifications in his life the lives of his family and the lives of those who he was ruling over but David did of course repent properly and become a Believer also there is a third counterfeit a repentance that consists of horror at future the future punishment of sin now you hear some people sometimes say Hey listen I’m afraid to go to hell so whatever you’re telling me I’ll do now is that a good motivation I don’t think it’s it’s it should lack I think that’s part of the fear of God the fear of what’s coming if I don’t have a relationship with God if I don’t do things the way God wants me to do them it’s it’s those who have really escaped the hand of present Justice in this life but knows that in the depth of their soul he will not escape the future Court of divine Justice after death people know that they know somehow they’re going to be examined once they live this world but the problem is they don’t do anything about it while they’re here they’re hoping that somehow when they die that they’re going to be in the presence of a God and everything’s going to be good and they’re going to just go party on in eternity and have a good old time see they stop sinning in a certain area because of fear of death and judgment and the Wrath to come but their fear goes no further than selfish a selfish desire to escape punishment if they could be assured that no punishment would follow such persons would no doubt continue in sin so fear of punishment falls short of genuine repentance although it does have benefits because the Bible does say in as much as it is appointed for man to die once and after this comes judgment there is a fourth counterfeit repentance and that’s a repentance which is partial that is here she REM some gross iniquity that they have committed and feel a measure of regret but then they see themselves for the most part as a pretty good person so the person only repents of a glaring offense and not repent of sin at all see biblical repentance is repentance that sweeps the house clean from Cellar to attic it hunts down down sin every shape and size and confesses it before the Lord now you know that that is true when you become a Christian you become more sensitive to your sin you’re more apt to pick it up right away people don’t have to point it out to you not even a message has to point it out to you you become sensitive the spirit of God is living in in you and you’re sensitive to your sin because you know your sin offends God see that’s repentance towards God so true repentance may include elements of some of these or all of these yet these alone fall short of biblical repentance and as the scripture says in the 2 Corinthians 710 passage these do not lead to salvation but they actually lead to death a sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance without regret leading to salvation but the sorrow of the world produces death so what is repentance then if we go back to the Acts chapter 20 passage of scripture we see here in Acts chap 20: 21 he says very clearly to both Jews and Greeks that means everybody this is applies to everybody he says solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God so in other words what is repentance repentance has to be towards the Living God the Creator God and why is this so because the essence of your repentance must be toward God for the essence of your sin or wrong is towards God it is not enough to feel sorry for your sin or even to fear the the punishment you will face in Hell repentance is a heartfelt sorrow of sin a renouncing of it and a sincere commitment to forsake it and to walk in obedience to Christ I’ve said before that the pictures like this you have been taking the you have been taking a wrong you’ve taken a wrong turn and you’re driving further and further away from where you ought to be going you’re moving away from God what you need to do is stop turn around completely and start traveling in the right direction the direction toward God through the words of scripture through the gospel that the word of God gives us so it’s turning to God the father in whom we have sinned against and offended so any other repentance that does not move in that direction is not a Biblical repentance doesn’t matter how sorry you are it doesn’t matter how regretful you are it doesn’t matter how feel fearful you are what matter matters is where is your repentance toward who’s it toward that’s the most important thing so repentance towards God means several things the first thing is it repentance includes a redirection of our thinking all your thinking has been about yourself about your desires about your passions about your pleasures and your Pursuits you see you and I really didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about God and who he is and what he requires in some respects we didn’t even know what he required or who he was we looked at creation we said there must be a God who created everything and so therefore I just wonder who he is how do you get in touch with him how do you know who he really is I think all many people have had those thoughts who is God when I look through my binoculars or my telescope in the heavens and I see these incredible things when I look at the world and I see how complex it is and and there’s so much variety who who is this God who’s created this place those are good thoughts responding to God’s creation is part of how God leads us to know who he is but it it cannot save you if even if I conclude God created the Heaven and the Earth period Then That doesn’t save me it’s got to take me to the next step and the Greek word uh repent of course from the Greek word metanoia the the word originally meant an afterthought and literally came to mean to change one’s [Music] mind so once one changes one’s mind about what about God about what he requires it’s a change that leads to a change in Behavior a change of thinking in other words my first thought about God was all wrong often a second thought that comes through the word of God shows that my first thought was wrong and how wrong I have been about God himself how wrong I have been about my own condition before him didn’t realize where the Bible says in the Gospel of John whoever believes in the son has eternal life whoever does not obey the son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him I didn’t know I was under the wrath of God but now when I Repent towards God the Father my thinking changes as to what who God is and what God requires and what condition I’m in so repentance means to ask yourself certain questions about God does God make a difference in your life does my life at all conform to his holy laws and or to the word of God have I been been living as if I had an endless leaf on lease on life and will never die how am I living before God what is the purpose of my life what is the end why am I here and of course where do I stand before God so after asking questions like that we we begin to realize that we have not thought about God very much in fact in very real way we have not only thought about God we but we pretty much uh have forgotten God how much we neglect God we we we look at our life you know that God wants uh that God who who made you and I has given you breath and life and supplied all your needs till now how much have we given back to him or have we robbed him of what he had a right to expect from us all these years you would have kept you you really wouldn’t have a kept a car if it didn’t give you any service you get rid of it so how much have we misrepresented God in our life you misre presentent God by complaining because of your lot in life thinking that God somehow gave you the short end of the stick thinking God is unjust even and maybe cruel and see what happens there is that you think that God is the cause of your misery he is the one that uh has brought it all on top of you and you talk about him who is unjust and all the time it has been you who have been unjust and evil in gratitude is the worst of all because it makes sin exceedingly sinful so all these things are are things that we honestly look at our life and we say how much you have we have offended God because have you have done things that he said not to do and you have left undone things he commanded you to do like repent right sins of omission sins that we uh are not things we ought to be doing that we’re not doing that is that could be sin sins that we are actually doing we know we’re doing and we’re not doing anything about it so how much you and I often fall short of the standard and especially before conversion a truly repentant heart judges Itself by God’s standard his standard is perfect Holiness Sin is Sin is any want of Conformity to the law and to the character of God judge yourself judge yourself self and what happens is that we judge ourselves by our fellow man and we don’t look so bad but in turn if we judge ourselves by the perfect Holiness of God we fall short of that standard and that’s not a uh that’s a place that is actually a good place to be because you begin to know that hey I’m in trouble I’m in trouble with the Lord so so there is really no repentance until our Judgment of self is formed by a comparison with The Divine character you and I have fallen short of God’s standard and then our mind being changed how wrong we have been about pretty much everything secondly there’s a a repentance towards God means it it really it includes a realization of guilt in fact if in Acts chapter 2 when the gospel was being preached to the Jews and they began to turn from their sin because they realize whom they have pierced and the Bible records and now when they heard this they were pierced in their heart so that is that means they were pierced because of the guilt they had real genuine guilt and let me remind you that sin is not merely doing something that is wrong it was Martin Lloyd Jones who says it is what we tend to do we recognize certain acts as good and others as bad and we tend to think that sin is just doing particular things that are bad it is that but that is not its Essence the essence of sin is rebellion towards God so you see people tend to think that because they have never committed adultery or never gotten drunk or never took drugs or never committed murder and so on and so on that they’re not Sinners people conclude that decent moral good living people are not Sinners because in their estimation they don’t really do anything really wrong but the only reason most people think that is because they never understood the essence of sin which is rebellion against God every sin I commit is rebellion against the Creator against God himself and consider this if a person is not concerned about obeying God and pleasing him and living to his glory well is that not sin also I have no concern for God and men and women are in trouble because they because of their Disobedience to God they decide this is what they’re going to do and they go no further see the Jews and Romans were guilty of actually murdering Jesus but you may say to yourself well I’ve never done that but if you have been up to this point in your life unconcerned about Jesus and he is someone you could either take or leave and he meanss no he maintains no significant place in your life then you are guilty of treating Jesus as insignificant an insignificant person and because you have ignored him in this way you have rejected him and stand guilty of discarding the Son of God or another way of putting that you crucify Jesus by the way you live and there is no greater sin than not to see any need of Jesus Christ the greatest sinner in the world today are those who do not think about Christ at all that’s the greatest sinner there’s a third thing about repentance towards God and it’s this it includes a realization of the relevance of Jesus plainly repentance is a complete change of heart about the relevance of Jesus of Nazareth Nazareth the Messiah and you see that the the Holy Spirit brings a person to start to think about Jesus in a way that they have never considered him before he shows them that Jesus Christ came into the world to save Sinners and that the world is in a state of sin and this is where they start including themsel in that equation so you see when the gospel comes by the word of God the Holy Spirit gets people to think and look at things in a way they have never looked at them before repentance then is agreeing with God that you are sinful agreeing with God that you are under his wrath and deserve his judgment and then agreeing with God that you ought to confess your sin especially that sin of unbelief and make a conscious choice to turn from sin and pursue Christ in loving obedience so that is the First Essential repentance towards God the father but the second essential you can’t be without either you can’t be without this in order to partake in biblical salvation and what is the second thing in Acts chap verse number 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks not only repentance towards God but faith in our Lord Jesus Christ see this is the Father’s Solution by the preaching of the word of God the scriptures reveal the status and the dignity and the significance and the centrality of Jesus Christ you just can’t get around it in the word of God and it is clear that Jesus is the central person and the focus of God’s program for the Salvation of Sinners and sinners from all walks of life from tribes from All Nations all people groups are included in that so faith in Jesus Christ is the Father’s solution to your sin and my sin and everyone else’s sin so what happens when I come to the place to have faith in Jesus Christ there’s going to be a re redirecting of my heart and your heart towards Jesus so jesus’ purpose in coming into the world is summed up very nicely in the gospel Luke Chapter 19:10 it says for the son of man what did he do he came to seek and to save that which was lost and I believe that that point a person be begins to believe I am lost I am in trouble with God something has to happen and so how did God accomplish his mission in the person of Jesus Christ he did it God lit literally became man and lived a perfect life of righteousness and obedience to his own laws on behalf of his children the gospel of I mean the Epistle of Peter he says who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth that’s who Jesus is and I’ve come to learn in Scripture that Jesus is the only one in all the word of God in all the world and all of of History who is qualified for this solution why is he qualified because he was without sin because he was the Spotless unblemish Lamb of God that’s why he was the only sacrifice qualified to go to the Cross no one else could have done it secondly he was able to do it why was he able to do it because he’s God he’s God In the Flesh so he was able and Powerful to be able to accomplish on the cross what no man could have done but not only that he was willing he was willing to do it the Bible tells us he laid down his life for his Sheep No One made him do it no one forced him to do it he did it because he wanted to do it he did it because he knew the end result of what would happen the salvation of souls so when Jesus died he endured the Wrath the anger and Punishment of God for sins he died as a sacrifice for sins satisfying the requirements of divine Justice and took upon himself the punishment that was due us see that’s why Jesus is so precious and the Bible says for Christ died for sins once for all the just for the unjust why did he do that in order to bring us to God so who could bring us to the father as clean and holy people as people able to go into the presence of God who could do that the only one who could do that is Jesus Christ and that is what Biblical salvation is it’s not what we have done but is what God has done see Christ after he died for Sinners rose from the dead bodily 3 Days Later according to the scriptures and if a sinner with nothing in their hand to bring does receive Jesus Christ alone and believe he died and Rose for them they’ll be saved the Bible says eternal life is not the purchase of human Merit but a free gift of the love of God I receive it I take it oh well I just want to go clean up my life first and then I’ll become a Believer well then it’s all about self- salvation it’s not about God salvation it’s when you say I’m going to come with all my luggage and baggage of sin to the one who could forgive me and cleanse me and that’s Jesus Christ you just cannot get away from this message but I tell you what the message is the message in the world right now more than ever before is there’s many ways to God this religion is as good as that religion is as good is that way or whatever way you want to come up with because everybody’s way is the right way who could argue with that because of the pluralistic mindset today that’s what happens and that is a huge today just go on the internet you have it find it all over the place so it red redirects our heart towards Jesus that’s real Biblical repentance but secondly it responds to the relevance of Jesus personally that means you can hear all that message and if you do not respond to it maybe you say I believe all of it yeah I knew all that and leave you have to respond to it there’s got to be a personal response see believing the gospel means to obey the message concerning our Lord Jesus Christ so when the Bible says repentance towards the father and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that is a command given to us by God to be obedient I I mentioned the passage of scripture in um The Gospel of John where it’s set there whoever does not obey the son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him so in other words in the gospel this is God commanding people to come commanding people to come to take the free gift we have to be commanded or we won’t do it but even when the command goes out people still don’t do it so that believing that he is the Son of God that he is God’s Own and only way of Salvation that God sent Jesus to the cross and that God put all our sins on him and punished them in him is the gospel of course the question would be do you believe that and are you willing to turn from yourself and your thinking about God and Trust in What God Says and turn from that and to the father uh and then believe in Jesus the son as the solution to your sin if you’re not willing to do that there’s no salvation so do you believe that do you have faith in that have you received that message about Jesus Christ and believing the gospel means that you stop self salvation you stop self-justification you stop relying upon your good deeds you have no good deeds enough to equal what Christ did for you on the cross in fact Isaiah tells us our our Good Deeds are are are like filthy rags before God they they have no salvific value at all it’s good to be good but it can’t save you so we have to stop Reliance upon any good deeds or all your own efforts Jesus even said I did not come to call the righteous I came but the Sinners to repentance either you are depending on your own righteousness or you’re depending on God’s righteousness there’s no other place so and this is of course a message that contains the gospel and I know some of you are saved but it’s always good to hear it again because we have to we should be telling other people about it too and get it clear in our mind exactly what the gospel is and and if you don’t know and have not trusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior don’t leave today and say well that sounds all very good and true but it’s just not for me I pray that you’re not there or or or young people say I got plenty of time to do this I don’t need to do this now I’m determined to go home and I’m just going to live a better life because of it I’m going to go home and I’m going to try to keep the Ten Commandments not realizing that the Ten Commandments are there to show you you cannot keep them but you’re under God’s judgment if you say that to God he will tell you that you are now dis disobeying in more than you have ever done before and is a very it should be a very very great grave warning when you hear the gospel and you do not respond to it you are putting yourself in a very bad place and if you hear it again and reject it and again and reject it till you become numb to hearing it and even say I already know that that is a very dangerous place to be so today be warned do not believe the lie that all roads lead to Heaven they do not the only road that leads to Heaven is through Jesus Christ who’s the doorway into the kingdom of God into the Sheepfold right he’s the only way so saving faith means coming to an end of yourself an end of your self- salvation an end of your self-reliance an end of your self-righteousness and trusting absolutely in Christ for the Forgiveness of sins and eternal life and anybody who does that Jesus will save you because now your repentance is toward God the father and his solution is in faith in Jesus Christ that is if you are there right now today is the day of salvation for you but you have to respond to it you have to ask Jesus to save you so have you received the free gift of Eternal salvation have you obeyed the gospel do you have the two Essentials of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ if you don’t you have no part in the matter of biblical salvation a person who rejects that they are on their own and they are still under the wrath of God and if they die in that condition a holy God cannot let you into his presence because you are still in your sin you’ve died in your sin you will pay for your sin but God wants us to die in Christ right if we die in Christ Jesus took all the Wrath he took all the sin he paid the full penalty he washed you clean he make you he made you right for his presence nothing to fear if you’re a genuine believer so today Jesus invites those who don’t know him to come right now to repent of your unbelief and ask Jesus to Res rescue you from your sins condemnations and receive Jesus as your lord and savior today maybe the day of salvation for you I tell people when I heard the gospel the third time God had to pull me out of New Jersey put me in road to Spain and I wasn’t looking for God but he he was looking for me and when I walked into that room probably the first time I ever heard a message preached I was the only Marine in a room of about 60 Sailors that was a little uncomfortable but anyway there was only there was no chairs there was only a bookshelf on the back and I jumped on that bookshelf and I was looking the preacher Square in the eye and somebody giv me a Bible and then and I saw for the first time it was kind of like the Romans road to Salvation I’m looking all these passing scriptures and I said you know what I never asked Jesus to save me I never responded to the message you know I thought I was a good little person you know a little boy and uh you know I I was thought I was doing fine but that day God opened my eyes and I saw that I never asked Jesus to save me and I went that day talk with the the person there and I had a good friend named Terry Wright he was a hog farmer from Kabul Missouri and he he took me to that service he was a Christian um and uh I got saved July 25th 1977 and everything changed in my life God changed the direction of my thinking he opened up the word of God to me I began to understand it I had a purpose of life for in life for the first time Jesus Christ was the purpose and that can happen to anyone who responds to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and remember you cannot establish your own righteousness instead submit yourself to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ and stop trying to offer a price to earn salvation instead come receive Life as a free gift from God as he intended you are not called upon to earn anything you are called upon to receive what he offers and then don’t let pride get in the way thinking you know better than God is pride give it up fling yourself upon the mercy of God for pardon and Grace because the resurrected and living Christ wants to give eternal life freely without cost to anyone who comes and responds to the message you’re here because of that if you know Christ today you’re here because of that that see a poor sinner who was awakened in their soul by the holy spirit because the word of God came to them and God opens up their eyes to see the Living Lord they come and they Rejoice at the truth of the gospel and a dead sinner becomes alive to God see the Sal the gospel is the most wonderful thing in the world there’s nothing better so if you are a Christian you’re on the top of the pile and we have a responsibility to get that message to others so make sure you don’t leave today young person anybody without the two most important Essentials in the matter of God’s Eternal salvation and that is very clearly as the scripture says solemn solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks what repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ amen that’s the gospel let’s pray Lord thank you so much Lord even on this kind of a different day where the weather kind of set us all in a little bit of a different direction but I thank you Lord for the ones who are here the one listen listening online and I just pray Lord it is good from time to time just to go and review the gospel again not only for our the sake of our own souls to make sure that we’re in the right place but Lord for the sake of those who are our children who need to hear it until they come to Faith and Lord to us who uh are given the responsibility to share it with others that we would be better witnesses that the truth of the of the Gospel would be set in our mind in a way that we not only understand it ourselves but we are able sometimes very feebly to share it with others make us stronger in that way and Lord bless our church and our family with true Salvation And I pray no one would leave no one would leave ever where they would say that they never heard the gospel and I just pray Lord we can tell the message but you have to save them bring them to yourself and save them for your sake I pray this in Christ’s name amen

  • Giving Testimony for Christ

    Giving Testimony for Christ

    In this special baptism service sermon, Pastor Joe Babij looks at Paul’s testimony before Agrippa in Acts 26:1-32. Pastor Babij identifies three key parts of any person’s salvation testimony by looking at Paul’s model: what a person was like before conversion, what happened to a person in conversion, and how a person became different after conversion. Pastor Babij challenges listeners to ask whether they have a true testimony of transformation in Jesus Christ as a result of the gospel.

