Tonight, for our time together looking at the Word, I wanted to just say to you that I'd like to review for a few minutes from where we were last Sunday night. If you're like me, a review is good because we have to go back and backtrack a little bit. We have to pick up where we were and kind of catch the train of thought. So last Sunday night, we talked about how can we know that we've been born again? How can we know that we have eternal life? And the first thing I mentioned was, have you believed and trusted in the gospel of Christ? We talked about 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 12, especially where it says, I know whom I believe, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep what I've committed to him against that day. We have those three words that talk to us about what real saving faith is. Number one, we found the word know. I know, I believe something. It's academic knowledge that I've taken in and I've believed it. Number two, I've not only believed it, but I'm convinced in my heart that it's true. I know that Christ has died on the cross as an academic or a fact. Number two, I believe in it and I trust in it. I know that it's true. Number three, I'm so convinced that I've put the weight of my trust on Christ, depending upon Him alone to be my Savior. Not any good thing that I've done, not any good work that I've carried out, not any act of charity or kindness or gift or act of service, but all of those I present to Christ as acts of loving kindness that I do because He has saved me, not in order to be saved. We talked about the chair. We talked about a chair. When we look at a chair, we say, I believe this is a good chair. We look at it and say, it looks like a good chair. It looks like a strong chair. It looks like a chair that would hold me up. Number two, we say, I not only believe it, but I'm convinced that this is a good chair. And then I entrust my weight to it. That's step number three. And I'll know it in my heart or believe it. I'm not only convinced about it, but I actually put all the weight of my body on the chair. It's holding me up. I'm not holding myself up at all. It's a good chair. Now I think about the time we had a care group over in our house and we had people come in and we had an old chair sitting in the corner and somebody got that out before I could stop them and they sat down on it and the leg buckled. It had been broken and the leg buckled and they fell on the floor and I said, well it looked like a good chair but it wasn't. And we had to apologize because the chair broke underneath them and fell. But you see, here's how it is with saving faith. Saving faith is made up of three things. Number one, knowledge. Number two, we're convinced that that knowledge is true. And number three, we've actually entrusted the full weight of our faith, our hope, our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior. So those are the three stages. So I said to you last Sunday night, have you believed and trusted and entrusted yourself to Christ as your Savior? And then we talked about not only the chair and trusting our self in that way, but we said, secondly, I decide in my mind if I have entrusted my life truly and completely to Him. Have we truly done that? I remember when I was 12 years old, I joined the church. We had the minister go through and teach a communicants class, and I remember joining the church when I was 12 years old because I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I believed the miracles. I believed all the things about God that were in the Scriptures. And to my mind, at 12 years old, I was trusting in Jesus. But I remember when I was going away to college, I went away and after my first year, we had the Student Christian Council give us a paperback New Testament. And I had a Bible, but I started reading that paperback New Testament at night. It was very easy to read, and I read it and would think about the scripture and pray before I'd go to sleep. And I remember going through all that. But the first of my sophomore year, That's kind of thinking about a whole lot of things that pile up on you, especially when you're away from home. And I remember reading the Bible one Saturday afternoon on campus. And I looked at that, closed the Bible, and I said, Lord, I don't know if I've ever done this right before. I don't know if I've ever really completely trusted Christ as my Savior. But if I have never done it before, I do it now. And I mean it with all my heart. And, you know, I had academically believed since I was a little child. I had believed and was convinced that all those things were true. But I believe it was when I was in college that I completely entrusted my life to Christ, not holding anything back and trusting Him as Savior and Lord. So those are the three things that we normally talk about as far as saving faith is concerned. And then last week we looked at a number of verses on assurance. And I gave you John 3.16, you know, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And then John 3.36, he that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son of God has not life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. We look at that. If you have Christ in your life, You have eternal life. If you have Christ as your Savior, He is eternal life for you. John 6.37-40 is a section of scripture that I read to you last week. All that the Father gives to me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. We talked about the double negatives there. And I said in Greek, it's not never. I will not never cast you out. And I remember in English that's not kosher, that's not correct English. But as far as the emphasis of the Greek is concerned, it's not never. I'm not ever going to cast you out. Two double, a double negative there. And we saw even in John 6, 47, that verse that so many have used over the years. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. Now, I think you always have to stop and ask yourself the question, would God ever lie to me? No. He'll never lie to me. His Word is true. So if His Word is true, and He says, He that has the Son has life, then if I've embraced Christ as my Savior, then I have eternal life. So it's not arrogance for me to go up to somebody and say, I know that I have eternal life. I know that I have eternal life because God has promised it to me in His Word. He that has the Son has life. And then we looked at John 10, 27-30. Those verses that are so good in the chapter on the I am the Good Shepherd, where Jesus says in these verses, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." So, if the Lord Jesus Christ says, my sheep hear my voice when they come to me, and I give to them eternal life, we say, there's a promise from God's Word. He's promised us that Jesus has given us eternal life. And Jesus is not an Indian giver. He doesn't give it to you today and take it back tomorrow. We talked about that last week too. So have you believed what God has said? Have you put your trust in what God has said in the scriptures? You know, we ought to be the most assured people in the whole wide world because we believe the Bible. We believe that Jesus has died. We believe that he's real. We believe the miracles were real. We believe in the work on the cross, the atonement, the work on the cross. We believe it was for us. And so we ought to be the most assured people in the world because we take God at his word. And this is what he says. My sheep hear my voice. I give eternal life to them. They'll never perish. And then John 6, remember, where he says, I'll raise them up on the last day. He's not going to forgive us. He says, I'm going to raise up every last one of them. So we know that the Lord Jesus is going to do that for us. So a lot of people, when I come up to them, I say, are you a Christian? Do you have eternal life? And they'll say, I hope so. And I say, no way do you. I hope so. Now that's not the answer. Somebody said, if you go up to somebody and say, are you married? And they'll say, I hope so. No. If you're not married, you say, I hope to get married one day. I have all these pastors in West Africa, and I come up to them, and one of them says, Calvin, will you pray for me? I want to be married. Now, you remember, in their culture, it's very difficult to be married because it costs a lot of money to be married over there, and they're very poor. And so to pay almost anything or to have a service or anything, many of them can't afford it. So, you know, if they'll say, I hope to be married one day. But if you're married, you're either married or you're not married. You know, there is no middle ground. You're either married or you're not married. So either you're a believer or you're not a believer. And you put your trust in Jesus and you haven't put your trust in Jesus, which is it? So you see, it's not hard. We take God at His word. We say, yes, I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, I know He loves me. I know He died on the cross for me. I know that I have eternal life. Having eternal life is not a matter of pride. It's not, I'm a good person, so Jesus died for me because I'm such a good person. No, Jesus said, there's none good, no not one. None who does good, none who seeks for God. The rich young ruler says, good teacher, what must I do to be sighted? And he says, why do you call me good? There's nobody good but God. So here we are. And these are the things that we think about. Now, when we think about eternal life, last week we also talked about the fact that there's the internal testimony of God, the Holy Spirit, the internal testimony of God, the Holy Spirit. Remember that Romans 8 says, Romans 8, 14 through 17 says, the Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God. So you see, it's both external and internal. When I'm asked if I know that I'm a Christian, if I know that I'm a believer, I say yes, because I believe this Word that God has given to me in His Bible. I have believed that He that has the Son has life. So there's an external testimony for me that I have eternal life because I've done what it says here in the Bible. But there's also an internal testimony. There's an internal testimony because we have the Holy Spirit. The believer has been baptized into the body of Christ and has the Holy Spirit. If we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit testifies to our heart that we are the children of God. So you see, there's the external, the thing outside of us, the Word of God that says, yes, I have eternal life. There's the internal testimony that says, yes, I know because the Spirit testifies with my spirit that I have everlasting life. So there's both of those things, isn't there? Okay, so