Live Free with Josh Howerton - Struggling With Sin, Am I Still Saved? | Live Free With Josh Howerton

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

What happens when a church looks alive on the outside but is spiritually asleep within? Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo and Marc McCartney unpack the sobering message to the church in Sardis, diving deep into Revelation 3 and exploring the dangers of spiritual complacency. With powerful stories—including an inspiring testimony of transformation from the UK—and rich historical context from ancient Sardis, this conversation reveals how Jesus calls His church to wake up and walk in genuine intimacy with Him. They also wrestle with a timeless question: Can a Christian lose their salvation?    We hope this honest, hope-filled dialogue encourages you to examine your heart and press into a faith that perseveres.     👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update!     👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Celebrate Easter with us at Lakepointe Church and discover the life-changing victory of Jesus—His sacrifice, resurrection, and the eternal promise of redemption -- https://lakepointe.church/easter/     ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH: We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 6 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone. 🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://pushpay.com/g/lakepointe/    STAY CONNECTED: 🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/ 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect  🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lakepointechurch      🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc  ▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And our prayer is these deep dive conversations about the Word of God equip you to live free in Christ. This is a test drive and we'll decide whether or not to do more seasons based on engagement. So if this is helpful to you, if you could rate, review, or share, that will help us to know what's helpful. For more digital content, visit lakepoint.com slash live free. And now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast.

My name is Carlos Arazo. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and special guest, Mark McCartney. Oh, thank you. It's so good to be. By the pastor, Carlos Arazo. Great job this weekend, bro. Thank you so much. Bro, Carlos.

I'm glad to be here. Amazing. That you crushed. It was unbelievable, man. It's a good text. It's a good text. I'm really proud. Thank you.

Thank you for it. I'm thankful. Yeah. It was amazing. Whoa, wait, pop quiz, and I know the answer. What episode of Live Free is this? I'm looking at this right now. What episode of Live Free is this?

I'm going to number 15. Bro, I was going to say 15. I'm going to go 16. 18. 18. We're growing up. We are growing up. Oh, my goodness.

That's hilarious. Live free can, I don't know. I was going to come up with something you can do at 18 that's not shady. We're going to. We're growing up. Get your driver's license. vote. Live free can vote.

You can't get your driver license. 16. You're right. Join the military. So Carlos, you know, did not grow up in America. That's right.

And so we were talking about something earlier. Mark, you're so racist. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Actually,

America, Mark, is actually the continent of America. Oh, my God. He grew up in South America. So sorry. So, technically, I mean,

I did grow up in America. So it's okay. Hey, that's fine. You're right. You're right. But go ahead. I don't want to interrupt you. But Carlos

But Carlos believes that no one from Lake Point will be watching the master would have watched the Masters this weekend. Are you kidding? He said that before the bottom. He said that. Yeah.

Have you ever watched the Masters? Josh. I can't remember you. I did not watch the Masters. Are you watching the Masters this year? Of course. Of course I watched it. Are you kidding me?

What do you do on Sunday? Dude, so Nicholas Costello, Rockwall Campus Pastor, has a Masters watch party. Party, yeah. And like his lawn is perfectly, manicured. He's prepared for... He literally ordered food

from Augusta National. Do you know what they eat? I do not. Pimenta cheese sandwiches. And bany weanis. Wow. Okay. Well... Which you can also have Saturday nights at Rockwell campus. Forney campus or Firewell campus.

Hamburgers and hot dogs, baby. I guess I need to learn. This might be my first year watching the Masters then. Carlos, you've seriously never watched it. I've never watched the Masters. By the way, I didn't see. say everybody at Lake Point does not watch the master. I said most people. You said only old people do. That's not what I said either. Harlos. My goodness, this guy. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about

the sermon. Let's do that. That would be much better. Let's talk about the book of Revelation. Mark, you're the expert in the book of Revelation. So just take it away, Mark. Explain Revelation. Yeah, man. I'm here to learn from you. Yeah, it was amazing. That message you gave. Hey, there's a video actually that I want to watch that. Before we do the Revelation. Before we dive in. Would you guys be? Actually, yes, we have to celebrate. We have to celebrate.

Okay, let me give a little context on this. This was so cool. So we're going to get ready to toss it up, Trinity. So one of the testimonies that I shared at the end of the last week's message was and shared it with permission. A guy named Ethan. And dude, he shared, he came to Lake Point first while he was identifying as transgender. He was visiting from the United Kingdom with a Christian friend, I guess, here in the States, that she invites him. he comes in and he says that, you know, as soon as he came in, which is cool because we pray for this.

You get to like at prayer nights, we pray specifically this. Yeah. And he didn't know we pray for this. We pray that as people drive on our campuses, they'll begin to sense the presence of God and something will fall in their hearts. So he says that as he gets here, it's just like, you know, he said during, as soon as worship starts, like waterworks, he starts sobbing, leaves. And he's like, man, something just happened to me. go star YouTube page. Shout out Lake Point Online, YouTube page. And it quote unquote just so happened

that that week the pinned sermon was on Jesus and transgender identity. Grace-filled message with, you know, a lot of freeing truth from the scriptures, watches it after six months of talking to this friend. He ends up giving his life to Christ, detransitioning, beginning to, oh, oh, and I forgot. And one of the coolest things. Baptism. Yes. Yeah. The service he attended. ended, the first two people baptized were both named Ethan, which at that time, he was going by a female name, and Ethan was the male name. His parents had given him at birth. So it just felt like everything was for him. Yeah, this is for me. So after six months, gives Elijah Christ

detransitions, you know, all the starts following Jesus, ends up marrying the girl that that brought him to church. And then this right here, go on fire right here, Trinity. This right here, shout out to Ethan right now. This is Ethan's baptism video with the Christian woman he married. That's amazing, man. That's amazing.

Hey, shout out to Ethan. If he's listening right now, man, we are celebrating with you. That is amazing. I'm so proud. So proud of you, bro. So proud. And speaking of life change,

we're getting ready to celebrate something that will, we believe, It's going to cause literally thousands of lives change this weekend. What are we got this weekend? We got Easter services Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And we are praying for that, manifest presence of God. And I can't wait to see what God's going to do. I think it's going to be nuts.

It's like one of our, it's one of my three favorite weeks of the year is Easter, Christmas, and then prayer and worship night. There's like my three favorite of the year. And I'm really, I'm really interested. I think it's going to be nuts. Every year we think, by the way, nice t-shirt, Mark McCorn. Thank you.

You look buffed. You look buff. Thank you. It makes you look buff. That's right. Magic shirt. Every year we think, we ordered enough shirts this year. We've never ordered enough.

I know. This year we upped it to 20,000 shirts. And, yeah, I think this weekend, when it was all said and done, there was right at or over 25,000 people on services and we ran out of shirts. Amazing. But Mark got one. I did. That's what matters.

I got because I'm a Saturday night to tender. And if you call it. come on Saturday night, you're going to get a shirt. I mean, shameless plug. We are not above bribing you to come to Saturday. And by the way, if you're an online listener, you should definitely hang out with us for Easter online, especially if you don't have a church family.

Come hang, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be great. And right now, you guys ready to dive in Revelation Chapter 3? I'm excited for this one, man. Let's do it. We have a video as well where you actually flew, you got on a plane and flew to the country of Turkey outside of America. and, and, uh, and, uh, you all want to hear more about it.

