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So tonight we are talking about
the question, is there an answer? And here we are going to review
for a second what we've been trying to do. This is on page
22. What we have been trying to do
is talk about ultimate questions. Life is full of questions. There
are lots of questions we have about our health, raising our
family, what to do in our retirement years. All these questions are
valuable to find answers to. But this book is about the ultimate
questions. And there's lots of things you
could talk about when you're talking with another person.
You could tell them what they should believe or not believe
about homosexuality or abortion or so many other good things
you could talk about. But we should never leave the
conversation just there. We need to make sure we get to
the ultimate questions. Because there's lots of people
who agree with us that it's a murder to abort a baby. Muslims agree
with us. Orthodox Jews agree with us.
Mormons agree with us, and I could go on for a while, okay? But
we haven't really solved the ultimate question that those
people need to deal with, which is their relationship with God,
and is that relationship reconciled through Jesus Christ or not?
And is our relationship with God reconciled through Christ
or not? So we need to get to those questions, and tonight
we're definitely, Lord willing, going to get to the heart of
the matter. So we start on page 22, I want
this to be a discussion, as we've always tried to have, so I have
some things I want to draw out. I'm not going to read all this
with you, but if you have questions along the way, by all means,
freely participate. The second paragraph, well, first
it says, yes, there is an answer. God has provided this answer. See, there's an answer to this
problem that we have, the sin that we have. The answer is not
found in us. It must be provided by God. I think we know that, but it's
worth saying it again. The answer is provided by God.
You and I are sinners. We are rebels. God is perfect. God is holy. God is just. How can we possibly expect to
stand in His presence? What's the answer to that? This
is the question that it's trying to resolve. Remember we talked
about hell, does it exist or not? Can your good works and
religious activity help? We said no. And now this time
we pick up and say, well, is there an answer? What is the answer? What would
you say? The problem of our sin and God's
perfection. I imagine we all want to live
forever with God, the comfort we look forward to. How do we
expect that to happen if we're sinners? Through Christ. Through Christ.
Exactly. Now what does that mean? We'll
look at that in a little bit more detail tonight. But yeah,
that's the answer. It's through Christ. You see,
we need to appreciate how big a question this is. Because most
people don't realize their own sin and misery. But in order
to have a comfort in life and in death, the first thing you
have to know is the greatness of your sin and misery. And the
greatness of your sin and misery not only means that on a scale
of 1 to 10, I'm a really miserable sinner, but also on a scale of
1 to 10, I'm off the charts in terms of, it's so great that
there's no way I can have a positive relationship with God. There's
no way. I'm his enemy, not his friend,
and there's no fixing that by myself. That's how great my sin
and misery is, and we need to understand that. We need to understand
that no matter who we're talking to, that's the condition they're
in if they're not a Christian, or if they're not sure if they're
a Christian. That's the danger, the situation that they're in.
They might not realize it, but we know the truth. And out of
love for them and for their soul, we need to provide them the answer. Well, yes, the answer is in Christ. And then when we think about
Christ, we think about who He is. It's both God and man. Think about it. I never quite
put it this way to myself until this afternoon. I'm not quite
sure if I could say this without any doubt. Why does anyone die? Ultimately, the existence of
death in this world is because of sin. Not that anybody dies
necessarily because of a specific sin that they did, and here's
the consequence. Sometimes that happens. If somebody jumps off
a bridge, commits suicide, obviously that specific sin brings a specific
result. But the existence of death itself
is because of sin, in general. Jesus never sinned. Jesus did not have to die. In fact, would he have died? Why would Jesus have died? Being a perfect man who obeyed
God's law perfectly, do you think he would have died? Remember,
Adam lived in perfection in the Garden of Eden. And if he would
have obeyed God and stayed away from that tree, he would have
lived forever. It was only the day that he ate
of it that he would surely die. Jesus obeyed perfectly. Why would he have died? Well,
it was the Lord's plan, his Father's plan, that he would die to save
all the sinners. Yes, exactly. It was God's plan
that he would die to save his sinners, his people. That's certainly
true. Why would he have died apart from that? Could he have
died? I suppose you could say the only
way he possibly could have died, because he didn't deserve it
himself in any way, he had obeyed perfectly, is if a bunch of God
people He got beat up and soldiers arrested him and they did bad
stuff to him and it was outside his control and he certainly
wouldn't have died a natural death. There was no natural death
for somebody who lived a perfect life. But not only being man, since
he was God, no matter how many people tried to betray him, Or
even if there was an enemy with an atomic bomb holding right
over Jesus' head and going to drop it, it couldn't really have
made Jesus die, because he's God, he has all power. I talk about this, and maybe
it's a different way that you're not used to thinking about it,
because we need to understand how special Jesus' death is. His death was not just a death,
not just a stopping of his heart beating. It was a unique death. The last
couple of sentences of page 23 say that Jesus' death, like his
life, was unique. In his own words, talking from
Mark 10, he gave his life as a ransom for many. You see, there
is something so special about Jesus that there's no way he
could have died unless he chose to. Unless there was something
else forcing him to, and that, of course, was the Father's perfect
plan. Anybody thoughts or comments
or questions about that? Like I say, some of the details,
the way I put it, I've not heard anybody else put it so I might
be off. We all know it's God's plan that
he die, but... Roger? Well, by his death and then his
resurrection, he ultimately overcame death. How does the catechism
explain that? He conquered death. And the only
way he could do that was by dying. But not for him, that's for us.
