Acts chapter five, I'm gonna start in verse
28, even though I was there last week,
I'm gonna pick up at verse five, Acts
five, verse 28.
And as you're finding that spot, the introduction
is a little lengthy.
And to be honest with you, I wanted
to really fully exhaust this text, but with
the children's ministry and performance and different things,
I wanna just get to the bullet points
and then hopefully I can pick up in
the weeks to come.
The message is, if it's of God, if
it's of God, you cannot overthrow it.
If something is of God, you cannot overthrow
it.
It's impossible.
And we've been in the book of Acts
for quite a while, I think since September,
and we've seen God working through his people.
God is going to build his church.
There's nothing that the devil can do.
There's nothing that the world can do.
God's will, his sovereign will, will prevail.
And Christianity would have never survived without God.
I don't think people realize this.
But their hero, Jesus, was defeated and crucified,
so it seemed.
What kind of movement is going to spark
out of their main leader being crucified and
defeated?
And they're thinking, what was that all about?
I thought he was gonna restore the kingdom,
this mighty Messiah.
What would have came out of that?
Surely not this.
And this is gonna be tricky during this
message as well, because I'm gonna say some
things that I've said before, but there's a
lot of new faces.
And I don't wanna miss something in talking
about this.
But with Jesus, if he was truly, which
we know historians say he was crucified, he
was put into a tomb.
Now, if they hid the body and they
knew all this was a lie, who's going
to die for a lie?
As soon as the disciples were faced with
execution, they would have said, okay, we'll confess.
Here's where we hid the body.
We don't wanna die.
But all of his disciples, tradition holds that
all of them were martyred except for John,
who was exiled on the island of Patmos.
All of them, horrific deaths for a lie.
Nobody's gonna die for a lie.
They'll die for a lie that they perceive
as truth.
We see that in terrorism.
That's the difference.
They are dying because they believe that this
is true, but nobody is going to die
for something they know is a lie.
So when you argue, it's called apologetics.
When you defend the Christian faith, one of
the things you can defend is that Jesus
was a historical figure.
Josephus, a historian, wrote about him.
Early historians wrote about him.
He lived.
There is no question about that.
It's not a fable tale.
This is not pixie dust.
He lived.
This is truth.
So then you have to look at the
people who died for the message.
They would not die for a lie.
And as C.S. Lewis said, Jesus Christ
is either a liar, he's a lunatic, or
he's the Lord.
And those are really the options.
Well, he's a good teacher, Shane.
No, if that's all he was, he was
a terrible teacher, even though we believe that
he was the best teacher that ever walked.
But if all he was was a teacher
and not a Lord, then he was a
terrible teacher because he taught things that did
not come true.
He said things that were false.
I am God.
I am the Son of God.
I am the way, the truth, the life.
Nobody can even come through the Father except
through me.
So he could not just be a good
teacher.
So you have to settle that in your
mind.
He's a liar, a lunatic, or he is
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's why we're here.
That's why Christianity has prevailed because he said,
I will build my church and the gates
of hell will not prevail against it.
He will build it.
If God is in something, and it's interesting,
I don't know if this will be a
benefit at all, but one of the scariest
things you can do is give up everything
and say, okay, I'm gonna plant a church.
That's risky because you will look like an
utter failure if God is not in it.
And it was a struggle for months.
My wife can tell you.
She had to take a drive with the
kids and I fought with God for three
hours.
I'm not gonna do, this is ridiculous.
I'm not gonna, God, what?
Pastors are nice and smiling and just so
fun to be around and they're never challenging
and they're good-hearted and they're always just,
but this boldness you've given me, that's not,
you know what?
But then the more I read scripture, the
more I realized that boldness is definitely a
good characteristic to have.
So once the struggle is over and I
submitted, then you hear all the voices, you
know, Saturday nights, who starts a church?
Are you Seventh-day Adventist?
Who starts a church on Saturday?
That chain that won't work.
It's never been done.
You can't start a church on Saturdays with
$100 with no support, with no core group.
Well, God told us to do it.
And we're just gonna follow him and tremendous
doors open.
I don't wanna share that story again.
Many of you have heard it before.
And also I've noticed, I've seen about six
or seven church plants in my time here
of people I knew that have not succeeded.
They have failed at least.
And I think they have the number between
50 to 80% of church plants actually
fail.
Now, I don't, that's a whole nother sermon,
but a lot of times I see people
want to plant a church because they say,
I'm gonna do things right.
And they're disgruntled and they leave their other
church and they go with a wrong attitude,
with the wrong spirit.
God's not going to bless that.
It's not this renegade spirit of rebellion that
God blesses.
It's broken men surrender to him that God
blesses.
Now, the enemy is going to come up
after that.
Every chance he gets, that's why you have
to live so close to the Savior that
he is the only hope.
