Rick & Bubba Bible Study Live - August 12, 2020

five four three two welcome in to the wednesday bible study here from the broadcast plaza and teleport uh honored that you would take time to be with us and today if you're joining us for the first time where you're joining us at the end uh of a series so uh this is actually the end our last session uh on the curriculum that's found in this book uh by pastor dean and sarah out of tallahassee florida called the unsaved christian reaching cultural christianity with the gospel so if today is your first time to be with us in this series i would highly recommend that you go back and and watch the other um uh sessions that we had they're available on the rick and bubba youtube channel if you just click on playlist right here on the youtube channel for those of you that are watching it already if you're listening on the podcast that's a couple of options for you you can go to the playlist at our youtube channel and find all the other episodes or you can go to burgessministries.com if you prefer audio only and just click on the listen uh button there and you can go back through the rest of our series and really any of the series that we've done over the last four plus years so we will wrap it up today the premise of this study is pretty straightforward uh it's talking about what pastor dean and sarah has proclaimed and i agree as many others this could be the biggest unreached people group in the united states of america that is the cultural christian uh i'm teaching this as a recovering cultural christian so i know a lot about the things that are talked about here because i've lived them out sadly and embarrassingly in my own life so uh hopefully it's it's been as beneficial for you that have been here through the entire study as it has been for me teaching it a lot of reminders and today it's going to kind of be that that gut check you know we've we've talked about throughout this study uh that paul the apostle paul instructed us in the second letter that we have documented in the word of god to the church at corinth he said at the end that we need to assess ourselves to see if we're of the faith you need to make an assessment of what the scripture says redemption looks like what the scripture says it looks like to be a follower of jesus and you need to assess whether you pass the test of actually having the power of jesus in your life and today we're really going to do that because the question today before all of us is this are you a cultural christian let's review and talk about some of the things that uh need to be assessed in our lives or uh will you come to the conclusion that people that you know and love are cultural christians and as we talked about last week will we ever be bold enough to actually admit that and then attempt to reach those that we claim to love so much and sometimes those can be the hardest so uh before we open with prayer the manchurch.com is obviously our our hub for those you that are watching around the country or listening to the podcast if we can help you in any way discipling men we have a complete discipleship strategy available at themanchurch.com we have individual resources we have small group resources we have a 40-week curriculum for the entire church in the men's ministry there we certainly can do events with you and gatherings uh when those become you know more more available to you wherever you may be just go to the manchurch.com we'd love to help you grit our men's conference is coming up august 21st 22nd for those of you that are in around the huntsville area just talk to phil waldrop his ministry puts that together they have a few seats available love to see you there dr david jeremiah will be there steve farrar will be there josh rivas will be there michael w smith will be in concert on friday night charles billingsley leads worship i'll be speaking along with phil waldrop so gridironmen.com we'd love to see you and look forward to seeing all of you that are already signed up and i'll be out at the manchurch.com booth throughout the entire weekend so i hope you'll come by and say hello let's open up with the word of prayer lord right now may your holy spirit confirm us or convict us on where we stand in our claim to be christians now certainly i know there may be people that have found this that have never claimed to to be redeemed they they don't make any such claim they're just searching i pray that today this message can be used to reach them as well continue to refine us into the people that only you can make us in the name of jesus we pray amen some of you been asking what are we going to do after this what we'll do for the next two wednesdays is we'll do standalone messages meaning these bible studies will not be part of any series they'll just be standalone we have a a man church that is coming up at my home church shades mountain baptist church on august the 30th that will be online for anyone to see anywhere by going to shades.org men of shades so shades.org slash men of shades six o'clock central time p.m on sunday evening august the 30th um so after that we'll start a new series uh here on the wednesday bible study and we'll be walking through verse by verse word by word first and second peter so now let's finish up the unsaved christian reaching cultural christianity with the gospel so if you have your bible or something with your bible on it as we begin to assess where we are we go to that very very convicting part of the of the sermon on the mount with jesus he's wrapping up the sermon on the mount and we know that he's talked about the narrow gate he's talked about a wide and easy gate which leads to a destruction he says the narrow gate that we're to enter with him is narrow when the way is hard in verse 13 and 14 and only a few find it we've unpacked that we've also unpacked uh 21 uh through 23 which is really kind of the one of the theme verses uh that we would have for this entire study this is when jesus is saying some people claim uh to represent me but i don't know who they are but then there's this mid part that we're going to talk about today because we're assessing are we cultural christians