Dale Partridge - The Lamp and the Listening Heart

00:00:00.000 Well, amen.

00:00:06.740 I tell you what, coming up to the front and hearing you all sing is a lot different than

00:00:12.900 sitting in the back and hearing everybody sing.

00:00:14.820 You sound really, really good from up here.

00:00:18.400 It's a lot quieter in the back.

00:00:20.560 So what a blessing it is to be together this morning and to be able to open up the Word

00:00:26.740 of God together, to hear it preached, to sing these songs. It fills me with joy each and

00:00:32.820 every Sunday. If you haven't got there yet, you will need your Bible. Open it up to Luke

00:00:39.420 chapter 8. This morning, by way of introduction, I want to begin by talking about light. Light

00:00:47.720 is one of God's most wonderful creations. In fact, it was the very first thing God made

00:00:56.240 after he made the heavens and the earth.

00:00:59.540 It says in Genesis 1, 1 through 3,

00:01:03.120 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

00:01:06.380 The earth was without form and void,

00:01:08.760 and darkness was over the face of the deep.

00:01:11.580 And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

00:01:15.540 And God said, Let there be light.

00:01:18.440 And there was light.

00:01:21.780 From the very beginning we see in the Scriptures

00:01:23.980 that light is something that pushes back darkness.

00:01:28.160 It shatters it.

00:01:30.580 And ever since these words were spoken,

00:01:33.960 light has stood as a symbol of God's presence,

00:01:38.020 his truth, and his life-giving power.

00:01:41.580 Light brings order out of chaos.

00:01:44.480 It reveals what lies hidden.

00:01:46.620 It makes life flourish when there was only emptiness and void.

00:01:52.440 light can be shared without ever being diminished it's not like money if i had ten dollars and i

00:02:01.500 gave you five dollars i would have diminished my wealth i don't have ten dollars anymore i have

00:02:06.260 five light isn't like that it's like fire if you have one candle that's lit and another that's not

00:02:14.160 and you take the lit candle and light the other you didn't diminish the fire the fire is equal

00:02:19.360 on both candles. This is what light is like. Or think of light focused into a laser.

00:02:28.780 A single beam can reveal what's hidden from the naked eye. Scientists today are using lasers

00:02:35.520 underneath ancient texts to see and reveal what's hidden under these old manuscripts.

00:02:42.940 Words that have been blotted out, things that are not able to be seen with the naked eye,

00:02:48.760 are now able to be seen.

00:02:53.140 Or picture the flash from a camera.

00:02:56.560 It's something that's sudden and bright,

00:02:58.880 and it reveals to the lens what's hidden in darkness.

00:03:03.260 This is the function of light.

00:03:06.860 It's a revelatory thing.

00:03:09.780 Light doesn't create.

00:03:12.060 It shows us what's already there.

00:03:14.000 It exposes what's hidden by darkness.

00:03:19.720 It's important for us to understand how Jesus is using the analogy of light

00:03:25.120 if we want to understand more faithfully what he says.

00:03:29.520 If I were preaching a sermon about his use of sheep,

00:03:33.560 I would have told you all about the function of sheep,

00:03:37.400 what they eat, their behavioral patterns, the shepherds that watch over them.

00:03:42.780 If I were preaching a sermon on the temple,

00:03:44.880 I would have told you all about its construction, its function, the priests that are within it.

00:03:52.360 I would have told you these things because it's important for us to understand Christ's analogies

00:03:57.580 so that we can better apply them to our lives.

00:04:02.160 So when we come to Luke 8, we see that Jesus picks up on this great theme of light.

00:04:10.160 But he takes it even further.

00:04:11.700 he tells us that light is something that god gives to us it's shared he doesn't hoard it

00:04:21.760 for himself it's something that he gives to his people if you think about john where light came

00:04:29.180 into the world it's talking about christ who is the light light is used to reveal what's hidden

00:04:39.900 in darkness. And this morning, we're going to do something that we were all told not

00:04:45.200 to do as kids, and look into the light. So join me, if you would, in looking at the light.

00:04:54.100 Let's look at Luke chapter 8, verse 16. It says, No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers

00:05:02.920 it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who

00:05:09.700 enter may see the light.