He's the foundation.
So if it's of God, if it's of
God, nobody can overthrow it.
H.G. Wells is an historian.
He said, I am a historian and I
am not a believer, but I must confess
as a historian that this penniless preacher from
Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.
Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure
in all of history.
You cannot overthrow him.
Napoleon, I know men and I tell you
that Jesus Christ is no mere man.
Between him and every other person in the
world, there is no possible term of comparison.
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires,
but on what did we rest the creation
of our genius upon force?
Jesus Christ found his entire empire upon love,
and at this hour, millions of men would
die for him.
You cannot overthrow him.
And that's so true.
Love would never prevail on its own, but
because it's the love of God, and that's
what we forget about God.
We have this image sometimes of God as
this tyrant, angry, hellfire and brimstones, lightning bolts,
and all these things.
I love the judgment of God and the
righteousness of God.
I preach on that, but we forget about
the love of God.
It's the love of God that compels me
to share the truth.
It's the love of God that sent his
only son.
It's the love of God who will warn
sinners and edify saints.
It's the love of God.
You cannot overthrow it.
So I'll just throw this question out there
now that I threw at the end.
How long will you keep fighting God in
your own life?
How long will you keep fighting God?
Because you will not, you cannot prevail.
God's not gonna eventually say, uncle, you got
me.
You got me.
He never will.
He'll warn, he'll call, he'll orchestrate situations, he'll
bring the conviction of the Holy Spirit, he'll
bring the word of God, he'll bring others
in your life.
You just look outside and say, there's a
creator.
There's a well-known physicist, and I don't
wanna get this wrong, just hit the news
recently.
He's actually picking up where Einstein left off.
And he came out and said, these mathematical
equations in the universe, and all the, there
has to be a creator.
There has to be.
And they said, he said, God is a
mathematician.
There's so many variables of all these things.
But one thing that gets in the way
is pride.
Pride, and you cannot fight against God.
Voltaire, French skeptic, talking about Jesus, said, curse
the wretch.
In 20 years, Christianity will be no more.
My single hand will destroy the edifice that
it took 12 disciples to build.
Can you believe he said that?
Two years after the American Revolution, 1778, he
said, I will destroy Christianity.
And you look, oh, he was just tongue
-in-cheek.
I don't know if that's tongue-in-cheek,
but I would never even come close to
saying something like that.
And I don't know, you know, there's different
things, but I think a Bible society actually
began printing Bibles in his home once he
died.
See, you can't, you can't.
You cannot overthrow him.
See, that's what people, you cannot overthrow God.
You better just get on his side.
If God is moving in a church, you
might as well just get on God's side.
If God is moving in something, you better
just get on God's side.
If God is moving in your life, just
get on his side.
You will not prevail, you will not win,
because God has a sovereign plan, and his
plans will prevail.
But then the question comes up often, but
Shane, how do cults flourish?
How do cults flourish?
If they're not, if God's not in it,
how do cults flourish?
Well, good reminder here, just because something flourishes
does not make it right.
I have lots of weeds in my grass
that I try, I've almost given up, forget
it.
I don't know where these things come from.
Just because something flourishes does not make it
right, because you can market things, and people
will be drawn to you.
What you, how, well, how do we know,
Shane, does it line up with truth?
And is the fruit of the Holy Spirit
present?
I'm really, and now that I've pastored, I've
seen how important this part of it is,
because there's a lot of people with truth.
I mean, I just got cussed out on
Facebook about the recent article this week, big
time, about everything, you know, we talked about
last week.
I don't wanna go into that this week.
But people are so upset at different things,
and cursing, and upset, and you're going to
hell, and you're misleading people, why?
Why?
Because it's the truth.
But you need the truth with the fruit
of the Holy Spirit.
Because if you don't have love, and gentleness,
and kindness, and understanding, and compassion, you're not
filled with the Spirit, you're just filled with
truth, you will hurt people.
You will hurt people.
Guilty as charged.
Every time I wanna reply, I have to
go and erase it.
Because that's not gonna help, is it, Shane?
That's gonna hurt.
So to know something, how do I know
if it's of God?
Is it true?
Does it line up with His absolute truth?
Is it true?
Oh, Shane, that's just passe, that's not really
for us anymore.
Oh, it is for us today.
And we can show you, if we have
the time, that the authority of God's Word,
the inerrancy of Scripture, that's what all of
Christianity was built on.
The Pauline epistles, the letters of James, and
Peter, and the disciples who wrote, wrote authoritative,
being with Jesus, they wrote what God's will
is, they wrote the heart of God.
So something lines up with truth, and you
have to be full of the Holy Spirit.
Is the Holy Spirit present there?
Here's why, we were created to worship God.
This is why this is so important.
We were, everywhere across the planet, people are
created to worship God.
