Contending For the Faith

Well, good morning, everyone. It's such a joy to be able to gather together with my blood family and my church family. So this morning is kind of bittersweet because we're wrapping up our study in the book of.

Jude.

So if you would, please turn in your Bibles to Jude. We've been talking a whole lot about what it means to contend for the faith as we confront.

Apostasy.

And so this morning, we're going to be wrapping up this short book, the last closing passage. We're going to look at verses 17 through 25. So if you would, please look with me starting in verse 17, where we read, but you must remember beloved the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They said to you in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit. But you beloved building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life and have mercy on those who doubt.

Save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present to you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now forever, amen.

So if you would, look back up to verse 17, where we read a key word, he says, but you beloved, talking to Christians, he says the key word is remember. So this morning I want us to remember that ultimately God is in control of everything.

That's the point that I want to stick in your minds all throughout this sermon this morning, that God is ultimately in control and we must remember that. We must remember that as we are confronting apostasy, false teaching, as we contend for the faith, the truthfulness of God's word.

And so we're going to say that word a lot this morning. We're going to talk about apostasy. And really there's two types of apostasy that I want you to be familiar with. The first one is where somebody departs from biblical truth, right?

They may claim to be a Christian, but they have erred into heresy, right? They have fallen away from what is actually true, so you have this type of apostasy. These are false teachers. And maybe the type of apostasy we're more familiar with, the second kind, is when somebody just totally renounces their Christian faith altogether.

They become apostates, right? And so the book of Jude is writing about that first kind of apostasy, somebody that departs from the truth, but they stay in the church. I believe this is the more dangerous kind of apostasy because it breaks our hearts.

But when somebody leaves the faith, what do they do? They take their misconceptions, their wrong ideas with them, right? But imagine somebody who denies who Jesus actually is. They stay in the church, right?

They may creep into our leadership, and they begin leading everybody else astray. That's why it's so important to be plugged into a biblical church that has godly men, a plurality of elders, shepherds, guarding the flock from this type of apostasy.

It's so important. These people will creep in to our churches. So if you're in Jude, look up at verse 4. Jude says, for certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality.

And look who they ultimately deny. They deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude is saying that this is happening in his day, and this is going to continue to happen throughout the church age.

This is happening in our day. So I just want to kind of build up to the context in verse 17. All throughout the book of Jude, verses 4 through 16, it's talking about these apostate false teachers. Verse 5 says, those who do not believe.

Verse 8 says, these people. Verse 10 says, but these people. Verse 14 says, these. Verse 16 says, these, following their own sinful desires. The reality is, is these people are already among us. They have crept in.

Spiritual warfare is all around us. And when I start to think about this, it kind of scares me sometimes. I just think, oh man, they're already among us. Jude is repeatedly saying, these, these, these.

And in verse 17, he says, but you, right? This is where we get comforted, because it's going to be scary at times, but we can ultimately rest in God being in control. So in verse 17, he says, but you, talking to the Christians, but you must remember this, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So even though it's going to be scary as we come in contact with apostates, false teachers, this was predicted to happen. Everything is happening according to God's master plan. So when we read in the Bible that things are predicted to happen, that means that God has a plan for it.

We must rest that all things have a purpose. They are happening according to the purpose of God, who works all things after the counsel of His will. Jude is telling Christians to remember that God is in control and that we must rest in His sovereignty.

So once again, he's reminding us that the apostles have already predicted that false teachers, apostates, are going to come and surround the people of God. And so I was looking at some of the apostles.

The apostle Paul said this in Acts chapter 20. He said, "'After my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples after them.'".

The apostle Paul was very clear, this is going to happen. The apostle John, in his first letter, says that the Antichrist, the spirit of Antichrist, are already among you. And I think Jude might have actually had in mind what the apostle Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 3.

The apostle Peter says, "'Beloved, I am stirring up in your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.'".

So Jude and Peter are making the same point. You notice that Jude is saying, remember what the apostles said. Now when you look at what the apostle Peter said, he's like, listen to us. And guess what?