00:05:13.960 Jesus begins with something that every household in his day would have understood.

00:05:19.040 They would have understood that a lamp's purpose is to illuminate a room.

00:05:24.560 Just as I began my sermon talking about lasers and cameras, because we all understand what

00:05:30.480 those things are, Jesus begins his teaching with lamps. Lamps in Jesus's day don't look like lamps

00:05:39.440 in our day. You don't pull the string and the light comes on. In Jesus's day, a lamp was a clay

00:05:47.400 dish filled with olive oil and had a small, simple cloth wick in it. People would place it on a stand

00:05:56.260 so that its light would fill the whole room.

00:05:59.920 It's more like a candle in that regard.

00:06:03.660 To cover it up with a bowl or to shove it under a bed would be absurd.

00:06:10.980 It would make the light useless.

00:06:14.580 Jesus' listeners understood that perfectly.

00:06:18.600 You don't light a lamp just to hide it away.

00:06:22.120 We don't buy lamps in our day just to put them in closets.

00:06:25.680 That would be weird.

00:06:28.860 So what's the light that Jesus is speaking of?

00:06:32.340 In Scripture, the light can mean several different things.

00:06:35.860 It can mean physical brightness, the calling forth of the sun,

00:06:40.960 the natural light that we're feeling right now coming from behind me.

00:06:45.460 It certainly can mean that.

00:06:47.040 But far more often, it's used to mean truth, revelation, and God making himself known to his people.

00:06:59.200 Psalm 119 says,

00:07:01.500 Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.

00:07:08.060 And John writes in John 1, 9,

00:07:12.100 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

00:07:17.040 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

00:07:23.200 So how do these two truths fit together?

00:07:26.920 How can we fit together that Jesus is the light and that God's word is the light?

00:07:33.640 How do those things come together?

00:07:37.040 It's because Jesus, who is the true light, reveals himself through the medium of his word.

00:07:44.940 the scriptures are how god's light shines in our hearts it's how we understand who he is

00:07:54.660 what he's like and what we are like in relationship to him the words that christ spoke

00:08:01.760 and the message that he proclaimed are rays of truth that are coming into a very dark world

00:08:09.100 think of it this way to put it in a small quip christ is the light his word is how he shines

00:08:19.500 christ is the light but his word is how he shines

00:08:24.720 so in luke 8 the lamp and the light is christ himself and the word he speaks is how we are

00:08:33.840 able to understand him. That's vital. That's vital for us to understand. His gospel is the

00:08:43.440 light that pierces the darkness. It reveals what's true. It exposes what's hidden, and it leads

00:08:50.420 sinners out of shadows and into salvation. Jesus tells us plainly, this light is not meant to be

00:08:59.900 hidden. Jesus did not hide his light. Even though shining it would cost him his own very life on

00:09:12.080 the cross, he did not hide his light. He proclaimed truth boldly so that all who saw him might come

00:09:21.080 into the kingdom of God and have their darkness illuminated by his presence.

00:09:26.000 he calls us today to do the same

00:09:30.340 to lift his word high on a lampstand

00:09:34.560 so that others too may find their way

00:09:37.900 out of darkness and into the light of Christ

00:09:40.340 so what does it mean for us

00:09:43.660 21st century Christians

00:09:46.080 to not hide the light of Christ 0.97

00:09:49.440 Jesus has already shown us

00:09:53.320 in the passage right before this one

00:09:55.820 in the parable of the soils.

00:10:00.160 In the parable of the soils, 1.00

00:10:01.900 we see what will hide the light of a Christian. 1.00

00:10:06.140 These are not abstract dangers. 0.99

00:10:09.060 They're real daily threats for the believer's soul.

00:10:14.260 And we should not take them lightly.

00:10:18.320 It means we must guard our hearts

00:10:20.440 so that the cares and anxiety of life

00:10:23.860 do not choke out the light.

00:10:28.180 Like the thorny soil, these worries grow up

00:10:31.140 and crowd out the word until there's no room left for faithfulness.

00:10:36.180 For the believer, this means refusing to let endless demands of everyday life,

00:10:42.300 our work, our finances, our schedules, social pressures,

00:10:49.960 to push God to the margins.

