What Is a Christian?

Tom Shrader presents a two-part test for authentic Christian faith based on 1 John 2. First, the doctrinal test: do you truly believe Jesus is the Christ, God in the flesh who died for sins? Second, the behavioral test: does your belief transform how you live, particularly in demonstrating love? Shrader emphasizes that true Christianity must affect both what you believe and how you behave, warning against empty profession without life transformation.

“What you believe must affect how you behave.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: A Test for Eternity (1994)

Recorded: 1994

Duration: 40 min

Themes: salvation, faith, love, transformation, belief, behavior, testing, authenticity, questioning salvation, new believer, doubting faith, seeking assurance, struggling with sin, feeling uncertain, examining life, spiritual self-evaluation

Scripture: 1 John 2:18-29, 2 Corinthians 13:5-6, John 14:15, Matthew 7, John 10, 2 Timothy 3, 1 John 2:3, 1 John 2:15-17, Matthew 6, 2 Timothy 4

Theological Themes: soteriology, salvation doctrine, born again, regeneration, sanctification, holy living, assurance of salvation, true conversion

Full Transcript

Enter or to see or to understand the things of God, we had to be born again. Jesus tells us that that's spiritual. That's not a physical thing. Unless we are born again—whatever that born-again thing is, we still haven't defined it, we just said you have to be it—unless you're born again, you won't see the kingdom of God, Jesus said. By "see," that word in the Greek means to know, to understand, to comprehend. You're never going to understand any spiritual things if you're not born again.

Then Jesus tells us what it means to be born again. It means to believe in Him. Paul said it a little bit differently. He said it this way: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He arose from the dead. That's what it means to be a Christian, and we worked our way through that last week. We'll go back to that today a little bit because that becomes really the pivotal point as we turn to begin to answer today the second question: Are you a Christian?

Last week we tried to say here's what a Christian is. But now we take Paul's challenge very seriously in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 5 and 6. Paul asks a series of questions. This is from the Living Bible, and whenever we use the Living Bible I always have to caution you—this is not a translation, it's a paraphrase, an essence really at that point, then a commentary. But periodically it is very helpful to help us try to see what is truly there and understand it a little deeper.

Paul's Penetrating Questions

Paul asked this question: "Check up on yourselves. Are you really Christians? Do you pass the test? Do you feel Christ's presence more and more within you, or are you"—and these words have to just go through you, I would think, just like a laser beam—"or are you just pretending to be Christians when actually you aren't at all?" Penetrating questions.

We're going to ask you over these next 40 minutes or so to do something that many of you enjoy doing—we're going to ask you to be very judgmental. So it should be fun. We're going to change you just a bit in that we are going to ask you to refrain from judging the person to your left or to your right, or judging that slug spouse that God gave you, or judging your neighbor, or judging your boss, or judging your employees, or whatever it is.

We're going to ask you to judge the person in reality who is in fact the only one you can accurately judge. We're going to ask you to judge yourself. We're going to ask you to look at your own life. We're going to ask you to hold up God's Word, if you will, as a mirror and to look in it and for perhaps one time—the only time in your life—honestly evaluate your life and answer the question: Are you really a Christian?

The Two Tests

We're going to ask you to test yourself in two specific areas: in the area of doctrine and then in what we would call the moral area or the ethical area—the behavioral area. There's a premise that we've used with you over and over again, and it's interesting because I don't think I've ever had anybody challenge me on it. It's simply this: what you believe must affect how you behave.

There's all sorts of illustrations that we can get from the world, but let's say, for example, if you really believe that America West stock is going to be $200 a share tomorrow—you really believe that, and all things being equal, you're having the capacity and all the things—the reality is you're going to go and act on that. You're going to buy this stuff. I'm not touting America West stock. That's just an illustration. If you believe that a scud missile is going to hit this building in 60 seconds, you're out of here. Do you really believe it?

It's the same thing in this area of Christianity. When we talk about religion—and this is very important to understand, this is a distinction that is critical—when we talk about religion we tend to think of belief, yes, but of behavior as well contributing to what we would call salvation, or what I got to do to go to heaven. I can't get it any lower than that—that's the question I ask: what I have to do to go to heaven. Somehow we always have this combination of what I believe and how I behave as being critical.

