Jesus, Our Guide

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

The study of generations has become much more popular in the last 80 years or so. And so they started naming generations, right, in this research, in this sociological research. So you have the greatest generation. You have the baby boomer generation. You have generation X. You have millennials, and you even have Generation Z. We've got a lot of generations. I don't know why we skipped Generation Y for millennials, but I'm not asking. I'm not judging. The study of generations, or to call people by generations, can be helpful because it correlates a group of people with world events, particular world events that shape them. For the boomers, if you are a baby boomer and you remember the impact of the lunar landing, right, the moon landing, then if you remember that, if you remember JFK's assassination, for example, you are a baby boomer, okay? That's nice. I got an amen from a boomer back there.

Just let it be on the record. For Generation X, you remember the proliferation of the Internet. that kind of happened kind of as you were coming of age. Also, really access to television in a way more widespread capacity. That was a big marker for you as a kid. For millennials, it's 9-11. Millennials remember, they remember feeling 9-11 differently than even most adults felt 9-11. And for Generation Z, the research is still being compiled, but a lot of people think it's this pandemic that has shaped much of their childhood. It's kind of the flavor, right? Today, we are gonna look at another famous generation, but it's not generation X, Y, or Z. It is a generation that was about 1,400 years before the book of Hebrews was written, okay? So about 3,400 years ago. And the book of Hebrews actually harkens back to this generation in the latter half of Hebrews 3.

So if you want to turn there, we're going to be in Hebrews chapter 3, we're going to start in verse 7 and kind of go through the rest of chapter 3. As you're turning to Hebrews 3, this is the middle of our series on Jesus is higher. We are studying Hebrews chapter one through four, and we are considering who Jesus is. The book of Hebrews goes to great lengths to talk about who Jesus is. And we've learned a lot about who Jesus is. He's our apostle. He's the eternal son. He is the creator of heaven and earth. And all of that is kind of wrapped up in Hebrews one through four. And so we've been going through it nice and slow. And so we're in the latter half of Hebrews chapter three, and we're going to stop just short of chapter four, but next week will be our last on that series. The next series that we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing a five-week series in the book of 1st Timothy. Daniel Oster

and I will be doing that series together, not teaching at the same time, though. That would be would be a train wreck. We're going to just switch off some Sundays. And so we don't want to do that. So as we go through Hebrews chapter three, verse seven, remember, we're going to be kind of harkening back to a generation. And at the time that Hebrews was written, it was a generation that was from 1400 years ago. So even longer for us. Let's start reading Hebrews chapter three, verses seven through nine, says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. On the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. So again, we start with a therefore, and anytime you see a therefore, you got to see what it's... Okay, it's a fun, but it's a really good hermeneutical tool.

You're welcome. Okay. So, therefore, because Jesus is the Word of God, because Jesus brought something greater than what has been, because we are God's house, because we are God's priest, because we are ushering people into the presence of God, because of all that. What it's saying here is because all that's true, do not make the same mistakes as before. Or as verse 8 puts it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Don't harden your hearts as in on the day of testing in the wilderness. the history of God's people, in the history of God's people, there is a famous generation that we will call the wilderness generation. Okay. So they have a name just like Boomers and Gen Xers and Millennials. This is the wilderness generation. And in the wilderness generation, this is a long time ago. This is the book of Exodus, right? The book of Exodus opens up and it's, you know, for a quick flyover.

the book of Exodus opens up and God's people are enslaved. They are slaves in Egypt and God sends Moses. Right, remember we looked at this a couple of weeks ago, Moses is the apostle, right? He is the one that God sent to his people to rescue them. So God sends Moses and then in what is likely the greatest display of God's power and mercy and I would even stack it up right there with Acts 1 and I mean, it is amazing. What God does through Moses in Egypt is amazing. There are 10 plagues that are sent to Egypt, the last of which is the Passover, where where the firstborn of every house is killed. God parts the Red Sea as his whole nation of people is they're all running from the Egyptians, and God closes the Red Sea on Pharaoh and his army, dramatically rescuing his people. God takes his people to Mount Sinai and gives them 10 commandments through Moses on this