Exactly. There again, I don't know, even
like you said before, I don't think we can live by what is. That was all obviously in God's
plan. and even Jesus dying or anybody else without the will
of our Father in heaven that air can fall from our heads. That's the plan and that's the
point. Judy? I'm trying to analyze because
he did die for us but if that wasn't the plan I guess I would
say because he was God he couldn't die, his body couldn't die a
normal death like the rest of us because God is the author
of life so he would have had a cause himself to die? I
mean, he was God. He did. He did cause himself
to die. Right, but I'm just saying, if
that wasn't the plan, his body still wouldn't have died like
other people because he was God. I mean, God takes our life when
he chooses. He ends our life when he chooses.
But since Jesus was God, that would never happen to him, so
his body would have only died if he chose for it to happen
to himself? Well, his body was also human. Well, his body is
human. We don't want to confuse his
divinity with humanity. We know that there is this plan.
We enjoy that. We have the rest of scripture
that lays it out. But what I'm saying is, I want us to appreciate
how wonderful this plan is. and how much an example of God's
love this is because Jesus did not have to die it's so true
that he didn't have to die not only because he was God but because
he was the perfect man and he would not have died unless he
chose to die because he didn't have to defeat death he already
had by obeying he already won he only defeated death for us but he didn't even need to become
incarnate Exactly. He didn't even need to take on
a human flesh. The second person of the Trinity,
the eternal Son of God, did not have to take on a human flesh,
which we call Jesus the Christ. Philippians 2 is very clear about
that. But he did. And of course, he
came that far because that was also part of a greater plan that
eventually would involve our death. I'm not saying that Jesus,
once he saw Judas coming around the corner with the mob of soldiers
to betray him, he thought, well, okay, I guess now's the time,
sure, maybe I'll go to the cross. No, he knew that, he was prophesying
that ahead of time. But just realize how Jesus' death
is so different. There is nobody else who's ever
died like him. There were all sorts of people
who were crucified. That was the common way of capital
punishment. But there is only one person
who was ever crucified that matters for us. His name was Jesus of
Nazareth. You all knew that. I don't mean
to confuse you or change the Bible around, but I just wanted
us to appreciate what God has done for us in a way that maybe
we hadn't thought of it before. Jesus didn't have to die because
he was perfect. He did die only because he chose
to. His death was unique. Alright? He willingly, in the
words of Psalm 23, he being perfect, looked down upon earth and upon
our condition and saw the valley of the shadow of death and said
to his father, yes, I will willingly walk through that valley. That's how much he loves us. Well then, we turn the page to
the cross itself, the particular kind of death that Jesus chose
to die. Why do you suppose, I'm sure
you've learned, I know I've done it in times past but I won't
give you a quiz, why do you suppose the cross is important that Jesus
died that way? Because it was a curse of God. Because it was a curse of God.
It was a particular kind of way of dying that really showed that
person was under God's curse. Galatians 3 verse 13 says that,
referring to some passages in the Old Testament where God pronounced
that. Absolutely. Any other ideas or answers as
to why you think the cross? It was because it was a judicial
death. It wasn't, like the Jews in theory
could have stoned him, but that would have been just their religion
versus a judicial death. Okay, being the cross, then that
was a way, well certainly for the Gentiles to be responsible
for Jesus' death, as well as the Jews. Because the Jews had
already had their court and found him guilty. They handed him over
to the Gentiles because it was a high feast day so they couldn't
stone him on their day because of the Passover celebration.