The Critical Distinction

Christianity doesn't say that. Christianity says once you believe, that is what determines your eventual destination. Are we clear on that? I'll be in or out of heaven based on God's grace that is manifest itself through my faith. But because I'm God's child, I'll behave this way. A very important distinction.

I guess one other thing I need to stick in here at the very beginning. For years and years and years I believed that it was impossible to know where I'd spend eternity. For years and years and years I believed that God had something like a prototype of an IBM computer. Somehow, I guess because He was God, He could take every person and He could keep meticulous records. He'd have assets, liabilities. I would then die, I would stand before Him, and then at that moment Siskel and Ebert would either give me two thumbs up or two thumbs down, and that's the way it was going to be.

Well, all of a sudden—and that, by the way, is a dominant view—but all of a sudden I come to the Bible, and I keep seeing these words: you can know, you can know, you can know, you can know, you can know, you can know. Know this today. That's why we can legitimately ask the question: what is a Christian, or are you going to go to heaven? What's it take to go to heaven, and the second part, are you going to pass the doctrinal test and not only the doctrinal test, the ethical, the moral, the social, the behavior test?

John's Unique Ministry

There's one man in the scripture that seems committed in the New Testament to address this topic, and his name is John. He's the Apostle John, the only one of the Apostles who was not martyred. Tradition says that John was not martyred, although tradition also says they attempted to kill him. They boiled him in oil, and tradition says he survived the boiling and was exiled to Patmos. It's there that

He wrote the Gospel of John and then First, Second, and Third John in the book of Revelation. John is this man who is at this point perhaps ninety or a hundred years old, and he sits and he writes these words. The driving force in his communication to the church is "I want you to know who Jesus is," and in First John, he's really trying to figure out, do you really know?

Here we go. First John chapter 2, beginning in verse 18. John writes these words: "Children, it is the last hour, and just as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us."

It doesn't directly address the issue of doctrinally, are you a Christian? But John writes these words probably in about AD 90 to 95. So 1,900 years ago, John writes these words: "It is the last hour."

The Last Hour and the Rise of Antichrists

I was watching one of the guys on Christian TV the other night, and boy, they were telling me the end is near, the end is near, the end is near. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's nearer than when He started the sentence—that's what we know. But I haven't got the foggiest clue if it's around the corner or if it's around the millennium. Who knows?

The last hour—John seems to say the last hour is not going to necessarily be earthquakes and all that kind of stuff. He said that's not the issue. The issue is this thing called Antichrist. I'm not going to get into a bunch of end time stuff, but that phrase, that word "Antichrist"—plural. He's not speaking about one figure in end times. He's talking about—if you go back to basic English, "anti," the prefix "anti" means either "in opposite of" or "instead of."

In this case, what I think he's saying is what's risen up here are a lot of "instead of Christs." I think I said this to you last time: in Jesus' day, they had as many Messiah spottings as we have Elvis spottings today. They had Jesus Messiah spottings all over—this guy claimed to be Messiah, this guy claimed to be Messiah, this guy claimed to be Messiah. And John says, "I'm telling you, you better watch out for this."

He seems to say—and I just have to interject this—these guys were part of us, and they went out. When we think of evil or we think of anti-religious people, we tend to think of anti-religious people. You got to understand, that's not what he's saying at all.

The Deceptive Nature of False Paths

It's like Jesus says in Matthew 7: there's a road that leads to life and a road that leads to destruction. For years, I always had this picture of this thing that says "Heaven" and this thing that says "Hell." That's not it, is it? The road that leads to destruction is marked "Heaven" as everybody looks at it. Rarely will you run into somebody that says, "Sure, I'm going to hell, and I'm excited about it." Everybody thinks they're on a course that's taking them to heaven. And John says that ain't necessarily so.

Now he wants to get at the core of this, and this is really the core truth for those of us who are trying to embrace this doctrinal test. He said, "Who is the liar?"—pretty strong language. "Who's the one that's not telling the truth? It is the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also."

The Doctrinal Test: Believing in Jesus Christ

This is really, really, really important. Here's the doctrinal test: the doctrinal test is, do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? Jesus is the Messiah. And encompassed in that whole idea is that He is God, that He died on the cross for our sins. That's what a Christian is. Do you believe that?

There's a distinction here that is really important, and I think maybe it's always been there, but it seems to me in our generation this distinction has really gotten lost. John says this: "The one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father."