00:10:52.100 the word tells us how to live life rightly in all of these areas and to allow the cares of

00:11:01.220 those things to choke out what god has clearly told us in his word about how we are to live

00:11:06.700 is to hide our light

00:11:08.960 it also means that we cannot let the deceitfulness of riches or pleasures in this world to smother

00:11:19.960 our witness. Thorny soil doesn't

00:11:23.980 just represent worry. It's also about misplaced

00:11:28.040 love. The pursuit of wealth,

00:11:32.240 comfort, and entertainment can lull us into spiritual

00:11:36.040 apathy. For the believer, this means we

00:11:40.020 have to ask ourselves regularly, do I value the light of

00:11:44.020 Christ more than my own comfort?

00:11:46.160 more than my own success more than the approval of others and i just want to say this for american

00:11:56.360 christians is something we all have to wrestle with the bible tells us that we are to leave

00:12:03.280 an inheritance for our children's children that means financial blessing just as much as it does

00:12:08.920 spiritual blessing. But in that pursuit of financial blessing, do not get lulled into the

00:12:16.020 idea that the comforts that you feel along that path are home. They're not.

00:12:27.260 By accidentally going off the path, we can choke out the light in our life.

00:12:34.740 We cannot burn as brightly as we should.

00:12:38.700 We can be more focused on the world than we are on Christ.

00:12:44.580 This is a danger.

00:12:48.040 I'm not dividing the physical from the spiritual here.

00:12:51.380 Both are important.

00:12:53.100 But do not forget what the goal is of your salvation.

00:12:56.320 The goal of our lives is to represent Christ, who is the light of the world.

00:13:06.200 Not watch TV, live in our nice houses, drive fancy cars.

00:13:13.780 All those are great blessings.

00:13:16.780 But they are not what's most important.

00:13:23.080 We have to be vigilant.

00:13:26.320 We have to be vigilant because, as it says in the soils,

00:13:31.260 that the devil can snatch the word away before it can take root.

00:13:37.060 The seed on the path represents hearts that are hardened by distraction or pride.

00:13:45.420 For the believer, this means resisting the enemy's lies.

00:13:50.500 That tells us that God's word is irrelevant.

00:13:53.800 that it doesn't matter to your life today.

00:13:57.820 It means that you should come to church,

00:14:00.660 that you should listen to the scriptures,

00:14:03.760 that you should pray with a humble, teachable spirit,

00:14:08.140 eager to receive the word of God.

00:14:11.320 These two temptations, comfort and distraction,

00:14:16.120 are the temptations that are before the American church.

00:14:20.300 satan has used them time and time again to distract his people or god's people

00:14:28.040 from living faithful lives we cannot fall for his tricks

00:14:33.780 we cannot lose sight of what matters most we have to be clear in our convictions about what

00:14:42.340 the word tells us to do and to be we must be people who are of the book

00:14:49.000 and live lives that reflect it.

00:14:53.540 There's no opportunity for us to be distracted with anything else.

00:14:59.980 Do not hide your light.

00:15:04.500 This is for every one of us.

00:15:07.560 From the least of us in the room to the greatest.

00:15:11.760 From children, wives, husbands, all of us are easily distracted.

00:15:19.000 from obeying the truths of the Word.

00:15:23.560 We must recover a conviction

00:15:26.980 that says that we will not hide this light

00:15:29.900 no matter the cost,

00:15:32.340 no matter what comes.

00:15:36.540 Do not get lulled into spiritual laziness.

00:15:41.120 Do not get lulled into cares for this world

00:15:44.360 that distract you from the kingdom of heaven.

00:15:49.000 Set your light on the lampstand, as Christ says,

00:15:54.700 so that all who enter may see your light and be blessed

00:15:58.180 by what the Lord is doing in you and through you.

00:16:05.260 Verse 17.

00:16:08.680 For nothing is secret that will not be revealed,

00:16:12.880 nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.

00:16:19.000 Here, Jesus takes us deeper.

00:16:25.080 The light is not merely for guidance, it's for exposure.

00:16:30.060 God's Word reveals who we really are.

