To Be Called a Christian

[00:00:00] Let's take our Bible and turn to the book of Acts, chapter number eleven. [00:00:05] We will read far more verses than we will study tonight. [00:00:10] Acts, chapter eleven, verse we'll start reading in verse number 19. [00:00:25] We'll read down to the end of the chapter. Acts, chapter eleven, verse 19. The Bible says this now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, traveled as far as phenic and Cyprus and Antioch. Antioch, just as a note, is going to become a significant place in biblical history. Antioch in Syria. So if you go north of Israel to what is now know, you think know the war in Syria, you've probably seen maps of it. You go north of Israel, the next nation you come to is Syria, and that's where Antioch is. So it's along the Mediterranean there preaching the word to none but the Jews only verse 20. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and those are an island. And then Cyrenes in Africa, which when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them. And a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. [00:01:33] When then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch, who when he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. Now, let me just say a point about that good man. Now, we know the Bible says there is none good. No, not one. The Bible also says there is none that seeketh after God. So the question I have for you is, if the Bible says there's none good, why does this verse exist? If the Bible says there is none that seeketh after God, then why do we observe people seeking after God? David has an answer. [00:02:27] Exactly. You see, this cannot be applied to humanity in general to say he's a good man. We say that relatively speaking, right compared to maybe others, but in an absolute sense, there is none good. All right? There's none good even in us. The Bible says Barnabas was a good man. But why was he a good man? [00:02:47] He was a good man because of the good that God put in him. He wasn't good in himself. [00:02:55] He's just a dirty old sinner just like all of us. But God put good in him. And the good that was present was not of Barnabas, but even that. Galatians 220 I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, a good life right here. [00:03:18] I live by the faith of the Son of god who loved me and gave himself for me. So you can say, like I could say, Sister Betty, she's a good lady. My wife, she's a good lady. I can say that Brother Joseph is a good man, but he can't claim that there's anything of him. [00:03:35] And even as the Bible says, no man seeketh after the Lord, that's true. But once we're found, and God has found us, he draws us to himself, changes us, and so we do seek him. So we just have to understand those things in context. He was a good man. Verse 24. And full of the Holy Ghost and of faith and much people, was added unto the Lord, then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. Now, we don't really know why Saul is in Tarsus. We know the last time we saw him, the Brethren, that is, the Christians, had sent him away because the Jews were trying to kill him. [00:04:11] They were trying to kill Saul, who becomes Paul. And so now he goes back to his hometown for whatever reason. And sometimes we read into this as if he was discouraged. Maybe he was. I mean, I think you could make that argument. The Bible doesn't say it, so it's a conjecture either way. [00:04:29] But what we do see is Barnabas, whose name means the Son of Consolation or Son of Comfort. He is a man who is good at going and being a comfort and encouragement to those who need it. This is the first time we see him doing this, and he does it with Saul. So he's going and looking for Saul. Perhaps, again, just conjecture, but perhaps he's going to find Saul so he could say, hey, listen, Saul, you're out there, hey, come, let's serve the Lord together. Come down, back down to Antioch with me. The Lord's doing some things here. There's a place for you here. [00:05:07] Verse 26. And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians, first in Antioch. And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them, named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be a great dearth throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. A little historical note in the Book of Acts. Then the disciples, every man, according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the Brethren, which dwelt in Judea, which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Let's pray. [00:05:53] Lord, we pray. And once again we ask you first of all, we thank you for the time to look at your word. And I pray that this subject that we look at would be a blessing to us, would encourage us, would strengthen us, would charge us. Lord, to live for you, to do Your will, to love you. So, Lord, we pray you guide us in all these things. Lord, fill me with the things I need to say to help Your people. And Lord, would you please help them? I have no ability at all, but you are the one who is overseeing Your church. You are the one who gives us the things we need to sustain us and to guide us on our way. Help us to know and to experience Your help and grace. Tonight, in Jesus name, we ask, amen. [00:06:37] I want to look at verse 26, specifically the end of verse 26. The Bible says in Antioch, again, a significant city in Christian history. [00:06:49] It