Truth and Perseverance #2

These Jews, they had Christ in front of them and they want to talk about who their ancestor from 2,000 years earlier was. This is spiritual death, not spiritual life. Hello and welcome once again to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. Today as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word, he's going to wrap up his look at the importance of perseverance from his series titled In Defense of Truth. Last time Don covered his first point, true disciples continue in the Word of God. Now let's join our teacher for part two of his message called Truth and Perseverance on the Truth Pulpit. Jesus is saying the reality of which we are talking about is the reality of regeneration, the reality of the new birth produces someone who is permanently changed and one mark of that change is an ongoing love for the Word of God so that someone who falls into a long-term pattern of indifference or rejection of the Word of God was never a Christian to begin with. Now, this is undoubtedly the hardest point for Christian parents of adult children to embrace and accept. I can't tell you how many parents I've spoken with over three decades of ministry who will say things that contradict what I know they know to be true.

Well, I remember when Johnny was little and he prayed at my knee and received Christ at my knee. And yeah, he's working on his fourth marriage now. Yeah, he's a drunk, but I just know that the truth is in him. I just know that he's actually a Christian. Even though nothing about his life for 30 years has given the slightest indication of any interest in truth, any interest in obedience to Christ, he's never darkened the door of a church in all of that time.

This is a composite picture. And yet parents, because they don't want to think and don't want to face the reality that maybe their child is one of those described so often in Scripture, they'll deny what Scripture says about true conversion in order to maintain the illusion in their mind that their son is still going to heaven. That's deadly. A son like that, a daughter like that cannot be affirmed in the faith, beloved. They have to be challenged to examine what that prior profession was and to be told and warned, it doesn't matter if you prayed at my knee, it doesn't matter if you stood at an altar, it doesn't matter if you were baptized at Truth Community Church, if your subsequent life has been one of rejection and hostility to the Word of God and an opposition to truth. We have to be more loyal to the Word of God and what it says about true conversion than we are even to our flesh and blood. And beloved, parents like that, and I'm not accusing anyone in the room here, I'm genuinely not, I'm just stating broad principles here.

Parents, you're not doing your kid any favors by talking about them like that. Far better to drop the facade, to drop the brave face. Far better to abandon the inconsistency with what you know to be true from God's Word. Far better to say, my heart is broken over you. My heart is breaking by the fact that you have not continued in the Word of God. I can't affirm you as a Christian even though I want to.

How can you claim to know Christ when everything about your life is worldly? Even if it's not immoral, there's just no love of God in your soul. There's no desire for Christ in you. Oh, my dear flesh and blood, I plead with you to examine yourself and not continue on this cold indifference, this outward hostility, this life of rebellion against God. I plead with you to examine yourself and see whether you're in the faith. And parent, if you're like my life was, and to embrace the fact that maybe you've been a false convert all this time, far better to recognize that, to humble yourself, to admit it, to go to Christ afresh and plead with Him for the new birth, to plead with Him to save your soul. Far better to do that than to maintain the charade. Better to sacrifice your pride now and have your soul saved than to continue the charade and have Jesus point you. See the flashing neon light that says, Hell, above that gate, that's where you're to go. You see, beloved, what we believe about these things has immense consequences.

This is the most practical thing that we could talk about, is the nature of true conversion and the way that we deal with our families, but even more importantly, the way that you deal with your own soul to take an honest measure of your soul. I know that none of us love the Word of God perfectly. I certainly don't.

I know that we run hot and cold. I know that. I do.

You do. We can be honest about all of those things without denying that there is an underlying reality that when my mind is clear and when I'm in the presence of God, I want His Word. I want Christ. I reject, I denounce that part of me that is unfaithful. I reject and denounce that, and with the fullness of my heart, I embrace a love of this Word as that which is my life. Where am I to go? You have the words of eternal life.

I can't go anywhere else. Beloved, is something like that in your heart or not? Or are you just satisfied with the trinkets and the trifles of life on this earth?

If I weren't so Scottish, the tears in my heart would come out on the tears and show tears on my face to plead with you to that end. These things matter, and your soul is eternal and your soul is of infinite value. God has given you a soul with the responsibility to pursue its well-being. Forget about what it might look like before men to acknowledge, you know what, I've been a fake Christian for 40 years. Forget about that. Better to be a real Christian for a year and then go to heaven than to maintain your pride like the Jews did and being unwilling to confess any spiritual problem in your life and to maintain appearances before man and to live eternity with the devil.