00:16:34.360 Not just at the end of time, but right now.

00:16:39.400 Paul writes in Ephesians 5.13,

00:16:43.160 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.

00:16:49.000 For whatever makes manifest is light.

00:16:53.400 And the writer of Hebrews says,

00:16:55.000 For the word of God is living and powerful,

00:16:57.840 and sharper than any two-edged sword.

00:16:59.660 It is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

00:17:08.180 God's word is not merely for illumination or for information.

00:17:16.140 It's for illumination.

00:17:19.860 It reveals our outward actions for what they truly are.

00:17:25.360 It reveals the true states of our hearts.

00:17:31.320 It magnifies in a clear way what we really know about God.

00:17:39.260 Think of it this way.

00:17:41.380 A doctor might know more about my wife than I do. 0.98

00:17:46.220 He might know more about her nervous system, her digestive system, 1.00

00:17:51.580 why her hair grows the way that it does.

00:17:55.780 He might know more about her anatomy than I do. 0.99

00:18:01.200 But a doctor does not know my wife. 0.99

00:18:05.560 He doesn't know what side of the bed she likes to sleep on,

00:18:09.880 how she takes her coffee, caramel macchiato, decaf, whole milk.

00:18:15.340 He doesn't know what burdens she carries in prayer.

00:18:22.140 What the joys of her heart are.

00:18:24.820 What makes her smile and laugh.

00:18:27.360 A doctor does not know my wife.

00:18:33.180 In the same way, many people know about God.

00:18:40.920 The word of God reveals to them that they know a lot about him.

00:18:45.340 but they don't know him.

00:18:50.000 They can recite doctrine.

00:18:52.860 They can recite scripture.

00:18:56.180 They can speak Christianese.

00:19:00.400 Yet the light of God's word has not penetrated to the deepest parts of their heart.

00:19:07.480 It has not revealed to them truly what they know about him.

00:19:12.580 It hasn't shown them their lack of love.

00:19:15.340 for the lord their knowledge is all head but no heart

00:19:20.460 it's all brains without the feels this is common in reformed circles

00:19:28.380 in our culture we've praised the feelings that we get from

00:19:37.060 the lord to a point where it's almost unbiblical

00:19:40.220 that's absolutely true 0.96

00:19:43.660 but we cannot overreact in our circles

00:19:47.620 to the point where we feel nothing when we come to the Lord

00:19:52.060 this is why Jesus says

00:19:56.520 nothing that is hidden will stay hidden

00:19:59.140 because the word of God reveals

00:20:03.540 whether our faith is genuine

00:20:06.620 whether our obedience is real obedience rooted in love whether our hearts truly belong to Christ or

00:20:17.880 not the word of God reveals these things to us it exposes what's hidden

00:20:25.920 the scriptures teach that while the Lord alone knows who's his and who's not you and I can't

00:20:35.300 know this information infallibly. The word also teaches that we are to test ourselves,

00:20:42.920 to seek assurance. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13, 5,

00:20:49.980 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves, or do you not realize

00:20:57.200 this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test.

00:21:06.300 When Paul says that we are to examine ourselves, he's not calling us to endless doubt and morbid introspection.

00:21:13.860 That's not his point.

00:21:16.580 He's urging us to look for real evidence of Christ working in our lives.

00:21:25.460 To see whether we have a faith that actually trusts in the Lord.

00:21:32.580 A heart that loves him completely.

00:21:36.260 Obedience to his word and a life that keeps turning back to him and repentance.

00:21:41.100 Like David, a man after God's own heart.

00:21:44.880 Yet time and time again, he failed the Lord. 0.53

00:21:47.820 And what separated him from a non-believer is that when he failed, he came back to the Lord.

00:21:57.860 None of us have these things perfectly.

00:22:02.640 None of us are perfect in our obedience.

00:22:05.300 Our repentance or our faith.

00:22:08.540 That's absolutely true.

00:22:11.460 But genuine faith, no matter how small, leans towards Christ.

00:22:21.140 It seeks the light.

00:22:24.500 Those who are children of darkness recede from the light.

