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[0:00] I want to turn for a little to the chapter we read in 1 John, and chapter 5, I'm reading at the beginning.

[0:13] 1 John, chapter 5, reading at the beginning. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

[0:25] 1 John, chapter 5, reading at the beginning.

[0:56] And of course, we know that that faith is centered in a person, centered in the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John, chapter 5, reading at the beginning. 1 John, chapter 5, reading at the beginning. There is what we would term a natural faith.

[1:08] everybody has a natural faith in the sense that we believe loads of things about things in life that may sound a bit strange but for instance every day we believe that certain things will happen for instance if I go into a plane and that plane shoots along the runway I believe that through aerodynamics and the skill of the pilot and various things coming together that that plane is going to rise up into the air don't know how but I just believe it's going to happen I don't think that it's going to go I don't for one moment imagine that it's just going to go straight along the runway and then into the sea I don't certainly would hope that wouldn't happen same when I step onto a boat I believe even though I'm pretty heavy I believe the boat won't sink and logically you might say to yourself how does that boat that you look at the Isle of Luz how does that boat stay in the water there's loads of things that we we exercise a natural faith a natural belief and trust in same we're going to sit in a seat if you come into somebody's house and there's a chair there you don't examine the chair and look at the legs of it and feel the back of it and think and then sit down very slowly and gingerly into it and say ah that's me I'm in I'm in it now you just plonk yourself down in it because you believe you trust you assume that that chair has been made well and it'll it'll hold you up so we're not analyzing it but every day as we go through life in very simple ways we're exercising a basic natural trust in everyday things but the faith that is spoken of here is different it's different in one way in in men in many ways it's just like it it's an example of what we're doing because faith is believing in the abilities in the expertise of the joyer who made the chair or and all these things we're believing in these things this faith is believing in a person and this faith is not a natural faith indeed it is a supernatural faith and because it's a supernatural faith it's a faith that comes from without it's not something that we can work up in ourselves and that's one of the problems that so many people have particularly people who might be seeking the lord and they're wondering how they can't get faith and they're saying to themselves you know I want to believe maybe there's somebody in here today and that's the way you are and you're saying you know I really I believe in my mind and again with regard to salvation in salvation in Jesus Christ it is that is one of the key parts of believing savingly is that we believe we've got to believe in our mind we believe in our heart as well but we've got to believe in our mind and accept the truth of what is spoken in the bible about Jesus that's important and that is we we're able with our own mind our own logic to accept and to see this and say yes this is true and that is a key it's an essential part of faith but it's got to go further than that and the bit that where we have to go further than that is where we discover this faith that enables us to believe in Jesus enables us to receive receive Jesus as our lord and savior is a gift from God and that of course is one of the problems that so many people face it was a problem I faced for long enough myself was trying to I used to try and work up

[5:10] this faith within myself saying I want to believe and I was trying to believe but I couldn't believe and the bible tells us by grace you are saved through faith not of your own doing it is the gift of God so my friend if you're here today and you're seeking the Lord and you're saying I'm just not able there's something that's just not coming together something that's not clicking in some way I'm just not able to believe I want to believe I want to believe but I can't what you've got to say to the Lord is Lord here I am I'm seeking I want give me Lord come into my heart by giving me this faith that will believe this faith that is from without it's not something that is we what that we that we work up in ourselves we cannot it is God who puts this faith within us it is a gift of God so that we are able then to believe in him and this faith is our living faith it's our living faith that acts and is absolutely essential for salvation so what does it mean then to believe in Jesus everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God now maybe everybody in here today says well I believe I believe that Jesus is the Christ so does that mean that I have been born of God well this believing here as we said as I said earlier it is essential to have that belief in our mind what we may term an intellectual belief where we are persuaded that all that is written of Jesus is true and that is a that is a starting point but as I said we've got to go further than that we have to receive Jesus this believing means to receive Jesus in what ways do we receive Jesus well in one sense there is only one way we receive Jesus and we receive him by faith but we receive Jesus in different ways for instance we receive Jesus as Savior that's one of the ways that we receive Jesus we receive him as Savior we see him as the one who is sent by God and his mission in being sent by God was to save remember what was said when Jesus was born his name shall be called Jesus why for he shall save his people from their sins so you see this believing in Jesus is the kind of believing that is receiving Jesus as a Savior to save us from our sins we have we come to this place this knowledge this understanding that our sins are going to destroy us and that we have no hope for reconciliation with God and no hope for heaven except by receiving Jesus as our Savior and this is at the very the very heart of the Christian faith this is at the very heart of being a Christian and it's this teaching in a sense that many people find objectionable there are many people who believe many of the teachings of Jesus they look at his life they know him as a historical character they will look at the Bible and they will quote from the Bible and they will look at some some of these great truths that Jesus taught and they'll say yes I would like to follow the teachings of Jesus but that's as far as they will go they don't take him or they don't want him as a Savior

