Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Thank you for being here for our Sunday school hour, for those
joining us online. Thank you for being here as well
as we continue a lesson that we started last week looking at why
biblical Christianity is different.
And of course, this is a little different from other lessons
that we have done before in the sense that we don't necessarily
have a text. Her text is going to be those
verses that we are talking about as we go through these about 25
other points here this morning as we really try to cinch up the
difference of biblical Christianity to any other cult
that is out there. It is important that we
differentiate biblical Christianity because remember
the cults are those that say that they are Christians but yet
are not biblical Christianity. I think particularly the Jehovah
Witnesses and the Mormons, those who would claim to be part of
the Christian faith. Yet just by looking a little bit
beneath the surface, you find out that there is really nothing
Christian about them because they would not hold too many of
these tenets of what biblical Christianity is.
And although we are going through these very quickly, I
would also say that this is not an exhaustive list, nor are we
covering them in an exhaustive way.
I might be exhausted when it's done because there's just so
many we're going through so quickly.
But we're not trying to cover each of these points in a way
that would really expound all the depth of the doctrine.
Because really, we could do a lesson on each one of these 50
and probably go through a pretty serious series if that's what we
were to do. But that is not what we're doing
here. We're just giving you the
different differentiation between Bible, Christianity and
what the world has to offer as well.
And then we looked at several questions last week and the
first that we looked at just by way of review was who is God?
We wanted to see who he was and how is he active in the world.
And then the second question that we saw was who are we and
where do we come from? And of course the word of God
gives us the answer to that. We saw what is the Bible and how
is it different from other religious texts?
And certainly we could talk at great length about that as well.
And then question four, who is Jesus Christ and what did he
accomplish? Well, we do have three more
questions that I want us to look at here today.
And getting right into it, we were looking at question #5
which is this? What is Christ doing now by the
Holy Spirit? We saw that Jesus Christ died,
was buried, and that he rose again.
But Jesus Christ is still active today.
Why? Because he is alive and he lives
forever more. And So what is His ministry
today and how is that ministry accomplished through the Holy
Spirit? The Gospels record what Jesus
began to both to do and to teach, but his activity did not
cease when he ascended into heaven.
That he is still quite active today.
And through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of
us, there are still many things that he is active in doing and
will be active in the future. And so the first is this.
The Spirit convicts sinners of their sin.
And Christ said that He was going to convict.
Send the Spirit, John 16, verse 8, to convict the world of sin
and of righteousness and of judgment.
I don't know if you remember that.
That was in those three chapters where Jesus is talking to His
disciples in the upper room and He says the Spirit will come and
He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of
judgment. And this promise was given.
And then we see at the day of Pentecost what happened, that as
the Spirit descended and as the disciples began to preach, what
happened? The Bible says that they were
cut to their heart and they basically asked the question,
what shall we do? What?
What do we do with this message that you have preached?
And Peter told them to believe on Jesus Christ.
Well, how did that happen? The Holy Spirit convicts sinners
of their sin. That happens before you get
saved, by the way. That still happens today.
You know, when we are saved, we are saved from the penalty of
sin forevermore, and all God's children can say Amen to that.
But yet we still sin, don't we? We still transgress against the
Lord. First.
John chapter 1 makes that abundantly clear.
So what do we do when we do wrong?
The Holy Spirit still speaks to us and tells it.
You shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have done that.
You shouldn't have thought that. For what purpose?
To remind us that we need to confess that sin before the Lord
so we can be saved again? No, of course not.
But so that we can resume a right relationship with God.
And that's what the Holy Spirit does for us today.
And the Spirit of Christ is active in that.
But we also see that the Spirit causes sinners to be born again
by grace alone. Conviction of sin is not just is
not necessarily salvation of sin in and of itself.
Why? Because someone can feel
convicted about their sin and then do nothing.
I think of Agrippa who said almost that has persuaded me to
become a Christian. Remember that he was on that
edge but then pulled himself back.
Conviction of sin does not necessarily mean confession of
sin. Conviction, student conviction,
is necessary through the Spirit, but at the same time, it's the
Spirit that leads people to understand that their need in
their life is to be saved. Sinners are dead in their
trespasses and sins. Only God can make them alive by
His grace. God does not do this in response
to any good thing or any merit that there is within us.
It's a gift of mercy to us. And we talked about mercy this
morning. We just heard a few minutes ago
in our men's charge the idea of the mercy of God, that that he
would even be willing to convict us of our sin and to draw us to
Jesus Christ. And we see that that's what the
Spirit does, is he draws us to Christ.
That spirit testifies to our spirit that we are the children
of God. That's, that's what the Spirit
does for us, that it's Jesus drawing us unto himself.
And again, we can't find God on our own.