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    it’s time to get back at it and and um and do that for yourself for spiritual growth and understanding all right this morning I want you to take your Bibles and turn to the book of Acts and if you are using the Pew Bible I don’t know where the page number is but you have to go to the gospel of uh the gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John and right after John you find the book of Acts all right in Acts chapter 26 which we read this morning and I want to look at giving testimony for Christ this is Paul giving a testimony for Christ now this is a passage we have our membership CL class read as they prepare for their testimony and um so that’s a really good passage of scripture Paul gives his testimony about three times in the book of Acts and this is about the last time he gives it and uh he gives it before a group of people before King agria and so we’re going to look at that and I want you to follow along as we look at that passage but let me have a word of prayer before I go there Lord thank you this morning for your grace and your mercy to us today for bringing us here and Lord for allowing us to Fellowship together as a church body allowing us to have the word of God in our hands that we can not only read it and uh hear it but we can also study it and Lord thank you so much for working within uh your church in which when people uh who are brought out of the kingdom of Satan or the domain of Satan to the kingdom of your dear son uh become Believers that even in this dark world you’re still building your church you’re still bringing people to Faith and Lord this morning as we hear the testimonies of those who come to faith in Christ and now are going to walk in the waters of baptism Lord what a great blessing that is to to be able to hear their testimony and know Lord you’re still at work in the world and so thank you for allowing us to be a witness to that and bless us our our time together in worship and hearing the word of God this morning I pray in Christ’s name amen let me ask you a question uh this morning maybe several questions if some of them were to follow you around for a week and they were uh they were able to observe your manner of life and even read your thoughts do you think you would be able to persuade them that you are a Christian a Biblical Christian a person who loves and serves the Living God and that Jesus Christ is indeed your lord so are are you able to do that now permit me to ask you uh go one step further with that line of questioning and suppose you were given the opportunity to freely give testimony to someone about your past and your present life do you believe that you would be able to persuade someone else using the historical events in your life story that Jesus has become the most important Central person in your life what do you think the outcome would be do you think you can almost persuade someone so that when they left you you would have given them something to ponder concerning their Eternal Soul concerning judgment to come concerning the hope of sins the hope of sins forgiven and eternal life only to be had through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ do you think think you would be able to do that I pray you would because just a search a brief search of scripture you find there’s many admonitions concerning testimonies and people giving testimonies before groups of people like Matthew tells us Let Your Shine Your Light Shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify the your father who was in Heaven even in the Old Testament in Psalm 22 it says I will tell of your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly I will give praise to you and then in Psalm 35 I will give you thanks in the great congregation I will praise you among the mighty throng so all over scripture we get these scriptures that tell us about people giving a testimony about the great things God has done in their life like in Psalm 107 it says let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness and for his wonders to the sons of men let them extol him also in the congregation of the people and praise him in the seat of the elders all these passages scriptures give t testimony testify uh to what God has done that they have experienced the true and living God in their life and they want to tell people about it they can’t hold it back they have to tell it and so when given the opportunity to testify we should be doing it with joy it should be a joyful experience in fact the word of God uses uses the word defense in scripture which we get the word apologetic from and that means for someone who defends the faith on one or more points of teaching it was the Apostle Peter who wrote but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account of the hope that lies within you and to do that with gentleness and reverence and now we come to acts chap 26 and you find In this passage of scripture right in verse number one it tells us here AG grippa said to Paul in verse one number one of Acts 26 you are permitted to speak for yourself then Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense right and then it says in regard to these things of which I am a Accused by the Jews I consider myself fortunate King Agrippa that I am about to make my defense before you today especially because you are an expert in all the customs and questions among uh among the Jews and therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently so in giving testimony the Apostle Paul lays out his past his old past life before conversion the C circumstances which he came to believe in Jesus Christ and the change that took place in his life something has happened to him and he wants to tell people about that and that’s the same for all Christians you don’t you’re not born a Christian you’re not you don’t give you don’t give birth to a baby they’re automatically a Christian they’re they’re a uh person who comes into the world and there a sinner they have a sin nature they’re going to sin and it’s the sin that we commit uh that keeps us out of the presence of God so remember all Christians once they come to Christ and know him as Lord and savior they have a testimony now they have an apologetic a defense of the hope that is in them because they came to Jesus Christ now the question I would have for you this morning is do you have a testimony for Christ I pray that you do because excuse me I want to really look at this passage of scripture and look how how the Apostle Paul unfolds his testimony he gives before a public audience and the first thing he does he gives his past old life before conversion now if you don’t know anything about about the Apostle Paul his name before he was the Apostle Paul was the name Saul now before that he was a very very religious person he was a zealously religious person in fact Paul was a quintessential religious person his upbringing was he was brought up it says in verse number four he he says I’m thoroughly Jewish yes to the uttermost where he says so then all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up which from the beginning was spent among my own Nation at Jerusalem and then in verse number five since they have known about me for a long time if they are willing to testify that I live as a Pharisee according to the strict strictest sect of our religion so in his upbringing he was strictly Jewish and then his vocation was he was a Pharisee he was a teacher of that religion he was a leader in his nation in teaching the Old Testament but they really bore testimony specifically to the law that they were to keep the law of God so the real ground of his arrest and persecution was not his having left his old religion Judaism but having too Faithfully adhered to it and I stand he says on trial for the hope of the promise that is the expectation of the hope of messiah messiah is coming all right that was the question did he come or is he coming and Paul is saying to them he’s already come so Paul was not embracing something entirely new but something entirely true and three very important things about the hope of Messiah was number one The Hope was promised by the Patriarchs he says this in verse number six he say now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made to by God to our fathers and what was this Pro promise who is this promise to this promise was that God was going to provide a a messiah he was going to provide a deliverer he brought this first to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob and all the way down the line and it got right down to the Apostle or to Saul who became the Apostle Paul also this Hope was prefigured in the law in verse number seven the promise to which our 12 tribes hope to attain now that’s important that phrase as they earnestly serve God night and day for this Hope Oh king that’s what I’m being accused of by the Jews now what were they what were these people trying to obtain well they were trying to obtain a righteousness before God by the law by the effort of keeping the law that they were trying to obtain a righteousness that would be acceptable to God by keeping by but they kept failing because of their own transmitted Sin from Adam and their own inherent sinfulness so you see that the law Ten Commandments kept showing them that they needed someone to deliver them from a greater slavery than the slavery that they were they experienced in Egypt they were to be delivered from the slavery of Their Own sin and so are we to be delivered from the slavery of our own sin which keeps us out of a relationship with God and not of the presence of God slavery which only leads to bondage and ultimate Le to death so this separation from life and separation from a living God that’s what our sin causes and then he said in verse number seven as they earnestly serve God night and day now this is reference to the levitical priesthood and what did the L litical levitical priesthood actually do they offered sacrifice on behalf of the people year after year after year after year and it never really dealt sufficiently with the problem of sin so it couldn’t have been that religious judaistic system that saved anyone or any religious system it cannot save anyone in fact Hebrews chapter 7 verse 27 and 28 listen what it says it says who does not need daily like those High priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sin and then for the sins of the people because this he did once for all when he offered up himself so in other words Jesus didn’t have to offer sin for himself like the old test high priest because he was sinless he was dying for those who were sinners like you and I in fact Hebrews 10 tells us priests stand daily ministering and offering Time After Time the same sacrifices which could never take away sin but he Jesus having offered one sacrifice for sin for all times sat down at the right hand hand of God so here’s Paul giving his testimony about what he was trying to obtain and what he was getting other people to try to obtain being righteous on your own making yourself acceptable to God by your own and and that’s what religion actually is that’s why when you talk to people about the gospel and you ask them hey if you uh have you come to a place in your spiritual life if you die today you know for sure you’re going to heaven and they would say well no I I don’t really and if you stood before God and when you die and God were to ask you why should I let you into my heaven what would you tell him well I’m a good person see that’s what it does it shows that listen we have some kind of goodness and ability within ourselves to save ourselves and so Paul that’s what Saul thought and he did it zealously so the Mosaic law always aimed and continually pointed toward the hope of Messiah that he would be the one who delivers his people from the guilt and the condemnation of sin this has always been the Common Thread woven into the fabric of Israel’s daily life and history it was common to Paul and it was common to every Jewish hearer and you see that the hope of Messiah was prefigured in the law in that what the law could not do and what what could the law not do it could not forgive sin it could not deliver someone from the condemnation of sin and it couldn’t save anybody see Christ did all uh for all time forgiving sin washing it away and declaring one right before God based on a righteousness of another man and that man would be Jesus Christ so not only is is the Hope promised by the Patriarchs not not only is it prefigured in the law but is a hope which was predicted by the prophets and this is what he says in verse number eight of Acts 26 where he says why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead and what did that have to do with anything well Messiah was the one who would be risen from the dead and he Paul gives this testimony in a very affirmative way before his audience and the reason why because he knew from the Old Testament like from psalm 16 verse number 10 which he actually quotes here he says because you will not abandon my soul to Hades nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay in other words Jesus will be in tune doed as one dead but no decomposition or flesh rot would touch his holy body which lay in the grave and the reason for that is is he was without sin he was design dying for the sins of other and the Bible says in Acts 2:31 this Jesus God raised again to which we were all Witnesses so the resurrection divides Jesus from the rest of humanity his eternal deity was strikingly and clearly manifested through his physical Resurrection in other words the resurrection is what essentially makes Jesus different than all Earthly wouldbe prophets and Messiahs he did not rise from the dead none of them rose from the dead of other faiths not one of them rose from the dead they all died and left their decaying corruption in the grave not so with Christ he is risen like Romans 1:4 says who is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead so my friend the resurrection enables us to see Jesus as he really is and who he he is God In the Flesh this is the good news that without Jesus there is no good news without Jesus there is no hope for everlasting life without Jesus there is no freedom from the slavery of sin without Jesus no being can be made right with god without Jesus there is no future hope no future Resurrection to hope for even for us who believe so there is one other thing mentioned in our text about Paul’s past life before conversion his passion and this one this is one thing I want you to see because some people may may not know this about what we know to be the Apostle Paul that his past life was a wicked life all right and notice what it says in verse number 9 through 11 because here we see this was his reason for living and what was his reason to destroy this new movement called the way the preaching of the gospel and he was driven to anger and rage so Paul didn’t see he was breaking the law by persecuting the way essentially in his offense he is saying I did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah so what I did well I did the same thing you are doing holding me in con holding me under trial and the only difference was I was more Angry than you and I was more aggressive than you and he now refers to himself as the chief of Sinners look at what it says in verse number nine so then notice all the eyes so so then I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth and this is just what I did in Jerusalem not only did I lock up many of the Saints in prisons having received Authority from the chief priests but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them and as I punish them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme and being furiously enraged at them I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities so Paul is saying here quite strongly I used all my passion all my influence all my powers to destroy this movement and why is that because this movement was saying that was going against what he was trying to obtain righteousness through the judaist IC Old Testament keeping the law system right that this new gospel he thought was saying no salvation is free it’s by Grace the grace and the mercy of God alone it’s not by anything you do it’s by everything God has already done and so you come and believe that all the work is done already believe what he has done and Paul was furiously against that message as some still are today the Jews have really have never have not changed their position nationally at least on this matter how could God save anyone who in reality hated the father’s way of Salvation like this how could God save someone like the Apostle Paul well you know why I don’t really have an answer to that but I would say he saves anybody who’s a sinner no matter how great a sinner a person may be there’s nobody Beyond saving no matter what they have done and you know what if we go back to the pr Patriarchs and we go back to uh Saul he was a murderer he may have not actually killed somebody but he cast his vote for their death right so he wanted to keep his hands clean while somebody else did the dirty work so so so see his life was definitely before he became a Christian was he was zealously religious and yet he was lost he was lost as could be he was angry as could be he was hostile as could be and he did everything to stop this so that was his defense before these people before his conversion but something happened he came to a place where he was going off and journeying to Damascus and what was he going to do in Damascus in verse number 12- 15 his actual conversion all right so he was a religious rebellious person who needed to be rescued and who would rescue him who would rescue someone like Paul I’m sure anybody even Christians who came in contact with him were afraid of him well notice what it says here while he so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the chief priest I have the whole religious uh Authority behind me to do these things in verse 13 He says at midday oh King I saw on the way a light from Heaven brighter than the sun shining all around me and those who were journeying with me and when we had all Fallen to the ground I Heard a Voice saying to me in Hebrew dialect Saul Saul why are you persecuting me it is hard for you to kick against the gos meaning this Saul you’re kicking against me and you’ll never win you’ll never win and then what is of course what does Saul ask he says who are you Lord and the Lord says I am Jesus who you’re persecuting so by him going against the way or believers he was going against Christ himself so Christ met him on that road and you know what everything changed on that road Paul Saul became the Apostle in the sense the Apostle Paul’s name was given to him a little later on but he came face to face hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ and uh at that point what happens is that the signs of the divine presence of God uh came to rescue Saul from himself from his old religious system that he was trying to justify himself by God by attaining a righteousness he could never obtain nobody could obtain this righteousness and so he experienced a chain change by repenting of his sin and believing in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and at that point he became a redeemed man and that redeemed man has now returned or has now heard and come to know Jesus as his Savior and when you do and as the Apostle Paul maybe have more of a dramatic conversion than we have but when you do come to Christ the next thing that happens is everything’s new Everything’s changed Everything’s changed now you know the true message on how to be saved by repentance of your sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because Jesus is the one who paid the full price for our sin Jesus is the one who kept the law for us because we could never have kept the law he fulfilled it completely and so in this in his present new life after conversion from verse 16 all the way to verse number 23 Jesus gave him a new reason for living what was the new reason J Jesus gave him in verse 16 but get up and stand on your feet for this purpose I have appeared to you Jesus said to him to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen but also to the things which which I will appear to you in other words he was saying to him listen I’m going to call you to be the Apostle not to the Jews but to the Gentiles and of course to the Jews but specifically to the Gentiles I’m sure that was pretty hard for the Apostle Paul to wrap his mind around at that particular point but that’s what God called him to do and not only that but I going to give you more Revelation and that part that Revelation became much of the New Testament that God gave to Paul himself so he gave him a new reason for living also he gave him a new protection because now Paul became the enemy of his own system and the leaders of that system and they want you know what they wanted to do with him they wanted to kill him that’s what they wanted to do in verse number 17 God gave him a new protection rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to wh to whom I am uh sending you so he’s protecting Paul in this new Mission and then he gives him a new message in verse number 18 a new message and in that message there are five things in the gospel and those five things are this that you could never yourself open up your spiritually blind eyes and make you yourself spiritually alive you could never do that also you could never deliver yourself from the domain of darkness which is Satan’s to the kingdom of his beloved Son you could never do that you could never transfer yourself from the Comming uh the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and God unless God did that for you and you could never free yourself from the slave market of sin where you were dead to your sin you could never set yourself apart to God and receive an inheritance you could never do that notice what it says in verse number 18 all the things I just mentioned this is his Now new message to open their eyes eyes so that they may turn from Darkness to light and from the do Dominion of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been Sanctified by faith in me so only Jesus can do these things Christ not only set us free and transferred us to a new New Kingdom but he also cancelled every sin debt so that we cannot be enslave to sin again sin can no longer be uh something that condemns us in God’s court of law Jesus has taken all of it all of it for us so Satan can’t make any indictment stick anymore no matter how much he accuses us he can’t do it anymore because of what Jesus has done so not only did this conversion give him a new reason for living a new protection from God a new message to preach but most importantly it gave him a new heart it gave him a heart of Flesh remember he was a stubborn pigheaded angry driven or anger driven coveted religious fellow and he went from that to an obedient humble servant of Jesus Christ and notice what it says in verse number 19 so King Agrippa I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea and even to the Gentiles that they should repent and turned to God performing Deeds appropriate to repentance and then Jesus gave him a new position in verse 22 so that having obtained help from God I stand this day testifying both to small and great stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place that the Christ was to suffer and and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead he would be the first to Proclaim light to the Jews to the Jewish people and also to the Gentiles so he now came under God’s care in what God was calling him to do he went from being lost to be being found that’s really what conversion is to Christ see and the gospel message is a command he was obedient to that heavenly vision it says there it’s a command to come repent and come to Jesus to believe uh is the command of God and God graciously gives uh allows people who have been given by God the desire to want to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus Christ gives them the ability to actually turn from their sin and Trust Jesus alone now you would say if someone gave a testimony like that how would the response be and we noticed in scripture here there’s several responses in chapter 26 and claims to the defense of the faith that Paul gives the first one is of course the response that often many people would give Paul you’re insane verse 24- 26 Paul you’re out of your mind and then he finally says there listen uh your great learning has made you uh insane and of course Paul said I am not out of my mind most excellent fesus but I utter words of Sober Truth you know know what’s interesting is that when people actually come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and been given the scripture and been given the Holy Spirit when you become a real Christian you finally for the first time time in your life have actually come to your senses you come to see things the way they really are you come to see yourself how you really are you come come to see what God has actually really done for you on the cross it’s not just the holiday where you celebrate this and you say you know yeah I believe in that and I believe in Christ and all that stuff no but you actually know why he came he actually know what he he’s done for you and so we become actually in verse 27 and 28 claims to sanity where before King AG grippa he says to him your argument sound uh are sound and per per persuasive king of grippa said Do you believe the prophets king of Paul says king of grippa do you believe the prophets I know that you do AG grippa replied to Paul in a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian it’s like somebody saying you you know okay I heard it but maybe later you ever hear that maybe later you give somebody the gospel you know what not right now not right now maybe later we’ll talk about this again maybe you know and that these are responses either you say listen the person’s insane they’re nuts uh you don’t know what you’re talking about there’s many ways to God so you’re you’re crazy uh there’s not just one way through Jesus Christ and so they say you’re insane others say well yeah it sounds it sounds like good argument but I just don’t believe it right now you’re almost persuading me but I’m not letting you take me any further than that and then also there’s another claim the claim for the Cure of humanity it says in verse 29 of verse of chapter 26 and Paul says I would wish to God that whether in a short or long time not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am except for this chains so Paul knew that it wasn’t just the upper Society he was preaching to he was preaching to anyone who was in that chamber we know that there was probably soldiers there there was probably attendants there secretaries there uh people a part of the government and Paul says I wish uh that not only you believe what I believe now in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior but believe it but not with these chains remember Paul was in prison and he was chained up I don’t I don’t wish that on you so now we we know that he was a transformed man he was a forgiven man he was a saved man and he was waiting for the Future Hope of Messiah when he would come a second time and then there’s a claim to innocence notice in verse 30 and uh 31 30-32 it says the king stood up and the governor and Bernice and those who were sitting with them and when they had gone aside and began talking to one another saying this man is not doing anything worthy of death or imprisonment and Agrippa said to fesus this man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar now there’s something ironic in that statement because who is the one really free it was Paul might have been in Chains and he may have been physically bound but spiritually he was free while Felix and Drilla and fesus and agria and his sister B Bernice remain spiritually enslaved to sin and you know what most of these people probably lived a pretty good life and they probably were on the top of the pile as far as the economic status so they thought walking away I’m doing all right I feel the blessing of God you know not the true and living God but the gods that I worship so they Paul remained free and everyone remained enslaved to their sin but that’s the message that he gives and that’s the testimony that he gave before this group of people so there’s always just two ways to live either our way and that’s our old that’s the old life of Paul where he rejected really God God as the rule ruler he tried to run his own life by his religious system and what would the result be if if Saul never met Jesus Christ condemned by God facing death and judgment anybody who does not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior they’re still under God’s condemnation they’re not forgiven also what’s their future like they’re facing death and judgment that’s what they’re facing and then there of course there’s God’s new way and what is that way that is to submit to Jesus as our ruler to rely on jesus’ death burial and resurrection and what is the result when we come to Christ and now we’re new the result is we’re forgiven by God we’re made clean by God we have now God’s righteousness on our account and we’re given eternal life by him so I don’t know where some of you are today that if you ever heard that question that I mentioned when I started have you a comfortable place in your spiritual life that you know for sure if you died right now you would go to heaven or is that something you’re still working on you would say you you could say yes or no to that question but that’s a very important question because the second question is that when you stand before for godten and you will everybody will and God will say to you why should I let you into my heaven I’m a holy and just and righteous God what’s your answer if you say I’m religious if you say I’m a good person if you say you know I never kicked a dog or treated people badly as much as possible it would all be the wrong answer and the only answer is to come and repent of what you’re trusting in what you’re putting your hope in and what you’re banking on for eternal life and forgiveness of sin and turn from that and many times it’s a religious system in my case it was I was trusting in My Religion what my religion taught me I was trusting also in my good works my my desire to want to be merciful and help people and stuff like that but that could never save me no amount of works could save you it had to be Christ who died in my place who took the wrath of God for me and you who paid for all every one of my sin who satisfied the Justice of the father because the father is a just God and then to shed his blood unto death to wash away all that sin and then to take my sin and all the sins of all believers and nailed that sin to the cross and put his righteousness on our account so when the father looks down on us he does not see your sin anymore he sees the righteousness of Christ on our our our record and that’s the only way that’s the only way anyone could come into the presence of God so what must you do well the first thing a person needs to do if they don’t know that yet if they haven’t come to the place where they trusted Jesus as their lord and savior yet well you pray for God to change your heart and so that you may also submit to Jesus as ruler or Savior and Lord and then rely on Jesus for the Forgiveness of sins and eternal life and when that happens you go from being lost to Bec coming saved from being dead to to being alive from being blind to see from being held captive by sin and Satan to be free and only those who have submitted in obedience to the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are saved and then once they’re saved they have a testimony because God did something in your life I had a past life I had a conversion experience and now the Lord’s been working in my life I have a future and a hope see that’s the difference and only Believers know that and when you know that you are truly free no matter the world nobody’s going to really do anything to us because of all that God has done for us so only those who submit in obedience to the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are saved and have a testimony a defense of the faith and have a new position before God because of Jesus Christ and it’s only because of Jesus Christ amen now this morning we have three people getting baptized I like to those three people to you can depart now and go to the back and get ready and what we’re going to hear from them is we’re going to hear their testimony because they have come to Christ as Lord and Savior and they’re going to share with us now the interesting thing about sometimes a testimony is uh some have been able to fill in a lot of the blanks because they’ve been around the truth for a while but never really uh uh believe to the point where they’re going to be baptized and then there’s others who just got saved and they don’t have a whole long testimony they just know that Jesus loves me this I I know for the Bible tells me so and so that’s what we’re going to hear this morning and so let’s uh let’s Stand Together As we sing a song and we’ll get ready for uh the baptisms

  • Two Essential Things Needed for Eternal Salvation

    Two Essential Things Needed for Eternal Salvation

    In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij looks at Acts 20:21 and various other scriptures to explain the two essential things needed for you to inherit eternal salvation:

    1. You must have repentance toward God
    2. You must have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ

    Full Transcript:

    This morning I’m going to be looking at a passage of Scripture in Acts chapter 20 in the Bible. In verse number 17 it says,

    From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them,

    “You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Let’s pray. Father, this morning as I look at the Word of God and as we anticipate those who are going to be baptized today in the name of Christ, I ask You, Lord, that You would take the Word of God and apply it to our lives, examine us with it, and show us where we’re at and bring us to the place where we can truly know that we have faith in Christ. We have turned to the Father and we know that is the path of salvation. So I pray that You would use thy Word this morning. And I pray that in the name of the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

    It’s not uncommon for people to conclude in their thinking that to become a Christian can mean different things to different people. They surmise that because from time to time they have thought about God and religious matters that they are a Christian. Or that because they are trying very hard to live a good life that they are a Christian. I have heard media personalities say, wherever you find love and kindness you find God. If you find love and kindness among my family and my friends, isn’t that the spirit of Christianity? So I believe that I’m a Christian. Sometimes you hear people say, oh, I have always believed that and therefore I have always been a Christian. Or they say, I always have the best intentions for people and have never desired harm to anyone, that this has always been my creed by which I live my life. So therefore, I believe that I’m a Christian. Some are thought to be religious because they wear religious symbols on their body, whether by way of jewelry or tattoos. And have religious symbols in their automobiles or in front of their homes on their lawns. And because they are bent toward this kind of public display of faith, they consider themselves to be Christian.

    But when you consider this passage that I read this morning in Acts chapter 20, if you are honest, you must conclude that becoming a Christian means to undergo a complete change – a change of thinking, a change in action, and a change in direction. In other words, something happens to you. Something takes place inside of you. One is moved from one place to another place, from a place of not being a Christian to a place of becoming a real Christian. The Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. It happens when you come under the spotlight of Scripture and the Scripture, the message of the Gospel, is driven home to your minds and to your hearts and to your consciences. And those who are paying attention and listening and putting themselves in the equation begin to examine themselves in light of God’s Word, not what they thought.

    And it becomes evident in our text this morning that the Apostle Paul assured the people that through repentance and faith, they could receive salvation. He taught that in God’s name, mercy through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ would come to all who would turn from their sin, believe in Jesus Christ alone, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ the rest of their life. Now I want you to see that we cannot do without either of these anymore than in our passage, the Jews and the Greeks, that means anybody, any block of people, any group of people, could receive it. If you have not repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have no part in the matter of salvation. That was the message that the Apostle Paul gave to all peoples, no matter where he went and where he preached. So it’s my desire that you have part in this matter of eternal salvation.

    So let’s look more closely at the two essentials you cannot be without in the matter of eternal salvation. Now let’s examine the first essential you cannot be without in order to partake of biblical salvation. What does it mean to be a biblical Christian? Well, the first thing is this, that you must have a repentance towards God. That’s what it says in our text, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God.

    Now, let me just mention first what repentance is not before I mention what repentance is. In other words, there is a repentance that is not toward God. There are kinds of repentance that have been mistakenly taken as true biblical repentance, but they are actually counterfeit. They’re counterfeits. And there’s four counterfeits of repentance which amount only to the sorrow of the world. When Paul, the Apostle Paul, was writing to the Corinthian church in chapter seven and verse 10, he said to them,

    For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

    So what are some counterfeit repentances? Well, the first would be repentance of sin produced by a sense of shame. Some get caught in their sin and they are ashamed for it. They are grieved at having been discovered and they are sorry now. They are sorry not because of the evil they committed, but that the evil had been dragged into the light and exposed their secret evil sinning heart. And if they had not been found out, they would have probably continued comfortably in their sin. So don’t be fooled. Shame over sin is not true biblical repentance.

    Also there is a repentance that consists of grief because of painful consequences of sin. Some people who give up their sin for a time like drinking or drugging or pornography or sexual immorality or homosexuality or cheating or lying or stealing or gossiping or outburst of angers and sins like these things, that he or she gives it up not because they dislike it, but because it’s ruining them and those those people who live around them. Is a repentance of regret for the adverse conditions of their actions and not a sorrow for sin against God. So this repentance also is a sham and not true biblical repentance. This kind will never be acceptable in the sight of God. It’s like some people who go through some kind of rehab program and are told that you must believe in a higher power because you cannot overcome your addiction on your own. That’s true, but what higher power? Any higher power you want to make up? Anything you think is God? See, that kind will never be acceptable in the sight of God. That’s just idolatry, making a God up in your own mind to help you. It was like King David said in Psalm 51, against you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. And like Proverbs tells us, like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool that repeats his folly.

    Also, there is a repentance that consists of horror at the future punishment of sin. That is, those who have escaped the hand of present justice in this life but knows in the depth of their soul that they will not escape the future court of divine justice after death. They stop sinning in a certain area because of fear of death and fear of judgment and a wrath to come. But their fear goes no further than a selfish desire to escape punishment. Just because they think they ended that particular sin, that they have escaped punishment. If they could be assured that no punishment would follow, such persons would no doubt continue in it. So fear of punishment falls short of genuine repentance. Although it has its benefits, as it says in Hebrews 9:27,

    And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

    So after death, there is a judgment. That everyone will stand before God and give an account.

    Also, there is a repentance that is called partial repentance. That he or she remembers some gross iniquity that they have committed and feel a measure of regret. But then they see themselves, for the most part, that they are pretty good persons. So the person only repents of the glaring offense and has not repented of sins at all. So biblical repentance is a repentance that sweeps the house clean from cellar to attic, from attic to cellar. It hunts down every sin, every shape of sin, every size of sin, and confesses it before God. As James told us in the epistle of James 4,

    whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point has become guilty of all of it.

    That just one sin will plunge us into an eternity under the judgment of God and without Christ. So true repentance may include elements of some of these or all of these, yet they alone fall short of biblical repentance. And as again, as the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 7:10, these do not lead to salvation, but they lead to death. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

    So then what is repentance? As it says here, a repentance towards God. Well, because of the essence of repentance, the essence of repentance must be toward God the Father. For the essence of your sin or wrong is towards God, that we have all sinned against God. It’s not enough to feel sorry for your sin or even fear the punishment that a person would face in hell. Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow of sin, it’s a renouncing of it, and it’s a sincere commitment to forsake it and to walk in obedience to Christ. Picture it like this, that you’ve taken the wrong turn and you’re driving further and further away from where you want to go. You need to stop, turn around completely and start traveling in the right direction. The direction is towards God the Father and what His word prescribes as to what you must do to be saved. Turning to God the Father.

    So repentance towards God includes several things. The first thing it includes is a redirection of your thinking. All our thinking has been about ourselves. That your desires and passions and pleasures and your pursuits have been really the focus of most of the things you think. You really don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about God, who He is and what He requires. Actually the Greek word for repent is the word metanoia and the word originally meant an afterthought. And it came literally to mean to change one’s mind. Strictly, it means later knowledge or a subsequent correction after the knowledge that you had. Religious and morally it’s a change of mind leading to a change of behavior. We call it conversion or being born again or turning about. And because that repentance produces a fruit that shows God has done something to that person’s life. So often a second thought shows that the first thought that we had was wrong, and how wrong we have been about God Himself, about our condition before God. The Bible tells us that we are under God’s wrath. In fact John, the Gospel of John says, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life and whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on Him.

    So repentance and understanding it that way can bring ourselves to ask certain questions. Like does God make any difference in my life? Does my life in any way conform to the word of God and to His holy laws? Have I been living as if I have an endless lease on life and in a sense I don’t even think I’ll ever die? Even though we all die. Or you may ask, what am I? How am I living? What is the purpose of life? And what’s the end going to be? What’s going to happen in the end? And after asking these questions you begin to realize that we have not thought very much about God. In fact, we have been forgetting God. We have been neglecting God, the God who made us and the God who has given us breath and life and supplied all our needs until this day. We have robbed Him of what is His right to expect from us – worship and obedience.

    And how much we misrepresented God by complaining about our lot in life, and even thinking when we complain that God is somehow unjust and cruel. You think that God has caused your misery, when you and you alone have brought it upon yourself. You talk about Him who is unjust, and all the time it has been you who have been unjust and evil. Ingratitude is said to be the worst of all because it makes sin exceedingly sinful. And also how much we have offended God, because you have done the things He said you should not have done. And you have left undone the things He said you should do, like repent of your sin and turn to God the Father. How much also we have fallen short of His standard.

    A truly repentant heart judges itself by God’s standard. And his standard is perfect holiness. Of course you ask the question, well no one could be perfect. Exactly. Sin is any wanton conformity to the law of God and to the character of God. We ought to judge ourselves according to God’s standard. If we judge ourselves by our fellow man, you don’t look so bad, but in turn, if we judge ourselves by the perfect holiness of God, then we must really conclude we’re in trouble. Because if God requires perfect holiness to be in His presence, I know I’m not perfect. And so therefore, who’s going to give me that perfection? Who’s going to give me the righteousness that is acceptable to God? See, that is the question. There is no true repentance until judgment of self is formed by a comparison with the divine character of God. We have all fallen short of God’s standard. We have all fallen short. So think how wrong we have been.

    Also, repentance towards God the Father includes a realization of guilt. In Acts 2:37, which we read this morning, when the people heard Peter preach that they nailed Jesus to the cross, this is what they concluded,

    Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart,

    And let me remind you that sin is not merely doing something that is wrong. That is what we tend to do. We recognize certain acts as good and others as bad, and we tend to think that sin is just doing particular things that are bad. It is that, but that’s not the essence of sin. The essence of sin is rebellion against God. Every sin that we commit is against God. And God has to hold us responsible for every thought we ever had, every word we ever spoke, every action that we ever acted out. He will hold us responsible for that because He is recording accurately what’s going on in everyone’s life.

    So you see, people tend to think that because they have never committed adultery or never really got drunk or took drugs or never really committed murder, even though the Lord Jesus Christ says if you’re angry with your brother, you’ve already committed murder because God goes through the root of the sin, which is in the heart. People conclude because they haven’t done these things that they’re not sinners. People conclude that decent, moral, and good living people are not sinners because in their estimation, they don’t do anything wrong. But the only reason most people think that is because they never understood the essence of sin, and the essence of sin is actually rebellion against God the Father.

    Now consider this. If a person is not concerned about obeying God and pleasing Him and living to His glory, well, that is sin. Men and women are in trouble because they are in disobedience to God, and as a result, they are under God’s judgment already. They’re under God’s condemnation even now. The Jews and the Romans were guilty of actually murdering Jesus, but you may say to yourself, well, I’ve never done that. But if you have been up to this point in your life unconcerned about Jesus and He is someone who you could either take or leave and He maintains no significant position in your life as Lord and Savior, then you are guilty of treating Jesus as an insignificant person, and because you have ignored Him in this way, you have rejected Him and stand guilty of discarding the Son of God. And there’s no greater sin than not seeing any need of Jesus. The greatest sinner in the world today, as Martin Lloyd-Jones said, a preacher of old, the greatest sinner in the world today are those who do not think about Christ at all.

    So that means biblical repentance also includes a realization of the relevance of Jesus Christ. You cannot get past Jesus Christ. Plainly, repentance is a complete change of heart about the relevance of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. And you see, the Holy Spirit brings a person to start thinking about Jesus in a way they never considered before. He shows them that Jesus came into this world to save sinners and that the world is in a state of sin, and that includes them. That includes you and me. So you see, when the gospel comes by the Word of God, that the Holy Spirit of God gets people to think and to look at things in a way they have never done before. Repentance, then, is agreeing with God that you are sinful, confessing your sins to Him, especially that of idolatry and unbelief, and making a conscious choice to turn from sin and pursue Christ in loving obedience.

    So that brings me to the second essential, that you cannot be without to partake of biblical repentance, biblical salvation. And it’s this, that you must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. What did the Apostle Paul say? Solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks, everyone I’m going to preach to, it is repentance towards God the Father and faith in the solution the Father has given us to be saved, to be forgiven, to be made right with God, to be made perfect. And who is that? That is Jesus Christ. And by preaching of the Word of God, the Scriptures reveal the status and the dignity and the significance and the centrality of Christ. It is clear that Jesus is the central person and the focus of God’s program for the salvation of sinners. Sinners from all walks of life, from all tribes and nations, from all times and periods, Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life. No one could go to the Father unless they come through the solution the Father’s given us, and that is Jesus Christ, the doorway into eternal life. But we have this problem, and the problem is sin. Sin separates us from God. We can’t get into heaven in our condition that we’re in. So faith in the Father’s solution to our sin includes a redirecting of our heart to Jesus.

    See, many people say, well, there’s many ways to God. You can go through this religion and through that religion, and you can go to this place and that place, and as long as you’re sincere in your heart, you’ll get there. It’s like we’re all going up a mountain. One’s going on the east, and one’s on the west, and then one’s on the north, and we’re trying, and we’ll all make it to the top. That’s a bunch of baloney. There’s only one way, and that’s through Christ.

    So Jesus’ purpose in coming into the world is summed up very nicely in Luke, the Gospel of Luke 19:10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost, and we’re all lost. And how did He accomplish His mission to save those who are lost? In the person of Jesus Christ, God literally became a man. He lived a perfect life of righteousness in obedience to His own laws and on behalf of His children. And as 1 Peter tells us and what He says about Jesus, who committed no sin and no deceit was found in His mouth, and having perfectly obeyed the law, Christ willingly died for sinners. He died in the place of sinners. He died in the place of all who will come and believe in Him by repentance towards the Father and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus wasn’t just willing to save us. You can’t just be willing to save someone. You have to be qualified to save someone. Jesus was qualified to save someone because the Bible says He was the sinless, spotless Lamb of God without sin. That’s qualification.

    And then secondly, He was not only willing and qualified, He was able to save you. Why? Because He was God in the flesh. He was able to, on that cross, endure an eternal punishment for our sins and then finish it and then rise from the dead and defeat Satan and death in the process. So when Jesus died, He endured the wrath of God and the anger of God and the punishment of God for our sins. He died as a sacrifice for sins, satisfying all the requirements of divine justice and took upon Himself the punishment that was due us. He died in our place. And this is what it says in 1 Peter 3:18,

    For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust.

    The just being Jesus for the unjust being us. And what did he do that for? Here’s the purpose. In order to bring us to God. So who can take us to God? Who can take us to the Father? Christ can. You can’t get there on your own. You’re not going to get there by your good deeds, even though no deeds are good. You’re not going to get there in any way unless you come to Christ in repentance of your sin and you trust in Him. You don’t help Him save you. You just come with all your sin, all your baggage, all your garbage and bring it to Christ, because He’s taken care of all of it. See, that’s why the gospel is called good news. But you got to get the bad news before you get the good news. Right? And when you get the bad news, how bad we are, and that we deserve God’s wrath, then the good news, man, does it taste good. Does it taste good. See, that’s the biblical solution. That’s biblical salvation. That Christ, after He died for sinners, rose from the dead bodily three days later, and as it says in scripture, He was raised the third day according to what? According to the word of God, the scriptures. So if you, sinner, with nothing in your hand, do receive Jesus Christ alone and believe he died and rose for you, the Bible says eternal life is not the purchase of human merit, but the free gift of the love of God.

    And so how do we respond to that? By faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This also includes this, not only redirecting our heart to Jesus, but also responding to the relevance of Jesus personally. So in other words, you must respond. There’s no neutral ground here. You can’t say, well, I’ll think about that. Maybe later on I’ll consider it. Well, you’re not guaranteed tomorrow, so I think you should seriously consider it today. Now is the day of salvation, the Bible tells us. Now, right now, when you hear it, when you’re under it, when you’re listening, when you’re putting yourself in the equation, now is the day of salvation. So believing the gospel means to obey the message concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a call of obedience, that He is the Son of God, that He is God’s own and only way of salvation, that God sent Jesus to the cross, that God put all our sins on Him and punished them in Him. See, do you believe that? Do you have faith in that, and only that? Have you received the message about Jesus Christ?

    See, believing the gospel means that you stop all self-justification, that you stop every reliance on your good deeds to save you. You stop all thoughts of religiosity to save you. You stop all your own efforts to save yourself, because you cannot save yourself. That has never been your job to save yourself. It’s always been God’s job, because salvation is of God. And as it says in Matthew 9:13, Jesus said, For I did not come to call the righteous, I have come to call sinners. Right? So either you’re depending on your own righteousness, or you’re going to depend on God’s righteousness. And I would say this morning, depend on God’s righteousness. Trust in Him alone for eternal salvation.