that's really good. We've got the outward and the inward. Believing the Bible and then believing the work of the Spirit inside. And then, we ought to say that the question is settled. The question is settled. How can I know that I'm born again? We've got all of these things that tell us. Okay, if I'm born again. So what's the next step after that I know that I'm born again? Well, one thing is to live a new life, right? We are to live the life that testifies to the reality of our faith. We are to live a different life. We are not to live like everybody else that lives on our street. Because not everybody that lives on our street is a believer. And a lot of those people are just going to live by their feelings. Or they're going to live by popular psychology, or they're going to live on the basis of popular culture. They're going to base their life on something they read somewhere sometime, some statement from Buddha. They're going to take some wild philosophy and they're going to say, I'm going to embrace that. Well, we don't want to live like they live. I finished this book just this summer on Stephen Jobs. And Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers, was a real character. I mean, that guy was a real character. He was hooked when he was a young person. He had all kinds of philosophies floating around in his head, and he kind of embraced a Buddhist viewpoint on life. And he was kind of a vegetarian. He was almost a vegan in many ways. He was very simple. He debated a year before he even bought a couch for his house. I mean, he's got billions of dollars, but he won't even buy a couch for his house. Because he looks and says, is it too elaborate, too ornate? Something like that. He wanted everything simple. So many of his rooms in his house didn't have any furniture in them. And yet he's one of the wealthiest men that we could name. But you can't live on the basis of how other people live. If you're a believer, you have to live on the basis of your walk with Christ and that in Christ you're a new creature. So as new creatures, we've got to live like new creatures. We've got to live like those who walk in faith. And when we live like that, that will make an impact on the culture. Remember this morning we talked about the fact that those believers lived so differently from the rest of the culture around them. They were so generous that if anybody had a need in the congregation, they just dug deep in their pockets and pulled out the money and they took care of it. They said they gave the money to the church and the church took care of it. If they had been kicked out of their home, it was the believers that took them in. If they didn't have any income, if they couldn't get a job because their family cut them off, if there was no allowance, if they had no access to anything where they could live in society, it was the believers that lived a different life and so they took them in and they cared for them. You see, this is what makes a testimony to the watching world. Francis Schaeffer, back in the 70s, wrote this book called The Church Before the Watching World. And he told us, he said, one of the things we have to do is to realize that the people out there, all around us, are watching. And they're going to see, they're going to ask questions about how we live and who we are. So the church before the watching world, people are going to watch us. So are you living that new life? If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things have passed away. The old, all things have become new. So we have to live that new life before the Lord Jesus Christ. to obey his commands and to follow his rules. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Now just because we're a new person in Christ doesn't mean that we don't sin anymore. A lot of people, you know, have that idea that, oh, they say, well, if he was a Christian, boy, he wouldn't have done that. I tell you what, if I was a Christian, I wouldn't do that. Now, I'm not a Christian, they'll say. I don't claim to be a Christian. But boy, that guy messed up his life royally, and I, you can't be a Christian because look how he acts. You know, that's what they say. But you know, we're sinners, aren't we? We're sinners. We do things wrong. We mess up. We ruin our testimony sometimes in the face of others. We get mad. We argue. We get upset with people. We say the wrong thing. We do things to hurt others. We cut people off. We're rude. You know, we're sinners. We have to apologize. But as believers, you know, we can't look at our life. You know, Satan would like to say, oh, look at how you acted with that person. You must not really be saved, because a saved person wouldn't do that. You know, that's one of the things that Satan does. He comes up behind you, and when you sin, he'll say, oh, you can't get forgiveness for that. You'll never get forgiveness for that one. You should never... How can you call yourself a believer if you do stuff like that? You know, he's not called the accuser for nothing. The accuser of the brethren for nothing. Because he puts those thoughts in our minds and hearts. And you know, you've seen believers that are really down and depressed. And you go to them and say, what's wrong? Say, I can't be a Christian because I did this, this, and this. And we have to go read them the gospel again and say, You know, if you did this and it's wrong, you need to confess it. If we confess our sins, use faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We all need to go back to God for forgiveness when we sin. We're never going to live a perfect day, though. And so you can't lose your assurance over the fact that you sin, because none of us are going to live a perfect day. You remember, in Romans chapter 7, people look at what Paul says there. Paul says, the good that I would do, I don't do, and the very evil that I hate, sometimes I do. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? You see, the Apostle Paul, as wonderful as he was, and as dedicated as he was, and yet he's centered just like you and I. And he went through difficult times where he jumped on himself the same way for the same reason. Why did I do that? The good that I would do, I didn't do. The very evil that I wouldn't want to do, that's what I ended up doing. And you know, we all say that because we're all just as guilty as Paul is in that. We struggle with our old nature. The believer has both a good nature that loves God and loves the law of God, and has an old nature that loves the law of sin and selfishness. And you know, we fight that battle every day, doesn't we? That old sinful nature that gets up with us every morning when we get up, and he says, let's do what I want to do today. Let's not read our Bible. Let's not pray. Let's not go to church. Let's stay home and indulge ourselves. Let's go do this today. Let's go do that today. You don't need to do that. You see, the old sinful nature is there. Satan and the old sinful nature, our enemies, the world, the flesh and the death. We're reminded of the very fact that we are self-centered, we're selfish, we're hateful. We've struggled with that old nature and it's going to be with us until we get out of this place and get to be with the Lord. And then we won't have it anymore and we'll be glorified and perfectly sanctified. And that'll be wonderful in and of itself. So none of us can live a perfect day. Don't let that steal your assurance. What must we realize now that we're believers? One of the things that we must realize not only is to live a new life because we're new creatures in Christ, but also we've been called as ambassadors or representatives of God. You know what an ambassador is? An ambassador is one that represents his kingdom or his country. And we represent the Lord Jesus Christ. We represent our King. And so we're to go in faithfulness and live for Him. We must go to others and invite them to follow us in this new life. Now, as ambassadors of Christ, I want to remind you of a couple of things. I want to remind you of the Great Commission. Here's what we have to do. Here's our work. The Great Commission says, Matthew 28, 19 and 20. Go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you." And notice the first thing he tells us to do. The first thing he tells us to do is go. You know, a lot of times what we try to do, and you know, and we all said it, is, We've got to put up a big sign. We've got to do this. We've got to get everything so people can come and hear. Well, the problem, y'all, is that with the flesh and the old nature and the world, there isn't anybody that really wants to come that's lost. They're not too excited about coming where they're going to hear that they're in need of salvation and that they're not a good person and that they need a Savior who's Christ the Lord, somebody they don't even want to believe in. So they're not going to be anxious to come here. So, you know, we wait and we hope and we have all of these other things and we try to put things out there for them and we try to make it attractive, but it's not going to be attracted to a heart that hates the Lord or hates the scriptures. So the thing we got to remember is we've got to be the ones that go get them. So we've got to go get them. We've got to go get them in our neighborhoods. among our friends, our relatives, our co-workers, our acquaintances, and the casual person that God throws into our life some way. So, close people to you, we've got family. We've got brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Let's work on me. And you got to go to them. We got to go to them and say, John, now you know where we stand as believers. And the thing in our life that's made the most difference of all is our relationship with Jesus Christ. I would love for you Sit down with me and look at the Bible with me and let's talk about how the Lord Jesus Christ lived, what he did, how he died, so that he could draw people like us into a relationship with him and give us eternal life and hope and joy. We can sit down with them and show them the simple things from the scripture. You don't have to have a PhD, you don't have to be a minister, you don't have to be a missionary, you don't have to be a Sunday school teacher. You can take the Bible, you can tell them your story, how you came to Christ, and you can show them the simplicity of the gospel, even in John 3, 16. The simplicity of the gospel, how God loves them, how Christ is the one who died for sinners, how He is the one who will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness and give us hope and joy in the future. That's not too complicated. We've got to go get people, sit down with them, tell them the way of salvation. Now, they may