I meet people all the time, and so do you, who say, "Look, we've got some differences—and primarily these differences are about Jesus—but can we at least acknowledge that we worship the same God?" John, if he were to hear this, would say, "No, we can't acknowledge that."

You Cannot Separate Jesus from God

When you have this gigantic ecumenical day of prayer in which you have Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and all these different religions, and you try to join them as Christians because you're all praying to the same God, John would say, "No, no, no, no, no. You aren't praying to the same God, because they deny the Son. If they deny the Son, they also deny the Father." This is the core issue.

I had coffee right before vacation with a guy who said, "You know, Jesus never claimed to be God. That's something that you put on His lips as you've rewritten the scripture." I said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me just ask, because maybe you're right. I said, I remember in John chapter 10 where Jesus is with the Pharisees, and they said, 'Are you the Christ or not?' And His response was pretty clever. He said, 'My sheep hear My voice. They know who I am. They'll come to Me. None that the Father has given Me will get away from Me. No one can snatch them out of My hand. I and the Father are one.'"

Do you remember what happens next? They pick up stones to throw at Him. And Jesus said, "Okay, hang on just a second. Before you throw the stones, are you stoning Me for the good works that I've done?" And they said, "No, we're stoning you because you're being blasphemous." What's that mean? "We're stoning you because we got it—you say you're God."

You see that all through His life. Why they nail Him to the cross? He claimed to be God. That's the whole point. See, doctrinally, here's the issue: you can't separate Jesus from God. With all due respect, if you're here today and you don't believe this, that's fine and we're glad you're here, but you need to understand something.

You are praying to a false God, a God of your own creation or your ancestors' creation. Because the only true God had a son named Jesus Christ who died on the cross for people like you and me. If you don't believe that, you're worshiping an idol, a false God. You're involved in idolatry, as spiritual as you may feel it is.

In this incredible battle, as deceitful and as wicked as this can be, John offers by way of parenthesis some advice. We can't spend a lot of time on it, but He says in verse 26: "These things I've written you concerning those who are trying to deceive you." I want you to hang in with what you've learned from the beginning.

Hang In There With What You Learned

Paul writes and offers similar advice in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 to a young guy by the name of Timothy. In 2nd Timothy chapter 3, He says that in latter days—phrase sound familiar from what we talked about—you've got to understand people are going to be bad. I'll read the list and just see if this sounds like your generation: "Men will be lovers of self." We could stop right there—lovers of self.

While I was on vacation, I don't know if I talked about this last week, but they had an—and I'm not making this up—periodically I poke fun at Geraldo and Oprah and these guys and talk about my favorite Geraldo topics like "Transvestites who were their own prom dates" and that kind of stuff. But I'm not making this up: Oprah had on a lady who had multiple personalities who was stalking herself. I don't know where you hide from that. That's true. It was either watch that or hit golf balls, and I went and hit golf balls. But I was getting kind of interested because there's no relief from that, it seems to me.

But this obsession with self—we could go on. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy. Here's an interesting word: unloving. What that word means is not that they're just filled with hate. It means they operate contrary to natural laws of love.

Natural Love vs. Unnatural Hatred

It is natural for a parent to love a child. I love Susan as much as any person or anything in the world. But when Sarah was born—it was New Year's Eve, you've heard the story a thousand times and you don't need to hear it again, and I'm not going to give you all the stuff leading up to it—but when Sarah popped out of there, there was this thing, this kind of ball of pink, and they kind of cleaned it off and there she was.

I've got to tell you, and I've talked to a lot of men about this, and every man I've talked to has acknowledged this same thing: there is a love at that moment that is unprecedented in a life and unduplicatable. You can't replicate it. It's something totally different. Susan I love—how could you not? She's good-looking, she's got a great body, she's got a good mind, she likes me. How could you not love that?

But in comes Sarah who's done nothing, no redeeming qualities, not particularly attractive. I looked at her like a cross between Gandhi and Churchill. There she is—she hasn't eaten, she hasn't done anything—and there is some love. Again, maybe I'm goofy here, but there is a love there that I cannot describe. I don't know what it is. I just know it's real. The same thing happened when Haley was born.