We, we, we can't just ascend to the heavens and find him.
But what does he do? He reveals himself to us through
his word and then convicts us through the power of the Holy
Spirit saying this, you need to. But then we also see this, that
Jesus made the gift of salvation possible.
Now that's talking in past tense.
Jesus made the gift of salvation possible.
But we're talking in the present tense, right?
What What is Christ doing now by the Holy Spirit?
So I would say, not only did Jesus make the gift of salvation
possible, which means that it makes the gift of salvation
possible in the present. Aren't you glad that salvation
wasn't just for those who lived during the time of Christ or
those who had heard the words of Jesus Christ, but that he made
the way for all by the way, he made the way for all of those in
the Old Testament who were waiting for his appearing that
by faith looked, remember Abraham, that he knew there was
a better promise and looked ahead.
And those Old Testament Saints that we find in Hebrews Chapter
11, they were looking ahead to their Messiah.
We look back to our Messiah, Messiah knowing that he is Jesus
Christ, but through the Word the Holy Spirit offers Christ and
promises that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have everlasting life.
That's John 316, that we have that available to us because of
what Jesus Christ did on the cross.
When God regenerates A Sinner by the Spirit, Christ draws that
Sinner to himself by the power of his saving death.
And So what Christ did on the cross had enough efficacy that
all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
That there is not a limited amount or a limited atonement in
the sense that God chose certain people.
And it's not limited in the sense that it's only, well,
144,000 people, as the Jehovah Witnesses at once taught, that
those first 144,000 get the ticket and everyone else,
they're on their own. Now after there were more than
144,000 Jehovah Witnesses, they had to change that doctrine
because it wouldn't seem to make sense what it that there was
more than and what they had accounted for.
But I'm thankful that we don't have to keep changing our
doctrine to match what we see out here in the world today.
We can just say the Lord the same, the yesterday, today, and
forever. And Jesus made the gift of
salvation possible. But we also see that God unites
people to Christ by the Spirit. When God saves sinners, the Holy
Spirit dwells in them as his temple and lives within him.
As a result, they become one with Jesus Christ.
This is first Corinthians chapter 6.
Know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost,
that he lives within us. By the way, that's why we have
to be careful what we yoke up with.
That's what the end of that chapter is all about.
What we have fellowship with, what we have concord or
communion with. Why is that important?
Because we got the Holy Spirit living inside of us and that the
Comforter was to come. Jesus said it is good that I
depart because the Comforter will come and His ministry now
isn't to indwell the believer. Not like the Old Testament where
he would come and go. And sometimes people think that
the Holy Spirit just appeared in the New Testament, that he just
popped up. Nope.
He always has been and always will.
He didn't just appear in the New Testament.
He's very active in the Old Testament.
But we see that His ministry was different and that he would fill
and then leave, that he would come and go.
And Saul certainly is a great example of that, one who was
filled by the Spirit, but then had done enough that the Lord
removed that from him. And of course we saw that he had
a much different life after that.
But you and I, the moment that we trusted Jesus Christ as our
Savior, we were sealed by that Holy Spirit of promise, the
earnest of our inheritance. The Spirit lives within us.
And, and that's something I, I don't think that we truly
comprehend to the length and the breadth that we ought to, that
literally believers have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.
What an incredible joy, what incredible blessing, the
comfort, the peace, the guidance, the conviction, all of
that that comes along with that, that that before, you know,
listen, we're not Jiminy Cricket, you know, let your
conscience be your guide. You know, that may make for a
great song, but you know what, It's not a great way to live
your life because the Bible says our conferences can be seared
with a hot iron. There are some who are so far
departed that God has Romans chapter 1 allowed them to
descend into their own foolishness.
He's made that very clear. Well actually mentioned that
this morning during the message but when the Holy Spirit is
within you, he can lead you and he can guide you and he can
comfort you. He can help you, He can convict
you and it God is is active Father, Son and Holy Ghost to to
ensure that that same Holy Ghost lives within us.
But we also see this in this question what is Christ doing
now that God justifies sinners by faith in Christ alone.
This cannot be understated. Salvation is in Christ by faith,
not through works. It's not faith and works.
We talked about this a few weeks ago.
It's not, well, the sacraments. Well, no, it's not about the
sacraments. Do you know what it's about?
It's about Christ and what He did on the cross and trusting in
Him to be your Savior. Nothing else say, well, well, I
have to stop as soon as you say that you've already messed up
the gospel, unless you're about to say I have to trust him as my
savior. Because if it's something that
you have to do, remember that means that there's something
within us that we can boast of. There's something within us.
Well, I was good enough because I spent enough hours in church.
I was good enough because I gave enough money.
I was good enough because I took the sacraments every week.
I was good enough because I sat across from a priest.
