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Well, I think you all know D .L. Moody. He was a famed evangelist, and not everybody liked D .L. Moody. He had all kinds of hecklers and jeers and others. The final service of one of his campaigns, someone came to him and gave him a note.
It was an usher, and so he thought it was a special announcement. He opened a piece of paper up and looked at it, and it had a single word, and that word was, D .L. Moody was pretty sharp on his feet, and so he said this, It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?
Same applies in the spiritual realm, in terms of perspectives. This morning, we're going to deviate from our time in Matthew. I'm almost glad I did this, because where is everyone? It's another holiday, Sunday, no worship of the Lord.
I don't know where people are. The snow. We just ordered 30 more chairs. I don't know why now. I usually have to get here early to get a seat. But we'll deviate from the book of Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount in our verse-by-verse study, because we want to take a look at today, in the book of 2 Peter, the perspective for the year that I want to encourage you to have, and that is how to know that you're a Christian.
The assurance of your salvation. So if you'll take your Bibles, there should be a Black Pew Bible in front of you. You'll be lost without it. Close to the very end of the Bible, in the book called 2 Peter, written by the Apostle Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, so we can deal with this issue about security and safety, knowing that we have security of our salvation.
That we experience that, and we call that assurance. That you can know for sure that you're going to heaven. Frankly, the modern religions of the day say you can't know. Muslims say you can't know for sure if you're going to heaven.
The religion that's most prevalent in all of New England says you cannot be for sure. You can never know that you're going to heaven. And the Bible teaches today, teaches every day, but today I want to teach you the Bible where you can know for certain that when you die, you're going to go to heaven.
Absent from the body, present with the Lord. And to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Can you think of some reasons why assurance might be important for us to know? Who knows what's going to happen this year, but I want to make sure that if I die this year, whether that's in the baptismal, as almost happened three months ago to me, or any other place that we can go straight to heaven without any kind of waiting area, purgatory, or anything else.
And the real question is this when it comes to assurance. What does the Bible say? Not traditions, not creeds, not the board of elders of this church, but what does the Bible say? Because the Bible is our only authoritative source.
And the Bible speaks clearly on this issue. How we can know we're going to go to heaven. Pragmatically, it helps. The Golden Gate Bridge, I just drove over that about ten days ago or so. This great bridge in San Francisco.
They were initially constructing it. Twenty-three men fell to their deaths. No safety nets. They decided to put up large safety nets as a precaution. Ten men fell and were saved from certain death while they were doing it.
Do you think production work went up or down because of this added safety feature? It went up. Twenty-five percent more work was accomplished because they had a safety net. They knew that if they fell, they were going to not perish.
Less pragmatically, we can worship the Lord better while we're not doubting whether we are saved or not saved. 1 John 3 .19 says, We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him.
That our hearts would be assured like a calming balm, knowing that we stand before God. And we'll be dressed in His righteousness alone. And I think it's very important to know, how can we have assurance of our faith?
So let's just take a look at 2 Peter 1. Probably verses 1 through 11. This morning, that's a large chunk for those of us who have been going through half a sermon. But we're going to focus in on 5, 6, and 7 this morning, as we deal with this issue.
How can you know that you're going to heaven? By the way, if you're not a Christian this morning, you're not going to heaven. This is not for you. Unless you are born from above, unless you're born again, unless God has saved you by His grace, unless He has given you the faith so that you might put your trust in Christ, substitutionary atonement on the cross, verified by the resurrection, you can't know, and these verses aren't for you.
But as pastors, 99 times out of 100, we preach to the church. We preach to the saved ones. And so you can just listen, if you're not a Christian, to the security that God gives when He says, I've loved this one, and I promise not to forsake all those that I've called my own.
Colossians 2, full assurance. 1 Thessalonians 1, much assurance. Hebrews 6, full assurance of hope. Hebrews 10, full assurance of faith. And now we come so we know without a shadow of a doubt, 2 Peter 1, dealing with this issue of how to know that I'm going to go to heaven.
Did I mention that's what the sermon's about? Assurance of salvation? It's like for those children who take notes. And if you're looking for a word today, it's called assurance. And so far, I've tried to say it about 15 to 20 times, so we'll know that this is about, and we see little ones writing right there, this is about how to make sure when you die you're going to heaven, and God says you can know.
Furthermore, you can have increased knowledge of being sure. That is to say that when you're first saved, you think you're going to go because the Bible promises that, and as you grow in grace and in holiness, your assurance should increase as well.
You should become more confident. Now let's just pick up in 2 Peter 1, verses 1 and following so we can get an idea of where Peter is coming from. Peter the apostle wrote this book, and this book is about what?
