Ruah - Part 3

Irresistible wisdom.

Irresistible wisdom. I'll throw in another one today, but we can wait.

Brandon, you just want to come out and sort it or you want to wait till I call you up?

Which one?

Which one?

The one with the guy in the special.

Yes, thanks.

MacMillan or Eccles?

Okay.

Okay.

First day we did be filled, second day we did be joyed.

Today we do, oh shucks, Matt Dirks told me to make the background black.

I forgot. I apologize, Matt.

Be convicted.

So that's the topic today.

The first day was be filled, second day was be joyed, today is be convicted.

Guys, in 1972, there was this guy that he put on, the picture that he put,

there was a guy called Jonas or Jonas Yoder.

That was his name.

And he was an Amish farmer.

And around 1968 or 69, he began to have problems with the state of Wisconsin,

where he defied the state of Wisconsin because he refused to send his daughter to school

because as Amish then believed, they would allow their girls to go up to grade 8

and then they would stop sending them to school.

And so Yoder decided that he would not send his daughter to school beyond the 8th grade.

And this was based on his religious convictions.

The state of Wisconsin did not agree and so they took him to court.

And he went to court and then found out that the state was quite adamant about it.

So in the end, in 1972, it reads the Supreme Court.

And the Supreme Court had to determine if Yoder actually believed in what he believed.

If Yoder actually believed in what he believed.

Whether he actually believed it.

Because based on the First Amendment in the US, which we often hear of nowadays,

you have freedom of religion, but the freedom of religion only applies to convictions.

It does not apply to preferences.

You may have a religious preference, but the First Amendment or the freedom of religion does not apply to preferences.

It only applies to conviction.

And that became a landmark case that changed everything in the US and in Canada.

Today you have homeschooling because of this guy.

Homeschooling didn't exist before that.

Homeschooling began because he took this all the way to the Supreme Court.

And so the court established that beliefs can be divided into two categories.

Either it's a preference or it's a conviction.

And the same applies to us, eh?

What we believe, we say we have beliefs, but the question is,

is our belief a preference or is our belief a conviction?

And the Supreme Court began to define how one sees one from the other, how one distinguishes one from the other.

And so the thing is both preferences and convictions can be intense, can be of great strength to you.

They both share these characteristics.

There were four characteristics that preferences and convictions shared.

The first characteristic was you could go into full-time service for both preferences and convictions.

Second, you could give all your wealth for the sake of preferences and convictions.

Third, you could convert people to your preferences and convictions.

And fourth, you could teach and train your children in your preferences and convictions.

These were the common things that were held.

So beliefs are divided into preferences and convictions.

And you may have strong religious preferences or you may have strong religious convictions.

Regardless, these were the four common characteristics to both preferences and convictions.

One, you could go into full-time service for it.

Two, you could give all your wealth towards it, whether it was a preference or conviction.

Three, you could convert people to your religious preference or to your religious conviction.

Four, you could teach and train your children to follow your preferences and convictions.

But then they said that it is still a preference, your belief, your belief is still a preference if it changes.

And so they put it to a test, and here was the test.

They said if peer pressure makes you change, then it's a preference.

If family pressure makes you change what you believe, it's a preference.

If the fear of a lawsuit makes you change what you believe, it's a preference.

If jail time makes you change what you believe, it's a preference.

If the pressure of death makes you change what you believe, it's a preference.

Crazy, eh?

And then you begin to question what in our life is a preference, what in our life is a conviction?

And this was not preached by a pastor in a church.

It was the Supreme Court deciding how do we distinguish preferences from convictions?

How do we distinguish religious preferences from religious convictions?

And so here it was.

If my preference or my belief, if my belief changes because of peer pressure,

because of pressure that I feel from people around me or from the church that I pastor,

if my beliefs begin to change, or from the pastors that I associate with,

or from family where I begin to change my beliefs because I'm scared of what family will say.

If I change my belief because I'm scared that you will sue me, that the government will sue me,

that a provincial government will sue me, that I might be taken to a small court, a tribunal or a small claim court,

then my belief is no longer a conviction, it's a preference.

Next one, jail time.

That if my belief will change because I'm scared that I might get thrown into prison,

then it's no longer a conviction, it's just a preference.

And finally, the pressure of death.

If my beliefs change because I am threatened with death, then it was never a conviction, it was a preference.

And we aren't even bringing the scriptures into it yet, but this was how it was outlined.

