How am I (really) doing spiritually? A fundamentally important question, but how do we answer it? Am I truly converted? Or am I like Peter, declaring my allegiance but then denying my Savior? In this concise guide we look at the Biblical answer.

<p>How am I (really) doing spiritually? A fundamentally important question, but how do we answer it? Am I truly converted? Or am I like Peter, declaring my allegiance but then denying my Savior? In this concise guide we look at the Biblical answer.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Quo Vadis

A Concise Guide to Primitive Godliness

Michael Dant

01 - A Concise Guide to the Christian Life

Heavenly Father God, we so desperately need you.

We need you to teach our hearts and our minds.

Heavenly Father God, I pray that you will speak.

I pray that you will fill our hearts and our minds with your Holy Spirit, that you will work miracles.

Teach us, Father, what we need to know and how we need to enjoy you to the fullest.

We pray for these things and we thank you in Jesus' name.

An amoeba is a creature that does not have a backbone or a skeleton.

And because of this fundamental flaw in this creature, it cannot walk.

Humans have both skeletons and backbones, but sometimes those bones and those parts don't work real well, and you have inflammation, and you have broken bones, and you have all kinds of problems that can cause us to walk, hump back, or walk painfully, not be able to walk or run to the fullest.

Not having a backbone is a problem, but having a diseased backbone is also a problem.

As Christians, we want to have a healthy spiritual backbone.

We don't want to crawl through life in pain.

We want to enjoy God to the fullest and live the Christian life to the fullest.

We want a healthy spiritual backbone so that we can run with endurance the race that is set before us.

What does a healthy backbone, spiritual backbone, look like in practical terms in the Christian life?

In other words, how can we understand the Christian life in such a way, the basic foundation structural principles of the Christian life in such a way that we can enjoy the Christian life to the fullest.

You know, most of my sincere Christian life, I did not understand some foundational principles about the Christian life and how it worked.

And because of that misunderstanding, I was spiritually impoverished for most of my sincere Christian life, and I did not get the joy and the peace and the victory in Jesus that He promises.

No wonder God cries out to His people, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

No wonder Jesus could say, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

Yes, my friends, the Christian life is about the heart.

It's about a relationship, a love relationship with Jesus.

But the Christian life also includes the mind.

We have to understand some things, some basic principles, so that we can have that relationship with Jesus.

So what I'd like to do this morning is look at 7 foundational principles of the Christian life, Backbone elements, how the Christian life works in practical terms.

Now this of course is just an overview of the Christian life.

We're not going to be having time to include the sinews and the muscles and all the different tissues.

We're just looking at the backbone, the skeleton of the Christian life.

The first foundation element, backbone element of the Christian life is repentance.

Repentance is a recognition of our true condition.

Paul calls it an elementary teaching and a foundation principle.

Of all the messages that God could proclaim to His people when He came as Messiah to this earth, what was the message that God proclaimed?

What was the message that John the Baptist proclaimed when he came to this earth?

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

What was the message that the Messiah Himself, Jesus, proclaimed when He was here on this earth?

What was the message that Jesus gave to His disciples to preach?

They went out and preached that men should repent, Mark 6, verse 12.

And what was the message that Peter proclaimed on the great day of Pentecost?

Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, Acts 2.38.

Repentance is where the Christian life begins.

But is repentance important for you and me today?

We confess and repent and God forgives us of our sins.

Is there some kind of a deep repentance that you and I as Laodicean Christians are missing?

Besides that daily confession, that daily repentance, are we truly repentant from the bottom of our hearts and our minds?

Jesus seemed to think that we were missing repentance because to his message to the church of Laodicea, what did he say?

He said, Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, therefore be zealous and repent.

Yes, there is a basic foundational repentance that we still need as end-time Christians in the world today.

Only when we loathe sin and worldliness Can we have that vibrant Christian life?

It has to begin at the beginning at repentance.

And sometimes it seems that we just haven't gotten there yet.

We're still stuck on step 1 of the Christian life.

Repentance, it is so critically important.

Therefore I will judge you, God says in Ezekiel.

O house of Israel, each according to his conduct, declares the Lord God.

Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, So that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you.

We are told that repentance includes sorrow for sin and a turning away from it.

We shall not renounce sin unless we see its sinfulness.

Until we turn away from it in the heart, there will be no real change in the life.

My friends, importance is step number 1, and it's still important for you and I today as LatestSeen Christians.

The next foundation principle in the Christian life is surrender.

Surrender is giving ourselves to God in response to our repentance.

When the Holy Spirit works on our hearts and minds and says, You are a sinner and there's nothing you can do about it, the only option we have is to go into Christ's arms and let Him give us that justification, let Him forgive us, let Him give us that victory.

Repentance and that sorrow for sin drives us into the arms of Jesus through surrender, giving ourselves wholly to him and say, Lord, I know I can't do it.

