Sermon Transcript:
Thank you. Well,
here we are, right.
I'm going to begin this by saying how important this in between time is. When we're in between pastors, you're going to have a pastor. A lot of churches don't get that opportunity. They don't have what they call an interim pastor, the in between guy and so they have different people come in, or leaders step up and everything, but you're going to be blessed to to have that leadership team still in place, and you're going to have this voice with you to our longer we need, uh, I'll miss one Sunday in about two weeks. But other than that, I'll be here through the holidays for sure. But we're going to actually be going through a book called Galatians, if you're not familiar with the Bible, Galatians is one of our New Testament letters that Paul wrote. And he wrote that about the year AD 49 which means, if we believe that Jesus died in the year 33 ad 33 this was only about 16 years after Jesus's death, we have this incredible letter filtering around to all the churches in Galatia, because the word Galatian, there is no church and there is no area. It's an area or a specific spot. It's an area called Galatia. Now think about it this way, when you talk about El Paso a lot of times, we just put everybody in the big we brought them all, bundle them all together. Well, there's horizon city, there's kind of Theo, there's, you know, all different places, Anthony. And sometimes we even say, well, Las Cruces is just north El Paso, right? You know, it's 45 minutes from here. So that's kind of what we're talking about when we talk about Galatia. It's a vicinity of churches where Paul is addressing and the purpose and the reason that he made this or sent this letter was in the short time. Just imagine, 16 years after Jesus's death, they're preaching the gospel. They're telling everybody about this Messiah, and yet, there's other people already talking about other gospels, about other things that are supposedly be the real gospel. And so he would leave these churches that he started, and then these people would come in and talk about other gospels. That is why your pastor that just finished leaving asked me to step in for him. He knows what I'm going to preach. We were both seminary trained. We know exactly what we're going to talk about, and so he doesn't have to fear how what's going to happen after I leave. But that Paul had to start telling the churches, Hey, you can't believe everything. Some people tell you, you know they're going to come to your door and tell you about this other Testament or this other gospel about Jesus. Don't believe it. You have to look at the Scripture text, and you have to study and understand what it is that we're going to learn through this this time. So it's high time for the believer to know what they believe. And if you're here today and you've never stepped out in faith and given your life to Jesus, and I mean a full fledged, I want to surrender everything to him. You're going to get an opportunity to do that today. You're going to have an opportunity to say, You know what, I believe, what we're talking about this morning. And I want that for my own personal life. And so there's going to be this time of, we have all these kneelers here, this time of what we call an invitation, and you'll be welcome to come and give your life to Christ, or just come and pray and say, You know what, I haven't been living the way that you've asked me to live Jesus. But I want to start today. I want to make a change today and say, from this day forward, I'm going to live, talk and speak what I say I believe, amen. I'm going to do what I what I hear the Gospel teaching me to do because I haven't been doing it. Oh, I like the idea of going to heaven, but I'm not too sure about that living out my faith in front of others that may make fun of me, that may not understand who I am. Well, it's up to us to teach them who Christ is, and how are we going to do that if we don't know what the text says? So, I pray that through this series we understand that we need the letter of Galatians today. We need it more than we've ever needed it is known as the Magna Carta of the Christian gospel because it's so close to the resurrection of Christ, and it has so many things that Paul is telling us, and we're going through these very similar things in our churches today? Well, we're not sure what we believe anymore. We got preachers, even from our own pulpits, talking about some of the gospel. They're giving TED talks to places that need an actual presentation of the gospel. Listen. You can get all that stuff on YouTube. When we come to church, we want to hear what God has to say, that's enough of my spiel this morning. So let's let's hear what God has to tell us. We're going to read from Galatians, chapter one, verses one through 10. Would you stand with me as we read God's word and say, Pastor, why do we stand? We stand so that we get all the dirt distractions away. It's because if you get on your phone and get on Facebook. Going to see you unless you're recording it right? You don't have to do that, because they do that already for you. Here I'm going to read from the New, New International Version you read along with what other version that you read from. But this is Paul to the churches in Galatia. He says, Paul, an apostle sent not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers and sisters with me to the churches in Galatia, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. I want you to listen to verses eight and nine very, very carefully. These two verses are what hinge this entire