Every person, six billion, I don't know what
the numbers are now, they have this something
in them that has to worship.
So that's why they end up worshiping all
different kinds of things instead of God, because
they're not pointed in the right direction.
And people ask me often, what about the
little boy in Afghanistan who's never heard about
the gospel?
Well, I trust God.
I trust that God will reveal Himself.
The Bible says His invisible attributes are clearly
seen so that mankind is without excuse, because
we can either suppress the truth or we
can embrace it.
It's knowledge that God has given us.
But people are so hungry for spiritual things.
They're so hungry spiritually that they'll consume anything.
Have you ever thought about that?
People are so hungry.
We want a God.
There has to be a, what's that old
saying?
There's a God-sized hole in my heart.
I don't know if it's theologically correct, but
it sounds really good.
There's something that God, how God created us,
and in the fall, God's image in us
was damaged.
Norman Geisler would say that it was effaced,
not erased, meaning it was damaged, it was
marred, that God created us in His image.
Can you imagine that?
That should give you self-worth unlike anything
you've ever known before.
You don't need to hear self-esteem from
your therapist.
You need to hear that you are worthy
through God, because we are created in His
image and His likeness.
Come, let us make man the plural nature
of God, Elohim, the trinity there, we see
the trinity, let us make man in our
image.
And so people are so spiritually hungry, they'll
consume anything.
In the city of Karnataka, I believe it's
in India, the lower class people there, they
actually take a bath by rolling over the
leftovers of food from the upper class, thinking
that that will cleanse them spiritually.
According to members of the Church of Scientology,
an E-meter can be used to determine
whether or not someone is carrying spiritual baggage.
In Kali temples of South Kerala, I don't
even know where these places are, they promote
hook hanging.
You actually put hooks in the back of
your skin.
And you hang from those things.
The ritual is performed to pacify the god
Kali, K-A-L-I.
In Western India, some parents volunteer to have
their infants dropped 50 feet from a roof
off a mosque and caught on a bed
sheet in the belief that it will ensure
their family's good health and prosperity.
I mean, I could just go for the
next hour.
If you go to India, the most sacred
temple, Shiva, when people get in there, the
things they do and grabbing the gold and
pouring oil on it and acting crazy and
putting all this stuff on them and covering
themselves and worshiping, all these things, they're searching
for the god.
And we can be so spiritually hungry that
we grab anything.
So the thing I wanna throw out there
on that is be careful where you search
for truth.
Be careful where you search for truth.
All religions can be wrong, but they cannot
all be right.
Every single religion on the planet can be
wrong.
They can all be wrong, but they cannot
all be right because they contradict each other
on every term, on every truth, that is.
And that's when you look at other religions
out there.
What do they teach?
What does the word of God teach?
You see the differences.
Jesus can't say, I am the way, the
truth, and life.
No man comes to the Father except through
me.
And then this other religion says, but if
you go through this person and belong to
our society and do these rituals and do
this, that's how you'll be saved.
Well, who's right?
Who's right?
Well, Shane, both paths lead to heaven.
Really?
Well, one or the other, do you see
how you can't have both?
That means Jesus is a liar.
What I said earlier, a lunatic liar of
the Lord.
So you have to take God at his
word.
You can't have multiple truths.
You can't say go through this and go
through that.
You have to choose.
So be careful where you search for truth.
So that's the foundation of this whole message.
If it's of God, you cannot overthrow it.
Acts 5 28, here's the context of what
I'm gonna read in just a little bit.
Did we not strictly command you not to
teach in his name?
So the disciples are teaching in the name
of Jesus.
They get arrested and they say, don't teach
in his name again.
Well, we have to obey God rather than
man.
So they keep teaching.
Didn't we tell you to stop teaching in
his name and look, you have filled all
of Jerusalem with your doctrine and you intend
to bring this man's blood on us.
But Peter and the other apostles answered and
said, we ought to obey God rather than
men.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus,
whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.
Him, God has exalted to his right hand
to be prince and savior, to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
And we are witnesses to these things and
so also is the Holy Spirit whom God
has given to those who obey him.
Look at last week's message if you want
more on that, but I'm just gonna pull
out one thing.
What was the doctrine that was so upsetting
to these people?
You killed the Messiah.
Jesus is the way to the father.
You killed him.
Jesus is sitting on the right hand of
the father means a position of power and
authority.
This is the Messiah that you rejected.
You killed him.
That's why they are so upset.
And I was reminded of Jesus's words, if
the world hates you, keep in mind that
it hated me first.
Is that interesting?
Because we're so busy trying to make everybody
like us.
People aren't liking me.
Why is that?
Well, because if the world hate, the world
will hate you because it hated Jesus first.
Now, for the sake of those who are
new here, let me clarify something.
