Test Yourselves – 2 Corinthians 13:5-8

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Good morning and welcome to Adult Sunday School at Kootenai Community Church. I'm glad y 'all like each other.

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Keep it up. Yeah, right. Well, you're making room for others.

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It's a sacrifice. Let's open in prayer. Father, you have told us that your spirit confirms with us that we are indeed saved.

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And it is your Son who has done that every wit. We are in awe and thankful every day for our salvation because it had nothing to do with us.

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Were it to have something to do with us, it would have never happened. Thank you, Father, that you took the initiative to bring us to your

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Son and then to regenerate us, change our hearts, and cause us to be able to be saved.

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This morning as we look into your word, it is with thankfulness and delight knowing that you will instruct us and,

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Lord, I pray that we would hear from you through your word in Jesus' name this morning.

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Amen. So, is it okay to know you're saved? Do you know you're saved?

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Positive? For sure? You know, there are those who...

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Canon 16 of the Council of Trent says that if you actually have the temerity to posit that you are indeed saved, that you are one of the elect, you are to be accursed.

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Now, ain't that a catch -22? So, this morning as we look into 2

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Corinthians chapter 13, I seem to have misplaced my real Bible, so I'm going to be reading from an electronic one.

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I hope it's the same. It's not the message. It's the electronic

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New American Standard Bible, so I'll have to read it with a digital voice, but as we look into God's word this morning, it's going to be, at least for me, it was just with a sense of utter relief and delight and thankfulness and awe at what he has done to transform our lives.

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We wouldn't have done it. We just wouldn't have. The Corinthians wouldn't have done it, and there were many of them that knew that.

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And so, let's look at... Excuse me. I'm still in 1 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 13.

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We're going to read the whole chapter. It's a short chapter, 14 verses.

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2 Corinthians chapter 13. Examine yourselves is the title of mine.

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I thought I was reading the word of God. This is the third time,

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Paul says, I am coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent, I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again,

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I will not spare anyone. Since you are seeking proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you, for he indeed was crucified because of weakness, yet he lives because of the power of God.

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For we also are weak in him, yet we will live with him because of the power of God directed toward you.

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Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test?

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But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. Now we pray to God that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved.

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For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong.

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This we also pray for, that you be made complete. For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present

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I need not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.

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Finally brethren, rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like -minded, live in peace, and the

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God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. So last week we looked at the first four verses of this chapter.

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And the Corinthians looking for proof that Paul was who he said he was.

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He said in verse 3, Since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me and who is not weak toward you but mighty.

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And you remember, it's not wrong to seek if someone is actually properly bringing you the word of God.

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It's not wrong to do that. That isn't what they were doing. The false apostles had sowed discord, disunity, and suspicion throughout the

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Corinthian church so that Paul was being questioned. His credentials, his apostolic ministry were all being questioned.

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And by a people who should have known better. Remember we've talked about the benefit of the doubt. If you know someone who has been trustworthy for decades and you hear a story about them, you ought to give them the benefit of the doubt and go to them.

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And too many of the Corinthians didn't do that. So Paul answers them that Christ indeed was crucified because of weakness.

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But he lives because of the power of God. And so does every believer live because of the power of God.

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So then in verse 5 he comes to them with this. He says test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

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Examine yourselves or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless you indeed fail the test.

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Unless indeed you fail the test. So the two Greek words for test and examine are commonly used in the

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New Testament to refer to the action of verifying something. They are objective words, not subjective.

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In this particular verse the pronouns are placed before the verbs in the Greek for emphasis so that it actually reads this way.

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Yourselves test to see if you are in the faith. Yourselves examine. I'm not responsible to test you to see if you're in the faith.

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Just to make sure if you're retailing something you claim to be the word of God that it actually comports to the word of God.

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But it's not my responsibility to test your faith. It's your responsibility to test your faith.

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It's mine to test mine. Now does that why would Paul tell them that if they couldn't be sure they were saved.

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If they couldn't be sure. Too many Christians think that they are

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Christians when they are not. The Bible speaks of many who stand before Christ and say Lord, Lord did we not and he says depart from me

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I never knew you. This should be a sobering reminder that feelings, feelings saved may not be synonymous with actually being saved.