00:22:28.360 This is a common biblical pattern. 0.99

00:22:30.360 children of darkness cannot stand when light exposes them for who they truly are

00:22:36.700 but children of the light run towards the light though it hurts at times

00:22:42.160 the goal of this examination is not to drive us into despair

00:22:51.480 but to bring us into the light

00:22:54.680 so if you see the evidence of god's grace in your life

00:23:04.020 rejoice for god is at work in you praise the lord for what he's done in you

00:23:14.660 but if you see areas of hypocrisy or unbelief in the lord

00:23:21.160 Repent, and repent quickly, as David did.

00:23:28.820 John Calvin says, quote,

00:23:31.540 Although faith is a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence towards us,

00:23:38.340 founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ,

00:23:43.020 it is not idle, but produces a life of obedience.

00:23:49.720 End quote.

00:23:51.160 Obedience is not the cause of salvation, but the fruit of salvation.

00:23:57.660 A faith that never produces obedience is no true faith at all.

00:24:04.140 So here are some questions to help you with your own examination of your heart.

00:24:08.640 If you have a pen, write them down.

00:24:12.980 Do I desire to obey Christ even if I fail?

00:24:17.160 do i desire to obey christ even if i fail

00:24:23.940 true believers may stumble but they cannot remain content to live in sin

00:24:31.560 no true believer can do this you will be so convicted in your spirit that you cannot remain

00:24:39.560 in sin so you may fail in your obedience to christ but that does not prevent you

00:24:45.080 from continuing.

00:24:48.160 Do I desire to obey Christ

00:24:50.580 even if I fail?

00:24:54.340 Number two,

00:24:55.960 do I grieve my sin

00:24:57.520 and turn back to Christ for mercy?

00:25:02.240 A tender conscience

00:25:03.620 is the evidence of the Spirit's work in you.

00:25:09.300 If your conscience is growing

00:25:11.420 more and more tender,

00:25:13.160 that means the Spirit of God

00:25:14.780 is at work in you, making sin something you cannot tolerate. You can't tolerate it. None of us can.

00:25:24.180 If your conscience is growing harder and harder, and you see more and more sin in your life,

00:25:29.800 there's a problem. You must seek out whatever is holding you back from the Lord and repent of it.

00:25:39.020 Number three

00:25:42.400 Do I love God's word

00:25:46.000 And desire to hear his voice

00:25:48.080 Even when it convicts me

00:25:51.060 God's word will convict you

00:25:56.960 It will hurt

00:26:00.000 To hear his word at times

00:26:02.040 This will be the difference between

00:26:06.300 His children

00:26:08.000 and the children of darkness.

00:26:13.460 His children will feel that conviction and still come to him.

00:26:18.520 His children will have a repentance like Peter,

00:26:22.160 not like Judas.

00:26:26.100 His children will not turn away from the Lord,

00:26:30.440 even though they will fail him.

00:26:35.300 And the last question.

00:26:38.000 Do I love Christ above all and long for others to know him too?

00:26:47.860 A true evidence that the light is at work in you is that you have a burning desire to share that light

00:26:54.780 in your homes, in your workplaces, in your community.

00:27:01.320 The light must be shared.

00:27:04.660 It's a contagious thing.

00:27:07.440 It's something we do not get to hide.

00:27:10.620 It's something the real Christian will share.

00:27:13.920 So share it.

00:27:15.460 Ask yourself if you want to.

00:27:18.220 This will reveal the true nature of your heart.

00:27:25.100 None of these marks are perfect in us.

00:27:28.700 Sometimes faith burns brightly,

00:27:30.500 and sometimes it flickers like a dying wick.

00:27:36.440 The Westminster Confession wisely reminds us

00:27:40.020 that true believers may have their faith shaken at times

00:27:43.300 or diminished because of sin,

00:27:47.940 temptation, or neglect.

00:27:50.760 Yet that does not mean that they have lost salvation itself.

00:27:58.440 Even a mustard seed faith unites us to Christ and saves us.

00:28:04.100 But we ought to never be content with mustard seed faith.

00:28:10.100 It ought to grow.

00:28:12.740 We must desire the faith that Christ has given to us to grow and bear fruit as he says it will.

00:28:22.820 Church, let the word of God shine in your heart.

