Assurance Of Salvation: Christ FOR Us (part 3) - [1 John 2:1-2]

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1689 London Confession (part 46)

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Well, this week the world celebrates, of course, a wonderful holiday, and that is
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Reformation Day. It was 501 years ago where Martin Luther nailed the 95
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Theses to the door at Castle Church in Wittenberg, and it was like a theological contagion.
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It was a virus, not of something in your skin, but of knowledge.
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And it's amazing how God had concocted everything to make this work.
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You have the Elbe River there, so there's lots of transportation that will be very close to this small, tiny little city.
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You can walk across it just in minutes. There was a university started there,
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University of Wittenberg, La Correa, and then there was the Gutenberg Press. And God had this man,
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Martin Luther, go back to Scriptures and say, what does the Bible teach? What's really going on here?
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And it began to draw people back to the Scriptures. And if you wanted to summarize the Reformation, we probably could say, yes, we could summarize it by the
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Solas of the Reformation. But if we boil it all down, the Reformation could be summarized by a rescuing of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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What does the Bible say about Jesus, this eternal Son who comes to die for sinners, for no cause in them, but only the cause that He has a plan to do that.
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The rescuing of Jesus and then seeing every other doctrine and area of life in light of who
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Jesus is. Walking by faith in Jesus, and then you go about your work and your play and everything else.
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And so then you take the doctrine of marriage. What does the Bible say about marriage? It's not just for procreation in the light of who
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Jesus is and what He said, He said, oh, it's for procreation and for pleasure and for stability and security.
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There's all these other biblical reasons. What does the Bible say about the bondage of the will?
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Is our will free or is it enslaved? And we'll talk about that tonight. Do we need
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God to monergistically, Him alone, save us? Or do we cooperate in some way? So you get to heaven and you'll say,
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God, we did it. And you high five God and you fist bump God or whatever people think about that. No, it is sovereignly administrated,
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God alone working. That's what the Reformation recovered because that's what the Bible teaches. But there's another doctrine that we've been going over for the last two weeks.
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It's the doctrine of assurance because Jesus has been rescued. All your cards, as it were, are on the table and you're just trusting in Jesus alone and now knowing who
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Jesus is and what He's done. You can trust Him and you, my friend, can have assurance.
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In the Roman Catholic system, you couldn't have it. Actually, it was called a sin to have this assurance.
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But now with the Reformation, back to the sources, ad fontes. What does the text say? Forget what the pastor says.
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Forget what your friends say. Forget what the priest says. Forget what tradition says. What does the Bible say?
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I'd like to know that and then you can know for certain you can be forgiven. And that's what the doctrine of assurance yields to us, that you can know you have eternal life.
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John Bradford, just before he was executed for his faith in Jesus, said this, I have no request to make.
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If Queen Mary gives me my life, I will thank her. If she will banish me, I will thank her.
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If she will burn me, I will thank her. If she will condemn me to imprisonment, I will thank her.
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How do you talk that way? The only answer is found in the person and work of Jesus who gives you assurance that this is just a short life, but then eternity lasts forever.
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Hugh McHale, 1666, scaffold, going to die in Edinburgh.
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He said this just before he died, last words, Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations.
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Farewell, the world and all its delights. Farewell, meat and drinks. Farewell, sun, moon and stars.
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Welcome, God and father. Welcome, sweet Lord Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.
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Welcome, blessed spirit of grace and God of all consolation. Welcome, glory. Welcome, eternal life.
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Welcome, death. Oh, Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, my soul.
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Oh, Lord God of truth. How does anyone talk that way? And the only answer is found in the work of God in the life of a man or woman who can now trust completely not in what he or she has done or will do, but in the
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God who saves sinners. It was Paul who said, essentially on his deathbed,
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I'm not ashamed for I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.
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How can you say that? And the answer is found not in the Reformation, not in the solas, but in the
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Jesus who caused the Reformation, the Jesus that you must place your faith in. And so today we're going to look at the doctrine of assurance for this reason, because everything about the doctrine of assurance points to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And I've said to many people in this church who visit, and I like to go and say hello and hi, and if they've got little kids,
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I bend down. It's hard to get back up at my age. Try to be sweet.
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And I've said on regular occasions, you know what, if you like to hear about Jesus, this is a good church for you.
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But if you don't, you probably won't like it here. And by the way, if you want entertainment and drama and this and that, there's lots of other places that do it better than a local church does.
