How Does Someone Get Saved?

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn to Ephesians chapter 2.
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Now Ephesians chapter 2, 8 through 10, is one of my favorite sections of Scripture.
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And so, you've heard me talk about it many, many times.
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And tonight, I will admit, I'm not so much doing an exposition of these passages as I am using them to connect with other passages to talk about a bigger subject.
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The lesson tonight is on the question of how does someone get saved? How does someone get saved? I noticed this past week, there was a headline that came across my news feed.
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I don't read the paper, so I can't say I saw it in the paper, but I saw it on an internet feed that I get, that the Pope added 35 new saints to the Catholic Church.
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And I got to thinking, and I didn't post anything about it, but I was thinking as I was reading the article that this is a good example of why the Reformation still matters.
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Rome's teachings about saints and indulgences and things like that did not end in the 1500s, 1600s, or even the 1700s or 1800s.
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They continue to go on today.
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And when I saw that the Pope is adding saints to the Church, it reminded me that saints are not made by the Pope.
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Saints are not declared by the Catholic Church.
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Saints are made by the perfect work of Jesus Christ.
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And every believer who has been purchased by the blood of Christ, every believer who has been redeemed, every born-again person is a saint.
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Now, I know some people like to hear me say that, and they say, well, I don't feel like a saint.
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And I don't, you know, or some people even go, well, I'm no saint.
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Saint is describing your position in Christ.
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Hagios Mas is the Greek.
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Hagios, the root, being holy.
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A holy one, one who has been set apart by God.
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And Hagios Mas is a sanctified one or a saint.
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And that is something that Christ does.
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How does somebody become a saint? Well, that's the question for tonight.
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How does a person become a saint? Yeah, you just said the Pope does it.
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No, no, no, that is wrong.
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How does somebody become a saint? More specifically, the title of tonight's lesson, how does someone get saved? And I'm going to write this up here.
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This week, we have had opportunities for evangelism.
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And we've been next to another ministry.
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Jack and a few of you guys were talking about it when I walked in tonight.
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There's another ministry that's right next to ours.
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Both of us are handing out gospel literature.
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But there is a strong dichotomy between us.
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And it's not just the wall that separates us between the booths.
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On the first day, I had an opportunity to exchange pleasantries with the folks.
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And I had Mike and Dale there.
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And Mike had a conversation with the guy that was there.
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And found out they're actually part of a nationwide ministry that promotes the gospel.
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Not necessarily a local church.
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It's a parachurch ministry that goes out and does fairs specifically.
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And it caught my attention.
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Because when I saw the back of their shirt had been screen printed.
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Of course, that gets my attention.
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And it was screen printed with a fair with a cross on it.
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And I said, well, okay, this is something to do with fairs.
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It's something to do with what they call marketplace evangelism.
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So prompted by seeing that and hearing the guy say they had 84 decisions last year.
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I heard him say that to Mike.
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He said, we were responsible for 84 decisions last year.
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And I said, okay, that's interesting.
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Prompted by that, I went to their website.
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And I did find that the great focus of their ministry is on the subject of decisions.
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Decisions.
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That was the, that's the focus.
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We are here to get people to make a decision.
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And if you look through their literature on their website, in big bold letters, it says, you have the ability to choose your eternal destiny.
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It's all about the choice.
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It's all about the decision.
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And what I got to thinking about as I was reading their literature.
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And again, I wasn't just going to be picky.
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I really wanted to know who we were next to.
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Because we're both there.
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I'm hoping we're on the same team.
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And I'm not saying we're not.
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But I am saying we have a different methodology.
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I'm not saying we're not on the same team.
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I'm saying a different methodology here.
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Because as I was reading through the literature and learning about them, I got to thinking about the fact that we used to talk about conversions.
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You read historically.
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You would, you would read about regeneration and conversion.
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A man, life changed, a woman's life changed.
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But somewhere in the past, that idea of conversion got replaced with a decision.
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And salvation went from being a life change to being a single moment in time where you got saved.
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Nothing really changed.
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Nothing really became different.
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But you had a momentary decision.
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And a lot of times, the way people describe it is it lasted forever.
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Just about a moment.
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Because I'll talk to people at the fair.