so jesus says he's talking about false prophets here but when he anytime you see scripture talking about a false prophet or a false teacher claiming to be redeemed and that being false applies because all that means these are people that claim to represent me or claim to belong to me but if you look into their life you'll find they really don't and so he starts in verse 15 of matthew chapter 7 and he says beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves again this means anybody that's making a claim of being of the faith but they're not and listen to 16 you will recognize them by their fruits are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles 17. so every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased tree bears bad fruit and here's here's have you ever taken the bible and some of you that have followed this bible study for several years you've heard me reference this before because remember i was a cultural christian so a lot of times i would take things that i kind of knew about the bible and then i would do what sadly a lot of people attempt to do i would make it say something that was more comfortable to me than to what it actually said uh kind of like now where we have people that are out there saying well god's evolved on fill in the blank now they have no scripture to uh to support that they just claim that god's evolved into something they're more comfortable with well listen to this because i used to read this verse incorrectly here's what jesus actually said in verse 18 a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit see i used to take that verse and say a healthy tree should not bear bad fruit you're like rick does that make a big difference well it did to me because that opens me up for a little little room here to say yeah i'm still a healthy tree even though i don't bear good fruit you know i mean we you know i should meaning i might some but that's not what jesus said jesus said that that a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit not it should not it cannot nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit and then 19 every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire thus you will recognize them by their fruits so i i guess one of the things that we can say if you want to know whether you're a cultural christian or if i want to know whether i'm a cultural christian meaning i'm making a claim of redemption that isn't accurate one of the things to look at is what fruit do i bear because that's what jesus said i should look at and keep in mind he says this right before that 21 through 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 there's that fruit who is in heaven on that day many will say to me lord lord did we not prophesy in your name cast out demons in your name do mighty works in your name and i will declare to them i never knew you depart from me you are workers of lawlessness and look at the first words of 24 you know you might have sang this when you're a little kid the wise man built his house upon the rock you might have this is this is where that that little children song comes from but don't miss verse 24 that follows this in matthew 7 everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built this house on the rock man there's there's an awful lot of talk here uh by jesus that people who've been redeemed by him actually live like it now we're not talking about perfection on this side of heaven um but but we're not talking about deliberate perpetual intentional sin we're not talking about life a sin i can tell you that he's making that extremely clear these are the words of jesus they're they're not the opinion of rick or the opinion of a human being this is what jesus christ said he said healthy trees don't bear bad fruit so if i'm bearing bad fruit meaning i have a lifestyle of sin then there is something wrong because jesus just said that i'm more like a diseased tree that i am a healthy tree which means a diseased tree is not connected to the true vine john 15 meaning i'm not producing fruit because i'm not connected to jesus so jesus isn't flowing through me so i'm a diseased tree and once again here's jesus saying let me tell you what happens to trees that don't bear fruit they're cut up and thrown in the fire rick rick are you is jesus teaching a works bait faith no he's not teaching that at all what he's teaching is that he's actually so powerful that he produces fruit in people he does it he makes us fully righteous we are saved by grace through faith of course that faith is a faith of action as we've talked about but but he's saying in john 15 if you're connected to me i produce fruit i just do because why because we haven't we have this incredible self-control or this new code of conduct no jesus just really is that powerful and i can speak to that in my own life when i was a cultural christian i did not produce fruit when i was broken and had a contrite heart and we'll get into what you're going to look at in your life and i confessed with my mouth and believed in my heart that jesus christ was lord when i submitted his authority and i repented of my sin which we'll get into and i had a contrite broken spirit then jesus changed me now did he change me all in one instant no does he continue to change me as i continue to be devoted to him and seek him with all my heart with all my soul with all my mind yes he does does that say anything great about me no it doesn't but it says a lot of great things about him so let's talk about that so he's talking about fruit what kind of fruit is he talking about if you have your bible or something with your bible on it we'll just jump right into what i was just talking about turn with me to luke chapter 13. and this is the thing that's usually missing in the life of the cultural christian i know that because remember it's like an aaa meeting i get up here and tell you that i'm an alcoholic you go he knows what we've been through i am a former cultural christian i'm a redeemed cultural christian i know this whole life i lived it okay i'm not coming from a sanctimonious self-righteous place i'm coming from a broken place and i'm warning you that