mountain that's like covered in darkness and a thick smoke and lightning and everything's really dramatic. And if that weren't enough, manna and quail are appearing for these people on a regular basis so they will have food in the wilderness. Exodus 1 through 20, by the way, that's all in Exodus 1 through 20. That's all in 20 chapters of the Bible, okay? All that I just said. Exodus 1, everybody's a slave in Egypt. By the time we're at Exodus 20, we're at Mount Sinai and God's given the Nittan commandments. Okay. Exodus 1 through 20 is miracle after miracle after miracle, after miracle. And the story actually continues in Numbers 8. Okay, so it's kind of hard to explain, but like the end of Exodus 20 and Leviticus and on the first Numbers 1 through 8, all that's law, like all that's just law. And that's another story. But you need to understand that the story continues

in Numbers 8, okay, it picks back up there. When the story picks up in Numbers 8, there are more miracles. It's the same story. It's the same kind of thing going on. And that's what makes the next part of the wilderness generation, the next part of their story, it's what makes it so jarring. On the way to this new and promised land that God is going to give them, I'll give you a taste, this happens and we're gonna, it's just real quick, Numbers 11, you don't need to turn there, it's just these verses that are up here, you can go check my work later. Numbers 11 4 through 6, it says, the people of Israel also wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing. The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. If this sounds dramatic and a little bit ridiculous, it is. Verse 6, but now, but now our strength is dried up

and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at. All right, it is no small irony that God delivered his people miraculously and he delivered them with the intent that all of these events, all the events of Exodus 1-20 were to be locked into their memory, were to be seared into their culture. They were to reenact these events every year eternity. Okay. That's why God gave them the Passover feast to remember the events of Exodus 1 through 20. Okay. To commemorate these exact event events and G and God even says in Exodus you're going to do this feast so that you can remember what I've done. Irony because all they remember is Egypt. All they remember is the pots of meat, the fish, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and even the garlic. But now, all we have is this manna to look at. So what did they do? They romanticized their slavery, and they disdained miraculous food.

Anecdotally, I've seen this happen, But there's a fun kind of way to explain that it's, if you go every day to your neighbor's house and give him a dollar for 30 days, and then on day 31 you don't give him anything, he's gonna wonder what's wrong. Well, nothing's wrong, I just, I only wanna give you a dollar for 30 days. We get used to things being delivered to us. We get used to things being set up for us, right? It is harder to lose privileges. It is harder to lose a good setup, okay? But it is easy to take it for granted. And that's exactly, that's exactly what was happening with the wilderness generation. And this numbers 11, four through six is the beginning of the end of the wilderness generation. This is where it began to go south.

So I want to look again at Hebrews 3, seven through nine. Now we have a little bit more context. And so let's look at it again. It says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear His voice, do not heart in your hearts as in the rebellion." So we're right in Numbers 11 and following at this point, on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. First of all, it's interesting I think that it says, as the Holy Spirit says, because it's quoting the Old Testament, it's actually quoting Psalm 95, but it's saying, oh no, that's the Holy Spirit talking. I love that. Holy Spirit is saying to us, the church, through this word, speaking to God's house, speaking to God's priesthood, it says, don't make the same mistakes that you did in the wilderness generation. They had Moses, they had miracles, they

had manna, and they still rebel. Hebrews 3:9 hints at the consequences here. It says, and they saw my works for 40 years, but the next verses make it plain. Still quoting Psalm 95 here, verses 10 and 11. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation, the wilderness generation, and said, they always go astray in their heart, they have not known my ways. And I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." The consequence that the wilderness generation suffered was separation from God. That was their consequence. And all this is building in the book of Hebrews, all this is building off of what was established in Hebrews chapter two verse three, where it says, Hey, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Answer, you don't. This great salvation is going to find you. This great salvation is here, it's not going away. It's going to cause you to make a decision.

