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Distortion number three. Perhaps the most common of all these days in our culture…

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I’m on a spiritual journey… So I’m okay.

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And, again, this is a dangerous distortion precisely because it does contain a very important

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truth which is that the Christian life can rightfully be described as a journey.

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Welcome to Open the Bible With Pastor Colin Smith.

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I’m David Pick, and we’re continuing our message today, Colin, saving your soul.

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We began last time by looking at some of the common misconceptions of what salvation is

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all about.

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Yeah.

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The first of these was, you know, Jesus died, so I’m okay.

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There’s some folks who have the idea that simply because Jesus died on the cross that

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means that everything’s okay for everybody and there’s nothing left for me to do.

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Well, the Scripture speaks about us returning to the Shepherd and the overseer of our souls,

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so there’s definitely something for us to do.

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And then we looked at a second distortion, which is, you know, I believed and I’m okay.

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Again, we saw that the weight of what the Bible says.

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No, we’re returning to the Shepherd and the overseer of our souls.

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Submitting to Jesus Christ as the Lord who is the Savior, not simply signing off on a

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belief.

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There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it actually means to truly become a Christian

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and to be saved.

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And we’re trying to get to the root of that.

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So that’s what we’ll hear about today.

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So join us if you can in 1 Peter chapter 2 as we continue this message, Saving Your Soul.

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Here’s Colin.

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Faith is more than signing off on a creed.

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See, some folks have the idea that if they simply say, well, I believe that Jesus died

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sins, or if at some time in the past, you know, I was at a camp when I was seven years

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old, or whatever, and I said that I believed this, that therefore their souls are saved.

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But there is much more to being a Christian than simply believing that Jesus died for

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your sins.

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And I want you to see what more there is in verse 25, right in front of you.

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He says, for you were straying like sheep but have now returned to the Shepherd and

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Overseer of your souls.

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So he’s presenting Jesus Christ to us.

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And in verse 24, he presents Jesus as the Savior who died on the cross.

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In verse 25, he presents Jesus as the Shepherd who rose from the dead.

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So that being a Christian is more than believing in a Savior who died.

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It is submitting to the Shepherd who lives.

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Now think about the shepherd and the sheep.

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The shepherd cares for the sheep.

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The shepherd guards the sheep.

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The shepherd provides for the sheep.

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But the most important thing of all to say is, that the shepherd owns the sheep.

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They’re his sheep.

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A man by the name of William Still, a godly pastor in Scotland, now with the Lord, wrote

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a book some time ago called The Work of a Pastor.

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I read it first in my early 20s, a little book.

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I’ve gone back to it time and again, and always found it very helpful.

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He asks the question, what does it mean to be a shepherd of the flock of God?

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What does it mean to be a pastor?

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And on the first page of the book he says something very striking, that I have never

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seen before, and in all these years I’ve never seen it stated anywhere else either.

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Here’s what he says.

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Israel’s sheep were reared, fed, tended, retrieved, healed and restored… for what?

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For sacrifice on the altar of God.

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You think about that.

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Israel’s sheep.

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And there’s the shepherds in Israel’s sheep and they’re bringing them back when

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they stray and they’re feeding them and nourishing them and raising these lambs…

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what for?

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Israel’s sheep were reared, fed, tended, retrieved, healed and restored… all for

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what purpose?

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For sacrifice on the alter of God.

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And therefore he says the end of all pastoral work must never be forgotten that its ultimate

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aim is to lead God’s people to offer ourselves to Him in a total devotion of worship, life

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and service.

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Now what then does it mean for Jesus Christ to be the shepherd and the overseer of your

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people?

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It means that all that you are and all that you have is placed at His disposal.

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It means that you offer yourself to Him—in William Still’s words—in a total devotion

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of life and worship and service.

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That’s what it means.

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That’s what it means to be a Christian.

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Now I was trying to think of a way of illustrating this to bring it home to us.

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So I was thinking, apart from our lives themselves, what else actually has value?

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So think with me for a moment about your money.

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Your money has value.

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It doesn’t have as much value as your life and your soul, but your money does have value.

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So what do you do with it?

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So one thing that you could do with the money that you are able to save, is that you could

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stuff it under your mattress.

