What Members Should Expect 2

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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July 26, 2016

00:00: You may be seated.
00:03: And as you're taking your Bibles out, you can go ahead and turn back to the passage that we opened with in the call to worship this morning, which was Ephesians chapter 2.
00:20: When we get to our Scriptures, that's where we're going to begin.
00:23: But as I did last week, you'll notice in the bulletin I did not give you one specific passage because this is a sermon which includes a lot of different texts from the Bible.
00:37: I don't know how many of you were here last week, but for those of you who weren't, I began an 18-point sermon.
00:44: And I did not even make any pretense that I would finish that 18-point sermon last week.
00:51: And of the 18, we made it through three.
00:54: So it's going to be a while.
00:57: Hopefully, you're in it for the long haul.
00:58: I know I am.
01:01: But this is an important subject.
01:07: And it's really a small microcosm of the larger series.
01:10: The larger series that we're doing is a biblically functioning church.
01:14: What does a biblically functioning church look like? How is it governed? How does it behave? How does it manage itself? And how do the members interact with one another? How does the leadership interact with the members and vice versa? That's the question of the biblically functioning church.
01:29: And in reality, that's what we should all strive and want to be.
01:35: We want to be a biblically functioning church.
01:38: And as much as we're striving for it, we certainly have not arrived.
01:41: We are not perfect.
01:44: We make mistakes.
01:51: And last week, I said I wanted to do this little 18-point message little, this 18-point message on a subject that I didn't address the first time.
02:02: You remember I said last...
02:04: I preached a biblically functioning church back in 2008, 2009.
02:10: I preached this series.
02:12: In fact, this is now a seminary course that I've been asked to teach.
02:19: I haven't done it yet.
02:21: But there's a seminary that's asked me to come and teach on the subject of ecclesiology, which is this.
02:27: Studying the church.
02:29: How is it to function? This is an important theological subject.
02:36: But the first time around, I did not do this message.
02:39: I didn't do these 18 points.
02:42: So this is new to everybody, even if you were here the first time.
02:46: And the 18 points, it's nine points on the subject of expectations.
02:52: Nine points that a person coming into the church should expect from the church.
02:59: And then nine points on what the church should expect from that person.
03:04: Because when you come into the church, you should have some expectations.
03:08: And that's not wrong.
03:10: Now, I do think people come with wrong expectations.
03:13: People come in and their first question is, well, do you have a great youth program? What kind of clothes do your people wear? Or what kind of music do you play? If those are the expectations you have, those are superficial expectations.
03:26: They really are.
03:28: I put a post out last night talking about wearing suits.
03:32: I don't know how many of you read my blogs that I put out and things.
03:35: But people say, well, pastors shouldn't wear suits anymore because that's not hip and relevant.
03:40: They should wear torn up jeans and t-shirts because that's hip and relevant.
03:43: And I said, you know who the most popular person on television is right now? It's Jimmy Fallon.
03:48: And Jimmy Fallon wears a suit every night.
03:50: Quite possibly the most relevant pop culture person in America, host of The Tonight Show, he wears a suit.
03:56: Don't tell me clothes make the man.
03:58: That's ridiculous.
03:59: If I wore a t-shirt and jeans, I'd be preaching the same thing.
04:03: Don't go in and let the man's clothing determine whether or not you're going to stay because that's superficial.
04:09: As I said last week, a man can come in wearing torn up jeans and a t-shirt and preach the gospel, and I've seen heretics preach in $3,000 Armani suits.
04:20: In fact, most of them are.
04:24: So what I'm saying is there are right expectations and wrong expectations, and we need to know what the right expectations are, and we need to expect the right expectations.
04:32: Sounds like a little tongue-tied thing there, but you know what I mean.
04:36: And last week we looked at the first three expectations, and we're starting with the member.
04:39: You're the member coming into a church.
04:41: What should you expect? Well, we said three things last week to start us out.
04:46: The first thing you should expect is biblical preaching.
04:48: The Word of God takes precedence in the pulpit.
04:52: Not the pastor's personal anecdotes.
