Assurance Of Salvation: Christ FOR Us (part 4) - [1 John 2:1-2]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Well, I don't know if you know that, but you just sang some of Psalm 107. The Lord is good and His loving kindness endures forever.

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And I like to think about how great God is and how He is present tense good. It wasn't like He used to be good.

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It wasn't like He once, an old while ago, He was good, but He is good.

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And He is so good that He saves sinners. You know, there's not one sin that you've ever committed, or could commit, or will commit, that the blood of Christ can't wash away.

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Can you imagine that? Everybody here has skeletons in their closets. I know I do.

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Sins that I hope no one ever finds out about, and yet the Lord knows every one of those. And yet His Son, the

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Lord Jesus, come and live a perfect life and then die on a cross, even though He didn't deserve to die.

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He died on a cross for those sins of all His people. And you receive that forgiveness, that cleansing, that washing, simply by faith.

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There's nothing you can do to add to it. You don't have to merit it or earn it because we would never be able to.

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But the good news of the gospel is this, that God's grace is greater than all your sin. And if you say to yourself, you know, in the past,

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I have sinned and I have sinned even this week, you can come to the Lord Jesus and be cleansed.

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And if you're someone here today who's not a Christian, I offer you, through the scriptures, forgiveness, right standing with God, because there is going to be that judgment day, and you are going to need to be perfect to get into heaven because God is perfect and His heaven is perfect.

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Therefore, you're going to need someone to live a perfect life for you, and His name is Jesus, who perfectly obeyed.

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The right question is, why did Jesus die for those sins that I've committed? But the other question to ask is, why did

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He live? Because God requires a man to perfectly obey, to be our representative.

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And God requires a man to die on our behalf as a substitute. And God vindicated

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His Son because His life was so perfect and His death was so right that He raised Him from the dead.

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So if you're a sinner here today, I have good news for you. In a world of bad news, you're a forgiven people, those trusting in Christ.

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I have some more good news for you. Not only can you be right with God and saved forever, you can know it.

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What if you just were saved and reconciled and redeemed out of the slave pit of sin, but you never knew it, and so the rest of your life you spent thinking, you know what,

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I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I don't know if I make it. If you turn your Bibles to 1 John 5, verse 13, this morning,

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I want you to consider maybe the second greatest thing in all of life. The first is,

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I'm right with God. Based on the work of another Jesus, my representative, I'm right with God, I'm okay with God, He's good with me, and I'm promised heaven.

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That's the best news I could give you. But maybe the second best news is that you could know it.

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What if you didn't know that you were right with God? You would continue to act like you used to act. There's almost nothing as wonderful in this life as the joy of assurance, to know that you could say with Job, I know that my

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Redeemer lives. That you could say with David, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

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I fear no evil, for you, God, are with me. And 1

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John 5, 13 is very important as we consider this doctrine, assurance of salvation.

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If you're not a Christian, you shouldn't be assured, because there should be no assurance. You need to believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But if you are a Christian and trusting in Jesus, listen to John the Apostle. In 1

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John 5, 13, these things, all of the book essentially, 1 John 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

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I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, those who are trusting heartily in the finished work of Jesus, the eternal

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God. I'm writing to you who trust in the Lord Jesus, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name or all the attributes, the person of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And so Christian, I ask you this morning, do you know that you have eternal life?

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Do you know that if you were to die today, that you will be in the presence of God? Or are you wondering, I'm not too sure,

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I don't really get that sense of belonging. I'm not really confident. I'm trusting in the

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Lord Jesus, but my assurance is low. Joseph Carl said, all saints shall enjoy a heaven when they leave this earth.

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That's a good statement. Semi -colon, some saints enjoy a heaven while they are here on earth.

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And that is the heaven of assurance. I want you to know, Christian, that you can have assurance and be conscious of the fact that even though you still sin as a

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Christian, that you're good with God and have right standing with Him. Because if you don't have assurance,

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Christian, it's going to be very difficult for you to serve, to go through trials, and to live a full

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Christian life. Did you know some people don't want you to have assurance? Some people don't want

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Christians to have assurance. Cardinal Bellomine said, the principal heresy of Protestants is that saints may obtain a certain assurance of their gracious and pardoned state before God.