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But nobody preaches about the Lord Jesus Christ and sovereign, free, and full grace anywhere else.
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Where are you going to go to get that? And so it's our responsibility, even as our bulletin says,
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Him we proclaim. And when you want to know about assurance, it has to lead, every road leads to the person and work of Jesus.
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And so I get, actually, you pay my bills, so I get to study this all week and tell you about the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was eternal. Jesus added humanity and lived a perfect life.
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It was Jesus who died a substitutionary death. It was Jesus who was raised from the dead. He raised himself from the dead.
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It's Jesus who ascended into heaven. Think about that. It's Jesus who prays for people now.
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It's Jesus who said, I'm coming back. And he's the one, when you get your eyes off of him, you're going to falter in your assurance.
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And if you think about him often, it's going to help you. Please turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 8, the doctrine of security and assurance.
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Now, if I want to try to manipulate you, I will say things like this. Your assurance is based on what you do and what
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God has done. And by the way, for a small fee, you come to me and you can confess your sins, and I'll make sure you're forgiven.
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And I can control you based on that, because if there's anything in life that's precious to you, it should be that you know you're going to go to heaven, that you can go to heaven, and that you know you know that you're going to go to heaven.
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Is anything else in life worth living for? If you're thinking at any possible second, when I die,
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I'm going straight to hell. But to know. And when I sit down and have a coffee with Larry, like I did last week after brain surgery, or I sit down and have coffee like I did this week with Dave Copper, and you think, you know what?
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They, and me, and you as well, we're all going to die one day, and then what? What if they didn't know?
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But since they do know, it changes everything. And you need to know, if you're a Christian, that you can have assurance.
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Freely, fully, not because of me. The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia describes the sin of presumption assurance this way, quote,
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It may be defined as the condition of a soul that because of a badly regulated reliance on God's mercy and power, did you hear that?
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A badly regulated reliance on God's mercy and power, hopes for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of his sins without repenting of them.
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I think they understood the doctrine. So much so that Gregory the Great, the 7th century
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Pope, said assurance was not even possible, it was dangerous and not desirable.
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Quote, The greater our sins, the more we must do to make up for them. Whether we have done enough to atone for them, we cannot know until after death.
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We can never be sure of success. Assurance of salvation and the feeling of safety engendered by it is dangerous for anybody and would not be desirable even if possible.
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Do you hear that? So my mom's on her deathbed and I'm telling her, Mom, I've never believed this more in my life.
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Absent from the body, present with the Lord. To live is Christ and to die, gain.
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I've got to turn off the machines. It's time to go meet Jesus. And the last words
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I ever heard her say were, Awesome. If you don't have the doctrine of assurance, you don't say that.
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Because how can you ever know? And the book of Romans is so wonderful because it starts off by saying,
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You don't have any righteousness, but God freely gives you His Son's righteousness, and you are righteous and therefore then do righteous deeds in light of your salvation.
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And tucked right in the middle is Romans 8, this great chapter. Now, we're normally going through the book of Hebrews, but we're talking about assurance because it is so important and it really will revolutionize everything you think about God and the
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Lord Jesus. And so we're just taking our time making sure that you can sing on your deathbed. It is well with my soul.
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Oh, my sin, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.
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What is the next line? Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul. Rome tried to take away assurance.
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The Bible tries to give it. Now, our outline has been very simple here when it comes to assurance, this confident realization that though I still sin as a
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Christian, I'm still secure. That's assurance. It's been simple. I've been asking a variety of questions and giving you some exhortations.
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How to get assurance if you don't have it and how to keep it if you already have it. Number one, don't look to any kind of ism or religion for assurance.
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Number two, remember last week and the week before, don't look to yourself. If you want to have a reliance on yourself for your assurance, it's not going to work out very well because this kind of morbid introspection and looking at ourselves, we're only going to see if we're honest, the real us, the real sinful us and how we are still sinful people and we don't do what we should do and we don't do it perfectly enough.
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And if we think our works can get us to heaven even as a Christian, we don't realize how sinful our minds are and hearts and how holy
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God is. If you keep asking your question, do I really love Jesus enough?
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That's the wrong question. If you ask this question, do I really love Jesus enough? No, therefore
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I have to go back to who Jesus is and he said he mercifully saves people and keeps people who don't love him enough.
