To Know and Obey
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4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—
6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,
7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
I’m going to pull my title tonight from verse 8.
To Know and to Obey
Obedience is very important to God.
Samuel said it this way in 1 Sam 15:22
22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
There are many people that place the utmost importance on Knowing God.
And don’t get me wrong,
You’ve got to Know God.
But also, God has got Know you.
In the sermon on the Mount Jesus said,
Some will be told, depart from me
and the reason why?
They worked iniquity
And He didn’t know them.
Iniquity means lawlessness.
It is the original sin.
It is rebellion
It is essentially, disobedience.
Iniquity is saying, I’m going to do what I want to do,
Instead of doing what God has told me to do.
The two reasons for judgement concern these two words.
Knowing and Obeying.
Knowing and Obeying.
In our text, Paul said that Jesus was going to take vengence on those who do not Know Him
AND on those who do not obey His Gospel.
What is the Gospel?
What is the Gospel?
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
The Death, burial and resurrection is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is something that millions, and even billions of people around the world know about.
It is the most popular story of all time.
The Bible has been printed more times than any other book, and it isn’t even close.
Lots of People KNOW about the Gospel,
but how many people OBEY it?
Faith Alone
Faith Alone
There are many today that preach a simple version of the Gospel.
They get the death, burial, and resurrection part right,
but then they deviate from scripture and teach that to obey is to believe.
Just believe.
There is no doubt that faith in the Gospel is essential.
It is by grace through faith that we are saved.
But faith is more than just a mental acknowledgment that something is true.
Faith alone is not enough.
I know that will shock some people,
But there is no place in scripture that says faith alone can save you.
Knowing the Gospel is not enough,
Believing the Gospel is not enough,
You’ve also got to obey the gospel.
James said it this way:
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
Then James gives an example to make it clear.
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
We have churches who have built there entire salvation doctrine on the idea that you are justified by faith alone,
and no where does it state it.
However, James clearly says a person is justified by works and NOT by faith alone.
This is NOT a contradiction with what Paul said to the church in Ephesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
When he told that church you are saved by grace through faith, and not of yourselves.
He was not saying that you can just believe and stop there.
If you keep reading, he goes on to say that it will lead you to do good works.
The interesting thing is that Paul doesn’t even say there that you are saved by faith.
It says you are saved by GRACE through faith.
and There is a huge difference.
One says faith alone saves me, but the Bible actually says it is God’s grace that saves be because I have faith.
The faith isn’t doing the saving, it is the grace.
And James and Paul both say that faith should lead you to more than just mental acknowledgment.
Because You can’t just KNOW, you must OBEY.
If you don’t do something with the Gospel that you say you believe in,
then do you really believe it at all?
Obeying the Gospel
Obeying the Gospel
Okay pastor, I KNOW the Gospel,
and I BELIEVE the Gospel
But how do I OBEY the Gospel?
In Acts 2 after Peter preached the Gospel, they asked this very question in vs 37
What shall we do?
Peter told them, Repent, be baptized, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit in verse 38
Then he in verse 40 it goes on to say
40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
People say I’m cherry picking when I read Bible.
Cherry Picking is when you take one verse from Paul’s writings and build a whole doctrine on it.
It is even worse when you take that verse out of context, and misquote it to say it is faith saving us and adding the word “alone” when it actually says it is grace saving us, and not alone, but through faith which leads us to good works.
Well, I’m going to stick with what Paul said anyways.
I heard people say they would rather choose Paul over Peter
As if there is some contradiction between their doctrine.
If you prefer Paul…
good, let’s read some more about Paul.
Let’s go to where Paul started the church in Ephesus.
The letter to the church Ephesus came later on.
but let’s see what that Gospel was he first preached to them.
1 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.
It turns out,
Paul told new believers to do the same thing Peter told them to do.
Repent, be baptized and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
In verse 5,
notice the words “On Hearing this”
You see, today, people hear the gospel
and they are told to simply believe it
but that wasn’t how the early church responded
When they heard the good news
about how Jesus died
was buried
and rose again
They responded by dying out to their old self in repentance
getting buried in baptism with Christ
and rising again by the Gift of the Holy Spirit
with the evidence of speaking in a language they didn’t know
That is the pattern
and the pattern did not change to “Faith alone”
until the 16th Century Protestant reformation
But the Apostles never preached faith alone
They preached obedience to the gospel
The early church understood
that they didn’t just need to KNOW about Jesus
They didn’t just need to BELIEVE in Jesus.
Paul said, you need to baptized into Jesus and be filled with His Spirit.
And that is how you OBEY the gospel.
Gospel
Gospel
Death, Burial and resurrection is the Gospel.
Repentance, Baptism and being filled with the Holy Ghost is the obedience to the Gospel.
I try to tie it into every message I preach.
It doesn’t need to be Easter Sunday to talk about the Gospel.
We can talk about our Saviour every day.
When I preach healing,
I talk about the stripes he took on his back for our healing
Then they put him on that old rugged cross with his back already ripped apart.
