Rev. David Holwick ZN (adaptation of Oct 15, 2006, sermon)
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 29, 2013
Matthew 10:32-33
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I. What would you confess to?
A. Different meanings of confession:
1) Admit to a crime or sin.
2) Claim a belief.
a) Early Christians were called "confessors."
b) Identifying with Jesus is the first mark of a disciple.
1> Basic Christian confession: "Jesus is Lord."
2> Paul's creed can be found in Romans 10:9-10:
"If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,'
and believe in your heart that God raised him from
the dead, you will be saved."
B. There are different ways to get a confession.
1) The recent debate over torture.
a) Waterboarding can produce confessions - true and phony.
b) It turns out many of the security scares after 9-11
were due to false confessions under torture.
2) Confessing your faith may seem about as painful.
C. For him or against him, we must take a stand concerning Jesus.
1) He offers two choices: acknowledge him, or disown him.
II. How do we acknowledge Jesus?
A. Before men.
1) Acknowledging Jesus is not a secret in-your-heart thing.
a) True Christians are public Christians.
b) You admit to others what you believe.
2) Witnessing is a duty of every Christian.
a) Not everyone is a minister or a missionary, but
everyone should be a witness.
b) It is encouraging others to follow God by believing
in Jesus his Son.
1> Have you ever done this?
2> Do you know what to say to people to lead them to
Christ?
3> Is there someone you should witness to right now?
3) Like many of you, I am weak here, especially with family.
a) Witnessing is a deep conversation and most of our
contact with loved ones is rather superficial.
b) It is hard to find an appropriate moment, and there
is always the fear of rejection.
c) But if you won't tell them about Jesus, who will?
B. Acknowledge Jesus in your daily life.
1) Acknowledging Jesus is not just standing on a street corner
with a big Bible.
2) We can acknowledge Jesus in everyday life.
a) Stand up for Christian morals.
b) Give God glory in ordinary events.
One day Ron Hutchcraft was in a dentist office.
He saw an old friend with his wife, both in their 90s.
Her health was really deteriorating.
Because it had been raining, the old man asked the
dentist if he could help them get in their car.
The dentist came back in, really touched by what had
happened.
When he went out with George and his wife, it wasn't
raining anymore.
And George said, "Isn't it great that the Lord stopped
the rain long enough for us to get out to the car?"
Then he just looked heavenward and said, "Thanks,
Father."
That is acknowledging Jesus.
#19655
III. Denying Jesus - from Judas to Peter to us.
A. Judas is the ultimate example of denying Christ.
1) Apostasy: denying the faith he once claimed as his own.
a) Judas did this when he betrayed Jesus to the temple
authorities for money.
2) Modern people can do this, too.
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine.
A few years ago he was seen on the PBS special "The
Question of God."
The day after the broadcast, he participated in an online
discussion where he was asked of his "faith background."
He answered, "I became an evangelical born-again Christian
in 1971...
I attended Pepperdine University to major in theology, but
switched to psychology and there discovered science.
By the time I graduated from a graduate program in
experimental psychology I had abandoned religion."
Dr. Shermer came to Christianity and found it undesirable
after a short six years.
#28471
B. Peter is more common example of disowning Jesus.
1) He failed in his faith, but still believed in Jesus.
a) Under pressure, he didn't want to admit he even knew
Jesus.
b) Perhaps you've been put on the spot like this, and
mumbled your way out of it.
2) After losing his courage, he repented and came back.
a) He remembered Jesus' words, and wept. Matt 26:75
1> Of course, Judas wept too.
A> The King James version says Judas "repented"
of what he had done to Jesus. Matt 27:3
B> This only means he was sorry for how it
turned out.
2> The difference is that Peter came back.
b) After this sorry episode he was faithful to his Savior
until he was executed for being a Christian.
3) The promise of 2 Timothy 2:13:
"If we deny him, he'll deny us;
but if we are faithless, he remains faithful."
I have always been intrigued by the contrast of denial
and faithlessness.
Apparently a genuine Christian can fail Jesus but
still be saved.
Can a real Christian deny Jesus?
This has been debated from earliest times.
Some say you can lose salvation; others say those who deny
Christ were never really saved to begin with.
The results remain the same -- those who deny Jesus are
doomed eternally.
But Paul adds this reassuring thought: Jesus cannot
disown himself.
This would mean even faithless Christians still belong
to their Savior.
We may need to repent with tears, but we can still come
back.
C. In between Judas and Peter.
1) Not outright denial, but a slipping away.
a) Substituting moralism for real faith.
In his novels, John Updike often portrays the spiritual
bankruptcy of many modern Americans.
They deceive themselves into thinking that disbelief is an
intellectual achievement.
In his book, "In the Beauty of the Lilies," the major
character ends his life in disbelief.
Updike says when the character dies, "He slipped away as
an unmoored boat on an outgoing tide."
Interestingly, this character is a Presbyterian minister,
Clarence Wilmot.