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That's the right view. Thirdly, we said, number one, don't look to ism.
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Number two, don't look to yourself. Number three, look outside of yourself. And that's why when you come to Romans chapter 8, this chapter that talks about security and therefore assurance, it's all going to be focused on who
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God is. There's going to be this kind of upward look when you're thinking, you know, I don't want to look inside to myself.
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I don't want to look like kind of around to other isms and church organizations and traditions and denominations.
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I need to kind of look up and that's where this brings us. From chapter 7, O wretched man that I am.
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Don't you see that in chapter 7 verse 25? Thanks be to God through my Lord Jesus Christ. So then
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I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
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How is he thanking God for this? Because just one verse earlier he said, wretched man that I used to be, wretched man that I was before I was saved, wretched man,
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Paul the apostle, mature man said, wretched man that I what? Am. Remember the,
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I'm going to date myself, I know that. Remember the wide world of sports?
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You had to wait till Saturday to watch that show. And, you know, we didn't have wakeboarding in those days and skateboarding or any kind of other board sports.
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It was just simple skiing, hockey, baseball. Anybody here like baseball?
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Okay. If you, if that would have gone 18 innings last night and you didn't show up today, you were in big trouble.
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I know I'm talking a lot about Jesus and the gospel, but it would have been law. Law all the way.
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And in the wide world of sports, remember, they had that theme over and over when that skier was going to go on the jump and he fell.
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And they talked about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Well, switch those around for seven and eight.
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Seven is the agony of defeat, oh, wretched man that I am. When you're doing this, that's what you're going to see.
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But chapter eight, it's the thrill of victory because it's done by another. It's done by who Jesus is.
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This is Paul's confident praise in God. This is God -centered. Do you see in chapter eight, verse one, no condemnation for those who are in Christ the
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Messiah, Jesus. That's his human name. And it is bookended with the same thought because it's all about the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 39 of chapter eight. Nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in the
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Messiah, Jesus our Lord. And everything about this should drive you back to the person and work of Jesus.
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We talked about this last week, but I want to make sure we are resolute in our looking to the
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Lord Jesus. Luther said, when the devil throws up our sins to us and declares we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus.
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I admit I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation?
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By no means. For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf.
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His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where he is, there I shall be also.
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Your union with Christ is what's going to keep you safe, Christian, even when you sin on this earth.
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Do you notice chapter eight, verse 28? 828. And we know that for those who love
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God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose.
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And now this is just this unbreakable chain of God's great work for those whom he foreknew.
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That's just he loved ahead of time. This is not talking about he foreknew your actions. It says for those whom he foreknew.
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He foreknew people. He loved people ahead of time. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
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Son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers or brethren.
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And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Do you notice what Paul is doing there?
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Yes, it was 724, wretched man that I am, and now it is he called, he justified, he glorified, he predestines, he foreknows.
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This is the objective reality. The proof of God's grace is found in he did not spare his
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Son. If you'd like to have your assurance increased, you ought to study the person and work of the
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Lord Jesus. I think I asked the question last week, when's the last time you read a book on the person and work of Jesus?
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Oh, I've read a book on communication. I've read a book on marriage. I was just going to put marriage and parenting together.
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Mariting wouldn't be bad. If you've got to read one, read the marriage book first, because if you're good at that, you might be good at that.
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I've read books on how to be good worker, a Christian worker. Fine. But how about the
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Lord Jesus Christ to focus on him and study on him? You got low assurance? I know I want to point you back to Christ Jesus, our
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Savior, that just shall live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, look to the love of God.
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Don't look to isms, don't look to self, don't look to Jesus, look to the love of God. And we continue in our passage in Romans chapter 8.
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I think here's what happens. Here's what happened to me. That doesn't make it true, but this is kind of from my perspective.
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When I first got saved, I got so sick of people talking about God loves you. Love, love, love, love, love, because that's my whole environment.
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I only heard that God loved me. I believed it, but I had heard enough of that, because what
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I did not hear when I was growing up is, God is a consuming fire, and God is wrathful, and God hates sinners,
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Psalm 5, 5, Psalm 7, 11, and God is so furious about people who want to say things about his son and not worship his son.
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He's so holy that what comes out is this burning wrath. He's not some kind of grandpa that just puts up with a disobedient grandson.
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And so I thought to myself, listen, they're so focused on the love of God, we've got to make sure we talk about the other attributes of God, because they're just as important.
