0:00 [Music] Hi family. It's a joy to be with you all. I want to uh give a hearty amen to what we heard from our bro Winhigh and also an amen to his thanks for the folks 0:17 who have arranged this conference behind the scenes. Thank you to all the singles as well for making time. A lot of you have school, you have work, you have a lot of different things. And uh the Lord the the the promise that we heard at the 0:29 end, those who honor me, I will honor. You can take that as a promise as you have sought to honor the Lord even in making the time. The Lord wants to honor you for that. And I pray that it would be so in the days ahead. I um I wanted 0:41 to share about faith. You know, in Hebrews 11 and verse 6, it says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please God." Impossible. And so we ought to have a a good definition of faith. If the Bible tells us that it's impossible 0:58 to please God without it, we ought to know what it means. Sorry, I'm just setting a timer here. And so I I want to give a very simple definition um because I think in this day and age uh faith can mean a lot of different things to people and if we 1:15 aren't careful, we can be deceived. So I want to start by just saying what I think a very helpful definition a hyper practical definition of saving faith is. What is a faith that saves? Saving faith 1:33 is loving conviction. Saving faith is loving conviction. And that's the burden on my heart. I think that uh and and the verse that I want to reference right at the very 1:50 beginning is from Philippians and chapter 3. If you want to turn there with me, anytime and someone gives you a definition, you should say, "Where is that in the Bible?" Even up here. Uh Philippians 3 2:09 verse 14. He says, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." The prize of the upward 2:26 call. We see here that Paul, it says he's he's seeking to attain to the resurrection of the dead. In verse 11, says he hasn't already attain obtained it or he hasn't become perfect, but he's pressing on and he forgets what lies 2:40 behind verse 13. And he reaches towards what lies ahead. And then he says in verse 14, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call. And I see there what what is my attitude towards the upward call. Do I prize it? 2:55 Do I tolerate it? Do I bear it? We can have a lot of different attitudes towards the upward call of God. And what we see in the Apostle Paul is he prized it. He prized being called higher. He cherished it. And so I see here very 3:12 simply saving faith is loving, prizing, cherishing, loving conviction. How does God God call us higher? By convicting us, by correcting us, by rebuking, by reproving, by instructing. And it's a good thing to 3:31 ask ourselves, do I have that kind of faith? Do I really love correction? Do I really love conviction? And I think it's a message for certainly for all of us as disciples this question of whether we really love conviction and whether we really love 3:49 correction. I think especially for young people it's important. Um we've talked a lot about as we've even heard this morning about submission in the church and the importance of submission. And the burden on my heart today is to s 4:02 suggest and to you all to seek to love conviction. I would like to do that from a foolish from two young people, a foolish young king and a um 4:21 wise young woman. So, if you want to turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 37, there are many kings towards towards the 4:39 Babylonian conquest. There were many kings who uh reigned shortly in Israel or in Judah and Zedekiah is one of them. And we learn in uh in the Kings, it tells us that Zedekiah became king when he was uh 21 years old. 4:58 He was only king for 11 years. So 21 to 32. And I think for our singles gathering, probably everybody falls nearly in that range. 21 to to 32. And so everything that we see of his inter interactions with Jeremiah, which are 5:13 tragic, you can take as a warning from a young foolish king. Here's a warning for you. I think it's a real tragedy. But we can start in verse two. It says, "Neither Zedekiah nor his officials, nor the people who were left in the land, 5:29 listen to what the Lord said through Jeremiah." But look at this. This is so sad and pathetic. Verse three, "Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent his officials to ask Jeremiah to pray for them." So what do we see there? He said, 'We not going to do what you 5:46 say, but would you pray for us? That's absurd. That's absurd. And I I see this certainly in relation to the prophets. I see it in relation to the Lord himself. Um, and it's good to ask ourselves, will I bear with a hard word from a 6:05 prophet? I see, I have seen with my own eyes. Young people think they put confidence or trust in a leader when they ask them for prayer or for advice. They say and you say, "Hey, who do you submit to?" And you and they go, "Who do 6:24 I ask to pray for me when I'm in need? Who do I ask for advice?" But the question is, it's not your submission isn't proven in who you ask for prayer. your your submission is proven by whose hard words you will gladly accept. 