So, all right, today I wanna speak on the subject of five things to prove this year, that is this coming year. Five things to prove. This is what we call a word study. There's many different ways to study the Bible. One way is to just take one word and study what the Bible says about it. Well, this is a word that's in the scriptures very few times, But it tells us to prove things, and if you have room on the back of your bulletin and you wanna write these five things down, I wanna speak on the subject of five things to prove this year. Number one, let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter number 13 and verse five. It says this, examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith. Prove. your own selves, know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. Now a reprobate is somebody without any principles, without any faith whatsoever. Now why would the apostle Paul, as he's writing, say this to a church? Because not everybody that goes to church is saved. All right? So number one, prove you're saved. Number one, prove you're saved. That's what it says here. Let me read it again. Verse five, examine yourselves. That word examine there means to test yourself. Do it yourself. Notice how many times He speaks about them individually, yourselves, your own selves, your own selves. This is a very intimate, personal thing. Don't just say, well, yeah, I'm saved. My mother told me I was saved. That's not good enough. My dad told me. My pastor told me. My Sunday school teacher told me. That's not good enough. Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Prove your own selves. It's possible to prove you're saved. There are certain evidences of a really saved man or a really saved woman that eventually show themselves as fruit in their life. Jesus said you're gonna know a tree by its fruit. A good tree can't bring forth evil fruit and an evil tree can't bring forth good fruit. By their fruits you shall know them. There should be some fruit in our lives that indicates that we're saved. Now why would he say this to this church? Have you ever read these books? 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians? It's hard to believe it's even a church. You wouldn't believe the stuff that was going on in these churches. All kinds of sin. All kinds of fornication. They were taking each other to court and suing each other. As supposedly brothers and sisters in the Lord, they were fighting over which preachers were better. There's 13 major faults exposed in the book of 1 Corinthians about this church, so that if you were there, you'd probably say the same thing Paul said. Examine yourselves, see whether you've been to faith, because a lot of you are not even acting like it. You're not acting like you're saved. Examine yourselves. Whether ye be in the faith, that's the most important question in life. That each person here in this room examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith. There's no more important question you must struggle with. I remember having doubts for years and years. Now I got saved when I was 12 years old. That's when I accepted Jesus Christ. I put my faith in Jesus Christ, for by grace are ye saved through faith. Examine yourselves, see whether you be in the faith. But I had struggles and I had doubts. And I didn't have the assurance of my salvation. But you go down to the end of this hallway down here on the steps and you see a book on soteriology. That's the doctrine of salvation. I wrote that for myself. I didn't write that for the church. I had no intentions of writing these doctrinal books for the church, but for myself. I wanted to know what I believed and why I believed it because my eternal soul is too valuable to get this wrong. You can't be wrong about this. You must be right. You must be sure that you're saved. You gotta be saved. It's what the Bible says 44 times. In the New Testament, you'll read the word saved. A person is either saved or they're not. A person either has Jesus Christ as their savior or will face Jesus Christ as their judge someday. I want to encourage you, examine yourself. Don't just believe because I told you. I mean well. I love you. I want all of you to be sure you're saved. So does Pastor Barron. So does so many other brothers and sisters in the Lord here. You can't just say, well, my mother told me, my father told me. No, his spirit must bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. That's what the scripture says. And if God hasn't told you, and you've got some doubts or concerns, then maybe you need to be saved. Now, I'm not trying to get anyone to doubt their salvation, but I'm trying to get you to do something biblical. Number one, examine yourself, and then number two, prove it. Prove it. Prove your own selves. Show everybody that you're saved. Turn back to 2 Corinthians 5, a couple of pages backwards. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 17. Thank you for your prayers. I had gotten pneumonia this week and I know some of you have been praying for me. Thank you. Second Corinthians 517, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new, are become new. Listen, there's something about being in Christ that produces eventually a newness of life. A newness of life. We don't keep living the old life, the past life. There's something new. If any man be in Christ, He's a new creature. Now, there's other verses and truths that we could study to examine and examinize. The word prove means to scrutinize. That's what I was trying to say. Prove your own self. Scrutinize yourself. Put yourself under a microwave. Boy, I had pneumonia and I'm on meds. All right. Put yourself under a microscope spiritually and say, am I a new creature in Christ Jesus? Have I been born again? Have I gone from being a child of the devil to a child of God by a spiritual birth by receiving Christ as my savior? Am I a new creature? In the book of Galatians, chapter number Which is the next book, just a couple pages over towards the back of your Bible. Turn to Galatians chapter number 6, verse 15. It says this, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. Have you been born again? Are you a new creature in Christ? Are things becoming new? Some things in my life changed dramatically the very day I got saved. Other things, it's been a long process of sanctification, but there's a change that should take place. Have you changed? Turn to Matthew 18. Children, I want you to listen now, all you children that are up here this week, children, If you have a Bible, or if your parents have a Bible, turn to Matthew 18, and we're gonna read out loud verses three, 11, and 14. All of us, but children especially. Try to help me read this now, okay? We find our places, Matthew 18, and we're gonna start with verse three. 11 and then 14, okay? Everybody read it out loud, especially you children. Ready? And said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Verse 11. for the son of man is come to save that which was lost verse 14 even so it is not the will of your father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish okay it is God's will for children to be saved now there's a lot of children in this room this morning that usually aren't up here the fact is this well it's not a fact but Most studies find that people who accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior do so by their 14th birthday. That statistic is usually around 85% of those who ever get saved, get saved by the time they're 14. And then we get into those teen years, and school, and college, and people start playing with our minds, and our thoughts, and our philosophies, and everything, and we don't know what we believe or why we believe it. You go to the average college or university in America and talk to the most prestigious professor in that college, and he's gonna tell you two things. Number one, there's no truth, and number two, there's no absolutes, and give us $40,000 a year so we can teach you that. That's what you're gonna get. No truths, no absolutes. Give us your money. There is truth. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And there are absolutes. It's contained in the word of God, this book that God spent 1,500 years writing. This is a 1,500 year project by God. We should pay attention to that. He's got a lot of time into this. And then another 1,500 years in the English development so we could get our King James Bible. This book I'm holding in my hands is about a 3,000 year project of God. I should pay attention to it. And in this book there are absolutes. And one is that every child can be saved. It is not God's will that one of you children should perish. Not one of you little boys, not one of you little girls. God wants every one of you to be saved and to be in heaven. And He came, that's what Christmas is about right there, verse number 11. For the Son of Man has come, that's Christmas, to seek and to save that which was lost. And we're lost. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and our sins have separated us from God, and we are like sheep without a shepherd. But Jesus comes to be our Savior and our Shepherd. Can you prove that you're saved? If a prosecutor came and put you on the stand, could you prove you're saved? Could you prove you're saved? Number two, turn to Romans chapter 12, and verses one and two. These are verses that many of you have memorized. If not, they're good verses to memorize. Romans 12, I want you to see a second thing we are to prove. If you know it from memory, say it. If not, read it with me, verses one and two. Ready? I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Number one, prove you're saved next year. Show everybody you're saved by the manifestation of a Holy Spirit-led life that Jesus Christ is in you, as Paul said. Know you're not, that Jesus Christ is in you. And he said that to a church. Because it's been my experience as a pastor that I've seen people come and go from the church, and I've seen no evidence I've seen, but praise the Lord, I'm not the judge. But I've seen no evidence of a saved man or a saved woman, none whatsoever. That's number one, are you saved? Some people never change. How can Jesus Christ be in you? When Jesus Christ is described in Isaiah nine and verse six as Almighty God, how can Almighty God be inside of a human being and nothing happen? How is that possible? How is that possible? Man, when my dad got saved, wow, something happened. He was 37 years old. Next thing I know, he wasn't drinking, he wasn't smoking, he wasn't cursing anymore. He was loading us boys in the car three times a week, taking us to church. What happened to dad? He got born again. Can you prove you're saved? Number two, can you prove you're doing the perfect will of God, the perfect will of God? It says, the perfect will of God. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove. What is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Now here's the second thing. God has a will for every one of your lives. That word will means he has a plan, a desire, and a pleasure. He made you for a very, very special reason. And He saved you unto that reason, whoever you might be. That word will again means a plan. God has a plan for your life. He has a desire for your life. He has a pleasure for your life. Every one of us. He hasn't overlooked any of us. I know some of you might, it's hard to believe, because God seems so foreign and just out there, but you can be saved. You can draw night of God. He's not far from any one of us. And then he begins to change the course of your life to fulfill his desire, his plan, and his pleasure. And I said this before, I'll say it again, you don't want to miss it for this world. This world can't offer you anything close to what God's plan is for you. You wouldn't believe the plan and the adventure God has for your life and how fulfilling it is. Oh yeah, there's hardships in it, that's for sure. But man, what a story He wants to write with your life. God wants to write a story, just you and Him. Just you and Him. Literally, the Bible says He has a book He's writing about you. Just you and Him. I'm talking about men, I'm talking about women. Now, you kids, I just told you part of God's will for your life. Even so, it is not the will of the Father which is in heaven that one of you should perish. If you're not saved, you're not in God's will. God's will is for everybody to be saved. 1 Timothy 2 and verse 4 says, who will have all men saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But then he has a will for your life. in very general terms. The will of God is in two parts. There's the revealed will and the concealed will. The revealed will is what he wants all of us to do. The disciplines of the Christian faith. He wants all of us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I can tell you that's God's will for your life. I can tell you that. He wants you to love your neighbor as yourself. He wants you to love the brethren, to love the church. He wants you to love your family. In fact, he goes so far, he says, I want you to love your enemies. That's God's will for your life. Communing with the Holy Spirit, he wants you to commune with the Holy Ghost. I can tell you that's God's will for your life. He wants you to read the Bible. He's not gonna do it for you. He wants you to do it. But he said, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples. Indeed. And Jesus said, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds. This is the food for your soul, just like you'll eat lunch today for your body. We need to eat food for our soul. And a good preacher like Pastor Barron, once, twice a week, he can't give you enough food to last for a week. You've got to have your own time in the word. It's God's will that you be in the Bible. This one has 1,500 pages in it. I'm gonna start reading this one. New Year's Day. I just finished. I read the Bible through once a year, sometimes twice a year, sometimes three times a year. I read slowly and deliberately. Here's how I do it. 1,500 pages, this Bible. It's a study Bible. It's King James Bible, study Bible. I read study Bibles. I divide that by 365. It comes out to 4.01 pages a day. All right? Four pages a day, I gotta read. And I can get through it, I read it slowly and deliver it, I don't speed read. But even at that, it only takes 20 minutes a day. 20 minutes a day to read God's word. And that's not for great readers, that's just average readers. It's what's called pulpit rate reading. 24.45% of this book is the New Testament. 75.55% of it is the Old Testament. So let's just round it off to 75 and 25. That means if I can read three pages of the Old Testament a day and one page of the New Testament a day, I'll have a little bit of variety. But by the end of the year, I can get through the Bible. Now listen, if we don't have 20 minutes to give to God, there's something wrong with our priorities. Something we gotta throw out. And you can do it, and it'll be a wonderful experience for you to read the scriptures through. And the way you really get to know what the Bible says, you just keep reading it over and over again. And God, the Holy Spirit, sits down right with you. Have a station in your house. My wife has a station. I looked at it this morning. I got a desk for her, a bookshelf. Her reading Bible's there. Reading scheduler, she's to Isaiah 40. She can just come in the next day and pick up right there. She don't have to say, where's my Bible? What do I do with that? No, she's got a reading station. I have a reading station. And we just sit down, first thing, just sit down and read the word. Read the word of God. You see, it's the will of God. Prayer is the will of God. The psalmist said, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. Prayer is God's will for your life. These things, going to church is God's will, it's part of God's will for your life. Find a church, go there, be faithful. Stewardship is a part of your life. giving God tithes and offerings and helping with alms to the poor. That's part of your life. It's part of the will of God. I know it's the same for everybody. Nobody's exempt. It's the revealed will of God. And then as you and I are faithful in doing the revealed will of God, God says, aha, I can trust him. I can trust her with the concealed will of God. And what are some of the things that are concealed? Who you should marry, You little girls don't know that yet. But God wants you to know that someday. You little boys don't know that yet. What's your mission in life should be? What's your calling? What's your gift? What's your ministry in the church? Those are the concealed. But you gotta be faithful with the revealed will of God. And then he shows you the concealed will of God. Wow. Boy, when God shows you that, it's like, you're kidding me. You want to do that in my life? What a privilege. What