I, I, I, I, I and you know who said that?
You know who had that eye problem?
We can go all the way back to Isaiah chapter 14.
Satan talked a lot about I, I will be, I will be, I will be.
And he wasn't. And there's a lot of people who
will think that what they have done in the name of good works
will, even in the name of Jesus Christ will be enough to get
them to heaven. And they have so backwards
gotten everything when they don't realize that.
James chapter 2 says this. Your works come from a heart
that belongs to God, not that you have good work so that you
can belong to God. And so God justifies sinners by
faith in Christ alone. That word, justification, it's a
wonderful Bible word. It's not often talked about.
It's not often preached about, but justification has always
been explained to me in a very easy to understand way, that
it's just as if I never sinned. That when God looks at us,
justification means it's just as if I never sinned.
And that is what salvation is all about.
When God joins believers to Jesus Christ by faith, he
becomes their righteousness. We'll see that on Wednesday
night in First Corinthians one, verse 30, that God credits them
with the righteousness of God because they are in Christ and
Christ took upon Him the penalty of their sins.
First John chapter 2 tells us that He is the propitiation of
our sins. He paid the debt that we could
not pay. And I love that word.
Again, just like justification, propitiation, certainly not a
word that rolls off the tongue in 2025.
No one's out there usually using the word propitiation.
But that doesn't mean we should take it out of the Bible because
it is so important to understand what Jesus Christ did.
The debt was so large you couldn't pay it, and I couldn't
pay it, but Jesus Christ paid it with the precious blood that was
shed there on the cross. And so God justifies sinners by
faith in Christ alone. Just to try to talk about each
of these for like 3 minutes is almost impossible.
All right, because I want to just preach on it, but that's
all right. We understand.
We're giving an overview of it. Holy Spirit makes people holy.
This is part of the ministry of the Spirit.
He makes people holy. That that's probably a good
thing to say because it's a Holy Spirit, right?
He's a Holy Spirit, I should say.
And so we understand that joined to the Lord Jesus, believers
also find that Christ is their sanctification, which I just
mentioned. And the Spirit of Christ is
within us. The Holy Spirit is within us.
To do what? To make us more like Christ.
That is the desire that we are in the process of our
sanctification, that we are in our life.
Every day we're trying to be a little bit more like Jesus
Christ. Every day we're trying to be a
little bit more like Him. How do we do that?
Well, again, it's the same way that you got saved.
It's through the Spirit who helps you and He guides you.
You remember the Galatians, that the Galatians got saved, but
then they got all mixed up about works and all these things.
And basically Paul says this in Galatians, I believe it's
chapter #4 and he says this, you foolish Galatians.
Now you talk about some hard preaching.
That's probably a good way to start.
I've never tried that, don't plan on trying it.
But you foolish Galatians, he says, are you going to continue?
It works. Basically, it summarizes it.
He says this, He says why would you change the way that you came
to Christ in the 1st place and then moved to a different method
when this was the way that God brought you to him in the 1st
place? Why would you go to works when
it was the Spirit? So if we are saved by the
Spirit, then we're also perfected in this life in the
sense of purging ourselves from the old man and living in our
new life in Christ. We're also it's done by the
Spirit. The Bible says walk in the
Spirit. You may not fulfill the lust of
the flesh. We'll be using that verse this
morning as well. And our message walk in the
spirit meaning this well, I'm trying and I can't, I can't seem
to live the Christian life that I want to live.
Well, stop trying. That sounds weird, but the the
idea is this stop trying within your own power.
Stop trying within your own flesh.
That's why just using brute willpower is not a way to
conquer the flesh. What is it?
By praying and asking the Holy Spirit to help you and listening
to the Holy Spirit when he says don't do that, don't say that,
don't, don't think that. And then when that happens, what
do we do? We should be quick to confess
our sin before the Lord. I shouldn't have thought that.
I shouldn't have said that. By the way, this is probably a
good time to mention this as much as any.
You know, it does say in first John chapter one that if we
confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive our sins and
to cleanse us from all righteousness.
And I do think that when we get this idea of confession,
especially because a lot of us came from a Catholic or a
Sacramento background, if you will, like I was a Lutheran, not
a Catholic, but the same idea is that we feel like confession of
sin is an event. I've got to do it at the end of
the day or I've got to do it, you know, at a certain time in a
certain place, You know, the best time to confess your sin is
when you do it and the Holy Spirit convicts you about it.
Could you imagine, you know, my wife and I'm getting ready for
to come into the church and, you know, she's just getting ready
for the morning. And I say something to her.
That's probably not the best thing to say.
I know none of you could imagine me doing anything like that.
I know this is such, this is such an outrageous illustration
that it's hard for you to say it.