    Now, don’t leave here today. All these people that are going to be baptized in a few moments, every one of them had to repent towards God the Father and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Or that’s the only reason why they would be baptized, because we’re talking about believer’s baptism. The Bible doesn’t talk about baby baptism. There’s no such thing in Scripture. You can’t find it. So don’t leave here today and think that this sounds all very true and say to yourself, well, I’m going to determine to go home and live a better life. From now on, I endeavor to obey the commandments of God. Well, if you really think that way this morning, He will tell you that you are now disobeying Him more now than you ever have done in your whole life. For today, be warned, my friend. Do not believe the lie that all roads lead to heaven. They do not. The road is narrow. The gate is narrow. And the only way into the Father’s presence is Jesus Christ. You believe in Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and all your strength. You come and repent, coming to Him with your sin. So saving faith means you come to an end of yourself, your reliance on yourself, your self-righteousness, and your trusting absolutely in Christ for forgiveness of sin and eternal life.

    So have you received the free offer of eternal salvation? Have you obeyed the gospel? Now, in other words, do you have the two essentials? Repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not, you have no part of the matter of salvation. And that’s not what I say. That’s what the Word of God says. It’s a hard message, but it’s a true message. So today, Jesus invites you to come. Come right now and repent of your unbelief. Ask Jesus to rescue you from sin’s condemnation and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. And remember, you cannot establish your own righteousness. Instead, submit yourself to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And stop trying to offer a price to earn your eternal life. Instead, come and receive life as a free gift from God as He intended it. You are not called upon to earn life, but to receive it. And don’t let your pride get in the way. Give it up. Fling yourself on the mercy of God and His pardoning grace. The resurrected and living Christ wants to give eternal life freely to all who come to Him without cost. He’s done all the work. He’s paid the full price. You don’t help God save yourself. You come to him and He saves you. He saves you. So come, be awakened in your soul, have your eyes open to the living Lord Jesus, and rejoice that he gives life to dead sinners.

    So make sure that you don’t leave today without the two most important essentials in the matter of God’s eternal salvation. And that’s solemnly testifying to both the Jews and the Greeks, to all people, of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this matter of salvation, if you want to talk about it more with me, I’ll be willing to talk afterwards to see what it takes, what the Lord requires of you in asking Him to save you. So all those people that are ready to be baptized, you can be dismissed and will listen to their testimonies this morning. And as they are dismissed in the back to prepare for baptism, let me just close in a word of prayer this morning.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You again today for Your kindness and goodness to us. Lord, we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So I pray, Lord, the word of God that was spoken this morning, You can use in the heart of people to bring them to a true saving knowledge of Christ. And I pray, Lord, just as myself and these who are being baptized have come to that place, we know, Lord, You are still in the business of saving us. And Lord, I pray that we may hear of that more and more as we move into these dark days in this world, that the light of the gospel is still penetrating the darkness. And I pray You bring many to salvation. Now, Lord, as these people give their testimony in baptism, I pray that it would be a great encouragement to all of us who hear, knowing that You are still working in people’s lives, young and old, and the power of the gospel is still evident in the changed lives of people. And I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

  • Passing on to Your Children the Living Oracles of God

    Passing on to Your Children the Living Oracles of God

    In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij looks at several Bible passages to teach the importance of applying the law of God, especially the Ten Commandments, to the raising of children. Pastor Babij explains how God’s commands and our failure to keep them expose the sinful heart and point each of us to our need for the Savior, Jesus Christ. Pastor Babij especially considers how the Tenth Commandment that forbids coveting leaves none of us with any excuse of true righteousness.

    Full Transcript:

    Good morning, let’s take our Bibles this morning and we look at several passages of Scripture while we are in between books. I like to pick up certain subjects and passages to look at and today I want to look at Acts 7:37-38 along with other passages this morning. Before I read it, I just want to say that Steven is actually preaching this message in Acts 7 and he is giving the history of what God has done with His people. What is apparent in this passage is that it shows his audience all along that the forefathers have completely misunderstood their history and the significance of Moses, the law and the temple.

    Because of their misunderstanding, they in turn committed the same sin that their forefathers committed by rejecting God’s messengers and message and as a result they rejected the very Savior who had been prophesied by Moses. So this morning I would like to focus in on a phrase at the end of verse 38 to bring to your attention the meaning and purpose of living oracles given to the children of God. It says in Acts 7:37-38:

    This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, “God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.” This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.

    We come up with the idea that Moses received life-giving words from the angel that spoke with him on Mount Sinai. These living words were to be passed on from one generation of God’s people to the next. Even the Psalmist says in Psalm 145:4:

    One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.

    So it’s the job of passing on the living oracles of God to the children and next generation. That is the job of the Church and parents to do that. Now the question is, “Are you burdened for the children growing up in your home and in the Church to actually genuinely trust Christ or at least know how to trust Christ as their Lord and Savior?” Also, “Do you wonder if you are doing the right things to lead them to a true saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith?”

    Now notice in these verses that these living oracles were heavenly in origin and were received by God. So we must conclude that these living oracles had no human origin at all and therefore were perfect and without corruption or stain. Now we have to ask this question also, “What in particular are these living oracles?” Look where Moses got them from to receive them on Mount Sinai? So what is Scripture referring to when it uses the phrase living oracles? It’s talking about the Ten Commandments and the law of God. It is saying that the law of God is living and alive! If I can jog your memory for a moment concerning Exodus 20, where the Ten Commandments are found, you can remember what they are:

    You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

    So all the people needed to do is to listen to the positives and negatives that these commands communicate and then obey them. Do you realize that if people kept the law of God and lived according to them, we would have peace on earth? But the truth of the matter is that we cannot obey them. Have you ever asked yourself the question of why can’t we keep and obey fully the Ten Commandments? Because the law was not given in order that we might save ourselves. The law of God was actually designed to expose us and show us that we cannot keep these living oracles. It shows us that we are lost and condemned in God’s sight. It shows us in our weakness that we cannot do anything to save ourselves or contribute anything to our salvation.

    Now I’m saying this for this reason: parents, if you’re going to teach your children anything when they are starting out their lives, it is to teach them the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are going to cultivate their hearts to not only be sensitive to the voice of God but also to produce in their heart a guilt when they do commit sin. And then they will have a desire to run to the One who can actually take care of that guilt, genuinely forgive them, and give them a relationship with God.

    So living oracles are designed to penetrate into the soul to expose the truth about ourselves. It is designed to convict and to cut away the dark layers of the heart and unveil the whole truth about who we really are because we are not ready to admit who we are and what we really goes on in the inner recesses of our hearts. The living Word of God and the living oracles of God are like a spiritual MRI, a magnetic renaissance imaging device.

    It is primarily used in medical imaging to visualize the structure and function of the body to provide detailed images of the body in any plane and then it builds up all the information and reconstructs the image of something going on inside your body. It is a powerful tool used today to find out things that cannot be seen or discovered by other tests.

    The powerful computers used in the MRI imaging can convert the three dimensional energy maps into topographical images or it slices through the anatomy being evaluated so a doctor can actually see what is going on inside the nooks and crannies of the body in order to set a clear picture of what is going on. It has a lot to do with diagnosing neurological, muscular, cardiovascular, and ecological diseases.

    By comparison, the law is especially useful in diagnosing the inner heart of man, slicing through all the layers, and searching the depth of sin to expose all the hidden things of the heart. The New Testament book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:12-13:

    For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must answer.

    So let me ask you again, why did God call Moses onto Mount Sinai and give him the living oracles? So that the real problem of humanity may be revealed and made plain so that humans may not be able to get away with it. Consider some other passage of Scriptures that actually reinforce the point of the real purpose of the law, like Galatians 3:19:

    Why the Law then? It was added on account of the violations, having been ordered through angels at the hand of a mediator, until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made.

    In other words, the law was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only the coming of the child who was promised whom we know to be Jesus Christ. Then Paul brings it up in Romans 5:20:

    The Law came in so that the offense would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

    Again using other words, God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more and more abundant. The favor of God is seen most clearly in the sending of Jesus Christ as the solution for man’s sin. Now just quickly take your Bibles and turn to Romans 7:13, which puts it quite plainly:

    Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? Far from it! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by bringing about my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

    In other words the Bible is saying that there is nothing wrong with the law. So ladies and gentlemen, God gave the law to act like a mirror that He places right in front of every one of us. He shows us who we really are and how we really look to a holy and just God. God tells us that the Word of God is like a mirror where it tells us in James 1:22-25:

    But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who has looked intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and has continued in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an active doer, this person will be blessed in what he does.

    So if I leave the breakfast table with egg on my face, other people may laugh when they see me. But I will not realize anything wrong until I finally look in the mirror and see egg and am embarrassed that it was there all the time and I didn’t know it. So when we look in the mirror of the Word of God, especially here with the Ten Commandments, we are going to see something about ourselves that we cannot readily diagnose immediately. In fact in Romans 7:13 it says:

    Through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

    Have you ever considered yourself to be utterly sinful? That’s how God sees us. Romans 3:20 says:

    Because by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.

    It actually exposes us as sinners and it exposes the depth of sin. It is deeply rooted in all of our hearts and in the hearts of our children. The law exposes the nature of sin as enslaving and it exposes the power of sin. It is so enslaving that it reveals to us our complete helplessness to satisfy God by our own efforts. But this morning I want to look at the very point in the Ten Commandments which really arrested the Apostle Paul and gives no wiggle room at all to get out of this particular sin. It is the living oracle that exposes hidden sin. That is found in the last commandment in Exodus 20:17. Sin is deeply rooted in all of our hearts and we can see the law does not allow us to say that we have never done something before. It does not allow us to say that we are good enough and don’t need any help.

    The law says to examine our hearts, thoughts, desires, imaginations, and what lurks within that no one else can see. That is in your heart for it was Jesus who said in Mark 15:19:

    For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts, thefts, false testimonies, and slanderous statements.

    If you say to your conscience that you are a pretty good person and have never really killed anyone or actually committed adultery with anyone. But the law says to examine your imaginations and it finds that you are often angry with people and hold people in contempt and keep secret bitterness in your heart and resentment towards others. Also your thoughts have revealed your musing and inappropriate sexual fantasies and encounters in your mind. People conclude that they are not as good as they ought to be but they also close with they are not as evil as they could be.

    These kinds of statements show us how much we need the law to expose us for who we are so that we can see our need for salvation and call out to Jesus for deliverance. So in other words, parents you should use the law as a mirror before your child to show them what sin is and how God sees it. Then show them the things they are hiding from you that God actually sees and knows. That’s what the law will aid you to do. The only place we can find out about the depth of our sin or the hidden sin is in the Word of God. The law of God then defines and reveals sin and shows us how dirty we are. For example in Romans 7:7 says:

    What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Far from it! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

    So it is this last commandment in the Word of God that everyone has broken and we have broken it many times over. So why did Paul use coveting? Coveting is not really an action but rather an attitude and inward desire to have what is not yours. Before Paul, he was Saul and he thought and convinced himself that he was keeping the commandments. In fact he was! If anyone kept the commandments, Saul did. Until he came to this tenth commandment because it gets down deep into the heart.

    People often think they are law keepers because they have never done anything that would send them to jail. They are not criminals so they must be somewhat good people, as compared to other people. But that’s not how God sees it. God sees it as us being utterly sinful with no wiggle room to get out of it. Let’s just look at some Old Testament examples like King Ahab who wanted Naboth’s vineyard. He went to Naboth and said he wanted his vineyard for whatever he wanted to trade. But Naboth said he couldn’t give it because it belonged to the Lord. So the Bible says this in 1 Kings 21:4:

    So Ahab entered his house sullen and furious because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given to him, since he said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned his face away, and ate no food. But Jezebel his wife came to him and said to him, “How is it that your spirit is so sullen that you are not eating food?” So he said to her, “It is because I was speaking to Naboth the Jezreelite and saying to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it pleases you, I will give you a vineyard in place of it.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”

    Ahab being the weak king he was, his wife says that if he can’t get it, she will get it for him. And Naboth ends up getting killed by her but that sin of covering led to murder. It is a sin of desire. Don’t be too quick to judge and condemn Ahab. All of us have been unhappy because we did not have something we wanted. We have all felt jealous because of what someone else had or accomplished and we wished we accomplished it. Out of all the commandments, this is one that we all have broken. So we would be justly guilty as if we had broken every law there is. That’s why James writes this in James 2:10:

    For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.

    I believe that James is talking about the tenth commandment here. So to break this commandment, which we all have done, puts us all under the judgment of God. So if I ask if you have ever stolen something, you can say yes you have or no you haven’t because you know that stealing is wrong. But if you say that you like to illegally download songs from the internet, is that stealing? Yes it is. Now suppose I ask you whether you wanted to downloaded songs from the internet because you wanted the song so badly but did have the means to pay for it, so you did not download it. You would say that’s not sin.

    Usually people think that these desires are not sin because there was no action upon them. But see this tenth commandment is actually saying that sin happens in the desire whether you act on it or not. Having something that would be wrong to have is sin in the desire. This is what got the Apostle Paul so riled up in Romans 7, because he could not get out of this one. He examined his own desires and the law examined his own desires and he admits that he has had desires to kill God’s people.

    So the law of God would say that the very desire to have what you cannot have is sin even if you never act upon it, because you have committed coveting in your heart. It says that you must not covet or desire in your heart, your neighbor’s house, wife, male or female servant, or possessions. Even if you desire to have it and never act upon it, that is still sin. Who can get away with that and has never done with that? We have all committed this sin at some point or another.

    In other words, the tenth commandment shows that the law makes demands upon our thoughts and intents of our hearts. When we stop and think about this commandment not to covet, we realize that even our wrong thoughts are sin. We see how many wrong thoughts we have had and we become ashamed of how sinful we were all along without even knowing it, unless the commandment rose up to kill us as Paul says in the Word of God. And who can rescue us from that? Only Christ can. So this commandment shows us that this sin is not just about how we act on the outside. Wrong thoughts and feelings in our hearts are sinful just as well.

    No one can honestly say they have not committed the sin of desire. We also remember the Old Testament example of Joshua 7:21, which says:

    When I saw among the spoils a beautiful robe from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I wanted them and took them; and behold, they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.

    Now if you stop at just the wanting, the coveting, would he have sinned? Yes. See the sin started in the desire. That is the root of sin and that was hidden deep in his heart. This downward spiral of how we are tempted is seen here. We see, desire, and then take. But have you considered that in the desire is where we actually sin? We are under the judgment of God in our desire to have something that is not ours.

    So the look of desire is also expressed by the Lord in Matthew 5:28 by Jesus:

    But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

    So the sin there being exposed by the Lord is the looking of desire and wanting to have something that is not yours. And then again in Matthew 5 it talks about not committing murder and whoever does that shall be liable to the court. But Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 5:22:

    But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court.

    So how many people have ever been angry with their brother, sister, neighbor, or coworker? We all committed that but didn’t realize that it’s also sin to be angry. When we are training our kids, we have to dig down deep into the heart to expose the hidden things going on. The aggressive child will show these things but the passive-aggressive child will hide them from you. So we must figure those out.

    If we just take a simple search of this topic of covetousness in Scripture, we will find that it comes from the heart and engrosses it. It is idolatry, the root of evil, never satisfied, leads to injustice and oppression. It leads to foolishness, hurtful lusts, departure from the truth, lying, murder, theft, poverty, misery, and domestic affliction. In Scripture it is abhorred by God and is forbidden in the commandments. It is the characteristic of the wicked, the slothful, commended by the wicked as they boast in their heart’s desires and coveting. If they want it, they will go get it and take it. Those wicked thoughts come under the judgment of God. It is this sin in Corinthians that excludes someone from the Kingdom of God.

    In the last days, the Bible says that people will be lovers of money in place of God. Now again I want you to take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 19 and see the case of the rich young ruler that comes to Jesus. He comes and Jesus applies the law to him in such a way to expose this person’s sin that was not visible by human examination. That’s what the law does. Look at Matthew 19:16-20:

    And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do so that I may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not give false witness, honor your father and mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to Him, “All these I have kept; what am I still lacking?”

    Now Jesus did not say, “Thou shalt not covet” because He wanted him to at least see what he was lacking. Jesus said to him in Matthew 19:21:

    Jesus said to him, “If you want to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

    In other words, you need to give up what you really desire. Jesus was really not telling him to actually sell everything and follow Him. He was just trying to expose what he really loved. Coveting has to do with what you really love. In Matthew 19:22 it says:

    But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.

    The same thing happened to King Ahab. He was vexed and grieved because he owned a lot. How can they give up all this stuff? The demand was too heavy! That’s usually where sin brings us. We’re cornered and there’s no way out to undo it. Look what it says in Matthew 19:23:

    And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

    A rich man has certain loves and desires and that is to keep his wealth and not give it away. So Jesus used the tenth commandment as a practical test by demanding that the youth abandon his riches before God. He had a clear conscience that he was a covetousness sinner that day. He was deficient in his love for God because he loved money and possessions more. So he went away unconverted. We look at this great evangelistic opportunity but he walks away unconverted. Jesus did not go running after him. Until he recognized that coveting is sin and loving your possessions more than God is sin, he could not be saved.

    But if he came and repented and said Jesus was right, then of course Jesus would have given him open arms to come. So the young man did not realize his own inward sinfulness. It’s true that he did not commit adultery, rob, give a false witness, or dishonor his parents. But he never faced his set of covetousness within his heart. It was Walter Chantry who said, “God’s pure law makes strict demands upon the motives, desires, feelings and attitudes of the soul.”

    Christ wielded the sword of God’s law until it makes deep and painful gashes in the ruler’s consciousness. The law will make deep gashes and will corner us where we cannot get away. It will make us go and enjoy our desire to sin or it will cause us to run to the solution. That’s what the law does! It points us to the solution!

    This message is really introductory for parents in order to get them to think for the discipleship of their children. It is not enough for them just to know what the Bible says and teaches. Critical for the fruitful discipleship of the next generation is the opportunity not just to instruct their minds, but also by addressing the law. Children must have Bibles, must read them, come to church with them, learn how to use and interpret the Bible and engage with it. But that’s not enough. You have to go from the mind to the heart so it penetrates deep and engages the heart.

    Children with Christian parents can grow up in church, be familiar with the Bible, have all the right answers, and yet be in spiritual danger because they have never loved the Truth and its Author. So parents need to ask questions in order to help their child understand the true condition of their inner hearts. Parents, it is our job to find out which way our children are bent, especially regarding sin. If you have four children in one household, each has a different bent to sin. Parents, if you’re observing their actions and attitudes, you can get down deep into what their motives are.

    To get deep in their hearts, you need to be creative and ask questions. It is a difficult task! But parents need to ask questions in order to help the child understand the true condition of their heart! Look at what it says in Romans 3:23:

    For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

    You can ask your child what they think about that passage. The intention to engage the heart is very fundamental both before and after conversion. You can ask if this is also true of the child. Does the child fall under the standard of what God wants for their life? Ask also what they noticed in their own thoughts, feelings, words, and actions that is true of them according to this verse. How would God look at them if He were to ask them these questions? How does the child feel about certain things, like when a sibling has a toy and they want it?

    You may ask according to this passage, what is the consequence of personal sin? Now people don’t want to talk about it today, but you have to drive rebellion and disobedience away from a child’s heart by applying a certain knowledge to the back end of their body. You can also ask according to the passage, can the child fix this sin problem and bad attitude? Can they fix the words they just said to their sister or brother? The honest answer should be no. Who alone can help then? They may say that the parent can help them, but that is ultimately the perfect place to bring in the gospel and read what it says in Romans 5:8:

    But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

    So in other words, we’re getting at the heart. If you’ve been teaching the Ten Commandments, that heart is being cultivated and that soil is getting soft so when you plop in the seed of the Word of God it starts taking root. Yes, they start to develop genuine guilt for their actions and words. But you cannot end there by showing them their sin in their heart. You have to guide the movement of their will to do actually do something about it. When the will is influenced by the Word of God and by the oracles of God, the evidence will show up in a child’s desire to walk in obedience to Christ. It says in John 14:15:

    If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

    And it says in John 14:21:

    The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.

    So this is it! The mind, the heart, and the will and is like a proverbial three-legged stool. If it misses a leg, the stool collapses. So the task before parents is great and life is short so we have no time to sit back on our laurels or be lazy. If parents are going to help their kids develop habits of Christian thought, senses that are based on Biblical truth, and lives that are faithful to all that Christ teaches, then the parents and the Church need to develop the believer’s intellectual capacities, engage the heart, and influence the believer’s will so they can do something about it.

    I was reading a story about a young boy in a Sunday School class where the teacher was instructing on Psalm 2 which had to do with not hiding your sin. The teacher asked the questions, brought out the Word, and instructed the mind, and then she asked for anyone who wanted to share about what happened to them. The boy raised his hand to say, “I went fishing one day and entered a fishing contest. I saw this beautiful trophy and had to catch three fish to earn it. I told the judges I caught three fish and proved it although I really only caught two.”

    He’s telling this before the class and the kids had their mouths open because he was confessing a sin. The teacher is a little baffled that someone confesses openly in the classroom. And she asked what the result was of him hiding his sin. He said, “Every time I look at that trophy, I feel guilty.” She said that is what he is supposed to feel. God knows about what he hid and did. The reason why you feel guilt when you hide sin is because the truth is causing you to think about what you did and being under God’s judgment. The teacher asks the boy what he is going to do about it and he said according to Scripture, he needs to confess his sin and repent.

    This is an example of being convicted in your heart but you can’t just feel the guilt and that’s it. You have to confess it before others and God and ask for forgiveness. That is the only way you can be released from your guilt. After, the boy said he felt free! The law brings us to the place of knowing our sin because the law functions as an instructor. But the law cannot remove the guilt or provide grace. The law causes the curse of death but it cannot provide the cure.

    The law does have a certain design to it and it is to point in a certain direction towards a certain Person who can save. So in Galatians 3:24-25, the Apostle Paul explains:

    Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

    So a person is made right with God and comes into the family of God only through faith in Christ. It is Christ that can forgive the guilt and the sin and can make us free. God gave us a clear definition of sin in the Ten Commandments. Without this, people can’t recognize their pitiful condition and their need for a Savior. God is giving parents a smoking gun with the conscience. The conscience is developed with the Word of God and the Ten Commandments. The goal is for the kids to have a conviction of sin in their words, thoughts, and deeds, and their minds would lead to a conviction where their hearts are engaged and their will would be moved full out to the One who can save them, forgive them, and make them right with God.

    So we as parents are really trying to avoid unfavorable results of our kids. David Michael wrote about the importance of teaching the heart, mind, and will, and warns of three detrimental results. If we just stress instructing the mind but give little attention to how God’s Word is to be responded to, acted upon, and lived out, we are risking giving children that God and His Word are not relevant to their lives.

    If we emphasize the heart by neglecting instruction to the mind, we can actually fuel feelings that are not in conformity to God’s nature and will. Then if we concentrate on conforming the will to God’s standard of behavior without paying attention to the heart beneath the behavior, children will tend toward a faithless self-righteousness, or a Pharisaical type of attitude. They will know the right things to say, when to say them, and who to say them to, but in their hearts nothing is going on. We want to avoid that.

    We want our kids to depend on Christ’s righteousness like we do as believers. We don’t depend on our right behavior, but Christ’s righteousness for salvation and every day of our lives. We need to pray to God that our children would too. When they get up and leave the home, they know exactly who they are, what Christ has done, what they have been taught and what they are supposed to do when they are gone. One of the greatest things for parents is little inklings of their kids coming back to the Lord. They love to see their kids serving God! We have to admit that 99% of that was God and maybe 1% was you. What a blessing it is when your kids walk with the Lord!

    So the living oracles of God are to be passed down to our children to prepare the soil of their hearts for the seed of the gospel to fall into it and then we pray that the Spirit of God would use that to bring them to a real, genuine, saving knowledge of Christ. Parents, you can’t save them but you do have work to do so that Christ will save them.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for the Word of God. None of us would know who we really are if it were not for Your Word. I pray that You would give the wisdom to parents and the zeal to be able to take time every day to cultivate and instruct the minds of their children. That they would get into questioning the intents and desires of their hearts and help the children understand how to move their will to do the right thing. Holy Spirit, we know that You are the One who convicts them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. You are the One to bring people to a genuine faith, and I pray that You would really do that.

    Lord, raise up another generation of Christians in this world that we live in that know the oracles of God and will go out into the world and tell them about Your mighty deeds and the great things You have done. I pray that You would continually be saving children and bring them to Yourself. Protect them, and put in their hearts all that is needed for them to stand strong in these days. Give to parents all the wisdom needed to do so. I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

  • A Testimony for Christ

    A Testimony for Christ

    In this special baptism service sermon, Pastor Joe Babij looks at Paul’s testimony before Agrippa in Acts 26:1-32. Pastor Babij identifies three key parts of any person’s salvation testimony by looking at Paul’s model: what a person was like before conversion, what happened to a person in conversion, and how a person became different after conversion. Pastor Babij challenges listeners to ask whether they have a true testimony of transformation in Jesus Christ as a result of the gospel.

    Full Transcript:

    I picked this passage of Scripture this morning is because of the testimonies of the five people that are going to be baptized this morning. A testimony is something a Christian gives once there has been a change in their life. I don’t mean turning over a new leaf or anything like that. It means they have met someone and have understood God’s plan for how someone is made right with a holy God. So that is called a testimony. Not everyone has a testimony, but everyone could have a testimony if they meet the person Jesus Christ and believe in Him.

    Now let me ask you a question this morning – if someone were to follow you around for a week and they were able to observe your manner of life and even read your thoughts, do you think you would be able to persuade them that you are a Christian, someone who loves and serves the living God and that Jesus Christ is indeed your Lord? Permit me to step further with this line of questioning. Suppose you were given the opportunity to freely give your testimony to someone about your present and your past life. Do you believe you would be able to persuade someone else using the historical events of your life story that Jesus has become the most important and central Person in your life? What do you think the outcome would be? Do you think you could almost persuade someone? Of course you can’t persuade anybody if you don’t know the message of the gospel. That you would be able to, in a testimony, at least give someone something to ponder concerning their own eternal soul, the judgement to come, the hope of sins forgiven, an eternal life only to be had through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. So for a believer, when the opportunity to testify comes up, they want to do it really with joy.

    Scripture uses the word defense. We get the word apologetic, where it says in 1 Peter:

    but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense,

    And in regard to all these things, Paul says I’m ready to give in a defense of the faith. The Scripture is also recorded in the bulletin that we have. If you want to follow along with me, I’m just going to explain what is being said in this passage of Scripture. And if you do know your Bible, you can turn to Acts 26. In the first three verses of Acts 26, it says this – Agrippa, he was a ruler at that time. Paul is standing before before him to give a defense of what happened in his life. Now remember that the apostle Paul was not always a christian. His name before it was changed to Paul was Saul. So now Paul as a believer is standing before Agrippa.

    Agrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense:

    Or an apologetic. He prepared to give a testimony. He says:

    In regard to all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that I am about to make my defense before you today; especially because you are an expert in all customs and questions among the Jews;

    or controversial issues about the Jews.

    therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

    Every time the word of God is open, someone should be at least willing to listen and listen patiently to what it says because it really has something to do with everyone because everyone is created by God. He is the Creator. So in giving his testimony, the apostle Paul lays out his past life before conversion, the circumstances which he came to believe, and then his past life after he believed, the changes that took place. Something had to happen, in other words, to a person before they can have a testimony, before they can have an apologetic.

    Remember, all Christians have a testimony, have an apologetic – a defense of the hope that is in them. So I’m asking you this morning – are you able? Can you give a testimony about Christ today? I pray that if you can’t, that you will come to understand a way that you eventually can.

    So let’s take a look at how Paul unfolded his life’s testimony that he gives before a public audience. First, he gives his past life before his conversion. That past life really looks like this – he was religious, but he was lost. He was religious but he was lost. Matter of fact, most likely Paul could be the quintessential religious person. A lot of people are religious. They have their own way of thinking about how they relate to God if they believe in God at all. But in Paul’s case, he did believe in the creator God. He did believe in the Old Testament, but he didn’t have the whole message. He got a lot of things wrong.

    So before King Agrippa, he first brings up his past life. He says number one – I was brought up strictly Jewish. He was a thorough Jew, meaning that he did know the Old Testament scriptures. In fact in verse four, he says:

    So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem;

    So he was definitely someone who grew up around the holiest place on earth – Jerusalem, and also in the Old Testament. So he knew the Bible as revealed then. Also his vocation in verse number 5 – he was a Pharisee. Now a Pharisee was someone who was a teacher of the law, someone who studied the Old Testament. It says in verse five:

    since they have known about me for for a long time, if they were willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.

    So Paul understood that Judaism was a religious system. It was a system that did focus in on the God who created the heaven and the earth and the God who promised a coming Deliver to save people from their sin. So the real ground of Paul’s arrest and prosecution at this particular time in Scripture, it was not his having left the old religion Judaism, but his having to faithfully adhered to it.