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And they'll come up and they'll say, oh, I'm saved.
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Well, when did you get saved? When I was seven.
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Has your life changed? Well, no.
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But I got saved when I was seven.
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There's a lot of times where there'll be someone who dies.
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And in an attempt to try to find some way to sort of preach them into glory, they'll go back to some moment in the past, even though they've lived like the devil for 30 years.
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Somewhere when they were 14 years old, they made a decision.
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Right? Reminds me of, there was a Roman Catholic priest down in Mexico.
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Who was asked to do a service for a man who was a known drug dealer.
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Now, in Roman Catholicism, you're born into the church.
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You're baptized as an infant.
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And you're part of the church by, essentially, by family right.
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So the priest was more or less forced to do this man's funeral.
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And he stood there.
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And to his credit, though I would have much to differ with him theologically, I stand with his intestinal fortitude.
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He stood there.
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And he said, this man is the type of man who will bust hell wide open.
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I don't know exactly how he worded it.
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But basically, he said, this guy's a reprobate.
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He lived his life as a sinner.
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And there's no reason why we should have hope for soul.
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And I was like, I don't know how long he survived after that.
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But it really, that's a powerful statement.
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Because as much as we'll say you're not born into a Christian family, or rather, you're being born into a Christian family doesn't make you saved.
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Couldn't we also say that having a decision made when you were 14 years old that didn't change your life didn't make you any more saved? And that's where this idea of the decision has become a miscommunication of truth.
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Much of evangelism, and I can say this because in seminary, I had to take many, many classes.
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And I sat through various types of classes on church methodology and ministry.
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And I sat under men who were professional evangelists.
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And much of what they did was about manufacturing a decision.
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And they would create an environment that funneled people into only one real sensible answer.
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You know, what's somebody going to say? Well, would you rather go to heaven or hell? Well, I want to go to heaven.
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Well, repeat this prayer.
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And you may think that's simplistic.
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That happens.
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Well, I got a decision.
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Because I asked them a ridiculous question.
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Would you rather go to heaven or hell? You know, now you say, well, that's not a ridiculous question.
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If that's all you ask someone, and now you're going to pray the prayer.
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And they don't understand why they deserve to go to hell.
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And they don't understand what Christ did to save them from hell.
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These things matter.
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And in a sense, soul winning has become very much akin to salesmanship.
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And like in sales, a person has to be always thinking about the ABCs.
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If you've ever been in sales, you know what that is.
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If you've never been in sales, what are the ABCs? Always be closing.
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That's a salesman's mantra.
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Always be closing.
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And I remember being taught that by an evangelist.
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When I'm sharing the gospel, I'm always closing the deal.
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As if Jesus were a product and we were selling him as it were like a commodity.
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ABC, always be closing.
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So this got me thinking.
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And by the way, the closing is different for different people.
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Sometimes it's praying a sinner's prayer.
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Sometimes it's signing a card.
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Sometimes it's joining the church.
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Sometimes it's being baptized.
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But it's always closing.
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There's always a closing.
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That's the focus.
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Go for the close.
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So this got me thinking.
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And I know a lot of you have been in church.
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Some of you longer than I've been alive.
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And you might be looking at the notes tonight.
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You say, well, there's three questions.
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What is salvation? How is someone saved? And what's the goal of evangelism? I said, well, boy, I shouldn't have come tonight.
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I know all these things.
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Okay, that's fine.
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Humor me.
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Okay, because I hope to at least give you something to take home that you haven't thought about.
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But also this, Martin Luther said this.
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He said, I preach justification by faith every week.
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Because every week my people forget it.
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He said, I preach justification by faith every week.
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Because it's so easy to forget.
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It's so easy to forget the basics.
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And like I said, when I was standing there in the booth.
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And I'm listening to the gospel presentation on the other side.
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And I'm hearing the differences.
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And I'm hearing an absence of the proclamation of the law.
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An absence of the proclamation of what sin is.
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And why people need to come to Christ.
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And these things.
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And I'm thinking this is in a push for a decision.
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A push to get that decision.
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I got to thinking, you know, we need to know the answer to these questions.
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We need to know that we know the answers to these questions.
