The Lost Art of Discernment. What is True?

Introduction:

Hebrews 5:14 - But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

What is True? How to Be Sure You Have the Truth (1 John 4:1-6):

1. Don't be Gullible . (1 John:1)

   Leviticus 17:7 - So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore.

   Deuteronomy 32:17 - They sacrificed to demons that were no gods...

   1 Timothy 4:1 - Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons...

   James 3:15 - This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

   1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 - Do not despise prophecies, but test everything: hold fast to what is good.

2. Be Discerning . (1 John:2-6)

Three Questions to Ask About the Preacher:

1. What is he saying about Jesus ? (1 John:2-3)
2. Is he glorifying God or glorifying Me ? (1 John:4-5)
3. How does he respond to the Word ? (1 John:6)

   James 1:5 - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:48-00:52

  And our theme of the year is, “Let's Get Intentional”.

  00:54-00:56

  We started with intentional missions.

  00:58-01:02

  We talked about intentional faith as we walked through the book of James.

  01:03-01:06

  And just recently we had intentional hope.

  01:06-01:08

  What are we waiting for?

  01:08-01:10

  As we went through the Olivet discourse.

  01:12-01:19

  And for the next four weeks, The subject on the table is intentional wisdom.

  01:20-01:25

  And we are going after the lost art of discernment.

  01:25-01:27

  So let's just bow our heads.

  01:27-01:36

  I'm gonna ask that you would please pray for me because sometimes it's easier than others.

  01:39-01:43

  And I'd ask you please pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's word.

  01:44-01:50

  And I will pray for you to open up your hearts to receive what it is that God has said.

  01:50-01:51

  Let's pray.

  01:56-02:10

  Father, we ask once again that your name is glorified through your word, through our response to your word.

  02:12-02:12

  (congregation laughing)

  02:14-02:19

  Thank you, Father, for everything that you're going to accomplish through your word.

  02:21-02:22

  We pray in Jesus' name.

  02:23-02:26

  All of God's people said, amen.

  02:26-02:33

  Many years ago, I was at a conference, a pastor's conference in Chicago, and there were thousands of people there.

  02:35-02:53

  And who got up to speak, gave this, You want to call it a sermon, some kind of talk describing how God and Satan were fighting over his soul, which was put in a prison.

  02:58-03:08

  But you know what was almost more alarming than the guy's message was I was looking around the room at countless hundreds of people sitting there going, "Hmm, Amen.

  03:09-03:10

  taking notes on it.

  03:11-03:11

  It's like, what?

  03:13-03:20

  Then fast forward, I went to a, before this church had launched, we went to a very large church in this area.

  03:22-03:27

  And the pastor got up and his sermon was, "Every prayer that you pray, the answer is yes.

  03:28-03:30

  God's always gonna give you what you pray for.

  03:30-03:37

  And if for some reason you don't get it, well, that's what the parable of the soils is about." Matthew 13.

  03:38-03:42

  And he completely butchered and hacked the text.

  03:43-03:46

  I'm like, Matthew, that parable is about evangelism.

  03:47-03:49

  That has nothing to do with prayer.

  03:51-03:55

  And this idea that God's just gonna give you everything you want, well, that's nowhere in the Bible.

  03:57-03:59

  But you know what was almost more alarming than the guy's message?

  04:00-04:05

  Was the room full of people sitting around, oh, oh, amen, amen.

  04:07-04:08

  What?

  04:11-04:35

  Then fast forward a few more years, there was some men's thing gathering down, it was down at Genarostas, and the man got up and he gave some really weird message about the mind of Christ, how Jesus had a human brain and a divine brain, and the human brain of Jesus really wasn't good for anything except maybe geographically navigating around Israel.

  04:36-04:39

  but then there's this, you know, divine mind of Christ.

  04:39-04:47

  And it was just, I'm like ready to jump out of my skin, but you know what was almost more disturbing than the message?

  04:50-05:05

  As I was looking around the room and everybody, "Oh, oh, amen!" Popular preachers, very popular preachers with huge platforms.

  05:06-05:15

  One several years ago, you remember, his message was how Peter, James, and Paul unhitched themselves from the Old Testament.

  05:19-05:23

  And I'm sure people hearing that message were nodding and saying, amen.

  05:26-05:28

  Another very popular preacher with a message.

  05:30-05:45

  He talked about, you know, Like if a mom has her kid at the playground and the kid falls off the swing and gets hurt, the mom's gonna put him in the car and she's gonna speed to the hospital and she's going to ignore stop signs and traffic lights.

  05:46-05:48

  She will break the law because she loves her child so much.

  05:49-05:50

  And he said, that's the gospel.

  05:51-05:56

  The cross of Jesus Christ, God broke his own law because of his love for us.

  05:57-05:58

  A very popular preacher said that.

  06:03-06:09

  Do you even Bible? What are you talking about? Do you know the beauty of the gospel?

  06:09-06:28

  Is God fulfilled his law through Jesus Christ. But there were people nodding and saying amen. And that's why we're having this series. And it's You're gonna get real uncomfortable for a few weeks, okay?

  06:28-06:31

  But if you want comfort, buy a Lazy Boy.

  06:32-06:34

  This isn't about comfort here.

  06:35-06:40

  This is about allowing the word of God to challenge and change us, okay?

  06:42-06:48

  Because listen, the church at large has lost its ability to discern.

  06:49-06:50

  Like, well, what's discernment?

  06:51-07:01

  Discernment is just simply being able to tell what's real spiritual truth from God versus what is trash doctrine.

  07:03-07:05

  That's discernment, what's real and what's not.

  07:05-07:10

  And if we're not careful, church, we're going to lose our ability to discern.

  07:12-07:18

  My concern isn't for the church at large as much as it is for the church right here.

  07:19-07:21

  This is where my concern is.

  07:22-07:36

  My concern is for people here who love the Lord, who love His Word, and who are being led astray by countless opportunities to hear false teaching in our day.

  07:38-08:03

  Whether it's on the internet, listening to podcasts, your favorite preacher on YouTube, Never has lack of discernment and the danger of false teaching, never has it been a bigger problem because never have we had so much access to it.

  08:04-08:05

  Do you know what I'm talking about?

  08:06-08:08

  A little computer you carry around.

  08:13-08:20

  People have become so unwise in who they follow, who they listen to, who they read.

  08:23-08:32

  And it's also unpopular now more than ever to point to something and say, no, no, this is wrong.

  08:33-08:34

  This is false.

  08:37-08:44

  And that's why it's gonna get uncomfortable in here because we are conditioned that it's bad to say that.

  08:44-09:05

  Why can't we say something is wrong is false because it makes people feel bad. Let's be honest. You can't say this is wrong because somebody who believes that is gonna feel bad about that. So we just accept everything. You know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about? Let me give you an example.

  09:10-09:10

  Catholicism.

  09:16-09:18

  Do you feel that tension in the room?

  09:20-09:20

  (congregation laughing)

  09:20-09:21

  Do you feel that?

  09:22-09:30

  Because there's people right now, they're like, "What's he gonna say?" Let's just be honest.

  09:30-09:33

  I'm not very good at sugarcoating things, but let's just be honest.

  09:33-09:34

  It's a sacred cow.

  09:38-09:44

  But it's also a religion that has countless unbiblical doctrines.

  09:45-09:49

  Like, you know you can't say that, Jeff, because my grandma's Catholic.

  09:50-09:53

  I'm sure your grandma's a lovely person.

  09:53-09:57

  And I have many Catholic friends and family.

  09:57-10:03

  And you're like, probably not after this sermon, but like, I love Catholic people.

  10:04-10:06

  But let me ask you, have you ever read the catechism?

  10:06-10:07

  I have.

  10:09-10:15

  And in that book of their teaching, there are unbiblical things taught.

  10:17-10:23

  But we're supposed to ignore that because it might make somebody feel bad if we point that out.

  10:27-10:30

  Years ago, I taught, it was up at the Butler High School.

  10:30-10:31

  There was a community religions class.

  10:32-10:38

  They brought all these different religions in and they had a week to tell the kids, here's what we teach if you come to our church kind of thing.

  10:39-10:43

  So I'm like, oh, this is primo opportunity to share the gospel, right?

  10:44-10:48

  But I asked the teacher who I found out the teacher went to a local church.

  10:49-10:54

  So before class started the one day, I asked her, I said, look, I can ask you a question.

  10:54-11:03

  I said, do you ever struggle with all these like cults that come in and teach their thing, right?

  11:03-11:04

  Do you ever struggle with that?

  11:05-11:06

  She goes, oh no.

  11:07-11:22

  I'm like, "Oh, why doesn't that bother you?" She goes, "You can't ever tell anybody that they're wrong." And I said, "Well, sure you can.

  11:24-11:25

  "It's easy.

  11:26-11:27

  "Don't believe me?

  11:27-11:29

  "Watch, somebody shout out, help me out.

  11:29-11:30

  "This is just for funsies.

  11:31-11:32

  "Show you how easy it is.

  11:32-11:42

  "Somebody shout out, "'There are many ways to get to heaven.' "Shout it out." wrong because Jesus said that he's the only way.

  11:43-11:43

  See how easy that was?

  11:50-11:54

  But listen, my friends, this is exactly what the church is supposed to do.

  11:55-11:56

  Are you serious about your job?

  11:56-11:58

  I'm serious about mine.

  11:59-12:03

  And my job is to help you know Christ and to grow in your walk.

  12:04-12:10

  And that means to grow in our walks, We have to know what is true and what is not true.

  12:13-12:17

  And that requires you to do some training.

  12:18-12:20

  All right, Hebrews 5.14.

  12:21-12:23

  Can we get this on the screen, please?

  12:23-12:24

  There we go, thank you.

  12:25-12:38

  It says, "But solid food is for the mature, "for those who have their," look at this, "powers of discernment trained by constant practice." to distinguish good from evil.

  12:39-12:41

  That verse says a lot, we covered Hebrews.

  12:41-12:42

  What was that, last year?

  12:44-12:47

  But a couple of things to point out there, my friends, growth is not instant.

  12:48-12:52

  It's not like you come to Christ and poof, instantly mature, it's a process.

  12:56-13:05

  And to grow in maturity in your walk with Christ, which is why I imagine you're here, I'm gonna grow in my walk with Christ, great, same agenda.

  13:05-13:11

  And what that means according to God's word is you must train and learn how to discern.

  13:16-13:25

  Your growth is learning to say what is true and what is false.

  13:27-13:35

  It's what is of God and what is not of God.

  13:35-13:59

  God. It's, and it gets even deeper than that. It's this process of making careful distinctions in your thinking. And you're like, does it really matter? Does it Does it really matter?

  14:01-14:04

  I mean, okay, so people might teach things differently.

  14:05-14:06

  Like, does it really matter?

  14:09-14:10

  Well, let me ask you this.

  14:10-14:17

  If you went to the doctor, because let's just pretend you had the most debilitating migraines.

  14:17-14:22

  Like you can't even think when these migraines come on.

  14:22-14:24

  You can't function, you can't work.

  14:24-14:27

  You can't do anything when these migraines come on.

  14:27-14:34

  And you go to the doctor and you say, "Doctor, I gotta do something about these migraines.

  14:34-14:36

  Like, what could it be, doctor?

  14:36-14:38

  Tell me what's causing these migraines.

  14:38-14:40

  Is it my diet?

  14:40-14:41

  Is it something I'm eating?

  14:41-14:43

  Am I sitting too close to the TV?

  14:43-14:45

  My mom warned me about that.

  14:45-14:54

  I mean, could I have a tumor?" Imagine if the doctor just goes, "Well, it could be whatever you want.

  14:57-14:58

  I'm sorry, what?

  14:59-15:01

  Doctor's like, it can be whatever you want it to be.

  15:03-15:06

  As long as you really are sincere in what you believe about that.

  15:10-15:14

  You would be like, I'm not getting billed for this, am I?

  15:16-15:17

  Are you serious?

  15:17-15:20

  But that sounds, that's you're like, that's goofy, right?

  15:20-15:26

  Well, we acknowledge that there's absolutes in every other area of life, right?

  15:27-15:33

  math and science, but when it comes to spiritual matters, it's anything goes there, right?

  15:34-15:35

  And I would say, no.

  15:36-15:40

  Spiritually, there's a lot more at stake.

  15:42-15:44

  So you better be sure you have the truth.

  15:45-15:47

  So in your outline today, what is true?

  15:51-15:53

  How to be sure that you have the truth.

  15:56-15:57

  Two points today.

  16:00-16:01

  Number one, write this down.

  16:02-16:03

  How to be sure you have the truth.

  16:03-16:04

  Number one, don't be gullible.

  16:05-16:06

  Don't be gullible.

  16:09-16:10

  Look at verse one.

  16:12-16:34

  John says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, "but test the spirits to see whether they are from God "For many false prophets have gone out into the world." Don't be gullible.

  16:35-16:36

  Look at this verse.

  16:36-16:41

  Okay, first of all, he says, "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit." Wait, wait, wait, hang on a second.

  16:43-16:44

  What's he talking about?

  16:45-16:48

  How can I test a spirit?

  16:48-16:49

  Like, what does he mean?

  16:50-16:54

  Well, this passage, obviously, he's talking about using discernment.

  16:56-16:59

  You're like, okay, well then why does he phrase it this way?

  17:01-17:01

  Here's why.

  17:03-17:12

  Do you realize every religious idea, every spiritual idea out there has one of two sources.

  17:13-17:17

  It's either from God or it's from Satan.

  17:20-17:24

  With Satan, we are going to lump in the demons.

  17:25-17:31

  But every spiritual religious idea has either come from heaven or it's come from hell.

  17:31-17:34

  It's come from God or it's come from Satan.

  17:35-17:52

  You remember Genesis chapter three, Garden of Eden, Satan's oldest and most effective ploy is getting people to doubt God's word and then getting people to deny God's word.

  17:53-17:59

  And it's all through the Bible, God reveals truth, Satan comes along and he counters it with lies.

  18:03-18:11

  But here's the point, my friends, false teaching, false religion is demonic.

  18:13-18:24

  So anything that speaks to the spiritual realm, God, heaven, et cetera, it's either from God or it's from demons.

  18:26-18:26

  Not my opinion.

  18:27-18:30

  Let me give you a few verses to show you what I'm talking about.

  18:30-18:32

  This comes up in the Old Testament, actually.

  18:32-18:36

  Look at the Old Testament law, Leviticus, what, 17, seven.

  18:41-18:54

  It says, "So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices "to goat demons after whom they whore." They thought they were sacrificing to gods.

  18:54-18:57

  God says they're actually sacrificing to demons.

  18:58-19:04

  Deuteronomy 32, 17 says they sacrificed to demons that were no gods.

  19:04-19:05

  There it is again.

  19:05-19:09

  They thought, yeah, they thought they were sacrificing to a God.

  19:11-19:13

  There's a demon behind it.

  19:14-19:16

  The demon behind the false religion.

  19:18-19:21

  Like, okay, Pastor Jeff, That's so Old Testament of you.

  19:22-19:24

  But I don't know if you've noticed, but we live in a New Testament.

  19:24-19:26

  Well, okay, write this one down then.

  19:26-19:42

  1 Timothy 4, 1 says, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of," Oh, what's it say?

  19:44-19:45

  Go ahead, you can say it.

  19:45-19:46

  (congregation laughing)

  19:49-19:50

  So where does the false teaching come from?

  19:52-19:52

  It's demonic.

  19:55-19:57

  Like, well, Paul laid it on pretty thick.

  19:57-19:59

  Is that like really a New Testament thing?

  19:59-20:03

  Well, remember earlier in the year, James, we went through James, right?

  20:03-20:04

  James 3, 15.

  20:04-20:05

  Look what it says.

  20:06-20:17

  It says, "This is not the wisdom that comes down from above "comparing with God's wisdom." He goes, "No, no, this false wisdom that you subscribe to, he describes it in three ways.

  20:18-20:21

  It's earthly, it's unspiritual, and what's the last word?

  20:23-20:24

  It's demonic.

  20:26-20:27

  So listen, that's why this is so important.

  20:27-20:32

  False teaching isn't just a little bit wrong, it's demonic.

  20:35-20:36

  It's pure evil.

  20:38-20:49

  And that's why John says here in verse one, "Do not believe every spirit." John is saying not every spirit is the Holy Spirit.

  20:50-20:51

  Don't be gullible.

  20:53-20:58

  Literally in the Greek, better translated, this is, he's saying stop it.

  20:59-21:02

  He's saying stop believing everything that you hear.

  21:03-21:03

  Stop it.

  21:04-21:06

  Stop believing every spirit.

  21:07-21:07

  Stop it.

  21:09-21:09

  Stop it.

  21:10-21:11

  Stop believing church.

  21:11-21:14

  Stop believing everything you see on Christian TV.

  21:16-21:20

  Stop believing everything that you hear on Christian.

  21:22-21:31

  Stop believing everything you see on YouTubes, every conference you go to, everything you hear in a podcast.

  21:31-21:34

  Stop believing everything that you hear.

  21:34-21:39

  And you're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, they quote scripture." So does Satan, okay?

  21:39-21:46

  Stop believing everything you hear just because somebody put a sticker on it that says this is Christian.

  21:48-21:50

  That's what John is saying.

  21:50-21:50

  Stop it.

  21:52-21:53

  Stop it.

  21:55-21:57

  I've been suckered as a young believer.

  21:57-22:01

  I remember new Christian, we're going back to like 1995, new Christian.

  22:02-22:11

  And I wanted more than anything to learn and grow in my walk And I remember, I shared this story before, I'm embarrassed to have to say it again.

  22:11-22:12

  Here we go.

  22:13-22:19

  I wanted to grow my walk and somehow I subscribed, I found these like Christian magazines.

  22:19-22:24

  I subscribed to Charisma Magazine.

  22:24-22:26

  Look, I didn't know any better, okay?

  22:27-22:29

  Stop laughing at me, I didn't know.

  22:34-22:37

  but it was article after article of the Toronto blessing.

  22:38-22:39

  Remember the Toronto blessing?

  22:41-22:44

  Uncontrolled laughing, barking like dogs.

  22:45-22:47

  It was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

  22:48-22:51

  I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

  22:51-22:54

  Something tells me I just wasted a lot of money on a magazine subscription.

  22:58-23:03

  But I learned very early what John is saying right here.

  23:05-23:07

  Not everything called Christian is from God.

  23:08-23:11

  And Satan is not going to make it obvious.

  23:13-23:16

  He's going to make it sound spiritual.

  23:17-23:19

  He's gonna make it sound good.

  23:19-23:24

  But I need to remind you that subtlety and deception is how he plays.

  23:27-23:28

  Don't be gullible.

  23:30-23:36

  Look at verse one again, it says, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

  23:39-23:39

  This is widespread.

  23:41-23:41

  It's everywhere.

  23:43-23:45

  You know, I was thinking about this New Testament-wise.

  23:45-23:55

  There's only one book in the entire New Testament that I could think of that doesn't address false teaching or false teachers on some level, and that's the book of Philemon.

  23:56-24:03

  I was kind of going through my head, like, it just seems like every book addresses this issue because it is so widespread.

  24:04-24:06

  We just went through the Olivet Discourse.

  24:06-24:08

  Remember what Jesus said, Matthew 24?

  24:08-24:11

  "Beware of false Christs, false prophets.

  24:11-24:16

  "See that no one leads you astray." And you're like, "I'm ready, Pastor Jeff.

  24:16-24:17

  "I'm ready for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

  24:17-24:18

  "I'm ready for the Mormons.

  24:19-24:29

  "I'm ready for the Christian scientists." I'm like, "Those ones are obvious." I'm more concerned about the ones that present themselves as biblical.

  24:30-24:31

  That's who concerns me.

  24:35-24:46

  1 Thessalonians 5 says, "Do not despise prophecies, "but," look at this, "test everything.

  24:48-24:53

  "Hold fast to what is good." Listen, my friends, you have to test everything.

  24:55-24:58

  Every spiritual teaching you hear, you have to test it.

  25:02-25:05

  And right now somebody's like, "Oh, I get it, Pastor Jeff.

  25:05-25:06

  Okay, okay.

  25:07-25:09

  So just believe you then, right?

  25:10-25:25

  Just believe you." And I would say, "Yeah, believe me." This church is committed to preaching God's Word straightforwardly.

  25:25-25:26

  No gimmicks.

  25:28-25:35

  But I strongly encourage you to test every single word that I say.

  25:40-26:02

  Everything that's preached in this church, whether it's me or Taylor or one of our elders, you have to ask yourself, "Is that really what the Bible says?" After every sermon, you should be able to go home, open up the text that we covered, You should be able to look at the text and say, "Oh, I see why he said that.

  26:02-26:03

  It's right there.

  26:03-26:05

  Oh, okay, that makes sense.

  26:05-26:08

  All right, I see why he said the things that he did.

  26:08-26:14

  It comes right from there." Don't be gullible.

  26:15-26:21

  Any teaching that you hear must be tested with the word of God.

  26:25-26:26

  Number two, don't be gullible.

  26:27-26:29

  What is true, how to be sure you have the truth.

  26:29-26:30

  John says, don't be gullible.

  26:32-26:35

  Stop believing everything.

  26:38-26:40

  Don't be gullible, but number two, be discerning.

  26:41-26:41

  Be discerning.

  26:43-26:47

  Okay, so John's like, test the spirits.

  26:48-26:48

  Like, great.

  26:50-26:51

  How do I do that?

  26:51-27:45

  Can you be a little more specific to test the spirits. And John's like, "Coming right up on your outline. Three questions to ask about the preacher." And when I say preacher, we're including the podcaster or the YouTuber or anybody that you're listening to that is making some kind of spiritual claim. These are three questions to ask about the preacher. Even preacher standing right here. Okay? We're not exempt. Test everything. First question, letter A. What is he saying about Jesus? What is he saying about Jesus, look at verse two.