What this says is that in the last days, parents will hate their kids, kill them in the womb. They'll want to get them away from them as much as they can. They'll hate their parents. There'll be all sorts of strife in the family, and brothers will hate brothers and sisters, sisters and parents, kids and kids, parents. That's what that means. Not only that, these things are irreconcilable—we'll be in court forever.

The Character of Last Days

Malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal. Here's an interesting thing: haters of good. It's not just that they like evil—they hate good. "Get the good away from me. I don't want to see it. Get it out of here." They will be treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

I go through all that to get to this: lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, but they'll hold to a form of godliness although they deny its power. What's the power in the faith? The power in godliness is this: understanding who Christ is. It's the dominant theme.

Yesterday morning, whatever time it was, I'm just going over these notes getting ready to head out to teach the Wednesday morning study, and there's an ad that comes on the radio. I'm not going to use the guy's name. He said, "This is Reverend so-and-so of such-and-such church. Are you out there maybe disillusioned? Have you lost your dream? I'd like you to come and join us for this Sunday service. Our basic philosophy is we want to help you unlock the power that's in you."

That's a perfect picture. That's a perfect picture of this illustration, perfect of what He's saying here. It's the perfect picture: unlock the power that's in you. You got no power in you. You don't have it. The power is outside of you. It's in Christ. As you respond to Him in truth, and now He indwells you, then there's power.

Paul's Counsel to Timothy

Well, in the midst of all this, here's what Paul says to Timothy. He says, "This evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however"—and He speaks to you and He says this—"you, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

He speaks of the Bible prophetically there. He says, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped and adequate for every good work."

You've got these gigantic weapons in this doctrinal battle. You've got the word of God and you've got the Spirit if you're Christian. You've got the Spirit of God to help you understand this.

So the doctrinal test is simply this: Do you say that Jesus is the Christ? Have you come to that point in your life where you understand beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, died on the cross for your sin? You understand that? If so, give yourself a passing grade. If not, you've failed and the second part of the test means nothing to you.

Now those of you that have the passing grade, you're still not through this yet because it's a two-part test. I love to ask this question. This may be the perfect time to do it. Let's say that is true, and it is, and let's say you believe it. We then ask this question: So what? What difference does it make in your life? That becomes the question.

The Evidence of True Faith

John addresses that. He said this in First John chapter 2 beginning in verse 3: "And by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments." Jesus said simply in John chapter 14 in His gospel verse 15, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." If you love me, you'll do what I say.

James poses the question and says, "Listen, what good is it if you say you have faith but you have no works?" He says this is kind of interesting. He said even the demons believe. So far all we've done in our testing here where you acknowledge that in fact Jesus is God come in the flesh, so far all we've done is qualify you to be a demon. We haven't moved you into the kingdom yet. That comes as that true faith manifests itself.

The one who says "I've come to know Him" - now that word "know" speaks of a deep, intimate, personal relationship, not just intellectual but a penetrating knowledge that permits and all of my life and all of my being - and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But whoever keeps His word, in Him the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.

And then a bit of a summary statement: The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. In other words, there's this thing called love that starts to permeate my life. And I start to demonstrate love, and John has to go back and say it's not love as you think of it.

Jesus Redefines Love

Jesus comes with a whole different definition of love. You used to say to the Jew, "Do you love?" And the Jews say, "Sure, I love my family and I love some of my friends, but that's about it." And you say, "Do you love the Gentile?" He'd say, "No, no way." He'd say to the Gentile, "Do you love?" And they'd say, "Well, yeah, if they love me, I kind of love them a little bit."

Jesus comes through and interjects something brand new to the equation. In fact, John understands this idea, and verses seven and eight I have to admit could sound at least on the surface a little bit like a fortune cookie to you, so we spend some time on them.

John said, "Beloved, I'm not writing a new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I'm writing a new commandment to you which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining."

Wait a minute, John. What is it? Is it a new commandment or an old commandment? He's saying this: I'm writing you the same old commandment - love God. We go all the way back in the Old Testament, we see it in the New Testament. Jesus brings it forward. He said, "I'm giving you a new commandment: Love God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself."

The Light Has Come

And John says here's what truly makes it new. It's new because now you have seen it in Him. Now it is in you. To this point, thousands of years as man looked forward to this coming Messiah, he looked and he never understood. It was always a little murky. It was always a little gray. And now Jesus comes and now the Messiah is there and it's clear.

