John Gunter: Hello and welcome everyone to the Eagle Community Church of Christ podcast. This is John Gunter. This week we are talking about, lie number 8. We've been going over the book 9 Common Lies Christians Believe and Why God's Truth is Infinitely Better. This is by Shane Pruitt and we are in lie 8 of 9 which talks about God doesn't even really like me.
I don't think God really likes me. And we spend this sermon talking about all the reasons why God shows you He does. We hope it's helpful for you. Thanks for listening. Come see us sometime.
We, we have been going through a series, based on, the book by Shane Pruitt, 9 Common Lies Christians Believe, and the subtitle, and why God's truth is infinitely better. And each week, we have talked about, something that's kind of slipped into our culture, not from scripture, but from, just things we have said or movies we have watched. You remember when we talked about people turning into angels? Every time a bell rings, what? An angel gets its wings.
Something from popular culture that we have kind of worked into, the way we speak or the way we think about what Scripture actually says. Just as a reminder, each week, other than last week, you can see all of these online, 2 weeks ago we had God doesn't really care. Last week, which is lost to history because we didn't record it, well, so and so will never change. How many of you said that before or felt it? I would love for them to change or I'd love to change myself, but I just don't think it'll ever they'll ever change.
And again, we talked about last week, how that is a, a lack of faith in God. That is putting more faith in myself or that person, rather than god. And this week, the lie is, I don't think god likes me. I I don't know if you've ever said that. Shane, as he, opens this chapter, talks about, speaking at a West Texas youth event.
He said there was a venue about campers. There were about 500 seats. And he said that there were about 700 kids, kind of jammed into this thing. And he talked that night about John 3 16, but he said I had to put this on the screen here. He says, because it was toward the end of the week, there was a certain musk in the air.
Air. The aroma of 100 of 15 year olds, who naively equated swimming in a pool all week with taking a shower. Who says you can't smell a slide, right? You can probably picture that right now. But he talked about John, 316, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Now we all know that. Right? It was, just a few years ago, and it's a lot of years now, when Tim Tebow was playing college football, and he would have John 3 16 on his eye black. And one of the most Googled things during that time was, what is John 3 16? Well, that's one of the most important verses in scripture because you need to know how much God loves you, don't you?
And so the lie is that I don't think God really likes me, and the truth from from God himself is I will send my only son to die for you because that's how much I care about you. He said as he he preached, he said he he finished up, and there was a time of response. He said a lot of people came, and he said there was a team named Jeff that was kinda standing off to the side. One of those where he's like, I know he wants to talk, and so I'll I'll get him to the side in a minute. And, as he stepped away and kinda stepped out of the, the crowd with Jeff, Jeff said some things that were very interesting.
Jeff said this. He said, I work really hard to keep his rules, but I still struggle with sin. I try really hard to overcome my problems, and I can't. I pray and go to church. For the most part, I'm a really good person.
However, I am so certain that he doesn't like me that I'm starting to not like him very much either. And so the question this morning that I have to ask is, do you believe God likes you? What Jeff has, done is is fallen into a trap. He has a mindset that is leading him in the wrong direction. Isaiah 4915 says, can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she is born?
Though she may forget, God says, I will never forget you. I don't know about you that brings assurance to me that God does not forget and will not forget me. But the trap that Jeff has fallen into is the trap of a works salvation. Now, how many of you know what that means? Works Salvation, maybe something more of us are used to than we'd like to admit.
Work salvation is trying to or believing you can work enough to earn salvation from God. We believe in the tit for tat. We believe in the you do something for me, I do something for you. We believe in the episode of the big bang theory where Sheldon's trying to figure out, what to get Penny for Christmas. Because he knows she's gonna get him a gift, and he knows he has to get a gift that both symbolizes the value of their friendship and is equal or close to the amount of her present.
Right? And as funny as that, I don't know if you all seen it, but as funny as that episode is, that's how we think. If you do something for me, I need to repay you. I need to get you back. And that makes us fall into this work salvation.
Again, believing you can, trying to, or believing you can work enough to earn salvation from God. Now, we we get part of this conversation in James 2. We'll start in verse 14. Because James says, what good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith, but has no deed? So he's responding to these questions or these attitudes of, well, is it faith or is it works?
Is it faith or is it doing something? So he says, what good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? He says, suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of them if one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. And so we understand that. You can't just say you have faith. I've got faith. I've got as much faith as anyone.
Well, what does that look like in your life? Well, I couldn't tell you. I don't really do anything. I just believe. Well, James is saying, well, that's not what faith is.
Faith is doing more. It is something else. He said, but someone will say, you have faith. I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
You believe that there is one God? Good. Even the demons believe believe that and shutter. You foolish person. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?
