The Dividing Line

You ever hear somebody say, well, back in my day, things were a little bit simpler.

You tend to think what? That ought to sound something like, you know, well, back in my day, because the person ought to be really old.

Well, I guess I must be getting really old because over the last couple of months,

I just keep thinking, man, things were simpler in my day. I mean, you went to school, there were two restrooms, what a novel concept, right?

Room for little boys and a room for little girls. You know, now it's like, well, you know, gender, gender is a social construct.

And you may feel like a guy today, but who knows how you're going to feel tomorrow. You may win the decathlon in 1976, but who knows how you're going to feel in 2015.

Things were simpler back in 1976, things were simpler,

I think, in February. I mean, things have been getting more and more complicated just in the last few days.

I mean, I wasn't even paying any attention to this and all of a sudden, you know, it turns out that the color of your skin is also a social construct.

It doesn't really matter what your parents look like, apparently, because, you know, this woman in Spokane, her parents are both

Caucasian and they're like, yeah, we have a Caucasian daughter, she was born naturally. She doesn't feel that she's

Caucasian, I mean, you just kind of go, what's going on?

We live in a world where, you hear this term from time to time, postmodern, well, what does that mean?

You know, modernism said that, you know, nobody can really define what truth is, well, postmodernism says there is no truth.

So if I say I'm a man, well, you can go, well, maybe you are, maybe you aren't. If I say

I'm, you know, Caucasian, well, maybe you are, maybe you aren't. And you know what? Feel free to change your mind tomorrow.

This is a complicated world. Why? Because people say there is no absolute truth.

Truth is a sliding scale. Gender is a sliding scale. Everything is a sliding scale.

To say that something is this or it's that is to make a judgment and woe betide the person who makes judgments, even in the most obvious things, right?

And even in the last few weeks, as I said, it used to be a much simpler world.

Even in the last few weeks, we've seen so -called evangelical leaders, church leaders of major denominations, you know, say, hey, either we support homosexual marriage or we support homosexuals or we shouldn't be so quick to judge homosexuals.

We live in a very complicated world where people take the name Christian and then they just apply a sliding scale.

What is a Christian? Well, it's what we say it is. So many have abandoned the biblical standard.

What is a Christian? What is the dividing line? As I said, many have left the

Bible, but we haven't. So let's open our Bibles to John chapter 8. John chapter 8, and we'll begin in verse 31.

I mean, it's kind of incredible, this concept that you can call yourself a

Christian and disregard what Jesus says. I'm a follower of Jesus, but, you know, what he says really doesn't have any hold on me.

We're going to see that just isn't the case. John chapter 8, beginning in verse 31.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

They answered him, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, truly, truly,

I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever.

So if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen with my father and you, you do what you have heard from your father.

The gospel of John focuses on the deity of Christ. John, the beloved apostle, wants to demonstrate that Jesus was, in fact, the long -anticipated

Messiah, the Christ. And John writes in such a clear and theological way that one is forced to either accept all that Jesus claims about himself, to heed his words, or to reject him completely.

John doesn't leave gray area. It's not a sliding scale. And this morning,

I'm going to ask three questions to help you evaluate your own status with Jesus.

Are you his disciple? Have you crossed over from unbelief into faith?

We're going to see that by looking at how he interacts with these people who had professed belief.

The first question is, what is a Christian?

What is a Christian? Broadly speaking, it's a follower of Jesus, a disciple of the

Lord. Look at verse 31. So Jesus said to the

Jews who had believed him, and if you recall, back in verse 30, said that many believed him.

We're going to look at that in a moment, but this is not something, some new phenomenon where people professed faith or appeared to believe in Jesus, and then it turned out they didn't.

Listen to John chapter 2, verses 23 to 25.

Now, when he, Jesus, was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

You're going to think, that's great, revival's broken out, but verse 24, but Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Well, when it says he didn't entrust himself to them, what is he saying? He didn't really, he knew that they weren't saved, and he did not reveal himself to them.