This was long ago predicted even from the holy prophets. This was always going to happen, and Jude knew this, okay? Last week, many of you all were here, Pastor Stephen talked about what Enoch predicted.

It's actually in the book of Jude. Look at verses 14 and 15. Jude says, it was about these, talking about who? The apostate, false teachers. It was about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "'Behold, the Lord comes with 10 ,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly.'".

So even all the way back in Genesis, going back to the holy prophets, it was predicted long ago that apostasy would creep into the church, that people would try to drag people away from the truth. But he also said that the Lord's coming, right?

This is a promise of not only salvation for God's people, but he is going to execute judgment. So I don't want us to lose the point that Peter and Jude are making. We must remember that it was predicted that apostates are going to surround God's people, but God is in control.

So we must be faithful and obedient to him. Even though it might get scary, it will be, because it's dangerous, but we ultimately rest in God being in control of all things. So let's continue to look at the passage this morning.

Look at verse 18. The apostle Peter and Jude talk about scoffers. They both mention the word scoffer here. In both contexts, a scoffer is someone who mocks Christ's promises, ridicules the things of God, and ultimately opposes the true gospel of grace.

They're going to pervert the good news that Jesus Christ did everything in order to accomplish salvation. So also that word scoffer, this talks about someone who denies the truths of scripture, and they're going to entice other people to go along with them in their error.

So maybe this should be rather obvious, but we must care about who we surround ourselves with in our lives. We must exercise discernment, right? We're going to love on all people, but who are you surrounding yourself with on a daily basis or on a weekly basis?

If it's an apostate, these people are going to damage you spiritually. They're going to lead you into error. That's scary, but it calls us to know the truthfulness of God's word so we can detect when people are leading us astray or not.

I'm also reminded of what the psalmist says in Psalm chapter 1. We read, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

Some of your translations say, nor at the seat of the scornful, and I want to be really clear that we are to reach out to lost people. We're not just saying we're going to be so distantly removed from them that we never engage with anybody.

No, no.

We engage with the lost world. We love on them, right? We show compassion to them, and we preach the gospel to them, right? But we don't make them our close, intimate friend group, those who we put in our lives that we talk about our spiritual walk with, right?

We got to guard ourselves of this, and I think Jesus is the perfect model of this, right? He sat with tax collectors. He ate with sinners, with prostitutes. What did he do? He preached the gospel to them.

He loved on them, but you notice they're not a part of the 12 disciples. They weren't a part of his inner circle, Peter, James, and John. Jesus gives us a model that we must exercise discernment, love on others, but surround ourselves with Christians, people that are going to build us up in the faith.

Psalm 1 is warning us to guard ourselves of the influence that leads from a casual association with the wicked because that leads to embracing their worldview and sharing ultimately in their fate. That's why the psalmist goes on to say, blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

When we're in the word, when we're renewing our mind with scripture, it should compel us to pray for godly friends, right? Is that true? So Jude is warning us about false teachers that ultimately mock the real truth of God's.

Word.

So that's why in verse 19 he tells them that these apostates, they will cause divisions. They're worldly, and they're devoid of the spirit. So I was reading this verse, I thought, okay, you've got God's people trying to obey the truth.

Of course, they're going to come in and be divisive. I'm like, that's pretty obvious, right? They're worldly people, but I think Jude is bringing out the major problem with apostate people that are lost.

They are devoid of the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside of them. A lost person cannot, I repeat, they cannot understand the things of God because they are unable to discern spiritual truth. So hopefully I have a scripture posted behind me.

The Apostle Paul says, 1 Corinthians 2 .14, he is super clear. He says the natural person, thanks somebody that's dead in their sin and trespasses. The natural person, the lost person, does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly to him.

When you preach the truth to someone who doesn't have the spirit, they're going to mock it. They're going to be like, that doesn't sound right at all. They're going to make fun of it, right? They can't.

They don't have the spirit. He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The unbeliever is spiritually dead in their sins and their trespasses. Therefore, they need the Holy Spirit to come into their heart and regenerate them.