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John Piper came up with a 15 point test. MacArthur with an 11 point test.

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Others came up. I hooked up all these tests and they were remarkably good. I'm not downplaying them but it was just interesting to see.

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So I here's going to be a 20 point list. I mean you all know me

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I never use a sentence when a paragraph will do. So what are some of the evidences?

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Now this is not to say some of these you will do utterly. Some of these as believers we fail again and again.

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But we don't like it when we fail. We want to please the Lord. And that's actually one of the tests. So what are some of the tests that the

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Corinthians could have applied to themselves. They repent. Someone who is truly saved repents and believes the gospel.

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They turn from their old ways and they believe the Scripture. The gospel of the

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Scriptures. This is the actual gospel as found in the Bible. Not something out of some other extraneous book of which there are plenty in our world today.

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I mean there's cults galore. And some of them have co -opted the

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Scriptures. Most all of them have co -opted the Scriptures. Let me put it that way. They all will believe false things especially about the

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Lord Jesus Christ the Father and the Holy Spirit. But some of them have their very own books.

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Incredible sections. Incredible large tomes that purport to be the new gospel.

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A true believer repents and believes this gospel. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's number one.

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Number two. They have a humble heart. God's word has fallen on good ground.

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God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble and it is grace alone that produces salvation by faith alone.

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So these are people saved people know that they don't deserve it.

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They don't walk around saying, boy you got to bargain with me. The world isn't going to be so much better now that I'm in.

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And everybody that you were in with before says, I'm so glad he's gone.

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God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble. One of the characteristics of a believer is humility.

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A recognition that God alone has saved them and that they did not deserve it. Never did deserve it.

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And they really believe that. It's not just something they say, yeah I didn't deserve it. I'm pretty good though.

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They know they didn't deserve it. Number three. They are broken and mourn over their own sin.

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Over their sin. They are not sinless but when they do sin they detest it and they seek forgiveness as 1

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John 1 .9 commands. If you confess your sin he is faithful to forgive your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

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They detest their own personal sin. They detest it when they think about it. It's unholy to them.

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They're not happy with themselves when they sin. Unbelievers have various responses to sin but they're not that.

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They're not detestation and hatred towards it. They're usually compromised and defensive, defending it, recategorizing it as something else than sin.

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Well that's just human nature. Human nature is utterly decrepit. Utterly detestable.

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Number four. There is a hunger and a discipline to read, study, share or teach

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God's word. There's also a corresponding ability to understand God's word that did not exist before salvation.

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Don't be surprised when you give some of the scripture to people who are unsaved and they don't understand it.

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That's right. That's normal. They don't. It's when God changes their mind. When he regenerates them so that they can begin to understand.

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Come out of the darkness. When he translates them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. They begin to understand the light.

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Before, neither did you, neither did I. It was mumbo -jumbo. And some of it was sing -songy and nicely written and some good history but we didn't really believe it as the gospel.

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There's a hunger to also study, to actually study and understand the word and compare and look into it.

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There's a desire to share it. You have something that you know others need.

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They really do need. That is an example of what a believer does.

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Of how they think. Do you think that way? Do you want to share it? You do, don't you? Sometimes you bite your lip.

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Don't bite your lip. Be careful and be tactical, if you will.

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But share God's word. That's what believers are called to do. Number five,

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I think. They are obeying God's word out of a love for Jesus. The obedience comes from a heart that seeks to glorify the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You read something new in the scripture, you realize you have been offending in that area and you don't try to formulate a reason why you can continue doing it.

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You go, really? Wow. How am I going to stop that?

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That's impossible. Yeah, you're right. Except for the spirit of God. Accountability to others and many ways that you can get counsel and encouragement to obey

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God's word. That obedience comes from a heart, as I said, that seeks to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe number six.

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I didn't number these and I should have. They are forsaking sin and do not practice sin. Old ways begin to pass away.

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New ways begin to take root. Ways of service, compassion, humility, and love.

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The things that you used to like doing that are against what God commands, you no longer find joy in them.

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You no longer find encouragement. You no longer find delight. And the new things that you read about and you study and you see that the

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Lord Jesus commanded and that he modeled, that the apostles modeled, those are the things that begin to attract you and you want to do them.