cultural christianity is going to take you straight to hell and it's where it was taking me so this is one of the things that we you know we come up with a version of jesus that doesn't talk about repentance but i'm telling you something repentance is it without repentance you will not be saved and jesus himself says this you know they they were there were a couple of um you know teachers and pharisees that were trying to to catch jesus on they had this belief kind of like the health wealth and prosperity gospel they had this belief that if anything bad happened to you you must have done something really bad you know you you got what you deserved and you see this throughout scripture when even the disciples you know who were jewish men they were asking jesus so hey this guy is blind so what did he do or his parents do to cause him to be blind and jesus said no he's blind to glorify me so they're asking jesus this question in luke 13 about an incident that happened he said there were there were some present at the very time who told him about the galileans whose blood pilate had mingled with their sacrifices and meaning he was saying this this is a historical event pilate went into one of the temples and sent his soldiers in there and there were some jewish people from galilee there and they were getting ready to prepare the burnt offerings and the sacrificial meats and he went in there and slaughtered them so that was blasphemy for the blood of human beings to be mingled with the sacrifice and so they basically are asking jesus what sin do these jewish men do to deserve this murderous thing and jesus comes back and says to them do you think that these galileans were worse sinners than all the other galileans because they suffered in this way are you saying somehow god looked down and said now these people are more sinful than these people so i'm going to wipe them out and i'm not going to protect the other people from galilee he says no look at verse 3. no i tell you but unless you repent you will all likewise perish you're not any better than they are he says everybody must repent you know the times we're living in right now i don't think i can say this enough if you want true equality you want to end all the garbage we've got going on right now with this so-called uh equality here and equality there and people being separated into groups based on all sorts of things now let me tell you where you find true equality at the foot of the cross all of us are in equal need of redemption and an equal need of repentance and nobody no matter where they may come from ethnicity family whatever no one is going to strut into heaven we'll all come to repentance and acknowledging our own wretchedness and jesus says to them no i tell you unless you repent you will all likewise perish look at look at verse five no i tell you but unless you repent you will all likewise perish so when jesus came on the scene go back to john the baptist you know what you know what jesus came on the scene saying repent repent so and you go okay rick with it so jesus comes on the scene john the baptist is saying repent or perish he points to jesus as the lamb of god he's calling to repentance jesus is calling to repentance does that continue yes it does acts chapter two we go to acts chapter two if you have a bible or something with your bible on it you can go to acts chapter two so we get to acts chapter two here's peter that at one time uh ran because he was not willing to die with jesus he's denied jesus he said things throughout his his walk with jesus that continue to be wrong he makes all kinds of bold statements he can't seem to get it right but now jesus has ascended and has left them the holy spirit which was a game changer and uh the standard that we all follow now we follow the the the church after pentecost i know so many times and this is typical of a cultural christian we'll compare ourselves to the disciples before pentecost because they can't seem to get anything right and we like their mistakes and we like their lack of commitment uh we we like their but see that's the only problem is that's not where we live now those of us that have been redeemed are now on the other side of pentecost meaning we've received the holy spirit and now the standard of what that looks like are these men and women after they received the holy spirit not before well let me tell you about him after he gets up and lays it down i mean peter and john go from running and abandoning jesus to telling everybody that they are with jesus and and saying that everybody recognized that they were with jesus and they said if you tell us stop talking about jesus you just have to do to us whatever you want to do because we're not going to stop talking about jesus we can't help it and then they prayed for boldness and they said it let persecution come and they celebrated being whipped where did all this courage come from the holy spirit the resurrection they're not the same people anymore and neither should we be so here's what happens so so peter gets up at pentecost and he lays it down and then you look down in chapter 2 and you see verse 37 and 38 and here's what the people said when they heard peter now when they they heard this they were cut to the heart so so here's peter he's laying it down it cuts them to the heart and they said to peter and the rest of the apostles that were there brothers what do we what should we do now this is real important and this has got a lot of layers to it so jesus and the gospel has been presented perfectly through the holy spirit out of the mouth of peter it was so moving the holy spirit cut the hearts of everybody who heard it and they they said to peter and the brothers hey what are we supposed to do because they don't know you know what he didn't say well everybody just go home and god works all this out you say that leave your name and we'll get back with you he didn't say that guess what he said repent so jesus comes onto the scene and we hear from john the baptist repent the kingdom of god is at hand we hear jesus talking around and teaching repent or you're going to perish here's peter he gets it right for the first time