  27:45-28:02

  He says, "By this, you know the Spirit of God." Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

  28:03-28:04

  Stop there.

  28:04-28:11

  The first question you have to ask anytime you hear spiritual teaching is what is he saying about Jesus?

  28:11-28:21

  Because according to the Bible and the incarnation, Jesus Christ is 100% God and 100% human.

  28:23-28:31

  The Bible teaches that God became a man to die as a man for man.

  28:32-28:38

  And without getting that doctrine right, nothing else that we talk about here really matters.

  28:41-28:43

  Then he says the same thing in the negative.

  28:43-28:44

  Look at verse three.

  28:45-28:58

  He says, "And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God." Okay, here it is, easy test.

  28:59-29:06

  They don't confess Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man.

  29:07-29:11

  They don't confess Jesus, then they're not from God.

  29:13-29:20

  By the way, that's a common trait of heresies, of cults, denying the deity of Jesus Christ.

  29:22-29:24

  Kind of a meatball test.

  29:24-29:25

  It's easy.

  29:25-29:26

  What do they say about Jesus?

  29:29-29:31

  Well, like in Islam, Jesus is just a prophet of God.

  29:32-29:32

  Jesus was a Muslim.

  29:33-29:35

  Jesus is second only to Muhammad.

  29:37-29:39

  In Hinduism, Jesus was an empowered incarnation.

  29:40-29:41

  He was murdered.

  29:41-29:43

  He wasn't resurrected, but he was reincarnated.

  29:43-29:50

  In Hinduism, I'm sorry, in Judaism, Jesus is the most damaging of all the false messiahs.

  29:51-29:57

  In Buddhism, the modern Buddhists have said that Jesus was Buddha reincarnated.

  29:57-29:59

  He was an enlightened man.

  30:00-30:02

  The Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus isn't God.

  30:03-30:11

  He was in pre-incarnate form, pre-existent form in heaven as Michael the archangel.

  30:13-30:15

  Mormons say that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer.

  30:17-30:24

  Scientology says that Jesus is not God, but it doesn't really matter who or what Jesus is because we don't need him.

  30:24-30:25

  Man is good enough.

  30:26-30:28

  We can free ourselves.

  30:33-30:36

  You always have to examine what is being said about Jesus.

  30:37-30:38

  Look at verse 3 again.

  30:41-31:07

  He says, "This is the Spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming, and now is in the world already." You see, whatever is not from God, whatever does not line up with His Word, John says, is the spirit of the antichrist.

  31:08-31:14

  Like antichrist, that sounds like, isn't that like the book of Revelation, End Times, eschatology stuff?

  31:15-31:15

  Yeah.

  31:16-31:19

  Revelation talks about the last antichrist.

  31:22-31:28

  But John says, this spirit is already at work in the world right now.

  31:32-31:33

  It's all around us.

  31:35-31:39

  So many times I've heard people professing Christians.

  31:40-31:45

  One guy was even a professing missionary.

  31:46-31:49

  But I've heard so many people applaud Islam.

  31:50-31:50

  You've heard it.

  31:50-32:03

  People say, "Well, Muslims just call God Allah, but it's a wonderful religion." Well, they don't confess Jesus Christ.

  32:08-32:10

  So what does that make Islam?

  32:11-32:20

  Well, according to verse three, that makes Islam not from God and the spirit of the antichrist.

  32:22-32:31

  So any teaching you hear, and right now, if you're like, I ain't never come back to this church again.

  32:31-32:37

  Okay, the next church you go to, listen real closely to what they say about Jesus.

  32:39-32:41

  That's what John's telling us.

  32:43-32:47

  First test. First question to ask about the preacher.

  32:48-32:51

  What they say about Jesus, does it line up with what the Bible says?

  32:52-32:54

  Next question, letter B.

  32:56-32:59

  Three questions to ask about the preacher. Is he glorifying God or glorifying me?

  33:01-33:09

  Verse 4, "Little children, you are from God.

  33:11-33:13

  and have overcome them.

  33:14-33:24

  For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." I love that, little children.

  33:24-33:26

  How would you feel if I called you little children?

  33:31-33:33

  Try that sometime, not today.

  33:35-33:40

  But I love this because John is feeling the, Maybe he's feeling the pressure here, right?

  33:40-33:45

  Gotta relieve some pressure a little bit by dropping in a word of encouragement right here.

  33:46-33:48

  Verse four, "Are you a true believer?

  33:48-34:00

  Well, listen, if you're a true believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit is going to protect you from being lied to." And John talks a lot about that, especially in chapter two of 1 John.

  34:00-34:03

  This is why your walk with Christ is so important.

  34:04-34:07

  Your time in the word is so important.

  34:07-34:11

  your time privately praying alone on your face before God.

  34:11-34:14

  That's why these things are so important.

  34:20-34:22

  The Holy Spirit will protect you from being lied to.

  34:25-34:33

  But another big question you need to ask about the preacher is their message glorifying God or is it glorifying me?

  34:33-34:34

  Look at verse five.

  34:35-34:39

  It says, "They are from the world.

  34:41-34:49

  Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them." Stop there.

  34:50-35:03

  Like, wait, with these false teachers, with all these cults and just this trash doctrine being spewed, like why in the world does the world listen to them?

  35:03-35:12

  How do these people that are preaching these false messages, how are they filling, some of them are filling these massive auditoriums?

  35:15-35:20

  Well, John tells us right here, in many cases, they're just telling people what they wanna hear.

  35:24-35:25

  You've heard those messages, right?

  35:27-35:29

  The sermons go something like this.

  35:32-35:40

  And listen, if somebody cuts this as an edit, I'm going to be really upset.

  35:41-35:43

  But their sermons go something like this.

  35:44-35:46

  God wants to give you everything.

  35:48-35:52

  Everything that your heart desires, that's what God wants to give you.

  35:53-35:58

  Listen, you have the power to forge your own destiny.

  35:59-36:00

  You have the power.

  36:00-36:13

  And if you just believe God is going to make you whole and he's going to make you wealthy and you're a child of the king and he's expecting you to live like that.

  36:14-36:17

  And it is never the will of God that you suffer.

  36:21-36:26

  Oh, and then you sprinkle in a few random out of context verses in a sermon like that.

  36:29-36:33

  And the world hears that, and they're like, oh yeah, that's the kind of religion that I want.

  36:35-36:39

  Money, physical health, God giving me what I want.

  36:39-36:40

  Like who's not gonna sign up for that?

  36:41-36:42

  But it's not true.

  36:44-36:49

  We put the spotlight off of Jesus, and we put it onto me.

  36:49-36:54

  And self-centered teaching attracts self-centered people.

  36:56-37:03

  And we measure success with numbers and we somehow equate that with authenticity.

  37:07-37:07

  It's not.

  37:08-37:09

  It's a huge red flag.

  37:11-37:18

  When the focus of preaching is our benefit, not God's glory.

  37:21-37:27

  All that might be attractive to you, but it's not attractive to God.

  37:29-37:35

  So I asked about the preacher, is he glorifying God or is he glorifying me?

  37:37-37:39

  Then letter C, can we handle one more?

  37:40-37:44

  Letter C, three questions to ask about the preacher.

  37:44-37:46

  How does he respond to the word?

  37:47-37:48

  How does he respond to the word?

  37:48-37:49

  Look at verse six.

  37:52-37:58

  John says, "We are from God." Whoever knows God listens to us.

  38:02-38:07

  Whoever is not from God does not listen to us.

  38:10-38:16

  By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

  38:20-38:23

  Okay, whoever knows God listens to us.

  38:24-38:27

  Obviously he's talking about those who preach the word.

  38:28-38:36

  And John is saying that when the word is preached, the people that really love God are going to respond to the word of God.

  38:37-38:41

  But then he says, whoever is not from God does not listen to us.

  38:45-38:48

  You don't belong to Jesus if you don't listen to his word.

  38:53-38:56

  But this is one way to discover a false teacher.

  38:57-39:00

  Show them what the Bible says and see how they respond.

  39:04-39:05

  Have you ever done that?

  39:07-39:17

  I think many, many years ago, I had these Mormon missionaries coming to my house and I was trying to reach them with the gospel.

  39:18-39:25

  And one time we sat down and we were talking and I was trying to share with him what the Bible says about Jesus and salvation.

  39:25-39:32

  And the one missionary, he kept going back to this is what we are taught in Mormonism and this is what we believe.

  39:32-39:39

  And I said, "Why do you believe that?" Getting down to the source of authority question, right?

  39:39-39:56

  I'm like, "How do you know that the Book of Mormon is true?" And he said, "I know it's true, because when I read it, I got a burning in my bosom." That's the thing.

  39:57-39:58

  That's the thing, look it up.

  39:59-40:00

  I'm like, you know what?

  40:00-40:05

  I had a burning in my bosom last week, but it was because I ate too many curly fries.

  40:07-40:11

  How was a burning in the bosom the authenticator of truth?

  40:11-40:12

  (congregation laughing)

  40:19-40:22

  But he didn't wanna hear what God said.

  40:22-40:23

  You see, that's the point.

  40:24-40:29

  How does the preacher, how does the missionary, how does this religious teacher respond to the word of God?

  40:33-40:38

  Another time, Aaron and I were talking to this lady who was part of the Jehovah's Witness cult.

  40:39-40:44

  And I was talking, they believe that heaven and earth are eternal.

  40:44-40:49

  And I was talking to her about how, no, God's going to burn up a new one, right?

  40:50-40:52

  And my mic cut out, did you hear that?

  40:52-40:54

  God's gonna burn this one down and make a new one.

  40:54-40:55

  Wanna make sure you got that.

  40:56-40:56

  He totally is.

  40:57-41:04

  Well, anyways, the lady was like, "No, he's not." I'm like, "Well, that's what the Bible says." She goes, "The Bible doesn't say that." So I open up the Bible.

  41:04-41:09

  I'm like, "Look, right here." And I showed her and she goes, Well, I've never seen that before.

  41:11-41:20

  I'm like, oh, well, I'll let the Lord know that if you haven't seen it, it might not be true.

  41:23-41:31

  So many times with so many different cults, I have tried to show them what the word of God says, and it's always the same result.

  41:31-41:33

  I don't really care what that says.

  41:33-41:35

  This is what our doctrine teaches.

  41:35-41:37

  That is a huge red flag.

  41:38-41:40

  How do they respond to the word of God?

  41:42-41:47

  Our worship team would make their way back up to the platform.

  41:50-42:00

  Listen, my brothers and sisters in Christ, the way you respond to the word of God says everything about where your heart is.

  42:01-42:07

  And that is absolutely true of false teachers too.

  42:10-42:18

  This is exactly why God gave us a book.

  42:19-42:22

  Do you realize the brilliant wisdom of that?

  42:23-42:27

  Because anybody can just walk around and say, "Hey, God told me this.

  42:27-42:28

  "Hey, guess what God told me.

  42:28-42:32

  "Hey, hey, God told me this." Anybody can do that.

  42:33-42:53

  So God gave us His Word in written form so that we can read it, and so that we can understand it, and so that we can compare what we hear with it.

  42:54-43:00

  And we can know for sure what's from God.

  43:02-43:14

  and what's not. So would you please stand and we're going to worship the living Word of God.

Small Group Discussion
Read 1 John 4:1-6

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. Have you ever believed wrong doctrine at some point in your life, and God’s Word corrected you? Explain.
   

3. How can you tell if someone quoting the Bible is quoting it accurately?
   

4. How would you approach a friend or a fellow church / SG member who is listening to a Podcaster/YouTuber that you know is teaching unbiblical things?

Breakout
Pray for one another to grow in discernment.

---

Want more eschatology teaching?

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through Revelation

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through 2 Thessalonians

A Worthy Life

Introduction:

A Worthy Life (Philippians 1:27-29):

1. Stand firm in Unity . (Phil 1:27)

   Phil 2:3-4 - Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

2. Have no Fear . (Phil 1:28)

   Isaiah 41:10 - Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

   Phil 4:6-7 - Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus.

3. Receive the Gift of Suffering. (Phil 1:29)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  00:00-01:02

  Good morning That was better than I expected actually good job, so well done I don't have to have to have you do it again As Taylor said if those of you who don't know me My name is Brian and I'm not one of the elders or pastors here at harvest. In fact, just a couple years ago my family and I we just happened to wander into this church and honestly I don't remember much about the sermon. Sorry Jeff. I don't remember much about the service But what I do remember is it was the 11th anniversary of the church and you guys had a fish taco truck in the parking lot. And I tell you what, those fish tacos were Incredible and ever since then. we've had our assigned seats right over here first service at Harvest Bible Chapel. But in all seriousness, it's a it's a real honor and a privilege to be bringing the word to you this morning and service and tell you the real story of how my family and I were brought here by the Lord a few years ago.

  01:03-01:07

  So to start out this morning, I want to ask you a question. Okay, it's easy so you can relax.

  01:08-01:15

  But raise your hand if you've ever been a part of a group or an association or a club of any kind. Raise your hand.

  01:16-01:22

  Okay, that's what I thought. I told you it was easy, right? Every hand is up in the room or was up in the room.

  01:22-01:26

  We've all been a part of a group of some kind in our lives.

  01:29-01:40

  And another question you can kind of think about here to get us started is some of the expectations or the requirements of being in that group.

  01:40-01:54

  Some of them have been said or some of them were unsaid, but there's always these rules or these things that you need to do, some ways that you need to conduct yourself, some ways that you need to speak or even dress as being a part of that group or that club, right?

  01:55-02:00

  The fact is that almost all groups have these types of things, these types of club rules.

  02:02-02:03

  So let me give you an example for myself.

  02:04-02:13

  Maybe you can relate to this, but I think back to those really amazing, fantastic, life-changing, seventh and eighth grade middle school years.

  02:14-02:15

  They were great, right?

  02:15-02:17

  Maybe you had a similar experience.

  02:17-02:20

  Maybe they were good for you as well, but they left a really positive impression on my life.

  02:21-02:29

  And those seventh and eighth grade years, we had some club rules, whether you like them or not, and you were assigned into a club, right?

  02:29-02:31

  And you had to follow these rules.

  02:31-02:37

  And at least at the school I was in, at that time in seventh and eighth grade, a lot of these rules revolved around what you were supposed to wear.

  02:38-02:43

  And this drove my parents crazy when it came time for back to school shopping.

  02:43-02:48

  Because here's the thing, I didn't really fit really well into any one particular group.

  02:49-02:50

  I was more of like a survivalist.

  02:51-02:57

  I just wanted to get through the day, get through the year, get through seventh and eighth grade alive.

  02:57-02:59

  I did, thank the Lord.

  02:59-03:02

  I just wanted to skate through under the radar.

  03:02-03:04

  So what did that mean when it came to back-to-school shopping?

  03:04-03:08

  Well, I couldn't buy corduroys because that's what the skaters wore, right?

  03:09-03:11

  I couldn't wear too many polos because I wasn't preppy enough.

  03:13-03:19

  And I couldn't buy too much Nike or Adidas because, well, I wasn't enough of a jock to wear that all the time, right?

  03:20-03:24

  And I couldn't wear too much black because, well, that was reserved for the emos, right?

  03:25-03:36

  If you don't know what an emo is, ask somebody who's around 40 years old, that's my age, and they probably still won't be able to explain it to you, but it was a thing and they wore black and so I couldn't wear the black, right?

  03:39-03:39

  Okay, well, how about this one?

  03:39-03:40

  We can all relate to this one, right?

  03:41-03:50

  Whether you embrace it or whether you kind of cringe at it a little bit, but those of us that are natives born and raised to Western Pennsylvania, like myself included, we're part of a club too, right?

  03:52-03:54

  You can always tell a Western Pennsylvanian by the way we talk.

  03:54-03:58

  And I'm not just talking about the, you know, the downtown Yinzer accent, not just that.

  03:59-04:04

  But if you're from Western Pennsylvania, you've probably used words like slippy or gum band, right?

  04:05-04:16

  Or maybe you order dippy eggs at the restaurant, or you call your shopping cart a buggy for some weird reason, maybe you even use the word yinz, or when you go to the deli, do you order chipped ham?

  04:17-04:21

  Try doing that at any other part of the country and you'll get some really strange looks, right?

  04:21-04:34

  Or, okay, staying on the Western Pennsylvania thing, if you're part of that club, it's basically a requirement that you have to be over the top, passionate, borderline crazy in your love for all things black and gold, right?

  04:35-04:35

  Am I right?

  04:35-04:36

  Okay, all right.

  04:36-04:38

  And if you don't believe me, just ask anybody.

  04:38-04:41

  He's not here this service, but Brock Nardozzi, if you know him, right?

  04:41-04:42

  He's not from around here.

  04:43-04:45

  Born and raised Florida guy.

  04:45-04:46

  He's a Tampa Bay boy.

  04:46-04:51

  And he has the privilege of watching sports with an over the top black and gold family, right?

  04:52-04:52

  We're crazy.

  04:54-04:57

  Any call that doesn't go our way, it's the ref's fault.

  04:58-05:00

  Any game that we lose, it was rigged.

  05:00-05:01

  Never our fault, right?

  05:02-05:03

  You get the point.

  05:04-05:05

  All right, one more example.

  05:06-05:07

  bring it closer to home, right?

  05:09-05:10

  How about your family?

  05:11-05:13

  We're all part of a family in some way.

  05:14-05:16

  Does your family have any club rules?

  05:17-05:24

  Any ways that the members of your family are expected to conduct themselves, to talk, to carry themselves?

  05:25-05:36

  Maybe growing up your parents said things like, "Act like a Miller," or "Browns never do that." Or maybe it was like my family where the rules weren't really spoken so much, but they were exemplified.

  05:37-05:40

  They were just things that you needed to live up to.

  05:41-05:47

  Based on your family culture, you had to watch your siblings and watch your parents and learn.

  05:48-05:53

  And if your family had a solid identity, then you were expected to toe the line.

  05:53-05:58

  You were expected to do and say things that were consistent with your family identity.

  05:59-06:00

  You following me?

  06:01-06:01

  Club rules.

  06:03-06:03

  Okay.

  06:04-06:09

  Now by this point, you might be saying, "Okay, Preacher Man Brian, this is great, but what's the point?

  06:09-06:11

  This is Harvest Bible Chapel.

  06:11-06:12

  We preach the Bible.

  06:12-06:13

  None of this is in the Bible.

  06:14-06:20

  So where are we going with this?" If that's your thought, I'm actually glad for that, because yes, we do preach the Bible here.

  06:20-06:47

  And what we're gonna look at today is a specific passage in scripture that's gonna give us some very clear instruction, some club rules, if you will, on how we, as members of this family, this club, this group, those of us together here today, that profess faith in Christ, how we are supposed to conduct ourselves according to Scripture.

  06:48-06:57

  So we're gonna look at what Scripture tells us about living in a way that is worthy of the gospel that we love and proclaim.

  06:59-07:01

  But before we do that, I do wanna pray.

  07:01-07:08

  So if you would join me in a word of prayer, and just like Jeff and Taylor always ask, would you please pray for me, and I will pray for you.

  07:09-07:09

  Let's bow our heads.

  07:14-07:23

  Heavenly Father, I thank you for bringing all of these people together this morning, and those that are watching online or who will listen to the podcast.

  07:23-07:28

  God, it is by your divine appointment that we are all here and listening to this today.

  07:29-07:37

  And God, that is not because of me or because of any individual in here, but it is because of your divine purposes, and we find so much comfort in that.

  07:38-07:45

  God, I just pray for this time that your word would speak loudly as each person needs to hear it this morning.

  07:45-07:47

  In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

  07:49-07:51

  Okay, so we're gonna be in the book of Philippians.

  07:51-07:54

  So if you wanna turn there, if you don't have a Bible, there should be one in front of you.

  07:55-08:02

  We're gonna turn to Philippians chapter one, And we're gonna look at verses 27 to 29, just three verses.

  08:03-08:10

  As you're turning there, I just wanna give you a brief context since this is kind of in between series and we're just jumping into a book here.

  08:10-08:15

  So again, we're looking at Philippians, the author of the book of Philippians, that's Paul.

  08:15-08:23

  He's writing this letter, or he wrote this letter while he was in prison, and he's writing it to members of the church of Philippi.

  08:23-08:24

  That's where the title comes from.

  08:25-08:27

  That's a church that he founded on a missionary journey.

  08:28-08:30

  And he's writing to them for several reasons.

  08:30-08:34

  He wants to show them, thank them for their support of him.

  08:35-08:45

  He wants to tell them about his circumstances, that he's in prison, and the fact that the gospel is still being advanced even though he is in prison, again, to encourage them.

  08:45-08:50

  He wants to warn them of false teachers in their midst, and he wants to encourage and instruct them.

  08:51-08:56

  And that's where we find our passage today, in that mind, of encouragement and instruction.

  08:57-09:03

  So, if you would read to yourself as I read out loud, Philippians 1, 27 to 29.

  09:04-09:26

  Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.

  09:27-09:33

  This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God.

  09:35-09:46

  For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake." All right, so let's dive right in.

  09:47-09:51

  Starting at verse 27, Paul sets the stage for our instruction.

  09:51-09:59

  In this phrase, "Only let your manner of life be worthy," there's actually a Greek word that kind of sums that phrase up.

  09:59-10:00

  I don't know Greek.

  10:00-10:02

  I'm not going to try to pronounce it, so we're not even going to go there.

  10:03-10:22

  But what this phrase, what this word is telling you, really, getting to the Greek meaning of it, is that we're to behave like the citizens that we are, not citizens of Rome like Paul, or citizens of Philippi or Americans or Western Pennsylvanians, right?

  10:22-10:24

  But rather, citizens of heaven.

  10:26-10:35

  In fact, Paul tells us later in the same book in chapter 3, verse 20, you don't have to turn there, but it says, "But our citizenship is in," where?

  10:36-10:36

  "Heaven.

  10:36-10:51

  Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." to Christians. And he's saying that we are citizens of heaven and we need to act accordingly.