[9:15] because the moment that we talk about Jesus as a Savior we are straight away acknowledging our own inability to save ourselves our own inability to be right with God and there is something within the human heart that doesn't like that it's a blow to our pride it's a blow to our self-esteem it's a blow to our own righteousness and so there are so many people who say well I'm good enough and one of the great mistakes so many people make is that people will look at Christians at professing Christians and they will look at their life and they will look at the professing Christians life and they will say I'm just as good as him I'm just as good as her and there are many people who will excuse themselves from believing in Jesus as they look at the professing Christians life but you see at the end of the day that that's not what matters when you and I stand at the judgment seat of Christ the one question that will be asked is what did you do with Jesus Christ?

[10:38] did you accept him or did you reject him? it won't be asked for any reasons what have you done with him? God is going to require of us because you see what happens to reject Jesus it's actually incredibly solemn if we reject Jesus we make God a liar that's what it tells us verse 10 whoever believes in the son of God has a testimony in himself you know this that's one of the things that happens when a person becomes a Christian when a person receives Jesus a testimony is born within your own heart you know you know that you belong you know that Jesus Christ has come to live there it might be very hard to explain to other people but you know it because the testimony is there that's what the word tells us and we know that to be true whoever does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his son so you see what a great sin it is it's the ultimate sin it's to reject Jesus because by rejecting Jesus we're rejecting the testimony that God has given us concerning his son and we the end we're told here is we make God a liar so you see straight away the enormity of the sin of rejecting Jesus some people will say well it's it's not a big deal it's the biggest deal that there is to make out that God is a liar so if if you're here today and you've never really looked at it that way

[12:32] I would ask pray that the Lord would open your heart open your mind open your eyes to see this truth so that the scripture truth will come into your heart and affect your life and cause you to seek the Lord we all need Jesus and so for the person who receives Jesus as saviour doesn't receive Jesus reluctantly but receives him thankfully nobody receives Jesus as saviour reluctantly when you go to Christ when you go and you're calling and you're saying Lord save me you're saying that because you feel lost and it's a wonderful thing to be saved and nobody who is saved says oh well I'm not sure if I wanted to be saved or not when you are really deciding to be saved you want to be saved nothing else matters but this one thing

[13:40] I need to be saved and I need to be saved now so you're never saved reluctantly you're saved thankfully saved from and saved to saved from condemnation saved from sin's penalty saved from eternal punishment and saved to all that Christ has won for you and saved to an eternal glory but we don't just receive Jesus as saviour we also receive him as lord and master when we believe in Jesus we don't just pay lip service as it were it's not just a cloak that we put on for occasions and we say oh well it's Sunday morning going to church eleven o'clock I'll put on my religious mode my this is this is it just now and when I come out from church then I can lock my bible away and I don't need anything else we don't compartmentalize our life so that there is a bit that is spiritual and the rest of life is secular it doesn't work like that it's all mingled up and if we follow through the teachings of Jesus we see very clearly that being a Christian touches and affects every area and every aspect of our life when we receive Jesus as lord we receive him as lord lord ruler we are bow under his supremacy his authority for all of our life not just for little bits there's not parts that we say well lord you can have this bit and that part but see this part of my life this is mine this is mine even Jesus you're not going to get this part of my life we don't come like that to Jesus when we receive Jesus we receive him in his entirety so that he is lord of our life now of course we sin we fail but you know the true Christian laments his failure laments her failure and our great what causes us to lament is because of our love of Jesus and our desire that Jesus is lord of all our life and when we realize we're failing him and disobeying him and going our own way that causes sorrow in our heart and we go to him repentantly and saying lord forgive me

