Shakarji, Craig: Christ-Best Of Masters ~ Camp Ministry-2005-03

All right, we've spared no expense in bringing you this multimedia presentation. Uh, this afternoon I was with, uh, some folks, uh, having nice Christian fellowship, and they weren't able to listen to the messages thus far and asked me what my topic was. And when I said my topic was serving Christ, the very best master. They kind of grinned a little bit, like, come on, that's not a real topic. That's like saying my topic is the Christian life or something like that. It's just everything, um, and I suppose they were probably a little bit right. Uh, and yet, even still, as broad as the topic is, uh, I've decided to change tonight to give a little bit of an off-topic message, um, and I, I hope you, hope you receive that, uh, as well. So tonight will not follow the topic, um. I want to talk about our salvation, and I'd like to talk about it to everyone. Kids as well. Kids, we're going to make this so simple, even your parents can understand it, okay? Now, the way I'm going to begin, though, is actually looking at, uh, a passage that you might not think of when it comes to our salvation. That passage is in Hebrews, so if we can turn to that together. Hebrews chapter eight. And of course, our salvation is the single most important question that can be an- uh, asked and answered. Sooner or later, every thinking person asks himself the question, where am I going to go after I die? Where will I go after this life? Everybody asks this question eventually. It's not something that we want to answer with a probably or an I hope, but it can be answered, I know. So let's begin. We're going to read in Hebrews eight, an unusual passage for, for teaching the gospel, but, uh, look at Hebrews eight, beginning at verse eight. Eight. Hebrews eight eight. Because finding fault with them, he says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house, house of Judah. Not according to the old covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. We're going to stop our reading right there. I g- will ask and and notice that, first of all, this is a new covenant that's different than the first covenant he gave to Israel. He gave that to Israel in the Old Testament on tablets of stone, right? Now, this covenant, though, we read in verse ten, is also described as being to the house of Israel. Now, we're not going to get into this too much. Suffice it to say that there is application for what we're reading for a future day for Israel. The question then is, is there application for it for us today as well? And we're not even going to answer that tonight. Scholars debate that back and forth. We're not going to get into it. What we're going to do is we're going to look at the terms of the New Covenant and find out that, in fact, they match up with the terms of salvation. Let's look at them and see what, see what we have. So in the middle of verse ten, starting out where we left off, uh, this, or we'll begin at the beginning of verse ten. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. Here's the first term of this covenant. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. Now think about that for a moment. Before, the laws were written inside of a person or outside of a person? Outside of a person. They could tell you what to do, but it didn't change you at all to do it. But now God is describing writing his laws, not on stone, but on somebody's mind and on somebody's heart. This is not telling them what to do from the outside, this is changing them on the inside. So the first term is, I'm going to call change. Sum it up that way, change. Then we continue reading near the end of verse ten. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. All right, what's our next term here? I will be their God, they will be my people. What do you think of with that? Relationship, yes? I'm going to belong to them, they're going to belong to me. And nobody's going to run around nudging his neighbor. Hey, you, little stick in his hand, right, you know, hey you, know the Lord, you know, know him, because all will know him, from the least of them to the greatest of them. So nobody's going to go around doing that. So there's a relationship that involves ownership and a relationship that involves a knowledge of him. And the last term, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Well, we could sum that up perhaps in the word forgiveness. In fact, it'd be nice to have these in our mind, right? Change, relationship, forgiveness. Uh, in fact. Ah, there we go. This is a summary, and I hope, now if you're over there, you might have a little difficulty. This is a summary of the terms of the New Covenant. Change, relationship, and forgiveness. And it turns out that even though these are described as in the New Covenant to Israel, it turns out that these we're going to see match the terms of salvation. What does this, what does this mean? Well, we're going to explain that for a minute. How many of you have heard that in order to be saved, you are to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Show of hands. All right. How many of you have heard that to be, to be saved, you are to receive the Lord Jesus Christ? Okay. How many of you heard there's one way to be saved? Oh, wait a minute. There's one way to be saved, and yet most all of us have heard you are to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then most all of us have heard you are to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. But if there's only one way to be saved, which one is it? Why do we use these terms almost interchangeably? Come to John chapter one with me. Now, we're going to get back to these three, but just, we're going to take a little break from them for a moment. John chapter one. John chapter one and look at verse twelve. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right be- to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name. It almost, you can almost see that, well, certainly they're interconnected, and you can almost see that he's describing the same people, you know, the ones who receive him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, you know, those that believe on his name. Now, it turns out that you can't have one without the other, and I'll, I have a little story. I know it's true because I made it up myself. Uh, a little story that describes how, how we can see that these two are, are inseparable. All right, you're driving down the road, and your car starts making the noise. You know, the one you don't like. And you first start to ignore it, but then it starts getting louder and louder, and the louder the noise gets, the slower the car gets, until the car limps off to the side of the road, and you open the hood, you stick your head in and pray. You eventually have it towed off. Your friend with you hears about the story and everything and says, tell me, uh, I heard about your, your, your problem with your car. What are you doing about it? Say, well, uh, I, I sent it over to my mechanic friend. My mechanic friend said he knew what the problem was, and he could fix my car. And based on his word, I'm relying upon him to fix it. Fair enough? What that person is doing is believing on the mechanic. Based on his word that he could fix it, they are relying upon him to do what he said. They're believing on the mechanic. Fair enough? So you're believing on the mechanic to, to fix your car? Yes, I am. Oh, okay, good. So you've given him permission then to go under the hood and do what needs to be done? Oh no, no. I haven't given him permission to go under the hood. Wait, I thought you said that you were relying on him to fix it. Oh yeah, that's right. He said he could fix it, and I've chosen to rely on him to fix the car. Right, so you gave him permission to go under the hood and do what needs to be done. Oh no, no, he can't go under the hood. You say that's silly. If, if you're relying upon him based on what he said, if you're believing on him to fix your car, then it means you had to have given him permission to go under the hood. Otherwise, you're not believing on him, are you? The same is true with our lives. If we're going to take our lives and we're going to believe on the Lord Jesus to save us, it means we give him permission to go under the hood, under the hood of our life. We receive him to allow him to do what he needs to do. There are some times, Matthew twelve is one of them, there are some times when the Bible likens our life to a house, a house that one could receive a person into or not. And this is a picture to us, us of salvation, one picture anyway, that we receive the Lord Jesus into our house, into our, into our life. Now, if I barged into your room, started changing things around, said, you know, I don't like the color of those curtains, and I, the bookshelf over there needs to go over there, and this piece of modern art has to go. Right? I'd be very rude. Yes? But if I knocked and asked permission to come in, and you received me and said, I'm receiving you, and I want you to make this your home. And I took your invitation, and then I started making changes, well, then I'm not rude, am I? The Lord Jesus is a perfect gentleman. He does not barge into someone's life. A person receives, uh, the Lord into their life. Now, I told you young, young folks, we're going to make this easy enough even your parents can understand it. So come to another verse in First John chapter five, and we're going to see what it means to receive eternal life. First John five. I'm borrowing Brother Norby's booklet for a moment for the illustration. First John five, look at verse eleven. What we're going to do is we're going to read two verses, and then we're going to act them out. All right, First John five eleven: And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Now, verse twelve is the easiest verse in the Bible, because in the English language, the longest word only has four letters in it. Okay, verse twelve: He who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. All right, now we read these verses, we're going to act them out, okay? Now this white booklet is going to be a picture to us of eternal life. Yeah? All normal people want this. Question is, how do you get it? Right? All normal people want it, but a lot of people will give you different ideas as to how you get this. Okay? Now, this book is going to be a picture of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. Now, we're going to act out these verses. Now, verse eleven says, this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. So to act it out, if this is going to picture the son and this is going to picture eternal life, the life is, what did it say? In the son. Okay, there. Now the life is in the son. Now look at verse twelve, and we're going to read this one together, but actually don't look at it, look up at me. All right, we'll recite it together. All right. Verse twelve then says, he who has the son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I- it has to be that way, right? If you have the Son, you have to have the life. Why? Because the life is in the Son. And if you don't have the Son, you can't have life. Why? Because the life is in the Son. And this is how, how simple salvation can be. Eternal life is not a gift that you get by itself. Eternal life is in the Son, the Lord Jesus, and to receive eternal life means to receive a person, that person being the Son, the Lord Jesus. Now, I talked, uh, with a woman one time outside a Cracker Barrel. Do you have Cracker Barrels in Minnesota? Okay. Um, I like their food, um, their breakfasts I really like. And, uh, outside of a Cracker Barrel one day, there were five of us sitting in the rocking chairs waiting to be called, and, um, you know, five, you have to sit three and two, you know, cross. You can't divide five evenly. So we were sitting there, and that left an odd seat out in our group. And as we were sitting there, a woman came up, and she sat down in the sixth seat, almost like she was part of our