    Now saying that, he says – I stand here before you to give testimony because of the hope of the promise. That is the hope of the promise of Messiah. Messiah was going to be the anointed one who would come and deliver His people from their sin so they can have a relationship with God. So he did believe the Messiah would come. But what he did not believe is that Jesus was the Messiah. That’s what he did not believe and he gives testimony to that. So Paul was not embracing something entirely new. Paul was embracing something entirely true. It’s always been true. He came to understand three important facts about the hope of Messiah. Number one – the hope of Messiah coming was promised by the patriarchs. In verse number 6 he says:

    And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers;

    In other words, in Scripture this hope came from heaven, spoken first to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob and then all the way down the line to every Jew and everyone who connected themself to Judaism, right down even to the apostle Paul. So he knew it was promised already in the Bible, that there would be a Savior a deliverer. And then also, the hope of the Messiah was prefigured in the law. In verse number 7, the Bible says:

    the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to obtain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by the Jews.

    Now what was it? What were the people trying to obtain or attain? Well all Jews and all many people tried to attain righteousness before God by painstaking effort to keep the law, or by being good. They were trying to obtain a righteousness that would be acceptable to God, but they kept failing. And they kept failing because of the transmitted sin from Adam. All of us are born sinners. And also because of their own inherent sinfulness, that we all sin. We sin in thought, word, and deed. We are sinners. That’s what we are. Paul knew he was, but the way to have his sins forgiven he had wrong. You see, the law, the Ten Commandments, kept showing them that they needed someone to deliver them from a greater slavery than the slavery they experienced in Egypt, and that is the slavery of sin. Slavery which only leads to bondage and ultimately to death, that is separation from life and separation from the living God. It is sin that separates us from God. It is sin that keeps us from being right with God. It is sin that keeps us from going into the presence of God when we die. So this sin problem has to be taken care of in one’s life.

    If you take notice in verse number 7, it says – as they serve God day and night. In other words, they were trying to be made right with God day and night by what they can do, by their works. This was pointing to the ongoing ministry of the Levitical priesthood, in which they offered sacrifice after sacrifice year after year. Yet it never really dealt sufficiently with the problem of one’s sin. The writer of Hebrews in the Bible said this about Jesus. He was talking about Jesus’ death in this passage. Let me read it to you. It says:

    who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

    Then the writer of Hebrews goes on to say this, also concerning the death of Christ:

    Every priest stands daily ministring and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin;

    So even in the Old Testament, the sacrifices they offered to God – the animal sacrifices by the shedding of blood could never finally take away sin. But it says in Hebrews:

    but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made of a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

    See death of Jesus Christ becomes the significant ingredient in someone being made right with God, because Jesus did something on the cross that none of us could ever do. And then the second thing is that Jesus rose from the grave. 1 Corinthians 15:16-18 says:

    For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; You are still in your sins.

    If Jesus didn’t die in the place of sinners and if Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, we’re all doomed, all of us. See, the Mosaic Law always aimed at continually pointing toward the hope of Messiah, the hope of someone who could actually deliver us from our sins. That He would be the one, Jesus would be the one who delivers His people from their guilt and the condemnation of sin. This has always been the common thread woven through the fabric of Israel’s daily life in history. It was common to the apostle Paul. Here, it was common to the Jews who were hearing him.

    So you see, the hope of Messiah was prefigured in the law, in that what the law could not do Christ did for all time. Now what couldn’t the law do? The law could not forgive sins. The Ten Commandments could not deliver someone from the condemnation of sins. The Law could not save anybody or make anybody right with God. So what were the Ten Commandments given for? They’re still important. They’re still relative. The Ten Commandments were designed to show people that they were sinners and point them to the One who could actually save them, and that is Jesus Christ. So what the law could not do, Christ did for all time – forgiving sin, washing it away forever and declaring one right before God based on the righteousness of another man, that man Christ Jesus.

    But not only that, the hope of Messiah was predicted in the prophets. That’s why it says in our next passage in verse number 8. Paul says:

    Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?

    God’s powerful enough to raise the dead. When it came to Jesus, it was Jesus who raised Himself. It was the whole trinity – Father Son and Spirit, that raised Jesus from the dead. The resurrection was the crowning proof of the messiahship of Jesus Christ. Now Paul came to believe all that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but he is still talking about his past life. It’s the resurrection that divides Jesus from the rest of humanity. His eternal deity was strikingly and clearly manifested through His physical resurrection, which designated Him as the Deliverer, as the Messiah, as the One who would come and save His people from their sins. In other words, the resurrection is what essentially makes Jesus different from all the earthly and would be prophets and messiahs that would come down the pike and claim to be him. They did not raise from the dead, not one of them. They all died, left decaying in corruption. But not so with Christ. He’s risen. In fact Paul wrote in Romans 1:4:

    who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead,

    that is the crowning point that makes Jesus Christ and His death different than anything else that could ever happen in order to save people from their sin.

    So my friend, the resurrection enables us to see Jesus as He really is and who He really is – God in the flesh. That’s good news. And without Jesus, there is no good news. There is no hope of eternal life. There is no freedom from the slavery of sin. There is no being made right with God. There is no future hope without Jesus Christ. He is unique and different than any other human being because He was the God-man. He came to live a perfect life and His goal was to go to the cross to die in the place of sinners, the just dying for the unjust.

    But there’s one other thing mentioned about Paul’s old past life before his conversion and that was this – his reason for a living before he became a believer. In verses 9 through 11, the french call it the reason de la vie – the reason for his living everyday, getting up every day. What was it? It was to destroy this movement called the Way in Scripture. That means anybody who followed Jesus Christ was put in a package called the Way. They were considered to be by the Jews a cult. So Paul is saying here – I did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. So what can I do if I didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, but I believe the Messiah was coming? I had to believe Jesus is a false Messiah if I still thought he was coming. So what did Paul do? He says the only thing I could do, and it’s recorded in verse 9 through 11. This what he says. Listen to all the “I’s” he puts in here.

    So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme and denounce the name of Jesus;

    And then it says here – here is his motive:

    and being furiously enraged at them,

    Now it’s funny that Paul did not consider his passion as sin because it caused him to not only persecute other human beings but also cast his lot when they were being stoned to death. He didn’t consider that a sin. He thought it was something he ought to be doing. See Paul is saying quite strongly – I used all my passions, all my influence, all my powers to destroy this movement. That was his life’s mission. In other words, Paul is the picture of a very religious, very zealous person for his religion, but he was lost as anything. He was not a believer. He wasn’t doing things that pleased God. In fact, anybody who offered another way to be right with God by keeping the law, if you didn’t believe that way, he would persecute you.

    So here is Paul. He’s actually under God’s condemnation for what he is doing. He is not actually heading to heaven. He’s actually heading to hell. And he’s not looking for God, but God is looking for him. And that’s what’s so unique about his testimony, because in verses 12 through 15 Paul tells what happens. He’s on his way to Damascus – to do what? To do the same thing he’s been doing – to persecute believers. He said that while I was heading there with this motive to kill Christians, to persecute them at midday,

    O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord? And the Lord said to him, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.’

    At that particular moment, everything became clear to Paul. He was not just persecuting a group of people, he was actually persecuting Jesus who had already rose from the grave. So that means if the crowning point for being the Messiah is resurrection, he knew Jesus rose from the grave. He knew he wasn’t in the tomb anymore. He knew that. And so it all came together. At that moment when the Bible says that the light shined brighter than the sun, that is a picture of divine presence. That all the people fell to the ground when the voice of God was heard, that is also a picture of the divine presence. In other words, Paul was rebellious, but he needed to be rescued. And what does God do? He steps in to rescue. That’s what God does. He steps in to rescue us, to save us, because we can’t save ourselves. The Law can’t save us but Jesus can save us. And He is the only Savior. There is no other Savior. There are not many ways to God. There is one way to God. Jesus is the only way to God.

    So after Paul becomes a believer, he goes from becoming redeemed or bought out of the slave market of sin to be being returned back to God for service. He just gave his actual conversion. Now he gives his present life after conversion. And what was that? In verse 16, it says God gave him a new reason for living. He says:

    But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you.

    He also gave Paul a new protection. He says – listen, the people that you’re persecuting are now going to turn around and persecute you, but I’ll protect you from them. Verse 17:

    rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,

    And then He gave Paul a new message – a complete message. In verse 18, there are five things to the gospel message. In other words, it’s not by works that we can do to be saved. It’s by God’s grace that we’re saved. It’s His unmerited favor toward us that we’re saved, that we could be saved. In fact, there are five things in the gospel message that you could never accomplish, even if you had an eternity to think about it. You could never yourself open up your spiritually blind eyes and make alive your spiritually dead soul – you cannot do that. You can never deliver yourself from the domain of darkness and Satan – you cannot do that. You can never transfer yourself to the dominion of God and light – you cannot do that. You could never free yourself up from the slave market of sin and the sins that we have committed, both past, present, and future. God keeps records and His records are accurate. He knows everything about us. And you could never set yourself apart from God and received an inheritance because you are brought into the family of God. Verse number 18 says this – what was Paul’s new message? Here It is:

    to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.

    See, it is only Jesus Christ that can do these things. Christ not only will set someone free, transfer them into the kingdom of God, He will also cancel every sin debt that a person has, every sin that a person has ever committed. And He will do it in a way where those things will never enslave that person again, and then Satan can’t make any more indictments, at least indictments that could stick against any person.

    The amazing thing about it is that God gave Paul and He gives all who believe in Jesus a new heart. And what is a new heart anyway? It’s a heart that obeys God. It’s a heart that believes God. It says in verse number 19 that he went from a stubborn, pig-headed, anger-driven, covetous, religious fellow to an obedient, humble servant of Jesus Christ. And he says in verse number 19:

    So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision,

    I didn’t prove disobedient to the heavenly voice, but I obeyed it and now here’s the message – that they should repent of their sin and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate for repentance.

    This is what happens, that when a person has a testimony, they have met Jesus Christ. They have understood the gospel message, meaning that by faith you believe in Christ and trust in what He did for you on the cross. He died in the place of sinners. He paid for all the sins before the Father. He’s satisfied the justice of the Father because the Father is a just God. And then He remove the wrath of God from the sinner so no longer is someone under God’s condemnation because of their sin. And then He takes your sin and nailed it to the cross and He takes His righteousness and He puts it on your account.

    So when God sees your life now, he does not see your sin. He sees Christ’s righteousness, that you believed in Him by faith. See, that’s genuine and real salvation. And when that happens, you’re different. You’re changed. You can say, like the apostle Paul, I’m not the person I used to be. Thanks to Calvary, I do not do the things I used to do anymore. I do not believe the things I used to believe anymore. I believe the truth and the truth has set me free. So he went from being lost to being found. He went from being rebellious to being obedient.

    Everybody who’s going to stand in the waters of baptism in a few minutes have a testimony. And they have a a past life in which they didn’t believe in Jesus. And they have a time where there was an actual conversion experience. And they also know that after they believe, their life was different. They started loving God’s word. They started loving God, whom maybe they thought before they did and they found out no, you didn’t love God. God first loved us and then we learned how to love God.

    Now anytime someone gives a testimony, and it’s no different in the case of Paul, there’s certain responses that come back to him. And what was one of the response after Paul gave this testimony before King Agrippa and the people that were there? In verses 24 to 26, here’s the first thing that was said about Paul – Paul you are out of your mind. You’re nuts. You have one brick short of a load. You have lost your marbles. You’re off your rocker. Paul, you’re in that cult the Way. And Paul says this to them – I’m not out of my mind. Matter of fact, I see more clearly now than I’ve ever seen in my life. I utter, he says, sober words of truth. There is something about truth that you cannot get away from. You know when it rings in your ears. And believe me, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth. There is no way to go to the Father except through Jesus Christ, who is the doorway. So when you become a real Christian, you finally for the first time in your life actually come to your senses and you see clearly.

    There was also a claim to sanity in our passage, where Paul says to King Agrippa:

    do you believe the Prophets? I know that you do. Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.”

    There’s the persuasion of the gospel, the persuasion of wherever you stand now in your life, the question is if you were to die right now, where would you go? According to the scriptures, there is only two places you can go. There is no purgatory in Scripture. There is either heaven to go into the presence of God, and there is a place the Bible calls the lake of fire. It’s considered before that as hell. So either person is going there or there. There’s no other place to go. The only one that can rescue a person from going to hell is Christ Jesus. He is the Savior. That’s why he came into the world – to save.

    So can it be that one can be persuaded to believe the gospel? Yes, but not without the convicting power of the Spirit of God, not without the word of God. So where today do you stand? Because the overarching goal of the gospel and what Paul is saying here is the cure for all humanity. Now what is the cure for humanity? This is what Paul said:

    I would wish to God, that whether in a short or long time, not only you, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except for these chains.

    Such as he was – what does he mean by that? That I became a believer in the Messiah Jesus Christ, and I understand that He died in my place and He rose again to give me eternal life. Now I am no longer a lost but I’m saved. I’m no longer dead, but I’m alive. No longer blind, but I see. I’m no longer held captive by sin and Satan, but I am free. See, that’s what he was hoping for people. And it only comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a change that comes, a transformation that comes. A person understands are forgiven by God, that they’re saved from God’s wrath, and then finally they’re awaiting a heavenly inheritance, waiting to go into the presence of God. And while they’re here, they’re serving God.

    So then King Agrippa says – you know what, Paul, if you didn’t appeal to Caesar, you would have been innocent. Paul was physically bound because of chains and he was in prison, but spiritually he was free, while Felix and Drusilla and Festus and Agrippa and his sister Bernice remains spiritually enslaved to sin.

    So there’s only two ways. There’s actually only two religions in the world, if you want to call it that. There’s the religions of good works. I’m trying to work my way to heaven. And there’s religion of God’s free grace, received by faith. Turn from what you’re trusting in. Trust in Jesus Christ alone. So in one way, if you’re trying to get to heaven by works or by being good, the result is you are actually rejecting God like Paul rejected God in the beginning. You’re trying to run your own life. You’re trying to do it your own way, but the end result is going to be being condemned by God and facing death and judgement. And then God’s way though is you submit to Jesus the Savior, and he’s also Lord ruler of your life. That’s why we now obey Him. And then we rely on Jesus’ death and resurrection because that is what saves us. He saves us.

    And then what is the result of that? Being forgiven by God and given eternal life. Wouldn’t you want to know that today, if you don’t know it yet? And if you do know it, then you rejoice in that fact every day, that you could never in a million trillion years save yourself. There is nothing you can do to offer God. Nothing you can do to equal what Jesus did on the cross, nothing.

    So what must a person do? Well, the first thing that you need to do is you need to pray for God to change your heart so that you may submit to Jesus as your Savior and Lord and then rely on Jesus for forgiveness of sins and eternal life. You must turn from what you’re trusting and trust in Him. Then when that happens and you follow the Lord the rest of your life, you have a testimony. You have something to say about this change that has come in your life after you met Jesus Christ. Only those who have submitted in obedience to the call of the gospel of Jesus Christ are saved and have a testimony, a defense of the faith, and have a new position before God because of Jesus Christ and only because of Jesus Christ. So not only does Jesus save us, He keeps us saved and He brings us into His presence. That’s the promise that He gives all those who trust in Him. And that’s why the gospel is considered good news.

    But remember, you got to get the bad news first before the other news becomes good, or the gospel could become bad news to you if you don’t believe it. So this morning, I don’t know some of the people who are visiting. I’m glad you came to celebrate some of the baptisms that are going to happen soon as I’m done here. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t know where you’re at spiritually. And I don’t know if you ever gotten an alternate view of what it means to be right with God. I try to give you something from Scripture this morning for you to at least know that number one – you’re a sinner and you can’t save yourself, that God’s supplied a substitute for you to die in the place and to take care of your sin that you could not take care of and that’s Jesus Christ. The way to obtain that is you turn from your sin and what you’re trusting in and you by faith ask Jesus to save you. Call upon Him as Lord and Savior, and then obey Him. And part of obeying Christ is being baptized. Baptism doesn’t save anybody, but what it does is it identifies you with the work of Christ and what Christ has done. That’s what it does. It’s almost the first step of obedience for a believer. So this morning the people that are actually are being baptized, you can be dismissed and get ready.

    This morning let’s just pay attention and see and listen to the testimonies that are given today. I prayed that you wouldn’t walk out of here and go home and just forget everything that was said both by me and by the testimonies. I pray that you would think about it and ask yourself where do you stand before God. Where do you stand before God? If you can’t answer some of those questions, you can you can come and talk to someone in our church, someone that you know in our church, and they would be able to share the gospel with you and help you to know how to be right with God.

    Let me have a word of prayer and I’m going to turn it over to Joe and then we’ll see these baptisms. Let’s pray. Father this morning I do thank You so much for sending Your Son into the world to live an obedient life and with a goal to go to the cross to die in the place. He was not a sinner, Christ. He was the just, dying in the place of sinners so that all those who hear the gospel and believe the gospel, repenting of their sin and trusting in Christ alone, can be saved. Thank You Lord for saving me. Thank you Lord for saving those who are giving their testimony this morning. I pray Lord the testimonies are evidence You’re still at work in people’s hearts. You haven’t left us alone. And I thank the Lord even in these dark days that we live, in the craziness that’s going on all over the world, You’re still working. That doesn’t affect Your plan and what You’re doing. You’re still saving people, bringing people into Your family. And I pray Lord, someone here today doesn’t know you but wants to, I pray that You would show them. Convict them of their sin, bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And I ask it in Your precious name. Amen.

  • The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Devoted to “the Prayers”

    The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Devoted to “the Prayers”

    In this sermon, Pastor Babij preaches on corporate prayer and why it should be a priority for believers. Pastor Babij stresses why prayer requires putting on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-19) as well as understanding correct doctrine. Pastor Babij also identifies five temptations congregations must resist when praying together:

    1) Canceling regularly scheduled prayer times
    2) “Trying prayer,” and then abandoning when you do not get what you asked
    3) Individualizing what God has made a corporate act
    4) Assuming you know how to pray
    5) Measuring success in prayer based upon numbers in a meeting

    Full Transcript:

    I have been looking at what it means to be a Christian, what it means to actually be a Christian after conversion. One of the things that we see in verse 42 is that when they became converted to Christ, they were continually devoted to several things. We already saw the first thing they were devoted to, and continue to be devoted to, is teaching from the Word of God, the apostles’ teaching. Then the second thing was to the fellowship, the gathering together of believers that was so vital in the organization and the strengthening of the church. And it still is today, of course. A third thing was to the breaking of bread, the Lord’s Table, being partakers of that, focusing in on the two elements that always show us what the gospel is. The bread represent the enfleshment of Christ, and then the blood where He sacrificed for those who would believe in Him. From that, it goes into verse 42, they were devoted to prayers, or to the prayers.

    Doctrine, in other words, informs us about the nature and the practice of prayer. In other words, doctrine leads to devotion in the prayers of the saints. The prayers are the foreseeable conclusion to true doctrine. It becomes very important for the Christian.

    Now, there was a book that I referenced that was written in 1957. It was called “The secret weapons of World War II”. In that book, it gave some fascinating stories about scientists that developed all kinds of secret weapons for the British troops. Of course, the Americans did it. Others did it too. This group of people ended up being called the wheezers and the dodgers. They were key players in inventing secret weapons. Two of such weapons were the hedgehog mortar that was used against German submarines. Another one was called the Holman Projector, compressed air grenade launcher. These particular secret weapons were actually employed against the enemy during World War II.

    The second one of these that the weezers and dodgers invented, this Holman Projector, they called it the first potato launcher. In other words, the Holman was really a smoothbore muzzle-loaded gun connected by pipes to the ship’s steam boiler. It was not energized by any kind of gunpowder because the gunpowder was so rare during World War II that they had to improvise and come up with a different method to launch these projectiles from this particular gun. It was really given to civilian ships, because when the civilian ship found itself under attack, which often was under attack during World War II, the crew would pull the pin and drop a hand grenade down the barrel of the Holman Projector. Then the gun crew would frantically aim at the enemy airplane, and of course stomp on the pedal and release the boiler steam. And it would launch and hopefully they would hit the target.

    Now, of course, it probably wasn’t that accurate. But this particular group of people and these civilians in these ships that were under attack had this secret weapon. They actually shot two aircraft out of the air by using this particular weapon. It became the most popular makeshift ammunition shooter in the Royal Navy. Of course, you can understand why. And of course many stories went along with it because it didn’t always work like it was supposed to. Sometimes they would shoot the grenade out and it didn’t have enough steam to push it out, so it would drop on the deck. And of course, you know what happens then. Everybody was frantically trying to find it and throw it overboard and get it out of there before it went out because the grenade has about a five meter kill rate radius around it.

    Secret weapons, no matter how simple or sophisticated, always have and always will be a part of warfare. It always has and it always will be. This is also true in the spiritual realm. If you take your Bibles this morning and turn to Ephesians chapter 6, I want you to notice some things in this passage. This is the most lethal secret weapon the church has. In Ephesians chapter 6, the imagery is of a full dress Roman soldier who is ready for battle. Paul is looking on and at this Roman soldier and using him to contrast what he is wearing to the Christian life. It certainly would be ironic if a soldier was not familiar with their own defensive and offensive weapons which includes body armor of course. The various parts for Christians are applied spiritually, not literally to a literal battle, except it could be applied to the literal spiritual battle that believers are in. Just as the Israelites under Joshua had to fight against flesh and blood in order the conquer the land of Canaan which God said is already yours, ours is a spiritual warfare rather than a physical one.

    Of course, our battle is not against necessarily human beings, but according to our text, it is a against spiritual wickedness – spiritual enemies in high places. In verse 10 it says:

    Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

    That is what is given to the believer. Consequently, it’s for our benefit and our protection that God does make available all the implements of the weapons of warfare that we will need to overcome Satan’s tactics and his methods. The first piece, in verse 14, is that we are to put on the girdle of truth. Now this deals with a believer’s learning and studying, their meditating, and their internalizing of God’s truth that comes from above to them. The belt of truth is what exposes the lies of Satan and quenches them.

    And then, the second piece would be the breastplate of righteousness. It says,

    And having put on the the breastplate of righteousness,

    This piece deals with the believer knowing he has and she has God’s approval and that He is now imparting His righteousness on to them on a daily basis. In other words. It is not our righteousness, but we know that we have Christ’s imputed righteousness that makes us acceptable to God. Because of that, we are to live in obedience to the Word of God. We also are to live in the practical righteousness that God allows us to work out every single day as we are obeying the Word of God the Scriptures and walking in the Spirit.

    And then the next piece in verse 15:

    and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

    This refers to a readiness and a preparedness, first to be firmly rooted in the gospel ourselves and secondly to spread the good news of the gospel. Why? Because once you know you are at peace with God through the blood of the Lamb, you want to spread the message that this is the message of reconciliation that can take place between God and people. When they come in repentance and faith, they also can be saved, which is God’s only provision for salvation. So if we are at peace with God almighty, then whom else should we be afraid of? No one. According to Romans: if God is for us, no one could be against us. The gospel of Jesus Christ actually plunders the evil one’s kingdom because the enemy in that case is overcome. Souls are moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. And why is that important? Because Satan wants you to think the telling others is worthless, hopeless, and a bigger-than-life impossible task, that it is for someone else to do and not you. He is a liar at the highest level.

    Then in Ephesians 6:16, the shield of faith is a piece that the soldier stands behind. You will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. The devil is trying to shake you, to catch you off-guard. Every now and then, these tactics are in the form of insults, in the form of setbacks, in the form of trials and difficulties, of discord and discouragement, of guilt trips and of fiery temptations. Faith always points to the character of God, that He is truthful, that He is unchanging, that He is all-powerful, ever-present. God who is able and willing is making us able and willing by giving us this armor. He loves His children and are for them and very interested in them.

    So the Christian is not only to resist the adversary by their believing, but also by the pertinent Scriptures used to counter-attack and cancel his wiles, relying by faith on what has already been written in the Word of God. We don’t have to make things up, in other words, to fight the enemy. It’s already written. Just use the Word of God.

    And then Ephesians 6:17 – then the soldier puts on his head his helmet, the helmet of salvation. The apostle is directing our attention to the Christian’s whole position in Christ. God for sure has a hold on His children. Christ is our security. The helmet of salvation enables us to hedge against doubt and forcing our minds that Christ is our security in salvation. Christ is our strength against Satan’s temptations and deceit. Really, he has lost the battle and we are on the winning side. In Christ we have the victory.

    So far the pieces of armor have been a defensive posture. But now we look in verse 17 of the sword that is supplied by the Spirit. It is a piercing sword, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We don’t have to make any mistakes on what it is. It is the word of God. This means that the sword is an offensive weapon as well as a defensive weapon. Christians who are regularly being fed the word of God are growing strong and truth, becoming more and more able to detect the lies and cancel them with the truth, therefore able to take the sword of the Spirit and do some close combat with the enemy. It was a small dagger type of weapon. If a soldier in modern-day combat is commanded to fix their bayonet, he knows that it is time for close combat with the enemy, where you get eyeball to eyeball, nose-to-nose with the enemy and you begin to fight them in that way. Probably the most fiercest and dangerous of all combat tactics is one-on-one, where a person has to fight to stay alive. So preparation and skill are paramount if victory is to be won.

    However, it became clear to the apostle Paul while he was using using the Roman soldier’s armor and contrasting it with the spiritual battle that we are in as Christians, there was something that the Roman soldier was lacking that Christians are not lacking. In other words, Christians have a secret weapon, something available to all of God’s children. All Christian soldiers have this weapon. This weapon is more effective against the enemy than any secret weapon known or devised by man. You say, well what is it? Look at Ephesians 6:18, it says:

    With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

    in other words, the secret weapon that Christians have is prayer. That’s the secret weapon. In our text in Ephesians 6:18, prayer is not another piece of armor. However, prayer is that secret weapon of the believer and a vital part of spiritual warfare. It is as essential as breathing for our existence. And if you look at the first part of our text in verse 18, we must see here that we put on the whole armor of God and then in 18, with all prayer and petition, praying at all times in the Spirit. So the Christian soldier may be in constant contact with their commanding officer, the Lord Jesus Christ, at all times, in all situations. The believer can stand defensively against the satanic hosts because they have been given everything necessary and all the preparation to stand strong. The strength of the Lord gained by utilizing the full armor of God is stronger than all the power of the wicked. We Christians are to hold fast to the territory already won for us by Christ. We are not to give place to the devil.

    But all these things, the armor and prayer, makes us able. Verse 11 of Ephesians 6:

    you will be able to stand…

    Verse 13 of Ephesians 6:

    you will be able to resist…

    Verse 16 of Ephesians 6:

    you will be able to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one.

    Hence, Christians should expect victory, not defeat. By faith in God, we are able. However, Christians, once we put our armor on, we are not done yet. We must put our armor on in prayer. Prayer shows our dependance on the Lord. Prayer means we are in a living relationship with God. Prayer demonstrates that the Christian soldier is not attempting to fight in one’s own strength and power. Prayer is the essence of spiritual warfare, and most importantly, the means by which believers are strengthened by God.

    So saying all that, there’s a problem. And you say, what’s the problem? Our secret weapon prayer has a lot of dust on it. It’s being underutilized, or not being used at all. Is it because we really don’t believe God as Christians once did? Writer and pastor and biblical counselor David Paulson, who’s with the Lord now, laid out an accurate prognosis of our culture of the numbing of most things spiritual. He wrote: prayer and worship have become hollow forms. God’s power and aid are little needed and little expected. Sin becomes psychopathology and social maladjustment. The Bible becomes a remote object, not the voice of the living God. Evangelism becomes vaguely embarrassing. And death to self is distastefully fanatical. Paulson further said: in other words, our times make belief in a spiritual war implausible to many and this modern mentality easily infects the Christian church.

    So what do we need to do? We need to repent. Yes, I would say that every single one of us here this morning are in the same boat. We intend to pray, but we don’t. We want to pray. We think it’s good and important to pray, but we never seem to get around to it. See, we need to repent of the crippling sin of unbelief that goes along with that. And how will we know when God’s people are truly repentant in this area? When we are regularly picking up our secret weapon and using it. When we as a congregation seek God’s face together with our petitions and intercessions, our supplications, as well as our praises and thanksgiving to God, all all mixed up in what prayer is all about, so that He will work on our behalf. And prayer is still effective to accomplish much. Doesn’t it say this in James:

    The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

    Maybe we’re not accomplishing what we ought to accomplish because we are not taking up our secret weapon and praying. And I’m going to mention it more later, but the Bible from Acts chapter 2:42 is talking about the prayers. It’s not talking about individual praying. It’s talking about corporate praying, when God’s people meet together and make it a priority that we ought to be praying and let no excuses get in the way of that. It becomes that important when a Christian understands they are in a spiritual battle, whether they know it or not or like it or not. If they’re going to win against the enemy in a battle that’s already won. It’s like when God told the Israelites: go get the land; it’s already yours. They still had to go get it. God has all these promises for us, but He says to us: go get it. Go hold to it by faith. But it’s not going to happen if somehow prayer gets tucked away somewhere. Or the church never has time to do it. Or it just fades into a distant future or past.