a privilege. Prove the will of God next year. What are you reading the Bible for all the time? It's God's will. You're going to church again? Yeah, why? It's God's will for my life. Why are you gonna give so much to help the poor in third world countries? Why do they care? It's part of the will of God for my life. You see, you love God. Why are you always talking about Jesus? It's part of the will of God for my life, the reveal will. And then he shows you those special things. He says, this is where I made you special for this. I wanted to show you this all my life. Well, God's eternal, but I've been waiting so long to show you this. This is what I want you to do. I thought when God called me to be a pastor, he made his first mistake. You've got to be kidding. What an adventure it's been for me. Oh, I wouldn't change a thing. Except I'd try to work better and more intelligently. Prove your work. This goes along. Turn to Galatians chapter six, verse four. Prove your work. Kids, I'm telling you, God has a will for your life. There's a very special reason God made you little girls and boys and you adults. Get with it. You don't want to miss that. You don't want to miss that. You're special to God. Notice Galatians 6 now in verse 4. Galatians 6, 4 kind of goes along with what I just said, so I'm going to be brief with this point. Galatians 6, 4, but let every man prove his own work. And then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. Notice number three, prove your work next year. Prove you're saved. Prove you're in the will of God. Then prove your work. Anybody can stand up and say, I'm gonna be a missionary to Papua New Guinea. Okay, Brianna. We're gonna say prove it. We're not gonna, God's gonna say that. But we're not gonna do it like this. All right, prove it, we'll be watching. No, because we love you. And we want you to do, if that's God's will for your life. Justin over here, he's been in Papua New Guinea five years, his wife Kaylee, the girls. I can remember things people said. I can remember. Kaylee's going to Papua New Guinea, she's never gonna make it. I can remember people saying that. Yeah. I'm talking about good people. They weren't that good that moment. I remember a pastor's wife when I was called said he'll never make it. She just thought she was speaking on the behalf of God or something. She was wrong. You got to ignore people like that. But I'll be honest with you, brother, there was times your deputation was a long one. Remember that? It was a long one, it was a head-scratcher. Because I had seen so many missionaries on deputation make it a lot faster, all right? But you knew that was God's will and God's work for your life. And now he's over there proving it. And some of you have gone there and visited the work in Papua New Guinea, and any of you can. Any of you can, they got an outhouse and a back room Do they have outhouses yet? I'm not sure what the... I'm not kidding you. My grandparents had a farm in Variesburg where we had an outhouse, a three-holer. I don't know why you let three people in there. And in the middle of her kitchen was a hand pump. That was her water supply. I'm not kidding. Those are how we grew up. And anyways, prove your work. Nick Melucci came in my office one day and said, God's led me to go to Bulgaria. I didn't say anything negative. I know enough of the Bible where you just listen. But I'm thinking, Bulgaria's a communist country. You're not allowed in Bulgaria. So he starts on deputation, raising support to go to Bulgaria as a missionary. And Bulgaria, during deputation, has a revolution. The government is overthrown. A new constitution is written giving people religious freedom. And he was about the first missionary I ever knew that went there. You see, but he's proved his work. has proved His work, okay? When God shows you His will, state it, that's fine, state it, but then go and prove it. Prove it. Number four, turn to 2 Corinthians 8.8. We can't get out of this section here, can we? 2 Corinthians 8.8. While you're turning there, Keep your place there, everybody, especially you parents with children. Turn back to Proverbs chapter number 20. I'm gonna go backwards for a minute here. Turn to Proverbs 20, let your boys and girls see this. And try to read it out loud with me if you can. Verse 11, Proverbs 20 verse 11, ready? Out loud. Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure and whether it be right. Boys and girls, there's a work for you to do right now. God's work is not just for old people or adults. There's a work, going back to point number three here, you boys and girls, there's a work for you to do. God has a work for you to do right now. It might just be good be a good brother, be a good sister, be a good child in your family. And man, I can remember when I got saved, I was 12, I was a little older child, but boy, I gathered up a bunch of my neighbor kids, started taking them to brigade boys that we had at our church, and you know what? A bunch of them got saved. I led a lot of people to Christ in my teen years, in my childhood. Why? Because there was a work to do. There was a work to do. You boys and girls, there's something God wants you to do. Notice this one here very quickly, 2 Corinthians 8 and verse number 8, I speak not by commandment but by occasion of the forwardness of others and to prove the sincerity of your love. What are we supposed to prove here, number four? The sincerity of our love. You ever hear someone say, I love you, man? It's just like this empty drivel we use in society now. Hey, I love you, man. Give him a chest bump. You know, guys do that nowadays. I