Churches should be welcoming, accepting, friendly, warm, hospitable
places of worship, but they will also challenge,
contend, and promote the truth this the world
will hate.
Because I can be loving and caring and
compassionate and quiet and gentle and say, you
know what?
I understand, but the Bible says that you
need Christ.
He's the only way.
You arrogant, narrow-minded, bigoted, how could you?
No, no, that's what the Bible says.
So see, Jesus was the most loving person
on the planet, but because what he said
offended people.
That's why the world will hate the truth
is what they hate.
Make sure they don't hate your attitude.
We teach on that often.
We don't want the world, boy, he's arrogant
and condescending and bigoted and mean and evil
-spirited and all these things and the truth.
You want to, boy, I don't like what
that guy says, but I like him.
You have to have that compassionate, understanding attitude
when presenting the truth.
And if anybody's mastered that, talk to me
afterwards because I have not mastered that area.
It's hard to find that, it's hard to
bring that boldness in and harness it and
just lovingly talk to people and minister to
them, but it can be done.
God will bring many opportunities into your life.
I was at Sharky's yesterday and I was
eating and this lady came up with her
daughter and said they need money for food.
Says, okay, well, instead of money, I'll buy
you food.
And I bought them food and I think
they went their way and then I was
walking out to my truck and then this
other guy comes up to me and, hey,
I need money for McDonald's.
I'm like, well, I won't give you money
for McDonald's, but I'll buy you this.
I came in and he's coming off of
crystal meth and alcohol.
He's in rehab and I just sit, he's
sitting down waiting for no more than three
minutes, four minutes.
I said, God has radically changed my life.
That's your only hope.
You've got to repent of your sin and
ask Christ to save you and give your
life to God.
And he goes, yeah, I've never heard that
before.
I think I really need to consider that.
That's it, you present the truth.
Now, some people get upset and walk away,
it doesn't matter.
The idea is present the truth and all.
I wonder how many opportunities we have that
we just, mm-mm, too busy.
Because what the flesh wanna say, no, you
go ask somebody else for McDonald's.
I'm in a hurry.
But we have to slow down because there's
power in the truth.
So then we pick up at Acts 5
.33. When they heard this, when they heard
this, that they murdered Jesus, that he is
the only way, they were furious and plotted
to kill the disciples.
Then one of them in the council stood
up a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of
the law held in respect by all the
people and commanded them to put the apostles
outside for a little while.
And he said to them, men of Israel,
take heed to yourselves what you intend to
do regarding these men.
Think about this for a minute.
These Pharisees, he's a Pharisee, Gamaliel, and Paul
actually taught under him.
And usually the Pharisees hated Jesus, hated the
disciples.
But he stood up in the council being
a man of great reputation said, hold on,
hold on, be careful what you do with
these men.
For some time ago, Theodos rose up claiming
to be somebody and a number of men
about 400 joined him and he was slain
and all who obeyed him were scattered and
came to nothing.
And after this man, Judas of Galilee rose
up in the days of the census and
drew away many people after him.
He also perished and all who obeyed him
were dispersed.
And now I say to you, keep away
from these men and let them alone.
For if this plan or this work is
of men, it will come to nothing.
But if it is of God, you cannot
overthrow it lest you find yourself fighting with
God.
That was wonderful advice, wonderful advice.
And we see a struggle in this group
because sometimes we're always against the Pharisees, right?
These religious leaders, oh, they killed Christ.
These religious leaders, they never got it.
These religious leaders, Jesus said, you whitewash tombs.
You're dead on the inside, but you look
fine on the outside.
And Jesus had scathing words for these religious
leaders.
But we see Gamaliel here and we see
Nicodemus earlier in John chapter three, the great
discourse on for God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that
whosoever believes in him shall have everlasting life.
It starts back with a discourse with the
Pharisee, Nicodemus who came by night.
And Jesus, clearly, clearly all these miracles that
you're doing cannot be done by a man.
Clearly God is with you.
So we see this struggle even with the
religious leaders.
And I wonder how many people in this
room are struggling in this area of I
know there's a God, but I don't know
if this is the truth and I'm caught
in the struggle.
So another interesting thing he said here, he
said, let this alone.
He just said, leave it alone.
If it's of God, it will happen.
If it's not, you're fighting against God.
And I wonder also how many times we
need to let things go.
If there are things in your life that
you need to just leave alone, let God
handle it.
If God is in it, it's going to
come to fruition.
If he's not, just trust him and ask
him.
There's some things you just have to let
go.
Stop fighting God on it.
Many times at this time of year, it's
family issues, correct?
Christmas time, family issues, families in town, mix
that with alcohol, and there's a big problem
there in many families.
It's like a keg ready to explode.
Just leave it alone.
Let God deal in their hearts.
But I want to encourage, and again, I
really want to just unpack this whole text,
but I feel God's put on my heart
just to encourage three types of people through
this.