says, and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Now, this is one of three times in the Bible in which the word Christian is used. You would think it's all over the Bible, considering how often we use the word Christian. You say, oh, well, I'm a Christian. We say, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. Acts 26 28, when Paul is standing before Agrippa Agrippa Paul, paul giving the Gospel to Agrippa, trying to convince Agrippa of the truth of the Gospel and how he needs to receive Christ. In Acts 26 28, Agrippa says, almost, thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And then also in one Peter, chapter four, verse 16, the Bible says peter says, but if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. [00:07:46] Only three times in the Bible that the word Christian is used. This is the first and actually, this is the first time that the word Christian is used in history, which is interesting. But what does the word Christian mean? What does the word Christian mean? So I looked it up, of course. [00:08:06] Here is the way the word Christian is commonly used in English. [00:08:10] A Christian, first of all, is an adherent to a Christian religion, okay, without any distinction about what that religion might be. Anything that has the name Christian as a Christian religion, it could be Baptist, it could be Presbyterian, it could be Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, all the way down to Mormon. Job's witnesses don't use the term for themselves, but Mormons do, and other cults as well will use it. But that's how it's used. Okay, look, we can argue and say, well, that's not a real Christian all day long. But listen, that's the way the world uses it. That's the definition. [00:08:47] That's the hijacking. And listen, this woke culture in which we live, what is one of the main things they're doing? They're hijacking and altering definitions of words. But that's been going on a long time. The word Christian is an example. So number one is an adherent to the Christian religion. Number two, this might surprise you. A Christian is any inhabitant of a nation traditionally considered to be Christian and what you might be. In other words, you're an American. You're Britain or you're from Germany, perhaps, or France, you would be considered you could fall under the category of the definition of a Christian. Now, what's interesting, though, is what you might not know is that many people from other countries, non Christian countries and of course I'm using that loosely view Americans, all Americans, britney Spears, Taylor Swift, all the football players, all the movie stars as Christians. [00:09:56] That's the way they view it. A lot of them in Muslim countries, that's the way they view it. [00:10:02] And then there's a third definition. So, listen, that exists, and it is in the psyche of Americans, too. I'm an american. Of course I'm a Christian. In fact, I read who is it? Weirsby. I was reading Weirsby. No, it was about he gave an example when he was giving out some gospel literature, gospel tracts or scripture portion or something, and he gave it to this fella, and this was in a Christian country. It might have been in England. And he gave it to the fella, and he's like, what are you giving this to me for? Oh, this just has scriptures in it about Jesus. And the man says, what do I look like to you? You see me? I was born here. What do you think? [00:10:40] I mean, he just assumed my friend Tim Perry, who's preached here, good friend of mine before he became a Christian, he thought he was a Christian because he was an American. That's the first time I'd ever heard anybody say that. But you know what it tells me? Other people think just I'm going off a rabbit trail. I got to get back to my message here. But this is why you got to be careful with politics, because these are blended, right, brother David? You see this? It's blended. You have these what you might call Christian types. And they're all about turning the country back to God and all these things. And we want to make God's laws, our laws. We know there's elements of truth in all that, but sometimes people often mistake that for biblical salvation. And it is not the same. It is not the same. That's why you got to be clear, got to be clear on our definitions. Number three, another definition. I'll give you a fourth one who's kind of an outlier, but a fourth definition. A third one is a Catholic. [00:11:45] Catholics commonly call themselves Christians. It used to be that they didn't used to be you could differentiate it. But when you read stuff like I was looking up some things about Christopher Columbus in that period, they would throw around the term Christian. But they didn't think of it like we did. Thought of it. They thought of the Roman Catholic Church. [00:12:03] Nowadays, Mormons, Catholics, Episcopalians, Anglicans, almost anything and everything is Christian if it involves Jesus. All right? A fourth one, which is an outlier not no longer used, is a definition that means a non indigenous person. [00:12:27] Early in the 16 hundreds, when people would arrive here, there were natives here, and even in other countries, they would call themselves Christians and the natives would be the heathen. [00:12:40] And the reality is they themselves are heathen too, most of the time anyway. [00:12:46] So that's the way why do I spend so much time on that? This is how the word is used. It matters