Do you know how they pronounce Turkey and Turkey? I have no idea. They do not call it Turkey. They call it Turkey. Turkey. Yeah. For real. Turkey.

What do they speak over there? Turkish? I think. Makes sense. I don't know. Never been. I'm going with it. You went.

Sounds right to me. I've been to Turkey. Ah. Yeah. Were they speaking Turkish? They're speaking English to me because they knew. They said, they said, you're not from here. Yeah.

They knew. Big whitey from America. we're going with English. That's right. There you go. Well, this is one, honestly, this city, man, first of all, Josh, I had a blast, like, chewing on this, researching, you know, getting ready for the sermon. And so I'm excited to hear from you. So let's, you want to watch the video?

It's a very cool passage, yeah. Let's watch it. And let's hear from you. They did such a good job with these videos. It feels like a documentary. Yeah. Sardis was a big, busy city. and the church at Sardis was a big, busy church.

The synagogue that the Christian church met in until AD 60, 70, or 80 is the largest Jewish synagogue found anywhere outside of Israel. So by every external indicator, this was a thriving, growing church, everything up into the right, and yet Jesus issues his most stern warning of any of the seven churches to the church at Sardis saying to them, you look alive, but you are actually dead. There are multiple indicators that the church here was prone to compromise in order to attract

people into the church and to grow. So for instance, in this Jewish synagogue where the Christians met, there was a giant Roman eagle etched into the side of the altar. On the wall of this synagogue were found depictions and reliefs from other pagan cultures. What is immediately behind me into my left is a right. Roman gymnasium and a Roman bath. They would bathe in the nude and a lot of sexual perversion would happen right inside of this building. The synagogue was built after the construction of the gymnasium. That synagogue is right there underneath those white awnings and the church that

chose to meet here. They were so comfortable with the sin perversion and degradation that was taking place here that they were willing to plant their church right outside of it where they could see right into it and have that type of proximity and visible access to that level of sexual perversion. In the phase of this, what happened? Their church was growing because they were willing to compromise their beliefs in order to grow the church. And Jesus issues a stern warning to these disciples. Wake up and strengthen what remains. There was. I know. It seems to me like in this video, So, you know, compared to the other videos, like there's more structures here, more like luxury in some of these buildings. Historically speaking, Sardis was an extremely wealthy city. And so it's interesting. Did you see that?

Did you feel like this city was a little bit different compared to the other ones? Yeah, I mean, there were like, especially the size of the buildings. Probably the most wealthy ones would have been. There were a few. I mean, you had Ephesus Laodicea, which is next week on Easter. Very wealthy. But yeah, this. one, I mean, that gymnasium is enormous. It's enormous. So can I ask you the question that you usually ask me? Yeah, go ahead. What didn't make it into the sermon? No, good question.

You were like, oh, I wish I could have got this in, but it did make it. Man, there's quite a bit. There's some nuggets. I don't know if you have any nuggets. I got a couple. Okay. There's a, well, one, this city was for sure super wealthy. So that's one of the thing that, you know, you see it in some of these things.

They actually invented, basically, it is believed that Sardis was a city that, that was the first place in the world to mint coins. So when it comes to money, they basically invented, some people believe, coined, that the king of the ancient Lidian Empire, and Sardis was the capital, his name was Cresas. He was known as the richest man in the world.

Do you know that? Yeah. Did you find it? I don't want to steal the ones you have. So if you got something to share. Are you going to do the thing on why Jesus does the thief in the night? I have it, but I do want to get, you know, we can talk to you.

That's really cool. You keep going. You keep going. going. You see it in the infrastructure. I think one of the things, here's one that I think, you know,

there was definitely no time in the sermon, but I think it's super cool. So one thing you need to know, anytime you're reading the book of Revelation, there are over 500 allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Revelations alone. And so sometimes, you know,

when we're reading this book, you're like, dragons here and like the scroll there, like what is going on? And eyes like fire. Like a lot of these are basically just echoes of things that have been mentioned before in the Old Testament.

And so in the first verse, Revelation chapter 3, it says to the angel of the church in Sardis, writes the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. And so when you read seven spirits, you're probably asking like, man, like seven spirits. Like, who are these seven spirits? And so it's just interesting because this is also included

in Revelation chapter 1 verse 4, Revelation chapter 4 verse 5, Revelation chapter 5, verse 6. And some translators think that a better translation for the seven spirit, is more of a, it's better to say, a sevenfold spirit. And it's basically saying this is a sevenfold spirit of God. So not seven, but one in seven expressions.

And so it's interesting, if you go back to the book of Isaiah, this is basically like 800 years before Jesus shows up to John. In the book of Isaiah chapter 11, verse 2, there's a prophecy of the Messiah. And Isaiah says, the Messiah is going to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And this is what it says. I'm just going to read it. Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2. And the spirit of the Lord, so that's one description,

shall rest upon him, the Messiah when he comes, the spirit of wisdom, that's two, and understanding, that's three, the spirit of counsel, that's four, and might, five, the spirit of knowledge, six, and the fear of the Lord, seven. That's a sevenfold spirit of God. Eight hundred years later, Jesus shows up to John,

and he says, the one who is speaking to you is the one that has the sevenfold spirit of God. That's awesome. I love that. Dude, there's so many, like, stuff like that is like little treasures hidden under every verse. Like every verse is stuff like that. Do the thief in the night.

All right. So this is cool. All right. So I'm going to read it. So when you, oh, there's my little serve tab. There you go. This is three, four. So he says to this church, three, three.

He says, remember then what you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, he says, I'm going to come like a thief. And then obviously other parts of the Bible mentioned thief in the night. I'm going to come like a thief. And you won't know at what hour I come. So what's interesting is, you know, these seven letters are arguably the most contextualized letters of anything. You know, it's prophesied in the Bible.

So what's interesting about Sardis, like Sardis had extreme PTSD around thieves in the night for two reasons. this was like huge parts of the city's history. Number one, the city fell twice. So it's built, I wish, you can't see it in here. It's built up at the top of like a pretty large mountain, hill, whatever, like, it was very, very defensible. So it almost never fell like it was very militaristically defensible. But there was twice that it did, and they both involve attack, secret attacks that came in the night. first one in 547 BC.

It fell to Cyrus the Great. That's when King Cresis, or however you pronounce it. Cyrus laid siege to it. And there's a story recorded by historians. So people think, man, this is actually legit, that the besieging army saw one of the soldiers drop his helmet off the wall. And he didn't think anybody was paying attention. So they watched this guy scurry down,

grab his helmet and then duck into a little secret passageway, like right in front of the besieging army to get back in. And they were like, well, that's interesting. So they waited until nightfall, sent emissaries in through the little secret passageway, thieves in the night, open the gates, city gets taken. So like huge trauma in the city of a thief in the night. And then, dude, the same thing happened 300 years later. It also fell to the guy's name was Antiochus III.

Very similar. There's these cliffs really close by to the city where they would put up their defenses. So that the besieging army once again, they noticed that, well, the cliffs aren't very defended. And then they saw a little section where these vultures were perched. And then they were like, well, if there's vultures around their nesting, I bet there's not a bunch of like military guys must not be hanging out there very often. So exact same thing, they sent spies in. They scale it in the middle of the night, sneak into the city, open the gates, it gets taken again. So now all of a sudden you're like, Jesus is going, hey, remember the two times when you thought you were safe?