letter. And he says this, but even if we, Paul's talking about him and his entourage that are preaching the gospel, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse, as we have already said, so I now say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than you accepted, let them be under God's curse. And am I trying to win the approval of human beings or of God, or am I trying to please people? If you were, if you were still trying to please people, if I were still trying to please, please people, I would not be a servant of Christ, let's bow in prayer, Father, we receive this message this morning. Would you work on our spirits and our souls and our hearts and our minds this morning, in Christ's name, I pray amen. You may have a seat. My first point, I'm going to talk about the salutation that Paul gives to these churches in Galatia, and said, there is only one Jesus. Now I want to encourage you, if you're not a note taker, to take even if you take out your phone and you start using your notes and whatever, that's cool, to start becoming a note taker. Listen, I know the day and age we live, we're we all want to call ourselves visual learners, right? We say, well, we just need a screen up there. We're going to, I'm going to remember that title. No, no, you know, no other gospel Galatians, right? Got a picture of the El Paso mountain there with the star. Listen, it's a known fact that if you're a certain way or a certain way of learning, a style of learning, that if you only utilize one style, you only retain about 10% now if you start learning two styles, which could be audio See, most of you are audio learners, but you come to church, you don't take notes. You think that you're going to turn into an audio an audible learner, all of a sudden when you come to church, right? I believe in the power of the Spirit. I do. It can happen. But in reality, if you're not an audible learner, then you're a calisthenic learning, where you learn with your hands. Start taking notes. Listen. It's important to know what's being said Sunday by Sunday. And so you can go, you can go about your daily routine throughout the week, and you can absorb the things that are being taught to you.
So Paul says there's only one Jesus in his first five verses. He states, in this opening monolog many facts. He says, verse one, he's an apostle. Verse one, he was sent by Jesus, not just any Jesus, but the Jesus who was raised from the dead. He makes sure that he puts that in his salutation, it was he was sent by other believers. He says in verse two, there is grace and peace when we know Jesus. In verse three and verse four, he says, Jesus gave himself for us to be forgiven for our sins. All throughout our worship, we were talking about that through our prayers and through the musicians that we're even talking through that we're here to be forgiven of our sins. Amen, we want Jesus to forgive us of all the things that we have not measured up to. Romans 323, says that everybody has sin, and we fall short of God's standard. You know, there's a standard of holiness that God has, and we fall short of that. We have to admit that he also says that Jesus has delivered us from evil in verse four. And in verse four, he says everything is done according to God's will. And in verse five, Jesus will be glorified forever. You see only one Jesus could have made all those orchestrated facts that Paul just state. Usually Paul states his salutation that in letters and. Says Paul, an apostle of Jesus, writes to this church, and then he gets into it. He made it a point, because he was talking about a bunch of churches, including us here in El Paso at Life Church, how we have to rely on Christ and Christ alone. And he wanted to make sure we knew that, how often do we just skim over the salutations or the intro of a passage of Scripture, we
go, well, that's not really going to apply to me, really.
Let me challenge you this morning,
if you were going to write a letter to somebody,
a group of people that you knew were going to read it,
and you had to give an opening salutation about your life in Christ? What would that look like? How would you go about doing that? Would you just say, Hey, I'm a Christian. I
go to Life Church.
Man, could you imagine writing the letter just like Paul did? I'm going to I'm a follower. I'm a disciple. I'm a Christian in Christ, Jesus, Christ is the only one that did anything for anybody in order for them to secure their salvation. He died for my sins and for yours so that we can live forever. That's the God I'm serving. And you start with this amazing salutation, and all of a sudden you have people looking at this going, who are you? Right? Who is this person? And that's why I look at Paul when he writes that, because shortly after Jesus's death, here's Paul the Apostle, who was a Pharisee, not only a Pharisee, the chief Pharisee. If you don't know who the Pharisees were, they were the religious teachers of the the people of God, the religion, the religious people. And he was the head guy. And he was condemning this new messiah in this new way of living. And he said, This is not the truth. It wasn't until God got a hold of his life that he understood who Jesus was. And so shortly after, he's writing about this really amazing thing that has changed his life. And
so I would just say to you,
if you're not able to write a letter like that, would you consider what's going on in your life today? And you say, Am I really following after this Jesus that Paul talks about? The truth is, I
don't know if you know this, but we're actually writing our letters right now.
