 When talking about salvation, have you ever heard someone use the term or say, we invite Christ into our heart, or won't you please invite him into your heart? When you hear that statement, is that a true statement? Is it a biblical statement? Well, one, it's not necessarily an unbiblical statement, although it's unbiblical in the sense that there's nowhere in the Bible where that phrase, that statement is actually used. One, or actually two places where you'll find this brought up where you kind of get this whole concept of inviting Christ or accepting Christ into your heart. You find it one in Revelation 3.20. Let's go there. He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in and will dine with him and he will, and he with me. Well, that's not necessarily talking about them salvation. What I'm really talking about to this church is allowed to see it. It's talking about kind of how they have really left him out. And so this is Jesus saying to, I want to come back in. Can you make the tie, making this to be somewhat salvific, if not totally salvific? That's fine. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but this is one of the places where they get that from knocking at the door and him coming in. But that's quite, that's not really quite how salvation works. Another place where you might find this idea, this concept of Christ being in your heart. And by the way, it's a true concept. We'll come back to that in a second, but in Ephesians chapter three, let's go there. Let's start in verse 16, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. So then here it is, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So the idea of him coming in and then dwelling in your heart. Well, the truth is, does he come into us? Yes, he does. Does he dwell in our hearts? Yes, he does. And we were really speaking in terms of the Holy Spirit. And so it is correct to say that Jesus or the Lord, however you want to put it, I'm not going to argue this point right now, but however you want to put it, does God live in your heart? Does the Spirit live in your heart? Well, yes, he does. However, do we accept him into our heart? Is that what salvation is? And then even more to the point, a better point that needs to be brought up, how do you know you've accepted him? How do you know that he's in your heart? How do you know that you are saved? Because when we say this, except Christ into your heart, we're really talking about becoming saved. Well, let's just kind of talk about the mechanisms of how this actually works. Romans 10 kind of gives us where we can start off at. So let's start in, let's start in verse 9, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so you have to confess with your mouth, acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. Well, how does that actually work? Now the person that makes that profession of faith, it's a true profession. It is a faith that Jesus is Lord, then that person is saved. But what does that actually mean? Well, 1st John 1 9 also tells us that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous or just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteous. So that way, if we acknowledge that we sin, understand that I'm a sinner, I confess that then Christ is faithful and just to cleanse me, to forgive me and then cleanse me of all unrighteousness. So in doing so, and then also acknowledge the fact that he's Lord, so that truth be told, they really kind of go hand in hand. There's no one that acknowledges their sin in this way without also acknowledging Christ as Lord. There's no one that acknowledges Christ as Lord in the way they were speaking of without also acknowledging their sin. To be saved, you are simply stating that I need a Savior. It's the understanding that I'm a flawed fallen human being. I'm full of sin. I need someone to save me and the only one that could do so is Christ and he's done so by way of his work on the cross, his shed blood. I place faith in that. And so because of that, I'm saved. But now to say that, do we accept him into our heart? Not really. The truth be told, it's not so much us accepting him as it is he accepting us. Remember, a believer has to be born again, born from above. The whole conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus and John 3, this has to happen before anything that you can do, your profession, your acknowledgement, anything before you do it, he does something. So the first thing is that you must be born from above and Peter brings us out. He says in 1 Peter 1 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. Notice he caused us to be born again. And so that work happens in our life first. He actually it's him that invites us in. And so that's really how salvation works. It's not that we accept him in, it's that he accepts us. He chooses us, then we choose him. He loves us first, then we love him. And so if you want to say, if someone wants to use this phrase that I've accepted him into my life, I've accepted him into my heart, that's fine. I'm not going to fight because we understand what's being said. Now the bigger question is how do you know you would accept him into your life? Or how do you know that you are in Christ? That's a more important thing. Not so much again that he's in you, he is, but the way that he's in you is that first you be in him. Paul says that every man should examine himself to see that he has Christ. And that can be difficult for some people sometimes because there's some things that might be happening that causes you, one, if you are genuinely in Christ to kind of rethink, maybe I am and I'm not. And there's some people who aren't in Christ, but they think they are. And so for both, the call is by Paul to examine yourself to make sure that you do indeed have Christ. I'm going to give you three things that I think you ought to look at to be careful about to examine to see. First of all, sin does sin bother you, yours and others. If your heart is repentant, you acknowledge that you have sin, it should bother you, yours and others. You should not laugh at it, glorify in it. It should be, it should be a daily struggle with you. Why should it be a daily struggle? Because you have a heart. You have flesh. You have desires that are counter to God. And so he's working in you. Otherwise there would be no need for him. Just like Paul says, this struggle that he's talked about in Romans seven, you're going to have that struggle. Now hopefully it should be that as you go further in your law, in your law, that the struggle is lessened. Some of the things that you struggle with, the sin that bothered you, should not bother you as much. But as long as you are human being on this planet, sin is going to be an issue that you're going to be dealing with. Now fortunately, thankfully praise God, that you have been delivered from the punishment of sin. Another thing that you need to be looking at is, are you living in sin? Now, other people might be able to look and see you and say that you are living in sin. However, they truly don't know either. It's hard for them because they don't know what's actually happening because a sin is committed here and then committed there and then committed there. Those on the outside might look and see, well, look, he keeps doing the same thing. They don't know what's going on internally. They don't know what the circumstances are. They might not even know how long apart, how far apart these sins are. And if you're struggling with those, because again, going back to the first point, were you really broken over the sin? A truly repentant heart will be broken over sin, no matter how the sin comes. If it's a one-time sin or something that they're struggling with, a stronghold because Christians can have strongholds, addictions, things that God is working out of them. And because they don't come out fast enough either for you or for others, that means that the person is not repentant. But this person is not trying to practice and that is not his goal. He doesn't want to just do sin. And then the third thing just as important is, do you testify of Christ? I don't mean that you have to get out with a bullhorn on the corner and let people know that Jesus Christ died for their sins, but something about you should be testifying to others about Christ. Sometimes it's vocally and outward, plainly outward. Sometimes it's kind of subtle. Maybe you might have a word here or there to a coworker or at least tell him what Christ has done in you in your life, how he has come into your heart going back to the topic at hand. So those are the three things that I would say that needs to be present to kind of give you a good guide when someone says, how do you know that you've accepted Christ? More importantly, how do you know that Christ has accepted you? Well, these should be some of the things and you walk by the fruits of the Spirit that we're told. So to wrap up the first point, is it okay to say I've accepted Christ? I've accepted him into my life, into my heart? That's fine. There are going to be some folks that are going to be sticklers for that, but it's not really that big a deal because we understand what we're talking about that I am a Christian that he literally is in my heart. But I was first before he got to be in my heart. I was chosen by him first. Amen.