Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. So are you with me so far this morning that we are to be followers of God?

Are you okay with agreeing to that? That's our calling in life is to be followers of God as dear children. So my calling is I've got to be a follower of God but my position is the fact that I'm a dear child of His. Look at verse 2. And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Let's pray and ask God to help us as we dig into I think something that really changed my life.

It's still changing it. I've not really been able to grasp all of it. But somehow I'm going to try to help you grasp it in 25 minutes. Alright, let's pray. So God help me this morning in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This passage, just these first two verses. Now please just listen to me this morning. This passage gives us the model of biblically effective daily walk with Christ.

This is how it is supposed to happen. And you have all met miserable Christians. You've met a miserable Christian say, amen. If at times you were the miserable Christian that somebody met say, amen.

Come on be honest. Amen. This passage gives us that model. Now I want you to notice first our priority. Our priority this verse says is Christ. As Christ hath loved us. It's because of what Christ has done. Alright, we're to be Christ centered. Christ should be the center of everything. Because we wouldn't have anything without Christ.

Everybody got that? He's our hope. He's our salvation. He's our peace. He's our comfort.

He's everything. Alright, so our priority is Christ. Notice in this passage that our purpose is to be followers of God.

That's how we sum it down including many, many things. Our purpose is to be a follower of God. Notice thirdly our position as dear children. So we now have a position because of what Christ has done. We are now part of the family of God. Notice this passage does not say that we're children. It says we're dear children. We're loved.

We're accepted. Everybody got that? So that's my position. And because of my position my priority is Jesus Christ. And my purpose is to be followers of God. Now notice fourthly here our passion.

What do you mean passion preacher? Okay well this is what helps me to be a follower of God. This is my motivation. Because of my position. Because of my priority. Because of my purpose. There has to be something to enable me to be faithful, to keep going, to be committed to really what is my purpose. There has to be something that keeps Christ the priority.

there to remind me that I'm a dear child of God my Father. Notice, fourthly, our passion is to walk in love as Christ hath loved us. You see, the motivator is the fact that Christ loved me, so I now want to love Him. He doesn't say walk in commitment. He doesn't say walk in sacrifice.

He says walk in love. Be followers of God, as dear children, walk in love. So our daily walk, what we do for the Lord, should be with love. It ought to be out of a heart of love because that's what Christ did for me. Everything He did for me, He did out of love, so everything I do for Christ needs to be out of, you're catching on. Now listen to me, so you're going to have to determine today, what is your motivation? If I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, and the Gospel is our theme this year, you and I need to understand that the motivation of our life should be the Gospel. The Gospel is the love that Christ has shown to us, and that should motivate me that everything I do for the Lord should be out of love to Him. And all God's people said.

Number one. So, preacher what are you saying? I'm saying this, that you're going to be motivated by something. And today, this morning I'm going to give you the three ways you're motivated, the only three. And you're going to have to determine this morning what is it that's motivating you.

And we over the years, and I don't mean just Baptist churches, or independent Baptist churches, or Southern Baptist churches, I mean just churches, I mean religion. We have taught this wrong, and I want you to get this this morning. You see, if you're not motivated by love, you're motivated by one of other two things. Number one, I want you to see this, performance driven motive. Performance driven motive.

This is performance earns favor. And a lot of Christians think that their Christian life is them performing things, doing things so that God will have more favor on their life. It literally means this, I must perform so God will be happy with me.

And a lot of Christians are there. Now, it means this, I'm going to perform so that I can get a reward or benefit from the performance. Now, our culture is laid out that way. This is how our world and culture works, and it kind of has to. It literally means this, we perform to earn our place, we perform to keep our place, and we perform to get a better place. That's the way work structure works.

Am I right? Listen to me, we perform to gain approval or acceptance. If we don't perform, we don't get that. Now, can I ask you a question this morning, is salvation performance driven? Did you perform anything to get salvation?

No. Let me ask you this, is God's love performance driven? Is His love greater when you perform greater?

And is His love less when you perform less? Now, may I say this this morning, Jesus already did the performing for us. You cannot perform to get saved and you cannot perform to stay saved.