Your life is your letter. You are writing a letter every day that you come into contact with those that don't know Christ, your opening salutation is who you are. When you meet somebody that doesn't know Jesus and listen, everything can make a difference. And so I wrote a couple notes here. I just want to say, sometimes it's what we don't say, right? Sometimes it's our body language. I'm horrible with body language. I know when people they can read me from a mile away, because it's just the way. I mean, I grew up that way, and I don't know how to say a word. I say things with my body, and I know that we do that a lot, and so let's be careful in who we are as we present the gospel, in the way we live our lives. So we are doing the same thing Paul was doing sometimes, just without words, just by the way we live. It's our if we're going to have a true gospel message, we have to understand who we are in Christ. So let me ask you this question this morning. Do you believe there's only one Jesus? Why are so many people trying to present somebody other than we know that's in the in the Word of God. This is another testament of the of the New Testament. They you know, you let people come to your door, right? Do you? I had one come to my door yesterday, just getting to sit down watch the Texas Michigan game. I was like, Really, God, I know who they were. My wife, we just put some big wreaths on our front door. And so I just hope we have these windows that you can just open up. My dog. My dog is, is 14 years old, and sometimes he hears the doorbell. Sometimes he doesn't. Well, of course, he heard the doorbell this time, so he's going crazy. And so I said, I'm not going to open the door. I'm just going to open the open the the window. And so the lady asked me this, we're out going around telling people about the Lord's Prayer, because we want the kingdom of God to be the kingdom here on heaven. Don't you believe that too? Well, I said, Of course I do. I believe in the Lord's Prayer. It's in Matthew chapter six, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done on earth as is in heaven. You know, I know that prayer. And I said, Yeah, I want that. And she said, Well, we have the Bible, and we believe in the Bible. And I said, that's wonderful. She
said, What about you, sir? I
said, I'm a pastor.
Little bit of silence I have ever recorded on my doorbell, too little bit of silence there and I go, I believe, totally I've spent my life studying the Bible. I've been to seminary. I'm still going to school right now. I'm a theologian at heart. I want to know exactly how to understand I want to. Like Paul says, For me to die is Christ, but for me to live is gain. I want to live for him. I know exactly what they're talking about. And so she says, this one, and she says, so what I said, What
church are you from?
We're Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now listen, if you're here and you've had experience with that, and you may yourself be one. I want to tell you something. As a theologian, I know for a fact, in the New World Order testament that they have, they've changed scripture not to agree with the original Greek context. Some of the scriptures are supposed to say in Christ. They say beside Christ or with Christ. We are in Christ to have in a relationship with Jesus the Christ. So so I didn't bring that out. I wasn't there to make them feel little, and I'm here to do that this morning with you, either. But I want you to know if we don't know what it says and what it means, we're not going to be able to have a defense for our faith. We're not going to be able to know what it is that they're talking about. And she said, What denomination are you see, I didn't ask her what denomination she was.
I said, What church do you go to?
But she said that. And I said, I'm Baptist.
I said, but really I'm a person that believes in the scriptures. I mean, we gotta put a label on certain things, but I'm a Christian. I follow the Bible and the Bible only. That's our only textbook. I can go and get all this training from specific scholars and everything. She was with somebody, and you know what this person? She said, I understand my family and me, we I grew up Baptist. And I looked at her and I said, Are you sure about that? I said, Do you know exactly what they believe? Oh yes, oh yes. See, the truth is she probably didn't have a foundation so that she could have stood solid on what the Word of God says, because Paul's already made it very, very much in our face this morning. If, if another gospel is being preached, let them be eternally condemned, is what the scripture says. We're not talking about the same Jesus from the scriptures that we believe. We're talking about people that have literally on purpose, changed the doctrine of Jesus. We must know, no, we have to know what the word of God says, so that we can live our lives for Him. Amen. So do you believe there's only one Jesus.
Have you been dabbling in other spiritual realms?