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And so then it's almost a swing over, you know, oh, the love of God, and, you know, oh, God loves you, and those kind of things.
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What the writer here, Paul, is trying to do, is that he's trying to say this,
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Christian, when you sin against your father, you're redeemed, you're reconciled, God has saved you completely, try you in the work of God, and he saved you.
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When you sin against God and you think about him, do you think about mercy or do you think of vengeance?
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Do you think about a God who's a father who's going to kind of whack you, or a
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God who's mercifully, maybe going to chasten you, yes, but a father nonetheless? What do we think about the
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Father? Do we think he loves us? I would say almost every evangelical thinks about God the
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Father this way. He's super mad at people, and until the Son assuages His wrath, He can't be nice.
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Thanks, Jesus, for making the Father love us. Is that the right view of God? That's an awful view of God.
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Let's see the right view of God, Romans 8 .32, and it's all focused on His love. Just because the world overdoes it, just because sappy evangelical radio stations overdoes the love of God, I don't want to be robbed of the love of God.
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Romans 8 .32, "...he who did not spare his own son." Was there anything more precious to the
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Father? He, the Father, did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.
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By the way, when you think about sparing, that is exactly the word that's used in the Old Testament, where Abraham did not spare his son.
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He did not withhold his son that he killed, or was going to kill, and at least kill in his own mind.
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He'd already done the job. He didn't withhold Isaac. And what does this
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God do? He doesn't spare his son, but gave him. And then he goes on to say, "...how
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will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" But let's focus back on sparing his own son.
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Does this passage teach you that God is miserly? Is that a word, by the way? He's a miser.
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Miserly, is that a word? Fine. Okay, fine. He doesn't like to give.
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He's tight -fisted. He's exacting.
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Well, of course, he is exacting in his punishment. But here, we're talking about the Father. What does he give? He gives his son, his most private possession, his most personal son.
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And what does he do? Does he spare that son? He gives that son.
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Why? Because he loves sinners. He didn't spare his son.
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You can see the Father's involvement here in salvation. I could go to another passage, couldn't I? A very popular passage.
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For God so loved the world that what? He gave his only son. God is talking about God the
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Father. God the Father gives. Don't ever think God doesn't love you until the son has assuaged the wrath of God.
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Wait a second. Did I just say that right? Don't ever think that God the Father doesn't love you until the son assuages the
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Father's wrath because it was love that sent him in the first place. He didn't spare his son, but delivered.
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He wasn't reluctant. He wasn't grudgingly giving. He didn't spare. He delivers the son.
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We sing about this. It's the Father's love. And even down in verse 35, don't you see it there too?
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It wasn't just the Father who loved. It wasn't just the Father who had to be kind of some kind of coaxed into getting us to look to the
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Lord Jesus after he was died. It says right there in verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
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That's not my love for him, thankfully. That's God's love, the Son's love for us.
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And he gives this list. Here's what we do. I've got some bad circumstances in my life and maybe
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God doesn't love me. I've got some advice for you. Stop watching Christian TV because it's not
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Christian. Trinity Broadcasting, they don't believe in the Trinity. It might not be a good match.
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You know, if you want to watch sports TV and they don't play any sports, I wouldn't watch it. Will God let this happen?
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How can he love me? Nothing's going to separate us from that love. That's the point because it's his love for us.
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It's an eternal love. It's an infinite love. It's an immutable love. It doesn't change. And he gives this list.
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Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword. Will any of those things, even death, make
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God's everlasting love stop? No, because in God there's no variation, no shifting shadow,
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James says. Let me ask you this question, Christian. Does God love you less when you sin?
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When the disciples sinned and Jesus knew that they were going to forsake him, it says in John 13, now before the feast of the
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Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
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Does God love you less when you sin? Oh, I'll just ask you the question. Do you love your kids less when they sin?
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And even if you do, that's not how God acts. Does God unlove you when you sin?
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The answer is no. And I know what you're thinking. This is too good to be true. This could make me go wild.
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This could make me be an antinomian. That's the point. Because it is so free, it is so gracious, it is so liberating, that friends, you're no longer a
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Roman Catholic. Because the Roman Catholic doctrine takes this, the love of God, and your love, and it has to meld it together.
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And by the way, your love will never measure up. And so it's a presumption to think that God could love you so you could never have assurance.
