Mentoring the New Believer - Lesson 3

Dr. Bill Mounce
Mentoring the New Believer
cm100-03
Defining Salvation
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:01] The following lecture is provided by biblical training. The speaker is Dr. Bill Mounts. More information is available at WW w dot Biblical training dot org. Any questions on the stuff we covered yesterday? I know we went pretty slowly, but it's I was just spending this morning walking around Tacoma and thinking about it. And I mean, the fact that you're here means that you're interested in the topic. So maybe a bit preaching to the choir, but I just I wanted to make sure that you understood at least my passion for this and why it's so important and how when it comes to issues in conversion, it's there's so much clarification. You know, I keep saying about altar calls. I know it's a fascinating discussion we had yesterday. I lived in Kentucky for six years. So, I mean, I suppose exposure, I've had my in my case, Southern Baptist circles. I never heard altar call used for anything else other than evangelism and for being saved over and over and over again. So it is interesting. It's so such a great illustration of we have to be really aware for the new believers sake, what do they understand the words to mean? Okay, we're going to look at two things that have already touched on these yesterday. But I actually three things I just want to make sure it's clear. And then we're going to do chapter two tonight, which talks about the change that starts to happen in the new believer's life. And then we're going to talk about chapter three stumbling, what happens when they start to sin and they realize that the path is a difficult path. It's not a bed of roses. If we have any time, we're going to get into chapter four.

[00:01:54] And this is mostly issues of inspiration, inerrancy, if you want to talk about that, can intensity those kinds of issues. And I'm just going to have to wait and see. One of the questions I needed to ask you was, is systematics a required class here at Faith? I mean, so all of you have to go through something like this. Yeah. Okay. All right. Because I don't want to teach that. Well, maybe I do, but today I don't want to teach that class, so I can assume that. Okay, you're just the stuff you're going to have to wrestle with that is in greater detail in another class. Okay, well, let's pray and we can get started. Father. We recognize that as leaders in our churches. You have put us in positions not only of authority, but of responsibility. And you've called and gifted and trained us, which only increases our responsibility. It increases the joy because we get to do things that a lot of people never get to do. And Father, I pray as we continue to work through these chapters, that you will stir up in our hearts a joy for this joy for training mentors, a joy to see your new brothers and sisters walking correctly. First, let's pray for all of them as we go through the discussions that you. And if there are issues that need to be discussed that I haven't anticipated, that will prompt our thoughts and lead us in discussions that are genuinely helpful as we prepare to do this task. In Jesus name, Amen. Okay. I want to talk about repentance. We were talking about the language of conversion. You know, what's what's the biblical language? And one of you said there is repentance. And that certainly is one of the major terms that is used.

[00:03:52] Repentance is handled in good book. Chapter 35. And there's a lot of stuff in here. But there's a couple of things that I really, really wanted to stress. On page 713, under his heading. Faith and repentance must come together. Let me just read just a little bit of this. So we may define and I don't know if you know this about Wayne, but he's always defining things. It's really a nice writing habit that he has. He will define something. Then you'll spend pages talking about it. He says, We may define repentance as follows Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin and a renunciation of it and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walking obedience to Christ. This definition indicates that repentance is something that can occur at a specific point in time. And this is not equivalent to a demonstration of change in a person's pattern of life. While we continue to repent of sins as we walk along the path. That's not what he's primarily concerned with here, he says. Repentance like faith, is an intellectual understanding, and he limits that to saying that sin is wrong and I'm going to come back and I want to enlarge that one part of it, that sin is wrong. It's an emotional approval of the teachings of Scripture regarding first sin. Now, in the repentance, isn't it? Yeah, you're right. I was wrong. But there is something to the deep emotion and the sorrow for having violated the character of God. So it has an intellectual component as an emotional component, and it's a personal decision to turn from it a renouncing of sin and a decision of the world to forsake it, and a decision to lead a life obedience to Christ. Instead, this goes on for several chapters, but He goes on and talks about mere sorrow for one's actions, and even deep remorse doesn't constitute genuine repentance.