They need the Holy Spirit to come in and take out that heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. When God starts working on someone's heart, the Holy Spirit convicts them of sin and of righteousness and of the judgment to come so that they can see their need for a savior.

When God works on an unbeliever's heart in this way, a faithful Christian comes along and preaches the gospel and they are able to respond to it. I want you to think about if unbelievers do not have the Holy Spirit, then what do believers.

Have?

We do have the Holy Spirit, right? The Bible is super clear that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Our bodies were bought with a price, therefore, we should glorify God with our bodies. The Apostle Paul was super clear in Romans 8 and 9, you, believers, however, are not in the flesh but are in the spirit if, in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you.

Here's the key part. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. Here's the point I'm getting at. We're going to come in contact with lost people. We can agree, apostates, they're lost, Muslims, Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons, atheists, people that are indifferent and don't care, they don't have the Holy Spirit.

There is another type of people that I want us to be mindful of. There are churchgoers. There are people that come to church, sit in a comfy seat or in a pew, and they show up thinking, you know what, I'm going to do something good, I'm going to go to church, and God's going to look at me with favor, right?

I'm here to tell you that that person that comes to church to try to earn favor with God does not have the Holy Spirit. They are lost. Christians that have the Holy Spirit, we are no better than a lost person, right?

This should drive us to have compassion and mercy on them, to love them in the truth, and we should pray that the Holy Spirit would come in their life, come in their heart to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, to grant them repentance.

This morning, if you are a child of God, then I want to encourage you with this, that you do have the Holy Spirit within you. You should be eternally grateful for God moving upon your heart in order to receive salvation.

Guys, that's my prayer for myself. I'm reminded of that truth daily. I'm like, why me? I didn't deserve it, and yet I've experienced mercy and grace, and you know that too if you have the Holy Spirit and if you are saved.

But here's the reality. We were no different than that lost person that we encounter, yet God showed us mercy and grace while we were dead in our sins and our trespasses. Here's the beauty. We are able to love lost people because Christ has loved us.

That is the only way, right? We're going to engage lost people, and we're going to be like, why don't they want to talk.

To me?

Why do they mock the truth? How can we continually do this? Guys, they're dead in their sin. They're spiritually dead. Lost people are going to act like lost people, right? But we've received the Holy Spirit.

We've received grace and mercy, so this drives us to continually love on them and to pray that God would save them. So if you look in your Bibles at Jude, verse 3, we read that we are called to contend for the faith that is once delivered to the saints.

I love that word contend there. That's talking about struggling, right, fighting, pressing forward for the truth, for the faith,.

Right?

So sometimes that can be hard. This is the only way that we're going to protect ourselves in spiritual warfare and protect us from the devil is by pressing forward, not being passive and always on the defensive.

Side.

We've got to take action. So let me ask the question, what does it mean to contend for the faith? If you continue to look with me at verses 20 and 21 in Jude, I believe that we are told four disciplines on how we are to contend for the truth.

Jude says, but you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourself in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

And so discipline number one is build yourself up in the faith. Now, I know it says your faith, and that's because Christians, we have a personal experience when we have a relationship with Christ, right?

It's your faith, right? But it must reflect the biblical reality, the truth that there is an objective standard,.

Right?

You can't just say, well, I feel this way, so I get to take liberty and say, well, actually God wants me to do this. It must reflect the objective biblical standard of truth. That's why Jude verse 3 says the faith, right?

So we are to build ourselves up in the faith, and this means that we are to become doctrinally strong. So this is a huge part of our spiritual development as we grow in our relationship with Christ. The apostle Paul said in Acts chapter 20, he says this to the Ephesian elders, 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.

So sanctification means that we are set apart, right? Think about this dark, sinful world. Christians are called to be set apart. We are salt in this tasteless world. We are light in this dark world, right?

But how are we built up? By the word of His grace. You cannot possibly know intimately your Lord and Savior if you bypass His word, right? This is how we know Him in spirit and truth. This is why our Lord, the night before His crucifixion, He prayed this to the Father for the disciples.

