Bible Questions and Answers, Part 75

hi pastor hi austin how are you tonight i'm fine good to see you thank you hello friends it's good to see you all a little different tonight last time i got to ask all the questions and this time i thought i would let other people ask the questions and so we got lots and lots of questions in the in the email account that we set up this week but i think to start we should talk about this morning i thought this morning was a classic macarthur question so i a macarthur sermon and i do promise that i'll get to y'all's questions soon but i'm up here might as well ask my favorite questions so classic macarthur sermon we're parking in the synagogue you're preaching against jewish legalism it was a sermon about god's grace these are these are remarkable times and and maybe talk for those who weren't here this morning uh give them a little update on where we're at on things as a church and then let's let's get into that sermon a little bit um well just where we are as a church as you all know we have continued to meet now i don't know the exact number of weeks and the city of los angeles and the county and the health department and all these people have tried to get a temporary restraining order to shut us down and they can't they can't get it because basically we file the lawsuit against the city and the county on the first amendment that we have freedom of religion and that amendment trumps every other ordinance and the the way to understand the first amendment is this the first amendment says that we have a god-given right to worship and the constitution exists to protect that it's not that the constitution gave us that right it exists to protect that god-given right that's the way the founding fathers laid it out so they would like to get a contempt of court against us they would like to take away our parking lot they've tried a whole lot of things but they they get stuck every time in front of this massive wall called the first amendment and the the judge keeps saying until that issue of the first amendment is litigated we can't get onto anything else so they try to go around it and under it and over it but it doesn't work so uh the judge set a a hearing date for november 13th that's the next time there will be a hearing that's not a trial that's to set up a trial which supposedly is going to happen sometime in 2021 by the time we get to that point i think the expiration date on the pandemic will have run out and so so i i i just and so at this particular point we we just keep meeting and we can park and and these deer people down the street the jewish people said we can use our lot and we've got 150 parking spaces and we'd love to have you use them and you can use our facility and we said great thank you so much so the lord just continues to allow us to meet and we're very very thankful for that so there's no restraining order against us there's the 500 fine every week by the health department and they're here on sunday to check and then they send us the 500 fine but that fine accumulates in a in an escrow account and they don't get it until this case is litigated so we have basically been able to keep doing what we're doing and incredibly thankful for that in fact the people at the synagogue very gracious people said we we love the fact that you're meeting and you're worshiping god and you you haven't succumbed to this government pressure so that was that was great in fact i was told that the gentleman who's been working with us at the synagogue was here this morning to hear that [Music] the gospel is the gospel uh so that's just a wonderful providence of god no the uh the the sermon um you know what i'm trying to do every sermon is an argument okay we've talked about this a lot every sermon is an argument i'm trying to make a case that you can't resist i'm trying to prove something from the bible that is that has eternal implications from the word of god so what i wanted to show today because there's so many people in the evangelical world who are confused we talked two weeks ago about the fact that a third of the people in that same survey said jesus was not god he was created by god uh that is that is the rank heresy and no one can be saved who believes jesus anything less than god incarnate and then a half half the people believe that god accepts the worship of of multiple religions and judaism islam and christianity are just samples he would accept that from anyone so the confusion in evangelicalism again leads me to assume that people who are coming here who aren't usually here are going to are going to share some of that confusion so i i wanted to make the case as strongly as it could be made that salvation comes only through jesus christ and only to those who don't offer their works but they come as rank unworthy sinners and cry to him for mercy which is the essence of the good news so yeah i i know this is a wonderful message for believers to hear but at the same time i'm i'm thinking in my mind about non-believers or people who think they're christians but haven't thought of it that way and tom told me there were more people in the prayer room after the service this morning than any other sunday so the lord used that to touch some some hearts what do you think the appeal of universal is universalism or pluralism is for people who are professed to be christians the the appeal for universalism that is that everybody who's good at all is going to go to heaven the appeal is primarily because it avoids hell i think the the idea that the truth of eternal punishment in hell is emotionally very very difficult for anybody to understand and i mean by that even us anybody to understand it and that's because we don't understand the justice and holiness and righteousness of god uh and i i think if people um people recognize that salvation comes in christ alone and only by grace alone through faith alone in christ that changes their family history because all of a sudden the