What do you gain in that exchange? Look, I'm just a pastor pleading with you for your soul. That's all.

Not angry at anyone? I'm just a pastor pleading with your soul. Jesus said, if you continue in my word, you're a true disciple of mine. Well, there's a second mark of true discipleship.

Go back to John chapter 8. True disciples continue in the word. True disciples, point number two, know the truth. True disciples know the truth. For those who continue in the truth, one mark, one way that you can know that you're continuing in the truth, not simply by your fidelity to a daily quiet time.

It's deeper, it's broader, it's more significant than just that. For those who continue in the truth, their knowledge and their understanding grows. Look at John chapter 8, verse 32. Jesus says, and, if you continue in my word, then you're truly disciples of mine. And, this is joined together.

There's a spiritual sandwich here, you might say, that's joined together here. And, in addition to continuing in my word, something else will happen. You will know the truth. You see, as you continue in the truth as a real Christian, your knowledge of Scripture, your understanding of God's word, grows. And, this knowledge of truth concerns the person of Christ. It recognizes him as the promised Messiah. It recognizes him as fully God and fully man in one person. It recognizes who Christ is. It understands that at the cross he accomplished redemption for his people.

It understands that that cross was a one-time event, contrary to Catholic teaching that he's re-crucified every time the mass is celebrated. But, in addition to those things, this knowledge of the truth also includes a recognition and submission to the authority of his teaching. The authority of his teaching. Listen, if you know and understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, then that has immense consequences for coming to his word and seeing what it says. It means that his word is authority, not just in general throughout diffuse through the universe and throughout the world. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away. Matthew 24, 35. But, beloved, his word is authority for you. His word is authoritative over your soul.

His word is binding on his disciples for life and for doctrine. We are not free as disciples of Christ to celebrate and participate in Pride Month, for example. That's an impossibility for the true Christian, because God's word condemns pride itself in addition to the lifestyle that's being separated. Pride goes before destruction. A Christian understands that and resists it, even though it's celebrated ad nauseam.

That's just an illustration. When God's word comes and identifies sin in your life, the sin must be rejected. You see, beloved, you see, beloved, to know the truth is more than simple mental acquiescence to it. It's more than just saying, oh, I agree with that. That's not a knowledge of the truth in biblical terms.

Look, look, look, look, look, look, look. If you know that Christ is Lord, and you know that Lord means that he is final authority, and he is Lord over your soul, Luke 6, 46. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?

Beloved, there cannot be that bifurcation in your mind. I acknowledge him as Lord, but in the final analysis, I'll live like I want. No, that is not Christian salvation. You see, to know the truth as Jesus speaks about it, to know it includes a moral commitment to the truth that includes a submission to its authority. It's a moral commitment to the truth that includes a submission to its authority. If you really know Christ and understand that he's Lord, and you understand that the 66 books of the Bible are his word, then the authority of Christ as Lord mediated through his word means that it has authority over your own soul.

You can't live any other way. You can't live in disregard to Scripture and call yourself a Christian. You will know the truth. And you see, beloved, and when you remember the context of the Jews that we looked at earlier, no one really knows the truth if they respond to it with defiance. No one really knows the truth that denies the inerrancy and the authority of the word of God. No one really knows the truth that lives in conscious, unrepentant sin. Now, to be sure, in this life we only know, in part, our knowledge is imperfect, but there's not a defiance against what we know. There's not a settled rebellion and unrepentance against the moral authority of God's word. And so Christ gives his disciples a confident knowledge of truth. They grow in the faith despite setbacks and outward challenges. Beloved, and I understand that we go through times and adversity, when severe adversity hits you and you feel some of the questions that we've seen in the Psalms over the past eight years on Tuesday nights, I get that.

That's not inconsistent with what I'm saying. But at the bottom, there is a love for the truth. There is a desire for the truth. There is a submission to the truth.

To know the truth is to respond to it inwardly like that. Third and finally, as time gets away from us yet again, we've seen that true disciples continue in the word. True disciples know the truth. Thirdly, true disciples are set free. True disciples are set free.

This is what the truth does. Verse 32 again. We saw, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. Number one, true disciples continue in the word. Secondly, true disciples will know the truth. And then there's another end.

These things joined it together, linked together like links in a chain. You'll know the truth, and thirdly, the truth will make you free. A third result of genuine conversion is expressed by freedom, not the political freedom that we celebrate on July 4th. Jesus is talking about a spiritual freedom. As we saw earlier, the Jews thought that physical lineage from Abraham was enough. Look at verse 33. They answered him, Were Abraham's descendants?