say, well, I don't want to believe what you say, but I'll go to your church maybe sometime. Well, maybe they will. But maybe the Holy Spirit will start attacking them too. The Holy Spirit will start convicting them of their sins on the basis of what you told. And they'll say, well, John was right. He told me the truth. I'm going to read my Bible. Somebody came after Mamadou, my big tall friend, you know that 6 feet 9 inches tall from Senegal? Started witnessing to him. Sat down with him, started witnessing to him. Gave him a Bible. He said, well, one day if I have nothing better to do, I'll read it. Well, one day the Lord got a hold of him, and he just said, oh, I'll pick it up. So he picked up the Bible and he started to read. And he started to read some more, and he started to read some more. And pretty soon he went to talk to that fellow that started witnessing to him. And when they talked, they were sharing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And finally the Holy Spirit was working on him, just hammering at Mamoudou's heart. Just hammering at him. And the Holy Spirit hammered at his heart until he just one day said, I give up, Lord. I give up. Jesus is the Savior. And he embraced the faith. You know, we've got to go get them and trust that the Holy Spirit will do that. Now, we not only have to go, but you know what? We have to go to everybody. I can't say, well I've got this neighbor over here and I don't even like him. This is the meanest neighbor I've ever had. This one lets his dogs out to poop in my yard and does all kinds of bad things to me, tears down my fence. doesn't cut his grass, and has chickens in the backyard, and they wake me up at night. You know, I don't want to go talk to him. And you know what? That's the very person we need to go talk to, isn't it? We need to go talk to that. Your nice neighbor on the other side, I mean, it's easy to talk to her. She's sweet as she can be, and we'd like to go talk to her. But we can't neglect that guy over there, because that guy may be the next Paul. He may be the one that hates Christians now, but as soon as you witness to him, the Holy Spirit gets a hold of him. Convert him and he may convert half the city of Johnson City. You never know. So we can't pick who we go to, right? That's the hard part sometimes. We can't just pick the nice people we like to go to. We've got to pick the others that need a Savior too. Because it says, go make disciples of all the nations, not just the ones we like. You remember Jonah, he said, I don't even like Nineveh. I don't want to go over there. Those people hate us. We don't like them and they don't like us. Why should I go to them? And God says, go to Nineveh and tell them about me. And the last thing I would say to you tonight is that you need to make disciples. We need to make disciples, not just church members. Because what did Jesus say? He says, Go, make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you. We've got to make disciples that are into obedience. They're going to do whatever Jesus says. That's how we've got to be. That's how they've got to be. And we've got to make disciples that make disciples, because He didn't tell us to stop once we've made a few and just quit because we were happy that we've reached four people. He says, go, make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever I command. And lo, I'm with you even to the end of the age. We've got to keep on. The process goes on until He comes back. Our job's not done until He either takes us out of this life or He ends history. So our job's not done until one of those takes place. So we've got to do that. Go, make disciples of all the nations, no matter whether we like them or not, and then teach them to observe whatsoever I've commanded you. Teach them to be, you know, they've got to be teachers. We've got to teach others who are going to teach others who are going to teach others. Because if not, then the Christian faith is going to die in one generation. If we don't teach others to teach others to teach others, then there's not going to be any Christians after we're gone, after we're dead and gone. Because if we're just going to reach our children and stop, or our neighbors and stop, then that's going to be the end of it. We've got to teach them to go reach their neighbors, and their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren. So it's got to go on like this. Okay. That's what it is, I think, when we look at the realm of where we are. We're to be believers. We're to trust in Christ with a real faith. He's to transform our life. We are His ambassadors, His representatives wherever we go, and we are to go and make disciples of all the nations and teach them to teach others to do everything Jesus commanded. Let's bow and pray. Father, so we come to you tonight as people that haven't done this. We haven't finished our job. We haven't talked to everybody we should. We, Father, haven't taken it as seriously as it is here in the Scriptures, as Jesus told us. And so we ask you to help us this week. Help us to begin with just one step, perhaps, to keep going and to go one more thing, to do one more thing that we that you tell us to do so that we can be your obedient servants and so that we can serve the kingdom which has no end. We pray in the mighty name of Jesus who is Savior and Lord and King. Amen.