Okay. And so that is a good discussion of faith or deeds. But the problem is for a lot of us, we've understood that, well, good works are a part of this in some way. And so what we end up doing because of our mindset of I pay you back and I give you equal value or I need to earn this or feel like I have earned this and put in my work. We drift over into this thing about I'm going to work and do stuff for God and then I will have earned my salvation.
But that's not what it's about, is it? We don't do works to be saved. We do works because we're saved. That's the best sentence that I can utter this morning, and I'm sure you've heard it before. Other people at other times have said it.
We don't work we don't do works to be saved. We do works because we're saved. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing you can bring to God where the value of what you bring will ever equal what God brings to the table. You understand that?
That God is God and his gifts, his mercy, his grace and love are so far and above anything we can ever comprehend. How foolish is it for us to bring our little thing? You ever you ever, brought something to, as a present to a party or something like that? You got by the way, you got I'm a step on your toes for a sec. You guys are the worst.
Because you guys will have a party and say $10 limit. And none of you stick to it. And so Katie and I, who are rule followers, bring our $10 gift. Is that pretax or pro I don't know. But anyway, we bring our $10 gift and you guys have got fantastic gifts.
And we feel like, okay, well, we, less than today. But that's only a part. That's the way I I envision bringing God a gift and and and thinking, well, this will be worth what he's bringing to the table. Isn't that ridiculous? How small is our view of God that we believe what we have matches what he brings?
That is a very small view of god. That is a very small view of eternity. That is a very small view of god's love in general. We don't do works to be saved, we do works because we are saved. In your bulletin this week, you you have seen this this verse, Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. You hear that? You hear that church? I need to hear something from you this morning.
Y'all sleep. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and it is not from yourselves, it is the what? Gift of God. Not by work so that no one can boast. Well, I thought you had to have work to have faith.
Yeah. But, again, go back to that sentence. You don't bring anything to the table. You don't bring works that are of value to God so much. He says, oh, man.
I owe John Gunther. You see what he's done for me? Right? You have been given a gift from God because of his grace. And we fall into this trap of, well, am I getting in because of my works?
Or do I not need to do works and I don't do anything? And it goes back to that conversation in James, where we're all confused and we don't know what to do. And James says, we do good works because we're saved. That is how you show your faith. It is not what you're doing, it's who you are.
You understand that? Sometimes, and, this is a confession, sometimes it feels like work. I I need to do that. I don't wanna make time. I I've got all these things going on.
But God, who can change us, and Paul talks about the new man, allows us to be molded into the person we're supposed to be where that becomes second nature. And some of you may be thinking, Well, it hadn't got to me yet. But God is able to change our hearts, to change our minds, to move us in a way that that is who we become, that good works and good people are who we become, not because of us, but because of him. There's 2 phases of work salvation. 1, the first one, self righteousness.
And this is, one thing that that Shane spends time on. I I've kind of reworked this chapter in the way I I thought it should be done. But, the first one is self righteousness. Now, self righteousness is, I think, best encapsulated by, this, very popular, parable that Jesus tells from Luke 18. He says, to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable.
2 men went up to the temple to pray, 1 a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you. I think you ought to visualize this. Right? God, I thank you that I am not like the other people I'm just pointing, looking.
Robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector, a fellow man who's praying, right? Even like this tax collector, I, you gotta say it like that, I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And God and Jesus said, everybody be like the Pharisee because he had it going on.
Right? No. He says, I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. And that's kind of where we get in the mess.
Because we feel like, alright, I'm going to do work so that God will save me. And God's already said, well, I did works. Alright. I saved you before you could do anything. And then we get over into, well, I have done so much.
We start looking down on other people. You ever felt looked down upon? That's a great feeling, isn't it? But that's what I think we get over into is that I have done enough. I am when I am so glad that I was raised like this.
I'm so glad that I'm a person that doesn't do x, y, and z. We all have our things. Sure. I struggle with that other thing. That's not near as bad as what they're doing.
Right? I I struggle with that and I've got good intentions. They just evil. Right? But this is, again, exalting ourselves far above other people.
And, well, scripture talks about that too from Proverbs 16, pride goes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall in 1st Peter 55. In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble. God shows favor to the humble.
Again, Jesus talking about someone who felt like, I know my sin. People, the religious people, the priests, the preachers, and people who apparently thought they were better than others. Yet the person who was shunned, the person who was the tax collector hated by most, is a person that walked away right before God because of his humility and understanding that he brought nothing to the table. It is all God, and what you have done, what God has done for us. And it all boils down to this, trusting yourself instead of God.