He said, Father, sanctify them in Your truth, and He says, Your word is truth. So sanctification, that being conformed more and more to the image of Christ, is through spending time in the Scripture, right?

We are to renew our minds with the word of God, and that's how we have relationship with Him. And one of my favorite Bible passages tells us how we are to be equipped and complete for everything that we need to know when it comes to the faith.

The Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all Scripture is breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

So this is that first discipline we're talking about in contending for the faith, right? And it's becoming doctrinally strong. So the second discipline for contending for the truth is praying in the Holy Spirit.

And I love this because the child of God naturally prays, right? Our heartbeat just wants to talk to our Father in heaven, right? And that's ultimately how we have a relationship with God. He speaks to us through His living, breathing word that's sharper than any two-edged sword, and we speak back to Him in prayer, right?

And so notice the contrast that Jude is making here. He's saying unbelievers, apostates, they are devoid of the Spirit, but believers are called to pray in the Spirit, right? Because ultimately that's the source of our strength.

Now, I also believe this, that praying in the Spirit is not talking about praying in.

Tongues.

It's not talking about a private prayer language. Praying in the Spirit is actually speaking to God with words that have meaning and have clarity, not with confusing babble or heaping up empty phrases.

And as I was thinking about this, I thought, you know, it's actually pretty easy to demonstrate this because who is the best example given to us in Scripture of how we are to pray in.

The Spirit?

Without question, it is Jesus Christ, right? And so if you would, turn with me to Matthew 6, where our Lord gives us a model prayer, how we are to pray truly from the heart. And we're going to look at starting in verse 7 because it's interesting.

Before He tells us how to pray, He tells us how not to pray. And so verse 7, Jesus says in Matthew 6, He says,. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

And so this is the ESV translation, and I noticed that it says, do not heap up empty phrases. And so I went to the Greek word, I was like, okay, I wonder how other translations render the meaning of this.

And so to give you a list here, the New King James says, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. The NASB says, do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do. And the NIV, I think, shows a very accurate way of bringing out the meaning of what Jesus is saying.

The NIV says, and when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans. So we are called to contend for the faith by praying in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is being very clear that our prayers should not be thoughtless words or meaningless babbling phrases.

Okay?

Now, I want us to look at this model prayer, and Jesus is giving us a model. He's not saying, just repeat this prayer a whole lot and you'll gain favor with God. He is telling us to pray truly from the heart, and He is saying this is an outline of what that should look like.

He says in verse 9, pray like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. I love this because God is holy. We should address our prayers to the Father, and we should honor Him as holy. We are not.

We are sinners. So when we approach the throne of grace, it should be with reverence and awe. Verse 10, He says, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And don't we pray this a lot?

Father, your will be done in my life. I don't know what's going to happen, but you're going to take care of it. And that's oftentimes when we pray, we don't know what the future is going to be like, so we don't know necessarily how to pray in a moment because we don't know the future.

Are you all like that? A lot of times I'm like, I know someone's sick, and I don't know if God is using this to strengthen their faith. I don't know the outcome, but I'm just going to pray that they would be healed and that ultimately God's going to take care of them.

And what Romans chapter 8 promises us is that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf with groanings too deep for utterance. And what He's saying is when we don't know how we ought to pray, it's okay.

The Holy Spirit has our back, right? We passionately pray in whatever direction our heart's leading us, and we leave the final outcome to God's will. Jesus goes on to say, give us this day our daily bread, right?

He is thanking God for our daily provision. That's why we thank God usually before we eat, right? Verse 12, he says, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Jesus is showing us how we are to constantly confess our sin to God as we continually turn away from our sin, right, as we make war against it.

And since we have been forgiven, He's reminding us, hey, forgive your fellow man, right? You've been forgiven of this massive debt. You can turn around and forgive another person when they sin against you.

And then lastly here in this model prayer, Jesus says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. This is a plea asking for God's strength as we make war against the enemy. We are asking for God's protection, right?