Number one, the religious person.
They have religion, but not a relationship.
You have to ask yourself this question, or
many people will hear this later on the
radio or the internet.
Ask yourself this question, do I have religion
or do I have a relationship with Christ?
The difference is night and day.
Many people have religion.
They go through the motions, but they don't
have a relationship, and here's the interesting thing.
They explode when they are challenged.
When religious people are challenged, they explode, they
get angry.
Just this week with what I said, the
differences between Roman Catholicism and Christianity, I got
cussed out by Catholics.
They're like, Shane, why do you do that?
I'm just showing the differences.
That's all I'm doing.
Here's what they teach.
Here's what the Pope teaches.
Here's what the Bible says.
I mean, if you have the truth, shouldn't
you be okay with this comparison?
Same thing with all other groups.
Atheists get upset when you challenge their belief
system.
They're fine if you just want to listen.
Oh, okay, uh-huh, I understand.
And we all came from this premortal ooze
that developed and became a single cell something,
and this protein became a little something else,
and eventually, if you give it enough years,
billions of years, then here comes your first
person, and people popping up.
And you're okay if you listen, but when
you start to challenge that, when you challenge,
they just get so upset.
I remember I was talking to some recently,
and they were talking about scientists.
Shane, they're embracing evolution.
You're really, Christianity doesn't have a leg to
stand on, and I said, well, the last
time I checked, you can go on a
website, it's called Darwin's Dissenters, and there's over
700 scientists with PhDs who have rejected Darwinism.
We're talking Harvard, Pepperdine, all the big schools,
UCLA, all are just rejecting it, because when
you look, and your mind is not, you're
unbiased, you're not looking, and you're not looking
through the lens of, gosh, I could be
wrong here.
You're looking through the lens of, I know
I'm not wrong, so obviously this must fit.
700, they signed Darwin's Dissenters.
You can look at, but when you throw
the facts at them, what happens?
We get upset, you challenge religious people.
And we just lovingly challenge them.
You say, listen, for example, you don't have
to pray to Mary, you don't go through
the saints, you don't confess to a priest,
you're not gonna spend time in purgatory for
millions of years being purged from your sin.
I'm just telling you the Bible, what, what?
How can you, you cursed Protestant pastor?
That's what the Bible says.
You can't have both be true.
Jesus, you don't go to be purged in
purgatory of these sins that are remaining, because
what was the point of the cross?
God didn't say, I'm gonna send my son,
and he's gonna kind of pay a penalty
there, but then I'm gonna purge you all
later, and let's just all come together and
save ourselves.
That's why we call Christ an all-sufficient
Savior.
Everything's been paid for.
You don't work for, you don't work for
your salvation, you work out your salvation with
fear and trembling.
Well, Shane, shouldn't a person have good works?
Yes, but it flows out of the relationship.
You don't do it just to do it,
because God's gonna have a big, some people
imagine this big scale, I don't know what
they call them other than scales, you know,
the balancing one.
It's like, okay, here's my bad works.
Here's my good works.
Hopefully that's gonna, oh, last week I didn't
do, but this week I walked a lady
across the street.
And last week, oh, my goodness.
You know, it's just, and then, but I
came to church.
I'm a pretty good person.
And I've seen people, but Shane, I'm a
good person.
Okay, good compared to what?
Thank God we have good people.
We don't need America full of Adolf Hitler's.
We need good people.
But when God sees our good works, which
are filthy rags in his sight, he has
to look at the finished work of Jesus
Christ.
So when you compare these things to the
Bible, that's, and people get visibly upset.
So what's the answer for the religious person?
They need to repent from their religion.
Or I say repent from religiosity.
Stop trying to do this and be this
and go through the traditional format of being
religious and just rest in a relationship with
Jesus Christ via repentance.
It's very refreshing to say that the Bible
says, repent and be converted.
Repent just means I see sin the way
God sees it.
I see that I'm a sinner in need
of his savior.
I'm repenting, I'm embracing his wonderful gift of
salvation and I'm returning from my religiosity, my
formality and I'm embracing Christ.
Now, as a result of that, we will
look religious because you worship, you read the
Bible, you do religious things.
But we're not saved because of those things.
Those things are a byproduct of having a
relationship with God.
And then the second person we see here
is the searcher.
Gamaliel, he believed in God, but he wasn't
sure about Jesus.
He's like, wait a minute, can you imagine
these religious leaders?
Yeah, boggles my mind every time I think
of this because they saw, can you imagine
being with somebody in your city or walking
out and the dead are raised.
The dead are raised.
Every dead man that Jesus said, Lazarus, come
forth, came forth.
Talitha Kumai, I say, little girl, arise.
Every person he said, rise, they rose.
He rose people from the dead.
He casted out demons.
No demon had a chance.