group or something. So it's funny, well, we kept talking, and she just kept looking at whoever was talking, you know, and she's talking, this person talks. She's, I mean, I, I was thought she'd go to our table with us when they called her name or something. And, uh, so I was wonder- I was thinking and wondering and praying, uh, are we supposed to talk to her? What? Why did she you bring her? I mean, there were a lot, a whole row of empty seats. And, uh, so they called our name, and we, we started going, and I was the last in the line, and I didn't know what to do, and I, I said, well, how you doing, as I went by? And she said something, and I said, where are you from? She said, what? I didn't say, I didn't say anything enough for you to, to, to know I'm from somewhere. I said, no, I know that voice. You sound like my relatives. I said, where are you from? She said, I'm Persian. She's from Iran. I said, my, my family, my father's side is from the Middle East. I said, they speak the same way you do. Well, this ended up getting us into a little conversation. The others went in and ordered and so on. We ended up talking some about spiritual things. She insisted that I go in and eat, and I kept saying, no, no, no, I'm going to stay out. She says, no, I have a lot to think about, things to read. We, you know, just, uh, I'm, I'm here, I'm going to be here when you get, I want you to go in. So anyway, I went in and I ate fast. I came out, sure enough, she's there, and we ended up talking for another three hours. Um, she was raised Muslim, uh, and was talking about salvation. Now, she was not a strong Muslim. She was open to the idea that, that Jesus, in fact, could very well be the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh. She was open to these things and so on. So we were talking, and it turns out that there were personal things going on in her life that made her a little bit more open to listen to spiritual things. And, um, so I, we, what will happen to me? If you ever get this question, by the way, would you know how to answer it? We have to think about these things. So, we were just in John one twelve, and I re-explained to her that what I was telling her to do, according to the Bible, was believe on the Lord Jesus, and that would involve receiving the Lord Jesus into her life as a permanent guest, permanent resident. So she, I said, now what will happen to you if you do this? Three things will happen, and the, the three terms of the New Covenant came to mind. I didn't tell her that. I didn't say New Covenant or anything like that. I just, I said three things will happen, and I went through these three things with her. I said, one thing that will happen is that when the Lord Jesus comes into your life, he will not leave you the same way you were. You will receive new life, and there will be changes. Now, it doesn't mean that we turn holy overnight in all our practical aspects. If only it were that easy. But nonetheless, there's a new life that was not there before, and that new life will grow and begin to show itself, and there will be change as, as was written in the terms of the New Covenant. He will write his laws on our minds and inscribe them in our hearts, and that there will be an internal change, not just some following in some external things. A change. He will not leave you the way you were before. There will be change. I said, and, and also, if he comes in, there will be a relationship with him that wasn't there before. Now you're a creature of God, but when if you, if you are saved and receive him, you become a child of God. I said, and you become, that relationship is, is permanent, and that relationship is so close. I said, what do you, in your language, I said, what do the kids call the father? What does the little boy call his father? She said some word in her language for father. I didn't know what it was. I said, no, no, no, not that word. I said, what does the little boy call his father? She said, oh, she says, Bobo. I said, yeah, I know my relatives use that. Bobo. It's, um, it's an onomatopoeic word. It's the only big word I know besides watermelon. An onomatopoeic word is a word that sounds like what it is, and what happens is, I guess dads want to be, win the race as to who, who the baby calls first, mommy or daddy. So since dad want to win the race, what they do is they listen to the kid going ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, and they say, see, baba means daddy. They like make the word mean it, and they say, obviously, uh, the kid's saying daddy first. That's what they do is they just take, take what a kid makes, ba ba ba ba ba, they take four letters of it out, and they have Baba, and that's how, that's what in the Middle East, that's what the little babies call daddy. It turns out that if you think of a string of ABABABAB, and instead of slicing it there, you shift a little and slice, what do you have? Abba. And I showed her that verse in the Bible and pointed to it, and she knew Abba and Baba were the same. I said the, the verse, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, dear Father, the closeness of that relationship. And then I told her, I said, and also there is forgiveness of sins. He cleans when he comes in there, past and future sins. There is free forgiveness of all sins. Um, I told her these things. By the way, I didn't talk about this with her, but I'll talk about it with you. These three things the Lord does when he comes in. First of all, how many things do we do in order to be saved? Three things or one? One. One. We receive him, we believe on him, that, that one thing that we do. But he does three things, at least. All right. It turns out, think about this. When you were saved, you may not, you might not have been going through these three things in your prayer to God for him to save you. That's okay, you might not have said those things. But you could not have been saved if you deliberately rejected one. We're going to follow it through scripturally. Think about it for