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I’m not going to ask for a show of hands as to how many people are actually doing that.

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I hope you’re not, but I suppose there’s a logical case that a person could come up with

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and say, now look, it’s my money.

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I want to keep it where I can see it, and I’m not going to trust anyone else, I’m not

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going to trust it to a bank or any of these fancy funds.

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I’m going to keep it where I can see it because it’s my money.

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I’m stuffing it under the mattress.

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My guess is that most of you don’t do that, and here’s what you probably do if you’re

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wise.

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You say to yourself, now look, my money has value, so I want to put it in a place where

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number one it is safe and number two, it will grow.

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That’s what you say to yourself if you’re wise.

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And then you will select funds or whatever, investments, and it you will trust your money

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into the safest hands you can find.

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That’s what you do, because your money has value.

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Now, what about your soul?

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Your soul is of greater value than your money, and if you were to say, well now, wait a minute.

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This is my life, and I’m going to do with this life as I please.

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What you’re doing is the spiritual equivalent of stuffing the money under the mattress.

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That’s what you’re doing.

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And Jesus says, if you do that, if you try to save your life, here’s what will happen.

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You lose it.

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You lose it.

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You have a soul.

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It’s more valuable than all the world.

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It’s more valuable than your total net worth.

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But if you try to keep it in your own hands, you lose it.

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And here is the good news.

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There is a savior.

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There is a shepherd.

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There is an overseer.

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There is a guardian of souls.

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And his name is Jesus Christ.

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And if you will trust your soul, your very life, all that you are and all that you have

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into His hands, your soul will prosper.

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Your life will become more.

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And here is this strange Enigma that Jesus teaches to us, it’s hard for us to get our

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minds around it, but in the very act of losing your life by giving it into the hands of Jesus

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Christ.

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You will save it and you will keep it for eternal life.

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And friends I say to you today that there is nothing greater in all the world than being

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able to say the Lord is my shepherd.

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Because when you can say the Lord is my shepherd, you can also say I will not want.

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My life, my death, my eternal future is safe in His hands.

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Distortion number one, Jesus died and I’m okay.

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Totally ignores dying to sin and living to righteousness.

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Distortion number two, I believed so I’m okay.

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Totally ignores your life being placed into the hands of the shepherd who lives.

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Distortion number three, perhaps the most common of all these days in our culture.

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I’m on a spiritual journey, so I’m okay.

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I’m on a spiritual journey, so I’m okay.

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And again, this is a dangerous distortion precisely because it does contain a very important

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truth, which is that the Christian life can rightly be described as a journey.

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Jesus spoke about the Christian life as the narrow way.

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He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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In Christian history, John Bunyan, who wrote perhaps the greatest of Christian books outside

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of the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress, he pictured in that book the life of a Christian

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as a journey to heaven in which we pass through many, many difficulties.

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I do encourage you to read that book.

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It’s a great book to read with your children at some point as they grow up.

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But notice this as you read it.

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As Bunyan depicts the journey, there is a definite path, and there is a clear destination.

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In our culture, the spiritual journey has become a sort of metaphor for the sum total

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of an individual’s spiritual experience.

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In other words, your spiritual journey becomes a kind of soup comprising of any faith that

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you might have, any doubts that you might have, any experiences that you might have.

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They all get mixed together, and they become your spiritual journey, and the journey seems

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often in our culture to become an end in itself.

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It doesn’t have a particular destination.

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The journey is the thing.

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Now here’s the problem, and I want you to hear this clearly.

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There is a spiritual journey on the way to being lost, as well as a spiritual journey

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on the way to being saved.

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That’s a powerful warning from Pastor Colin Smith.

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We’re in the middle of a message called Saving Your Soul, part of the series Soul Care,

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based today on the First Book of Peter, chapter 2.

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And we’ll get back to the message shortly.

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If you ever miss one of our messages or if you tuned in late today you can always come

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online to our website, openthebible.org.uk, and there you can catch up or go back and

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listen again at any time to any of the messages which have already gone out on air.

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You can also find us as a podcast on your favourite podcast site.

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Search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates.

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Back to the message now, here’s Colin.

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There is a spiritual journey that ends in being lost, as well as a spiritual journey

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that ends in being saved.