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So that's the three questions we're going to deal with tonight.
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And we'll break them down and go through them.
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So the first question, what is salvation? You'd be surprised how many people don't know the answer to this.
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Go to church a long time and don't know the answer.
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Because a colloquial term that Christians use is the term saved.
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That's why I wrote saved on the board.
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That's why, what is it? You know, how does someone get saved? And that's the way Christians talk.
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Are you saved? When did you get saved? How long have you been saved? There was a movie years ago called Saved.
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Did anybody see it? I don't recommend it.
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It's not in anyone's top 20 list of good movies.
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But basically what it was, it was about a Christian school.
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And a girl in the Christian school gets pregnant and gets ostracized by her friends.
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And it's basically the movie.
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And I've never seen the whole thing.
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I've only seen little snippets of it.
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But the movie seeks to satirize cultural Christianity.
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And you might take offense to that.
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I don't mind.
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Because there are things in cultural Christianity that are ridiculous.
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Like at one point the guy, the youth leader, you know, the hip guy with all the tattoos and everything.
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He goes, who's down with G.O.D.? You know, that kind of dumb thing, right? And you say, that's ridiculous.
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I've seen that in churches.
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And so the movie is this satirization of the whole idea.
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And it's called Saved.
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Because everybody in the movie, what's the question? Are you saved? When did you get saved? How long have you been saved? What does it mean? What does it mean when you say to someone, are you saved? And is it biblical? Well, it is.
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The term saved isn't something we made up.
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It's something that comes out of the Bible.
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If you want to make notes, you know, just for just two very common uses.
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Acts 16.31, when the apostle Paul and Silas were in the prison.
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And they were singing.
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And remember, there was an earthquake.
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And the man was going to commit suicide.
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And Paul and Silas said, no, we haven't left.
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And he fell down.
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And he said, what? He says, how can I be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And you shall be saved.
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Right? So that term is in the Bible.
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And used by the apostle Paul.
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The Greek there is sotso.
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The Greek word for sotso or soteria is saved.
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That's where we get that word.
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And we looked at a verse to start with tonight.
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Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8.
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For by grace you have been saved.
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So saved is not a wrong term.
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But I want to tell you this.
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If I took 10 churchgoers from 10 different churches.
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And I say, what does it mean to be saved? I will bet my tennis shoes that they would give me 10 different answers.
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Because even though we all use the same language, we don't always mean the same thing.
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Ask a Mormon, is he saved? He will say, yes.
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Now ask him what it means.
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Ask a Jehovah Witness if he is saved.
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He might say, yes.
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Ask him what it means.
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Ask what it is to be saved.
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Some people say, asking Jesus into your heart.
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Some people say, well, Jesus dying for your sins.
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Others say, trusting in God in general.
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Some people say, being a good person.
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Some people say, believing what the Bible says.
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But the word saved in scripture has a very specific meaning.
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It means to rescue from danger.
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It means to rescue from danger.
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It also means to restore to a former state of safety and well-being.
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Which is like saying rescue from danger.
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To not only rescue, but to put you back in a safe place.
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Another word that's equal in its usage is the word deliver or deliverance.
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You know, you've been in a bad situation and you get through it.
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And you say, well, the Lord delivered me out of that.
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Or you hear somebody say, you know, boy, I was delivered.
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Or maybe you were in a car and you went through a light and didn't see it.
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And another car missed you by just a hair.
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And you say, boy, I was delivered from catastrophe, right? Or I'm saved from that.
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So the idea of saved implies danger.
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It implies catastrophe.
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It implies terror.
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So when I say, when I hear somebody, and people say this to me all the time.
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And people do, because I'll hand somebody a tract.
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They'll hand it back and they'll say, I'm saved.
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I say, saved from what? Saved from what? I want to know that you know.
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Because the colloquial term, I'm saved, don't really mean a lot anymore.
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Because again, 10 church members, 10 different ways of understanding it.
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What do you mean? Saved from what? And usually they have to stop and think about it.
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I had a young person.
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I said, he said, I'm saved.
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I said, saved from what? He goes, I don't know.
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I guess my sin.
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I said, why does that matter? Well, Jesus died for my sin.
