we're gonna look at the verses 43 to the end of the chapter and upon first It's going to seem as though, this is something rather obvious, we have been there many times, but we're going to take a little bit different look at it. Let me read it. It's the section where it talks about the tree and its fruit, and then it moves on to the wise and foolish builders. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from briars. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Then why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete." Ah. So what we're going to do today is we're going to examine What are the different ways you can have a false profession of faith? And I'm not naive in a group such as ours that there may well be folks who profess to believe who are not really believers. This is a huge problem in American evangelicalism. And we just want to take advantage of this section of scripture where it specifically is talking about building on a foundation, having a firm foundation. What does that mean? That's what we're going to explore. today. So, what are ways that you can have a false profession? And I have about, I think, four or five of them. Number one, scripture describes very clearly, over and over again, that when it uses the word believe, it will also use the word repentance, repent. False repentance. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 7, Now, the context here is the Apostle Paul, he is addressing the problems in the church at Corinth, and there was, of course, we know in 1 Corinthians 5, there was a guy who was a professed believer, who was having sex with his father's wife, and the church, for some reason, found a way to justify it. They weren't doing anything. And Paul says, whoa, put this guy out of the church. And then he uses now in 2 Corinthians, this is the occasion to talk about what is biblical repentance. And he talks about it in terms of a godly sorrow versus a worldly sorrow. So that's what we're talking about. So you cannot become a believer if you don't repent of your sins. So what is that? So look at verse 11, or we'll pick it up in verse 10. Godly sorrow, which is biblical repentance, brings, godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. Okay, now, repentance is that the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin, and it shows you that you are in deep trouble with the God of heaven and earth. And now the question is, how do you respond? Well, if you're granted the gift of repentance, which is part of saving faith, this will drive you to the cross because you need forgiveness. You want to get right with the God of heaven and earth. Because if we are not a believer, the God of heaven and earth, even though he does show us a limited form of his love, he is an angry judge. The Bible uses the phrase, the wrath of God is waiting to be let loose on us as unbelievers, which is absolutely true. So we don't talk, when we talk about an unbeliever, we don't talk about the God of love. We talk about how can you escape the wrath of God to come? How can you escape that? And the answer is the cross with the Lord's Supper. That's the answer. But in order to believe, you have to go through the process of what the Bible calls repentance. And it says, Pick it up there in verse 11. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you, what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point, you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. What does it mean? It means that You don't, what we call, we don't sort of qualify our guilt, putting our guilt in the best possible light. No, no, no. He says we embrace our guilt. We don't blame anybody else. It's all us. We have been rebellious. We come into the world guilty of Adam's sin. We have a bad heart that expresses itself in a life of rebellion. And now we have become aware we are in real trouble with the God of heaven and earth. And now we want to flee to the cross. Now you can be made aware of your sin But your response could be something different. It could be what the Bible calls a worldly sorrow. Your life is a mess. You know, you've just made shambles of maybe your marriage, your job, whatever, because of how you've handled it. And of course, the example of that in scripture would be Judas, who he was deeply convicted, because he sold out Jesus to the Jewish leaders, But he hanged himself. So he was sorrowful, absolutely. But it was not a godly sorrow. It was a worldly sorrow that drove him to despair. Then he ultimately killed himself. So the question is, you cannot become a believer unless you go through repentance. Now, we do not try to quantify repentance, because everyone's experience can be a little different. But this has to take place in your life. So you cannot become a believer and keep your dignity. Keep your pride, you cannot. That's not possible. Not to be a real believer. To become a real believer and have arrogance as a believer is an oxymoron. It's just not, that can't be. Because repentance breaks you. It's what it does. It breaks you. Chris? I'm just thinking in terms of, um, for example, I was thinking about this a while ago. Like no one is when they come to the realization of what the gospel is, because it can go the other way. Like, Okay, if I repent, this is my ticket. Yes. This is my guilt-free card. If I just sign it, I'm out. I'm good. Right. Like everyone the true believer is captivated by the love of God that they would be Forgiven and light of what they have done. Yes, it's like Romans 5, right? at the right time Christ died and Demonstrated his love for them that he would still die while they were still sinners, right and it has to be that right it can't be like a repent Because that's your way in Absolutely, you know what I mean? Because that's another