But it was also that he was sentenced to death by a judge as it were,
not that it was a lynching. Yeah, it wasn't a mob, it wasn't
an accident, it was a planned thing. People supposedly looked
into the evidence and said, oh yes, it's true, he really is
guilty. And they found him guilty, even
though he was found innocent, declared guilty. I pilot, I wash
his hands. Our lesson talks about three
different ways of thinking about the cross, and I think they are
very helpful. Thinking of Jesus as a substitute, as a sin-bearer,
and as a Savior. I'm going to look at this for
a moment to make sure we understand it. What I really found helpful
was that in each of these portions, our author also ties it to a
certain characteristic of God. And you see that the first sentence
right after your bold heading on these lines talks about something
about who God is. And remember, we looked at that
quite a while ago, these different characteristics of who God is.
And you can look back at that another time. But, to Jesus the
substitute, this demonstrates the love of God. Here we go back
to where we first started with, you and I are sinners, God is
perfect and holy. And yet God still says, I want
to live with you forever, I love you, I will have you in my presence
forever. How can that happen? Well, part
of the way that can happen to show that love is he has to have
someone else come in and substitute for us. So he can look at us
as someone who is no longer a sinner. There has to be a substitute
for our wickedness to take that punishment. and it's a really
good verse there. Why don't we turn to Romans 5
chapter 6. I think I might have said this
before in this class. I don't know if it was when we
were on this topic or another time, but I was sharing the gospel
with someone who you might not have expected needed to be shared
the gospel with. It was somebody who was a lifelong
member of the Raythorn Church, but had been living in sin for
quite some time and not worshiping regularly, and they said they
couldn't understand the Bible. That was their reason for not
worshipping God anymore and following other things. And they flipped
the Bible open and pointed their finger to a verse. So I challenged
them. I said, oh really? Prove to me that you can't understand
the Bible. And they flipped it open, and
this was the verse. Yeah, this exact verse was the
one that they said proved that you can't understand what God's
saying. And that's Romans 5 verse 8. Does somebody want to read
that for us? Peggy, do you want to read that
for us? But God demonstrates his own
love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. And to continue my story, this
person said, I guess I know what that means. Thankfully by God's grace this
person has repented and God has used that verse and many other
things and other people in this person's life to bring them back
to a true faith and trust in God. Yeah, what a marvelous verse
that God has shown his love to us in this way, that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us. Remember, Christ didn't
have to die. He wasn't going to die. He was
perfect. But he looked at us, who were
still sinners, not reaching out to him and saying, Oh, if only
somebody would help us. God, we would worship you if
only you would help us. That's not the way it works. Bible says we're dead in our
trespasses and sins. We love our sin. We enjoy that.
We never reach out and take the first step towards God. He came to us while we were still
sinners and said, yes, I will take your death for you. I will
die for you. That's the gospel. That's the
cross. Why the cross? Because this is how Jesus is
chosen in God's plan. He will be our substitute in
that way. He will die for us. not only
is our substitute, but he also is our sin-bearer, the second
thing here of why the cross. And notice that this demonstrates
the holiness of God. Jesus really did die. It wasn't fake. There are people,
supposed Bible scholars who read the Bible, same Bible you and
I do, and they come up with all sorts of goofy conclusions, and
some of them include that Jesus didn't really die, because after
all we know nobody's ever died and risen from the dead so he
fainted from heat exhaustion or something they thought he
died they put him in the grave and he woke up a little while
later and somehow or another his disciples helped roll that
stone back and that's how he lived for a while after that
all sorts of strange and interesting conclusions that people come
to. We know that he did die, and not just because the Bible
says he died. You might wonder sometimes what's
the point of that one catechism question we have. It's one of
the shortest. Why was he buried? To show thereby that he was really
dead. You all know that. I could ask
you so many that maybe you couldn't know, but you all know that one
by heart. It's just so easy, right? To show he was really
dead. Well, so what, right? It's a
big so what. Not just to show, well, yeah,
he died. But all the things that that meant could only be true
if he was really dead. One of the things that that meant
was that he bore, or carried, our sin on his shoulders. Remember, what's the wages of
sin? Death. So, he who did not have
to die, came to carry our sin, must die. and he did he really
was dead that's why they buried him we need that to be that way
and we're thankful that it is that way while he was on the
cross we know that he wasn't just in pain and agony but he
said my God my God why have you forsaken me God the father forsook
his own son in an amazing mysterious miraculous and yet true way He
looked upon Him as one who was in hell at that point on the
cross, experiencing the full wrath of hell that we deserve
for our sins. At that moment, God saw Him.