6:44 And we see here with Zedekiah, he wanted Jeremiah to pray for him, but he wasn't willing to obey him. And it's very sad. And it happens even to the Lord. I mean, uh, in in Luke chapter 6, you don't have to turn there. We're mostly going to stay in Jeremiah. 7:01 But in Luke chapter 6, one thing Jesus says is, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, when you won't do what I say?" That's Luke 6:46. Why do you call me Lord when you won't do what I say? And I remember praying once for safety. There was some, 7:16 you know, situation and I was praying, Lord, Lord, keep us safe. And I felt the Lord bring this verse to my heart. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, when I'm trying to deal with you with this other thing and you've been ignoring me? And 7:28 then there's an emergency and you say Lord, Lord. The only person who can call me Lord is the person who wants me to be their savior, who wants me to save them from sin, who's eager to listen. And if I'm praying, I I felt the Lord showed me 7:43 that if I'm praying urgently in some circumstance in my life while refusing the Lord in some other area, I need to hear what the Lord says. He's, you know what he's saying? I'm outside. I stand at the door and knock. open to 7:58 me. You're saying, "Lord, Lord, you're asking me. I'm at the door and you aren't you aren't opening to me." And um Zedekiah is a is a is a tragic example. We see a good example in uh the 8:14 character of Ruth. Ruth is married. She's a Moabitete. She's married to a child of Israel who moved into uh Moab during a period of distress. And then she and Naomi when 8:32 they come back to Israel, Boaz, she meets Boaz who will become her future husband. But Boaz says something to her in Ruth chapter 2. If you want to turn there, He says to her in verse 12, 8:57 "May the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge bless you for it." And we we many times we want to take refuge in the Lord's wings. But look at look at how he describes her in verse 11. He says, "I know about the 9:13 kindness you have shown to your mother-in-law since the death of your husband and how you left your father and mother and you left your own land and you have come here to live among strangers." That's the person who takes 9:26 the takes refuge in the Lord. They're rejecting all the other refues. Ruth was defenseless and Boaz recognized this is someone who's taking refuge in the Lord. How did he see it? She had abandoned all of her other refuges. 9:40 You've left your father. You've left your mother. You've left your own land. You've come here to live among strangers. That's how I know that you have taken refuge in the Lord. And we can think we take refuge in the Lord 9:50 when we ask for prayer, when we ask for help. But the question comes, am I rejecting all of my other refues? Am I only found in Christ? Is he my all in all? Or am I trying to preserve a bunch of other refues? And then out of 10:05 convenience or when I have a need, I ask the Lord for help. Even the prodigal son, if you think about the prodigal son, he didn't call his father. He didn't send a letter 10:23 saying, "I apologize." He left that far country. And he came back. It's another example. He came back and he said, "I'm not worthy to be called your son." And this is this is what Zedekiah missed. If you turn back to Jeremiah, 10:41 this is what Zedekiah missed in his interactions with Jeremiah because it and it it strikes me because we have a great inheritance in CFC churches. We have a really great inheritance. And we see this pattern in Jeremiah 37 11:08 and 38 where Zedekiah is often calling for Jeremiah. It says sometimes he sends for him secretly and he he asks him a question or things like that. And you get this sense that wow, this guy must love the truth, right? He's always 11:21 calling to talk to Jeremiah. He's always seeking him out. We don't have time to read it. There there are many examples of it if you look at Jeremiah 37 and 38. But it struck me he had access to a prophet and he even sought to learn from 11:35 a prophet but he didn't love the truth. He wanted to hear the truth but he didn't he didn't love it. And there's a great danger for us in our churches where we have access to great teaching. We have access to great 11:52 truth and maybe there's some indication that we even enjoy hearing it. You come here this weekend. You want to hear the truth, right? Do we do we hearten ourselves that we want to hear the truth? Says Herod