04:54: Not the Reader's Digest stories or the email stories or whatever else.
04:59: He's not getting his sermons from the New York Times.
05:02: He's getting them from the Bible.
05:06: Number two, biblical theology, which derives from the Bible.
05:10: Biblical preaching gives birth to biblical theology, and biblical theology gives birth to biblical preaching.
05:14: They go hand in hand.
05:16: Theology is important.
05:17: Theology matters.
05:18: That's a subtext for this.
05:20: Theology matters.
05:25: Thirdly, last week you should have a biblical understanding of the gospel.
05:28: If the church doesn't understand the gospel, what good is it? So that's the first three things.
05:34: Biblical preaching, biblical theology, biblical understanding of the gospel.
05:37: Well, today we're going to move on.
05:39: We're going to go to the next few, and I don't know how many we're going to get through, but if we get through three, that'll be six.
05:46: Because I can do math.
05:47: No, we'll go through as many as we can.
05:50: I'm in no hurry.
05:52: But I am excited to preach these things because you need to know these things, especially if you're coming here as a new person or a person who hasn't joined yet.
06:07: You need to know what you should be expecting, and you should know what's expected of you.
06:15: So let's...
06:16: As I said, I don't have one Bible verse, so I'm not going to have you stand and read that one verse because we're not doing it that way today, but I am going to pray and ask God's blessing on the service.
06:25: So you bow your heads from where you are.
06:26: Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word.
06:29: I thank you for the truth, and I pray that what I say today will be in accord with that truth, that you would keep me from error, protect your people for their sake and for the sake of my conscience.
06:39: Lord, keep me from saying anything that would be out of line with the Word of God.
06:43: And Lord, when we go to the Word of God, may we be faithful to it, may we trust it.
06:49: And I do pray, Lord, for the congregation.
06:52: I pray that they would expect those things which are needful, and that they would understand what is expected of them.
07:00: For Lord, we have covenanted together as the body of Christ, the local body, and I pray that you would help us to fulfill those expectations.
07:10: In Jesus' name, amen.
07:19: Today we're going to begin with the fourth point.
07:27: We've already said a person should have a biblical preaching, biblical theology and a biblical understanding of the gospel.
07:34: Number four.
07:36: What should a person expect when they come into a church? A biblical understanding of conversion.
07:45: A biblical understanding of conversion.
07:52: The very heart of church membership begins with who qualifies to be a member of the church.
08:02: And the reality is that church membership is limited to those who are within the body of Christ, who have been converted to Christ.
08:15: And there seems to be a lot of confusion about this, because conversion to Christ has become simply a matter of the will for most people.
08:27: Well, I believed and so I'm a Christian, and there isn't any expectation that the person will experience a change, other than simply a change of verbiage.
08:37: I wasn't, now I was, or now I am.
08:41: Many people call themselves Christians, but they have no affection for Christ, for the Bible, for the church, or for righteousness.
08:51: The Arminian philosophy of conversion has become the mainstream philosophy, and it has caused a lot of problems.
09:00: What is Arminianism? Arminianism teaches that man is the active agent in salvation.
09:07: He is the willing participant in the event.
09:09: He exercises salvation as an act of his own will.
09:15: People say, well, that sounds good to me.
09:20: But in that, who is ultimately in charge of salvation? If salvation is an act of the will, then I'm in charge.
09:32: And God is simply up in heaven, sort of hoping that people will accept Him.
09:40: And that's how it's often been understood.
09:42: God is just standing there, just wringing His hands, just waiting for you to say yes.
09:48: And God becomes subservient to your decision, and He becomes the responder rather than the active agent in your salvation.
10:04: And where this is the most troubling is when we actually go to the Bible and look at what the Bible says about salvation, because it doesn't paint God in that picture at all.
10:18: We're in Ephesians 2.
10:20: I actually turned there earlier.
10:22: Ephesians 2.1 should be a memory verse for everyone.
10:29: Because it's easy.
10:32: And it tells you the state of the soul prior to conversion.