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And the reason that that is the case, is that you cannot be saved by your spiritual journey.

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No-one can be saved by…

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How can your spiritual journey save you?

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Only Jesus Christ can save you, not the sum total of your faith, doubts and experiences.

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Spend your life as a wandering sheep, and you spend your eternity as a lost soul.

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So compare the vagueness of all this spiritual journey language, that is all around us in

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the Culture today, with what Peter says here, and you will see that there is a vast difference.

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Look at verse 25.

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For you were straying like sheep.

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Well there’s the journey.

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Wandering all over the place in confusion, not really knowing who you are, what you believe,

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or to whom you belong.

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You were straying like sheep, but…

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So here’s something different.

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Here’s something that has happened, and what is it?

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You have now returned.

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Now notice he doesn’t say, but now you’re in a process of returning, working out what

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it all means, and that, no he doesn’t say that, he says now you have returned.

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It’s a definite, completed action.

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Now hear me clearly.

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There is a whole journey of following Jesus Christ, and of growing in Jesus Christ, that

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is the Christian life.

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But the Christian life begins with a definite return to Jesus Christ as the shepherd, the

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owner, the overseer, and the Lord of your life.

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Now you see this all over the Bible.

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Let me simply back up what I’m saying here from a couple of places that will be familiar

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to you.

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Luke chapter 15, Jesus tells the story, the parable of the lost sheep, and the Shepherd

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goes and finds this lost sheep, lays the sheep on his shoulder, brings the sheep back to

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the fold, there is a definite return.

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The sheep was lost, but the sheep is now found, and the reason that the sheep is no longer

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lost is that the sheep is now under the direction of the shepherd.

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That’s how you know that you’re not lost, that your life is under the direction of the

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shepherd – not under the direction of the shepherd.

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You’re away from the shepherd, you’re lost sheep.

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Then Jesus tells another story about a lost son, and do you remember this story?

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He went to the far country and he indulged himself in all this reckless living.

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Then there is a great famine and he doesn’t know what to do, and he comes to his senses

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and he says I will arise and I will go to my father.

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He decided to return.

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That’s the word that Peter is using here.

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When he returned he said to his father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

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Returning to the father meant leaving his life of sin.

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Friend of mine gave me this marvelous quotation from Spurgeon on The Prodigal Son.

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Spurgeon says this, The Prodigal left the swine trough.

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More, he left the wine cup and he left the harlots.

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He did not go with the harlot on his arm and the wine cup in his hand and say I will take

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these with me and go to my father.

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It could not be so, these were all left and though he had not goodness to bring, yet he

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did not try and keep his sins and come to Christ.

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Now, Isaiah the prophet says, what Spurgeon says in that vivid picture very, very clearly

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want us to take this in today, for this is the very Word of God. He says to us,

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And then he explains to us what this means,

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let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return.

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The word that Peter uses.

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So you see what Isaiah is saying, returning, it means forsaking.

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And it means forsaking both ways and thoughts.

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To return means that you quit known sins, that you forsake wicked ways,

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that you quit thinking that you can live for yourself and still call yourself a Christian.

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That you quit the wicked idea that you can define what is right and wrong for yourself

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and still somehow be under the rule of God.

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Returning means forsaking all that and returning means submitting.

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It means that I submit my life to Jesus Christ as the Shepherd and the Overseer, the owner

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of my soul.

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I submit my life to Christ’s word, so that He is the One who tells me what is right and

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tells me what is wrong.

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So that forsaking what He tells me is sin, and pursuing what He tells me is righteousness,

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I can walk that path of dying to sin and living to righteousness.

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That’s what it looks like.

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The starting point for being a Christian is that Jesus Christ is your Lord.

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That’s why the way we like to teach the gospel in the orchard is these four words – Lord,

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righteousness, sin, Savior, faith.

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The Lord is my shepherd.

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If He’s not your Lord, how can He be your shepherd?

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And if He’s not your shepherd, why in the world are you going around thinking that He

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is your Savior?

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If you’re away from the fold and you have not returned.

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So here’s the message, you have a soul, and it is of greater value than the whole world.

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And one of two things will happen to your soul.

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Either your soul will be saved or your soul will be lost, and I want your soul to be saved.