And you had no fear about anything. And then he's like, you need to have the same fear of God because like, hey man, I could come any moment. Thief in the night. So he's playing off of that. That's amazing. That's pretty cool. It's cool. It's amazing, man.

Did you have any more nuggets? The only other thing that I think is very interesting. This is one of the only other mentions of the books of judgment, where it talks verse five. I will never blot his name out of the book of life. Little homework for somebody that's listening. If you want some homework to understand what's he talking about in Revelation 20 at the final judgment, this should be a whole episode someday. It says when Jesus returns, there's going to be two judgments, not one. The first one is the Great White Throne judgment.

The second one is the Bima Seat judgment. And then it says that that judgment, it says that most of the world is going to be judged by, it says books were taken out. And then the next verse says that, and then a book was taken out. That was the book of life. So books, plural, and then book singular. And basically, when Jesus returns, everyone that's ever lived will line up. And the first question they'll be asked is, hey, what did you do with Jesus? And if they didn't know Jesus, then God opens the books.

And the reason it's books is because we'll be judged according to what we did. Everything we've ever done in our life, good or bad, is recorded in God's book. And it'll look through this massive set of volumes and God, Josh Howard and I'll be judged according. So one thing I will say, hell is not where you go if God's mad at you. as much is that's where you have the option of paying for your sins on your own if you'd like that. And so, Judge According to the Books, but then if somebody's response is, hey, what did you do with Jesus? Man, I gave my life to him. I had a personal relationship with him.

Then God goes, well, I don't need these books. I'm just going to plot this one book. And there's no actions listed in there. It's just a book of names. Mark McCartney, Carlos Sarazo, Josh Howardson. And those are people that we won't be judged by what we did, but by what Jesus. did. And that's the book of life. And so that's what this is mentioning. It's Revelation 20 tie in. I'm sorry, I can't help how many people have their one mores coming this weekend. And right now,

they're on a path of destruction. And there's an opportunity to be in the book, the book of life. That's right. And man, just people at home pray for your one more's right now. That's right. Pray for them to come this weekend. You've invited them. I know. Keep inviting. But it can happen in a moment. Their life can change in a moment. Because there's people in that trajectory right now. We don't do this often. Mark, would you just take a second and pray right now? Yeah, man. Yeah, Lord Jesus, we just thank you that you are alive and active. And we just pray right now for our people that are closest to us, but furthest from you, God. Those that we've been inviting, those that maybe we haven't invited yet, give us the opportunity and the faith to invite them,

Lord. And we pray that those that come this week, and we know there will be so many that come that don't know you. And we just pray that they would cross a line of faith, that they would encounter the one true living God and their life would never be the same, Lord. Empower your people emboldened us to have the faith to speak the name because we know that when we speak your word,

it does not return void in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Man, that's really good. And we'll talk about this in just a second because I do want to get back to the book of life because I know a lot of people have some questions about that. and I want us to kind of process out loud.

And one thing I didn't, you know, I wish I had more time. Because obviously here's Jesus and he tells this church, hey, you have a reputation of being alive. You seem like you're alive on the outside. But on the inside, really, you're spiritually dead. One thing I wish I had more time to share is there's a difference between being spiritually dry and spiritually dead. Oh, that's good.

And so, you know, I think some people are probably listening and be like, oh, man, like, does that mean, you know, if I feel dry, does that mean I have. Jesus would look at me and say, hey, you're spiritually dead. And that's a good question for you to ask. But here's what I would say to somebody that's maybe wondering that. Being spiritually dead means you might be going through church motions. You kind of are familiar with all the texts. But really, you're lacking a real intimacy with Jesus.

And honestly, you don't care. It's like, yeah, this is just my life. And this is, you know, we go through the motions. We do what we need to do. And in many ways, this is what was going on in the church in Sardis. Just people were like, yeah, I mean, this is kind of, of what it is. And this is why Jesus calls him out and say, hey, wake up. Like, you need to, you need to wake up. And so if that's you, obviously, the invitation from Jesus, from this

text is to repent, to turn around, to change your mind, to go the opposite direction. And so that's spiritually dead. It means, man, you just don't care. But then being spiritually dry means maybe maybe you don't feel connected to God. And maybe it's just been one of those seasons. And you care. And you're like, and I cannot stay here. There's something that needs to change in me. and Jesus is saying like come like man like this is the father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask like just come and so again I think there's a psalmon as well that says as the deer pans for you there's a desperation and so man my hope is as we keep chewing on this verse that you know somebody might be distinguishing between being spiritually dead and being spiritually dry and if you're spiritually dry man there's good news

you know God wants you to he wants to fill you he wants to give you more of him that's a big deal man And I've already, you know, I'm already like played down with my Easter message for the next week. But what you just said, this morning in message prep for that week, it was really stuck on me because, you know, what I'm hitting lay out of sea, and it's neither cold nor hot to lukewarm. And it's kind of similar. You're talking about spiritually dead, spiritually dry. Dude, I will say, I think the fear that some people have is people who are spiritually dry think they're good because they look at people who are. spiritually dead and go, well, man, at least I'm not where they are. And it's like, yeah, but you're not where you should be.

And so it's like, we'll look at whoever's just maybe a little less life in them. Oh, at least I'm not there. So I would like, man, let's heed the warning. Like, hey, wake up. Let's be fully alive. Let's be fully alive. Let's be fully alive. That's it. Well, it's interesting because again, like if you think about it, this is a, this is not a group of like just a random group of people that Jesus is speaking to. This is a church. This is like, like if Jesus said this to your church, your church is full of unbelievers. And, you know, again, I didn't get to say this, but it is just not the same thing to have proximity to Jesus and to have intimacy with Jesus. Right. And so you see this in scripture. Jesus actually tells

this parable of the weeds. And he said, man, and you know, this is Matthew 13. And the kingdom of heaven is like somebody who sowed good seed in this field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sold weeds among the weed. Basically, the good seed is, true believers, the weeds are unbelievers, and they grow side by side. And then the harvest comes, and that's basically judgment. And that's where Jesus says, actually, we're going to know once that time comes. And it is interesting because if you read it the New Testament, there is a common assumption of Jesus and the New Testament writers that not everybody who is in a church is in Christ.

Not everybody that's kind of part of is hanging around. They assume this. And I read this this week, which is kind of crazy, talking to my friend Paul. pointed this out in 2nd Corinthians 13 5 this is Paul speaking to the Corinthian church and he says examine yourself whether you are in the faith yeah yeah wow so this is Paul talking to the church you know and so I would I would have assumed well everybody's in church already we we're all believers here Paul's saying nope you need to examine yourself if you're in the faith and so again this is a quote for Dr. Tim Keller religious people find God useful but we are supposed to find him beautiful and there's a little

difference there. That's really good, man. There's a, I think it's the, I think it was Augustine who said this first, but I could be wrong. He made the theological distinction between the visible church and the invisible church. And I think that is important people I have awareness of. The visible church is when you show up on a weekend, who are all the people that are there?