But I said something to her that's a little bit, you know,
unseemly. Shouldn't have said it to her.
And but then I leave and I think, you know what?
I'll see her tonight. I'll take care of it when I get
home. You'd say, you know, you'd
probably be better to maybe when you say it or at least a few
minutes later when you chew on a little bit to say you're sorry
before you left, or even if you hadn't really thought about it,
maybe to send a text or to call would be even better.
You know, texting. That's the way, you know, people
do things nowadays for all kinds of things, but just call and
say, you know what? I don't know what I was thinking
this morning. I lost my mind.
I I'm so sorry that I said that and just be done with it for,
for her sake as well As for mine.
In a marriage relationship, we would say, why would you wait?
Like why would why would you wait till the night?
And so often I find that Christians do exactly that is
that they're going to wait till their confession time.
But listen in the meantime that there is this blockage between
you and the Lord where you've not listened to him and you're
not obeying what he's telling you to confess.
And that's going to affect you in other ways throughout the
day. Just keep short accounts with
God, keep short accounts with him and confess your sin when
soon as that Holy Spirit says don't do it, say I shouldn't
have done it. And that's where David is our
example, because when David was rebuked over and over again, he
said, Nope, I shouldn't have done that.
He didn't argue, he didn't fight, he didn't say, but God, I
had my reasons. He just said, no, I know I
shouldn't have done that. And so consider that it's the
Holy Spirit who makes people holy and that we need to submit
ourselves to that process, that he's not going to force it upon
us, but we need to submit ourselves to that process.
Got to move. I got to move here.
All right. And then the Spirit also gives
believers assurance. The Holy Spirit gives believers
assurance by enabling them to trust in God's promises or
salvation and by sealing us with that Holy Spirit of promise.
And I'm thankful for the assurance that we have of
salvation. I'm thankful that the Holy
Spirit can testify within us that we do know Jesus Christ as
our Savior. And I love being able to take
people to 1st John chapter #5 after they get saved.
He that hath the Son of God hath life.
He that hath the Son of God hath not the Son of God hath not
life. That is very simple, that's very
clear. If you trusted Jesus Christ as
your Savior, have you asked Him? To come into your heart then
well according to your profession of faith, you know
Jesus Christ as your Savior that you don't need to doubt that.
Now we all go through periods of doubts and difficulties and I
was just talking with someone recently about this, but I
always go back to John the Baptist.
John the Baptist had a period of doubt as well.
I mean, John the Baptist saw all the things that he saw.
John the Baptist witnessed, preached, did all those things
and even he said his disciples to Jesus says art thou the one
or should we be looking for another?
And what did Jesus tell John the Baptist?
By the way, Jesus didn't rebuke John the Baptist.
I think that's interesting. Not that he was without faith at
that moment or not that he was doubting.
He was doubting at that moment, but he didn't rebuke him.
He sell told his disciples go back and tell John and tell him
again everything that's happened.
He said just just go back and remember what you've seen.
Go back and see how you have seen me work and the things that
you have seen God do through you.
You just remember those things. And I believe that John died
with his faith and integrity intact.
Why? Because he knew the Lord.
But the Spirit gives us assurance today that the Spirit
bear with witness to our Spirit that we are the children of God.
And the Spirit of Christ moves God's children to pray to their
Father. Prayer is an essential, as
essential to the life of a Christian as breathing.
And we are to utilize, if you will, all three parts of the
Trinity. We are praying to the Father, we
pray in the name of the Son, and we pray through the power of the
Spirit. And then the Romans tells us
that there are times that the Spirit helps us pray because we
don't even know what to pray. We don't even know how to
articulate what's in our heart because it's so deep or because
it's so painful. But there are times when
literally I've been praying or I want to pray and I can't.
And I don't know what the issue is.
Or maybe I very well know what the issue is.
And I just say, Lord, will you help me to say what I need to
say? Will you help me to pray?
By the way, you want to pray something that's really extreme,
pray something like this. Lord, will you reveal to me the
sin I need to confess? It's amazing to me.
That's almost like turning on a spicket.
And it's like, all right, Lord, turn it off.
All right. Because I'm thinking, you know,
I did pretty good yesterday and then I started.
The Spirit says, oh, did you now?
Oh, did that just all of a sudden pop up in my memory?
I don't think so. I truly believe it's the Spirit
reminding us. But but that's why the Spirit
moves us to be able to pray to the Father.
He ushers us into that throne room and as we pray in the name
of Jesus Christ, who is our advocate with the Father.
And it's interesting, John Bunyan, you know, John Bunyan
wrote Pilgrim's Progress, the second most published book in
history after the Bible. And John Bunyan said this, and
this was in 16. He lived from 1620 to 1688.
