September 11, 2025 • 65 mins
Pastor Lance talks about the first characteristic of a true Christian: a decision to follow Christ without reservation. Christ always clarified the cost of following Him; have you counted the cost and decided to commit your life to Him and "take up your cross and follow"? (Luke 9:23)
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Episode Transcript
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Father, we thank You for today and we are grateful that You
have brought us together tonightto spend time in Your Word.
We realized that in the middle of the week things get kind of
hectic and time consuming. And yet, Lord, those who are
here have made the effort to be here, to hear the Word of the
Lord and to understand what it is You have for us.
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So our prayer is that You would use Your word in our lives to
strengthen us, convict us, comfort us, and motivate us to
live for the glory of your Kingdom.
We love you Lord, and we are so grateful for those who are here,
maybe for the first time, othersfor the second time, others for
a long time. We just thank you.
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Thank you for those who are here.
So bless our time together this evening in Jesus name, Amen.
We are discussing what I believeis probably the most crucial
topic for us to discuss at this time.
The question is what is a Christian?
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And we're going to answer that question for you.
Last week was by way of introduction, and this week
we're going to begin to move through the text of Scripture
and answer what is a Christian. And I wonder if somebody asked
you that question, how you wouldanswer that question?
Would you answer it based on what the Bible says?
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Would you answer it based on your own opinion?
Would you answer it based on what your pastor has said?
How would you answer the question, What is a Christian?
Would you be able to take someone to the text of Scripture
and explain to them Christianity?
Articulate to them what Christ has clearly stated in the word
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of the Lord. I would trust that that would be
the case for you. I promise that when we're all
done, 11 weeks from now, you will say, yes, I know what a
Christian is. I know that I am a Christian,
and I know that heaven is my eternal destiny.
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That's very, very important. It's unfortunate that in today's
day and age, we live in a state where Christianity is very
confusing. It shouldn't be.
It's not confusing because Christ made it confusing.
It's not controversial because Christ made it controversial.
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It's it's very clearly stated inthe Bible about what is a
Christian that the problem is not what Jesus said.
The problem is with with teachers and and preachers and
pastors who who misread or misinterpret or mis apply what
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Jesus said, thus leading to all kinds of confusion in in
churches all around the world. That shouldn't be, but it
happens that way. And that's quite unfortunate.
You know, there are there are churches that have started out
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extremely strong, great churches.
In fact, if you were to think about all the churches in the
Book of Revelation, the seven churches in Asia Minor, all true
churches, all started out great,all were on fire for the Lord.
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But when John writes to those seven churches under the
inspiration of the Spirit of God, the Lord speaks to those
churches because of what has taken place in them.
Even though they started out really, really good, over time
they became pretty bad. It was the downgrade of the
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gospel. It was a downgrade of
Christianity in those churches. It begins, of course, with the
Church of Ephesus. That was the cold church.
They had lost their first love. And these, these seven churches,
five of whom were told to repent, show us the downgrade.
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When it comes to how churches begin to move away from sound
doctrine and move away from the truth, it's Satan's ploy to
detract the church from its mission, to move the church away
from the truth of the gospel. And it begins by churches losing
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their first love, that they become cold churches.
Satan's ploy is to steal their passion.
Once he steals their passion, hethen begins to supplant their
devotion. That's the Church of of
Pergamum. So once a church grows cold, the
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church then begins to compromise.
Once Satan is able to steal their passion, he then supplants
their devotion. And then you come to the Church
of Thyatira. Once a church grows cold, it
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begins to compromise. Once it compromises, it becomes
corrupt, and Satan's ploy was tosubvert their affection.
If he can effectively steal yourpassion, supplant your devotion,
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he will subvert your affection and your church will become
corrupt. And then the the next church,
the church at Sardis, which was told to repent, that was just
the dead church there Satan secures their destruction.
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And once he secures your destruction, then he seals their
deception. And that was the Church of
Laodicea. They were the counterfeit
church. And that's exactly how how Satan
begins to operate in churches that begin really, really good,
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but he wants to take them away from the truth of the gospel in
the mission that they've been called to accomplish.
It's a warning to churches all around the world.
But let me give you a, a, a modern day illustration.
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I think it would be good to do that for you because we can read
about the churches in Asia Minorand they're in the Scriptures.
It's all true. But when you think about
churches today, you can think about a lot of good churches all
around our community, all aroundour, our, our state, our
country. That started out really, really
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good. But over time, things began to
change. So let me give you an
illustration. 32 years ago, I was called to be the pastor of
what was at that time, or what was that once called, the most
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prestigious church in all of Southern California.
That church was called Church ofthe Open Door.
I was called to be their pastor.And so this church, which began
with the likes of RA Torre, a great evangelist, strong Bible
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teacher, that's how the church began.
Other men along those lines wereLouis Talbot, the founder of
Talbot Seminary. He was another great man in a
long list of men who were great.You would know the church
baseball basically, by the testimony of J Vernon McGee.
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I mean, he still speaks on, on the radio today.
His tapes, dude, not him. He's long home with the Lord.
But he was probably the most famous pastor of Church of the
Open Door for 21 years. But after J Vernon McGee stepped
aside, things began to change atthe church.
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How they changed, how far they had changed, I did not know
until I went there. The first sermon I preached was
on 1st Corinthians 16 verse #9 where Paul says these words for
a wide door for effective service as open to me.
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And there are many adversaries. That was my installation message
that I preached at that church in 1993.
Little did I know I wasn't a prophet, nor was I still the
prophet what that verse would actually mean.
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As I began to preach each and every Sunday, it wasn't long
before I opened the to the Gospel of Mark and began to
preach steadily through Mark's gospel.
If you have read anything at allabout Mark's gospel, that begins
with the ministry of John the Baptist and he is about
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preaching A baptism based on repentance because the Kingdom
of heaven was at hand. And of course Jesus followed
John and he preached the same message.
And so as a young 35 year old pastor, I'm, I'm preaching the
same message about repentance and how you need to turn from
your sin and, and follow the Savior.
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And I'm preaching it with, with vim, vigor and vitality.
I'm, I'm, I have a lot of passion when I preach.
And so I'm preaching about repentance.
Little did I know that the church, the leadership of the
church, did not believe that repentance was essential for
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salvation. I didn't know that.
How could that possibly be? So we had this discussion among,
among the leadership about repentance.
And I would describe to them what repentance is, what the the
Greek word means, and and how doyou define repentance?
And they didn't agree. And they soon began to say that
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I was preaching A workspace salvation because repentance was
a work. I said no, repentance is a gift.
Second Timothy 225, Acts 11, verse #18 tells us that
repentance is granted to us by God.
It's not a human work. It's a God work that causes man
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to turn from their sin. But they didn't believe that.
And I began to realize how far things had changed in the Church
of the Open Door. Let me tell you some of the
things that they believed. They believed that repentance
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was a change of mind only about the Christ, that there was no
turning from sin required for salvation.
And I said to them, how? How do you gel that with First
Thessalonians chapter one verse #10 where it says that the the
Church of Thessalonica turned toGod from idols in order to serve
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the true and living God. That's what repentance truly is
all about. And I even quoted J Vernon
McGee. But they also believed that the
whole of salvation, including faith, is the gift of God, which
I agreed with. But they also said that that
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faith might not last. A true Christian can completely
cease believing. How can that be?
Show me in Scripture where a true Christian ceases to
believe. They also believe that saving
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faith is simply being convinced or giving credence to the truth
of the gospel. It is confidence that Christ can
remove guilt and give eternal life.
But saving faith is not a personal commitment to Christ.
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I said, well wait a minute, how can true saving faith When I put
my trust in someone I'm not trusting in a set of statements
about the Christ, I am trusting in the person and work of the
Christ. That's what saving faith
encounters. They believe that some spiritual
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fruit is inevitable in every Christians experience, but that
fruit, however, might not be visible to others.
Christians can lapse into a state of permanent spiritual
barrenness. Again, how do you gel that with
Matthew chapter 13 and the soft soil that produces fruit, some
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30 fold, some 60 fold, some 100 fold.
That's obviously seen by everybody, but spiritual
barrenness completely over long periods.
Show me in Scripture where that is evidence they could not.
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They said that only the judicialaspects of salvation,
justification, adoption, imputedrighteousness and positional
sanctification are guaranteed for the believers in this life.
But practical sanctification andgrowth in grace requires a post
conversion act of dedication. In other words, sanctification
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is not a guarantee. Practically, if you're a
Christian, wait a minute, we're set a pardon to God for his his
glory for his purposes. They were saying that if you
want to be sanctified sometime after you are saved, you can
then make Jesus Lord of your life and completely dedicate
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your life to Him now. But believing in Christ is Lord
and accepting His Lord that salvation is not necessary.
They would go on to say that submission to Christ, supreme
authority as Lord, is not germane to the saving
transaction. Neither dedication nor
willingness to be dedicated to Christ are issues in salvation.
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Really, they want to say that Christians may fall into a state
of life long carnality, a whole category of carnal Christians
born again people who continuously live like the
unsaved exists in the church. Listen.
