Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Welcome. 9:30.
[00:00:07] Good morning. I. I'm sort of wondering like a year or five from now when somebody downloads this video and sees all the background, they're like, what is going on? It's vbs, okay?
[00:00:18] My name is Michael Fueling. If I have not met you yet, I'm the lead pastor here at the village church. I want to invite you, open up your Bibles. We're going to be in Luke. We're going to be in chapter six this morning. This is week four of our summer series called the Questions.
[00:00:33] And I'm gonna give you the introduction to this whole series every week in a sentence. Jesus was the master at getting to the deepest parts of the heart through perfectly designed questions. So here's our question this morning from Jesus. Luke, chapter 6:46.
[00:00:49] Jesus asks, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I do tell you?
[00:01:00] Is this message for the person sitting next to you?
[00:01:04] Yeah, but not primarily. Primarily it is for you and it is for me. So it's often been said that becoming a Christian is only the first of many conversions that God works in your life. And just to be doubly, triply, quadruply clear, we are only converted to salvation in Jesus Christ. We once in our life.
[00:01:27] This happens not by being a good person, but through trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, believing that he died and rose for our sins. There's one moment of conversion in life, and when you are saved, you don't lose your salvation and then need another conversion. Because once saved, always saved. Amen. Ville church. All right, but after that first conversion, do you think that God has done in your life?
[00:01:55] Do you think that you've dealt with all the sin in your life? In fact, here's what we see, that there are these really significant moments as we look back in our life where we had to see sin in ourselves and then repent of that sin. And so Oswald Chambers, he wrote an old devotional called My Utmost for His Highest. If you have never read it or you're looking for a devotional, it's a great place to turn to. But he wrote this.
[00:02:22] We have to be continuously converted all the days of our life. You guys ever heard of Martin Luther? Not Martin Luther King Jr. We're talking 16th century Martin Luther. In 1517, he put the 95 theses to the front door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. And here is the opening line of his theses.
[00:02:44] When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance that was the start of the 95 theses. I want to illustrate this further. D.L. moody, he was an evangelist. He was the founder of the school that many of you have gone to, Moody Bible Institute, my alma mater. And he was an evangelist, and he would travel around the nation and the world preaching the gospel. And very gifted. So many people came to faith through. Through him after he had been an evangelist, after he had been traveling the world. Here's what he said. He said about an experience he had with God. He said, God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. In other words, even after he had been walking with Jesus for many years, he had an experience with God where he was like, it was too much. I just need you to slow down.
[00:03:36] And so here's what we kind of see as we look through church history. God has never done with you until you're dead. Like, sometimes we think pastors or theologians or those, like, people in our life have been walking with the Lord for decades, and they just know the word. Like somehow that they have arrived spiritually. And I just have really good news for you. Nobody has arrived spiritually. If you think that God is done drawing you to repentance and helping you grow in your faith to the next level, like, you're flat wrong. I don't care how long you've been walking with Jesus. He's not done with you until you are done.
[00:04:12] And here's what I want you to do. I want you to think back to the last time in your life that you really feel like you accelerated spiritually. So what was the last experience that caused you to kind of level up spiritually for most people? Let me kind of help you go back to that moment. For most people, it was a really difficult season, or it was a sin pattern in your life that you needed to repent of and overcome. Those are the two most common catalysts that God uses to kind of take us from where we are and to mature us spiritually. And I want you to think back. When is the last time you kind of, like, saw an intervention of God in your life and you kind of matured spiritually? It was a major moment of transformation. So as we dig into the text here, here's what I want you to know to be certain of whatever that situation was? Number one, it was not the last. And then what I wanna do by the end of this message is I wanna share with you what I think might be. I think Jesus agrees with Me this single or one of the greatest obstacles that stands between most Christians and taking the next step in their faith spiritually. All right, Luke chapter six.