[00:05:59] We talked about that yesterday. We didn't. There's no such thing as justification by sorrow. And so just because someone sorrow sorrowful doesn't mean they're a follower of Christ, just means the sorrowful. But it has to be the sorrow plus the commitment to Christ. I want to expand his definition. I want to challenge you to expand his definition just a little. You have a question, Victor? Yeah. People have different emotions, some more profound than others. And if one of the aspects of this three aspects of repentance is just like emotional landscapes, would we consider this genuine repentance? Well, I think what the Waynes point is that it's going to have is you have to have it and you got to understand what's going on. Yeah. You can't just be fleeing from the fires of hell. I mean, that's that's not what's going on. People are just at home weeping on their knees and some just and and they might feel, well, am I doing something wrong? Is God not receiving my repentance because I'm not repenting as dramatic? Was that other person next to me? I don't know. He's got a very good discussion of that and how people's experiences are all just different. I mean, the most famous one to see us Lewis's, you know that in his story, a surprise by joy. He talks about being driven to a museum. It was a it was being driven somewhere. And he said when I left, I didn't believe it when I got there, I believe. The point is, his experience of conversion was really different. But there are many people that have the kind of experience. One of my friends back in Spokane, it was a very slow, gradual process over two years. For some people it's a very long process.

[00:07:46] And yet what Wayne is going to point out is that there is a there is a single point in time in which you've gone from not believing to believing. For other people, it's almost violent. And that's what we kind of associate that with being yourself with. And so it's wrong to say everyone has to go through it a certain way. I've always been a tad suspicious, if that's the right word. You know, someone talks about, you know, about a two year process. We go, Really? But again, I've known really good people that had a two year conversion process, and they're clearly followers of Jesus Christ, but they can't pinpoint it where. I know we're going to talk more about that. So we can't all expect to have the same response. But I think Wayne's point is that there's an intellectual element you've got to know, this is my problem with altar calls using the word my my way that if there's no content, there can't be anything going on intellectually in that. I understand that this is what I thought of Jesus and this is what I thought of His commandments. And now I'm repenting of that and I'm over here and I'm now a follower of Christ. Well, if you don't know that there's nothing to repent of, repentance is certainly to change your mind. Right? I mean, we all we all understand that the Greek words matter. No, ours to repent. The third place we're going is worship, salvation. But I'm going to start it up now. There are people that will tell you that this Greek word is made up of two words. Matter means to change, and Noelle means your mind. It's a repentance is changing your mind, but not necessarily changing your behavior.

[00:09:31] These are people who preach that conversion is an issue of accepting Jesus as Savior, but not necessarily Lord. I'm assuming you've all had to come across this stuff. First church ever got kicked out of was over this issue. I just could not fathom anyone thinking that Jesus could be your Savior, couldn't be your Lord. It just I mean, I go back to my old systematics for my business theology profit seminary and said I simply can't figure with this pastor saying that since it figured out this is in in your hermeneutics class, you're going to learn about something called ETA logical errors. You come across that word. Yet the etymological errors and error that is frequently made in defining what words mean and what it does is that you look at the words etymology and you look at the pieces that got together to make up a word. And somehow if you look at the pieces that you can define the word. And so there are people that will say repentance, meaning now is the change your mind, but not necessarily change your behavior. So there's a famous pastor down in the Texas area who says if you have a moment of positive volition, it's this phrase, If you, in thinking about the cross, have even the slightest possible inclination towards that, you're eternally saying no matter how you live because you changed your mind. I think it's heresy. And I use the word heresy very, very carefully. But I have incredibly strong feelings about this. I think Paul and Jesus did, too. This is an absolute fallacy when it comes to defining words. Otherwise, butterflies or dairy products or things and pineapples are fruit to grow on pine trees. We just know that whatever the etymology, the original beginning of pineapple and butterfly, that you can't look at the pieces of a word and define the word.