a minute. Let's say I'm going to, I want to be saved, and let's say I want number two and three but not, not number one. In other words, I come to God and say, I want to have a relationship with you, and I want to have the forgiveness of sins, but when it comes to any change in my life, uh-uh. No, no, no, no salvation if it means a change to my life. Uh, is there salvation on those terms? Scripture clearly tells us that every saved person, God then begins a process of conforming that person into the image of his son, and he's going to get the job done. People cannot come with a big do not enter sign on them and say, I only want the relationship, and I only want forgiveness, but if it means that you're going to change me at all, uh-uh. No, no salvation on those terms. How about if we take one and three and kick out two? In other words, we come to God saying, I want to be a better person, and I want to have the forgiveness of sins, but as far as any relationship with you goes, I don't want to have anything to do with you. I just want the goods. I want the free forgiveness. I want a better life, but I don't want to have anything to do with you. Salvation on those terms? The very essence of what eternal life means is knowing him and having a relationship with him. John seventeen three. It- there's no such thing as eternal life apart from having it, having a shared life with him. How about kicking out number three? Now, you think nobody would be silly enough to do that. Don't be so sure. Somebody comes to God saying, I want to be a better person, and I want to have a relationship with you. But to have to come like a bankrupt sinner and ask for forgiveness, to come as a bankrupt sinner and say, I can't do anything good to merit this. Oh no, I've got my pride to worry about. The truth of the matter is, the situation's desperate. The truth of the matter is, the way it's portrayed in Isaiah one is like this. God comes and tells us, come now, let's reason together, you and I. Now picture a, picture a bargaining table, like you're buying a used car or something, but it's better than that. Picture a bargaining table, and you're on one side and God's on the other, and he says, now, come on now, let's, let's bargain, you and me. Let's reason this out. What do you have to, what do you have to offer on your side? And you, you look down and you, what you pick up on your side is, is a bucket full of sin. And that's all you have to bargain with. All good works that you've done are, are tainted with that sin. And everything that you thought you might have had to bargain with turns out to be nothing or less. And you look down and you start to get a little sweat running down you, because you realize you don't have anything to bargain with on your side. And Isaiah one would say that he'll go on in that bargaining deal and say, come now, let's reason together, you and I. And though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow. And though they're red like crimson, they're going to be like wool. And you say, well, if this is what I have to bargain with, and you're offering me a deal like that, I'm going to take you up on it, and he'll give an exchange, but it, but we have to come on those terms. We have to come on the terms that I have nothing to bargain with on my side. All three of these we agree to. Now, you may not, again, as I said, when you were saved, you may not have consciously been thinking of all of these things. That's okay. But we are not saved by deliberately rejecting one of these. Again, it's not that we do all of these. He does them. We do one thing, we believe on him, we receive him, but he carries out these things. In some sense, what we're doing when we receive him is we're giving him permission to carry out the terms of salvation in our life. Well, I was continued my conversation with Gitti, and um, she said when she heard about the forgiveness of sins, past and future. She said, if what you say is true, then I can take this gift of salvation and go out and live like the devil, and I'll still be forgiven. Is that right? You don't have to say anything, but how many of you have heard, heard somebody ask that question? Yeah. I said, he does forgive all of our sins. However, you can't just take number three. You can't just take the forgiveness. When you, when you receive him as your savior, you are receiving all of these, and that includes a new life that's not going to want to do the things that, that you did before. It includes a relationship where God is now your father, and when you start to stray, God as a father may step in and not punish you for your sins, but discipline you to bring you back to himself. You're beginning a relationship with him. So you have to understand that you're receiving the, the whole package. Then she said, well, you know, I think what you're saying is much like what we have in our religion. I think they're pretty much the same. Well, this shocked me, because I knew what her religion was. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, in our religion, we, we try to, try to do good, and, and, and if we don't and we sin, we come to God and we say, I- I'm, I'm sorry, I, I did this, I should not have done this, and I won't do it again, and, and, and please forgive me. And he gives forgiveness free. He's a merciful God. And so now I'm forgiven, and I go on and I try to live well and so on, and, and then I may do that again. I may sin again, and I go to him and I say, I- I'm sorry, I- I should not have done it, and and in fact, I said I wouldn't do it again, and here I did, and I'm sorry, and please forgive me, and I- I won't do it again. And and he gives forgiveness because he's a merciful God, and you go on and and if you do it again, you go to him for forgiveness. Now, he knows, she had to put this in, he knows that you're just playing games, you know, sin, forgiveness, sin, forgiveness, you know. He knows that if you're just playing games, but as long as you're sincere and you go to him, he gives forgiveness free, just