often like to hear uh 12:06 John the Baptist and they killed him. Is it a is it a good sign that I like to hear the truth? Zedekiah often called for Jeremy. He called him out of prison say, "Hey, I want to talk to you. What's the word of the Lord?" But that's not 12:20 how we judge whether we really love the truth. that we can be a hearer of the word. But but ultimately, if you look at um Jeremiah 39 and verse 6, this is really sad. It says that the king of Babylon, this is a couple years later at the very end of 12:37 his uh reign. It says, "The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as they killed his children and all the nobles of Judah. And then he gouged out Zedekiah's eyes and he bound him in chains and sent him away to Babylon as a slave." It's a 12:53 total tragedy. It's really It's a really sad thing to see a king in Israel carried away as a slave, eyes gouged out, children murdered before his eyes, totally helpless. And you go, "Oh, well, he probably didn't have a prophet." No, he 13:10 did. He probably hadn't heard God's word. No, he did. And we too, we can say, "We have a prophet. We hear God's word. But how will it be for us? Do we love conviction? If we don't love conviction, whatever 13:29 faith we say we have is not saving faith. Because saving faith takes every hard word and it joyfully, eagerly, willingly accepts it. It says in Hebrews 4 that let us fear. 13:48 Hebrews 4:1. Let us fear if while a promise remains of entering his rest, some of you may have seemed to come short of it because they also had the word preached in 4:2. They also had the word preached to them and it didn't 13:58 profit them because the word wasn't united with faith. What does it mean for the word to be united with faith? Do I love the truth? Do I love conviction? Or do I only love pleasant 14:16 words? Earlier in Jeremiah, we see that the Lord actually rebukes the people of Israel. He says, "Don't say what's the sad word of the Lord today?" Because they had been saying, you know, whenever they came to, "Oh, what's the sad word 14:35 going to be?" And the Lord says, "No, you need to respectfully ask Jeremiah, what is the word of the Lord for me?" But your attitude towards the Lord's word is so important. And in 2 Thessalonians, we've heard brother Zach 14:47 say one of the scariest verses in the Bible. If you want to turn and see for yourself, one of the scariest verses in the Bible, second uh 2 Thessalonians uh 2 and verse 11, 15:10 it says, "The the Lord sent a deceiving influence." In the Living Bible, it says, "The Lord will allow them to believe lies with all their hearts." God will allow us to believe lies with all our hearts. Why? Verse 10, the previous 15:25 verse, they have not received the love of the truth so as to be saved. It's not that they didn't hear the truth, so they didn't love the truth so as to be saved. They didn't love conviction. Therefore, the Lord allowed them to believe a lie 15:44 with all their hearts. And it's really important when we are asking ourselves, do I have faith? Do I love the truth? It's really easy to say, I love the truth. Of course, I took off work to attend this conference. But how am I doing with the word of 16:01 correction? I've seen just kind of casually. There have been little corrections here or there. Little things. Maybe you don't even notice. Maybe you do. How do you How do you feel? How do you feel? How what's your heart 16:16 response? Somebody says, "Hey, brother, the way you, you know, shared on that on that uh short reading, you took too long. Try to be try to be tighter next time. Does that do I love that or do I say, "Hey, who's this? 16:33 Took too long." Right? There uh there's tons of little little ways in which we receive conviction. Often as a young person, we receive conviction through the exhortation of our leaders, of our parents, and of our leaders. What's my 16:48 attitude when when someone points out a flaw? There is how I learn. Do I love conviction? Do I love it? And I want to exhort you, my dear brothers and sisters, every single one of the young people and also all the members of RLCF. 17:04 We must love conviction. There's a um there's a phrase that I saw that I really liked. If you want to turn to Acts uh 26 with me, please. It's where uh Paul is talking about how the Lord commissioned him. And I liked what he said about the 17:23 commission of the Lord in Acts. And you can wonder why does God send a messenger? For what purpose does God send us messengers? Because the Lord actually tells or Paul tells why the 17:40 Lord told him. Acts 26 and verse 17. He says, "I will I'm going to send you to the Gentiles." For what purpose? To open their eyes to their true condition. Why does God send a messenger? To open 17:57 my eyes to my true condition. Simple example. Bro Santos said, "I was really blessed