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If you'd like to summarize the main problem of the Protestant Reformation is those people think they can just trust in the

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Lord Jesus and make it to heaven. They say things like, no matter what the future holds,

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I'm saved. And by the way, that's what John wants you to know. No matter what the future holds,

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I'm going to heaven. That doesn't lead to unholy living.

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That doesn't lead to an antinomian lifestyle. That leads to piety, knowing that God loves you so much. How could you act in any other way toward God?

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The Council of Trent said, if anyone says that he will for certain of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance until the end, unless he's learned this by special revelation, let him be anathema.

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But friends, what do we do instead? We sing songs like this. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the

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Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he has said?

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To you who for refuge to Jesus has fled. The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,

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I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, and what does the

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Lord Jesus say through the songwriter? I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

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I want you, Christian, to be able to say with confidence, the Lord Jesus loved me,

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Galatians 2 .20, and he gave himself for me. So we've been going through this series.

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I think today's going to be the last of the series on having a confident realization of assurance that you know you're right with God.

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By the way, I've been told that this is the church of the two -parter, because every message I give, it has two parts, but there's so much information.

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So now we're officially the church of the four -parter. And if you don't like that, then try me, we might go for five.

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But it's such an important concept, especially when we get right back into Hebrews, because he's going to talk about in chapter six this assurance and this confidence that you have to have, because trials come from the inside, within the family, from the outside, from the world, and then you say, well, am

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I right with God? Because when I watch these jokesters on TV, they're pushing, have your best life now, have glory now, have fame now, have wealth now, have it all now.

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They're saying, get glory, forget about the cross. That's the same lie that Satan gave Jesus.

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You don't want to go to the cross, just have your glory now. So when we have trials and we go through bitter afflictions, what if you had no assurance or your salvation?

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But what if you did? So the way the outline has been approached in this four -part series is how to deal with the issue of getting assurance, or if you have assurance, how to keep it.

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And everything has to go back to the word of God, not what I feel, not what I think, not about church traditions, what does the

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Bible say? And let me give you a quick review of the last three weeks. If you'd like to obtain assurance,

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Christian, or you'd like to keep it, number one, don't look to any ism for assurance.

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Don't look for an experience, don't look for some kind of a sacramentalism, experience -driven thing.

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You have to look outside of your experiences, any kind of system, any kind of baptism or anything else.

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Number two, don't look to yourself. When you look to yourself for assurance, you're going to be sad because you are imperfect, you are frail, you cannot look at yourself honestly and see anything except sin -tainted righteousness.

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If I ask you the question, do you truly love Jesus? It's better for me to ask you this question, do you trust

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Jesus at all? Do you trust him perfectly is the wrong question. Do you trust Jesus? Are you looking outside of yourself?

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Which was number three, look outside of yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in him, even as we have believed in his name,

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Galatians 2 .16, that we may be justified by faith. Robert Murray McShane said something,

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I didn't bring it up last week, but I should have. When you drive, and I have family members that don't like it when

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I do this, when you're going inside yourself. How's this look, Grace? What's that look like to you?

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I think she said it was like a little bunny foo -foo or something, I'm like, don't do that. But Luther said, you were curved in on ourselves.

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We just naturally look toward ourselves and it just doesn't work. So every time you do this, see, now you can't unsee it, can you?

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When you look toward yourself, every time you look at yourself, look to the

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Lord Jesus 10 times. Because he's gonna be the perfect one and his prayer life was perfect.

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His evangelism was perfect. His love of others was perfect. And when we look to ourselves, we don't see perfection.

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The security of the believer objectively and primarily comes through the finished work of Jesus and an empty tomb.

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No true assurance can come from only looking at yourself. Because assurance comes to us via faith and faith is outside of ourselves.

