Is that loud enough? My wants to be picked up at around 6.55. She got the last bus. All right, so good evening everyone.
Good to see all here and Thanks for coming out and today. I'm gonna share a little bit about From my life and experience my testimony and what's going on with me these days as well. So before I start I just like to pray Father in heaven Thank you for Northbrook and for the family that we have here Lord and thank you that we can know you through your son Lord And for his sacrifice on the cross we thank you God and I pray that tonight that you would guide my thoughts and words that it would be Edifying and also glorifying to you Lord and that you would help me in this and pray in Jesus name amen Okay, so if you want to open up to Luke 15, I'm just gonna read a familiar portion of scripture from there and that'll get us started I guess I don't really need to open it because I printed it on my notes All right, so Luke 15 starting in verse 11. This is a very very very familiar to us Says Jesus continued there was a man who had two sons the younger one said to his father father give me my share of the estate So he divided his property between them not long after that the younger son got Together all that he had set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living after he had spent everything There was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need He went and hired himself to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything when he came to a census How many he said how many of my fathers hired servants have food to spare and here I am starving to death?
I will set out and go back to my father and say to him father I've sinned against heaven and against you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son make me like one of your hard servants So he got up and went to his father But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him And he ran to his son through his arms around him and kissed him the son said to him father I've sinned against heaven and against you I'm no longer worthy to be called your son But the father said to his servants quick bring the best robe and put it on him put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again He was lost and is found so they began to celebrate So in a parable that's me and that's all of us and I think as we go forward if you keep that story in mind It'll probably there's some parallels and so I can thank God that I don't have to be worthy to be called a son Like it says in verse 21. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. I think That's true of me.
I If it was just about me being worthy and qualifying myself I wouldn't make it and that's true all of us of course But as we go into it, you'll see what I mean so I was born into Christian family As you know my parents and we grew up coming here for the most part There was I think we went to grace before but then we came here since like I was pretty young still and so I learned the Bible through Sunday school here and When I was still very young I think I might have been younger than six I remember being led in prayer by my mom to ask for salvation from the Lord and so I don't know if I was truly Saved at that point. Honestly, I just don't know I Remember fairly clearly accepting that God is real and I remember accepting that the Bible is true very early in my recollection, but just based on you know the experience of how I grew up. I don't I don't know if that was salvation Romans 10 9 Says if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead You will be saved future continuous tense and you know I haven't read any systematic theology books on Soteriology we only have one systematic theology book in our apartment and honestly, I think it's more complicated than Sometimes maybe we give it credit right. It's the study of salvation right how people?
What the details of salvation are I guess it doesn't really matter at this point, but you know When a when a child prays in that simple way that's that can be enough and that can be salvation But salvation itself is simple, but how it works out in life can be complicated. I think and so you know I personally believe that someone can profess faith and Maybe God can like schedule salvation into their future and because you know God can work in their life from that point onwards And maybe that was sort of like how it was first Corinthians 1 18 says for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing But to us who are being saved it is the power of God present progressive tense. I'm kind of shocked You know we all talk about I got saved, but it's almost never past tense in the Bible anyways, so it was never foolish to me you know the message of the cross and the gospel but one thing that helped me with Accepting all that accepting God in a sense is answers in Genesis and the work that they have done to bring Sign a scientific defense of the Christian worldview and that impacted me when I was a teenager You know when I was very little I just accepted everything face value and then as I got older I was quite a reader and I read a lot even when I was a young kid I read a lot like way way above my grade level and then I continued so you know I was reading these books by That we bought you know when answers came by and that helped me that helped me to kind of have a firm worldview I have still have a very firm worldview about God as the creator and And connected to that you know the work of Christ so But what troubled me was kind of like I think right hand out put this the best that I've ever heard He had too much faith in his face that that was me too had too much faith in my faith I thought it was like a battle of willpower that I had to win somehow against sin basically and so I struggled a lot with sin Despite my worldview and what I knew and and believing that I was saved you know I really really struggled with sin and I couldn't have victory over sin and I found that really really difficult growing up and that Yeah, so I'm gonna read a little bit from this book. It's the green letters.
