Many Christians feel a lack of power after their initial conversion, much like having a promising car repeatedly breaking down. Jesus addresses this by teaching that true discipleship is proven by abiding in His Word, especially when faced with disillusionment. This personal relationship is the promise of the New Covenant, where all of God’s people can hear His voice and know Him personally. This foundational assurance, born from a personal call from God, is then nurtured and strengthened as we continue to live in His truth. After coming to Christ, learn to seek His power and fellowship through His word and by calling on the Holy Spirit to empower you.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Members of my family, behind the scenes, are often helping me with regard to my preaching and one of the points they very well make is that I need to work on my introductions so that people get a chance to listen in or aim in to what I’m talking about. And I do have an illustration, it’s not really worthy of the sermon that follows, but it is in my mind very vivid at the moment and it’s about the fact that I’ve had something I’ve been hoping for and longing for for over a couple of months now and is to get my little red car fixed up and I had taken it somewhere and they did a job and it’s got double, what do you call those things, hey? Turbos. Yes, it’s a double turbo job and it’s got lots of pep and I can usually race people off at the lights. It’s very, very quick.

[00:01:07] But those turbos were playing up and so I took it to get fixed and they fixed it and it even went better. But in a couple of weeks, I don’t know whether it’s because I kept going to these home groups in our church and I was coming home from one home group when this bad noise came from the car and I pulled into the desert road off the way and there was a shop that was closed and I stopped it there and rang the RACQ and they came along and he said, don’t start the motor again, you might wreck the lot. And so they towed it back to the same garage and they had it for another session and it’s been getting fixed and I’ve been looking forward to working properly. Now how is that illustrative for me is that it’s often the experience that we have as Christians

[00:01:58] of coming to Christ and knowing the truth, the fact of our forgiveness is real. We get in the door with Jesus and we’re looking forward to the turbocharged living. And like my car, sometimes there’s a bit of a blow up and we get disillusioned and so we try another second time. I wonder whether any of you are here and you’re like that a bit too, that you’ve come to Jesus but you’re finding the power is missing. That’s how my car was. And so back in there, they’ve been working on it and eventually the phone call came, just left a message, Jim, your car’s ready to pick up, this is Friday last. And I was so full of joy to get down there and I was looking forward to it and I paid the rest of the money and got in the car and drove off. I probably was very foolish.

[00:03:06] I should have looked under the bonnet and I should have not been so believing. Oh, is that the right thing to do? You know, in the Christian life, the answer’s not to stop believing. But about the car, I did because the closer I got to home, the more chug-chug and hiccup-hiccup and I pulled it up outside our house and I haven’t moved it since. So I did get Kieran to drive it around the block and he’s pretty discerning and he came back and said, well, you’re right, you agree with me, it’s something wrong. There was absolutely no power, it was getting worse, as if it almost had no oil in it or something, I don’t know. When we opened the bonnet, there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s normally sitting there to see, covering all the little things that was missing.

[00:03:55] I rang them up straight away but they closed for the weekend and now I don’t know what to do. And I’ve met lots of Christians who’ve come to the Lord and I’m not doubting that they had a genuine step. I don’t actually doubt that they got to him but they haven’t found the power. In fact, not only haven’t they found the power, but things are going wrong and the threat to get disillusioned and drop out, I’m actually tempted to leave the silly thing sit there. I’m going to plague the group again and tell them. But I don’t know what to think. They’re either a scammer and I’ve been taken. It’s quite possible. The man who was doing it is very genuine looking. I still believe in him. I think maybe one of his workers didn’t finish the job. I don’t know what to think. And we’re like that with the Christian life.