people they thought would be in heaven because they were good people are not so that's a that's a very very difficult uh reality for people to to accept um but that is what the bible says and that's what we're after so uh that that is the intent to close out in people's minds anything but the true gospel and that's the most loving thing you can do is tell them the truth and that's that's basically what jesus did i just i went to that passage and other things that jesus said to to point to the fact that it was jesus who rejected the good people it was jesus who said they were whited sepulchers they were they were to be cursed they were sons of hell producing sons of hell jesus said that and they that's why as i said this morning they killed him because he basically told them they were sinners john 7 they hate me because i say their deeds are evil right that's john 7 7. they hate me because i say their deeds are evil but if they can't get past that hate they can't come to salvation and the universalism that you were talking about the idea of you know everyone can be saved you had replaced that in the sermon with the universal condemnation of everyone that all people are sinners and then as you're talking about jesus's indictment of the the religious people of his day you said grace can't be merged with law and you you had this little sentence that i think you just said in passing i'm going to read you your sentence thank you it's a good sentence legalists don't talk to god they talk to themselves because they are god i could hold my pencil for two weeks and never come up with a sentence that good you just said that kind of in passing i could tell expand on it legalists don't talk to god they talk to themselves because they are god well that was the public in luke 18 and it says he was praying thus with himself yeah dear self hello god i'm so thankful to myself that i'm not like this wretched guy um the ultimate the element the ultimate reality with self-righteousness is you are god because you have defined what acceptance with god is to be i mean if you think you're gonna go to heaven because you're that good you're that religious you have set your own standard in replacement of gods and so you're god i mean de facto yeah and when we're talking about false religion that promises salvation to good people and we're talking about being good neighbors to our our jewish friends and our muslim neighbors and the people in our city who worship themselves in a thousand different things the most loving thing we can do is to preach an exclusive gospel to them isn't it well yeah again you all you have to do is go back to the most loving person that ever walked on the earth was jesus and the most honest person and the one who knew exactly the way everything was and after three years of him demonstrating his love and compassion by basically eliminating illness from the land of israel healing people day after day after day multiple miracles demonstrating the love and compassion of god after three years of doing that they they wanted him crucified they wanted him to die the worst possible agonizing torturous death that man could ever invent so that's how hostile self-righteousness is to grace that's how hostile self-righteous people are to the fact that they are sinful let me say it another way people are willing to see their sin in their sin but they're not willing to see it in their righteousness they're willing to see their sin in their sin but they're not willing to see their sin in their religion and you might get a pharisee to admit that he did something wrong at some particular point but you could never convince him that his religion was sin i think the fact that you've preached so much of the new testament to us and your teaching about jesus and about first century judaism has been so clear it does provoke a lot of questions about modern day judaism we had a lot of emails come in for a few emails about that one mom asked a question about her her son getting involved in a messianic judaistic congregation she was concerned that it could lead to externalism or legalism or a yoke of bondage another email was about torah-observant christians are those things the reason we have the book of galatians in our bible or are they a permissible way for for jewish background believers to worship jesus yeah look if you believe in the messiah and you depend you depend only on the work of christ and faith in him for your salvation that's that's the way of salvation there are people who believe for their salvation in the ministry of christ the death and resurrection of christ their hope is in christ alone who then get tangled up in works kinds of orientations and one very popular one that's been around a long time is to go back to old testament kind of life now we need to make a distinction there because and this is very important to say god gave the law torah the law to israel and it had a number of parts there was the moral law okay the moral law that is the law which basically articulates what is right and what is wrong what is holy and what is unholy that law is a direct reflection of the person of jesus christ okay so a way to understand that is this that law cannot be ignored that's why david says oh how i love your law that's why we love the law of god because the law is a reflection of god there's a comparison that would help people i think with that and it's this you would no more say i believe in god but i have trouble accepting jesus if if you're going to call yourself a christian because jesus according to hebrews 1 is the exact representation of god he is the exact image if you've seen me you've seen the father that's right jesus is god incarnate in human flesh the moral law is god in the law it's god manifest in the law so the moral law is always going to be the same it'll be the same through all eternity and and not one jot or tittle will ever be removed from that moral law but beyond the moral law which is now the