They didn't try to go back and forth
and argue and Jesus said, maybe tomorrow.
Oh, that was just too strong.
He said, out of her, out of her
evil spirit.
He walked and the lame were made well.
The blind saw, the crippled began to throw
away their crutches.
The leprous began to be clean again as
a newborn.
They saw all these things.
Clearly, God is with this man.
They would say, no man ever spoke like
this man.
They would send people to silence Jesus and
they would come back confused.
They'd say, did you trick him?
No, no man ever spoke like this man.
We can't trick him.
We can't go around him.
We can't do this.
He was on top of everything.
So they see this perfect example.
They probably are thinking, well, what about that
scripture in Isaiah?
What about this and what about that in
the Messiah?
And we're struggling through all these things because
they had a religion.
No good thing comes from Bethlehem.
We know Mary, his mother and his father.
We know, we know, we were caught.
So Gamaliel and Nicodemus and other religious leaders
are probably perplexed.
Look at this.
This is clearly of God, but it doesn't
fit our mold for the Messiah, that he
would be a conquering king.
He would conquer Rome and he would restore
Jerusalem to her formal glory.
This is not what we were planning on.
Yeah, I know Isaiah said no bone will
be broken and that they'll cast lots for
his clothing.
He'll be cursed like a lamb that goes
before the shears.
He will answer not a word.
He will say nothing.
I know that, but that must not pertain
to this.
So there's great confusion here in this area.
So they were searching and there are searchers
today.
There are searchers today who are genuine.
They're genuine.
People say to me, Shane, but I'm so
sincere.
Yes, but you can be sincerely wrong.
You can be sincerely wrong.
Sincerity doesn't open the kingdom of heaven.
Faith and belief does.
Acts 10, there's a wonderful story.
We're gonna get to this later about Cornelius,
who sought God.
And I think of so many people caught
in religion.
They're seeking God.
This person was seeking God.
He was fasting.
He was praying.
But God said, okay, Cornelius, I've heard your
prayers.
I'm sending Peter to you to show you
the way.
And when Peter talked to him, he began
to tell him about the remissions of sin
through Christ and Cornelius and his whole household
were converted because he was a searcher.
Here's the good news for searchers.
The bad news for the religious person is
they're often so prideful that they will not
listen.
It's gonna take a mighty act of God
converting a religious person.
I've never argued an atheist into the kingdom,
but I've prayed a few.
I've never argued with those of other religions,
but they've stumbled across videos when God has
directed them and they've given their lives over
to God.
But the searcher, there's even more hope for.
Jeremiah 29, 13 says this.
When you seek me, you will find me.
See, that's a promise.
I spoke a few weeks ago that our
God is a covenant-keeping God.
When he says something, you can take that
to the bank.
I'm trusting that more than I am the
stock exchange.
I'm trusting that more than I am the
electoral college.
Okay, some of you fall in the news.
Some of you aren't, right?
I'm trusting God's word.
He says, if you seek me.
So I often tell seekers, seek him.
No, no, no, I can't.
I've tried that.
What do you mean you've tried that?
Seek him.
Ask God if you are out there, make
yourself real.
If you are truly what this person says,
and Lord, make yourself clear.
I want to know who you are.
If a person is truly seeking him, they
will find him.
His word says that.
And then the third person I want to
encourage is the believer.
They believe that Jesus was who he said
he was.
And there's many of you even here this
morning.
But the hard thing about what people don't
understand about being a believer is once you're
a believer, now the warfare is magnified.
There's a war, there's a battle.
And say, well, look at that person.
I know Shane, and he does this.
Yeah, welcome to the world.
We've got a love for God, but we
also have the sin nature in this battle
that we're waging this war.
And often, we feel tired and defeated and
discouraged.
Right, please say amen.
Don't leave me up here hanging.
Okay, good.
Discouraged and defeated because it's warfare.
Ask any soldier who fought, seriously fought, was
it tiring?
Was it difficult?
Did you, yes.
Same thing with the Christian walk.
It's a warfare.
It's not perfect.
You will follow me around all week, and
you will not see perfection.
But hopefully, you see a person, Lord, I
want to follow you.
I want to do what's right.
I want to repent and ask for forgiveness.
But I feel this war that's raging inside
of me.
And that actually validates the commitment.
If there's no war, if there's no difficulty,
then you have to wonder what side you're
on.
Philippians 1.6, for us to take courage.
He who began a good work in you
will carry it out until the day of
Jesus Christ.
So he who began a good work in
you will carry it out until the day
of Jesus Christ.
If God is working in you, he will
carry it out.
Now, this opens up a huge theological question
that I don't have time to discuss today.
Will God always hold me, or can I
lose my salvation with him?
Well, I won't keep you hanging where I
stand.
I believe that God who began a good
work in you will carry it out.