[00:11:41] But that's what happens here a lot. Now, when I was embroiled in all this discussion, what they wanted to say was all that repentance is is changing your mind about who Jesus is. It doesn't require you to be sorrowful for your sins. And I reacted against it and I didn't want to hear anything they had to say until one day I was reading Act two. This was the assignment I asked you to do and if you had time. And what I wanted you to see is, you know, when we have repentance, we have an idea. We have a picture of our mind, Right? And so when you get to the acts, too, you get to verse 37. Then when they heard this, they were cut to the heart in the Peters sermon, Pentecost sermon, a centipede on the rest of the Apostles Brothers. Well, what shall we do? And Peter said, Repent to be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the interesting challenge was, if you just sit in Acts two one and read 237, we hit the word repentance. It's really natural to say, Repent of what? They say, See, that's the most natural answer, isn't it? But has he talked about sin at all in the first 37 verses that hasn't come up. What's the whole Pentecostal sermon about? Or was it? But was it repenting that they didn't accept and say, this is repenting? They believe in it, that they're right. They didn't. They didn't. They had a misunderstanding of who Jesus was. Right. And so that's what this whole thing is about, is it's retelling the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

[00:13:34] A man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in the myths, as you know. You remember the first step. The charisma is the life of Christ. Okay. This Jesus delivered up in verse 23. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God. You killed, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. There's point two of the creation of the crucifixion. Verse 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Point three The creation of Jesus was raised from the dead. Right. So they covered those. The first three pieces of content. That goes all the way through all the sermons and acts. And it goes through and it quotes David and talks about his exaltation. Verse 36 Let all the houses of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made them both Lord and Christ is Jesus whom you crucified. The first three wonderful points of the creation of the first time it stated. And it's like they interrupted and say, Well, what do we have to do? And Peter says, Well, the fourth point of the creation was this repent. So you get this wonderful exposure to this preaching of the church. Well, he says, repent. The only thing he's talked about is who they thought Jesus was. I finally realized I had overreacted. Who gives all this stuff up here? And I realized that repentance is more than sorrow for your sins, that the repentance that Peter's calling for and acts to is, I would say, first and foremost, a repentance over your misunderstanding of who Jesus was and what his death and resurrection were all about.

[00:15:22] And so he's calling them to repent of their understanding of Jesus. And then as the story goes on, you realize that there has been there's obviously going to be sin, There's been talked about it. Where's that verse? Over 40 and with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourself from this crooked generation. And those who receive the word his word were baptized and they were added that they were 3000 souls. I'm reading of the ESPN. I realize I want to read out of the only the names are change that. So I have no doubt that repentance includes a sorrow for sins. But first and foremost, what the preaching and acts is about is who is Jesus? And that's what everything is, right? And the whole point of Matthew is to show that Jesus is the Messiah. The whole point of Mark is that Jesus is the Son of God. The whole point of John is this here, the things that you may believe that Jesus, the Christ, and then by believing He may have life on his name. I mean, the question is in the Bible is who's Jesus? And so this repentance is not just, as William says it, repentance for sins. And I guess you could explore what a misunderstanding or refusal to believe, what the Bible says about Jesus could be said. But it this is one reason I feel so strongly that when we make forget your expression yesterday when we announced that we're going to call people to make a commitment that there be something that they are being asked to commit to. Content was okay yesterday. The word was used invitation. Mm. I agree with that word because invitation. You're inviting people to come.