Why? Because they would not believe. In John chapter 6, after he fed the multitude with just a few fish and a few loaves on the

Sea of Galilee, and then if you recall, he fled during the night from the mob, and his disciples went across on the boat, and he walked across and met them, and there's that whole scene.

But they caught up to him on the other side, and they professed to be his disciples, his followers.

But at the end of chapter 6, Jesus described the high level of commitment it took to follow him.

If you recall, he said, you must eat of my body, you must drink of my blood.

And then it concludes in, this discourse concludes in John chapter 6, verses 65, 66, and he,

Jesus, said, this is why I told you, that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the

Father. And verse 66 is just crushing. After this, many of his disciples, those who professed belief, turned back and no longer walked with him.

The standard was too high. It was too difficult. They couldn't wrap their heads around this idea of the high cost involved with following Jesus Christ.

Back in chapter 8, these Jews, these Pharisees, those who, we're not really told how we're to know that they were believers.

I mean, we can presume they didn't sign a card or walk an aisle, raise their hands, you know, make some other indication like that.

But it says, the text says that they were believers. Consider this.

The easy thing for Jesus to do, as he could have done in several occasions, would be to what?

Assure them of their salvation. Welcome them into the family of God. Do all the things that evangelicals do today.

Instead, he draws a line. He says, I'm going to define discipleship for you.

Now, the Greek, in verse 30, those who believe are referred to in a tense that commonly refers to a past event.

They believed, past tense. In verse 31, the verb is a perfect participle, indicating an ongoing permanent condition.

So here's the deal. There's a large group of people there, and out of that large group, only some of them are actual believers.

We don't know exactly how many, but he's describing what is happening in those people.

They've listened in verse 30. They agree with his teaching. They like it. They want more of it. Maybe they've been attracted to his miracles.

You know, we could say he's the rabbi of choice, their teacher of the moment. He's the guy that they want to listen to.

They like to follow him around and hear more of what he has to say, watch more of what he's doing.

But when Jesus starts telling them what it really means to follow him, they don't just turn away and walk away.

Then it's not like at the end of chapter 6 where they just stop following him. But their mood changes from excitement, from professions of faith to resentment and eventually anger.

And you know what? Here's the truth. It still works today. Try telling somebody who is a professing

Christian, that you say, you know what? I hear what you say, and I don't know your heart.

You have to say that. I don't know your heart. Here's what I do know. I do know that as I look at your life, it doesn't seem to match up.

Now that's up to you. I know it's between you and the Lord, but maybe there's an issue there.

What's the response? You know what, brother? Thank you so much for that. I appreciate that.

I'm going to go home and examine myself and see if I'm still in the faith. It could happen like that.

But typically, if a person is actually not saved, they'll get angry.

Why? Because they know that they were saved because of some past event or because they want to be a

Christian. But if you present the truth claims of Christ, you'll hear something like, well, you're a legalist.

You just want too much out of me. I don't want anything out of anybody. I just want you to evaluate yourself in light of what

Scripture says. Our pastor likes to say that time and trials will prove the mettle of anyone who professes faith in Christ.

In other words, over time, over your life, you will see whether somebody is in Christ or whether they're not.

And I had a great illustration of that over the last several months as my friend Clay and his wife

Margie went through cancer. And step by step,

I mean, they've been going through it for several years, but she really took a turn for the worse a few months ago. Step by step, just watching how he would profess his love for his wife and how he would report on what she wanted.

And you know, the last few days where she just said, I just want to go home and be with Jesus. I think she was 46, three kids.

So loved. I mean, I teared up over and over again just watching the number of people who would post pictures of themselves with Margie and just say how she had helped them.

You get to see whether somebody loves the Lord Jesus Christ when things are difficult, when things are not going well.