And by the way, I just need to make clear John Bunyan.
Paul Bunyan, not the same person, All right?
Just want, always want to make that clear.
All right. Paul Bunyan not so real.
John Bunyan, very real. OK, But he said this.
He said that he confessed that when he went to pray, he found
that his heart was so reluctant to go to God that he must first
ask God that he would take my heart and set it on himself in
Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there and
help him to pray by the Spirit despite his weakness.
And this was one of the greatest Christians, I think, that maybe
ever lived. And he's saying, you know what?
There are times it was hard to pray, and I just need the
Spirit's help to be able to pray.
And then we also see here with #5 that Christ empowers his
people by the Spirit to serve him to the glory of God alone.
And so are we able to serve on our own?
No. Can we do anything?
Well, no. It's the power of the Spirit
within us that's able to help us, to embolden us.
That's why first John 18, or rather Acts 18 rather, when they
were compelled by to go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria
and the uttermost parts of the earth, the Bible says that they
were to be given power to do that.
Well, what does that mean? On your own you can't do it, but
you will have this power, this dunamis, the Greek word dunamis,
dynamite, like power to be able to go and do those things.
And that's why you look at 11 disciples that were pretty
inept. I mean, let's be honest, you
take the end of the book of John and you run up into the 1st
chapter of Acts. And these people, they were
afraid. They were scared.
They weren't out there testifying of Jesus.
They were locking themselves away in the room.
They were afraid of the culture. They were look the same people
that were shouting crucify him were still out there and they
probably wanted to go after the disciples.
They didn't want any part of that.
They were afraid they, they didn't want to go do those
things. But yet as Jesus ascends into
heaven, they were told they will receive power.
And from Acts chapter 2 on, you're looking at different men.
Well, what's the difference? It's the Spirit working within
them and them allowing the Spirit to work within them to go
do those things which they were called to do.
So that's question #5 what is Christ doing now by the Holy
Spirit that the ministry of the Triune God is active even today.
But then we see number six, what is the Church of Jesus Christ?
There's a lot of questions about the church today, what it is and
what it is not. But I do want to remind you that
we're looking at the church. We're not looking at a church
universal. We're looking at A local church
or looking at local churches because this is how God works.
That the word church in the Greek literally means ecclesia.
It means a called out assembly. It's people that are meeting
together in a place that they're meeting together in a place, in
our case to be able to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Interestingly enough, in the book of Acts, the word ekklesia
has used more than once, not only to talk about a church, but
just talking about an assembly of people.
They are people who are together.
And I say this because there are some people who say, you know, I
don't really need a church because I'm part of the church
universal. And I will say to them in these
situations say, well, how do you get in church encouragement from
the church universal? How are you, you know, how do
you tie the church universal that that could be an
interesting question. How do you how who visits you at
the hospital when you're in the church universal?
And there are times that the Bible talks about church
corporately as in churches. But at the same time, God truly
deals with his local churches, each institution being able to
be there so that they can be the witness that God has called them
to be. So we see first that the church
is organized into local congregations where Christians
are members. The church is organized into
local congregations where Christians are members.
There's, I believe over 100. I think it's 103 times that the
word church is used in the New Testament.
Actually 106. A hundred and three of them all
distinctly pointed to the fact of local churches.
The church at Laodicea, the church at Ephesus, the church at
Smyrna, the church at Thyatira, the church at Corinth, these are
local churches. And this is how God is working
and this is how God has instituted his people to be
together in this time that we have, this period of history
that we have, that he is using the church to be able to bring
us together, to be able to be encouraged, to be able to help
one another. And also to be commissioned, as
we'll see just a second as well, that there are people who are
coming together to these churches to be part of these
churches. And we see in First Corinthians
chapter 12 that there are different parts of the body and
all of those people have been baptized into one body, that the
Spirit is the one who's done that.
Spirit place people into these bodies to be the eyes, the ears,
the hands, the feet, every single part, all different, but
yet all working in one common goal, to be able to glorify our
Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see that first, but we
also see the church is 1 body with many diverse members.
And going back to First Corinthians chapter 12, you are
different. We are different.
We have different callings. We preached on this a little bit
on Sunday night. We have different personalities.
We have different ways of looking at life.
We have different ways that we handle ourselves.
And as long as it's biblical, it's good for us to be
different, that we're not all trying to be the same, that
we're not trying to be carbon copies of one another.
Why? Because God takes the diversity
of who we are. He takes the diversity of our
life experiences. He takes the diversity of how we
grew up. He takes the diversity of the
mistakes that we made that God has forgiven us up.
He's taken the diversity of the talents and the abilities that
we have, and he's put us together into one church.
And here at Liberty Baptist Church, He's put us together so
that on our own, any one of us would be woefully inadequate.