00:28:25.460 Not to condemn you, but to reveal to you where you need his grace

00:28:35.120 and to confirm the good work that God has begun in you.

00:28:40.820 As Martin Luther said, faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone.

00:28:48.980 our last verse verse 18

00:28:57.440 says therefore take heed how you hear for whoever has to him more will be given

00:29:06.100 and whoever does not have even what he seems to have will be taken from him

00:29:13.060 Some of your translation says, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.

00:29:22.060 Jesus ends this teaching with a very serious warning.

00:29:28.140 After speaking of light, he tells us to take heed how we hear.

00:29:33.640 Very interesting.

00:29:35.600 It's interesting because light is not something we normally hear, right?

00:29:39.700 I've never heard light.

00:29:40.620 Is Jesus mixing up his analogies?

00:29:45.280 No.

00:29:48.400 No.

00:29:49.540 If we understand that the Word of God is the light,

00:29:52.840 as we've already been discussing,

00:29:54.840 then Jesus' analogy makes total sense.

00:29:59.020 You hear the light that is preached through the Word.

00:30:04.180 So then why does Jesus tell us to take heed how we hear it?

00:30:07.340 because how we hear the word determines everything

00:30:11.680 whether the light transforms us or leaves us in darkness

00:30:16.380 jesus knows that simply hearing the word is not enough

00:30:21.920 in our cross-reference for this passage that we all heard read to us

00:30:27.020 james teaches that we cannot just be hearers of the word

00:30:30.500 we must be doers of the word

00:30:33.280 this is what it means to be careful how we hear

00:30:37.740 if your hearing remains just hearing

00:30:41.340 it's useless

00:30:42.640 does nothing

00:30:44.660 according to the word of God

00:30:47.620 it does nothing

00:30:48.700 many people hear him preach

00:30:53.140 in the gospels

00:30:54.740 yet they remained unchanged

00:30:57.460 some were hardened

00:31:01.540 like the path

00:31:03.440 Some received the word with joy, but fell away after testing.

00:31:08.020 Others let the thorns of life choke it out.

00:31:11.920 Only the good soil hears and holds fast to the word of God,

00:31:18.440 bearing fruit with patience.

00:31:24.200 When Jesus says, take heed how you hear,

00:31:26.740 he's warning that eternal life and eternal loss hangs in the response to his word

00:31:36.620 that sounds arminian right it doesn't mean that a true believer can lose their salvation

00:31:47.340 jesus is not speaking of those who truly belong to him

00:31:50.940 he's speaking of those who appear for a time to receive the word who may look like believers on

00:31:58.640 the outside but whose hearts were never transformed by him we know that from scripture

00:32:06.400 god alone is sovereign over salvation it's his spirit that opens blind eyes

00:32:13.500 softens hearts of stone and grants saving faith yet from our human perspective

00:32:20.200 it sometimes looks as though a person is simply making a decision to follow Jesus.

00:32:26.980 We don't see the background work of the Spirit.

00:32:32.340 Theologically, we know that apart from God's grace, salvation is impossible.

00:32:40.420 But in these earthly vessels, we cannot always see the hidden work of the Spirit.

00:32:45.360 this is why jesus tells us to take heed how we hear

00:32:50.860 because while salvation is all of grace the evidence of god's grace in our lives

00:32:58.560 revealed in how we respond to his word is by definition when you respond to the word of god

00:33:08.780 But with obedience, that's saving faith.

00:33:14.440 It is.

00:33:17.280 The reformers taught this time and time again.

00:33:23.280 But let me be clear.

00:33:26.280 Jesus is not suggesting at any point

00:33:30.380 that the people who received the word for a time

00:33:33.500 but fell away were ever Christians at all.

00:33:37.200 He didn't say that.

00:33:38.780 If you think back to the parable of the soils,

00:33:43.700 the word was snatched away.

00:33:45.940 The word fell on a path and was received,

00:33:50.040 but then fell away.

00:33:52.320 The word fell into thorns, but then was choked out.

00:33:57.740 All of them lost what they thought they had.

00:34:03.120 All of them.

00:34:06.440 None of them kept the faith until the end.