To put it another way, you know what, I worked in a jail for many years. And guys would come up and they'd say, you know what,

I'm done with drugs. I'm all done with alcohol, whatever their vice was, you know,

I'm done with all that. And I'd look at them and I'd go, you know what, it's great. I'm super happy. I, you know,

I hope that you come out of here a changed person. But here's the issue.

You're going to go back to your old neighborhood. You're going to see those same people. You're going to be in the same conditions.

It's easy to declare yourself drug free, cured, no longer an alcoholic or whatever the situation is while you're in jail, while things are restricted.

But when you go back out there, what's going to happen then? And here in this text, rather than affirming the belief of the

Jews, Jesus gives them the standard. He tells them what it really means to be his disciple and it means to abide in his word.

So what does it mean to abide in the word of Christ? Well, if I could sum it up in one word,

I would say this. It's obedience. It means you obey the word of Christ.

And you say, oh, here we go. It's legalism 101. Salvation is predicated upon obedience.

That is 100 % wrong. Because if salvation was predicated upon you being obedient, then guess what?

Two things would be true. First of all, nobody would be saved because you're never going to perfectly obey.

And secondly, if you could somehow do it, then it would be salvation by works. We cannot do it.

We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot obey perfectly. Well, so then what do you mean by abide?

Well, we're going to develop that some more. But we know that these people here did not abide even though many of them had made some kind of profession or there's some indication that they believed.

Why? Well, let's look at just briefly at verses 31, the end of it, and then verse 37.

If you abide in my word, in verse 31, and then look at verse 37.

He concludes with, my word finds no place in you. So he says, here's the condition.

Here's how we know that you are a follower of Christ. Here's how we know that you are my disciple.

You abide in my word. And then he says, but for you, my word bounces off of you.

It has no effect on you. You don't receive it. Here it's like, you know what?

I don't really care what you have to say. The idea of Jesus as teacher, as wise rabbi, even as a miracle worker.

All those things appealed to them, maybe even as prophets, appealed to some of these

Pharisees. But the idea of him as redeemer, as Christ, as Lord, as God in the flesh, no way.

Let's go into the Greek a little bit one more time in verse 31. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

If you recall, the abide is perfect, meaning a one -time event, ongoing consequences.

And if we look at that for just a minute, we think, well, again, it seems to be like obedience is a prerequisite for salvation.

In other words, you obey and then you get saved. Well, that's wrong. You're saved and then you obey.

And again, not perfectly. If you abide, perfect tense, one -time action with ongoing results, you are, present tense, not conditional, truly my disciples.

The proof is in the abiding, remaining true to the master. Jesus did not say,

I mean, he could have said this, if you abide in my word, you will be my disciples.

But that's not the sense at all. If you abide in my word, and this is all predicated on the work of God in you, if you abide in my word, which you will do, you will have your ears opened to the word of God, then you are truly my disciple.

It's like, these people were, in verse 30, they appeared to be believers, but they were nothing more than temporary disciples.

These are the people of whom he said in Mark chapter 4, the parable of the soils.

Listen to verses 16 and 17. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground.

The ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, right? They profess faith. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while.

Then when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.

Time, trials come along, and they're done. They turn away.

But someone who has truly been converted, who has been regenerated, who's gone from spiritual death into spiritual life, receives that same word with joy.

But because a change has been wrought within them, it continues. It doesn't change during time of difficulty.

In fact, they cling to the word, even as my friend Clay and Margie did.

They cling to the word all the more, knowing that their only hope is not in this lifetime.

Otherwise, they'd be praying for a miracle, and when that didn't happen, they'd be distraught and without hope. What is a

Christian? A person who has been supernaturally brought from spiritual death to spiritual life in such a way that their affections have been changed from the temporary to the eternal, from themselves, from being what

I like to call me -o -centric to Christ. Christo -centric thinking, viewing the world through the prism of what

Christ has done for me. If I could put it this way, having cross -colored glasses.

When you view your circumstances and you view others through the prism of the cross, life changes.

Your attitude changes. So what is a

Christian? A Christian is someone for whom those conditions apply.