[00:04:53] You know, Jesus spoke to that issue with some of his followers as well. And in John 8, I think we’ve got it there on the screen. Thank you. John 8, 31, Jesus said to the Jews. Now, this is to the Jews who had believed him. You know, there’s a lot of them, especially the leader types, who didn’t believe in him. But these are the ones who’d be following him and believing in him. He said, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And he was sort of putting it on to him then. What I’ve had put on to me about my silly car, but my car doesn’t deserve it, but Jesus certainly does. You’ve got to go on believing. If you abide in my word, you’re truly my disciples. And the proving of the pudding in discipleship, to mix my metaphors,

[00:05:54] is when you continue believing where you’ve got lots of reasons why not to. And the part then is there in the verse, if you abide in my word, there’s something about genuine Christianity that’s leaning on the word of God, the word of Jesus, the connection that you have, because that’s actually how you first become a Christian, is through the word of Christ. And if one reason why some people have trouble is that they didn’t get the right promises in the first place, or something hasn’t happened in the first place. You know, you’ve heard my illustrations about my friend Russell and his wife and how she surprised him when they were already in the ministry by saying to him and the senior pastor, I’ve just been born again and I want to be baptised another time, she said. And they were staggered.

[00:06:52] I was too, because they were friends. I’d always thought she was far more Christian than he was. And, because he’s a bit of a scallywagon. But she’s a lovely person. And yet, discovered of herself that she wasn’t truly born again. So that’s one possibility that it didn’t get fixed in the first place. And I’m reviewing all that’s happened about my car as the real truth, they never fixed it in the first place. Anyway, Jesus said, if you abide in my word, and his words imply that there has been a proper connection in the first place. Let’s go for a while. I’m glad for the way Jared led our communion because he went back into Old Testament and drew the connection, the parallels between the Old Covenant and the New, and it’s a very good thing theologically to do. But there’s a story in the Old Testament

[00:07:55] about people who became ones connected to God through the word. It is a truth that the general people were in the door of the Old Covenant without each personally having an experience, except they got delivered out of Egypt. That’s a big enough experience. They did get taken through the Red Sea and see all the chasing Egyptian army, you know, swallowed up by the waves. So I think there was experience, but it wasn’t based on individuals’ experience. They were having that happen as a nation. But in the New Covenant, it’s based on the word of Christ coming to you personally as well. But the illustration nonetheless of Samuel, and it’s in 1 Samuel in chapter 3, the illustration of Samuel is a very good one to give us a picture of how in the Old Covenant people did make a connection.

[00:08:52] But it is a truth you’ve got to keep in mind that the ones who were spoken of as knowing the Lord were the prophets, priests, and kings. The people as a whole did as well through the worship that God gave them and whatever. But nonetheless, it’s different in the Old Testament because individuals knowing the Lord was something that prophets, priests, and kings did through the Holy Spirit. And Samuel is someone who came into the whole scene through his mother and through him being given to the temple to work with Eli, the old priest. And so he’s busy ministering and being a part of the scene religiously. But it says something interesting about him. Now, the boy Samuel was ministering in the Lord. Look at it there in verse 1. In the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord, look at this,

[00:09:50] the word of the Lord was rare in those days. It’s actually saying that sense of God coming and saying something special didn’t happen very often. It was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision. The people’s faith were blessed by following the old covenant but there was no frequent vision At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place This is night time and Samuel’s been given back to the temple by his mother to keep a promise she made which the Lord answered honoured in order to her to have a son and he’s there the lamp of God had not yet gone out that means that it was going well next to where the ark of the covenant was and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord so he’s near the ark of the covenant

[00:10:46] So he’s got the blessing of the specialty of being given to be brought up in the temple and he’s in the special place and he’s near the Ark of the Covenant and God calls to him and the Lord called Samuel and he, Samuel, answered, Here I am, but he misunderstood who was calling and he thought it was the priest. And he ran to Eli and he said, Here I am for you called me. Can you hear his enthusiasm but totally not understanding what was going on for him. Here I am for you called me. As a pastor, I sometimes get people who felt led to come and bail me up and want me to help them and part of what I have to do is get them to see it’s not me. The Lord’s calling you. And that’s what Eli said, but he said, I didn’t call, lie down again. He thought maybe it was boyhood imagination or who knows what he thought.