It's going to push you to say, you've got to make a decision on it. You've got to understand what this great salvation is, and you have to decide on it. And it's saying don't don't don't make the same mistake as the wilderness generation who had all the miracles who had everything It's seen great things and they still disdained it. They still long for slavery. They still wanted to go back to Egypt. They still romanticized Being oppressed and went and population controlled they romanticized that How shall we escape such a great if we neglect such a great salvation? And remember, we discussed this, right? That what is happening is that the pastor in Hebrews is warning us against a process that reveals an unbelieving heart.

It's a process that reveals an unbelieving heart. In other words, there is a way for you to have kind of an unbelieving heart going on. But then you slap a lot of things on top of it. You slap a lot of religious and moral things on top of it, okay? You're a good person. You go to church, you tip your hat to people, you hold the door open, you're not mean, you march against bullying, I don't know, but you do all these moral religious things, right? You're so good, but then what happens when a lot of those things start to get stripped away? What's revealed? And the pastor in Hebrews is saying, what can be revealed is an unbelieving heart. When you look at God's miracles as humdrum, as normal, that can reveal an unbelieving heart. Don't scoff at God's provision. And the next two verses play this out. It says, take care brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart, leading

you to fall away from the living God, but exhort one another every day. long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." What Hebrews the end of chapter 3 is telling us, it says, watch carefully over your own heart, lest there be in you an evil, unbelieving heart. And it bears repeating, it is lazy, it is incorrect to just kind of mouth off and say that so and so lost their salvation. Right? That's not really how scripture talks about it. Scripture makes it clear that Jesus assures salvation. Scripture also makes it clear that there are real choices and real consequences when it comes to life, salvation included. And so the same scripture is saying that Jesus is saying to us, like, if you are with me, if you are saved and you are in my hand, nothing can take you out of that, right? Nothing is more powerful than me. And at the same turn, he's pleading with people, turn, repent, come

to me. He's giving people, he's asking people to make a real choice with real consequences. Again the warning is underneath all of that, unbelief might be there. Let me just kind of play this out a little bit in Burleson, okay? So in Burleson, Texas, and really in a lot of just, you know, small-town America places, this happens. You have people that grow up in a church environment, okay? And they are, and they're young, and they grow a lot in a church environment. And what they experience is kind of all of this residual blessing from a lot of other people following the Lord. A lot of other people praying for them, a lot of other people reading their Bible, a lot of other people investing in them. And what happens is, it's super easy to do, they take that for granted. Okay? They take it for granted. And what And what they've done is they've kind of grown up under the shade of the tree of a

healthy church, right? But they did not grow up being a part of that church. They grew up enjoying the benefits of that church, but they did not grow up as a part of it. In other words, there was no point at which they looked at their own life and they said, I'm a sinner. I need a relationship with Jesus, right? that is not necessarily tied to anything else, but it's me making a decision to follow Jesus on my own individually. There was never a moment like that. And so they've grown up thinking, oh, I'm a Christian because I go to church, right? Like that's kind of, it's this default thing that happens in religious small town America like Perles in Texas. It happens all the time. And I meet people that are in their 20s and 30s and 40s and older. And what they say is, they say, look, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not, I kind of grew up in the church, but when things got hard, life got derailed,

I got disconnected from church. I haven't read a Bible in 20 years, but I'm just trying to figure it out right now. I'm 48 and I'm trying to figure it out right now. Okay? That story is super common. I hear it all the time when I ask people about their religious history, which is a common question that I'll bring up in conversation. Because I'm a pastor, I just get to ask those things and people have to answer me.

It's only awkward for them. When you peel back some layers of people's religious history, you get pretty quick, you get to the fact that they don't understand what it is to be a Christian. They don't understand what it is to walk with Jesus. You start talking to them about making disciples or about investing in somebody else's spiritual life, and they look at you like you have four heads. They have no idea what you're talking about. They don't understand these things. But following Jesus means that we strive to make disciples. Following Jesus means we strive to, however imperfectly we make those attempts, we strive to live in obedience to Him. Following Jesus means that we have received a new heart. The next couple of verses go into a little bit more detail about the process.