type of false profession you that that is correct. That is correct And so the idea is is feeling bad about your sin That in and of itself is not repentance. It's what that does. What do you do with that? Does that drive you to the cross? for forgiveness Now if it doesn't do that, then of course it's not real biblical repentance. It's what we would call, or 2 Corinthians 7 calls, a worldly sorrow for your sin. And sometimes in professions of faith, folks experience a worldly sorrow for their sin, but they've never been truly broken. And then they slip in as a false profession. And we wonder why they're dealing with this issue of pride or even arrogance. How can that be? Well, the answer is, if you're using Pilgrim's Progress as an example, that famous work by John Bunyan, where the Christian way is this path that you follow. But there is always people, as Christian goes along the way, he enters through the gate, which is the cross, trusting in Christ alone. But there are people who hop over the wall to get in the way and never go through the gate. but they hop over the wall. This would be the example of, well, we didn't really have biblical repentance. We just hopped the wall, and we claim to believe, but we don't really have a new heart because of this. So that's one example of how false professions can enter in. Any other question about that? Okay, turn to the book of Galatians. Chapter 2, we're going to look at verses 15 through 16. So the next area, we're talking about the foundation from Luke 6, the idea that if you're a believer, you have a firm foundation. And this is you truly understand the gospel. Now, this sounds very basic, but it's amazing how people don't really understand the gospel. So in Galatians chapter 2, of course, Paul is dealing with the idea that we are saved not by works, but by faith in the cross of Jesus. Verses 15 and 16, he says this, we who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. And of course, when you use the word justified, you could easily say accepted by God, because we cannot be accepted unless Jesus satisfies everything the Father has against us. And of course he does that, so to be justified is to be unconditionally accepted. So the idea that in no way, in no way do our works in any way contribute to our salvation. They do not contribute. Now sometimes this raises its ugly head in becoming a believer, the idea that I've got to fix myself up in order to become a believer. No, that's not, you can't fix yourself up, that's not the point, that's the whole point. The Lord has to transform you, so you first have to become part of the people of God, you have to become a new person in Christ, and then the Holy Spirit begins the process of transforming you from the inside out. And that, of course, when thinking back to Luke 6, he always equates a believer is someone who obeys. That's interesting. Now, we know it's not perfect obedience. We know that. But obedience characterizes their life. That means that scripture is their authority. This is an issue. I come across lots of folks who profess to believe but are rather indifferent about scripture. Well, from my point of view, you can't be a believer. Because one of the key identifying marks in scripture of a believer is that you desire to obey, and you can't desire to obey if you don't think God's word, excuse me, is your authority. So the spirit of God is creating in you this desire to show your love for God by keeping his commandments, but we don't keep them in order to be accepted. Galatians 2 is very clear about that. Because even the good stuff we do is never pristine good. Our good works. So we do, as believers, do good works. But they're never pristine pure. If I waited until I had a pure motive, hell would freeze. I mean, really, I would love to have pure motives. I would love to. But I'm always struggling. Always. Jared. With that, would you say that you wouldn't know? worldly sorrow, godly sorrow. You don't know that until after the fact. Yes. You look at Judas, and you look at Peter, and it's contrast of godly sorrow, worldly sorrow. Yes. You don't know that until after. Absolutely. Peter denies, and then later he goes to the cross. Right. The other in despair. Right. So you can look back and say, oh, Well, at that point, it could have been a mixture. How much of a percentage was godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow? You wouldn't know until after. Yeah, and we would say, Jared, that if you've done biblical repentance, godly sorrow, but there'll be some worldly sorrow mixed in. But the question is, what do you do with it? Judas drove him to kill himself. Peter drove him back to the Lord. Ah, that's the difference. So from your point of view, it's what happens. What we say is professions are cheap, meaning they're easy. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're a believer. Now, the loving thing to do is if you profess to believe, we take you at your word. But let's be honest. The proof is in the pudding. It's the evidence of the work of Christ on the cross, which means you get this new heart, which means you have new desires, which means you want to, scripture is your authority, the way you show your love for God, you want to keep his commandments. Ah, Jay? Yeah, I think just speaking to what Jared's talking about, you know, obviously perseverance is the ultimate proof of someone's faith being real or not. But there's also, it gets pretty specific in like 2 Corinthians 7, you know, what godly sorrow looks like. So, you know, sometimes we're in a position where we need to discern someone's sorrow. Like if it's a church discipline issue or something where we're practicing like this imperfect science of determining whether or not this individual's repentance is real. Because we