[00:17:11] You're not really inviting them. I guess you are inviting them to salvation also are conversions. But when you invite them, you invite them to follow Jesus, which entails learn about him what we're talking about. Right. And doing that for you. Doing that for the learning. Mm hmm. That's why you don't. You don't just take in. Somebody come and be baptized, Right? Right. You know, and that's that third point in Wayne's thing, that personal decision. What? You can let them know. Yes, I know what it's all about. Paul, you were the one who said that, right? I believe that. Yeah. So part of repentance is changing your understanding. Who? Jesus. Is he repenting of your misunderstanding? And it's also the repenting of your sins that ensued from you not knowing who Jesus was. That's why this first chapter is so important in the curriculum, because we have to make sure that the people that we're starting to walk with on their spiritual journey, that they really know enough about Jesus to have repented of their misunderstanding of who he is and have to accept the biblical view who are sorry for their sins. And then the second half of this is not just a change of mind. It's a commitment to change your behavior. It's not changing your behavior. That's sanctification, right? We don't withhold our joy at their conversion until they start living a better life or however we want to say it. It's the commitment to follow Christ. It's the commitment to change. That's a fuller or but understanding repentance as I just will encourage you to think through that. And as you are talking with your new believers, decide before and what do they have to know? What do they have to understand? They have to understand the incarnation.

[00:19:03] Do they have to understand the full Diary of Christ? Do they have to understand the justifications by faith? What is it that they need to know about Jesus? And you can't say everything because they're no one's ever going to become a Christian history. And that's the beginning of Christ. We should include consider the cost in that, because that's something you're actually. Yes, that's the third point I wanted to make today. It's not Lordship salvation. This is I mean, all these chapters are good, but I thought that the Williams chapter on this was especially good. By the way, the one of the things that makes the fuller version of this systematic a good thing to use is that it's got because in questions for personal application in every chapter and I was trying to figure out anyone here how to anyone here know how to raise up elders in your church or deacons as one of the hardest things there is to do. And that's what we're doing, a biblical training. I mean, that's the heart of biblical training to provide resources and tools to help identify those who are called to leadership in your church and to train them up. But for a long time, I was just going and asking people, What do you do? What do you do? What do you do? I got to talk to John Piper once on this. And I said, How do you raise the builders? He goes, I don't know. Oh, you're John Piper. You know, you're going to have an answer for this. And it's not as hard. I said, Well, what did you do? Because Piper was trained in highly academic circles is Peter. She's a German Ph.D., which in academic circles is the top of the pecking order.

[00:20:44] He went to Bethel, some Bethel College, and he came the year the one year I was there. But I used to take a class for a moment, so I was always disappointed. But then after teaching in Delta for a while, he went to Bethlehem Baptist, which was a small, dying Baptist General Conference church downtown Minneapolis. And I said, What did you do? How did you. Because he's got some amazing elders. I got to meet him. And he said, Well, what I did was I handpicked 12 guys. We met every Saturday. We read through Wayne Systematic, and then after a year, they were my elders. Well, that sure sounds like elder development to me, John. I mean, I got seminars, but one of the things that makes it possible is they've got these good reflection questions or what Wayne calls questions for personal application. I'm not sure, but I don't think those questions are in the middle sized version of this book. I think it's the full size. So but it's this good to get together. And, you know, you'd have to maybe depending upon your church, go slowly at first. But it's anybody can understand this in if you're in an elder Titus one, they have to be committed to the truth. They have to be able to teach it and they have to be able to refute error. If someone can't do that, then you are in violation of the church's, I should say, the churches, in violation of the clear teaching of Scripture as the qualifications for elders. That's really important. But you hear that, right? We went to an elder position of paper at our church and trying to interpret all these different things for elders. And when we were all done, one guy said, I just think we're being legalistic.