because you interact and interface with people who have these ideas about what it means to be a Christian. So that should give us pause. So when you say I'm a Christian, you have a definition of that, but you don't get to choose what they think that means. [00:13:12] So you have to be careful. [00:13:14] You have to be careful. [00:13:17] Now, the word Christian in Acts 20 11 26 is basically a playoff of the word Christ. Of course, it's just like in English, Christ I-A-N comes from that actually comes from Latin, because English, a large part of English comes from Latin, but it's the same way in Greek. [00:13:39] It's a suffix you add to the word Christ and it makes a noun or an adjective, as the case may be. [00:13:46] And in this case, you're borrowing the name of Christ. Now, it's done in Greek. Notice it's not done in Hebrew, because in Hebrew, what's the equivalent to Christ? [00:13:57] Somebody help me. Just say it Messiah. It's Messiah, which occurs in the book of Daniel. But of course, among the Jews, that's not something they're going to be they're not going to be saying Christ, they're going to be saying Messiah. But when we get to Antioch, they're speaking Greek. They're speaking Greek. All right. [00:14:17] So what I want you to see about this and we'll move right along here is this. [00:14:23] And the disciples were called Christians verse Antioch. [00:14:30] The name Christian was applied to these believers by others, not by themselves. [00:14:39] You notice that it's in the passive voice. There were others who were calling them Christians. Now, we don't know who these others were, we don't know who these others were. But think about just meditate with me for a minute on why they were calling them Christians. [00:14:57] Why did other people look at these believers? Now, remember in the Book of Acts, trivia question, what is the most commonly used term to refer to the Christians in the Book of Acts? [00:15:12] What's that? No, that's their faith. But the actual people disciples. Exactly. Disciples. We'll see that in just a minute. But why were these other people, who apparently weren't believers call them Christians? Well, we might think, well, maybe it's because they were living a righteous life. [00:15:32] Maybe that was the reason. You know what the Bible does say, and we'll see more about this in a second, but the Bible does say that we should live an upright and a holy life, not just before the world, though, also before the world. We should live a righteous and an upright and a holy and a moral and an honest life in private and before the world. [00:15:57] And so that's an important point. But that's not why they were called Christians. Remember, these people in Antioch didn't know Jesus. It's not like they're in Judea. And they had seen, know, heal people just a few short years before this. You remember the historical not it wasn't that way. These were people in Syria. Jesus never left the land of Israel at all, not even once. These people weren't familiar with Jesus like the people in Judea were. In fact, you go later on in the Book of Acts at the very end where Paul's in Rome and he talks to the Jews who are in Rome. Those would be the Grecians, right? He talked to the Jews in Rome and he tries to tell them, hey, the Jews have been sending letters, bad letters about me. I'm paraphrasing. And they say what? They say, we haven't received any letters. We don't know anything about what you're talking about. But we know these Christians are everywhere. [00:16:58] So those Jews in Rome, years later, some 30 years later, still didn't know anything about Jesus in Judea except by means of the Christians who were being persecuted. [00:17:12] So here's what I want you to understand. A believer should live a righteous life. And these no doubt did that. But you know what? Living a righteous life is not especially in this context, you think in America it's a little bit different, maybe. But in this context, if you live a holy life and your life is evidently and obviously different than those around you in a good way, like we should be right separated unto the Lord, not just about not just identified and defined by what we don't do, but those things that we do right. [00:17:50] That's the way a believer should have their life should be. [00:17:54] But if it's just that, it's not enough to call you a Christian. [00:17:58] I think of Cambodia. [00:18:01] I'd meet people in Cambodia and we would try to live an upright life. They would see our family and Cambodians love that kind of stuff because they're very traditionally minded. They're very traditionally minded. So they see what our family is very traditional, they say, and they would see it, and we would try to help people and that kind of thing, and they'd be all, but they didn't know we were Christians. [00:18:25] They just thought maybe this is just a really good family, these foreign families or whatever. So the question is how and why did these people begin to be called Christians if it wasn't their life? I don't think it was their life. We think of it in the south, because in the south, when somebody really seems to just be an upright and a moral person distinct from those around them, which is the way we should be, we assume they're Christian because we are familiarity with it. But that wasn't the case here. [00:18:59] So then where did the name Christ come up? You know where it came up? Verse number 26 says