I would that you'd open up your Bibles
again to 2 Corinthians for just a moment.
Chapter 13, verse 5, 2
Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5, and let's all
stand.
2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5, test yourselves
to see if you are in the faith.
Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this
about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you,
unless indeed you fail the test.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we come before you and we pray
that Christ would be exalted, that believers would
be encouraged, and that the lost would be
saved.
Lord, I know we are asking for much,
but all things are possible with you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
May we be seated.
One of the things, again, as I said
last Sunday, I will say it again, one
of the greatest problems in the evangelical community
in America today is our weak gospel.
We have convinced men that if they will
simply repeat a prayer, repeat a prayer, that
they are somehow ushered into the kingdom, they
are born again under the power of God,
and that is simply not true.
Salvation is a supernatural work of God by
which the very heart of a man is
transformed.
His heart of stone is removed, his heart
of flesh takes its place, and that man
is transformed.
He literally becomes a new creature.
One of the greatest problems in counseling today
is many people don't recognize that, many pastors,
and so they're trying to teach supposed Christian
people who have problems, they're trying to teach
them when the problem is they're lost.
It's the same way with discipleship.
We always hear, you know, there's just as
many people coming in the front door as
going out the back door, and we're gaining
all these people for Christ, but we're losing
them.
No, my dear friend, it is not that
we need to disciple for that reason.
We should disciple, but not for that reason.
If they're coming in and going out, it's
because they're not born again, because if they
truly come to know the Lord, they'll stay.
Possibly not with us, for there are other
biblical churches, but they will stay within the
community of professing Christians, and they will grow
in sanctification, because he who began a good
work will finish it.
Now, again, we go back to this text
because Paul tells the church in Corinth and
tells us to do two things with regard
to our salvation.
If we profess to know Christ, in order
to have assurance that that profession is true,
he tells us to test ourselves, examine ourselves.
So many people today will say, well, I
know I'm saved because in my heart of
hearts I know I'm saved, but your heart
is desperately wicked.
Or I think I'm saved, but there is
a way that seems right unto a man,
and it leads to death.
How can we truly know that this faith
that we profess is true and is a
saving faith?
Well, now let's go over to 1 John,
where we went last week, and go to
chapter 5 again, because I want us to
have somewhat of an introduction, possibly, for those
who were not here.
In 1 John 5, verse 13, he says,
these things I have written to you who
believe in the name of the Son of
God, so that you may know that you
have eternal life.
How can we know that we have eternal
life?
John wrote his letter for this purpose.
In the Gospels, the Gospel that John wrote,
he says that he wrote the Gospel for
a specific purpose, that men might hear it,
and on hearing that Gospel or reading that
Gospel, they might be convinced that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, the Savior of
the world, and they might have eternal life.
When he comes to this epistle, he says,
I've written these things so that those of
you who profess faith in Christ might truly
know whether that profession is true.
An example I always use, if we were
to dismiss this church this morning, and we
were to all go out and visit all
the homes in this county, we would find
out that the great majority, the overwhelming majority,
probably over 95% of the people would
say that they believe.
And most would also say they are Christians.
But, their assurance is wrong.
Their faith is false.
How do we know that?
My dear friend, I'm from a farm.
I was raised on a farm.
Now, I was raised on a farm.
If there's anybody here from Chicago, please do
not get angry with me.
But I was raised on a farm very
far south from Chicago, and we all were
cattle herders.
We had cattle.
Everybody had cattle.
And we always dreaded deer season because we
knew that people from Chicago would buy a
gun and come down and go hunting on
our farms, but they couldn't tell the difference
between a Hereford and a deer.
I mean, you'd be surprised how many cattle
are lost in southern Illinois.
Now, it just comes to reason, you stand
out there, you look at something, and the
man says, look at that beautiful deer.
No, sir, that is not a deer.
That is a cow.
How can you?
No, sir, it is a cow.
Look at the horns.
They curl up.