It's about assurance, yes. It's about assurance, but in the context of a troubled world. A troubled world with false teachers everywhere telling you things that aren't true. Troubles, trials, false teachers.
It could have been written 2 ,000 years ago, or it could have been written today. What a great book. It just shows me the grandeur of the Word of God that it is transchronological. You can use this book in India 1 ,000 years ago, or you can use this book in New Zealand 1 ,000 years from now because God, our eternal God, has written it, and He's written it with clarity, and we have the Spirit of God to communicate truths.
Now there's a variety of different kinds of assurances, but He starts off with objective assurance first. That is to say something that's outside of us, and look what He does. 2 Peter 1 .1. Did you notice that to start off?
It's a faith that is received. It's a gift. It's not earned. It's not merited. We don't come up with our own faith. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. We've got this great God who births us into His kingdom.
He regenerates us. True or false? We cooperate with God in regeneration to come to faith. False. We don't cooperate. It's not a work that's done hand in hand. As my brother would say, when you get to heaven, you won't high-five God and say, we did it.
Regeneration is a work of God alone. He alone does that. And then we respond, of course, but this is all talking about what God has done for us. That's objective assurance. Verse 3. That's all things emphatic in the original language.
100 sufficiency kind of language. He's granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. So He's given us these great precious promises.
Look at verse 4. He's granted to us His precious and magnificent promises in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
And if you take a look at those first four verses, you will see man is on the throne of those verses. True? False. God is at the throne, and you see the righteousness of God. You see His peace to us, His grace to us, His divine power to us.
It's God bestowing His blessings upon us. It's all about what God has done for us. We couldn't do anything. I don't see anything there about us except we are recipients. Then He says in verse 5, Now for this very reason, the very reason just stated, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence.
In your moral excellence, knowledge. In your knowledge, self-control. And in self-control, perseverance. And in perseverance, godliness. In your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love.
God has saved us, chapter 1, verses 1 to 4. He's done all this for us. It should be a godly incentive for us to respond. That is to say, if chapter 1, 1 through 4 is God's grace, chapter 1, 5 and following should be our gratitude, our response.
God does something for us, we respond. It's the revelation response paradigm. He reveals how great He is, we do what? Lay back and let God. Quiet us, just kind of, we don't do anything. No, God so does something to us, it stirs us up.
By the way, do you remember when you first were saved? And you realize that God had saved you. And God had, when you were helpless, He helped and assisted and completed salvation. When we were enemies, He reconciled us and made us friends.
When we were ungodly, He gave us Christ's righteousness and made us godly. When we were sinners, He gave us a new nature and made us into saints. And you sit there and you think, I'm going to heaven now.
How did you act when you first got saved? Ah, the things of the Lord, I can't be bothered. Can't be, I'm not going to give anything, I'm not going to serve, my time's my own. God changes your mind and then you just respond.
That's what He's asking for. Here, we'll pick up these verses in just a minute. Look at some of the benefits of this. Verse 8, For if these qualities are yours, moral excellence and those things, and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When these attributes are in your life and they're increasing, you're not going to be barren, you're not going to be idle, you're not going to be fruitless. If you take a look at verse 8 there and see that word useless, a good translation would be unemployed.
I like that. God saves you and you're going to be an unemployed Christian. No, you're going to be fired up. And if you look at verse 9, For he who lacks these qualities, if you say you're a Christian and you don't have moral excellence and knowledge, self-control, etc., then what does it say?
That person is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. This kind of person is a Christian, but they've forgotten what God has done. They've forgotten that he's been purified from all his former sins.
The Greek word for blindness is, any guesses? For short-sightedness, any guesses? Myopia. You can't see the eternal ramifications because you're too stuck in the world with work and play and all these other things.
And Peter is saying, I know you know a lot, Christians. Let me stir you up by way of reminder. This is a sermon not to tell you anything new. By the way, I was receiving this week a reference for somebody, a friend of mine who wants to be a pastor at this church.
And this church wrote me an email and said, please rate the following candidate on these things 1 to 10. I thought, what am I going to do? I want the guy to get the job. What do I put 10s on everything?
But here's one of them. Is the candidate innovative as a pastor? This man's been a senior pastor twice before. He's in his middle 40s. Is he innovative? I try to get along with everybody. I try not to lead him by face.
But if you ask me a question as a search committee, nine members of a church trying to figure out who their pastor is going to be, and you say, is he innovative? I have to tell them that's the wrong question.
The question is, is he faithful to the text? Not does he come up with new things? Christianity is not about innovation. Christianity is about tell me the old, old story. And Peter's audience, congregation, knew this message, and now he was trying to make them be reminded of it.
