Should We Treat Nominal Christians Any Different Than Unbelievers? | ask Theocast

So you know somebody who says they're a follower of Jesus Christ, but when you look at their life, you don't see any fruit at all. What are we supposed to do with that kind of person? Stay tuned. Hi, I'm John Moffitt.

I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church and the host of Theocast. This is Ask Theocast, where we answer your questions from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. And today we got an email from Andrew, and he was asking us this very question.

What do we do about people who are false converts? They say they believe, but they don't have any fruits. And should this person be examining themselves to see if they're of their faith? And should we as Christians be examining ourselves?

There's a lot of great questions in the email. This is in relationship to an episode we did recently on self-examination. You can find that episode down below. But this is going to be answering a specific question of false converts, those who say they believe and they really don't.

What do we do to do about that? Well, if you go to YouTube or a lot of sermons that are on the internet, a lot of pastors decide the way they're going to handle that is they're going to just preach harder.

And the fire and brimstone sermons come roaring out of their mouths, where they are trying to scare people into changing their ways. They are claiming to be a follower of Christ, but there's no evidence of it.

And there's all kinds of illustrations that are out there of someone being hit by a truck and you get up and you tell someone you're hit by a truck, but there's no evidence of it. Well, that should be true of Christianity.

And they use that as an illustration of, I'm guessing they want them to repent or they want them to start obeying. I'm not sure what it is that they're wanting. If someone truly is a false convert, let me put it this way.

If someone is professing with their mouth, but they don't believe with their heart, telling them to do it won't make them do it. Telling dead people to get up and walk won't make them walk. So I don't understand when you see preachers or people who stand up and yell at crowds or yell at people saying, you need to be different.

You need to act different. You need to be disciplining yourself or you're not a Christian. Well, if someone's not acting the way that they're supposed to after being confronted, like a Galatians 6 .1 moment where it says, those who are trapped in sin, go to such a one and restore them.

Or I would even say 2 Peter 1 .3 -9, where Peter says, if you have forgotten that you've been cleansed from your former sins, this is why you're not in obedience. If that's not the situation where it truly is a Christian who's been tripped up by Satan, you're looking at someone who's a real false convert, like they really don't believe.

Well, I've never heard of anyone being scared into faith in Christ. Never. It doesn't work that way. As a matter of fact, Paul even says the kindness of God is meant to lead you to repentance. Those who are under the weight of their sin and can feel the weight of their sin, what does Jesus say to them?

He says, come to me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He's drawing people into them. I think this is the icing on the cake. Paul says it is the power of God in what? The gospel. The gospel is the power of God to transform people from death to life.

If we have someone who is legitimately not a Christian, they don't understand the gospel, you can see it within their life. Then putting these people in a room, so here's an example. You have a room full of a thousand people, and you're going to tell me that I get to preach to these people, but John, we know for without a doubt, every single person in there says they're a Christian, but they're really not.

They're false converts. The sermon that I'm going to preach is not going to be you need to live up to your claim. You need to, and then go in there and make them feel guilty and make them feel shamed by what they are doing.

That is just as crazy as me walking into a cemetery and yelling at those people for being dead. How dare you be dead? How dare you live there or you sit there and not listen to what I say and respond to what I'm doing?

You would think I'm a crazy man. Well, I think people are crazy who yell at unbelievers to act like believers. Why would you do that? Paul says this, the gospel is the power of God to what? Transform your life.

It is not discipline. It is not obedience. It's not good works. So if you truly believe someone is not a believer, the only thing that brings them to life so that they can truly receive the joy of Christ is the gospel.

This is why Jesus says to the sinner, the one who's not the believer, he says to them, come to me, all you who are what? Heavy laden by the law, weighed down by the law and your sin, and he'll do what?

I will give you rest. He does not call them to discipline themselves. Now, for those who want to earn their own righteousness, he absolutely says, yeah, you must be perfect. You must perfectly obey the law.

Then you can earn righteousness, but that's not what he says. He says, come to me, and that is trusting and resting on him. So to the false convert or to the someone who's confused by the gospel, they don't really know what the gospel is, then give them the gospel.

Don't get mad at them. Don't get angry with them. The last thing I want to say in this video is I don't understand why people get angry at those who are confused that they're not really a believer. If someone says they're a Christian and it's obvious that they're not, why are you mad at them?

They're confused. Give them the gospel. Set them free from their burden. Don't put a greater burden on them or a greater confusion. The other thing I'm going to say is, why are you so angry? You didn't save yourself.

You didn't figure this out on your own. You didn't cleanse yourself. The faith that you have was a gift from the Father. So you should be thankful for that, and in return, do the very thing that Paul says in Ephesians 4 with gentleness and meekness and patience, bearing with one another.

So I think that's how we should respond to those who say they're a believer and they're not. Don't yell at them. Don't get angry at them. Don't try to get them to be morally better people. It won't save them.

The only thing that will save them is faith in the real gospel. Well, if you found this video helpful, go ahead and hit that like button for us, and hit the subscribe button and the notification bell.

That'll let you know the next time we have a video that comes out. We have quite a few resources down below if you want to go down and see those. Specifically, we have a book called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

This is a great book to help you explain what does it mean to find rest in Christ, not by your own works, but the works of Christ. We'll see you next time.