But let's stay here for just a second. Sorry, let's stay here for just a second. There's two kinds of things that it helps us see here. We get a couple of details. It says, leading you to fall away from the living God. It says, take care, lest there be any of you, an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Okay. And then it also says, don't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So, there is a process by which our hearts can be hardened by trickery and fraud. And in Hebrews 2, what we saw was a metaphor of sailing. It said, don't drift away. So, it had this metaphor of sailing going on. With here, we have a different metaphor. We have a We have a picture of a guide. Okay. So a guide leads people. A guide can help people understand what is reality and what is not. Okay. So we get a picture of a guide and says, sin is a terrible guy.

Sin can steer you off a cliff and make you think it was your idea. Sin can harden you by deceiving you. Sin can harden you by deceiving you. And look, this is the actual stuff of faith right here. Okay, this is found in everyday struggles. Because when you are lied to by your boss or your coworker, what is guiding your next decision? When you suspect your spouse of infidelity,

what is guiding your next decision? Who are you listening to? When you have a mountain of work to do, when there's so much stuff to do that you feel overwhelmed by it, What are you believing when your prayers seem to go unanswered? What are you listening to? What is guiding that next decision? There is a, there is a proofing process that happens when you go through something difficult, because oftentimes you and I don't know what we believe until we have to believe something. We don't know what we believe until we have to believe something. Something has to make sense of what I'm experiencing right now. Every time I've prayed before, I felt like God was answering and I felt like I was getting an answer. Now I'm praying and nothing's happening and I don't know what to do next. I'm frustrated. And what Hebrews are saying is, what do you believe then? What do you believe when you're going through all of that?

The temptation in that moment, the temptation in that difficulty is to put your trust in yourself or in something else. And this, this, what I just described is unbelief in real time. Unbelief looks like this. When you go through something hard, you begin to put your trust in yourself or you begin to put your trust in something else. And this is, this is how it, this is how it works. And here's kind of this, this refrain that kind of pops up in the midst of unbelief because you get tripped up and you started thinking, man, it's just not worth it.

Raise your hand if you've ever said that to yourself. I've said it to myself. You've ever said, man, it's just not worth it. That small phrase, it's just not worth it. That's why people quit being a part of a church. That's why people quit reading their Bibles and praying. That's why people quit trying to make disciples. That's why people quit trying to follow Jesus because they just say, it's It's just too difficult. I can't spend that kind of energy. It's not worth it. It's just not worth it. And this is why dying can be scary for some people and totally assuring for other people. It's scary when you've spent your whole life trusting yourself, but now you're out of that option. It's a scary prospect. It's scary whenever you've spent your whole life putting your trust in. It's something else to take care of you. And now that's something else can't do that.

Look, man, you wonder why some people are absolutely losing their mind about a global viral pandemic. It's because they have trusted in something that cannot provide for them. They have trusted in science to save them or to protect them or to keep them healthy. And that ain't there anymore. And that's not okay. that will freak people out. So my encouragement, when you're having those discussions with people, no matter where you fall, make sure you bring some compassion along, okay? They're freaking out. It can be very scary, and it can also be very assuring. If you've trusted in the Lord your whole life, when you're about to die, it's not like you're changing tracks or something, right? It's assuring.

And at this point, at this point in a lot of people's minds, there might be this thing that starts up, it says, well, you know, Drew, You don't know what I'm up against. You haven't gone through what I've gone through. You don't know kind of what I'm dealing, you don't know the kind of overwhelm I deal with on a daily basis. You don't know what I'm going through. I may not. I may not. But Jesus does. Jesus is not gasping in heaven with what you've got to go through. He's not, he's not even surprised by it. In fact, buckle up. He planned it, planned it. What you're going through right now, Not a shock to him. He's not even worried about it. You might be because you're not in control, but Jesus in control is not worried about it. When you say, you don't know what I'm going through, or man, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through, or it's just not worth it. Jesus looks straight at that lie,

straight at you and says, come to me. I want your mountain of work. I want your suspicions of infidelity. I want all of those things because I can take them. I want your burden. I know what you're up against, and I've already defeated it. Give it to me, I can handle it. It's what the next verse is called sharing in Christ. Verse 14, 15, Hebrews chapter 3, for we have come to share in Christ. Now, this we is real important. This we is the pastor in Hebrews talking to the church, talking to the people that are receiving that letter. We, we who have believed, we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