They don't break off.
There's just one horn on each side.
And sir, choose as could.
Sir, he goes, moo.
If it goes moo, please do not shoot
the thing.
You say it's a cow.
Why do you say it's a cow?
Because it has characteristics of a cow.
Why is it that when we get into
Christianity, we suddenly start to super-spiritualize everything
and, well, it doesn't look like a Christian,
doesn't act like a Christian, doesn't talk like
a Christian, but you can't say he's not
a Christian because you can't see inside of
his heart.
We do not need to see inside the
heart because the whole idea of you can't
judge a book by its cover, that's not
in the Gospels of Jesus Christ.
As a matter of fact, he said just
the opposite.
You will know them by their fruits.
Now, I have seen recently, and I praise
God for this, a returning to what we
call biblical counseling where pastors and other men
are soul doctors.
They're not just sitting there going, okay, you
prayed the prayer you're in, but they're trying
to help people who profess faith in Jesus
Christ to discern whether or not they truly
are Christian, whether or not they truly are
saved.
This is not a minor test.
This is the difference between life and death,
heaven and hell, eternity of blessedness, eternity of
justice.
Now, I'm not a prophet nor the son
of a prophet, but I can tell you
this, there are people on this church roll
sitting in here this morning that probably do
not know the Lord.
Now, it's not because I know your life
or have studied it.
It's just a simple thing of statistics.
You get a church this large, you're going
to have people coming and becoming members, some
of them for all the wrong reasons.
And I'm not saying this to hurt you.
I'm saying this, I'm challenging you, I'm begging
you to listen.
This is not a small thing.
Are you born again?
Do you know the Lord?
Now, here's the question, does your life demonstrate
it?
Now, we went to the first test, we
looked through the book of 1 John, and
we began in chapter 1, and I want
us to turn there just briefly.
John gives us a series of tests to
let us know, they're a series of tests
that after taking them, it will help you
discern whether or not you're a Christian.
And the first one is, of course, verse
6, if we say that we have fellowship
with Him, and yet walk in darkness, we
lie and do not practice the truth.
What he's saying is, if we say that
we are Christians, and yet we live a
style of life that contradicts what God has
told us about His nature, and contradicts what
God has told us about His will, we're
not Christians.
If we live a style of life that
reflects a character of our own that is
totally different from the character of God, and
if we have a style of life that
contradicts what He has revealed in this book
about His will, we're not Christians.
Now, John says it bluntly, and never forget,
John was known as the Apostle of Love.
He's not being angry, mean-spirited.
He's loving these people, and He's telling them,
think, think, not all who profess the name
of Christ truly know Him.
Do you know Him?
He goes on to the second test.
Verse 8, if we say that we have
no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the
truth is not in us.
One of the greatest marks of a genuine
Christian is that they are sensitive to the
sin in their own life.
The Lord brings them to repentance and confession.
Are you sensitive to sin?
Now, be careful how you answer that, even
if you are a true Christian, because I
want to tell you something.
We live in a culture that is immersed
in sin, and don't think that that culture
does not influence you.
What unbelievers called sin and were horrified about
just 50 years ago, Christians practice today.
Or at least those who call themselves Christians
practice today.
We have become a people who are numb
to sin.
Now, let me tell you something.
Whenever someone comes to me and says, Brother
Paul, I have a new relationship with God.
I always ask them this question, do you
have a new relationship with sin?
Because if you don't have a new relationship
with sin, it's evidence you don't have a
new relationship with God.
Because if you've been truly converted, the sin
you once loved, you will now hate.
You will loathe it.
You will despise it.
And although you can be trapped again, although
you can be enticed to turn back to
that sin, you take one mouthful of that
sin, and you know the wrong you've done.
Now, we're going to go to the third
test, and it's in chapter 2, verse 3.
Now, listen to the clarity of John's speech.
By this we know that we've come to
know Him, if we keep His commandments.