I think this is a pretty good devotional book And so this is just a little excerpt from a guy named Watchman knee So he says God's way of deliverance is altogether different from man's way man's way is to try and suppress sin by seeking to overcome it God's way is to remove the sinner many Christians mourn over their weakness thinking that if only they were stronger all would be Well the idea that because failure to lead a holy life is due to our impotence something more is therefore demanded of us leads naturally to the false conception of the way of deliverance if we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our Inability to meet it then we naturally conclude that to gain victory over sin we must have more power if only over stronger We would say I would could overcome my violent outbursts of temper And so we plead with the Lord to strengthen us that we may exercise more self-control But this is altogether wrong This is not Christianity God's mean of deliverance means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger But by making us weaker and weaker this is surely a peculiar way of victory You say but it is the divine way God said is free from the dominion of sin not by strengthening our old man But by crucifying him not by helping him to do anything But by removing him from the scene of action and I think that's what I didn't understand Kind of growing up. I really thought it was like a battle of willpower and like faith was like the force in Star Wars Like you just had to like try really hard and then you could not sin And so that's why I'm not convinced that I didn't really get the full picture But I believe in parts and I grew up accepting of many things But eventually the continuous temptation and failure and and corruption led me to not really identify as a Christian and that really darkened my thinking So you know you can't identify as a Christian if you are living in sin right? You know that there's something wrong and so that happened to me I think that happens to quite a number of people based on talking to people a lot of them I age to grow up in the church and Believed in God for a time But that critical step of identification doesn't happen for different reasons So you know like the song the kids song like the hokey-pokey, right? You put your left foot in you put your right foot in You shake it all about Yeah, so there is no such thing as a hokey-pokey Christian All right, you are either two feet in or two feet out and committed and sold out for Christ or else the ejection seat like Brant get out of here like Please not like you know We've You know, that's that's just true.
There's no hokey-pokey Christians There is that level of commitment that has to happen or else something else is gonna happen And so for me I could see that you know and in being in that circle was really hard and I was just like Kind of like a legalism thing or no willpower thing And it wasn't working and you know, it just grew difficult and as I grew up it came to a reckoning point I was trying to figure things out as a young teenager and I couldn't escape my worldview I was too firmly rooted in that so I couldn't walk away from it But you know I searched the scriptures and I read the Bible quite a bit You know growing up as a kid in a teenager and so these are voices that impacted me during that time when I had that you know dark and thinking so Revelation 3 16 says I'm talking about the layout to see you in church I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other so because you are lukewarm neither hot No cold. I'm about to spit you out of my mouth So you know read that thought about that and I also read stuff like in Ecclesiastes Solomon saying to himself come now I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good But that also proved to be meaningless laughter. I said his madness and what does pleasure accomplish?
And on you kind of know how Solomon he decided to test basically like simple ways and see if there's any lasting meaning basically, but basically you know how Satan can misuse scriptures to attack people. This is something that happened to Jesus can be misused and it's often misused you know, that's how like their bad doctrine happens people basically just misuse the scripture itself and So basically, you know in that time in my life I was reasoning with myself and I was like, okay, no more hokey-pokey. It's not working. This is You know, it's kind of driven by my Selfishness at the time and I was kind of I think all I think all teenagers are kind of angry for some reason and kind of selfish And so you know, it's kind of motivated by just like bad emotional emotional state and so I was like, okay Well, you know, I can't do this Christian thing and be the hot kind of Christian that God wants So I'm just going to see if I can be cold and God can spit me out and so I'd like made a conscious decision after At that time I guess to basically go and explore sin and just like try and get away from it all just to see if I can get Myself rejected basically and so you can see like how I read the protocol sign up first because it's a conscious decision to go and live a Wildlife and so in James one it says but each person is tempted when they're dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed Then after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full-grown gives birth to death and So I firmly believe in the truth of that scripture eventually it came around to bite me where sin was so bitter and my life Was so bitter and I was so addicted to different things and I was a slave and I was becoming dead inside and it's really Became dark life became even more dark and so like the broadacle son working on that pig farm I reached the end of myself and I was like What is this like where have I got to and at that time?
