Part 1 - 06-11-19
Sermon: “Measuring up to the marks of the Christian.” Part 1
Date: June 11, 2019
Teacher: Brother Underwood
Premise: To better understand the Christian’s actual marks and identify other Christians according to Scripture that we may fellowship in the word.
Scripture Reference: See Sermon Body
Prayer: Dog Pen Church Prayer
Attendance: 6
Dog pen Church Prayer June 11, 2019
Hear our prayer, O Lord, give ear to our supplications: in Thy faithfulness answer us and in thy righteousness. We stretch forth our hands unto Thee: Our soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah. Cause us to hear Thy loving kindness this blessed morning; for in Thee do we trust: cause us to know the way wherein we should walk; for we lift up our soul unto Thee. Teach us to do Thy will, for Thou art our God: Thy spirit is good, lead us into the land of uprightness. For we are Thy servants, and we delight to see your beautiful face shining upon us and leading us by Thy light and Thy love. Every day will we bless Thee, and we will praise Thy name forever and ever.
We thank you for this day in Jesus’ Name — Amen!
Introduction Pace By Justin H. Underwood
Date: 6/11/2019
“Measuring up to the marks of the Christian” — Part 1
If the world is to vanish away, and man is to live forever, what importance is it to know where and what we are to be forever! A celebrated physician, trying to cheer a desponding patient, said to him, “Treat life as a plaything.” It was wretched counsel. For life is no plaything, and time is no Child’s toy, to be flung away. Life here is the beginning of the life that has no end, and time is but the gateway of eternity. In the world we live in today, many people claim that they are Christians and act like it is some kind of play-group that you just randomly sign up for. When does a man, woman, boy, or girl have the right to the name “Christian”? Where do you stand? Do you measure up to the marks of the Christian? This sermon helps us better understand the true marks of the Christian and how to identify other Christians according to the scriptures. There are many matters in which total ignorance and complete indifference are neither tragic nor fatal. I’m sure that few of us can even explain all the processes by which a brown cow eats green grass and then gives white milk — but we can still enjoy the milk! Many of us are ignorant of Einstein’s theory of relativity, and if we had to explain it, we would really be in trouble. And not only are we ignorant of Einstein’s theory, but most of us are quite indifferent as well, yet our ignorance and indifference are neither tragic nor fatal. There are some matters, however, in which ignorance and indifference are both tragic and fatal. One such matter is the answer to the questions, “What is a biblical Christian,” and “Are you measuring up to the marks of the Christian”? One must not make the assumption lightly that he or she is a true Christian: a false conclusion at this point is both tragic and fatal. One of the many things that separate the Christian faith from the world’s other religions is that Christianity is a sinner’s religion. When the angel announced to Joseph the upcoming birth of Jesus Christ, he did so with very telling words, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.” — Matt. 1:21.
A biblical Christian is a person who has in all seriousness taken to heart their own personal problem of sin; a person who has seriously considered the one divine remedy for sin — the Person and Lord Jesus Christ, who is the eternal word uniting a true human nature to His divine nature.
A biblical Christian is a person who has wholeheartedly fulfilled the terms for obtaining God’s provision for sin and a person who shows in their life that their claims to repentance and faith are real.
In Genesis chapter 3, it speaks of the tragic account of man’s rebellion against God and his fall into sin.
We have all sinned in Adam as God appointed him to represent all of the human race. Romans 5:12 says, “wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
When Adam sinned, humankind became guilty before God and became impure and corrupt in his nature.
Our record in heaven is a bad one, and so Almighty God measures the total of our human experience by a stringent standard. This standard touches our external deeds and our thoughts, and the very motives of our hearts.
We have all fallen in Adam, but we can all rise in Christ. 1 Cor 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Too often, when we fall, we accept the very hand of Adam to help us up rather than the very hand of Jesus who came to save the lost soul.
The Great Physician never brought His healing power to anyone who did not know themselves to be a sinner — Matt. 9:12-13.
If we believe in Him and His words, then we should all be willing to be counted as fools and crazy — ready to be considered outdated — because we believe that there are eternal, unchangeable moral standards.
For Jesus said in Mark 8:38, “Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Can you make your claim to be a Christian stick from the marks in the Bible? Does your life show the results of repentance and faith?
Do you possess a life of love for Christ, of obedience to Christ, and confession of Christ? Do the ways of Christ mark your behavior?
A true Christian follows Jesus and lives a life of purposeful obedience to him. A true Christian rises every day to say — Jesus, I deny myself and take up my cross daily, leaving all behind to follow Thee.
He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him — Heb. 5:8-9. Knowing that God’s provision for sinners is in Christ and His cross and that it is freely you saved?
Are you confident that you are saved? This is a question that everyone should ask themselves because it is of grave importance.