  10:52-11:18

  So just like the groups we were talking about a few minutes ago, the skaters wore corduroys, Pittsburghers are nuts for all things black and gold, and your family hopefully has a good and noble culture that you're all aspiring to live up to because you share the same last name. And Paul Paul is saying we are followers of Christ and we are to live in a manner that reflects that.

  11:19-11:25

  We need to, as they say, walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

  11:26-11:28

  Now I want to be very clear here.

  11:28-11:35

  Paul is not saying that we could ever live in a way that is deserving of Christ ultimately.

  11:35-11:41

  Nothing we could ever do can make us any closer to actually deserving Christ's mercy.

  11:41-11:46

  If you've been around at Harvest for any length of time, you know this, and that's not what he's saying.

  11:47-12:03

  But he's telling us that because of our citizenship, because of our heavenly citizenship, because we are God's children through Christ, we should be acting in a way that shows that Christ is of infinite worth.

  12:05-12:17

  We should be conducting ourselves in a way that shows that Christ is our supreme treasure, that He is worthy, just like the songs we were just singing.

  12:19-12:29

  Now, before we go into the specifics of how we as citizens of heaven are supposed to behave here or our club rules, Paul gives us just a small check on our motivation.

  12:29-12:40

  So if you look at verse 27, he goes on to say, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are," and then he goes on to list the things that we're gonna be talking about.

  12:42-12:53

  But really quickly, he's telling the people of Philippi, "Don't do what I'm about to tell you because I say so, or because just because I'm going to come and see you." Paul doesn't know what the future holds.

  12:54-12:58

  His goal, his desire is to get back and see them, but he might not.

  12:59-13:08

  This is kind of like when there's a substitute teacher classroom, the expectation is that everybody's going to behave the same way, even though there's a sub.

  13:09-13:20

  Or if you're in an office environment, when the boss isn't there, the boss's expectation is that everybody's going to show up on time, leave on time, and do all of their same tasks.

  13:21-13:29

  Or if the parents aren't home, and it's a babysitter, or maybe it's a sibling, the expectation is bedtime is at the same time.

  13:29-13:32

  Same type of snacks, same type of TV shows, right?

  13:32-13:39

  It doesn't matter if the person in charge is there or not, but sometimes we need to be reminded of this, right?

  13:39-13:40

  And that's what Paul is doing.

  13:40-13:47

  We need to be reminded that we're expected to hold the standard even when the person in authority isn't there.

  13:49-14:00

  So these markers that we're going to talk about for living a life that is worthy of the gospel, they are to be present, here's the point of this, they are to be present in our lives at all times.

  14:01-14:05

  regardless of where we are or who we're with.

  14:06-14:06

  Why?

  14:07-14:13

  Because Christ is our King and God is our Father and He is worthy.

  14:16-14:18

  All right, how do we do this?

  14:19-14:20

  That was the intro.

  14:21-14:26

  How do we show that Christ is supreme and live consistent with our heavenly citizenship?

  14:28-14:29

  Read 27 again.

  14:30-14:48

  Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

  14:50-14:58

  Like Jeff often says, that could be an entire sermon right there, or even a mini series, realistically.

  14:59-15:01

  but that's not what we're gonna do today.

  15:02-15:05

  Paul tells us that we are to stand firm in unity.

  15:05-15:06

  That's the first blank in your outline.

  15:07-15:09

  Stand firm in unity.

  15:09-15:19

  Paul is telling us that we are to stand our ground, to not back down, to stand with our fellow believers with the same goal and with the same focus.

  15:21-15:23

  To put it very simply, what is the goal, right?

  15:24-15:24

  And I would write these down.

  15:25-15:39

  To put it very simply, we're all supposed to be glorifying God by obeying his commands, loving him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, loving our neighbors, and making disciples.

  15:41-15:41

  That's our goal.

  15:43-15:51

  And Paul is telling us that we are to do this as believers of one mind, one spirit, striving together.

  15:53-16:02

  Not small factions or cliques or groups all striving for different things, it's somewhat similar if you've ever been on a sports team, right?

  16:03-16:15

  You've got lots of different people, varying skills, different backgrounds, different strengths, different weaknesses, personalities, but everyone on the team, they have the same goal, right?

  16:16-16:21

  They wanna do whatever they can within the bounds of the rules of the game to win.

  16:23-16:25

  Well, it's the same way here.

  16:26-16:36

  Just because the players have their unique ways of training and their own preparation routines, that doesn't take away from their steadfast determination to achieve their common goal.

  16:37-16:42

  So Paul is charging us in a similar way as believers to be united in that way.

  16:42-16:50

  And so you might be saying now to yourself, okay, that's great, but that isn't exactly what our global church looks like right now, is it?

  16:51-17:00

  So many churches, denominations, factions, There's so many things that we can disagree over, even in a small church, a smaller church like ours.

  17:01-17:04

  And to a degree, you would be right to point that out.

  17:04-17:10

  But Paul is not telling us here that we all, as believers, have to agree on everything.

  17:12-17:20

  But he is reminding us that Christ is our Lord, and if we call Christ our Lord, we're all on the same team, and we should have the same goals.

  17:20-17:24

  We have a bonding of the Spirit because of Christ.

  17:24-17:26

  We are all heavenly citizens.

  17:28-17:45

  And the best way, and here's the point of this, the best way, the only way, in fact, to stay united, and I would write these down, is to follow Scripture and to remain humble.

  17:46-17:47

  How do we stay united?

  17:47-17:51

  We follow Scripture and we remain united.

  17:52-17:58

  Paul tells us in chapter two of Philippians, verses three and four, and I think this will be on the screen, there it is.

  17:58-18:06

  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

  18:08-18:13

  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

  18:16-18:25

  Church, if we follow this command to elevate others, rather than looking to what we want.

  18:26-18:32

  And if we stay grounded in God's word, we will remain united.

  18:34-18:39

  I want to encourage you, Harvest, to say that I see this in many ways here.

  18:40-18:53

  I see this church unified behind your support for missions in Thailand, for missions in general, but missions in Thailand with Barnabas and his wife, Martha, and their ministry.

  18:54-18:56

  Your support for Choices Pregnancy Center, right?

  18:58-19:01

  With our prayer services, recently we had one that we invited other churches to.

  19:02-19:03

  We prayed for those churches.

  19:04-19:05

  That is unity.

  19:07-19:13

  And we're serving regularly now at Urban Impact, a very diverse group of believers.

  19:16-19:23

  And we are united at this church through expository preaching and intentional discipleship.

  19:23-19:24

  So keep it up, Harvest.

  19:25-19:27

  Keep doing what you're doing.

  19:27-19:30

  Let's keep striving side by side to God's glory.

  19:34-19:47

  But before we move on from this point, I want to encourage you, ask you, plead with you, in fact, to pray for the continued unity of our church.

  19:48-19:55

  I can say without any doubt that we will be tested in this.

  19:57-20:20

  You know, as the church grows, as we continue on with this building campaign, as Satan sees hearts and lives and minds changed, we had a baptism this morning, As he sees that, our unity is going to be tested.

  20:24-20:33

  You will be tempted to put your own desires, your own preferences above this command.

  20:34-20:42

  You will be tempted to put your own wants, your own feelings, your own emotions above someone else's in this church.

  20:44-21:10

  You will be tempted to allow your pride to cloud your judgment and to allow your pride to be your guide when considering those around you. But church, pray and resist the devil in this. We have to remove our self-focus and look to Christ as the perfect example of humility.

  21:12-21:29

  Where he emptied himself, set aside many of his divine privileges to live amongst us, to live amongst his people and to be murdered by them in submission, in perfect submission and obedience to his Father.

  21:29-21:42

  So with him, with this as our example, if we keep our focus on the goals God has given us and we stay grounded in His Word, and if we stay humble, we will stay united.

  21:45-21:49

  Paul goes on to give us our second piece of instruction for this morning.

  21:50-21:59

  So verse 28 tells us that we are to strive side by side and not be frightened in anything from your opponents.

  21:59-22:06

  This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God.

  22:07-22:11

  So the second point on your outline is to have no fear.

  22:12-22:13

  Have no fear.

  22:14-22:16

  How do we live a life that's worthy of the gospel?

  22:16-22:19

  We stand firm in unity and we have no fear.

  22:21-22:25

  Well, who were the opponents that Paul is referring to here of the Philippians?

  22:25-22:26

  Who were they dealing with?

  22:27-22:30

  Was it people saying mean things about them on social media?

  22:32-22:39

  Was it people putting the wrong cream cheese on their toasted bagel from Pantera bread like they did to Jeff or whatever that was.

  22:40-22:41

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

  22:42-22:43

  It was much worse.

  22:45-22:46

  Could it be any worse, right?

  22:47-22:48

  It was much worse.

  22:49-22:55

  They were living in and surrounded by a pagan society filled with debauchery and false teachers.

  22:56-23:00

  They were living under Roman occupation and extreme oppression.

  23:00-23:05

  And they were of course, dealing with extreme spiritual warfare.

  23:05-23:11

  This is when the gospel is exploding after Christ's death and resurrection.

  23:11-23:14

  And so the spiritual warfare was real.

  23:16-23:21

  Translation, this is serious for them, just as it is serious for us today.

  23:21-23:23

  But yet Paul is telling them this.

  23:23-23:29

  He is telling them, even in the midst of these serious opponents, do not be afraid.

  23:31-23:35

  And we have the same call on our lives today as citizens of the same heavenly nation.

  23:36-23:54

  And you know, when I was preparing this sermon and thinking about this idea of living out our faith and striving for the gospel without fear, there's a family that I've known for years that came to mind, a missionary family that my wife and our family and I have supported for years now.

  23:54-24:01

  And anytime that they correspond with us, they always ask if you ever talk about them not to use their real name.

  24:01-24:02

  So we'll just call them John and Sarah.

  24:03-24:09

  And at the time of this story that I'm gonna tell you, they were missionaries in a remote part of Pakistan.

  24:11-24:16

  And their mission field was to Muslim shepherds, basically.

  24:17-24:21

  And they were doing a lot of Bible translation and a lot of direct ministry to them.

  24:22-24:27

  And they were dealing with some very extreme people, as you can imagine.

  24:29-24:39

  It was inherently dangerous for them because they were white, they were American, and they were Christian, and they were living in a hostile place.

  24:40-24:53

  So John and Sarah came home on furlough one time, and we were sitting on my in-laws' back porch and talking with them and hearing their missionary stories and what God was doing in their lives and in the lives of the shepherds over there.

  24:53-25:04

  And they told us one particularly, in my opinion, frightening story from their missionary lives where, see, where they were living was outside of a city called Abbottabad.

  25:05-25:14

  And some of you may remember the name of that city because that is where on May 2nd, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by US special operators.

  25:16-25:22

  And here are some Americans, some Christians, living just outside of that city.

  25:22-25:27

  And what they told us is that after that time, things got very tense for them.

  25:29-25:32

  Much more tense than they even had been before that.

  25:33-25:36

  The intensity was just dialed up in a serious way.

  25:36-25:43

  And to make matters worse, at least in my mind, as I was hearing the story, they were living there with their young children.

  25:44-25:51

  So after John was done telling us this story, you know, I asked him, I said, "Weren't you afraid?

  25:52-26:01

  "Weren't you fearful of what was going to happen to you and your children in this hostile place?" And his answer to me, it was incredible.

  26:01-26:03

  It still stuck with me to this day.

  26:03-26:10

  But he said they did have fears, and there were many times where they were very stressed and nervous.

  26:12-26:13

  But ultimately, they knew.

  26:14-26:16

  They knew that God was with them.

  26:16-26:25

  They knew that they were in His will, and so their fears didn't keep them from remaining faithful to God's call on their family.

  26:28-26:39

  And he went on to tell me actually, that he feared more for my children being raised in this culture than he did for his children being raised over there.

  26:39-26:40

  I'll never forget that.

  26:42-26:44

  But what an incredible contrast, right?

  26:45-26:50

  John and his family living without fear, continuing on in the Lord's purposes.

  26:51-26:55

  What a comparison to the world around them and the world around us.

  26:56-27:06

  They were living in obedience, and yes, they were nervous and stressed, and they even experienced the emotion of fear, but they stayed true to God's calling on their lives.

  27:09-27:12

  Are you living in fear of anything this morning?

  27:15-27:22

  Maybe you're sitting there and you're thinking, Actually, yeah, there's a lot that I am afraid of, that I am fearful of.

  27:24-27:31

  Maybe you were afraid of COVID in a way that you realize now was not correct.

  27:34-27:41

  Maybe you're afraid that if a particular political party stays in power, it's gonna ruin your life.

  27:42-27:48

  Or maybe you're afraid that if a particular political party gets in power, that will ruin your life.

  27:50-27:51

  Maybe you're afraid of running out of money.

  27:54-28:04

  Maybe you're afraid of being rejected for your faith, or being alone, or being disliked.

  28:05-28:10

  Maybe you're afraid that the world will influence your children instead of faith in God.

  28:13-28:18

  Maybe you're afraid of what will happen to you at the office or at the school if you step out and share your faith.

  28:20-28:26

  I could give so many more examples, but church, the world is afraid.

  28:28-28:38

  And frankly, we've seen over the past few weeks from these sermons from Jeff and Taylor looking at what is to come from the book of Matthew, they have a lot to be afraid of.

  28:41-28:49

  But we, as citizens of heaven, we are to be a shining light of hope and courage in the face of trouble.

  28:50-28:59

  Not because we're strong on our own, church, but because Christ is in us and our God is sovereign and our fate is secure.

  29:01-29:02

  Do you believe that?

  29:04-29:07

  Is that a truth that you hold in your core?

  29:10-29:18

  If it is, but like me, you still find yourself fearful at times, we can be encouraged still.

  29:18-29:30

  We can be encouraged by verses like Isaiah 41.10, up on the screen for you, where God says, "Fear not, for I am with you.

  29:30-29:33

  Be not dismayed, for I am your God.

  29:33-29:34

  I will strengthen you.

  29:35-29:36

  Yes, I will help you.

  29:36-29:43

  I will uphold you with my righteous hand." Don't forget who is telling us this.

  29:44-29:51

  The almighty creator of the universe who put all of this into existence with his words.

  29:54-30:00

  It is by his hands that we are being helped and we are being upheld and we are being strengthened.

  30:01-30:03

  He will strengthen and help you.

  30:05-30:19

  verse that I have gone to countless, countless times in my life. Again, in the book of Philippians. Philippians is an amazing book, isn't it? If you haven't read it lately, go back, read it. Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7.

  30:20-30:41

  "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." And what? "The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

  30:43-30:53

  Just like John and Sarah, we will experience the emotion of fear, and we will get stressed, and we will get anxious, but this does not define us.

  30:53-30:55

  It should not define us.

  30:56-31:03

  We are citizens of heaven, and we know that our hope and our peace are outside of ourselves.

  31:04-31:06

  They are outside of our circumstances.

  31:06-31:10

  Our hope and our peace are in Christ.

  31:13-31:18

  And finally, we come to our third instruction, our third club rule, if you will, right?

  31:20-31:23

  So how do we live a life worthy of the gospel?

  31:24-31:36

  Verse 29 says, "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him.

  31:38-31:40

  So how do we live a life worthy of the gospel?

  31:40-31:41

  We stand firm in unity.

  31:42-31:43

  We have no fear.

  31:44-31:49

  And the third point in your outline is we receive the gift of suffering.

  31:50-31:52

  Receive the gift of suffering.

  31:56-31:57

  Okay, nobody left?

  31:58-31:58

  All right, good.

  31:59-32:00

  Okay, this is a tough one.

  32:02-32:10

  So that tells me you're getting it, 'cause we are all going to stand in unity without fear as we move forward in accepting our gift of suffering, right?

  32:12-32:35

  If you're wondering if the text really did just say that we are not only granted our faith, a gift that we all willingly, excitedly receive when we put our faith in Christ, not only are we granted that gift, but in the same sentence, in the same thought, It says that we are granted the opportunity to suffer.

  32:38-32:39

  So this is a gift.

  32:42-32:51

  And frankly, as citizens of heaven, to live a life worthy of the gospel, to show that Christ is supreme in our lives, our suffering for his sake has to be seen this way.

  32:51-32:53

  It has to be seen as a gift.

  32:53-32:59

  And in the same way that we freely accepted that gift of faith, we must also accept this gift.

  33:01-33:09

  Church, this is a total, complete, perspective shift, isn't it?

  33:11-33:12

  It is for me.

  33:14-33:16

  What does our society tell us about suffering?

  33:18-33:22

  It says that we are to avoid it, all suffering, at all costs.

  33:24-33:29

  We're supposed to cut out toxic people and things from our lives.

  33:31-33:36

  If it doesn't make us happy, we're supposed to shed it immediately.

  33:38-33:43

  If it's not bringing us comfort and peace, then we're suffering.

  33:44-34:33

  So we're supposed to dump it or dump that person or whatever it is and put all of our efforts into finding our peace. And unfortunately, this idea has taken some very strong footholds in many prosperity churches in America, too. They would contend that if you're not living your best life now, that you are, if you're suffering at all, that this is not God's will for your life. But we see a very different picture in the scripture. So as a quick example of this, let's remember back to the disciples. Acts chapter 5. You don't have to turn there necessarily, but here in this part of Acts, we have the very beginnings of the early church.

  34:34-34:48

  Just after Christ's ascension and Pentecost, the apostles are performing miracles, they're preaching, and large numbers of people are coming to faith in in Christ, an incredibly exciting time for the early church, for the spreading of the gospel.

  34:48-34:50

  But this gets some people very upset, right?

  34:50-34:53

  The high priests, the Sadducees, they didn't like this.

  34:55-34:55

  So what do they do?

  34:55-34:57

  They threw the apostles into prison.

  34:57-34:58

  They told them, "No more preaching.

  34:58-35:09

  Into prison you go." And if you remember the story, an angel of the Lord comes and sets them free, gets them out of prison, opens the prison doors, and they're brought out.

  35:09-35:10

  And what do they do?

  35:11-35:14

  They keep preaching, of course, right?

  35:15-35:17

  And that didn't go over very well either.

  35:18-35:27

  And so the religious leaders, the teachers, the Sadducees got together, and I think scripture would tell us, I could be wrong, I think it was all but one wanted to murder them.

  35:28-35:30

  But that was not God's plan for their life.

  35:30-35:32

  So instead of that, they were flogged.

  35:34-35:36

  I've never been flogged, thank God.

  35:38-35:39

  But I don't think it's very pleasant.

  35:40-35:48

  And if their original plan was to kill them, and now the backup plan is to flog them, you can imagine that it was quite a flogging.

  35:49-35:53

  They were left very bruised and battered and in pain.

  35:56-35:59

  In Acts chapter five, we see how they responded.

  36:01-36:06

  In verse 41, it tells us that the apostles left the Sanhedrin rejoicing.

  36:09-36:10

  They were just in prison.

  36:11-36:14

  They were just flogged and they left rejoicing.

  36:16-36:18

  Why were they rejoicing?

  36:19-36:20

  Was it because they hadn't been killed?

  36:21-36:25

  Was it because they got to live another day, see their friends and their families?

  36:26-36:27

  Was it because God let them out of prison?

  36:29-36:31

  Was it because their suffering was over?

  36:33-36:38

  All valid things to rejoice over, don't get me wrong, but no, what does it say?

  36:38-36:48

  They left rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name.

  36:50-36:51

  Let me say that again.

  36:51-36:58

  They left rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name.

  37:00-37:02

  They considered this suffering a privilege.

  37:02-37:06

  They considered their suffering a gift, not a burden.

  37:09-37:18

  So, if we're honest, when was the last time you rejoiced in any of your suffering?

  37:22-37:27

  When was the last time you rejoiced because you were counted worthy to suffer for Christ?

  37:30-37:33

  Well, if you're like me, you didn't rejoice.

  37:35-37:39

  You complained to your spouse or to a close friend.

  37:40-37:41

  You vented.

  37:42-37:49

  You asked God, "Why is this happening?" And you asked him to fix the suffering, to take the pain away.

  37:50-37:57

  But here we have Paul and the apostles telling us that that suffering is a gift.

  38:00-38:04

  Church, if this was our perspective, please catch this.

  38:04-38:14

  If this was our perspective, that suffering for Christ was a gift, that we should rejoice in being counted worthy to suffer, wouldn't that make us more bold?

  38:16-38:19

  Wouldn't that make us less fearful?

  38:20-38:22

  Wouldn't that make us more unified?

  38:23-38:29

  So if these are our commands in order to live a worthy life, this is what we have to do if we start here.

  38:30-38:40

  We start with shifting our perspective and putting our perspective within God's bounds of what suffering really is and how we are supposed to view it.

  38:41-38:50

  That will make us unified as believers and it will wipe your fears away.

  38:54-39:00

  By God's grace, our suffering in the US hasn't looked anything like the early church up to this point.

  39:01-39:06

  But I say honestly, I'm not sure that we're that far off in the near future.

  39:06-39:08

  I think that it will look more like this.

  39:08-39:14

  I mean, in Canada, not that long ago, pastors thrown in prison for doing what?

  39:16-39:21

  Preaching the word and keeping their churches open during mandated lockdowns.

  39:22-39:28

  Have you seen in the news, the Christians and the Catholics alike being thrown into prison with prison sentences?

  39:28-41:01

  For doing what? For supposedly blocking access to abortion clinics when really all they were doing was praying for those babies, praying that they would not be murdered in their mother's wombs. I don't think we're that far off. And do we have the perspective, the right perspective, to respond in the way that the Apostles did when we suffer. And if we're going to proclaim Christ is our Lord and live lives worthy of the gospel, we should expect this. We should expect the suffering, and then we have to accept our gift and rejoice that we have been counted worthy to suffer for His name's sake. And I would contend, if you're sitting here and you're having trouble relating to this, if you're thinking, "You know, things are actually really not that bad. I've got little stresses here and there, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with an example of the last time that I suffered for the sake of Christ." If you're sitting here and you're thinking that, I would challenge you to take a really hard, long, serious look at and whether or not you're actually living your life for Christ, if you are making Him your supreme treasure.