by people who wrote down notes." I have no idea who wrote down notes or not. So this is not, you know, pointing a finger or anything, but he said, "I 18:12 was blessed by people who wrote down notes." If you did not write down a note, you and you heard that your eyes have been open to your true condition. For folks from RLCF, if the youth were encouraged, write down a short 18:25 testimony. It will help you kind of stay focused. If you didn't write it down, may maybe you're forgetful. It's okay. That's fine. But it's at the very least, am I convicted that I'm forgetful. And if I am, am I condemned or do I love I 18:38 go, I want to do better. Lord, help me do better next time. Am I resentful? Am I offended? What do you mean you weren't encouraged by what I had to share? Right? These are I I can only say that because these thoughts are coming to my mind at times. 18:53 Right? But all of those thoughts are evidence. I don't love conviction, brothers. and sisters, if you do not love conviction, God will let you believe a lie with all your heart. And we have to see conviction is his we have to love God's 19:11 love. In Hebrews 12, he says, I discipline those I love. So the question is, do I love his love? And then it goes on. He says, he says, I I I sent you to the Gentiles to open their eyes to their true condition. For what purpose? So that they may repent 19:30 and live in the light of God instead of in Satan's darkness that I might repent. What's the purpose for seeing my true condition? So I can repent. So I can turn more fully, more perfectly towards Jesus Christ. So purpose of seeing my 19:43 true condition is not to be discouraged or not to wallow, but it's to be zealous in repentance. As it says in Revelation, be zealous and repent. That's why the Lord shows me my true condition and then I get to live in the light of God and 19:56 Satan's darkness. I didn't know I was living in the darkness in this area. I don't want to live in the darkness. We all say that. Do we see that conviction and sometimes correction is the way to discover discover whether we're living 20:08 in the darkness. And do I love it when I learn that? Remember what Paul said in Ephesians 3 for the prize of the upward call. I prize it. I love hearing. You know why Peter ended so well? 20:25 He's the most corrected disciple. Simple. There's no one who comes close to the amount of correction Peter got. Take that as I mean John called himself the disciple Jesus loved. That's great. I believe that's true. But as I read the 20:40 gospels, I go, you know who Jesus really loved? He loved Peter. There's no one who has more record of correction than Peter. And he never gave up. There's a phrase that I heard Brother Zach say a long time ago. It's stayed with me all my life. I want to 20:56 share it with you now. He said, "You will reap the life of Christ if you don't grow weary." But weary of what? Weary of correction. Weary of conviction. In Hebrews 12, it says, "Strengthen the knees that are 21:14 weak and the knees that are feeble." Says, ' Don't faint when you are reproved by the Lord. Don't faint when you are reproved by your parents. Don't faint when you're reproved by an elder. Don't faint when a prophet tells you bad 21:26 news like Zedekiah did. Don't faint. Strengthen the knees that are weak and the hands that are feeble and make straight paths for the Lord so that the limb which is lame may be not put out of joint but healed and restored. 21:42 It's so important that we are eager to repent. Unless you believe you are fully like Jesus Christ, which immediately everybody says, "I know I'm not." Then there are things you are unaware of that need repentance. Unless you are fully like Jesus Christ, 22:05 then there are things that you are unaware of that need repentance. How do you discover them? It's by the Holy Spirit's conviction. And if you say you want to be like Jesus, I love our brother Sunnil's definition of con of 22:20 conviction. I think this is it. It's paraphrasing. Tell me if I get it wrong. An exciting invitation to become more like Christ. Isn't that a great definition of conviction? It's exciting. It's an exciting invitation to become 22:33 more like Christ. I prize the upward call. Make that your testimony, brothers and sisters. I prize the upward call. I love it when I learn of something that I was unconscious of that I need to work on. I love it. If you turn with me to Luke chapter 4, we 22:51 can we can um you know deceive ourselves if we aren't careful. I think that people we see it all over the Bible as well. But there's one you know really it's almost humorous example of this in Luke 4 and verse 22. 