How do you know which parts are the most important parts of your life? What can I do to become saved? What do I need to do to be saved? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life?
What do I need to do to be saved? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life?
What do I need to do to be saved? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life? How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life?
How do I know which parts are the most important parts of your life? Verse 28, do not harm yourself, we're all here, Paul said, and the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? That's what you're asking, Toby, I'm not saved, I know that I'm not saved. What do I need to do to be saved? They said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Now what does it mean for you to believe in Jesus, Toby?
It's not just I think he existed like Abraham Lincoln existed or George Washington existed, I affirm that he existed or I think he's a pretty good guy, no. It's trusting in him personally for the forgiveness of your sins, trusting in him as the Lord as God, turning to him, trusting in him and receiving forgiveness and I pray that wherever you are right now, Toby, that you would look to him, trust in him and confess your sins to him and receive the forgiveness that he offers to you through his perfect life of obedience that he lived in the place of his people, his suffering, the punishment that we deserve on the cross for our sins and rising again from the dead for our salvation. Trust in Jesus, Toby. God bless you.
Amen. Just a follow-up question for you, Adriel. There are so many Americans today who would say, hey, I'm a good person, I try to obey the law and yeah, I make some mistakes but basically I'm pretty good and so I'm thinking, you know, God's going to honor that and I'm going to go to heaven. How would you respond to them? I would say to that person, you don't know the law of God. I mean, think about Jesus' preaching in the Sermon on the Mount. If you look at a woman to lust after her, you've already committed adultery in your heart. If you have hatred, you know, with your brother, without a cause, it's as if you've already committed murder. God is looking at our hearts. It's not just the sort of external actions of obedience.
I'm a pretty good citizen. We're talking about the judgment seat of God standing before him, the God who knows every thought that you've ever had, everything that you've done and the motives behind the things that you've done. Even those things that, you know, seemingly at least externally look good but that we did for selfish reasons, for the applause of others, for the praise of others. God sees all of that and so when it comes to the judgment seat of God, none of us are able to stand in our own goodness. So we have to flee to the cross. We go to Christ.
That's our only hope. And so I would say to that person, you know, when we really think about what God calls us to in his word, we quickly realize that we are undone, that we need the mercy of Jesus Christ. And so do not trust in the fact that I'm a good citizen, you know, I go to church here and there, I try my best.
No, don't trust in yourself. Trust in Christ, receive his grace and his forgiveness, and then live a life of obedience to the law of God, good works, you know, following him, not in order to be saved or with the hope that you might be saved because you're doing these things, but as one who has received the mercy of God freely in Christ. And so that's what I would say, Bill, and I think that's a conversation that we do have to have frequently, right, especially where you have kind of more of a cultural Christianity we might say, people who think, well, I'm a Christian because my parents were Christian and I go to church sometimes and I said a prayer at some point, but I really don't have a personal relationship with Christ, I'm not trusting in him, so this is a really important subject. So well said. And as you mentioned, it's a free gift, that salvation, it's God's gift to us. All we have to do is accept it. So that is the beauty of the gospel. Thanks so much for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, maybe you have some doubts about the Christian faith.
Maybe you consider yourself to be an agnostic or an atheist. We'd love to hear from you. We're always open to those questions. Here's the phone number.
It's 833-THE-CORE, 833-THE-CORE or 833-843-2673. We receive a lot of questions on this program about worship, such as what exactly is worship and what should worship look like? Or it looks different in my church than some other churches.
Today we want to offer you a free resource on this topic. Yeah. Let me say something that maybe you've never heard before, but God cares about how he's worshiped, not just that he's worshiped. Sometimes we think so long as you're worshiping God sincerely, however you want to do it, then that's fine. But God doesn't just care that he's worshiped. He cares about the how, how we worship him, how we approach him. I don't think that that's stated enough in churches, but frankly, it's something we see throughout the Bible.
I mean, God struck down Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus chapter 10 for offering strange fire to the Lord. We want to worship God, as Hebrews 12 says, with reverence and awe. We need to know about worship and how God wants to be worshiped.
Some of what we unpack in this resource, it's called Nine Things. Everyone should know about worship. It's a free download over at corechristianity.com.
I'd love to get this to you. It'll answer questions you might have, or maybe someone you know has, about worshiping God. Go to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Again, that's corechristianity.com forward slash offers.
Look for Nine Things Everyone Should Know About Worship. Well, we do receive voicemails here at the Core. You can call us 24 hours a day and leave your question on our voicemail system. We do our best to review those once a day. Here's the number, 833-843-2673, 833-THE-CORE.
And here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named Michael. I was wondering, during the New Testament, when do you learn to follow certain commands and not others? For example, you know, we talk about men being pastors only in Scripture, but then we don't do head covering or anything like that. So is it a time thing or a cultural thing, or when do you know which to follow and what's relevant to us now?