inspired by the holy spirit people ask him and the other apostles what are we supposed to do repent is the first thing he said well that i guess repentance is a pretty big deal what is repentance repentance is to to to be be like say you're facing those that are watching if you're listening i'm turning my back to the camera i'm facing this way this over here is sin this is my life unredeemed so i'm looking in one direction for those who they're listening to the audio but can't see this and then when when i hear repent then i turn and now sin is behind me and and and i'm i have a contrite broken heart david in psalms 51. we've learned this in the old testament when he's when he's repenting of the sin of bathsheba and killing uriah he says please see my contrite and broken spirit i repent because ultimately i haven't sinned against against bathsheba i haven't sinned against uriah certainly i have but that's not why i must repent they're human beings they're flawed i'm repenting because i'm sinning against you god my sins against you and you are holy and there's no justification for sinning against you so i'm done with it i turn from my sin and i prefer you and i repent and and then and then i confess you as my lord and i come under your authority and then he says for them now to to confess this to the whole world by rising and being baptized every one of you in the name of jesus christ for forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit well have you received the gift of the holy spirit i don't know rick i'll tell you how you can find out do you have any fruit so one of the things that a true christian lives is a life of repentance a life of repentance and this is something that um that that we have to understand and and if you look into your life you'll see that what's the next thing so number one if i'm a real christian if i'm a follower of jesus i have a life of repentance and i've gone through repentance the next thing is that um that we should become eternally minded eternally minded and you you see this a lot uh this is one things that sherry and i talk about sherry's my wife for those of you that may be new to this is we we said one thing that happened to the pain and suffering we've been through and and that we've been through a lot of things the most severe was the death of our youngest son and youngest child in 2008 and uh sherry has written if you've never read her book it took her five years to grind out the book broner a journey to understand if you've never read it i highly suggest that you do it's on audio now for those of you that would rather listen to an audiobook than to read one it's available wherever books are sold and of course the audiobook is as well and it's also been translated recently into french because there's some work we're going to be doing in french speaking nations and one of the things that we talked about from this is is through this we then became more eternal minded than present time minded you know we we really have a saying compared to eternity whatever we're going through fill in the blank whatever it may be is really not a big deal seems like a big deal today but but compared to eternity it really doesn't uh our mind isn't we're not right now we're not so so earthly focused is we're heaven focused now in the beginning in the beginning some of that had to do with the fact that you know a precious child that we loved had now gone there but over time we realize as much as we love our son and we do and we look forward to that reunion what's got us heaven focused is not our son it's not my grandmother it's not my family members there's certainly nothing wrong with that being part of it but we're heaven focused because of jesus we can't wait to see jesus and you know what jesus is what what holds something of value to us this earth really doesn't and and see a cultural christian it's just like we talked about with those ridiculous country music um uh uh lyrics and um is is the cultural christian he's trying to go to heaven or she's trying to go to heaven but she really loves the world she she's she and he they're hung in the present they can't imagine life being better than a weekend on the lake they can't imagine anything being better than a ball game they can't imagine imagine things being any better than going to dinner at their favorite restaurant they can't imagine life being better than the last week of knocking back three or four glasses of wine or six pack of beer they can't imagine that there's anything better than what this world has to offer they really aren't focused on the eternal well see the cultural christian that's the way they act but boy they do not they do not act that way if they've been truly redeemed look what the writer of hebrews says in hebrews 13 hebrews 13 verse 14. the writer of hebrews wrapping up this letter says for here we have no lasting city but we seek the city that is to come here on this earth we have no lasting city hey the redeemed we're not citizens of this world we're passing through now why are we here well paul said to to live as christ and to die is gain we're here to do the work of the lord and can i be honest with you it's really the only thing that keeps me going now more than ever if you were clinging to this world i bet you're incredibly disappointed but see i don't cling to this world the redeemed don't cling to this world this is not my home this is not my city i'm a foreigner here i'm looking to where i belong and that's in eternity with king jesus his kingdom is not of this world and this world is going to be refined it's going to be burned and it's going to go away and there'll be a new heaven and there'll be a new earth and jesus promise will come true that behold he's making all things new and you know what else he's making new you me the redeemed so a follower of christ a true christian a someone who's truly redeemed dreamed redeemed has a life of repentance and they're eternally minded what's the next thing you find in a true follower of christ and someone who's been redeemed the next thing you see in their life is sound doctrine oh my goodness sound doctrine let me tell you something scott swain