That's why it's a good New Year's Day message this morning, because we can be reminded of those things that are central to the truth. We are not about innovation. Charles Spurgeon said, the day I come up with new things, you throw me in the loony bin because for sure I'll be crazy if I come up with something new regarding Christianity.
We don't want new. What does the text say? God has spoken. He has finished the canon. It's closed. And so Peter's trying to say, if you've forgotten your salvation, if you've forgotten that God purified you from all your sins, by the way, how many is that?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. I mean, how many per day do we sin? He cleansed us from all our sins. He said, don't be spiritually nearsighted.
Don't be blind. I'm going to rouse you up. It's almost like spiritual Alzheimer's disease, forgetting. He said, no, I want you to have the pursuit of holiness in your life, and as you do, your confidence that you'll go to heaven will what?
Increase. Verse 10, therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will nearly, you will nearly, you will never stumble.
He wants us to know that salvation is certain. We can be confident. True or false, God knows who His elect are. True. But here's He saying, I want you to make sure that you can be more certain about His election of you.
Very interesting. So that you never, ever double emphatically stumble. For in this way, verse 11, the way of entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
I call this pig pile. You know what a pig pile is here in New England? In Nebraska, where I come from, it's called a dog pile. Not pig pile. I got out here, and they said, you know, there's a pig pile going on with a bunch of kids down by the bubbler.
I had no idea what was going on. Nine years later, I figured it out. Verse 5, it says, in your faith, supply moral excellence. And as you have done that by the grace of God, then God here in verse 11 abundantly supplies, same Greek word, eternal heaven for you.
You minister, and this is ministered to you. And so what we want to do now is go back to verses 5, 6, and 7, and let me give you seven assurance confirmations. Let me look at these seven things, that if these are in your life and increasing, your assurance should go up.
Seven assurance builders, if you will. So that Christ, Ephesians 3, 17, may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you might settle down and be at home. False teachers are saying the opposite things.
Peter's going to say something that's in direct contradiction to those false teachers, and this is not a bunch of imperatives like, do this, do this, do this. This is more of a holy lifestyle. This is, be this kind of person by the grace of God because of what He's done for us.
Let's go to chapter 1, verse 5, and get ready to jump into these seven. This was all introduction, by the way. When I got done preaching Christmas Eve, it was about 12 minutes, and they said that was a good introduction.
So we have to have introductions, why? By the way, I was talking to a man the other day, and he was going to explain a Bible verse, and he opened up his Bible, and he said, well, we know 2 Peter's context is such and such, therefore, here's what we're seeing in context.
And I thought, I live for these days. I live for these days when someone will open up the Bible, and before they say one other thing in their teaching mode, they'll say, this book was written by, this book was written to, this book was written for this reason.
Now let's look at the verse. It's exactly what happens. And he says in verse 5, for this very reason, for all those blessings of God in chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, that we're partakers of the divine nature.
We have His righteousness. He's given us grace. He's given us peace. He's given us purification of sins. Because of these things, applying all diligence means make every effort. It's got zeal. It's definitely not I'm kind of just laying back and, you know, God's sovereign, therefore, I have no responsibility.
This is more Philippians chapter 2. Work out your what? Salvation with fear and trembling. Not earn your salvation by God and your standing before God, but since you have the right standing before God, become more of who you are.
You call yourself a Christian? Then by the grace of God, act like one. It's logical for this very reason. Similar to me to Romans chapter 12. I urge you, therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable God, which is your logical, reasonable, spiritual service of worship.
What you do? Sweat and toil and try. It's a very strong word. Right away. Nothing about being spiritually passive here at all. And then he says, in your faith, supply. I have to stop right there just for a second because, first of all, it doesn't say, Christians, supply your faith.
Remember, we are commanded to believe as unbelievers, but that gift, but faith is still a gift. We tell people to believe and they can never believe in and of themselves, but faith is a gift of God. So it doesn't say here, supply your faith, but in your faith, supply.
How many people know what a chorus is? Choreograph. Choreography. That's what this word is here. The word in Greek is where we get the word chorus. And if you were a chorus kind of choir director back in those Greek days, you were responsible for everything that was going on.
You'd rearrange their travel. You'd arrange what they wore. You'd give them something to eat. So if they were on tour, this group of singers, everything would be done ahead of time. As you know, I've been captivated by the Tour de France lately, and biking.
And so they have these guys that go ahead of time to the next stop. If a certain leg of the race is going to be 124 miles, the team drives ahead, sets up camp, gets everything ready, so that when Lance Armstrong or someone else crosses that finish line, they ride another two more miles, go straight into their trailer, and inside the trailer is dinner, hot showers, everything else, and they're ready.