God the Father saw Him and despised Him and could not look at Him
and forsook Him. Again, how could that possibly
be? And that is exactly what the Bible says. It's that way
because He bore our sin. God was looking at Him who did
not personally ever sin, who did not personally deserve a
single drop of wrath from God. But God was looking at His Son
at that moment in the same way that He would look at us if we
had to face Him. on our own. Because all of our
sins were transferred over onto his account. That's the gospel.
We know that. And that is what we have to press
home to the person we're trying to share the gospel with. They
know that they're sinners. They might not admit how great
their sin and misery is, but we do know that we are sinners. And that we fail. And failure
isn't just a nice way of saying, Failure is sometimes a nice way
of saying we're sinners, but we really are sinners, and everybody
knows that. We have to show them there's
a way for this sin to be handled. All the things you have done
in the past, this is encouraging to the perspective, to the unbeliever
who you're sharing the gospel with. Because you tell them,
okay, yes, believe in Jesus today, come to church with me and start
worshiping. And they might think, OK, yeah, I've made a mess of
my life in the past, but now I'm going to straighten things
out. And you're going to watch, and I'm going to start walking
straight and narrow. They need to know, just as we
need to know, the comfort that our sins... God doesn't just
require us to start getting our act together now and in the future,
as if we could really completely get our act together. We know
the answer to that one. But God requires absolute perfection. Everything they've already done
up to the point you're talking with them at that moment means
they're hellbound. And they need to know that there's
a way out. That Christ has carried that
sin. Everything they've ever done
up to the point that you met them. Even before they ever knew that
God was looking for them. And had a Christian come across
their path and share the gospel with them. There was this way
for their sins to be covered, to be carried on Christ. That's
a wonderful thing, and they need to know that. We need to know
that for ourselves, but this is a way, you see, when we understand
that the cross means Jesus carried our sin. This means every sin
they've ever committed. I think we understand that I'm
just trying to give some illustrations of different ways we can go about
sharing that. Any thoughts or comments about
that before we go on any further? But we know Jesus is our substitute,
we know He is the sin-bearer, we also know He is the Savior. To some of us, I suppose, when
we look at these, we say, there's different words here, but doesn't
it all mean the same thing? He saved us, He died for our
sins, right? Well, there's so much wrapped up in that little
phrase, Jesus died for our sins. It's helpful for us to analyze
it. as the scriptures do, from different
perspectives. So we understand all that that
means. And that's what we're doing. He's had to substitute
for us, but it's not just enough that He was there in our place.
He had to also then have our sins placed upon Him. We know
that was the case because He said, God's not with me right
now. God has forsaken me. And then also we need to know
that He is our Savior. And this shows the power of God.
I like what our author does when he talks about Jesus as Savior.
He doesn't even talk about his death anymore. But if you see
there, you read that big paragraph, it's almost all Bible verses.
Everything there talks about his resurrection. And that's because the resurrection,
the burial proves he was dead, okay? The resurrection is a real
shorthand way of saying it, I suppose. Why was he buried? To show thereby
that he was really dead. But why did he rise from the
dead? To show thereby that he was dead for you. For your sins. And that God accepted his offering. God accepted his sacrifice. And
because God accepted the sacrifice, there is no reason for Jesus
to be dead anymore. Because remember, he wasn't going to die. He was
perfect. And now that he took all of your
sins and had more than enough holiness to spare after paying
for all of your sins and mine, he could raise back from the
dead and live forever. His resurrection proves that
God accepted his death. There's a couple different verses
there. Romans 1 is referred to. 1 Corinthians 15 also They all
prove and demonstrate this. I want to go on, I don't want
to belabor that point, but that's why Easter, death and resurrection,
those two big events in Christ's life, we preach them both. We
must always preach them both because of that reason. The resurrection
proves not just that he died, but that he died for us. That
the offering was enough. It was accepted. Any comments or thoughts about
that? Again, we're talking about sharing the gospel, and we could
have a whole night sometime talking about, well, what do you do when
people say, well, I don't believe Jesus really rose from the dead?
How do you answer their objections? We're not kind of prepared for
that tonight. There's some things we could
look at ahead of time for that. But for now, just realize and
remember that when Jesus rose from the dead, that demonstrated
God's power. He was indeed our Savior. It
really did work. He said it was finished on the
cross. It really was. We knew that three days later.