[00:22:22] And I said, What do you mean? And here's a good guy. I mean one of my better friends. And he said, Well, I just think we just get people that can make good decisions and that's all that matters. Look at what the Bible says. It is necessary that an elder be able to be devoted to the truth, to teach the truth and to refute error. And you think all you really need are people who can make decisions. I'm going to go with God on this one. I'm going to go with God on this one. So, you know, life is a journey. You can't just flip a switch. And all have trained elders in all of our churches. But you need a process. And that's part of what this is about. So and that's what it's about. And as we keep building more resources, hopefully we'll have more classes for you to use in your churches to help raise up your leadership stunningly clear understanding of repentance. All right. It's a repenting of a misunderstanding, who Jesus is and now accepting who the Bible says he is, and a repentance for the sins that came out of your misunderstanding and a commitment to follow him. The second point I wanted to make, and we've already made it a bit and that is well, I think we were talked about enough. I was going to talk more about what is belief. I mean, we're working on John 316 and whoever believes in him believe is not intellectual assent, although it includes if belief is not deism, the belief that God created the world and wanted us to let it go. Like with Benjamin Franklin, believe in a dispute. God doesn't intervene in the course of human events.

[00:24:06] Just start it up and let it go. Believe is not being spiritual. Belief is not devoid of understanding of who Jesus is. I mean, these are all things that you got to make sure the New Believer did. When they say, I believe in Jesus, what does that mean? I make the point in the sermon, when makes the point in the book that the Greek is not believe in the Greek in John is believed into. And what John does a lot the number 93 is in my head, but I wouldn't want to bank on it. What John does is that he violates Greek. He uses terrible Greek grammar. In fact, it's such bad grammar that we can't find the same grammatical mistake made anywhere else in all about in all of Greek literature that in you always either believe or you believe in, but in the Greek that John uses you believe into. That's the violation of the grammar to a native speaker. They look at a go palace. I mean, I'm just going to call him. But you know what? I'm going to Palestinian and I'm not sure what word to use, but they would look at him with disgust to go, you know, this isn't your language. Don't try to write in it. Is that bad of a mistake of John's making? A really, really important point is and this is why Wayne prefers the word trust, that whoever believes in him, who ever stops trusting in his own ability to gain access to God, who stops trusting in his own ability to do something about his sin, whoever stops in his own ability to barter with God. And you should save me. That is, you start trusting in yourself. And the belief of John 316 is that you transfer that trust out of yourself and you transfer into Jesus.

[00:25:54] So believing in in John is a transfer of trust out of yourself, into the person, into the work of Jesus. Believing in him means that you believe that Jesus did on the cross, which you could not do for yourself. That was my little ditty. The was just the way I used to say it. When we believe in Jesus, it means that we believe that He did on the cross for us what we could not do for ourselves. It is because of his obedience that he earned the right to grant us access into relationship with the father. So that's what biblical faith is. Anything short of that is not biblical faith. Wayne has a chart. The chapter on 35 is a conversion, and it's a very good chapter to make sure you've read carefully. Okay, let me check a note myself. Wayne says, Here's the elements of the gospel. Call page 694. You explain the facts concerning salvation. All right. To an invitation to respond personally and you respond personally to Jesus in both repentance and faith. And then you should be explaining the promise of forgiveness and eternal life. So that's his discussion of kind of the content of what belief is. Right. Final thing I want to say about all this, that we're actually going to be done with this first of the 12 lessons, and that's the whole issue, that victories together count the cost. The phrase that is used today in the discussion is lordship salvation. And I've kind of gathered from discussions over the last couple of years here that this is not really an ongoing debate in your churches, that you understand that Jesus is not only Savior, but he's also Lord. Is that is that a I've not had anyone come back and want to argue the point or is.

[00:27:54] All right. Let me say just a couple of things about it, because again, people will when people come into your church, they may have been exposed to this. There is, as far as I know, no word for the other position. I wish they came up with the word. But if you want to read a couple of fascinating books, you can read the book by Hodge. It's not the old Charles Hodge that was a theologian. This this Hodge is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and I think the book is called Grace or It's a brown Cover. I can see it myself. Anyway, it's Hodge on Grace. The rebuttal volume is by John MacArthur, and he wrote one called The Gospel According to Jesus. And then he wrote a sequel called The Gospel According to Paul, The Gospel according to Paul's, one of the best books I've ever read. He does a very good job of defending Lordship Salvation. MacArthur's point is, is that the only way to truly be saved, the only way to be born again, is to submit yourself to Christ. Not only is your Savior these forgiving you your sins, but the only way that that happens is if you also submit to His Lordship that he's the boss. This is not a discussion that happens in most places of the world. I think in India this day I understand that when I was there and I didn't have to once say, hey, you know, make sure your people know that Jesus is not only Savior, but Lord. I mean, you just you don't have to say it. In fact, in any persecuted culture, you don't have to say this. When I go to China next year, I'm not going to have to make this point at all to the underground pastors.