And so this is Jesus praying in the Holy Spirit. He is a perfect model of how we are to contend for the faith by praying in the Holy Spirit as well. And so going back to Jude, we are to pray in the power of the Spirit, the leading of the Spirit, and according to the Spirit's will.

So the first principle, the first discipline for contending for the faith is, the second one is praying in the Holy Spirit and building yourself up in the holy faith. And I think that is just having a relationship with God, having a deep intimate relationship with Christ.

And so number three is to keep yourself in God's love. So keeping yourself in God's love means to be obedient to Him. Jesus told us in John chapter 15, He says, if you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in His love.

And so when it says to keep ourselves in God's love, it's not keeping ourselves saved. He is saying we should keep ourselves in the sphere of God's blessing, okay? Think about the opposite. When a child of God is being disobedient, we're not in the sphere of blessing anymore.

We've left that. We're now in the sphere of God's discipline. God loves us so much that in Hebrews 12, we're talking about God's children. It says, the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives.

A lot of people think, man, I hope I don't disappoint God today. If I sin, that maybe He's going to love me less. And that's not true. Everything about us is not lovable. But if we are in Christ, then God has a perfect, absolute love for His child, right?

So why do I feel like He doesn't love me?

Right?

It's because you're in sin. You're not in the sphere of God's blessing anymore, and He loves you so much that He is going to discipline you. He's going to bring you back in, and sometimes that's kicking and screaming.

And I remember when I graduated high school, Mom told me, she said, God's spankings are a lot harder than my spankings, and so I'll leave you accountable to Him. And she was right. I've had to learn the hard way many times, but I look back, sorry for telling on you a little bit there, but I look back and I'm just thankful that God protects me, right?

And sometimes that's not always the way that we think it's going to happen. So when it says to keep yourself in God's love, this is a super practical way to contend for the faith by being obedient to the Lord, okay?

So let's move on. The fourth discipline is that we wait with hope. Jude says, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we remind ourselves of the greatest mercy that we have received, and that's salvation.

Remember we talked about being once dead in our sins and our trespasses, but what does Ephesians 2 tell us? That God is rich in mercy, that He made us alive together with Christ, and it's been by His grace that we are saved.

Romans chapter 9 calls believers vessels of mercy, which God prepared beforehand for glory. And so we're contending for the faith by awaiting, right? Awaiting that with mercy our Lord's return. Jude says, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

He is referring that believers are to live each and every moment with the expectation that Christ could return at any second, right? And if we live like that, right, we're going to be encouraged. We're going to contend for the faith with purpose, right, and with excitement.

The Apostle Paul in Titus 2 .13 calls this our blessed hope. He says, believers waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So we're talking about four disciplines here, right, of how we are to contend for the faith.

So going full circle, these are disciplines that sanctify us, right, make us more and more like Christ by being doctrinally strong, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourself in the love of God, and awaiting for that blessed hope.

Now these are four disciplines, and I don't think it's any accident that we're told this right before we go into the next two verses. We got to keep these disciplines at the forefront of our mind as we encounter these three different types of lost people, okay?

Look with me at verses 22 and 23 in Jude. He says, and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Jude is clearly recognizing different strategies on how we are to outreach different kinds of people. You're going to have some lost people that are into Satan's error, but they're just doubting. They're not just, they're not planted in the truth, right, and we got to come alongside them and gently bring them back to the Word of God.

Then you're going to have other people that are deeper into Satan's error, right? They're going to be convinced of this error, and they're going to be committed, and we got to change our strategy. We got to plead with them and be like, look, you're in a false view of salvation, and you will die, and you will experience hellfire.

We got to discern who we're talking to. We can only do that by getting to know them, and so Jude has this in mind. I want us to kind of look through these three different types of people. The first group is referred to those who doubt.

These people are confused, right? They're open-minded to kind of anything. These are the people that are swept away by every wind of doctrine, and I'm sad to say these are victims to the apostate false teachers.

So we're to have mercy on them by being intentional in their lives and constantly bringing them to the truthfulness of God's Word, and so this is this first level of Satanic error that these people who doubt and are confused are in.