And that is what a chorus choreographer kind of person would do back in Greek days. They took care of everything, and they were generous, and they were extravagant, and they would make sure these singers had the best.
It reminds me of the Internet sites where if you want to see what rock and roll bands require backstage before they'll come and sing. Have you ever checked out those websites? All the oysters on the half shell and Evian measured in ounces and not liters and all these other things, and if you don't have all this stuff, we won't come.
So the choir director, the chorus director, who arranges all these things with lavish extravagance is the word that's used here. And so he's saying, when it comes to your faith, I want you to have, with extravagance, these seven kind of assurance builders.
Just deck them all out. The word also could mean to furnish, to furnish like a house and a home. We bought a home several years ago, and you walk in, you think, this is my house, right? Jeffrey just bought a house, this is my house.
All of a sudden you decorate it for one month, two months. We went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a bunch of stuff. We're still kind of trying to figure it all out. Takes you three years to decorate it, and now your house becomes a what?
A home. Here you've got this faith given to you by God in a way that's extravagant, a way that costs. Let Christ dwell in you richly. Make it like a home. So let's look at these seven assurance builders.
They could be Christ-like qualities, if you will, that God calls us to, so you can have an increased assurance. Maybe you're saying, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not. I struggle. I talked to somebody this morning, and they said, well, the way I acted this weekend, I'm not sure I'm a Christian.
And I think they're a Christian, but this will be a good examination where we can kind of hold that mirror up to us and say, Lord, by the grace of God, I want to be more like this. If this is how you say my assurance goes up, I want more assurance.
I don't know anybody who would be a Christian and say, I don't want any more assurance. I want to just kind of go through my life thinking, am I or am I not? I want assurance. I want to be like a martyr who says, you know what?
I'm going to heaven. I want to be like John Payton, who everybody kept saying, cannibals, you'll be eaten by cannibals. They're going to chop you up and be eaten by cannibals. Finally said to the guy with respect, well, you're going to be eaten by worms, and I'm going to be eaten by cannibals, so what's the difference?
We're all going to get a new body. What do we care? If he had low assurance, how could he serve like that? This is one of those messages. I'll tell you where I'm going at the end right now. I want you to have so much assurance that you just go, this is the year.
I'm going to be ready to go to the missions field. I'm going to get ready to do training. I'm ready to go do this and that, kind of walking around with all the fear. What's the worst thing that can happen to you?
You get electrocuted in the baptismal and you go straight to heaven. That's the worst. And then Steve preaches on Ananias and Sapphira. I mean, that's... We've been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body.
We can go for it. I mean, our church is just some kind of little sequestered, suburbian, West Boylston, down the street, looking like a Pizza Hut kind of thing. Nobody knows who we are. I mean, I'm glad for the building and everything, but I'm kind of ready to turn the world upside down for Christ.
And if you're walking around going, I don't know if I'm a Christian or not, then it's not going to happen. God stirs up what happened to our lives, how He saved us, stokes the coals of evangelism. We don't do programs for evangelism here.
You're the program. What's the program for evangelism at BBC? I'm looking at you. You're the program. And healthy sheep reproduce. And you've been taught, you've been trained. We have the Bible Institute, Sunday schools, Awana, everything else, and you know.
And if you know you're going to heaven, then just preach the gospel. If you lose a friend, you lose a friend. You're going to heaven. Peter's going to die soon. He says in chapter 1, verse 14, he says, laying aside my earthly dwelling is imminent.
Jesus Christ specially told him that. It had been made clear by Christ to him, I'm going to die soon, so congregation, let's go for it. And so the first thing he says, in your faith supply, number one, if you're taking an outline, there'll be seven of these.
Number one, you must supply moral excellence. This is, again, response. This is not some kind of legalistic thing where we do outside the grace of God. By the grace of God, because Christ is who he is and has done what he said he has done, because of that, you must supply moral excellence, our virtue, number one found in verse 5.
It means vigorous action. It means God has given you some strength and power to do amazing things for him. I don't want to say Samson-like, that he can kill thousands of people kind of thing, but this is a God-endued power in the life of a saint today in the New Testament church that he's really stirred up or she's really stirred up to just go for it, to live out their faith, active, dynamic force.
Bishop Butler said, Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence or abstaining from harm, but as the exertion of our faculties for good. Active, a moral power it could mean. Not languid, insipid, lethargic, languor.
This is kind of fired up. You get excited. This is kind of a... You drink a protein shake. I've been drinking these protein shakes with all kinds of things in them and creatine and other things and you drink it and it's probably all psychological, but I feel kind of fired up afterwards.