Have you been wondering, well, maybe
they're right, or maybe they're right,
at least with the Muslim nation, they
say they don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. These people, I'm not talking about, they're saying that this is the same Jesus.
It's impossible.
There's only one Jesus, there's only one gospel, there's only one salvation, there's only one baptism, there's only one forgiveness of sins, and it all comes from Him. Today, you can ask for forgiveness and become a follower of this real Jesus. Stop thinking about those other things and start knowing what you believe. Secondly, there's only one gospel. My first point was, there's only one Jesus, there's only one gospel. And then verses six through nine, this is where he says, I just really can't believe you're falling for all this malarkey. I don't know a better word to say in church, right? Baloney. Here's Paul planted these churches, and he goes, I'm astonished that you're being so confused by these people preaching another gospel. Did you not hear the gospel that we presented to you when we were with you? Oh, he's like, Oh, wow. You know, today we would say, Wow, really? Or the young people, that's all I hear in my house. I got 20 year olds in my house right now, and they say this for everything, bro,
you know what I'm talking about. I
would say that's probably what Paul was telling those churches. He said, bro, how can you do this? You know, if we're going to be serious about our context today, that's what he would say today. Wow, really, No way, man. I mean, I'm just really astonished that you're so confused. You see, we live in a confused world. We live in a world that's so confused we don't even know who we are anymore. We don't know that we were born a certain sex anymore. We don't know that we're a man or a female anymore. We're so confused today, we have a misunderstanding of who we are. And so it's going to be easy for somebody to come to your door and say, Hey, let me tell you about this other Jesus. They'll never present it in an other Jesus, but they're going to tell you who they are, what they believe. Today, there's attraction about other spiritual things. Wow. You know Gen Z supposed to be the most spiritual generation on the planet. They just don't want anything to do with you in church, if you're a Gen Z, I don't know. I know there's a lot of young people here, but now we have the new generation coming up called Gen alpha. So. Those that are 13 and below right now, what do they believe? I believe there's going to be a resurrection of that generation. There's going to be a resurrection of the real gospel. They're going to tell Gen Z millennial and us that is not what the gospel teaches. And I believe God is going to be raising up out of Gen alpha, these amazing presenters of the gospel, and they're going to they're going to present the gospel in ways that are going to go back to what the original text really meant, and they're going to show us who Jesus is, because they can see the confused world that we say we live in, that we say we believe in, we want. Anything goes in this world. Whatever is right for you is not necessarily right for me. So now we get into the point of, there's no absolute truth. There's nothing that's concrete. And says, Hey, would you believe that lying is absolutely false 100%
of the time? Yeah, but
my life, my job, depends on it. I have to tell a lie.
But does it still mean that it's right? No, it's one of those absolutes, you should not bear false witness, one of the 10 commandments we should all know that we should not lie. But yet you do a survey, 99% of people tell lies every day. If you're a part of the 1% You just lied. Listen, what could it take for somebody to be so distracted that they fall away from the real gospel? Look
at what Romans, 1617, through 19, says
Romans 1617, through 19.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive your minds. You naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience. So I rejoice because you, because of you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. Paul's not telling us anything new today, is he? He's telling us, listen there. There are some wise smooth talkers out there, right? They're trying to convince you. There's another way. I'm not just saying I want you to be he's not saying I want you to be open to other religions or other spiritual realms. No, he's saying this is an indictment on our faith. He said, How is that possible that you can just fall away that quick? Why would you it's not another gospel of Jesus. It's not another gospel altogether, basically, is what he's saying. It's not even good news. Did you know The word Gospel means good news? That's what we are. We are good news presenters.
It's great news actually, right?
I mean, come on, if you can give your life to Jesus, be forgiven of your sins and have a guarantee of an eternal life forever and ever. That is the best news that you could ever hear, ever and yet we have all this good news around the world going today, and it does not guarantee eternal life. Nothing does, except for a relationship in Christ. That's the only thing that you can depend on. Everything is letting us down today, right? Even our 401, Ks are going down the tubes, aren't, isn't it? I mean, it's like, how much the other day, I bought a donut at Krispy Kreme 229 I remember when they were two for $1 you know? And I'm just like, really, for a donut, give me a panduce instead.
