The Evidence of A Christian

0:16Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist Church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Good morning. Thank you for that. Go ahead and open your Bible to the book of Ephesians. We are still in chapter one, but we will be covering verses 15 and 16 this morning. I know only two verses, but I want to, as we begin here, reiterate something that I've spoken about now multiple times, I believe. And that is that this letter to the Ephesians was written to the church saints. It was written to the believers, and not just a particular set of believers, but all of the believers, not just the learned believers, not just the theologian believers, not just the intellectual believers, but to all of the saints. So anyone who says that theology is only for the theologian is not reading the Bible. Certainly not reading the book of Ephesians. As a review, then, this letter is a pastoral letter. It is a letter of encouragement. And it begins with the exposition as we have now gone through, this is really verses three through verse 14. It goes through an exposition of the deep and mysterious doctrines of grace and the God-appointed means of salvation. And for the one who says that these things are too weighty, potentially too divisive, Paul thought them important enough to begin them in this letter, and not just in a passing comment, but in thorough exposition. Imagine just for a minute that you are a member of this church in Ephesus, who is receiving this letter from Paul. And everyone, having received the letter, crowds around to hear it read, perhaps. Maybe Timothy, maybe Tychicus, who we'll hear about at the very end of Ephesians, is reading this letter to them. How would he begin that letter? Would you have expected him to begin it like this: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? Would you have expected him to say, even as he chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him? Would you have expected him to say, in love, he, God, predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of his will? Would you have expected him to say that in him, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Would you expect him to say that in him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who worked all things to the counsel of his will? So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory, and you also, having heard the word of truth and the gospel of his salvation, were sealed with the promised of the Holy Spirit.

5:42Something to consider, then.

5:48How would a modern pastor and pastor in America begin that same letter? My commission to you is that if you are in need of encouragement this morning, if you are in need of having your faith strengthened today, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, return again and again to the assurance offered in this great gospel of grace and rest in the eternal security of the sovereignty of God. And this point will be important as we get through our text this morning. And this should also stir us up to the true nature of not only the word, but what it means to be a Christian and the means by which we came to be called one. It also means that we should pay close attention to what the word says a Christian looks like. That is how we are to know that we are indeed in Christ. This is really what Paul is laying out for us this morning. The evidences of the Christian. And that's what we will discuss this morning, the evidences of a Christian. So stand with me and I'll read those two verses. Verse 15 and verse 16. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you so very much for your word, for showing us the truth in your word, Lord, for illuminating it to us by your Spirit, Lord, and giving me the opportunity to proclaim your truth. Give us the ears to hear, Lord, and hearts to receive this word. In the name of Jesus, I pray.

7:55Amen.

7:59There's probably a lots, lots of holes in this analogy. There might be, and you can pick them apart, and if you find some holes, tell me, and I'll happily receive that correction. But have you ever seen a movie? You've seen a movie, I'm sure. But one in which there's a group of uh of cool kids, right? And then there is this shy, uh nerdy kid who wants to be in that cool group. Uh we'll call him Cade, just for the purposes of our discussion this morning. This happens a lot in these movies, but maybe one day one of those cool kids doesn't show up for their pickup basketball game or something, and they call on Cade. Hey, Cade, you're you're in the game. We need you to play. In disbelief, he looks around for a while to make sure they're actually talking to him before he runs into the game. Paul spends so much time in all of his epistles, but specifically this one, assuring the Gentiles that they are indeed partakers of the blessing of God. And I think it's fair to assume that the Gentiles were standing around, perhaps, in disbelief, that they were indeed called into the family of God. How often do we see people hesitant about Christ? Hesitant about the church because of feelings of unworthiness. Many don't come. They don't embrace Christ because of guilt, because of shame, because of the assumption that they don't fit in, they don't belong, or that Christian folk are too good for me. It's so fitting then that Paul begins this letter by grounding our salvation not in our own worthiness, but in the plan and purpose of God. This is the contrast, perhaps I was getting at in the introduction. Modern pastors, with their with their claims that God loves you just the way that you are, or that you are worthy, or that God needed you in heaven and he was so reckless to get you there that he bankrupted heaven for you. The dissonance with that kind of thought is that we don't feel that way, do we? No one, if they're truly honest, feels like they're worthy of a holy God. Think about those previous pagan Gentiles who we are talking about here, worshiping false fertility gods, bowing to idols, conjuring dark magic from satanic spell books, doing whatever was right in their own eyes, and then having Paul come to them and say that this great blessing of inheritance and eternal life is available to you. How is it available? Because the God of all glory knew you before the foundation of the world, and he set his affections upon you.