said that sound doctrine delivers us from the snare of false teaching there there's a rotten kind of fruit that can be detected uh in in a a non-regenerate person cultural christian that is believing holding holding on to and teaching a false gospel paul was so serious about the significance of sound doctrine that much of his new testament letters consisted of what instructing the church to make it an absolute priority he instructed titus that every elder should hold to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able to both encourage with sound teaching and to also refute those who contradict it now i know you're saying he's going to say that thing about counterfeit money again and you are correct i don't know of a better example and it's really what paul is saying to titus right here the secret service knows how to detect counterfeit currency not because they've seen counterfeit currency they never show them that it's because they've seen the genuine article over and over and over so much so they know every single detail of it so when someone presents something that isn't genuine they know in our case sound doctrine so well you spot a false teacher you spot a counterfeit and and if you're devoted to jesus and you've been redeemed you have a hunger for the word of god you have a hunger for sound doctrine and you won't tolerate it and you'll recognize it and as adrian rogers the the late great pastor who's received his reward in heaven said when you're looking for the adversary when you're looking for the demons when you're looking for evil never fail to check that pulpit because he finds himself there sometimes and if you don't know the difference you could be taught something that is not sound and never know the difference do you do you know sound doctrine do you know the word of god i mean is this something that you can be trusted with you know i think i think about paul's letter to timothy and he says you you tell these men you you tell these people they've got to be able to handle the word of god the writer of hebrews is complaining he's saying how can some of you some of you should be teachers by now but i continue to have to go back and give you milk because you can't handle meat and he says you know what he says i'm so sick and tired of this i can't believe that i'm continuing to have to teach you the basic oracles of god how have you not moved on how do you not know sound doctrine when i was a cultural christian i didn't know doctrine from a hole in the ground you could have told me anything i didn't know and see that's the problem with being a cultural christian you don't live a life of repentance you are not eternally minded and you don't know anything about sound doctrine and you you hear some really bad teaching and you sing some songs that have really bad theology man there's a lot of that stuff being cranked out right now but there's some bad churches cracking out a lot of real snappy worship songs but the doctrine in these lyrics is blasphemy but you don't know if you're a cultural christian because you don't know enough to spot it you know how many more of these songwriters are we going to see denounce their faith do we start thinking maybe writing modern day hymns we've given them given this responsibility to people that we haven't vetted out and i'm not saying there's not some great modern hymns don't misunderstand me the old hymns still hold their own and certainly god hasn't stopped producing hymns and songs but i got news for you some of this stuff that's been cranked out from some of these when you hear the name of a church tied to worship songs check into the church find out if they have sound doctrine because if the church it comes from doesn't have sound doctrine the songs probably don't either because that's where they're birthed from but that's what you have to know and that's why it's important to know about sound doctrine so what's the next one oh boy here comes this one what's the next thing you got to look for if if you're a true christian versus a cultural christian one of the things you'll see spiritual disciplines spiritual disciplines i will tell you this we did a bible study here a few years ago from dallas willard called the spirit of the disciplines and that's the first time i really started sensing from the bible study they wished i would leave i mean it was a very hard-hitting struggle if you if you are so bold you can go back to burgess ministries.com click on listen uh i don't know that those made it to the youtube channel it might have been before that but i know you can find them at burgess ministries under listen look for our series on the spirit of the disciplines it is deep it is hard-hitting and it is not a pleasant rod but the what do we mean by spiritual disciplines what do we mean by that uh so first of all let's look to scripture let us strive to know the lord hosea 6 3 christians care about knowing jesus more than cultural christians when it when it comes through spiritual disciplines designed for growth peter wrote to the church that like newborn infants desire pure milk of the word so that you may grow up in your salvation the first christians in the book of acts devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer these were men god provided to help believers to grow in their faith and affections for god so what are spiritual disciplines well what are physical disciplines i know you're saying well what do you know about that well i gotta tell you a large part part of my life i didn't know much about it god convicted me on that as well i got a long way to go but uh i stopped justifying my lack of physical physical disciplines let me tell you what we better not ignore our spiritual disciplines what is that rick well that would mean time in the word of god devote devotion to the teaching of the apostles devotion to the word of god is this something that's a priority to you prayer devotion to prayer fasting you know there's a reason the biggest the biggest thing that i heard one day on fasting because you know if you're like me you don't want to hear about fasting because i you know i've had an issue of gluttony and sin in my life and i