the reformers said there were three uses of the law use number one was to convict sinners the law is our school master to drive us to christ the law convicts us we feel the weight of the law we broke the law where do we turn for salvation so that's the law as the school master as the as the the law that demonstrates our sinfulness because we break it the second use of the law is as the path of obedience for the believer right so now that i'm a believer i don't want to throw away god's moral law i want to obey that law and i want to live out that law because that's the path of joy and blessing the third use of the law is in society as a restraint we've talked a lot about that and talking about government god planted the law in the in the heart of man and god ordained government and when you have when you have a human being any human being has the law of god written in his heart to some degree to enough of a degree that all over the world people have the same sort of law and order concept so so the law had a role of restraining society and we we're watching that breakdown the law has a role of showing us the perfection of god which then breaks us and reveals our sinfulness and the law then becomes to us who are redeemed the path that we want to walk so as a believer you you don't go from saying well i i'm not under law so i can do what i want no if you're truly converted then your great heart's desire is to obey the god you love so that is the role of the law and no one would ever want to set that aside who was a true believer when people do that that's identified as antinomianism and that's a very dangerous thing so when a person comes to christ what part of the law do we not have to obey well the answer is whatever the new testament abrogates whatever the new testament throws out and says you don't need to do that anymore and that is absolutely crystal clear peter in the book of acts um the lord spoke to him and said no more dietary laws right arise peter kill and eat and you can eat anything you want peter says whoa whoa whoa i'm kosher i can't do that and the lord says to him don't call unclean what god has cleansed no more dietary laws yeah and then you go to galatians 2 and what do you have in galatians 2 don't let anybody hold you to a sabbath a new moon a feast day and just rattles down all the other ceremonial laws and so you could ask what were the ceremonial laws for why laws on food laws on diet laws on all kinds of cooking and things like that and the the reason for those laws was because you had this this small little nation of israelites floating on a a little island in the sea of gentile idolatry and god was helping them to separate by creating barriers that they they couldn't easily interact with their neighbors because they dressed differently because they had different schedules because they had different diet there were all kinds of things that were so unique to them that god was giving them some mechanisms to keep them separated the that was the purpose of it sad to say the jews embraced all of that and and then elevated their separation and uh began to hate the rest of the world instead of realize that they were to take the truth of the one living god to the rest of the world and if you want an illustration of one who understood the separation very well but hated the gentiles for it all you have to do is read the book of jonah jonah did not want gentiles coming to his god right so that part of the law was set aside in the new testament that's why we don't we don't do anything and that's why we don't do passover the final authorized passover was the last supper when jesus turned it into his his communion service transformed yeah yeah elizabeth heard you this morning i assume and asked about zacchaeus she said her past sin involved would involve restitution but she's financially unable to pay back those she's stolen from in order for her to to show true repentance does she have to pay restitution for her sins no um jesus paid it all yeah but i think i mean that's the relationship to god um if the people that you have hurt and harmed um are in your world and you have access to them you go to them and you tell them that the lord has transformed your life and you're sorry the way you treated them and what you did to them and you let them know that you want to do anything you can do to make that right i think you go with an open heart and an open hand and it's the willingness to do that you see with zacchaeus i don't know the lord didn't necessarily say good get it get on it right now but the the willingness is the issue i don't think the lord expects us to pay back every person who's been offended by every sin we committed right i mean we've offended everybody our whole life so where does that end you can't even remember all the people you offended you could pick out a few samples and maybe you offended them least then you offended somebody else and don't even know it so running around to be enough to make restitution is not the point it is living the transformed life and when you have occasion to talk to someone that you know has been offended i think that's the appropriate time to say look that wasn't right i i hope in your heart you'll find a place to forgive me and if there's anything i can do to make it right i'd be willing to do that it's just the open-hearted open-handed idea yeah a few people asked about the relationship of our country to israel one of them asked about second chronicles 7 14 if my people call by my name call out to me she wanted to know what what's the relationship to of that verse to our country especially in light of the big prayer march that happened yesterday she talked about another person emailed asked about you know participating in something like that that had maybe some questionable uh teachers involved in it uh what are your thoughts on using a verse like that to talk about america and other other examples of civic religion kind of merged together with