have, so we have, Even though we can't read a heart, we still have a responsibility to discern sometimes. Yes, sometimes we come up against, when we're dealing with someone in the fellowship caught in sin, and sometimes we have to address what we call negotiated repentance, meaning they're willing to accept their guilt to a point. To a point, they still want to keep their dignity in this process. And that's not repentance. I hate to tell you. It says, what eagerness to see justice done. That is, you are willingly embracing your guilt. No excuses. Nobody else's fault. Me. And as elders, that's what we're looking for. And if we honestly think we're detecting false repentance, then we'll say so, that we don't think you're being genuine. So that's true. Nathan? Oh, no, Chris first. Sorry, yeah, I was just gonna touch on what you mentioned earlier, Jeff, like that idea of saving your dignity. Yes. Like you're gonna do whatever you need to do to be obedient. Yes. And if you can't, if you feel like there's a point where you can't compromise your dignity, Like you were saying a second ago like you just Up to a point. I can't go past this part Then it's there's questions Yes, there is and and we understand I in my own life. I understand it I understand there's that sometimes there could be an immediate struggle over How honest am I going to be? And I have to work that through before God You know, the Coram Deo, you know, we walk before the presence of God. As I stand before my Lord, you know, how honest am I going to be? And that's where the new heart, which is that radical work of the Holy Spirit, enables us to call a spade a spade. And yet, but because the wonderful thing is we do have full forgiveness in Jesus Christ because of the cross. But the evidence that he died for us is that we will confess our sins. We will. We will do it. You know, we're not earning anything. Galatians 2 is very clear. No, no, no. You don't fall into this Roman Catholic syndrome that it's you and God somehow working things out on the salvation deal. And you've got to contribute your works. Jesus does his. No, Jesus does everything. But the evidence that he did everything is that we desire to live for him. And repentance is one of those areas. So we've dealt with both. So the initial point of repentance, then there's the issue of the gospel itself. Do we really understand the cross does everything? Or have we bought into, no, I understand the cross, but it's the cross in me. And so subtly, I find someone is still working their way to God. And you say, no, that's not biblically true. Because you can't do the works God requires. He requires absolute perfection. And we can't do that. So that's the idea. Okay, let's move on to a third one. And this is the one that typically gets most of us. This is the lordship issue. That if you're trusting in Christ alone to save you, what goes along with that is then you desire to follow him as your lord. And of course there's implications to this. And you pick it up, we'll even go back to Luke chapter six. where it says in verse 46, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Once again, the Christian life is described as someone whose life is characterized wanting to obey. And that assumes, then, that this person views God's Word, Scripture, as the Word of God, and their authority. It assumes that. So therefore, if I claim to be a believer, but my view of the Bible is rather cavalier, it's not really my authority, then we're going to question whether you're a believer. Of course we're going to do that. So that's, I mean God's word is this is the only way we could know this God whom we love. Now he doesn't audibly talk to us when we read scripture, but we do communicate with him. So to say I'm a believer, but you know I'm indifferent getting into scripture is like saying I love my wife, but I have no desire to talk to her. I just have no desire, but I love her." We would say, liar, liar, pants on fire. You know, we'd say, no, you really don't love her because if you love her, you want to spend time with her. If you love your Lord, this is the only way you can get to know him. This is the only way. And that's why we repeat over and over again, to be a believer is to be the securable God lover, which is true. Your love for God is always partially defective till you die. It's always going to be that way. You're never gonna be happy with the quality of your love for God. That you can take to the bank. But the spirit of God keeps driving us on. So this is probably, in the New Testament, this is the most visible evidence that we really believe. Now we're talking about the desire. We're not talking about the performance, the perfect performance. We're talking about the desire. And so that's what we look for. If you profess to believe and we spend time with you, we're looking for evidence of that desire. That's what we're looking for. Because that is the new heart, the work of the Holy Spirit. Chris? You said something earlier. What if a believer has what is very clearly an obvious desire, but they, as you said earlier, they don't have God's word is sort of dismissible to them or is just it's kind of like once you bring the word of God to the table. Yeah, it's not really the final authority. Okay, that's a fair question. But they very clearly have a desire. Well, it seems as though they have a desire. Well, yeah. But you wouldn't, up to that point, you didn't argue it. Right. There was years ago, now this, you don't know this person, you don't remotely know them. I remember there was a person who was, I met with, who was struggling in their life, sin in their life. And I met with them, and they were showing remorse. over their sin. And we talk about it, we encourage them on and make the changes, and then a month