remember 12 years in the prison. I wasn't in prison, but I was ministering to the prisoners. Give him a chest bump. Everyone's giving you chest bumps. I love you, man. All right. I don't know if that's sincere or not. But the Bible says prove the sincerity of your love. Listen, love is the greatest attribute. If there's two great attributes, if I could show you the Christian life as simple as I possibly can, put the word holiness over here on this side of the balance, put the word love over here on this side of the balance, and you've got the Christian life. Okay? We're not supposed to be so holy, we don't have any love, dictating a bunch of rules to people and beating them over the head with the Bible. We're not supposed to be so loving we throw the Bible out and you can do anything you please. But if you can get that balance right there, that's the whole Christian life in two words, holiness and love. But our love needs to be sincere. I struggle with that. I'll be the first to raise my hand. I struggle with being sincere all the time in my love. But there's like 10 directions our love's supposed to go. I had a chart one time I made up of a wagon wheel, and the hub was love. And the spokes went out, and we're supposed to love God, love our neighbors, love the brethren, and love our wife, or our husband, and our children, and love our enemies. There's 10 directions love's supposed to go, and all of it's supposed to be sincere. All of it's supposed to be sincere. It's supposed to be real. We're not supposed to have any partiality. That's tough. Maybe you're good at it, but man, I gotta work at this one. I like to love people who love me. I like to be kind to people that are kind to me. But the Bible says he loves the just and the unjust, and he sends rain upon the just and the unjust, and God loves them. God loves the world. Some of the most despicable people that have ever lived on this planet, the grace of God went to them where no Christian would. Saved their souls. Unbelievable. The sin that God has reached down and saved people out of, doesn't matter what you've done. The grace of God is greater. Where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. And God's grace has gone to places and to people that we won't even talk to. We've already judged them as lost forever. But thank God we're not their judges. Some of the most corrupt, profane people that have ever walked the earth, the Lord has saved them when they've cried out for mercy. I write to a serial killer. Some of you know that. I won't tell you anymore, but I write to him all the time. And back in 1987, he was in prison. In 77 and 87, through the witness of another prisoner, he got saved. And he spent his life since then telling everybody, Jesus saved me. He changed me. He grew up in the church of Satan. He read the Satanic Bible. He was demon-possessed. He said, if I was a Christian growing up, I may have never been that way, but thank God I'm saved now. Wherefore, he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. If you're here today and you think God can't save you, you're wrong, and God's right. God can save you. Doesn't matter what you've ever done. You just come to God. in repentance and faith and say, Lord Jesus, please save me. Please come into my heart, come into my life, give me the gift of eternal life. The last thing, 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 21 says this, prove all things, hold fast, that which is good. Now I personally believe, this is talking about doctrine, I don't know, It's talking about principles. It's talking about spirits. Try the spirits, whether they be of God. Prove all things. Prove all things. You've got to be a Bible student. And you've got to have the Holy Spirit as your teacher. Pastor Barron's going to try his hardest. I'm going to try my hardest. Anybody else who preaches, Pastor Justin, Pastor Seth, preachers, teachers, Sunday school, we're going to try our hardest to be accurate. But you need to allow the Holy Spirit to teach you the Word of God so you can prove all things and hold fast that which is good. Prove your salvation. Prove the perfect will of God next year. Prove your work. If it's God's work and God's in it, it's going to be fruitful. Something's going to happen. Prove the sincerity of your love. Prove the sincerity of your love. Say, God, help me. I don't know about your love. Mine needs improvement. And it's something I study, and it's something I pray about all the time. Lord, do you ever say this sometimes in prayer? Lord, I can't stand that guy. Help me to love him. And all of a sudden, something changes in your heart toward him or her. It's amazing how God can change us if we'll let him prove all things. Shall we bow for a word of prayer? Our Heavenly Father, we thank you, O Lord, today. for this time of Bible study and prayer and Bible preaching. And Lord, we just wanna ask you to help us. Oh God, I pray. And to be, to have a year. We're gonna prove some things. We're gonna prove some things. By the grace and by the power of God. Lord, I pray for everybody here to truly be saved, if not for the invitations given to trust in Christ. Help every believer to prove what's the perfect, to do the reveal will of God, to find the conceal will of God, and then, number three, to work it out. Prove their work. Prove the sincerity of our love. Forgive me, Lord, for not being sincere sometimes when it comes to loving people you told me to love, and loving you more. and to prove all things. God, in this day of strange and satanic doctrine, God help us to be sound. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.