Jesus said one time, He talked about men
that would stand before Him on the day
of judgment, and He says to them, depart
from Me, you who practice lawlessness.
What He's basically saying there, depart from Me,
those of you who claimed to be My
disciples, but you lived as though I never
gave you a law to obey.
You lived as though I never gave you
a precept, or a command, or a maxim
of wisdom.
You claim to be My disciples, but you
act as though I never told you anything.
That's what He's saying here.
By this we know that we have come
to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
Now, does it mean that the only way
you can be a Christian is if you
keep the commandments of God perfectly?
No.
Again, as I said last week, He is
talking about a style of life.
A style of life with regard to the
commandments of God.
That when someone looks at the entirety of
your Christian life, 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, they will not see a
perfect man, they will not see a perfect
woman, but what they will see is a
style of life given towards the Word of
God.
That seeks to know the Word of God,
and seeks to obey the Word of God,
and has some measure of victory in doing
those two things.
Now again, when someone comes to me and
says, this is Brother Paul, I have a
new relationship with God.
I always ask them, do you have a
new relationship with sin?
And then I ask them, do you have
a new relationship with God's Word?
Because if you don't have a new relationship
with God's Word, you don't have a new
relationship with God.
Now, we go on.
Again, I want to iterate something that I
said last week in verse 3.
He says, if we keep His commandments.
Now throughout all of this, John writes many
of the most important verbs are in present
tense, which in the Greek language indicates a
continuous action.
Not just something that happens here.
But it's a continuous action, and it represents
a style of life.
And so he says, by this we know
that we have come to know Him, if
we continuously keep His commandments as a style
of life.
It doesn't mean that we do not sin,
but the habitual practice of our life is
to concern ourselves with God's Word and seek
to obey it.
You say, well, if these things are true,
I mean, I know very few Christians.
Maybe so.
Again, I fear God too much to be
mean and to try to attack you and
hurt you.
If you belong to the Lord, who am
I?
But I will tell you this, and I'll
beg you to listen to me.
Are you sure that you belong to the
Lord?
Now he says, and this is very important,
verse 4.
This verse is so important, especially in super
spiritual congregations with super spiritual people.
Because this is what's going on.
He says, the one who says, I have
come to know Him and does not keep
His commandments is a liar, and the truth
is not in him.
But the way this is arranged, the one
who says, I've come to know Him, is
almost like, for example, the worship that was
going on and the beauty of it and
everything else, and someone just gets carried away
by emotion and stands up, oh, I've come
to know Him!
I've come to know Him!
And John looks at that person and says,
if you do not keep the commandments of
God, you've not come to know Him.
I don't care how many goosebumps run up
and down your back.
He's talking about that person in the moment
of religious excitement or when he's around other
influences that seem to prompt these types of
things.
Stands up and says, oh, you know, I
know my Lord.
He's a wheel within a wheel.
Well, that may be so, but you might
not know Him.
He says, the one who says, I've come
to know Him, there's emphasis here.
The person is emphatic with their voice.
I've come to know Him and don't tell
me I haven't.
Well, how many people are that way in
church?
You know, it was one of my primary
obligations in Peru as a pastor, and that
was to look at the congregation and if
there were people walking in a way that
they should not walk, to warn them.
If you read the Reformed Pastor by Baxter
or the Puritans or anything, you'll find that
the primary obligation of a pastor was to
shepherd, to go to people, to warn them
personally, to encourage them, all sorts of things,
but to let them know.
For example, if you have a teenage son
that walks with the Lord, it appears for
a few years, and then all of a
sudden, he goes off somewhere.
It's the responsibility of leadership to go after
him and warn him, not that he's going
to lose his rewards, but that possibly he's
not even saved.
In the name of love.
Now look at John's language.
The one who says, I've come to know
Him and does not keep His commandments is
a liar.
Now, you say, you get a pastor in
here one day, and you say, now pastor,
we want you to be biblical.