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And if any God would love you like this, wouldn't you want to respond with holiness and make your election sure, and your calling sure, by acting obediently?
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I've had to say to my kids before, Daddy loves you, and so act like an
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Ebendroth. All these things can happen, and it doesn't change
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God's love for us. The love of God does not change. Charles Hodge said,
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It is no ground of confidence to assert or even to feel that we will never forsake Christ. But it is the strongest ground of assurance to be convinced that His love will never change.
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Could anybody love you like that? Has anybody ever loved you like that? And the answer, only this loyal love of God.
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Verse 37, No, in all these things, we're more than conquerors through our own love for God.
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Through my own quiet time. Through my own fasting. Through my own whatever you want to do.
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No, through Him who loved us. We overwhelmingly, gloriously conquer because of Christ's love.
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Now, here's my problem. The Mike Ebendroth of 1989 would hear the Mike Ebendroth of 2018 preach.
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He would go, No, don't do that. You're too nice. You've got to whack people.
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Mike, you want to be known as like a Jeremiah. John the Baptist. Where there's a lot of comfortable people and you afflict them.
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I'm telling you, that's the first 15 years of my ministry. It worked.
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Poorly. These people are suffering.
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They're getting persecuted. A sheep led to the slaughter. Doesn't that say that in verse 36?
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Isn't that the Old Testament quote? Isn't that what he's after? For your sake, we're being killed all the day long.
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We're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. The people who received the letter to the book of Hebrews.
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They're hurting. They're Christian people. They've trusted in Christ. They've repented and believed in the Lord Jesus, the risen
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Savior. And so, what do you say to them? You know what? I've got to afflict you comfortable people. Now, there's a time for conviction.
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There's a time for, you hear that sermon and you think, The God of the universe knows me and I'm undone and Lord, forgive me.
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But when it comes to focusing on assurance, if you just say,
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I'm undone and leave it there, that's not good. But I'm undone and I'm going to not leave it there. I'm going to remember about this one who died for me and who gave himself for me.
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And who when I go to him as a elder brother statesman, there's mercy to be found and not vengeance.
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There has been a theological paradigm shift in my mind. And that is, of course, people need to be convicted.
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And we'll just go verse by verse through the text. And Hebrews 5, remember last time we were there? It was, grow up.
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I get it. But the theme of Hebrews, where they're spliced in these warning passages, the theme is, there's a
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God who's so great no matter what you're going through. He transcends all that and you can trust in him.
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You can believe in him. And this revolution that's gone on in my mind is simply this. It is a proclamation of who
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Jesus is. And in the old days, you know, you talk to your kids and, you know, what did you learn about the sermon today?
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And they just look at you, you know, and their heads down, Jesus. But that's right.
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That's what we're going to do every single week. And Paul said, you know, before I even get there, I could ask you where the jail is because I know
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I'm going to get there soon. But I've determined ahead of time, I'm going to talk about Jesus, whether you like it or you don't.
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I've determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even the crucified one. And here in the book of Romans, God is accomplishing his purposes through affliction and you can trust him.
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Dave Copper, Larry, Janet, the list goes on. You can trust him.
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You don't know all the details. There's pain. There's uncertainty. There's all that. But you can trust him.
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You can have a confidence. You don't have to say, well, you know what? Maybe God's chasing me because I'm not doing this, that, or the other.
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The opposite of assurance and trust is doubt. And if you look at your circumstances and doubt, that's the wrong answer,
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Christian. My affliction is going to drive me to Jesus, who's merciful, who's kind.
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He loved me. The father sent his son out of love because he loved me. And whatever he's doing, it's doing it in a banner of love and a push of love.
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So he's working it all out. And there's something more important than my physical pain or lack thereof.
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It's the glory of God. And I'm just going to have to trust him. I don't know.
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But I can cast all my cares upon him because I matter to him. That's the literal 1
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Peter 5 translation. This hardship isn't going to hurt me.
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Ultimately, it's going to help me. Somebody said to me the other day, Mike, I think you're nicer since you've had cancer.
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Okay, thanks. I think you're meaner since I got cancer. I think you're more blunt after I got cancer.
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I thought, I hope I'm different. I hope
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I did something. But that's not where I got the theological revolution.
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The theological revolution was even seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus. I was on the road to Emmaus saying, you know what?
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You look at the Old Testament. It's all about me. Genesis is about me. Exodus is about me. It's all about me.