10:39: And you were, past tense, dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, again, past tense, following the course of this world, following the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived, past tense, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
11:13: Beloved, if you are a believer today, you have to at least come to the conclusion that you haven't always been that way.
11:27: I've heard some people, I grew up in church, I've always been a Christian.
11:29: No, you have not.
11:32: You were once a child of wrath like the rest of mankind.
11:36: You were born that way.
11:37: People always say, I was born that way.
11:40: You don't argue that.
11:41: Sure you were.
11:42: You were born a sinner.
11:45: I don't ever argue, people try to make that argument, I was born this way.
11:49: Ted Bundy was born that way.
11:50: Did it make it right? He was born a sinner.
11:53: And he exercised a will to increase the sin which he was born with.
12:01: And he expressed it in a way that was heinous and terrible and foolish and dangerous and murderous.
12:07: Does that make it okay because he was born that way? No.
12:14: You were born a sinner.
12:17: The same seed of sin that was in Ted Bundy is in you.
12:20: Because it came from Adam.
12:23: The same seed of sin that was in Adolf Hitler is in you.
12:26: Because it was in Adam.
12:28: The same seed of sin that was in every person that you've ever looked down at and said, oh, that couldn't be me, it's in you.
12:36: But by the grace of God, you're here and they're not.
12:43: So who do you have to thank? Yourself? Shame on you if you thank yourself.
12:51: You should thank God.
12:53: You should thank God if you're saved.
12:56: You should thank God if you're not like them.
12:58: Because you could be.
13:00: Oh no, I couldn't be.
13:02: That's the height of pride.
13:05: That's the height of pride to say that I couldn't be.
13:08: Because if you were honest about all the heinous thoughts that you've ever had, you wouldn't have any friends.
13:15: I know I wouldn't.
13:16: If you knew the things that I've done in my life, you wouldn't want to listen to me today.
13:23: Because I'm a sinner.
13:25: And my life has been marked by sin since birth.
13:30: I see sin in my 11-month-old.
13:34: He doesn't know what he's doing, but he's acting out that nature that's in him.
13:40: You take something away from him, and I tell you what, if he was built like me, he'd beat you to death to get it back.
13:46: That's why we say, God makes them small so they won't kill us, and God makes them cute so we won't kill them.
13:54: But the seed of sin is there, my friends.
13:59: Believe that.
14:04: Verse 4 But God.
14:09: You stop right there.
14:11: That's the most beautiful position in the world is when you get past what we are to what God is.
14:20: But God.
14:22: Because you were smart enough to make a decision on your own free will, loved you enough to save you.
14:27: That's not what it says.
14:29: Read it.
14:30: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace, not by works, by grace, not by will, by grace, not by yourself, by grace, you have been saved.
14:53: That is how you got saved, is God was gracious to you.
14:58: You didn't earn it, and you still don't deserve it.
15:02: And if that is not the conversion that you understand, you have been sold a bill of goods and taught something false.
15:12: By grace you have been saved.
15:13: That's the key, folks.
15:17: We could go on, but I made my point from this passage.
15:20: Turn over to John 1.
15:23: I like showing this because people like to make a big deal about how much their will was involved with their salvation.
15:29: I want to show you what John says in the very first chapter of his gospel.
15:35: The very first chapter of his gospel, he talks about Jesus coming to His own.
15:40: Now, when it says Jesus came to His own, it's talking about the Jews because they were His people physically.
15:46: They were His brethren, according to the flesh.
15:52: It says, He came to His own.
15:54: Verse 11, John 1, 11.
15:56: He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.
16:03: But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, get this, past tense, were born, this happened, not of blood.
16:20: What does that mean? It means they weren't saved because of their parentage.
16:25: They weren't born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh.
16:32: They didn't will it to happen.
16:35: It wasn't their decision that made it happen.
16:40: Nor of the will of man.
16:41: It wasn't anybody else's decision.
16:44: I can't will you to be saved, Brian.
16:47: I can't say, you know what? Brian's going to be saved because I choose it for him.
16:50: I can't do that, any more than he can choose it for himself.