I've got a protein shake. I'm ready. He says, There takes some sweat and toil in the Christian life, unless you have fable faith. If you have real faith, you get fired up and people do all kinds of things for lies.
How excited do people get for lies? Door to door, bicycles, all kinds of things for lies. This is talking about energy, action, aggressiveness. The Puritans used to say, You know what? You come to me for depression.
You come to me for anxiety. You come to me for lack of contentment. You come to me with lack of thanksgiving. They used to say this, Be up and about. Get going. Matter of fact, Thomas Brooks said, If thou would recover assurance, then sit not down to scourge, but be up and doing.
You know, move on. It also... The word study could allude to if you make a horse... God makes horses. But a horse was made to run. A knife was made to cut. A chair was made to be sat on. And you, a Christian, were made to...
No! That wasn't my yawn. I did that once in a service back in California. And you know when you yawn, other people yawn? The congregation started yawning after I did that. My father used to come down to my room and say, That room, son, will not be cleaned by osmosis.
God has given you faith, and we want to have moral energy and action and say, Yes, I'm about the Lord's business. Not sitting idly by, seizing the day. False teachers in those days? Yeah, don't worry about it.
He's a Savior. Don't have to make Him Lord or anything else. And He says, if these things are yours in increasing, verse 8, you're going to have extra assurance. If I look to the Lord Jesus Christ and I see His life, do you think He had a life of moral excellence, or virtue, or activity, and energy, and service?
This is a great picture of Christ, serving through food, serving through meals. My food is to do the will of the Father. If you're living for the Lord and you're excited, you're going to have increased assurance.
Number two. First one's moral excellence. Number two, you must supply knowledge. Verse 5. You can see it right there in the text. Remember, when someone preaches a sermon, the point of the passage is the point of the sermon, and the point of the sermon is the point of the passage.
There are seven moral virtues. What do you think the outline is going to be today? Seven moral virtues. And I don't even have to make them all start with the same letter for alliteration. Let's just get these into our brain.
So you don't want to have somebody running around super active and they don't know what they're doing. They're just busy. Busyness is not the solution. In moral excellence, knowledge. There's the kind of knowledge that's book knowledge.
I know these things. By the way, is that good? Is it good to have book knowledge of the church? Jesus was fully God and fully man. He literally, with his body, was raised from the dead and will literally come back with that body.
Is that good knowledge to have? Yes. It's a good knowledge to say that the church is the bride of Christ, the body, all kinds of things we could know. But this is more not just knowledge. It is more practical application.
It's knowledge that's acted out. You could call it wisdom, if you will. It's not just data. By the way, this is good for our church because we're pretty much data central around here. I don't know what else to do.
We need to teach you the data, right? And then say, God, you tell us to teach your truths and they grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Spirit of God, work out the truths in their lives.
Of course we need to teach data. But you're not going to get assurance by just knowing all kinds of things. I've memorized the Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Confession of Faith. I can do all these things back and I understand all these.
Those are good. But that's not going to be the increase of your assurance. But when you understand a truth and then you live it out experientially, that will help. We're not just busy for being busy or doing things at random.
No. One man said this means understanding, correct insight, truth properly comprehended and applied. Pharisees and false teachers of those days, during Peter's days, they knew all the stuff but they didn't do what they said.
No. 3, you must apply not only moral excellence, knowledge, but No. 3, self-control. At least we can do this after the holidays. Self-control, verse 6. It means to hold yourself in. It means to hold yourself back.
It means self-restraint. It means self-control. The opposite would be anarchy, wild, crazy, unbridled. This is not just talking about alcohol. This is talking about in every area of your life having self-control.
Able to say no to self. And I wrote in my notes, it does not happen in the easy chair. I would love to get a Lazy Boy chair to read in. But frankly, I think I'm too old to do the Lazy Boy thing because I think it would be Nat Boy if I was in the Lazy Boy.
I have to sit on some hard chair now to read to stay awake. This takes work, watchfulness. Barclay said it means to take a grip of oneself. As the unbeliever, false teachers, what were they typified by?
2 Peter 2 .2. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned. Here's Peter saying you need self-control, you need self-discipline. You're able to do it.
It's the fruit of the Spirit. The grace of God can help you do this. And you just need to say no to yourself sometimes. It's running around going wild for hedonism and everything else. You're going to have a decreased assurance level.
But when you say, you know, when I was an unbeliever, I couldn't say no to certain things. Now as a Christian, I can say no. I can say no to things, and I'm able to do that. Not force, but just the Spirit of God doing that.
MacArthur would always say sometimes he just says no to dessert just to be in the practice of having to say no to something in his life at some time. I haven't mastered that, but it's a good idea for John.