So this next group of people, they are deeper, right? They're in this next level of Satanic error, where we read, save others by snatching them out of the fire. These people aren't just doubters. They are convinced of Satan's error, and it's going to require a more severe outreach.

I'm convinced of this. These are the people that we urgently warn about the coming hellfire for anybody that embraces this false system, and providentially, God would have it. Me and my buddy, Josh, were hanging out at Walmart last week, and these two men approach us, and they're like, hey, we'd love to invite you to our Bible study, and if you could just see in my face, I was like, oh, I can't wait to talk with them.

Like, this is great. I'm probably the minority when it comes to that, but I was excited, and eventually, we started asking questions about, oh, what's your understanding of the gospel? And they kind of took a step back, and they're like, oh, it's the good news, and I said, oh, what's the good news about?

And then what they said was, well, you're asking a lot of questions, what do you think the gospel is? And I'm like, oh, great. Started laying out the gospel of grace, right? I was excited, right? They approached us, and I'm like, this is awesome, and so we started laying out the gospel of grace, and there's no good works that we could do to earn God's favor.

Jesus did it all, and he wants us to respond with repentance and faith, to love Christ, and so we started laying out the gospel of grace. I could tell this was kind of, the wheels were turning a little bit, because they were talking about, you got to meet together on the right day of the week in order to be saved, but they were looking at me, and I could tell they were like, ooh, this feels like works, right?

And I asked them, if you don't meet together on a Saturday to worship, are you lost? Well, they felt like, oh, that's not my place to judge, right? They didn't want to actually say if that's right or not, but guys, I started thinking, and like I said, this was no accident that we bumped into them, because I was thinking about this passage in Jude, and I'm like, oh, no, if they're believing a wrong gospel, they need to know what the consequences are, because God has spoken, right?

And so I'm just saying, if we're contending for the faith, and if we love people, we're going to have to snatch them out of the fire by saying, this is urgent, this is a wrong view of salvation. I'm committed, or I'm convinced that we must believe in the right Jesus in order to have our sins forgiven.

So we meet other types of people, there are people out there that call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, they claim to believe in Jesus. They're like, oh, we're all Christians, we're all on the same team here, but when you start talking to them, guess what kind of Jesus they believe in?

They say that we believe that the Father created Jesus, okay? And the Bible is so clear in John chapter 1, Hebrews chapter 1, Colossians chapter 1, that Jesus is the eternal God. He is the creator of all things, and if you believe in a Jesus that's less than that, you believe in a false Jesus.

You believe in a Jesus that cannot save you from your sin. And so when we come in contact with these people, we've got to plead with them about the coming judgment. Jesus said in John 8, 24, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

He says, unless you believe that I am. This is the eternal name of God when He revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush. If you don't believe that Jesus is the eternal I am, you believe in the wrong Jesus.

And He says, you must believe that I am. So this is where the Bible tells us that true saving belief is repentance and faith. You know, you must not only believe in the right Jesus, but you have to also in truth understand how you are to receive the right biblical Jesus, okay?

This breaks my heart because I see it all the time as I talk with people. People want to twist repentant faith into some form of works, okay? Repentance is this changing your mind. This means in your heart, your will and your disposition changes from loving sin and turns to loving Christ and putting all of your trust in Him.

There's no works about that. That is on the inside, right? Repentant faith is of the heart. As I begin to talk with people, I hear, man, I sure did pray that prayer when I was younger. I walked down that aisle and I repeated this prayer and Pastor Stephen talked about what's called easy believism.

Anybody can get up and do that, but that's works. If you're putting your trust in a prayer that you prayed, you're putting your faith in your own works. That's hard because guess what? That's in Baptist culture all the time.

I hear, I talk with other people from other denominations that believe you have to be baptized to be saved. And this breaks my heart because it's obvious to see that it's works when you got to get up and walk to the baptistry and be dunked, right?

I get that we're called to be baptized, but it's after you've been saved. If you think your steps to the baptistry contributes to your salvation, wrong gospel, wrong gospel. In Baptist life, a lot of people go to church because they want to do the right thing.