[00:29:31] I'm not going to have to do it because they already understand it is only in a culture like in America where there's virtually no persecution that this kind of silliness gets taught. Would you say the same kind of problem happens due to religion or tradition? My thought is that a lot of family members that are Catholic and they believe that, you know, okay, I'm sort of see and the worship is pretty dichotomies and their salvation is based on tradition or church. Yeah. And it'd be another good cultural example of of this kind of thing happening that if you are taught that if you're simply part of a certain culture, that's all that it takes, then there's no reason to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow Jesus, because that's just kind of icing on the cake. It's unnecessary to just go to mass, except only to me, except maybe I'm not. Yeah. To be fair, what this what Hodge's position is, is that they're trying to protect priests. That salvation is not what we do. It is only what God does. And the idea that we not only change our minds about who Jesus was, but then be sorry for our sins and commit to following him. The people who follow Hodge will all argue that that's works and it's not appropriate to talk about those kinds of things in the context of salvation. It's really interesting. This whole debate is not an issue of dispensation wisdom, but it's about the only place you hear this discussion. And MacArthur, in one of his books in the last 40 pages, goes into the discussion of what dispensation was and is, and is trying to separate dispensation as a theological system from Hodge kind of teaching that on grace.

[00:31:23] You can call it cheap grace, as Obama would call it anyway. But the only place you really hear this stuff are students of this teacher. Every place I've heard anyone holding to a non-mortgage of salvation are people that have a connection back to this teacher. You know, I'm sure there's other people that have taught it, but in today's culture, that's what's going on. So you need to make sure that people, I think, understand what all of this. This is, you know, here's the problem, and I don't want you to raise hands, but how do you feel about Joe McCarthy? When our church was just starting, I used the word Lordship salvation in a Bible study and a man that I known for quite some time. I knew his son really well. He just went ashen white, just white. You could see all these relational barriers that were up between him and me. And as a black boy, what happened there? I'm not overly, you know, I mean, I don't see that stuff automatically. My wife doesn't. She pokes me and says, hey, there's a problem. But even I could see that this man was really upset with me. What had happened was his church that he had loved and been in for years and years had been split. And whoever was right or wrong, the pastor was it came out of MacArthur's school. So the very mention of Lordship Salvation reminded him of his beloved church now destroyed. This is the church that was 1400 people in is split and the next day, 110 people showed up at church and the others went off and started a new church. I'm not saying one's right, I one wrong, but there tends to be a lot of emotion wrapped up around John MacArthur.

[00:33:11] It's a fair way to say. And so be careful when you use the word because you may be dealing with someone that is struggling because of that connection. I personally have enjoyed everything MacArthur's I've ever read, but I do know that there is some emotion connected with the phrase, so be careful. So in saying, Okay. This is a decision you have for your flock. All right. And that is when you present the gospel. Are you going to encourage people to count the costs? Do you think that that's a valid thing to talk about when you walk with a new believer? Are you going to tell him that? Do you understand that he is savior and Lord and Lord does mean just that he's God. It means that he's boss and that he's the one at work in your heart, and he's the one that's giving you new desires. But he's going to call you to start changing slowly but surely, because that's his right now. He made you. He bought you as the price. You're his. And you just have to decide whether you want to make that part of your salvation offer or not. That's all I wanted to say on that. All I wanted to say took me 3 hours to say, but that's all I have to say. Okay. Any comments or questions on the first chapter? I think it's not that much to ask for if you're talking about having eternal life. I don't think so. So I would be if I said to someone, you know, do you believe that Jesus, your savior, with what he did on the cross, paid the penalty of your sins and made it possible for you to move in a relationship with God? Say yes.