We should ask ourselves this question because we should all desire to know where we will spend eternity when death serves its cold dish or when the world passes away.
We should ask ourselves this question because God wants his children to know that they are genuinely saved and sure of our salvation.
1 John 5:13 says, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Thou must not pass out of this tent without making sure of the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Summer flowers are very beautiful and very fragrant, but they wither away. God made us for eternity, and only that which is eternal can be our portion or our resting place.
The things that perish with the using only mock our longings. They cannot fill us and, even if they filled, they could not abide.
Mortality is written on all things here in this world, while immortality belongs only to the world to come to the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
So, how can you make sure that you are saved? God has long since answered that question, and His answer is recorded in Scripture for all ages: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” — John 3:31-36.
A new coat: A flock of sheep grazing peacefully in a field is always a pretty sight. Few of us think about how hard it is sometimes to take care of them through the cold winter.
At this time of year, sheep are growing long, thick wool coats to keep them warm through the winter.
In the spring, when the lambs are born in the fields, they sometimes die because it is still too cold. They do not have warm, woolly coats when they are born, and so, if they arrive while there is still snow on the ground, some usually die.
Sometimes a mother sheep will die, leaving a little lamb without a mother to nurse it. The Shepherd then has to find a way to take care of the little lamb not to die.
He can either try to feed it himself from a bottle or find a mother sheep to take care of it. However, usually not other sheep will accept the lamb, because it is not her own.
Now, what do you suppose the shepherd does? He looks to see if there is a mother sheep whose own baby lamb has died.
He finds her dead lamb, removes its skin, and carefully places it over the body of the living lamb that has lost its mother. It is just like putting on a coat.
The shepherd then takes the little orphan lamb to the mother sheep that has just lost her baby. She sniffs the lamb all over, smelling mostly the coat of her dead lamb.
She thinks it must be her baby, and so she accepts it and nurses it.
This is just what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for those of us who have accepted Him as our savior.
He is that lamb who died on Calvary’s cross for us. — Isaiah 6 1:10; Psalm 149:1-5
God the Father accepts us, not because there is anything good in us, but because He sees us wearing the “coat of salvation” that the Lord Jesus has given us.
There is but one work by which a man can be saved, and that work is not thine, but the work of the Son of God.
That work is finished, — neither to be taken from nor added to, — perfect through all ages, — and presented by Himself to you, that you may avail yourself of it, and be saved.
We honor the Father when we consent to be saved entirely by the finished work of His Son, and we honor the Son when we consent to take His one finished work in the room of all our works. We honor the Holy Spirit, whose office is to glorify Christ when we hear what He saith to us concerning that work finished “once for all” upon the cross.
Could salvation be made freer? Could God in any way more fully show His earnest desire that you should not be lost, but saved — that you should not die, but live?
On the cross, there is salvation — nowhere else. No failure of this world’s hopes can quench the hope which it reveals.
It shines brightest in the evil day. In the day of darkening prospects, of thickening sorrows, of heavy burdens, of pressing cares — when friends depart, when riches fly away, when disease oppresses us when poverty knocks at our door, — then the cross shines out, and tells us of light beyond this world’s darkness, the Light of Him who is the light of the world. — John 8:12; 1 John 1:5-7.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ — some may say that they have never done anything else! If that be true, then, as the Lord liveth, thou art a saved man.
But then you must ask yourself whether your life is the life of a saved man? Do you measure up to the marks of the Christian?
Are you consistent in obeying God’s commandments? Does a genuine love for other Christians characterize your life?
One of the major teachings of the epistle of 1 John focuses on the marks of the Christian. The false teachers claimed to be Christians, but they were not.
The true Christians were beginning to doubt themselves because of the attacks by the false teachers. Doubts and questions can drive us to a new knowledge of God and a renewed commitment to Him.
John gave (3) marks by which authentic Christians can be identified:
1) The first mark is an accurate understanding of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who came in the flesh as a human. — John 1:1-14; Born. 1:3-6; Gal. 4:4-7.
2) The second mark is faithful obedience to God’s commands. — 1 Sam. 15:22; Ps. 19:7-11; Prov. 3:1-6:1 Tim. 4:8-12.
3) The third mark is genuine love for other Christians. — John 13:34-35; 1 Thess. 3:11-13; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 2:7-10.
These marks evidence that a person truly knows Christ and lives for Him and not for self or selfish desires.
These marks of the Christian are accurate because each of them requires the work of the Holy Spirit, who comes to indwell each Christian.
The Holy Spirit teaches God’s truth about Jesus Christ, and He also produces His fruit, which includes obedience and love, in their lives.
As Christians evaluate false teachers by these standards, we are also prodded to renew our focus on Christian life basics.