Thank you. Yeah, excellent question. And I think the first thing I would want to say is the entire Bible is relevant to us now, but we have to determine whether or not what we're reading in Scripture is prescriptive, meaning it's binding for us at all times, or at least today, at this time in redemptive history, or is it just descriptive? Are we reading a description of something that God did at an earlier point for a particular church or for a particular people that we can glean from, but we're not supposed to emulate? And so, for example, you think about the holy wars there, the cleansing of Canaan in the Old Testament as God was bringing his people into the land. We can read that and see how God was governing his people there under the old covenant and how this is a type, if you will, a picture of a greater reality.
But we as the church are not called to do that. And I think this is where context is key, where it's so important for us to understand the context of the passages that we're looking at, where we are in the flow of redemptive history. Is this old covenant, God speaking to Israel under the Mosaic covenant? Is it new covenant, New Testament, God speaking to his church today and how he governs his people today? But again, I would just want to say that we need to make sure that we recognize that all scripture is relevant for us today. We're drawing out lines of application, if you will, and this is what the apostle Paul said so clearly in 2 Timothy 3 verse 16 when he wrote to Timothy, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And so what I think it's so important for us to understand is it's not like I'm going to avoid the book of Leviticus because that was really relevant for the people then but it's not relevant for us today. I preached through Leviticus a few years ago and it's very relevant for us today insofar as we're learning about Christ through these types and shadows of the Old Testament system of worship. And so all of it is relevant for us today and we approach the word of God with humility, with the spirit of God give me understanding and help me to understand in light of the context. And so that's I think central to the answer to your question, how do we know whether or not this is for us today or this was for the Corinthian church there in the first century?
We have to say, well, the context, what was going on there? And that's how we answer the question is why it's so important for us to have solid Bible teachers who can help us to unpack some of those things as we approach scripture, the historical background and so forth. And so thank you for that question and God bless. You know, a follow up for you, we hear people talk about issues like, well, homosexuality and shellfish and they try to, you know, kind of conflate those two when they're dealing with current cultural issues. Can you explain once again just briefly, because you've talked about this before, the difference between moral law and civil law that applied to Israel?
Yeah. I think I actually have an article over at corechristianity.com, I think it's called why you don't have to obey all the rules in the Bible or something like that, sort of a catchy title. But yeah, we need to understand, you know, are these laws that were given, laws related to Israel's worship under the old covenant or the political body of Israel, you know, the civil government of Israel there under the old covenant, or is this just a part of the moral law? And so, you know, there are some laws that were associated to Israel as a political body or as a worshiping community there in the temple that do not apply today because Christ fulfilled those laws through his sacrificial life, death and resurrection.
Think about some of the food laws, right? We see those fulfilled in the new covenant through Christ, and so context is key. Understanding where we are in the flow of redemptive history is key, and that's what we need to do if we're going to interpret the Bible well. Great counsel. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We're still taking your calls if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Maybe there's something in your own life that's really kind of come up against a wall with what's happening in our culture right now, and you're struggling in some way, and you could use some encouragement. We would love to hear from you.
833-THE-CORE, that's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Joshua calling in from Memphis, Tennessee. Joshua, what's your question for Adriel? My question is, how do you go about approaching a family member with the gospel who you discern to be lost, they never pray, they never speak the name of Jesus, they never read a Bible, they never go to church, yet they tell you, I have my own relationship with God, and I worship Him in my own ways, and those types of things. Yeah, Joshua, I mean, such a difficult situation.
I know what you're talking about. I mean, I've had these conversations with friends who, they're offended, right, that you would challenge them, because like, I have my own way of worshiping God, how dare you say that I need to be doing it this way? And so it can be, it feels almost like walking on eggshells, you know, you want to address this issue because you can see that there is maybe more of a sort of cultural Christianity like we were talking about earlier on the broadcast, but not a real understanding of the gospel. I don't need the church, I just have my own personal relationship with Jesus. Well, I think one thing that so many people miss today is that the church was not man's idea. The church is God's idea, it's God's plan for redemption, for extending His kingdom in the world today. And so when we say, you know, I just do my own thing with Jesus, we need to unpack that a little bit and realize that we're missing, and when we say that apart from the church, we're missing so much of what Jesus himself said. Remember what he said to Peter in Matthew chapter 16, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matthew 16 verse 18. And so Jesus is building his church. He's at work in and through the church, through faithful Bible teachers, and so if we want to experience, I think, truly, really, the presence of Christ in our lives, we can't do that apart from the body of Christ.