[00:05:24] You'll notice as you kinda look at Luke chapter six, if you're kind of familiar with your Bible, the words are very familiar to what has been called the Sermon on the Mount. That's from Matthew chapter five through seven. But as you kinda read through Luke, here's what you this is not the experience of the Sermon on the Mount. This is ultimately called the Sermon on the Plain because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus went up to a mountain to teach. And Luke tells us that Jesus came down the mountain for this one, taught on a plane. Now, most people don't quite understand this about how Jesus taught. So sometimes people think that Jesus would kind of like go someplace and then he's God, he knows everything, and just stuff would come out of his mouth and it would be awesome and perfect. I'm sure that happened a ton. But what we find is that Jesus actually had set messages that he gave over and over again. And so they did not have YouTube, they did not have the Internet, they did not have social media. So every city or village that he would go to, he would share these teachings, these principles of the kingdom of God, and then he would have to reteach them when he went to another city. So it would not be uncommon that one author would record a version of events or a teaching. A different author in the New Testament might give a little subtle to different version of it, because they very well could be documenting the same message given actually at different times. And so here's what we find in Luke 6. We have the Sermon on the Plane similar to the Sermon on the Mount, but not the same. And there's a really striking detail about the Context of Luke 6.
[00:06:51] Luke goes out of his way to let us know that the day the sermon on the Plane was given in Lucix is the same day that he called all the 12 disciples to follow him.
[00:07:04] And so what you are getting like an insight into in Luke 6, it's actually probably one of the most thrilling days in the twelve disciples lives. There were other disciples that followed Jesus, but these 12 he picked out. And Luke actually tells us that he calls them the apostles. And so they have just committed their lives to Jesus as their rabbi. They have just committed to leaving everything, following him, doing whatever he says. And I just want you to listen to Luke chapter 6, verse 18 and 19. Like if the first day you came on church staff, this was your experience. You'd be like, this is the greatest job in the history of the world. So Luke 6:18, those who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits, they were cured.
[00:07:52] And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and. And healed them all. Welcome to day one of the ministry of these disciples following Jesus. And now we go down to verse 46 of chapter 6. This is Jesus question of the morning. It is directed to the 12.
[00:08:12] It's directed to a group of disciples. We don't totally know how many, maybe a hundred or so that would call themselves followers of Jesus. And then outside of them were crowds of people who were kind of listening in.
[00:08:24] Here's what he says to his disciples.
[00:08:27] Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
[00:08:34] And so Jesus is identifying a growing trend.
[00:08:38] The trend is this more and more people are observing Jesus and they are calling him Lord. This is the Greek word kurios K U R I O S. It's often translated as Lord or master. And so this, depending on the context, it could be talking about a slave's relationship, relationship to a master, a servant's relationship to a ruler, any kind of subordinate to an authority. And in fact, sometimes kurios is just sort of a greeting, like, sir, context determines kind of what Jesus means. And thank thankfully, the context is really crystal clear.
[00:09:14] Lord is the perfect description of a relationship between a rabbi and his disciples.
[00:09:22] And just to give you a little insight into this, there aren't really many relationships like this in modern America. These disciples would leave their homes, they'd follow their rabbi, they would imitate their rabbi. And here was the if you're going to follow a rabbi, the expectation is that you would obey this rabbi always, no matter what, unless he asks you to sin.
[00:09:47] And you wouldn't just obey the rabbi, you would imitate the rabbi. You would. You would take his teaching, his doctrine, and make it your doctrine and your teaching. And so this was an obsessive, unique relationship of imitation and obedience. And Jesus is noticing another alarming trend. Not only are more and more people calling him Lord, but apparently of all of these people who are saying, you're Lord, we're gonna be a disciple of you, we're gonna follow you, there seemed to be an unusual amount of freedom to know what Jesus told them to do and then to willingly disobey it and not go do it, which is an epic violation of the rabbi disciple relationship. And so these, these disciples, they're Kind of new to this ministry, if you will, of Jesus. They've got three incredible years ahead of them.
[00:10:39] But also the crowds, they're sort of getting to know Jesus as well. And there's kind of this, we'll just call it a progression of getting to know Jesus. For the crowds and the disciples in the New Testament, I'll kind of just give you an overview what this looks like. So at first people would hear about Jesus, they would hear about his teaching, maybe he's doing some miracles. You never know it's true. Kind of have to see it to believe it. And so people would go to Jesus and they really believed that Jesus was a rabbi who's teaching that they should respect.
[00:11:08] It was hard for the Jew to listen to Jesus and be like, that guy's crazy. Especially at the beginning, they really respected his teaching. He taught us one who had authority. And so they really took seriously what he said, especially at first.