But together, He has made us into an organization.
You could even call it an Organism because it's alive.
He's made us into this Organism that's come together to be able
to further the gospel message. And I love the fact that he
makes us so different and that's OK.
That we don't have to be the same or carbon copies of one
another, that we are one body. There's one goal, but they're
diverse members and and we do have to have the same goal.
We have to be pulling the same way.
There are times in our body where one part of the body is
wanting to do something that is not helpful for the rest of the
body. If someone has diabetes, guess
what, There's one part of the body that's not really helping
the other parts of the body at times or seasons.
Do you have an infection? There's one part of the body
that's not necessarily helping all the other parts of the body.
You have a heart condition, Guess what that's going to
affect all the other parts of the body isn't.
I watched my dad have a heart attack when he's 38 years old.
I can tell you that it affects all parts of your body, not just
the heart. It's the same way for us is that
yeah, we may be different, but we all need to make sure we're
pulling the same direction. And that's truly what fellowship
is about. It's not just fellowship.
Having a meal after church. But fellowship is that we're all
together going the same way for Jesus Christ.
And so the church is 1 body with many diverse members.
But we also see that Christ has given pastors to equip and to
edify his church. In the New Testament, you find 3
different terms for the pastor. You find pastor and you find
Bishop and you find elder. These are the three terms that
you find that would all constitute the New Testament
pastor. Now you could call me a Bishop,
I'd prefer you not. All right, you could call me an
elder, I'd prefer you not. But pastor is the term that we
use here. By the way, reverend isn't one
of those terms. I, I don't take any quibbles or
I don't have any quibbles with any other pastor who used the
term reverend. I prefer not to use the reverend
because the Psalms tell us that holy and Reverend is, is his
name and my name is not Reverend.
You don't need to Revere me by any say.
I mean we have Rivero, but not Rivero OK or anything like that.
Don't, don't do that. Sometimes people call me Rivero
and that's OK, but but no, it's what am I supposed to be?
A pastor, a Bishop, an elder, a leader, that I'm to devote
myself to the ministry of the Word of to be able to know that
every week that I can be able to preach to you and teach to you
from the Word of God. And also that I am in the
ministry of the Word throughout the week to other people as
well. That my ministry is not just
behind the pulpit, but it's also with the people that I meet, the
people I come in contact with to be able to show them Jesus
Christ. And also that I have some level
or semblance of leadership as well.
I mentioned I believe is on Wednesday night, that thing that
has more than one head is a monster.
And so there has to be a head. Well, we know the chief head was
Jesus Christ. It's His church that He shed his
blood for us. He died for the church.
Ephesians chapter 5. But I will tell you that God has
laid the calling upon me not to Lord over the flock, but to be
able to be the shepherd of the flock.
There is a difference. There's a large difference.
I'm supposed to be the helper of your joy, not to be able to Lord
over you. But at the same time, pastors
are given for that purpose. And so this is what God has
called me to do here. And I'm thankful for that
calling. And I'm thankful at the same
time for the pastors that God has placed in my life.
Over the years. I've had three different
pastors, well, Baptist pastors, I should say.
I've had three different pastors over the years.
And even now I can tell you that I have what I would consider my
pastor, which is another pastor who is about 20 years older than
me, that if I have some issues or some problems, I call him and
I say, what do you think about this?
Or you know, how would you, you know, to get counsel that I
need, just like sometimes we all need that.
So God has given us pastors to edify and equip the church, but
we also see that God commands his church to keep the moral
law. Hold on a second pastor, the
moral law. Now you this is now this is not
right though the law is abolished through Christ.
This isn't right. Well, well, well, yes, we we
understand that Christ was the fulfillment of the law.
And I think this is sometimes where we have to really be
careful because the Pharisees were very good at keeping the
letter of the law, but they were not actually good at keeping the
law in its spirit, if we could put it that way.
Listen, Jesus said you could take all the all the law and the
prophets and you could condense him down to this love God and
love others. Now, does that mean we still
need to fulfill those? Of course we still do.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, you know you,
you've just gotten this down to thou shalt not commit adultery.
He says, but I'll tell you something.
He says the fulfillment of that is don't even in your heart
dwell on the ACT itself. Well, what is Jesus?
You've, you've not murdered anybody.
I had a sermon years ago called so, So I've not murdered
anybody. That's what the title was.
I haven't murdered anybody. It almost seems like a
confession nowadays. But I haven't murdered anybody
because sometimes people they'll, they'll do something
sinful. And it's like, look, it's not
like I murdered anybody. You know, it's like, well, I'm
not that. This is what they say.
I'm not that bad. But Jesus says, well, yeah, you
haven't murdered anybody, but you had hate in your heart
towards someone, maybe wish they were dead and that God would use
use the vessel to help him get there.