They're cheaper and better. Listen,
Gospel means good news. There is no good news if you cannot attain eternal life. None, none of us can live a moral life. We need Jesus to live that morality for us. Isn't that great that we have somebody that took our pain and took our iniquities and went to the cross and said, I believe in you. I love you so much that I'm willing to give up my life. I'm willing to come from a throne of heaven, come down here to this nasty Earth and give my life for you so that you can live forever. Nobody else can make that claim but him. In Verse seven, Paul says, As if there really is another gospel out there. He says, It's not good news. Here's what Paul's saying. In the historical context, Galatians were visit had visiting pastor, and I told you about that, but they were trying to convince them of two things that they had to do to be a believer. Number one, they had to be circumcised to be a believer, because they come from the Jewish history, historical context, and the other one is that they had to work out. They had to obey the Word of God.
How's those 10 Commandments going for you?
Huh? How they going for you? You know what they are, right? You shall have no other god, no idols. Do not you. Is my name in vain. Keep the Sabbath. Holy. Honor your mother and father. Don't steal, Don't lie, don't cheat, don't covet your neighbors, don't have adultery. How are those going for you? If, if those are the actual things that we have to do so that we can have a relationship with Christ, we failed, because Jesus said it, and when they try to corner him, the Pharisees, probably Paul was in there with them, and he said, which is the most important commandment?
And I thought, you know what you're talking to. Jesus
says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and spirit. And he said, the second is the same, to love your neighbor as yourself. Not only are we supposed to love God, but we're supposed to love people. And Jesus turned the world upside down, and he said, Listen, you can't follow those 10 Commandments. Matter of fact, those 10 Commandments were there to point to Jesus to say, we need a savior. Because if that's what it takes to get to God, we fail. And the other one is circumcision. Circumcision was mandatory for male, Jewish men, to say that we were God's chosen people. So, you know, it's hard to talk about that in church, I know, but it was one of those things that these false teachers were coming in and saying, you have to do this. Well, once you become a believer, there is no have to. It's only about Jesus and him alone. You don't have to be a person that says, Man, I I've failed these two of the 10 Commandments, but what am I going to do now? Jesus is going to forgive you and you're going to try harder the next time, but he knows you're going to fail again, he's going to forgive you again. You see, we like to call Jesus the God of second chances. No, he's not. He's a God of second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. Some of us need 200 and more, right? Why do you think Peter came up to Jesus and said, How many times do I have to forgive these people? Seven? As if Peter was a forgiveness machine, right? Seven?
Jesus said, No, 70 times seven.
Could you imagine Peter going say, what?
490 times? No, it wasn't about the number. He was saying, as many as it takes, as hard as it is, as unloving as those people are, you still love them. You still forgive them. You see, I'm here as your interim pastor for the next months, or whatever time that is, and Pastor Brent knew when he sent me, sent me to come, that I was going to preach the gospel. He knew it. He said, I don't have to worry about what Larry's going to preach. He's going to just take the text, he's going to explain to the people, and that's what we're going to do. You see, I believe pastors have a have to have a call on their life. I believe there are pastors today preaching the gospel that do not have a call in their life. God has not called them out to be separated, to be pastors, and it's unfortunate because there are churches dying all around us. Did you know that every Sunday, every week, every month, there are churches closing their door all around the globe because the gospel is not being presented. They wanted to make sure they had all the things that they thought would attract people. Listen, I'm grateful for this place, but if it was just a tent with metal seats, if the gospel was being presented, I know what that looks like. I started a church with metal chairs in my living room. Listen, people crowded our house because we didn't lie about the gospel. We didn't try to present something that wasn't there. We just took the text and read it and we explained it and we studied it and we believed it and we lived out our lives. City Church dot real is a church of three to 400 people. Now it'd be bigger than that, but a lot of military that go in and out of there, just like Brent was saying last week, every 18 months, there's a big turnover here because of the military. We're grateful for our men and women who serve this country. Amen. We're grateful for them. I'm a veteran myself. I know what that means.
But everywhere we go, we take Jesus with us.