We don't like to put trust in other things or other people, do we? We like to control and manage. I don't like when the weather forecast, you know, 1 minute, it's going this way, 1 minute, it's going that way. Right? I want to know and I want to be able to plan and I want to be able to manage.
And throughout scripture, God's people have done exactly that instead of relying on God. And that's what we need from our church. That's what we need from all of us is to trust God more. Romans 5:8, well, let me talk about this for just a second. Fear is the other thing.
When I talked about, a lot of you know about work salvation, fear might be the driving factor for why you believe that. How many of you grew up in a church where you might have felt a little fear about your relationship with God? Yeah. And we we baptized that language into fear God. Right?
So respect God in this way. And we gotta baptize this language to make it sound right. But we wanted to scare the devil. I don't know. That may be wrong word.
We won't scare the devil out of everybody. So you'd be here every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday. And we turned it into a legalistic requirement, didn't we? I was reminded recently that it wasn't just Church of Christ that grew up like that. Everybody else did too.
And, what we turned into from God's gracious gift to us, we turned into some kind of legalistic requirement, and this is what God requires of me, so that I will earn salvation. Now we didn't use those words. But we thought all those people out there saying you're just saved by by believing in him. We thought, I don't know about that. You're supposed to work.
And we couldn't get that James 2 passage down in our brain, could we? So many of us grew up with a fear of God, and and so many people, I think even now, still struggle with, can I know that I'm saved? God tells us this, Romans 5 and 8. Apostle Paul said, but God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
You understand that? Then we need to think on this for just a second. God demonstrates His own love for us in this, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's how much God loves you. You had nothing to give.
It wasn't you ever you ever said, well, I'll do that when I get my act together. You know, I've got some things to work out. Yeah. I think one of those things that that Satan is putting in in your way so that you won't actually do it. But but what God has done is shown us that you have nothing to give.
I send my son before you have even tried. Right? All that effort you're gonna try because you're afraid, or you're scared, or maybe you think you're better than other people. I'm gonna give my one and only Son before you can do anything while we were all sinners. Now, again, a repeat slide here from Ephesians 2.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. Grace. Through believing through faith. Through faith means to trust. That I trust in him.
The opposite of that is trusting in myself. I'm not here to trust in myself. And then, well, okay. I've done enough. You will never do enough.
You understand that? If you do if you live the rest of your life doing great things every single day, you will not, at the end of your life, get to hold an invoice to God and say, here it is. I think I've earned it. I can only imagine Him laughing at us. It is by grace you have been saved.
Through faith, it is not from yourselves. You understand that? That's hard for us. What do you mean? It is not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. Self righteousness. I have done more. I've done better. Man, I'm glad my family is better than y'all's family.
Right? We've got it together. Y'all just come over and visit and you'll change your mind on that. Not by work so that no man can boast, and check this out in verse 10. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared prepared in advance for us to do.
Now what in the world does that mean? Okay. No works, do works. No works, do works. Again, we do works not to be saved.
We do good works because we are saved. Because people of God live a certain way. People of God are changed by God into people of God. We pray often to be salt and light. Ali made me a shirt, an Acadia shirt.
The series we did, I I wore it yesterday. It says, be salty. And on the back of it, it's got the scripture talking about being salt and light. We are to be changed people. Do you understand that?
We are to live differently from the rest of the world. We are to love like no one else. Right? We are to show the love of God. But again, that is not so that God will save us.
God has already sent His Son for you. He has already given you a gift that you can never repay. But we are changed by Him, and because of that, we do good works because we're his children. And that's what we do. Not to hold him up and say, look what I did, but this is who I am.
I live and I love, and hopefully, we change the world just as we prayed, just a little bit ago. We want to continue that prayer. I pray that for all of us, that you don't walk away from today thinking, I don't think God likes me. The idea that, well, I I know I try and I know I fail, so God must not actually like me. And I know how hard it is to live up to that expectation of being perfect, And so I began to not only think God doesn't like me, but not like God either.
Because we feel like he's holding this thing over us, that you have to live a perfect life. Jesus did that so you don't have to. You understand that? Scripture is full of words from God that say you're gonna sin. We understand that you sin.
Right? God chose non perfect people, imperfect people. And I'm so glad, about that. If I went to scripture and everybody in there was perfect, I don't know if I'd have much use for it, to be honest with you. Because I couldn't relate to it.
Could you? Because I have my struggles and you have yours. And God loves us either way. He has sent his son down the cross for every single one of us. Amen?
This morning, I wanna leave you with that. God loves you. He cares for you. He wants you to be his child. When you're changed by him, you do good work, but not to earn something that he's already given you.
It is a free gift of grace.