You cannot perform to get more of God's favor. Now, the Bible does teach us a couple of things. The Bible teaches us things that we can do to honor the Lord, and things we can do to live for the Lord. The Bible does give us those things, and the Bible does give us instruction, but He tells us that the driver of that doing should be the fact that we love Jesus, not because we feel like we must perform to get the favor. Over the years, I've heard many, and I dare say I'm sure that I have done the same thing at times in my life, I'm sure, that we preach as if in a way guilting people that they need to perform better and perform more to get God's reward in your life. Now, the Bible does give some specific principles that if you do this, it's the if and then principle. I've shared that in Sunday school the last few weeks. I've shared that here many times, and many times in God's Word God says, if you do such and such, then I do such and such.

Those are just promises. Those are literally just bonding agreements that God has, but you have to understand that a lot of Christians think that God's not happy with me if I don't perform better. Now, I want to read you a verse, and why I read this verse it means this, this is the way that the model should look in your life. Since Jesus loved me so much, how do I want to respond to that love?

I heard a preacher submit this principle as I've been listening, and I thought that's an interesting way to put it. You know your life should be because Jesus loved me so much, how do I want to respond to that? It doesn't mean that now I've got to do, it means how now do I want to respond to that? When somebody shows love to you in your life, you have a decision what you're going to do back. You know some of you ladies in here maybe years ago when you were dating and all those things might have had a young man showed some interest in you, and he showed some love to you, and you responded by, no you're not the one. That's how you chose to respond back.

And your present husband I think is glad about that. But somewhere along the line here came a young man that showed interest in you, and you know what? You responded to that love by, yes I will marry you. All of us have to choose how we will respond when love is shown. Okay, so our life should be because Jesus loved me so much, how do I want to respond to that? Let me give you a verse.

1 John 4.17, look at this verse on the screen. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as He is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casteth out fear. Listen to this, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him.

Why? Because He first loved us. So for me to walk in love it means He first loved me, so I now want to respond by saying, God I want to love you back. Does that make sense? Listen, listen to me. Let me put it this way. Do you know it is not easy to love people that do not love you?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's very difficult. If someone cannot stand you, it makes it hard for you to love that person. It just is. If you're convinced, listen to me, that God does not love you or even that God does not like you, you're going to have a hard time loving Him. Did you know that? Are you following me this morning?

Say Amen. That means this, nobody enjoys being around somebody that they are convinced doesn't even like them. Now, if you don't love them, you're going to have a hard time. Now, I not only love my boys, I really like them.

I like being around them. But one of the ways that Satan often times attacks parental relationships is he'll convince the children that your parents don't even like you. And when a child thinks, man, my mom and dad, I know they love me, but I don't even think that they probably like me, then they really don't want to have a relationship with them. And sometimes that comes from Satan, sometimes it comes from, hey, we mess up as parents, send the wrong messages trying to do right, whatever the case might be. But do you understand the principle?

When you're convinced that somebody doesn't even like you, that's going to make it really hard for you to love them. So that's what Satan does. Listen to me, if Satan can convince you that you are nothing but a disappointment to God, what has Satan effectively done? He has taken away your ability to serve God out of love.

And if you believe that it is a performance based system, you will not see God as a loving father. And you will not see yourself as Ephesians 5, 1, and this verse is up again just in case you missed it, as yourself as a dear child of God. Because you're going to convince because I didn't perform enough and I haven't done enough and I'm not good enough that God doesn't see me as a dear child, that God's disappointed with me, that God doesn't like me. And if I don't wear this or if I don't do this, God doesn't like me as much. And you're going to begin to think that God doesn't like you or that God doesn't love you even though you know that He does. And Satan has done nothing but taken away victory out of your Christian life because now you can't serve out of love because it's hard to serve somebody you think is disappointed in you. So, what has happened for years, preachers get up and let you know how much you're not doing for God.

And we walk away thinking, well, God likes me less and less every Sunday. So, now what I got to do during the week is now, man, it's just a requirement, it's a performance. And I'm doing it because I think and not because I want to.

Now, I have a phrase and I'm almost done with this and we'll get to the next, but listen to me. Performance driven motivation turns God into someone He isn't and turns the Christian life into a behavior based system that is always trying to earn God's favor and be worthy of God's rewards and blessings when God has already given that. This is a quote by Dr. Kerry Schmidt in Leading in the Gospel and I wrote it down.

I want to give it right to you just like that. You see, when we have performance based motivation, I'm going to serve God because I need to perform for Him. You're going to turn God into something that He never was. You're going to turn God into the person looking at you to see how well you do and how much you do.