That work has been done. Second question, what is the result of being a

Christian? What happens after you get saved? Look at verse 32.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. You know, sometimes you'll even hear that on political talk shows.

I mean, like this is some philosophical truth. Because they don't mean it in any kind of spiritual sense when they say it in terms of politics.

They mean, you know, that this is something worthy of Plato or Aristotle. But Jesus is not a great philosopher in that sense.

He's not dealing with ultimately what's trivial. By the way, if you majored in philosophy, I apologize. Both for sliding philosophy and the fact that you majored in philosophy.

But it is true that the truth illumines minds.

It enlightens minds. But the idea here is not of going from ignorance to enlightenment. Truth is not a series of discoveries, although you will make discoveries as you go through the

Word of God. But John presents truth as being embodied in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

We could put it this way. If Jesus were to say this, he might put it a different way.

Or I'll put it a different way. And you could just kind of think of Jesus saying this. And you will know me, and I will set you free.

And apart from knowing Jesus, apart from being born again, being saved, there is no freedom but only slavery.

And the response of the Jewish leaders here is no different than many unbelievers. Look at verse 33.

They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free? What are you talking about, Jesus? We are

Jews of Jews of Jews. We have descended. We've got it wired.

We are the children of Abraham. We are blessed beyond measure.

We are the chosen of God. They appeal to their heredity.

And you think, well, nobody would do that today. Christians, certainly professing

Christians wouldn't do that. Well, yes, they do. And I'll get to that in just a second.

But let's just focus on the Jews for just a second. Even think about what they were saying. We've never been enslaved to anyone.

Well, they couldn't possibly mean politically. I mean, they've been carried off into captivity by the Assyrians, the Babylonians.

And even now they were occupied by, they'd been occupied before by the Greeks. And now they're being occupied by the

Romans. These are people that have been under the thumb of many different, I even skip the

Egyptians. I mean, they've been captured and carried off and conquered. And it's not like they've always been free in the sense we would think of free.

But that's not exactly what they're talking about. They just mean, they're talking about, they mean it in a spiritual sense.

And he's addressing them in a spiritual sense. Jesus was speaking of a type of slavery that they just weren't aware of.

He starts with, truly, truly, or amen, amen, meaning he's about to make a very serious statement.

Verse 34, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

In other words, you are in slavery, it's just one that you don't see.

And the truth is, we are all born sinners because of Adam's fall. Each of us has a sin nature, a nature that is, when we come into this world, it is set to its default, which is rebellion against God.

We're not neutral. But he's talking about habitual sin, practicing sin.

And it really is akin to a kind of self -enslavement. When you sin, you begin a downward spiral of sin upon sin upon sin.

And it's like you are forging your own chains of your own slavery. And that's the picture that he's painting here.

It is an unstoppable spiral, downward arc, which ultimately leads to hell, eternal punishment.

Fit for those who reject the love, the grace, the mercy, the forgiveness of God that is available in Christ Jesus.

Then what he says next in verses 35 and 36 is really remarkable. He says, the slave does not remain in the house forever.

The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Now, slaves in the Jewish culture, they had to be freed every seven years. And even in the

Greek and the Roman culture, slaves frequently moved from household to household.

They were sold. They were bartered. They were treated like kitchen appliances.

Thus, they did not remain in the house forever. They weren't permanent fixtures in a house.

However, a son is always a son. A father does not disown his son.

Well, a loving father does not disown a son who honors him, right?

And if this is true of earthly fathers, how much more is it true of our heavenly father?

If you love Jesus, if you love Christ, truly love him, you are now a child of God.

You have been adopted by him and will dwell with him forever. You are a son, a daughter.

You will not be kicked out of the house. But you are also a former slave.

You live just like these Pharisees, believing that you were good enough or that God was not harsh enough, that he was not mean enough to really punish you, to really send you to hell.

And the good news is that if you are a Christian, you've been permanently set free from the bonds that previously enslaved you.