16:58: But of God.
17:00: You see, being born again is something God does for you.
17:04: God does that for you.
17:07: It's His will that does it.
17:13: People say, well, does that mean I don't have any participation? No, we receive it passively, but we receive it because God opens our heart to receive it.
17:23: You didn't receive it because you were better, smarter, more spiritually sensitive, or anything else.
17:27: You received it because God was gracious and opened up your heart.
17:30: Look at Acts 11.
17:33: Go to Acts 11.
17:46: Go to verse 18.
17:55: Peter has just gotten back from preaching the gospel to the Gentiles.
18:00: They have received the gospel and been saved.
18:05: And he's telling the story now to his church.
18:11: Look what they say.
18:12: When they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God saying, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.
18:28: Do you realize repentance is a gift? Repentance is something God enables you to do because outside of God's enablement, guess what you're able to do? Nothing.
18:45: According to the Bible.
18:46: I love what St.
18:47: Augustine said.
18:47: In fact, it caused the division between Augustine and Pelagius in the fourth century.
18:52: And we spent some time studying that sometime.
18:56: But Augustus and Pelagius debated this issue because Pelagius believed in the absolute free will of man and Augustine did not.
19:02: And Augustine won the day because it's biblical.
19:05: He said man's will is bound by sin or man's will is bound by God, but man's will is never free.
19:10: Jesus Christ said that.
19:11: You're either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
19:13: He never used the term free will ever.
19:15: The only time the word free will is used in the Bible is when it refers to offerings in the Old Testament.
19:19: You give an offering of your own free will or a free will offering.
19:22: It's the only time the term's ever used.
19:25: So make the argument of free will if you will, but you have to make it outside of Scripture.
19:29: Your will is bound to sin or it's bound to righteousness.
19:35: But the point of the text, though, God grants repentance, folks.
19:41: And you know what? The thing is everybody knows this even if they don't want to admit it because everybody prays the same way.
19:50: I've never heard an Arminian pray like this.
19:52: Oh, God, I pray that you would continue doing nothing and that Jimmy would exercise his own...
20:03: Not you, Jimmy.
20:03: Sorry.
20:04: I'm just...
20:04: Jimmy.
20:04: Jimmy Neutral, not Jimmy Thompson.
20:07: Jimmy Neutral, anybody.
20:09: Didn't want to cause a fight.
20:12: But I don't say...
20:14: You know, God, I know you're doing all you can, but I sure pray that Jimmy's...
20:19: Jimmy would make a free will decision to trust in you.
20:23: I pray that Jimmy would, by his own initiative and by his own smart choice, decide to follow Jesus.
20:30: It's not the way we pray.
20:32: We say, God, open his heart to trust in Jesus.
20:36: That's how everybody prays.
20:38: God, convert him.
20:41: But if God doesn't convert people, why are we asking? If God doesn't do the conversion, why do we ask? It's because we pray like the Bible says we should.
20:54: We just don't always think.
20:55: It's inconsistency.
20:56: It's a beautiful inconsistency, but it's inconsistency.
21:00: I'm spending a lot more time on this than I probably need to, but my point is this.
21:04: When we think about conversion, we need to understand what conversion is.
21:10: Conversion is an act of God on the will of the person.
21:14: I've heard people say, well, conversion is this.
21:16: God voted for you.
21:18: The devil voted against you, and you make the deciding vote.
21:23: First of all, that is ridiculously simplistic.
21:26: And second of all, such a thing makes who in the situation sovereign? You.
21:34: You become the determiner and the arbiter of your destiny.
21:38: And guess what? If there's anything the Bible don't teach, it's that.
21:43: That you're the determiner of your destiny.
21:45: And God is simply responding to you.
21:52: And God's not active.
21:54: If God is not active, beloved, you wouldn't be saved at all.
22:02: Because He granted you repentance.
22:03: He also granted you faith.
22:08: The Bible says faith is a gift.
22:09: It comes from God.
22:11: Because we cannot do what is pleasing to God outside of God's working on our heart.