It's the opposite of self-indulgence. Did you notice there's nothing in the text here about some kind of slain in the Spirit, some kind of zap, some kind of you come up to the front and somebody slams you down and then everything's okay?
This is with faith supplying these things with diligence, with hard work. There are no easy answers to the Christian life of all of a sudden I'm struggling and then now I've arrived. Here's the rival.
It's like California real estate, up and down, up and down until one day glory. This is also the very opposite to the false teaching that's around today. It's the whole wealth, health, gospel that you can kind of have it all and Jesus is here to just give you everything you want.
But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Paul said to Timothy, same idea. Number four, you must supply moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, and perseverance.
Found in verse 6. You can just see the outline come right from the text. These are things that if they're in our life and increasing by the grace of God, we should feel more saved. Even though in God's eyes, are we more saved?
No, but we feel like we're more saved subjectively. And here's perseverance. This word means to stay under. It means steadfast endurance. It means not giving up to sin, not giving in to temptation. Lloyd-Jones says, quote, The temptation is to say, why should I go on?
Why should I be different and just go on and be patient? The answer is that we should remember that we are God's children marching on to a glorious eternal inheritance, which we shall enter after we have suffered a while.
Let us not be weary in doing well, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. The Christian life is difficult, but for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of glory, for the sake of his honor, we just say, I'm going to stay under.
I'm going to persevere. I'm not just going to flame out. Adoniram Judson, if you go to Salem, I think you can see the little plaque right there by the bay, and it says from this spot, the first American missionary left.
Where did he go? To Burma. And here's what Adoniram Judson did. Great illustration of this perseverance. No converts. Struggle like mad. And in the midst of all this, early on in his ministry, he said, quote, permit us to labor on in obscurity, and in 20 years you may hear from us again.
The numbers aren't up to me. I'm here to be faithful. I'm here to persevere. The fruit and everything else are God's. And check back in 20 years, we might have a convert then. Broken clock is right twice a day, Aristotle said.
Self-control deals with pleasures, and perseverance deals with sorrows. The Christian life is full of trials, temptations, difficulties. We've had some in 05, haven't we, some big ones? But we persevere ahead.
We persevere because there are better things ahead, better times ahead, eternal hope ahead. Marching to victory. Even when we can't understand it, we persevere. Even when it hurts, we persevere. And then when you persevere through those things, you look back and you say, how could I do that on my own?
I couldn't do that on my own. That's the work of the God of grace in my life. I'm a Christian. If I've gone through that, if I've said goodbye to my mother's body and buried her, and said, you know, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. I must be a Christian. That was a lot different response that I had last year to my mother than 16 years ago when my father died, and I thought, my solution is found in this Corona bottle.
Downstairs with my brother, drinking beer, trying to figure out, why did dad die? And I look back. It has nothing to do with me, but I can tell there's the grace of God working in my life. I must be a Christian because I'm different.
People don't think that way. People don't do those things. Same for you. These things are yours and increasing. Reminds me of Jesus Christ, tempted in all points as we were, but what? He didn't sin. Well, time's racing.
We've got a few more to go. Don't want to turn this into a two-part series. Moral excellence, number one. Knowledge, number two. Self-control, three. Perseverance, number four. Godliness, number five.
You must supply godliness. If you want to make sure you're going to heaven and you want to have an increased subjective feeling of going to heaven, godliness is number five. How many people know the 4th century church historian Eusebius?
You ever heard of that name, Eusebius? Guess what Eusebius means. It's a Greek word that means godly. That's what they named the kid, Eusebius. What's the Greek word here? That's where we get the word Eusebius, godly.
These words, we don't talk about these words much today. Pious, how does that sound? You want to be pious, piety? This is God consciousness. This is Psalm 16 where I have set the Lord continually before me.
I want to honor him in everything I do, think, say. And here, this is Calvin's motto stolen by R .C. Sproul, Coram Deo. R .C. wasn't trying to be innovative. This is saying to yourself, everything in my life I'm not going to see as secular and sacred.
Tomorrow you go to work. Well, maybe you don't work tomorrow. Tuesday I go to work and it's secular, and then I'm at church, it's sacred. This is seeing all of life as godliness. That I can please God.
The opposite of godliness, by the way, is idolatry. In this particular context, the opposite is idolatry. Even Josephus contrasted this word with idolatry. Godliness gives proper reverence to the triune God.
Idolatry takes away the reverence and honor due God and places it someplace else, serving him. I mean, I think of this with routine matters. Do you know you can do laundry for the glory of God? And if you do, you're going to be thinking, I must be a Christian, because here I am folding up those socks and none of them match.