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You want to live that way. Those are evidences of belief. Modeling yourselves after the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And as Paul said, follow me as I follow him. They are surrendering all.

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I think this is number seven. They are surrendering all to Jesus. So as the Lord reveals things in your lives, in our lives, that must go, we figure out how to let them go.

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To get rid of them. To stop them. And as the Lord reveals things that must come into our lives, and I'm going to name some of them, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

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By the way, there's no laws against them yet. Those are the kinds of things that you seek.

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When someone else tells you that you're not practicing something, maybe there's a resistance to it first, but as God's word and his spirit work in your heart, you begin to realize that they're correct.

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You might even go to them for ways to correct it. I've told you the story about the person who gave me three pages of what was wrong with me.

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And when I asked them, be careful what you ask for. And I asked them if they would help me correct some of my bad behavior and would they be willing to tell me what they thought was wrong with me.

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And they gave me three closely written pages. It was handwritten. It was all handwritten.

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This was a long time ago. I mean, they had typewriters, but this person was probably in a hurry to get this committed to paper before I changed my mind.

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And at least, if not all, at least two pages I knew at the time, oh yeah, they're right.

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And you can't change that, but the Lord Jesus Christ can. The Spirit of God can. They're surrendering all to Jesus.

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Now, does that all happen at once? You find out in one day, everything that's wrong, you surrender it and you're golden headed for the crown.

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The crowns of God, no, wouldn't that be nice? But it must not be the right way or God would have done it differently.

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This is the right way to do it. A bit at a time, three steps forward, two steps back.

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And hopefully as your age grows and your maturity grows and your love for God grows and your willingness to submit to Him grows, it's four steps forward and two back and five steps forward and one back and 17 steps forward and a half a step back and you trip back forward.

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Those are the good days. They passionately love Jesus and are conforming daily to the image of Jesus, kind of the same thing.

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Their love is evidenced by a willingness to obey what Scripture commands. Next, if it's eight or nine, they have a servant's heart and a love for other believers.

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I have gone to different cities and fellowship one time, when I used to spend a lot of time this whole all needs to be taken in context when you find out

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I've been to Las Vegas 30 times. I have an army surplus store and that's where the big surplus shows are.

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So we'd go to Vegas all the time and we would visit different churches and it's amazing, you walk into a church that is preaching the

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Word of God and you have an instant fellowship, you don't even know their names but you've got an instant fellowship.

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It's delightful, it's actually delightful. You get exposed to all kinds of new things, hopefully scriptural things but new things,

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I did. They have a heart, a servant's heart and a love for other believers they more and more begin to delight in spending time with other believers whether it's teaching or learning or one -on -one.

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That is an evidence of salvation. They separate themselves from the things of this world and do not compromise.

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Sometimes the separation is instantaneous and old bad habits die immediately, sometime it is more gradual as they work out their salvation with fear and trembling, we talked about that earlier as well.

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I don't want you to be concerned that you haven't gotten rid of everything in your life that you know

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God wants you to get rid of. Keep at it but recognize that we are sinful dust and it takes time to extract the goop that's in us and God does it in His timing, in His rate but you're willing to do it, that's an evidence of salvation.

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They are born again and they show evidence of a new nature. Do people say, you're not like you used to be and everybody knows in that context that it's a good thing?

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Does that ever happen to you? That's a good sign, that's a good sign. And I'm not asking you to take these by the way, these are evidences but let's stick the actual truth of Scripture is what we need to fall back on.

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Have you confessed your sins? Have you trusted Christ for salvation? Those are the reasons that you're saved but these are things that can be encouraging to us and support that if you will.

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So they are born again, they begin to be different from their old selves and it is evident to others.

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Whatever the next number is, they overcome Satan's lies, temptations and anything contrary to God's word.

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New behaviors form that are in line with the teachings of Scripture and old behaviors begin to fall away and become rare and eventually extinct.

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Have you noticed something about what salvation does? It doesn't just give you a new way of thinking, it causes you to have a new way of living and that is a glory to God and He delights in that.