I was working out in whole fill and I was yeah, I was completely alone when this happened I was watching bill nigh and Ken ham debate on YouTube about you know the Christian worldview versus evolution and Of all things, you know, it's pretty random But the spirit of God can pretty much use anything like just a single track a single very single thing Spirit of God can work and so during the question and answer period when Ken Ham basically is just like alright Enough of this he gave the gospel and I just got hit by that and I kind of broke down I I cried out to God and I asked him to save me from my life of sin and I disbeared over my life and I said like My sinfulness before I got I just it's kind of like in Roman seven where Paul's like wretched man that I am You know we get that word wretch for like an amazing grace Who will set me free from the body of this death the image there is like a burden? You know this body of death That's like you're carrying like this dead body on you and you have this immense burden. It's awful And so my prayer basically the gist of my prayer at that time Like if this is what life is gonna be like don't really want it Can I just skip this and you can just take me home to heaven? I was trying to pray to God and just like can I just like be where you are please and I don't really want this anymore So I was I was a turning point I I cried out to God and prayer in a very private and very Alone known as they're confusing you know moments You know for me and at that time I felt comforted from outside myself, you know, I didn't I slept well that night You know I was comforted from outside myself inexplicably So maybe that was the spirit of Lord just ministering to me and it wasn't like an immediate change in my life Like I didn't just like turn on a dime or anything But from that moment I think things began to slowly change as far as I can recollect and understand from my memory of my life That's when things started to turn around and it wasn't like fast, you know My lifestyle didn't change quickly, but it began to Matthew 19 26 or Matthew 19 starting in verse 23 says this and Jesus said to his disciples truly I say to you it is hard for a rich man to enter The kingdom of heaven I say to you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of an needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God When the disciples heard this they're very astonished and said who then who can be saved and looking at them?
Jesus said to them with people this is impossible with but with God all things are possible if you had told me that I could be where I am today like five years ago, I'd tell you it's impossible but and of my own efforts it would be impossible and no amount of human counseling and You know therapy could possibly change my heart as much as God has effectively changed it over the last five or so years And so these days, you know, I really hate sin in my old nature because I know firsthand the truth of James 115 That like sin like the only result that it can have is death It really does come around to bite and I'm glad that God didn't spit me out But did embrace me when I came back from that pig farm And I just raised God for his kindness his grace and his mercy and amazing grace How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, you know that word wretch identify with that I once was lost but now I'm found was blind, but now I see So I don't deserve the life I have now. I'm not worthy of anything It's not me who qualifies me myself and the robe and the ring goes are by grace alone And it's undeserved kindness and that's that is my testimony when it comes to sin I lost the battle but God won the war and so that's the best. That's all the past and I'm gonna talk a little briefly a little bit briefly about The presence and the future and with the time I've left So I'm gonna read a bit from Flipians 3 you can turn there if you want This is a precious passage that we were talking about last night as well Flipians 3 starting in verse 7 it says but whatever we're gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ What is more I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things I consider them garbage that I might gain Christ and be found in him and not having a righteousness of my own that Comes from the law, but that which was through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith I want to know Christ Yes to know the power of his resurrection and Participation in his sufferings fellowship in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead Not that I have already obtained this or have already arrived at my goal But I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself to have yet to have taken hold of it But one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead I pressed on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ Jesus So I don't live without regrets. There is scar tissue so to speak neither did Paul slash Saul I don't think you know when he's writing this he kind of talks about his Jewish heritage But no doubt he had memories of things like when Stephen was killed I'm sure that he lived with remorse and so I think we all do you know to some extent we regret some certain things But I know that there's forgiveness and I know that despite the setback That I'm in the Lord's hands now and there was some wasted time some wasted resources where I could have probably been you know A fruitful young person young people can be a blessing I could have probably been you know Like instead of being a drain on my family I probably could have been there for someone or instead of being a drain on the church I probably could have been there for somebody But you know it's worth noting actually that my family and this church we're going through some of their darkest times during the exact same time I don't think Satan is bad that strategy like you know It's like a simultaneous attack and everything's like collapsing.
You're just like well, where do I turn to right? But you know John will nine says if we confess our sins he is faithful and Justin will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness, you know James 516 says therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous version person is powerful and effective and I happen to know that people were praying for me Galatians 6 brethren if anyone is caught in any trespass you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness each one looking to yourself So that you too will not be tempted bear one another's burdens and therefore fulfill a law of Christ So what can I do with what I've learned you know young people we have young people today And how can I help with what I've learned to help people avoid the pain and heartache of sin and can I can I be part of the body of Christ Can I be part of this church in a way that's intentional and helpful? You know I think confession gets kind of a bad reputation because of the way that Catholics have have that you know But there are these commands there are there is scriptural you know to have confession not just for someone to confess to Christ But you know ye who are spiritual if if someone's a healthy Christian They actually have a burden to help defend other Christians and so I feel that burden you know I am not Yet like ready to be a leader in the church or anything But to be a spiritual creature You know I need to become a spiritual creature and continue growing in the way that Christ wants me to grow to be a spiritual person you that are you who are spiritual and and then I think I could be useful to the body and That's not here yet, but that's a that's the road right and from another side at there's like from the pulpit I don't know if people feel like they can talk about sin in Northbrook without being rejected in cast out I think that maybe back when I was a kid I was afraid and I felt like if I had confessed my sin to another Maybe I would just be judged and you know when I was a little kid You know I'm talking about before I was a teenager And I think with these things you know if you nip it in the bud it can definitely save a lot of pain So I just just some food for thought I guess I'm trying lately here because you know I don't know but but Do people theoretically know how to deal with sin? Do we know like I know now that confession like if I need to be accountable to another Christian That's good and I know that you know I can be vulnerable and I'm I'm there now, but that's hard That's really hard actually it's scary to tell someone you know like I'm struggling with sin and it's even harder for a kid to do I think So I don't know I just think Going on in life that that I'll keep these things in mind to end off I want to read two of my top two favorite chapters to challenge myself to grow and to You know going looking into the future, you know, how am I gonna live my life?