[00:11:21] And then the people, they would learn and see how he handled scripture and how he talked about himself. And then they would start to realize that Jesus was a prophet, not just a good rabbi, but that he probably was a prophet sent by God that they should take seriously. That's very different. A rabbi and a prophet are different levels of, of kind of authority.
[00:11:41] And then began people, people began to see his miracles. They began to see the things that he could do. It's just, just almost seem ben nature. And they realize he might not just be a prophet.
[00:11:54] Jesus, we think is the prophet, the Messiah, the one the Old Testament pointed to, the one we've been waiting for, who is going to free us from Rome and tyranny and usher in world peace under the Messiah. And, and then kind of the more time you spent with Jesus, the more extreme his teaching would get and the more you would see that he was clearly comparing himself to God, declaring himself to be God, and then doing things that only God could do. And then you would realize this is not just a normal rabbi, this isn't just a prophet. This isn't even just the Messiah somehow. This is God in the flesh. And by the time you came to this realization when like this was redoing your entire worldview at this point, and it takes most people time to go from, ah, Jesus is a good teacher. Yeah, I like what he says. Like if you hear like kind of quasi Christians or non Christians talk about Jesus, yeah, he's a good teacher. I like what he says. Have you ever read what he's written? Well, no, but I heard about him, you know, and like so people go from, he's a good teacher, but by the time you get to Jesus is God, there's usually quite a journey that goes with this.
[00:13:01] And there's something that I think every single American Christian needs to hear.
[00:13:04] Jesus isn't somebody I go to for advice.
[00:13:08] Jesus is God and the King of all reality to whom I bend the knee, period.
[00:13:13] This idea that Jesus is a wise sage needs to die. Yes, he's wise and he's sagey, but if that is all he is to you, and you do not realize that he is your God, he is your creator, he is your designer, he is your maker. All things on heaven and earth, visible and invisible, were created by him, through him and in him, period. He's not somebody we go to and we say, jesus, what do you think? I'll take that into consideration. That's not the way the relationship is supposed to work. But somehow in our culture, it has become permissible to know and to experience Jesus as fully God and to not feel the weight and obligation of obedience to, to his commands.
[00:13:58] Years ago, I was talking with a pastor. I had the opportunity to sit down with him and just kind of speak some maybe advice into his life. And this pastor had come from a really well known large mega church, and then he was now working for a smaller church. And so this, this pastor would regularly and admittedly not do what his new senior pastor would ask him to do. And, and so, like, if you have an employee and they don't do what the boss says to do, that's called insubordination. And so we've all seen it, if we're being honest. Most of us have probably been insubordinate at one time or another. So I sat down with this guy and I just asked him why, like, what's going on?
[00:14:38] What is the thing behind the thing?
[00:14:41] Was it a broken relationship?
[00:14:43] No. In fact, just affirmed the relationship was strong.
[00:14:47] Was a senior pastor asking him to do something that was sin or maybe just something stupid? He said no, he liked, he enjoyed. The senior pastor never felt like he asked him to sin or do anything stupid. Okay, was the senior pastor asking him to do something maybe he wasn't good at? You know how, like, when, like, somebody asked you to do something you're not good at, you don't want to do it, so it's better to avoid it than to look stupid? Okay, was it that? Nope, Never done. That was the senior pastor's vision. And your vision, were they like, misaligned? No support of the senior pastor's visions So I asked if Blank, and I filled in the blank with the name of his former famous senior pastor, said, if Blank told you to do something, would you do what he asked you to do? Would you do what he asked you to do?
[00:15:31] And I'll be honest, the response was unforgettable. And he said to me, with shock on his face, like he was appalled that I would ask. Of course, always.
[00:15:42] And you could guess my response. I asked him, then, why not your current senior pastor?
[00:15:48] Like, lights are just going off? And here's what he said to me.
[00:15:54] I have no idea.
[00:15:57] And again, have you ever done something you didn't even know why you did it? And then someone calls it out, you're like, honestly, you're right. It makes no logical sense. Like, most of us have probably been there.
[00:16:08] I listened to him process and his reasons for not obeying. They sort of just became clear.
[00:16:15] He didn't like that the senior pastor was younger than him.
[00:16:19] It was an ego check.
[00:16:21] I've never met anybody who likes being told what to do by a younger person.
[00:16:25] Like, we don't go, yay.