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What does that mean? How'd that work? What happened when he died? I don't know.
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So he just repeated phrases, hoping I was going to shut up.
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Again, applied in the word salvation is the idea of danger.
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When somebody says I'm saved, the next question is saved from what? If they say my sins are saved from hell or whatever.
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I like to point out what R.C.
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Sproul says.
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R.C.
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Sproul says this.
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He says that what we need to understand is what we're really saved from is God himself.
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Because God is the one who will judge.
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God is the one who is going to judge us.
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And he is the one who will bring vengeance on the evildoer.
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And yet God is the one who also sent his son to redeem us, to save us from his judgment.
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God saves us from himself, not from the devil.
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The devil has no power over us, really.
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The devil has influence in the world.
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He certainly has influence over the world system and the ways and issues that we live.
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And he certainly is a tempter and he's a liar and he is there.
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And I'm not saying he doesn't exist.
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But when God brought judgment on the Egyptians, he didn't send the devil to do it.
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God said, I will pass through.
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And he said, and on those houses where there is no blood, I will allow the destroyer in to take the life.
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But God said, I'm the one passing through.
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That's why we call it the Passover.
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God said, I will pass over.
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I say, well, that's not the way I like to think about God.
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It doesn't matter how we like to think about God.
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We need to think about God biblically.
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It's funny because when we think about we're saved from God in two ways.
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We're saved from God's wrath and we're saved by God's gift.
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From him and by him at the same time.
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And thus salvation is, he said, somebody says, what is salvation? Salvation is peace with God because before salvation, you don't have that.
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Salvation is peace with God because before that you have enmity with him.
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According to scripture, those who are in the flesh, meaning those who have not come to Christ, those who are not filled with the spirit are at enmity with God.
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They are enemies of God.
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And the only way to be reconciled to God is through the cross.
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So what is salvation? It's peace with God whom you were at war with.
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Romans 5 verse 1.
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If you don't memorize a lot of scripture, memorize that one.
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Romans 5 1.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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That's the gospel.
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I can preach the gospel from just that verse.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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You say, well, how do you preach the gospel? All that what talks about justification and talks about faith.
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We're justified by faith.
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Having been justified by faith, that's past tense.
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That means it's already happened.
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I don't look forward to justification.
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I already have it.
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And it's by faith, not by works.
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Having been justified by faith, I have peace with God.
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That's present tense.
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My peace with God is present tense.
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I have shalom with God now.
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And it's not subject to change because I'm at peace with God based on what he did, not what I did.
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And that's why I believe in eternal security.
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I believe my peace is secure because he did it, not me.
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If the peace was based on what I'm doing, it would always be doing this.
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John MacArthur said, if I could lose my salvation, I would.
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It's all the time.
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Exactly.
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But yeah, and so we have justification by faith.
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We have peace with God.
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What is salvation? It's peace with God.
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Whereas before we were enemies, now we are his friends.
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That's what the Bible calls us, friends of God.
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As Abraham was his friend by faith.
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We went from being an enemy of the Lord of the universe to being his child.
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So that's what salvation is.
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And salvation is more, as you just said, Ms.
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Rosanna, it's more than a one-time decision.
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It is a life change because we go from being enemies of God to being his friends.
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And that results in a change.
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How we speak, how we treat others, how we see the world around us, how we understand the church and how we look at death.
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All of those things are radically changed when we understand that we now have peace with God.
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So that's what salvation is.
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And when we're preaching salvation, we are, the Bible says we're ambassadors of Christ.
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Making reconciliation through the gospel, through the cross.
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We're preaching the cross so that other people can be reconciled because they're enemies of God.
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That's something you got to remember when you're preaching to people.
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As sweet or nice as these people may be, if they're outside of Christ, they're God's enemies at this moment.
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And he has provided for them reconciliation through the cross.
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And that's what you're telling them.
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There is peace to be had in Jesus Christ.
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What is salvation? It's peace with God.
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So the next question, how is someone saved? And I put also, how do we lead someone to the Lord? Because I got to tell you that that one is, I think, even more difficult.
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Because if the question of salvation is difficult, how you lead someone to that is very divisive among believers.