Obedience to the law was how people were judged in the eye of God, Eyes of God, and that didn't go so well the gospel of the One True JESUS. That's why, as a pastor, I can't say things, I can't do things that go contrary to the gospel. Now I fail just like you. There are days I wonder, you wake up and you go, Man, am I? Am I actually saved today, because the thoughts that are going through my mind and my head, you know, just go, I'm I'm not even thinking about God. I'm supposed to be sold out for the Kingdom. And I know that's what we all go through. We have so much stuff coming at us every day. So let's look at these two verses, verses eight and nine. I want us to really, really hone in in these two verses. These are key to the book of Galatians. There's no sugar coating. He says it as it is. But even if we are an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you. Let him be accursed. See Paul put himself in that first one. Even if we preach something that we remember, there's a lot of people. It just like the lady that came to my door. She said, I used to be this. Now I'm this. He said, even if you do that, let them be eternally condemned. And the second one, he says, as we've said before, so now I say, if anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to the one you receive, let him be accursed or condemned or sent to Hell. Listen, it's not a game with Paul. He's trying to tell us, we have got to stay true to who Jesus Christ is. We have got to no matter what happens in this in between time, I'm begging you to stay faithful to the to Christ. And if your friends ain't here, if some people decided they're going to step out until you get another pastor. You get on the phone and tell em, listen, now is not the time to step out. We want to make sure that we're filled up and ready to go, so that when the new pastor comes, you're going to say, Man, this is amazing church. These people are are telling everybody about the gospel. They're doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. That would be amazing, wouldn't it? So these two, key verses. You have two choices with these verses. You can run when somebody presents somebody like or you don't even answer the door, right? We look through our phone and we see Kukui. You know? We know they're either Jehovah's Witness or Mormons, right? They're going to try to tell me about something else that's contrary to what the gospel is. We can't, we can't not open the door because you don't know what the Gospel says. Maybe that's why you don't open the door, or you don't want to engage in a theological discussion because you don't understand it. You haven't studied I have a I know I have an advantage, because I sometimes my family will say dad, or my kids will say, Dad. They're here go answer the door. And I'm like, didn't you grow up in the same house? You can do it. Just tell them who Jesus is in your life. It's not the one they're going to present to you. You can run, or you can have conviction for your faith when another gospel that's presented. You can tell them exactly who Jesus is in your life
and what the Scriptures say about him.
I choose number two, what do you choose? You're going to run? Are
you going to have conviction? A conviction for your faith?
That's what I'm choosing. Now I ask you, are you choosing that? Are you going to have a conviction for your faith? Are you going to be able to defend what you believe? Listen, we have a conference coming up next Saturday at First Baptist Church. And so apologetic conference. They're not apologizing for anything. Apologetics means how to defend your Faith. And so I would convince I would inspire you, or encourage you to sign up for that. You can go to our website, El Paso and it's on the front page, and just click on that. There's a QR code, and you can go and register for that. We have 150 already registered, but first Baptist Church can fit about 500 you all could go if you wanted to listen, they're going to have it's going to be bilingual. We're going to have apologists from all over the country descending on El Paso to teach us how to defend our faith, how not to be afraid the next time somebody rings your doorbell or confronts you in Sam's parking lot, right? You get those two, you know, hey, we're having a Bible study. Oh, yeah, what church is it at? And then they tell you, Oh, well, it's
not a church, it's, it's, it's a cult,
it's a religion, right? We're doing other things,
but it's the same Jesus, the same Bible. That's the one we believe in. Listen, I've used these two verses several times on people that come to my door and I just say, I ask them, you take your Bible out and read me Galatians, one, eight and nine, I want to hear you read it out light Romans, 1017, says, Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. So we want the Holy Spirit to do its work, his work. And so they read those verses. And I say, Now, how did your leader receive the revelation? I'm talking about Mormon Joseph Smith, he received his revelation from an angel. Let me read that verse again, even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preach to you. 16 years after Christ died, he wrote this letter to the church, and here we are, modern day 2024 and we still have people going, Well, I'm not sure. Joseph Smith, if you can go to their website, lds.org, Latter Day Saints, and if you're a Mormon, here, Listen, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Joseph Smith was motivated or asked to marry several wives, 40, to be specific, their leader was married to 40 women. He received a revelation from an angel to present the book of Mormons that they don't have the original ones because they were banished. Poof, guess where Joseph Smith is right now
in the grave. He.