    Now saying all that, let’s take a look at the effectiveness of the church’s use of secret prayer when it’s an operative. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 12. I want you to notice in Acts 12 the Roman authorities have seized Peter and threw him in prison. And the enemies of God, because they had a few successes in the past up until this point, think they have the upper hand. They do have the authority. The Roman government has the authority, in this case. They have the power to do what they think they want to do. In this case, it’s Herod. Herod severely underestimates who was for Peter and who was for His church. He didn’t even consider that somehow this little group of believers that have no real weapons that they can see, no real armor that can protect them, had all that plus they had a secret weapon. Didn’t bank on that. Didn’t consider that. But the church ought to considerate it. The essence of a secret weapon is that it is secret, so that the enemy is taken is taken by surprise. The true church of God has a secret weapon. It’s called prayer. And it’s a direct line to God.

    Now I want you to see the church in Acts chapter 12. Look at verse 5. I just want to make eight observation about this little prayer meeting. Here’s the first observation and it’s this: prayer is to be carried out by the gathered church. Acts 12:5:

    So Peter was kept in prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church of God.

    It’s talking here about the gathered assembly of believers in a particular place, praying for Peter, praying for what happened there with Peter. That’s the first observation. The second observation is this in verse 6: prayer prevented the will of man from taking place. Look at what it says in verse 6:

    On the very night when Herod was about to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chain, and guards in front of the door were watching over the prison.

    For one little man, this seemed like an awful lot of protection. Two guards? And these Roman soldiers, they were tough soldiers. They were very well-trained soldiers. They were soldiers that were very focused on their job. They knew that if they lost the prisoner, it would be their life, so they’re not losing anybody. In fact, if it came down to it, if a prisoner was going to be lost, better the prisoner lose their life than me. That’s what usually happened. But here, the will of Herod was prevented because the church was praying and using the secret weapon against what was going on in the spiritual realm.

    The third observation is this: prayer brought heaven down to earth. Look at what it says in verse 7 through 11:

    And behold, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter’s side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” And he went out and continued to follow, and he did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and second guard, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which open for them by itself; and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

    In other words, prayer that was being done by the church brought heaven to earth. Where do angels reside? Heaven. The angels show up, and of course rescue Peter. Miraculous things like the chains just fall off your hands. That the guards had no clue that you were moving through the prison. That the big iron gates of the city that were closed just open. And then Peter understood something. He understood that he was being rescued by the angel from Herod who wanted to kill him, who wanted to do harm to him.

    And then a fourth observation is found in verse 12: prayer accomplished the impossible. It says:

    And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.

    I’m just showing you that when the secret weapon of prayer is being used corporately by God’s people, things happen behind the scenes in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual battle part of the Christian life, and miraculous things take place. He realized this, that God had accomplished the impossible.

    And then in verse 13, the fifth observation is that prayer produces realistic results. Look at what it says:

    When he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer.

    All right, so this is all real. This is not a mirage. This is not a dream. This is not a vision. This is real stuff. Real things are happening. This is like where the rubber meets the road Christianity. And it’s all because of prayer. It’s all because of prayer by God’s people.

    Then a sixth observation: prayer produces joy. Look at verse 14:

    When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate,

    Now let me just stop right there. Why do you think she was joyful? She was joyful because of answered prayer. Joyful, because God heard this group of people praying and answered them exactly to what they were praying. It says the rest of the verse:

    but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate.

    Well open the door! I’m so excited I can’t open the door. See, prayer produces joy in the church amongst God’s people. You know what happens when you’re joyful? You get excited about the Christian life. You realize you’re not alone. You realize that God is on your side, that God does hear the prayers of His saints, that God is involved in our life in the most intimate details of what’s going on in our life and in the life of the church. This is not something we’re just doing on our own. We’re not just spinning our wheels.

    But if we don’t pray, then maybe we’re just in the flesh. And we’re expecting results. We’re discouraged because we don’t see them. And it’s all because of one thing. The secret weapon of prayer is on our shelf, and it’s pretty dusty. Matter of fact, I don’t know if we can even find it. We got to pull that baby out, and we have to use it.

    A seventh observation in our text is that prayer baffles unbelief. In verse 15, it says:

    They said to her, “You are out of your mind!”

    They didn’t even believe that what they were praying would actually happen. Sometimes, you know what, when prayer is answered, that’s what we think. That could never have happened unless God’s involved. That could have never taken place unless the Lord is working on our behalf. That’s right. That’s right.

    Then an eighth observation in verse 16: prayer spiritually invigorates those who pray and bring them into the realm of the amazing. Look at what it says in verse 16:

    But Peter continued knocking; and when they had opened the door, they saw him and were amazed.

    Joy and amazement in the Christian life. And I think it’s always been so that joy and amazement go together in the Christian life. When you have joy and amazement, you want more joy and amazement. The problem is that the way we get joy and amazement is through prayer. So the secret weapon of prayer used by the gathering church to defeat the enemies against us and produce wonder and joy in the church on a regular basis is what motivates us to pray more.

    So we not only need to repent. We really need a paradigm shift in the way we think of prayer. We must be brought back to a biblical way of thinking about prayer. If we all are going to practice prayer in the life of the church, we all must hedge against certain temptations in our pursuit of the practice of prayer. And there are always temptations. Matter of fact, maybe the greatest temptations we experience as a church and individually as a believer is in our prayer life. Is there anybody here who can say to me: you know pastor, I pray too much. I’m in too many prayer meetings. I don’t know anybody like that, including myself. But I want that. Because you grow to a place in your spiritual life where you know that you have to be in communion with God in prayer about everything. Remember when you’re weak, He is strong. When you feel the weakest and you are the most vulnerable and you are praying, then God’s going to be strong on your behalf. And you’re going to see that. You’re going to see the results of that.

    So what’s the first temptation that would come to a gathered church when it comes to using the secret weapon of prayer? Here’s the first temptation: let’s just cancel the regular schedule prayer time. Nobody wants to do it. So why do it? We meet for prayer at the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays and the first and third Fridays at 6:45. You would think because God has given us the gift of free access with Him anytime anyplace, that it would make us more fervent in wanting to pray corporately. Practically, that is usually not the case. We’re given this free and frequent access to God because we are always in need of it. So, you know what we have to do? We actually have to eliminate our excuses.

    According to Scripture where it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17-19:

    pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit;

    I don’t think anyone of us struggles with too much praying. Prayer must remain the priority in the gathered church. It requires our persistence in it and our presence in it, in the prayer meetings together praying with each other. So that would be the first temptation. And I’ll tell you what, we’re not going to give in to that temptation. We’re not going to stop praying.

    Secondly, second temptation would be this: I tried prayer; I found it doesn’t work. In other words, a false picture of how prayer is answered. Again, a person concludes that prayer is unproductive. A false perspective of prayer could be that they would say that God gives to people who do not ask. I see people have things that they didn’t ask for. I see my enemies have more things in their life and sees more joy in their life or happiness in their life than I have. Some of you may think: well, God fails to give to many who do ask. I’ve been asking and asking and asking, and I don’t see the results. I prayed to pass an exam and I failed. I prayed to be healed of an illness or someone else to be healed of an illness, and the illness got worse and the person even died. I prayed that no one close to me would die, and yet people die all the time. And thinking like this, people conclude prayer doesn’t work. It’s a fallacy, and that Satan wants us to believe that it doesn’t work. That God doesn’t hear you. Why would God listen to you?

    See, unanswered prayer in the life of the church are just as helpful as answered ones. Prayer is leaving the direction of our lives in God’s hands. It’s leaving what’s going on our life in God’s control. Whatever God wants, as I seek His face. I prayed a long time along with the church and others for my father to trust Christ. Twenty-five years against all odds, against his stubbornness, against his fear of his religious family coming against him if he converted to christianity. Even his age – he was 70 years old. You know, the statistics say that if you get to seventy, probably you’re not going to believe. Don’t believe any of those statistics. You know what, God doesn’t have those statistics. He can save anyone at any time at any age. All the obstacles were vanquished, and my father at 70 years old trusted Christ as Lord and Savior and continued to live for Him and serve Him until he graduated to eternity and now is enjoying the presence of the Lord.

    In other words, answered prayer, but for many years I experienced unanswered prayer. So what was it? Was it answered prayer, or was it unanswered prayer? It was God working, not only in my life because believe me, the Lord was sanctifying me a whole lot witnessing to my family and my father. He was showing me everything in my life. We just kept on plugging through, kept on praying, every day when it looked impossible, when it looked like God wasn’t hearing. And then God just, when I wasn’t even pursuing it, came in and boom, he becomes a believer. See, that’s how God works. Believe me, that’s why we could never stop as a church praying. We could never let down that guard ever. If God was pledged to give whatever we ask, when we ask it, and then exactly the terms we ask it, how should we bear that burden? How then could God be God, if He were subject to our whimsical immature self-centered prayers? We couldn’t bear it. And He wouldn’t be God.

    I had once read of a helpful prayer formula that I use from time to time because it does help me. That if the request is wrong, God says no. That if the timing is wrong, God says slow. If you are wrong, God says grow. But if the request is right and the timing is right and you are right, God says go. So all those things are really answers to prayer, but I don’t necessarily know neither do you where that’s at. Sometimes God answers prayer immediately. Sometimes He doesn’t answer it for a year, but doesn’t mean that we should stop. Because God is still God. His plan is still going to go forward. The things that of His will, that is the secret part of His will, is still going to take place. But we have to make sure not of the secret part of His will, but of His prescribed will that we read in the word of God. One of the things that God wants us to do and the gathered assembly to do is to pray together.

    So then, what is the third temptation that we would have when it comes to gathered prayer? It would be this: to individualize would God has meant to be corporate. What do I mean by that? I think prayer is a private matter. I don’t have to meet with other people or other Christians for God to hear my prayers. You say, well that is true to a point. But according to Acts 2:42, it is stressing in this passage of Scripture the practice of prayer that is corporate. See, we ought to prayer together as a church body.

    In fact, a little bit disappointing in a way that the New American Standard does not use in that passage of Scripture the definite article, because the Greek text does use the definite article in front of everything that’s said in Acts 2:42. For it tells us there that they were devoted themselves to “the” apostles’ teaching. That means the only teaching. And then of course to “the” fellowship – that means the gathering fellowship of real genuine believers who believe the gospel. And to “the” breaking of bread – that means the breaking of bread of the real Christians that meet together, that celebrate that ceremony of the bread and of course the fruit of the vine. And then to “the” prayers – that are the prayer that is offered up by the group of believers that meet, fellowship, are taught the word of God, and partake of the Lord’s Table. So the practice of corporate prayer became a significant part of worship in which these new believers were eagerly desiring to participate in together. So yes, there’s individual prayer, but we cannot let go by the wayside the corporate prayer that’s being stressed in our passage.

    A fourth temptation would be this: we assume people know what to pray for, or what prayer is, and how they should do it. We can’t assume that. You know what, when I became a new believer, I didn’t know how to pray. How did I learn how to pray? Nobody handed me a book and said, this is how to pray. I met with other believers and I heard them pray. And I kept meeting with other believers and I heard them pray. And I heard them pray, and I saw how they prayed. And then I saw the Scriptures, what the Bible says about what prayer is. And then I became very convinced that prayer is really learned by meeting together with other Christian people in the same practice of prayer, releasing our burdens to each other and then together taking them to God. That’s really what prayer is about.

    Then I think another temptation would be this: to measure the effectiveness of your prayer gathering by the amount of people that attend. I think our result-oriented culture has something to do with that. The temptation would be if only small group of people come to pray. Or if you have a bunch of groups of people getting together during the week in different places to pray as the church, that’s good too. Organizing it; giving them something to pray and bring before the Lord along with their own request. That’s something we ought to be doing as a as a church. But the temptation would be that if it’s just small groups of people, then let’s innovate. And for worse, let’s cancel the whole thing, because it doesn’t seem like anybody’s interested. But this is where we must fight. We must keep faithful.

    So are there any willing Christian people who will purpose in their heart to make corporate prayer a priority? That you fight for it as much as you would fight for your last breath in order to stay alive. Because I think that’s a good way of saying that if the prayer of God’s people do not take place, then we have no more breath. We have no power. Christians, don’t miss out on one of the greatest gifts that God has given to the church: the secret weapon of secret prayer. It’s not secret to us; it’s secret to the enemy. But it is vital to us. And if I should say this and end this way: real Christian desire to be devoted to the prayers that God wants us to offer up before Him, before His throne, on a regular basis. That would have to be where we’re going this morning.

    So I just pray examine yourself. Look at where you’re at in this area of prayer, and make some real serious decisions this coming week and what you’re going to do about it. I pray that God would use it in a way that He would quench all our excuses. He would allow us to arrange our schedules, and that we would implement and put into practice as a gathered church the prayers that we ought to, so we can too experience the joy and the amazement that goes when we actually pray for something and receive weeks after that God actually answered. If you come to prayer meeting, you’ll find that that takes place. Why? We pray for that last week. We pray for your wife that this would happen and that happened, when it seemed impossible for what happened to happen. We prayed for someone to hear the gospel, and they heard it and then all of a sudden they believed and it became real. We prayed for someone in a certain other context that they would get through a particular situation and we lifted it up before the Lord and we find out God answered it. So maybe just as important as praying together is sharing each other’s answers to those prayers that will produce the joy and the amazement that comes with it.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You this morning. For Lord, just again considering a part of the Christian life that Satan probably attacks more than any other. And Lord, we can go. We can do many things. We can be involved with many things. But Lord, I pray that we would never let this go by the wayside. I pray Lord, that You would this week, for my heart and the people’s heart, cause us to prioritize our time meeting together with other believers before the throne of God in prayer. And I pray Lord as we do, that it would become infectious. That other people would join. And that Lord we would have good times of communion with You before the throne of God and then enjoy when You answer us, whether the answer be no or the answer be wait. Or maybe the answer comes to pass. Lord, You get all the glory and praise because we want You to control our life. We want You, Lord, to be in charge of everything. I pray Lord, that You would take these words morning and press them upon those who are here in all our hearts so we can make the clear and right choices before You. And I pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.

  • The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: The Breaking of Bread

    The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: The Breaking of Bread

    In this sermon, Pastor Babij teaches on the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. Pastor Babij stresses that this celebration was instituted by Jesus Himself as part of worship and that only believers are to participate. Pastor Babij explains five reasons Christians should be eager to “break bread”:
    1) It is commanded by Christ
    2) It declares fellowship and unity
    3) It prevents forgetfulness of what Jesus did for His people
    4) It proclaims Jesus’ death and the way of salvation
    5) It proclaims Jesus’ return

    Full Transcript:

    Let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Acts 2:42 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Today we’re going to be looking at the next thing in this passage in Acts. The verse again says:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

    The breaking of bread is talking about the Lord’s Supper, which is what we’ll be talking about today. Let’s pray.

    Lord, this morning as we look at this passage and as we consider how the beginning of the Church, and how these very important things, were established, let us also be aware of how they continued throughout all of history. I pray that we would be faithful with a greater understanding and that we would be growing and know more because we are in the Word of God. Develop our faith stronger in You, because we know that we have been saved to worship You. That worship will continue forever, so help us get good at it and practice it. I pray in Christ’s Name, Amen.

    Okay so from this passage of Scripture, we see already that you are definitely different after coming to Christ and becoming a real Christian not just in Word, but in deed, thought, action, and words. God is transforming us in Christ, and He is doing that in the context of the body. We are found together in one another because we believe the same message about Christ. The real indicator of real divine life in the soul is that all Christians will desire and devote themselves to the teaching of the Word of God, which is expanded upon by the Apostles. A second thing that we talked about already is fellowship. And this morning, we will be talking about the desire to devote ourselves to the breaking of bread.

    In the original language of Greek, the article the means that the passage is not just talking about a meal together, but part of worship. This act became and is a significant part of worship for these new believers, for the beginning of the Church, and for the rest of Church history. We should be eagerly desiring to participate in the Lord’s Supper together. This is instruction about it so that when it does come up the first Sunday of every month we are ready. When there’s a holiday, we push it back to the second week in order to protect the Lord’s Table and those who are partaking of it. We need to ensure that those who are partaking are real believers because it is not just for anybody.

    A newness of heart and life are necessary to the worthy partaking of the Lord’s Supper. It is only for true believers who understand the gospel and have personally received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and desire to obey and follow Christ and hunger for more of Him each and every day of their lives. It is always about that. We eat everyday but tomorrow we get hungry again. It’s the same spiritually. We should not just listen to a message, learn from it, then say we can live on that for the next month.

    As these Scriptures make clear in 1 Corinthians 10:16, which says:

    Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?

    He’s questioning that when it comes to these things, we cannot mix them up with others. In other words, real questions desire real worship and part of that is the breaking of bread. This is giving the true picture of what God intended for His church, for His people to meet together, hear the teaching of the Word of God, and enter into fellowship and worship with Jesus at the center. Why did the gathered assembly of believers now who follow Christ begin at once to break bread? This is because of how the Lord began this ordinance at the Passover.

    The Passover in the Old Testament was when the lamb’s blood was shed and put on the lentils of the door posts of those in Egypt. When the death angel came down to slay the first born, he would not slay those in whom the blood was applied. The death angel instead passed over them.

    Jesus on that holiday instituted the Lord’s Table. So it has a lot of significance that we need to grow in our understanding of. Back then, one would take a piece of unleavened bread, break it into pieces, and hand it around to others to do the same. Then Jesus would pour out the wine into a cup and pass it along to others who gathered for the same purpose. In Scripture, the Bible is telling us that in these two passages in Acts, this is to be done among the gathered assembly. Look at what it says in Acts 2:46-47:

    Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

    The context of salvation here is having genuine relationship with God. So take your Bibles and turn to Luke 22 because right there is where the Lord Himself gave us this ordinance. It’s in other passages as well but verse 15 in this chapter includes all of the things I mentioned so far. It says in Luke 22:15-20:

    And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.” And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.

    So this became the practice. Today this practice has somewhat fallen into confusion and into the category of being mysterious. This practice is treated as archaic and in some cases has been emptied of its most significant meaning. But for these first believers it was essential and necessary and they devoted themselves to this practice. So I must ask, why should we gather and break bread together?

    Well they didn’t get together as a fact finding committee to decide what should be included in the worship service, it was already decided by the Lord. So this morning I want to consider five reasons why we should we imitate these believers’ concern for and devotion to the breaking of the bread. Take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians 11:25, the first reason is to obey the Lord’s words. It says:

    In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

    “Do this” is an imperative and a command. So if the Lord in which you claim to love asks you to do something, your love will be demonstrated by your obedience. That’s how it fleshed out in these new believers. They simply heard it and did it. Don’t be like those who have a casual attitude towards the Lord’s Supper. They feel like they can attend it if they want or be absent if they want. However attendance at the Lord’s Supper is an obligation and an expression of fellowship.

    Not only do those who stay away rob themselves the benefit of remembering the Lord and the fellowship with other believers, but also rob the church body of what is entitled and expected of them. We are called to fellowship with the Lord and with each other. So the idea of living the Christian life alone in your bedroom behind your computer, is not a Scriptural idea, but a worldly and fleshly idea. It’s getting together with each other that is part of the means of grace that God has given us to grow us. It would be in line with the truth of Scripture to question that if someone would not desire to have fellowship with the Lord’s people, if they are in fellowship with Christ at all.

    It is a mark of real believers that they are growing in their understanding of why they ought to be there and preparing themselves beforehand. They ought to be preparing their heart, confessing their sin, and making themselves ready to meet with the Lord and others in partaking of the Lord’s Table.

    So again the first reason is that it is in obedience to the Lord’s Word. A second thing is found in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 is to declare our fellowship and unity. It says:

    Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.

    In other words, it is really pressing the point that there is a oneness and unity that is going on. The broken bread and poured out wine is a message that preserves the truth and the practical outworking of the content of the gospel. That is to drive out division and to keep the unity that God gives us in Christ Jesus. The Lord’s Table includes an expression of unified, peaceful fellowship of the gathering of a local assembly. There are several things that are included when the Church gathers for the Lord’s Supper.

    The first thing is that there is a mutual acceptance of one another. Each participant receives the Lord’s Supper because they have a faith in Christ and in His work on the cross. So eating the bread and drinking the fruit of the vine, they remember their Lord and give thanks for the grace God has given them. This particular action actually is an acknowledgment that those who are present, as far as one is able to judge other brothers and sisters in Christ, each one is accepting the other as having faith in the Lord. So there is a unified, mutual acceptance of one another because of what we believer and what family that we are a part of.

    Secondly among the gathered believers, there is a mutual sameness that each stands together on level ground. That means that all who are present are sinners, all saved by grace through faith in Christ. It matters not whether they be Jew or Gentile, where they be bond or free, rich or poor, pagan or barbarian, whether they have red, black, yellow, or white skin. Spiritually they are all equal in the eye of the Lord and should be in the eyes of everyone in the congregation. So there is the unity and the mutual acceptance and sameness, which all leads to verse 17 which looks at the mutual unity. There is one bread and one body, and we are forgiven by God which allows us to be friends of God and of each other too.

    If you notice in Scripture, even in the context of 1 Corinthians 11, there is a lot of disunity going on. If there is disunity in a church, the Lord’s Supper cannot be there. The bread may be eaten and the fruit of the vine may be drunk, and the words may be heard, but it is not truly the Lord’s Supper. The expressions of unity and fellowship in the Lord’s Supper are very serious and important for all believers. So when there is disorderliness or division in the church, these problems should be resolved before the Lord’s Supper. If such things are allowed to exist and tolerated, the Lord’s Supper will only be a sham. At worst it will be a hypocritical activity and it will be stripped of it’s significance. And this cannot happen in God’s Church.

    That’s why we don’t want to have it every week either, because we don’t want it to become so familiar that it loses the significance. So once a month we partake of it and are reminded of the centrality of our faith in the elements, the bread and the fruit of the vine. All are focused in on Christ. In other words, unity gets the whole body looking and focused in on one person. They we are to focus on what He did for us and endured for us. He was crucified and no one else was crucified for us except Him.

    In fact when Jesus was resurrected from the dead and He was walking with His disciples on the Road to Emmaus, at the end of His conversation about all the prophecies being fulfilled in Him, the disciples didn’t get it until they stopped at the house. The disciples asked Jesus to stay over with them and this is what happened in Luke 24:28-35:

    And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He were going farther. But they urged Him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” So He went in to stay with them. When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.

    It was brought vividly to the disciples’ minds that it was Christ who suffered and accomplished salvation on the cross for them. They were at peace with Him in the Lord’s Table and now were considered friends of God and not enemies. That is now in the minds as it should be in our minds when we recognize what these elements are about. These elements are not simply bread and fruit of the vine, but they focus on a Person and what He did. And that’s what they always should do.

    That brings me to a third reason why we should partake of the Lord’s Table and that is to declare our proneness to forget and to get so busy and distracted by things in our lives. We have good intentions but we tend to wander in our minds and what we do. This ordinance can reel us back into focus. Back to 1 Corinthians 11:25, it says:

    Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.

    The regular practice of the breaking of bread does not prevent memory loss. We won’t forget that God sent His only Son into the world to do something about our flawed and helpless dilemma, of which there is no rescue by ourselves from our sin. Salvation is only possible through Him alone. We remember that through Jesus Christ at the Lord’s Table, God caused us to see our sin, and He sobered us in taking into account our sin problem. God granted you and I to submit to those terms for obtaining God’s provision for our sin by repentance and faith which are also gifts to us by God. We would have remained dead in our sin otherwise. We didn’t have any way to do anything about our condition without God.

    Once we become believers, God gives us His Spirit to dwell in you and I and to make us willing followers of Jesus Christ. Now every single day, your life is evidence of repentance and faith in Christ. And you should start bearing fruit of being a believer. You will be evidence to yourself that you are a true Christian and not in doubt of your salvation.

    You have been reading the Word of God, studying Scripture, and now you are sober and serious about your relationship with Christ and have a desire to be devoted to the things that He is devoted to as well. A fourth reason to being serious about the breaking of bread is found in 1 Corinthians 11:26, which is about declaring the Lord’s death. It says:

    For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

    This means that as often as we come together as a body, we should also be declaring the Lord’s death. We are making a proclamation to each other and to others that the Lord’s death was not a tragedy that brought everything to an end. His death actually took away the sting of death, which was the law, and fulfilled it. In 1 Corinthians 15:56-57 it says:

    The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    It is by His death alone that we are saved. This is the message that preserves the truth of the gospel: the sacrificed body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ announces the only way of salvation. That’s what we do, we proclaim that truth when we partake of the Lord’s Table. It seems like a strange activity, and others might not know why we do this. In church history, Christians were considered to be cannibalistic because people were eating the body of Christ and outsiders were not understanding what that really meant. They were actually accused of those things. But for those that gathered together in Christ Jesus, it was not strange at all but it was the center of what they believed. Many Scriptures actually point us that way, like 2 Corinthians 5:19-21, which says:

    Namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

    The death of Christ became a significant part of our salvation. Without it, there is no salvation. In Romans 8:3-4, it says this:

    For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

    In Romans, it is focusing on Christ being the offering for sin. Christ became sin for us, who Himself never sinned. It was the just for the unjust so we could be brought to God. God punished Jesus for our sin, He sacrificed His body and shed His blood and that is why we break bread and pour out the wine. The bread stands for the sacrificial body of Christ, and the poured out wine stands for the poured out blood of Christ.

    When I was in 1 Peter, Peter stressed that when he says in 1 Peter 1:18-19:

    Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

    Christ became the One who fulfilled all those Old Testament sacrifices. In the Old Testament when someone offered up a lamb on the Day of Atonement, it had to be perfect and without blemish. They had to lay their hands on it and confess their sin, then the lamb was off to be slaughtered. And the shed blood would be shed on behalf of that sinner. All that is pictured in what the Lord did for us. When we faithfully gather, we declare to the community and the world that God’s only way of forgiveness and the way to be right with Him is through the death of His Son. We further declare that the agreement God made with His people has been sealed and ratified with the blood of Jesus Christ. So Jesus referred to the cup of wine, or the fruit of the vine, in 1 Corinthians 11:25, which says:

    In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

    He reiterates there that there is a new covenant and agreement that God makes with His people. This new covenant makes you fit to approach God, and to come into His presence and to live with Him eternally. In doing so, He alludes to the blood of the old covenant found in Exodus 24 when the Sinai covenant had been agreed to by the people. Moses took the blood of the burnt offering and the peace offerings and threw it on the people. This is what it says in Exodus 24:7-8:

    Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

    In other words, the covenant was ratified by the blood based on their obedience. The problem was that they disobeyed and broke the covenant, which was based on keeping the law. The curses came upon them instead of the blessings. Jesus’ blood actually confirmed the new covenant promise that it is true and binding to all who believe and obey the gospel. That leads to the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God. It is based on faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. This is much different than the Old Testament where everything was taken care of by Christ where it required faith in what was already done.

    Now just to back some of that up, take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews 9 and 10. I want you to see that all the offerings that were done in the Old Testament could have never accomplished what Christ accomplished. The Word of God in Hebrews 9:22 says:

    And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

    Now look at Hebrews 10:9-11 which says:

    then He said, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

    In other words, that is the old covenant. The Lord establishes a second thing, which accomplishes what the first thing could not accomplish. The sacrificial system could not accomplish salvation. It could not take away sin forever and make one right with God forever. In fact if you remember, there were actually no chairs or places to rest in the tabernacle or temple. The priests were never done offering sacrifices on behalf of the people, they had exhausting work that was never complete.

    Now I don’t know about you, but work that is this exhausting is when you don’t ever fully complete something or feel fulfilled by it. These priests went home knowing that this whole process was going to have to be repeated the next day, month, year, and so on. By fifty years old, they were so worn out from all these sacrifices. That’s what sin does, it wears you out because you can never do anything to erase it or eliminate it from your heart and life to the point that you are satisfied and made right with God! Notice the wonderful thing that is recorded in Hebrews 10:12-14 which says:

    But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

    Is our salvation secure? You better believe it is for eternity. Why did Jesus sit down? Because the work was done! The task of redeeming and cleansing a people for God was complete! He sat down whereas the priests could never sit down. You see these believers regularly met together for the breaking of bread in order to declare His death and all that entailed. Every time we hear the Word of God, we just build on that knowledge which establishes our faith and makes us into strong, serious, sober, and continuous Christians. There is nothing that can break our stride. We know what Christ has done and there is confidence in our hearts what He has done. It makes us want to have a resolve no matter if anyone else is doing it.