22:19: I want to prove that to you real quick.
22:20: And I'm just trying to proof text this.
22:22: But I want to show you that I'm not just making this out of thin air.
22:25: Turn to Romans chapter 8.
22:26: This is hugely important.
22:28: I listened to a debate this week on the bondage of the will.
22:32: I would encourage that.
22:33: If you never read Martin Luther's bondage of the will, it's his debate with Erasmus.
22:36: It's a fantastic book, but it is 500 years old.
22:38: So if you want to hear something a little more contemporary, Dr.
22:40: James White went to a Wesleyan seminary and debated the subject of the bondage of the will with a Wesleyan seminary.
22:45: And it was a very good debate.
22:46: So if you want the link, send me an email.
22:48: I'll send you the link.
22:49: But here's one of the points that you have to understand.
22:52: Look at verse 8 of Romans chapter 8.
22:56: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
23:02: If you read it in context, what it says essentially is to please God we must be in the Spirit.
23:07: Those who are in the Spirit can please God.
23:09: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
23:10: I ask you this, beloved friends.
23:13: Is faith pleasing to God? Can those in the flesh please God? No.
23:21: So how does one exercise faith? When God enables him to through the work of the Spirit.
23:28: It's the only way.
23:32: This is huge.
23:33: This is conversion.
23:35: This is the foundation of everything.
23:38: And you go down the street and you will see people that make conversion all up to the will and you know what comes as a result? Manipulation of the will.
23:51: Baptistry is built like fire trucks so we can get three year olds to come get baptized to make our numbers bigger.
23:59: Sermons that have story after story after story that are meant to twist and contort the heart so that you get worked up into an emotional frenzy so that at the end of the sermon you'll be no doubt ready to walk the aisle and have that emotional release.
24:20: You know what I say? I say repent and trust Christ and I trust him to change your heart.
24:28: The idea that I'm going to lower the lights and turn on a smoke machine and I'm going to have Jim come up and play 185 verses of Just As I Am.
24:39: I don't think we've ever played Just As I Am.
24:41: Not here.
24:43: Not recently.
24:47: That's manipulative.
24:48: You know when they have these big conferences where they have all these people come forward.
24:57: You know they put people in the audience to walk forward first.
25:01: You know why? To get the ball rolling.
25:04: They'll tell you that's what it's for.
25:05: It's to get the ball rolling.
25:10: It's manipulation.
25:13: If you don't have a biblical understanding of conversion then you will not have a biblical understanding of evangelism.
25:18: And that's the next one by the way.
25:19: I've sort of bled over into my next point because if you come into a church they better have a biblical understanding of conversion because if they don't they won't have a biblical understanding of evangelism.
25:29: Because evangelism will become a sales tactic.
25:35: Rather than simply proclaiming the truth and trusting God to bring the increase it will become about making the church as appealing as possible to the unsaved so that the unsaved will join the church even though they haven't been converted.
25:49: The church is busting at the seams with unsaved people because they are not made to feel at all uncomfortable in the church.
26:04: That is a problem.
26:07: Unsaved people should feel uncomfortable.
26:11: Saved people shouldn't feel great.
26:13: Sorry.
26:14: We should all have our toes stepped on at times.
26:18: But the reality is if an unsaved person can listen to my messages for a whole year and not be challenged in their unconverted state then what am I up here for? Biblical evangelism is never meant to manipulate a decision.
26:44: It is meant to provide the gospel and call the person to repentance.
26:53: That's lost too by the way.
26:55: We talk about I want to get the person to accept Jesus.
26:57: No, I want to call the person to repentance in faith.
27:00: There is a difference.
27:02: You don't accept Jesus like he's a cancer diagnosis.
27:07: Well, I'll accept that that I have cancer.
27:10: No.
27:12: You receive Christ as Lord and Savior because you find out that he's the one who actually created you and he has the right to make demands on your life.
27:21: Do you realize that's what Acts 17 says? God has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
27:25: Why can God do that? Because he created you.
27:30: People say, well, if what you're saying, Pastor, is true then God's unfair.