[16:19] I have acted in a way that is not consistent as a Christian I have lived as if you are not lord of my life please forgive me you see this is this is what causes us the sorrow and the grief and the pain because we Jesus is lord and we want him to exercise that lordship and we feel sorrow when we're not giving him his rightful owning ownership as king and lord of our life and this is the sorrow that is in the believer's heart and again to receive Jesus is to receive him as our advocate we have an advocate with the father Christ Jesus that's what we're told back in chapter 2 but if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous we are trusting Christ knowing that the whole basis of our salvation is on what he has done for us that's it what he has done what he is doing and what he is yet to do our whole life our basis our standing today as a Christian is all in Christ and so we take him as an advocate he ever lives to make intercession for us how does he do that by presenting himself his finished work we don't have the righteousness but he presents himself so when we come and receive Jesus or when we come to believe in Jesus as we said it's accepting receiving Jesus as saviour receiving Jesus as lord and master receiving him as our advocate but we also find that it says here that everyone who believes that Jesus is a Christ has been born of God and of course that is what we tell the new birth where a person is born again and why is it called a new birth very simply because new life has come in it's not when a person becomes a Christian it's not a development of the old life new life has come and a person knows it as we said earlier on this testimony is within our own heart it's there and when a person when a healthy baby is born the one thing that everybody knows is that there's a baby you can't go into a house and live in a house where there's a newborn healthy baby there without knowing that that baby is there because you'll hear it there's life the baby will cry you are aware of that life and so it is when a person is born again that there is life and you'll see it and this is you'll often find people people who are converted but they don't tell anybody they have they've come to put their trust in the

[19:41] Lord they have received Jesus but they've kept it quiet and then maybe after two three four five few weeks or whatever they tell and they say you know I've become a Christian and the people that they've told or the person they've told they say well I'm not surprised and they'll say how's that because people could see the life another Christian is able to see the life because you see you become family you become part of a new family and there's an identity there's an identity with heaven but there's an identity with the family of God and this is part of the wonderful thing of being a Christian it's not something that you can hide away and say well I'm never going to tell anybody you can't do that as a believer because it will be known people will see so this is because there is new life but we will live like a baby when we when we're born again just as a baby all this life and we live in dependence upon the

[20:59] Lord and we're crying like the baby remember how a baby cries to be fed can't feed itself and when we're born again that's what we're doing we're crying to the Lord feed me and the amazing thing is that the Lord feeds us with himself he answers our cry and feeds us with himself and again just as a baby cries when a baby has soiled itself and cannot clean itself so we are the same and we're going to the Lord and saying Lord clean me cleanse me from my sin from from all the defilement from all the soiling I feel so unclean and so unrighteous so we find that everyone who believes that Jesus is a Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him you see as we said the family we become part of a family and there's an amazing bond begins to grow within the family just there's a you begin to feel this link this bonding with those who are part of the family and it's never a good sign when any of the family of God will begin to isolate themselves or separate themselves from others not a good sign just in the same way as we have a flock of sheep if you find a sheep that's beginning to go off on its own the alarm bells will go and there's every likelihood that that sheep is sick they tend to do that when they're sick they go off on their own they separate themselves from the others and it's true spiritually as well it's not a good sign when we begin to see or if we see the flock beginning to separate and you're saying well there's there's something not right there so here we have this this wonderful truth taught us everyone who believes that Jesus is a

[23:07] Christ has been born of God notice that word everyone it's not a wonderful word everyone who believes do you believe today well there are loads of people in here who most certainly do and I believe that there are other people in here today who believe as well but they have never made what we would term an open public profession of that you should because it will help you it will strengthen this faith that is already within your heart but if you're here today and you have never believed in Jesus I would ask you that you would go to the Lord and say Lord I need to because you do not want at the end of the day to be accused of God of calling him a liar because that's what will happen if you die rejecting

[24:08] Christ and I cannot think of a worse meeting than meeting with a living God and you will be found guilty of having called him a liar get right with God today get right with God through his son Jesus Christ come to believe in him and if you're struggling and you're saying well I just can't believe you come acknowledging your own difficulty your own inability and saying Lord save me save me and that cry it's a cry of faith a cry of dependence the Lord will answer and he will save you he will because he will then give you the faith to believe in him and when you believe you'll know it let's pray Lord oh God we give thanks for this word we give thanks for the clarity of the word which shows us and explains to us what it is to believe in Jesus and we pray that we may indeed rest our souls our life our all in and upon the

[25:24]  Lord Jesus Christ we give thanks for this great gospel this great salvation we pray then that we will follow the Lord with all our heart do us good we pray take us all to our homes in safety bless us we pray bless the cup of tea that we will have in a few moments and we pray that we may receive it with thankfulness and that we might know God's blessing in time of fellowship take away from us all our sin in Jesus name we ask it Amen