I believe once we repent of our sin
and the Holy Spirit saves us and seals
us, and we're given the Spirit as a
guarantee that we are gods and God keeps
us, he holds us.
It is God who makes us stand firm
in Christ, 1 Corinthians.
I believe that God holds us.
What about this, what about that, what about
that?
Well, next week maybe.
But I believe, and people, you know, they
want to argue this point, but I also
agree with Jude.
To those who have been called, who are
loved by God the Father and kept by
Jesus Christ, the enemy cannot overthrow them.
See, don't worry, because the enemy, it's not
the enemy.
Paul said, I am persuaded that neither height
nor depth nor principalities nor powers nor things
present nor things to come nor any created
thing will ever be able to separate me
from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus.
There's no separation there.
So you have to be encouraged, because the
devil will say God can never use you,
God can't use you now, you're worthless.
Why do you think Christians get suicidal thoughts?
You should just end it now, nobody loves
you, nobody respects you, and we begin to
feed those things, not to mention all the
media garbage that's out there that feeds those
thoughts, and we feel defeated because the enemy
has gained a stronghold in our mind.
So that's why, believer, you've gotta live in
the word of God, you've gotta live in
Psalms, and let that build you up and
Proverbs give you wisdom, and look to the
New Testament where Christ came in and took
authority over the principalities.
There are principalities.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
Not carnal, everybody's trying to get an AR
-15 before the January 1st ruling.
That's not gonna work.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but they're mighty through God.
For what?
For the pulling down of strongholds and casting
down every argument, every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God, and you
bring every thought into obedience to the knowledge
of Christ.
See, now we've become a culture, give me
a pill so I don't have to take
my thoughts captive.
But the Bible says take your thoughts captive.
You're useless, you're gonna go back into that
diction.
No, I'm not, God's holding me.
This is a lie.
You need to get that again.
You need to get that prescription again, or
you need to do that again, or you
need to, and we just, nope, that's not
true.
That's not true, that's not true.
You resist the enemy, eventually he will flee.
What do you think temptation is?
Temptation is thoughts coming in that cause you
to do things outside of God's will.
I am tempted to do that, so I
have to take this thought captive, and what?
Bring it into the obedience of Christ.
Just at Sharky's yesterday, when I was talking
to that guy, and I told him, when
you give your heart to the Lord and
you repent, I said, there's still a battle.
I said, you see that corona in there
sitting in ice?
If I grab that, I could start addiction
again.
He's on me, he's just as on anybody
else.
Relating to that person, understanding the struggle is
real, and if anybody's ever been there, they
know it.
The struggle is real, but you take those
thoughts captive, and you come back to the
obedience of Christ.
You say, Lord, what have you called me
to do?
Yes, you go through life lame sometimes, and
limping, and hurt, and broken, but then at
the end of the day, you can say,
I know Christ as my Savior.
I know him as my Lord.
I know him as everything.
The Bible, see, the Old Testament saints, the
Hebrew saints used to call him Jehovah Jireh,
Jehovah Rapha, Jehovah Sidkenu, all these names they
had for God.
My provider, my shelter, my shield, my banner.
The Lord is my comforter, the Lord is
my strength.
They knew him by all those names, why?
Because he brought them through hell and high
water.
That's how you know God, is you go
through life, and it hurts, and you stay
close to the shepherd.
How do I know him as my good
shepherd if I don't see the coyotes and
the wolves?
Though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
tells me I'm walking through the valley of
the shadow of death.
It's a wonderful sermon at funerals.
I've preached it many times.
But there's also valleys in our lives that
God walks us through.
We must rest in him as believers.
You have to rest in him.
Rest means to cease working, to be refreshed
and repaired and renewed.
It's very healthy when you're going something, go,
God, you know what?
I'm giving this to you.
I'm gonna make a fire and grab a
good book today.
I'm giving this to you.
Instead, what do we do?
Oh, gotta fix it, gotta fix it, gotta
fix it, gotta fix it, gotta fix it,
gotta fix it, gotta fix it.
Gotta do this, gotta do this.
Oh, my kids, and I tell many, we
talk to parents all the time.
My kids are young still, but I know
I'm probably gonna go through this.
The prodigal son state or the wayward daughter
state.
The best thing you can do sometimes for
your kids is stop preaching to them and
get on your face before God and pray
and fast.
Let God move and direct.
Rest in him.
Rest.
Train up a child in the way they
go.
And when they were old, they will not
depart from it.
What eventually brought me back?
That foundation that was laid early.
And I want to just rebel.
I'm free.
And then you realize that your freedom is
a prison.
You realize that your freedom, what we think
is freedom, is actually a prison.
And that the enemy is sent to kill,
steal, and to destroy.
I mean, I look at what the kids
are watching now, and the video games and
the violence.