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Faith is different than faithfulness. And if we look at our faithfulness, great is my faithfulness isn't really true unless I'm lying to myself.

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But the faith in the object, the Lord Jesus, assurance tied to someone outside of myself, that's called sola fide.

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Remember what Luther said? Maybe my all time favorite Luther quote, when I look to myself, I don't see how

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I can be saved. When I look to the Lord Jesus, I don't see how I can be lost.

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Fourthly, look to the love of God. This is all just in review. When you think about God, Christian, and you're thinking, you know what?

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How can I be assured? I've sinned in my Christian life and I'm ashamed of it and I'm looking to God. And do you see him as a vengeful judge or do you see him as a forgiving father?

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And we have a father who loves us because we have a mediator, Christ Jesus.

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How precious is your unfailing love, oh God, Psalm 36. Psalm 86, you

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Lord are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. You ever ask somebody to forgive you and they say no?

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You ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you? We know what he'll say. He's merciful, he's gracious.

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Side note, pastorally, if God's love is so great when it comes to this forgiveness, how could you,

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Christian, withhold your forgiveness from one person? See what kind of love the

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Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God and so we are. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us and so when we sin, there should be conviction, there should be shame, there should be blushing, and then there should be going back to the

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Lord Jesus and saying, please forgive me. Number five, and that's our fifth review and final review before we get into new information, look to the promises of God.

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1 John 2 .25, you're in 1 John 5, you might as well turn over to 1 John 2 .25 before we get into our main passage today.

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1 John 2 .25, and this is the promise which he himself, that's emphatic language, he himself made to us.

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Here's the promise, eternal life. God, you said that if I trust in your

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Son and believe in Him, I get eternal life. I'm all in on the promises of God. You said,

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God, that if I come to you through your Son, you won't cast me out, I'm all in. I'm assured because you're faithful.

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Now, it is one of the Ten Commandments that we're not supposed to bear false witness. I think some people are so introspective, there,

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I just said it again. Why did I tell you my secrets? Some people look inside of themselves so much,

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I think they're bearing false witness to the testimony of God. God said, Christian, trust in My Son, you'll be saved.

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No, bearing false witness. That's not true, because you don't know how badly I've sinned.

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Yes, in fact, He does know how badly you've sinned, and He still said, done, complete, sufficient.

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We have the words of Scripture. And the promises of God in Christ Jesus are abundantly found in Scripture.

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Like, well, I know I'm saved because I had a vision. I know I'm saved because I heard a voice speaking. I don't know

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I'm saved because I haven't had the emotion or the experience. The promises of God are right here. A small catechism said, faith is the strong assent by which we accept all that is revealed to us in the

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Word of God. And the Word that says you're a wretched sinner, and you know that by experience, also says

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Jesus is a great Savior of those wretched sinners. So take Him by faith, trust in Him, take

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Him at His Word. It's a promise of God, abundantly revealed in Scripture.

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And now, sixthly, look to the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. So far, everything's been pretty objectively based, objectively outside of us, the personal work of Christ.

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And now what about the subjective side? Do we have to obey to have assurance? Do we need to look at our own lives?

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What if we're in sin? What if we're doing things we ought not to be doing? What about that? And we'll answer those questions in this section.

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Look to the work of the Holy Spirit. If you wanna think about assurance, we could think in a

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Trinitarian way, the Father's promises, the Son's life and death and resurrection, and now the

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Spirit's testimony or fruit. Turn to Galatians chapter five, please.

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Typically at church, we're just working through books of the Bible. I begin to study already for Hebrews 6, one and following next week, and so we'll be there soon.

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But I wanted to talk about this important, important subject because it ties to the person and work of Jesus.

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It makes you have to walk by faith in Jesus, not by my own faithfulness. Paul has been writing in this book,

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Galatians, and really I call it the book of no. The third word in this book in the

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Greek, Paul, apostle, not. It is really a book that says no. And lots of times in our society, there are no, no men.

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Where are the no men? Who will just say no to certain things like Paul did. And Paul said, you know what?