And John says the darkness is passing away and the true light is here. Men and women, this is the truth and all of the old is passing away. And Jesus comes and He says - He, John says, and Jesus too - Jesus and John both say to us, if you love, it's a different kind of love. It's a personal love. It's an active love.

Active Christianity

The Christian life is not passive. You do not define your Christianity by saying, "I don't do this and I don't do this and I don't do this and I don't do this." For sure, there's some things you don't do. But I should be able to look at it and say, "I'm a Christian. Here's the evidence: I do this, I do this, I do this. Look at this over here."

And I'm not saved by those works - understand this distinction. I'm not saved by those works, but because I know Christ, I'll live this way and it's distinctive and it's different. Does that make sense?

And this comes as it did with Jesus - it comes at great personal cost. I admire Jesus as a forerunner of one who advocates full disclosure. He says at the very beginning of this thing, He says, "Let me get into this." He's just asking these audience participants if they'd like to be followers. He said, "Before you answer me, anyone who's going to build a building always calculates the cost, always does a complete performance, always has a miscellaneous line, always covers his tail, always understands exactly what's going on here."

Counting the Cost

And He said, "Now I want you to follow me, but I want you to understand something. I want you to take up your cross, deny yourself. Now if you understand what that means, come to me. Come to me." There's great cost and there's great sacrifice. There's great hurt and there's great pain in the midst of this. And it means a radical lifestyle.

I mean, let me just spend a second here. Some of you out of either desperation or out of an environment in which perhaps it was vogue, or out of maybe an emotional appeal, some of you have bought in to Christianity on a doctrinal level. At least there's been some sort

The Test of Love in Daily Life

This test of genuine faith must go beyond mental assent and actually transform how we live. If you claim to be a Christian but there's no life change, if you still live with bitterness, hate, anger, and a lack of forgiveness - if there's no love for one another or compassion for the lost - then something is seriously wrong.

I describe myself politically as kind of a conservative neanderthal. One of the problems I have with conservatives is that we have periodically lost all compassion. On the other side, I see in the liberal movement something driven strictly by heart with very little thinking. My focus is on this: where's the compassion?

Does your heart break when you look around and see the brokenness? I was driving up Scottsdale Road this morning and heard that last night we had the 140th homicide in the city of Phoenix this year - not counting the outlying areas. One every other day. This is crazy. This is nuts. Does that touch you at all?

Love Starts at Home

Maybe that feels too removed, so let's close it down. You're in a family, you're in an office, you're in an environment where you see people around you hurting. Are you moved at all? Let's not even get to the action yet - are you even aware that's going on? And if so, does that drive you to action?

Let's bring it down to another level - let's get into your house. How do you treat each other? Those of you that are married, how do you respond to your spouse? I don't do a lot of marriage counseling, primarily because it really only takes a session to define the problem. Almost always I find one of two problems: either the husband's not being the husband he should be, or the wife's not being the wife she should be. The remedy is for the wife to be the wife she should be and the husband to be the husband he should be.

How can you walk down an aisle and say to somebody, "This is the person I give everything to - this is it"? And how about these kids? I honestly believe that most people I know truly do not love their kids because they're not willing to give them anything. I don't mean material - I mean emotional, psychological, spiritual health. You don't love your kid if you're saying to them, "Hey, you figure out this religion thing on your own. You take care of yourself."

The World System Test

What John is saying is that this belief we claim to have must transform our life, and the characteristic he singles out is this idea of love. There's one more thing to consider as we define the second part of this test - the moral, social, ethical part of it.

John adds in 1 John 2:15-17 what seems to address the pressure of the world. He says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world." Obviously, he's not speaking of the planet. He's not anti-environmentalist or against planet lovers. He's saying don't love the world - meaning the world's values, the world's pleasures, the world's pastimes, the world's desires. He uses that word "world" six times in these three verses: do not love the world nor the stuff that's in it, speaking of these temporary things.

You jump down to verse 17 and that's reinforced right there: "The world is passing away." What he's speaking of when he uses the word "world" is all of this temporary junk - this value system that grows out of it.

Three Areas of Worldly Temptation

He said, "I'll tell you why: for all that's in the world" - and then he identifies three areas - "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from God."