Okay, that will mean that possibly one day
he will walk up to you, hopefully with
a great deal of love in his heart,
or walk up to one of your children
and say, all indications are this, that your
profession of faith in Jesus Christ is nothing
but a lie.
Would you be able to deal with that?
I want to tell you something.
If I pass away this morning, and I
die, I pray, I've already prayed, that God
will put men around my boys that are
courageous enough to tell them the truth, but
loving enough to hold them as a shepherd.
I need that.
So that's a test.
That is a test.
Now, if you look on in verse 5,
look what it says, but whoever keeps His
word, in him the love of God has
truly been perfected.
By this we know that we are in
Him.
I love God's word.
Well, that's wonderful.
Do you keep God's word?
Jesus said, if you love Me, you'll keep
My commandments.
If you love His word, you'll be about
keeping them.
Now look what He says.
The love of God has truly been perfected.
There is no way to know exactly where
John's going here.
There are two options.
One, is that God's love towards us, we
have so come to grasp a true sense
of God's love towards us, that it causes
us and leads us to keep His commandments.
Or, that our love for God has so
matured, that it is manifesting itself in obedience.
Could be both.
John always leaves these things open.
So, if you're sitting there all the time
going, boy, I just know God loves me,
I know God loves me, I just know
He loves me, I am certain about that.
The way that statement will be proved true
or false will depend on your relationship to
His word.
If you are not about obedience, then you
do not fully comprehend or even come close
to comprehending God's love for His people.
Or if you sit there and go, I
love the Lord, I love the Lord, I
love the Lord, but the Word of God,
the Word of the Lord, has no place
in your heart.
It's a frivolous, vain, trite statement.
Now I need to stop.
Give a warning here.
And it's this.
These words that I'm saying are not directed
towards the person here who has a sincere
faith in Christ, who is struggling to walk
in the light, who is seeing their sin
and upset with themselves and confessing their sins
and looking at the Word and sometimes realizing
their failure.
It is not my intention nor God's intention
this morning to crush the little light that
is in some of you.
So if you sit there and go, I
don't do any of this stuff perfectly, my
answer to you is join the club.
You say, I struggle sometimes with this.
So do I.
Well, then what are you teaching?
I'm talking about the person who just openly
professes Jesus Christ is Lord and doesn't concern
themselves at all with walking in the light
and sin is no big deal in their
life and the Word of God has no
place in their life.
I'm not talking about the struggling saint.
I'm talking about the hard-hearted, high-handed
sinner.
You say, well, where is he?
Our churches are filled with him.
Remember, on Sunday, everyone has their makeup on.
And it's not our intention.
I know this is a scary thought, but
it's my intention that people start walking through
those doors without makeup on.
Now, I'm speaking spiritually.
Speaking spiritually, just so you know.
You know God loves you?
The driving force, and some of you saints
need to hear this, the driving force in
my life is not condemnation and it's not
guilt.
The reason I want to obey the Lord
even more than I obey Him is because
I know He loves me.
And that's what I want to see in
you.
That the love of God becomes so real
in your life that it perfects in obedience.
People who are free and people walking and
using that freedom for the glory of Christ.
Now, let's go to verse 6.
Here's another test.
The one who says he abides in Him
ought himself to walk in the same manner
as He walked.
Now, that's a biggie.
Try to fill those shoes.
You look at me and say, well, you're
preaching awful strong there, Pastor, but what about
yourself?
Would you stand up in the pulpit and
say that you walk in the same manner
as He walked?
Yes and no.
You have to understand the context of this.
First of all, the one who says he
abides in Him.
Now again, this is another way of saying
the one who says he's a Christian, the
one who says he's saved.
We have this crazy idea somehow out there
we have learned that people can be Christians
without knowing the Lord, that they can be
Christians without fellowshipping with the Lord, and they
can be Christians without abiding in the Lord.
That's not true.
The New Testament sees those as a whole
package.