And this is actually a really important kind of junction here because it says, for we have come to share in Christ, And what you're going to see repeated throughout the book of Hebrews is this idea that there are warning passages. What we've just read was a warning passage. Don't be like the wilderness generation. Don't do it. Don't participate in something that is going to kind of develop this unbelieving heart. Don't do that. Don't don't just dismiss what's going on and say it's just not worth it. Don't do that. Don't do that. And it's giving us the strongest warning possible.

And then follow it up with, but for we have come to share in Christ. Look at the assurance in that statement. For we have come to share in Christ. And another place in Hebrews and nine, it says, for we are sure of better things for you. We know, we are counting on the fact that you are following Jesus. We are counting on the fact that you are in Christ. But even here, even with the warning passage, even with the assurance, There's still this addendum on the end. If indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end, there's still a warning. And that warning is about to ramp up in just a second actually. But I want you to just have this, I want you to just nail this in your mind. Jesus is our guide. Jesus Christ understands the situation that you're in in particular. Not generally, not the kind of situation. No, yours. What you are going through. He calls you by name and he says,

you are going through this and I wanna help you go through this. You can rely upon me. Resist believing that it's not worth the effort. Resist that. Don't make the same mistake as in the wilderness generation. Push back against trusting in yourself or entrusting in something else. I mean, look, the wilderness generation was simply going back, I don't know, a year in the past and saying, man, it was a lot better back then. Look, I've said that. It was a lot better back then. Admit it. There's a way for us to romanticize the past. We kind of remember how good the good things were and we kind of forget how bad the bad things were. And suddenly, the good old days were way back then. And there's nothing to look forward to because it's only going to get worse. Resist that, push back against that. The warning continues in Hebrews, and it's actually the most sober warning yet.

And it really kind of ties it all in together. It's starting verse 16. And it does a series of rhetorical questions, and they're pretty biting. It says, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness? Hear me, and I say this with all love, in all care, in all warning. You are not above unbelief. You're just not. You just aren't. The wilderness generation saw better miracles than you and I will likely ever see. And yet they disbelieved. And if you got manna grown in your front yard, I'll stand corrected. Ten plagues, red sea, manna and quail. I mean, God showed up personally and powerfully and mercifully. And it was still ignored. When people tell me things like, or when I believe things like, man, I wish God would

just show up right here in front of me and just tell me what to do. I was talking to an atheist one time, Brian, and Brian said, we were talking about believing in the Lord, and Brian said, listen, Drew, if you prayed for that chair to just lift itself up and land on the table, then I would believe in God. And I looked at him straight in the face and said, no, you would find another explanation for why a table got onto a chair that would not cause you to fall on your knees and believe in the Lord God. That would not cause you to worship at all, actually, because you have an unbelieving heart. I told him that. He was a tough guy. He could take it. I would not recommend telling people they have unbelieving hearts all the time, just saying, this guy was a pretty hardcore, Malthusian atheist, if you know what I'm talking about, and he was not interested in the things of God, but he wanted to have that conversation.

He also said, if you strapped up something to take my heartbeat, and you prayed for my heartbeat to slow down, I said, you would find another reason. You would find another reason. Some of you have great things happening to you, and you find another reason. You do. That's unbelief in real time. That's trusting in something else. trusting in yourself, some version of that. The questions continue verses 18 and 19. And to whom did he swear to God swear that they would not enter his rest but those who were disobedient so we see that they were unable to enter because of their unbelief. The wilderness generation received everlasting punishment. The The result of trusting in yourself, the result of rejecting God because it's not worth it, is everlasting punishment. It's condemnation. It's hell. And that's hard. That is a brick wall. Doesn't move. We can try to break it down, but we'll only break ourselves doing it.