had to address it and i remember saying well you don't have to really you know what fascism all right that's you know that's legalism that's what that is and uh and then i started realizing that jesus was teaching and he was saying this when you fast do this when you fast don't do this well he said the same thing about prayer when you pray do it this way when you pray don't do it this way well if he's telling me how to fast and how not to fast i guess he expects me to fast and if you remember some people tried to play that card of when jesus was with the disciples and they were eating uh even on the sabbath but you you better listen what jesus said jesus said there's no need for the fast right now because i'm with them but when i go then they'll fast well he's got he went so so he hasn't come back yet so yes we are to fast not not out of legalism not out of not out of you know burdensome you fast because it's a spiritual discipline to get you closer to god you know what is fasting supposed to do when i start thinking about the thing i'm fasting it makes me go to prayer so i can lean on god so i quit worrying about this thing that i that i think i gotta have i'm denying my flesh something so i can focus on god and you won't find a place in the bible where anybody was given you know a word from god a call when when people had to make big decisions in scripture you know what they did they fasted so fasting prayer study of the word of god spiritual discipline spending time in solitude spending time just listening to god these are all things that jesus showed us when he was here with us when he was 100 god but decided to also be 100 man he showed us spiritual disciplines are these part of your life at all they are part of the life of those who are redeemed so what's another thing that we should we should look for in our life if we want to see whether we're a cultural christian or we want to see if we're a true christian generosity generosity uh there's not a redeemed person on this planet this that's not generous are you generous and generosity means you know what if you have a need and i can meet it i do you've heard sacrificially give the lord loves a joyful giver jesus spoke with complete clarity on money proclaiming that where your treasure is there your heart will be also that's in matthew 6 21 if you want to write that down matthew 6 21 my heart is far from christ if i am not living generously with regard to my financial resources and i know what some of you are saying well if you're talking about giving of our time well sure but no this is about money this is about things if somebody has a need you give it if the church is advancing the gospel you give you're generous you're generous to people you're not i get so sick and tired of hearing and i don't even know if this is even true anymore but it's become mod to say so that waiters and waitresses they don't like sunday because this is when all the church people come in and they're all cheap they don't tip tip generously i mean i mean this is a person that's being paid below the minimum wage i'll tell you one thing i'll chip generously if they do a good job well how about this what if god decided whether he was going to forgive you or not as long as you did a good job has god been gracious to you has god been gracious to me yes well you know what maybe you don't even care that your food was cold and maybe you don't even care that you needed something to drink and it didn't come to you you just care about this person on whether they're going to feed the kids they have at home if they're a single mom maybe you just care about the person because they're a college kid trying to make it yeah maybe they did a bad job you know is that really being generous is that being gracious no a follower of christ is generous paul wrote to the corinthian church that god loves a cheerful giver i told you about that second corinthians 9 7 a fruitful christian loves what god loves and the scriptures are clear that generosity is near to the heart and the character of god god showed us generosity ultimately grace i i didn't deserve that i didn't do a good job and he said well i'll tell you you did a good job today here's a little grace for you now what he said is even though you're wretched sinners and really you live your life if you hate me i'm gonna forgive you anyway so who are we to withhold what he's given us you'll never you'll never there's never a point when you could say i say i think i give too much i'm just too much of a giver that's impossible you don't want to be irresponsible with what you've been given and you certainly want to know what you're giving to but sometimes it doesn't even matter i've had people say before well you gotta you got to be careful given to some of these things or giving to some of these people you don't know what they're going to do with it so what if you gave with a cheerful heart and you gave for the right reason and that ministry that you supported or that person you tried to help if they squander it they'll face god on that you won't that's on them but be a cheerful giver and generosity is at the heart of a true christian not so much for the cultural christian so what's the next thing that we have to assess do i have a heart for the lost do i care that people are going to hell jesus told the scribes and religious rulers who did not understand why he spent so much time with sinners that a shepherd would leave 99 sheep to go find one who was missing a person coming to faith in christ is the very thing that causes angels to rejoice in heaven if you have your bible or something with your bible on let's go back to luke let's go to luke 15. luke 15 1-7 now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him and the pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying this man received sinners and eats with them so he told the pit this parable uh what man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one them does not leave the 99 and open country and go after the one that he that is lost until he finds it and when he was found he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing and when he comes home