I can't figure out. I mean, we have four kids and I've got socks and Kim's got socks. Six people's socks, they all come together and somehow pairs go in and only one come out. I mean, I have no idea where all those socks go.
I'm folding socks for the glory of God. I must be a Christian because I would never do that before. I just throw away the old socks and buy new ones. That's what I would do. I'm washing dishes for the glory of God.
I'm changing diapers. I'm going to work with all those pagans on Tuesday morning again. They just kind of drag me down and all these other things. No, you're going there because you're a light set on a hill and you can do it for the glory of God.
That's why this whole complaining about my work thing is just upside down. You don't complain about your work. You are godly at your work. It's a gift from God. What Jones says, this keeps our main motive living in the face of God, doing things for his sake, what he thinks, serving him.
False teachers didn't do that. I think of Jesus, though. He was godly. He was always about his father's will, doing what he wanted. Okay, two more really fast. Number six, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness.
The sixth assurance builder that you must supply is brotherly kindness. We get the word what? There's a city down in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. That's where we get the word. This is service for others.
And he's already urged this in the first letter he wrote. But here this is serving brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ. Here's what we do. I want to be godly. I want to have self-control. I want to have knowledge and virtue and all that stuff.
I'm going to go to a monastery because people make me stumble. Everything is okay in my Christian life as long as I'm not around sheep. I've got to go someplace. If I'm going to have moral virtue, if I'm going to have to have knowledge, if I have to control myself, and the list goes on, if I have to have perseverance and godliness, I can't do it around other people.
And so here it comes right back for us to say, I don't know this person. They're a different color. They're a different background. They're a different people, different relationships. And God has saved them.
God has saved me. And because of that, I have a bond that I can't describe. I love these people. I love this person. You can go to Jamaica. You can go to India. And you meet people who are other Christians, and God has just instilled in you by his spirit a love for the other people, brotherly love.
And if you have that, that's a lot different than when you weren't a Christian because you say, you know what? I serve people because I get something back. And here I just serve. Doing things for others, thinking that you're doing them for God.
A .T. Pearson wrote, Whatever is done for God without respect of its comparative character as it is related to other acts is service and only service. Service is, comprehensively speaking, doing the will of God.
He is the object. All is for him. For his sake as unto the Lord. Reminds me of the parable in Matthew 25. And the king will answer and say to him, Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them you did it to.
Reminds me of Jesus. And the last reminder of Jesus is number seven. Moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly love. And number seven, agape love, and let's call it sacrificial love just so we get them right.
How would you describe agape love? How would you define it? Sacrificial love, I think, is good. Love by deliberate choice, A .T. Robertson called it. And the great Mennonite scholar in Fresno, California.
Has any good thing come from Fresno? Who's now in glory. He said it has its origin not in the desirability of the object, but in the agent who deliberately desires the highest good for the object of his affection.
Agape love is I want what's best for that person, therefore I'll do what it takes to serve them and honor God by doing it because I know it's best for him or her. I didn't really feel led to serve them.
God didn't tell me that I should reach out to them. Waiting to be moved by the spirit. What's best for that person? Let's use evangelism for illustration. What would be the best thing that you could do for a person who at the next breath that they might have be their last breath, that they die and go to eternal perdition?
What would be the best thing for them? The best thing for us is it'd be nice to kind of be friends with them because if I tell them the truth, they're going to treat me like people treat Pastor Mike. Sayonara.
Just walk into a room. Just like the parting of the sea where I go. Is Daniel O 'Brien here doing Daniel O 'Brien's mother's funeral? Before, pastors got me in the office. We're saying hello. Yeah, that's fine.
I got up and preached the gospel. Afterwards, not one person besides Daniel O 'Brien and his wife and daughter would talk to me. Not one. And the meanest people were the old grandmas who were sitting behind the cookies who should have been maybe the nicest to them.
Sacrificial love. Agape love says, I want what's best for them. Now, it's kind of twofold because I want to honor God and He says that. So this is the kind of love that just does. You don't say, I kind of wasn't led to evangelize them.
Translation, you knew what was right. You knew what you needed to tell them. And you have more of a fear of man than you have a fear of God. And so you didn't want to do what's best for them. You didn't evangelize them because you wanted to do what was best for you.
I'm preaching to you telling you this, but this is how I do it too. I think, you know, if I really tell them, it's over. Same way serving Christians. Well, you know, they didn't really do that thing for me.
I invited them over to dinner and they never invited me back over. We know, loved by this, that He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.
The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. So different than the false teachers and so much like Christ Jesus.