[00:16:28] And I was really proud of the guy for kind of doing the work, digging deep and like saying, like, all right, this is actually more about but me than it is him. And, and things seem to go better after that. But here, here's the deal. Insubordination, whether it's to a boss, somebody with authority over you, a police officer, or to your God, is motivated by something.
[00:16:51] And, and, and here's what makes insubordination doubly hurtful.
[00:16:56] It's when you have to have authority over someone you're in a close relationship with. So I want you to look at verse 46 again.
[00:17:04] Why do you call me Lord? Lord? And I want you to notice the repetition. So names or titles, they're repeated twice in scripture. Absalom, Absalom, Moses, Moses, Lord, Lord. There's a lot of these double repeated names in scripture. Two primary reasons. There are others, but here are the two primaries. Urgency or intimacy? Relationship.
[00:17:27] And there doesn't seem to be an urgency here. When they're saying Lord, Lord. What's being identified here is that they have a proximity, a relationship with Jesus that is close.
[00:17:37] And essentially what he's saying, this is, you know who I am.
[00:17:43] You and I have spent time together.
[00:17:46] You know the authority that I have. I'm a rabbi and you're a disciple. And you already know the contract that exists. Your job is to do what I tell you. And let's just double down. We're friends.
[00:18:00] So why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Verse 47 tells us more about these people who call Jesus Lord, Lord. He says, everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, just pause, okay?
[00:18:16] These people were not forced.
[00:18:19] They willingly came to Jesus.
[00:18:22] And when they came to Jesus, they spent enough time with him to say, Lord, Lord. And these people notice this. They're listening attentively. They're willingly coming, they are willingly listening. They are clearly understanding. Like, this is not a gap of, like, intelligence or knowledge. They come, they hear, they know, and then they choose to do the opposite of what Jesus is telling them to do. Verse 47 goes on, Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.
[00:18:54] He is like a man building a house who dug deep and he laid the foundation on the rock.
[00:19:03] And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and it could not shake it because it had been well built. And by the way, village church, this is what our elders and our pastors and our leaders, this is what we want for every one of you. We want your life built on these solid rocks, rock of Jesus and his Word, in such a way that when the insanity of life comes, you are able to stand and you are not destroyed in the process. We notice two things here. First, if you've ever had to dig through rock, it's really hard.
[00:19:39] It's not easy.
[00:19:41] And I'll be honest with you guys, like, if you're going to dig out the junk of your life, it's not easy. If you're going to find sin in your life and repent of it, which is what Jesus is saying to do. Do the things I tell you to do. If you're gonna work toward this, this is gonna be a very challenging process. And here's what's so important. The most important part of this house is not the part that everybody sees and applauds.
[00:20:07] Like, great house. It's so beautiful. Two houses can be absolutely equal in beauty, but be very different because of the foundations that are laid.
[00:20:18] I want you to notice number two, he says this when a flood arose, not if a flood arose. And so basically, the idea is this. In Israel, it's a desert. We have a few of these in America. What happens is, like, it's so dry that when the rainy season comes, the ground cannot absorb all the water. And so you get flash floods. And here's kind of the nature of this, is that there are people who do the work in the off season to build their house on the rocks so that when the rainy season comes, their house can actually endure the insanity. And so the durability of your faith and extreme difficulty is determined by how deep you dig in the off season. So some of you right now, your lives are not good. Like, you're in it, you're in the thick of it, you are struggling. You would call this a season of frustration, of hurt or something. And so, like, right now, here's what's happening.
[00:21:06] Your faith, right, is being exposed.
[00:21:10] Many of you are in the off season.
[00:21:13] Like, you're like, honestly, it's a season of peace and calm, and I'm pretty happy about it. You all know that season's gonna go away, right?
[00:21:21] Right? You all know that there is a flood coming where, like, this world is a desert and flash floods are gonna happen. And so, like, here's what I want you to understand. What you do in the off season is gonna prepare you for the difficulty of the rainy season. And so what most people do, here's what they sit back and they're like, life's good. I'm easy. I'm gonna go on autopilot. No, this is when you dig deep. This is when you dig into your relationship with the Lord Jesus. This is when you dig into his word. This is when you seek to grow. This is when you start self examining and you're like, is there sin in my life that I need to repent of? Because what you do in that season determines your durability in the off season.
[00:21:58] Verse 49. To the fools who come to Jesus, who understand what he commands and does not do them. Here's what he says. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.
