Leon Fontaine - Confidence in Christianity
Church can be some of the most awful places you ever been to in your life. But where Jesus is actually talked about and where his Gospel is actually shared it becomes one of the most beautiful places as you learn to love people, as you learn to realize who you are, how gorgeous the message of Jesus is but people tend to add a ton of stuff to it that they think others need be hear. Law and legalism and so, I love church simply because places like Springs, I call them life giving churches, Spirit Contemporary churches that will help us to understand what Jesus did, how beautiful a life you can live even though you are imperfect and how do we walk that.
There's a verse in 1 John 4:17 that says this. By this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Because as He is so also are we in this world. Now, I've got kind of unusual message today. So in order to help you brace yourself. I want to start with this verse and I want you to notice the line so that we may have confidence when in the day of judgment. When our life down here is over, when this season on this planet is done there's going to be and I'm not gonna get into that how and where and why the bema seat in the great white throne judgment but there's going to be a time where people are literally sorted through or judged and the Bible says and he's speaking here to those who have given their lives to Jesus Christ. He says you, you've got confidence.
If you've ever been before judge, if you've ever been maybe a traffic ticket or for some reason you had to appear before a judge and your stomach goes into this horrible knot because you're about to be judged. You could lose your license, it could be a great big fine you know or maybe you're just driving down the street and you see a police car and immediately because all of us are guilty of speeding and not watching this thing and you know you can get huge tickets it yet so immediately you just tense up as he's going to make a judgment on your speed, he's either going to ticket you or you're going to sail right through it and when you sail right through ahead you go. See back there. I was out a little bit but I think we're okay. He didn't he didn't catch us.
Know everybody is afraid of being judged. Everybody is afraid of someone examining you. At the end of our life, we will be examined we will have someone that will have to look at us and we know that's God but it says you have confidence in the day of judgment. Because religion tends to take hell and scare the hell out of people. The way parents often would get their kids to live right would be to scare the hell out of their kids but if you've given your life to Jesus Christ then hell is not even a remote possibility. You can have confidence in the day of judgment that as Jesus is so are we. Why? Because when Jesus died for us he gifted us his righteousness it says in Romans 5:17 and that he gifted us his righteousness, he gifted us his grace.
Today in modern Christianity, when you go to many of the new churches that are rising up they've become very secular. They've become very what do people want to hear and just tell them what they want to hear so they come out and it's more important to have a crowd than a church. So if we can get a crowd looks great it's fun it's got a big crowd. Now I love crowds. Springs Church has got thousands of people attend our church in the five sites that we do church and then there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions that follow us on television.
So I love being able to reach masses of people but I refuse to compromise the truth. Wouldn't that be stupid if you're training your child to drive and you know, you just didn't want him to be afraid of the ditch because so many people are afraid of the ditch so you don't tell them about the ditch. You don't tell about approaches. You don't tell them you don't want to pull into the ditch if you're doing 60 miles an hour because if you hit an approach in a front end collision, it's brutal you go right through the wind shield. You can die. You just don't wanna talk about that stuff. Driving so enjoyable with the breeze in your hair and the top down, the windows open. Let's just not go to accidents and all that kind of, it's just negative, you know what I mean? Let's just stay positive.
You're a ridiculous parent if you don't train your kids and show them here's the way to enjoy life but this is the way not to enjoy life okay so the same is true from the Bible. The Bible has the most amazing beautiful life where you are loved. Where God's power gets involved and helps you to become the kind of person you want to be and while you're on that journey becoming who you want to be, He's there with you. His forgiveness is yours. His grace is yours. So but today I want to deal with the situation because there is a large amount of people in polls taken who tend to go along with a lot of the secular new age churches which no longer are Christ following is that they'll just say there's no hell. The Bible just a group of poems that help us to you know just apply it metaphorically and it's just an analogy in and from that you just take and live properly but at the end of our lives, every person does go into eternity and that is where science can't follow.
You know, we have a new religion today called science and if people can't prove it with science and they don't feel that exists. But science has failed miserably to answer a number of questions like what is the purpose for life and where do we go, is there life after death? Now some of our scientific laws say that energy never just disappears so this energy force that is within you, your spirit who you really are when you die, it's just a nothingness. We just disintegrate, do we just disappear or is there a life after death?
And so when people go there, they tend to just become you know just metaphysical are they got there you know there's all these crazy little stories and they think that Christians look at heaven because heaven is just the way to psychologically handle death and dying and the loss of loved ones but any brilliant person and by the way the world is filled with scientists. Nassau people. People with brilliant degrees who have looked at this topic through everything from sciences to history to Bible and have just thought it's more ridiculous to think that evolution works.