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If an angel comes to you and says, you're saved by being good and trusting in Jesus, no.

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Not under my watch, Paul said. If Peter starts sneaking in some of that influence where you have to do certain things plus believe,

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Paul says to Peter, no. When you start thinking, you know what? I'm gonna start off being justified by God's work alone.

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I have to sanctify myself by my own bootstraps. Paul says, no. And Paul writes in Galatians five, some very interesting words.

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And at first he talks about the fruit of the flesh. And then he talks about the fruit of the spirit.

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So let's pick it up in verse 16, please, 516. He's just got done talking about Christ has set us free earlier in the chapter.

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Now he says in verse 16 of Galatians five, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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And we'll see these two juxtaposed, juxtaposed? Juxtaposed. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

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For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

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But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh.

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And by the way, these words are really kind of caustic words.

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They're nasty words. They're chaotic words. They're ungodly words.

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They're disorderly words. They're just all kind of jumbled up in this big list. And it's gonna be interesting because then when we get to the fruit of the spirit, three triads of beautifully arranged words.

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But here just kind of the old life that we lived, the works of the flesh, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

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I mean, they're mortalist. I warn you as I've warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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And he's writing to these churches and he's saying, listen, I didn't say if you've ever done these, you won't inherit the kingdom of God.

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Because everybody's done a lot of those or maybe all of them just in their minds. Those are forgivable sins.

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Jesus's death conquers those sins, atones for those sins, pays for those sins. But if you lived like that before you were a

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Christian and now you say you're dwelt by the spirit of God and you still live just like you used to live, well, there's a warning.

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Can't call yourself a Christian and keep living the same way. And then he says in verse 22, contrastingly, and this is the language, these triads are just so beautiful even in the way they're phrased, that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

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Against such things, there's no law. So here's the first thing we do,

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Christian. We look at the fruits of the spirit and here's how most preachers preach it. Here's how I preached it.

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Love, first one is fruit of the spirit's love. You better be loving,

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Christian. Second one, how's your joy? You ought to be rejoicing. Third one, peace.

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But this isn't an imperative. This isn't indicative. This isn't law.

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This is gospel. When the spirit of God dwells you and He works in you, guess what comes out?

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Guess what has to come out? This is not a command to do these things. This is the action of the spirit of God working in your life.

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So how do we think about assurance with this? Is there any love in my life for other people?

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If the answer is yes, you ask this question, who put it there? You say, well, is there any joy in my life in spite of the trials that I'm going through?

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Not perfect joy, but some joy. And I haven't had joy every time, but sometimes they'll tell you, here's the diagnosis and how long you have to live in.

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And yet I still have this joy. I wish I had more joy, but I have a little bit of the joy. Christian, who put that joy there?

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And when you ask those questions for anything, you know what, I'd like to study the Bible more.

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Who gave you that desire? I pray, but I wish

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I pray more. I wish I pray not so selfishly. I wish I pray the attributes of God and for other people.

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Christian, who put that desire there? See, we're not just gonna look at ourselves and terminate with ourselves.

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We're gonna say, listen, that's not how I acted before I was a Christian. And while I'm not perfect in my fruit producing, there is some fruit there.

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I would long to know Jesus better. Who put that desire there? Who put that longing there?

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I'd love to be nicer to my wife. Who put that longing there? I'd love to honor my husband.

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Who put that honor there? You say, I don't even think about those things. I don't really even wanna do those things.

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But I know it's wrong. Who put that wrongness there? I wanna confess my sin to God more and be clean with the

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God and have my accounts shortened with the Lord. Who gave you that desire? And the answer to that text is, if you're a

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Christian, the Spirit of God gave you that desire. How does that help with assurance? While I don't desire

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Jesus as much as I do, I do desire Him. While I don't pray like I should, I wanna pray like I should.

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Who put that desire? It's the work of the Spirit of God in my life. I'd like to live a holier life.