23:09 These people in like six verses go from being amazed by Jesus to wanting to kill Jesus. You go, how is it possible to go from amazement to fury so quickly? Right? Well, look with me. It says uh you know in verse 20 it says he closed 23:23 the book and he handed it to the attendant and sat down and everyone in the synagogue was gazing at him and he added these scriptures came true today. And it look at verse 22. All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed 23:34 by the beautiful words that fell from his lips. They were all amazed. The beautiful words. And if we aren't careful, we can judge our spirituality by saying, "What's my appreciation for beautiful sermons? Do I love a beautiful sermon? 23:48 I'm so spiritual. I love it when old hymns are evoked and quoted and but then look at these people and you can imagine these people thinking, "Wow, we must be pretty spiritual. That guy quoted the Isaiah and then said it's 24:02 being fulfilled and we we have an appreciation. We're in awe." But then in verse 25, you know, Jesus said, "Probably you're going to quote to me a proverb saying physician heal yourself." Meaning, why don't you do the same 24:13 miracles you did here in Capernaum, but I declare to you that no prophet's accepted his hometown, and I'm in my hometown, so you won't accept me. And then look in uh in verse 28, it says, "These remarks stung them to a fury, and 24:25 jumping up, they mobbed him and took him to the edge of the hill on which the city was built to push him over the cliff." These people, two seconds ago, we're going, "We're so spiritual. We love his beautiful sermon. And then 2 24:36 minutes later, they're ready to kill him. We see the same thing in Aonium with uh with Paul. You know, you see it all over the Bible. John 6, same thing. Multitudes fed. We love his beautiful miracles. But whenever he starts talking 24:51 about things that we don't understand, we are we're troubled and we leave. By the end of John 6, you see that. But I in all these stories, I see two things, two important things. I mean, Jesus could have just been satisfied with the 25:02 people saying, "Behold, what beautiful words." But he didn't. He didn't just let them think they were fine. A true prophet doesn't hold back a painful truth. A true prophet does not hold back a painful truth. And it was true in Jesus' 25:20 time. It was true in Paul's time, and it's true today. True prophets will not hold back painful truths from even people who apparently admire them. A false prophet says, "Ah, I don't want anybody to think I'm too stern." But a 25:34 true prophet says, "This is the truth." That's how you can know a true prophet. And then second thing, so the first thing I see is a true prophet doesn't shrink from declaring the full purpose of God, anything profitable. The second 25:44 thing I see is a hearer's disciplehip is not tested by their response to beautiful words nearly as much as it is tested by their response to hard words. That's what the That's what the disciples who left Jesus said in John 6. 25:59 Who can bear with this hard saying? And if you find yourself tempted to leave, danger, my brother and sister. If you find yourself saying, who can bear with this hard teaching? Beware. I've I've wrote this down just as a note 26:19 to myself. The attitude I want to preserve when I hear a hard word. Somebody says, "Hey, you should have written down your notes." Whatever it is, I want speaking voice, just looking at my time. I want to say in sincerity, 26:35 you have no idea how much worse it is than you think. You want to re you correct me for this thing. I'm so I'm far worse than you say. You know, Queen of Yoshiba said of Solomon, "They didn't tell me the half of it." Are you 26:48 prepared to say when someone's corrects you for something or the Holy Spirit convicts you of something that your honest response is you don't know the half of it? Not justifying yourself, not not uh you know defending or or anything 27:01 like that, but saying you don't know the half of it. I think our entire lives will come down to whether we have saving faith like this saving faith which loves conviction. Himaeus and Phileitas suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Deus who 27:20 started so well. Paul said he left you know for love of this world. The Ephesians you know who had Paul with them for three years. By revelation chapter 2 it says that they have forgotten their first love. This is true throughout the 27:35 ages. It's not starting well that matters. Will I continue to let will I prize the upward call then and trust the Lord keeps calling me higher and I value it. I treasure it. Last thing that I want to say if you want to turn to 27:54 Luke chapter 7. It's possible I think to have great faith and perhaps not be saved. I say that reverently. Um but we see you know in Luke chapter 7 there's this amazing story of the centurion. Jesus says, "I haven't seen 28:09 faith like this in all of Israel." But you know what he doesn't say? Your faith has