It's not my testimony is not just what happened but But what the Lord hasn't store and so from Hebrews 12 and Romans 12 these are my top two favorite chapters for Living and for challenging myself So Hebrews 12 says therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and a sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set Before us fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before him endear the cross Dispising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart There's a lot in that first well just a few points from that you could probably have like 20 more The cloud of witnesses, you know my life is witnessed in some way God knows everything and this passage indicates that there's also other witnesses so even how I spend my time privately it all matters to God and You know that encourages me to not waste too much of my time on things that don't have eternal weight. I'm not saying it's Bad to just relax sometimes it's not but there's a point where there's too much and No one wants to witness someone just watching TV for 20 years right if there's people watching I guess I should probably be doing something more interesting And Encomrences and entanglements, you know sin itself obviously but also the worries of the world some legitimate worries But I need to be careful of things like money things like possessions and entertainment I think those are some of the three big threats probably in our culture in our country is those things that lead to complacency So I'm just aware that so number two. What is my priority? Where am I going?
Where am I leading people? It says fixing your eyes on Christ, you know, we heard that actually this morning about how you know We fix our eyes on their goal and Christ is the goal to have his life to live to live with his life in us, you know So I can serve him and store up eternal riches everything else just brings up So, you know, keep my eyes on heavenly things and another thing is the author and perfecter of my faith. That's Christ and Hi, I can't really talk neck right now, but dad's on the way, but He's on the way I promise He's right here, but anyways Yeah, I mean it's up to God to really shape my mind in my character in the right way There's no way that I could be so wise to shape my own character in my own mind But I can take God's side against myself and I can be willing and multiple in his hands It's not like being on a leash It's you know Psalm 32 9 says do not be as a horse or as a mule which have no understanding Whose trappings include a bit and bridle to hold them and check otherwise they will not come near you You know everything in spiritual life is partnership with God and and we need to take God's side in everything And nothing really originates in the flesh So it's just it's this willingness to let Jesus be the author to let him be the perfecter in my life You know to in prayer and in faith to give Christ the room and to push out pick out the rocks pick out all the other things And and can't every day just this is a everyday attitude every day process The Romans 12 says that therefore I urge your brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice Acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world But be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect Just one point from that. It's the renewing of your mind of my mind And my mind has a lot to be renewed from and being transformed.
It has been a huge blessing But this is a daily attitude a daily prayer. It takes time to grow It takes time to change from transform one from one thing to another. It just doesn't happen immediately most of the time You know, it's kind of like packing a lunch every day or buying not buying coffee But making coffee at home It's just like a little trickle of effort But eventually if you do that a lot like it really has a big effect and I think there's just these small attitudes and living with these For me, it's been these two chapters quite a bit of just thinking of of these attitudes that Just leads to a big effect, but it's not really I find a lot. It's not like a lot of burden on a daily basis, you know, Jesus said, you know, my burden is easy and I found out it's just been a blessing and I've Very blessed to have the life I have now and I just praise God for His kindness.
It's just mind blowing having come from the selfish past that I've had and just being able to have a new life It's really good. So I'll just close in prayer and then maybe we could sing knowing you as good Father and heaven, thank you for your grace your mercy towards us Lord your patience towards us I pray that you would help us To continually walk before you in a way that's honoring to Christ and I pray that you would plant the seed of your word in our hearts So we can grow in faith over closer to you Lord and pray for this church Lord I pray that you would strengthen us and help us to strengthen each other and defend us from the tax of the evil one as a family Lord and Lord I just thank you for my life and for what you've done and in Jesus name I pray I come in