[00:22:11] When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. I'm just not interested in a little bit of difficulty ruining my relationship with God. I'm not interested in that. And I don't think that's what anybody else wants.
[00:22:26] I want to know that when I go through the difficulties, through the hard seasons of life, through the pain, the frustration, and all the stuff that comes with it, that despite what I feel, I look to my God and he is my rock, my firm foundation. Now, some of you who are newer to the church, here are some things that you've said about our pastoral preaching teaching team.
[00:22:46] I have the least hair of all of them. One, you said that very clearly. We got it good. But two, you have said that the preaching team at Village Church, people said it in different ways, but it's really consistent, tends to be very blunt.
[00:23:01] And so when I came to Village Church, this is exactly how it was. 2001, I started attending, and the pulpit was always a place where I think we understood spiritual things are of a different level of urgency. And so mincing words around some of this stuff isn't always the most beneficial. And so, like, we try to just be very direct about these things. So I'm going to just be very blunt.
[00:23:28] If you went to someone's house and they built their house on a flood zone and they didn't build it into the foundation, you got back into your car, you look at your husband, your wife, your friend, et cetera, what would you say to them? Let me help you.
[00:23:44] That might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen someone do.
[00:23:51] And this is exactly the point Jesus is trying to make. And I'm saying this to myself as much as all of you.
[00:23:56] There is a special kind of stupidity and thoughtlessness and lack of foresight and probably arrogance to know that judgment is coming and then to ignore it.
[00:24:08] I want to share with you 1. So what I had 3. I sort of down to 1. So what might my willing insubordination toward Jesus tell me about my faith? So Jesus gives two fundamental attitudes towards his teaching and authority.
[00:24:25] The ones who hear and do and the ones who hear and don't do.
[00:24:28] So what's interesting is that the contrast that Jesus is talking about is not the Christian versus the atheist. It's not the churchgoer versus the non churchgoer. It's not the guy or the girl who knows the Bible versus the ones who don't know the Bible.
[00:24:40] In this story, both people here, but only one axe.
[00:24:46] Both people know what is required, but only one is willing to do the work, to dig deep and to build the foundation.
[00:24:55] So why, like, why is it in your life you are willing to call him Lord, Lord, and not do what he says?
[00:25:07] I want to share with you a paradigm that I found helpful, but six kinds of Christians. And as I kind of read these, I'm going to describe them. We'll kind of fly through them. But I just want you to ask, do I resonate with any one of these six kinds of Christians?
[00:25:21] Here's the first. Am I a cultural Christian?
[00:25:25] Cultural Christians, typically, typically, not always. There can be exceptions. So typically go to church on Christmas, Easter, for baptisms of people they know and special events. Cultural Christians almost never understand themselves to be cultural Christians. So only people who call them cultural Christians are the ones who aren't. So generally speaking, this is not a term that people like, I'm a cultural Christian. Like, that's not what people say about themselves.
[00:25:53] Usually when they do go to church, it's either out of tradition or it is to make their mother or grandmother very, very happy.
[00:26:00] Many of them have accepted Christ into their heart, but almost always when they were young kids, this idea of, like, opening the Bible, reading it consistently, et cetera, it's just never been a part of their life. Maybe if they need something, they will pray, but the prayer life is almost always reactionary. Like, they are probably somewhat aware of some of the things they're doing in their life, like, are not consistent with the advice that Jesus would, would give. But they're like, ah, it'll be fine. And so most cultural Christians, not all, but most, these two statements, I think have proven true for most of them.
[00:26:32] They believe this. Number one, I'm a pretty good person.
[00:26:36] I'm a pretty good person. I do really believe that I'm a good guy. I'm better than the worst people I know, so I'm good.
[00:26:41] And number two, I go to Jesus when I need advice. He's really good at giving me advice. I don't always take it, but he's really good at it.
[00:26:49] Number two, am I a religious Christian? If you're a religious Christian, you are spiritual, you are religious.
[00:26:55] You're even engaged in some kind of Christian tradition. You probably here and there go to some kind of church that's branded as Christian.
