What is the lesson here in the story of Joshua Harris for those who call themselves Christians, part one, part two or part B of the question is, how do we examine our own hearts to know whether we are truly saved?
Yeah, so let me try to see if I can answer those together. You know, what's the lesson for us? A lot of lessons to learn more widely. Broadly speaking, I think we need to grow in wisdom and discernment about what appears to be commendable in our evangelical culture. I think for so many decades we've been taught that big numbers, best-selling books, conference platforms, fan followers, charisma, hype, all the rest, we love that stuff as American evangelicals. We love popularity and fame and fortune and influence and we seem always to be caught up in that trap.
It's like a honey trap. We're enamored with that stuff and I think we need to stop being so gullible, realize once again that not all that glitters is gold, and put our heads and our hearts back into our Bibles, which is going to direct us back to devoting our energies to our local churches. Obviously we're going to be looking around to what's happening in the wider world and we'll never stop doing that. And our efforts and our energies need to be poured into making disciples, which happens in and through the local church.
That's our great commission. So I think we as evangelicals need to learn that. And then as we put our heads and our hearts back into Scripture and devote ourselves to discipling other Christians and evangelizing non-Christians, we have to come back to salvation is by the grace of God alone. It's through faith alone.
It's in Christ alone. And there are some people, I mean, three years Judas Iscariot walked around with all the other disciples, sitting at Jesus' feet, learning all the things they're learning, saying all the things they're saying. He was sent out in Luke chapter 9 along with the other 12, or the other 11, to preach the kingdom of God and he did.
According to what we can tell, he performed miracles by the power of the Spirit. All this stuff is happening in the life of Judas Iscariot. So much so than John 13 when Peter asks, who is it? And they're all asking, who is the betrayer? Who is the betrayer? Is it me, Lord? Is it me, Lord?
They don't know. Nobody said, oh, I think it's Judas. He was the last one from their mind. So I think we just need to get our eyes off of maybe all the external signs and look to look to Scripture, look to salvation by the grace of God alone, through faith alone and Christ alone. Do we need to emphasize once again, you must be born again. We need to expect, expect that those who are born again have, 2 Corinthians 5 17, they have a new nature in Christ. The old has gone and the new has come. Those with a new nature, they will not continue in sin.
They're not going to continue living in the world and being worldly. They're going to bear the fruit of that new nature. And it's a fruit that's produced by the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5 22. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful as gentleness, self-control. If you define all those fruits biblically, you'll see it's impossible for the old nature for any non-Christian to produce those that have to, has to be produced by the Holy Spirit. And we're going to walk through that and we're going to watch that produced to the very end.
We're going to watch those people endure. So how do we examine our own hearts? Well, objectively, do we believe the gospel? And I'm not talking just about intellectual understanding or an ascent to its truthfulness, but do we embrace the gospel with our heart? With that embracing of the gospel, is there a core change in my affections? Do I find within my heart a love and a devotion to Jesus Christ? Do I love his word? Do I, like the psalmist says in Psalm 119, oh, how I love your law.
Do we in swimming completely upstream against this culture, do we love to obey the word of God? Do we find that our pleasure and our joy? Do we find God to be our great reward? Are we satisfied in him, in him alone, or do we always crave something else? Are we finding greater obedience and fruit bearing in our lives, fear, produce fruit, and all the rest? I think it comes down to those kinds of things.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-22 03:06:06 / 2024-03-22 03:08:25 / 2