Let's flip the page to page 26. Here's a memorable picture of
a helicopter and a guy being rescued. The question is, how
can I be saved? How can I be saved? We've been talking about this
in different ways all along, but now we finally get to that
question. If you're reading the gospel
with someone, if you have this book around, or you're remembering
something from this book, you don't have to, even though this
is on page 26, you don't have to go through 25 other pages
worth of stuff. If they're ready to start talking
about how can I be saved, then just go right there. You can
come back later and talk about why they should believe that
God created the world instead of it evolving. But you don't
have to start there necessarily. If they understand that they've
made a mess of their life, they don't know how, they don't have
any comfort in life and in death, and they desire that comfort,
well then just go for it. But now what does it mean to
go for it? What does it mean? What kind of answer might you give to how
can I be saved? You can cheat and look. or you
can answer from your own knowledge and memory banks. That's fine
too. It's not really cheating. Any thoughts? How can I be saved? Anybody ever had anybody ask
them that question? It's like such a basic question but it's
so vague and so open. Well first you must repent. Okay. Admit that you have sinned
and repent for those sins. Okay. And your faith in Christ
will save you. Okay. Repentance and faith. Yeah. Absolutely. That's certainly
how our author summarizes it. How can I be saved? People did
ask that question of Jesus and of the Apostles a couple of different
times. The Bible. I'm having a blank here. I didn't
write it down. One time the answer was, what
must I do to be saved? And the answer was, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. I believe that
was the Philippian jailer. I was thinking of Acts 8 and
the eunuch and Philip. He preached from the prophet
Isaiah. He didn't have the New Testament, but he could preach
from the Old Testament. Because it's the same God. Same
Bible. Same Gospel. Old and New. Alright, well what does it mean
to repent? What does it mean to repent? Change your mind. That's sort
of the literal meaning of the word repent. At least that's
what's found in the Greek language. To change your mind. To truly
be sorry. There's lots of people who are
sorry for what they've done. How do they know if they're truly
sorry? They change what they do. They change what they do. Their attitude has changed. Their attitude towards what they've
done. They're not just sorry that they got in a scrape. Yes,
there's a difference between being sorry you got caught, and
being sorry you were sent. You could be truly sorry you
got caught, but you don't yet have true repentance necessarily
in 1 Corinthians. 7 talks about sorrow, worldly
sorrow and godly sorrow that leads to repentance. I like what
Emily mentioned here, not only sorry, if you are truly sorry
you will know it because they change not only your behavior
but also your attitude towards the sin. I can't think of a better
answer to repentance than one that you all know. It's not question,
I think, 42, which is the one I already recited, but it's questions
88 through 90. How many things does true repentance
or conversion consist of? I'm talking about the Catechism,
right, the Hellenistic Catechism. Two things, all right, here we
go. The dying of the old man, the
quickening or making alive of the new. Does anybody know where
in the Bible, before we go to recite the next two, does anybody
know where in the Bible That question is, what's the proof
text for that? I didn't suspect you would necessarily
remember that, but it is in the Bible. You can go to Ephesians
4. There's all sorts of proof texts
for those good old catechism questions, and that's why they're
important. If there's no Bible proofs for
any of those things, then go home and throw your catechism
away. It's worthless. But if there are Bible proofs,
then if those Bible proofs really do prove those things, well then
that's a different story. And it is indeed the case that
these are accurate Bible proofs. Sometimes these Bible proofs
are more obvious than others when you first read them. They're
not always just directly quoting the Bible in the Catechism. For
instance, I was just recently trying to find a place in the
Bible where it says nothing comes by chance. I didn't find it yet, anyway.
Alright. But our catechism in explaining
providence summarizes a whole bunch of different Bible verses.