Although 1 John was written nearly 2,000 years ago, the foundational truths that he affirmed are relevant today and are the building blocks of godly living.
His epistles contain the principles that new and older Christians need to grow in Christ without error. Quite often, Christians are confronted with the things and pleasures of the world that threaten to move us away from Christian belief and behavior.
And so, we need reminding about who Christ is and what He has commanded us to do. We also have to learn to put our beliefs into action by cultivating fellowship with Christ and with other Christians.
The epistle of 1 John exhorted Christians to renew their commitment to faithful obedience and fervent love.
He recognized that fellowship with God and with one another would fortify believers in the face of false teaching and temptations that threatened to seduce Christians into error.
The cure for error is truth and love — 2 Cor. 4:1-6; Eph. 4:14-15; 1 John 3:18-21.
A healthy church life needs to balance two dimensions: our duty as we serve God and our delight in relationships with other people.
One of the striking facts about 1 John is its extensive overlap with John’s Gospel, mainly chapters 13 through 17.
In the Gospel of John, these chapters deal with the need to love through fellowship and the desire to live obediently in God’s truth.
The epistle of 1 John appears to be an adaptation of Jesus’ words to his disciples to the specific situation of the Church — 1 John 1:1-4.
John started his letter to a group of Christians who were confronting the threat of false teaching. As John sought to help them, he began at the foundation of the Christian faith. — Jesus!
The false teachers had invented their message — Gnosticism, which is a second-century heresy taken from the Greek word gnosis or “knowledge.”
In short, they repudiated or denied the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ, that Jesus is both God and man, they rejected the Biblical doctrine of sin, and they rejected the twin doctrines of guilt and atonement.
As one of Jesus’ first disciples, John had witnessed from the start of the Lord’s ministry and the gospel that He brought.
John was proclaiming “that which was from the beginning” as a reference to the beginning of the gospel message that Christ brought when He came to earth.
John observed Jesus closely for the three years of his earthly ministry and heard what He said and saw what He did as Jesus went about teaching, preaching, and performing miracles.
John was an eyewitness to the evidence that proved that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. John watched Jesus as He died on the cross, and He gazed into the empty tomb and recognized that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead. — John 19:25-27; 20:1-8.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and He invited doubting Thomas to touch His wounds — John 20”:19-21, 24-31.
Where we start in our beliefs determines where we end up in our behavior.
The false teachers we wrong in their understanding of Christ, and that error, in turn, produced disastrous consequences in the lives of those who followed them.
John went back to the very beginning to restate the foundational truths of the gospel. Only by treating the underlying spiritual disease could John take care of the ungodly symptoms that were appearing in Christians' lives.
A good doctor understands that symptoms have underlying causes. Treating the symptoms may provide temporary relief, but the only way to have permanent healing is to eradicate the disease that produces the symptoms.
Christ commissioned John and the disciples as reliable eyewitnesses and authorized apostles to declare the truth about eternal life through Christ.
This is a certain truth that provides a stable foundation for life and frees the Christian from the toils, the power, and the deceptions of Satan — John 8:28-31.
However, John wanted to do more than just inform his readers of the truth. He loved them, and he recognized that only common commitment to the gospel truth could produce genuine fellowship.
We are saved as individuals, but God blesses us with intimate fellowship with Himself and other Christians.
Through salvation, we enter into a family relationship with God; therefore, each Christian is related to God the Father, but the blessing goes beyond that. — John 17:15-23.
In God’s family, Christians are related to one another as brothers and sisters and have a heart bond built on truth and warmed by love.
Only a shared relationship with Christ can produce genuine fellowship among Christians.
As John taught about Christian fellowship, he showed that sharing in Christ means that when one rejoices, all rejoice.
We need to rejoice in God’s goodness, and our worship should become a delighted joy — Psalm 33:1-5, 18-22; 89:15-17; 116:12-19.
In a world that is shackled by fear, our faith in God should give us joy. In a world that is plagued by guilt, our forgiveness by God should cause us to rejoice.
In a world that is alarmed by uncertainty, our hope in God’s promises should give us peace. In a world that is torn by competition and injustice, our fellowship in God’s family should keep us singing.
Indeed Christians should be marked by faith, hope, and love, but they should also display real joy.
God’s gospel truth is the foundation for our fellowship with Him and with one another, bringing an eternal fountain of joy for our lives.
That exact joy should be a powerful testimony to the world around us. That same joy should be a tie that binds us together at the soul. — PS. 119:169-175.
Only when we Christians share the deepest potential for genuine fellowship — the beautiful blessing we have in Christ — that we can far surpass any challenges that we can face.
Count your blessings, my brethren, and let God’s joy renew your soul. Always remember whose house we are — Heb. 3:6-15.