Say, I want to make sure I'm going to go to heaven. Well, one of the ways we make sure as Christians is we live out our faith. That's what this passage is all about. In the midst of trouble, in the midst of trials.
I think a good summary is by the Scottish pastor Sinclair Ferguson. High degrees of true assurance cannot be enjoyed by those who persist in low levels of obedience. Did you know I struggle with assurance sometimes?
Not often, but sometimes I do. And you know what I do? I look back at myself and say, well, no wonder I'm struggling with assurance, you idiot. I know if you call somebody else Raka, it's a sin. But if you call yourself Raka, I can't find that in the Sermon on the Mount.
So sometimes I just go, you are an idiot. What are you thinking? Well, that's just the grace of God. You take your finger, you touch the stove, yow. You live in a way that's pleasing to God. You look back and you have those feelings of, God, you're doing something in my life that's only supernatural.
I'm your child. I'm still his child, but I feel like more of his child. You do something that's wrong and you just have some days and, you know, I'm just not in the Word like I should be and not thinking properly and not doing this and just kind of not keeping short accounts with the Lord and all of a sudden you go, I just don't feel saved.
I know I am, but I don't feel saved. Well, the prescription here, there's many in the Bible, but this one is, well, then stir up and get busy. Have some practical knowledge, self-control. The good news is, and in case you heard me wrong, we don't become more of God's children because we obey, do we?
No. But you can sense his presence, as it were, more by children. If they disobey, what do I do? There's fellowship broken. Here's how Kim teaches it. Here's mommy, here's Gracie, or here's mommy and here's Maddie or whatever one of the kids is disobeying.
And we were like this before you sinned. And when you sin, it breaks our fellowship. It breaks our closeness. And then when you, are you still my child? Yeah? She's Kim's kid when she disobeys. She's my kid when she, what's going on with you?
Just kidding. And then when there's obedience, in this particular case, repentance, confession, contrition, then there's a closeness. Still children of God, but you just feel close. And so sometimes Gracie will walk by and she'll say to Kim, we're like this, mama.
Sometimes she puts me in there too, so Gracie's there. There is objective assurance. Christ died on Calvary, he was raised from the dead, and everyone he dies for will go to heaven. That's objective. There's also a subjective assurance that in my heart, the Spirit bears witness to my spirit, Romans chapter 8, that I'm truly a child of God.
And there's a kind of assurance that when we walk as children of the light, we do what Christians do according to the Bible. We feel like we're Christians. We feel like we're children. It doesn't make us more children, but we feel like it.
And that's, I think, the grace of God that he would have that. We can't sin and then sin ourselves out of heaven because that takes care of justification in a wrong way. If justification is a complete transaction where Jesus has all of our sins, past, present, and future, imputed to his account, all Christ's perfections imputed to our account, how can we undo justification when one of those sins that isn't paid for in justification, they're all paid for?
Even the young converts know this. One said, if anyone is ever to be kept out of heaven for my sins, it will have to be Jesus because he took them upon himself. But that can't happen because he's in heaven already now, so I know I am secure.
How good is that? I want the church this year to so know they're going to heaven that they're ready to just say, you know what, Lord, it's all yours and I'm going. I hope you don't all leave, but most of you.
It's time to start kicking some people out of the nest around here. You know so much. You've been trained. We praise God that there's not a sinner so bad that God's great grace can't forgive him. Samaritan woman, the thief on the cross, the woman with the sinful past in Luke 7, the woman caught in adultery, the killer Paul.
God saves sinners for his glory and his delight, and we can increase our communion with him as we add to our faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and sacrificial love.
And it'll cost us prayer to ask God to help us because we can't do it on our own, right? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for our day today. We bless your name. And Lord, it's the new year, and this might be the year that you have ordained that your son will return.
And Lord, we would say, come, Lord Jesus, quickly. And in the meantime, Lord, would you help us to be a prepared people that we might be pleasing to you when your son returns. Lord, I always wanted to make sure I had everything in order before my father returned from a business trip because I wanted to please him.
Lord, how much more, as you've stirred our hearts by the Spirit's work, that we want to please you. We know we're your children. We know we're saved. We know we're sealed by your Spirit. But we would like this year, Lord, that we could feel a closer communion with you, a communion that would be one that would be sweet and deeper than even last year, that we might have assurance that we are children of God.
And Lord, as I look out when I was preaching, I know some people here still have said yes to sin and no to your son. And Lord, it will take a supernatural act of salvation. Salvation is of the Lord for you to give them a new heart.
So, God, would you grant them repentance? Would you grant them saving faith? Would you grant them new affections to love the Savior and love the Word and love obedience that they might honor you? In Jesus' name, amen.