Do you know there's video games where your
son can pay for a prostitute, have sex
with her, set her on fire, and take
back the money?
Guess I should've screened that with all the
kids in here.
But that's the, you see these things, and
it should make you sick.
This is warfare.
Every parent should say, oh, okay, enemy, you
wanna play that game?
We're getting this junk out of my house,
and we are becoming a house filled with
worship.
We are fasting, we are praying as a
family.
Enemy, you should've killed me 10 years ago,
but now you've upset me.
Now I'm so upset, I'm going to do
something about it.
And you tell, it's okay to tell the
devil.
I say, I tell him all the time,
you should've killed me 20 years ago, when
I didn't know how I got home.
When I should've overdosed many times.
You should've got me, but now you've upset
me.
And now I'm going to upset your kingdom.
Because God, if God is in it, you
cannot overthrow it.
If God is in it, you cannot overthrow
it.
But the enemy will bring in things, right?
Oh, Shane, doesn't that Corona look good?
Oh, Shane, doesn't that look good?
Oh, wouldn't you like to do this?
Wouldn't you like to get prideful and arrogant?
Oh, thousands of people are now listening to
you each week.
And oh, and God, the enemy's coming like,
no, no, no, no, no, no, keep my
thoughts captive.
Keep my thoughts, I played that game, it
doesn't work.
But my plan doesn't work.
I'm following God's plan all the way.
I've got to stay so close to the
shepherd.
You've got to stay so close to the
shepherd that he protects you.
Many people say, okay, shepherd, see you later.
I'm gonna go try this valley over here.
And they walk away from God's shelter and
protection.
God says, stay, stay near to me, near
to me.
No matter if you make your bed in
hell, or you try to flee to the
other most parts of the world, God is
there.
You stay close to the shepherd.
And I'll close with this, for if this
plan or this work is of men, it
will come to nothing.
But if it is of God, you cannot
overthrow it, lest you be found fighting against
God.
Are you fighting against God?
You will not prevail.
Stop resisting.
Romans 3.23, all have sinned to come
short of the glory of God.
Romans 5.8, but God demonstrated his own
love for us and that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus came to seek and to save that
which was lost.
Sometimes I, you know, the old saying, better
to ask for forgiveness than permission.
But on this point, I sometimes get a
little irritated because people will actually ask me,
Shane, when, we're believers, when are you gonna
stop talking about that stuff?
And just get into just teaching us through
the word.
And Charles Spurgeon said, you must teach the
saint, but you must warn the sinner.
There's not a week that goes by that
there's somebody here that doesn't need to hear
the gospel.
We've get emails from people pulling over on
the 14 freeway or in a different state,
giving their heart to the Lord, because this
is why we're here.
Yes, I love the Greek and the Hebrew.
I'd love to take you through an inductive,
deductive, immediate approach to sermon preparation and pull
out all the nuances.
I love that.
But the heart of everything is Christ.
Charles Spurgeon said, all sermons must come back
to Christ.
And what happens is we lose that love
for Christ.
Every believer needs to hear this again.
God demonstrated his own love toward us and
that while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us.
He died for me when I was over
at Schooners.
Not even remember how I got home in
1990s.
He died for me when I was in
Vegas.
He died for me.
J.P. Phillips said, God may thunder his
commands from Mount Sinai and men may fear
yet remain at heart exactly as they were
before.
But let a man once see his God
down in the arena as a man, suffering,
tempted, sweating, and agonizing, finally dying a criminal's
death and it is a hard man indeed
who is untouched.
You hear what he said?
Think for a moment about what Christ did
for you.
And that is a hard man indeed if
you are untouched.
I mean, if it's a fairy tale and
pixie dust, let's just end and let's go
eat.
But if God really came down Christmas, Christmas,
my theology starts going, there's not three wise
men.
We don't know how many wise men there
were.
They're wise men, you know, you get this,
you start, you know, that was a rabbit
trail just for some of you.
Talking about my religious spirit coming out, you
know, judgmental spirit and things.
But that is true, it's a hard man
indeed who is untouched.
If you're untouched by what God has done
for you, then something is wrong.
You should be very touched that he took
away all the sin, all the guilt, all
the shame.
Yeah, we still deal with regret, but he
took that all away.
If you confess with your mouth Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heart that God
has raised him from the dead, you will
be saved.
The bottom line is you cannot overthrow God.
Well, Shane, if he wants me, he'll get
me, not necessarily.
Although I believe in God can keep us,
I also believe that man can reject or
embrace his gift of salvation.
Come to me all you're heavy laden, you
stiff neck people.
Why do you resist the work of the
Holy Spirit?
Choose today, choose life, choose death.
Choose heaven, choose hell, choose right, choose wrong.
Romans 1, you suppress the truth, you suppress
the truth.
And the penalty of that is being separated
from God.