You weren't going to do it, but you were thinking about it.
He says that's the fulfillment of the law.
That's understanding. Listen, it's not just about the
outward appearance. What does God look upon the
heart as a church, we want to be able to encourage you.
We want to preach and we want to talk about.
The fact is, listen, we want to live holy as God is holding.
This is what God has called us to do.
In the Old Testament, they looked at it through the lens of
obedience. In the New Testament list of
this, we look at it through the lens of love, and love makes all
the difference, doesn't it? Do I have to keep the law?
Well, technically I, I don't. But why would I even go there in
my thought process? Because I love the Lord and so I
want to be able to please Him because I love him, just like
I've talked about in the marriage relationship before.
Well, well, I mean, well, do I have to do I have to stay with
my wife? What does the law say?
Why you even go in there? Just maybe I just love her, you
know, and do right for her because I love her.
And you don't have to worry about all those other things.
And that's the heart that we should have today.
I love God like I should. I love others like I should.
And all these other things just naturally fall into place.
And God's church ought to be a good place for people to live
like Christians, and we ought to be a good place where we can be
a lighthouse and testimony to the people who are outside.
Got to pick it up. All right.
God calls the church to submit to civil authorities.
And of course, we had questions over this over the last few
years. You know, we're called to be
able to obey the government. We are called to listen.
When do we stop obeying the government?
Well, the apostles gave us a good example of that when they
said this. We must obey God rather than
man. Anytime the government gives a
edict or a law and it's contrary to the word of God, we must
follow the Lord 1st. And because he is our ultimate
guy, he said, well what is that? Some kind of dual loyalty,
single loyalty? It's loyalty to God and every
other loyalty falls under that because I'm being loyal to him.
And so when the government says you can't do something, but the
by word of God says you must do that, I must do it.
And if it's vice versa, then we must do what the Lord tells us
to do and not what man does because government has its
authority from God. It flows from him.
Romans chapter 13. Christ blesses the church with
Christian freedom. Christian freedom that we have
been called unto liberty. Great place for that.
We've been called unto liberty, but not to fulfill lust of the
flesh, but as an answer of a good conscience towards God.
Galatians chapter #5 and we do have Christian freedom.
Listen, I can't go to your house and tell you what to do.
God be honest with you. I have no desire to go to your
house and tell you what to do. I think sometimes think that's
what pastors want to do it Just go around and just tell everyone
you know, do this, do this, don't do this, don't listen.
I got enough trouble with that in my own life, All right?
I don't need to be going to your houses and telling you what you
ought to do, what you ought not to do.
You have Christian freedom and Christian liberty.
Now I will say this is that should we be obeying God?
Of course we should. Am I going to preach and teach
that we should obey God? Of course I should and of course
I will. But at the same time, God has
given us liberty and that's liberty between churches as
well. Now our liberty does not extend
beyond what the word of God tells us to do.
We have to follow the Word of God.
But churches are different. Some of you have come to from
churches before that will have communion once a month and we
have it usually two or three times a year.
Some of come from churches where where in in the way that they
function in a service is different.
They don't have a time of worship.
We do have a time of worship. Some churches will maybe sing
songs, you know, that are older, you know, newer than 1950.
We'll sing songs that are are newer today, as long as they are
songs that have, you know, a pleasing sound that are not
worldly. And so because that's a biblical
issue, but there's also freedom between us as churches and even
as individuals that Christ has given it.
You know why there's that freedom?
Because we're all personally accountable towards God.
We all must give an account to the Lord for ourselves.
And so I think sometimes we get a bent out of shape with some of
those. Well, I wouldn't do things that
way. Well, just OK, then you don't do
things that way. OK, just leave that to the Lord
and allow him to work in them in the Holy Spirit.
Maybe it's something the Holy Spirit needs to work on in their
life. Maybe it's something that that
it's just you can do one thing and someone else can do another,
and neither of them are wrong and we have the liberty to do
so. Whatever it is.
God blesses the church with Christian freedom.
And then COD also calls the church to public worship.
And of course, that's talking about us gathering together, I
believe for a time of worship. But it also means the fact that
we need to gather together so we can gather together.
God has called us to gather together.
And I'll say this again, I've said this many times, I'm
thankful for our live stream. I'm thankful for the people who
are ill, the people who are out of town that they can still
watch. I think we've all been there
before and we're thankful for the live stream.
But I try to be careful that I don't say we're having church
online because you can't have church online.
A church means a gathering place.
Again, you can't have that online.
We can have online service. We can be able to preach and
teach online. And again, I want to be very
careful how to say this. I'm thankful for this.
There are people right now that I'm thinking of that are in some
very difficult positions with their health, that if they
didn't have this, they will be so totally disconnected.