11:35What would their response have been? Me? It can't be.

12:11Paul begins then this next section that we read, those two verses, connecting his declaration of the sovereign God who deserves all the glory and all the praise with that grace manifesting itself into the people. For this reason, he says, the start of verse 15, for this reason, if you have the KJV or in KJV, I think it says wherefore, maybe therefore. The literal translation there is therefore. But the ESV renders it for this reason. I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus. Because these Ephesian Gentiles have come to know that it was God alone who called them, because they have come to know that it was God alone who called them out of the darkness, who gave them sight, because they have come to know that it was the sovereign God and his gracious hand that pulled them from their wretchedness. From that then, position of gratefulness and thankfulness, that amazing grace has manifested itself so evidently in their faith, in their love for one another. That's what truth does, doesn't it? It often surprises us, it often humbles us as it should. It breaks down our pride, it properly orients our perspectives, it pushes us to greater faith and love for one another. This is recognizable in us, and Paul hears of it and praises God for having saved them. So some things then we'll pull from the text when we're talking about the evidences of the Christian is that Paul does not cease to give thanks for them. I do not, this is verse 16. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers? Paul is overjoyed and exceedingly glad that God has saved this people. So much so that he says he does not cease to give thanks to God for them. Doesn't the heart that is truly grateful for the gift, the free gift of salvation, knowing the wretchedness from which they have been saved, rejoice when others are brought into that same state of salvation? Is that same eternal security? The one who knows that they are saved only by the grace of God, that they are, as we have all confessed, hopefully, the chief of sinners at times. And that it was only the grace that has set us right. That person will rejoice with every soul, knowing it is God who saves, and give thanks to God for that salvation. Not patting a person on the back and commending them for their choosing, but thanking God alone for their salvation. This is why Martin Lloyd-Jones says, quote, No man can truly be a Christian without rejoicing that others have become a Christian. Nothing should gladden the heart of the believer more than to know that others are also in a like position and enjoying the same blessing, end quote. At church, maybe we pray. I hope you do. For instance, thank you, Lord, for Kinney, the Cleveland family for their testimony of steadfastness. Maybe we thank the Lord for Brother Gerardo and Ruby for their zeal, Roberta for her faithfulness, the sacerosis for their joy and always being joyful in difficult times. Those are wonderful prayers. I hope we continue to pray them. I'm not minimizing those, but I wonder how often we thank God without ceasing that in his grace he has saved us. He has put others in our lives. He has given us fellow heirs and saints in his kingdom.

17:11Lord, thank you.

17:14You have saved this people. How often do we simply remember and thank God for the salvation that He has given to His people? Church, may we never cease to thank God for that salvation that He has given to us, all of us. So then, as we look into the evidences of a Christian, I know I didn't really give you the outline to start, but the first comes from Paul himself, and that is that the Christian rejoices with and thanks God for the salvation and faith of his people. This is a requirement. Next, we'll turn our attention to really, I think, the heart of the issue, and this comes from verse 15. How can we know that we are a Christian? How can we know that we are a Christian? That's a big question. How can we be sure that we are indeed partakers of this great blessing of salvation? I think Paul gives us that here for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.

18:37It is first and always first.