  41:03-41:10

  Because as believers, we should expect and accept our gift of suffering for His sake.

  41:13-41:15

  So, how are you doing with our club rules?

  41:16-41:20

  How are you doing with living a life worthy of the gospel?

  41:23-41:25

  Really, how are you doing?

  41:27-41:41

  We have unity. Are you standing firm and striving for faith in unity and pushing on towards our goals of glorifying God by obeying his word, loving him, loving your neighbor, and making disciples?

  41:43-41:50

  Or, Is there a brother or sister in Christ that you need to reconcile with?

  41:52-42:03

  Is there some selfishness, some pride, some lack of humility that you need to repent of and eradicate from your life?

  42:06-42:06

  Fear.

  42:07-42:10

  Are you laying your fears and your worries at the foot of the cross?

  42:10-42:16

  and are you finding comfort and confidence in God's grace and provision?

  42:20-42:35

  Or are you living a life of paralyzing fear that you know, that you know is keeping you from accomplishing all that you could for God's kingdom through his power?

  42:38-43:09

  suffering. Have you accepted this free gift? Have you rejoiced in it? Have you rejoiced in being counted worthy to suffer for his name's sake? Or are you rejecting this gift and replacing the rejoicing with anger and frustration and desperation? So, as we close, I'd like to take just a moment to give you an opportunity to reflect on what God's word has said to us today.

  43:11-43:22

  If you have a relationship with Christ and you call him Lord, and you're struggling with any of these things, like I am, let me encourage you that you are not alone.

  43:23-43:31

  The bar is set very high, but fortunately we're not called to do this on our own.

  43:31-43:33

  Look around, we are not alone.

  43:36-43:42

  But also, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in you.

  43:44-43:50

  And He has been given as a gift to help you, to strengthen you, and to encourage you.

  43:50-43:55

  So how are you doing personally in these three areas?

  43:56-44:01

  Which of these three areas do you need to allow the Holy Spirit to refine you today.

  44:03-44:10

  So, before we pray, I'd like you to take just a moment after we bow our heads, take a moment of silent reflection.

  44:11-44:18

  Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you, and if you already know, pray to your heavenly Father that he would help you.

  44:22-44:25

  So let's bow our heads, take just a moment, and then I'll close this in prayer.

  44:26-44:27

  (sighs)

  44:33-44:37

  Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for who you are.

  44:40-44:53

  And we are so grateful, God, that you make it so clear to us how we can live in a way that is worthy of your gospel.

  44:56-44:58

  And God, we acknowledge that this bar is set high.

  45:01-45:06

  But we also rejoice in the fact that we are not left to do this on our own.

  45:08-45:12

  We are so grateful, Father, that your Spirit is here.

  45:13-45:17

  Your Spirit is our helper and our guide, and yet your word is so clear.

  45:19-45:34

  Father, and I pray for each person hearing this message today or at any point, God, that whatever Your Spirit spoke to them today, that they would be obedient to do what You have called them to do.

  45:36-45:52

  God, I pray for our church, that our church would remain united, that we would resist the temptation to put ourselves above others, but that we would stay united in our goal to glorify You.

  45:55-46:12

  God, I pray that the fears that were thought of in this room today, God, that they would be wiped away and replaced with boldness, and they would be replaced with trust in You.

  46:15-46:30

  God, and I pray for whoever is suffering today, that your Spirit would do a miracle and shift their perspective.

  46:31-46:49

  That they would count that suffering as something to be joyful about because they have been encountered worthy to suffer for your name. God, we love you. We praise you. Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Phil 1:27-29

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. We’re called to strive in unity with fellow believers. Read Philippians 2:3-4. In light of this verse, what specifically is keeping you from striving in unity with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? What can you do, or what do you need to change over the next month to improve in this area? Be specific.
   

3. We’ve all experienced fear, but let’s encourage one another on this one. Share a time in your life when you experienced the emotion of fear, but you trusted God and saw Him deliver you from your fears. How did you do this, and what was the result?
   

4. Read Acts 5:41. Have you accepted your free gift of suffering and rejoiced that you have been counted worthy to suffer for his name? Or are you rejecting the gift and replacing the rejoicing with anger, frustration, and desperation. Be honest. Be specific.
   

Breakout
Take time to lift each member of your group up in prayer specifically about what they’ve shared this evening.

What ARE We Waiting For? There Are Only Two Options

Introduction:

Are You a Sheep or a Goat? (Matthew 25:31-46):

1. Jesus Knows who is who. (Matthew 25:31-33)

   Hebrews 9:27 - And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment...

2. Sheep are known by their Compassion . (Matthew 25:34-40)

   Ephesians 2:8-10 - For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

   Revelation 22:12 - Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.

   Am I Compassionate? 3 Marks You Have True Compassion:

   1. You take Action .
   2. You aren't doing it for people to Notice .

      Matthew 3:8 - Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

   3. You aren't looking for something in Return .

      Philippians 1:6 - And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

3. Goats are known by their Lack of Compassion . (Matthew 25:41-45)

   2 Thessalonians 1:9 - They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might...

   Matthew 7:21-23 - Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'

4. Your destination is Eternal . (Matthew 25:46)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:06-01:15

  Matthew chapter 25, we're going to be picking up in verse 31 today in our series called "Intentional Hope." What are we waiting for?

  01:15-01:20

  And in Matthew 24 and 25, it's known as the Olivet Discourse.

  01:20-01:30

  And these are the words from our Lord Himself describing the signs that are going to lead up to His second coming.

  01:30-01:35

  So, what are we waiting for?

  01:36-01:48

  Many years ago when I was an associate pastor up north at North Street Christian Church in Butler under Pastor Bob Huber, he and I were under, we were on our way rather to a pastor's prayer meeting.

  01:50-01:57

  And it was only a few blocks, but on the way we were, do you ever have conversations with your friends about words that annoy you, right?

  01:57-01:58

  You know what I'm talking about.

  01:58-02:01

  There's some certain words that kind of get under your skin.

  02:02-02:03

  Chill, like chili, right?

  02:04-02:04

  Like chili.

  02:04-02:15

  We were, this was more of a church theme discussion though, Andrew, in that I said, you know what word I don't like is reverend.

  02:16-02:24

  Well, when people call the pastor reverend, that's just, that makes me gag a little bit because only God is to be revered.

  02:24-02:25

  And I just don't like that.

  02:26-02:27

  I just don't, thank you very much, Julian.

  02:28-02:29

  I just don't like that term.

  02:30-02:34

  And pastor Bob said, You know what word I don't like?

  02:35-02:36

  He said, I don't like the word clergy.

  02:37-02:39

  He goes, that word just rubs me the wrong way.

  02:39-02:42

  It just sounds so like, I don't know.

  02:42-02:44

  It just sounds so like high church.

  02:44-02:46

  He goes, I just don't like the word clergy.

  02:47-02:51

  So we get into the parking space and step out of the car.

  02:52-02:54

  And it was like a scene right out of a sitcom.

  02:54-02:57

  This man walks around the corner and he goes, hi, I'm Reverend Oden.

  02:58-02:59

  I'm here for the clergy meeting.

  03:00-03:10

  And Bob and I were like, "What, what?" But you know, people love to label themselves.

  03:11-03:11

  Do you notice that?

  03:12-03:14

  People love to label themselves.

  03:14-03:15

  You hear it all the time.

  03:15-03:17

  Like, "I'm an introvert.

  03:18-03:23

  "I'm a Sagittarius." Or, "I'm just a middle child.

  03:24-03:28

  "And that's why I act this way, "is because I'm a middle child."

  03:28-03:29

  (audience laughing)

  03:30-03:34

  But what we're going to look at today is this, my friends.

  03:34-03:37

  In the end, your titles don't matter.

  03:38-03:43

  And what you call yourself and how you refer to yourself really doesn't matter.

  03:44-03:48

  What's going to matter in the end is how Jesus labels you.

  03:51-03:54

  That's why the title of this message is simply this, there are only two options.

  03:55-04:01

  And when it comes to Jesus putting a label on you, there's only two options.

  04:01-04:05

  You're a sheep or you're a goat.

  04:07-04:08

  So let's just bow our heads for a moment.

  04:08-04:13

  I'm gonna ask you to pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's word.

  04:13-04:20

  And I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive the word of God.

  04:24-04:29

  Father, we are all susceptible to self-deception.

  04:29-04:31

  Your Word makes that so clear.

  04:33-04:39

  So I pray today that we can take an honest and sobering look at reality.

  04:43-04:56

  Let the words from your Word bring great conviction and encouragement, however's appropriate today.

  04:57-05:01

  In each heart, Father, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

  05:03-05:12

  Really chapter 25 in Matthew, the whole chapter is a warning and the warning is just simply this, he's coming again.

  05:14-05:15

  And we don't know when.

  05:17-05:25

  And we've seen the last couple of weeks, Jesus laid out some parables, a parable of the virgins, and then the parable last week of the talents.

  05:25-05:33

  And we learned from these parables that we should wait prepared and we should work productively.

  05:33-05:40

  And as we close here, this passage we're looking at today isn't really a parable, it's a narrative.

  05:43-06:00

  When Jesus comes in judgment, He's going to separate his people from those who are not his people, sheep and goats.

  06:02-06:05

  There's one question today as we examine God's word, which one are you?

  06:07-06:08

  Simple, right?

  06:10-06:11

  Eternal ramifications.

  06:12-06:13

  Which one are you?

  06:14-06:17

  because Jesus is going to do a sorting.

  06:17-06:18

  Which one are you?

  06:19-06:22

  So on your outline, jot some things down here.

  06:22-06:23

  Are you a sheep or a goat?

  06:25-06:29

  Number one, you gotta be sure about this.

  06:29-06:31

  Jesus knows who is who.

  06:32-06:34

  Jesus knows who is who.

  06:34-06:35

  Look at verse 31.

  06:36-06:44

  Jesus says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory "and all the angels with him, And then he will sit on his glorious throne.

  06:45-06:47

  Before him will be gathered all the nations.

  06:48-06:57

  And he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

  06:58-07:04

  And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

  07:06-07:06

  Stop there.

  07:06-07:10

  This scene here, going through the chronology of this passage.

  07:10-07:12

  This is the end of the tribulation.

  07:12-07:17

  Jesus is going to set up his millennial reign on earth.

  07:18-07:22

  That's a period of history that a lot of people, a lot of Christians seem to forget about.

  07:23-07:30

  For a thousand years, Jesus Christ is going to live here personally and personally reign over his creation.

  07:31-07:32

  That's what he's talking about here.

  07:33-07:36

  The end of the tribulation, the beginning of the millennial reign.

  07:37-07:39

  He says he's going to sit on his glorious throne.

  07:39-07:45

  That's in Jerusalem, but he has one order of business that has to be taken care of before we get into the millennium.

  07:45-07:50

  And that order of business is the final judgment.

  07:52-08:06

  And again, I have to remind you, as we've done just about every week, that we cannot detach ourselves from the passage to say, well, this is talking about the end of the tribulation and we're not there yet, so I guess maybe I'll cross that bridge if I come to it.

  08:06-08:10

  Because the reality is this, my friends, Judgment's coming for all of us.

  08:12-08:30

  Even if you don't make it to this exact scene at the end of the tribulation, you know, the Bible says, Hebrews 9:27, "Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." When you die, you face judgment.

  08:31-08:32

  So the principle applies.

  08:34-08:36

  That sin is going to be judged.

  08:38-08:39

  You've got to mark that down.

  08:39-08:40

  Sin will be judged.

  08:43-08:47

  And if you're a born-again follower of Jesus Christ, you have nothing to fear.

  08:48-08:53

  You see, because the Bible says when Jesus was on the cross, He took God's wrath on our behalf.

  08:53-08:56

  He took the punishment that we deserve.

  08:59-09:08

  Otherwise, if you have not received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're going to have to pay the penalty for your sin.

  09:08-09:11

  You are going to have to face God's wrath for your sin.

  09:14-09:22

  And in this picture here that Jesus gives, he talks about the shepherd separating the sheep from the goats.

  09:23-09:32

  Now I know for probably most of us here that we've never seen that, or it's a concept we're not super familiar with, but I'm sure the disciples were very familiar.

  09:33-09:47

  Because you see in those days when, you know, a shepherd would have this large flock of animals, when it was time to feed the animals, or it was time to have the animals rest, the shepherd had to separate the sheep from the goats.

  09:47-09:48

  Why?

  09:49-09:51

  Have you ever been around sheep and goats?

  09:52-09:54

  They are two different animals, aren't they?

  09:55-09:56

  Sheep are docile.

  09:58-10:02

  Goats are hyper, right?

  10:04-10:08

  That's my favorite part where you go to living treasures or one of these little zoos or whatever.

  10:08-10:13

  My favorite part is the goats, 'cause they're just constantly running around headbutting everything.

  10:13-10:14

  I love that.

  10:15-10:15

  I want a goat.

  10:16-10:19

  Then I heard how they smelled and I had a second think that.

  10:20-10:31

  But that's the point is the shepherd's like, I can't have these peaceful, calm animals, eating and resting with these maniac animals.

  10:32-10:34

  So the shepherd would separate the sheep and the goats.

  10:34-10:38

  And that's the picture that Jesus is adopting here.

  10:39-10:53

  He goes, "On that last day, I'm going to be just like a shepherd and say, 'Oh no, no, I'm gonna put the sheep over here and I'm gonna put my goats over here.'" Jesus is going to make a separation.

  10:54-11:03

  And as far as I can tell from the passage, There's no time in this moment to make up your mind.

  11:04-11:10

  That Jesus comes back and says, "I'm going to separate the sheep from the goats." And you're like, "Hold on a second, Lord, hold on.

  11:10-11:18

  I wanna think about this." I don't see that in the passage or anywhere else in the scripture.

  11:18-11:25

  I also don't see Jesus separating the sheep from the goats and stopping individually and say, "Is that your final answer?

  11:26-11:28

  You're a goat, okay, is that your final answer?

  11:28-11:28

  Are you sure?

  11:29-11:30

  I don't see that.

  11:31-11:33

  I don't see any, you know what?

  11:34-11:37

  I've lived my whole life in complete disregard to Jesus.

  11:38-11:40

  I think I'll bow the knee now.

  11:40-11:42

  I don't see it.

  11:42-11:43

  You know what I do see?

  11:44-11:45

  It's over.

  11:47-11:49

  The issue is settled.

  11:53-11:58

  I think it's so interesting that Jesus didn't talk about separating the sheep from the wolves.

  11:59-12:02

  That seems like a more appropriate picture, doesn't it?

  12:03-12:05

  Or separating the sheep from the snakes.

  12:06-12:07

  He didn't say that either.

  12:08-12:10

  So why did he say sheep and goats?

  12:10-12:12

  And I thought a lot about that this week.

  12:12-12:15

  You know why I think he used that picture?

  12:18-12:21

  It's because of how similar sheep and goats really look.

  12:22-14:20

  If you've been driving by and see a pasture land and a bunch of animal, I know I slow down what kind they are. I don't know why I do. I always do though. Because you can't tell by glancing and you know I think that's Jesus point. Is this scene is a lot like church, isn't it? You know if we took a field trip and we walked across the street to Northway, we couldn't tell by looking at people who was a true follower of Jesus and who wasn't. And they couldn't do that walking in here either. And I think that's what Jesus is driving at, is Jesus knows who is who. It might not be so readily obvious to us, but Jesus knows. So the real question maybe for us this morning is how do I know which one I am? I mean Jesus knows, that's a given, right? Jesus knows. But is there any way that I can know? I'm so glad you asked because number two on your outline, sheep are known by their Look at verse 34. Jesus goes on to say, "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?

  14:21-14:26

  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?

  14:27-14:38

  And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.

  14:41-14:42

  Sheep are known by their compassion.

  14:44-14:48

  And you can look at this passage and you You can say, wait a second, hang on a second.

  14:49-14:53

  This sounds like you're saying whether we're saved by our works.

  14:53-14:56

  No, we just covered that.

  14:57-14:59

  No one is saved by works, no one.

  15:00-15:04

  Because good works can't take away the guilt of your sin.

  15:06-15:07

  They can't do it.

  15:07-15:09

  Only Jesus can do that.

  15:11-15:16

  But we have to understand what it really means to be saved.

  15:20-15:36

  Because I think, especially in the church and our culture, if you ask an average Joe Pucitor, "What does it mean to be saved? How do you get saved? What does it mean to be a Christian?" They say something like, "Well, you know, you've got to acknowledge Jesus Christ.

  15:37-15:40

  You believe that Jesus saved you from hell.

  15:44-15:51

  And you understand what happens in regeneration is so much deeper than that.

  15:52-15:55

  We went through this, we went through the book of James.

  15:57-15:58

  Quick call back to that.

  15:58-16:02

  But we said over and over how true faith changes you.

  16:03-16:06

  Do you know what happens when you truly receive Jesus Christ.

  16:06-16:09

  The Bible says that God's Holy Spirit indwells you.

  16:10-16:20

  And you're gonna tell me that the God of the universe, the Holy, awesome, majestic God of the universe comes and resides in your heart and you're no different?

  16:20-16:22

  You haven't changed radically?

  16:28-16:31

  The Holy Spirit changes your appetites.

  16:32-16:36

  You used to naturally hate righteousness and love sin.

  16:37-16:43

  And when you receive Christ and the Holy Spirit lives in you, you hate sin and you love righteousness.

  16:47-16:49

  You have a faith that makes choices for you.

  16:49-16:51

  I do this because of Jesus.

  16:52-16:55

  And there's things that I won't do because of Jesus.

  16:55-16:56

  The faith makes your choices.

  16:58-17:03

  So you can't look at this passage and think, Well, it's teaching it, you're saved by your good works.

  17:03-17:06

  No, you're not saved by your works.

  17:06-17:15

  You are not saved by good works, but you are saved for good works.

  17:17-17:19

  Don't get the smoke before the fire here.

  17:19-17:21

  Look at Ephesians chapter two.

  17:22-17:31

  It says, and notice how, I know people were having a hard time deciding which TV to look at.

  17:32-17:33

  So we took out a couple.

  17:34-17:36

  Narrow your choices down.

  17:39-17:43

  That isn't the, that isn't really what happened, but I think that's our official narrative for today.

  17:47-17:51

  Hey, look, if you have bad eyes, you're gonna have to sit in the front.

  17:52-17:57

  And I know, that's anathema, right?

  17:58-18:00

  sitting in the front in the spit pit.

  18:02-18:08

  Ephesians two verses eight through 10, "For by grace you've been saved through faith.

  18:09-18:19

  And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." All right, you can't be saved by your works.

  18:20-18:24

  If you could, we'd have something to brag about, but we can't, so we don't.

  18:25-18:26

  But look at the rest of this here.

  18:26-18:29

  He says, "For we are his workmanship." Ah, here it is.

  18:30-18:44

  "Created in Christ Jesus for good works, "which God prepared beforehand "that we should walk in them." And this is a call back to the talents from last week.

  18:44-18:49

  Remember last week's message was, Jesus expects productivity.

  18:50-18:50

  Why?

  18:51-18:55

  Why does he give you skills, resources, opportunity?

  18:55-19:01

  Why does God choose to have His Spirit dwell in your hearts?

  19:03-19:10

  Some people think it's to sit and watch, but that's my spiritual gift, criticism.

  19:11-19:12

  That's not one of them.

  19:14-19:19

  Some people think it's to applaud the people who are serving Christ, and that's not it either.

  19:21-19:31

  When you're truly saved, when you're truly born again, God puts his spirit in you so that you can be the ambassador of Jesus Christ during your life here.

  19:35-19:48

  All that to say, listen, my friends, in the end, your works are going to be evaluated because your works prove whether you walk by the spirit or you did not walk by the spirit.

  19:51-19:53

  Jesus is going to evaluate your works.

  19:56-19:58

  It comes at the very end of the whole book, right?

  19:58-20:17

  Revelation 22, 12, Jesus said, "Behold, I'm coming soon, bringing my recompense with me." Oh, here it is again, "To repay each one for what he has done." In the end, it's not gonna be about creeds.

  20:20-20:25

  Jesus isn't gonna say, "Well, you know, in order to evaluate if you should go into heaven.

  20:25-20:27

  Let me see a doctrinal statement.

  20:28-20:30

  It's not about your Bible knowledge.

  20:30-20:33

  It's not about church attendance or membership.

  20:33-20:42

  And look, all those things are important, but none of those things are evidence of salvation.

  20:44-20:49

  What Jesus is evaluating is a faith that naturally and joyfully moves you.

  20:52-21:01

  And here, specifically, the work that Jesus is talking about is compassion for people in need.

  21:04-21:05

  Are you a compassionate person?

  21:07-21:09

  Here's the thing, here's the thing.

  21:09-21:22

  Look, you know, the preacher gets up here and says, "Are you a compassionate person?" that's really a stupid question because everybody thinks they are. Everybody does.

  21:23-21:42

  There's nobody sitting here or listening to this or watching this that's like, "Not me. I have no compassion for anybody or anything." Nobody, nobody really thinks that about themselves. But the reality is some people are compassionate and some people are not.

  21:44-21:49

  So got a little test for you, according to Jesus criteria, right?

  21:50-21:53

  According to Jesus criteria, am I compassionate?

  21:53-21:59

  Here's three marks that you have true compassion, that you're actually really a genuinely compassionate person.

  22:00-22:06

  If you are, here's three marks of that, according to Jesus from what he said here, if that matters, and I think it does.

  22:07-22:11

  But letter A, here's the first mark of compassion is you take action.

  22:13-22:14

  You take action.

  22:16-22:21

  Do you see the words that Jesus used when he described the compassion of these sheep?