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They are enduring hardships, trials, testings and persecutions for Jesus. Now that all comes differently to each of us but the difficulties that come after salvation are dealt with differently than those that came before.

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Trials are seen as way one of the ways we see trials is that they are ways to cultivate new good behaviors as the believer learns to count them all joy.

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Now don't seek trials, they'll come to you of their own accord but when they come, a believer learns to begin counting them all joy and the reason we can count them joy is because as we persevere through trials,

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God gets glory and that's what salvation is for is to give glory to God that's one of the main purposes.

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They are pursuing and growing in holiness. The pursuit of things, fame and fortune give way to looking for new ways to trust

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God and to live for Him. I'm going to mark these so I don't go back and do some over because that's my habit.

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Get rich quick schemes, stuff loses its luster, following Christ begins to grow in its estimation in your life.

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More and more. They are growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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They begin to act and live more like the Savior did and recognizing that again it is all a work of God in their lives.

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They fear God and turn away from evil. The wicked things that used to have an attraction to them now become distasteful and unimportant as they seek to avoid them.

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Even looking for ways to remove them from their lives. That which distances you from God becomes distasteful to you.

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That which comes in between you and your relationship to Christ and to others becomes distasteful.

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You begin to look for ways to work those things out. Animosities that you had towards people, whether they were in your mind at least justified or not, begin to lose their attraction to stay.

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You want to forgive and you want to restore relationships. Even if you can't, you want to try.

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They are denying self and following Jesus daily and are not ashamed of Jesus.

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They're not ashamed of Him. They're not afraid. You know it's easy to speak out about Him here because you all love

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Him too. I can stand up here and pontificate until my eyeballs roll back in my head and there's no persecution going to come.

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Well maybe Pat might. But I'll deserve it. But it's when we're out in the world that a believer is not ashamed of Jesus.

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They're not ashamed of Him. Life becomes a way of bringing glory to God outwardly as well as inwardly and delightedly so.

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They're ready, waiting and anticipating the sudden and soon return of Jesus Christ. They recognize that Christ will return soon and they adopt a mentality of planning like they have a hundred years but living like they have five -tenths of a second.

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So you plan ahead but you recognize that He could come any minute. Now I know there's all kinds of good solid theological underpinnings to this has to happen and this has to happen but hey,

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He's God. He can cause things to happen. How long did it take Him to speak the universe into existence?

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Only because He wanted to give us an example of how to live did He take six days.

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He could have done it, all of it in a snap of time that we don't have the ability to measure.

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They're productive and bear much fruit by giving to Jesus their time, their money and their talent.

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They are not lazy and they seek to be busy bringing glory to God in any way they can. And there are a million, billion,

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I just made that number up, ways to bring glory to God. And you've been doing them and keep doing it, keep doing it.

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Everybody has a different calling to do the things that will bring glory to God in their lives. And it's amazing that God has been so creative that He can get glory in so many ways.

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They hold to essential Christian doctrine. They determinately hold on to the great foundational doctrines of Christian theology that have been taught for thousands of years.

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When you find somebody who has some new novel doctrine, brothers and sisters, there's nothing new under the sun.

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I mean, right ten minutes into the new church they were coming up with false theology. Ten seconds probably.

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But they hold to the foundational doctrines, foundational doctrines of Christian theology.

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The Trinity, the deity of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the virgin birth, the sufficiency and truth of the

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Scriptures. These are not negotiable to a genuine believer.

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They're not negotiable. Now as I mentioned before, no one will do these things perfectly, but the direction is upward.

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And I mentioned three steps forward to every two steps back. The faith spoken of here is not just the subjective element of believing the gospel, but it is the objective truth of Christianity.

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It's interesting that I was working on this this week and I saw on one of the posts on Facebook, you know, that great bastion of truth.

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I think it was MacArthur, or was it Ligonier? Is it Ligonier or Legion? Legion?

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That sounds bad. I thought it was Ligonier. Okay. Coming right across them steel bridges, it's

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Ligonier. At any rate, it might have been them, I can't remember, but the Bible is objective truth. It is objective truth.

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It's not subjective truth. It's verifiable objective truth. Scripture teaches that it is possible to know that one has been saved.