But does it exist in Scripture? If it exists in the church,
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those people probably were neversaved to begin with.
But show me where it exists in the scriptures.
You see, it's important to always keep your finger in the
text to prove whatever it is yousay you believe, because it must
be supported 100% by the words of Christ.
They would say that disobedienceand prolonged sin are no reason
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to doubt the reality of 1's faith.
Had they not read first John? Had they not read what John says
very clearly? That he who practices sin does
not love God nor know God. They believe that a believer may
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utterly forsake Christ and come to the point of not believing.
God has guaranteed that he will not disown those who thus
abandoned the faith. Those who have once believed are
secure forever, even if they turn away, even if they
apostasize the faith. Well, the right of Hebrews
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speaks all against that. The question is, how do you get
there? How do you come to those
conclusions? You come to those conclusions
because you are led by a pastor who has compromised the truth.
For the previous pastor had lived in immorality for at least
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seven years before he was dismissed.
Other people that he had an affair with was still
speculation, but he had lived with one young lady half his age
for seven years and as he preached living in sin, the
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gospel was completely and totally diluted.
That you could believe in God and still carry on any way you
wish because everything is forgiven by God and the grace of
God accomplishes everything. In fact, he was asked before he
left, why is it you didn't feel the conviction of the Spirit of
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God when you were involved in this immoral relationship?
He would just say, well, we believe that everything was
covered by the grace of God and that when we asked for
forgiveness he would forgive us.That was his response to those
who asked him the question. Unbelievable.
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See, the grace of God does not mean we have permission to do as
we please. The grace of God means that we
have the power to do what God pleases.
That's the difference. But they were led by a man who
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was the fulfilment of what Jude says in Jude 4 when he says
ungodly persons have turned the grace of our God into
licentiousness and deny our onlyMaster and Lord Jesus Christ.
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He had turned the grace of God into lawlessness, that you could
live without any kind of law andlive as you chose and it would
be OK. And that came out very subtly,
but very, very determinedly in his sermons as he preached.
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And so you have people that would come to the church, hear
those things, believe that they could.
Add Jesus to their lifestyle andcontinue to live any way they
wanted afterwards without any consequences because of the
grace and forgiveness of God. He had turned the grace of God
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into disgrace. And so when you think about that
and you realize how quickly things begin to turn.
So here I am, 35 years of age, all passionate about preaching
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the gospel of repentance and turning to God from idols to
serve the true and living God. And so I am preaching what I
believe is the truth. But because the church had heard
error for so long that when someone comes and preaches the
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truth, they think the truth is error and their error is the
truth, that's what happened. I carry in my desk at work a
pamphlet of when Church at the Open Door celebrated 90 years of
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existence. And in this pamphlet they list
all the previous pastors of the church.
I happen to be the eighth in line, also the shortest tenured
pastor, 14 months. And in it, it says this.
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This was the greatest crisis in the history of the Church of the
Open Door. The greatest crisis was not that
there was a pastor who had turned the grace of God into
licentiousness and denied the only master Lord, the Lord Jesus
Christ. That wasn't the greatest crisis
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in the church. The greatest crisis in the
church is that that people hearda false gospel being preached.
No, the greatest crisis in the church was when the man who came
to preach the truth was said to be a heretic.
And therefore because they swallowed error hook, line and
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sinker, they believe that the error or the truth was error.
And so that was what they have said is the greatest crisis in
the history of the Church of theOpen Door.
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I give you the illustration because it's a modern day
illustration of how a church begins.
Great is a great testimony, the great light in the community.
But all of a sudden, over time, very gradually, what did Paul
say in Acts chapter 20? He said it very clearly.
These words, Paul warned them. I know, he says.
Paul says to the Church of Ephesus, that after my
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departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing
the flock, and from among your own selves men will arise,
speaking perverse things to drawaway the disciples after them.
Paul warned the Church of Ephesus, and that is so true.
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And so if the leadership of the church is not careful, not
protecting the flock, not warning the flock, not watching
the flock, the set of heresies rise from within and lead people
astray. That's why it's so important
that you understand these sermons on what is a Christian.
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So you understand the importanceof of what it means to be a
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Having said that, let me give you a test.
Let me give you a simple test and I want you to answer this In
your mind, is this describing a Christian?
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If someone is devoted to seekingGod, are they a Christian?
If someone is devoted to seekingGod daily, are they a Christian?
If someone is to take pleasure in understanding God's ways, are
they a Christian? If someone wants to do what is
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righteous, are they a Christian?If someone remains true to their
beliefs and stay loyal to their faith, are they a Christian?
If someone says to God that theywill seek Him and seek Him for
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guidance on what is just and what is right, are they a
Christian? If someone was to take joy in
drawing near to God, are they a Christian?
Well, you would think that someone with those
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characteristics would demonstrate true Christianity.
And you would think that the verse in Scripture that states
all that would be describing people who knew the Lord except
for one thing. God says they didn't know him.
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God says they were in sin. God said they were far from him.
That verse is found in the book of Isaiah, the 58th chapter.
In verse one, it says cried loudly, do not hold back, raise
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your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their
transgression and to the House of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah, you need to declare loudly, not subtly, not
secretly, not behind closed doors, but make sure that
everybody hears this. Everybody knows this.
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That's the way he says and say. Yet they seek me day by day and
delight to know my ways as a nation that has done
righteousness and has not forsaken the ordinances of their
God. They asked me for just
decisions. They delight in the nearness of
God. This is what they say.
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We delight to know your ways. We delight to know you.
We delight to be near you. We want you to act righteously
among us, Lord. We want to seek you not just
today, but we want to seek you daily.
And God says to Isaiah, you tellthem about their transgressions.
You tell them about their sins, because this is what they're
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going to tell you, Isaiah. And then they're going to say
this, Why have we fasted, Lord? And you do not see, why have we
humbled ourselves? And yet you do not notice,
Isaiah. They're going to ask you that
question. And this is what you tell them,
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Isaiah, Tell them this. Behold, on the day of your fast,
you find your desire. Here's the problem.
You do what you please. You do not do what I please.
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This is your transgression. This is your sin, This is why
you are so far from me, he says.Behold, you fast for contention
and strife, and strike with a wicked fist, yet do not fast
like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
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You don't come to fast in order to draw near to me and cry out
to me. You do it for your own
attention, for your own admiration.
You do it for your own pleasure.Everything you're doing is
self-serving. It's all about seeking me,
drawing near to me because you want to be noticed by everybody
else. It's all the outward externals.
But everything about Christianity is all about the
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internal, not the external. But Israel was known for
honoring God with their lips, but their heart being far from
Him. So he would go on to say, as you
read through Isaiah 58 verse 13,if because of the Sabbath you
turn your foot, in other words, you keep from breaking my law
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for doing your own pleasure on my holy day, and call the
Sabbath of delight, the holy dayof the Lord honorable, and honor
it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own
pleasure and speaking your own words.
You see, everything was about them.
Everything was about them. Then you will take delight in
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the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the
earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your
father. For the mouth of the Lord has
spoken verse to the 59 verse #1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not
short that it cannot save, nor is this here dull that it cannot
hear. But your iniquities have made a
separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden
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His face from you, so that He does not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with
iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood,
your tongue mutters. Wickedness describes them, their
transgressions, their sins so easily.
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People become self deceived. And the sad thing about it is,
is that there are pastors who confirm them in their self
deception without warning them, without challenging them,
without causing them to examine their lives to see whether or
not they're in the faith, to know for certain whether or not
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they are truly born again believers.
They're truly followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
See, Christ was never confusing in what he said.
He wanted to make sure that nobody was confused about
Christianity. So when Christ would speak, he
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would make it very clear to people to understand who he was
and why he came to earth. He preached the gospel message
over and over and over again to make sure that people understood
exactly what he was saying. In fact, he preached the gospel
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so significantly that he concluded his ministry with an
illustration. Let's just call it a closing
illustration. All good preachers in with a
great illustration. I don't because I'm not a great
preacher, but most great preachers end with great closing
illustrations and our Lord wouldwould end his ministry with with
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the greatest of all illustrations about the gospel.
He wanted to make sure that everybody understood what it
meant to be a Christian. He wanted to leave no doubt in
anybody's mind about all the things he had said throughout
his three-year ministry. And so he closes his ministry
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with an illustration. That illustration is summed up
in one verse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three gospels
recorded. But the illustration in one
verse. And I'm surprised that so many
preachers miss this because it is the epitome of all
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illustrations of the Gospel and Christ one to leave etched in
the minds of every man, every woman, what it means to be a
follower of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So what happens on the the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross?
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Christ has been beaten beyond recognition, and so He is
carrying this cross beam from where he was before Pilate to
Calvary. The place of the skull in this
crossbeam would wear anywhere between 82 to 100 lbs and so you
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have to imagine that having beenbeaten as severely as Christ was
beaten, that he was still able to carry the crossbeam.