  22:22-22:29

  The words gave, welcomed, clothed, visited, all of those things are deliberate actions.

  22:32-22:35

  Because compassion isn't just feeling bad.

  22:35-22:38

  And that's what people wanna reduce it to.

  22:39-22:39

  Do you have compassion?

  22:40-22:48

  Like, "Yeah, I have compassion." You know, like when they show the commercial, you know, with the dogs, with the logging chain and Sarah McLachlan.

  22:50-22:52

  That touches me deep down where I'm soft like a woman.

  22:53-22:53

  That touches me.

  22:56-22:58

  Like, that's not compassion.

  23:00-23:03

  Compassion isn't about just feeling something.

  23:04-23:08

  Jesus pointed out very clearly, Compassion is when you do something about it.

  23:09-23:10

  That's compassion.

  23:13-23:22

  It's actually giving, actually serving, actually getting in your car and showing up to do something.

  23:22-23:24

  That is compassion.

  23:25-23:26

  It's not just feeling.

  23:29-23:35

  Letter B, mark of compassion.

  23:35-23:37

  you aren't doing it for people to notice.

  23:39-23:41

  You aren't doing it for people to notice.

  23:42-23:56

  Do you notice three times when Jesus, you know, he says to these sheep, you know, "I was in this situation and you came and you did this and you did this." And do you notice three times in verses 37 through 39, they were like, "When?

  23:56-23:57

  When did we see you?

  23:58-23:58

  When did we see you in prison?

  23:59-24:02

  When did we see you hungry?" That's humility.

  24:04-24:05

  It's humility.

  24:09-24:15

  That tells me that these acts of compassion that Jesus was pointing out, it wasn't for attention.

  24:16-24:17

  It wasn't for attention.

  24:19-24:21

  And that's one of the bummers about social media.

  24:25-24:27

  We've seen this so often.

  24:28-24:31

  People put on Facebook, you know, I'm off to do charity.

  24:31-24:33

  They take some selfie at some place.

  24:34-24:35

  Look at this charity I'm involved in.

  24:35-24:36

  Look at this charity I'm doing.

  24:36-24:38

  Isn't this big of me?

  24:38-24:40

  Isn't this really big of me to do this?

  24:42-24:43

  I'm pretty generous, huh?

  24:44-24:45

  I'm a pretty selfless person.

  24:47-24:48

  I am pretty amazing.

  24:49-24:51

  And it's putting the spotlight on me.

  24:55-24:57

  And that's what we see here with true compassion.

  24:58-25:11

  These people weren't doing it for any kind of recognition because when Jesus pointed out what they did, they're like, "When did we do that?" Here's the thing, my friends, they weren't considering that they were doing something special.

  25:11-25:20

  They're like, "We were just doing what we do "because we love people." So would you do it?

  25:20-25:24

  Even if you knew for a fact, nobody else would ever find out about it.

  25:26-25:28

  That's a sign that you have true compassion.

  25:28-25:30

  You're not doing it for attention.

  25:30-25:32

  You're not doing it so people notice.

  25:33-25:38

  Letter C, you aren't looking for something in return.

  25:40-25:42

  That's a true act of compassion.

  25:43-25:57

  Verse 40, Jesus says, "Whatever you did to the-- you see that the least of these." See, compassion moves me to love and serve people without any thought of reciprocation.

  25:59-25:59

  (congregation laughing)

  26:02-26:07

  Because sometimes we help people and in the back of our minds, we're like, you know what, I'm gonna do this for him.

  26:08-26:13

  And then he's gonna kind of, he's gonna kind of wanna, he's gonna owe me one like down the road.

  26:13-26:15

  So if I help him now, he's gonna be able to help me later.

  26:15-26:18

  We kind of have that in the back of our mind.

  26:18-26:28

  But when you do something for someone that could not possibly repay you, people that Jesus referred to as the least of these.

  26:30-26:30

  That's compassion.

  26:34-26:40

  So Jesus reminds us that selfless love is evidence of a born again life.

  26:42-26:46

  Specifically, he's talking about love to fellow believers.

  26:48-26:54

  That's why he says, "My brothers." And at this point, I would be remiss if I didn't commend this church.

  26:56-27:04

  This church is absolutely astonishing when it comes to meeting needs of people in here.

  27:08-27:36

  And I started to put a list together and I don't have time to give an exhaustive list, but over the years, and this church has always been like this, but over the years, I've seen whether it's people needing a furnace or a new transmission for their vehicle or a new vehicle, or they need help moving, or somebody is in the hospital, or people that take care of yard work for people that are in the hospital, or taking care of each other's kids in times of need.

  27:36-27:47

  I have seen it over and over and over that when there's a need in this church and people find out about it, it does not remain a need for very long.

  27:48-27:49

  And I love that about this church.

  27:54-28:02

  Because what we see here is Jesus takes such conduct very personally.

  28:05-29:29

  You see, to Him, to Him, it's as if when you meet a need, when you show compassion need to Jesus. It's like he was the one that had the need and you provided for him. Wrap your brain around that. It's like Jesus said my car broke down and you got me a new car. It's like Jesus saying my furnace went out and I was freezing and you put a furnace in my house. Like who wouldn't line up to put a furnace in Jesus house. And Jesus says, "When you do that, I take this very personally. It's like you're doing it to me." So church, do people's needs move you to act? Or are you content to just sit back and feel bad and hope that someone else does it. Like, oh, that's a shame. Well, if that's you, if you're the, gosh, I hope I don't have to get involved. I hope somebody else does it. I, if that's you, I got some news for you. You, you, you're a goat. Number three on your outline, goats are known by by their lack of compassion.

  29:30-29:31

  Look at verse 41.

  29:33-29:44

  It says, "Then he will say to those on his left," now we're addressing the goats, "Depart from me, you cursed, "into the eternal fire prepared for the devil "and his angels.

  29:46-29:48

  "For I was hungry and you gave me no food.

  29:48-29:50

  "I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.

  29:50-29:52

  "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.

  29:53-29:54

  "Naked and you did not clothe me.

  29:55-30:23

  "sick and in prison, and you did not visit me." And then they also will answer saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty "or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison "and did not minister to you?" And he will answer them saying, "Truly I say to you, as you did not do it "to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." Wow.

  30:28-30:35

  Look at the first word that Jesus says to the goats, to the people who did not show compassion.

  30:35-30:39

  Look at the first word that he says to them, depart.

  30:41-30:42

  Can you imagine?

  30:43-30:45

  Because some of you are going to experience this.

  30:46-30:51

  And it's an absolutely horrifying thought to stand before Jesus Christ.

  30:52-30:54

  And the first thing he says to you is, "Get away from me.

  30:57-30:58

  I don't know who you are.

  31:00-31:01

  Out.

  31:06-31:17

  If the spirit of God isn't moving you now, Jesus is going to move you then." You're like, "To where?" He says, "The eternal fire." That's hell.

  31:19-31:22

  Hell is a place of conscious suffering.

  31:24-31:28

  The pain is described as being on fire and it never ends.

  31:29-31:33

  In hell, you are eternally being destroyed, but never destroyed.

  31:34-31:38

  This is exactly what Paul's talking about in 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

  31:40-31:52

  He says, "They will suffer the punishment "of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord "and from the glory of his might." That's what hell is.

  31:55-31:57

  It's away from the presence of God.

  32:00-32:07

  That Jesus says, "Depart from me, get away from me." And he puts you in a place outside of his presence.

  32:09-32:10

  That's what hell is.

  32:11-32:14

  And that is why hell is so horrifying.

  32:15-32:17

  It's a place where God has chosen not to be.

  32:18-32:21

  And there are some people that are going to be shocked.

  32:22-32:26

  They're gonna be shocked to be labeled as a goat and sent away.

  32:29-32:45

  If we look at Jesus' words from Matthew chapter seven, we see there's gonna be people that on this day, and there's probably some people sitting here and listening to this that are gonna be like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's gotta be some kind of mistake.

  32:46-32:48

  Depart from me into eternal fire.

  32:49-32:52

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  32:52-32:53

  This can't be.

  32:56-32:58

  Look what Jesus says, Matthew 21.

  32:59-33:00

  Again, parallel passage.

  33:01-33:18

  Jesus says, in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name.

  33:20-33:23

  And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

  33:23-33:24

  Oh, there it is again.

  33:25-33:26

  Depart.

  33:28-33:29

  Go, go away.

  33:31-33:35

  Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

  33:38-33:45

  See, Jesus, Matthew seven says, on this day, there are going to be people that are going to say, Wait, wait, I can't be a goat.

  33:46-33:49

  No, no, no, no, look at the stuff that I did.

  33:51-33:54

  Do you see it in the Matthew seven passage?

  33:54-33:58

  You know, he's, Lord, we prophesied, we cast out demons.

  33:58-34:00

  We did works in your name.

  34:01-34:02

  Look at all these things that we did.

  34:05-34:06

  Do you know what this tells me?

  34:08-34:11

  That those kinds of things are not the signs of a redeemed life.

  34:17-34:29

  But looking at Matthew 25 here, what I see is the signs of a redeemed life are simple acts of kindness that anyone can do.

  34:34-34:41

  You know, I've never performed a miracle, but I'm capable of feeding a hungry person.

  34:43-34:46

  I don't know if I've ever cast out a demon.

  34:48-34:50

  I don't think I've ever done, I don't know.

  34:52-34:59

  If I did, I guess it wasn't intentional, but I'm able to visit somebody who's sick.

  35:01-35:06

  You see, those are the signs of a redeemed life.

  35:07-35:18

  And you see what Jesus is saying to the goats, like the five oil less virgins, like the one talent guy, it's not about what you did.

  35:21-35:22

  It's about what you didn't do.

  35:29-35:35

  Goats, every time you saw a need, You turned your head.

  35:40-35:47

  Every time you saw an opportunity to help someone and you knew, you knew you could do something about that.

  35:47-35:48

  And you just ignored it.

  35:50-35:53

  And you just got really good at justifying.

  35:54-35:58

  If I help this person, if I give them money, they'll probably waste it.

  35:58-36:09

  If I, you know, do this, You come up with all kinds of excuses to justify not getting involved.

  36:10-36:15

  And look, nobody's accusing you of like hating poor people, okay?

  36:15-36:16

  That's not the issue here.

  36:17-36:19

  Like, well, no, I love everybody, man.

  36:19-36:21

  Are you saying that I hate poor people?

  36:21-36:23

  Nobody's saying that, that you hate poor people.

  36:23-36:24

  Nobody's saying that.

  36:27-36:34

  Nobody's thinking that you avoided helping out of disdain, I think it's just simply this, you just couldn't be bothered.

  36:37-36:39

  You made your excuses, look, I'm too busy.

  36:40-36:41

  Everybody says that, by the way.

  36:42-36:45

  I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I was too busy to help.

  36:45-36:47

  I saw there were needs, but I was too busy to help.

  36:50-36:53

  Hope you're not banking on using that on this day, it's not gonna fly.

  36:55-36:56

  Or I've done enough.

  36:57-36:59

  Someone else can handle that.

  36:59-37:00

  I got my own problems.

  37:00-37:03

  Well, now you've got a big one.

  37:04-37:11

  Because Jesus views your snubbing those in need as snubbing him directly.

  37:15-37:15

  Wow.

  37:19-37:24

  Jesus here is saying, well, you obviously aren't a sheep, because if you were, I would have seen some compassion from you.

  37:26-37:29

  But since I saw zero compassion from you, You're not a sheep.

  37:32-37:33

  That's how goats are known.

  37:36-37:40

  And then finally, number four, your destination is eternal.

  37:42-37:43

  Look at verse 46.

  37:46-38:00

  Jesus says, "And these," meaning the goats, "these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Eternal, eternal.

  38:00-38:06

  You know, he talks about eternal punishment, and then he talks about eternal life.

  38:06-38:11

  Did you know in the Greek, that's the exact same word?

  38:15-38:17

  Do you understand what that means?

  38:22-38:28

  That means hell lasts exactly as long as heaven.

  38:32-38:44

  You know, there's some people that teach you hell is temporary, that you go there for a while and you're punished, and then there's people that teach at that point God annihilates you, you no longer cease to exist, or whatever.

  38:45-38:47

  But hell's just this temporary place.

  38:47-38:52

  God would not send somebody to this place of suffering eternally.

  38:58-39:03

  And I would say, well, not according to Jesus, because right here, he said that hell is just as eternal as heaven.

  39:06-39:17

  You know, what's interesting about that is in all my years of hearing people, you know, Welch out all kinds of goofy theology.

  39:17-39:19

  You know what I've never heard?

  39:20-39:24

  I've never heard somebody teach that heaven is a temporary place.

  39:25-39:26

  I've never heard that one.

  39:26-39:27

  Have you?

  39:28-39:35

  Have you heard the guy that's like, yeah, in Jesus you die and you go to heaven and you're there for a while, and then you cease to exist.

  39:35-39:37

  Have you heard that?

  39:39-39:40

  I haven't.

  39:43-39:57

  But it's interesting that the number of times I've heard people try to say that about hell, but Jesus right here said the duration of hell is equal to the duration of heaven.

  39:59-40:08

  And if you're hearing this and you haven't received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, listen to me.

  40:09-40:16

  This is the note that Jesus ended on, and this is the note that we need to end the series on, someday is going to be too late for you.

  40:19-40:22

  And this sermon is going to haunt you for eternity.

  40:23-40:36

  You realize that if you're hearing this message right now, you're going to have all of eternity suffering to let this haunt you.

  40:39-40:40

  To say I knew what I needed to do.

  40:41-40:42

  I just kept putting it off.

  40:44-40:50

  I just didn't let the ramifications of the consequences sink in.

  40:52-40:58

  You know, I knew this day was going to come, and I did nothing about it.

  41:01-41:03

  So I'm pleading with you.

  41:06-41:07

  I don't make up the message.

  41:08-41:09

  I just broadcast it.

  41:10-41:21

  And I'm pleading with you not to wait another day because Jesus made it very clear through these chapters that he is coming back.

  41:24-41:29

  And the question he put on all of our laps is this, are you ready for him?

  41:33-41:34

  Your destination is eternal.

  41:37-41:40

  We could have our worship team come up in our communion service.

  41:40-41:44

  We're going to conclude this series by gathering.

  41:44-41:46

  Don't close your Bibles yet.

  41:47-41:50

  We're gonna conclude this series by gathering around the Lord's table.

  41:50-42:03

  The reason I told you not to close your Bibles yet is because you know, when we do this, we look back to remember the price that was paid for our redemption, the blood that was shed for our sins.

  42:04-42:14

  Absolutely, but you know, we not only look back, but around the Lord's table, we also look ahead.

  42:15-42:20

  Because did you know there's a glorious future promise tied to communion?

  42:22-42:30

  Just go over to Matthew 26, you're already in Matthew 25, just go to Matthew 26 and look at verse 26.

  42:33-43:28

  It says, "Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing, He broke it, and He gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body.' And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" Then look, verse 29, he says, "I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." So when Jesus Christ establishes His millennial kingdom, we're going to have the awesome blessing of sharing this with Jesus Christ personally.

  43:30-43:32

  So my friends, this is not just a looking back.

  43:35-43:38

  This is also by faith, looking ahead.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 25:31-46

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. We are judged based on our works (See Revelation 21:12.) Since we can’t be saved by our good works, why are works the basis for judgment? How does this tie into Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25:31-46?
   

3. What kinds of works will Jesus evaluate on this day of judgment (Matt 25:35-36,42-43)? Since Jesus is speaking to believers at the end of the Tribulation, how does this principle apply now?
   

4. How would you respond to this statement:? “If hell is real, it’s only temporary. Eventually God either brings everyone to heaven or just wipes out of existence those who have rejected Him.”

Breakout
Pray for one another.

---

Want more eschatology teaching?

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through Revelation

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through 2 Thessalonians

What ARE We Waiting For? You Get One Shot

Introduction:

Jesus Demands Productivity: How to Make Your One Shot Count (Matthew 25:14-30):

1. I must to see myself as a Manager . (Matthew 25:14)

   1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

   Matthew 16:24 - Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

   Matthew 16:25 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

2. Must make the Most of what God Entrusted to me. (Matthew 25:15-17)
3. I must show Jesus what I Produced for Him. (Matthew 25:21,23,26)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:07-01:29

  Matthew chapter 25, we're gonna be picking up in verse 14. While you're turning there, many years ago I ran a senior high wilderness camp for boys, and it would be rock climbing and hiking and canoeing and, you know, outdoorsy things, right?

  01:30-01:35

  I remember there was this one kid, he complained the entire time.

  01:39-01:53

  And I'm like, "Why did you sign up for this?" But one time we were hiking and he said, "Why are we doing so much hiking?" And it got to the point, you know what?

  01:53-01:56

  It was late in the week, I was tired, it was warm.

  01:56-02:02

  And I just turned around and I said, "You know what?

  02:03-02:08

  Next year, instead of wilderness camp, we'll have beanbag camp.

  02:09-02:13

  And we'll just go indoors and we'll get beanbags and we'll set up video games.

  02:13-02:17

  And we'll just have beanbag, we'll just lay around all week and play video games.

  02:17-02:27

  We'll have beanbag camp." And as soon as it came out of my mouth, I thought, man, that was so jerky.

  02:31-02:32

  The kid didn't react for a second.

  02:33-02:35

  Then all of a sudden, his face lit up.

  02:36-02:39

  And he goes, that sounds so cool.

  02:41-02:43

  And for years, people would tease me.

  02:43-02:44

  They're like, you haven't beanbag camped this year.

  02:47-02:51

  And you know, that's cute and funny.

  02:51-03:12

  but you know that's what some people imagine Christianity to be like. Let's just make it easy, right? Why are we doing all this work? You know, why can't we just show up in our padded seats and take in and enjoy and see you next week?

  03:12-03:51

  And listen, that's not offered because a Christianity like that is not Christianity. We've been going through this series in the Olivet Discourse. We've been looking at signs leading up to the second coming of Jesus Christ and five times he said you have no idea when it's going to happen. Yeah, and I echo that to say you know what whether it's your death or the rapture or the coming judgment we don't know when these events are going to happen. So when we get to this portion of scripture, we see Jesus saying, you gotta be ready.

  03:54-03:54

  You gotta stay ready.

  03:57-03:58

  So let's bow our heads for a second.

  03:58-04:01

  I'm gonna ask you to pray for me.

  04:02-04:09

  I'm gonna pray for you as we approach God's word together.

  04:12-04:16

  And all of God's people said, amen, amen.

  04:16-04:22

  We're gonna be looking at the parable of the talents.

  04:23-04:25

  Today, Matthew 25, picking up in verse 14.

  04:26-04:34

  And listen, you gotta hear this, because if you miss this, you're gonna miss the whole rest of this.

  04:34-04:40

  But when we talk about talents, that doesn't mean like a unique skill.

  04:41-04:42

  That's not what that means.

  04:42-04:49

  Like the parable of the talent, some people think, well, talent's like, I can juggle chainsaws or I can play the piccolo or whatever.

  04:50-04:53

  It's not talking really just about that.

  04:54-04:57

  And some people wanna make it just about money.

  04:57-05:01

  And it's not just really about that.

  05:01-05:02

  It's all the above.

  05:06-05:10

  A talent was actually a weight.

  05:10-05:15

  and what it was worth was dependent on what it was made of, right?

  05:15-05:19

  Like a pound of gold is worth more than a pound of copper.

  05:22-05:32

  So in this parable, when you see talent, think money, but we're going to see it has a much bigger application than just money.

  05:34-05:35

  Look at verse 14.

  05:36-05:45

  Jesus says, "For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property.

  05:45-05:53

  To one, he gave five talents to another two and to another one to each according to his ability.

  05:54-05:55

  Then he went away.

  05:56-07:04

  OK, so the man was traveling and keep in mind, in those days, they didn't, you know, jump on spirit air and they were on the other side of the planet and back in a couple of days to travel to do business would have taken months or a couple of years. So he was going to be gone for a while and he called his his servants together and he says, "Look, I want you to take care of business while I'm gone." Right? Verse 16, it says, "He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money." Stop there for a second. Like why did he bury it in the ground? Keep in mind in those days as Jesus was telling the story, that wasn't an uncommon thing.

  07:04-07:07

  That's how they hid their money.

  07:07-07:11

  They would take a spot that only they knew about and they would bury it.

  07:11-07:16

  And that's what this guy who received the one talent did with his.

  07:17-07:27

  Verse 19 says, "Now after a long time, "the master of those servants came "and settled accounts with them.

  07:28-07:44

  "And he who had received the five talents came forward, "bringing five talents more." "Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here, I've made five talents more." His master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant.

  07:44-07:48

  You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much.

  07:49-08:06

  Enter into the joy of your master." And he also, who had the two talents, came forward saying, "Master, you delivered to me two talents. Here, I've made two talents more." His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant.

  08:07-08:09

  You have been faithful over a little.

  08:09-08:11

  I will set you over much.

  08:11-08:14

  Enter into the joy of your master.

  08:16-08:19

  Stop there for a second, you see, these guys, they they got it.

  08:21-08:26

  They're like they're like, OK, you you trusted me to do something with this.

  08:26-08:28

  And I went and I did something with it.

  08:29-08:32

  Look, I I produced something.

  08:33-08:35

  Like, well, what did they do?

  08:35-08:36

  It says they traded.

  08:37-08:37

  I don't know.

  08:37-08:43

  Did they buy a farm and increase the proceeds that way?

  08:43-08:46

  Did they invest in a carpentry business that took off?

  08:47-08:56

  I don't know, but they somehow took that money and said, "I'm going to use it in a way "that when my master comes back, "I'm going to have something to show him.

  08:56-09:00

  "I produce something." They got it.

  09:01-09:02

  They got it.

  09:03-09:04

  Look at verse 24.

  09:04-09:17

  It says, "He also who had received the one talent came forward saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seeds.