You know, that's like thinking a tornado hit a junk pile and put a jeep Cherokee together. Like in millions and billions of years of the wind hitting that junk pile, it's not gonna blow the parts into the right place and screw them in but that would be easier than making the complexity of the human body, the soul, the mind, the spirit and then a woman and a man and the world in and all that goes on and you can have as many billions years as you want and so many of the most brilliant minds on the planet it and if you do some research that this is an interest to you, go look at those who use science and use history and use a lot of the things to prove or to show you that this is the best belief you could ever have as compared to a lot of the stuff that's out there.
Now the Bible's interesting it says in Hebrews 2:3, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the lord and was confirmed on to us by them that heard him. You know, when Jesus died on the cross the first group that he went to was a religious group of the Jewish religion and he would try to show them that you know and he tried to teach them in and then the disciples tried to teach them that this is what you've been believing for for thousands of years that someone would come and die for your sins and that this salvation would be yours that you could do not have to be worried in the day of judgment that you could just be confident that what Jesus has done is so complete and so beautiful but they didn't and in droves, they turned against him and much of the New Testament which is why some people have a problem understanding it book after book after book, a lot of it was written to that religious group who continued to persecute followers of Christ and they believed there was a God, that a messiah was coming but this is not him. Jesus is not him and so it's an interesting read when you understand that.
Now, when you read the Bible this great salvation that you and I have, when you begin to understand hell, the reason we need to understand hell is because if we don't, there's no drive in us to do anything about beautiful people who just don't know the truth. Christians have no understanding that the world we live in ends for every person within an average of 70 to 80-90 years, some over 100 but in some in just a couple of years but their lives end and then the judgment and everybody doesn't have confidence in the judgment because if you don't know Jesus is there's no way to have confidence. So for everyone here that knows Jesus as your Savior, we tend to just enjoy our confidence, the peace that we now have that we are fine with God.
We love the fact that he's gifted us if we believe on him, invite him into our heart then there is this beautiful guarantee this covenant. The New Testament means the new covenant that is ours and now we can live in his power assists us to live right to become the dads, the husbands, the business people that we really want to be but if we don't understand that there's a job for us to do, that the people around us have not yet heard or if they've heard about it they've heard about in this stupid religious way where someone is screaming at them, preaching at them, calling them dirty, bad, you're going to hell. Like just the typical legalistic religious balderdash.
And so, we want to be spiritually alive. We want to be contemporary. We want to care about people. We don't want to push our beliefs on them. People don't deserve that but at the same time everywhere we go, have you ever noticed that nobody is shy about what they believe except Christians? I mean they'll write it on a T-shirt in glowing color. They'll say to the coffee shop right into your face what they do and don't believe and what they can't stand and what they think. They're just, bam, but we tend to back away and many times it's because of cowardice. We're just embarrassed of what we believe. You know like you'll get some of these guys on TV and that's what you really believe that Jesus was a virgin birth and he came from a virgin named Mary and you really believe Jonah got swallowed by a whale.
You know, a guy I was talking on a plane one time about this. And he was trying to show me how ridiculous the Bible is and so rather than defending the Bible I often just go on the attack instead. I just go, hey, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever but what do you believe now and as soon as you ask what they believe they're on the defensive. Well you know I don't know. Okay so you don't know. What do you think? What's your best shot at what you believe? So one brilliant guy, I mean he was he was degreed. He traveled the world, wonderful man we talked for an hour or two on the plane. He goes well you know I would tend to think that although I have a hard time with God and creation, I think the world was seeded.
Okay, what does that mean? I believe that life from another planet came, the spaceship and that they started that they found another planet that was viable. It had water. It had food and they seeded it with people or however they seeded it and now we have the human race I said, "Dude, that's crazier than my thoughts. That's stupider than what I'm thinking that there's a God who created Adam and eve and put them, you can't believe in a God but you can believe in a race of people somewhere in another galaxy my next question is who created them"? So a lot of times when people, we feel as Christians that we have to be embarrassed about what we believe but you gotta be literally crazier to believe some of the dumb stuff that's out there once you check it out like when you really check out evolution, you have to, it's a religion you have to believe it because there's so many holes you can't fill where so many disconnected and dangling chads everywhere it's just that people don't want to believe in a God because it is a God, then you have to live right and there is a heaven to gain. There is a hell to shun.
In Hebrews 1:13-14. Paul saying, but to which of the angels said he at any time sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies by foot stool. Are they not all ministering servants sent forth to minister to them who shall be the heirs of salvation? This verse in Hebrews 1 is bringing out a couple thoughts. The first there are angels and they are here to guard Christians. Okay that's what it says. Angels guard those who are the heirs of salvation so once you receive Christ as your Savior and lord and he comes into your heart, you are giving God permission. You are because God will never force himself into your world and because you're giving God permission you are now in his family in his kingdom and the angels are here. They're sent forth as ministering servants to protect and to keep us but one of the things it says here is this phrase make thine enemies thy foot stool now it's a term that is used to the Bible and it literally means when people are coming against you and everyone's mad at you that you will win and that you will win to such a degree that your enemies will be your foot stool.