Isaiah 52 tells us that He was. He was beaten beyond all human
recognition, but as he began to carry the cross on the Via
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Dolorosa, on the way to the place of the skull, he would
fall, thus giving the way for the greatest illustration of the
gospel in the Bible. Luke tells us this in Luke 23
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verse #26 when they led him away, they seized the man Simon
of Cyrene coming in from the country and placed on him the
cross to carry behind Jesus. There it is.
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That's the illustration. Talk about being in the right
place at the right time. You might want to consider it
maybe consequential. I see it as providential.
You might see it as an exact accident.
I see it as a divine appointment.
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Why? Because Simon's name was
mentioned, Simon the Cyrene. Now, we don't know anything
about what he knew about Christ before he got there, but the
crowds had gathered and Simon had gathered in the crowds and
Simon was watching like everyoneelse was watching about this
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individual who was carrying his cross beam to the place of the
skull. Cyrene is a city in North Africa
today. It's modern day Libya.
And we know from the book of Acts that there were many
Cyreneans on the day of Pentecost, and that there was a
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synagogue, A Cyrenian synagogue in Jerusalem.
But Simon was compelled out of the crowd to carry the cross of
Christ, and he would carry that cross beam from where they were
to the place of the skull. Whether he remained there or not
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we do not know, but there would be this living illustration of
what it means when Jesus said ifany man came after me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Simon became the quintessential illustration of what it means to
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be a follower of Christ. It's at the end of his ministry.
He's about to die for the sins of man and he wants to leave.
Indelibly etched to the minds ofeveryone in the crowd.
This is what I've said to you all along.
If any man came after me, he must deny himself.
He must take his cross and follow me.
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A life of self denial, a life ofself sacrifice, a life of
submission. And Simon was compelled out of
the out of the crowd. Was Simon born again?
He was or he was. He became born again.
He'd be a follower of Christ. How do we know that?
Romans 16 tells us that his wifeministered to the Apostle Paul
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in Rome. His son Rufus is also named in
Romans 16 verse #13. Simon was instrumental in the,
the, the church in Cyrene. And so something happened in the
life of of Simon Cyrene. That's why his name is mentioned
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here. That's why the illustration is
in the Scriptures, because you need to understand the essence
of the gospel. This is what it's all about.
And Christ wants to make sure that everybody sees it and
understands it. It it says in the very next
verse. And following him was a large
crowd of the people that they weren't followers of Christ, but
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they were following along like alot of people were quote
followers of Christ for a while.But Simon and Cyrene, different
kind of man. He was totally committed to
follow his Christ. He would lead his wife to the
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Lord. He lead his son Rufus to the
Lord, maybe left his other son Alexander as his other son to
the Lord. But he realized that this one,
the Christ, was worth dying for because Christ died for him.
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Simon's decision to follow the Christ was irresistible.
He was compelled when you when you give your life to Christ,
you are compelled to give your life to Christ.
It's what the Bible calls irresistible grace.
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There's common grace for all men, but the irresistible grace,
it cannot be refused because when God calls you to himself,
they get grants you the gift of grace and the gift of faith and
the gift of repentance and the gift of of belief, because
they're all gifts granted to us by God.
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And when God compels you to come, you can't say no, you
come. Why, all the Father gives me
will come to me. You will.
As Simon was compelled, so we, when we give our life to Christ,
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give our life to Christ because we're compelled to do so.
We've been drawn by the Spirit of God to come to Christ.
And we give our lives to him. And so we begin to understand as
you read through the Gospels that a Christian is known by his
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decision, his decision to followChrist.
And that decision is based on the fact that God in his
sovereignty has chosen you and called you into his Kingdom.
And that's why it's an irresistible compulsion.
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So Jesus would say these this long before, long before the the
illustration, there was the instruction Luke 9 verse 23.
And Christ was saying to them all, if if anyone wishes to come
after me, he he must deny himself and take up his cross
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and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his
life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for
my sake, he is the one who will save it.
For what is a man profited if hegains the whole world and loses
or forfeits himself or his own soul?
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Such a tremendous statement. This is the gospel message.
You see, we live in a world designed for self fulfillment,
but we preach a gospel about self denial.
That's why it's rejected. We, we live in a world filled
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with self respect, self dignity,self importance, self
fulfillment, self satisfaction. And we come along, we preach a
gospel that says you need to sacrifice yourself, you need to
deny yourself, you need to be willing to surrender yourself.
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And that goes against everythingthat society teaches and wants
us to believe. But the gospel is directly
opposed to what society teaches.And that's why Christ will say
it over and over again. If you want to keep your life
today, you're going to lose it for eternity.
But if you're willing to lose your life, if you're willing to
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give your life away. You see, Christianity is not
about exalting myself. Christianity is about executing
yourself, willing to die for Christ, take up your cross and
and follow him. But we've got that all wrong
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today because you want to appealto the masses.
We want to appeal to the crowds and say, listen, if you just
come to Jesus, everything will be better for you.
That's not what Jesus says. In fact, he says direct opposite
you read on the Luke Chapter 9. It says in verse 57, as they
were going along the road, someone said to him, I will
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follow you wherever you go. Matthew's account tells us it's
a scribe. So here's this scribe who says,
I, I want to learn from you. I want to follow you wherever
you go. And you think that Jesus would
say, come on, then you want to follow me, get in line with
everybody else. This is great.
It's not what Jesus says. He says the foxes have holes,
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the birds of the air have nests,but instead of man has nowhere
to lay his head. Christ wanted to make sure the
man was serious. You got to realize, if you
follow me, there's no comfort here.
There are no accolades here. There are no palaces here.
(44:12):
It's not a life filled with happiness.
You're going to go through life and and not, not not find a
place to lay your head. The birds there, they got a
nest. Foxes have holes.
But you follow me. You got nothing.
You got nothing. See, Christ didn't make it easy
for if you're going to follow him, he made it so incredibly
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hard. Why?
Because you see, if you're called by God and chosen by God,
you're going to accept whatever he says.
If you're not, those sayings aretoo rough for you.
You don't follow. So verse 59 and Jesus said to
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another, follow me. You can imagine the scene.
Here's Jesus walking along and some scribe because I'm going to
say, Hey Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.
And then Christ gives him the statement and doesn't follow.
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So Jesus says you, hey, you follow me.
See, that's the call of salvation.
The call of salvation is to follow Christ.
The call of salvation is not a not an event, it's not a prayer,
it's not a card you sign, it's not a moment in time.
(45:35):
The call of salvation is the continuous act of following
Jesus without reservation for the rest of your life.
We forget that. And so he says you follow me.
Have you heard what Jesus just said?
He said to Jesus, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my
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father. I need to go bury my father now.
His father wasn't dead yet. How do we know that?
Because in Judaism, the burial took place the same day as the
death. So if his father had died, he'd
be sitting at home decaying while he is out trying to follow
Jesus. That's not the case.
His father's still alive. He hears what Jesus said about
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no place to lay your head, no place to sleep, no comforts.
Hey, you know what? If I wait till my dad dies,
guess what? I'll get the inheritance.
Take the inheritance and guess what?
I'll have a place to sleep. And this guy will have a place
to sleep. I'll have clothes to wear.
This guy will have clothes to wear.
Everything will be OK. My dad's not dead yet.
I need to bury my father, Jesus says to him.
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Allow the dead to bury their owndead.
This is so crude, isn't it? But it's not.
It's Jesus's words. Let the spiritually dead bury
the physical dead. But As for you, go and proclaim
everywhere the Kingdom of God. You want to follow me.
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Let the spiritually dead take care of those who will die
physically one day. You be engaged in proclaiming
the Kingdom of God. The first man's deterrent was
materialism. The second man's deterrent was
pacifism. He was going to wait that maybe
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Jesus will let him follow him sometime down the road when
everything is financially securefor him.
Then verse 61 another also said I will follow you.
I will you can you can just see the person in the crowd.
Oh, oh, oh, Jesus. Oh, I'll follow you.
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I'll. I'll do it.
These are the two losers. They won't, but I will.
I'll follow you. But first permit me to say
goodbye. Permit me to say goodbye to
those at home. Let me, let me go back home and
and say goodbye to mom and dad, brother and sister, aunt and
(48:14):
uncle, nieces and nephews. Come with me first to go back
home and say goodbye. His deterrent was
sentimentalism, but Jesus said to him, no one having or after
putting his hand to the plow andlooking back is fit for the
(48:34):
Kingdom of God. There are to be no rivals for my
affection. There is to be nothing that
comes between me and you becauseif something does that becomes
more important to you than me, that then becomes your God and
not me. And no man can serve 2 masters,
(48:57):
therefore you can't follow me. See, those are hard sayings.
They're not easy. That's why when you when you
come a little further in Luke's gospel to the the the 16th
chapter, Luke chapter, chapter 16, it says these words, verse
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16, the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John.
Since that time, the gospel of the Kingdom of God has been
preached and everyone is forcinghis way into it.
What kind of statement is that? Who's forcing their way into the
Kingdom? What's that mean?
Am I trying to fight to get intothe Kingdom?