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I'd like to flee from the world's lusts more. I struggle with it. Who gave you the struggle? There was no struggle before you were a

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Christian. The only struggle was, if I did it, I might get caught and there are consequences of the action. But now the struggle is, the

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Spirit of God is so in me working that I know if I sin against my friend or my neighbor, it's really a sin against God, against you only.

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I've sinned against you, God, and you only and done what's evil in your sight, David said. He had sinned against Bathsheba.

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He had sinned against her husband. He sinned against the Israel nation. So instead of just saying, you know what?

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I'm struggling with my assurance and I don't pray enough. Okay, so far so good.

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But then you should say, I still would like to pray and I wanna pray more. God, forgive me for my prayerlessness because prayer is a command.

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And I'm thankful that you convict me. I'm thankful that you haven't let me go. I'm thankful that you gave me the desires to pray in the first place.

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And so I'm thankful that you're working in my life. Joel Beeky writes in a book that you ought to read,

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Knowing and Growing in Assurance of Faith. It is wrong to acknowledge only the bad signs while failing to acknowledge the good things that the

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Lord has done in our hearts and in our lives. Did you get that? It is wrong to acknowledge only the bad signs, i .e.

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sin in my life, while failing to acknowledge the good things that the Lord has done in our hearts and in our lives.

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Love and joy and peace. That's the fruit of the Spirit. That verse does not go do those things.

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I could find those verses. But this verse is, when the Spirit of God is in you, you do those things to some degree.

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Say, well, I don't do them perfectly. Well, then look to the one who did. You ever think you're gonna perfectly obey on earth?

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If you think that, then you've got a low view of God and a high view of yourself. Because God only accepts perfect works.

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Well, I don't have as much fruit as I want in my life. Okay, who gave you that conviction?

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Now, the Westminster Divines in London who put together the Westminster Confession of Faith, they had a little syllogism, a little threefold premise, premise, conclusion.

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Major premise, minor premise, conclusion. If you don't want syllogism, just listen to these three things.

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But don't go in. Premise, major.

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True believers demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit. You think that's true? Right, Galatians 5.

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Minor premise, the fruit of the Spirit is present in me to some degree. Conclusion, I'm a believer.

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That's right. And even here, the certainty of assurance is grounded in the promises of God.

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And now we discover those promises as they're fleshed out in the work of the Spirit in our lives.

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Founded on the work of another, discovered in my life. And so when

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I read things in 1 John 5, and it says, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love

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God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep as commandments. That's true.

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True faith saves, you know, you're saved by faith alone and that faith won't be alone.

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But I'm telling you, friends, that faith won't be perfect. And the outgrowth of your faith won't be perfect either.

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This is, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. Do you perfectly love

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God? Do you perfectly obey His commandments? No, someone else had to. But I sure have the desire to do that. I wanna honor

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God. I wanna please God. I wanna obey God. 1

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John 2, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.

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He doesn't say perfectly. Just because you're inconsistent in your human life as a

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Christian, don't say to yourself, my inconsistency proves there's no evidence or fruit at all.

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If there's no fruit or evidence, then you need to be born again. If there's no fruit or evidence, then you have a false faith.

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If there's no fruit or evidence that you're a Christian, how can you call yourself a Christian? You have to re -examine to see if you're really in the faith and examine yourself and to say, some people were of us, they went out from us.

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But if there's fruit in your life, does it have to be perfect to have assurance?

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Therefore, if you have a struggle with assurance and there's not some kind of besetting sin that you're just so stuck in, that's clouding everything and God's chastening you with this lack of assurance.

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If there's a desire in your life to have more assurance, but you still have sin in your life, I mean, like all of us, it's wrong to just say, you know what?

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The end all is view how much fruit I have without going to the root of that fruit, that is the Lord Jesus.

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And I think it's fair to say that some people, just the way they're wired, I don't mean psychologically,

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I just mean because of the fall and how they've been affected. They look at the fruit in their life and they think it's either great and perfect or there's these other kinds of people that are here at this church even and they look at their fruit in their life and they don't see enough.

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They don't look at it properly. These people, they just do self -justification and these people here, they just negatively look at their fruit and if I tell them just do more, guess what?