  09:17-09:20

  So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

  09:21-09:29

  Here, you have what is yours.'" This guy didn't get it.

  09:32-09:45

  You see, basically he said, "You trusted me and I produced nothing." And then he attacks his master.

  09:47-09:49

  He goes, "Look, I buried it, okay?

  09:49-09:50

  But you know why I did that?

  09:51-09:52

  It's because you're difficult.

  09:53-09:54

  That's why you're hard.

  09:55-09:56

  You take from others.

  09:57-10:00

  You act like you own and deserve everything.

  10:02-10:03

  It's a little intimidating.

  10:04-10:04

  So here.

  10:06-10:08

  I buried it, here it is.

  10:10-10:11

  Have what is yours.

  10:13-10:19

  Verse 26, "But his master answered him, "You wicked and slothful servant.

  10:20-10:31

  "You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered those seeds, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers.

  10:32-10:38

  And at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest.

  10:39-10:50

  So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10 talents." You could say the master was not thrilled with the lack of effort.

  10:53-10:55

  He says, "Wait, wait, wait, okay, hang on a second.

  10:55-10:58

  You knew that I was a difficult man.

  10:58-10:59

  You knew I was a hard person.

  11:00-11:06

  You knew that I expected some kind of return when I got back.

  11:06-11:07

  You know what?

  11:07-11:14

  If you really believed that, then you would have at least made bare minimum effort.

  11:14-11:18

  Take it to the bank." I mean, that's like, that's a bare minimum effort.

  11:21-11:22

  You know what you're doing?

  11:22-11:25

  You're lazy and you're making excuses.

  11:26-11:27

  That's what you're doing.

  11:30-11:34

  Verse 29, like what's the point of this story, Jesus?

  11:34-11:42

  Here it is, "For to everyone who has, will more be given.

  11:43-11:58

  And he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Okay, in other words, Jesus said, "If you prove yourself trustworthy, you will be trusted with more.

  11:58-12:08

  But if you prove yourself untrustworthy, you lose." Eternal.

  12:09-12:10

  You lose eternally.

  12:11-12:12

  Look at verse 30.

  12:13-12:18

  "And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.

  12:18-12:23

  In that place, there will be weeping." and gnashing of teeth.

  12:24-12:28

  And I think we know what that describes.

  12:36-12:37

  Here's the sermon today.

  12:38-12:39

  It's three words.

  12:44-12:48

  Jesus demands productivity.

  12:51-12:53

  That is the point of this story.

  12:56-12:58

  I'm gonna say it again, so you need to write it down.

  12:58-13:11

  Jesus demands productivity, not Jesus saying, you know what, it would be really spiffy of you if you did something for the kid.

  13:11-13:16

  No, Jesus demands productivity.

  13:19-13:32

  Jesus doesn't say, "I prefer it when my people serve me." No, Jesus demands productivity.

  13:35-13:40

  And you're like, "Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on, Pastor Jeff, hang on.

  13:41-13:48

  I thought we were saved by grace." And you're talking about works here.

  13:48-13:51

  And I thought we were saved by grace through faith.

  13:52-13:52

  Correct.

  13:54-13:58

  You are saved by grace through faith alone.

  14:01-14:08

  And do you know what Jesus expects from people who are saved by grace?

  14:09-14:10

  Do you know what he expects?

  14:12-14:13

  Productivity.

  14:17-14:20

  He demands productivity.

  14:23-14:24

  That's the point of this story.

  14:26-14:37

  Jesus is going to return someday, and he is going to say to you, "Show me, show me what you produced with what I gave you.

  14:37-14:43

  I wanna see it." and you get one shot.

  14:45-14:53

  This life that you have, this life that you have is your one opportunity to produce something for Jesus.

  14:55-15:04

  So on your outline, Jesus demands productivity, how to make your one shot count.

  15:06-15:06

  Get one shot.

  15:10-15:16

  You need to be swinging to knock that ball into the river with your one shot.

  15:16-15:17

  You're like, well, how do I do that?

  15:17-15:18

  How do I do that?

  15:18-15:22

  Well, Jesus tells us right here, three things we wanna pull out of here.

  15:22-15:23

  Number one, write this down.

  15:23-15:25

  I must see myself as a manager.

  15:27-15:29

  I must see myself as a manager.

  15:30-15:31

  That's where it starts.

  15:31-15:33

  Do you see that in verse 14?

  15:35-15:43

  The man, the master went on a journey, it says, who called his servants and, Look at this entrusted to them.

  15:46-15:47

  His property.

  15:49-15:51

  It has to start here.

  15:53-15:58

  It has to start here, because if you don't get this, none of the rest of the sermon will apply to you.

  16:00-16:01

  It has to start with this.

  16:02-16:08

  Everything I am and everything that I have belongs to Jesus Christ.

  16:09-16:12

  He is my master and he is my owner.

  16:17-16:21

  So in this story, the master handed out talents.

  16:21-16:25

  Again, we're not talking about, you know, juggling.

  16:25-16:29

  We're talking about a unit of money, but what does that represent?

  16:31-16:33

  This is what talents represent here.

  16:34-16:35

  And please don't miss this.

  16:36-16:43

  It represents skill, resources, and opportunity and other things.

  16:44-16:52

  But all your skills, all of your resources, all of your opportunities to do something productive.

  16:53-16:55

  Listen, for the kingdom of God.

  16:58-17:01

  Do something productive for the kingdom of God.

  17:01-17:04

  Okay, so don't mishear this.

  17:04-17:08

  And I don't wanna hear like small group conversation was about, well, you know what?

  17:08-17:10

  I always try to smile at my neighbor.

  17:10-17:12

  That's how I use what God gave me.

  17:12-17:14

  That is not what he's talking about.

  17:15-17:17

  Something productive for the kingdom.

  17:18-17:20

  Like I always try to be nice to people at work.

  17:21-17:22

  Good for you, and you should.

  17:23-17:25

  Something productive for the kingdom.

  17:27-17:28

  That's what he's talking about.

  17:29-17:36

  And the two things that he has called us to do as a church for his kingdom, evangelism and discipleship.

  17:36-17:38

  Those are the two things.

  17:38-17:45

  So when we talk about being productive, it's in that area, evangelism and discipleship.

  17:48-17:51

  So where did the talent come from?

  17:51-17:55

  Where did this currency come from in this story?

  17:57-17:57

  What about you?

  18:01-18:12

  Same source, your life, your skills, your opportunities, your resources, Jesus gave those to you.

  18:13-18:17

  And this is what you use to serve Jesus.

  18:19-18:29

  Everything that you have and everything you are, he gave you and said, now use that to produce something for the kingdom.

  18:33-18:35

  And that means I'm a manager.

  18:35-18:36

  And you know what that means?

  18:37-18:40

  That means this is not my life to live.

  18:42-18:44

  Oh, and the Bible speaks to that concept, by the way.

  18:44-19:03

  Now, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20 says, "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price." Jesus said it in Matthew 16, 24, when he told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

  19:03-19:05

  Deny yourself.

  19:05-19:07

  That is what he calls you to.

  19:07-19:15

  The hardest thing you will ever do, saying no to me and what I want and saying yes to Jesus and what he wants.

  19:15-19:18

  And Jesus said that is bare minimum for following him.

  19:19-19:21

  You have to deny yourself.

  19:23-19:26

  And you're gonna get to that place if you're not there already.

  19:26-19:32

  And I know a lot of you are, And I know a lot of you are not, but you've got to get to the place where you say life is a trust.

  19:32-19:34

  It is a stewardship.

  19:34-19:39

  And this isn't mine, God, this is yours.

  19:39-19:43

  And all this stuff that you've entrusted to me, it's all yours.

  19:47-19:49

  This life that I have, it's God's.

  19:50-19:53

  The money that I have, it's God's.

  19:53-19:59

  The family that I have, it's God's family He's entrusted to me.

  20:00-20:05

  This ministry that I have, it's God's, it's not mine.

  20:07-20:08

  That's why I cringe.

  20:08-20:11

  I hear people say all the time, well, nobody's gonna tell me how to live my life.

  20:13-20:14

  Oh, somebody did.

  20:18-20:22

  Or say, nobody's gonna tell me how to spend my money.

  20:25-20:26

  Hey, that ain't your money.

  20:27-20:32

  That's God's. And I will inform you that he absolutely did tell you how to spend it.

  20:35-21:24

  For people say, "Well, nobody's gonna tell me how to run my family." Oh yes, he wrote it down in a number one bestseller. I suggest you get on board. But you know who says those things? People who don't view everything they have as belonging to Jesus. And listen, if you're living life on your terms, you are squandering what Jesus entrusted to you. And you're like the Mr. One Talent Man. I don't know, his name is in a parable. The Mr. One Talent Man. We'll call him that. Like the $6 million man, like the dollar store version.

  21:25-21:28

  The Mr. One Talent Man, you're gonna be like him ultimately.

  21:28-21:31

  You're gonna lose what you think you have.

  21:34-21:41

  I know Jesus calls me to serve him with this life that he gave me, but you know what?

  21:41-21:43

  I'm just gonna do my own thing.

  21:45-21:50

  And in order to do that, you have to bury what he gave you.

  21:51-21:54

  The opportunity, the skills, the resources, you're gonna bury that.

  21:57-21:58

  And you're gonna lose everything.

  22:01-22:12

  You can go ahead and live your life, bury the talent, do what you want, have no regard for what God wants, have no regard for why God gifted you and entrusted you as he has.

  22:12-22:15

  Go ahead, but I'm telling you, you are going to lose everything.

  22:16-22:17

  You're gonna lose your life.

  22:17-22:22

  And ultimately, according to this story, you're gonna lose heaven.

  22:25-22:32

  You know, we just quoted Matthew 16, 24 a minute ago, very next verse, Matthew 16, 25, Jesus said the same thing.

  22:32-22:39

  He said, "For whoever would save his life will lose it." That's what he's talking about.

  22:40-22:46

  "But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Everything you have has been given to you by Jesus.

  22:46-22:48

  You have to see yourself as a manager.

  22:49-22:49

  All right?

  22:52-22:54

  Secondly, obvious point of the story, right?

  22:55-22:58

  I must make the most of what God entrusted to me.

  23:02-23:04

  Yes, you are a manager.

  23:04-23:19

  And each of you, each of us, given by Christ a certain amount, skills, resources, opportunity.

  23:20-23:22

  We've each been given a certain amount.

  23:23-23:26

  That is what I have to invest in the kingdom.

  23:26-23:32

  And he made it clear in this parable that that's different from person to person, right?

  23:33-23:35

  We all have different skills.

  23:35-23:37

  We all have different opportunities.

  23:39-23:42

  We all have different amounts of resources.

  23:46-23:50

  And you're like, well, what determines, what determines how much I'm entrusted with?

  23:51-23:53

  Well, he tells you in verse 15, did you see it?

  23:54-24:05

  He says, it says, 20 gave five talents to another two, to another one, to each, here it is, according to his ability.

  24:07-24:12

  Each man's ability determined what he received.

  24:16-24:40

  And Jesus' point is this, my friends, God knows your capacity. And God gives you what He knows you are capable of handling. And it's not going to be the same from person to person, because we're not the same. We're just not. And that's It's okay.

  24:41-24:42

  Same as boring.

  24:42-24:43

  We're all different.

  24:46-24:49

  We all have different mental skills.

  24:49-24:52

  We all have different verbal skills.

  24:52-24:55

  We all have different resources.

  24:56-24:56

  That's okay.

  24:57-24:59

  That's how God created us.

  24:59-25:00

  He determined that.

  25:00-25:02

  We have different responsibilities.

  25:03-25:11

  We have different privileges, we have different resources And understand this in this story here, the number doesn't matter.

  25:13-25:19

  All right, you could be a five talent person or a two talent person or a one talent person.

  25:19-25:21

  Jesus is the one who determined that.

  25:22-25:25

  He gives and he gives to each one of us differently.

  25:28-25:37

  So sometimes church, we look at other people, we're like, man, if I had that guy's resources and skills and opportunity, I would really be something.

  25:41-25:42

  God didn't give that to you.

  25:43-25:44

  God gave it to that guy, right?

  25:46-25:58

  You know, I could say, man, if I had a platform like Joel Osteen and that size of church and that kind of building and that TV show and that million dollar smile, I would be amazing.

  26:01-26:02

  God didn't give that to me.

  26:03-26:05

  This is the hand that I was dealt.

  26:09-26:11

  You really didn't need to laugh there.

  26:16-26:19

  Like, you know, smiling Joel has to play the hand that he's dealt.

  26:21-26:22

  I get to play the hand that I'm dealt.

  26:23-26:24

  That's the point of this story.

  26:30-26:33

  Do you think Joel Osteen ever wishes he was me?

  26:39-26:41

  I kind of wish he would have left it that way.

  26:45-26:49

  The point is this, how many talents you get, it doesn't matter, it's irrelevant.

  26:51-26:58

  But what absolutely does matter is what you do with what God's entrusted to you.

  27:00-27:05

  And what you're called to do with what Jesus gave you is to maximize it.

  27:05-27:06

  That's what you're called to do.

  27:07-27:13

  I love that verse 16, the Mr. Five Talent Man, it said he went at once, at once.

  27:13-27:14

  Underline that in your Bible.

  27:14-27:15

  He didn't wait.

  27:16-27:18

  The master's like, here, I'm trusting this to you.

  27:18-27:20

  He's like, well, I hope I get around to that someday.

  27:20-27:22

  At once he took it.

  27:22-27:23

  He goes, okay, he's trusting me.

  27:23-27:23

  I got to get to work.

  27:24-27:25

  Let me get on this right now.

  27:26-27:27

  Yes.

  27:27-27:29

  Faithfulness says, I'm on it.

  27:29-27:31

  Faithfulness says, okay, that was my opportunity.

  27:32-27:33

  On my market set, go.

  27:33-27:34

  I am on it right now.

  27:36-27:42

  And five, and the two talent kid here, they both doubled what they were given.

  27:44-27:52

  And the point Jesus is making here is look, equal faithfulness, not equal results, but equal faithfulness.

  27:53-28:01

  Okay, from the five, you know, talent guy, "Okay, he brought five, awesome, he maximized." The two-talent guy couldn't do that.

  28:01-28:04

  He maximized what he had, both faithful.

  28:05-28:06

  Different results.

  28:07-28:08

  And that's how ministry is.

  28:10-28:12

  That's how ministry is, there's different results.

  28:12-28:18

  You realize there are great Christians and great churches that are leading thousands to Christ.

  28:18-28:18

  Did you know that?

  28:19-28:25

  And at the same time, there are great Christians and great churches that are leading dozens to Christ.

  28:27-28:33

  And both of these churches are faithful if they are making the most of their opportunity.

  28:36-28:43

  The Christians in these churches are being faithful if they're making the most of the opportunity.

  28:44-29:05

  That's what Jesus is saying, "Hey, if you're a five, give ten back. If you're a two, give four back." The issue is making the most of what you've been entrusted with. And let's be clear, Jesus isn't saying here that if you're a one-talent guy, you're a loser.

  29:06-29:32

  That's not the point of the story at all. The point is this, even if you only were given one, you're still responsible for that. The one-talent guy can't be looking into five talent guys saying, "Well, my talent doesn't matter 'cause he's got, he was entrusted with way more than me." You are being entrusted with what he gave you, no matter how much or how little that may look to you.

  29:33-29:34

  That's the point.

  29:37-29:39

  Maximize your opportunity.

  29:42-29:47

  Jesus expects a return on what he gave you.

  29:49-29:51

  because Jesus demands productivity.

  29:54-29:55

  This is conceptual.

  29:55-29:57

  Let's get very specific, shall we?

  29:59-30:01

  If you're sitting here saying, you know what?

  30:02-30:03

  What, okay, what did God give me?

  30:03-30:06

  What are the talents and skills and resources and opportunities?

  30:07-30:07

  What did God give me?

  30:07-30:08

  I don't know.

  30:09-30:10

  I don't know, jefe.

  30:10-30:13

  I mean, I have a, I kind of have a way with kids.

  30:13-30:14

  I love, I love kids.

  30:15-30:16

  Well, that's from Christ.

  30:17-30:21

  So get involved with Harvest Academy, get involved with LifeWise.

  30:21-30:23

  Use that because that's what you've been entrusted with.

  30:25-30:37

  You're like, "Eh, I don't really like kids." I'm like, "Well, you're in the wrong church." But you know what I can do is I can feed people and I can host people and I'm really good at that kind of thing.

  30:39-30:40

  That's from Christ.

  30:40-30:51

  So why don't you host a small group in your home and make your home a place where disciples are made and Christians are encouraged and discouraged Christians can come and...

  30:54-30:55

  That's from Christ.

  30:58-31:03

  You might be saying, you know what, Pastor Jeff, I've been blessed to be able to earn a lot of money.

  31:06-31:07

  That's from Christ.

  31:08-31:08

  That's from Christ.

  31:08-31:14

  He's given you the resources to significantly support missions, local and international.

  31:15-31:16

  That's from Christ.

  31:18-31:23

  You might be like, well, I don't like kids and I don't really have a lot of money, but you know what my thing is, Pastor Jeff?

  31:23-31:24

  I'm kind of an outdoorsy guy.

  31:25-31:30

  You know, when you were talking about wilderness camp, that fired me up because that's the kind of thing that I'm into.

  31:33-31:34

  That's from Christ.

  31:36-31:36

  Run a church camp.

  31:38-31:43

  Like, I don't really like the outdoors, but I'll tell you what, I've been blessed with like athletics.

  31:43-31:48

  I love sports and I just kind of been naturally gifted that way, that's something that he gave me.

  31:50-31:51

  That's from Christ.

  31:52-31:57

  Run a sports outreach in the Dominican, get involved in athletes for action, whatever.

  32:00-32:01

  Use what God gave you.

  32:03-32:06

  I have been so blessed to see people do this.

  32:06-32:24

  I'm not gonna mention names because I don't wanna embarrass people, but I knew two doctors, husband and wife, that if they would have decided to open practice in America, they could have just wrote their ticket for anything.

  32:24-32:25

  You know what they did instead?

  32:26-32:31

  They went to Romania to open a medical clinic as a platform for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  32:33-32:34

  They get it.

  32:35-32:35

  They get it.

  32:37-32:46

  I know two ladies in this church, also medical people, that could go all in for themselves.

  32:49-32:53

  And do you know what they decided to do with that medical training and expertise?

  32:56-33:00

  Work at pregnancy centers to stop abortions and share the gospel.

  33:03-33:04

  And I would say they get it.

  33:06-33:23

  I know people that they're like, "I'm not, okay, I'm not a medical guy, but I can build stuff." I know people that own construction companies that could build themselves an empire here, or they could build churches in places without one, and that's what they've chosen to do.

  33:25-33:25

  They get it.

  33:26-33:27

  They get it.

  33:29-33:32

  What is it that God has entrusted to you?

  33:33-33:35

  And what are you doing with it for God?

  33:38-33:42

  And you're like, man, I hear what you're saying.

  33:42-33:44

  I don't even know where to get started.

  33:44-33:46

  I'm like, this church is a great place to start.

  33:47-33:48

  You know, we're involved in missions.

  33:48-33:51

  We're involved in local outreach.

  33:51-33:52

  Are you getting involved?

  33:53-33:55

  We have a great video recap real quick we wanna show.

  33:57-34:01

  This is the kind of stuff that's happening from our church that you can get involved in.

  34:04-34:08

  God is trusting you to do something with what he gave you.

  34:10-34:11

  You get one shot.

  34:13-34:18

  You could build your own little kingdom, or you could advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

  34:19-34:22

  The question here is, are you making the most of the opportunity that you've been given?

  34:23-34:26

  What impact are you having on the kingdom?

  34:29-34:30

  One more, number three.

  34:33-34:35

  I must show Jesus what I produced for him.

  34:39-34:47

  Jesus demands productivity and there will be a day when he will want to see what you produced.

  34:48-34:52

  Verse 19 says that the master came back to settle accounts.

  34:52-34:56

  Literally that's, look at the books, right?

  34:57-34:59

  Show me the accounting books.

  34:59-35:01

  That's literally what that means.

  35:01-35:08

  Jesus is going to return someday and say, let me see what you've done with the opportunity that I gave you.

  35:13-35:23

  On that day, I just have to ask you, what is it that you are going to be able to point to and say, Jesus, this was for you.

  35:25-35:28

  I poured my life into this, Jesus, for you.

  35:28-35:30

  This is what I did for you.

  35:30-35:42

  "This is what I produced for you, Jesus, with what you gave me." You know, Jesus, before me, this wasn't here.

  35:42-35:44

  Before me, Jesus, this didn't happen.

  35:46-35:47

  This is what I produced for you.

  35:49-35:53

  And that was the problem for Mr. One Talent.

  35:54-35:55

  He had nothing to show.

  35:58-36:04

  And because he had nothing to show, he proved that he was unfaithful.

  36:06-36:16

  So any potential reward he would have received was given to somebody else that proved themselves trustworthy.

  36:16-36:18

  And the one talent man was sent to hell.

  36:22-36:23

  Are you producing for Jesus?

  36:25-36:37

  And if you have nothing to point to and say, here is how I'm using what Christ gave me to advance the kingdom, to get maximum results for him, this is what I'm doing.

  36:41-36:42

  Then you're a phony.

  36:44-36:44

  According to Jesus.

  36:46-36:52

  If the sum total of your Christian walk is beanbag camp, well, I go to church.

  36:55-36:56

  You aren't using what you've been given.

  37:00-37:05

  What you did was you buried your talent, you buried your money, you buried your opportunity.

  37:06-37:13

  And I have to tell you, it's going to be real uncomfortable for you when Jesus returns and wants to see what you produced.

  37:13-37:15

  That's going to be really uncomfortable for some of you.

  37:19-37:25

  I've heard people say, "You know, I like going to big churches." Listen, there's nothing wrong with a big church.