[00:27:04] It might be a good church, might be a weird church, I don't know. But when pressed. When pressed, almost always there are exceptions. When pressed, you truly believe this, good people go to heaven. And so you're doing your sacraments, you're doing your spiritual practices, you're saying you're kind of like mantras and prayers, whatever, because you're like, yeah, I want to be right with God and good people go to heaven. And you kind of have this intuitive sense, like, I do got to get to a place where my good works outweigh my bad works. And. And so, like, I just want to encourage you with two things. Number one, it's the default version of Christianity in America. The quantity of human beings who've walked into this church innocently, not even knowing otherwise, believing that is more than you can imagine. And what I just love to do is to blow that up completely, because I think it is one of the most evil things you can tell somebody is if you're good enough, you go to heaven. Well, how good? Like, what's the limit? What if I don't make it and I just have really good news for you? Good people don't go to heaven. They never have and they never will. The Bible doesn't teach it. The Bible tells you to be good, but not so that you can go to heaven.
[00:28:01] Forgiven people go to heaven. That's the rule. The only way for you to know that you have an actual, real relationship with God is never to participate in a whole bunch of religious activity. It is to trust in Jesus Christ to come to him and apologize and believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those are the people who end up going to heaven, not the ones who are performing a bunch of religious duties and activities. Number three, am I a counterfeit Christian?
[00:28:27] You okay, you're probably also not aware that you're a counterfeit Christian. So as I describe this, it is possible that some of you may go, oh, no, I think this is me.
[00:28:39] And I just want to tell you, good, because now you can do something about it.
[00:28:45] You know that Jesus is not just better, he's the best. He's the way, the truth and the life. You know what you should do?
[00:28:53] You probably have really decent doctrine, but if you are being honest, there is nothing inside of you that really cares a whole lot. Like you maybe want to care. You see other people care and you're like, I don't get where they get that from.
[00:29:08] And your probably biggest concern is disappointing your mother, your father, your grandparents, or the old Christian friends from your youth group back in the day that you grew up with.
[00:29:22] These kind of counterfeit Christians, they typically have three lives.
[00:29:26] So number one is their life at church where you act religious and you probably even feel some things sometimes.
[00:29:33] There is the you that is not at church.
[00:29:35] And people would be shocked to believe that you're a Christian, not even maybe because you cuss, but because of how immoral you are.
[00:29:44] And you're trying to keep these two worlds distant. But there's a third you. This is the third you when you were alone. And this is the you that probably your husband, your wife, your kids, your family, your mom, your dad, they don't know about. But it is controlled by sin. It is a really dark place. And you don't seem to have the impulse to go to Jesus and say, please, please help me. I can't do this on my own.
[00:30:06] Number four, am I the undiscipled Christian?
[00:30:09] I have so much compassion for the undiscipled Christian. You've just never been taught again. The amount of people who come through our doors and they have heard the gospel and they believe they understand. Good people don't go to heaven. Like, they're all in. But they didn't grow up in church. They didn't grow up with Bible teaching. They didn't grow up in Hawana. They didn't go to vbs' like they're brand new. The only thing they knew about the Bible was maybe the Simpsons or a few, like, parodies on tv. It's, like, the extent of it. And so, like, when they hear I'm not Ned Flanders, their mind is blown like it's a. And so, like, this is it. And so they come in here raw, and they don't even know. Half of what they're doing is sin. They don't even know. But they do have the Holy Spirit. But they are untaught and they are undiscipled. And at the end of the day, all you have is what's been given to you. And so if you don't have a reservoir of knowledge and tools, well, where are you gonna get it from? Well, you are in the right place. You are in a local church that opens up the word of God and wants to train and equip you. The undiscipled Christian. They are a real Christian. And here's what they do not think to themselves.
[00:31:05] They do not think to themselves. I'm a pretty good person.
[00:31:08] You all are lucky to be around me. This is a person who understands that they are a sinner and they just don't know what they don't know, but they're willing and they're eager.
[00:31:19] Am I a real but struggling Christian?
[00:31:23] Everybody struggles. Okay, I want you to listen to this.
[00:31:26] This is the Christian who is in the fight.
[00:31:31] You know what Jesus wants. You know who he calls you to be. You're trying, and you feel like you just cannot get over the same old hurdles. It's like year after year, like, you're growing in knowledge. You're trying. Like, there's so many areas of your life that are doing good, but, like, you just cannot get victory over sin. You know you're saved, right? John writes this. I write to you that you might know that you were saved. You know that your bad deeds, your struggles, the pain points, the sin that you've just been duking it out with. You know that, like, those cannot take away what God has done in your life. But maybe you don't have the tools you need. Maybe it's just like you're stuck and you don't know how to get over this. And this just feels like I am just struggling over and over and over again.