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They'll negatively look at their do more fruit. But if I tell them, listen, I want you to go back.

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We're gonna not do this anymore, we're gonna do this. Go back and see, you know what?

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This triune God who saved me in eternity past, He chose me, His Son died for me and now

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He's got fruit in me, that gives me more. That gives me assurance. Are you trusting in your evidence or are you trusting in Christ?

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That's a good way of putting it. Because then if you say, and when Puritan was talking about this way and I'll just read it, but just like the rays of the sun, which always lead us back to their source, so good works are intended to take us back to their source, namely

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Christ and all of His benefits. I mean, isn't this what Jesus said? I know

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Steve preached this not that long ago. John 15, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

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I'm the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do what?

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Nothing. Okay, let's keep going. Romans chapter eight, let's talk about this work of the

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Spirit in our lives, the third person of the Trinity and how he causes fruit and when we look at the fruit in our life, that should give you secondarily and subjectively assurance of salvation.

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Primarily and objectively, it's the work of Christ, but here let's see what the Spirit of God does.

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Romans chapter eight, this is that security chapter, therefore it could be a good assurance chapter. We were here last week, jumping into the middle of Romans eight, verse 14 it says, well, let's pick it up in verse 13 so you can see the context of sanctification even and it says, for if you are living according to the flesh,

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Romans 8, 13, you must die, but if by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

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You have a new attitude to oppose sin. Verse 14, for all who are led by the

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Spirit of God are sons of God. I have been adopted into God's family by legal right, but I have his nature too.

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That is a different nature, a nature brought about by him. Now here's what happens, you read this verse, verse 14, all who are led by him and people make this personal guidance.

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I don't know whether to marry Jim or Jack and you drive by Jill Avenue or Jack Avenue or whatever

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Avenue and you think that's a sign God is leading me. That's not what he's saying here. He's saying this, the

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Spirit of God leads you in personal sanctification. If you read the whole chapter and the whole section here, we're talking about sanctification, saying yes to righteousness and no to sin.

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And here's what the Holy Spirit does in that context. Don't miss it, verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

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Abba, Father. Now what does the

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Holy Spirit do? When you're in a trial, when there are issues going on, the

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Spirit of God helps you say in an internal testimony, you have a father and his name is

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God. I don't think it's as easy as saying this word means daddy, because it really doesn't.

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It means the father. It is a title of honor. It is a title of endearment, but it's certainly not trivial.

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It is intimate father, son, but it is truly saying the father's my father. That's the point.

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The God and father of the universe, he's my father, the father. And when

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I'm hurting, what do I do? What's the text say? Cry. Isn't that amazing?

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Whom by we cry, Abba, Father. So the Spirit of God's working in your life and you have a trial, to whom do you cry out?

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You cry out to the father. That word cry, by the way, the ladies know this word cry because in Revelation 12, it's used of a woman in childbirth.

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It's a painful cry. It's a shrieking. This is not a whimpering. You know how sometimes you'll have a child and they might just whimper a little bit, or it's a young boy and they skin their knee and they don't wanna cry, but they just kind of whimper some.

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They try to hold it in. This is not, this is I'm in a trial and spontaneously, almost like knee jerk,

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I just say, God, help. Ferguson writes, the picture is not that of a believer resting quietly in his father's arms in childlike faith, but the child who has tripped and fallen, crying out in pain.

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Daddy, father, that is the cry of the mark of the present of the spirit of adoption.

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Not least because it shows that in time of need, it is toward the father in heaven that we look.

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The testimony of the spirit of God is when you're in trouble, you call out to God. God, help me.

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God, assist. I don't know what unbelievers do.

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I think they call out to God, but it's usually by swearing. I don't really like to do this, but these days when

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I hit my finger with a hammer, I do know how to use a hammer. You do not use a hammer like this, by the way.

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When I hit my hand, I'm actually glad now because I don't yell out bad words.

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Nor do I even yell them out in my heart. When I first got saved, I just quit swearing, but I still swore in my heart.