And if you give more hours during the week than I might like you a little more next week. Now, listen to me. What will this cause? Now, listen. Don't lose it. What will this cause?

Look at the screen. Number one, you will hit a wall of frustration. You will hit a wall out of frustration. You ever tried to please somebody that can't be pleased?

You ever try to perform for somebody and it's never enough? You will hit a wall out of frustration. Second, you will see the Christian life as a requirement that cannot be obtained. I just can't perform that.

And we'll set up a system where we kind of highlight all the Christians at the church that are doing all these things and then we look at you like, what are you doing? And now it becomes a requirement. Number three, you will resent God. You'll resent Him.

Why is that? You will resent God. Number four, because God has required more from you than you're able to do. That's what you'll begin to feel. That God's put all these requirements on me and I've tried to perform and I've tried to do all this but I just can't do it.

Number five, you will find no matter how much you perform it will never be enough. Then you get out of church. Then you quit reading the Bible because every time you read the Bible it's something else you're supposed to perform. And you couldn't do it last time. That's what happens a lot of times over the years we've seen like especially teenagers we take them to youth conferences that make some fantastic decisions. They're testifying by the end of the week and they're all excited about serving God and three weeks later they're not even in church.

Why? Because they thought that for some reason I've got to get home and I've got to perform and I've got to do everything that I said I was going to do. Wait a minute God might not have asked you to do some of the things you said you were going to do. That was emotion.

Nothing wrong with emotion. And God does want you to make those changes. But you don't come home because you have to perform so that God will be pleased. And if you don't keep all those performances that you promised because now God is mad. That is nothing but Satan.

I have some good news for you this morning. Jesus did all the performing necessary for you to be loved and accepted by God. There is no performance necessary. That's not a free ticket, well I can just go live how I want to. Wait a minute but that's not showing love is it? It's like me saying, boy I really love my wife I'll just go do whatever I want to do. I'll go date whoever I want to date. I'll go hang out with other women whatever but I love my wife. And because I love her and I know she loves me then I'm just free.

No, no, no, no. That's not me showing her love. The Bible says that there are things that you can do in response to the love Jesus has shown. And the Bible gives us things that you can do that will bring good outcomes in your life in response to the love that Jesus did. And everything that God has asked of us in His word is only because He loves us because He knows if we do those things then we will get the outcomes that are best for our life.

They're not rules. They're plans of love. You see you can begin to enjoy fellowship with Him. You can begin to remove yourself from that fellowship by living in sin. But you should need to be free this morning that I don't have to perform anything to earn God's love. He loves me and accepts me the way I am because of Jesus Christ.

So how do I want to respond to that love? Performance based motives. Second there is obligation based motives.

Now this is me so I'm just letting you know that. This obligation based motive or obligation driven motive means this, I owe God. It's debt driven.

I have a debt to pay and so I need to start paying on that debt. And this is where the majority of God's people are. And the reason is is because it looks great, and it sounds great, and it feels really noble. Now I want to ask you a question this morning, do you owe God? You don't know what to say do you? Let me ask you this, do you have a debt to God that you need to pay on? When you got saved let me ask you this, did God give you a payment book? You see it starts correctly with this, because of what Jesus has done, and I have preached this, in my mind I have thought this, and this is the line of thinking because of what Jesus has done for me.

How could I not do more for Him? I preached it. I mean look what Jesus has done for you.

And without saying it we are saying this, you owe Him for all that He's done. See the problem with this, this has incorrect biblical theology. Say what do you mean preacher? Well it means that I have an infinite debt to God that I need to keep making payments on. Because of getting saved means now I owe God and I need to live the rest of my life trying to pay back this debt that He's done for me and all these things He's done for me I've got to pay Him back.

That is incorrect Bible theology. It's as if there is a balance sheet that we are given when we got saved and now we are making payments to pay that down to God. It would be like this, let me say, let's just say I was a very wealthy man and I came to Scott Tucker and I said, Scott listen man you have been faithful here for years helping in bus ministry and junior church and vacation Bible schools and on down the list and Scott I want to be a blessing to you so Scott and I get him in the car and I bring him over and I show him this huge house it's a million dollar house and I say, Scott I want to give this to you and just I want to thank you for all that you've done. I want to give you this gift of this beautiful home. And Scott would look at that and he would say, wow brother.