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Because if I went and talked to several different believers from different churches, I said, well, and I explained it the way I just did to you.
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Salvation is from God's judgment.
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It's from the judgment of God, which is hell.
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It's because of sin.
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And salvation is peace with God.
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I probably wouldn't have many people, at least conservative people who would disagree with that.
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You know, maybe liberals would say, well, I don't believe in hell or something like that.
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But most, you know, kind of across the board, you know, your typical Baptist, Presbyterians, they're going to agree.
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But the next question, it digs a little deeper.
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Because if you say, well, how does someone get saved? How does someone, how do we lead someone to that? Boy, that's when you see a lot of differences.
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Because there's not a lot of unanimity when it comes to that answer.
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Some people believe the sacraments are necessary when it comes to salvation.
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And when I say sacraments, I'm using the little more traditional term.
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We tend to use the word ordinances here.
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But if you're unsure what I'm talking about, talking about baptism and the Lord's Supper and Roman Catholicism, they have seven sacraments.
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But in the Reformation, one of the arguments of the Reformation was that the seven sacraments were unbiblical, that there really were only two.
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And they were baptism, which is the sign of justification, and the Lord's Supper, which is the sign of fellowship in the work of Christ and the cross.
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And those two things were the two sacraments.
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Some people believe that those are necessary.
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If you go to Church of Christ, they'll tell you that unless you were baptized by immersion for the forgiveness of sins, then you have no reason to have confidence in your salvation, because that is necessary.
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Likewise, you might go to another place that would say that nothing is necessary except a one-time split-second decision that has no effect.
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So those two, if you wanted to sort of break them down, you could say you really have the works righteousness versus the easy believers, or what we call easy believism.
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Works righteousness versus easy believism.
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And this is really how this kind of breaks down.
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Works righteousness believes that you have to change yourself to be saved.
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You have to change yourself to be saved.
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And easy believism says there is no expectation that you will ever need to change.
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And the truth is that neither one are right.
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The Bible teaches that a change does occur when a person is saved, but that that change is not from the person, it's from Christ.
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If I tell a person you've got to change before you can come to Christ, I've just made the gospel a gospel of works.
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But if I say to a person, if you come to Christ, he will change you.
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That's different.
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Everything changes.
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And I believe that.
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I believe if a person comes to Christ, he will change them.
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Now, there may be things in his life that it takes time to work out.
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And I don't know any of us that he's not working on something.
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Anybody here arrived at perfection yet? Certainly not.
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And you have to have that conversation sometimes with people because I say, you know, I'm saved.
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I still struggle with this or that.
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OK.
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Are you struggling with it? Yes.
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Well, good.
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You understand you haven't you're not sanctified perfectly until you get to glory.
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And that's right.
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But if somebody does say, you know.
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I've come to Christ, but I've experienced no change.
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I would then say, well, then, is the Bible true when it says that if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation? And the old things have passed away and the new things have come.
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Is there nothing new in your life? Is there not a desire for the word? Is there not a desire for God's people? Is there not a desire to hear the truth? Is there not a desire to love people and serve people? Are those desires absent? And that would be an important question to ask someone.
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I'm not saying those desires save you, and I'm not saying you have to have those desires before you come to Christ because you won't.
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But if a person says, I've come to Christ and I don't experience any of that, I would say that's it.
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That's an interesting situation because it makes me wonder.
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In what way did you come to Christ? Did you simply come to him intellectually or has he truly regenerated your heart? Oftentimes, the action of the individual is emphasized in salvation.
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As we talked about earlier, the decision, a focus is placed on that.
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And that's not necessarily wrong.
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And I want to stress this.
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When I'm talking to someone, I'm not closing any kind of sale.
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But I do lay before them the fact that Christ has commanded their repentance.
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And it is their responsibility to repent.
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I do lay that before them.
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And I say that only because this is something that they do need to hear.
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And we see this in scripture.
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Think about it.
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When Paul was in that jail, the man said, what shall I do? He said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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When Peter was there at Pentecost.
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And the men were there, what was it? The thousands of people were there.
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And he says, brothers, what shall we do? Repent and be baptized, every one of you for the forgiveness of sins.
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And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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Right.