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And now it's like, hammer away. Oh, I didn't even say it. And you know what

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I think now? Here's what I think. That's a testimony of God in my life because I'm different than I used to be. I'm not perfect yet, but I'm trusting in the perfect one.

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And you get that phone call that some of you recently have got. You've got cancer.

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What do you do? I interviewed Tom Leake on the radio. He's my friend at Hope Bible down in Maryland, outside of DC.

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And I flew there a couple of years ago to preach for him when he couldn't preach for 12 weeks when he was in the hospital. He said,

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I went in with my wife, and this is on the radio show. If you want to pull it up, you can listen. Tom Leake. And he said,

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Mike, I went into the doctor's office and the doctor brought an iPad out and he had that look on his face. And I thought he was going to tell me you need to get rid of your, we need to get rid of your gallbladder.

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And he looked at me and he said, Tom, I have some bad news for you. You have pancreatic cancer.

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The doctor didn't say this right away, but pancreatic cancer kills you 99 .9 % of the time.

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I'm thinking if somebody told me, you got a 30 % chance, that's pretty good because I can get paid millions of dollars and hit a baseball 30 % of the time.

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99 .9 % chance you're going to die. And he said, I walked out of the office. I said, what'd you do?

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What'd you say with your wife? Were you upset? Did you cry? Did you faint? And he said,

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I told my wife, honey, I don't know what's going to happen, but I walked in as a believer and you walked in as a believer and we walked out as believers.

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That's the testimony of the spirit of God in his life. Because what do you do if you get that news and you're not a

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Christian? God has become our father in Christ. We're accepted.

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He cares. And Luther said, the law scolds us, sin screams at us.

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Death thunders at us. The devil roars at us. In the midst of the clamor, the spirit of Christ cries in our hearts,

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Abba, Father. And this little cry of the spirit transcends the hullabaloo of the law, sin, death and the devil and finds hearing with God.

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This is the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. And if you have a desire for high levels of assurance and you don't want to focus on the

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Lord, you won't get it. If you have a desire for a high level assurance and you're not going to obey, you're going to have consistent disobedience in your life.

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The Lord is going to let you just go off and you're going to lose that. I mean, I think so regularly. And since Luke's not here,

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I'm not going to give him the dollar, but you walk on the path with the boys and the kids and the girls and all that. And I say, you can run up as far as you want as long as you can see me.

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That's as far as you can go. And then all of a sudden he goes too far. So then what do I do?

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Then I just hide behind a tree. And then Luke looks back. And the next thing you know, he's running back.

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And it's the same thing. I was still there the whole time. When we're disobeying and there's low levels of obedience, of course the

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Spirit of God regularly to convict us, but it's the work of God to convict us. We're running too far ahead and we've forgotten about the

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Lord. We're depending on ourselves and we're trying in our own strength and we're doing what the Scriptures say not to do. And it's as if the

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Lord just hides behind a tree, figuratively speaking, so we might look around and go, oh yeah, and so that we run back to the

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Lord. That is even a sign of the work of God, the Spirit in our lives. Can't be slothful about your own growth and grace.

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Expect the Lord to give you a hearty assurance, but you don't have to perfectly obey either to get some assurance.

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Our final passage just quickly, 2 Peter 1, please. I read it for Scripture reading. There is a responsibility that we have as Christians.

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To demonstrate fruit and evidence of our salvation. This is not our salvation. This is not the ground of our salvation.

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This is not our right standing with God, our legal standing with God, but it is in fact a consequence of that.

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There's justification being declared righteous based on the work of another and there's sanctification that does begin after justification, but is not a part of justification.

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That was Rome's error. And so if you turn your Bibles to 2 Peter 2, verse one,

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I just want you to get kind of a sense, a mental sense of how important it is for you to not just lay back and let

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God, for you to be diligent that the Scriptures teach. Now, here's what we typically do.

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We go to 2 Peter 1, verse 10, and it says, therefore brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election for if you practice these things, you will never fail.