  37:25-37:26

  We just talked about that, right?

  37:27-37:32

  There's nothing wrong with a big church, just like there's nothing wrong with a little church or any size in between.

  37:33-37:34

  There's nothing wrong.

  37:36-37:43

  I'll tell you what is wrong, though, is when people say, "I like to go to a big church because I can go in and out and no one knows me." I've heard that so many times.

  37:43-37:45

  And you know what that person's doing?

  37:45-37:47

  Is they're burying their talent.

  37:48-37:54

  And it's going to be real uncomfortable for them when Jesus wants to see what they produced.

  37:56-38:01

  If you're like, man, I like that, I like that video, that was that was real nice.

  38:01-38:04

  Now, you know, I'd love to get involved in that kind of stuff.

  38:04-38:07

  I'm just too busy to get involved in that church stuff.

  38:07-38:09

  I can't do that kind of stuff.

  38:10-38:11

  You buried your talent.

  38:13-38:17

  And it's going to be really uncomfortable for you when Jesus shows up and says, show me, show me what you produced.

  38:20-38:23

  I feel like, yeah, well, yeah, I love man, love man.

  38:23-38:25

  I gotta take care of me first.

  38:26-38:27

  I gotta take care of me first.

  38:30-38:30

  Go for it.

  38:32-38:33

  You go take care of you.

  38:34-38:41

  But I have to tell you, it's going to be really uncomfortable for you when Jesus comes back and says, show me what you produced with what I gave you.

  38:42-38:42

  Show me.

  38:46-38:51

  you're going to be repaid according to what you produced.

  38:52-38:56

  And hey, hey, hey, that's great news if you produce something.

  38:58-39:09

  That's why we see in this passage five and two, the five talent man and the two talent man, they were excited because they knew they did their job.

  39:10-39:11

  Like, oh, I can't wait till he comes back.

  39:11-39:12

  I can't wait to show him.

  39:13-39:14

  I can't wait to show him what I did with what he gave me.

  39:16-39:18

  and understand they weren't boasting.

  39:19-39:20

  Okay, they weren't bragging.

  39:21-39:24

  This excitement is just a sense of fulfillment.

  39:24-39:25

  Hey, you trusted me.

  39:25-39:27

  Look what I did with what you trusted me.

  39:27-39:27

  Isn't that cool?

  39:28-39:30

  Isn't that cool that I have something to give back to you?

  39:31-39:32

  More than you gave me.

  39:38-39:44

  And if you're producing like them, you're gonna receive commendation.

  39:44-39:45

  Look at the commendation.

  39:45-39:46

  Let's go back to verse 21 again.

  39:51-39:54

  "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.

  39:54-39:55

  You have been faithful over a little.

  39:56-39:57

  I will set you over much.

  39:57-40:02

  Enter into the joy of your master.'" So you get commendation.

  40:04-40:10

  And if you're faithful to produce, you're assigned greater service.

  40:12-40:31

  And you're like, "Whoa, time out, time out, time out, time out, time out, time out, time out." You're telling me that the reward for doing good work is more work.

  40:34-40:38

  Yeah, that is exactly what I'm telling you.

  40:39-40:43

  That's exactly what Jesus is saying.

  40:44-40:49

  And if you're like, "Man, you're doing more work, "means I get more work." That's bogus, man.

  40:49-40:50

  You know what that means?

  40:50-40:50

  You don't get it.

  40:51-40:57

  You don't get it because the greatest joy you will ever have in your life is serving Jesus Christ.

  40:57-41:04

  And every single person who is using what Christ gave them to produce for Christ is gonna tell you that.

  41:07-41:09

  There's gonna be different assignments in heaven.

  41:11-41:17

  And what you do in eternity is determined by your service now.

  41:20-41:22

  For our worship team would make their way forward.

  41:24-41:32

  You know, God has given you skills, resources and opportunities.

  41:33-41:33

  Here you go.

  41:35-41:35

  This is for you.

  41:38-41:45

  And we all have different amounts, but there's one common denominator for all of us.

  41:47-41:49

  We all have one life.

  41:49-41:50

  We all have one opportunity.

  41:51-41:55

  We all get one shot to produce something for Jesus.

  41:56-41:57

  What are you doing with yours?

  41:58-41:59

  Let's pray.

  42:01-42:10

  Father in heaven, we thank you for the gifts that you bestowed upon us.

  42:12-42:21

  Father, as we close this time in your word, I just wanna pray for the person here who maybe took what you gave them and went and buried it in the ground and ignored it and refused to use it.

  42:22-42:41

  I pray today they would run and find it and dig it back up and use it to glorify your name Father, Jesus, all through this passage, we've been looking at, all through this, that is all of it, discourse has been telling us, he is coming back and Father, we believe that.

  42:41-42:45

  And I pray that we would live like we really believe that.

  42:45-42:52

  We know he's coming and he's going to wanna see what it is that we did with what he gave us.

  42:54-43:00

  Father, I pray today is a day of great encouragement because there are many people here who are producing.

  43:02-43:11

  But for those who have just sort of buried it and gone on with their own business, I pray today you would grant them repentance.

  43:15-43:25

  That they would truly understand that a living walk with the living God that we enter into by your grace isn't about sitting around.

  43:27-43:28

  It's about using what you gave us.

  43:29-43:32

  We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 25:14-30

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. What do the talents represent (Matt 25:15)? What determines how the Master distributes the talents?
   

3. Why was the Master not pleased with the man who buried, and returned, the Master’s talent? What did that servant’s response reveal about that servant’s heart?
   

4. Is this parable teaching that you are saved by works? Why or why not?
   

5. How are you using what has been given to you by Jesus FOR Jesus?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

---

Want more eschatology teaching?

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through Revelation

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through 2 Thessalonians

What ARE We Waiting For? Stay Ready

Introduction:

Three Lies Unprepared People Tell Themselves (Matthew 25:1-13):

1. I'll always have Time later. (Matthew 25:6,10)
2. I'm prepared because I'm with the right Group . (Matthew 25:8,12)

   Matthew 7:21-23 - "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 2And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"

3. Oil isn't that important. (Matthew 25:8-9)

Five Evidences of Salvation:

1. I love and long for God's Word .

   1 Peter 2:2 - Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation...

2. I live in Repentance .

   Matthew 3:8 - Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

3. I am Growing more spiritually mature.

   Philippians 1:6 - And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

4. I love other Christians .

   1 John 3:14 - We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

5. I love giving Money .

   Matthew 6:21 - For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

   Revelation 19:9 - And the angel said to me, "Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

• Audio Transcript

  01:08-01:11

  We're going through this series, intentional hope.

  01:11-01:12

  What are we waiting for?

  01:14-01:24

  And we see in Matthew chapters 24 and 25, the very words of our Lord, talking about the signs leading to his second coming.

  01:26-01:28

  And the big question is, when's this gonna happen?

  01:28-01:32

  Well, we've already seen four times.

  01:33-01:34

  Jesus said, it's an unknown moment.

  01:35-01:38

  Verse 36, verse 42, verse 44, verse 50.

  01:39-01:41

  Jesus said it's sudden and unexpected.

  01:43-01:45

  So you need to be prepared.

  01:47-01:53

  And I want to remind you that the first time Jesus came, the world wasn't prepared.

  01:57-01:59

  Are you going to be ready for his return?

  02:03-02:11

  whether it's the rapture of the church, or whether it's his return in judgment, which we will be talking about today.

  02:12-02:13

  Are you gonna be ready for that?

  02:15-02:16

  I'd like you to bow your heads.

  02:19-02:25

  Just take a moment, please pray for me to clearly and accurately communicate God's word.

  02:26-02:29

  And I will pray for you to receive it.

  02:33-02:36

  And all of God's people said, amen.

  02:37-02:44

  Recently, one of our small groups hosted my family's sort of a how do you do, get to know you kind of thing.

  02:45-02:49

  And we were asked, what's the hardest part of ministry?

  02:52-02:54

  And I said, I don't know what the hardest part is, but I know what the worst part is.

  02:54-02:56

  I don't even have to think about it.

  02:57-02:58

  right off the top of my head.

  02:59-03:04

  I know the worst part of ministry, wedding rehearsals.

  03:08-03:10

  I would rather take a beating.

  03:12-03:22

  And I mean that with all sincerity, because you spend months with this couple and they outline it exactly, they outline everything exactly how they want it.

  03:22-03:32

  And then you have the wedding rehearsal and Aunt Petunia or whatever shows up They're like, "I think we should change everything." Like, "It says at your wedding." Sorry, sorry.

  03:33-03:35

  It did kind of feel good to get that out though.

  03:37-03:43

  But I don't want you to misunderstand me because in ministry, I'm just speaking of things from this side.

  03:44-03:49

  In ministry, weddings are the best and the worst thing.

  03:50-03:52

  Like, well, what makes the difference?

  03:53-03:56

  Weddings are amazing when you know the people.

  03:57-04:01

  When it's people you know and love, it's a celebration of what God is doing.

  04:01-04:05

  And it's such an honor for me to be a part of that.

  04:05-04:14

  But when it's a wedding for somebody that I don't know, and I have done a lot of weddings for people that I don't know, it is brutal.

  04:17-04:20

  And I'm so done doing weddings for people I don't know.

  04:20-04:31

  I've told Jillian, if somebody contacts the church and asks about a wedding and I don't know who they are and they're not a member of this church, $5,000 up front.

  04:34-04:35

  Cash.

  04:37-04:41

  And again, again, I mean that with all sincerity.

  04:43-05:01

  But you see, I was thinking about that this week because we're looking at a parable about a wedding and there's an aspect of this parable that really rings with that because it's about the relationship with the people in the wedding.

  05:03-05:04

  That's the story Jesus told.

  05:04-05:12

  Before we look at the text real quick, I need to remind you, they did weddings a little different in that day, in that area.

  05:13-05:19

  But in those days, some of this might seem strange to us, but our customs would certainly seem strange to them.

  05:19-05:23

  But in their day, a wedding happened in three phases.

  05:24-05:24

  All right?

  05:25-05:30

  The first phase was the fathers, father of the groom, father of the bride, they would actually sign a contract with each other.

  05:31-05:34

  And that was the official engagement of the couple.

  05:35-05:37

  And the second phase was the betrothal.

  05:38-05:44

  They would have a ceremony with family and friends where they would exchange vows.

  05:44-05:56

  And they were married, but they did not consummate the marriage Because what would happen at that point is the groom would go away to prepare a place for them to live as a married couple.

  05:58-06:04

  Whether that was buying land, whether that was building onto his father's house, he'd go away.

  06:07-06:09

  And he didn't say when he was coming back.

  06:11-06:14

  But then the third part, just call it the feast.

  06:16-06:22

  You see, the bride has been waiting with the bridesmaids.

  06:22-06:25

  And we're going to see they're referred to as virgins in this passage.

  06:26-06:27

  I'm gonna explain that in a moment.

  06:27-06:30

  But the bride has been waiting with the bridesmaids.

  06:30-06:39

  So the bridegroom comes unexpectedly and they have this big feast and it could last upwards of seven days.

  06:42-06:48

  For those of you who are ready to duck out of a wedding reception a half hour in, seven days.

  06:49-06:55

  And then they would be off to the home that was prepared for married life.

  06:55-06:58

  All right, so let's look Matthew 25.

  06:59-07:13

  This is a story that Jesus made up to teach us truths about all of these things he's been talking about in Matthew 24.

  07:13-07:21

  He says, then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

  07:21-07:28

  OK, virgins, that's the story has nothing to do with that, really.

  07:28-07:29

  That's what they were.

  07:30-07:31

  How would they would refer to bridesmaids?

  07:31-07:32

  Why?

  07:32-07:36

  Because they were typically young, unmarried girls.

  07:36-07:41

  They were cousins and friends and sisters, other unmarried young girls.

  07:42-07:42

  All right.

  07:43-07:45

  They were, in your mind, these are the bridesmaids.

  07:46-07:46

  All right?

  07:47-07:51

  And it says they had lamps, and a better translation of that really is a torch.

  07:52-07:58

  There was a wood pole that had a mesh top, and you would use oil to burn the flame.

  08:00-08:06

  And they would carry extra oil to keep the flame burning.

  08:06-08:08

  That's gonna be important in a minute.

  08:09-08:13

  Well, they would go to the bride's house to meet the bridegroom.

  08:14-08:18

  And you see these 10 virgins, these 10 bridesmaids, they all look the same.

  08:18-08:23

  They were all present and they were all waiting and they all had their torch.

  08:25-08:27

  But all 10 were not alike.

  08:27-08:28

  Look at verse two.

  08:29-08:38

  It says, "Five of them were foolish and five were wise." That word for foolish in the Greek is moros.

  08:39-08:42

  That's where we get the English word, moron.

  08:43-08:59

  Jesus literally said, "Five of these ladies were morons and five were wise." And again, you couldn't tell by looking at them, life would be much easier if you could.

  09:01-09:03

  These things only show up by their actions.

  09:04-09:05

  Look at verses three and four.

  09:07-09:11

  It says, "For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them.

  09:13-09:21

  But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps." See, here's the difference.

  09:24-09:30

  The wise were prepared, and the foolish were not.

  09:31-09:39

  Verse five, it says, "As the bridegroom was delayed, They all became drowsy and slept.

  09:40-09:42

  See, he didn't come when they expected.

  09:42-09:47

  They waited so long that they fell asleep.

  09:48-09:53

  Right? Verse six, he says, but at midnight there was a cry.

  09:55-09:56

  Here is the bridegroom.

  09:56-09:57

  Come out to meet him.

  10:00-10:01

  Like midnight.

  10:03-10:05

  That's a strange time for a wedding, isn't it?

  10:07-10:08

  I think that's Jesus point.

  10:09-10:14

  Look at verse 7 says, and all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.

  10:14-10:18

  And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out.

  10:19-10:21

  Oh, there's a problem.

  10:22-10:25

  The five foolish bridesmaids.

  10:30-10:37

  suddenly realized, oh, we didn't bring any oil.

  10:40-10:41

  And you're like, okay, okay, why not?

  10:42-10:42

  Why didn't they?

  10:43-10:46

  Look, this is a story that Jesus made up.

  10:47-10:49

  But that's a fair question, why didn't they?

  10:50-10:54

  And I would respond to that question with, why does anyone neglect something?

  10:56-10:58

  I thought I had enough.

  10:59-11:07

  I just didn't think about needing more or I never expected him to be delayed so long or.

  11:09-11:16

  It didn't seem important really at the time, but I think the biggest reason people neglect something.

  11:19-11:23

  Is this one, OK, I'll get it later, there's time.

  11:24-11:27

  There's time, I'll I'll I'll punch that for later.

  11:28-11:50

  Right? Look at verse nine. So the foolish ones were like, help. And verse nine says, but the wise answered, saying, since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves. They're like the wise were like, we look, we can't help you.

  11:51-12:01

  You're going to go after this yourself. You had opportunity to get oil just like we did. And I can't help it that you weren't prepared. That's that's not my problem.

  12:04-12:24

  Verse 10 says, and while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut. Okay, so the foolish bridesmaids, they had a last minute scramble. I imagine they did what the rest of us do.

  12:24-12:26

  They ran to sheets, right?

  12:26-12:35

  You see the five bridesmaids running into sheets, like, "Where's your oil?" Well, they came back and the door was shut.

  12:38-12:39

  It's too late.

  12:41-12:58

  Verse 11, "Afterward, the other virgins came also, "these foolish ones, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us!' But he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you.

  13:01-13:09

  The marriage feast begins and these foolish no oil girls, like, hey, hey, hey, we want in, we want in, we want in.

  13:13-13:19

  And the bridegroom's response doesn't seem to have any vindictiveness.

  13:19-13:26

  It just reveals something that's been true the entire time.

  13:29-13:30

  I don't know you.

  13:35-13:39

  And verse 13 is Jesus' application of this story.

  13:39-13:42

  Like Jesus, Jesus, why are you telling us this?

  13:42-13:43

  Here it is, verse 13.

  13:44-13:48

  Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

  13:51-13:57

  That's the fifth time in this passage, "You don't know." Like Pastor Taylor talked about last week.

  13:57-13:58

  You don't know.

  14:00-14:01

  Nobody knows.

  14:03-14:10

  Now here specifically, Jesus is speaking - listen closely, because there's a lot of people that have a lot of questions about this.

  14:10-14:11

  Listen please.

  14:11-14:22

  Jesus is speaking specifically here to people who come to faith in him during the tribulation, before his second coming and judgment.

  14:25-14:36

  He's not talking about the rapture here because we see the bridegroom say, "I do not know you," and there was no second chance.

  14:36-14:45

  Hypothetically, if you, Today, like I'm not a Christian and I'm not giving my life to Christ, the rapture happens.

  14:45-14:47

  You can come to Christ during the tribulation.

  14:47-14:52

  If that's your plan, I do not recommend that by the way, but that can happen.

  14:53-14:57

  But this indicates a door shut, no more chances thing.

  14:57-14:58

  You see what I mean?

  14:59-15:02

  He's speaking of his second coming in judgment.

  15:02-15:11

  But that said, there are principles here for all of us because you're going to meet Jesus Christ someday.

  15:15-15:25

  Whether you die, or the rapture happens, or here during the tribulation, he comes back in judgment.

  15:25-15:30

  At some point in your life, you are going to cross paths with Jesus Christ.

  15:32-15:36

  And the question that Jesus is putting in all of our laps is this.

  15:37-15:38

  Are you ready for that?

  15:40-15:41

  Are you prepared?

  15:47-15:48

  Are you sure?

  15:55-15:57

  Or maybe you're like these foolish bridesmaids.

  16:00-16:01

  You're lying to yourself.

  16:04-16:07

  You think you're ready and you're not.

  16:09-16:16

  So in your outline, here's three lies unprepared people tell themselves.

  16:20-16:22

  Three lies unprepared people tell themselves.

  16:23-16:25

  You're not ready, but you think you're ready.

  16:26-16:28

  And you're like, oh, is that me?

  16:28-16:34

  Well, I'll show you if that's you from the text here, because you might be lying to yourself.

  16:34-16:37

  You're not ready, but you're lying to yourself thinking you are.

  16:37-16:39

  Well, are you telling yourself these lies?

  16:39-16:42

  The first one is this, number one, we already touched on this quickly.

  16:43-16:45

  The first lie is this, I always have time later.

  16:45-16:47

  I always have time later.

  16:48-16:49

  There's always time.

  16:50-16:51

  There's always time.

  16:51-16:54

  Verse six, the bridegroom came at midnight.

  16:55-16:56

  Unexpected, right?

  16:57-16:58

  You don't know the time, it's unexpected.

  16:59-17:00

  And then verse 10.

  17:04-17:06

  They made their sheets run for the oil.

  17:07-17:08

  Then he showed up.

  17:11-17:12

  They ran out of time.

  17:13-17:15

  You see, that's the big lesson.

  17:17-17:18

  You don't know when Jesus is returning.

  17:20-17:21

  You don't know your death.

  17:21-17:22

  You don't know when the rapture is gonna happen.

  17:22-17:28

  You don't know, even the people alive during the tribulation aren't going to know exactly when he's going to return.

  17:29-17:30

  So you have to be ready now.

  17:35-17:36

  You're gonna meet him.

  17:37-17:38

  Are you ready?

  17:42-17:45

  See the foolish bridesmaids should have taken care of business when they could.

  17:49-17:51

  Again, this is a parable.

  17:51-17:56

  I don't know what these characters were thinking, but I do know how procrastinators think.

  17:58-17:59

  I'll get around to it.

  18:01-18:02

  You know what?

  18:02-18:09

  Yeah, someday, someday I'm gonna get real serious about my walk with God.

  18:09-18:12

  I'm gonna get real serious about seeking God someday.

  18:12-18:14

  I'm gonna get to that.

  18:14-18:21

  Someday I'm gonna get real serious about getting my life in order and getting on track and someday.

  18:25-18:28

  And that's one of Satan's greatest deceptions.

  18:29-18:30

  (sighs)

  18:32-18:38

  Right now there's somebody sitting here saying, you know what, I really need to get serious about this stuff.

  18:38-18:40

  And the devil's deceiving you again.

  18:40-18:41

  He's saying, just wait.

  18:42-18:43

  (snorts)

  18:44-18:45

  I think preacher boy's getting a little too excited.

  18:46-18:47

  Just wait.

  18:47-18:48

  You got time.

  18:50-18:51

  You got time.

  18:52-18:53

  You got all the time.

  18:59-19:10

  And I would say, "Yeah, yeah, you have time, but you don't have as much time as you think you do.

  19:15-19:19

  I always have time later." You saying that to yourself?

  19:20-19:23

  then you're one of these foolish bridesmaids 'cause that's what they thought.

  19:25-19:29

  Number two, here's another lie.

  19:29-19:32

  Unprepared people tell themselves, "I'm prepared because I'm with the right people.

  19:35-19:37

  I'm with the right people." Do you see that?

  19:39-19:43

  Verse five, it says, "They all became drowsy and slept." They had a slumber party.

  19:44-19:45

  Okay, he's late coming back.

  19:45-19:47

  We'll just have a slumber party.

  19:48-19:50

  but they were all with the right people, right?

  19:50-19:52

  Look at verse eight again.

  19:54-19:56

  The foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil.

  19:56-20:00

  They thought, well, I'm okay because I'm with the right people.

  20:02-20:10

  See, these foolish bridesmaids apparently felt prepared because they were with bridesmaids who were prepared.

  20:13-20:17

  You heard of the phrase, guilty by association.

  20:17-20:18

  Have you ever heard that phrase?

  20:19-20:22

  They thought they were not guilty by association.

  20:26-20:29

  And I would say to you, my friends, this is exactly like church.

  20:31-20:38

  Because there are many people that are sitting here and are watching this stream, and are gonna be listening to this podcast.

  20:38-20:44

  There are many people are hearing this and you feel safe and secure.