In other words, your foot is on their head. Your power, your ability, your success can't be stopped by your enemies. And so, we have a job to do in Hebrews 10:11 it says this. Every priest stands ministering daily and offering time after time the same sacrifice which can never take away sins. He's talking here to the Jews who would offer sacrifice for their sins that would cover it for a while and let God bless them but it says but it can never take away sins but he, Jesus, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of God waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a foot stool for his feet. And it goes on a lot of great teaching but it's basically saying here that when Jesus died on the cross, when he suffered for you when I saw that salvation would be a free gift that he arose into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the father but there's a job that we have to do he's there until the enemy is made his footstool.
In other words, you and I are empowered with a task, a mission. Yes, go ahead. You've got gifts that are artistic. You have gifts that are business. You have gifts that are to use on this planet but when we use these gifts everywhere we go, listen, when you go into the world, we are to share the Gospel, this good news of Jesus Christ and that we actually have the information to help them determine where they spend eternity. In the Bible there's a story of a set of twins called Cain and Abel. Now, Cain killed Abel and he's the first recorded murder. Now we don't know but if Cain never got right with God when he died that he went to hell. There's a heaven and hell end if he went to hell and I don't know he's been there for, depending upon what your belief on creation is, minimum 7.000 years. 7.000 years. And he has an eternity to go yet. Lots of verses are very specific.
Jesus in the book of Matthew says in Matthew 25:41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. I would say, why would God, a God of love send people to hell. He doesn't. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels who turned against God, tried to revolt. They're trying to kill people every day. There is a spirit world and sometimes we get so secular, we get so focused on what's going on in our life and we forget but if you're here and you've lost somebody you love. I do a lot of funerals. I love doing funerals because people are really open where did my loved one go? Where are they? Can I be assured of life after death? I love the fact that really Jesus is so gorgeous because he says to me as a husband that I can spend forever with my wife. Death doesn't separate us. It says to me as a dad that I'll never lose my children forever. And if when I go to heaven I'll be joining me one day in an incredibly beautiful life after death.
I'm a grandfather now. I got grandkids. And as a grandfather I can be assured that there's a decision that we make down here about eternity and it's so simple, people miss it. It's so beautiful that that religion hates it. And that is that to believe on Jesus, it's a gift. Salvation is a gift. In Psalms 9:17, it says, "The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God". Now the word wicked has been really differently used in our world. When we use the word wicked in today's vernacular we mean axe murderer, child molester, something really wicked but the word wicked back here literally meant a heart of unbelief that would not choose Jesus and believe on him. So we choose not to and then we stay in the kingdom of darkness because there are two kingdoms on this planet.
In Isaiah 5:14, it says, "Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, opened her mouth without measure and their glory and their multitude and their pomp and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it". My purpose today in this message is to say to the people who are here who know Jesus who have made the decision to follow Christ, that the very purpose for this church wasn't just to help you feel good about yourself, although it does. It wasn't just help you build community although it does. The purpose of this church is to teach you the principles of God. Principles that don't matter if you believe them or not, they will affect you. You know, we have a really high ceiling on this church and if I say grab four or five guys and say hey, we're gonna play soccer on the roof. But don't worry about falling because I don't even believe in gravity. Doesn't matter what I believe at that point. Well, it matters to me. It doesn't change gravity but it changes how I act around gravity issues.
So if I choose not to believe in gravity, it doesn't change gravity but it does change the way I'll go jumping around right on the edge and doing ridiculous things because I don't believe just like there are physical laws, there are spiritual laws that govern eternity. They govern the heart and the soul of a human being and this short life that we have down here let's live it. Let's have great careers, have families and marriages and homes. Don't walk around as this fraidy cat. Have confidence that no, with Jesus, the world is beautiful. I love God. I love family. I love holidays. I love great food. God's given us this beautiful wife to enjoy but while you are living it be very aware that the message you know that Jesus is the answer for the world today. There is no other answer.
Someone said to me, "I don't believe Jesus is God. I believe he was just a good man". You can't do that because Jesus said there was no other way to God but him. So he's not a good man. He's either the Son of God or this crazy liar. He can't be anything else. He's a crazy liar or he's the Son of God because the things he said are so out there that the only way to heaven is through him. The only way to God is through him. He's preparing a place for us called heaven but that on this planet is where we decide where we spend eternity. After studying a lot of world religions, after going through a lot of the science and evolution of the things that are out there, I'm settled. I'm so settled that here is a God, Jesus, His Son.