he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for i found my sheep that was lost just so i tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who think they need no repentance amen do you have a heart for the lost that does it bother you that people that you come in contact with all the time may be going to hell if we desire to be more like jesus and it is more but certainly not less than having a heart for those who need his salvation a heart for the for the loss shows an awareness of our realization of our own stories of receiving the grace of christ jesus as i just talked about he came to seek and save the lost you see this in luke 19 10 and if we are in christ we will display the fruit of the same desire in our own lives jesus said i came to save the lost how can a follower of christ not care about the lost can i ask you a hard question it's going to be a tough one is there anybody is there anybody we certainly don't save anybody don't misunderstand me but is there anybody think about it in your life right now is there anybody that can say i have been redeemed by jesus christ because you me put our name here blank cared about me so much that they pointed me to jesus is there anybody that can take their salvation and point it back to your obedience certainly you didn't save them i didn't save them but did did they find their way to jesus because you directed them there you you you follow what jesus said to go out and make disciples and to teach them to obey all that i have taught you you know what jesus said i won't even leave you hanging on this i'll be with you i'll give you the courage i'll give you the comfort well you know rick i'm just uh i just that's just not my personality where is that in the great commission so i read the great commission several times and i can't find in there jesus saying do this unless it's not your personality no he said he's with you how hard is it unless unless it's never happened i didn't lead anybody to christ when i was a cultural christian you know why i didn't know what to tell them you think they were gonna look at my life and desire the way i was living i lived the same way they did but after i was truly redeemed strangely by the power of the holy spirit i was able to say to someone this is how i used to be this is the man i was i encountered jesus christ and let me tell you what he did for me and he did for you and then after i repented of my sin and i acknowledge jesus as my authority i submitted to his authority i confessed him as my lord i belong to him he bought me on the cross then after that jesus made me this way and is continuing to change me it didn't do the same thing for you what is your testimony do you have one because if you don't if you can't answer this question and somebody says so now you're a christian how did you become a christian do you know the answer to that i mean we've walked through this it's not because your mom and dad were christians it's not because somebody sprinkled you when you were a baby it's not that it's whether you look into your life it's not because you might have recited some prayer somebody told you to recite certainly some people have been through things that have changed their life forever but the bottom line is these things don't mean anything they're nothing but rituals if you don't see the fruit of redemption in your life and one of the things that you should see is the life of repentance another thing you should see is you should be eternally minded another thing you should see is sound doctrine another thing you should see is spiritual disciplines another thing you should see is generosity and another thing you should see is a heart for the lost what else a love for god in this church a love for god in this church i remember when god just radically pulled me out of my cultural christianity i remember the man who who god used to bring me out of it 13 years i'd never been in god's church for 13 years i'd never gone i was taking there as a child thank you mom and dad for that but as soon as it was my own decision i didn't do it i didn't do that but i still claim to be a christian even though i lived a life of debauchery and the pastor asked me what church i went to and i said well i don't go to church i said you don't have to be a christian to go to church what an idiot and you know what he said legalistically you're right the people don't go to church to become christians they go to church because they are so there should be a love for his church yes as a matter of fact god loved the church so much that he died for it it's called his bride and and he the bridegroom and jesus tells us that we show love for him by obeying his commandments we talked about this john 14 15 if you love me you'll obey my commandments but we also see descriptions throughout scripture of adoring god praising him relishing in his grace a maturing heart in christ will grow more and more loving as it beholds our loving god we also seek to love what god loves his glory and his church we see calls to continuously spur one another on to good works write this down hebrews 10 24 to only speak what benefits others something i need to continue to prove on improve on ephesians 4 29 to consider others more important than ourselves philippians 2 3 to do good to all people especially our christian brothers and sisters galatians 6 10. the psalms are full of adoring praises to god and the new testament epistles are full of guidelines for intrapersonal relations within the body of believers both elevate love and consideration above selfishness cultural christians bear fruit of this world not fruits that are driven by the belief in the good news of jesus christ they may resemble the that he tree about you may you may look like a tree and you certainly may have some fruit on it but are we a diseased tree are we a tree that produces the fruit of the holy spirit is the transformation of the holy spirit in our heart is it there is it there do you love his church do you love his church do you do you take do you do you go to great stakes to honor it to worship him he's worthy of worship he's the only one that's worthy of worship you have a desire to even be there