We've never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus is making these profound, far-reaching statements about what true conversion produces in the life of a true disciple. Inward realities and these Jews are so spiritually dull, so dead to truth, that they want to talk about physical genealogy. You know, today, well, my dad was a pastor, and his dad was a pastor, and we were all good Baptists.

And people want to talk that way. You know, my whole family, I was born into a Christian family. If that's where you go for a spiritual discussion, that's where you go to assert your own spirituality, you're right here in verse 33 with the Jews.

That's the wrong way to think. One writer says about these Jews, and I quote, Their sense of inherited spiritual privilege is so strong, they can neither acknowledge their own need nor recognize the divine word incarnate before them. They had Christ in front of them, and yet they couldn't acknowledge their spiritual need. They had Christ in front of them, and they want to talk about who their ancestor from 2,000 years earlier was.

This is spiritual death, not spiritual life. Jesus wasn't talking to them about physical realities. He was talking about spiritual freedom. Look at verse 34. Jesus answered them.

They had just talked about physical things. Jesus immediately changes the subject and talks about spiritual things. Verse 34, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. You see, beloved, true conversion, one of the marks of a true disciple, one of the marks of genuine truth and perseverance, is that true conversion liberates you from the bondage that you were previously in to your sin and to Satan. Look over at 1 John 3, chapter 3, verse 4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. You know that Christ appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins. No one who sins ideas continually, habitually, unrepentantly.

No one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children. The apostle John was making the same plea 2,000 years ago that I was just making to you a few moments ago. That's because it's biblical. And he says in verse 7, he says, Little children. You see the pastoral affection for them?

Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. Beloved, when Jesus Christ saves a Christian, when he saves a sinner and converts them into a child of God, something miraculous happens. He breaks the power of sin in the heart, the prevailing, dominating sense of sin and being unable to get yourself out of sin, being unwilling to leave sinful relationships, for example. A true Christian, Christ comes and breaks that power and replaces it with a greater spiritual liberty, a greater spiritual power, and inclines the heart and empowers the heart with a love for righteousness and a love for godliness that is greater than the power of sin that previously dwelt therein. He came to take away sin. He came to break the power of sin in his disciples so that one of the marks of a true Christian is that somehow there is a change that takes place.

Somehow there is something in the subsequent life after the supposed moment of conversion that shows that a new life principle is in operation, that a new life trajectory has taken root and that just grows in its manifestation and maturity over time. That's why it is so vital for us to keep a short list of our sins, to be confessing and repenting of our sins on an ongoing basis because they are contrary to the very reason that Christ saved us. Christ breaks the power of sin. Christ opens eyes that had previously been blinded by Satan. Beloved, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, free from satanic false doctrine, free from binding sinful life patterns. You see, to come into union with Christ is a liberating spiritual gift from God Himself that cannot fail to show forth the fruit that He appoints to be manifested.

We are His workmanship, Ephesians 2 says, united with Christ in order to bring forth good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so Jesus here in John chapter 8 has spoken of immense spiritual gifts, being a true disciple, knowing the truth, spiritual liberty from sin and Satan. These gifts are available only in the truth, in Christ and in Scripture. Beloved, this freedom which Christ promises is found only in Him.

It's offered to you freely as a gift to be received in a repentant faith that rejects the world, that turns from self and sin and humbly comes to Christ and says, save me, have mercy on me, the sinner. And beloved, if you are in Christ, He has given you already freedom to rise above your sins, freedom to be free from pervasive guilt, freedom to live in hope and not to just play the part of a perpetual victim. The perpetual victim is not the mindset of the true Christian. Yes, you say, people have wronged me, but I am in Christ. I belong to one who can turn all of that to good for me, and I trust Him and I rejoice in Him despite what man has done to me.

We're not the victim. And this spiritual change flows from abiding faithfully in the Word of God over time. Beloved, do you feed yourself on Scripture and thus prove to be a true disciple of Christ?

A deep desire to study and live by all that is found in God's holy Word. That is a true indicator that we belong to Him. Well, next time, Don will take us to his next message from the In Defense of Truth series with a study called Truth and Salvation. But thank you so much for joining us today on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green. We'd like to invite you to visit thetruthpulpit.com where you can learn much more about this ministry. Once again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. We're out of time for today. I'm Bill Wright. We'll see you next time as Don Green continues teaching God's people God's Word from the Truth Pulpit.