like the free forgiveness you're talking about. I said, I don't think they're the same. She said, why not? I said, in what you described, who is saving you? I said, in what you described, you are saving you. God is just there to give you enough time to get it right. Oh, please just wait, I'll get it right. Oh, forgive me for this, I'll get it right. Forgive me, I'll get it right. In the salvation that God offers, He is the one who saves you. You receive Him and all of these things that come, come with it. It is not that we, we try to save ourselves, and He's just there to give us time to get it right. We, um, continued talking about things. Um, she left. I can't say she was saved when she left, when she left. Um, she did leave saying that she will seriously consider receiving the Lord Jesus, and I'm afraid that that's all I can say. Um, but the eternal life that God gives us is not something that we get when we die. The eternal life he gives us is something we get now, and it comes in the person of the Lord Jesus. We receive him. Now, I was at a camp one time, uh, talked about these things, and uh, afterwards, four girls came up. They all had the same question. One was the spokeswoman of the group. She came and she said, you know, she said, when I was young, I said a few words one time, and I was told I was saved. She said, and I, I said a prayer. She said, you know, she says, there hasn't been one change in my life since then. She says, you know, I wonder, I wonder if I'm really saved. It's a fair question. It's a question we have to ask ourselves. Is there evidence that new life has come in? It doesn't mean that we've become, we've become perfect in all our ways immediately, but has there, has there been a, a change, a noticeable difference? Has there been an understanding of a relationship that wasn't there before, to assure us that we have received, uh, the, the gift of eternal life and the forgiveness of sins? Uh, come to First John two. and this seems, this is fascinating to me, First John chapter two. because what we're going to see is the terms of the New Covenant, or the terms of salvation here, if you will, carried out in the life of the believer. First John two and verse, well, look at verse twelve. I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. Well, which, which one is that? That's the third one here, right? I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. What was it that, when we talked about relationship, what was it in the New Covenant that made us think of relationship? I will be their God, they will be my people, and nobody's going to be poking his neighbor saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. Keep, continue reading. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. And look down in verse fourteen, the middle. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Now, in overcoming the wicked one, we see some change, but how is it in when we read the terms of the New Covenant, what was written that made us think of change? That God was not going to write outside of us, but that he was going to write his laws in our minds and on our hearts. Look at the wording used here. And the word of God abides in you. Now, you might be thinking, well, what it means when it says the word of God abides in you is that you've memorized the word of God. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might, and that's what it's meaning. Really? Uh, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, he had the word memorized. Would you say that the word of God was abiding in him before he was saved? We'll see it in John five. The answer is no. We're going to see it in John five. What does this mean for the word of God to abide in someone? Is it just that they'd memorized it? Verse thirty eight, five thirty eight. But you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe. So Nicodemus, for all, this isn't about Nicodemus, by the way, but any person, Nicodemus for an ex- example, who has memorized a lot of the word and yet has not believed on him for salvation, doesn't have the word abiding in them. It is something special that God does on salvation, upon salvation. And if I can use the terms of the New Covenant to describe it, he writes his laws, his word in our minds and on our hearts, so that there's now something within us that agrees with what we read in his word. So, I ask us today, and I know most of us here are saved. We heard mentioned before the meeting started someone who was in a serious car accident. We don't know how long we have. We look back over our, over our life, and we say, am I saved? Have I received the Lord Jesus? Am I believing on him for my salvation? It's a serious question to ask ourselves, and sometimes, maybe like those girls at this camp, they've said a, they said a prayer when they were young, maybe they understood some, maybe they didn't understand some, but they looked and they said, I don't see any evidence of new life, and they got themselves right with God then. So I offer these things, and for the believers among us, uh, pray that these things are helpful in, in just encapsulating in our minds the beauty of the salvation God has given us. Let's pray. Our Father, we... we thank you that even parts of our salvation that we needed, that we did not think of when we were saved, you thought of them, and you have seen to it that they were taken care of. And we thank you that you have made it simple for us, and you've made it so that children can understand the message, and we thank you that you have hidden the eternal life in your son. That we could not have the life and forget about your son, but that we would have a beautiful person living and abiding in us, whose life would be made known in our lives. We pray that we would, we would see in ourselves evidence of salvation, fruit that shows that we belong to you. We pray that these things will be helpful to the believers. We pray these things will be helpful to the lost, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.