I know I am wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, but I believe that if I give myself wholly to you, that you can perform a miracle in my life.

That's what repentance does for us in surrender.

And Surrender is letting God come in and depose self.

Surrender is letting God be Almighty God in our life, taking self off the throne and God sits on the throne of our life.

Unless Jesus comes in and takes possession of the heart, Unless self is subdued and Christ is exalted, we shall not prosper as a people." So if repentance is Christ's first message to Laodicea, Surrender is the second.

Those whom I love, Jesus says, I reprove and discipline.

And then after the repentance, the call for repentance, Jesus says this, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me.

That is Christ inviting us to surrender, to open ourselves fully to him, to let him come in and solve the sin problem in our life.

The cure for Laodicea is found in this two-fold command of Jesus to Laodicea, repent, open, repent, surrender.

Recognizing our worldliness and opening ourselves wholly to God leads to the third backbone principle of Christian life, and that is justification.

Justification is a big word that simply means that Jesus forgives us, that Jesus covers our unrighteousness and makes us seem righteous in the eyes of God even though we aren't.

Justification is Jesus wiping away our guilt.

Jesus covers us with His righteousness, grants us the right to heaven, even though we could not possibly deserve that right on our own.

Some may be surprised to see that justification comes after surrender.

Surrender has to happen first before we can be saved.

And yet, when we look at the Bible, we see that principle over and over.

02 - A  Concise Guide to Righteousness by Faith

Heavenly Father God we are so thankful that you are here in this place.

We are so thankful Father that you are doing the work because we can't.

We are thankful Father for your Holy Spirit and the power, your power to speak, your power to open up our minds and to teach us.

Father, we pray that you will be with us in a special way.

Do everything you want to do in our lives and through us to bless others, we pray.

Christ in his epic discourse to Laodicea offered to you and me 3 precious treasures.

That gold refined by fire, that clean linen, that righteousness, and the eyesalve.

These 3 treasures that Jesus offered us, the Church of Laodicea, you and me, are not given away free.

The white raiment represents righteousness.

What does it mean to buy from Jesus faith and righteousness?

We're talking about righteousness by faith, so these are important questions.

How can we understand this message of Jesus to Laodicea in terms of buying these wonderful things?

There are a lot of things written today about righteousness by faith.

It's 1 of the foundational aspects of our denomination and our life.

And yet, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what righteousness by faith really is and how it works.

How does it work in practical terms in our life?

I just recently read a book about righteousness by faith.

In the book, the author purported to biblically and clearly teach what righteousness by faith really is, but by the time the book was over, he was so far off, he wouldn't even recognize righteousness by faith.

This is a very important topic, and 1 that is sometimes misused and misunderstood and misrepresented, but it's an important 1.

So let's look together and see if we can get a clear, accurate, biblical, concise definition of Righteousness by Faith and How It Works in the Christian Life.

You know, in order to understand Righteousness by Faith, you only need to understand 2 things, right?

Well, that doesn't really help us a whole lot because these are very complex subjects and books have been written on each 1 And not everybody who studies righteousness by faith actually understands or actually agree with each other.

So how do we understand this complex topic?

Well fortunately, we do not always need to understand the deep complexities of a topic in order to enjoy the beauty of the general concept.

Just because I don't understand all the ins and outs of how a hot air balloon works does not mean that I can't understand, well, you know, hot air rises and I can get in this balloon and I can enjoy the scenery.

So it's the same way with the Christian life.

We want to get a bird's eye view of this thing called righteousness by faith so that we can get the general concept and enjoy it to the fullest.

So this bird's eye view is going to start out with a simple definition.

The Bible says that a righteous person is 1 who does what is right.

First John 3, 7, little children, make sure no 1 deceives you.

The 1 who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous.

So the 1 who does what is right is righteous.

The only problem is that term righteous does not apply to anyone on this earth.

He was the only 1 that was truly righteous.

So, when we talk about righteousness, we can only talk about Christ's righteousness.

There are 2 types of righteousness and both of them are Christ's righteousness.

I want to make sure that's very clear from the very beginning here.

There are 2 types of righteousness, but both types are Christ's righteousness.

There's Christ's righteousness for us, and there's Christ's righteousness through us.

Christ's righteousness for us is His robe of righteousness, His way of wiping away our guilt and sin, His way of giving us the benefits and advantages of heaven, even though we can't possibly deserve them.

The Bible says God saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.

So this is Christ's righteousness for us.

Only Christ can do it and he does it for us.

Christ's righteousness for us is His plan B.

When Adam and Eve sinned, all of a sudden it became impossible for us to be saved.

I can actually Give you Christ's robe of righteousness, forgive you for your sins, justify you, and make you holy.

Christ's righteousness through us, on the other hand, is God working in us to change us.

It's God working in us to make us more like Him.

It's God working in us to change the way we think, to change the way we desire, to change the way we act, to act and desire and think and move more righteously.

The Bible says, if you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is what?