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Paul was confident that many of the Corinthians, when they tested themselves, they would indeed realize that Christ was in them.

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For those who had been acting properly, it would be a blessing and an encouragement. For those who had been listening to the false apostles, it would have been a wake up call.

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And I mentioned earlier, the Catholic Church canon number 16 of the Council of Trent says this, If anyone saith that he will for certain of an absolute and infallible certainty have that great gift of perseverance unto the end, unless he hath learned this by special revelation, let him be anathema.

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You can't know that you're going to make it. How would you like to live like that? Well, I hope

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I've done enough good. Nope, can't do it. Next question. You can't do enough good.

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There's no balancing a detestable evil heart that is bent on sin.

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And plus, we wouldn't be balancing it anyway. We'd be struggling and doing the wrong thing until Christ turns us. The fact is,

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Paul and John, both under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, explained that one can know for sure.

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Why else would Paul encourage them to test themselves to see? If there was no way to know if one were truly saved, this statement would be pointless.

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If, however, the statement is true, and it is, then the Corinthians, upon examining themselves and discovering that they were indeed born again, would recognize that as a fruit of Paul's ministry, they were a fruit of Paul's ministry.

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That in itself validated the apostles' work in their lives. How can the redeemed know that they're saved again?

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The Scripture teaches, Romans 8, 13 -16. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die.

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But if by the Spirit you are put into death, the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the

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Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. These are sons of God. For if you have not received a spirit of slavery, leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption, as sons by which we cry out,

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Abba, Father, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

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1 John 2, 3 -6. By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep

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His commandments. The one who says, I have come to know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

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But whoever keeps His word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him. The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

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We model ourselves after the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 3 -14. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.

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You see some of these in that list? He who does not love abides in death.

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What does it mean to love the brethren? You don't cut them off in traffic?

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What does it mean to love the brethren? To be gentle with them, to overlook issues that they might have with you?

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Unless it has to do with chocolate. What else? What does it mean to love the brethren?

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Carry their burdens. What does that mean? Care about what trials they're going through, pray for them.

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I see it all the time in this church. We're moving, can you come help us? Boom, 75 people show up.

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We'll help if you're not moving out of the county. What else?

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What other kinds of things demonstrate love for the brethren? I would allege that our pastor, our teaching elder, main teaching elder, the work he puts in weekly to bring us the unadulterated

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Word of God, even stuff about Melchizedek. Who teaches about Melchizedek in 2019?

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And we learn something from it. We go away going, I never knew that. That was awesome. Don't get a big head.

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I'm one of those weirdos that really enjoyed Ecclesiastes. But then there's nothing new under the sun.

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Okay, 1 John 3, 18 and 19. Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but what you all said, but in deed and truth.

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We will know by this that we are of the truth and we will assure our heart before him. Faith produces works.

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Not works bring salvation. Salvation by grace through faith results in a heart that wants to work, wants to do things for the glory of God and for others so that God will get glory.

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1 John 4, 12 and 13. Did you want to say something? Be not hearers of the word, but be ye doers of the word.

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See how quickly I revert back to my old King Jimmy days. No one has seen

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God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit.

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Now just loving other people doesn't mean God abides in you. There's a package that accompanies that is evidence of salvation.

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But it's one of the evidences that you love other people. You love believers. You love people who aren't believers.

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You want to see them become believers. You want them to come to Christ. You know that what they have is going to get them to hell.

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And what you have by God's grace would lead them to salvation. 1 John 5, 13.

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These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

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God would never have written those words if we couldn't know. Now to allow that to puff you up that you're better than others around you, that would maybe be an evidence of the opposite.

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But when you know that you have eternal life and you're blessed by it and awed and terrified at the same time and recognize that how close you came.

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You were hanging on that spider's thread over the pit and God saved you. That's an evidence of salvation.

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Any other comments about that? We're still in this verse. I'm getting really carried away here. It was just a delightful study this week and to test myself and realize that I fall so far short but I've got a list on my refrigerator now if it doesn't pull the whole thing over.

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Thus we have the situation that when most of the Corinthians tested themselves and discovered that indeed they were saved, they would have to come to the conclusion both that the gospel they received was true although that would be a subjective observation.