[00:32:16] Finally, am I the victorious Christian again? Does everybody struggle? 100%. I've never met an old man or an old lady who's like, I pretty much overcame all the sin in my life. Not true.
[00:32:28] But you have been trained well and you have fought and you have struggled and you have overcome many sins. My guess is that you probably brought people around you and got really strategic help from wise people as you were going through different difficult situations. My guess is that you opened up your heart and you were not unafraid to confess your sin and to repent. Like, to actually move into the season of a victorious Christian, that takes a lot of work. And it doesn't mean you're done repenting, but it does mean you probably have more knowledge, tools, relationships and skills than most people have. I just want to ask you, do you resonate with any of these six?
[00:33:06] First, I have hard news for you.
[00:33:08] If you resonated with the first three, the cultural Christian, the religious Christian, the counterfeit Christian, probably you're not a real Christian. And I just want you to hear that for me. That does not need to be damning to you. I just want that to be information that helps you take the right next step.
[00:33:27] What you need to experience is your very first conversion. And that doesn't happen by being spiritual, religious, or good. It happens by coming to Jesus and owning your sin and asking him to forgive you through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Period.
[00:33:41] What you need is not some mental assent that Jesus is God, but you need to get on your face and repent to him and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[00:33:48] That's what you need. And I just want to encourage you. The hand of Jesus is always extended to you until the day of your death to forgive you and to save you. If you're even, like, confused at what that means, talk to him. Talk to one of us, and we'd like to help you take that next step.
[00:34:04] Did you resonate with the last three kinds of Christians? The undiscipled Christian, the struggling Christian, the victorious Christian. And I just have great news for you.
[00:34:12] You can be undiscipled and you can be saved, and you can be struggling and be saved, and you can be victorious and be saved. And I just have good news for all of you. God is not done with you yet. I don't care where you're at on this, like you might feel hopeless and you might feel like, oh, my gosh, like I've been stuck in the same thing.
[00:34:29] I am telling you, you are in the right place. You are in a local church with a bunch of pastors and people who would love to help you figure out how to take that next step. But the single greatest obstacle for most Christians that stands between them and taking that next step is obedience to what you know Jesus is calling you to do. Every experience of leveling up spiritually is the result of two things, the Holy Spirit and personal obedience to Jesus. Here's what I've learned. I can't control the Holy Spirit. He's like the wind. He goes where he wants, does what he wants. He's got his own agenda, and it's often not mine.
[00:35:05] The only thing I can control is my personal obedience to Jesus and everything that I want.
[00:35:11] Every next step that God has for me spiritually, every leveling up to another season of maturity, is almost always on the other side of obedience to what I know he is calling me to do. And so I don't know what the Holy Spirit might be calling you to do, but I just want to encourage you. God is not done with you yet. And I pray, I just pray that as I'm preaching here, I'm just throwing words out that the Holy Spirit would do what I could never do in your heart, that he would show you that next step, would show you what obedience looks like, and you would continually experience a new season of growth spiritually. Amenville Church. Amen. I want to pray. Father, we love you. Thank you.
[00:35:47] Thank you for how blunt Jesus is, how piercing his questions are. The fact that he does not avoid these difficult things. He doesn't avoid talking about judgment and hell and the difficulty of life, but speaks bluntly into it. God, we just. We need that. We don't need mincing of words right now. And so, Lord, for those of us who maybe find ourselves in the first three categories, we are not real Christians. We might have the brand Christian on our life, but, Lord, we don't have the Holy Spirit. I pray that you would show each one here that reality and then show them and help them to truly trust in Christ so that they can be real Christians. Lord, for the undisciple, for the strong, and for the victorious. Thank you for our salvation. And thank you that we know that. We know that. We know you are not done with us yet.
[00:36:36] We know that you have saved us. We know what you have done in our heart and life. And so, Lord, we come to you. And we want not just to be saved once, but we want to experience conversion from one season of maturity to the next as we obey Jesus. Help us. And every time that we don't think. Thank you for what we celebrate in communion. That we are covered by the blood of Jesus. We love you. We thank you. We pray all of this in Jesus name, Amen.