But the word abide means to dwell with,
to sojourn with, to walk with Him on
a daily lifestyle, daily practice, daily basis.
The Christian life is a pilgrimage.
That's why it's called Pilgrim's Progress.
So many people treat salvation, and it's because
of bad preaching, they treat salvation as a
ticket they somehow purchase to heaven instead of
salvation, yes, that leads to a walk with
God and God's Son.
Now he says, the one who says he
abides in Him ought himself to walk in
the same manner as he walked.
This is not an option.
You can be a Christian and not walk
with the Lord.
You can be a Christian and not walk
at all like the Lord.
Again, you don't become a Christian by learning
how to walk like the Lord.
If you truly become a Christian by faith,
the power of God, then you learn to
walk like the Lord.
Now, what does it mean to walk in
the same manner as He walked?
Does it mean that all of us are
just going to do everything Jesus did all
the time?
Or that we're even in anything that we
do going to reach His level?
No, that's not necessarily what it means.
I'm going to give you an illustration from
the farm about what it means.
When I was a little boy, my dad
would come into my room from 5 and
5.30 in the morning, every morning, and
say, Paul boy, get up.
No rest for the wicked.
It's the first verse I ever memorized.
I mean, I'm a little boy.
And he says, get up.
No rest for the wicked.
I'd get up.
Because in those days, it was legal for
parents to kill their children.
If they said get up, you got up.
And you better be up before get up
finishes.
We would get up.
And my dad was a very big man
and I thought he was Superman.
And I just wanted to be just like
my dad.
Well, up in the north, we have this
white stuff called snow.
And sometimes we would go out and feed
cattle in the snow.
And my dad was a lot taller than
me at that time.
And he would walk with what seemed to
be these giant steps.
I mean, just giant steps.
Now, I wanted to walk like him.
I don't know if any of you other
boys did this, raised on a farm or
whatever, but I just wanted where his footprint
was at.
I wanted to put my footprint there.
Now, you can imagine what I looked like.
I looked like a spider or something walking
across there.
I was stretched out so far trying to
put my...
stretched out too far.
Stretched out just too far.
Those steps were just too big.
I looked ridiculous.
The way I was walking.
Sometimes I looked ridiculous.
And sometimes I fell down trying to put
my foot where he had put his foot.
But if you looked at that little boy,
you knew that the greatest desire of his
heart was to walk like his dad.
What does it mean to walk like he
walked?
Would any stand up and claim to have
the same measure of grace that Christ had
on His life?
The same measure, the power of the Holy
Spirit on their life?
Would anyone say they're holy as Christ is
holy?
Would anyone here stand up and say they
walk just like Him?
No.
But I can tell you something, if I
observed every life in this building right now
for seven days, I would find some in
which you would see a sincere, true desire
to walk like Christ.
And I would see others, it never enters
into their mind to walk like Christ.
And to walk like Christ not just in
a religious context.
That's one of the greatest problems of being
a minister.
You forget what it's like to be normal.
You forget what it's like to live where
many of you live and work where many
of you work.
But even in that context, you are called,
you ought to walk as Christ walked.
And your greatest desire should be to reflect
the life of Christ everywhere you walk.
And to walk like Him, but not only...
Look, isn't it amazing that here He says
in verse 6, the one who says he
abides, that's the first time He uses that
word.
Usually He says, the one who says that
he knows Him.
Or the one who says he has fellowship
with Him.
But here He says, the one who says
he abides.
Now what does that word mean?
To sojourn with.
Look what He's saying.
The one who says he walks with Jesus
should walk like Jesus.
Because how can two walk together unless they
be in agreement?
If you say that you walk with Him,
there will be something of a reflection of
His character in your life.
The way He walks will be in some
ways reflected in the way you walk.
Now, I'm not talking to people outside and
I'm not talking to people who are going
to get this CD or whatever it is.
I'm talking to you.
Do you not realize I wouldn't be worth
my salt if I wasn't burdened over the
lostness of people even in this congregation?