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So he called on them to repent and to believe and to be baptized.
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I didn't say earlier, baptism isn't important.
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And I do believe when somebody says, should I be baptized? I say, yes.
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Yeah.
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But where the issue does become is when baptism becomes a works righteousness thing.
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That's where it has to be understood.
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Baptism is an act of faith.
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It is not something that causes salvation.
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I've heard people say, well, you go into the water a sinner and you come out a saint.
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That's not true.
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If you're not a saint when you go in the water, you're not a saint when you come out.
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A saint is by new birth in the heart, not in the water.
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The water is the external of the physical.
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It's the physical external what's happening internal and spiritual.
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So again, when someone is hearing the gospel from us, it's not wrong to give them the opportunity to respond.
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So I'm not saying again, but the idea that this decision mindset, I like what Paul says in Acts 17.
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If you want to write down a section of verses, Acts 17, 30 to 34.
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Paul is speaking to the Areopagus.
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If you remember, that is the philosophical leaders in Athens.
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These are brilliant men.
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And he's telling them the gospel.
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He's telling them about the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.
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And he says this in Acts 17, 30.
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He said, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent.
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And so when I'm praying, when I'm talking to somebody, I tell people, I say, God does not present himself in scripture as one seeking our acceptance.
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God presents himself in scripture as one who has given a command.
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And we will either rebel or we will be obedient.
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And that's different than saying you just need to make a decision.
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No, you need to be obedient to God or you remain a rebel.
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As a result, leading someone to the Lord begins with their understanding that this is not a request.
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God is not begging them to come to the table.
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He has commanded their presence.
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And they will either obey or they will rebel.
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And just so everybody understands this, especially those who listen by recording, I do understand that anybody who does obey does so by grace.
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No one obeys the gospel without the grace of God enabling them to do so.
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But from our perspective, willingness is still part of it.
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But it's God who enables the person to be willing.
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In the final analysis, what we're doing is we're presenting the person with a life or death moment.
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I like Deuteronomy 30.
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In Deuteronomy 30 verses 19 and 20, it says, as I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
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Therefore, choose life that you may live.
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You ever heard that? There's a song, choose life that you may live.
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That's a more modern contemporary song.
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But that verse, we set before you life and death.
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When you're preaching the gospel, you're setting before them life and death.
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And you're saying, choose life, choose Christ, come to Christ.
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And know that when you come, he will be a perfect savior to you.
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And he will change your life.
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And it won't be a moment's decision.
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It will be a life change.
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Repent, take up your cross and follow him.
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Jesus said, if any man come after me and is not willing to count the cost, he's not worthy of me.
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How many times you hear that in evangelism? Before you make a decision, think about what you're doing.
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Come to Christ, but know that he's going to change your life.
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Testimonies abound.
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There are various testimonies.
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And I bet if I had the opportunity to sit down tonight and let every one of you share how you came to Christ, you would tell me a different story.
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But testimonies that are genuine will involve three things.
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Repentance of sin, trust in the finished work of Christ and a life that has been changed.
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So the first question, what is salvation? It's peace with God.
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The second question, how is someone saved? Repentance of sin, trusting in the finished work of Christ, which results in a life that has changed.
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Thirdly, and we're going to move through this one quickly.
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Knowing that, what's the goal of evangelism? Knowing those things, what's the goal of evangelism? And that may sound simple.
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You say, well, it's to get people saved.
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And some people might say, well, evangelism is to keep people from going to hell.
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Not entirely wrong, because we should care if people are on the fast track to hell.
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And we should want to intervene.
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I like Spurgeon, who said this.
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He says, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.
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And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped around their knees, imploring them to stay.
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If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exhortations, and let not one go unwarned or unprayed for.
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So Spurgeon believed, yes, yes, people are going to go to hell, but don't let them go without preaching the gospel to them.
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Give them the gospel, hold them by the legs, as it were.
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But the reality is we can't make someone get saved.
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And no matter how good of a salesman you are, you'll never sell Jesus to an unconverted heart.
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They may accept your commodity, but it won't change their heart.
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Many people try to manufacture conversions.
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Many people try to use gimmicks and trick questions to try to get people saved.