And one of them is, of course, a great one. Romans 8, 28. That
all things work together for good. Now, that doesn't say nothing
comes by chance. But it's not wrong to say nothing comes by
chance. That's an accurate way of summarizing that verse. In
another verse, Ephesians 1 verse 11, which is more clear, it says,
all things happen according to the counsel of God's will. But
Ephesians 4, in there, the words in our catechism about repentance
are not plagiarized, but directly taken, quoted, out of Ephesians
4. old man, new man, dying, making
alive, all that business, that's exactly what the Apostle Paul
said. Repentance is so important and
so basic, and we have no doubt about what it means. Ephesians
4, 17, all the way through to the end of the chapter. Really, Ephesians 4, 5, and 6,
the whole rest of the last chapter of the book of Ephesians, It's
about repentance. After explaining the gospel,
Ephesians 4 verse 1 says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech
you, walk worthy of the calling with which you are walked. This
person wants to become a Christian. In order for him to become a
Christian, you have to trust in Christ. You have to walk worthy
of the calling of being a Christian. Look like a Christian. Live like
a Christian. Follow Christ. To be a Christian is to be a
Christ in, which is a follower of Christ. A disciple. Make sense? follow him, and Ephesians
4 says verse 22, put off concerning your former conduct the old man,
which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, renewed
in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man, which
was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. And then our catechism, we'll
go back to our catechism, some Isaac's and some others, about
what repentance means. I didn't prepare for this one,
so we'll see if I can remember it too. 89. What is the dying
of the old? Heart development? Yes. There's a couple things there. Emily's comment is what brought
that to my mind when she said her attitude. Immediately I thought
of that catechism question. Because not only are you to turn
from sin always more and more, but you're to have a heartfelt
sorrow for it. And that heartfelt sorrow doesn't
mean, I'm sorry I got caught. It doesn't even mean, I'm sorry
for the consequences that I received from this sin. But now, people
don't trust me as much anymore because of this. But that I see
How much I damage the cause of Christ by this sin. How much
I hurt the reputation of others by this sin. But you see the
effects of your sin, not upon yourself simply, but upon others
and upon Christ and you are sorry for that. Now, having said that and understand
that, how many times do we repent in our life? Well, I suppose that's a good
answer, isn't it? From the flip side, I think you're
supposed to forgive somebody. So that means they're repenting
70 times 7 times. One time or another, we've been
that person who has sinned again and again and again in virtually
the same way against someone else or certainly against God.
It seems like we're making little, if any, progress. Repentance
is a lifelong thing. And that also is something to
encourage the new believer. Because the new believer has
all sorts of false ideas about what it means
to be a Christian that perhaps we've gotten past so long ago
and not really understood. And one of those things is they
think that once they become a Christian everything is just super fine. It's all about the roses of Christian
life. Some of the televangelists out
there don't help in giving that impression. Christian, you're
a Christian. God wants you healthy, wealthy,
and wise. All of this will happen if you just have enough faith.
Those kind of promises are made. But also, just in terms of struggling
with a certain sin, we know that we grow by God's grace, but it's
a lifelong thing. It's a slow thing, often times.
And to remind your friend, and to come alongside that person,
and to kind of be a mentor to that person. To continue to remind
them. Remember, repentance is a lifelong
thing. I see that you're struggling. Let me help you. Let me pray
for you. Let me try and help you avoid this or that sin. But
to be encouraging to them in that way and not let them think,
oh, this sin is just too much. God can't forgive me for it.
I must not have ever been saved. Sometimes somebody will fall
into that trap. but we indeed must repent. It
is a lifelong thing. I have underlined a very helpful
sentence that is sort of a shocking sentence in the bottom of page
26. It talks about repentance. It says, you must do this. Then
right after that, the second to last sentence of that paragraph,
it says, God will not forgive any sin you are not willing to
forsake. God's not going to forgive you
for something So you're not going to repent of it. Something that
you're not going to stop doing or try to stop doing by asking
His grace and forgiveness for. What do you think about that?
Agree? Disagree? If you say that you repent of
something but you're not willing to stop doing it, then you're
not really repenting of it. And that doesn't mean, for instance,
somebody who's an alcoholic might repent and might truly intend
to quit drinking or actually want to and might fall back into
that sin. I wouldn't call that the same
as not actually being willing to forsake it. You might have
the desire but not be able to right away or might have to work
on it and it wouldn't call that the same thing. But if you confess
a sin but you don't really intend to stop doing it, you're not
really sorry for it. Yeah. Any other feedback or thoughts
about that? I guess I also think of a couple
that's living together not married. They might say that they're sorry,
they might ask God's forgiveness, but if they don't immediately
move out and move apart, then it's really useless to tell God
that you're sorry for it because by your actions you're not showing
that you're sorry for it. Or you'd stop doing it. Repentance
is done. Not thought about. Is done. So
if I were to be counseling, that's a good illustration, if I were
to be counseling somebody or any of us who says, yeah, I'm
really sorry, mom, dad, I know I shouldn't be living with this
guy over here at college or whatever, but you know, it's cheaper, two
incomes to pay for the rent to one place instead of each of
us, you know, other places. You know how tight things are,
all these things. We're going to get married. and
we're already engaged maybe or whatever, but you have to tell
that person, look, if you really love this other person, if you
really love God, then you're already reaching
for your keys. And you'll come back tomorrow to get the rest
of your stuff. You're going to repent or you're
not going to repent. If you're really going to repent
today, then you're getting out. Yeah, absolutely. Now your illustration
of the alcoholic could also be the saying, it could go either
way. And I think the question is, how do you know if you're
looking on the outside, either at somebody else or your own
heart, how do you know when you're at that point where you're not
willing to forsake it? That's maybe a hard question to answer
exactly until you get to specifics and talk with somebody. Especially
with the alcoholic or any kind of addiction kind of thing. Immediate
stopping of that activity must happen. Deal with whatever fallout. The shakes and everything else,
being off drugs or whatever the case may be. Your health may
get worse for a while. Whatever. But if you're really
going to repent, you need to do that immediately. And then
obviously you can't be by yourself. You need help. That's a whole
other issue. I think quite often also in these
cases, somebody left by themselves has gotten into the situation.