It would be like, like they weren't even a part of us
anymore. And I'm thankful that they have
it. And I say that sincerely.
But I do also recognize this, that God calls us to be
together. And I made a decision a long
time ago that as long as the doors were open, that I was
going to be in the House of God, as long as the church was open,
unless I was providentially hindered from being there, that
I was going to be in church. And I will tell you, of course,
now, well, you know, I'm the pastor, so I kind of have to be
in church. But I'll tell you that decision
was made before I had to be at church.
And I will tell you this, I've never regretted that decision.
Well, you're not going to have any life.
You're at church how many times a week?
You're going to have no life whatsoever.
I feel like I've had a pretty good life.
I feel like I've been very fulfilled.
I feel like God has blessed beyond measure and I've learned
so much and I've grown so much. And some of my favorite people
in life, the closest people I have in life, I've met from just
being around them in church. I'm so thankful for that.
And so don't rob yourself of that.
But God has called us to be able to meet together for public
worship. All right?
And then God has provided 2 ordinances, the baptism, baptism
in the Lords Supper. Aren't you glad we got to have
baptism a couple weeks ago? And but hey, Christian liberty,
you can have a horse through, you can have a, you have a
Baptist St. and go out to the pond.
You go out the lake, you know, whatever you want to do, go out
to the Atlantic Ocean. That's fine.
Just make sure to go down deep. That's all I ask because that's
what baptism is. But they're ordinances.
They're not sacraments. Sacraments give salvation.
So we don't call them sacraments.
We call them ordinances. And Paul told the Church of
Corinth to keep the ordinances. So we have the ordinances of
baptism and the Lord's Supper. These are things that Jesus has
told the church to do, that we are to baptize the Father, Son,
and the Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of his death,
raised in the likeness of his resurrection, and then to be
able to have the Lord's Supper. Not that we are drinking the
blood of Christ or eating the body of Christ.
There's nowhere taught in the Script but that this due in
remembrance of me. It's a memorial feast where we
gathered together. We said feast.
It's not really a feast. If you're coming for food,
you're going to be sorely disappointed if you come to the
Lord's Supper. But I will say it's a memorial
where we get together and we just soberly and somberly
remember, wow, this is what Christ did for me.
And it's powerful. It's so powerful.
It doesn't need to be the body and actual body and blood in
Christ to be powerful. Just the literal remembrance of
it brings great power. And then quickly, I'm just going
to run through these. Christ commissioned the church.
What does that mean? He gave us a job to do.
This is not a Country Club. This is not a social club.
This is not a supper club. You know what this is?
It's a place where God has called us to reach the World
with the Word of God. And so we must always keep the
Commission at the forefront. But then we also see how will
Christ bring his Kingdom to earth?
Christ is coming back, Amen. And I'm so thankful that He is
coming back and He will come again in visible glory that when
we talk about the Kingdom being set, this is not something that
is just mentioned in the Word of God that has happened in the
past, or it's something that's really more metaphorical.
No, Jesus Christ will return invisible glory to set up his
Kingdom. Christ will ways from dead all
who have ever lived. For what purpose?
Well, to judge the Son will judge everyone.
He will damn the wicked to the lake of fire, and Christ will
bless the righteous in heaven. And I know I went through that
very quickly, but there is a judgment to come.
It's been appointed unto man wants to die.
And after this the judgment that there will be resurrected into
the great white throne judgment or the judgment seat of Christ.
If you're the great white Throne judgment that you will have to
prove your own worthiness through your own works.
And we know that is impossible. But yet for those of us the
judgment seat of Christ, we will be going to heaven.
But our works will be tried with fire, whether they be good or
whether they be bad. Some will be wood, hay and
stubble and they'll be burnt. Some will be gold and silver and
precious stones and those gold and silver and precious stones
will cast back at Jesus feet and we'll be able to live with him
eternally. There is eternal judgment, but
there's also eternal life with Jesus Christ.
And so we must call upon him to be saved.
Well, over the next couple of weeks, next week we will be
having brother Rocky Harold. He will be the, he is the
sponsor for Glory Bound, the music group from Heartland
Baptist Bible College. He'll be doing Sunday school
because I'll still be preaching during the morning service, but
he'll be in Sunday school the following week.
I will not be here. I'll be preaching out of town.
So be out of our our series 2 weeks when we come back, we're
talking cults. Who's ready?
It's been 6 weeks and we've not really talked about any cults
yet. I see that hand.
Thank you. It's invitation already, so it's
good. Bow your heads and close right
now. I'm just kidding, but we're
ready. We the table has been set.
It's time for us to get into what some of these groups
believe. And so we'll be starting that
here in the next couple of weeks.
Our very next lesson? Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.