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And as I mentioned earlier, one of the common ways to do it is they ask people, do you want to go to heaven or hell? And people inevitably say heaven.
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And they respond by saying, well, just say this prayer.
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But two important truths that we need to rethink when regarding the goal of evangelism.
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Two things to leave you with tonight about evangelism as this sort of is all leading to this.
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Number one, God is the one who changes the heart, not you.
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And when you get that into your head, and it still has trouble getting through my thick skull.
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When you get that through your head, you will change how you present the gospel, because you'll no longer be presenting the gospel as one who's seeking to sell something.
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But you rather present the gospel as someone who's looking to proclaim something.
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I'm not begging you to believe this.
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I'm telling you the truth.
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Now, I want you to believe it.
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I urge you to believe it.
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But it's true whether you believe it or not.
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And once we realize that, we share with more confidence.
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Knowing that it's not our salesmanship or charisma that wins us all.
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If I really thought it was my salesmanship that would get people to heaven, we would have balloons outside every Sunday.
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We would have...
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I'd convince the church to take all our savings and go buy a car and do a raffle just to get as many people in here as we could, just so we could go and sell tickets and get people in just so that they could hear that and make that decision.
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They said, you heard that before, haven't you? No, maybe not the car thing, but something.
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God is the one who changes the heart.
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I have to believe that.
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Paul said it.
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He said, I planted Apollos water, but God gave the increase.
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God changes the heart.
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God is the one who does that.
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So that's one.
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And the second one, and this is...
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I remember when I heard this, it changed my whole outlook.
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We are seeking to make worshipers.
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We are seeking to make worshipers.
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And you say, what do you mean by that? I do care if people go to hell, but I care more that Christ is worshiped.
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And John Piper said this, and this is what got my heart a while back.
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It was years ago now.
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He said, missions exist.
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And by missions, he means evangelism.
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Missions exist because worship doesn't.
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The whole reason why we're going is to create worshipers because Jesus is worthy of their worship.
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Jesus deserves their worship.
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God deserves their worship.
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So we go to proclaim the message to make worshipers.
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It's less about filling heaven, and it's more about glorifying the King.
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It's more about seeing Him get what He deserves.
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If we got what we deserve, we'd all get hell.
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Quit worrying about what we deserve and think about what Christ deserves.
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Christ deserves every person in the world to bow the knee to Him.
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And one day they will, either in obedience or in absolute dread.
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But one day, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess to Him.
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So my goal is to see people bow the knee on this side of eternity rather than have their knee broken on the other side of eternity.
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So my desire in evangelism, what's the goal of evangelism? Make worshipers to see people come to know the living God and worship Him as He deserves.
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Well, as I close, I want to give you one last thing that I thought was kind of funny.
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I'm going to leave you with hopefully a light, quick anecdote.
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Last, two weeks ago, Ray Comfort, you all know Ray Comfort, one of my favorite evangelists.
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We've watched several of his videos, great guy, love to meet him one day.
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He put out a thing that I didn't believe, I had to check it for myself.
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Ray Comfort said, if you Google, you know what Google is? That's you put a question onto the internet and it gives you an answer.
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He said, you Google how to get to heaven.
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And by God's grace, this is the answer.
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Listen to this.
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And this is all you have to put in the Google line, how to get to heaven.
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This is the answer that comes up.
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According to the Bible, there is only one way to get to heaven, repenting of your sins and placing your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
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It should be noted that it is by grace through faith, not by works, but by the works of Christ alone that you are saved.
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That's awesome.
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And to me, it's great because that's better theology than in a lot of churches.
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As soon as Google hears that.
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Oh, I know.
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I don't expect it to be around for long.
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But if you get a chance, Google how to get to heaven.
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And I just thought, you know what? There's ministries that are getting it wrong.
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And I know we don't always get it right.
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But isn't it a blessing that God has, at least at this moment, ordained that if somebody types how to get to heaven, they get a sound answer, even from a very unsound place.
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So all praise to all praise to the Lord.
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah.
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Well, let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight.
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We thank you for our salvation.
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And I pray, Lord, that you would confirm in our hearts ever more strongly our faith in you.
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And we pray it all in Jesus name.
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Amen.