Any questions pertaining to this? Not comments, just questions.

Go ahead, Chawa.

I guess it didn't matter if you were delusional, right?

It didn't matter if you were delusional, yes.

It didn't matter if you were delusional, if you were willing to go all this way.

Because it's the freedom of religion, freedom of expression.

That's the First Amendment and that was what this was based on.

But these are the criteria.

So if we were to take our faith, I have to test what I believe against this to see if it's a preference or if it's a conviction.

One of the things we've been saying is for the Holy Spirit to get to do what he wants,

to get dynamic life, witnessing to Christ, obedience to mission and gifts and miracles,

I need deep conviction, self-denying courage and irresistible wisdom.

Here's the key though.

Anyone who has this kind of conviction will have the rest.

This is the key.

You have this, what are you afraid of now?

You have this, why will it not show?

You have this, why won't life be full of the zest of whatever you believe?

That's why we've been talking about deep conviction because it's not a word we use.

It's not a word we use.

We think conviction ends with being convicted of sin.

So then they define a conviction.

So here's what conviction is defined as.

It's rooted in your conscience.

It's rooted in your conscience and cannot, I love this line,

and cannot, love this line and fear this line, cannot be changed

without changing what essentially defines the person.

That too, that too, that to change a conviction is to change the person.

You can't say I am Judah anymore because it changes who you are.

This is the kind of Christianity that made the New Testament tick,

the acts kind of Christianity,

where it's a conviction that's birthed or born in my conscience

and to change this conviction I have would mean actually changing the definition of who I am.

It would be someone else.

You take that away, I got, there's nothing.

It's like gladiator one.

I am so-and-so, Maximus Aurelius or whatever, son of so-and-so.

There's this definition of who he is that has nothing to do with what he is doing.

It has everything to do with who he is.

And if that moves, he's got nothing left.

They kept defining it and it gave substance to what a conviction is.

They said one cannot hold a conviction,

one cannot hold a conviction unless one can describe the conviction.

I must be able to put it in words.

Must be able to put it in words that will help someone simple understand, someone young understand.

Suddenly, as I go through something, I say,

Jacob, can you put it into words? Can you put your convictions into words?

We'll try it. We'll attempt it today.

Because it's the key to the rest. We have this, we have the rest.

But as we look at these questions, you realize how flip-floppy our lives sometimes are, eh?

Sometimes tossed by political winds, man.

A conviction is a belief that will never change.

But listen to the rest that they said.

That will never change because a man believes that his God requires it of him.

When you believe that your God has required something of you,

you will withstand all of the tests they have spoken about.

Crazy, eh?

That's what one of the justices said.

If you believe that this is what your God requires of you,

then you will be able to withstand all these tests because it is God who has required it of you.

A conviction is a belief that will never change because a man believes that his God requires it of him.

And then it was written, when you believed that your God has required something of you,

you will withstand all of the tests that have been spoken about.

Next.

A conviction must be purposed.

A conviction must be purposed.

As in, it should have purpose in your heart.

Purposed, even if you're the only one standing,

a conviction must be purposed in your heart.

Purposed, even if you're the only one standing,

a conviction must be purposed in your heart

as a fabric of your belief system.

I mean, or in other words, if I were to take the title of the guy's book,

is your conviction purpose in your heart?

I mean, or in other words, if I were to take the title of the guy's book,

is your conviction, is it what drives you?

Is it purpose driven? Your conviction makes you purpose driven.

It doesn't matter if you're the only one standing.

It fuels you, which sometimes then makes us realize that sometimes the reason

there's no drive in our lives towards any horizon

is because there is no concrete purpose that we have discovered,

or if we have discovered it, it's shelled and it hasn't been explored.

To purpose something is to both grasp it, define it, and explore it.

And it's not for the lack of opportunity, at least not in this church.

But can I walk in it? That's a whole different thing.

Next one.

A conviction must be consistent, a conviction must be consistent

and seen in your daily life.

A scene in your daily life

And the quote said, you do not have the right to say you have a conviction

unless we can somehow see you live that conviction with some element of consistency.

And the quote said, you do not have the right to say you have a conviction

unless we can somehow see you live that conviction with some element of consistency.

So it has to show.

Next one.

If it is required

that people stand

with you

before you stand,

then

it's a preference,

not a conviction.

If it requires that, if it is required that people stand with me before I

stand,

then it's not a conviction. It's a preference.

Cause if people don't stand then I pack up.