You can see it. It's visible. What's invisible is which people among them are saved, born again, regenerate, going to heaven, people. and it's not, not everybody that's in the visible church is in the invisible church. And we're going to talk here in a second on the pod about how to know, how can somebody know that? I know that we're planning to talk about, can a Christian lose their salvation? So we're going to hit some things here, but there is a distinction, visible church, invisible church.

Yeah. Yeah. So Jesus in this, towards the end of this letter, he basically says, hey, to those that have not sold their garments, I will acknowledge their name and I will never blot out their name from the book of life. So some people have taken this text and be like, okay. So does that mean that you could get your name blotted out of the book of life? Does that mean that, you know, if you don't overcome or I guess if you, does that mean that my name was there and now it's not? Like basically, honestly, it's basically the question, can somebody lose their salvation? Can a Christian lose their salvation? Now, I will say this, you see this question on social media, and oftentimes you hear like a, like a, you know, kind of like a blanket statement,

like yes, no, and then, you know, people will make their case in like 30 seconds. I kind of want to tackle it more from like, honestly, from a pastoral perspective for somebody that's like, this is not a theological debate. This is actually like a family member or a son or, you know, or a parent. And so let me just open it up. Let's talk about this. Can a Christian lose their salvation. Well, hey, like my family, you might not know this, but unlike any other religion today, Christianity is not primarily based on an idea or a philosophy. It is primarily based on an event. Something happened that changed the world forever, and that's the resurrection of Jesus. And so 2,000 years after his death on that cross, more books have been written about him, more songs

have been sung to him. Every event in history is remembered by whether it happened before. And so, for or after him. And today, literally millions and millions of people in every continent all around the world across multiple cultures and languages worship him as God, King, Lord, and Savior. Why? Because Jesus' tomb is empty. And so this weekend, we are coming together to celebrate that when Jesus said, it is finished, he did not say, I am finished. And if he's not finished, then you are not finished he changed billions of people's lives before listen he can change your life today and this weekend and so we want to celebrate with you at our lake point easter services so for times and locations both in person and online text the word easter to the number 2041 and we will see

you there you want me to go first you want to go first mark how we got it okay so a few things I would say here is I'm just going to I'm going to cut to the end no so here's how I'll do it I think let me start at the end and then work backwards a Christian can't lose their salvation but they can a person can't lose their salvation but they can fake it I think that's the best way to just summarize what the new testament says so I'm going to read a couple of verses here that make me say this and this is I know this is theologically a point of contention there are there are entire denominations that are built on the distinction between what's called a persevereign. The doctrine is called perseverance of the saints.

The concept that if somebody is a saint is saved, then that salvation will persevere to the end. So the doctrine is called perseverance of the saints. So let me say a few things about this. In John 6, Jesus says this, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. for I have come down from heaven

not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me and this is the will of whom who sent me listen real close that I should lose none of all he has given me but raise it up in the last day none means zero where I come from John 10 here's another one

my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me I give them eternal life and they will never perish this important and no one will snatch them out of my hand Now, I would just, I'll ask you this, Mark, are you, are you, are you at anyone? I am one of those. He's one of those. Yeah.

So that means you can't snatch you out of the father's hand. So I think that's important. Yeah. He says no one. No one. Well, I'm a no one. Yeah. So that means even me.

Okay. Here's another one, Romans 8. And this is a little more theological, theological, theological, but it's important. For those whom God, and we can get in, this is where you get into predestination election, foreign knowledge, all that stuff. And I don't know if we're going to do that this podcast. We should do it someday. That'd be fun.

But, you know, it does this. Theologians call this J.I. Packer, one of the greatest, probably the greatest theologian in the last century. I actually would say that. Probably J.I. Packer called this the golden chain. He said, for those whom God foreknew, he also predestined and be conformed to the image of his son. And those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified.

Those he justified, he also glorified. So think about this real quick. That's a verse you can read real quick and be like, ah, that sounds great. but then you don't realize the implications of what it said. So it says that, it says that, so it's anybody that God foreknew, he predestined.

By the way, some people are like, do you believe in predestination? Ladies and gentlemen, it's going to take a pair of scissors to get that word out of the Bible. Like, that's just a Bible word. Now, you can debate what it means,

but it's going to take a pair of scissors to get that word out of the Bible is right there. So everybody that God forek knew, he predestined. That's what it says. Everybody he predestined, he called, everybody he called, he justified, and everybody he justified, he glorified.

By the way, sorry, if somebody doesn't believe in predestination, maybe they're predestine not to believe in predestination. Sorry, I had to go ahead. Sorry, I interrupted. We're going to move on. I got to give a shot, man. So it's the golden chain. So if you believe, I'll just say this. Here's what theologians point out. If you believe somebody can lose their salvation, then you believe that somebody could be justified at one point and not end up glorified. That's why people point to this verse and go,

there it is. It's right there. Now, the counterpoint to this is I'm going to read, here's like, for people who believe that you can lose your salvation, I'm going to read like the keystone verse. And then you guys can, we can talk about this a little further together. There's a couple others, but this is the keystone verse that make people go, see, there it is.

Hebrew 6. It specifically says you can lose your salvation. So this is a little longer, but live free podcast listeners are Bible lovers. So there, y'all are in. You're going to love this. Okay. So here's what it says. Now listen close. Because to make my point here, you got to listen close. Hebrew 6. For it is impossible to restore again to repentance, those who have once been enlightened who have tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the Word of God. So let me, those four things. It's gone, there's somebody who, in some sense experienced repentance, was enlightened, shared in the Holy Spirit, and tasted the Word of God.

If they then fall away since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding them up to contempt. So it's saying that person can't come back is what it's saying. Now, this is what people miss. So they'll stop there and they go, see? It said that somebody could and then they could fall away. But then listen, real close. I'm going to talk about what Billy Graham says about this verse here in a second.

For land that is drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whom is sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. Listen. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it's worth. and near to being cursed, and his end is to be burned. Now listen, verse 9, though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things. Here's the money line, things that belong to salvation. So some people stop back in verse 6 and go, see, they were saved and they fell away.

So that means they never experienced salvation. But whoever wrote Hebrews, I think it was Apollos, that's a whole different thing. whoever wrote Hebrews goes, actually, we believe that you are going to experience better things. And he says things that belong to salvation. In other words, the people I just described, they didn't belong to salvation. So I think, this is what Billy Graham says. I think, can they hear that in the pod, the worship team? Okay, good.

Worship team's got reverb going on here. What Billy Graham says about this verse is there are some people who they'll be in the visible church. They're around preaching. Okay, yeah. They're around preaching. They're in a church like Lake Point. They're there on prayer and worship night. They feel the conviction.