Princeton-educated, he has all the right credentials but
is lacking the essential one.
Rather than depend on God's Holy Spirit to lead him into
the mysteries of faith and revelation, he falls prey to
the temptation that comes to us all:
he substituted MORALISM and RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY for a
genuine relationship with Jesus Christ.
The preacher leaves the ministry and has no passion for
anything except for sex, which becomes his substitute
for God.
#20783
b) Substituting philosophy for Biblical truth.
A few years ago a real Presbyterian minister named John
Killinger wrote a book titled "TEN THINGS I LEARNED
WRONG FROM A CONSERVATIVE CHURCH."
The first thing he rejected was the authority of the Bible.
To him it was words about God, not words FROM God.
Because of that, he has now abandoned most of the beliefs
that regular Christians have.
He says his God is a limited God, just like people are
limited.
Killinger's biggest regret is that he once witnessed to
his father.
He slipped some evangelistic tracts in a birthday present
for his dad, who wasn't saved.
Today, Killinger doesn't believe salvation is that
important.
There are many ways to God and hell doesn't exist.
#28203
IV. There are many ways we can disown Jesus. [1]
A. By our actions.
1) When you act like the world, you deny Jesus.
2) Many Christians bring shame on their Savior.
3) What kind of image does your lifestyle make?
B. By our words.
1) Our ordinary conversation either witnesses for Christ and
righteousness, or for evil and unrighteousness.
2) Our words either confess or deny that Christ is our Lord.
C. By our silence.
1) This may be the most common denial of Jesus.
2) We don't want to look bad in front of other people.
a) Christianity has a negative connotation to many - some
critics have even called us the "American Taliban."
b) Note the controversy over Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson's
comments on homosexuality.
He was over the top in some of his comparisons, but he
got the most criticism for quoting the NIV's version
of 1 Corinthians 6:9.
3) A silent witness, isn't a witness at all.
V. Owning Jesus today.
A. Make a personal commitment to follow him.
1) Admit your sins against God.
2) Ask him to forgive you through Jesus.
3) Start living for him day by day.
B. Stand up for Jesus.
In the 1920's at Allegheny College, PA, a professor named
Dr. Lee didn't believe in prayer.
Every year he would hold up a glass flask and challenge anyone
to pray that it wouldn't break if he dropped it.
A student named Richard Harvey volunteered and prayed.
The professor dropped the flask and it rolled off his shoe to
the floor without damage.
The class cheered and the professor stopped his annual lectures
against prayer.
The website TruthOrFiction.com has confirmed with Allegheny
college that Richard Harvey was a student there and that
Dr. Lee was a professor.
Richard Harvey's son, a minister in Toccoa, Georgia, confirms
that the story was told by his father on many occasions.
After I put this story on the internet, I received this email
from Rev. Joe Gentzler of Columbus, Kansas:
Dear Pastor Holwick,
In the fall of 1965 I was a freshman at the College of
the Sequoias in Visalia, California.
I had signed up for a required political science class.
The instructor looked about the room and remarked, "I see too
many students have enrolled for this class.
I think I know what to do.
You all need to know that I am an atheist and believe all
Christians to be fools.
If, during the term of this course, I determine that you are
a Christian, I will immediately fail you from the course.
If you are a Christian I would advise you to get up and leave
my class."
At this I immediately got up and walked out of the class.
The thing that startled me most was that there were only six
of us who walked that day.
As we were walking to the administration building to change
classes I realized I should have stood up and called for
others who believed in Christ to follow us out.
The Lord has long since forgiven me for my lack of courage
that day.
I pray others will be able to stand fast when they are
confronted with such a challenge to their faith.
#4080
C. Jesus reciprocates.
1) He will acknowledge those who acknowledge him.
2) He will disown those who disown him.
3) What will he do with YOU?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] This three-point outline was derived from the Preacher's Outline and
Sermon Bible for Matthew 10:32-33, WordSearch version.
# 4080 "Have You Stood Up Lately? [with variations]," by Daniel Altman;
emailed by Ron Martinson, November 21, 1996.
#19655 "God All Over Your Day," A Word With You by Ron Hutchcraft, #3802,
August 8, 2001.
#20783 "An Unmoored Boat On An Outgoing Tide," by Dr. Julian M. Aldridge, Jr.,
Rev. Brett Blair's Illustrations by Email,
www.sermonillustrations.com, November 11, 2001.
#28203 "How To Abandon Historic Christianity In Ten Easy Lessons," by
Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, http://www.pfm.org/bptemplate.cfm?section=breakpoint~
_home&template=/contentmanagement/contentdisplay.cfm&contentid=13229,
August 2, 2004.
#28471 "The Problem With Christianity...," by Dale Fincher, A Slice of
Infinity: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries;
http://www.gospelcom.net/slice/; October 5, 2004. Some is derived
from "PBS: The Question of God" discussion transcript, Sept. 16, 2004.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11912-2004Sep10.html
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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