they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people. Do you know why they were called Christians? Not because of their holy life, at least not initially. [00:19:19] It was because these disciples were talking about Christ. [00:19:24] That name was being brought up. [00:19:29] That name was being brought up. [00:19:32] Imagine if you were a person that took your Bible to work. Forget about the way you live for a minute. If you were a person who took the Bible to work all the time, what would people call you? They would maybe call you like a Bible thumper or whatever, something like that, right? [00:19:47] Yeah. What's that? [00:19:50] Holy Joe? But the idea is that wouldn't come into their mind at all except that you brought that subject up. Right. Well, these Christians are constantly talking about Christ, and so eventually they said, well, these people are the Christ people. In Cambodia, what they would say is the word for Jesus is PREA. Yesu. And so they would call Christians PO. Yesu. PU is just a word that means people. Like, sort of like people. It would just be Jesus people. Jesus people. And that's basically what's happening here. But the reason they're doing that is because these people have the name of Christ, which is unfamiliar. They have the name of Christ on their lips and they're talking about it, and so they're being called by the name of Christ. [00:20:35] Now, this is different than them calling themselves a Christian. [00:20:43] There is a difference between calling yourself a Christian versus being called a Christian. There is no I am a Christian in the Bible. There's just not there. It doesn't mean it's a sin to say, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying, this just not there. Right. It's just not there. [00:20:58] And think about it at this time. [00:21:00] If you called your you said, I am a Christian. We think I was talking about Brother David a minute ago. You think about these politicians run for office, yes, I am a Bible believing Christian. [00:21:15] They wear it as a badge of honor. You did that. You risking your life. At this point in history, that is not something you're going to say. That's not something you're going to go around and talk about, identifying yourself. You are going to talk about Jesus, you are going to talk about Christ, but you're not going to be putting a target on your back by wearing this label all the time. [00:21:41] They were called Christians, not that they called themselves at this point in history, this is not a badge of honor like it is now, or people think it is anyway. [00:21:52] But see, in our society, being called a Christian, especially down here in the south, there's a certain profitability with being modestly Christian. You don't want to go t totaler kind of crazy Christian, but a modest nominal Christian. That's good if somebody like somebody ran for office, ran for, say, the House of Representatives for this district and they said, I'm an avowed atheist and sometimes I have seances, is anybody going to vote for them? No. [00:22:33] Well, yeah, some will, but they're not likely to get elected. Okay? [00:22:40] So they wear a badge of honor. They say I'm a Christian. There's a certain profitability totally different than in this society. But some people say the disciples are called Christians. First Antioch, as if to say that was a reproachful term. But you know what, you have probably heard that, right? They called him Christians as an insult. Well, hold on now, the Bible doesn't say that. And the word Christian itself, you think about it's just saying a Christ person, right? That's what it's saying, christ person. That's not inherently reproachful, in fact to the Christian. Well, thanks. [00:23:18] I have been talking about him a lot. I mean, I don't feel worthy for you to call me that. And remember, there is no historical context in their mind about being the word Christian. [00:23:32] She works at a dentist office, the barnacle remover, right? I mean a dermatologist. So if I were to say call her the skin lady or whatever, that wouldn't be particularly commending. But it's like that. [00:23:48] You're saying you're one of these Christ people. [00:23:52] Maybe that makes more sense to us, though, to be called a Christian in its organic way, not as just some flimsy paper thin title to identify us or group us, but for someone to say it would be the equivalent of us saying, ben, you are a real Christian. [00:24:18] Some of you might have actually been in circumstances where somebody say, ben, you are the first real Christian I've ever met. [00:24:28] That happens. [00:24:30] You know what they're doing? I love it because they're doing this. We're not saying I am a real Christian. [00:24:38] No, they are recognizing it. They hear the word, they hear the name of Christ being spoken by your lips. They see a life consistent with that name. [00:24:52] And imagine this here in the south, down in the Bible, the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. You know what they find? They make a distinction between regular Christians and the real Christian. That's a blessing. [00:25:05] If that happens, you're doing something right. [00:25:08] You're doing something right. You know what? For every born again child of God, that should be the testimony, god forbid that we would praise ourselves, but that should be the testimony people give of us. And that is probably the modern