christianity it gets really confusing that verse is referring to israel if my people that's my covenant people the children of abraham but the truth articulated there is true for anybody or or or any people if my people humble themselves and pray and seek my face and i'll turn from heaven and heal their land that was that was god calling out to a covenant people and calling them back to repentance but that's no different than god calling to any individual there's no other nation that can claim a covenant relationship with god that is a historical covenant relationship with god but i would say that in any any population any group of people any collection of people if the lord was gracious and brought them all to repentance they would reap the blessings that that repentance would bring so the principle is this a repentant people will be blessed by god psalm 81 isn't it psalm 81 12 and 13 that says the basically the same thing um i think i can find it here oh that my people would listen to me that israel would walk in my ways you know right exactly oh that my people would listen to me and again it's talking about israel but but that would be true for anyone so psalm 81 says my people did not listen to my voice israel did not obey me so i gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices but the fact is that's almost exactly like romans one yeah anybody who doesn't walk in the lord's way anybody who doesn't listen to him like in romans 1 right when they knew god they glorified him not as god oh that my people would listen to me that israel would walk in my ways i would quickly subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries he says i would feed you with the finest of the wheat and with honey from the rock i would satisfy you that is israel but that is not only israel that's any people that turn from sin in repentance back to god now those are verses that through history spiritual leaders have prayed for with the kind kind of connotation of revival praying that god would do a work among a people or in a church or in a city or in a place like you go back and read about the welsh revival and those are the kinds of things they're praying promises to israel but their promises to anybody who responds in obedience to god that they'll know his blessing and there are corollaries right between israel and the church but it's not a replacement and so that's why there's a need for careful hermeneutics in that discussion you don't have with israel you have temporal promises you have land and you have land blessing and you have a kingdom and you have uh safety over your enemies with the covenant people israel as god protects and preserves them for his future final redemptive purpose um with the church you don't ever see the lord make promises to the church in the way that he did to israel because the promises god made to israel involve believers and non-believers because paul says in romans not all israel is israel right right not all the jews belong to god in fact very few so but god still had a plan for that covenant people and that's why they're still around nobody ever met a hittite jebusite amorite a high fight or any other right but we have israelites why why of all the ancient people are they still here and and true to their heritage all the way back to abraham because god has preserved them for a future salvation we talked about that in isaiah 53 and they will receive the promises to abraham and david as a people who have been redeemed the rebels will be purged out but no such temporal promise of a kingdom and land and all of that was ever made to the church as a collection of people the only promises to the church are to the real believers the true believers so the corollaries aren't nationalistic they're believing that's why one peter uh two would say you're a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation a people belonging to god yeah and he also defines why because we have been bought with his precious blood not not with silver and gold but with the blood of christ called out of darkness into the wonderful light yeah good uh helpful and a lot of people i think are being helped by that that kind of answer to the question more questions about our nation came in uh james asked about something you said a few weeks ago i think in this this conversation how do we determine priorities in the upcoming election he heard you say that abortion and homosexuality are deal breakers for a platform but he wants to know why that's more important than feeding and clothing the poor another biblical prayer i i don't think you i don't think you could say that people who are anti-abortion and anti-homosexual necessarily won't feed the poor i don't think there's a collection of people i don't think you can say republicans won't feed the poor but democrats will feed the poor so we have to let you know we have to go with the people who feed the poor i think this nation has demonstrated an incredible history of taking care of people who are destitute the truth of the matter is what you're seeing today is dire neglect of the poor and the mentally distressed people who are living on the street and it's almost always in democrat areas they have offered themselves as those who care for the poor but i don't i don't see any massive ever effort to collect these people who have dire dire need so obviously it's a function of christian love to take care of the widows and the orphans and in the poor and to provide all we can for for people who are destitute um that that is a christian thing to do i think america has been markedly unique in the world in doing that through its history the most advanced hospital care so much of that sort of was generated in in the west through christianity it was the christian christians in europe who basically launched all of that and so you need to be sure that you do take care of the poor that you care for those who are in need but at the same time you don't kill babies and you don't