That is Christian community. And so I think you pray, Joshua, that the Lord would help you to communicate this in a way that is gracious, in a way that doesn't just shut down the conversation, because again, I think especially with people who are close to us, family members, you know, you start raising these issues and they think, well, you know, who are you to say anything and how dare you judge me, and so on and so forth. And so we don't want them to recoil or to draw back or to draw away, we want to just plead lovingly and say, hey, it's more than just what you make it out to be, the gospel ultimately, and this is what you want to get to, is the gospel, is the greatest news ever that God has made a way for us sinners to have communion with him, to experience grace and forgiveness. You're not going to get the forgiveness of your sins anywhere else, you can't find it anywhere else. Yeah, the sort of pop psychology can brush your sins under the rug and you can try to justify them and so on and so forth, but that burden of sin that we all feel, that we all know, that we're trying to get rid of, man, it can only be dealt with in one place, and that's at the cross of Jesus Christ and through the love of God, and so it's communicating that great news, that great news of the gospel with clarity and then the reality of the fact that God has called us to be a part of his church, his people, and to learn from him through his word. And so may the Lord bless you in these conversations, Joshua, and grant you much grace and wisdom, and let's just take a brief moment right now to pray for Joshua and to pray for this family member and for all of our friends and family members who this is true of.
They have their own sort of invented personal relationship with Jesus but don't really understand who he is through his word. Father, be with our brother Joshua. Lord thank you for his heart that he cares for his family members, that he wants to see them know you truly, and Lord rejoice in the good news of the gospel. Would you fill my brother with your Holy Spirit? Would you give him wisdom in communicating your truth, Lord, respectfully, with love, with conviction as well, and would you open the heart of this particular family member? Lord and for all those, Lord, who we think about right now in our minds, our own friends and family members who desperately need your grace, maybe they think they understand it, but we know, Lord, that they don't, that they're missing it, that they don't understand the gospel.
Would you equip us, Lord, and enable us to speak your truth and love to them, and would you open their hearts as well? Be with us in this, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, Joshua, if you'll hang on the line, we'd love to send you a complimentary copy of Dr. Michael Horton's book, Core Christianity, which will help you as you're having these conversations with this family member about what a relationship with Jesus truly looks like. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.
Let's go to Jimmy, who's calling in from Arkansas. Jimmy, what's your question for Adriel? Yes. You mentioned a while ago that there were certain laws that were done away with, and considering that Jesus Christ said, don't even think that I've come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it, how are you doing away with the laws? I know you're going to say that he fulfilled them, but when you fulfill something, you do it.
That's how you fulfill it, by doing it. So I was just wondering what scriptures you're going to use to say that these laws have been done away with. Yeah, Jimmy, thank you for calling and following up with the previous question that we received and giving me an opportunity to clarify. So think about the fact that there are different kinds of laws that we see in scripture, Jimmy, like in the Old Testament, there were laws related to worship in the temple. Think of the sacrificial system.
I mentioned earlier on the broadcast related to worship, how God struck Nadab and Abihu down for offering strange fire to him in worship, fire that he had not prescribed, commanded. Those are ceremonial laws related to Israel under the old covenant. We're no longer bound by those laws.
Why? Because Jesus, the Lamb of God, has borne our sins. He's taken away the sins of the world, if you will. So does that make sense, Jimmy, that at least we're talking here about some of those ceremonial laws. We're not talking about the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God. We're talking about those laws related to worship or those laws... Go ahead. There doesn't seem to be any distinction between moral and civil laws and ceremonial laws. They're all God's laws. Whoever does break the least of these laws teaches you to break the least of these laws, or the moral of the least of these laws is going to be the least in the kingdom of heaven.
Yeah. No, I appreciate that, but I do think that there is a distinction. If there was no distinction, well then the church would still be bound to performing things like the ceremonial law. We would say, well, you have these laws in places like Leviticus or Exodus.
We need to still be doing this. We need to still be offering incense, having sacrifices, so on and so forth. We know that when Christ came, he abolished that system of worship. This is one of the big distinctions between the old covenant and the new covenant. So it's not that we're trying to do away with the law of God as in the moral law of God, what God calls each and every person to.
But these types and shadows related to Israel under the old covenant, they are no longer binding on us as Christians today. One of the big problems I think that the church has wrestled with throughout the centuries is people who were trying to put the church back under those laws. This was one of the issues that the apostle Paul had when he was writing to the Galatians. The Galatian Christians were being tempted to go back to the law of Moses.
In particular, the ceremonial law, some of the food laws. Paul says no. That would actually be compromising the gospel because Christ, the reality has come. This is why Paul can say in Colossians chapter 2, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. One other passage of scripture that I think I would bring up for you, brother, and for your consideration is what Peter and James say in Acts chapter 15 in the Jerusalem council where there are some of the Pharisees who were saying it is necessary to circumcise converts and order them to keep the law of Moses. What do the disciples respond?
What do they say? Verse 8, God who knows the heart bore witness to the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will.
And so we distinguish here, brother, it's so important for us to distinguish, and as we do, we realize that there are differences that we need to be aware of. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar, or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.
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