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And when a pastor dares to get up in a sacred desk and preach, it better be about the Lord Jesus. And we, because of his love, overwhelmingly conquer through these things.
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Talks in a present tense language in the book of Revelation, Revelation 1 -5, to him who presently loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.
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And therefore, Paul says in verse 38 of Romans 8, some people say, you can't comment on these.
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Don't read a commentary on these verses because they'll just mess them up. The commentaries can't express the confident praise that Paul gives in Romans 8, 38 and 39.
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I'm sure. There it is, Christian. There's assurance.
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Because of security of what God has done, I therefore am sure that neither death nor life.
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Look at all the pairs he gives. Nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.
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That means you. People are like, well, you know, nobody can snatch me out of the
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Father's hand. But what if I jump out? Question, are you created? Answer, Romans 8, 39.
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We'll be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
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Number five, how do you keep or gain assurance? Keep it if you have it. Gain it if you don't,
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Christian. Don't look to any ism. Look outside yourself. Look to Jesus. Look to the love of God. And now, number five, look to the promises of God in Scripture.
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I could probably tuck in the love of God and the promises of God under looking to Jesus. But to make it very explicit.
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Look to the promises of God. Barry sent me this
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J .C. Ryle quote this week. And I said, I'm going to use that. And here it comes. It cannot be wrong to feel confidently in a matter where God speaks unconditionally.
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To believe decidedly when God promises decidedly. To have a sure persuasion of pardon and peace when we rest on the
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Word. An oath of Him that never changes. It is an utter mistake to suppose that the believer who feels assurance is resting on anything he sees in himself.
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By the way, that would be presumption. He simply leans on the mediator of the
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New Covenant and the Scripture of truth. He believes the Lord Jesus means what He says and takes
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Him at His Word. Assurance, after all, is no more than a full -grown faith.
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A masculine faith that grasps Christ's promise with both hands. A faith that argues like a good centurion.
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If the Lord speak the Word only, I am healed. So when
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Jesus says to you, Christian, and you read it again, and it says, Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden or burdened and I will give you rest.
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You just take Him at His Word. And you trust that Jesus is telling the truth. And when Jesus promises, all that the
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Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will what? Never cast out.
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You take Him at His Word. When He says in John 10, My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.
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I and the Father are one. You take God's promise at His Word. Absolute security for the child of God.
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I'm one of Christ's sheep by faith only. God is going to take care of His sheep. One man was writing
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Arthur Pink and he said, The Lord Himself declares that His sheep shall never perish. Consequently, the man who declares that it is impossible for a child of God to go to hell makes
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God a liar. And one of the great writers,
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Robert Trail, said, Never did a believer in Jesus Christ die or drown in his voyage to heaven.
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The Bible says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised
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Him from the dead, you will be saved. That is a promise. And I'm just assenting to that promise.
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I'm agreeing with that promise. I'm trusting in that promise. Heidelberg Catechism says,
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I have a hearty trust in the promise. Therefore, Christian, you need to read your
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Bibles. Because where do you find those promises? Remember that book,
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Ultimate Questions by John Blanchard. Have you read it? You have to buy a bunch of those and just hand them out regularly.
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Great gospel and it's not truncated. It's just excellent. Ultimate Questions. And there's some pictures in there.
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And one of the pictures shows somebody standing on a Bible. And it's in the section about sin.
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And that section about sin is talking about how unbelief is so sinful and transgressions are sinful and missing the mark is sinful and we're creatures and we're supposed to live in light of who
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God is, the Creator. And we're supposed to obey Him and we don't. And this is rebellion, standing on God's Word like,
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I'm over the Word. Well, my friend Todd, his little daughter saw that picture and she started singing,
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Standing on the Promises of God. Standing, standing.
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That's what we did do before we were Christians, I know. But I'm wondering if we're thinking as Christians, when we think about just a change of thought and what are we going to do?
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Am I thinking, you know what? I'm just this sinner who's outside of God's grace and He's just going to punish me for my sin.
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That should be true, but God has intercepted me, punished Jesus in my place. And now
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I'm completely different. I'm thinking differently. And where are you going to get those promises?
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You're going to only find them in the Bible. Read your
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Bibles. When I read this week Matthew 8, 9, and 10, I thought, Jesus is powerful and He keeps
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His own. And when I read John 8, 9, and 10, I thought, Jesus is never going to lose His sheep. The Canons of Dort said,
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This assurance, however, is not produced by any particular revelation contrary or independent of the
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Word of God, but springs from faith in God's promises. And here's the good news, which
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He has most abundantly revealed in His Word for our comfort. What if you had the Bible and you're like, you know what?