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I wish I could just sit for a minute with every young person, every boy and girl, every

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teenager in the congregation today and look you in the eye and say, I want your soul to

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be saved.

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I wish I could sit with every older person in the congregation, and you’re moving into

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the later seasons of life, I wish I could say to you with the urgency that I feel, I

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want your soul to be saved.

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There’s a shepherd, there’s a saviour, there is a Lord who is able to save your soul.

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And no person who comes to Him, however late and whatever you may have done will ever be

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turned away.

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And no soul that is ever trusted into His hand will ever be lost.

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Have you returned to Him?

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You say He is my Lord and He is my Saviour?

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And are you on the journey of dying to sin and living to righteousness under the authority

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of Jesus Christ, with His Word ruling in your life?

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Are you ready to begin that today?

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Or are you doing the spiritual equivalent of stuffing your money under the mattress

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because if you are doing that, my life stuff, then you need to hear that Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God says to you, if you save your life you will lose it.

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But now with love and with compassion he says to you but if you lose your life for my sake,

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for the Gospel’s.

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Give it to me.

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Lose it to the shepherd, your whole self all that you are.

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You’ll keep it.

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You’ll save it even for eternal life.

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What a great reminder there from Pastor Colin Smith that anyone who comes to Jesus will

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never be lost.

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The Bible says that there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

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Maybe as you have been listening you feel he has been calling you into a relationship

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of the kind that we often talk about here on Open The Bible.

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You’d like to know more about how to enter into that relationship by the saving grace

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of God.

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And if so, I hope you’ll seek out a trusted Christian friend or family member or maybe

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go along to a Christian church fellowship.

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Take time to speak with the folk there, the pastor or simply members of that fellowship.

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Tell them about your journey to discover faith for yourself.

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You’ll find they’ll be ready to pray with you, to help you make that step.

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Or if you’re not yet ready to make that step and still have questions, there may well be

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a Bible study course or a home group or an alpha program that you can join.

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You’ve been listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and our message today,

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saving your soul.

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It’s part of the series, soul care.

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And if you missed any of the series, you can always come online to catch up or go back

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and listen again.

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Come to openthebible.org.uk.

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There you can listen to any of the messages that have already gone out on air.

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You’ll also find links to the messages as a podcast and you’ll find those on your

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regular podcasting site.

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Go there and search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates.

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Also on our Web site and available as a podcast is Open the Bible Daily.

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That’s a series of short two to three-minute daily reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s

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teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish.

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You’ll find that, as I say, on our Web site, openthebible.org.uk and also as a podcast.

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Again, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to Open the Bible Daily to receive a reminder

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every day.

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Open the Bible depends on your generosity to stay on air and on the internet.

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And as you set up a new, regular, gift of £5 per month or more this month we’d love

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to send you a copy of Chris Lungard’s book The Enemy Within, a straight talk about the

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power and defeat of sin.

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Colin, how does this book help us if we’re feeling discouraged with our battle against

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sin and temptation?

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The book is wonderfully helpful because it’s really clear and it’s really well written.

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I mean, for example, Chris Lungard pictures the heart as being like a haunted house.

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His description of this is absolutely brilliant.

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Going down into a basement where there are hidden monsters that lie there, the haunted

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house of your heart.

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He paints that picture so vividly, the things that we fear might be lurking in the basement

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of our own interior life.

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I mean that’s vivid and compelling.

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But then he says this, the Holy Spirit takes the horror out of the horror show.

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Now that’s wonderful.

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He describes the problem realistically and compellingly.

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And then he points us to where our hope lies.

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The power of the Holy Spirit.

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He’s like a blazing torch brought into the haunted rooms and he ferrets out the monsters.

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This is great writing from a clear biblical understanding that really connects with the

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battles that the believers face in our lives.

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I find it wonderfully helpful and encouraging.

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And I think anyone who reads it will find the same too.

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So Chris Lungard’s book The Enemy Within is our gift to you this month if you’re able

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to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of five pounds per

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month or more.

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Full details on our website, OpentheBible.org.uk

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For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pigg,

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and I hope you’ll join us again next time.

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God tells us in the Bible to guard our hearts.

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But how do you do that?

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Find out next time on Open the Bible.