They're not going to be able to get out of it by themselves.
Leave them by themselves to repent on their own power and their
own strength and try to by their own willpower avoid something.
It's not going to happen. They need at least one real close
Christian friend to be with them every step of the way. Encourage
them to go the extra mile. Be very specific in helping them
out. Knowing where they are day and night and giving them a different
place to hang out instead of the bar or whatever the case
may be. In a certain sense, all sin is
like that though, isn't it? I mean, we're all kind of addicted
to it and we all need help and support. Obviously help from
the Lord, but support from fellow Christians. Yeah, well that's a good point.
Sin is being, having sinful natures inside of us. My kids, we are
prone to that. My kids were asking what that
means this week as we were memorizing the verses to Come Thou Fount
of Every Blessing. And the last verse says, prone
to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. That's
exactly what we're talking about here. Daddy, what does prone
mean? Okay, well it means that you
tend to do something. Well, what does that mean? I
don't know, trying to find it. It means that you're probably
going to do it? It doesn't really mean that,
but that's the best word I can think of. It means you're most
likely to do it. It's really hard not to do it.
But we know, prone by nature, we hate God in our neighborhood.
Even as Christians, that proneness is still there. And that's why
we pray in hymns like that. Lord, here's my heart. Oh, take
and seal it for thy courts above. Yes, repentance and then also
repentance, right? That's also the gospel, part
of the gospel. We stop for a second and repent.
It's not only heartfelt sorrow for sin, but also what is the
pudding, what is making a life for the new man. A heartfelt
joy in God through Christ, causing us to take delight in living
according to the will of God in all good works. That's repentance. Those things together. Very good
definition in the catechism. And that is a lifelong definition,
a lifelong activity, a lifelong prayer, a lifelong checklist
to put on your refrigerator and compare your life for that day
with that checklist of those catechisms and ask God's grace
and forgiveness and his Holy Spirit that you might grow in
the following day. Another place just to jot down.
Two big places in scripture that have lots of verses that talk
about repentance that are helpful to you and perhaps some of them
might have even been familiar to this other person if they
I never went to Sunday school somewhere. Ephesians 4, those
verses I talked about, especially 17-24, and also Galatians 5.
The whole last half of Galatians 5. The fruits of the Spirit are
in the last half of Galatians 5. And right before the fruits
of the Spirit, this is how we are often times, we memorize
things out of context. Right before the fruits of the
Spirit come the fruits of the flesh. All the things. And the context
of the fruits of the Spirit is, walk in the Spirit. Not in the
lust of the flesh. And here there's this comparison.
The fruits of the flesh. And if you're a Christian, you
have the Spirit in you. Crucify the flesh with its passions and
desires. So walk in the Spirit and you'll see these things in
your life. Not perfectly in this life, of
course, but we will see them in this life. We must repent.
But we also must have faith. What is faith? Does anybody know
a way to answer that question? True faith? True faith, sure.
See, all this, it took a while. We've used the catechism a few
other times, but you see here when we get to like this most
ultimate question, I hope you're understanding, again, the value
of all that hard work that your mothers did with you. And you did too, with your mothers
and your dads and your Sunday school teachers and your pastors,
right, training you, drilling in you, those catechisms, because
those are ultimate questions. What is true faith, right? 21,
that's right. That's even the right number.