18:43Faith in Christ makes us a Christian. I have been to a number of funerals even recently, where all the talk is about how good the man was. But they never mentioned his faith in the Lord Jesus. Sometimes it's implied, but other times I've I've heard it explicitly stated, something like this. No man as good as him is in anywhere is anywhere but heaven. Heard something like that, maybe? I think I want to be specific here. For one to say that they have faith in God is no evidence of salvation. I'll repeat that for you. For one to say that they have faith in God is no evidence of salvation because the Muslims confess that they have belief in God, and passionately so. Surely we don't believe that there is a place in heaven for them. The Hindus believe in all kinds of gods whom they passionately profess faith in. Is that going to offer them any eternal peace? The Jew today confesses faith in God. Even some would say the same God that we believe in. When our God came in flesh, they killed him. They still deny him. So we need to be very careful about who God is, how we are defining God. Ask a person if they believe in God. Just ask that randomly or generally, and they will inevitably say, Yes, of course. Last I checked, I think the majority of Americans still say they believe in God. Then ask them who God is. If you can't confess that God is three in one, made perfectly manifested to us in the flesh, in the person of Christ, who was fully God and fully man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, died, and was buried, and on the third day he rose again from the grave, and then he now sits at the right hand of God the Father and will come again to judge the living and the dead. If that is not your faith, if that is not your God, you are not a Christian.

21:43And you have no salvation.

21:51What you did, how good or righteous that you were, if Christ is not your Your Lord, you have nothing. Christ is not your Lord. You have nothing. But if your faith is in the Lord Jesus, there is rejoicing. How often do we say we, how often do people hide behind the ambiguous God? You will hear it tonight if you happen to watch that thing that's supposedly on TV. Every football player after a game thanks God. They point up to the sky, they thank God, they give thanks to God. We hear, I believe in God. We hear it all of the time. Again I ask, who is God? His name is Yahweh. I am. Jesus Christ in the flesh says, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. He has a name. So if your God is not the Lord Jesus Christ, you are lost. Sadly, it is further assumed that by even those who would say they believe in Jesus, that Christ came to declare to the world that God loves everyone, that he forgives everyone, and that salvation is simply only made possible by him. This reduces Christ to a messenger of God's forgiveness. It reduces him to only announcing salvation as opposed to being salvation. Christ was and is our salvation. It is in his name alone that we are saved. It is by his work alone that we are saved. Christ is the great I am, the God in flesh, who came to save us, to ransom a people, to be our salvation. We are nothing without Christ. We have nothing without Christ. Our entire hope is in him. Our entire life is held in his hands. Our eternal future is secured by him. Jesus Christ is our salvation. He is our hope. He is our joy. Christ is our breath. He is our life.

24:58Jesus is our peace.

25:02Even the wording here that Paul uses is telling when he says the Lord Jesus. He could have said the Lord Jesus Christ. But here he says the Lord Jesus. Specifically pointing to the humanity of God. The man who walked on earth, who lived just like you, only sinless, who ate meals, who cried, who laughed, who slept on boats. This man, he is God. And he alone is Lord.

25:41Is that where your faith is this morning? Is that the God you serve?