Yeah. They feel the conviction of the spirit. They even, they're around a great move of the Holy Spirit. And the spirit begins to work on their heart for conviction and salvation and repentance. So that's why Billy Graham says, that's why it says, restore again to repentance. In some way, they were like, ah, maybe I should change. A superficial repentance didn't go to the heart. In some way they were enlightened.

they at least got some knowledge about the Bible. They shared in the Holy Spirit because they were around a move of God. And they at least got to taste a little of the word of God because the preaching was there, but they never were actually saved, which is why it says,

in your case, we believe better things that belong to salvation. So, yeah. That's why I love your phrase that you use all the time. And I've heard others use it is cross the line of faith. There's a distinction there

where the full surrender where you cross the line of the line of faith. faith. And that's what I would say is there's, this is a description of someone who never fully surrendered to the gospel, never fully surrendered to God. That's Hebrews chapter six, right, Josh? Correct. So if you read Hebrews chapter three, verse 14, this is what the same author literally says a couple chapters before. He says, we have come to share in Christ. If indeed, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. So it's kind of like saying from the beginning as well, like, hey, like we're sharing Christ if indeed we hold to our original conviction to the

very end. That's right. And so again, I think that's the same out there. Let me say a couple other things here because I think this is really important. So then some people might go, well, then why are, if somebody can't lose their salvation, why are there scary verses like that Hebrew 6 verse there? Why is that there? So I'll be honest and, you know, feel free to disagree with me. I'll tell you how I handle this. Pastorally, I honestly think what verse. somebody needs depends on the spiritual condition they're in. So for instance, if I'm in the lobby and I'm talking to somebody that's claiming to be a Christian, but they have no evidence of repentance in their life whatsoever,

and they're like, dude, I got my fire insurance. And so I'm sleeping around and do whatever I want. I'm good, dude, because I pray to prayer in 1996. I think they need passages that are, and I'm going to use a word that usually I don't use, but I'm going to use it on purpose. They need a passage that's designed to scare the hell out of them. where they, I mean it, I mean that. Where they read it and they're like, that's terrifying.

Yeah. They need that. Then on the other hand, you have people, and it's not only women, but it does tend to be more women. If you have somebody who's got like, they're a deeply converted person. They love Jesus. And they're serving the Lord. But they've got an overactive conscience. And they're kind of just kind of scared all the time.

Like, man, am I good enough? Oh, man, I messed up again. It just crushes them. I think that person needs all the assurance verses. So which, I think as a pastor, which verses somebody needs depends on the spiritual condition that they're in is what I'd say. That's great. Yeah, I think I'll say something different. If somebody were to ask me that, again, besides the theological debate, if somebody's genuinely coming from a place of like,

I want to know, can a Christian lose their salvation? I'd probably respond to one. What do you mean by that? Because I think, you know, again, I think it depends on what you mean in terms of like, you know, what does it mean? in terms of like, oh, well, I prayed that prayer once, and I think I'm good. I would ask, hey, what do you mean by that? And, too, I would say, why are you asking? And this kind of what you just said, basically, I just want to know why you're asking.

And so if they say, you know, well, you know, because I'm a genuine follower of Jesus, and I just feel guilty about this or that. And so, again, Romans chapter 8, I mean, we would go there. Now, somebody says, again, because, you know, my family is Christian, and I think I went to church and I know the verses, then, no, repent, all the verses that you said. Now somebody says, well, because I have a family member who was a Christian and I believe that they had a genuine experience, but then, you know, something happened and now they're away from the faith and they don't want anything to do with it. I think a lot of the times is really that. Somebody says, man, I'm praying for my one more and I know that at some point they seemed like they had a genuine conversion.

You know, this is what the Bible calls a prodigal son or daughter. And so our responsibility, man, we pray for them and we ask for the hound of heaven to go get him. Yeah, that's right. And so, yeah. And so, and then I have another option here. Somebody, maybe there's a possibility that they had a, they grew up a cultural Christian perhaps or some sort of counterfeit version of Christianity. And they never really met God. And this is what the author of Hebrew says, man, you know you're a Christian if you hold on to the faith to the very end from the beginning.

And so maybe some people, like you said, maybe it wasn't a genuine conversion experience. Maybe they just kind of thought they believed and they didn't. That's right. That's Judas. There you go. You have an example of somebody like Judas. So let me read a verse here. And I was going to do it later in the pod.

I'll come back to it. So first John 219. So if you've got somebody, I've got a lot of friends from high school that were like this. Like, hey man, they were in high school. They're going to church. They're at FCA doing all the things. They get a college or later. And then in some way they kind of deconverted.

but there's no evidence whatsoever. They're living a very away from Jesus, overt rebellion type of life. Here's the verse to help us understand where that person is. 1 John 219. They went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out so that it might become plain that they all are not of us. So it's like, when somebody, leaves the faith, what is saying is that's, in one sense, there was one positive that came out

from that. At least they and everyone else around them now knows they were a part of the visible church, but never a part of the invisible church. So, hey, at least now we know what to do. Let's go Adam with the gospel. We're working on salvation here. And when you, even for the person that's already saved, man, when you hear those verses about hell and the wrath, man, honestly, the more you hear those verses, man, the more you're like, the gratitude just increases because you're like, man, Jesus saved me from that. Jesus saved me from that life. And so, man, I think that's great. For the person, Marga, I'm curious, what would you think? For the person that maybe is, yeah, please. All right, let me say one more thing here. So I will, this is a little nuance on this

that a lot of people miss about the Judas narrative. So because a lot of people are like, ah, but there's people who are like, I love Jesus and then they walk away. Well, there's a reason I said that was Judas. A lot of people miss this. If you go to, so first of all, we find out in the and Judas was never saved. So just really clear. Jesus calls him, quote, a son of perdition. And then he says it would have been better for him had he never been born. So Judas ended up in hell. That's what Jesus is saying. So he was never saved. A lot of people miss this. All right. In Matthew 26, so Jesus is at the last supper. All right. Dude, this is, when I first saw this, I was like, I can't believe that's in the Bible. That's incredible and terrifying. So it says when it was

evening, he reclined at table at the 12. So all 12 were there, Judas is one of them. Verse 21. And as they were eating, he said, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. And they were very sorrowful, and everybody began to say to him one after another. So obviously, when Jesus says that, they're all like looking around the table and they're like, you? Is it you? What is me? Who's going to do this? Then it says, one after another, all of them began to say, and I'm going to listen very

carefully what the Bible says. Is it I, Lord? All of them say that. But then Bible readers miss what it says about Judas. When it gets to Judas, it says, Judas who would betray him answered, is it I, rabbi? So 11 out of 12, we're like, you're my Lord. My knee is submitted to you. I recognize your authority. I know that you're God and I have faith in you. For Jesus, he was like, I think you're a really cool teacher and you're really smart. And that's the watch out for people. Like I know we're going to get to this in a second. How do you know if you're actually saved?

A watch out for people is like, hey man, just because you think Jesus is cool or said smart things or might do good things for you, that doesn't necessarily mean you're converted at a deep level and born again. Because Judas thought that. I feel like that's also a reflection of our culture today. I think if you were to ask your average non-believer, what do you think about Jesus? they would probably say like, man, I think it's a good teacher, good moral example. Nothing about respect. Actually, I won't joke about it because I respect, you know, the religion or whatever.

Yeah, but do you know him as Lord and Savior? This is not the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love the posture of the disciples asking, like, whenever Jesus said that there's like a, there's a humility there as well to be like, hey, Lord, is it, is it me? Yeah. Man, like, am I seeing something that I'm not seeing kind of like a humble, you know, openness to be. I want to surrender it.

To be correct. That's right. That's right. But then not with Judas. Yeah. So I'll put a bow on it. If I'm in the lobby and somebody just goes, hey, Josh, theological question, can somebody lose their salvation? I'm always very gentle with it. So I never want to come across like a condescending jerk. But I was like, hey, actually, so here's how I think about it. I think that's the wrong question. Because the Bible says salvation belongs to the Lord. So the question isn't, can a Christian lose their salvation? the real question is, can God lose a Christian?

Answer, no. No chance. Jesus said, I'm not going to lose any. Nobody can snatch him out of my hand. Can God lose a Christian? Nope. That's great news for somebody that's maybe wrestling. And you mentioned, you know, there are some people that they do wrestle with, man, I, I've

trust in Christ. I have walked with him by his grace. And yet, I still feel like maybe I'm strong with a specific sin or, you know, maybe there's a habit or something in my life, but there's a holy fear in them, and yet they struggle with an assurance of salvation. What would you, what would you guys say to this person? Yeah, I mean, we're going to continue to struggle with sin. Yeah. We have, that, that is a thing. Ephesians one versus 13 through 14 says, when you believed, you were marked in him with a seal. Amen. The promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those

who are in God's possession. And I think that's important to this question because too many times we neglect the help of the Holy Spirit. How do we describe the Holy Spirit? He's the wind. He's a fire. The number one description of the Holy Spirit is the helper. He's the helper.

And we forget to ask him for help. And so we are going to struggle with sin. We are going to be bombarded. I remember in high school, like the simple way that was explained to me is the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian isn't that we get hit and fall down. It's that the Christian can get up because the Holy Spirit is there to pull him up.

And we repent and we turn when we sin and we go back. What happens is the shame of sin, the guilt of sin is such a prisoner, makes such a prison that we become prisoners of it and we forget to, we stop asking the Holy Spirit for help. He is right there, but we do,

it's a daily surrender. We are inviting him in. Holy Spirit, I need your help here to overcome this sin. And if you look at Romans 6, I love Roman 6. It says, what shall we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not. How can we who died of sin still live in it?

And it goes on. It's an incredible passage if you haven't read it. Read Roman 6. But that's the implication there, that we don't have to stay in this as believers. So we have the helper that can help us overcome. And if somebody's struggling with sin, if you think about it logically too, like if you're struggling with sin, that's actually, that doesn't mean that you're not saved. That actually means that you are saved because an unbeliever.

An unbeliever does not struggle with sin at all. Yeah, that's right. It's like I just, this is what I do. This is awesome. Yeah, this is who I am. I guess this is part of my normal life. But if you're struggling with it, then you know that it's the Holy Spirit giving you a conviction inside like, hey, this is not who you are.

You lean into that. And this is not who you have been called to be. I got something way better than whatever sin it is that, you know, it's got you right now. And so, again, that's a good news. Yeah, dude, I would say, so I got a couple things here is number one. I think it was Tim Keller, but actually I think it was Tim Keller quoting the Puritans. Where to his point, if somebody goes, hey, what's evidence of assurance of salvation? one thing I'd be really careful about, especially with people with overactive consciences,

is it's not a feeling all the time. Because, you know, to your point, if somebody's not saved, if you have an internal struggle and a fear, am I saved, am I saved, I'm struggling with sin, that kind of thing, that inner war is evidence that there's two things inside of you, not one. A non-Christian person is only one thing, flesh. the Bible uses the word flesh is the Greek word sarks the word flesh to refer to the part of you

that wants to live independently of God for a non-Christian that's all of you that's every part of you and then go read Romans chapter 7 we're doing a lot of Romans a lot of homework in Romans this week Romans chapter 7 Paul goes

hey man who oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death I do what I don't want to do the things I don't want to do I keep on doing and I got this inner war and his point is well that's because when I became a Christian now there's not two things inside, there's not one thing inside of me, there's two. There's flesh and spirit, and they're going to

be waging war until Jesus returns. So like what Mark just said is, hey man, I got this struggle, I got a grief when I sin in my life. That's why Jesus says when he returns, he says, I'm going to wipe away every tear from your eyes. What that means is we're going to be crying all the way to Jesus. From now until Jesus returns and glorifies our body, souls, and spirits. I'm going to do things that grieve me because they grieve my savior that I love. So number one, I think that, do you want me to go ahead and talk about some of these things? Yeah, that's good.

All right, let's talk about assurance of salvation. So number one, it's not a feeling. To Mark's point, I also want to say this, here's what's not evidence that you're saved is that you have moments of sin. That's not evidence you're not saved. Right. If you have moments of sin.

Like Christian sin, too, is what you're saying. Christian sin. Yeah. We need a savior. That's kind of the point. We need a savior. Yeah. That's our thing. We're the ones who are like, I'm a sinner. That's like our thing. We confess. Yeah. I'm team bad guy. And I need the good guy to save me the bad guy. That's our thing. So, Mark, you got some good Bible teaching when you were younger. This is Proverbs 2416. For though the righteous falls seven times, they rise again. But the wicked stumbles. when calamity strikes. Notice it didn't say, here's how you know somebody's righteous.

They never fall. Stop falling. Yeah. That's not what it says. No. It's like, no, no, they fall seven times, which is a lot. That's a lot. But then it says they rise again. So here's the point. Righteousness being made righteous in Jesus isn't demonstrated by never falling. It's demonstrated by what you do after you fall. Yeah. So the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not that the Christian never falls into sin. Newsflash, you're a sinner and you're going to fall in his sin. the difference is when I'm a Christian is like, I go, I receive grace, I breathe in the mercy of God, I get back up and go, I'm trying to get tomorrow. I'm going to keep following Jesus. Let's go. And you don't do so in your own capacity. You do so because you have been empowered by the supernatural

presence of the Holy Spirit. That's right. Which is so much stronger than whatever sin is trying to hold you back. Amen. Here's another one, evidence, a thing that is not evidence of not being. saved, that you have a weak faith. If somebody's like, I struggle with doubt sometimes. I don't know if my faith is strong enough. This is really important. That's why Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds. So here's the big idea is that it's not the strength of your faith that saves you. It's the object of your faith that saves you. So if there's, to think about this, here's the analogy that I'll use when I'm like doing and pastoral counseling.

Let's say you got two people that are both right next to each other in line to get on a plane. One of them has a phobia of flying because they cannot convince themselves the plane is not going to crash. The other one is a million-mile Delta Diamond Club member. And it's like they love flying. So one of them just goes, this is amazing. And they hop on and they're cheerful walking on the plane. But the other one, the whole time they're walking up, they're like, I don't know.

I don't know. And they sort of get up to the edge and they're like just shuffle their way on and they're weeping and trembling. And then I always ask this question, which one is going to make it to the destination? Both. Both. Why? Because it's not the strength of your faith that saves you.

It's the object of your faith that saves you. The plane was strong enough to get them there. As long as they had the tiniest enough faith to get their butt on the plane, they're good. They're good. So the Puritans used to say, oh, this is so good, a weak faith may lay hold of a strong Christ. That's good. Wow. It's really good.

It's really good. That's good. So those are some things that are not evidence of not being saved. Let me just do two quick things. And by the way, hidden inside of what I just said are a few things that are evidence of being saved. Continued repentance. You know, the presence of faith, some measure of faith. That's something. A couple other things to know, okay, that's how I know I'm saved. So examine yourselves, test yourselves, see whether or not you're in the faith. That's First John?

Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians, okay. For the book of First John at the end of First John, it goes, these things were written so that you might know. Okay. So number one that I would say that is, is you have at some level a desire to obey God because you love him. 1. John 316. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. It doesn't say they never sinned. It says they just don't keep on doing the same thing over and over and over and they never try to get out of it. No one who continues to sin is either seen or known him. And what is driving at is when somebody is truly saved, we're born again.