    There is one last reason to partake of the Lord’s Table which is found in 1 Corinthians 11:26. We not only proclaim the gospel but also declare our Lord’s return. It says in the passage:

    For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

    The Lord’s Table points forward to Christ’s sure return. Just as Jesus’ sacrifice was sure, His return is sure. He is coming! When we get to 2 Peter we will see that there are scoffers questioning when He will come. They say that this Christianity is untrue. So we sit at the Lord’s Table and declare on behalf of Christ in His return! We shout to the world that we believe in a future day that we shall eat and drink with Christ in His eternal Kingdom.

    I say every time that I use this passage of Scripture in Matthew 26:29 which says:

    But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.

    Jesus Christ will come back to this earth. He will come as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He will come riding on the clouds of Heaven and surrounded by innumerable hosts of holy angels and redeemed saints. Why is He coming? Acts 3 tells us that it is for the restitution of all things. Christ will come back and reconstruct the universe. The Greek word used there means to place things back in their former condition. Now why must He do this? Well the fall of man into sin brought chaos upon humanity and the whole universe. The universe was cursed because of Adam’s sin and rebellion as well as ours. When the curse came, it brought disease, thorns, briars, wars, murder, and all kinds of social disorders. It brought earthquakes, hurricanes, and a general wearing down of all creation. That’s what sin has done.

    When God sends His Son again into the world, He will send Him back to put things right. The Messiah will lead the whole universe from bondage to paradise and it will be restored. In Romans 8:21 it says:

    The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

    Even creation is waiting for that day when He will come back. So if you believe in the imminent return of Christ, like all the Apostles did, it will prepare you for His presence. If He comes tomorrow, will you be ready? If you believe that, then you will live differently. Each day will be lived before the eyes of Him of whom you are ultimately responsible. The Lord, in His infinite wisdom, has designed this ordinance to have beneficial effects on the believer who participates in it. The participants who come to the Lord’s Table come with a growing understanding of what they are doing and why they are coming. Some of you have a good understanding of this ordinance. Others may have never heard what the Bible teaches on this subject. And still others may not have grasped the importance of this ordinance.

    But I want to admonish you not to make yourself absent during the breaking of bread in this assembly. I often ask in the membership class if it’s sin to keep yourself from the Lord’s Table. Usually people pause because they don’t know how to answer that question. Of course there are some things to consider in answering the question. But once you consider it, I would have to say that God has set everything up so that you take care of what you have to and then partake. Bottom line is do not make yourself absent from the Lord’s Table. It’s part of worship.

    Let us as a church body to be devoted to faithfully and regularly partake in the breaking of bread so as to put our Lord Jesus Christ’s death and return on display, the unity of the church and the gospel all on display. There is a seriousness and soberness connected to the Lord’s Supper. There is also a joy connected to it.

    It would be strange if a person went into a rose garden merely to look at the thorns. It would be bizarre. It is the rose that brings a delight to the sight and a sweet smell to the nose. In the same way, there is a joy in remembering the Lord and His death in recalling His great love to us and remembering His sacrifice on the cross. There is a joy in realizing our sins are forgiven. There is no condemnation in those who are in Christ Jesus.

    There is a joy in recollecting all that has been accomplished by our Lord on the cross. There is a joy in renewing our pledge of devotion to Him, whom we owe so much. There is a joy in imparting ourselves and our fellowship to our brothers and sisters in Christ and not denying them that. There is a joy knowing that being faithful in this regard pleases our Lord and brings glory to His Name and at the same time protects the unity and peace of the body.

    Just to think of this thing as no big deal, as something to take or leave is wrong. When it’s time to partake of the Lord’s Supper, be present, sober, and joyful. Be mindfully prepared to proclaim the gospel because you have embraced it. Make yourself ready for Christ’s coming because it could be at that moment. It could be tomorrow because no one is guaranteed tomorrow.

    True Christians desire true worship. They are continually devoted to the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and to the breaking of bread. Next time I will look at the next one, which is to the prayers.

    Next week, Greg Ho will be preaching. I’ll be here but Khaleef and I are leaving for a pastors’ conference in Florida and will be returning on Friday. Pray for Greg Ho as he prepares for the message.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You again, for You have been so kind to us. Our faith is so rich. The depth of the knowledge of what You have done is so deep, we can’t reach the bottom. I pray that You would be building this panoramic picture in our minds of the great work of God and that it would only increase our faith and give us a joy in our hearts, as well as a desire to tell others who don’t know it yet. Work in our hearts and let us be faithful to the things that are basic to Christianity and are so foundational to our spiritual growth. I pray that we would learn to please You. We cast our cares upon You this morning, and guard our hearts and minds with Your peace. Let the joy of the Lord be our strength. I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

  • The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Christian Fellowship (Part 2)

    The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Christian Fellowship (Part 2)

    In this sermon, Pastor Babij continues his teaching regarding Christian fellowship, both with the Lord and with fellow believers. Using Scripture, Pastor Babij explains why Christian fellowship is not a luxury but a necessity for growing in grace and for displaying God’s glory to the world. Pastor Babij calls on believers to resist the inherent isolationist urge and work out ways to fellowship with other believers.

    Full Transcript:

    This morning we are back in the book of Acts. We’re looking at the four-fold purpose of the church, still pretty much in the introduction part of it. I want to look at Acts chapter 2, so you can take your Bible and turn there. We’ll be in other passages also. I’ll mention them and it’d be good for you to turn to those passage that I mention.

    I do want to say one thing before I start today. Today is actually my anniversary. Not my marriage anniversary, the anniversary that Jayne and I came to the church 34 years ago. And so the Lord has sustained us that long. Some of you may have not known that and may be surprised by it, but the Lord has kept us here that long.

    I am a New Jersey resident. I’ve always had a heart for New Jersey because it is such a mission field. It’s so amazing that you could talk to someone every single day who’d never heard the gospel ever. Matter of fact, you can talk to groups of people everyday who have never heard the gospel. Those groups of people are multiplying because they’re coming from all kinds of places, all over the world. So we need to reach them, and God’s not done yet. The gospel is still being preached. We are in that age of grace. So let’s not step back. It’s time to continue to serve and be faithful to that. Part of that, as we look at it, we see in the book of Acts, is that of fellowship.

    Let’s pray. Lord, this morning as we again look at the Word of God, I pray Lord that You would impress strongly upon our hearts the very means of grace that you have put in place from the beginning of the church that will last until You come. These means of grace are so vital to the church’s health and growth and to our own personal health and growth. So I pray, Lord, that we would never think lightly of them, but we would always think that these are the priorities that should be in our lives. So Lord, enable us to adjust ourselves today, that these priorities, Your priorities, would become our priorities and that we would live them in our life. Please Lord, bless us this morning as the Word of God, the bread of life, is broken open today. And I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

    So Acts 2:42, it says:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place to the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

    And He is still doing that. So as we read that passage and as I’ve been looking at it for the last several weeks, we have been looking at what it means really to be a Christian and what it means to live the Christian life after initial conversion. There’s a complete change that comes to us because the Spirit of God now indwells us. With this change, we are also removed from what we had been to now what we are in Christ Jesus. We are now joined to the church. We are now actually to be found together with all who are believed the same message about Jesus Christ. So we’re new.

    I read a story of a pastor who was visiting in a home. The members of the family were asked to quote Bible verses. One little girl quoted John 3:16 as follows: for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have internal life. Needless to say, the pastor did not correct her, for it is internal life as well as everlasting life. Because the Holy Spirit does a change inside of us outward. It’s not the other way around. We’re not the ones changing ourselves. The Spirit of God is doing that. We’re cooperating with His work in our life. So the real indication of divine life is a drawing together of people who have this life in common.

    The first thing that these new believers wanted is the apostles’ teaching in verse 42. Of course, that is what all christians want.

    The second thing, and we’re only on the second thing here, is that these new believers desired therefore to devote themselves to fellowship. Last week, I defined Christian fellowship. There are actually three words, the same Greek word but three words that flesh out that Greek word. That definition of fellowship is first a relationship. Fellowship is the body life of the church. It is the sense of people belonging to the true and living God and to one another because they received the gospel about the biblical Jesus. And so fellowship is a relationship. Secondly, fellowship is a partnership, sharing together in partnership. In other words, biblical fellowship includes the idea of active partnership in the promotion of the gospel and of course the building up of believers. We are all to do that in partnership with each other. It’s not just the responsibility of one person but all of us. And so fellowship, secondly, is a partnership. Then thirdly, fellowship is distributionship, the sharing of material possessions with those in need. That is all part of it. In other word, sharing what we have for the sake of the community of believers, so they’re taken care of, so we can all continue to do the work that God has called us to do within that body.

    A second thing is the basis for Christian fellowship. I said the basis was: there’s got to be a detection of new life. You have to be saved. You have to have the Spirit of God living in you. You have to be born again into God’s family and quickened by the Holy Spirit and of course alive to the things of God, which you were not alive to before. There has to be spiritual movement in your life. That is proof of spiritual life, especially movement that is in line with the Word of God. We can have fellowship with those who possess the same life. There has to be an agreement with biblical truth, in this case the apostles’ doctrine. That fellowship is conditioned upon walking in the light. We walk in the light as He is in the light. And as we walk in the light, we maintain our fellowship with God by repenting of our sin. If you’re walking in the light, the light of the gospel and the Word of God is going to shine in your hearts, magnify your sin, where you’re going to now want to run to the cross again, confess it, and repent of it, put that sin to death, and get up, and continue on while you’re living in this world to live for Christ. That also means that we have a whole new worldview. God’s changing us, transforming our minds, that we would live for Him according to the Word of God.

    And then thirdly, I mention that we have privileges in Christian fellowship – the privileges of Christian fellowship. You can’t have this fellowship apart from real conversion. And what is that? Again, I’d like you to take your Bible and turn the 1 John 1:3. There the apostle John does flesh out for us the very things that are so important for you and I when it comes to fellowship. What is the first privilege? That answers the question: with whom do I have fellowship? 1 John 1:3 says:

    what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and His son Jesus Christ.

    So who do we have fellowship with? We have fellowship with the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The fellowship Christ has with His saints is like that which a loving husband and a wife have with each other. In this relationship, there are some things that are common, both to Christ and to the saints. That first thing that I mention is that there is mutual committal to each in the marriage union. You have to be committed to the other person or there’s really no marriage. There’s got to be that commitment. That’s really what starts it out – the man commits himself to the woman; the woman commits herself to the man, that we are going to live as a married couple before God, in the sight of God. The second thing that’s included is a mutual love for each other, rising out of the union they have now with Jesus Christ. The Lord loves us, as I mentioned last time. On Christ’s part, Christ loves His church and desires to enjoy fellowship with His spouse. Christ gives Himself freely to us to be our beloved, to fulfill all His purposes of His love, of His mercy, His grace, and His glory in our life. I mentioned from that some passages of Scripture from Song of Solomon, where it says:

    My beloved is mine and I am his.

    On the saints’ part, all that is required is their free willing agreement to receive, to embrace, to submit to the Lord Jesus as a husband, to abide with Him, to subject their souls to Him, to be ruled by him forever. He is now our Lord. He is our master and we are to follow Him. So this fellowship with Christ is like a delicious banquet that He has brought me, it says in Song of Solomon, to His banquet hall. And His banner over me is love. Also the fellowship is delightful. God loves me. God loves those He saves. He demonstrates that love, not only from the cross, but every single day of our life. It’s just like in Romans 12, we are to give ourselves over as a living sacrifice because of God’s mercy to us. So that’s the motivation. His mercy is that He didn’t condemn us. He actually had compassion on us and removed His condemnation and gave us His mercy. He didn’t give us what we really deserved, and that’s only because of Christ Jesus.

    So Christian fellowship starts with communion with God. God desires to have fellowship with us through His spirit. Christians are called to fellowship with the Father and the Son each and every day. This is not some casual thing. This actually takes place every day. The Psalms give us incredible examples of how David had a relationship and the psalmists had a relationship with God. In Psalm 37:4 it says:

    Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.

    Everyday, I’m delighting in what God has done for me. Then as I do that, He shifts my desires to line up with His desires, and then He can give them to us. Before, our desires were nothing but pushed by our passions and our lusts. Now they’re different. Then a second thing, like in Psalm 63:3, it says:

    Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.

    So enjoying God, because I understand that His lovingkindness is better than life. It’s better than life. And we see that reflected in the Word of God. The apostle Paul even knew that it was better. It was beneficial for him to go be with Christ. But because the church needed him and his gifts, he stayed here and God kept him here for some time. And then of course talking with God. So these are all practice of fellowship with our Lord everyday. We talked with God. Psalm 5:3, it says:

    In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice;

    Does God hear your voice at any time of the day? See, that’s all part of fellowship. Is He hearing you? Are you talking with Him? David says: in the morning I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch. He prayed and anticipated an answer from God. So prayer is actually relational and practical. Is it not true that there are certain problems and situations we face that can only be resolved by God? I know when you have a problem sometimes, somebody will handle you a book and say: read this book. This book is going to help you. The book does help in many ways. Or a passage of Scripture. But you know what? Come to God in prayer with your problems, with your issues, because He’s the only One who can resolve them. And sometimes we don’t do that. See, prayer is the first line of defense, not the last. It is where we gain and maintain our power for the Christian life. Don’t we need guidance and wisdom and strength for our marriages? Don’t we need wisdom and strength in our parenting, in our work situation, in our service for the Lord, and in many many other things. So see, you really never run out of things to come before the Lord with. But yes, He hears your voice. You got to be talking with Him. And then of course, that includes the next thing: meditating on His word. Like Psalm 25:5 says:

    Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day.

    Scripture memorization becomes a very beneficial practice. You ought to purposely turn your mind to the Word of God. Because if you don’t turn your mind to the Word of God, something else will turn it somewhere else. That’s what happens in our life. If we all practiced this, we will more often keep our minds on the Lord and fellowship with Him. And that includes also sharing with God. We already know that God does not need anything. Yet, He gives us the privilege to give back to Him. I’d like you to turn to this passage: Revelation 4:9. The living creatures around the throne of God give us a good idea of what is included in giving back to God. Notice what it says:

    And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever,

    so there it is. What are we to give back to God? We’re to give God honor and glory. We’re to give Him thanks. And where does that come from? That comes out of our mouths. That comes out of our voice. Why? Because we’re looking around us. We’re evaluating our life, and we’re saying: wow, look at the things the Lord has given me. Look at the goodness that He’s shown me in my life. Even in the midst of all the trouble, even when the trouble comes, you think God for it. You realize that the trouble has put you in a place where it’s going to sanctify you. It’s going to make you more like Christ. It’s going to make you more dependent upon Him. When things are going well all the time, usually we drift away from the Lord. So the Lord often times allows circumstances and situations to come into our life so it can bring us to the place where we again are giving glory to God. We again are honoring Him, giving him thanks. So worship Him for who He is. Thank Him for all He has done. Give God our love through our obedience. Humbly confess your sin to Him in order to maintain an ongoing fellowship with Him. A great metaphor that works best to describe fellowship with God is simply this: walking with God in a pleasing manner.

    So I want you to take your Bibles and turn to the first book of the Bible, Genesis 5:21-24. As you’re turning there, I want to mention a man, a biblical character. His name was Enoch. Enoch, the Bible says this in Hebrews. This is the hall of fame, or the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, where it says:

    By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

    But look back at Genesis 5:21. Faith is actually described as walking with God. It says:

    Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.

    Genesis 5:24:

    Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

    So the metaphor “walk” suggests action. That biblical faith is not a dormant thing. To walk with God, as suggested by others, means that there must be mutual agreement between those who walk together. Like the prophet Amos said: do two walk together unless they agreed to meet? So there must be an agreement of destination. You have to be heading to the same place. There must be agreement of the same path. You have to be on the same road, going to the same place. And then of course there must be an agreement of being in step with one another. Enoch being translated to heaven, he didn’t skip a step with God. But you know, it doesn’t say much about Enoch except that. In other words, he was kind of a regular kind of guy. Now you think: well, he was different and I could never be like Enoch. But I want you to look back at verse 22. It says this in chapter 5 Genesis:

    Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

    Now at that time on the earth, that was a short life. People were living way older than that. So obviously, whatever he was doing, he was fellowshipping with God and pleasing God. 365 years or 300 years of righteous living, even in the mist of evil times. He lived before the great worldwide flood. If you remember what is recorded about the wickedness upon the earth during that time, it says in Genesis 6:11-13:

    Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.

    You know what that means for us? It means that even in the wickedest times, in the wickedest places, around the wickedest people, it is possible to live in a pleasing manner before God, to walk in a pleasing manner before God. But that cannot happen unless you’re fellowshipping with God, unless you are having that ongoing relationship with God everyday. In other word, living in a pleasing manner before God, walking with God is a necessary thing that we ought to be doing as we intimately trust God for all He has done.

    So this vertical aspect of fellowshipping provides the foundation for the horizontal aspect of fellowshipping among believers. That means a community of believers relating to one another presumes a relationship with God. In fact, it is dependent upon it. My fellowship with God leads into my relationship and fellowship with you, and you with me. So once a person trust Christ, they are brought into a community of believers, with whom they have at least one thing in common. And that is they have a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That maybe the only thing they have in common initially, but that is the most important thing to have in common with them.

    These words really indicate how the Holy Spirit is creating amongst a group of people God’s taken from the world. He’s creating unity out of diversity. He’s creating unity in the community. And the opposite of unity is division. Wars and lack of harmony among mankind has been the norm. It is always the norm because of the sinfulness of humanity. That is the standard of human behavior. And when people see true unity, when they see true oneness amongst God’s people, their hearts cry out to want to be part of that kind of love. That true fellowship is where people genuinely and deeply love the Lord Jesus and care for one another. That kind of environment, it produces unity. It breaks the spirit of competition. It silences gossip. It builds morale. It promotes a sense of belonging. It says I belong to God, and we belong to one another. So whatever happens, God gets the glory and the credit for it. And then of course, from the world looking in on it, it produces a picture of unity.

    This all means that the Lord commands His blessing where unity and brotherly fellowship and love exist and spread. And where unity is growing, God is near for blessing. Though many different personalities are part of the church in any given local church, they can be drawn together as one heart and one soul. Where there is real fellowship, there is unity, then there will also be a dynamic witness for Christ. Fellowship groups, home groups is a great place where people can develop committed and trusting relationships with each other in the Lord while sharing their lives and ministering to one another’s needs. So it’s a good time of year for you, if you have not been involved with, you have not been faithful to yet, or you have not been connected to a home group fellowship group, this time of the year is the time to get connected. Then once you get connected, then you stay faithful to that small group until you get to know people. You get to talk with them. You find out what their joys are, what their pain is, and then you learn to pray together with them. So it’s vitally important that we go from worshipping and fellowshipping with God to fellowshipping with one another. That’s the second privilege of fellowship. If you look back to 1 John 1:3, we get the same thing there. It says:

    what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His son Jesus Christ.

    And 1 John 1:7 it says:

    but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,

    So what is that saying to us? It’s saying that we are family now. We are part of God’s family. We are born again into God’s family, and that family is the church, the genuine church. That’s when we meet together. Meeting together is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. It is an imperative virtue for all believers to be gathering together and worshipping God together. Spiritual fellowship is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. It’s vital to our spiritual growth and health.

    Just as these first Christians in Acts had obstacles to overcome, we also have obstacles when considering Christian fellowship. So what are some of the obstacles that we have? I want to mention this because it’s so true. Because when it comes to meeting together, sometimes we have all kinds of excuses why we can’t meet, why we can’t do something for the Lord. Well, being an American in the American culture, we have obstacles to Christian fellowship. It is difficult sometimes to work out these obstacles from our life. There are at least three identifiable obstacles to Christian fellowship, obstacles that really need to be jettisoned from our life.

    Here’s the first one: Americans tend to be self-sufficient and materialistic. Right? Would you agree with that? That we are taught to be go-getters, hard workers, to be self-reliant. We’re taught to be that. The American dream is stamped upon our conscience. We really end up giving most of our time to pursuing things, for physical blessing instead of giving our time to pursuing spiritual blessings, like developing a character that pursues godliness and Christ honoring relationship. See, the problem that we often run into is that the philosophical doctrine of materialism becomes aberrant when comfort and pleasure and wealth are the only or the highest goals and values to our life. Materialism really muddies the waters of any recognition of a spiritual world, leaving people with a focus on only what is seen, and minimizing actually the goals of life to experiencing physical pleasure and possessing material goods.

    In the little book about Christian management of money and possessions -“The Treasure Principle” by Randy Alcorn, he writes this: seeking fulfillment in money, land, houses, cars, clothes, recreational vehicles, hot tubs, large screen televisions, luxury vacations and cruises have left us bound and gagged by materialism. People fall into the subtle trap of the enemy. When they clamor for worldly possessions, the voice of God diminishes to an unintelligible mutter. And they hear louder voices to pursue this and to pursue that and to go after this job or to get this bigger raise.

    Christians need to learn that living by faith includes understanding that Christians are only aliens and sojourners in this present world. Becoming too attached to the world, especially to its perishing treasures, is neither wise nor spiritually profitable to overcome and make a difference in this world. Christians need a constant reminder. Their lives on earth are short and have eternal significance. Christians must soak themselves in the truth of God’s Word. They must very deliberately lay up treasures in heaven through the use of spiritual gifts, of their possessions and money, of their talents for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of having fellowship with one another. See, the Lord gives us material possessions and skills in order to serve His purposes, not for the indulgence of our fleshly desires. So Americans definitely have that obstacle.

    A second obstacle that really plays into it is Americans tend to be abnormally individualistic. We tailor our lives based on what we individually like to do, what coffee we like to drink, what stores we like to shop, what bank we prefer to do our banking, everything. Everything is tailored to our needs actually in America. If anyone interrupts that routine, it is often looked at as inconvenient or an annoying disruption. Why are you messing up my routine? Don’t mess up my routine. But many times God wants to mess up your routine, and He does it using people. People enter into your life for a good reason, because God wants us to break free from that so we can actually minister to people. We can actually talk to people. We can actually listen to them. So we can sit down and pray with them about what’s going on in their life. Sometimes that’s really what people need. They need that kind of time. So individualism loses equilibrium when individual interest becomes the goal of all human actions. Society’s emphasis on individualism moves people toward no higher purpose than meeting one’s own needs, wants, desires, rights, and privileges. Like materialism, individualism enslaves people to their own selfishness. Christians need to know that life is not about me. It’s about us, the church body. And that is a very difficult concept to overcome, an obstacle to overcome in America because we are so individualistic.

    A lone soldier, no matter how skilled, can quickly be overcome by an enemy once he is outnumbered or encounters an enemy combatant that is stronger and more skilled than himself. There is strength and wisdom in numbers. The church together is an army of spiritual soldiers watching out for each other and covering each other’s backs in this world. There are no loners in Christ’s church. We must all learn to practice fighting together to win the battle. There are no spectators in Christ’s church. No one is in the bleachers. Every Christian is in the game, every single one of us. If that has not been the case in your life, it needs to start because that’s what fellowship is. If I have fellowship with God, I must have fellowship with you.

    The inadvertent outcome of these obstacles is that we typically do not do well when we are asked to sacrifice something, when we are asked to serve somewhere. You mean I have to come early to church to do that? You mean I have to go home and study to do this? You mean I have to give time out of my week when I could be working out and exercising, or doing something I want to do to do that? I don’t know about that. See, we have to give that up, because it leads into the third obstacle Americans have.

    You know what the third obstacle is? Privacy. You and I like our space. That’s not always a bad thing. However the fallout of our desire for privacy can be detrimental to communal life, to the community life of the church. And why is that? Because it leans too much towards isolationism. Modern day media like cell phones and iPads and computers and interactive video games further isolate people, producing a coldness and a selfishness among people. As we all become more preoccupied with our comfort, our pleasure, and privacy, the possibility of developing any meaningful interaction with others becomes non-existent. And that can’t be the case. That cannot be the case among God’s people. Quality Christian relationships are sacrificed often on the altar of our peace and quiet.

    And parents, you have to be wise on how much screen time your children get each day, so that you are regulating your child sinful bent toward self-centeredness and ultimately isolationism. Christian parents are really supposed to be developing the next generation of church fellowshippers. To do this, you’re going to have to be very wise and very creative in order to regulate your child’s appetite for media, which further pulls them away from relationships, away from eyeball to eyeball nose to nose conversations. They have like this other thing connected to them like a body part. And it’s not good. It is not good. We have to recognize that now, recognize it when they’re young. You may have to replace it with something else, but hopefully it’s replaced with them meeting people and talking to people and having conversation with people. Getting them around the table instead of them wandering off to another room to play a video game or something else. Keep them around the table so they get to hear the conversations going on. I remember that some of the greatest times that we’ve had in the past with my family growing up is when the missionaries came and they were around our table. They were listening to their stories and they were listening to the conversation and they were engaged in it. Those are precious times that only happen here and there. And if they don’t ever have those stories, it’s not going to be good. It’s not going to be good for the next generation of Christians. Let us all beware that these cultural influences tend to reduce our commitment to one another and church family. The Holy Spirit’s intention when He saves people and brings them into the church is to teach christians, by the apostles’ doctrine, that the called out church is to be different than the cold, materialistic, self-centered withdrawn society which they were rescued from.

    Now, that really does play against our flesh and our routine that we’ve had growing up or until we became a believer. God has to shatter that. He has to destroy that. He has to wipe out and drive out individualism, our desire for privacy, our desire for materialism, so we can actually get together. And find time to get together. There are a multitude of ways and places that we can get together to talk about things. So Christians were designed to be in constant fellowship with other believers so they can be strengthened by quality Christian relationships within the local church. Christian author Jerry Bridges communicated that if we are to experience true Christian fellowship, he said, people must truly like one another and enjoy one another if they are to establish and maintain solid relationships. People say: well, I’m a Christian. The Bible says I have to love you, but I don’t have to like you. Wrong. I have to like you too. Doesn’t mean everybody gets together on the same level. What it does mean is that I am dealing with my fleshly desires not to do something so I can honor God in fellowship. And for what reason? I have a benefit in that, so I can grow. I cannot grow without you. You cannot grow without me. That’s the point. So if you isolate yourself, don’t wonder if you’re not growing in the Lord. Matter of fact, you can put your finger right on that. Why aren’t you growing? Because you’re not fellowshipping with people. You’re doing things alone and enjoying your own self in your own little world in your own environment. And you’re sacrificing those things for fellowship. That’s where we really get the blessing, right? That’s where we get the strength. That’s where we get what we need to live the Christian life.

    In fact, a fifth thing of the purpose of Christian fellowship is that’s where we get the carry out the one anothers of Scripture. Forty-some times the Bible uses that. I can’t remember. It’s all over the place. The one anothers in Scripture. I want you to turn to Roman chapter 12, and I want you to see this. And that’s where I’ll end this morning. There are things that you and I are responsible before to take care of. Romans chapter 12. And if you look, the purpose of Christian fellowship is to encourage one another in the hard places of life. There are many people who have maybe smiling faces, but are covering aching hearts and burdened souls. So true fellowship really can make their load lighter.

    The purpose is also sharing experiences for the mutual benefit of all. All our things that we’ve been learning with the Lord, so we can prevent someone else from making a similar error or encourage them down the right path of making good decisions. It’s also a time where we can manifest our joy, that all may rejoice with us when we are sharing with God’s doing in our lives. Look at Romans 12:5. Here’s the first thing: we are to care for one another.

    So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

    We are to care for one another. In the body of Christ, there are many members but there’s only one body. We’re part of that one body, and that’s the body of Christ. Then Romans 12:10 it says this: we are to be devoted to one another.

    Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

    So again, we carry out this one another by being devoted to one another. That means we are fellowshipping with one another. We are spending time with one another. Then in Romans 12:10, the second part of the verse: we are honoring one another. It says:

    give preference to one another in honor.

    Not in condemnation or criticism or competition, but in honor. Honoring people, lifting them up, and putting them in a place where maybe nobody else puts them, because they are a child of the King in the body of Christ. We are to honor them. And then Romans 12:12, we are to be enduring and pray for one another. It says:

    rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,

    Rejoicing with people, persevering with them in their troubles and tribulations, as we are both are devoted to prayer. So we’re enduring with them. We’re going through it with them and we’re praying with them along the way. And then in Romans 12:13: contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality, just sharing with one another. When was the last time that you invited someone to your home to eat? Someone in the congregation, someone in the church. You invited them into your home for the sole purpose of having a meal, of sitting down, of talking. That’s it. No agenda. No handing out any sheets of paper for them to do any tests or exams. You’re just getting to know them. Let me find out you are. The best way to find out who people are is to invite them into your world. That’s the best way. Tell you what, people do like talking about themselves. And if you ask them, they will talk. Many times they may not talk in a public group. But they will talk in your home because they feel more secure there. They feel safety there. That’s where you going to get to know and that’s where you going to get to like people. You’re going to like people around your own table or you around their table. That’s what we ought to be doing. We ought to be doing that. Every one of us this next year should have invited someone else to your home to just fellowship. You say: well, I can’t invite them to my home because my home’s this way or that way and I’ll have to have a whole reconstruction project to invite somebody to come over. Well, you know what, you know how many times I’ve cleaned up something because somebody was coming? I painted a room because somebody was going to stay over. It’s not a bad thing. It’ll motivate you to do things that is on your honey-do list. Right husbands? I don’t like painting, but I do it sometimes. A lot of times that’s the motivator. Clean something up, straighten things out, so you can invite people. That’s the whole reason. That’s the purpose. And you know what? you’re going to find out you’re going to enjoy it. They’re going to leave your house and you’re going to say: well I’m glad we did that. Let’s do it again. So it becomes infectious that we do that. Don’t close yourself off to people – please do not do that. And that is the thing we fight against every single day as an American.

    It says in Romans 12:15 we are to weep with those who weep. How can we weep with those who weep if we don’t know their sorrows? We are to enlighten the weaker brother. What about somebody who’s been wandering around? You don’t know where they are at spiritually. Invite them to your home and find out what’s going on in their life so you can pray for them and encourage them to get back in step with the Lord. Exhort the backslider – somebody who’s falling into sin. Of course you have to wonder whether they’re really a believer or not, but if they’ve fallen into sin and they backslid, go get them. Go invite them. If you don’t take them to your house, then take them to Starbucks. Take them somewhere. Take them to the park, buy some lunch, or just buy a drink and just talk with them to rescue them.

    And then you know what? If we do that, we will strengthen one another. That is the purpose of God’s church. All these different people, all the diversity, all the different backgrounds we have, the Spirit of God brings that all together so the body can be strong and we can keep the unity and the bond of peace. Then the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ will go out because it will strengthen us to be people who talk about God. Talk about the Lord. Talk about what He’s doing. And we’ll be praying more about things because we’re getting to know people and their burdens come into our prayers. We say: Lord help this brother, help this sister during this time that they’re struggling, and that becomes part of our prayers. When we do that, We kind of put self to death and the body becomes more important than us, just me. It becomes us. That’s what has to happen in the church – it has to become us. Can’t be just me. It’s not about me.

    So real Christians desire true fellowship. Acts 2:42:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship.

    So rethink this morning what you are doing and evaluate yourself in light of this truth. Real christians want fellowship with the Father and with the Son and the Spirit and each other in order to grow healthy. Be a healthy servant of the Lord Jesus Christ while you walk on this earth. You will be blessed. Many times your blessings are going to come from God through other people to you. Amen? That’s what’s going to happen.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You again this morning for Your great tremendous love to us. Lord, You desire to have fellowship with us and look at how messed up we were. And yet Lord, You look past that. And that love covers a multitude of sins, the Bible says. So I pray Lord that we would, this coming year, this new season of fall that starting, we would really look at our own lives, our family. I pray You would allow us to adjust things so we are getting involved with other people’s lives because of Christ. And I pray Lord, You would help us to minister to others like we’ve never have before. Lord, cause those relationships to become strong, that the love would increase amongst us, that You’d allow us to keep that unity so we can speak forth the gospel of Christ to those who haven’t heard it yet. And I pray you would bless us like that and not let us alone until we do something. In Christ’s name. Amen.

  • The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Christian Fellowship (Part 1)

    The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: Christian Fellowship (Part 1)

    In this sermon, Pastor Babij continues teaching on the purpose of the Church by discussing the importance of genuine Christian fellowship. Pastor Babij explains that, in participating in true fellowship with one another, Christians ought to be devoting themselves to shared relationships, partnering with other Christians to glorify God, and agreeing on the revealed truth of God’s Word. Such real Christian fellowship also ought to work itself out practically as Christians wake up thinking about Jesus and seek out others to talk to about Jesus.

    Full Transcript:

    This morning we are looking at what I’m calling the four-fold purpose of the church, which I have not gotten to yet. I’m looking at an introduction to that. And so this morning I’d like you to take your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 2. Also we’ll be looking at other passages in 1 John and other places like Song of Solomon. That is in the Bible. You probably maybe have read through it, but it’s not a book that’s used or heard of much. I will be heading there, so you may want to start looking for that now.

    This morning we are looking at Acts 2:42. It says:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

    Let’s pray. Father, this morning as we look at the Word of God, I pray that You would impress upon our heart the same things you impressed upon the hearts of the people who first were part of the beginning of the birth of the church. Lord, nothing’s changed really since then. Only that You’re just continuing to add to Your church. And so, Lord, if people are here today and know Christ as their Lord and Savior, they’re part of that addition. So Lord, what’s being said here is just as important for us today as it was for them back then. And so I pray we would continue on and grow in our knowledge and wisdom of the things that we ought to know concerning being a Christian and the church. And I pray this in Your name. Amen.

    Now we have been looking at what it means to be a Christian, what it means to live the Christian life after initial conversion. We have seen that to be a Christian means that a person becomes new and they undergo a complete change. That change is taking place in their thinking, in their mind. Your mind is is being transformed. Your actions are changing. Your words are changing. The direction of your life is changing. Your will is being actually overcome by the truth of Scripture. Now with this change, these first believers were also removed from what they had been and where they had been and are now joined to the church. They are now constantly found together with all who have believed the same message about Jesus Christ. Simply put, these first Christians had become a gathering together type of people, as all true Christians have done since. A real indication of new divine life is a drawing together of people who have that life in common.

    The first thing these new believers wanted, in verse 42, is the apostles’ teaching. They wanted the fuller revelation that was coming out of the Old Testament, now given to the apostles. The apostles were now explaining some of what the prophecies were in the Old Testament and how it all pointed to the Messiah coming, to Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, into the world, to die in the cross, and to then give the Holy Spirit of God once He went back to heaven. The promise of the Father came, which is the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit filled those who are believing. The apostles’ teaching is what all true Christians want.

    There’s a second thing found in our passage that these new believers desired, and therefore devoted themselves to it. And what is it? In verse 42, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship. The article before the word is really “the” fellowship, the gathering together of believers. They wanted that. So the church was founded upon the revelation of God alone. The visible church on earth is a society of believing and holy persons whom God, by the gospel, has called from among mankind out of darkness into light to fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ.

    Then the church, as a society, is set apart as an institution that is altogether different than any other earthly institution. There is nothing like the true church. It is unique and it has several distinguishing characteristics. First of all, the Bible says it’s holy, a group of people meeting together that has been set apart to God. Secondly, it’s spiritual. It was formed by the Holy Spirit through and for services of a spiritual nature, of people from all different tribes and nations made spiritual, blessed with spiritual blessings, living on spiritual provisions, and built up as a spiritual house of God. It was also independent. It’s independent from all human wisdom and authority. It is solely God’s plan, not man’s. It is also orderly. God does not call people into a gathering for confusion. He calls it for order, like it says in Corinthians:

    But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.

    So the church is to be wholly regulated by the measuring reed and the line of the Word of God. That’s where we get our pointers from on how to do it. Also, the church is visible. All kinds of people are being received into the visible church fellowship when they profess their faith in Christ, give obedience to Him, and obviously after that, they are walking a holy life. Not a perfect life, but a holy life. That’s the direction of their life. So entering into church fellowship is called, in other passages, a joining to the Lord and a being added to the church. Like it says in verse 47 at the end:

    And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

    Notice the Lord was adding that number, and the Lord is still adding that number. He’s adding that number today. So here’s a very important unique part of Christ’s church. It is this: the variety, the diversity, the multi-ethnicity of groups of people the Lord calls to Himself. The message of the gospel is a message for all kinds of people from all walks of life from all regions of the planet. So the Holy Spirit in every age revealed God’s truth to men, but at Pentecost, the day that the church was born, something special was happening. The holy spirit was allowing all kinds of people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s plan of salvation in their own language. Many kinds of people were getting saved and called into the fellowship of believers, and that group of people was called the church.

    Now if you take your Bibles and turn back to Acts chapter 2, you’ll find all those groups of people. To me, this is the miracle of the church. Notice what it says in Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 8. Notice the eclectic groups of people that the Holy Spirit through the preaching of gospel was making clear to those listening. Verse 8 of chapter 2 it says:

    And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?

    And then Luke begins to list the groups of people. Parthian – they lived in what we know as modern Iran. They, of course, were never conquered by the Romans, so they remain remain bitter enemies to most people. Even today they seem to be that way. The Medes are the next one, partners in the empire of the Persians. You’ve heard of the Medes and the Persians from Daniel’s time. They were there in Jerusalem. They were hearing the gospel in their own language. The Elamites lived in southwestern Iran, part of the Parthian empire, the residence of Mesopotamia. They live between what was called the two great rivers. Of course Mesopotamia itself means “between the rivers”. So these people in great numbers were Israelites that were dragged in there during the Syrian and the Babylonian captivities. And so these people were now in Jerusalem and they were hearing the message in their own language. Remember, people being pulled out during this time, they weren’t speaking Hebrew anymore. They were speaking Assyrian. They were speaking Babylonian. And they were hearing the gospel and yet they were Jews. All kinds of things were happening.

    Then the next one is Judea, Hebrew speaking Jews from Judea were also listening and hearing. And then Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia – all these regions of Asia minor had different groups of people living there and now also different Jewish populations were living there. And then districts of Libya and Cyrene – that was west of Egypt, the African continent of the Mediterranean Sea. Those people were there speaking African and of course whatever other dialects came out of that place. And then Jews in Rome were there as well as gentile proselytes. These were probably Greek speaking Jews. And then notice Cretans were there. They were from the island of Crete off the coast of Greece. Now remember what Titus said about the Cretans, right? They were liars and evil beasts and lazy gluttons. And they were there. And then of course the tenth group that was there was Arabs. Arabs were there, the Nabataean Arabs. Now some believe that the Nabateans were the ones who actually carved out Petra in the south, or at least the part of Jordan that is the interesting part to visit.

    But just imagine all these groups of people were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, heard the word of God the gospel, and many of them believed. And these are the ones who were being added to the church. Could you imagine the obstacles that had to be overcome in order for them to meet together in the same place? You got religious obstacles. You got cultural obstacles. You have ethnic obstacles. You have dietary differences. You have customs that were completely foreign to the other groups of people. Then on top of all that, some of these groups of people had very bad history. And some of them were outright enemies. And the Spirit of God brought these people together, saved them, and they were eating meals together. They were worshipping God together with gladness. They weren’t arguing and fighting with each other. They were praising God together. That is the miracle the church. That’s why even today God brings together all kinds of cultures and all kinds of people with all kinds of Jews and Gentiles and bound and free and rich and poor and pagan and barbarian and people with red skin and yellow skin and black skin and brown skin and white. When He brings them together in one group and He begins to, by the doctrine of the apostles and the Word of God, drive out all the prejudices and all the baggage we bring into our Christian life and then brings them together to worship God because of Christ, that is a miracle. The world can’t do that. God can do that. When you have a church with a melting pot of multi-cultures, that brings glory to God. That’s what we ought to be doing. Some of these people of course had bad history with each other. Yet the miracle 3,000 people were saved by the Holy Spirit and came together, forming the church.

    And what were they doing? well, if you look back to chapter 2 verse 42, there’s just some things I want the highlights specifically this morning – that of fellowship. It says:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe;

    And then verse 44:

    And all those who had believed were together and had things in common; and they began selling their property…

    And verse 46:

    Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

    That is a miracle. That is a miracle. That’s why you can go anywhere in the world, doesn’t matter where it is, and if people believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, are truly converted, have the Holy Spirit of God, it feels like you know them. All those barriers just kind of like wash away and you just have fellowship with them. That cannot happen, you understand? That cannot happen. That’s why we have wars, because of the things I mentioned and all little other things that are so insignificant, people have wars about. Someday, there will be no wars.

    So these people became study buddies together. The apostles doctrine, they studied a specific thing. Then they shared spiritually and emotionally together, and that’s called fellowship. So real Christians desire true fellowship. Acts is actually giving the true picture of what God intended for His church. That is for people, once they become believers, to meet together, to hear the teaching from the Word of God, to enter into spiritual fellowship.

    So this term fellowship has been described in ways that actually misrepresent the true meaning of it. Sometimes fellowship has pretty much been stripped of its biblical understanding. If you asked people: what is Christian fellowship, what would they tell you? Well, it’s a time of food and fun. It’s a time we’re meeting together for coffee and tea and some pastry item. Right? It’s chatting with each other about the past week. Or meeting in each other’s homes to play board games or playing games and sports together, and so on and so forth. You get these kind of answers. Now, these activities are not wrong and sometimes they’re included in fellowship, but they do not add up to what the Bible means by fellowship.

    True biblical fellowship encompasses something vital. When we we become Christians, we become one. We enter into a new community that is united by certain bonds and that community now becomes permanent. See, they were devoted to fellowship. So Christian fellowship is much deeper and sweeter than secular fellowship. Bible fellowship means spiritual communion, a joint partnership, a joint sharing with others. So today I really want to consider six biblical observation surrounding the term Christian fellowship, which I’ll probably only get to three and then pick up the other three next week.

    And the first observation is that by way of what is the definition of Christian fellowship? Koinonia is the Greek word. You’ve heard that word. I’m sure that’s a popular word. It includes actually three things. Every other place it’s not always translated as fellowship. Sometimes it’s translated with another word, but it’s the same Greek word. The first thing that we see in this definition is that it includes a relationship, a sharing together in a relationship. In Acts chapter 2, the first Christians were not devoting themselves to social activities. They were devoting themselves to a relationship, a common life shared with other believers, a sharing of the very life of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

    Now take your Bibles and turn the 1 John 1:3 from a minute. Of course, there’s two things in that verse that become important to us when we consider this, but it really does focus in on what is the main definition of Christian fellowship, especially in relationship to the relational part of fellowship. So the common life share with other believers is a sharing of the life of God through the indwelling Holy Spirit. 1 John 1:3 says this:

    what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

    If you noticed in that passage of Scripture, we’re talking about having fellowship with each other in a relational way and with the Father and the Son, a relationship with Them. Now that also means it pushes out any idea we have of religion. We’re not brought into a religious system when we become Christians. We’re brought into a relationship with God. That’s completely different. So it’s not about the building. The building is not the church. You’re the church. So wherever you go, you’re the church. Wherever you and I go, you are the church. So fellowship starts when we have a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And something unites us in a common faith based on the proclamation concerning the historical Jesus and His divine and human nature as Lord of salvation and in His Messianic identification. So that means that fellowship is the body life of the church. It is a sense of people belonging to the true and living God and to one another because we have received the gospel message about the biblical Jesus.

    Just consider for a moment that christians are all born of the same Father. They’re all bought by the same price – the blood of Christ. They are all members of the same body. They’re all taught by the same Spirit and He uses the same book – the Word of God, the Bible. Christians are all walking on the same path. What path is that? The path of faith. Until we have sight, Christians are all serving the same Master. They’re all heirs of the same inheritance. And they are all heading in the same direction. We’re heading home. While we’re heading home, we’re looking for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means that for us to fellowship with God is the essence of what it means by this word the Scripture uses.

    There’s a second thing that’s included with the definition of this word, and it’s the word partnership – sharing together in a partnership. Actually the word is used in Philemon 1:17, where it says:

    If then you regard me as a partner,

    there’s that word “koinonia” that Paul uses. Accept him as you would me. So Christians are in a partnership with each other to obtain an objective. We all have an objective. And what is that objective? The objective is to glorify God. Therefore, biblical fellowship includes the idea of an active partnership in the promotion of the gospel and of the building up of believers. So when we say: let’s have some fellowship together, it has to include focus on the Lord Himself, His word, and His works. It’s just like what it says in Philippians, where Paul said to the church of the Philippians:

    Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, and with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

    That becomes the motivation and the goal and the objective that we have as Christians when we become believers. That’s what the church does. It is first a sharing with our fellow believers the things that God has made known to us about Himself, in hope that we made thus help them to know Him better and enrich their fellowship with Him. So first of all fellowship is a relationship. Secondly, it’s a partnership. When you get a partnership with somebody else, there’s a closer bond than just friendship. There’s other ties that bring you in to that relationship and that’s the same with believers.

    Then a third thing that’s included in that is: you are part of a distribution ship. That means you are sharing material possessions with those in need. And I read that in already in Acts chapter 2 where it says:

    All those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property…

    Now, why were they selling their property and possessions? Because a lot of the Jews that became christians had no synagogue to go back to, and they probably had no job that day because they lost their job. Many times their family would throw them out of the family structure of the home because they’ve came to Christ, so they had nothing. So others who were wealthier in the body would get together and they would say: we need to help these people and we need to share what we have with them and get them on their feet because God is going to provide for His people through His people. That’s what He does. This is not the only place this word is actually used. “Koinonia” is the word sharing here. So Romans 12:13 says:

    contributing to the needs of the saints…

    The word “contributing” is the word “koinonia”. And then 2 Corinthians 9:13:

    Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all,

    “Contribution” – the word “koinonia” is used there. And then Hebrews says:

    And do not neglect doing good and sharing,

    There’s the word “koinonia”.

    So we have this sense that fellowship is a relationship. It includes a partnership with that person and then it includes a community of distributors, a sharing community. A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical fellowship. The fellowship of sharing our possessions with the body is a tangible recognition that we are in a community relationship with one another and have partnership with each other for the goal to glorify God. When one member of the community is needy, we desire to meet that need. The spirit of God is doing that in all our hearts. In other words, we’re not so stingy anymore. We are freed up. Our view of money and wealth changes when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our tent pegs are loosened a little bit on this earth and we’re not so ready to hold on to our possessions as something that somebody has to pry their fingers off them to get ahold of them.

    In fact, it was an interesting thing. This past week, I was visiting my mom. My mom’s going to be 89 in a month. She’s been bugging me and my wife to clean out her garage. Now this is a massive project. I looked at it and I wanted to leave. Anyways, she says: I can’t believe one day I thought all these things were so important, but now I just want to give them away and throw them out. See, she’s at the end of her life. She realized she doesn’t need any of this stuff anymore. We need to get that now, not at the end of our life. It’s not about possessions. Possessions can be taken away from you like that. We can lose all our money and all our 401k and 403b and all our stuff in an instant in this world we live in. What are we going to do if that happens? You know what the church’s going to do? Nothing. Well, in the sense that we’re going to pray a lot more, I bet. And we are going to meet each other’s needs. If they take everything away, we’ll meet under the oak tree. We’ll meet in the basement. We’ll meet somewhere. See, it doesn’t affect the church in the sense of it may change what we do. It may put a burden on us we never had before, but it’s not going to change. Hell will fight against the church, but it will not eradicate the church.

    So that brings me to another observation. It’s this: what’s the basis for Christian fellowship? Well, the basis, number one, has to be a detection of new life. John 1:12 says:

    But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,

    All through church history, you have little groups of people meeting together, believing the same truth, knowing the same Lord, having their lives changed in the same fashion, holding to and growing in the same teaching, and praying together because they met Jesus Christ. Big group, small group – that doesn’t matter. That’s still the church. So you and I before conversion, we were dead. We had no spiritual hunger. We had no desire for the bread of life or a river of the water of life. We had no craving for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We had no thirst for righteousness. Everything in regard to God’s grace and all spiritual things were dead. We were spiritually unresponsive until the Spirit of God brought the Word of God to us, quickened us, and made us alive, gave us the gift of faith and repentance. And what happened? We were born again into God’s family. We were quickened by the Spirit, made alive to the things of God, and to a relationship with God that we never had before. So there was spiritual movement, which was proof of spiritual life. Is there still spiritual movement in your life? That the Spirit of God is stirring your soul? That you’re still alive spiritually? You still desire what God would want you to desire?

    If you’re right there still in 1 John, if you look at 3:14, the proof of spiritual life is this: we know something.I love that word in 1 John. Here’s a bunch of christians and now the things they didn’t know, now they know. What do they know? Look at verse 14 of chapter 3. It says:

    We know that we have passed out of death into life,

    Did you know that? I hope you are here today and you know that. And then what’s the proof?

    Because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.

    So the basis of Christian fellowship – there’s got to be new life. You just don’t walk into a church, and you don’t just get up one day and you’re a believer. The Spirit of God has to work on you. The Father has to draw you. You have to be convicted of your sin.

    On my vacation, I was recently at a baptism service. People were coming and giving very short testimonies. Nobody out of the three or four people that were being baptized ever said that they were saved from their sin and trusted in Christ. Matter of fact, Christ and sin were never mentioned. Then I would say: why are you get baptized? So you can follow God? That’s very generic when you say: I want to follow God. No, you want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Jesus Christ, who gives you His spirit and brings you into the family of God miraculously and makes you new. That’s why you get baptized. You don’t get baptized because you want to join a church or you want to do what’s right. Turn over a new leaf. That’s not what the Bible says. There’s an understanding that you are no longer under God’s condemnation. You have an understanding that you have entered into a new state of being as a Christian. You’ve gone from a place of merely talking about God to knowing Him. You’ve gone from a place of merely speaking about Christ to living for Christ. You have an understanding of this life-guarantee of eternal life. You understand and you have experienced that yourself is depreciating. The more you grow in Christ-likeness, our person itself is passing away. There begins the process of great reduction of self when you become a believer. Or we could never have partnership with each other. We could never have a relationship with each other. We can never share with each other if that’s not the case. So we can have fellowship with those who possess the same life.

    Of course, a second thing under the basis of Christian fellowship is that there’s got to be an agreement of biblical truth. What is that? The apostles’ doctrine. We already covered that. Then there’s the condition that is part of the basis about Christian fellowship. Now if you’re still there in 1 John, look at chapter 1 verse 7. And what’s the condition? The condition is this: walking in the light. Before you walked in darkness. When you become a Christian, you are now walking in the light. You know the difference between operating room light and soft light, right? Soft light is like a yellow light. Operating room light is like white white white. But when you go into an operating room, you see everything. That’s the point. The doctors need to have the light to be able to see what they’re doing and see everything going on. Well, the spirit of God’s light on your sinful life is even brighter than that. It’s exposing you. Look at what it says in 1 John 1:7:

    but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,

    There’s that word. So there’s a condition here for me to fellowship with God. I do want to say something though. When we become believers, our relationship with God can never be broken, but our fellowship can. And it can be broken by sinfulness, by not walking in the light. Wanting to get back into the darkness so nobody knows what you’re doing. Let’s hide everything. You don’t want to be an open book. Christians, you should want to be an open book, right? This is my life. This is who I am. I’m like this in private. I’m like this in public. This is who I am. That’s the way it ought to be, because that’s what the Spirit of God is doing on you. And why? Because God walks in the light. He’s in the light. He’s in His blazing light. As we walk with Him, He exposes our darkness. He exposes the remaining sin in our heart. And what do we do with it? If we continue to read in 1 John 1:9, it says this:

    If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

    The blood application in this passage of Scripture is not automatic. Yes, positionally before God, when you get saved, you are perfect in heaven. But He left you here. So practical righteousness means I need to confess my sin. When you confess your sin, do you think God’s surprised? He already knows it. You’re agreeing with God in confession about something He already knows about you. So I want to confess my sin. And when I do that, notice what it says, it says that His blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness. That means that anything else is going on in my life when I regularly confess my sins, He’s keeping me clean. He’s keeping Christians clean so they can be used by the Spirit of God to use their gifts and build up the body.

    This Christian fellowship is not only conditioned by walking in the light, but it’s maintained by repentance and confession of sins. And we do that on a regular basis as Christians. We do want to confess our sin. We can’t live with habitual pattern of sin. It drives Christians crazy. We have to be clean. We have to cleanse ourself by confession. Thank the Lord that the power of the blood is efficacious today and tomorrow, until we get to heaven. It’s powerful. it will cleanse you from everything. There’s nothing more powerful than the blood of Christ. Remember, it’s not just the blood that was shed on the cross two thousand some years ago. It’s the power of the blood today to cleanse me of my sin. When I get up from confessing, I know that God is faithful. He is faithful to keep His promises to me. Are you faithful to keep His promises to Him by not going back to that sin? That’s what happens with a believer. See, we’re different. Everything is different about us. And so that’s very important for Christian fellowship.

    And then the last thing this morning is this: the privileges of Christian fellowship. I’ll do the first part of it, because it is a privilege to be a Christian. It is a privilege to be a Christian. But it answers the question: with whom do I have fellowship? With whom do I have fellowship? If you’re still there in 1 John, look at chapter 1 verse 3. It says this:

    what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His son Jesus Christ.

    1 Corinthians 1:9 says this in the same way:

    God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

    He is talking to all believers. We’re called into fellowship with God, a relationship with God. In other words, when Christ takes His church to Himself, that is the day of His marriage, because the church is His bride. The church is His wife. The fellowship Christ has with His saints is like that which a loving husband and wife have with each other. That’s how God views it. In this relationship, there are some things that are common both to Christ and to the saints.

    The first thing is this: (just think of it in the marriage relationship) there’s a mutual committal of each other in the marriage union. I’m committing myself to this person alone. I’m committing myself to be faithful to them, to be of one mind with them, to be of the same spirit with them.That’s what I am doing. That’s what I want to do in my marriage relationship. It is the same in the relationship that we have with Christ. A second thing is a mutual love. There’s a mutual love for each other, rising out of our union with the other person in a marriage bond. On Christ’s part in that relationship, He loves His church. He desires to enjoy fellowship with His spouse. Christ gives Himself freely to us to be our Christ, to be our beloved. To fulfill all the purposes of His love, of His mercy, of His grace, of His glory to you and I. He’s promised to do that all over the place in Scripture. But on the part of the saints in that relationship, all that is required is their free willing agreement to receive, embrace, and submit to the Lord Jesus as a husband, to abide with Him, and then to subject our souls to Him as the ruler of our life. That’s what’s required of us. Lord, take me and use me. I want to follow you.

    Now, one of the things that I discovered along the way is that we don’t always get that. What I mean by that is that we don’t really realize how much God loves His children. We really don’t. And that’s why I’d like you to take your Bible and turn to Song of Solomon. Now I’ll give you some time to find it. Some say that this book is about God’s love for His people and His people’s love for Him. If you ever read through the Song of Solomon, you’ll find that it’s a very intimate book. It does not pull any punches about intimacy, sexual intimacy too, with a husband and his beloved. But in that book, it is demonstrating to us as believers that this is a picture of how God loves us. He loves us with this kind of love. Just a few passages, look at Song of Solomon 2:16. The first part of that verse says:

    My beloved is mine, and I am his;

    Then it describes this relationship that a believer or one of God’s people has with Him as a delicious banquet. This fellowship with God, with Christ, as believers is like a delicious banquet. Now just imagine when you go to a banquet. A banquet is not just a party. A banquet is you lay out everything. Everything is usually good. There’s an abundance of things. There’s food. There’s celebration. It is a festival. And it usually is not a short event. It’s usually a long event. It’s usually focused in to celebrate someone. Now if you look at Song of Solomon 2:4, it says this talking about the beloved:

    He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.

    So what is the celebration at the banquet in Song of Solomon? The banner, the whole theme of the banquet is that He loves me, and I want everybody to know that he loves me. That’s what this banquets about, that He loves me. Well, if you remember back in Revelation 3:20, remember this verse. I know you know this verse. It says:

    Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

    There it is. It’s that picture of entering into a relationship with someone, sitting down with them at a meal, giving the picture of what? I’m at peace with you. I have a relationship with you. I’m going to enjoy this meal with you. And it’s going to be a good meal. It’s going to be a delightful meal. It’s going to be a meal that brings our relationship closer together.

    If you go through the New Testament, you’ll find that the banquet comes up here and there in Scripture. It’s giving the same thing. People are invited to it. They sit down. They are going to be served by the One who loves them. In this case, it is God Himself who loves us. He loves us. We have to be reminded of that every day.

    Now if you look at Song of Solomon 2:5, it says this:

    Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, because I am lovesick.

    That’s biblical language. I’m lovesick. The soul is lovesick and overcome with the mighty power of God’s love. What are we learning when we study the Word of God? We’re learning that believers are actually honored by Christ. Believers are actually a great delight to the Lord. Sometimes we look at ourselves only in our sin, as these vile creatures that need to be cleaned up all the time, right? But when you look at Scripture, you find that that’s not how God looks at His children. He looks at His children in an honoring and delightful way. He actually delights in us. If our minds were changed and we were thinking about that more, how we do things and how we live our everyday life would change. Just take a wife who has a husband that really loves her. There’s something about that day that changes when there’s real love, because there’s real trust that goes with that. Along with that there is a joy that I’m going to go back and I’m going to see my beloved again, and we’re going to talk about the day, and we’re going to have a relationship and a partnership together. See, that is what it is to be a Christian and know that God loves you.

    I’m using these the human and allegories because that’s all we have sometimes to describe this, but nonetheless you find passages of Scripture like this in Zephaniah 3:17. It says this:

    the Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, he will be quiet in His love, he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

    Can you think of God seeing you and exulting over you with shouts of joy because you have been bought by the blood of Christ. You have been brought into the family of Jesus Christ. You are His possession and His love is upon you. The banner over us is: He loves me. He loves me. And that is never going to change. Even when we were yet to confess our sins, it has not and will not change the love of God towards us. Even when we’re in the middle of our sin as a believer, it does not move or change the love of God. What it does is that the love of God moves us to see our sin and hate it and to confess it. Why? We don’t want the fellowship with God to be messed up. I don’t want to live a secret double life as a Christian. I want to be an open book. Why? Because God sees everything. And I begin to think that. And I begin to live with that mindset.

    One more passage of Scripture I want you to turn to in this respect – John 14:18-24. Of course in this passage of Scripture, this is right before Jesus is going to go back to heaven. And He’s telling His disciples: if I go back to heaven, I’m sending you another helper. I’m sending you another comforter, one just like Me. Look how he says it to His disciples:

    I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, You will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.

    Let’s go down to verse 23:

    Jesus answered and said to him, “if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word what you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

    Now just look at that language there, that I will come and I will disclose Myself to you. I’ll let you know who I am. I’ll let you know what I’m doing. I’ll let you know what my plan is. I’ll let you know about you and about the enemy and about the world. I’ll let you know about everything so you can live with that understanding, knowing that this world is not the end. But the kingdom of God is going to be the place we’re looking forward to. And then He says: then I will come and make My abode with you. I’ll move into your heart. Of course, He’s talking about the Holy Spirit because the next passage of Scripture talks about the Spirit. That’s why when a Christian becomes a Christian, who moves in? The Holy Spirit moves in, the permanent dwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. When that takes place, then we’ll finally learn how to love God, but we’ll also learn that God loves us. That God loves us. As I said before: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is the deep end of the pool.

    How practically does our fellowship with God work out on a day by day basis? When we walk with Him, when we talk with Him, when we think on Him. It could be just that we are having our quiet time. That we’re like the psalmist, who says: in the morning, o Lord, you will hear my voice. I get up thinking about God. I get up thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ and what He’s done and how He’s working in my life. And I want to pray to him. So that’s part of my fellowship with Him. I’m fellowshipping. Then of course when I pray, like the psalmist says, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. So I am delighting myself in God. Some people want the desires of their heart without delighting in God. Can’t have that. You have to delight in God and God gives you what you really desire, what you really should have. That’s the point. When I’m delighting in Him, I’m thinking of Him. And then of course in Psalm 25, it says:

    Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day.

    There’s this continual meditation upon what you’re learning, what God is teaching you, what God has done for you, who God is, how much God loves you, and all the things that go with that. Then there is this sharing with others what God has done for you. You’re talking about God to others, about the Lord Jesus Christ to others. Like the psalmist says in Psalm 63:

    Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.

    Notice what’s better than life – His love towards us. It’s better than life. Why is it better than life? Because God’s love towards us abolishes death. It’s nothing but life. So worship Him for who He is. Thank Him for what He has done. Give God your love through your obedience. Humbly confess your sins to Him in order to maintain an ongoing fellowship with God.

    A vertical aspect of fellowshipping provides the foundation of a horizontal aspect of fellowshipping amongst other believers. Remember, our fellowship is first with God and then with others. I’ll look at that next week.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank you this morning for Scriptures that illuminate our mind, that show us who we are, and who You are that free us. As You said, Lord, the truth shall make us free. It does make us free. It frees us from all kinds of wrong thinking, all kinds of wrong philosophies, all kinds of taboos, all kinds of prejudices. It levels the ground before You so we can, once we come to Christ, fellowship with You. Then, Lord, I pray that our fellowship would spill over into our fellowship with each other. And I pray, Lord, that as the world looks on, we will be known by our love. First the love You have for us and continue to have for us. And then the love we have for each other and for You. And I pray this this morning in Christ’s name. Amen.

  • The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: The Priority of Doctrine

    The Four-Fold Purpose of the Church: The Priority of Doctrine

    In this sermon, Pastor Babij continues teaching on the purpose of the church and the high priority of correct doctrine. Pastor Babij stresses the need for Christians to know and practice the doctrine of the apostles that was delivered to them by God Himself. Pastor Babij details how true Christians love to learn and do the Word of God and to gather together with other brethren. Pastor Babij closes by admonishing believers to check their lives and confess any lack of desire for the Word of God in order to be healed and renewed.

    Full Transcript:

    Let’s open our Bibles and turn to Acts 2 again. Today we are laying the foundation of getting to the four-fold purpose of the church. We’re heading there next. If you notice, I’ll be looking at one part of a Scripture passage today but also we’ll be in Romans and 1 Peter. Acts 2:42 says:

    They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching.

    Let’s pray. God, we are so thankful to have Your Word in our hands. When You started the church and poured out Your Spirit on it, after You ascended into Heaven something new happened. People began to receive the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and people’s outlook on life, eternity, God and salvation all changed. They became convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. You brought them to see their need of Jesus Christ, even to those who rejected Him. So I pray that as we look at this passage and consider it this morning, that we would take seriously what You say in Your Word about doctrine. And I pray that as we begin to look at it, we would understand and appreciate it more than ever. And I pray this in Christ’s Name, Amen.

    So from last week to this week, we have been looking at what it means to be a Christian, what it means to live the Christian life after initial conversion. To be a Christian means that a person becomes new and undergoes a complete change in thinking, action, and direction. With this change, people are also moved from what they had been to what they are now. They now are joined to the church and now are constantly found together with all who have believed in the same message about Jesus Christ.

    Now this was very unusual, especially when we look at the first chapter of Acts where we have all these different people groups. They would never have gotten together for anything, let alone studying the Word of God. Simply put these first Christians had become a gathering together type of people and that’s what Christians actually become as all other true Christians have done since then. So the real first indication of new divine life is the drawing together of God’s people who have this life in common with them. In Jude 1:3 says this:

    Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

    That word “common” is the Greek word koine, which means “a common language.” This was the commonly spoken and written Greek language in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In other words if people wanted to do their business, they would speak in the common market language or dialect so that everyone understood. That’s exactly what the New Testament was written in. Today the Bible is translated into other languages so that people can understand it.

    Likewise, Christians have a common faith which was for all handed down to the saints. In other words, this is the Apostles’ doctrine, which all real Christians can hold and use to measure what they believe. These newfound believers don’t go back to their old religious systems to try and fix them. They leave it all behind and instead gather with God’s true children and follow Jesus and His teachings. These are not people who occasionally go to church or who go because they have no better thing to do. They don’t go to church because it’s a social custom, which is the case sometimes in the United States.

    We don’t see among these first believers a reluctant assembly to Sunday morning worship where they hope and pray that the sermon will not be too long. You will not find that attitude among these new believers. This is the attitude we all need to have, all the time. Sometimes we get stale and stagnant, so there is a priority that this first church had. They were to be devoted to the Apostles’ teaching or doctrine.

    Now doctrine and teaching are used not to distinguish from understanding, knowledge, wisdom, prudence, since these belong to every systematic body of knowledge and they characterize theology above all. Rather, the word “doctrine” is used to signify that theology is a body of knowledge that does not originate in nature or human investigation as other disciplines do. It originates in divine revelation and authorization. That’s always been the case in Scripture.

    We go back to Isaiah 51 and we find Isaiah saying this in verse 4:

    For a law will go forth from Me, and I will set My justice for a light of the peoples.

    God is saying that the teaching shall come down from Heaven to earth; it doesn’t originate on earth. Even when we come to the New Testament, we find in other places like in Galatians 1:11, where it says:

    The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

    We did not receive it from man, nor was it taught by man. Rather, it came from Heaven to earth through revelation. Even when Peter gave that great pronouncement in Matthew 16:16, when he says:

    Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

    And Jesus responds in verse 17 by saying:

    And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

    It didn’t originate from man, but from Heaven to man. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:3 this:

    The doctrine conforming to godliness.

    In other words, the teaching that comes from Heaven to us now in Scripture should lead us not only to salvation in Jesus Christ but also to godliness. False teachers cannot lead us to holiness or godliness. Only God’s Word can lead there. So at this particular point, we find here that we have already seen that real Christians experience a change in position, from not being a believer to becoming one. Then they have new priorities that they never had before. But there is a third thing in Acts 2:42 that I will stress this morning. They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles’ teaching.

    In other words, the third characteristic common among the experience of Christians all the time and everywhere, is that there will be a change that takes place in their desire. They will be devoting themselves to something and must have a desire to do so. It was the Apostles’ doctrine, the doctrine of Christ and God’s salvation, that just delivered them from the false teaching of their day, their blindness and deception. Now they desired something they never desired before. The Psalmist grew to love God’s Word and it said that he began to desire it. It says in Psalm 119:97:

    O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

    If you just consider that for a moment, it is an exclamation of wonder. In this passage of Scripture, it is a simple Hebrew word that means, “the human love or appetite that an individual has for God’s law, for revelation that comes from God to man.” Of course this is in the Torah, which is the divine teaching that is from God. The Word of God points to the didactic or the teaching nature of Scripture. God dispenses true doctrine to humanity concerning at least four areas of life: what we should believe, what kind of character we should cultivate, how we ought to live, and the direction a believer’s life should actually take.

    We reconsider where we are going, what we are supposed to be doing, thinking, and the difference between what we were doing and what we are doing now as a believer. So the real child of God loves the Word of God. They live in it as if he or she could not live without it, and views it as spiritual food and medicine to their soul. The prophet Jeremiah wrote this in Jeremiah 15:16:

    Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.

    You see this delight and joy and love for God’s revelation coming out of people that have life that comes from God. Theology is the doctrine of being alive to God, that’s what it is all about. We were dead to God before, but now we are alive to Him so that now when He speaks, we are listening. We should want to hear what God says, there is nothing more important to hear than what He says about things. He tells us the truth, just the way things are. When we hear that truth, truth has a way of ringing in our ears that we cannot argue with.

    An unreconciled sinner has no love for God’s law or Word. They do not think of it and when they are confronted with God’s design, the unsaved will hear it only as a condemnation of their sin but they never stay long enough unless God works on them. They never say that this conviction is the first step that moves them towards the Lord and salvation. When we see ourselves just the way we truly are, that is when we see our need of God.

    So if a person truly loves something, they will spend time with it. If you love the Word of God, you will love the whole of the Word of God and you will hold to its obligations and privileges. Bottom line is if you love something, then you will commit to it. You will spend time with it, as the Scriptures put it right here in Acts 2:42. You will be devoted to it. Real Christians do not simply try God and if it doesn’t work, go back to their old way of life again. They become new and now that they know their need for God and His Word, will actually go to it. It’s just like fish need water in order to live and a tree needs soil in order to grow.

    So in our passage we see that there are new bents the Holy Spirit of God puts in a believer’s heart that really never changes but just expands and grows. What’s the first one? Well it says there in verse 42 that new Christians have a new bent to continually devote themselves to new daily priorities. It says again:

    They were continually devoting themselves.

    In other words, these people continued steadfastly. They were giving priority to something that they never gave priority to before. Associating with other Christians became the center of their lives. The greatest joy for these new believers was to meet together. They had become members of the same family and were drawn together because of one person: Jesus Christ. Their eyes and minds were opened to the truth and Biblical priorities.

    When someone becomes a real believer, their desires change. They desire to follow Christ, to please Him, and to fellowship around Him and other believers of like faith. They desire to pray to Him and learn about Him by continually devoting themselves to the community of other believers all around the same thing. They were now joined after initial conversion, and became members of the Christian church. What was the first and primary thing they gathered to do? They again devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching. They wanted to learn as much as they could about what the Apostles received from God and how it gave light to the Old Testament.

    They were given the message of salvation and now they couldn’t get enough of the Word of God. In other words, they wanted sound doctrine. They didn’t want another word from a man or philosopher or scribe, or religious Jewish leader. They wanted and got a taste of revelation that came from Heaven and when you get a taste of that, you want more. There’s nothing to go back to once you get a hold of it. The Apostles’ teaching and sound doctrine is what they wanted.

    The Church is supposed to exist to be the place where you receive divine truth. It’s the place where people can grow through the unfolding or exposition of God’s Word. That’s why we meet together. We can never let this one thing go by the wayside, it always must be a central thing. This is very basic of our Christian life but we must constantly be reminded about it. It’s not about doctrine specifically, but all kinds of other good things. But if we must grow, we have to do so by the Word of God. There’s no other way to grow.

    A second thing to observe in Acts 2:42 is that real Christians have a bent for a continual need for more of the Apostles’ teaching. Here is a very important fact that genuine conversion manifests itself in a person by newfound desires for a knowledge of the truth. Martin Lloyd Jones said:

    One simply cannot be a Christian and have no desire for a knowledge of this truth, it is impossible.

    In other words, if you do not desire the Word of God, you are not a Christian. The Word of God says that. Why do Christians want this doctrine? The life of God is in their soul and the Spirit of God indwells them. They have now a new appetite for spiritual things. One thing in particular: learning what the Bible says. They want a new appetite for spiritual growth and nourishment.

    Now if you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 2:2, it says:

    Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

    Here is the most instinctive characteristic of a newborn baby, which is that they want milk. They don’t understand why they want milk. They are born alive with this strong desire for their mother’s milk. If a baby doesn’t have this desire, then we start asking what is wrong. The baby will not grow and stay alive if they don’t have milk. It’s exactly the same with real Christians. Because of their new life in Christ, they long for the pure milk of the Word.

    As soon as somebody becomes a believer and trusts Christ with their life, the first desire that God gives them is to want milk. They want the milk of the Apostles’ teaching, the Word of God. They do not want any substitutes or junkfood. Newly born Christians know they want unadulterated spiritual food. If they don’t get it at first, then Spirit of God has a way of bringing it to them. When they find it, they will drink away because it’s so wonderful and they are afraid of missing out on any of it.

    Calvary Community Church has been and is passionately committed to helping Christians grow in knowledge, wisdom, and discernment through the systematic expositional teaching of the God’s Word because that is the only thing that God uses to grow people spiritually. But on the other hand, what happens if you have been a Christian for some time and that desire is no longer there? Thank the Lord that the Word of God also addresses that issue. Just like in the physical realm when someone loses their desires for food, we start looking for sickness and disease. We look for the root of what is causing them the loss of desire for life sustaining food.

    Similarly, in the spiritual realm when someone loses their desire for drinking down the Word of God and for desiring spiritual food, we should start looking for some spiritual sickness, for sin. And we should wrestle down the root of what is causing the loss of desire for life sustaining spiritual food which is only found in the Word of God.

    If anyone is in this condition today, or if you find yourself in this condition sometime in the future, then there are at least five things to look for that could actually rob you of your desire for the Word of God. The first thing is found in 1 Peter 1:23 which says:

    For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

    The first reason would be that you lay aside your Bible and you stop going back to the source of your new life. Because the source of my conversion and growth is the Scriptures. And at any place, I can get busy in my life and neglect God’s Word. And all of a sudden, I have good intentions but have not been spending time in the Word of God thinking about it and mediating upon it. I have been doing other things in my life that are important and good but what happened along the way is that it moved me aside from my Bible and the source of life God has given.

    A second thing found in 1 Peter 2:1 is that we stop taking sin seriously so we become careless in putting off sin. The verse says:

    Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

    In other words what is going to rob you of your desire? Sin! Malice could also be evil or wickedness. You are angry or hateful for some reason and it has consumed your heart. Now these sins include many other types although it is not an exhaustive list. The sin of deception includes double-mindedness. James 1:8 says:

    Being a double-minded man, [you are] unstable in all [your] ways.

    The next one is hypocrisy, which is simply that your heart grows cold towards God and you begin to question Him. We can go on in this long avenue of questioning God in everything, like He somehow gave us the short end of the stick. We become hypocritical in just going through the motions with no passion or desire to live for the Lord.

    Envy is another one. It means wanting what others have. Greed comes into a person’s heart and they have departed from their desire for the Word. And now they only desire wealth, money, and what they can do for them. So a person stops taking sin seriously. There is no desire for the Word when we sin, so we have to continually take off sin and put it to death. In its place, we need to put on righteousness. If we don’t put off our sin, it means we love our sin more than God and His work.

    Number three is that we stop admitting we still need for the Word of God. This verse of needing the pure milk of the Word is not just for new believers. This is a desire that believers should have all the time throughout their whole Christian lives. The desire for the milk of the Word of God should never go away.

    Then a fourth thing is that we just stop pursuing spiritual growth. It says in 1 Peter 2:2:

    Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

    What happens is that when we get caught into any of these, we drift away and there is a lack of nourishment that leads to poor spiritual health. Growing in spiritual maturity means that you are practicing your discipline of yourself in holiness and godliness. You are learning to live as a soldier in the midst of battle. One thing a soldier does especially when he is ready for battle is that he is always ready. He doesn’t have the privilege to take off his armor and lay down his weapons. This is where God grows believers, to realize that we will always be in a spiritual battle while we are on this earth. But that is what makes us strong. The battle drives us to yearn more for the Word of God. We realize in life and in battle that we need God’s wisdom. Also in 1 Peter 2:3-5, we stop remembering how good God is and who’s family we represent. It says in this verse:

    If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. As Living Stones and coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

    Sometimes a true believer will fail. Have I had times of coldness, times of not having a desire for the Word as I should have? Yes I have. Thank the Lord it was always short-lived. If not too much time goes by, you end up realizing that you need to hear from the Lord and His Word. The regular direction of your life is to always to want the Word of God and to say no to the flesh as much as possible so the Word of God can have priority. We have to overcome our flesh because we know it often doesn’t want to get up on Sunday morning, or any morning. We just want to roll over in that nice bed, especially when we have something important to do.

    Meanwhile the Spirit of God is saying to get up and get out there! Get in the Word! Be sure of this brethren, you are not done with Scriptures after you make an initial profession of faith. You must receive confirmation of your profession of faith as to its genuineness. I can’t give you assurance of your salvation. The Word of God can because the Spirit is using the Word to bring you to the place to give you assurance of your salvation. Just like it says in Romans 8:16 which says:

    The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

    Do we need to know that? Yes we need to know that every day. We are children of God and therefore we ought to live as children of God. Once you are confident that you are a Christian and you see some spiritual fruit, you are not done with the Scriptures at that point. The Spirit of God also has to transform your mind. The Spirit of God’s tool for transformation is the very Word of God. He must correct how wrong you and I have been about most things, and all things spiritually. He must, through His Word, teach you how to worship. That’s the first purpose of the Church, by the way, that we are heading towards.

    We all didn’t know how to worship God because we didn’t know who God was. We can’t worship something we don’t know. Then we find out what God has done and how He demonstrates His love towards us. He is a compassionate God, but also a God of justice and He is not going to let us slide.

    As I began to learn who God is, I began to learn how to worship and really thank Him. I now knew that anything I had is because of our God. He doesn’t give the same gifts and talents to all people alike. The gifts and talents He gives is for His own sake and glory. He teaches us how to pray, how to witness, how to love God and people, how to put off sin and put on righteousness, and how to live righteously in this world while we are here. So we can learn how to be faithful servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will do what our God wants us to do while we are here.

    So we are never done with the holy writings and hearing God speak through the Word of God. That’s why this passage of Scripture is so important to you and I because we must continually give ourselves over to its reading, study, hearing, and meditation. The Scriptures will build you and I up and make us stable and strong. That’s what the doctor Luke wrote to us in Acts 20:32 where it says:

    And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

    We join all those who have been brought out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light which now occupies the Church of Jesus Christ. A quote from Christian Johnson’s book Men of Integrity, says:

    A Bible that is falling apart probably belongs to someone that isn’t.

    Now let me ask you, since you have made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, has your Bible become your close companion? Is your Bible well-worn because of constant use? Are you turning to the passage the preacher tells you to turn to, regardless of whether you know it or have it memorized already. It is good to do this so that you follow the flow of things so that you get preaching that is verse by verse. You can’t sit there like a bump on a log, you need to start thinking. Wipe the sleep from your eyes and engage your mind by moving through the Scriptures. Are you picking your Bible up every day and reading it? It should be the goal of every Christian to wear our their Bibles. Your Bible should not rot out, it should wear out. Things that wear out do so because of use. Things that rot do so because of lack of use.

    Of course these days many people have moved away from paper Bibles. So I must admonish you also to wear out your iPhones, iPads, and computers. Wear them out because you are using them daily for Bible studies, reading, searches, and sermon note taking. Do this because you have come to desire the Word, and long for it, and love it.

    I’m still considering having a paper Bible Sunday. On a particular Sunday, you leave all of your electronics at home or in your car and we’ll be checking you at the door. I wanna see your paper Bibles. There’s something about it when a whole bunch of people rustle papers in a Bible. You can’t do that on your phone; it doesn’t even squeak on this new glass.

    What’s important here is engaging yourself in the Word of God. In fact this is as basic as it’s going to get but we all need to hear it and tell it to other people. Just as you develop an appetite over time for certain kinds of food, also as a Christian you develop an appetite for a particular spiritual food. And it’s only found in the Word of God.

    Now that brings me to another passage in Romans 12:1-2. This great book on doctrine probably has the heaviest in all the Bible. Paul in these verses says:

    Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

    In other words, this new appetite that the Spirit of God gives us at conversion that continues throughout our Christian lives is for spiritual development and transformation to a certain goal. It is leading us to a certain goal, it is not just filling our minds with knowledge and facts but leading us to a personal relationship with God. Here it says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. A transformation is to assume an outward expression that reflects what is deep within. The process takes place in our minds for it is our thought life that controls our attitudes, feelings, and actions.

    So we are to let our lives be changed from the inside out. Brethren, how much were our minds opposed to God? When we study the Word of God, we find how much we were opposed to Him. It was in everything we thought and did almost. John Calvin said this:

    Nothing can be more true than that the renewal of the mind is necessary for successful inquiry to every part of the will of God. The natural man is in everything opposed to the mind of God.

    So here is a renewal of a believer’s mental powers. Our whole bodylife is to be evidenced of a constant interchange. This is actually the Greek word for metamorphosis. It means to be changed in form, and transformed or changed in character. It’s the kind of change the Holy Spirit wishes to work in the life o the believer. But to do it, He must have control of the body and free access to the mind. In other words the Holy Spirit wants to etch the likeness of Jesus Christ into all of our characters.

    We live in a world of modern day medical marvels. One such marvel to me is the hip or knee replacement surgery. It’s amazing that doctors can do those things. Usually surgery is needed because a person’s join has worn to the point where there is no more cartilage, so it’s just bone on bone. It becomes very painful and the person starts to walk with a limp and then finally has to use crutches. If they don’t do something about it, it almost debilitates their whole life and they become crippled.

    But thanks to modern day surgery, a person can have a hip replacement and quickly recover and move around again, sometimes better than many years before. However some people, months after surgery, are still limping along. The phenomena usually has nothing to do with failure of the surgery. It has to do with the failure of the mind. The mind has been trained to expect pain for a long time on that joint. So the person limps in anticipation even when there is no pain. Usually someone goes back to the doctor and complains of having to limp despite having the operation. He does the examination and takes the x-rays and says there is nothing wrong with the person’s hip; it’s all in their head.

    So what happens is the person’s brain needs to be retrained to line up with the new normal, which is no pain. And usually once a person gets that, they get up and start walking and have no problem. So when God has given you and I new life, the old one is gone along with all the sinful things done, thought, or said. We have been forgiven, we’re brand new creations, but we end up limping around for a while until we have a change in thinking. We limp around in our old sin and then come to Romans 6 and the Bible says to consider ourselves to sin and alive to righteousness.

    Then you finally get that God is doing this in your life and He wants you to think and consider everyday that sin has no more authority over you. You can be tempted by sin day and night but when it comes down to the sin dangling on the hook, you can actually know that you don’t want it because it doesn’t please the Lord or lead you to a place where you grow spiritually. All of a sudden you realize that God has given you the authority to say no to sin, and you stop doubting and actually gain confidence to boldly live your Christian life.

    To get up on your own two feet and live with gusto for Christ, you become someone who is living and speaking it. So you stop limping around because you have a change in thinking. That’s what Romans is telling us here. It’s accomplished by the renewing of one’s mind. Romans 12:2 says:

    And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

    So the mind is the organ of moral thinking and knowing. When it is renewed, it no longer thinks or understands or judges as it once did. Old things pass away and all things become new. We will no longer fit into the mold of this world and its ways and thinking. But with increasing insight into the divine perspective, because we have been in the Word of God and the Apostles’ teaching, our whole outlook and experience will change. So why doesn’t a Christian think as they once did? Because his or her mind is being transformed and renewed by the Word of God. We begin to mind the things of the Spirit, which we never did before.

    Also we stop minding the flesh as we always used to mind before. The flesh’s voice becomes dim and distant and God’s voice becomes stronger and clearer. Every day we wake up and have this clarity we never had before. This is because we’ve been in the Word of God. We were captive conformists to the world’s system and beliefs. That is why Scripture gives Christians the command to be careful not to do something. We are not to be conformed to this world.

    Here’s an interesting Greek word, conform, and it means this: a fashioning of something by using a shaped container. I guess the translators had a hard time translating this passage because some used it in the middle tense. In the middle tense, the word means this: to conform oneself to, change one’s behavior to be like. In the passive sense, the word means this: allow oneself to be changed to be like, to be conformed to, to be like someone or something. Now I would say that’s a great problem to have because both of them come together.

    One translation put it like this: don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. So the transforming of the mind is so the will of God, or what is willed by God can be apprehended. I said not too long ago that we have a new appetite for spiritual development and transformation towards a certain goal. The goal is found in Romans 12:2:

    So that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

    That is the goal, that God would transform your mind to move your will. The problem is our own will and mind. But God’s correcting those problems. As long as you give yourself good spiritual food, you will grow in Christ. The transforming of the mind is so that what is willed by God can actually be apprehended and carried out.

    Only a yielded will can desire, discover, and choose God’s will. In other words, we are now willing conformists. No longer to the world and its system, no longer to the god of this age, no longer to the will of the flesh. But we are now conformists to the Apostles’ doctrine and that is what changes our minds. The Apostles’ doctrine only has a divine source to it. It’s like what 2 Peter 1:20-21 says:

    But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

    The renewed mind tests out the will of God, that it might prove what the will of God is. That’s what we are trying to answer all the time, what God’s will is. We can know the revealed will of God. But we cannot know the secret will. We won’t know what will happen tomorrow or how long we’ll live. Only God is in charge of that.

    It says in Deuteronomy 29:29:

    The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.

    In other words, the Bible is prescriptive. It’s like when you get a prescription from the doctor’s office. You need to get that medication and take it. The Word of God is something we can understand. And the more we’re in it, the more we can understand it. The more we understand it, the more we obey it.

    Maybe the dilemma of most Christians today is that they are so worried about the future and the secret things of God. Don’t worry about knowing that stuff. Let the Word of God transform your mind and you will find out more about yourself and who God is and what He desires for His children. And then the goal is for service, for you to serve in the body and meet together. Your divine spiritual gift is to be used in the body. That’s where this is all headed. The Christian should be asking and answering questions in league with their dedication to God.

    For example, knowing how to test the will of God is actually revealed in God’s Word. We can ask if the thing is well-pleasing to the will of God. We need to know whether we are being transformed from the inside out, or is what we are going to do bringing about Christ likeness and God’s glory.

    If we ask some of these questions, we will find out that we don’t want to do these things anymore. The Word is the criterion and the measuring stick for knowing what is good, well-pleasing and advances maturity. It was C.H. Lenski in his commentary that said:

    We discover from His Word alone and we subject all our own conceptions of what is good for us, pleasing to Him, and complete, holy to that Word. Everything tested without the Word is deceptive and wrong.

    The renewed mind does not want to disregard God’s will but wants to know and do it. The Church exists in order to help Christians understand the truths of Scripture and the methods and behaviors to live them out. That’s why we are here. It starts with a desire after initial conversion. God gives you the Apostles’ teaching and doctrine and it is what must be our priority together.

    We have this body of believers that is being transformed and growing in God’s Word. They become the light in a community and where God plants them to a dark world. They take the gospel now out to those who haven’t heard it yet. So what is a church? A church is a place where we find true hope. It’s a place where we can connect with God. It’s a place where we connect with other people of the faith and where we are encouraged by the truths of holy Scripture. Then we go out and live it. When we come back to the book of Acts, that’s exactly what they did.

    I pray that as we look at these things, that you would examine yourself and see where you’re at. Then after you identify what’s in your life that has quenched the desire for the Word of God, confess it. If you don’t see it, ask God to show it to you. We all have to have this desire all the time for God’s Word.

    Let’s pray. Lord, thank You, this morning. Your kindness to us in allowing us to know the Word of God and have part of it, hear it, and read it. I pray that we would all this morning take it seriously. I pray that we would be honest with ourselves because we know that many have been exposed to the Bible but it still remains to them one of the least understood books of the world. I pray that we would all come to the place to know that the Bible is a clear, dynamic, intriguing, fearsome, and life-changing book which brings its readers face to face with the infinite and almighty Creator. The Bible teaches us that Christianity is not so much a religion, as it is a vital relationship with the only Perfect Human, Jesus Christ the Son of God.

    Lord, I pray that as we go out into the world, that we would be people who exemplify an understanding of the Word of God, so that we would be carrying out the will of God. And I pray this, this morning, for all of us today and forever in Christ’s Name, Amen.