Highlight: Will the Gospel Transform the World?

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Here we go. That's why you can't actually accomplish transformation because true transformation can only happen through the deliverance of sin, and I'll show you that in a second.

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Clearly, in Scripture, you can't have it, can't produce it. In my opinion, you can't

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Christianize the world enough and then that's gonna influence the world enough and now people are gonna start behaving. This is an important point.

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Pastor Emilio, brother, I'm sure you don't really believe that. I would say proof of that, and this is where I would ask you just maybe to look inward at what you just said there, is do you feel that way about your local church?

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So I'll play that again so everyone can hear it. This is what Pastor Emilio said. I'll just back it up just a little bit.

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Can't produce it. In my opinion, you can't

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Christianize the world enough and then that's gonna influence the world enough and now people are gonna start behaving and being more righteous.

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I hope as pastors we don't think that about our local churches. Like... That's so defeatist.

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Sanctification does... Pastor Emilio does believe in regeneration. He does believe in sanctification, that a regenerate heart will love the law of God, will be filled with the

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Spirit of God, and will want to obey God's statutes, Ezekiel 36. I know he believes that.

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And I know that Pastor Emilio, I'm sure is a good pastor, he believes that his local church, when they turn to Christ, people turn to Christ, they're filled with God's Spirit, they begin to live in a righteous way.

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Not because themselves, but because they are now new, creations. They are filled with the

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Spirit of God and they desire to pursue and to love and obey Jesus. And so, doesn't...

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Okay, let me ask it this way. Does a local church look like that, Pastor Emilio? Does a local church look like people who have been filled with the

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Spirit of God, regenerated, and they now live more righteously because they are regenerate and they have turned to Christ and they're justified?

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Does a local church live more righteously than the world because they're regenerate and because they trust in Christ and they're new?

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I would say, I know, I guarantee you, Pastor Emilio would say, absolutely. People who are there in Christ within a local church context, yeah, that local church looks more righteous because they're obeying

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Jesus, because they're filled with the Spirit of God. Now, ready? Expand that. Now imagine the

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Great Commission is not just wishful thinking, but it's actually a command, that it's the future. Now go from the local church context, which

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I know Pastor Emilio agrees with, regenerate people actually live more righteously. I believe he believes that.

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Now take that on a global scale. If the Great Commission is not just wishful thinking, it actually is a command and it's what

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Jesus expects from the world, that's the future of the world, then will the world, if it is filled with people who are filled with God's Spirit and filled with regenerate people, will the world look more righteous?

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Will the world want to obey the commands of Jesus? Because let's remember the Great Commission. Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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So we're not waiting for Jesus to come and assume authority. He already said he has it. So this whole idea of like the, that later he's gonna get that authority here on earth.

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He already says he has it. So what's he coming to get later? He already has it. But he says, therefore, because it's true, he says, go make disciples of all the nations.

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And he says, teach them, obviously baptize them. And he says, in the name of the Father and of the

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Son of the Holy Spirit, teach them to observe all that I've commanded you. So teach them to obey. So we are to win the world to Jesus and teach them to obey

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Jesus. Now, here's the question. If the Great Commission is actually a command and it's what Jesus expects of the church and the world, then what does a world look like when the nations have come to Christ and they're obeying

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Jesus? Does it look like a transformed world? If the Great Commission is not just wishful thinking, but is actually a command of Christ and what he expects of the world, then if that happens, will the world look more righteous?

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Will it be filled with new creations? Will it be filled with regenerate people who actually love and long to obey

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Jesus? I believe so. And that's the claim of post -millennialism, that that's the future of the world.

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It's a world where people are reconciled to God, they love Jesus, paid for, bought by his blood, filled with his spirit, and they love

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God's law and long to obey his statutes because that's what Ezekiel 36 says is gonna happen. The challenge is that Jesus actually says that's ongoing now.

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It's a mustard seed that becomes a tree. It's leaven and a lump of dough. It's something that takes place over time.

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And it's happening all over the world today. I mean, Pastor Emilio, he's a man of God. He loves the

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Lord, loves the gospel. He's preaching the gospel. I think Pastor Emilio, is he in Texas? He's in Texas, right?

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I think Emilio, I think Pastor Emilio is in Texas. I've seen some great stuff from Pastor Emilio.

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And he's doing that in Texas. Texas is on the other side of the world from Israel. And here

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I am today, we're in the desert in Phoenix, preaching the gospel, loving Jesus, making disciples. And we've got, look, he's also from a different tribe than me, clearly.

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So I'm from one tribe, he's from a different tribe. And here you have these two people represented here of different tribes who worship and love

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Jesus and see him as the ultimate. Sounds like the Great Commission is happening. It sounds like it's ongoing, right?

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We got a lot of work to do, no question about that. Started with 11 men. That's right, 11 very confused disciples in a very remote part of the world about 2 ,000 years ago.

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And the work is ongoing. And this gets to another thing we need to overcome in terms of post -millennialism, is that people think, you think the world's just getting better and better and better.

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It looks really bad right now. I would say, yeah, we have a lot of work to do. But if you think where we're at today is not better than 11 confused disciples of the ascension, then we've got different standards of success.

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Because I think we're actually, we're on the move as the church.

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People are coming to Christ constantly. We're doing baptisms at Apologia Church constantly. The world is being transformed by Jesus Christ.

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It's not a question of like a utopia thing. It's, in other words, we don't believe that like, oh, it's always getting better and better and better.

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It's that the church is growing and growing and growing, but there's going to be moments of historic judgments. There's gonna be moments of even apostasy and difficulty.

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Church history has looked like that too. It's like this, it's like these fits and starts. It's like great transformation, moments of darkness where people turn away from the word of God and the purity of the gospel.

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And then boom, light again. And then difficulty, then boom, light again. It kind of looks like, it's like more like a

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Christmas tree, right? That's well done. Well, let's say R .C. Jr. was,

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I liked his explanation he did on Apologia Radio once. He said it's like a roller coaster, but it's an upward trending roller coaster.

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So, you know, you start down here at the bottom and we might be here in history and we might be at a low point, but it's still way higher than it was down here.