When I preach about Peace
I talk about how he carried the chastisement of our Peace upon him.
He had that crown of thorns on his head
to give me peace in my mind.
When I talk about grief and sorrow
I like to talk about how he is our comforter
the one that bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.
But I don’t just tell you what Jesus did
The Gospel is the most important story ever told
But the Gospel isn’t going to do anything for those who do not obey it.
Our opening text said Jesus will take vengeance
on those that do not KNOW him,
and also on those that do not OBEY his Gospel.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve heard the Gospel
if you don’t ever obey it
then it has no power in your life.
Check the Box
Check the Box
Now, I preach about how it is wrong to stop at knowing the Gospel,
I also preach how just saying that you believe the Gospel is not enough.
There is no Bible that says to repeat a sinner’s prayer
and ask Jesus into your heart and you will be saved forever.
This is a manmade idea.
The Bible tells us how to obey the Gospel
Repent, Be Baptized, and be Filled with the Spirit with the evidence of Speaking in tongues.
But it doesn’t even end there.
You’ve got to keep pressing toward the mark.
Becoming more and more like Jesus each day.
It is through holiness that Jesus makes you more like Him.
As Pentecostals, I fear that we can fall into the same trap that we accuse others of.
Checking the boxes
We see people check off the box of knowing and believing, and we point a finger
We criticize them for not even knowing there is a box of
repentance
a box of baptism in Jesus name
a box of being filled with the Holy Ghost.
and a box of living a holiness lifestyle.
But while we are pointing the finger at them,
We need to stop and check ourselves.
are we also just checking boxes just to check them?
If you are not careful, you can check off the box of repentance when you are young, but never repent again.
If you are not careful you can check off speaking in tongues,
but go weeks or months or years without being in His presence.
Obeying the Gospel is not a onetime thing.
Obeying the Gospel is a lifestyle.
Paul said I die daily
repentance is how we crucify ourselves with Christ
The Bible says it puts away the old man.
It also says it is how we mortify the deeds of the flesh.
I wonder sometimes if we put so much emphasis on
Baptism and being filled with the Holy Ghost,
that we don’t celebrate when someone repents
We post all over facebook when someone is filled with the HG or baptized in Jesus’ name.
and I’m not knocking those things but,
The bible says that all of Heaven rejoices when just ONE sinner repents.
not hundreds, not thousands,
but when just ONE sinner repents.
Angles start singing
Heaven starts celebrating
If Heaven rejoices over one act of repentance,
I think We should get excited too
The fatted calf for the lost son
True repentance
True repentance
I think we do get excited when a drug addict repents,
because you can see it.
You can see the change in their life.
But what about the liar?
The Bible says some sins go before you and some will follow after.
It is very easy for some sins to go years without repentance.
You can tell everyone you’ve checked all the boxes in your youth,
but are you dying daily?
Sitting on a pew is not going to make up for unrepentant sins.
If you have sin in your life that you have not repented of,
It doesn’t matter how long ago you were filled with the Holy Ghost,
you have not fully obeyed the Gospel!
Altar Call
Altar Call
We need a baptism of true repentance.
because Jesus is coming back soon,
and he is looking for people that
don’t just KNOW him
but people who know him AND obey his Gospel
Tonight, we’re going to all repent.
And I believe when we do,
We’re going to see God begin to move in a mighty way
Because Heaven is going to start rejoicing
I don’t care if this is first time repenting
or if you’ve repented 7000 times in your life
It is never a bad time to ask God to renew our spirit
and create in us a clean heart
And if we all do this together
in one place
and in one accord
imagine what heaven will do
if they rejoice over just one sinner repenting
then what will heaven do if this whole church
collectively repents
You say, well I’m not a sinner
Look, I get it
You’re doing really good
You don’t do the things you used to do
You quit cussing, smoking, lying
but Let’s be honest
This week we’ve all fallen short
somewhere somehow
Maybe we don’t even realize it
but we gossiped once when we should have kept silent
we got envious of someone’s fortune
we skipped prayer
we overate at dinner
or gorged on sweats to cope with stress
We did something this week that we overlooked
and didn’t really repent of
So, all of use are equal now
No one here is above anyone else
and if you think you are
then that’s what you need to repent of
because pride is the number sin
Let’s all stand.
So—
how do we repent?
1. Confessing Your Sins: 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
2. Godly Sorrow: 2 Cor. 7:10: For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be regretted…
3. Turn to God and Do Good Things: Acts 26:20: Instead, I preached to those in Damascus first, and to those in Jerusalem and in all the region of Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of repentance.
Repentance is turning to God and away from sin
You can’t claim you have repented if you keep going back to that same sin
that is like dog licking up his vomit the Bible says.
4. Forgive Others: Matthew 6:14-15: For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.
Sometimes, what keeps us from true repentences
is a lack of forgiveness
and God wants to set you free of that bitterness today
if you will let him
he will heal the pain
even if they never asked your forgivness
…
Let’s all bow our heads
and start by confessing to God our sins
and pray a godly sorrow comes over us right now