if i hear another person say that you don't go to church because people are hypocrites i'm going to throw up you don't go to church for people if people are hypocrites you know what we all are to some degree because we had to be saved by grace you know the church is made up of nothing but a bunch of beggars that are telling you where the food is we started out saying we had to be redeemed by being a christian you already know you're a problem you go to church to praise and worship the only one that's worthy of worship and the people aren't worthy of it you don't go there to worship a pastor you don't go there to worship a praise and worship team you go there to worship the lord and he is worthy of worship and he loves his church the writer of hebrews says i've heard that some of you have started the practice of not meeting together stop that don't be like the ones that have started doing that we're to be together we're to being praised we're indeed to worship i can remember never wanting to go to church thinking to myself how can i get this off the list for the week and never return until i have to again and then i was redeemed and i fell in love with his church and that's supernatural because that's not me and i love his church you know my wife and i as we get ready to close a life of repentance eternally minded sound doctrine spiritual disciplines generosity a heart for the lost love for god in this church jesus has this parable that is really kind of wraps it all up in luke 13 starting in verse six and he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in the vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none and he said to the vine dresser look for three years now i've come seeking fruit on this victory and i find none cut it down why should it use up the ground but the vine dresser answered him sir let it along this year also okay give it one more year i'm paraphrasing that until i dig around it and i'll put i'll put some fertilizer and manure on it then it should bear fruit next year and if it does well and good but if not then cut it down so after the earthly death of our youngest son sherry had a fig tree planted in the back of our yard and it's there today i'll see it today and we put it there symbolic of this parable because we knew when we'd gone through that suffering that we loved the lord jesus so much that we would obey him and that he would never never come to the fig tree that represented our marriage and not find fruit and that fig tree is a reminder that that when when when you go through a tough winter with a fig tree the one thing that you look for after to see if that fig tree survived is you'll see just little signs in the fig tree that even though it's come through a harsh winter it's going to bear fruit and you know as as we just heard jesus say in the parable if the tree is not going to bear fruit i mean give it a chance and if you if it hadn't happened maybe it's time for you to do with the vine dresser beg the master hey give give it one more year give it one more year for you for you before you cut it down let me fertilize it let me dig around it maybe let me submit to the authority of christ because i never have let me repent because i never have let me fall in love with the word of god and let me consume it let me pray let me fast and then if i don't bear fruit then cut me down just give me one more year jesus is inspecting the fruit of our lives right now what is he saying what does he say is he saying i've come here for three years in a row and all i see is a cultural christian i see no fruit you're taking up the space and the life that i gave you you're squandering it cut it down but maybe today you say wait wait wait a minute just dig around me fertilize me and i'll produce fruit give me one more year now more than ever it is so crucial for us to assess ourselves and ask a hard question am i a healthy tree or am i disease tree a cultural christian an unsaved christian a fake because i don't produce fruit or i look at my life i've assessed it i see these things in my life and i'm confident that i'm redeemed i don't know that answer for you but it's been an incredible ride to go through these several weeks asking ourselves some very difficult questions let's pray lord thank you for this series and thank you for this time and thank you for the conviction of the holy spirit which i sense all around me right now and i i can imagine that finishing up this series that all across this country and even possibly around the world because of this incredible technology that you've afforded us that there's people whose hearts are cut and they too need to repent and i pray lord that you would honor every sincere heart as you said you would that desires to repent and confess that you are their lord and that they believe that you came here that you died on the cross and that your father rose you from the dead on the third day and you've returned to your place of glory and now you've given us the gift of the holy spirit that those with sincere hearts receive that gift right now the gift of redemption and maybe they leave cultural christianity and they'll experience true redemption i pray that you honor those lord that are praying those prayers to you right now and if i can be of any service to any of them help me to have the right words from you and lord will you please continue to refine me into the man that only you can make me i pray for my wife i pray for my children i pray for the country and the nation that you've allowed me to live in and i pray for this lost and dying world may you be with the team here at the rick and bubba show and help us to be obedient and to continue to try to walk that line of in the world but not of the world and forgive us when we fail you i lay these things now at your feet in the name of jesus amen thank you for spending time with us today thank you for being part of this series if i can be of any assistance or answer any question for you my email is rick rickybubba.com thanks a lot

Channel: Rick & Bubba

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Length: 55min 50sec (3350 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020