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A more appropriate observation would be to look to the scripture and see if what had been said compared with the scripture was true and I believe many of them did that.

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Nevertheless if they looked into themselves and discovered salvation the conclusion would be that Paul's message was genuine.

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Paul knew he would not be humiliated by challenging the Corinthians to do this because his message was genuine and the

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Holy Spirit had indeed come into the lives of many in the Corinthian church. Many of them. This is not a testing to see if I prayed a prayer or walked an aisle or had an electric feeling at some point.

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This does look back towards baptism, church attendance, a somewhat moral life, knowing many facts about Jesus in the

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Bible. These are not necessarily authentic marks of salvation. Even the demons believe and tremble and they are not saved and cannot be saved.

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In addition to this previous list MacArthur in his New Testament commentary on 2 Corinthians said this first and I really abbreviated this because MacArthur never uses a sentence when a paragraph will do either.

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So if you get a chance you can just look into his commentary but these are four other observations about genuine salvation.

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First, genuine faith is marked by penitence. True faith produces an overwhelming sense of sinfulness which causes believers to mourn over their sin.

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Be humble and acknowledge and confess our transgressions. Those who refuse to turn from their sin give evidence that they have not experienced the transformation that takes place at salvation.

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Second, genuine faith is marked by a desire for righteousness. True believers are marked not only by an aversion to sin but also an attraction to righteousness.

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When you see righteousness in other people it's attractive to you. It's not offensive. Unbelievers it's offensive because it reminds them of what they are and it should always remind us of what we were too.

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Third, genuine faith is marked by submission to divine authority. Sinners are rebels against God. Saints are

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His willing servants. Fourth, genuine saving faith is marked by obedience. Jesus pointedly asked, why do you call me

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Lord, Lord Lord and do not do what I say. And James said you show me,

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I'll show you my faith by my obedience, by my works. He said I will show you my faith by my works.

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Finally, genuine saving faith is marked by love both for God and for other people. It is a mark of the elect that they love

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God the love for other believers also characterizes those whose faith is genuine.

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It's a mark, it's a, we are marked hopefully, well not hopefully, if we're saved we will be marked by love love for others, caring for others.

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Now it doesn't mean that you don't recognize, hopefully appropriately when confrontation is necessary, but the confrontation will be done because of love, not because of one upmanship or because of vengeance.

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It will be done because of an interest in the hope for the other person, an interest in their need an interest in their relationship with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So, now we're done with verse 5. Any comments or questions about it?

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You can know you're saved but if you fail a lot of these, if you, then find out why, find out why.

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Yeah, but honest, kind of honest yeah, when someone is offended by your ability to actually know what you believe, if they're offended by that, look for opportune ways to share your belief with them in a loving manner, and I know you probably did.

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Sometimes they're not open, they're not receptive, but you can plant the seeds that maybe some other believer somewhere, sometime will have an opportunity to water, and then as God turns them, regenerates them, maybe somewhere down the road now she knows what she believes, and she's not offended, and she wishes she could find you and apologize.

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It's my fantasy. Any other comments? Verse 6 but I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test this was, this was,

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I don't want to say Paul had an inferior motive because this is scripture, this is what the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, but it it's like God's word always has, did

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I use the word like? I apologize. It is, as God's word has the ability to meet us on several levels, dozens of levels as we dig into it, and he you can read the same book, the same chapter, the same paragraph the same scripture in your long journey with Christ, and it will have a different effect on you each time, because he will use a different part of that active word to get at what is necessary in your heart to change, and so Paul knew that when they inspected themselves, the ones who were saved would go, this has been bad,

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Paul brought us the real gospel, why would we even listen to those people and hopefully do something about it.

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This is a straightforward acknowledge from Paul that once the Corinthians inspected themselves and realized indeed that they were children of God, they would know that Paul did not fail the test of being an apostle because his words were true, and they brought life to the

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Corinthians who believed his message, and Paul would be the first to say it wasn't his message, it was

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God's message, he was simply the bearer of that message. Paul has been writing to the

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Corinthians as a church of believers, so it is unlikely, even incorrect to assume here that he has doubts about their salvation, no rather he knows that if they test themselves they will see that indeed they have trusted

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Christ through the message that he gave, this would give them more confidence in the message and in Paul, and more confidence to deal with the false teachers in their midst.