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What is going on here? The whole forcing aspect is that
all of Satan and all of his minions are doing all they can
to keep you out of the Kingdom and you are exercising self
denial, self sacrifice, self surrender.
You are fighting your own pride,your own will, your own
stubbornness, your own sin. All those things are, are the
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hindrance to you coming to the Kingdom and that's why man is
forcing his way into the Kingdom, because without the
Spirit of God moving, controlling, calling you to
come, you can't just can't. So important.
(50:28):
Earlier Christ would say these words in Matthew's gospel.
He would say, therefore everyonewho confesses me before men, I
will also confess him before my father was in heaven.
But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before
my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to
bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace,
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but a sword. For I came instead of man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.
He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of
me. And he who loves son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me.
And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not
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worthy of me. He was found.
His life will lose it and he haslost his life for my sake.
We'll find it. See, these are the words of
Christ. But but those aren't the
messages that preachers preach today when it comes to
presenting the gospel to people who need to give their life to
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Christ. Because we try to water down the
gospel, dilute the gospel so much down to it's, it's, it's
bare minimum just to get someoneto make a decision just to get
someone to say yes, I will follow, yes, I will come, yes, I
will pray instead of as Christ did make it virtually impossible
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for man to do it on his own because he can't.
But when God calls a man, he's willing to do whatever Christ
asks because He empowers him to do that, to accomplish His
purposes. Back in Luke's gospel, in the
14th chapter, Christ says these words.
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Now large crowds were going along with him.
Stop right there. Large crowds.
That's verse #25 of Luke 14. Large crowds.
How large are large crowds? Well, what do you do when large
crowds follow you? You want larger crowds to follow
you, right? So you do whatever you can to
keep the large crowds coming. Not Jesus.
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He didn't want anybody to be deceived.
He didn't want anybody to think that they, they, they just by
getting on the, the, the, the Jesus train that, that everybody
was going to be going to heaven.No, He turned and said to them,
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and
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mother and wife and children andbrothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, He cannot be my disciple.
He cannot follow me. He cannot be one of mine.
That's just a hard saying. Christ doesn't want any
superficial followers. This is one of these shallow
followers. He wants totally committed
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people following Him. So he says in verse 27, Whoever
does not carry his own cross, come up to me, cannot be my
disciple. Same thing he said in Luke 923.
Same thing he said in Matthew chapter 10 verses 34 to 39.
He says the exact same thing over and over and over again.
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This is this. For which one of you, when He
wants to build the tower, does not first sit down and calculate
the cost to see if He has enoughto complete it?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to
finish, all who observe it beginto ridicule him, saying this man
began to build and was not able to finish.
Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle,
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will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong
enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against
him with 20,000, or else, while the other is still far away, he
sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up
all his own possessions. Have you calculated the cost?
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Have you understood the ramifications of what it means
to follow me? Have you sat down and began to
add up everything that it consists of?
Christ wanted to be sure that that's exactly what they wanted
to do, because He knew that it would cost them everything.
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We just don't want to present Christ like that to anybody.
And yet, when someone's called by God, they are desperate
enough to embrace all that Christ says, no matter how
difficult it may be, because they understand the parable of
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the treasure and the Pearl in Matthew chapter 13.
The man who found the treasure, he stumbled upon the treasure.
The man who've obtained the Pearl, he sought.
The Pearl in Christ has given anillustration of those who who
stumble upon the Kingdom, realizing its value, go back.
(55:40):
Sell all that you have to purchase the field or set out on
a journey for a specific Pearl. Willing to give up all that you
have. Sell all that you have to pay
the price for the Pearl. It speaks of the inestimable
value of the Kingdom, that when someone understands the Kingdom
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of God, the forgiveness of sins,the relationship you have with
the living God, you are willing to sell everything that you
have. Matthew 1626.
What will a man give in exchangefor his soul?
That's the gospel. What will a man give in exchange
(56:26):
for soul? The word exchange is a is a is a
transactional term. What will a man give up to
obtain a soul? Answer everything in his life
because this life means nothing compared to Christ life.
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Are you willing to give up all that you have to obtain Christ
life? Or is your life so valuable to
you that you are an unwilling togive up your life for Christ's
life and thus lose your life? That's the bottom line.
And the Christian decides to follow Christ and there's no
(57:16):
turning back. You know the course.
I decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning
back. Though none go with me.
Still I will follow. No turning back, No turning
back. My cross I'll carry till I see
(57:37):
Jesus. No turning back, no turning
back. The world behind me, the Christ
before me, no turning back, no turning back.
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And that's the decision that theChristian makes.
But that decision is based on a divine decree by the living God
who calls man to himself, the God.
The man's decision is always subject to the sovereignty of
(58:17):
Almighty God. To as many as received him, to
them gave you power to become the sons of God.
It is true that man receives theMessiah, he accepts the Messiah,
but he's born not of the will ofthe flesh nor the will of man.
He's born completely by the willof God.
(58:44):
Christ says if you want to follow me, it's the end of you.
That's what it means to deny yourself.
It means you refuse to associatewith yourself any longer.
That's what it means to deny yourself.
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Man, unfortunately wants glory. He wants his needs met.
God. God does not want to meet your
earthly worldly needs. That's not why He came to die.
(59:32):
He wants you to abandon all yourearthly worldly needs and
embrace Him. That's what self denial is.
That's what self sacrifice is. That's what self surrender is in
(59:54):
today's day. We we have rewritten the gospel
or we have reinvented the gospel.
Thus we get a multitude of falseconverts because we dilute the
(01:00:15):
truth. Hoping to gain more people to
follow Christ. Jesus never did that.
He knew that all that the Fatherhad given him would come to him,
but he wanted to make sure that nobody was ever self deceived.
(01:00:36):
No one was ever, ever thinking they were saved, when in reality
they were not. So he kept preaching the hard
truths of the gospel over and over and over and over again,
because he didn't want anybody to be confused, anybody to to be
(01:00:57):
a counterfeit Christian. He wanted everybody to
understand the genuineness of salvation, the gracious, saving
mercy of a living God. Our Lord is the quintessential
(01:01:18):
evangelist. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. That was his mission, and he
wanted to make sure that nobody would have a question about
their commitment to the Christ. And so he spelled it all out
very clearly for those who wanted to follow him.
(01:01:43):
But for most of what he said in John 6, unless you eat my flesh,
unless you drink my blood, you have no part with me.
And people said, who can hear that?
And many of his, quote, disciples, followers walked
(01:02:04):
away. They left him.
Why, unless you eat my flesh anddrink my blood, all symbolic of
the life that he would give and the blood that he would shed
you, you have to take in all of me.
You can't take bits and pieces of me.
You must embrace all of who I amand all of what I said and all
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of what I'm going to do. People don't want to do that.
So Christ turns to his men. He says, will you go away also?
And Peter said, where are we going to go?
We've left everything to follow you.
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You have the words of eternal life.
You have the words that give life.
And before we met you, we had nolife because you don't.
If you're not a Christian, you have no life.
You exist. You walk around, but you have no
(01:03:10):
life. The only people who have life
are those who have Christ's life.
That's true life. I came that they might have life
and that they might have that life more abundantly.
That's that's the life that Christ wants to give.
And I wonder if you've embraced that life.
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I wonder if you understand what it means to follow Christ.
Christ wanted to be very, very clearly stated, authorized
ministry. So he concluded his ministry
with an illustration with Simon Cyrene, who would carry that
cross to the place of the skull.And that man would realize this
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is what the Christian life is all about.
And that man became the living. Illustration of Luke 9/23.
My question to you today is, areyou a living illustration of
what it means to be a Christian for the world to see?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today,
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the opportunity you give us to spend time in your word.
Truly, Lord, you are a great God, and we are grateful for
your mercy, for your grace, for your love, for your goodness,
for your kindness. We are grateful, Lord, that you
(01:04:44):
died for us. Lord, no greater gift in all the
world than the indescribable gift of eternal life.
It is so valuable. It is so incomparable, It is so
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immeasurable, that we can't evenbegin to compare with anything
on earth. And those of us who have
embraced that gift understand the beauty of it, and we have
decided to follow Christ. So Lord, as we journey on each
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and every day, may our lives exemplify the beauty of Christ.
But all who come behind us wouldsee that Jesus is our King, our
Lord, our Master, our Savior forever in Jesus name, Amen.
Father, we thank You for today and we are grateful that You
have brought us together tonightto spend time in Your Word.
We realized that in the middle of the week things get kind of
hectic and time consuming. And yet, Lord, those who are
here have made the effort to be here, to hear the Word of the
Lord and to understand what it is You have for us.
(00:22):
So our prayer is that You would use Your word in our lives to
strengthen us, convict us, comfort us, and motivate us to
live for the glory of your Kingdom.
We love you Lord, and we are so grateful for those who are here,
maybe for the first time, othersfor the second time, others for
a long time. We just thank you.
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Thank you for those who are here.
So bless our time together this evening in Jesus name, Amen.
We are discussing what I believeis probably the most crucial
topic for us to discuss at this time.
The question is what is a Christian?
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And we're going to answer that question for you.