One day, he's going to stand before a holy God and give an account for all the millions he led astray. Listen, this is serious business. This is serious about who we think Jesus is. If we don't know, we need to know. If you don't know, I encourage you, I beg you, just like Paul would say, I want you to know as well.
Those two verses are key.
Listen first Peter 315 says this, but in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. Now it is not. Now is not the time to be lazy in our defense of the gospel. Now is the time to be the gospel. Let us not be easily distracted. Eternity lays in the balance. There's one other former group of people that I want to talk about in this group called none, N, O N, E, not, N, U N. Don't get me confused with that. But there's people here that believe in nothing. You know that that's the fastest growing group of people. They believe in nothing. They believe that when you die, nothing happens. In spite of all the people that have given their lives all over this world as a martyr for the gospel of Jesus, they believe that That's hogwash. That's bunk Listen, even believing in none takes faith, because God is all around us. We see people healed, we see people saved, we see people baptized. We see people give their life to ministry. We see people doing all kinds of amazing things. And you want to believe in nothing. You believe that we're all crazy. We're not. We are crazy for Jesus, right?
What do you truly believe today?
Who are you worshiping?
Who are you telling people about the word, the Jesus that you serve, that you say you serve, today, you can make sure that you know the true gospel and his true name in your life. Lastly, there's only one truth. I'm going to be real quick. This is verse 10. Verse 10. He says, Am I trying to win the approval of human beings? There's only one truth, or of God, or am I trying to please people? If I'm still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. Preaching the gospel can be difficult, amen, it can be difficult. Most of the time. There's nobody to give you an accolade or a trophy or an award for being a Christian. Nobody's going to pat you on the back and say, good for you. Sometimes being a Christian is lonely, especially if you come from a family that may be part of these other groups, and you finally break out and go, Man, this is really what I believe. I believe this is the only truth. It can be a lonely place. You see, as believers, we don't get to do a lot of things that other people get to do. Sometimes we check our religion at the door, don't we, when we go to our family's house, we don't get to talk about the Jesus we believe in, because they have their religion and we have ours. But you know what I would tell you, continue to love them, continue to be who you are. Don't be afraid to afraid to pray, because when it all comes down to it, I always get to pray at my family reunions, because they know I'm a pastor, and they finally go, Well, we're just going to let Larry pray. And I always pray in Jesus name. Who do you pray in? In Jesus name? That's who we pray. That's how we pray. We don't get to watch some certain movies or listen to filthy music. Sometimes. We don't get to go to social events and parties that we would like to go to because we know they're not good for us. We don't get to go clubbing. You know, I got saved at 25 so I know what clubbing is. I was in the army for seven years. I know what we go through as people. Listen, if you're going to be truly a seeker of the gospel, then our service to God is more important than our service to man.
And it's hard.
It's hard we lose friends and family over our conviction for the for the Gospel we do because they think you've joined a cult. He's raising his hands. She's kneeling at the front. They're doing this.
I don't know what happened to them.