advocate same-sex marriage and other kinds of godless behaviors so i don't think you have to make that distinction i i think the the burden of taxes in in any country should go for two things if you go back to israel taxes did two things taxes provided leadership and protection for the people and provided care for those who were poor that's why they didn't glean the corners of the field that's why the tithe was a tenth of what was grown in the field for those who who were poor so uh that that is those two things are government's primary role take care of those who need to be cared for and protect uh protect people which means you have to punish evil doers and protect those who do good so when government claims to care for the poor but the poor there's 80 000 people living on the street in los angeles the last 10 years has gotten obviously worse we've all seen it 80 000 people there are the there are more homeless people in california than any state it's well over a hundred thousand people this is a totally democrat dominated state so what where is the compassion uh for for these people um it's it's a it's a strange thing when the leadership of this state is far more worried about um global warming than people dying on the streets of los angeles electric cars only by 2035. yeah do you know how you know what they used to make the batteries in electric cars coal yep coal a lot of a lot of non-green mining no yeah coal so go back and start at the beginning with that it makes people feel better about themselves though macarthur they could plug in their car they feel bad well i've said this before if you think we're messing up the planet waiting to see what jesus does to it [Music] [Applause] you're not against recycling though i look i i put the i put the trash in the brown barrel and the recycling in the blue barrel i don't know it's good yeah it's a good citizen jmac a good citizen let's talk another another kind of cultural thing happening right now lyanna asked what is your view and term what is your view on the term or the mentality of the concept of white privilege you talked about this with the university students this week uh yeah that's a such a big subject um if you want to know maybe something that would help you i wrote an article for the daily wire on critical race theory uh you can go to the daily wire and probably download that that's been shapiro's organization they've asked me to write articles uh for weeks now and i'm i'm doing that which is a great opportunity let me let me explain this and i don't want to be complicated critical race theory white privilege systemic racism um unconscious bias all of these things uh basically have a a ground level ideology okay and here it is it's anti-god and it's anti-creation so we believe this we believe that god created man that's what the bible says in his own image so let's start there god created man in his own image that means that god gave to man innate immutable characteristics and then he created them male and female so there are more innate and immutable characteristics not just physical ones but but there are also mental distinctives between men and women and there are capacities that that are different so we believe then that god not only did that but that god decided sovereignly what how much melanin you'd have in your skin and where you would come from and what your progeny would be and what your ancestors would be and the book of acts says god has ordained the nations and their boundaries you go back to genesis 11 and see that so you should never ever ever repent of an immutable characteristic why would you do that that's ridiculous that's basically faulting god and that's a kind of a that's kind of a cheap kind of forgiveness because it's not real right so i i apologize for being white what does that mean what does that mean what do you mean if that's all you've got to apologize you're way too self-righteous if you're going to apologize you're going to repent repent for something that's real that you're responsible for but but here's the idea so the ideology of critical race theory is it's a deconstruction it wants to tear down everything okay and it wants to go back to this level it wants to say and this this is uh the guy who's the best on this is james lindsey and he's an atheist but he's really thought this sort of amazing analysis so critical race theory white privilege all of that says this we come into the world as human beings with no immutable characteristics it's we aren't created in the image of god because we aren't created we're just evolutionary okay so we come in as a blank slate we don't have any innate characteristics or immutable characteristics even gender is not immutable so a kid who's born needs to make a decision does he want to be a boy does he want to be a girl what whatever gender and i was reading about a mother who was trying to make sure she didn't let the white male patriarchy stamp her baby girl with female gender she wanted her baby girl to make her own mind up of what gender she wanted to be so she gave the baby trucks one day and dolls the next day and then trucks the next week and then dolls the next week and according to the story she came back one day and the dresses were on the trucks which is a perfect illustration of what the kid is going to end up being if you do that because you're basically you're basically crushing reality and substituting it with insanity but why do that you you do that so that you can say i'm not responsible for anything that's wrong with me i'm not responsible the white patriarchy this systemic racist patriarchy that's run this this culture for so long has left its stamp on me and this unconscious racism this systemic racism that's in the groundwater of this kind of patriarchy is responsible for all that's wrong with me but i'm not responsible um so that's why the strategy is loot burn smash destroy because they want to take it back down to bare bones again and start all over with