[00:11:59] So the young lad, he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here I am for you, call me. He’s insisting now. But Eli said, I did not call my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord because back then in those old covenant times, the knowing of the Lord was because he particularly spoken to you, whether it was in order for you to become a king, whether it was for you to be a prophet, whether it was in one of those specialties, prophet, priest and king. Generally speaking, theologians agree that they’re the ones to whom God spoke. and when God did begin their career of being a prophet which is actually just about to happen to our young fellow Samuel God is calling him to initiate the special relationship

[00:13:04] which in the old covenant time means the Lord will know you personally and he’s calling him and the old priest suddenly twigs and Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him now the big difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is precisely at this point in the old covenant there were people who especially knew the Lord and got called into it and Samuel’s just getting to be one becomes one of the prophets of the Old Testament if you follow his ministry He has a mighty career of talking to people on behalf of God and having the Lord with him. But at this point, even though he’s ministering in the temple and absorbing all the things the community of God would engender to him by so being given these specialists.

[00:14:04] He’d be like a choir boy might be, you know, one of those British churches where they all get dressed up and learn to sing and have beautiful voices and they could think of themselves as wonderfully Christians because they’re choir boys. One of the problems of how good you make the church that if it’s only culture that they get, they get a false feeling that they’re in the door and they’re not at all. And in this case, Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. But as I say, what happened in the old covenant with prophet, priest and king, but not the general people, is different from the new covenant. For there was a prophecy those prophets of the old made about their coming a day in the future when this change would be effected,

[00:14:56] that instead of just being a few, having the spirit using them, it was going to be the common inheritance of all the people of God. This is the great promise in the Old Testament, Old Covenant times that came through the prophets of when the new covenant would be established and that’s in Jeremiah. And it’s a fantastic place. We’ll look to Jeremiah and it’s chapter 31, I believe, and verses 31 to 34. Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34. My car wasn’t working this morning. I had trouble getting here on time. For those of you that came in late too, you didn’t notice. But thank you for working hard at that. And behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, but I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers

[00:15:56] in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke. You can hear the sorrow in God’s heart that it didn’t last too long. Though I was their husband. And he pictures himself as the husband of the people of God, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. He’s talking about some inward working. We have a word for this. It is the facts that you could say it’s when you’re born again. You can say it is when you have a spiritual experience of having a new heart. It is when you get to have that moment of God making you the new man, not the old man. And I will be their God and they shall be my people

[00:16:56] and I no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest. It’s talking about the inheritance of us as Christians and it isn’t just now that we join a group that has good teaching and has good music, which we certainly do. It’s not that you join a group where the people as a general are under God’s hand, but it is that each individual has personally, like Samuel, had a call and they’ve responded and they know that they know him because it’s become personal within them. From the least to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I’ll remember their sin no more. And the gospel offers that if you come to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins which he worked on the cross

[00:17:53] on our behalf, that atonement that he finished. When you come to Jesus, you get two great blessings, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes and makes it inward in you because you’ve heard his voice. My first question that I had burdened on my heart for this morning’s message was this, have you heard his voice? Have you heard his voice and responded to the call to be one who knows God? I know it happens in different ways to people. Some people it’s a quiet assurance that somehow it creeps over them and they don’t even know the exact moment it was there but there comes a day when they just know that they know him. Has that happened to you? Don’t labour along being a part of the people, trying hard to feel that you belong unless there’s come a moment when God got to you

[00:18:59] and you got to him. That’s when the connection begins. The connection begins with Jesus when you hear his voice. And I’m trying to illustrate and say that it’s not all coming like you’re walking along and a voice from behind the bush calls out to you. It’s not all spectacular that it’s something that people give their testimonies of. There’s plenty of testimonies that people do have things like that to say but what’s common of the lot is not the way that it comes but the fact that you get an assurance and having that assurance that God has called you and you’ve responded is the very basis of what it is to be a Christian. Without that assurance, The devil will come and try and knock it out of you or get you to doubt yourself. His first attack to someone that comes to Christ is to somehow rattle them