  20:45-20:53

  and you feel like you're prepared for the return of the Lord simply for one reason, is because you're sitting with people who are.

  20:58-21:15

  And there is a huge danger in being exposed to God's truth and even liking the truth and being satisfied that you have some knowledge of the truth, but you've never personally received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

  21:16-21:17

  (audience laughing)

  21:20-21:22

  And you can read this parable like me.

  21:23-21:27

  Oh, I had a real treat with this parable all week.

  21:27-21:29

  I had so many questions.

  21:30-21:31

  That is so much reading and studying.

  21:32-21:34

  Maybe you had some of the same questions that I did.

  21:37-21:40

  But like, why did they need the torch for the feasts?

  21:42-21:42

  Right?

  21:43-21:45

  Was it like some kind of admission ticket?

  21:45-21:49

  Like no shoes, no shirt, no service, you know?

  21:49-21:51

  It's like no torch, no wedding feast.

  21:51-21:52

  Was it something like that?

  21:56-21:58

  Why couldn't they go in without the torch?

  21:59-22:05

  And then why was there a cutoff time for entering the wedding feast?

  22:13-22:15

  I had all kinds of questions about that.

  22:16-22:24

  I didn't really get any answers that satisfied me about that, except for one thing.

  22:26-22:31

  Verse 12 is really the bottom line of the whole deal.

  22:35-22:41

  The bridegroom, Jesus, in this story, he didn't know them.

  22:42-22:43

  That's the bottom line.

  22:45-22:51

  Whatever you think about the torches or whatever, he's like, "I don't know who you are." That is the issue.

  22:53-22:57

  You're like, "Man, that sounds, That sounds familiar.

  22:58-22:58

  It should.

  22:59-23:01

  Look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven.

  23:02-23:08

  "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.

  23:09-23:23

  On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many, many works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you.

  23:24-23:26

  Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

  23:30-23:31

  Do you know why they couldn't go in?

  23:35-23:37

  It had nothing to do with the torch.

  23:39-23:45

  The reason they couldn't go in is because weddings are no place for a stranger.

  23:50-23:58

  You know, heaven is described in Revelation chapter 19 as the marriage supper of the lamb.

  23:59-24:03

  And I have to ask you, do you have a relationship with the bridegroom?

  24:05-24:10

  Because if you don't, you're not going in.

  24:15-24:25

  Many, many years ago, this is before I was married, but I was involved in prison ministry, but before I was in charge of it, there was another guy in charge of it.

  24:27-24:35

  Not gonna say his name in case he listens to this, but there was another guy in charge of the prison ministry.

  24:38-24:42

  And I remember the one week he called me up.

  24:43-24:52

  He's like, "Jeff, what are you doing?" I'm like, "Chilling like a villain, like always, man." And he goes, "Yes, I said that.

  24:53-25:07

  I want the story to be accurate." Anyways, he's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "You know, the thing." And he goes, "What are you doing on Friday?" I said, "Oh, Friday?

  25:08-25:12

  I don't think I'm gonna, anything going on Friday." He goes, "Here's the thing.

  25:13-25:14

  I'm gonna be having a bunch of friends over.

  25:16-25:17

  And we're gonna have all kinds of food.

  25:18-25:24

  we're gonna have all kind of games and I'm just like, all right.

  25:24-25:28

  He goes, so I was calling to see if you could cover the prison for me on Friday.

  25:35-25:38

  And all of God's people said, wah, wah.

  25:43-25:46

  Yes, ouch, Darla, yes, ouch.

  25:48-25:49

  (congregation laughing)

  25:52-25:58

  But you know, there are people that sit in church and they hear the description of heaven.

  25:59-26:00

  They're like me on the phone.

  26:01-26:08

  They hear the description, oh, and they're getting all excited, there's gonna be food, and there's gonna be games, and it's gonna be so much fun, and they're getting all excited for it.

  26:08-26:16

  And you're about to be so deflated when you find out that you weren't invited because the bridegroom doesn't know you.

  26:20-26:23

  That's a lie people tell themselves, unprepared people tell themselves.

  26:24-26:26

  I'm prepared because I'm with the right group.

  26:29-26:30

  Don't work that way.

  26:32-26:37

  And thirdly, three lies unprepared people tell themselves, oil isn't that important.

  26:38-26:40

  Oil isn't that important.

  26:45-26:58

  You see, looking at Jesus' story here, like I said, there's a whole lot of details and things that we can take a deep dive in understanding, but here's the bottom line of the parable is this.

  26:58-27:11

  Jesus said, "These foolish bridesmaids were foolish, "and they were foolish because they took no oil." Oil wasn't a priority for them.

  27:11-27:12

  That's what made them foolish.

  27:13-27:19

  oil didn't seem that important to them, did it?

  27:21-27:27

  But it turns out, oil turned out to be the most important thing of the story.

  27:29-27:32

  Like, well, what does the oil represent?

  27:33-27:34

  Right, what does the oil represent?

  27:35-27:44

  Well, some would say it represents the presence of the Holy Spirit based on Old Testament passages and the Holy Spirit.

  27:45-27:47

  Some people say the oil represents regeneration.

  27:47-27:51

  Some people say the oil represents being prepared.

  27:51-27:52

  And you're like, well, what do you think, Jeff?

  27:53-27:54

  My answer is this, all the above.

  27:55-27:56

  Oil represents salvation.

  27:57-27:58

  That's what it represents.

  27:58-28:00

  It represents salvation.

  28:00-28:01

  It represents being born again.

  28:02-28:05

  The oil represents being alive in Christ.

  28:07-28:10

  Do you remember when the foolish asked the wise for oil?

  28:11-28:13

  And the response, look at verse nine again.

  28:13-28:15

  Remember, look at the response of the wise.

  28:15-28:30

  The wise answered saying, "Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves." Jesus was not saying the wise were selfish.

  28:32-28:32

  That's not the point.

  28:35-28:42

  Jesus was speaking to the non-transferable aspect of salvation.

  28:43-28:44

  That's what he's talking about.

  28:46-28:49

  Now look, my friends, I know there's people here who don't know the Lord.

  28:50-28:51

  I can't save you.

  28:52-28:56

  I can't say, look, you know, I've been a Christian since 1995.

  28:57-28:59

  I got this stockpile of salvation saved up.

  28:59-29:01

  I'll give you some of my salvation.

  29:01-29:03

  Let's, you know, go to heaven together.

  29:03-29:04

  I can't do that.

  29:04-29:09

  And believe me, I wish that I could, but I can't do that.

  29:12-29:16

  Bowing the knee to Jesus Christ is something you have to do personally.

  29:21-29:49

  Asking, "Are you ready for Jesus to return?" is the same question as asking, "Do you know Jesus personally?" Because a person being shot out of heaven is tragic, but more tragic as someone who thinks that they're going to heaven, but not because they're self-deceived. I just want to ask you, do you have oil?

  29:55-30:06

  You hear a parable like this and you ask yourself, "Could I be shut out? Could that Could that be me?

  30:10-30:17

  I mean, Jesus said that there are people that are going to show up and they're going to be completely wrong about their salvation.

  30:17-30:18

  Could that be me?

  30:18-30:22

  Could I be one of those people that's wrong about my salvation?

  30:26-30:28

  I can't leave you hanging today.

  30:29-30:30

  It's Mother's Day.

  30:33-30:35

  So I'm gonna give you five evidences of salvation.

  30:36-30:37

  This is a self-test.

  30:38-30:41

  This is just, this is between you and the Lord.

  30:43-30:45

  I'm gonna give you five evidences of salvation.

  30:45-30:46

  Look, these are not my opinion.

  30:47-30:48

  This is God's opinion.

  30:48-30:55

  God's word gives us a whole list of things that are true of people who are saved.

  30:55-30:58

  I'm just gonna give you five of them.

  30:59-31:00

  There's a bunch.

  31:00-31:01

  I just wanna give you five.

  31:02-31:05

  Five things that the Bible says are indicators that you're saved.

  31:05-31:06

  Five evidences of salvation.

  31:07-31:11

  Letter A is this, I love and long for God's word.

  31:13-31:20

  First Peter 2, 2 says, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it, you may grow up to salvation.

  31:21-31:29

  Your attitude towards the word of God is a huge indicator on where your heart is according to God.

  31:30-31:32

  because he compares the word to milk.

  31:35-31:37

  Have you been around a baby, ladies and gentlemen?

  31:38-31:40

  If you've been to this church, you've been around a lot of them.

  31:42-31:44

  I love it, keep them coming.

  31:46-31:48

  But here's something true about babies.

  31:48-31:50

  Babies don't need sold on milk.

  31:52-31:53

  They don't need sold on it.

  31:54-31:57

  They don't need like a marketing campaign.

  31:58-32:00

  You know, watch this commercial about milk.

  32:00-32:03

  Here's a 30 minute infomercial about milk.

  32:04-32:08

  And afterwards, the baby's like, I'm kind of convinced now I might have to give milk a try.

  32:08-32:10

  It's a natural draw.

  32:11-32:12

  They love it.

  32:13-32:21

  And interestingly, the very thing that they naturally want and love is the very thing that grows them.

  32:26-32:32

  So if I have to guilt you into reading your Bible, Something is seriously wrong.

  32:34-32:39

  If I have to bribe you into reading your Bible, something is seriously wrong.

  32:42-32:54

  Because if you don't have a natural love for the word of your creator and your savior, that's a good sign that you don't have oil.

  32:57-32:59

  Because the love for God's word is an evidence of salvation.

  33:00-33:03

  Letter B, here's an evidence of salvation.

  33:03-33:04

  I live in repentance.

  33:06-33:14

  Matthew 3, eight says, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." Repentance literally means to change your mind.

  33:14-33:19

  Coming to Jesus Christ starts with a mind change and it's a mind change that lasts.

  33:21-33:22

  Okay, like, did you repent?

  33:22-33:26

  Like, yeah, I repented back in like 1978.

  33:26-33:27

  Okay, great.

  33:28-33:31

  but repentance isn't just a one-time thing.

  33:32-33:40

  That's why Matthew three, I believe the same thing as in Luke three eight, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

  33:40-33:44

  This mind change stays.

  33:46-33:51

  I used to think this way, but I don't think this way anymore.

  33:52-33:59

  And there are times I'm tempted to go back to my old ways of thinking, but no, I'm not going to do that.

  33:59-34:01

  That's bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.

  34:01-34:03

  I don't think like I used to.

  34:03-34:05

  I can't think like I used to.

  34:05-34:06

  That's not me anymore.

  34:07-34:09

  I don't love sin the way that I used to.

  34:10-34:19

  And if you can't look at your life right now and say, you know, I'm really striving to live in repentance.

  34:19-34:23

  If you can't do that, that means you don't have oil.

  34:26-34:30

  because living in repentance is an evidence of salvation.

  34:31-34:34

  Thirdly, I'm growing more spiritually mature.

  34:35-34:47

  Philippians 1, 6 says, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Living things grow.

  34:49-34:50

  Are you growing?

  34:52-34:54

  Give yourself a little test.

  34:56-34:59

  Ask yourself, am I more spiritually mature today than I was this time last year?

  35:02-35:05

  And if you're not, that's a problem.

  35:09-35:17

  You know, if you have a baby and that baby goes an entire year and hasn't grown or changed at all, you would take that baby to the doctor.

  35:21-35:25

  Am I more spiritually mature today than I was even last month?

  35:26-35:27

  Living things grow.

  35:27-35:38

  And you know what, this is actually very encouraging because it's not as if you come to Christ and all of your growth and maturity happens in a single moment.

  35:38-35:39

  That's just not how it works.

  35:43-35:49

  I mean, yes, when you're born again, you instantly, instantly, you go from guilty to not guilty.

  35:49-35:52

  You instantly become a child of God.

  35:53-35:57

  Yes, those things are instant, but something that's not instant is your maturity.

  35:58-36:01

  And that's what Paul is saying in Philippians 1.6.

  36:02-36:04

  He says, God's starting something in you.

  36:06-36:07

  He's gonna finish it.

  36:10-36:16

  So if you're like, man, I gotta tell you, I'll be honest with you, Pastor Jeff, I didn't really see any growth in my life.

  36:16-36:17

  I would say then that means you don't have oil.

  36:20-36:23

  Because spiritual growth is an evidence of salvation.

  36:25-36:29

  Letter D, evidence of salvation.

  36:30-36:31

  I love other Christians.

  36:32-36:39

  First John 3, 14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life." What does that mean?

  36:39-36:40

  That's a euphemism for getting saved.

  36:40-36:43

  You're dead in your sin, you're alive in Christ.

  36:44-36:45

  He just said it in a different way, right?

  36:46-36:51

  We know that we pass out of death into life because we love the brothers.

  36:52-36:54

  Whoever does not love abides in death.

  36:57-37:00

  How do you feel about the people that you're sitting around right now?

  37:01-37:02

  How do you feel about them?

  37:06-37:09

  Like, yeah, I don't like them at all.

  37:11-37:12

  That's a problem.

  37:14-37:15

  That's a huge problem.

  37:16-37:21

  Because John says, hey, we know that we're saved because of the kind of love that we have for other Christians.

  37:24-37:25

  (congregation laughing)

  37:27-37:35

  Coming to church for the person that is saved, for the person that knows the Lord, coming to church is a delight.

  37:36-37:37

  Like I can't wait.

  37:37-37:41

  I can't wait to go and worship together.

  37:41-37:44

  I can't wait to go and connect with so-and-so.

  37:44-37:45

  I can't wait.

  37:46-37:47

  Like you love these people.

  37:47-37:48

  And that's something I love about this church.

  37:48-37:50

  Church is over, like everybody's still here.

  37:51-37:54

  It's not like, you know, mad rush to Denny's or anything like that.

  37:55-37:55

  Don't do that anyways.

  37:56-37:57

  But it's everybody stays here.

  37:58-37:59

  Everybody stays here and hangs out.

  38:00-38:02

  And it's like, oh, it's like you like each other.

  38:02-38:02

  Yes.

  38:05-38:05

  You do.

  38:06-38:07

  That's an evidence of salvation.

  38:08-38:09

  Coming to church is a delight, not a duty.

  38:09-38:12

  Coming to prayer meeting, the picnic, the VBS.

  38:13-38:14

  How about your small group?

  38:15-38:18

  You should look at your small group and be like, man, I love these people.

  38:19-38:20

  I'm so thankful for these people.

  38:22-38:25

  If you don't have a genuine love for other Christians, you know what that means?

  38:27-38:28

  That means you don't got oil.

  38:30-38:33

  Because a genuine love for other Christians is an evidence of salvation.

  38:38-38:39

  So many more, I'm just gonna give you one more.

  38:41-38:45

  Letter E, I love giving money to the work of the Lord.

  38:48-38:54

  That's an evidence of salvation, by the way, is you love to give to the work of the Lord.

  38:54-38:55

  You love it.

  38:56-38:57

  You love it.

  39:00-39:02

  Again, not my opinion.

  39:03-39:04

  This was Jesus' opinion.

  39:06-39:17

  Matthew 6, 21 says, "For where your treasure is there, "your heart will be also." You know, this whole sermon we're evaluating, where's my heart?

  39:17-39:17

  Where is my heart?

  39:17-39:18

  Where is my heart?

  39:18-39:19

  You wanna know where your heart is?

  39:20-39:21

  Do you wanna know where your heart is?

  39:21-39:25

  Jesus told you exactly where to find it.

  39:30-39:31

  It's in your checkbook.

  39:32-39:34

  That's where you'll find it there.

  39:38-39:38

  You'll find it there.

  39:38-39:40

  It's an objective test, by the way.

  39:40-39:43

  I know when I talk about this and people are gonna be angry, whatever.

  39:43-39:44

  It's an objective test.

  39:45-39:46

  Be mad at God.

  39:47-39:48

  'Cause I'm not making this up.

  39:48-39:50

  It's an objective test.

  39:51-39:54

  Jesus said where your treasure is, that's where you're gonna find your heart.

  39:54-39:58

  So if you're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, "my heart is with missions.

  39:59-40:00

  "I just love me some missions.

  40:01-40:09

  "Oh, I have such a heart for missions." And I'm like, "Oh, so you give the missions." Like, "No, I don't give the missions." Then you're a liar.

  40:11-40:14

  Your heart's not with missions if you don't give the missions.

  40:14-40:23

  If you're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, I'm so excited about this property that the church just bought, and I'm so excited about the new church building.

  40:23-40:25

  I'm so excited for the growth of the ministry.

  40:26-40:32

  Oh, my heart is with you, Pastor Jeff." And I'm like, "How much have you given for the building and relocation?

  40:32-40:36

  And how much have you given?" "Well, I haven't given anything." "Well, then you're lying to me.

  40:36-40:37

  You're not excited about it.

  40:38-40:47

  Your heart's not in it." because Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, that's where your heart is." You're like, "Well, where is my heart?" Again, give me your checkbook, I'll show you.

  40:48-40:49

  I'll show you where your heart is.

  40:50-41:01

  And if I open up your checkbook and it's nothing but sports equipment or fast food or exercise programs, the clothes, I'm like, "Well, there's where your heart is." Your heart's at Pantera Bread.

  41:04-41:05

  Your heart's at Target.

  41:07-41:08

  If that's where all your money's going.

  41:11-41:22

  But if I'm looking in your checkbook and I see, oh, look, here's money given to the church, oh, money given to missions, oh, this was sent to Thailand, oh, look, here's money for choices.

  41:22-41:26

  Wow, they're giving a lot of money to local outreach.

  41:26-41:27

  Well, that tells me where your heart is.

  41:30-41:34

  Your heart's for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, according to him.

  41:36-41:37

  So if you're like, man, you know what?

  41:37-41:40

  I don't really, you're like, I don't really give.

  41:41-41:43

  I don't really give to God, missions, church.

  41:43-41:45

  I don't really, I don't really give.

  41:47-41:49

  That's a problem, my friend.

  41:49-41:50

  That means you have no oil.

  41:52-41:55

  Because loving to give to the work of the Lord is an evidence of salvation.

  41:59-42:00

  So do you have oil?

  42:02-42:03

  Do you have oil?

  42:05-42:06

  Now, true confession time.

  42:08-42:12

  I have never run out of oil on the way to a wedding.

  42:13-42:18

  But I did run out of oil once on Route 19 in Cranberry.

  42:20-42:22

  You're like, oh, do tell.

  42:22-42:23

  Well, here's the thing.

  42:24-42:27

  My Jeep burns oil, right?

  42:27-42:30

  And Ben Mall, he told me that.

  42:33-42:35

  And Ben said, "Hey, you gotta watch that.

  42:36-42:37

  "You gotta watch it.

  42:37-42:40

  your Jeep burns oil, you gotta watch it.

  42:43-42:45

  But I ignored the signs.

  42:46-42:49

  I ignored all the signs.

  42:50-42:55

  You know, the little sticker that they put on the windshield about when to change your Earl.

  42:56-42:58

  I promised myself I wouldn't say Earl.

  42:59-43:02

  You know, the little sticker that they put on there, I ignored that.

  43:04-43:05

  I ignored it.

  43:05-43:12

  Oh, and on the Jeep, there's the little display that gives you the percentage of your oil life.

  43:13-43:14

  I ignored that too.

  43:16-43:22

  And then when the little display said, change your oil now, jefe, guess what?

  43:24-43:29

  Like a moron, I ignored that too.

  43:31-43:34

  And I'm driving north on Route 19 in Cranberry.

  43:38-43:45

  And we broke down after a couple months of me saying, "Yeah, I'll get to it.

  43:46-43:47

  I'll check it.

  43:48-43:48

  You know what?

  43:48-44:02

  Next time I go to the store, I'll buy a quart like Ben told me to do and I'll keep it in the Jeep." I ignored every single sign and I broke down.

  44:02-44:08

  Now, fortunately, I was close enough to a place where I could go buy some oil.

  44:11-44:20

  But my point is this, my friends, I wasn't ready for the breakdown because I ignored every single sign.

  44:24-44:27

  And that's what we've seen in Matthew 24 and 25.

  44:28-44:35

  Jesus said to be watching the signs for his return.

  44:38-44:38

  Are you ready?

  44:42-44:42

  Do you have oil?

  44:46-44:52

  Revelation 19, nine says, and the angel said to me, write this.

  44:54-44:59

  Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

  45:00-45:01

  Let's pray.

  45:03-45:11

  Father in heaven, this is a stunning story that Jesus told.

  45:15-45:17

  Because Father, so often we are so foolish.

  45:19-45:20

  We are the morons.

  45:20-45:21

  We think there's time.

  45:22-45:24

  We presume somebody else is gonna bail us out.

  45:26-45:32

  And Jesus made it very clear that the day is coming of a cutoff, that it's gonna be too late, the door is going to shut.

  45:34-45:40

  And we are the morons standing outside because we've squandered opportunities like this one right now.

  45:42-45:52

  So Father, I pray, if there's anyone here who doesn't know you, that they have looked down and notice that they have no oil.

  45:53-46:27

  I pray, Father, that you would not give them a moment's rest until they bow the knee before you, until they fall on their face before you, until they grab somebody from this church who knows you and says, "Tell me how to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." Father, for those of us who do know you, I pray that you would give us opportunity because the time is near, because there will be a cutoff.

  46:27-46:35

  Father, give us opportunity and give us boldness for the sake of your gospel, for the sake of your kingdom.

  46:36-46:40

  Father, let us represent you as you make your appeal through us.

  46:41-46:44

  We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 25:1-13

1. What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
   

2. How do we know this passage is about final judgment and not the rapture? (Hint: See Matt 25:12).How do these principles apply for us today?
   

3. What does the oil represent? What does this have to do with the foolish virgins not being allowed into the marriage feast?
   

4. What evidence of salvation (of those listed) do you struggle with the most? Is this a point of growth in your walk, or does this make you question if you have a true walk with Christ at all?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

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Want more eschatology teaching?

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through Revelation

Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through 2 Thessalonians