27:34: Well, let me just say this about that.
27:37: If you want to talk about fairness, number one, you were born in America.
27:41: Jack.
27:41: Not Jack.
27:42: He's not even here.
27:43: But you, what am I doing today? I'm just everybody's name.
27:48: You were born in America.
27:52: There are people who are born all around the world every day who are born into places that have no food to eat, no water to drink.
28:03: Is that fair? Where do you get the idea that there's a demand upon God that he has to bow down to our sense of fairness? You know what the fair is? Fair is a place you go ride rides.
28:19: That's a fair.
28:25: God is not bound by your sense of propriety.
28:32: And if you got what was fair, you would go to hell because you deserve that because you're a sinner.
28:38: So before you start demanding what's fair, keep in mind what that means.
28:44: There are people who will live and die and never hear the name Jesus Christ and they'll go to hell.
28:48: Somebody said, well, that's not fair.
28:51: Are they sinners? Does sin deserve hell? That's absolutely fair.
28:55: It's just.
28:55: It's not unrighteous.
28:57: I don't like that.
28:58: Get over it.
29:00: I don't think you're right.
29:01: Show me in the Bible where I'm wrong.
29:03: Show me in the Bible where the priests of Assyria, the high priests who preached against Israel, hated Israel, brought war against Israel, had the option to repent.
29:19: And when did they ever get a profit? Save one, Jonah, who preached to one generation.
29:23: That generation got saved.
29:25: And guess what? Within 100 years, their children's children died because the Nahum, go two books over from Jonah, you'll find out 100 years later, their children's children died at the hands of God because they did not heed the teachings of Jonah that came two generations earlier.
29:43: God is under no obligation to bow down to your sense of propriety.
29:53: And yet He is worthy of your worship because He created you.
29:56: I said something a long time ago.
29:57: People think I'm nuts.
29:57: I think it's the truth, though.
29:58: Even if I knew I was going to hell, God would still be worthy of my worship because He's still God.
30:04: You know what makes hell, hell? People say it's separation from God.
30:08: No, it's not.
30:09: There is no place God is not.
30:13: God is everywhere.
30:14: He's omnipresent.
30:15: We make that point.
30:16: God is in hell.
30:17: You know what? Hell continues in hell.
30:19: People's hatred of God.
30:21: People hate God here.
30:22: They hate God there.
30:22: People say, why does hell last forever when their sin is finite? What makes you think they stop being sinners when they get to hell? They still hate God when they get there.
30:32: And they continue to hate Him forever.
30:35: Hell is forever because their hatred of God is forever.
30:40: They don't become saints when they get to hell.
30:44: They don't get sanctified when they get there.
30:47: They keep hating God.
30:52: See, this is what makes me unpopular.
30:55: No, I mean that.
30:56: This is why we're not in a megachurch.
30:59: This is not popular, but this is the truth.
31:01: If you don't understand conversion, you won't understand evangelism.
31:05: See, when I go out sharing the gospel with people...
31:06: This is why I believe in street preaching, by the way.
31:10: People say, oh, that doesn't work.
31:12: I say, wait, wait, wait.
31:14: Are you telling me that it's not better than you sitting on your couch doing nothing? Okay, so right there, that's first of all.
31:20: I don't mean to be ugly.
31:22: But if you're out street preaching or you're sitting at your home doing nothing, it's not better than that.
31:26: But even then, because that's kind of ugly.
31:29: I won't be ugly.
31:31: Let me say this.
31:35: Somebody says, well, I think you should become friends with a person, develop a relationship with a person, spend time with that person, and then share Jesus with them.
31:45: That's how evangelism should work.
31:46: Now, I will not deny that there have been times where my relationships with people have helped them to see Christ and to come to Christ over time.
32:00: I'm not going to deny that that hasn't happened.
32:01: There have been people that I've worked with and things like that.
32:04: But the sharing of Christ still was at the beginning, not later.
32:10: Tony Miano tells a story.
32:12: He's an evangelist.
32:12: He tells a story.