You know that. That's good. What is true faith? True faith is, anybody remember
it? I want to recite it. True is to give it our best,
best knowledge whereby we hold for truth all that God has revealed
to us in his word, but also a hearty trust which the Holy Ghost works
in me by the gospel, that not only to others, but to me also,
forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation are
freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's
merits. That's a good one. I could say
it easier because the kids recited it to me about two weeks ago
in the catechism. That's where we are. But that
is a very important, very important question. Now I want to just
kind of wrap up here a second. It says here on the top of page
27 If God has shown you your need and given you this desire,
you're talking to somebody, and they're praying, they're wondering,
and then it says, turn to Christ, do it now. Again, if they're
going to repent, if they realize they're a sinner and God is holy,
what are they waiting for? Here's where it takes real biblical
wisdom. It's always easier to put off
until tomorrow anything. especially when it comes to sharing
the gospel. Well, we made it through page 24, 25. We'll come
back to page 26 next time I have a conversation with them. Well,
they might get in a car accident and die that night. You might
not have that opportunity to talk with them for some other
reason, right? You don't know, ultimately. So
we do have to get to the big, the heart of the matter in some
way. And perhaps they want to end the conversation. And then
one way of I appreciate the conversation we had. While we were talking,
I think you understand that every one of us, including myself,
is a sinner and God is holy. We have to get right with God.
If you really understand that, then you wouldn't put this off,
not a single minute. So I ask you, please reconsider. Well, thanks. I'll talk to you
another time. I'll pray for you. You know my
number. You can call me up when you get
home tonight or tomorrow morning. You know my number. I'll pray
for you. Here's this book. You know what to do. Just kind
of leave it there. You don't want to be pushing
in a bad way, but you do need to help them understand how serious
it is because they don't know what might happen. Has anyone
ever had the privilege of someone saying to them, I want to be a Christian. Can
you help me out of actually witnessing first hand somebody becoming
a Christian? I'm sure of the thousand people
listening on the internet, somebody's probably had that privilege. I haven't had the privilege in
that way. I've had the privilege of people
who have grown up in the church. who probably were believers at
the time I was talking with them, but they were seriously delinquent.
And seeing them change, as I mentioned, one of those illustrations. And
that's an awesome thing. God works in different ways.
The way that we see around us in this congregation is people
growing up within the faith never knowing a day when they didn't
believe in Jesus. And that's a wonderful blessing.
That's what we ought to expect as God's covenant people. He
blesses parents and their children and their grandchildren to the
generations. We should expect to see that.
And so in that sense, you have had a hand. Anytime you've ever
listened to some kid recite their catechism and helped them understand
what those words mean, you are having a hand in helping them
understand and know the gospel. Anytime you encourage another
church member in their walk with the Lord, If somebody you haven't
seen for a while, you say, it's so great to see you. We really
miss you. It's great to worship the Lord today. Wasn't that great?
Any of a hundred different ways you say something like that to
somebody else, you have a hand. God's using you in that way,
in this life of repentance, as Bill said so perfectly earlier.
All of us need one another in this process of repentance. Whether
we're an alcoholic or not, we need others to come alongside
us and assist us. And that's the last pages, I
won't go into that, but you need to get the person to obviously
pray, realize they've never been able to pray to God before, but
now that they're right with God by Christ, they can. And He'll
listen. And you've got to bring them
to church, okay? And read the scriptures and services and other
things, but that's really it. Well, the last two pages is kind
of thrown in there just because he didn't want to forget saying
something in the book, but to be honest, there's tons of books
that treat each of those things. So I hope that's been helpful
in at least showing you a bit of the different types of questions
that are big questions, that are big deal questions to us.
And especially I like how we were able to tie in things you
already know and have memorized, all these different Bible verses
that are summarized in these categories of questions. 21 about true faith and repentance,
88 through 90 and many others. Father, I thank you for the opportunity
we've had these past couple of months to look at the ultimate
questions. We acknowledge our own weakness,
our own frailty, our own need to repent, even of not sharing
the gospel as we ought, of being ashamed to do so. O Lord, why
would we be ashamed? Because we have such a glorious
and hope-filled message. But we know we are so easy, so
prone to be afraid of what others might think. Give each of us
a desire, a heart, for the lost, that we might share the gospel.
However it comes out, Lord, we know You, being sovereign and
good, will work it out perfectly for all who belong to You. We
pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Ultimate Questions for Unbelievers, part 4
Series Evangelism
A lively discussion with interaction from church members on the following questions:
God is perfect and won't ignore sin. I am sinful. Is there an answer to this problem?
'Did Jesus HAVE to die? Why or Why not?'
'Why death on the cross?' What does that prove to anyone?
'How can I have this salvation?'
Rpentance and faith are my necessary response to God's salvation.
'But, how do I know when I have repented?'
'How do I know what true faith is?'
A discussion loosely based on how to present the gospel using the booklet, Ultimate Questions by John Blanchard, Evangelical Press. You do not need this pamphlet to follow the discussion, though it is an excellent resource for any Christian to have.
| Sermon ID | 11507182310 |
| Duration | 54:43 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 4:22-24; Romans 5:8 |
| Language | English |
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