equivalent to what we read in verse 26. [00:25:31] Now, among the disciples, the name that they chose to use was the word disciple. Notice verse 26. It actually says it. And the disciples were called Christians. But look at verse 29 then the disciples, every man, according to the book, you notice the word Christian never occurs again out of the mouth of a Christian, of a disciple. In the book of Acts, it only occurs one other time in the mouth, out of a mouth of a disciple in Peter. And first, Peter Agrippa is the only other person that uses this term in the Book of Acts. Now, do the other Christians use it? I'm sure they used it at some point. I'm not trying to make some big point about it. But throughout the Book of Acts, some 18 more times, believers in Christ are referred to as disciples. Only in the Book of Acts, it just goes back to are we wearing our religion on our coat sleeves or are we wearing our religion? Our faith in our life with our words, it should be evident. [00:26:37] Remember, this was not so much about their life. [00:26:41] Life should be consistent. But at this point in time, their testimony, their witness was what caused that name to be coined for them. And then the life matched, which made that name even more beautiful, you see, adorned that name. But imagine our name being attached to the name of our Lord. [00:27:06] This is not a New Testament phenomenon. [00:27:09] Listen to these verses. [00:27:12] Isaiah 63, verse 19. I'm just going to read it, you can note it. Maybe you can look at it later. [00:27:19] Isaiah says, we are thine talking to God. Thou never bearest rule over them. They were not called by thy name, which is to say, we are yours. We are called by your name. [00:27:36] And that's not the only time in the Old Testament where Israel is said to have been called by God's name. In fact, the name Israel means Prince of God. God's name is in the name of their forefather, Jacob. [00:27:52] So God, because God ruled them and because they were God's people, god kind of like wings, covered them with his name. These are my people. My name is on them. Then you get to James chapter, chapter two, verse seven, speaking to the rich, speaking of the rich, he says, do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called Christ. They are cursing, they're blaspheming Christ. But you're called by his name, which is indicating they were using the word Christian, right? And then you get to all of eternity. You get to what we call the eternal state for those doctrinal people. [00:28:40] Revelation 22, verse four. Listen to this. And they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads. [00:28:51] Not their own name, not our own name, god's name labeled on us. And that's exactly what's happening here. [00:29:01] That's exactly what is happening here. And think about it. [00:29:06] The name of Christian should be our highest identity. We think of all the things we might be called. [00:29:16] We're called different titles by depending on our state of life. [00:29:21] Think about our job. We might be called an owner, a manager, an administrator, maybe an executive. [00:29:29] Our family name even. You think about our last name, not our given name, but our family name. We didn't do anything to deserve that or to get that we just happened to be born into that. You know, you think about the you know, that happened several months ago. You think about the Trump name is in the news. All the know everybody has a Trump name is know. That's the way it's presented. And you think of the Biden name, the Obama name. But you know what? Those are all earthly names. [00:29:58] Our life circumstances, we're called husband or wife, mrs. Dad, Mom, Grandparent. And those are all things we enjoy and we're glad of. We have names based upon the honor that have been conferred upon us, like Doctor or Your Highness or the Honorable or even Mr. President. Those are honors conferred upon us. Our membership in an organization for those veterans Day is coming up, right? So you have soldiers and you have sailors, you have airmen, you have coast guardsmen, and if you're really cool, you have marines. Those are all titles. [00:30:37] And then we have titles even for our doctrinal positions, right? What are we? [00:30:43] We're not ashamed of it. We're Baptists, right? That's not a bad thing should be afraid of that. [00:30:51] We might be a separatist OOH, right. Or a fundamentalist. Or we might be a creationist. [00:30:58] Listen, those are all names that people use. Oh, he's a young Earth creationist. This is what they said about the speaker of the House. He's a young Earth creationist. [00:31:11] And they meant it as a derogatorily. [00:31:15] But here's the thing above all of that no honor we should meditate on this. No honor is higher than the title which connects us to the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:31:33] That is our identity. [00:31:37] That is forever. When all of these other honors go away and you know they all will, even our human relationships that we cherish are just temporary human relationships. But as a Christian, your name being attached to the name of Christ, that's a permanent honor. [00:31:59] That's what I was talking about on Sunday, how that should be our identity, the core of who we are. [00:32:07] If you could say, who am I? [00:32:11] Who every believer in Christ, if you had to give a one word answer, who am I? And that describes you