Again, in verse 36, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed, permanently free. Now, what did you do to obtain your freedom?

And the answer is nothing. You were busy just hammering away, just adding to the chains, just like everybody else, building your own little snare for yourself.

Christ set you free. God himself, in the second person or being the second person of the

Trinity, the Lord Jesus descended to his own creation and set you free.

He rescued you. You are now free from the power of sin, maybe not the presence of sin.

You still live in a sinful world. You still sin. And you are no longer a slave but one of God's own beloved children.

You've been redeemed. Instead of bondage, you have freedom.

Instead of slavery, you have sonship, all because of the sovereign work of God.

So what is a Christian? A Christian is one who follows Christ, who longs to obey

Christ. What is the result of being a Christian? Freedom from the bonds of sin.

Now, what are some evidences that a person, the third question, what are some evidences that a person is not a

Christian? Well, the first one is, I just have a few here, the first one is pride.

When Jesus explains to the Pharisees what the standards of discipleship are and what the result will be, they go from believing to attacking.

Look back at verse 33. They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free? You know, it's as if they're saying,

Hey, not really sure who you're talking to, Jesus. I mean, we're not the typical rabble that you hang out with all those other sinners.

We're good people. We have an impeccable pedigree.

How dare you talk to us like that? Well, is it any different if you're speaking, you're trying to preach the gospel to, say, a

Roman Catholic? And we have many Roman Catholic family members and neighbors in this area.

If you preach the gospel to them, you're going to hear something like, Well, I am a Christian. Really?

Well, tell me about how you got saved. I was baptized as a baby. I go to mass.

I, I, I, I, I. I am a Christian because of what I have done. Even those who say they're atheists or agnostics, and by the way, nobody should ever claim to be an agnostic because you know what the root word means?

Ignorance. I, I profess my ignorance. Even those who profess atheism or agnosticism, for them, even pride is an issue.

How full of yourself do you have to be to decide that you, that the God who created you and sustains your life either doesn't exist or you're too ignorant to make a guess about who

He might be? It takes pride to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

It takes a lot of pride. It takes a lot of pride to think that you might be good enough. It takes a lot of pride to think that you have chosen

God apart from Him choosing you. Second indication that you might not be a

Christian. You question Jesus. You question His Word. How is it, look at what the

Pharisees say, how is it that you say you will become free? I mean, they've gone from being, you know, want, want to be disciples, want to be believers, to saying, who are you to say that we're going to be set free if we follow you?

This is the same stripe of people saying, well, what makes Jesus so special? Why is

He the only way? You know, a lot of people believe a lot of different things. The Zoroastrians have a very similar, no, they don't.

No, they don't. Here's what we know. We know that Satan has many counterfeits. And we also know that the

Bible alone is the Word of God. I don't really care about other so -called scriptures. Jesus says

He is the one who sets His followers free. And you will search in vain for a scripture anywhere that suggests that there is another way to heaven other than the

Lord Jesus Christ. Third indication. A disregard for scripture, similar to the other one, but, you know, it is fashionable to attack the

Bible as a book filled with flaws, mistakes, contradictions, and a book written by flawed, here's my word probably of the day, patriarchal men.

Men, you know, intent on imposing a patriarchal view on the world, putting women down.

That's one of the attacks I hear often, scripture. And I could defend the Bible.

We could, if we had the time, we could just go on and on about the truth claims that the Bible makes.

But I think sometimes I give a lesser answer, a lesser in value answer because it's not scriptural.

But just think about it this way. If some men a few thousand years ago, without the aid of computers, could edit a book of such perfection and then destroy, make sure that there's no evidence that they edited the book, kept out some things, and let other things in, those guys were really brilliant.

And they probably should have set about ruling the world because they were unbelievers anyway, according to this theory. They didn't really believe it.

And they just wanted to enforce some kind of worldview on people. They should have put their efforts into ruling the world instead of perpetrating such a fraud.