a new patriarchy the disenfranchised people will take over and they'll be the new patriarchy that'll leave their stamp on the next civilization so it's a very godless kind of notion that instead of saying what's wrong in my life as i stand before god is not even my mom's fault not even my dad's fault some of the things in my life i obviously some of the deprivation some of the things came from my past but god holds me responsible to him personally and that's right ezekiel 18 the sins of the fathers are not punished in the children they're visited on third and fourth generation because a corrupt generation is going to leave corruption that goes through subsequent generations but god never punishes anybody for any sin that's any other than their own and that was why when i first started talking about this i started with ezekiel 18 because if you turn people into victims how do you then make them responsible as sinners if i'm a victim if i only am what i am because of what you did to me then it's not my fault and i don't like what you did to me so i'm going to burn down your society i'm going to burn down your stuff i'm going to smash the windows in your store i'm going to do everything i can to break everything to pieces because you victimized me and that's this is this is the noble thing to do is to crush this systemic kind of attitude the bottom line question in systemic racism is what laws exist in america that are against any ethnic group none there are no ethnically designed laws in america was there a time in the past when there were absolutely and they were horrendous and i you know my story in being in mississippi and in the years of segregation and the marches and all of that was the first time you got locked up first time i got locked up yeah another one could be coming yeah but this is a different country look we have a woman of dark skin running for vice president we had obama as a president we've had secretaries of state people in all kinds of offices there there's there's nothing in this culture that legally limits anybody based on race so this isn't about that what they want to say is that we're all victims of this reality that we came in clean and pure and you messed with us and we're not responsible for what we are and the only thing we can do to escape this is break it down and take over so it's a very dangerous kind of thing and it has no room for god no room for responsibility no room for confessing my sin and coming to personal salvation in christ it if you don't accept blame for your sin if you can push off what's wrong with you on somebody else you're never going to deal with the issue of your own sin and you're not going to come to the savior another question to what extent is the world ruled by satan can we attribute natural calamities to him i think they're thinking about the passage the temptation of jesus of the authority of satan um we it's hard to know what we can specifically attribute to satan in terms of physical things i think we could assume that demons can do some things because they threw a boy in the fire right they they gotta they got this boy and they threw him and kept throwing him in the fire and in the new testament there were people who were blind and dumb and deaf because of demonic oppression we we don't want to limit satan in that sense i don't know that satan in scripture you don't see him exercising control over the physical world as such but satan exercises his control primarily ideologically because he his strategies his strategies are basically worked out through earthly systems if you look at okay the corruption in government pornography the movie industry pumping out filth and garbage um much of what is on television music all that is a reflection of satanic anti-god um i guess chaos the when you think of god you think of cosmos which is ordered when you think of satan you think of chaos and satan for the most part would rather be covert uh he would rather you not know he's there he this was what made jesus ministry so interesting when jesus went to the synagogue satan was already in the synagogue but nobody knew it but when jesus showed up the demons and the people started screaming at him their cover was blown because he knew they were there so i think for the most part in a cultured society like ours demons hide they they don't function like they white might in a tribal setting in the in the middle of africa or something like that uh so i don't you don't see in the bible satan exercising a lot of power over creation you do have one herd of pigs that run off a cliff when you know the lord sent demons into them and it had some kind of actual physical disturbance on them so um even in the book of job but he's working as a an intermediary through god's permission well and i was going to say but but when you've said all of that he is god's devil right he is god's devil and he never does anything outside the boundaries of god and that's what the book of job shows where you see him is what you're saying isn't by trying to discern if that natural calamity was something that that the devil did because ultimately you know god is sovereign but what you're saying and the reason i ask right after the last question is these these satanic belief systems these things that take a real sin like racism something that is abhorrent to god and turn it into something else turn it into something that removes culpability for real sin that that's where you're saying the satanic systems and right and and racism is is partiality and god condemns partiality there's no place for i mean it's it's it's horrendous to hate anyone i don't care who they are or what ethnic group uh i think maybe i need to say there's only one race that's a human race or just one there are various ethnicities um and those are a beautiful thing to god yeah well of course he made them all yeah in redeemed heaven he identifies right now to hate anybody is sin and to hate anybody for any reason is sin and to hate somebody because they have a different ethnicity is is is ridiculous sin but that that sin needs to be exposed and dealt with but to accuse an entire population of some unconscious sin some latent systemic racism because a whole culture of people is assumed to be victims of them is is not right and when i see when i see the people that are driving this like black lives matter and i mentioned that months ago right anti-marriage pro-homosexual pro-abortion anti-god antifa the same thing that that's all that mentality that says everything is wrong with this thing it's systemically bad to the core we've got to tear the whole thing down to the bottom and when i see evangelical people getting on that bandwagon i'm absolutely floored i just i i can't understand what what they are going to gain by buying into that because it it's a striking of of of the fist of man against god look i was born into the family i was born into because that's where god placed me uh we all were and he has a glorious purpose for all of us when we come to christ and it overturns whatever our ethnic differences you know might be we're all one right no jew no gentile no bond no free in christ no male no female and that's what i love about this church um we've never dealt with that kind of thing here we we didn't feel like we needed to make big issues out of the differences i can barely pronounce the names of the people i'm supposed to read tonight who are joining the church because they're coming from all these ethnic groups and this is what the church should look like and the bond of love that we have in christ just obliterates all that unnecessary propagation of hatred amen good well we have a few questions from kids let's let's answer a few kids questions josie she's 13 says pastor john what is faith what is faith faith is believing something is true um now there is a simple way to illustrate that everybody lives by faith everybody does you get in your car and you turn on your car and it's if it's got eight cylinders there are eight uh explosions going on under your hood uh repeatedly but you don't think your car's gonna blow up um you go to the kitchen you turn on the faucet you drink the water you don't know what's playing in the pipes you go to the doctor he's gonna do surgery you say okay knock me out and do what you want you maybe never met the guy you don't know anything about him and you don't know what he's doing when you're knocked out um you go to a restaurant you don't know who's playing in the kitchen but you eat the food why because you've learned that there are certain things that you can trust if if you i mean i guess this extreme illustration would be you bungee jump right no thank you you don't examine that thing no you don't examine anything you already jump out of an airplane with a parachute why do you do that because there's a certain pattern of evidence that indicates that somebody somebody responsible is making sure that's safe so that's faith based on some experience but when you come to saving faith that's not based on an experience not your experience but that is a gift from god for by grace i saved through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of god the ability to trust in the unseen god the unseen christ the ability to put your trust in him and live your life for his glory peter puts it this way whom having not seen you love the ability to love someone you've never seen to put your entire eternal destiny in his hand to come to the church to serve in the church to make the church your life to give to be loyal and dedicated to the church and the people of god when you haven't seen heaven and you haven't seen christ how can you make such a commitment it's little wonder that unconverted people don't get why we love the church because this is not natural this isn't like somehow somebody's proven that this is true that this is all an act of believing in something that we cannot see and the only people who've ever seen it didn't come back right that's right they didn't come back they're in heaven so that is supernatural faith and and i think that is a gift of god but that faith people ask me why why are you aren't you nervous do you worry about getting arrested are you worried about what's going to happen no some people say well that's a lot of courage no it really isn't it's just faith i trust the lord trust the lord completely for every single thing in my life and i have a track record of seeing his hand for years and years and years but i i believe in one i cannot see have never seen but that is stronger than any confidence i have in any worldly reality so that's a gift and i think that the only way a 13 year old will ever know what that faith is is to receive it as a gift yeah tell the lord i want to believe in you give me that faith and that is his gift to the repentant heart that's good that's why we love that verse so you can't see him you love him yeah yeah uh let's let's go think about that because yeah we're called to love christ with and love god with all our hearts all mind and strength and we've never seen him yeah it's profound uh one more kid question and then a good question from a mom and then we'll let some members in uh titus little guy named titus why can't i bring stuff like money or books to heaven hmm well okay titus because there's nothing to buy you own it all and there's nothing to read you know at all amen amen that's a great answer here's a great question i think that'll help a lot of parents from from a mom this is from a mom how do i specifically lead my children to salvation if my young elementary age child shows and confesses belief in christ and shows genuine remorse over sin and not just a fear of punishment should i be leading that child to repent and believe that they get saved in a prayer with me or should i teach them the gospel but never call them to make a proclamation and verbal prayer decision thank you from a very confused mom no this is really a good and