Last week was by way of introduction, and this week
we're going to begin to move through the text of Scripture
and answer what is a Christian. And I wonder if somebody asked
you that question, how you wouldanswer that question?
Would you answer it based on what the Bible says?
(01:29):
Would you answer it based on your own opinion?
Would you answer it based on what your pastor has said?
How would you answer the question, What is a Christian?
Would you be able to take someone to the text of Scripture
and explain to them Christianity?
Articulate to them what Christ has clearly stated in the word
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of the Lord. I would trust that that would be
the case for you. I promise that when we're all
done, 11 weeks from now, you will say, yes, I know what a
Christian is. I know that I am a Christian,
and I know that heaven is my eternal destiny.
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That's very, very important. It's unfortunate that in today's
day and age, we live in a state where Christianity is very
confusing. It shouldn't be.
It's not confusing because Christ made it confusing.
It's not controversial because Christ made it controversial.
(02:38):
It's it's very clearly stated inthe Bible about what is a
Christian that the problem is not what Jesus said.
The problem is with with teachers and and preachers and
pastors who who misread or misinterpret or mis apply what
(03:00):
Jesus said, thus leading to all kinds of confusion in in
churches all around the world. That shouldn't be, but it
happens that way. And that's quite unfortunate.
You know, there are there are churches that have started out
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extremely strong, great churches.
In fact, if you were to think about all the churches in the
Book of Revelation, the seven churches in Asia Minor, all true
churches, all started out great,all were on fire for the Lord.
(03:45):
But when John writes to those seven churches under the
inspiration of the Spirit of God, the Lord speaks to those
churches because of what has taken place in them.
Even though they started out really, really good, over time
they became pretty bad. It was the downgrade of the
(04:11):
gospel. It was a downgrade of
Christianity in those churches. It begins, of course, with the
Church of Ephesus. That was the cold church.
They had lost their first love. And these, these seven churches,
five of whom were told to repent, show us the downgrade.
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When it comes to how churches begin to move away from sound
doctrine and move away from the truth, it's Satan's ploy to
detract the church from its mission, to move the church away
from the truth of the gospel. And it begins by churches losing
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their first love, that they become cold churches.
Satan's ploy is to steal their passion.
Once he steals their passion, hethen begins to supplant their
devotion. That's the Church of of
Pergamum. So once a church grows cold, the
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church then begins to compromise.
Once Satan is able to steal their passion, he then supplants
their devotion. And then you come to the Church
of Thyatira. Once a church grows cold, it
(05:39):
begins to compromise. Once it compromises, it becomes
corrupt, and Satan's ploy was tosubvert their affection.
If he can effectively steal yourpassion, supplant your devotion,
(06:01):
he will subvert your affection and your church will become
corrupt. And then the the next church,
the church at Sardis, which was told to repent, that was just
the dead church there Satan secures their destruction.
(06:21):
And once he secures your destruction, then he seals their
deception. And that was the Church of
Laodicea. They were the counterfeit
church. And that's exactly how how Satan
begins to operate in churches that begin really, really good,
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but he wants to take them away from the truth of the gospel in
the mission that they've been called to accomplish.
It's a warning to churches all around the world.
But let me give you a, a, a modern day illustration.
(07:07):
I think it would be good to do that for you because we can read
about the churches in Asia Minorand they're in the Scriptures.
It's all true. But when you think about
churches today, you can think about a lot of good churches all
around our community, all aroundour, our, our state, our
country. That started out really, really
(07:30):
good. But over time, things began to
change. So let me give you an
illustration. 32 years ago, I was called to be the pastor of
what was at that time, or what was that once called, the most
(07:53):
prestigious church in all of Southern California.
That church was called Church ofthe Open Door.
I was called to be their pastor.And so this church, which began
with the likes of RA Torre, a great evangelist, strong Bible
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teacher, that's how the church began.
Other men along those lines wereLouis Talbot, the founder of
Talbot Seminary. He was another great man in a
long list of men who were great.You would know the church
baseball basically, by the testimony of J Vernon McGee.
(08:39):
I mean, he still speaks on, on the radio today.
His tapes, dude, not him. He's long home with the Lord.
But he was probably the most famous pastor of Church of the
Open Door for 21 years. But after J Vernon McGee stepped
aside, things began to change atthe church.
(09:02):
How they changed, how far they had changed, I did not know
until I went there. The first sermon I preached was
on 1st Corinthians 16 verse #9 where Paul says these words for
a wide door for effective service as open to me.
(09:26):
And there are many adversaries. That was my installation message
that I preached at that church in 1993.
Little did I know I wasn't a prophet, nor was I still the
prophet what that verse would actually mean.
(09:50):
As I began to preach each and every Sunday, it wasn't long
before I opened the to the Gospel of Mark and began to
preach steadily through Mark's gospel.
If you have read anything at allabout Mark's gospel, that begins
with the ministry of John the Baptist and he is about
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preaching A baptism based on repentance because the Kingdom
of heaven was at hand. And of course Jesus followed
John and he preached the same message.
And so as a young 35 year old pastor, I'm, I'm preaching the
same message about repentance and how you need to turn from
your sin and, and follow the Savior.
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And I'm preaching it with, with vim, vigor and vitality.
I'm, I'm, I have a lot of passion when I preach.
And so I'm preaching about repentance.
Little did I know that the church, the leadership of the
church, did not believe that repentance was essential for
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salvation. I didn't know that.
How could that possibly be? So we had this discussion among,
among the leadership about repentance.
And I would describe to them what repentance is, what the the
Greek word means, and and how doyou define repentance?
And they didn't agree. And they soon began to say that
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I was preaching A workspace salvation because repentance was
a work. I said no, repentance is a gift.
Second Timothy 225, Acts 11, verse #18 tells us that
repentance is granted to us by God.
It's not a human work. It's a God work that causes man
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to turn from their sin. But they didn't believe that.
And I began to realize how far things had changed in the Church
of the Open Door. Let me tell you some of the
things that they believed. They believed that repentance
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was a change of mind only about the Christ, that there was no
turning from sin required for salvation.
And I said to them, how? How do you gel that with First
Thessalonians chapter one verse #10 where it says that the the
Church of Thessalonica turned toGod from idols in order to serve
(12:29):
the true and living God. That's what repentance truly is
all about. And I even quoted J Vernon
McGee. But they also believed that the
whole of salvation, including faith, is the gift of God, which
I agreed with. But they also said that that
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faith might not last. A true Christian can completely
cease believing. How can that be?
Show me in Scripture where a true Christian ceases to
believe. They also believe that saving
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faith is simply being convinced or giving credence to the truth
of the gospel. It is confidence that Christ can
remove guilt and give eternal life.
But saving faith is not a personal commitment to Christ.
(13:36):
I said, well wait a minute, how can true saving faith When I put
my trust in someone I'm not trusting in a set of statements
about the Christ, I am trusting in the person and work of the
Christ. That's what saving faith
encounters. They believe that some spiritual
(13:58):
fruit is inevitable in every Christians experience, but that
fruit, however, might not be visible to others.
Christians can lapse into a state of permanent spiritual
barrenness. Again, how do you gel that with
Matthew chapter 13 and the soft soil that produces fruit, some
(14:21):
30 fold, some 60 fold, some 100 fold.
That's obviously seen by everybody, but spiritual
barrenness completely over long periods.
Show me in Scripture where that is evidence they could not.
(14:41):
They said that only the judicialaspects of salvation,
justification, adoption, imputedrighteousness and positional
sanctification are guaranteed for the believers in this life.
But practical sanctification andgrowth in grace requires a post
conversion act of dedication. In other words, sanctification
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is not a guarantee. Practically, if you're a
Christian, wait a minute, we're set a pardon to God for his his
glory for his purposes. They were saying that if you
want to be sanctified sometime after you are saved, you can
then make Jesus Lord of your life and completely dedicate
(15:26):
your life to Him now. But believing in Christ is Lord
and accepting His Lord that salvation is not necessary.
They would go on to say that submission to Christ, supreme
authority as Lord, is not germane to the saving
transaction. Neither dedication nor
willingness to be dedicated to Christ are issues in salvation.
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Really, they want to say that Christians may fall into a state
of life long carnality, a whole category of carnal Christians
born again people who continuously live like the
unsaved exists in the church. Listen.
But does it exist in Scripture? If it exists in the church,
(16:15):
those people probably were neversaved to begin with.
But show me where it exists in the scriptures.
You see, it's important to always keep your finger in the
text to prove whatever it is yousay you believe, because it must
be supported 100% by the words of Christ.
They would say that disobedienceand prolonged sin are no reason
(16:39):
to doubt the reality of 1's faith.
Had they not read first John? Had they not read what John says
very clearly? That he who practices sin does
not love God nor know God. They believe that a believer may
(17:02):
utterly forsake Christ and come to the point of not believing.
God has guaranteed that he will not disown those who thus
abandoned the faith. Those who have once believed are
secure forever, even if they turn away, even if they
apostasize the faith. Well, the right of Hebrews
(17:25):
speaks all against that. The question is, how do you get
there? How do you come to those
conclusions? You come to those conclusions
because you are led by a pastor who has compromised the truth.