And again, we are not in this bear's repeating. We are not talking about how moral you feel. We aren't talking about how religious you may seem. We're not tracking attendance on Sunday morning. We aren't talking about how loud you sing whenever Dan Hay leading us in worship. Thank you, Dan. We are talking about, not about how religious and moral you seem. We're talking about eternal life and eternal death. And ain't no in-between. I don't care what you heard.

Eternal life and eternal death. And so it should behoove us. It should help us kind of bring the moment together to say, to take time to consider, are you following Jesus or are you trusting yourself? Are you putting your faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning work for you? Or are you like the wilderness generation? And you're like, you know what, I'm just trying this on my own. I'm just gonna do, I'm just gonna see where I can get. Here's how the pastor in Hebrews puts it. It's Hebrews chapter four, verses one and two. It says, therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, we're going to get to that next week, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it, for good news came to us just as to them. Let that sink in for just a moment right now. The good news came to us just like it came to them. But the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith

with those who listened. While the promise still stands, while it is still today, fear, fear, I'm telling you to fear. us the fear, fear that you have not entered that rest. Because both you and the wilderness generation receive the good news. But just knowing information doesn't work. It's not enough. You must put your faith in Jesus. You must believe in him. You must walk with him, however imperfectly.

And it is simple. And this is why we have a response time at the end of every service. It's incredibly simple. There's no hoop to jump through. It is simply giving in. It's simply saying, yes, yes, Jesus, I will follow you no matter what. Yes, I will. It's not a promise. It's not a promise to be perfect. It's a promise to enter into a relationship. I talk about this all the time in gospel course. And so many of you have heard this, but I'll say it again. When in on November 25th, 2000, I made a promise. I said, I do's to my wife and it was the promise to have and to hold and to cherish and lots of other things that I can't I can't recall at this moment in time, but it's a big promise. And the crux of that promise was, I'm going to promise to put you first. I'm going to promise to love you more than I love myself. Can I tell you, just on an hourly basis,

how I choose myself over my wife, how imperfectly I go about trying to keep that promise. Look, I can say with a straight face, I've always been faithful to my wife. But I cannot say with a straight face that I've upheld, I've been perfect at that promise. Because I have loved myself more than I've loved my wife. And maybe, just maybe, she's done the same thing. I don't know. I'm still not sure. But I know I've definitely done it. But what does that do? Do I need to take my wedding ring off and throw it in the trash and say, it's all over. I've messed it up just one time. It's done. No. No. The promise that I made to my wife is not a promise to never mess up. promise to talk about it when I do. The promise that you make to Jesus when you say, yes, it's not a promise to never sin again. That's super toxic, unbiblical, and there's a pretty poor motivator in a practical sense. Your promise to follow

Jesus for the rest of your life is not a promise to be perfect, it's a promise to talk about it. It's a promise to enter into a relationship with Him. That's what it is. That's what it means to follow Jesus. I want to address this from three perspectives. You could be all over the map on this, but I'm just going to sum it up with these three kinds of perspectives, okay? The first would be the worried perspective. It would be the question, some version of what if I think I'm saved but I'm not saved at all? Which, to be honest, some of you probably are asking that question. What if I think I'm saved but I'm not really saved at all? What if it's all just a mind job, right? What if I'm fooling myself? What if I've fooled everybody else? What if I've grown up in the shade of the tree and I was never a part of the tree. What if that's me, Drew? What if you're, what if you're saying that?

Well, let me just say two things. First, if you are actually afraid that you are not a Christian, that's a really good sign. Um, because as we will see a part of, um, a part of being a Christian is wanting to please Jesus. If you want to please Jesus at all, um, that that's a, that's a good sign. If you are concerned by the fact that you are not a Christian, that's actually a really good sign. I'm not saying that answers your question totally, but the second part is I'm going to give you a couple of questions to consider. And again, we do this in gospel course, but I'll do it today. My three questions would be something, some version of this, right? Do you often desire to do what is right and please Jesus?