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You have not been telling us the truth you are out of here, pitchfork and tar and feathers comes to mind, well that's government, but it would be the same because they would have been attempting to be the church government.

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Any comments about verse 6? Boy we got through that fast didn't we? Verse 7, now we pray to God that you do no wrong not that we ourselves may appear approved but that you may do what is right even though we may appear unapproved an essential element of the ministry of a shepherd is that he must practice prayer for those under his responsibility he must be a praying shepherd, someone who acknowledges that it is

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God who is at work to do and to will of his good pleasure and that he will seek whatever the pleasure is for the sheep that he has been entrusted with to protect for a time an essential element of ministry that a shepherd must practice is prayer

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Jesus encouraged the disciples to pray most famously in Matthew chapter 6 in the prayer which is commonly called the

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Our Father, Paul encouraged prayer throughout his epistles, here hoping that he does not have to come to Corinth as a disciplining parent let me say that again, here hoping that he does not have to come to Corinth as a disciplining parent, he prays to God that they would wise up and do what is right, not for his own approval or his own self approval but for their sanctification and spiritual growth, another aspect is that shepherds need to be concerned more with the sanctification, the blessing and the spiritual growth of the flock than their own needs he wanted it to be unnecessary for him to wield his apostolic authority in Corinth, he didn't want to have to come and do that he would much rather that they would examine themselves, recognize the things that they had been doing contrary to God's word, change those things and get rid of the false teachers it was important for Paul to be approved by the

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Corinthian church as an apostle for one reason so that they would know they had received the word of God from him it was important to stamp the authority on his words as scripture here though, he is more concerned or at least as concerned for their spiritual well -being, just as a father would be concerned about the spiritual well -being of his children,

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Paul is concerned about the spiritual well -being of these people in Corinth, these wayward believers the church was full of, and every church will have unbelievers in it, but Paul was preaching speaking, writing to the believers in the church in this letter sometimes to the unbelievers, but everybody is going to get something from it, verse 8, for we can do nothing against the truth but only for the truth

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Paul could do nothing against the truth, earlier in 1 Corinthians 9 ,16, he had told the

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Corinthians that he was under a compulsion to preach the gospel, the truth, woe to him if he didn't preach the gospel, it was his life's calling, it was what burned in his heart, it was everything to him so his preaching of the gospel was paramount to him his life was committed to bringing the truth to the world at large, but to individuals it's another mark of a believer that they're concerned about individuals, concerned about people concerned about each other, he could never do anything against that truth, he could only work for the truth, whatever he had to do in order to advance the truth, that's what he would do, he became all things to all men, he said, in order that some might believe if it was lovingly caring for the

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Corinthians, he would do that if it was confronting them in their sin he would do that, even if they didn't think he was brave enough to do it he had done it, and he did it again and again, whatever was necessary to see them grow in Christ, grow in the truth, that is an action he would take by the way, that's another sign of a true believer someone who sees a need in another person's life, recognizes in humility that he is no better Galatians chapter 6, taking heed to himself lest he be tempted as well, but moving in a direction to bring, if necessary, confrontation with whatever it takes to see another believer grow in Christ so,

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Paul, he really had his work cut out with the Corinthians, I'm sure glad we're not like them, huh?

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Is that humble? Yeah, that was really humble, no, we are all, we're all under the great shepherd, and we can all walk astray, by God's grace we pray that we don't, but I just wanted this morning to be an encouragement to you that you can know whom you have believed and that he is able to take that which you've committed, he has been committed against him for that day he will bring you through it, he will continue the work that he has started in you, he will see it through and so when you have doubts about your salvation fall back on the word of God, fall back on the work that Christ has done, because that is infallible let's pray,

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Father we know that you have done a work in many, in our midst here and throughout this local area, we thank you for that, we thank you that you are the

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God of individual people that you love people, let us be modeled, let us model our lives after that, let us be purveyors and spreaders of the glory of God that is found only in your gospel, for there is no other name under heaven by which men should be saved but that the name of Christ Jesus, and we thank you for that in Jesus name, amen.