go by and we meet again and they have remorse. And we talk about it, but there's been no change. And then another month goes by and we meet again and there's remorse, but no change. Remorse doesn't necessarily mean that's the work of the Holy Spirit. If it is the work of the Holy Spirit, it's going to drive you back to Scripture. It's going to change your behavior. That's why sometimes remorse over sin is a technique to get people off your back. Because if you show remorse, people think, oh, they're fine. And they won't bother you anymore because I've shown remorse, but there's been no concrete change. So, that becomes another area of a false profession. Just showing remorse for your sin doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's what do you do with it? What do you do with it if it's the work of the Holy Spirit? Then it will drive you to want to live for your Lord to make changes in your life Chris yeah, I think more of what I was getting at Jeff was Maybe they're just like they're kind of ungrounded or If that makes sense, like you're kind of arguing scripture. But they kind of they kind of. Might use other scriptures, but like the ones that are very clearly the ones where they're caught in. They won't really fess up to if that makes sense. And it kind of seems like right. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not doing a good job of explaining. Well, OK. Let me give an illustration. This is from Martin Luther. He would say that if you, Jay is taking the position because we're getting late. I know. I like that. Used to be Priscilla tapping her watch with her finger on me. Martin Luther said, if you profess to believe, Every point in the Bible except the one that Satan is currently attacking, you've denied the faith. Because believing all the other things is meaningless, because that doesn't mean anything. It's what's being attacked at that moment. That is what's going to test whether your faith is real. Yeah. Yeah, so we do begin to put more pressure on an individual if it seems as though they're ducking scripture. They just don't want to face up to something. And then we do put more pressure. That's absolutely true. Then it becomes less of a pleasant conversation. Right, because the steps of Matthew 18 church discipline is that you're putting increasing amounts of pressure on somebody to see if they really are a God lover. We try to be gentle, we give a little time, we do all of that, but we do increase the pressure to see what's really real going on inside of you. And if you're really God-lover, that will eventually come out. And if you're not, that eventually comes out. And that's why we excommunicate somebody if they profess to believe but refuse to obey over a period of time, then we regard them as an unbeliever because they're denying what it means to have a new heart. It's what we do. The last one, because I know purposely going over, but we need the time, is the last one is assurance. You do not have assurance. Romans 8, 15, and 16. Romans chapter 8, where it talks about the work of the spirit in the life of the believer. It says, the spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the spirit received brought about by your adoption to sonship. And by him, that is the spirit, we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. That's another way of saying the Holy Spirit supernaturally convinces us that we're in the family of God. And of course, to be convinced that you're in the family of God, you have to be convinced that Jesus actually paid for your sins. Gotta be convinced. That's a supernatural work. Now, believers can have their assurance attacked, but it's always from a point of view of having assurance and having it attacked. We've talked about that in the past. We're not going to delve into that. But no assurance means no work of the Spirit, which means you do not have saving faith. No assurance. So that is an issue. When someone professes to believe, we do explore that. and find out, are you convinced that Jesus actually died for your sins? It's as simple as that. Now, the fact that you're convinced doesn't mean you're a believer necessarily, but you can't be a believer without it. So all we've done is to, you know, Luke 6 tells us, be careful that you build your house properly. What does it mean to be proper? It means to truly believe the gospel message so that your sins are paid for, you have a new heart, the spirit of God is driving you on, you do desire to obey scripture. You're not going to do it perfectly, but it's the desire is just embedded in you. And you're going to keep pushing on. Even though you fall down a bunch, you're not gonna stay down, you're gonna push on. That's what we look for. That is. So that's the idea. So, of course, the warning of Luke 6 is rather severe. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice, is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete. So we are very aware that there are, in evangelicalism today, a bunch of false professions. And we always will give you the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. But you need to be honest. This is what we look for. You profess to believe, we are glad to embrace you. But we do look for these things in your lives. And you should look for them in our lives. Absolutely. Okay? Let's pray. Father, just help us. Help us to truly have to embrace what it means to be accepted by you, to have biblical repentance, to truly trust in Christ to do it all. And then we do desire to live for you because we love you. Your word is our authority, but you always get all the credit. So Father, thank you for your word and for the radical change that your Holy Spirit brings about when he saves an individual. You never do it halfway, and you always get the credit. Amen.