It's only through Christ and his righteousness through us that we can practice righteousness.

Christ's righteousness is like a medicated bandage.

Not only does it cover, protect, and hide, but it also heals and changes from the inside.

That's Christ's righteousness through us.

Both kinds of righteousness, both of Christ's righteousness for us and through us, is critical to our salvation and to our well-being as followers of Jesus.

You may have heard other terms for these 2 aspects of Christ's righteousness.

Sometimes you'll hear it called imputed righteousness, that's His righteousness for us, or justification.

And imparted righteousness through us and sanctification are other terms for these 2 types of fundamental righteousness that only comes from Christ.

If Christ's righteousness for us justifies us, covers us with Christ's righteousness, forgives us of our sin, wipes away our guilt, saves us, Then why do we need Christ's righteousness through us?

What's the importance, what's the purpose of Christ's righteousness through us?

Well, I would like to propose that there are at least 4 good reasons why Christ's righteousness for us is critical to the Christian life.

First, The citizens of heaven will be righteous.

So it's never too early to get started in the process, right?

In Psalms we read, O LORD, who may abide in your tent, who may dwell on your holy hill, he who walks with integrity and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart.

Those who are with Christ in heaven will be righteous.

The second reason why it's so important for Christ to work his righteousness through us is because right doing is faith enhancing.

In other words, every time that God is able to work powerfully in us, through us, to produce works of righteousness, that's actually increasing our faith.

And we are talking about righteousness by faith, right?

James says, you see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.

So it's an important part in his faith enhancing process.

07 - A Concise Guide to Sin

Welcome once again to our series, A Concise Guide to Primitive Godliness.

This morning we want to look at 1 of the most fundamental foundational concepts in the Christian life.

The devil doesn't want us to understand sin because The devil doesn't want us to understand sin because the devil doesn't want us to understand his arsenal against us.

There are some things about this concept that are critical for our understanding of the Christian life and how it works in practical terms.

So we're gonna look at that this morning.

Before we begin, let's have a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father God, thank you so much for your word.

Thank you that in your word, you teach us so many wonderful things.

That you help us to understand the Christian life, that you help us understand what it means to follow you.

And Father, we pray that as we look in to your word this morning, that you will be our guide, that you will open up our hearts and our minds and teach us, teach us the things that you want us to know and show us how we can apply these things in practical ways in our own life.

We pray for these things, we thank you so much for them in Jesus' name, Amen.

Have you ever thought about the question, how does a Christian sin?

It's an interesting question, a basic question, and actually a very important question.

In other words, What is normal as Christians in terms of sin?

If I have been crucified in Christ and it's no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me, then does Christ sin in me?

How should we as Christians, as followers, as wholly surrendered followers of Christ, how should we relate to this concept of sin and what is it going to look like in practical terms in our life?

In fact, we are told that the nature and the importance of the law of God have been to a great extent lost sight of.

A wrong conception of the character, the perpetuity and the obligation of the divine law has led to errors in relation to what?

Conversion and sanctification and has resulted in lowering the standard of piety in the church.

Here we are told is to be found the secret of the lack of the spirit and the power of God in the revivals of our time.

This is an incredibly important topic that we understand the character, the obligation, and the perpetuity of God's divine law.

Where do you even begin to explore a question like that?

In fact, I propose that this question, how does a Christian sin, is so difficult that it would be easier for us to start with an easier question.

Let's start with the question, does a Christian sin?

And I can imagine that most of us think that we know from the beginning what that answer is going to be.

So let's look at the scriptures and see if we can find out some information about this particular question, does a Christian sin?

We start off with Ecclesiastes, Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, and he says, there is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

I don't know if you can get much clearer than that.

This is Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived.

He's saying there is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

And then of course we can go to the psalmist, Solomon's father.

He says, if you Lord should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who could stand?

Who can stand without iniquity before the Almighty God?

So these passages are very clear that yes, people sin, and even Christians sin.

We've all fallen short of the glory of God.

So should we stop here or should we keep on going?

Well, let's keep looking at the Bible and see if we can find out more about this concept of does a Christian sin?

Paul tells us that no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man.

And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it.

So according to Paul, we don't actually have to sin, there's always a way out, and by God's grace, we can take that way out.

But does that really happen in real life?

I mean is that really practical or is that just theory?

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Series

A Concise Guide to Primitive Godliness

04 - A Concise Guide to Conversion

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

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Recorded

Parts

01 - A Concise Guide to the Christian Life

32m

02 - A Concise Guide to Righteousness by Faith

41m

07 - A Concise Guide to Sin

38m

08 - A Concise Guide to Faith

35m

09 - A Concise Guide to Failure

30m

03 - A Concise Guide to Surrender

40m

04 - A Concise Guide to Conversion

32m

05 - A Concise Guide to Obedience and Legalism

28m

06 - A Concise Guide to Knowing God’s Will

39m

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