practical question you you want to encourage your children to love the lord jesus christ to believe in him you want them to love him you want to speak of him with love and respect and honor you want to let those little children know as as little as they are how much you love the lord and how you serve the lord and how you honor the lord and and any response like mom um i wanna i wanna i wanna know the lord wonderful and if at three or four you you say well why don't you why don't you ask the lord to be your savior why don't you ask him to forgive your sin and and be your savior you don't have to get complicated he died for you he rose again to give us eternal life and you say well do do i know that at three or four that child is saved no you don't know that but every single time you affirm the reality of that you just keep affirming it and affirming it and affirming it no matter how many times they come back and maybe they doubt a little bit i was talking to a little boy i think he's 11 or 12 was he melinda was i was talking to a little boy a few days ago and he said um i think he was talking to me from back east he called and said would you talk to me so he's trying to figure out he says you know i'm thinking about dying all the time and you know what what do i need to know what do i need to do and um that's a heavy thing for a kid 11 or 12 but before he got to 11 or 12 he had thought about it as well and i think you'd be surprised that there are little fears in the hearts of little kids and the primary fear is separation from mom and dad and you want to always tell them that you're going to be with them with jesus in the future if you give your heart to him and every time he says or she says i want to do that you say great let's pray great you just keep doing it those are steps toward god and you don't know which one is that saving one but you affirm it and you affirm it don't doubt it don't say oh yeah you're too young you don't have enough theology don't ever do that just embrace that and and just let them give their heart to the lord with whatever capacity they have at that point in their in their young life no need to feed their doubt you need that no never fear that is so wonderful i'm so thrilled i'm so happy and give them a hug and a kiss on the cheek and say this is so wonderful now you belong to jesus and because the thing you don't want to show them is that this is really hard to get him to respond to you right it's not right and the truth is until they get to the age when that salvation is really real they're already in his care anyway so affirm those things constantly steps toward god always affirm them help them take those steps that's good pastor thank you one more thing why don't we transition to doing the new members by talking to some of our friends in this room who have yet to join the church ought they to join the church or is that just kind of a secondary thing or is that an actual biblical concept church membership well yeah church membership so what what are we saying we say church membership go back to the book of acts and on the day of pentecost three thousand people were saved uh how do they know there were three thousand because there were three thousand saved and three thousand baptized and they knew who they were and they they identified them and a couple chapters later there's another 5 000 and they're they're adding up but they but they know who they are as you follow the story of the church in the book of acts and the the epistles you realize that when people move from town to town they took letters they took letters from their church to a new city where they were going to identify to a new group of believers that they had come from another church another assembly of saints so clearly there was an identifiable group of people and from the standpoint of leadership the role of pastors and elders is to shepherd the flock of god among you taking the oversight so membership does two two very important things it allows a person to identify with a church which is critical the the bible the new testament knows nothing about free willing christians who just float around from here to there and look at the churches as they might look at the theater page or something what's playing or who's playing here and who's playing there the the new testament knows nothing about a believer who's not identified with a local assembly of saints for your own soul sake to be fed the word of god to build strong relationships to stimulate one another loving good works and also from the leadership standpoint so the leaders know who it is that god has put in their care yeah so that we can shepherd you and that that partnership is vital so grace has always had membership obviously we have a lot of people who come and that's fine but we emphasize membership because that is you saying i i want to belong and i want to be cared for and i want to be shepherded and i i want to be a part of this and i i want my life to be in this family of believers and i think it's it's not more than that it's it's not a commitment to a certain um job in the church not a commitment to a certain amount of money not that but when you say i've committed my life to christ and i want to be baptized because baptism is preliminary to membership here if you've been baptized of course you're welcome to come but if you haven't that's that's the public confession of your faith in christ and uh and then you become a member and then you know where you belong and we know where you belong and that mutual relationship is how shepherding works perfect let's illustrate that by inviting some new members and welcoming some new members into our church thank you thank you sir thank you you

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Views: 131,558

Rating: 4.8816495 out of 5

Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Grace to You

Id: AZTVokqi6Tc

Length: 59min 18sec (3558 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020