The lust of the flesh has to do with satisfying the senses. It has to do with a constant attempt to find gratification for desires we have in the flesh, whatever they are. It may be food, it may be booze, it may be sex, it may be none of those and something else for you. That's not of God. I will throw up if I have another person say to me, "God gave me the desires; He must want me to fulfill them."

The second thing is lust of the eyes, and that's a little more difficult to define but probably means this quest for things that we see for appearance's sake, perhaps in a competitive sort of way - the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. It speaks of materialism, but it also speaks of all the ancillary things that come with that. It's not just the cars and the houses, but the idea that "I'm a boss and I'm a manager and you aren't."

They all come together in the third area: the boastful pride of life. That's just being proud of everything for which you should take almost no credit. I've been reading a little lately, and one thing that's become clear to me is that however you feel, by and large, is genetic. Everything's genetic. Well, I can't take any credit or blame for my genes. Some of you are very handsome. Some of you ladies are very pretty. You can't take any credit for that. And yet lots of people are pretty excited about how good they look.

John says there's this whole tension between these worldly values and genuine Christian faith.

Two Masters

Two areas. They go like this: the things of God and the things of the world. Jesus said it this way in Matthew chapter 6: He said no one can serve two masters. You'll either hate one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to one and despise the other.

Here's what John is saying. John is saying, in fact, there it is: Anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father's not in you. You can't love this world that's temporary and love the eternal because they're in constant conflict.

You aren't just—and I've had Christian friends who seem to say, we're always swimming upstream. That's too gentle a picture. That's too gentle a picture. You're trying to swim out into the waves as they're pouring in the ocean. You're not just going upstream. You are counterculture. Your value systems, your worldview—and this is one of the things we've lost as a Christian body—is the idea of a world. Our Christian worldview is gone. If you love this world, you cannot love God because you cannot serve two masters.

The Story of Demas

There's an illustration of this, and we have to close. There's a guy in Scripture. This can't have an anti-hero for me, and his name is Demas. You ever heard of Demas in the New Testament? Know that name?

He only appears three times, always in Paul's writing, and the first two times in a very positive light. Paul is closing letters to friends and to churches, and he'll say, "Luke and Demas and the others send their greeting." Demas is someone who walked with Paul, who lived with him, probably slept and trooped with him together, saw him do miracles, and heard this marvelous mind. This man that A.W. Tozer describes as the most successful Christian in the world—Demas saw him firsthand.

The last reference to Demas is in Second Timothy chapter four, where Paul writes to Timothy: "Come to me quickly. Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me." Demas is gone. How come? The love of this world, because you can't do both.

Time to Grade the Test

Time to grade that test. How'd you do?

Here's the first test: Do you acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ? Pass/fail. If you pass that, then you have the second test: So what? Did you pass the social test, the ethical test, the moral test? Does your life reflect your beliefs? Is there any difference in your life?

Four groups of people in here, and you're out the door. Number one: those of you who think you're Christians and you aren't. Number two: those of you who aren't Christians and you know it. To both of you, I hope this is a source of conviction to you. I hope you take this to heart, and I hope this destroys you. I hope it makes you miserable. I hope you don't sleep another minute until God brings you to an understanding of who He is and brings you to Himself in repentance and faith.

Two other groups: those of you who are Christians, but you don't know it. You're in some theology that tells you that your salvation leaves and comes and goes and ebbs and tides and all this. You're really Christians and you're in there, but you don't really know it.

And then the last group: those of you that are Christians and you know it. To the two of you, I hope this is a great source of encouragement.

A Word of Thanks

The vast majority of you sat there very patiently, and I appreciate that, hearing stuff that really isn't new to you. But there's something I have discovered about believers, and that is I don't think they ever grow weary of hearing the doctrines of grace and truth and salvation, because from it we really do derive our spirit of thanksgiving and our understanding of who God is and who we are. And I pray that that's the case with you today.

I remind you that next week we are starting a brand new series—brand new series that I think will be very helpful in your quest to stay straight in a crooked world. We'll look at that next week.

Let's pray. We'll get you on your way.

Father, thank You for who You are. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, help us understand fully, to begin to comprehend and to believe that Jesus was in fact God in the flesh who died on the cross for sinners like us. Father, teach us the truth of that. And then we pray the second step, that You would help us live lives that would reflect that belief. God, we trust You for both of these. We trust You for the light and the truth, and we ask You to bring it to us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

See you next week.