Did I raise them right? You know, all these questions go through our family and friends mind, and yet, here we are in this moment, saying, What do I truly believe? See, there's a whole army of believers out there that are for you. If you're here today and you haven't received Christ as your Lord and Savior, or may you believed in some other Jesus that you didn't know you believed in today, you get to decide who's your God, who's Your Jesus. There's all of us here that are believers, that are going to be cheering you on. There's an army of heavenly hosts that are watching and looking and being having a party when somebody comes to Christ. Listen, don't be afraid to make a public statement for Christ. You know, when Jesus went to the cross, He spread out his arms, and he died for you and for me in the presence of many. He did it publicly. He didn't go in some closet so nobody would know. And that's why we give opportunity to say, we invite you to come publicly and say, I want Jesus for myself. You see, you could be here as a young person, and your mom and dad are believers, but you're not. You cannot become a believer because your mom and dad are believers. You have to make a decision for yourself. You have to say, I want Jesus in my life. Listen, your mom and dad want you to do that. But so many times, our young people grow up and right underneath the umbrella of their mom and dad speaking about Christ, and they said they think that's enough. I never, they never taken a step of faith for Christ. You can do that today. Are there some of you here that your spouse is a believer and you're not, and you think that you're covered under the blood of their conviction? Listen, Jesus wants you and his army as well. You have to enlist yourself. You have to voluntarily come and say, I want Jesus to be the Lord of my life. Or you may be here today, and you've experienced this Christ that we talk about, and you have not given yourself fully to what we call a surrendered life. You, see, lot of us like to say, as long as I'm not going to hell, I'm good, right? I just want to go to heaven. So I'm going to confess Jesus as my Savior, but not my lord. Making Jesus your Lord, makes him in charge of your life. He can never be your savior without being your Lord. You must surrender fully to Christ. So if you're here today, we're going to sing a song of what we call an invitation, and I pray that the gospel message has been made clear to those of you that are here that don't have a relationship with Jesus. The relationship doesn't come through your family or through this church. It comes through Jesus and Jesus alone, he's the only one that can save you. I'm grateful for Life Church. I'm grateful for parents that are raising their kids in the right way, and for spouses that are trying to convince their spouse that they need a relationship with Christ. Hey, listen to me, spouse. If your your husband or wife is not saved, pray for them. That's the best thing you can do, and maybe this morning, that's what you need to do, is come forward and just pray. Amen. Pray. Say, Father, would you get a hold of my wife's heart, my husband's heart, my kid's heart, or kid? You could be young person. You could be the one none of your family is a believer, but you're the one that has come to faith in Christ, and you want your mom and dad desperately to have the same faith that you have to know that you're in contact with the true gospel of Jesus. Maybe you're the one who's going to grab your parent by the hand and say, I'll go with you. You see, public invitations are difficult. What are they going to say? Or think I'll tell you what we're going to say, or think we're going to be so excited for somebody coming to faith in Christ, and we're going to give him a standing ovation. We're going to clap for you. So it's something that will remember on September the eighth, 2024 that's the day I gave my life to Jesus for real. The other times I don't know what happened, you might have been playing around, but this is for real. So today, don't hesitate when we sing this song. If you want to come, you come and I'll pray a prayer with you all that will come. We'll pray a prayer of salvation. We'll pray a prayer of rededication. Maybe you're here and you say, I want to come back to Christ. I just want to get my life right. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt if Jesus were to come right now in this service, and I would go with him to be with him in eternity. But I got a lot of work to do in my own life to tell others about Christ. I got a lot of family members that need Jesus, and so maybe that's you today, and say, You know what? I want to reconnect with Christ. And say, I'm going to do it for real this time. I know that we don't have a pastor that's our full time pastor yet, but we're going to. Could you imagine your spiritual life being way up here? When the new pastor comes in, he said, Pastor, we've been waiting for you. I want to serve. What can I do? But it starts today. It starts by saying, I need more of Jesus. Or for you that haven't been saved, I need Jesus. And maybe you've never been baptized. You've seen people baptized, that's an act of obedience. I want to say this, and I know Brenda said this, baptism does not save you. Baptism is an outward expression of what Jesus has already done on the inside. It's important, but it doesn't save you. The thief on the cross told Jesus remember me. You. When you come into your kingdom, when you come into your and Jesus looked right at him and turned in and said, Listen, man, today you're going to be with a paradigm. He knew both of them were going to die. And he says today, that man never got baptized, that man never went to a discipleship class. He died that day and immediately was with Jesus. Listen, today is the day of salvation, is what the Word of God says. You can come to Christ today. So would you stand with me? I'm going to say a quick prayer, and I
just want you to listen with your heart,
Father, I pray this morning that everybody that within the sound of my voice would understand what it means to be a believer in Christ, and so Father, would you convict hearts all across this room this morning. Father, I know in a room this size, there are those that do not know you as their Lord and Savior, but I know that you want to know and father, I know it's a step of obedience. It's an act of humility, and so I pray that you would give them the strength this morning, God in Christ's name, I
pray Amen.