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And those things that he's talking about are found in verses five, six, seven, and eight. Remember when

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I read them? Virtue and knowledge and self -control and steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

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Be diligent to practice those things because then you confirm your election. That does not mean that your election in eternity past that God chose you, now he's gonna maybe erase your name from the book.

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It just means to subjectively sense and have confidence that that is a true election because I'm doing what the

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Bible says Christians do. From the subjective personal sense, this is more sure to me now,

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I'm confidently realizing this more. Be diligent to conform your calling and election.

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See, Peter's not an antinomian, for if you practice these things, you will never fail. Yes, there is a responsibility, but here's what we forget.

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We forget about the objective realities of assurance found in verses one, two, three, four. This is all about who the

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Lord is objectively and in light of who he is, then do these things. Never just jump into verse five and say,

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I've got to supplement my faith in Jesus. And even there, verse five, for this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith, shorthand for your faith in the

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Lord Jesus with virtue and virtue with knowledge. You didn't say supplement your faith because it's been given to you and you have faith in Jesus.

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But as I said before, you're saved by faith alone, but that faith won't be alone. And if you do these things that the

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Spirit of God is helping you do through grace and through mercy and through the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's purchased and how he's granted you these precious and great promises and how this divine power is in you to do these things and you do them, then you say, like I said earlier, wow,

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I don't do them perfectly, but I have a desire for brotherly affection. I have a desire for love. I have a desire for self -control and steadfastness and godliness.

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God knows who his elect are. How do we know who those elect are? By trusting in the objective promises of the

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Lord Jesus, his person and his work, and then we look at the work of the Spirit in our lives.

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This is why it doesn't surprise me that when people have really low levels of obedience, that they struggle with assurance.

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But the way back to get higher level of obedience has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, not by your own willpower.

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Does not verse two say of chapter one, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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So when it comes to assurance, it's very, very important to have assurance. Verse eight, it says, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. You're not gonna be unemployed, that's the word useless, and you're not gonna be unfruitful.

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And notice what he does in verse nine, for he who lacks these qualities is blind or short -sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.

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He's so nearsighted with all these troubles and trials and persecutions and difficulties in a home and at work and everything else that he forgets about,

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I've been cleansed of my former sins. And since I've been cleansed and outgrowth, a fruit of that, some evidence should be,

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I should be a godly person. God, forgive me. So if you struggle with assurance, here's the summary of the last four weeks.

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Don't look to yourself, look outside of yourself.

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The just shall live by faith, thinking about who the Lord Jesus is. And for every five looks you look to yourself, look 20 to the

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Lord. That's why it's so important to study the gospels and study the Old Testament as a Christian book that shows the

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Lord Jesus, so that your faith is emboldened. And then it grows from ye of little faith to boy, she had a strong faith, the

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Lord said. It's all about the Lord Jesus.

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And matter of fact, this is true of life. I know we want just five things to do to increase assurance, but that's not what the

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Lord is gonna give you. He's gonna say, I want you five times to look at God, look at his person, look at his work, look at his promises, look at his love and look at his spirit that he gave you to change you and make you different.

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The greatest thing you could ever have in life is to have forgiveness of sins. The second greatest thing you could ever have in life is assurance and you can have both.

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Let's pray. I thank you, Father, for this great word in 2 Peter 1 and in Galatians 5 and in Romans 8.

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I, if I were God, I'd probably make people lose their salvation for their rebellion and their transgressions.

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But that's not like you. Like the song said, Psalm 101, 107, you're good.

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And you do good. And we're thankful for that. And when we think of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is my beloved son in whom

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I'm well pleased. I pray for everyone here. If there are people here not Christians, I pray that you'd convict them, probably not of their unrighteousness, but of their self -righteousness, thinking that they could stand before you based on what they've done.

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I pray that you would have them not think that way and grant them repentance. And for us as Christians, I pray that we would live a holy life and a godly life and a life commensurate with our calling so that we might make it very simple and easy to focus on the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, when we do sin, help us to look for the savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray.