The Importance of Knowing What You Believe

It is so good to be here this morning. We started a new series this morning in our Sunday school class called Believe, and for some reason our PowerPoint is not working this morning, so you'll just have to listen real carefully and keep me awake, okay? But if you will, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 1, because that's where I'm going to be reading from in just a few moments. And by the way, I've not told you I read from the English Standard Version, so if it's not your version, that's what I read. And so in the notes, I don't have all the verses that I'm going to read. You can follow along in the notes this morning. I have four fill in the blanks, but also we're going to talk about what it means to believe. Now next week, we'll be actually starting the first lesson. If you want to come and be a part of that, we'll be talking about God next week, which we ought to be talking about God every week, right? But we're specifically going to be studying our relationship with God next week and the next couple of weeks. And so I'd invite you, if you want to be a part of what's happening in Sunday school, don't leave here today without a book or without a workbook, and join one of our Sunday school classes and we'll begin to talk about what it means to believe. Now what this is going to be is a 30-week series that you've already heard about, but it's broken down into three different elements. One of them is to think. And what we're going to be asking in that time is what do we believe? And basically there are 10 weeks that I call doctrinal studies on God, on salvation, on the Bible, the identity in Christ, humanity, and so forth and so on. And these are important things. These are values that we teach, values that we have in our Baptist faith. And so it's important that we study those values, that we study what we believe. And we're going to be talking about today what the importance is of believing and knowing what we believe. The second section, the next 10 weeks will be on called act. What should I do? And basically what these deal with is how we begin to grow in the Lord, how we grow in our worship, how we grow in our prayer, how we grow in our Bible study, how do we totally surrender? How do we get involved in our biblical community? And how do we understand our spiritual giftedness? So those are just some of those things we'll be talking about in that 10 week period. And then the last one is what am I becoming to be? To be. What am I becoming? And basically if you were to read Galatians 5, we had that passage in the scripture that talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Not fruits. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, all those things. Remember that song? I don't. But anyway, it deals with those fruit of the Spirit that we have, that we possess as Christian and how we can develop and how we can become Spirit walking, letting the Spirit guide us and all of those things. So this is a good series. I'm excited to participate with you in this series for the next couple of months. And as we talk about believe, I begin to look at that word and if you look at the word believe in the Greek, it is the word pastuo. It's closely associated to the word faith, which is pastis. The root word is pastis. And if you look at that Greek word, it actually means to have faith in, to place our trust in. So when you look at the words believe, the words faith, the words trust, they're almost synonymous. It is a verb. It is an action that I take. I am placing my trust in Jesus Christ. I am placing my faith in Jesus Christ. I believe in Jesus Christ. Now in our culture today, we don't have those distinct words that can give us a little bit clearer understanding like we do in the Greek. So there are times in our culture today we use the word believe as an opinion. Well I believe that's right. Well I believe that to be so. Which means there's a guess there in my mind. It's just strictly an opinion. But what we're talking about in God's holy word is actual truth. That is trust. It's something that we believe and we place our faith in. Okay, you understand that? Now we have a set of beliefs, which is the noun form of that word believe. And that's what we're going to be talking about for the next 10 weeks are some beliefs, some values that we have beliefs in. These are things that we practice. If I had my, just play like this is my PowerPoint here, okay? Here's the first circle up here, alright? On that first circle, I would use it to describe similar things and when I talk about, and if you get to hear me enough, you'll hear me say this quite often. We talk about missionary mindset. What is our mindset about missions? And really what that goes to is that if we understand that the church has been ordained to make disciples that make disciples and to love God and love others and that we are to fulfill the great commission and the great commandment, that is our mentality. That is our mission. That is what we, that's who we are. We are to be on mission for God. Now what that drives then is our values. If we are to be a church that makes disciples that makes disciples, if we are to be a church that love God with all of our heart, soul, and strength and to love others, then that will drive all our values and what we believe that we get from this good Bible, the holy Bible, the holy scripture. That then drives our behavior and what we become. If we truly are missionary mentality of loving God and loving others and also the great commission, making disciples that make disciples, that'll drive our values, what we believe, which will drive our, what we become. So that's why this study is important. So today I'm asking this very simple question, why is it important for us to know what we believe? Now I really enjoyed this morning's Sunday school lesson because we had some really good discussions, a discussion about some of these things and what are some of these beliefs that we have and why are they important and how do they shape us and all of those things. When I was in college, I'm still in my introduction here, okay, hold on, we're going to go fast here in just a minute. But when I was in college, my first two summers home, I was what I would call now an intern, a summer intern for the summer. I was a youth pastor, if you will. I was able to lead the youth and my pastor said, you do whatever you want to do. So back in those days, we had youth choirs. We don't see very many youth choirs anymore, but we had a youth choir and I was able, in my small town, Stinnett, Texas, 2,000 people, maybe, that's counting the dogs, maybe, but we had 2,000 people. But during that summer, we were having around 25, 30 kids come and just on Wednesday nights, we would just sing and then we'd go in the community and sing at different places and different opportunities and we were called the young believers. Now I'm not sure that really defines, we used to sing this song, I believe. Now as I look at those words today, it never mentioned God. I think it was just assumed that we believed in God, but one of the verses is, every time I hear a newborn baby cry or touch a leaf or see the sky, then I know why I believe. The truth of it is, I believe because of something that happened in my life years ago. But here, let me tell you what the young believers did that was more important than the song because we sung other songs that were gospel related. We, at the end of the summer, every year, we would have a youth-led revival. I invited a guy to come and play the bass guitar for us back in the 70s and he loved it, he loved instruments, but he was not a Christian. He was not a believer. When we had that revival at the end of the summer, Ronnie came forward. We had an outside revival at the park and Ronnie came forward and he said, I just had to give my life to Christ. He came a believer. Action. He placed his trust in Jesus Christ. The next year, we did the same thing. Went out to the community. We sang in a lot of different places, all planning towards this great youth revival at the end of the year. I had one of my friends who, and if I'm with you long enough, I'll tell you his story. I don't have time to tell you all of his story today, but he was pretty much a rebel growing up, running away from home and dealt with a terrible home life. Ronnie got his attention after he got out of high school and he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ and he surrendered to preach. He came into our community and he knocked the door of every home in the town of Stinnett, inviting people to come to know Jesus Christ and to come to the revival. People would look at him and say, that can't be Jerry. That can't be the same Jerry that I knew. What a transformation Jesus Christ had did in his life. You see, priest of gospel, many came to know Jesus Christ as the real and personal savior. This morning, I want to ask you personally, why is it important that you know what you believe and do you know what you believe? We're going to read from 2 Timothy in just a moment. Before we get into the text, let's have one more word of prayer. Father, we come to you this morning to say thank you for your saving grace. Father, that we can know what we believe because of your holy word, because of your scripture, but also because of your precious holy spirit who lives and abides in us. We thank you. We praise you. Now, father, use this time as we look at your scripture for it's in the name above all names, the name of Jesus I pray. Amen. 2 Timothy 1, verse 8, I'm reading from the English standard version. The key verse is found in verse 12 and part of verse 13. So let's follow along with me as I read, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who saved us and called us to a holy calling. Not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. Now here's verse 12, this is which is why I suffer as I do, but I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you've heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Folks, it is important to know what you believe and when you know what you believe and you understand what you believe and you firmly have a foundation of belief, when you know what you believe, here's the first thing you'll understand. You'll understand that it's about a person and not a program. What did Paul say? He says, for I know whom I have believed and the object of that whom is who? Jesus Christ himself, right? Say it with me, Jesus Christ. For I know who I have believed, I know whom I have believed. Saving faith, folks, is in and only in Jesus Christ. There is no other way to understand the beliefs that we are to have or the way to eternal life is through Jesus Christ himself. It is not a set of creedal documents. And trust me, I will stand firm on the Baptist faith and message. It is what we as Baptists have said. These are the beliefs that we have. These are the values we have as Southern Baptists. But that creed, that document is not going to save anybody. Salvation is in a person who also happens to be God himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That's what we believe. That's what we live. That's how we live our life. When I was a senior at college, I met this beautiful redhead over here as well, but I'm not going to talk about that today. But the last semester, and this is actually before we really were engaged, the last semester of my college year, I had a degree in religion. I had a lot of hours in philosophy. I was a speech minor, but I had enough hours to have a minor in philosophy, but I moved it into the speech direction anyway. And at the last semester of my year, I began to question a lot of things about my beliefs. And one of those was God. I wanted to see God. I wanted to have a Moses experience. I wanted to have a burning bush experience. I said, God, I don't know if you're real anymore. I need to see you. I need to feel you. I need to touch you so that you can prove to me that you really do exist. Now deep in my spirit and my soul, I knew I had accepted Jesus Christ. I never gave up on Christ as the son of God who died on the cross of Calvary, who loved me and who gave me his very best, his blood shed so that I might have the gift of eternal life. I never gave up on that. I just questioned God and his reality. And then God's word spoke to me one Sunday morning in Sunday school class. That's why I still love Sunday school. That's why I still love Bible studies. God used that. I didn't hear anything else the rest of the morning. I didn't listen to the preacher. I confessed to him. I didn't listen one bit to your sermon because God had already spoke to me that morning. And it's a passage of the scripture from Corinthians that says this, you walk by faith, not by sight. I hear that. You walk, Keith, you walk by faith. You don't have to see me. You don't have to touch me. You don't have to feel me. You have all you need in Jesus Christ. You walk by faith. You walk by placing your trust, and you walk by believing in Jesus Christ. Changed my whole dynamic. It changed the way I looked at all the theology that I had been studying. And trust me, back in the 70s, we were studying neo-orthodox theology, and we were studying some guys that taught demythologizing the Bible, and it was beginning to just shape my life. And God said, wait a minute, don't forget me. It's not about academia. It's not about your creeds. It's not about what you know. It's about your faith. It's what you believe in me. It's about placing your trust in Jesus Christ. That was a pivotal moment in my life when I began to understand that what I believe is about a person, not a program, not a seminary degree, not a college degree. It's about Jesus Christ. It's always about Jesus Christ. Second thing this morning, when you know what you believe, you proudly proclaim your faith. He said, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Those are good words. I don't know about you, but Martin Luther would learn those words. Those were what radically changed his life in 1517 when he read Romans chapter one, verse 16 and 17, says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, but also to Gentiles. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by what? Faith. What? By? Faith. Amen. In other words, you live by what you believe in. You live by what you trust in. You live by faith. And that is in Jesus Christ, that person. But Paul would say, I'm not ashamed. And Martin Luther would radically change our world in October 31st, 1517, when he posted those theses on Wittenberg Castle. And the Reformation began and the Bible began to speak volumes to people and people's lives begin to change as they open up the Bible and they begin to read the Bible themselves for the first time in their lives. Paul proclaimed it. Martin Luther proclaimed it. The New Testament church proudly proclaims the gospel and I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know about you, but Christmas stuff starts going up earlier and earlier every year, does it not? I mean, I saw it way before Halloween this year. Stuff was out already. Next year, after July the 4th, I expect to see some Christmas decorations going up. Maybe we just ought to leave them up. That drives my wife crazy. But maybe we ought to leave them up all just around that way. We just have Christmas all day long. As a Christian believers, that's what we really believe in. And we ought to be celebrating Christ every day of the year. Our grandkids called us this week. One's in Missouri. We have two children. One's set in Missouri and one in Liberal. Our son and his wife and family, two boys. They called us and they couldn't wait to show us their Christmas tree. I don't know where we went wrong. I mean, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, Jeanette. Our kids have Christmas trees up. I cannot believe that. It just doesn't seem right, does it? But anyway, they showed us. My son had his first Christmas ornament. They had David's first Christmas ornament. Now they have Daniel's first Christmas. This is his first Christmas. And they were just so excited. They couldn't wait to tell us, oh, Christmas is going to be so much fun. And then last night, our granddaughter in Liberal, Kansas called us and they put their trees up yesterday. Again, where did we go wrong? It's not Thanksgiving yet. We don't, they ought to know by now, we don't put Christmas trees up until after Thanksgiving. But our granddaughter, she took minutes. We did FaceTime and I love FaceTime because I get to see my grandkids. Can't hold them, can't kiss them, but I love to see them. And she took off ornaments and she would show us these ornaments. And she did that for minutes. I mean, just showing us all those ornaments. And then she showed us the stockings on the side of the wall and I said, where's my stocking? And she said, you don't have one. You're not part of the family. Which her mother quickly corrected her and said, well, he just not lives here. He is part of the family. But she was so excited about Christmas. Folks, as children, we all get excited about Christmastime. But as believers, are we just as excited about Christ on a day-by-day basis that we can't wait to show people about the gospel of Jesus? We can't wait to tell them about Jesus Christ? I hope so. We ought to, we ought to be proud of the gospel of Jesus. We ought to proudly proclaim the gospel. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And that's where we ought to be living every day because the gospel is life. The gospel is truth. Gospel is what gives us the promise of the hope, which leads to the next point. When you know what you believe, you have a protected destiny. Paul said, I am convinced, I am convinced that he, being Jesus, being God, is able to guard that until that day. If you notice, at least in my English Standard Version, that day is capitalized. That has a specific meaning. It's not just a 24-hour period. Paul is really focusing on that future day when God calls him home to be with him and what he is convinced of that he will protect that hope that he will give him security and a and a surety that he is going to be where God is and he's going to be in the presence of Jesus Christ himself. He would go on to talk about that in verse 18 when he's talking about Onesiphorus and he said may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day again emphasizing that folks if there was ever a time that we know that that day is coming close to where it's going to be the last day it's in the day we live today. Carl has already prayed for Paris we talked about it in our Sunday school class today we should be praying for Paris but we should be praying for our country we should be praying for the world that the world might know that Jesus is coming and he's coming again on that day and he will make himself known to all men we need to be concerned about that day we need to pray for what's going on folks I don't have all the answers of why God would allow such evil to be present in our world but it's always been there is it not because the evil one is still roaming this earth to devour those that come into his path evil is present we will not be able to get rid of it until that day when God says enough let's put him in chains it's time to do this but we who are believers who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ who believe in the truth of the gospel we are protected we have eternal security we have a hope of eternity because we have placed our faith in we have trusted him we believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God and Acts chapter 17 verse 31 Paul is preaching in Athens they in all these philosophers had had gods on the side of the wall and there became one that was called the unknown god you remember this story you know what I'm getting to but in verse 31 Paul began to to talk about this is because he being Jesus or the unknown God or being this God the ultimate God the creator God he has fixed a day on which we will be judged the world in righteousness by a man being Jesus himself whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead that is the gospel the gospel hope because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross and that he rose from the dead now let's get to the last point this morning when you know what you believe you have been entrusted to follow the pattern of the gospel you have been entrusted to follow the pattern of the gospel let's look at this passage of scripture look at at the end of verse 12 or let me read verse 12 again and we'll read verse 13 but I'm not ashamed for I know who I am a believer and I am convinced that he's able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me Paul had been given the responsibility to preach the gospel to the whole world and then let's finish verse 13 now he's talking to Timothy here he's that Timothy is the one he's mentored all these years he says follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us some of you're old enough to remember what I remember back when we only had two or three television stations and they did not have 24 hours of programming and around midnight they would come on and play the national anthem every day and then they would say we are signing off join us again in the morning and then they would have this and this test pattern remember it looks like a radioactive thing today now right and some people would sit there and just watch that test pattern hoping that something else might come on now as a kid I never did stay up all night and I very seldom got to see that I remember one time I got to stay up late because school was called off we had a four foot five foot six foot blizzard and we didn't go to school all week so I stayed up and watched the winter olympics but on Saturday morning I would get up and that still test pattern was still on the tv because I'd get up so early drove my mom and dad crazy on Saturday morning why because Roy Rogers came on Sunday morning I couldn't wait to see Roy so I'd watch that test pattern until Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and all that there was Gabby Hayes all those guys that were on Roy Rogers I loved Roy Rogers well what's the point we have a lot of patterns in our world that we can look at my wife has done some sewing over the years I'm always amazed at how well she can use a pattern to cut those things and to come out with a with a dress or something that that she is making and we have patterns that we follow and and Paul is telling Timothy you you follow this pattern but notice what he says follow the pattern of the sound words if you looked at that word that it is the word logos the same one that's used in in john chapter one use these sound doctrinal words about Jesus Christ what Paul is really saying is you listen to this sound doctrine these these sound beliefs that I have been teaching you throughout the years one of the things that was asking in Sunday school this morning was who helped you to fashion some of your belief systems even today as you look back or who are some people that mentored you and I've certainly had plenty of people that have set some patterns three pastors in particular the one who licensed me to the ministry at 12 taught me how to preach kind of but but he did I learned from him and he allowed me to preach on Wednesday nights once a month and and he kept me held me accountable even when I was in college when I was ready to quit preaching he still would call me and say I need you to come and preach the gospel for me he mentored me and then there was another pastor named Norris Taylor who ordained me into the ministry and took me by the hand and took me out and showed me how to share the gospel with people and and taught me how to have a spiritual awakening in my own life that I talked about a couple of weeks when I talked about stewardship he was the one that pointed me in the right direction and then some of you'll know this last name Roy Moody who used to be the director of evangelism here in Kansas Nebraska and Roy took me underneath and he taught me and he he mentored me and he would share with me when I ever had a problem Roy was always there to hear and again Roy would take me when I was the interim education minister at First Southern Baptist Church and liberal years ago he would take me and say come on Keith let's let's go visiting and he would take me out to knock doors and to share the gospel with people he mentored me he showed me how to be a pastor we all have those people that have that that we see a pattern why again it's not a program it's always about Jesus Christ but the pattern is that they have mentored us because of the scriptures that they have in their own heart because of the drive they have to serve Jesus Christ who are you looking at who are you looking at are you looking at the world are you looking at Jesus Christ are you looking at godly mentors who will lead you along the way finally this morning in conclusion we had a passage of scripture that we read in Sunday school and it's found in first Peter chapter 3 verse 15 and 16 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you but do it with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame why is it important that we know what we believe well it's not a person it's not a program we believe that it's always about Jesus Christ we proudly proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ and his saving grace and we have a hope of a protected destiny of eternity living with him forever and we have a pattern of the gospel from mentors and from the gospel itself from the written word of God we are to be able to put up a defense for our faith it's important that we know what we believe that word defense in the Greek is apologia we get our word apologetics from it folks we ought to be able to defend our faith we need to be able to defend what we believe and the only way we can do that is to get into this word to study this word to understand what we believe that's why this study is so important for the next 30 weeks so we know that we know that we know what we believe so that when the world comes crossing around us so that the world begins to slander us when the world begins to put us down and when the world begins to shoot at us and to fight against us and to think that we're the evil in the world we can stand boldly we can stand directly on the word of God Jesus Christ himself we need to be able to defend our faith and what we believe and folks we don't go around hitting people on the head with our bible hoping that they'll get the gospel we don't do it in hate what Jesus say we do it in good behavior why because we believe God has called the church to go and make disciples because he died on the cross he loved us and because our beliefs are important because of what he's given to us these fundamental things that we need to believe and have hidden in our heart ready to defend the faith and when we do that folks our behavior is going to be Christ-like and when the world sees Christ-like behavior they can't help but say I want some of that I want what you got I want that love of Jesus Christ in my life so I challenge you to see this this morning be a part of this study be a part of beginning to grow and understand how important it is to know what you believe now I don't know how you're going to respond this morning but we're going to have an invitation to him this morning it begins by this if you don't know whom you have believed in you cannot know that you're protected for eternity with him it begins by knowing Jesus Christ as your real and personal savior again I can't save you I can't force you to come to Christ the one that does the forcing is the power of the Holy Spirit himself if the Holy Spirit of God has convinced you this morning that you're lost and that you've never accepted Christ as your personal savior we would invite you to come forward there'll be some folks here standing ready to accept you I'll be here we would love to pray with you and help you to understand and begin you on that journey of what it means to know Christ some of you here this morning you say you know I've been in church all my life I still don't know what I believe and I need to begin this journey of getting into this word and know what the Bible teaches that are important essentials to our faith so that I can make a defense for my faith if God is speaking to you why would you not respond it doesn't mean coming down forward it can if you want it may be just getting where you are and saying God I surrender I surrender but whatever God's telling you why would you not do that for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ is the power of salvation to everyone that believes Father we believe in the Son of God we believe in the Holy Spirit we believe in God the Father we believe in God the Father now Father help us to grow to be more Christ-like in Jesus name amen you stand you respond as God calls you would you stand as we sing it's going to be 433 so all to Jesus I surrender all to him I freely give I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live I surrender all I surrender all all to thee my blessed Savior I surrender all all to Jesus I surrender make me save your holy thine let me feel the Holy Spirit truly know that thou art mine I surrender all I surrender all all to thee my blessed Savior I surrender all all to Jesus I surrender Lord I give myself to thee fill me with thy love and power let thy blessing fall on me I surrender all all I surrender all all to thee my blessed Savior I surrender all we're gonna close with how we started we have come into his house both verses so we have come into his house and gathered in his name to worship him