For the previous pastor had lived in immorality for at least
(17:48):
seven years before he was dismissed.
Other people that he had an affair with was still
speculation, but he had lived with one young lady half his age
for seven years and as he preached living in sin, the
(18:11):
gospel was completely and totally diluted.
That you could believe in God and still carry on any way you
wish because everything is forgiven by God and the grace of
God accomplishes everything. In fact, he was asked before he
left, why is it you didn't feel the conviction of the Spirit of
(18:34):
God when you were involved in this immoral relationship?
He would just say, well, we believe that everything was
covered by the grace of God and that when we asked for
forgiveness he would forgive us.That was his response to those
who asked him the question. Unbelievable.
(18:56):
See, the grace of God does not mean we have permission to do as
we please. The grace of God means that we
have the power to do what God pleases.
That's the difference. But they were led by a man who
(19:18):
was the fulfilment of what Jude says in Jude 4 when he says
ungodly persons have turned the grace of our God into
licentiousness and deny our onlyMaster and Lord Jesus Christ.
(19:43):
He had turned the grace of God into lawlessness, that you could
live without any kind of law andlive as you chose and it would
be OK. And that came out very subtly,
but very, very determinedly in his sermons as he preached.
(20:10):
And so you have people that would come to the church, hear
those things, believe that they could.
Add Jesus to their lifestyle andcontinue to live any way they
wanted afterwards without any consequences because of the
grace and forgiveness of God. He had turned the grace of God
(20:31):
into disgrace. And so when you think about that
and you realize how quickly things begin to turn.
So here I am, 35 years of age, all passionate about preaching
(20:51):
the gospel of repentance and turning to God from idols to
serve the true and living God. And so I am preaching what I
believe is the truth. But because the church had heard
error for so long that when someone comes and preaches the
(21:11):
truth, they think the truth is error and their error is the
truth, that's what happened. I carry in my desk at work a
pamphlet of when Church at the Open Door celebrated 90 years of
(21:37):
existence. And in this pamphlet they list
all the previous pastors of the church.
I happen to be the eighth in line, also the shortest tenured
pastor, 14 months. And in it, it says this.
(21:59):
This was the greatest crisis in the history of the Church of the
Open Door. The greatest crisis was not that
there was a pastor who had turned the grace of God into
licentiousness and denied the only master Lord, the Lord Jesus
Christ. That wasn't the greatest crisis
(22:20):
in the church. The greatest crisis in the
church is that that people hearda false gospel being preached.
No, the greatest crisis in the church was when the man who came
to preach the truth was said to be a heretic.
And therefore because they swallowed error hook, line and
(22:43):
sinker, they believe that the error or the truth was error.
And so that was what they have said is the greatest crisis in
the history of the Church of theOpen Door.
(23:05):
I give you the illustration because it's a modern day
illustration of how a church begins.
Great is a great testimony, the great light in the community.
But all of a sudden, over time, very gradually, what did Paul
say in Acts chapter 20? He said it very clearly.
These words, Paul warned them. I know, he says.
Paul says to the Church of Ephesus, that after my
(23:26):
departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing
the flock, and from among your own selves men will arise,
speaking perverse things to drawaway the disciples after them.
Paul warned the Church of Ephesus, and that is so true.
(23:47):
And so if the leadership of the church is not careful, not
protecting the flock, not warning the flock, not watching
the flock, the set of heresies rise from within and lead people
astray. That's why it's so important
that you understand these sermons on what is a Christian.
(24:10):
So you understand the importanceof of what it means to be a
follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Having said that, let me give you a test.
Let me give you a simple test and I want you to answer this In
your mind, is this describing a Christian?
(24:40):
If someone is devoted to seekingGod, are they a Christian?
If someone is devoted to seekingGod daily, are they a Christian?
If someone is to take pleasure in understanding God's ways, are
they a Christian? If someone wants to do what is
(25:08):
righteous, are they a Christian?If someone remains true to their
beliefs and stay loyal to their faith, are they a Christian?
If someone says to God that theywill seek Him and seek Him for
(25:31):
guidance on what is just and what is right, are they a
Christian? If someone was to take joy in
drawing near to God, are they a Christian?
Well, you would think that someone with those
(25:55):
characteristics would demonstrate true Christianity.
And you would think that the verse in Scripture that states
all that would be describing people who knew the Lord except
for one thing. God says they didn't know him.
(26:22):
God says they were in sin. God said they were far from him.
That verse is found in the book of Isaiah, the 58th chapter.
In verse one, it says cried loudly, do not hold back, raise
(26:45):
your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their
transgression and to the House of Jacob their sins.
Isaiah, you need to declare loudly, not subtly, not
secretly, not behind closed doors, but make sure that
everybody hears this. Everybody knows this.
(27:07):
That's the way he says and say. Yet they seek me day by day and
delight to know my ways as a nation that has done
righteousness and has not forsaken the ordinances of their
God. They asked me for just
decisions. They delight in the nearness of
God. This is what they say.
(27:32):
We delight to know your ways. We delight to know you.
We delight to be near you. We want you to act righteously
among us, Lord. We want to seek you not just
today, but we want to seek you daily.
And God says to Isaiah, you tellthem about their transgressions.
You tell them about their sins, because this is what they're
(27:54):
going to tell you, Isaiah. And then they're going to say
this, Why have we fasted, Lord? And you do not see, why have we
humbled ourselves? And yet you do not notice,
Isaiah. They're going to ask you that
question. And this is what you tell them,
(28:14):
Isaiah, Tell them this. Behold, on the day of your fast,
you find your desire. Here's the problem.
You do what you please. You do not do what I please.
(28:38):
This is your transgression. This is your sin, This is why
you are so far from me, he says.Behold, you fast for contention
and strife, and strike with a wicked fist, yet do not fast
like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
(29:00):
You don't come to fast in order to draw near to me and cry out
to me. You do it for your own
attention, for your own admiration.
You do it for your own pleasure.Everything you're doing is
self-serving. It's all about seeking me,
drawing near to me because you want to be noticed by everybody
else. It's all the outward externals.
But everything about Christianity is all about the
(29:21):
internal, not the external. But Israel was known for
honoring God with their lips, but their heart being far from
Him. So he would go on to say, as you
read through Isaiah 58 verse 13,if because of the Sabbath you
turn your foot, in other words, you keep from breaking my law
(29:44):
for doing your own pleasure on my holy day, and call the
Sabbath of delight, the holy dayof the Lord honorable, and honor
it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own
pleasure and speaking your own words.
You see, everything was about them.
Everything was about them. Then you will take delight in
(30:06):
the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the
earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your
father. For the mouth of the Lord has
spoken verse to the 59 verse #1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not
short that it cannot save, nor is this here dull that it cannot
hear. But your iniquities have made a
separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden
(30:29):
His face from you, so that He does not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with
iniquity. Your lips have spoken falsehood,
your tongue mutters. Wickedness describes them, their
transgressions, their sins so easily.
(30:53):
People become self deceived. And the sad thing about it is,
is that there are pastors who confirm them in their self
deception without warning them, without challenging them,
without causing them to examine their lives to see whether or
not they're in the faith, to know for certain whether or not
(31:15):
they are truly born again believers.
They're truly followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
See, Christ was never confusing in what he said.
He wanted to make sure that nobody was confused about
Christianity. So when Christ would speak, he
(31:36):
would make it very clear to people to understand who he was
and why he came to earth. He preached the gospel message
over and over and over again to make sure that people understood
exactly what he was saying. In fact, he preached the gospel
(31:56):
so significantly that he concluded his ministry with an
illustration. Let's just call it a closing
illustration. All good preachers in with a
great illustration. I don't because I'm not a great
preacher, but most great preachers end with great closing
illustrations and our Lord wouldwould end his ministry with with
(32:19):
the greatest of all illustrations about the gospel.
He wanted to make sure that everybody understood what it
meant to be a Christian. He wanted to leave no doubt in
anybody's mind about all the things he had said throughout
his three-year ministry. And so he closes his ministry
(32:42):
with an illustration. That illustration is summed up
in one verse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three gospels
recorded. But the illustration in one
verse. And I'm surprised that so many
preachers miss this because it is the epitome of all
(33:04):
illustrations of the Gospel and Christ one to leave etched in
the minds of every man, every woman, what it means to be a
follower of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So what happens on the the Via Dolorosa, the way of the cross?
(33:28):
Christ has been beaten beyond recognition, and so He is
carrying this cross beam from where he was before Pilate to
Calvary. The place of the skull in this
crossbeam would wear anywhere between 82 to 100 lbs and so you
(33:52):
have to imagine that having beenbeaten as severely as Christ was
beaten, that he was still able to carry the crossbeam.
Isaiah 52 tells us that He was. He was beaten beyond all human
recognition, but as he began to carry the cross on the Via
(34:12):
Dolorosa, on the way to the place of the skull, he would
fall, thus giving the way for the greatest illustration of the
gospel in the Bible. Luke tells us this in Luke 23
(34:33):
verse #26 when they led him away, they seized the man Simon
of Cyrene coming in from the country and placed on him the
cross to carry behind Jesus. There it is.
(34:54):
That's the illustration. Talk about being in the right
place at the right time. You might want to consider it
maybe consequential. I see it as providential.
You might see it as an exact accident.
I see it as a divine appointment.
(35:16):
Why? Because Simon's name was
mentioned, Simon the Cyrene. Now, we don't know anything
about what he knew about Christ before he got there, but the
crowds had gathered and Simon had gathered in the crowds and
Simon was watching like everyoneelse was watching about this
(35:39):
individual who was carrying his cross beam to the place of the
skull. Cyrene is a city in North Africa
today. It's modern day Libya.
And we know from the book of Acts that there were many
Cyreneans on the day of Pentecost, and that there was a
(36:03):
synagogue, A Cyrenian synagogue in Jerusalem.
But Simon was compelled out of the crowd to carry the cross of
Christ, and he would carry that cross beam from where they were
to the place of the skull. Whether he remained there or not
(36:27):
we do not know, but there would be this living illustration of
what it means when Jesus said ifany man came after me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
Simon became the quintessential illustration of what it means to
(36:49):
be a follower of Christ. It's at the end of his ministry.
He's about to die for the sins of man and he wants to leave.
Indelibly etched to the minds ofeveryone in the crowd.
This is what I've said to you all along.
If any man came after me, he must deny himself.
He must take his cross and follow me.
(37:11):
A life of self denial, a life ofself sacrifice, a life of
submission. And Simon was compelled out of
the out of the crowd. Was Simon born again?
He was or he was. He became born again.
He'd be a follower of Christ. How do we know that?
Romans 16 tells us that his wifeministered to the Apostle Paul
(37:37):
in Rome. His son Rufus is also named in
Romans 16 verse #13. Simon was instrumental in the,
the, the church in Cyrene. And so something happened in the
life of of Simon Cyrene. That's why his name is mentioned
(37:58):
here. That's why the illustration is
in the Scriptures, because you need to understand the essence
of the gospel. This is what it's all about.
And Christ wants to make sure that everybody sees it and
understands it. It it says in the very next
verse. And following him was a large
crowd of the people that they weren't followers of Christ, but
(38:20):
they were following along like alot of people were quote
followers of Christ for a while.But Simon and Cyrene, different
kind of man. He was totally committed to
follow his Christ. He would lead his wife to the
(38:40):
Lord. He lead his son Rufus to the
Lord, maybe left his other son Alexander as his other son to
the Lord. But he realized that this one,
the Christ, was worth dying for because Christ died for him.
(39:05):
Simon's decision to follow the Christ was irresistible.
He was compelled when you when you give your life to Christ,
you are compelled to give your life to Christ.
It's what the Bible calls irresistible grace.
(39:28):
There's common grace for all men, but the irresistible grace,
it cannot be refused because when God calls you to himself,
they get grants you the gift of grace and the gift of faith and
the gift of repentance and the gift of of belief, because
they're all gifts granted to us by God.
(39:49):
And when God compels you to come, you can't say no, you
come. Why, all the Father gives me
will come to me. You will.
As Simon was compelled, so we, when we give our life to Christ,
(40:10):
give our life to Christ because we're compelled to do so.
We've been drawn by the Spirit of God to come to Christ.
And we give our lives to him. And so we begin to understand as
you read through the Gospels that a Christian is known by his
(40:35):
decision, his decision to followChrist.
And that decision is based on the fact that God in his
sovereignty has chosen you and called you into his Kingdom.
And that's why it's an irresistible compulsion.
(40:59):
So Jesus would say these this long before, long before the the
illustration, there was the instruction Luke 9 verse 23.
And Christ was saying to them all, if if anyone wishes to come
after me, he he must deny himself and take up his cross
(41:21):
and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his
life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for
my sake, he is the one who will save it.
For what is a man profited if hegains the whole world and loses
or forfeits himself or his own soul?
(41:43):
Such a tremendous statement. This is the gospel message.
You see, we live in a world designed for self fulfillment,
but we preach a gospel about self denial.
That's why it's rejected. We, we live in a world filled
(42:04):
with self respect, self dignity,self importance, self
fulfillment, self satisfaction. And we come along, we preach a
gospel that says you need to sacrifice yourself, you need to
deny yourself, you need to be willing to surrender yourself.
(42:24):
And that goes against everythingthat society teaches and wants
us to believe. But the gospel is directly
opposed to what society teaches.And that's why Christ will say
it over and over again. If you want to keep your life
today, you're going to lose it for eternity.
But if you're willing to lose your life, if you're willing to
(42:45):
give your life away. You see, Christianity is not
about exalting myself. Christianity is about executing
yourself, willing to die for Christ, take up your cross and
and follow him. But we've got that all wrong
(43:05):
today because you want to appealto the masses.
We want to appeal to the crowds and say, listen, if you just
come to Jesus, everything will be better for you.
That's not what Jesus says. In fact, he says direct opposite
you read on the Luke Chapter 9. It says in verse 57, as they
were going along the road, someone said to him, I will
(43:27):
follow you wherever you go. Matthew's account tells us it's
a scribe. So here's this scribe who says,
I, I want to learn from you. I want to follow you wherever
you go. And you think that Jesus would
say, come on, then you want to follow me, get in line with
everybody else. This is great.
It's not what Jesus says. He says the foxes have holes,
(43:51):
the birds of the air have nests,but instead of man has nowhere
to lay his head. Christ wanted to make sure the
man was serious. You got to realize, if you
follow me, there's no comfort here.
There are no accolades here. There are no palaces here.
(44:12):
It's not a life filled with happiness.
You're going to go through life and and not, not not find a
place to lay your head. The birds there, they got a
nest. Foxes have holes.
But you follow me. You got nothing.
You got nothing. See, Christ didn't make it easy
for if you're going to follow him, he made it so incredibly
(44:32):
hard. Why?
Because you see, if you're called by God and chosen by God,
you're going to accept whatever he says.
If you're not, those sayings aretoo rough for you.
You don't follow. So verse 59 and Jesus said to
(44:53):
another, follow me. You can imagine the scene.
Here's Jesus walking along and some scribe because I'm going to
say, Hey Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.
And then Christ gives him the statement and doesn't follow.
(45:14):
So Jesus says you, hey, you follow me.
See, that's the call of salvation.
The call of salvation is to follow Christ.
The call of salvation is not a not an event, it's not a prayer,
it's not a card you sign, it's not a moment in time.
(45:35):
The call of salvation is the continuous act of following
Jesus without reservation for the rest of your life.
We forget that. And so he says you follow me.
Have you heard what Jesus just said?
He said to Jesus, Lord, permit me first to go and bury my
(45:59):
father. I need to go bury my father now.
His father wasn't dead yet. How do we know that?
Because in Judaism, the burial took place the same day as the
death. So if his father had died, he'd
be sitting at home decaying while he is out trying to follow
Jesus. That's not the case.
His father's still alive. He hears what Jesus said about
(46:23):
no place to lay your head, no place to sleep, no comforts.
Hey, you know what? If I wait till my dad dies,
guess what? I'll get the inheritance.
Take the inheritance and guess what?
I'll have a place to sleep. And this guy will have a place
to sleep. I'll have clothes to wear.
This guy will have clothes to wear.
Everything will be OK. My dad's not dead yet.
I need to bury my father, Jesus says to him.
(46:46):
Allow the dead to bury their owndead.
This is so crude, isn't it? But it's not.
It's Jesus's words. Let the spiritually dead bury
the physical dead. But As for you, go and proclaim
everywhere the Kingdom of God. You want to follow me.
(47:08):
Let the spiritually dead take care of those who will die
physically one day. You be engaged in proclaiming
the Kingdom of God. The first man's deterrent was
materialism. The second man's deterrent was
pacifism. He was going to wait that maybe
(47:30):
Jesus will let him follow him sometime down the road when
everything is financially securefor him.
Then verse 61 another also said I will follow you.
I will you can you can just see the person in the crowd.
Oh, oh, oh, Jesus. Oh, I'll follow you.
(47:52):
I'll. I'll do it.
These are the two losers. They won't, but I will.
I'll follow you. But first permit me to say
goodbye. Permit me to say goodbye to
those at home. Let me, let me go back home and
and say goodbye to mom and dad, brother and sister, aunt and
(48:14):
uncle, nieces and nephews. Come with me first to go back
home and say goodbye. His deterrent was
sentimentalism, but Jesus said to him, no one having or after
putting his hand to the plow andlooking back is fit for the
(48:34):
Kingdom of God. There are to be no rivals for my
affection. There is to be nothing that
comes between me and you becauseif something does that becomes
more important to you than me, that then becomes your God and
not me. And no man can serve 2 masters,
(48:57):
therefore you can't follow me. See, those are hard sayings.
They're not easy. That's why when you when you
come a little further in Luke's gospel to the the the 16th
chapter, Luke chapter, chapter 16, it says these words, verse
(49:25):
16, the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John.