And so the court asked,

as we must,

are your beliefs or is your belief

preferences

or convictions?

Any questions?

What is the first word?

R-A-R-E.

You don't know much French, do you?

Any questions?

This is the test.

It must be rooted in your conscience and cannot be changed without changing

what essentially defines you as a person.

You cannot hold a conviction unless you can describe the conviction.

Conviction is a belief that will never change because a man believes that his

God requires it often.

A conviction must be purposed in your heart as a fabric of your belief system,

as in must be explored, it must be worked out.

A conviction must be consistent and seen in your data.

If it is required that people stand with you before you stand,

then it's a preference, not a conviction.

Are your beliefs preferences or convictions?

This really bothered me.

I was writing this down and I began to weep because I want this and I

don't know if I can stand the pressure of this on different areas of my life and

come out ahead.

And yet I desperately want this.

So that's why we see in Paul's life, Paul's beliefs in Jesus Christ were

non-negotiable, non-shakeable, non-stoppable.

See, the thing here is they were deciding this for a man who does not want to send

his child to be educated past the grade eight.

It's a very difficult decision to make.

To be educated past the grade eight.

There's nothing in scripture that supports that.

We're not talking about, so this is a case from the world, but I'm saying much

more so for us as believers who have the scriptures to depend on.

And all scriptures, not piecemeal, not taking a bit here and leaving the rest

out, but the tapestry of scriptures, the whole gospel, not the part that you

prefer or that you're stuck in.

And so Paul, when it came to Paul, Paul's beliefs in Jesus Christ were

non-negotiable, non-shakeable, non-stoppable.

Daniel's beliefs.

You can see now how this applies to these men.

Applies to Paul?

Yes.

Applies to Daniel?

Yes.

Applies to Azariah, Hananiah, and Michelle, otherwise known as

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

Yes.

Applies to Bonhoeffer?

Yes.

Applies to Martin Luther, the guy who brought about the Reformation?

Yes.

Taking on an entire establishment.

You don't know what that does to you.

Just take on five people, it's good enough.

Taking on all of Catholicism?

Scares.

A powerful Catholicism because it was connected to power.

John Wesley felt the Lord saying to him that he should go preach.

He goes to preach and the churches shut their doors on him.

Should have packed up.

No, he was so convicted of it that he began to preach in the outdoors.

40,000 sermons, thousands coming.

He would not go into churches, he would preach outdoors, like in the fields,

on a horse.

I've been to the Wesley Chapel in Bristol.

Thing is we all want to be Joan of Arc and Paul and Luther and Wesley and Bonhoeffer,

but the price is too high, man.

So here are the questions we need to now deal with.

That's what we'll spend most of our time doing.

And the thing is, we all want to be John Wesley.

That's what we'll spend most of our time doing.

And as we ask these questions, allow for the fact that our answers may be ill-defined.

Our answers may be ill-defined.

We may not have good answers.

Allow for the fact that it may expose lack in my life, expose my failure, expose the

absence.

This is even sadder, that it may expose the absence of conviction in my life.

It may expose my fears, where I don't want to go down this route, because if I go down

this route, then I am presented with choices.

So all this applies to most everybody here, eh?

So my answers may be ill-defined, as in I may not even be able to describe my convictions

well, because I've never thought of them.

It's been just preferences, beliefs that change according to the pressure that is around me.

Two, it may expose my lack and my failure.

It may expose my lack and my failure.

Three, I might be shocked that there's an absence of real conviction in my life, that

I don't have deep convictions about anything.

Four, I may be so afraid of this that I may not attempt it.

And so here are the questions.

What are your deep convictions?

What are your deep convictions about the nature of God?

Come up with two that you think you have.

If you can't come up with two, come up with one.

If you can't come up with one, tell God that, Father, I'm so glad that you're exposing

this right now.

Hey, who invited us to this?

The Holy Spirit.

Who is the one who's going to bring these changes to pass in our lives?

He, not me.

He.

That's why he invited us over the last three days, right?

So what are your deep convictions about the nature of God?

Come up with two and then add a three that you desire, add a third that you desire.

And so how do we know it's a deep conviction?

Because nothing shifts it.

Is there something that I believe about the nature of God that is so concrete that it

doesn't matter what happens to me, I will not doubt that part of his nature.

And I have stopped doubting that part of his nature.

And if that is not true, then I'll have to say that I usually do well, but every time

it gets intense, I begin to doubt whether you really are this.