25:51Having given you your life, having have you given your life then to the Lord Jesus? The God man. So that is the first or the second perhaps evidence of being a Christian, faith in the Lord Jesus, the true God, Christ. Finally, then we look at the final evidence and the only ever evidence of a true Christian. He says, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. I think we can know and can agree that the non-Christian, the unbeliever, not only does not love his neighbor, but he hates his neighbor. Titus 3. 3. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, and hating one another. This is what the word says. It's the most concise picture of the unregenerate person. Foolish, disobedient, led astray, slave to passions and pleasures, malicious, that is, desiring evil or ill for others, jealous, generally hating and being hated by others. Such things can never define a Christian. Sure, we all at times still warring in the flesh, fall into various temptations, but the question is, is that how other Christians would define you? Foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions and pleasures, malicious, jealous, hating and being hated by others. If the Apostle Paul heard about your life, heard about your interactions, your habits, your lifestyle, is it clear and obvious that you have love toward all the saints? It must be. Not that we are saved on the basis of our ability and our willingness and our effectiveness in loving others, that's not what James is saying. But that one whose faith in the Lord will necessarily love the saints. If a profession of faith in Christ is not justified by the love of others, then it's a counterfeit faith. James 2, 14 to 18. What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace and be warmed and be filled without giving them the things that they need for the body, what good is it? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. This is why faith and love are inseparably linked. Give you another analogy. When no one else is home at the house, uh when they're all out and I'm there by myself, uh my sweet little dog Calvin, which many of you know, he follows me around everywhere. Everywhere I go. I sit in my office, he lays beside my chair. I get up and walk into the room, he follows me. I sit on the couch, he jumps up there on the couch with me. Love must excitedly follow faith wherever it goes. This is supported by 1 Corinthians 13, among other places, but Paul says, if I have prophetic powers, and I understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing. I think what often happens is that Christians, in an effort to be theologically rigorous, and we should be, and accurate, we don't want to add works to faith in terms of our salvation, and we concern ourselves then only with faith at the expense of love. Hear me, church, when I say this. And I hope that my introduction makes this point clear. If we truly believe that faith is given to us as a free gift, and that salvation is according to the sovereign will of God alone, working in us, then we have no problem at all embracing without reservation those words of James and the words this morning, show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Isn't that who we want to be, church? Just practically speaking. A people who wakes up every day with a thought and motivation of how can I today enjoy and gratitude for the faith that I have been given, show every Christian in my life how much I love them and how thankful I am for them. Isn't that who we want to be? That is a person who, when they pass from this life, it will not be said of them. I never really heard him talk about Christ, but he was a good man. He was a hard-working person. But rather, of that person, it will be said that was one whose faith you could see. Church, let there be no doubt where your faith is. And who is the object of your faith? The Lord Jesus Christ. Let there be no doubt of the authenticity of that faith through the love that you have toward the saints. So the final evidence then is how do we know we are Christian? Because we love others. We love others. In closing, then I'll readdress, summarize everything thus far. Paul first is theologically deep from the start. Diving deep into the heart of the doctrine so that we as Christians know deeply, we know fully, we know truthfully this great and glorious and merciful God that we serve and love. What value is there in faith in something that you don't really know? Right? You have a shallow or passing understanding of. Try that with your wife, it doesn't work. Deep and lasting faith requires deep and lasting knowledge in the one in whom we trust. This is why Paul starts the way that he starts. Second, we must not be ashamed of the object of our faith. Who our faith is in? The Lord Jesus. Name him, church. Don't just say you believe in God. Name him. You believe, you trust in the Lord Jesus. We don't hang our eternity on some unknown God. We don't muddle our Savior with the false gods of the Muslims or the Hindus or the Jews or the distorted, disgusting gods of the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses or the other spiritual Gnostics. Our God. Matthew 10, verse 32 says, So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven. We must not deny the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Finally, by the power of the Spirit given to us, we must display our faith in love. The two places where all of mankind goes wrong, I'll give it to you right now. The two places where all of mankind goes wrong. It's an attempt to have one of those two things without the other. The worldly man wants love without any sort of grounding faith. The stoic man, the religious stoic, wants an emotionless, loveless faith or truth. Both are a grave error. And that order does matter. I hope I again have made that clear. It is always face faith first in the true and only Savior through a deep and rich understanding of the person and the work of Christ, trying fullness of God. But then we must love, and that love must always follow very close behind. We must keep them properly ordered, but we must demand both. If that be us, Church, then surely what follows will be ceaseless prayers of thanksgiving to the triune God. For blessing us with salvation, for giving us brothers and sisters to love and to love us on the way to glory. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you for showing us, Lord, what it means to be a Christian, Lord. We pray and ask, Lord, that you would help us. Grant us faith, Lord, as you have done, Lord. Grant us even more faith, that we would be bold to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ and not deny him, Lord, to not be ashamed of him. But to know who we believe in, trust alone in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, and by and through that faith would you help us, Lord, to love others. This is where we fall, Lord. Help us to love others. Help us to show our faith through our love. Help us to not be afraid of the words of James, Lord. Help us to embrace that lovingly, knowing that you have saved us. We are so grateful for that, Lord. And now may you by your spirit we go from this place today and love others. Lord, and display our faith for your glory. It's in the name of Jesus that I pray. Amen.