Since that time, the gospel of the Kingdom of God has been
preached and everyone is forcinghis way into it.
What kind of statement is that? Who's forcing their way into the
Kingdom? What's that mean?
Am I trying to fight to get intothe Kingdom?
(49:46):
What is going on here? The whole forcing aspect is that
all of Satan and all of his minions are doing all they can
to keep you out of the Kingdom and you are exercising self
denial, self sacrifice, self surrender.
You are fighting your own pride,your own will, your own
stubbornness, your own sin. All those things are, are the
(50:07):
hindrance to you coming to the Kingdom and that's why man is
forcing his way into the Kingdom, because without the
Spirit of God moving, controlling, calling you to
come, you can't just can't. So important.
(50:28):
Earlier Christ would say these words in Matthew's gospel.
He would say, therefore everyonewho confesses me before men, I
will also confess him before my father was in heaven.
But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before
my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to
bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace,
(50:48):
but a sword. For I came instead of man
against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.
He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of
me. And he who loves son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me.
And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not
(51:10):
worthy of me. He was found.
His life will lose it and he haslost his life for my sake.
We'll find it. See, these are the words of
Christ. But but those aren't the
messages that preachers preach today when it comes to
presenting the gospel to people who need to give their life to
(51:30):
Christ. Because we try to water down the
gospel, dilute the gospel so much down to it's, it's, it's
bare minimum just to get someoneto make a decision just to get
someone to say yes, I will follow, yes, I will come, yes, I
will pray instead of as Christ did make it virtually impossible
(51:54):
for man to do it on his own because he can't.
But when God calls a man, he's willing to do whatever Christ
asks because He empowers him to do that, to accomplish His
purposes. Back in Luke's gospel, in the
14th chapter, Christ says these words.
(52:19):
Now large crowds were going along with him.
Stop right there. Large crowds.
That's verse #25 of Luke 14. Large crowds.
How large are large crowds? Well, what do you do when large
crowds follow you? You want larger crowds to follow
you, right? So you do whatever you can to
keep the large crowds coming. Not Jesus.
(52:42):
He didn't want anybody to be deceived.
He didn't want anybody to think that they, they, they just by
getting on the, the, the, the Jesus train that, that everybody
was going to be going to heaven.No, He turned and said to them,
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and
(53:04):
mother and wife and children andbrothers and sisters, yes, and
even his own life, He cannot be my disciple.
He cannot follow me. He cannot be one of mine.
That's just a hard saying. Christ doesn't want any
superficial followers. This is one of these shallow
followers. He wants totally committed
(53:27):
people following Him. So he says in verse 27, Whoever
does not carry his own cross, come up to me, cannot be my
disciple. Same thing he said in Luke 923.
Same thing he said in Matthew chapter 10 verses 34 to 39.
He says the exact same thing over and over and over again.
(53:47):
This is this. For which one of you, when He
wants to build the tower, does not first sit down and calculate
the cost to see if He has enoughto complete it?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to
finish, all who observe it beginto ridicule him, saying this man
began to build and was not able to finish.
Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle,
(54:08):
will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong
enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against
him with 20,000, or else, while the other is still far away, he
sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up
all his own possessions. Have you calculated the cost?
(54:30):
Have you understood the ramifications of what it means
to follow me? Have you sat down and began to
add up everything that it consists of?
Christ wanted to be sure that that's exactly what they wanted
to do, because He knew that it would cost them everything.
(54:55):
We just don't want to present Christ like that to anybody.
And yet, when someone's called by God, they are desperate
enough to embrace all that Christ says, no matter how
difficult it may be, because they understand the parable of
(55:19):
the treasure and the Pearl in Matthew chapter 13.
The man who found the treasure, he stumbled upon the treasure.
The man who've obtained the Pearl, he sought.
The Pearl in Christ has given anillustration of those who who
stumble upon the Kingdom, realizing its value, go back.
(55:40):
Sell all that you have to purchase the field or set out on
a journey for a specific Pearl. Willing to give up all that you
have. Sell all that you have to pay
the price for the Pearl. It speaks of the inestimable
value of the Kingdom, that when someone understands the Kingdom
(56:04):
of God, the forgiveness of sins,the relationship you have with
the living God, you are willing to sell everything that you
have. Matthew 1626.
What will a man give in exchangefor his soul?
That's the gospel. What will a man give in exchange
(56:26):
for soul? The word exchange is a is a is a
transactional term. What will a man give up to
obtain a soul? Answer everything in his life
because this life means nothing compared to Christ life.
(56:49):
Are you willing to give up all that you have to obtain Christ
life? Or is your life so valuable to
you that you are an unwilling togive up your life for Christ's
life and thus lose your life? That's the bottom line.
And the Christian decides to follow Christ and there's no
(57:16):
turning back. You know the course.
I decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning
back. Though none go with me.
Still I will follow. No turning back, No turning
back. My cross I'll carry till I see
(57:37):
Jesus. No turning back, no turning
back. The world behind me, the Christ
before me, no turning back, no turning back.
(57:57):
And that's the decision that theChristian makes.
But that decision is based on a divine decree by the living God
who calls man to himself, the God.
The man's decision is always subject to the sovereignty of
(58:17):
Almighty God. To as many as received him, to
them gave you power to become the sons of God.
It is true that man receives theMessiah, he accepts the Messiah,
but he's born not of the will ofthe flesh nor the will of man.
He's born completely by the willof God.
(58:44):
Christ says if you want to follow me, it's the end of you.
That's what it means to deny yourself.
It means you refuse to associatewith yourself any longer.
That's what it means to deny yourself.
(59:07):
Man, unfortunately wants glory. He wants his needs met.
God. God does not want to meet your
earthly worldly needs. That's not why He came to die.
(59:32):
He wants you to abandon all yourearthly worldly needs and
embrace Him. That's what self denial is.
That's what self sacrifice is. That's what self surrender is in
(59:54):
today's day. We we have rewritten the gospel
or we have reinvented the gospel.
Thus we get a multitude of falseconverts because we dilute the
(01:00:15):
truth. Hoping to gain more people to
follow Christ. Jesus never did that.
He knew that all that the Fatherhad given him would come to him,
but he wanted to make sure that nobody was ever self deceived.
(01:00:36):
No one was ever, ever thinking they were saved, when in reality
they were not. So he kept preaching the hard
truths of the gospel over and over and over and over again,
because he didn't want anybody to be confused, anybody to to be
(01:00:57):
a counterfeit Christian. He wanted everybody to
understand the genuineness of salvation, the gracious, saving
mercy of a living God. Our Lord is the quintessential
(01:01:18):
evangelist. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. That was his mission, and he
wanted to make sure that nobody would have a question about
their commitment to the Christ. And so he spelled it all out
very clearly for those who wanted to follow him.
(01:01:43):
But for most of what he said in John 6, unless you eat my flesh,
unless you drink my blood, you have no part with me.
And people said, who can hear that?
And many of his, quote, disciples, followers walked
(01:02:04):
away. They left him.
Why, unless you eat my flesh anddrink my blood, all symbolic of
the life that he would give and the blood that he would shed
you, you have to take in all of me.
You can't take bits and pieces of me.
You must embrace all of who I amand all of what I said and all
(01:02:26):
of what I'm going to do. People don't want to do that.
So Christ turns to his men. He says, will you go away also?
And Peter said, where are we going to go?
We've left everything to follow you.
(01:02:46):
You have the words of eternal life.
You have the words that give life.
And before we met you, we had nolife because you don't.
If you're not a Christian, you have no life.
You exist. You walk around, but you have no
(01:03:10):
life. The only people who have life
are those who have Christ's life.
That's true life. I came that they might have life
and that they might have that life more abundantly.
That's that's the life that Christ wants to give.
And I wonder if you've embraced that life.
(01:03:32):
I wonder if you understand what it means to follow Christ.
Christ wanted to be very, very clearly stated, authorized
ministry. So he concluded his ministry
with an illustration with Simon Cyrene, who would carry that
cross to the place of the skull.And that man would realize this
(01:04:00):
is what the Christian life is all about.
And that man became the living. Illustration of Luke 9/23.
My question to you today is, areyou a living illustration of
what it means to be a Christian for the world to see?
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for today,
(01:04:23):
the opportunity you give us to spend time in your word.
Truly, Lord, you are a great God, and we are grateful for
your mercy, for your grace, for your love, for your goodness,
for your kindness. We are grateful, Lord, that you
(01:04:44):
died for us. Lord, no greater gift in all the
world than the indescribable gift of eternal life.
It is so valuable. It is so incomparable, It is so
(01:05:06):
immeasurable, that we can't evenbegin to compare with anything
on earth. And those of us who have
embraced that gift understand the beauty of it, and we have
decided to follow Christ. So Lord, as we journey on each
(01:05:29):
and every day, may our lives exemplify the beauty of Christ.
But all who come behind us wouldsee that Jesus is our King, our
Lord, our Master, our Savior forever in Jesus name, Amen.
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