It's absolutely ridiculous. The historical, archaeological, and scientific evidences in scripture refute any such ideas.

But sinful men will go to great lengths and ignore all manner of evidence to suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

That's what they do. But look how Jesus goes after the formerly believing

Pharisees, the ones who profess this faith. Look at verse 37. I know that you are offspring of Abraham.

I'll grant you that. Yet you seek to kill me. And I think it's interesting. All the times during this discourse in Jerusalem with the

Pharisees that he has said that they wanted to kill him. Even when he's speaking to people that are not

Pharisees, the crowd that's gathered on the Temple Mount. The Pharisees never say, Wait a minute, wait a minute.

We don't want to kill you. Why didn't they deny it? Because it was true.

They did want to kill him. Yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your

Father. The words of Jesus, which have their source in heaven itself from the

Father, are rejected by the Pharisees. They claim to love the Father, but they have the

Son in front of them. They hate the Son. You can't hate the Son and say you love the

Father because you hate them both. You hate their words. They like many things about Jesus.

They would love to have the free food that he provided by the lakeshore. But when he teaches what the

Father said, they don't like him so much. And notice what he said.

He said, They do what their Father, and we'd see it if we kept going, what their

Father, Satan, tells them to do. I do what my Father tells me to do. You do what your

Father tells you to do. Another indication that you don't belong to Christ, practicing sin, looking back at verse 34.

I want to say something about this. So, Jesus answered them,

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. Jesus is speaking of continually sinning, ongoing sinning.

Not of somebody who is saved and sins. What's the big difference?

The big difference is the attitude. It's the heart attitude. If you sin, that does not disqualify you.

Let me give you a couple of illustrations. A person gets drunk. Is that person saved?

For those, there may be some people who say, Nope, no Christian would ever get drunk. I can't say that.

Not that I, by the way, not that I have any personal experience. People sin.

Christians sin. A person who gets drunk has sinned, but that doesn't mean that we know where their heart is.

We don't know what their eternal destiny is. I don't know, and only the Lord knows. We know that's a sin, but what constitutes practicing sin?

How often is it that you have to sin to demonstrate that you are enslaved to sin rather than set free?

I don't know what the answer to that is. I don't know whether it's 7 or 7 times 70.

I don't know. But even if we church discipline somebody out for getting drunk, we could not know their ultimate state.

They could fail to repent, and fail to repent, and fail to repent, and ultimately we might have to treat them as an unbeliever, but we would not know if possibly they were saved.

But here's something that has become more and more common among professing Christians. Couples, especially young couples, living together without getting married, maybe even as a prelude to marriage.

They want to save some money before they get married, which is really bizarre. We're going to save some money for the wedding ceremony by moving in together.

Are they saved? I don't know. But I do know this, the Bible says that fornicators will not go to heaven.

They're practicing sin. I can't read their hearts. That's not my job.

What would I do? I'd confront them as I would anyone else who's in visible sin.

Why? Because sinful disobedience to the one that you profess to love gives reason to question your profession.

Jesus said in John 14, 15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now, can a

Christian sin? Yes. Can a Christian keep the commandments? Is there anybody here who thinks they can keep the commandments?

Raise your hand. Just a quick survey. Okay, I'm the only one. We can't even do two things.

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. Two commandments.

And I promise you that sometime, for some of you it might take a few days, you will fail to do that.

Does that mean you stopped loving Jesus? No. Does it mean you lost your salvation?

No. Here's the difference, though. Believers are convicted by their sin. They hate it.

They're shamed by it. There's a word we don't see, shame. They're ashamed of their sin.

They wish they'd not done it. They wish with all their heart. It's not a matter of them getting caught. It's just the inward conviction of the

Holy Spirit. If you're living in a state of fornication,

I don't know where the shame comes into that. But living in any ongoing sin is dangerous.

Practicing any sin is dangerous. Again, you can't lose your salvation. But you might discover that your professed faith was just that.

Words that were uttered, but words that were not true, that ultimately did not reveal your true state.

You might end up hearing these words on Judgment Day. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?

Did we not go down and evangelize? Did we not do this? Did we not serve in the nursery? Did we not do that?

Verse 23, And then will I declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Those who practice sin are giving evidence of their true spiritual state. They may well be slaves and not sons.

Now I want to give a few cautions. This is not, being a Christian, being a disciple of Christ, remaining in Christ, is not about the level of your obedience.

It's not, you know, you have to hit 70%. It's not about your prayer life.

That's a good thing. It's not about the number of times you've read through the Bible cover or how many times you do it in a year, how many verses of Scripture you have memorized.

Those are all good things, but they are not salvific. They do not save you. We must always remember that God's love is not conditioned on how good we think we are.

Now it's good to, is it good to think, you know, I'd really like to improve in this area? Yes. But God's love is not a response to our obedience.

It is fixed. And in fact, it was set, it was fixed before the foundations of the world.

It's so important to understand that He cannot love us more than He does right now because He loves us in Christ.

We are in Christ if we love Christ. And He will not love us less because we sin.

Another caution, some might say, well, that's a license to sin. Well, no, it's not because we've been talking about not practicing sin.

But if you somehow think it's a license to sin, you're really revealing your own thinking because you've not understood

God's love. He determined before time to reverse the effects of sin, of the sin of Adam, which

He knew would take place. He knew that beforehand. And the Father, Son, and the

Spirit determined to redeem a people whom the

Father chose in love before the foundations of the world. And in time, the

Son lived a perfect life in their place, died for their sins, and was raised on the third day.

And the Holy Spirit works in time, during our lifetime, on each

Christian to sanctify them until their death or until the Lord returns.

Christians don't obey Christ. They don't remain in His Word to earn favor, but because they love

Christ. They love Jesus. And they want to express that love, not merely with words, but with their lives.

And again, I think there are two extremes. There's legalism on the one hand, and there's antinomianism, that is to say, it doesn't really matter what

I do. There are no restrictions on me. The idea of rules keeping pleases

God versus the idea that God is pleased when I'm pleased. If I'm happy, God's happy.

Both display wrong understanding, wrong thinking. It's not what

I must do to be acceptable, and it's not what I can get away with, how far I can go. Instead, it is in light of God's love for me, how shall

I show my love for Him? I think Paul is just a great example in Romans 7, where he talks about his struggle with sin, and how does he end it?

You know, who's going to deliver me from this body of death? And then he says, but thanks be to God, there is now no condemnation.

So it's both. I want to obey. I hate the fact that I don't obey perfectly, but I know

God is faithful, and it's not about me and my faithfulness. Now, do you abide in Christ's words?

Are you a true disciple? Are your thoughts and actions changing as you learn more from the Word? Do you have a sense of spiritual growth as you are taught more?

Do you love being with fellow believers, learning from them, teaching them, bearing their burdens, practicing the one another's?

Do you have a profound love for the gospel? Do you always think, man,

I love to hear the gospel. Over time, as you remain under the

Word, you will see a change in yourself, growth in spiritual maturity.

As you look back on your life, you'll see, you know what? I wouldn't have made that decision.

I wouldn't have taken that action if it were not for the work of God in my life. Because those things are not me.

That's not what I would have done. But thanks be to God, He didn't leave me like I was.

He has transformed me. He has changed my thinking. He's given me a new heart, new affections, new desires.

And because of that, I want to live my life to please Him. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, what a wonderful Savior is

Christ Jesus, our Lord. Lord, how you have blessed, how you have redeemed.

Father, it boggles our mind that Jesus Christ would die for us.

But it is true. It is a wonderful truth. It is the sweetest truth in all the world.

Father, let us live in light of that truth. Let us remain in that truth, abiding in it, focused on it, viewing the life through the grace, love, and mercy shown us at the cross.