32:13: He says, imagine you have a new family that moves in next to you and you walk over to them.
32:19: Hi, I'm the Foskys.
32:20: Just want to invite you to, or say I'm glad you're in the neighborhood.
32:23: Let's get together and have a barbecue.
32:25: Okay, we have barbecue.
32:26: We watch the football game together.
32:28: We enjoy each other.
32:29: We spend six months being friends with each other.
32:32: Whatever, right? At the end of that six-month period, my wife and I, we finally sit down and we say, well, we've been friends with the Joneses for six months.
32:40: Maybe now we can tell them about Jesus.
32:42: Okay, okay.
32:44: Because now we've created a relationship whereby we can tell them about Jesus.
32:48: Okay, okay.
32:51: So now we sit them down.
32:54: We say, look, the whole reason we became friends with you in the first place, no, we wouldn't say that, right? The whole reason why we even went and met you, we had a plan all along.
33:08: This is all part of the scheme.
33:10: No, you're not going to say that.
33:12: But how are they going to feel? You know, this has been really important to us for a long time.
33:17: So important that we didn't tell you for six months.
33:21: Because we were more interested that you liked us than that you cared about Jesus.
33:26: Oh, that hurts.
33:29: People don't get saved because they like you.
33:31: Thank God, because a lot of people don't like me.
33:34: I'm okay with that.
33:36: But if you think that people get saved because they like you, you've got a wrong understanding of salvation to begin with.
33:41: People get saved because they hear the word of God.
33:43: It pierces their heart.
33:44: God, by the Holy Spirit, opens that heart to believe what has been said, and they trust in it.
33:49: And you know what? That happens sometimes when they hate the speaker.
33:53: I've heard people hear street preachers and hate what they're saying, and yet God uses that.
33:59: It becomes a seed in their heart that grows to fruition.
34:01: It happens.
34:02: Don't think it doesn't.
34:05: Biblical evangelism is telling people the truth.
34:07: We had neighbors move in a few months ago.
34:10: I went over to their house.
34:11: Hi, I'm Keith Foskey.
34:13: I'm glad that you moved into the neighborhood.
34:14: I hope maybe at some point we can get together and maybe eat a meal together.
34:19: I said, but I do want you to know also I'm here as a representative of Christ.
34:24: I pastor a church, and I want you to have this card.
34:27: It's got some information on it for you to read, and I would love to have a conversation about it when you have the time.
34:31: I know you're moving in, but this is a gospel tract, and now you know who I am, and you know what I'm over here for.
34:38: You know what I'm about.
34:40: I'm not saying you have to do it that way.
34:43: I'm not saying this is the only method.
34:45: There is no method in evangelism, and that's the key to all this.
34:48: Some people think, well, you've got to do it this way.
34:50: You've got to do the faith method, or you have to do the gospel cube, or this or that.
34:54: It has to be a method.
34:55: It's not a method.
34:56: Tell them the truth and trust God.
34:59: Tell them the truth and know that God brings the increase.
35:03: That's biblical evangelism.
35:06: Trust that the message itself is sufficient.
35:09: It's not dependent on the messenger.
35:13: Some people say, I don't think I can share the gospel because I'm just not good at it.
35:17: Great! That means you're totally relying upon the Spirit.
35:20: The people who think they're good at it are the most dangerous because they get prideful.
35:25: Be bad at it, but still do it.
35:29: Carry around gospel tracts if you have a hard time starting conversations.
35:32: I do.
35:32: You wouldn't think I would.
35:34: My wife's much better at conversations than I am, so I carry around gospel tracts because I get intimidated amazingly.
35:43: So I want to have something to hand somebody because sometimes I get a little...
35:47: It's easy to talk to a crowd.
35:48: You all don't understand.
35:49: For me, no problem.
35:51: Public speaking's never been a problem.
35:53: Individual conversation, harder for me.
35:58: So I carry around gospel tracts.
35:59: It's a way to start it.
36:01: But the point of it is, if you don't have a biblical understanding of conversion, you'll have an unbiblical view of evangelism.
36:08: The two go hand in hand.