saved you. And I I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the centurion. He speaks here about, "Hey, don't don't," you know, Jesus starts coming. He says, 28:26 "Don't even come under my roof. I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof." And Jesus marvels. I haven't seen that kind of faith in all Israel. I think we can read that and go, "That must be the kind of faith that I should have." But 28:36 what did he have faith for? He he believed Jesus was sovereign over sickness. I don't I don't have any evidence to believe that he thought Jesus was sovereign over Caesar. And so we can have great faith for healing, but does that mean that we have 28:56 great faith unto salvation? Jesus did say to others, you know, he said to Zakius, he said to the paralytic who was lowered in, "Your faith has saved you." And he says, it's amazing. He says in this very chapter, Luke chapter 7, he says 29:13 something. He says to someone, "Your faith has saved you." You see this in verse 50, woman, your faith has saved you. What was different about this woman? 29:31 This woman who came in and it says that in verse 37 that a woman of the streets, a prostitute who heard he was there and brought him an exquisite flask filled with expensive perfume. Going in, she knelled behind him at his 29:46 feet, weeping with her tears falling upon his feet. And she wiped them off with her hair and kissed them and poured the perfume on them. And what I see is they both mourned and they both felt unworthy. Great. The centurion mourned his circumstance. 30:05 I don't like that my servant is sick. This woman mourned her sin because Jesus says later, "Your sins are forgiven." He knew that was the burden. Verse 48, that was the burden on her heart. So what kind of mourning is good? 30:21 mourning my circumstance or mourning my sin. We see that the woman was saved. The second difference I see is the centurion's unworthiness resulted in a self-consciousness. Don't even come. I'm unworthy. I can't be near you. The 30:35 woman's unworthiness said, "I must go to Jesus. I must go to Jesus." Can you imagine a more intimidating place in all of their hometown than the Pharisees home? Can you imagine anywhere that a what does it say? A woman of the streets 30:53 would want to be less than this Pharisees home. Why did she go? Because she was unworthy and she saw Jesus love for unworthy s sinners. Her what I wrote down was her vision of 31:13 Jesus eclipsed the intimidating environment and eclipsed even her own feelings of unworthiness. Faith that saves sees Jesus and says, "I must come. I cannot stay away." Hebrews 4:16 says, "Therefore, let us draw near 31:32 boldly with confidence to the throne of grace." Faith that saves loves conviction so much that despite our unworthiness, we cannot stay away. What a contrast between these two. The foolish king Zedekiah, he had access to 31:48 a prophet. He had access to God's word and yet he died in slavery and chains because he didn't love a hard word. versus this woman that we see in John chap Luke chapter 7 whose brokenness over her sin produced a simple act of 32:03 love which Jesus himself said will not cease to be proclaimed every time someone speaks of his death. That's an incredible contrast. I pray that the Lord would help us, help me and help us each to have faith for the right 32:19 things and to have saving faith in this day that for the rest of our lives, we would really love to be called higher. That we would love conviction, see it as an exciting invitation to become more like Christ. Let's pray. 32:34 Dear Father, we thank you so much for the exciting invitation to become more like Jesus. While we were yet sinners, you died for us. While we were enemies, you reconciled us to yourself in Jesus Christ. And Lord, you're not finished 32:46 with us. We don't want to be satisfied with anything less than the abundant life which you have promised us. Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit. Rivers of living water might flow from our innermost being that you might 33:01 receive the reward of your suffering. That the lamb who was slain would receive the reward of his suffering. Lord Jesus, you spared no expense. You gave it all to redeem us. Lord, let let us be yours entirely. Body, soul, 33:15 spirit, affections, interests, attention, desire. Let us be totally taken up with you. Thank you for what we've heard today. Thank you for your presence with us this weekend. We pray that you would continue to be with us 33:29 and strengthen us for the remainder of our time together. keep us safe in the park and help us have uh fun together building the body of Christ, building fellowship and love. Thank you for the privilege to be co-aborers of yours in 33:42 this work of building the church. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [Music]