Thank you. It's about time that somebody noticed what I do around this ministry. No he wouldn't say that. And then I'd say, and before I leave Scott here, now here's the payment book. Now I put $100,000 down on it.

Which is very generous. But here's the payment book God bless you. Now did I help Scott at all? I gave him $100,000. Yeah and I gave him $13,000 a month payments. And there's no way for him to keep up with those payments. So I didn't help Scott at all did I? So we turn salvation into this fact that God's given you a million dollars and you owe Him back.

Bless God you better get in one of these ministries and you better start serving because you owe God. I don't know about you but that's wrong. Why?

It's a dead end street. Now I want you to listen to me good this morning. When we turn salvation into a debt driven system. Number one, it turns salvation into the day that God gave me a payment book to pay back the debt instead of the day that God set me free. Number two it turns the Bible into the payment book instructions to let us know what and how much we need to pay back.

Oh you're really going to enjoy reading that. You look at it like this oh you're going to love getting in the Bible because every time you get in the Bible you're going to be reminded of all I'm not doing to pay him back. Number three it turns church into the debt collection center. That's why a lot of people hate church and they don't desire to be at church. Because when they come to church they're just reminded of how much they haven't paid this past week or this past month or by now they're so far behind on payments where could I even start?

So why even come and be reminded? Number four it turns the pastor into the debt collector. And we fed into it haven't we? We preachers get up and buddy we'll guilt you and we'll be like well God all that God's done how could you dare not do this and how could you dare whatever and now all of a sudden salvation is a payment plan and now I got to come to the collection center on Sundays and I got to start paying back what God's done and the debt collector up there the preacher is telling me all that I haven't done and that I still owe. Number five it becomes a hostage situation.

How can I get out of this burden? Number six all the saved people come to church to pay their debts to Jesus. That's what church becomes. Number seven over time the benefit of the blessing is gradually outweighed by the burden of the payment. You ever bought a new car? Well that first month or two the payments are okay aren't they? But after three years and the kids have puked in the car ten times and your wife scratched up the fender and now you see all these other new cars driving around boy people looking happy in there.

You got that minivan that looks so practical and you got these payments here this guy goes buying a convertible. But you still have that $450 a month payment and all of a sudden now that blessing doesn't seem to be as great and the burden becomes bigger and bigger every month and now you think why am I still paying this for that? Number eight now you resent having to make payments. Now everything I do for God I owe them and I can't ever pay enough back and this is just getting tired and I don't even know if I really enjoy church anymore. I don't even know if I really enjoy being in ministry anymore and I don't really enjoy this and I don't really enjoy that and now you're just like what am I making payments on? Number nine we love salvation but the payment plan takes over. The last step I always notice is every Sunday the pastor tells you how you're not making your payments and how far you're behind and what happens when debt collectors start calling you if you've ever been there?

You just quit answering the phone. Then the preacher comes up, hey I haven't seen you at church for a while. Hope you'll come back. Well I've got all this debt that I owe I'm so far behind on now and then when they show back up at church one of the wonderful loving church members comes up to them and says, well I can't let's give you a visitor card. Haven't seen you here forever. My eyes, my glass is working. Oh we're graced with your presence.

Why would they want to come back to that? Every Sunday just a debt collector calling you because you owe God. Pretty soon you don't enjoy church, you don't want to come, salvation becomes a prison. We begin to think how can I get out of this burden?

I think I'll just get out of it. You see theologically you do not have a debt that you owe to God. Now listen to me this morning, salvation made you debt free. Jesus paid your crimes.

Jesus set you free. Now like Paul said in Romans 1, we're going to talk about tonight, Paul said I'm a debtor to the Greeks and the barbarians. Paul said I do have a debt to pay to my fellow brethren that don't know Christ and they don't know the truth. I have a debt to them but Paul never said he had a debt to Jesus. Because you and I when we are saved became debt free. And you need to say amen to that Kerwin Baptist Church. Listen to me I want you to get this, salvation is not a debt that we have to pay back. We could never pay that back. Performance driven will burden you.

Debt driven will break you. The only thing left is love driven motive. Serving out of love. This says whatever I do for the Lord I do out of love. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at KerwinBaptistChurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. God bless you.