[00:19:47] so that they don’t necessarily be sure that they made it. Don’t leave that sitting. Come and talk to a friend or come and talk to me and say, Jim, I just don’t really have assurance. We will deal with that issue because that’s the foundation of being a Christian. Without that, you’ve got nothing. It’s an assurance. because you’ve heard his voice. And our first verse that we’re talking about from Jesus when I started today was when he said this, if you’ve heard his voice, you’ve got to go on believing him. I’m looking for it. That’s the start. But then he goes on to say, if you continue in my word. And the continuing in his word is the way that you nurture the assurance. In my case, at the Billy Graham crusade, you’ve heard me say it many times probably, but while Graham gave the call,

[00:21:00] suddenly in my mind, in my sight, he disappeared off the platform and it was Christ who was standing there. Calling me. My brother went to go forward and I was helped to go as well. Got a nail, raincoat stuck in the nail. I had to rip the raincoat to get free to go. But in the going, the foundation of all my Christian life happens and I can never doubt it. But when I got down there, there was an old man who cancelled us. He was very, very big. One of those men that puts his legs that way in order to get the power to stand up and be a real gentle old man. And he led us in the prayer. It didn’t really matter what the prayer was because it had already happened. The moment I moved to go to Jesus’ voice. But then they gave us a little booklet. My brother had led the way and we both got a little booklet.

[00:22:03] It was John’s Gospel. When we got home, the man had told us we had to read through this. Well, my brother and I kept reading it. I can’t have a memory for him to know how much that meant to him. But for me, I couldn’t put it down. It was across three days. I had to put it down. But we read it across three days. John’s Gospel. The more I read in the Word, the more certain was I of the voice that had called and of the establishment that I belonged to him and he belonged to me. And the way that you work your assurance, the way that you, you know, plough the ground and have it more visible, has it working for you, is through the Word of God. And that was some of the best advice that old man could have given. The more I read the Gospel of John, something was happening. I couldn’t have articulated it then.

[00:23:06] I mean, I’ve been trained in theology and I’ve worked out a lot of things since. But I want to tell you that the voice that I heard at the start, I kept hearing through this book. And the more I gave myself, my mother has a part to play in this, for she saw to it that I learned lots and lots of scriptures. I don’t think there’s any replacement for that early training the family give you to love the Word of God and placing that as the highest priority for us. My parents did that. And the more I read in the Gospel of John of Jesus, the more I knew that He was in my life and I belonged to Him. And that’s what it means. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him, if you abide in my Word, you will truly, you are truly my disciples. And perhaps tonight I’m going to get on to the next bit. And you will know the truth

[00:24:18] and the truth will set you free. But the truth, where lies the heart of truth? First it’s Jesus. For tonight I haven’t really worked out how to do it, but what’s got my goat, what’s got my burden for tonight is that the truth will set you free now. Is it Christ that set you free? Or is it the truth will set you free? The answer will be tonight. But the more you read the Word of God, the more you place yourself under it, not over it, under it, to speak to you the more you abide in his word you truly are his disciples and that’s the secret to that quiet assurance in the Christian life no matter what comes that you’ve found the truth you found it in Christ and you’re in the door never to get out again never to have to fear never to be have that question have I really been converted or whatever like Russell’s wife

[00:25:35] she had a genuine search and then found the Lord in a reality she hadn’t actually known before though I can testify that she was a wonderful example of a person as much as I know anyway and had been always helpful to Russell but something clicked and she’s such a woman of God I know and that’s a fantastic thing of getting that issue sorted out so if you’re here this morning I’m not wanting to make a statistic out of you, someone that God spoke to I’m not wanting to get anything from you but that you hear the truth and gain what this assurance is like that never can be bucked anymore and it’s the stable stabilisation of your entire life it starts when you get connected with Jesus by hearing his voice and it follows as you get to know him and to know that voice through the living word of God let’s pray oh my father please take these words of Jesus and make them go deep into the hearts of folk today and help us to venerate the word of Christ and to rely on his truthfulness we pray that in Jesus name Amen