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I just need to find some promises. Remember, I think we used to have the promise Bible, didn't we? Bible promise book?
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All these promises to Israel we'd take for the church, but anyway. What if there are hardly any in here?
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There's like two. And what if you were like a Berean? Remember the Bereans weren't more noble because they searched the
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Scriptures? How did we search the Scriptures? Search for the word promise. Okay, there.
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The Bereans, they're taking those scrolls and they got them all out. It's taken time. There's no numbers and they're looking.
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Well, I think I'm supposed to match up what Paul said to this. And I think that's right. Is it Deuteronomy? Where's the Deuteronomy scroll?
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You're doing all this stuff and trying to find it. And for hours, they're studying and pouring over the
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Scriptures to see what Paul said is true. Friend, you study the Scriptures just quickly and you're going to see promise after promise after promise after promise.
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You don't have to go very far. In other words, to see the word of God promise that God loves his children.
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If you're an unbeliever, I get it. Repent and believe. But believer, God promises.
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And even when we get to chapter 6 in the book of Hebrews, God made a promise to Abraham since he had no one greater by whom to swear.
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He swore by himself. Of course, we know how Abraham responded and he didn't stagger at those promises.
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And when you want to think of the greatest promise, and we should probably quit, the promise that the father made to the son and that the son made to the father in eternity past with the spirit being there, that that father was going to go send that son and rescue every person the father had chose in eternity past, that that son would rescue and die for and deliver and make the voyage all the way to heaven securely for every elect person because the son would live for those people.
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He would die for those people. He'd be raised for their vindication and for their justification. And he was going to make it.
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The promise of the triune God. People fall out of love all the time.
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Not this God. Jesus didn't die in vain. God's love's not fickle.
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And therefore, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. And finally, to think about the triune work, we're going to look next week about the work of the
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Holy Spirit. So instead of looking inwardly, you're going to look at inwardly at the
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Spirit's work in you and then you're going to work out that salvation with fear and trembling and you're going to make the promise of God more manifestly sure.
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And we're going to look at the passage. 2 Peter chapter 1, 1 through about 11.
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There's a theological contagion, but it's 501 years later. And here's the contagion.
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Once you understand that Jesus Christ is the key to every area in your life and he's your
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Lord and Savior and Master and Redeemer and friend and advocate and captain. Once you get that, you can't go back.
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You can't unsee it. Because instead of having Christ in you and focused this way, it's going to be
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Christ outside of you and you'll never be the same. And I would predict there will be people here at the church that want the old way, that want the law way primarily.
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Not the law that leads to the gospel. Not the gospel. They want the law way. And what
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I want for them is I want for them to experience what free and sovereign and loving grace really is.
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But they won't find it anywhere inside of themselves and they won't find it in Ism. They're going to have to study the person and work of Jesus Christ and see the
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God who even liked Peter, who denied him three times. Later, let Peter ask.
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So Jesus would say, you know what? I love you, Peter, three times. The theological contagion is the
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Lord Jesus himself. Not theological doctrines, but doctrines that are about the Lord Jesus.
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Let's pray. I thank you, Father, for our time in your word. I thank you that your son is the guarantor of a better covenant.
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It's guaranteed. I am thankful that when you swear, you do not change your mind and you made
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Jesus the high priest forever by oath. And so,
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Father, tucked in the middle of Romans and Galatians and 2 Peter, we do respond.
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But we respond out of gratitude, sometimes out of duty, I understand. But we respond because of what you've done.
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We respond in light of what you've done. We respond because Jesus Christ loved us and gave himself for us.
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And I pray for my friends who are stuck in systems that give no assurance, whether Roman Catholic or Arminian or semi -Pelagian or whatever it might be.
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I pray that you drive them back to study the Lord Jesus Christ. How he dealt with the leper.
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How he dealt with the mute. How he dealt with the deaf. How he dealt with people when he raised them from the dead. How he dealt with Peter, sinful
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Peter. And how he deals with his children even today. And for Bethlehem Bible Church, Father, I pray we'd be a church that talks much of the
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Son. Not just the doctrine of justification, but whose doctrine it is and to whom it points.