00:34:08.780 Only the good soil, the true believer, abides in the end and bears fruit that lasts.

00:34:17.860 This is the Calvinism of this passage.

00:34:21.440 True believers persevere.

00:34:24.380 Those who fall away never belong to Christ.

00:34:30.000 As John writes, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

00:34:34.300 For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

00:34:38.780 So, when Jesus warns that what a person seems to have will be taken away, he's speaking

00:34:44.960 of those who never possessed true saving faith.

00:34:48.980 They may have shown signs of spiritual interest, emotion, or knowledge, but their hearts remained

00:34:56.720 unchanged.

00:34:59.280 That's clear.

00:35:05.320 as I'm wrapping up this sermon.

00:35:12.880 I want to show us that

00:35:14.280 this does not reveal or diminish 0.96

00:35:17.340 this warning for true Christians.

00:35:22.640 We who belong to Christ

00:35:24.200 must still take heed how we hear.

00:35:27.380 Not because we might lose our salvation,

00:35:29.500 but because careless hearing

00:35:31.620 can lead us into seasons of coldness,

00:35:35.320 of sin, of a loss of our assurance.

00:35:41.140 We may spur the gifts of God, grieving the Spirit,

00:35:45.260 and bring discipline upon ourselves.

00:35:48.880 God keeps his people to the end, but he keeps us through means.

00:35:55.980 And one of those means is this sober command,

00:36:01.060 take heed how you hear.

00:36:05.320 Do not walk away from this sermon doubting whether you belong to Christ

00:36:11.680 simply because you see weakness in your faith.

00:36:15.620 Don't do that.

00:36:17.320 That's not the goal of this sermon.

00:36:20.620 Remember what Paul says.

00:36:23.320 He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.

00:36:29.720 And Jesus himself promised a bruised reed he will not break.

00:36:34.080 and a smoldering wick, he will not quench.

00:36:39.360 If you even have the desire to repent

00:36:43.220 and be careful how you hear,

00:36:47.480 that is in itself the grace of God working in you.

00:36:56.940 Those who do not belong to Christ

00:36:59.080 never feel that conviction.

00:37:04.080 So take courage.

00:37:05.980 The same God who commands you to listen carefully

00:37:08.460 is the God who gives us ears to hear carefully.

00:37:13.580 And though our faith may sometimes flicker like a tiny flame,

00:37:18.740 he will not let it go out.

00:37:22.320 He will finish the good work he began in you, Christian.

00:37:26.460 That's a promise from God.

00:37:30.260 Let us listen carefully.

00:37:31.640 obey quickly and walk in the light not out of fear of losing christ but out of love for the one

00:37:40.040 who never is going to lose us and church remember this the light has come and has revealed who we

00:37:52.220 are and who Christ is. So don't hide the light. Let it shine in your heart, in your words, and in

00:38:03.000 your life. For the glory of the one who said, let there be light. And who is himself the light of

00:38:12.480 the world. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we rejoice this morning that

00:38:28.260 you are the light of the world, that you have given us ears to hear this light, that you

00:38:38.920 have blessed us this morning with the revelation of your love for us. God, thank you for not

00:38:51.280 leaving us in darkness like we all once were, but have brought us into the kingdom of your

00:38:58.160 marvelous light. Lord, your grace to us is abundant. It abounds in our hearts in ways

00:39:07.300 that we don't always see,

00:39:10.140 even when our faith is fickle.

00:39:16.100 God, help us all

00:39:17.500 to be strengthened in our faith this morning,

00:39:21.800 that we might go into the world

00:39:24.200 bold and zealous for the gospel,

00:39:28.120 that we might not doubt

00:39:30.740 the work that you are doing in us,

00:39:34.140 that we would be children

00:39:36.060 who long to love you

00:39:37.600 as you have loved us.

00:39:43.060 God, be with your people this week.

00:39:47.540 Remind them of these truths.

00:39:50.420 Help them to examine their lives

00:39:52.620 so that they might live more faithfully

00:39:55.500 in light of your grace.

00:39:59.380 In Jesus' name, amen.

00:40:01.920 Amen.

00:40:06.060 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - July 01, 2025

The Lamp and the Listening Heart

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