[00:34:47] And I say, Do you understand that he's now Lord? And if someone said no, I'd say, Let's go back to the first step, because I'm not sure you really understood what it means to say Jesus the Savior, because if he's dying on the cross, you would think he would just automatically understand that if he's going to pay the price for your sin, it's free, but it comes with the cost. So yeah, don't you think about John 316 about the into I don't know, none of the Virgin. No Virgin translated into. I don't even think I translated into. I guess that's the question if that's because it is such horrible English that whenever you translate you want to make it in So just an issue of English I wanted to show you. Well, I'll give it a break. My translation is going up on Bible Gateway, and it's in what's called the staging area right now. But in a couple of days, it's going to be up, which is going to be a lot of fun. So it's called the mounts reverse sort of linear New Testaments e-mails are going to Bible Gateway. And simultaneously, it's more my dad's translation than mine. Well, I'll look at break I don't think we said into I think we said the translations are always a trade off and you see, everybody knows what the Greek means. I mean, translators aren't stupid. They know what John's doing. But the question is, what do you want the English to look like? And even the ESV, which is pretty wooden in a lot of places, you weren't willing to break English grammar the same way that the Greek grammar was being broken. I would say I was disappointed, but I'm thinking I said believe in our translation as well and then maybe something would change.

[00:36:36] So the first lesson is this lesson on their conversion. The second lesson that we're going to walk through with a new believer is I've been it. Things are about to change. This will be the second most difficult chapter, as I said, and after that it starts getting quite a bit easier. But this is a difficult chapter because as soon as you start talking about your life is going to start changing. All of the new believers baggage can come into play, can it? Because for example, let's say they think of Christianity all their life. They thought of Christianity as a bunch of do's and don'ts. And let's say their view of God is some angry person who is terribly afraid that someone, somewhere is having a good time. You ever heard that description of God? I mean, some people, that's what they think of God is. I mean, when we were little kids and hearing missionaries, they still remember being terrified of that. Oh, I don't want to respond because God might send me somewhere else and I'm at a missionary somewhere. And I don't I don't want to be miserable in some other country. Right. And so we all have these ideas, these images. J.P. Morgan, in one of his books in Spiritual Formation, talks about the power of images. And his contention is that images are the most basic thing that we have. I'm putting words in his mouth. I think that's basically what he was getting at. We have images that control us. You know, we'd like to think, well, no, I believe this or I don't believe that. And that's what controls me, really. What controls us are images. For example, if a person is sexually abused as a child, they have an image of what a father is.

[00:38:26] That defies logic and common sense. But they feel shame because they were abused. You know, you all had to deal with the servants in your ministries. I remember when I was first learning about this, I actually went to a friend of mine who is a counselor, said, Explain this to me. I don't understand why a person has been the object of abuse would feel shame because they obviously didn't deserve it. I mean, there's no way it was a sin done against them. And my friend Carrie try to walk me through the process. But I understood in that process that that person has an image of what a father is or what an authority is, and they'll fight it the rest of their life. Right? They just will, unless God just intervenes and changes the image. So we all have images. We all have pictures. And those pictures control huge amounts of who we are as people. And so the minute you start talking about, okay, now your life's going to change, you've got to be so conscious of what are those images that pop up and what does that mean to the person? And here's the basic gist of chapter two. You're going to want to change, right? You're going to want to change. Christianity is not a list of do's and don'ts. It is the story about how God initiated the reconciliation, the reset, the establishment of a relationship, and how he changes your heart. And he starts giving you new desires and then he gives you the ability to start changing. But the whole idea is that change people are going to live, change lives, not because we have a new set of rules, but because we're going to want to change. That's the gist of what Chapter two is all about.