We get new desires. And it's like the overall zoomed out trajectory of their life, it's, you know, it's kind of, kind of do this thing. But the trajectory when you zoom out is that it's it. You're at least seeing, hey, man, I'm a little closer to Jesus. Yeah. You know why? Because your strongest desire ultimately is to get closer to Jesus.

So it's not like, you know, it's not like Christians don't have sinful desires. They do. That's called temptation, right? It's more so like, man, ultimately there's a stronger desire pulling you towards the things of God, even though you're stumbling here and there, but you're moving that destination. That's right. That's one of the most misinterpreted Bible verses in the whole New Testament is when Jesus says in the gospel of John,

if you love me, you will obey what I command. And a lot of people, it's the tone of voice that you read that verse with that changes everything. A lot of people read it as a threat. If you love me, you're going to obey what I command. It's not a threat. It's a promise. It's Jesus going, hey, man, if you love me, you're going to obey what I command. It's going to be good, man.

So what I'll say to people, you probably heard it in sermons, like, hey, man, if you get in this spot in Christian, Christianity where it's like Christianity feels really hard and confusing and I just can't seem to do it. What I'll tell people is, hey man, just forget about all the rules for a little bit. Just fall in love with Jesus and then everything else is going to start falling into place. That's good. Nobody's got to, I'm taking Jana on a date right after this podcast. Nobody has to command me to take Jana out on dates or hug my wife. I just love her.

And so it just naturally, you know, just fall in love of Jesus. I love that. The only, the last thing I'd say here is, theologians point out, the Bible describes perseverance as a necessary evidence of salvation. So, like you said, there are verses that talk about somebody can fall away, but if somebody is genuinely saved, they will persevere in faith until the end. You mentioned that verse. So, again, you got the first John 219.

read first philippians one six for i'm confident of this very thing he who began a good work in you will complete it by the day of jesus christ so some people say um once saved always saved and that's true that's true another thing that's also true is once saved always persevering so it's a person that's hey man if you're genuinely converted you've got a new nature for the rest of your life until you see Jesus, you're going to keep walking with him. Anything else you all would add here? I would just say this is going to sound weird at first. There's a little bit of a little bit of a shadow side of the, I guess, confidence in your

salvation in that you cannot lose your salvation, but you can lose your power. And sometimes we get so, yeah, well, I'm not going to lose my salvation. and then we can lose our first love because we don't do the things Revelation says that we did at first. And what you just said about like dating Jana. You don't know what it's to tell you. It's get back to the basics. Fall in love with him again.

Fall in love with your creator. Because when you do that, you actually start losing your power. The way you lose your power is you lose your intimacy with God. You're not depending on him. You're not relying on him. You're not surrendering to the Holy Spirit daily. And it's a little bit of a shadow side that pit. Well, I'm not going to lose my salvation.

Right, but you can lose your power when you lose that first love. And so you do want to cultivate that love. So with Jana, it's going on a date. It's serving her, serving things like that. With the father, it's talking to him. It's prayer. It's reading his word. It's prioritizing the things of God, which is why you say at the beginning

every year, give us one year of your life and it'll get on you. It'll change you because when you prioritize the things of God, it changes everything. And I do think Christians can lose their power. Absolutely. Yeah, that's because salvation is not a transaction. Yeah. It's a relationship. So it's very different.

And here, give me my ticket to get to heaven to get, you know, someone's like, hey, no, you're invited into a relationship with the father who loves you deeply. And so every relationship requires a reciprocity as well. That's a great, man. I give one more, a little nugget on this. Please, please do. So this is. We've got plenty of time.

This is, uh, so we've been talking about Puritans a lot today. So a lot of people don't know when they hear, somebody talk about Baptist, of the Holy Spirit, baptism in the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Spirit. They always think of the modern, they tend to think of the modern charismatic or Pentecostal movement. That's actually way back to the Presbyterian Puritans of Great Britain and Western Europe. They had a very robust understanding of or theology of being filled with a spirit. Whatever you want to call it. I don't care what you call it. They had a theology of this. They built it off Romans 8. And they, here, before I read this, their theology of being filled with or baptized with or in the Holy Spirit was that what that was a direct supernatural confirmation from the Holy Spirit, you're saved. That's what they thought that was, that it was the ultimate assurance of salvation. They took this from, they built their theology out of Romans 8, again, a lot of Romans here, where Paul says, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back.

to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs. So they thought that when somebody has a unique encounter with the Holy Spirit, I heard somebody say one time at my church in Nashville. They had a very unique encounter with the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit in a fresh way. And, and, and And they just, it was so beautiful. They said, it felt like being attacked by love. Wow.

What a beautiful sentence. Wow. That is. That's amazing. It felt like being attacked by love. Wow. And it was, you know, so the Puritans went, when you're filled with the spirit, what the spirit does is he, quote, sheds abroad the fatherly love of God in your heart. And it's the spirit of the very deepest part of you going, you're a son. You're my daughter. Yeah.

we're good, you know. That's precious. Very precious. That's amazing. Well, speaking of being attacked by love, where are you going? This weekend, we're actually celebrating that 2,000 years ago. We received the biggest demonstration of love.

And when Jesus went to the cross, he said, it is finished. He did not say, I am finished. And if he's not finished, then we are not finished. And so he's working. So speaking of Easter, because we are getting ready to celebrate. braid it, man. Some people would say, and I wonder if that's an American thing, speaking about America. Because I don't know that I've heard this outside of, you're an American.

That's right. I am, actually. You're a citizen, man. Let's go. And by the grace of God, and I'm grateful. But I don't know that I've heard this outside of the U.S. This is what I'm saying. But here in the U.S., I feel like I've seen some people say, hey, well, did you know actually, you know that meme that actually meme? Somebody named Peter? Actually. A-C-K. That's right. S-H-U-A-L-L-Y. Did you know Mark McCartney's special guest that Easter is actually pagan? And actually, there's a bunch of other things behind it, and you're just celebrating something

with pagan roots and all these churches don't even know. So let's talk about... Do you want to watch the video? Yeah, that's right. We do have a video. So this is Billy Carson, like a famous Internet atheist. And so this is a great... So if you're a Christian, you're a...

going to get bombarded with stuff like this. So we want to help you before you get bombarded. Okay, let's play it real quick. Donna Temple, the residence of Ishtar. Who is Ishtar? Ishtar is the reason why you celebrate Easter. Okay, she was the fertility goddess in Babylonian times. And the actual holiday of Easter, which is celebrated mostly by Christians,

is actually the celebration of fertility of Ishtar, the Babylonian Anunaki goddess. This is why they have the eggs and the bunnies laying the eggs. It's a fertility thing. It has nothing to do with resurrections. Okay. So you get tons of this stuff.

The resurrections, that's plural. Has nothing to do with resurrections. All right. Well, Mark, what do you got? It's the first time seeing that video. That's not why I celebrate Easter. Yeah, that's crazy. So, yeah, I hadn't seen that before.

The whole movement online, huh? That's a big time. It's like a little bit of a trend where, you know, Christmas is pagan. The cross is pagan. The cross actually was pagan. If you think about it, it was a Roman instrument of torture. And then Jesus came and redeemed that. The whole concept of Jesus is made up just like all the pagan myths.

This is a huge internet atheist thing. That's right. Yeah. Which, by the way, I think it's a thing. It's dying over time. It is. We're talking about that at lunch today. Yeah.

So, Josh, what do you think? All right. Let me say a few things. First of all, like, there's almost like, listen, I'm sure that guy's a great guy. I've never met him. There's like nothing in that video that's remotely true. So let me just talk about this really quick. So first of all, he says, oh, you got the name Easter from Ishtar.

It's like, no, actually the old English, it comes to the old English word, Ostra, E-O-S-T-R-E. That comes from the Germanic word. So we're doing a little etymal. astrology, Austron, I think is how you pronounce it, which means either dawn or east. The reason that is called Easter after Austron, dawn or east is because all four of the Gospels record the discovery of Jesus being at dawn. All four Gospels mention that. Discovery was at dawn as the sun rose. And the Bible says he'll return in the east. So that's why they, that's where we got that. I'd also point this out, hey, do we have that picture of the Easter Pasqua?

How do you pronounce that? Pasquois. Yeah, you got it. Pasquay in Spanish? Okay. So, yeah, go ahead and toss. All right. So, like, is that fired? Is it up on the, okay. So, for instance, so this is the Lake Point Easter branding this year. So obviously English on my right, Pasqua on the left is Spanish. Almost every language besides English doesn't have. a word like Easter to describe, they have a word like Pasqua or Pasha in some other languages. Actually, I'm curious, in Spanish, besides Easter, what is that word? Do you know what that word means? Passover. It literally means Passover. Yeah. So it's like a one-to-one translation. It means Passover. Yeah. I mean, that's the only way I know that people use that word, Pasquah just means that, that's a Jewish celebration of Passover. Okay, that's it. There you go.

which was, so in every language, it has nothing to do with something pagan, referring to Passover. It's in the Old Testament. Yeah, that's right. Because that was the Jewish meal that Jesus was celebrating at the last supper. It was Passover week when he was crucified. So number one, it does not come from Ishtar at all. It comes from a Germanic word meaning dawn or east.

And in most languages, it's not even Easter. It's Pasqua. Number two, a lot of people point to Easter's timing on the calendar. And they'd be like, oh, it's during spring. That's when the pagan fertility gods, they were doing. their thing. Well, man, actually, no. The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, they decided when the Christian church was going to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus way back in 325 AD. And they said it then because Jewish Passover falls in March or April and Jesus rose from the dead at Passover week.

So like has nothing to do with that. Council of Nicaa set that way back in 325A. and then the last thing I'll say here is people go, well, what about the bunnies and the eggs? That's obviously a fertility thing and, you know, whatever. So here's this, comes from, this is actually really interesting. So a lot of people know, especially our Catholic friends, they know that Lent is before Easter. Lent is before Easter. And people are doing various forms of fasting during Lent as sort of, hey man, we're remembering and repenting and mourning the dead. you know, our sin and that kind of thing. So what was happening is in the Middle Ages, Christians

were fasting for Lent, and it was during Christendom, they're fasting for Lent. One of the things they fasted from was eggs, but eggs were really expensive. So like peasants didn't want to lose the eggs their chickens made. So they started hard-boiling them during Lent, so they would keep and they'd be able to eat them after Lent. So that's where all the eggs started coming from. and then historians record that King Edward I first, who was a Christian, was the first guy to ever do this to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the end of Lent. He painted all the eggs real festively to celebrate the end of Lent and started passing them out to people. That's where we get painted eggs. Wow.

Has nothing to do with a pagan fertility God. That's amazing. Wow. Mark, any other thoughts? I'm kind of hungry now I want some eggs So man this weekend Here's what I

Here's what I don't want for people to You know come this weekend for Easter And be like oh yeah we do this every year And this is kind of part of our rituals And kind of like our motions Mark and Josh What would you guys say? What's the invitation for our people

As we honestly as we posture our hearts And you know more than just Oh yeah you know Because I think sometimes we the danger is for it to become over familiar. Yeah, he has risen. Jesus is resurrection. Now, this is a big deal.

We're talking about, like, Paul said, if the resurrection is not true, then basically Christianity is a lie. Like, this is the thing. So making it more practical now today, man, what kind of hard posture should we have as we get ready to celebrate Easter and, you know, just kind of speaking a little bit of that?

What if? What if this is real? What if God is real? Like just come in and say, what if? Like with your hands open, just if he's real, just God, if you're real. If there's a God out there, show me. And he will. And he will.

Amen. His presence will be here. The words will pierce your heart and your soul. And there is life. And it's, well, I just long for people that don't have life in Jesus that are going through the motions that are trying to figure out this world. They're looking for some nugget of. happiness, joy, meaning it's there. And it's better than you can imagine. Come on, man.

Yeah. Come on, man. Dude, I, you know, that's a, that's perfect for somebody that's like trying to figure out Jesus, trying to figure out faith. I'll do one for somebody that is a Christian. Easter's like the ultimate, like, Jesus dunks on everybody. You know, it's kind of like the, there's that internet meme, like basketball players will do it a lot, like the, I'm him. they'll like they'll like poster somebody put somebody on a poster and they'll like I'm him the resurrection is Jesus like I'm him moment and for me it's that thing of like I got this from you know my preacher every preacher needs a preacher pastor Joby Martin he's got this little phrase he says all the time

and now I say it all the time if the tomb is empty anything is possible yeah so it's like I'll get emotional talking about it it's like if you're a Christian Christian, walk in that week with what's the miracle that you most need or desire in your life. What is it? Walk into services that week with that miracle in your heart and be thinking, if that tomb was empty, if he really did, get up. Anything is possible. This could happen. That's heavy for me.

There's a miracle I've been praying for for at least 10 years, probably more like 12, that I'm for the first. first time in like a decade starting to see some movement on. And so like even in summer prep this morning, I'm like, oh, Lord, if that tomb's empty. Yeah. This can happen. Anything is. So I would say you walk in that week and like, hey man, you know, the home team just hit the buzzer beater three pointer with no seconds left on the clock. And we want, so walk in there. Mark, what's your emotion? I know what miracle you're talking about. I'm praying with you. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Thank you. That's awesome.

Yeah. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? Yeah. Jesus, thank you, thank you for defeating sin, death, and Satan.

Thank you that today, the three of us and the thousands of people joining in with us that we worship, not just a crucified Savior, but a risen one. And Father,

I pray for every hurting person, this listening. I pray that like, even right now, as I'm praying, that your Holy Spirit would bring to their mind the miracle that they need that glorifies you and benefits them. And I pray that a new and fresh faith would awaken in their hearts and that they would really believe. And if that tomb is empty and if you really did defeat death and get up and he's alive right now, well, then anything, like anything could

happen. So Father, revive people who are dead, wake up. people who are sleepy. I pray that in just a few days, I pray not just for our church. I pray for every church in every nation that it would just feel like buzzer-beater just happened, like the greatest celebration in the history of the universe and that everyone that's gathering with us who doesn't know you yet, that you would save them in mass, mass harvest of salvation. And the miracles would happen for your glory and people's good. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Thanks for joining us. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our Lake Point Church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all the digital resources of LakePoint, visit lakepoint.church slash live free.