one word, you could say Christian. [00:32:24] And I'm breaking the rules, I know that, because I'm calling myself that, right? [00:32:29] But that identity being identified with Christ, that's the pinnacle of our identity, of who we are. Our whole life, our whole existence revolves and orbits the person of Christ. [00:32:45] Should it not so much more our life, right? [00:32:50] The highest honor that can be placed upon us. [00:32:55] Now, you think of all those things. Some people never have children. They can never be called father. Some people never earn a doctorate, right? Some people never are the boss at the job and are called the administrator. [00:33:16] But it doesn't matter if you're the lowliest person with no pedigree at all and you haven't attained any titles at all or. You're someone who has multiple degrees and honorific titles and you've served in Congress and you're senator and ambassador and you're president or whatever. [00:33:32] The name Christian can be conferred upon the person of the highest degree all the way down to the person that has no pedigree at all. [00:33:42] It is a direct connection to Christ himself. [00:33:48] It's all in that name. [00:33:51] But I must warn you, I must warn all of us, myself included. There is responsibility in that name in being called Christian. It's not a title to be bragged about, but it's an honor to be esteemed. But with that honor comes responsibility. Look, if you would, at a couple of the verses, two verses in fact, and we'll be done. Look at Exodus, chapter 20, verse number seven. [00:34:33] Who knows this passage that we're reading? What is it? [00:34:38] It's the Ten Commandments. [00:34:41] Verse seven says this thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Now, the common understanding of this is to take God's name in vain means to use God's word, god's name as a curse word. [00:35:06] But to be honest with you, I don't think that's what this is talking about. I think you could say this is a warning, a commandment against misusing God's name. I think you would be right. But the most direct understanding of this is not using God's name as a curse word. Remember, you're taking God's name, not saying God's name. You're taking God's name. That's what the verse says, right? [00:35:37] When you take God's name, you're bringing it to yourself. [00:35:42] That means to take God's name means that we accept his name and place it upon ourselves. We are called by his name. We call ourselves by his name. And now it's one thing for God to call us by his name, but when we go around and we say, hey, I'm a Christian. Now, again, that's not wrong. [00:36:03] But when we do that, we're taking God's name to ourself, we better not do that in vain. That's a serious matter because from that point on whatever we do is reflective on his name and person. [00:36:20] You see, I know this world is full of Christians who are wicked as the devil Christians. But for you and me, if that name is on us and we are known as that by others, we better not take his name in vain. [00:36:42] We better make sure that our life, our witness is consistent with the person who deserves and holds the title of Christ Messiah. [00:36:55] Look at second Timothy, if you would. [00:37:02] This will be our last verse tonight. [00:37:14] Two Timothy. Timothy, chapter two, starting in verse number 14, is speaking of people who are striving about words to no profit. Verse 16 speaks of shunning profane and vain babblings that increase unto more ungodliness. Verse 17 talks about the word of the false teachers growing as a kinker verse 18, who, concerning the truth, have erred, saying that the resurrection excuse me. [00:37:48] All of a sudden I lost my voicemail. [00:37:57] All right, we're back. We're back. Sort of. [00:38:02] So these were people who had who were peddling false Christian doctrine, verse 19, in that context, the context of false Christian doctrine, false Christianity. He says this nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his. All right? So that kind of indicates there are some people who parade around like they're God's people, but they're not, and God knows the difference. Right? [00:38:33] And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. [00:38:42] So if you say if I say I am a Christian, the question is not whether you are or whether you aren't, right? Of course you should be. [00:38:51] But if you name the name of Christ. This is a general statement to anyone who names the name of Christ. [00:38:57] If we use that name on ourselves, boy, we better have a life that matches it. [00:39:06] We better depart from iniquity. Because is Christ the servant of sin? [00:39:11] Is Christ the minister of sin? No. [00:39:15] Using his name in vain. [00:39:20] So I just want to ask you a couple things, just something to give us. [00:39:26] I know you try to live for God and live uprightly, and I appreciate that. [00:39:32] But if somebody didn't know you, if somebody didn't know me, and they got to know us and they talked to us a little bit, how long would it take them to hear the name of Christ? Because once they hear it, then they're going to be like, that's a Christian. And if they call us by the name of Christ, would our life be consistent with his holy name? [00:39:56] Would it match? [00:39:58] I sure hope so. [00:40:00] Because when it matches, that's what being salt and being light is all about. [00:40:10] Let's pray.