[00:40:23] Conversion means you can you convert to women On page 23 of the workbook. Conversion means that you've converted from one thing to another. In your case, you change from not being a disciple of Jesus to being one. It also means that God is now at work in your life, starting to make you more like Jesus. This surprised you? What actually happened when you became a Christian? What does a new life of a follower of Jesus look like? Does my life change automatically? These are some of the questions that are are natural to come up in this chapter. Let me just quickly summarize the workbook. I use Philippians two a lot for God. Is it working you giving you the desire and then the ability to change Galatians five and the fruits of the spirit again, not to discourage him. I don't want to discourage the new believer, but I also don't want to mood failure to be caught unawares. I think that's the problem in this chapter. Hey, I became a Christian. I walked down and I believe that Jesus is the Messiah. I believe he was raised from the dead. I believe that He's given me access to the father. We can use those words. I now have a relationship with God. He loves me. I love him. My sins are forgiven. I'm going to live with them forever. And then they go home. And next week bad things start to happen. Or they realize that they still have anger issues. You know, Wait a minute. I didn't think this is going to be an issue. I I'm an a follower of Christ. And I think we just need to alert them that things are going to change. But it's not automatic. But you're going to want to change.

[00:42:04] Okay. That's the whole point. So what I did was I went to first something is one nine. I love that phrase or Paul tells the Thessalonians you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. And it was. Paul is rejoicing with this young Thessalonians church and saying, Look at the changes that have already happened in a great I mean he's celebrating with a new you turn you changed and instead of serving idols you're you're worshiping you're waiting for Jesus. And what the workbook does is basically you say, know, what do you see here? What are the what are the kinds of changes that that they were experiencing? Day two was as fruits of the spirit. And again, not in any way of saying, Hey, you need to be a person of Lovejoy. Peace, patience, kind of goodness, faithful gentleman, self-control. And you're a bad person. If you're not, it's like, hey, this is what the path this is part of what the path looks like. This is where you're headed, that where you never had love before. You're going to start finding love and where there was no joy, you're going to start experiencing joy where you had no peace. You're going to start experiencing pieces. This is the nature of the path church. It's a difficult path. It's a hard path. We'll talk about that some other time. But it is it is a path of the fruits of the spirit is what we use, what day three does. Is my number one concern in this chapter, and that is don't get discouraged. And I just I'm so concerned that as we walk with new believers and talk about what's going to be happening in their life, that they get discouraged.

[00:43:39] Oh, man. You mean really? I'm going to I'm going to keep dealing with my anger or, you know, whatever, be the case. We need to encourage our mentors to listen very carefully to the new believers at this stage that they don't get discouraged. God's changed your heart. He's given you supernatural ability and he's going to start changing you. And that's really cool. Don't get discouraged. This is when these things happen. It's a good sign. It's not a bad sign. That first and second Timothy. I will use it in this chapter, but everyone who seeks to live a godly life will be persecuted. Now, persecution is not a bad sign. Persecution is a great sign. Persecution is a great sign that you're actually assuming you're being persecuted for being a Christian and being persecuted for righteousness sake and not being persecuted because you're a jerk. Okay. Persecution for being a jerk is something else. Okay? But, you know, Jesus says, you know, you are blessed when you are persecuted for my namesake. These are all good things because it means that your life is getting off the broad, easy highway to perdition, but rather you're moving off that path and you're going down the path of discipleship and your life's starting to change and it brings you in conflict. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. Okay. That's what I think. We just got to be so careful not to discourage new believers. Yeah, the memory verses Philippians two, 12 and 13. Okay. When we come back, I'm going to ask going to summarize the sermon, and then we'll get into a few theological issues like regeneration, justification and adoption. But just a few things that might come up. Okay. Thank you for listening to this lecture.

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