I am speaking to some of you.
You profess to be Christians, but walking, reflecting
the character of God, walking in His will
is foreign to you.
You profess to be Christians, but sensitivity to
sin, you don't even know what I'm talking
about.
You can watch horrendous things, say horrendous things,
listen to horrendous things, participate in horrendous sins,
and it not bother you.
You don't even realize it's sin.
And His commandments, that Bible gets picked up
on Sunday morning as you're running out the
door.
Your home is not guided by the law
of God and a passion to walk with
Him.
You don't know such a passion.
You want to look like the world, talk
like the world, act like the world.
Oh, my dear friend, these things should not
be.
And what I'm telling you is if you
come down and you say, Pastor, you just
described my life.
I guarantee you, you will not be crushed.
You will not be condemned.
You will not be just thrown off to
somebody else.
We'll sit down and we'll work this out.
And if I have to call in other
people to help, we'll work this out.
And there are other people, if more people
need help, there are other people to help
them.
What we want to be about in this
church is seeing people, not just making a
profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
And I know this has been the heart
of this church for a long time.
Well, I want to continue that on for
the time I'm here.
That people are genuinely saved, but not just
saved, being able to show the validity of
their faith through a changed life.
And not only that, a changed family life.
Is it not true that some of you
are sitting out here right now and you
can't even think about the things of God
because your family is in such terrible condition?
It doesn't have to be that way.
Work this thing out.
God can minister.
God can do things and He will.
Let's believe Him for it.
One day I want to stand up here
in a couple of months and be able
to say this, let's go after them.
Let's go after everybody in Austin.
If it moves, we're going to witness to
it.
If it moves, we're going to evangelize.
We're going to have everything in here from
parrots to dogs to crickets.
So anything that walks, we're going to tell
it about the Lord Jesus.
But if I were to do that right
now, some of you would be angry.
And you want to know why?
Because you'd be saying this to yourself, He
wants me to go out and evangelize.
My family's falling apart.
I'm falling apart.
Everything's falling apart.
How can I think about the world?
We've got to get you strong so that
you can go out there.
But getting you strong.
And God can do that.
He can do that through the preaching of
His Word and through the ministering, not only
of this staff, through the ministering of the
elders, and not only them, through the ministering
of these focus groups.
One of the most phenomenal things in the
state of Texas is the focus groups in
High Point Baptist Church.
But are you saved?
Because what matters, all of this, if you're
not saved, are you saved?
Prove it!
I'm going to close by saying this, I'm
not a boy.
And I didn't just start doing these things.
I am aware that in the last two
Sundays that I have preached, I do not
have much of a sense of the power
of God in preaching.
But I am praying that God will move
upon His people.
And I am praying that sooner or later,
the Holy Spirit is going to show up,
manifest Himself, and do a work among you.
But the invitation is open.
If you're broken, if you're hurting, if you
don't even know what you are, if you
know that what I taught today, your life
does not measure up to it, please, I
beg you, as though God were begging you
through me, do not walk out those doors.
You say, well, you're busy.
No, I'm not.
This is what I do.
This is what we do here.
And there are a lot of men and
a lot of women that will be willing
to stay here the whole afternoon if it's
necessary.
Come to Jesus today.
Come to Him.
Come to Christ.
Come.
If I could lasso you and drag you
in here, I would.
If I could beg you here, I would.
Come.
Let's stand, brother Robert.
Do not let what God has spoken through
His Word be stolen out of your heart.
Don't let it happen.
Please.
You say, if God wants to save somebody,
He will.
Yes, that's true.
But God is using me to call out
to you right now.
And that call is this.
You come.
He will not forsake you.
Anyone who desires, come.
Anyone who's thirsty, come.
Anyone who's hungry, come.
Anyone who's needy, come.
The only one who can't come is the
proud, arrogant man who says, I need not
the Lord.
Anyone else?
Come.