36:09: And then membership, and this is number three, and I'm going to end with this, but I'll pick up on it next week.
36:14: Because a biblical understanding of conversion leads to a biblical understanding of evangelism, which leads to a biblical understanding of membership.
36:21: Because again, this comes full circle.
36:24: If you're not saved, then you can't become a member of the church.
36:31: It's amazing that I have to even say that.
36:34: But historically, that has been a problem.
36:38: Because people will come in, they won't bow the knee to Jesus Christ, and yet they'll still expect to be a part of the body.
36:46: They're Christians by title.
36:49: Because that's the default title.
36:52: Because that's what mama was.
36:53: They're Christians by birth.
36:54: Mama was a Christian.
36:55: Daddy was a Christian.
36:57: Sister, brothers are Christian.
36:58: I'm a Christian because that's what I was born into.
37:01: Just as easily as it would be a Muslim or a Mormon.
37:04: Because it's all about birth.
37:07: If that's the Christianity you have, I would say repent and trust Christ, because you're trusting in your familial history.
37:16: But some people are Christians by convenience.
37:18: That's going away, by the way, because it's becoming less and less convenient in America to be a Christian.
37:22: That's why there's a rise in the nones.
37:24: If you look at statistics, the largest growing group of religious people in America are those who identify as none.
37:32: No religious affiliation whatsoever.
37:34: Not atheist, not Christian, not Buddhist, not Muslim, not anything.
37:37: None.
37:41: No affiliation.
37:44: Largest rising group.
37:48: Because it's no longer convenient to be a Christian.
37:55: Ultimately, the Bible does warn us that there will be sheep among the goats, or goats among the sheep.
38:00: There will be unbelievers in the church.
38:02: It's always going to be that way.
38:04: But the reality is, that's what church discipline's for.
38:09: That's what discipleship's for.
38:10: It's about being able to determine those things.
38:12: But that's what you should be asking yourself.
38:16: Do I know Jesus Christ? Have I been converted, or did I simply make a decision? You say, well, what's the difference? Did anything change? Everybody who's ever trusted in Christ ultimately made a decision to trust in Christ.
38:33: I'm not saying you didn't make a decision, but that decision was a decision that was wrought in your heart by the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
38:39: And if that decision has not made a change in your life, if you cannot look back at your life and say, yes, I know there was a time when I was a child of the devil.
38:48: I know when there was a time when I was a child of wrath like the rest of mankind, but God, being rich in mercy, reached down into the muck and the mire of my sin, and He pulled me off, and He seated me in heavenly places with Christ.
39:01: If you don't know that that has happened, and I'm not saying you have to have a date and time in your Bible where you went back and wrote it down, but if you don't know that that has happened, that God has changed your heart, He has converted you, then I would say to you, today is the day for self-examination, and I would call you to repent and believe.
39:31: You say, well, how can I do that? It's God who does it.
39:33: You trust God to do it.
39:36: Repent of your sins and trust in His Son.
39:40: Jesus said, whoever comes to me, I will in no way cast out.
39:50: Let's pray.
39:52: Father, I thank You.
39:55: I thank You for the gift of conversion.
39:57: I pray that You would open that gift up this morning and that You would provide it to every unsaved heart here.
40:06: Lord, I know in a group this size, there are unsaved folks.
40:09: There are people who came in today who are Christians by convenience.
40:13: They're Christians by birth, having been born into Christian families, but they are not, Lord, Christians by conversion because they've never bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
40:25: They bow the knee to themselves.
40:26: They bow the knee to an idol that they've created, but they don't know You and they don't know Your Word, and I pray today they would repent and trust in Christ.
40:38: Father, I pray for this church.
40:42: I pray that You would bring holiness and a sense of a desire for righteousness to all of us, that we would cling to Christ and not to the world for our joy and for our peace.
41:04: And Father, I again, I again thank You for the Word of God and pray that it has been preached correctly.
41:14: In Jesus' name, Amen.
41:18: Well, now we're going to prepare for communion.
41:21: Let's stand and sing.