Is that well up in you? Okay. That comes from God. The desire to please God comes from God. It's evidence of the fact that you are being made new on the inside. Have you ever experienced power over sin and slavery? Look, I'm not saying you never mess up again, but you do experience some power over sin and slavery. And number three, have you ever felt the joy of obeying Jesus? Let me tell you, joy is a big part of the Christian life. Somebody that has zero joy, I'm at least suspicious of their salvation, okay? Because having joy coming from Jesus, that's a sign of life, okay? It's a sign of life. The desire to do what is right, the experiencing power and experiencing joy, these things are signs of life. If you're gonna answer these things in yes, then that's a good thing, right? You still are gonna need to work out that salvation with fear and trembling, like that's still something that you're gonna wrestle with,

but it is good if you are worried. Again, it's a good sign that you're worried, and number two, like those are some good questions to ask yourself. But I will tell you, I will give you this encouragement. You cannot do it alone. Self-assurance, assurance in faith is not something that you just kind of achieve whenever you're strong enough or big enough or mature enough. It's something that you need help with. My encouragement to you is during our response time, get help. Talk to somebody. I'm going to be up here. You can talk to me. You can talk to a deacon. We've got some deacons around. You can talk to somebody that you came to church with today. Talk to somebody about it. You need to get help. Perspective number two is a smug perspective. Smug perspective that you are not afraid. You're not afraid, you don't care. Well, I would just say, if you're not afraid, be afraid.

Fear. That passage is for you. Fear. Fear. We're not playing religion here. It's not just something, like, you don't just, it's not something where you just kind of waltz in, You're like, yeah, I'm a Christian, I've gone to church a few times, I'm kind of a good person. No, no, no, no, that's not the game you're playing. That's not right. That doesn't correspond to reality. If you think you're good, you should be more afraid. I'm going to ask you some other kinds of questions, but from the other side. Do you think that you deserve to go to heaven? Do you believe that you deserve to go to heaven more than other people? Do you think that your sin is no big deal? that Jesus kind of did you a favor, but other people really needed it. Like Hitler totally needed it. But you, you're fine. Not that bad. Do you have those categories? If you do, I would just encourage you

to read Hebrews four, one, and two lots of times. That's for you. That's for you. I will tell you, if you find that you are smug, run. Run from it, repent, receive mercy, receive healing, because you don't have it. Third perspective, settled. So first perspective is the worried perspective. Maybe I'm not safe, I think I'm safe. Second perspective is the smug perspective. Yeah, that's fine, I mean, whatever. Third perspective is the settled perspective for those that are mature in the faith. For those that have gone through this time of questioning, this time of doubt, and kind of come out on the other side and it's been settled in your heart, you're a Christian, you know it. It's not a, like a prideful thing, it's a humble thing, but you know, you have assurance in your heart. And I will tell you, pray for those that are worried and smug. Pray, stand in the gap, invest in those people.

Pray to help those people. If you are settled, if you are smug, if you are worried, My encouragement to you is to respond during this time. I'm gonna call Dan Heup and I'm gonna pray for us. I want you to kind of figure out where you are and what you need to do. Begin to kind of make that plan in your head as we sing and stand. We're gonna be singing one song. So you got like four minutes. So just begin to think that through, begin to make that decision. Like I said, I'll be up here, but there's plenty of people to pray for. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for what you've done in us. Thank you for how you've made us where we are right now.

He've given us this opportunity that is right in front of us. I pray that we can respond well. That's your name that we pray. Let's stand and sing. Oh, so are you weary in trouble. The light in the darkness you see There's light for a look at the Savior A life more abundant and free Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of his glory and grace. Through death into life everlasting, he passed and we follow him there. O'er us in no more hath dominion, For more than conquerors we are. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace. His word shall not fail you, He promise, Believe Him and all will be well. Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to tell. And turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.