So that's the first one.

Next question.

What are your deep convictions about what you've been tasked with?

Or called by God for?

Again, see if you have two.

Don't add a third one.

Just see if you have two.

You know, I was reading about this guy called Scudder, John Scudder.

And he was a doctor in New York taking care of a child.

The child died and while he was getting up from the child's bedside, he saw a map on

the child's wall in New York.

And it was a map of India.

And the chart revealed how few physicians there were among then India's population,

was 350 million.

And so his question was, why shouldn't I respond?

His dad was upset.

People were upset.

They told him not to.

The church was upset.

This guy knew he had to respond.

And he went there.

He went there.

His sons went there.

Altogether, there have been at least a thousand missionaries that have gone to India as doctors

because of this one man.

What does it take for someone to be so convicted that he leaves his practice in New York and

goes all the way to take care of the sick and the dying in a country that he has no connection to?

So the second question is, what are your deep convictions about what you've been tasked

with or called by God for?

What is it?

And if we don't know it, then yes, we have to find out.

We may not be able to find it out today, but we can start the process.

And if you know it, how well am I passing this test?

Let's say, let's just take an example.

Let's say Hebrides 2.0, as we've been talking about, is the purpose or task that I have.

Will I stand up to this?

When peer pressure comes and says, ah, taking too long, not real, your imagination.

When family pressure comes saying, don't spend your money on going up and down doing this stuff

because you have nothing left.

When the fear of a lawsuit comes in a country where you're not supposed to proselytize.

When jail time becomes real, then what happens to Hebrides 2.0?

Pack it and come back and sing worship songs about revival?

Or the pressure of death?

Examine it with that lens, Jacob.

Thank God we have a God who wants these kind of people, not anything less.

And then think of two, and then the last question.

What are your deep convictions about the gospel and witnessing

two or four, the resurrected Christ as a lifestyle, not an occasional thing?

Can you come up with two?

What are convictions?

What are your deep convictions about the gospel and witnessing two or four, the resurrected Christ as a lifestyle, not an occasional thing?

The third question, I would prefer not dealing with.

The third question, we will deal with.

So, got paper here if you don't have your phone, got pens in the pew or somewhere,

feel free to grab the paper and I'll pray and then let's start writing.

Let's take time to do this.

Yeah.

And if you have children, take turns so that the husband or wife can both attend this.

We are not reading this out.

We're not doing anything of that sort.

This is just so we can ask God to help us become a church of convictions, not of preferences.

Our beliefs have to be convictions.

Can we pray?

Holy Spirit,

if I have deep convictions about anything,

tested by peer pressure, family pressure,

lawsuits,

jail time, death,

if I can still come up saying, I believe so strongly in this,

that I'm ready to face these, then

everything else I get.

This is the key.

This is the key that opens the door.

Spirit of God,

you're the one who convicts and then you're the one who brings us to a place where we can rise up to the standard of Christ.

That's your work.

You do that.

You want this church to be a church that has strong convictions about

the nature of God, about the things we are called to and about the gospel and witnessing to the resurrected Christ.

You want all three.

You want this.

I can only explain it.

You have to help us.

You're not here to shame us.

You're not here to condemn us, but you are here to expose and then build up.

Jesus, across this room, would you send your Spirit?

Jesus, you had such strong convictions, took you to the cross.

Peer pressure, family pressure, threats,

political pressure.

You had it all.

And there are many who've gone before us that have stood this.

Jesus, let there be people here.

You know, I should ask

Brandon to put up a Bonhoeffer quote that you should read.

Can you just put it and then switch back to this?

Can you just put it and then switch back to this?

Who stands fast?

Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue.

But who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action and faith.

And in exclusive allegiance to God.

Responsible man who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and the call of God.

Where are these responsible people?

I pray that he finds them here.

Pray that he finds them here.

This is what, this is the standard God is setting for us over these days.

Come on, man.

Why would he invite us if he didn't think we were capable?

He's not a thief who asks a dog to jump high and then keeps pulling the meat away.

It's because he thinks we can.

You know, in a church this size, it takes eight or nine people to become like this and the rest will follow.

That's all.

Eight or nine who can rise up to this and the entire church will follow.

And when this church begins to work like that, the earth will follow.

I am not making a false claim.

So, Holy Spirit, would you please help us in Jesus name I ask because from here on it's your show.

You can do this in my heart.

I can't.

So can you go back to the questions?

You