8/2/2015 Perserverance Of The Saints Pastor Josh Sheldon

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8/2/2015 Perserverance Of The Saints Colossians 1:19-23 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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8/9/2015 The Times They Ain't A Changin' Pastor Josh Sheldon

8/9/2015 The Times They Ain't A Changin' Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Come this morning with God's blessing. Lord willing, we will finish this short series, this short topical series we've done on what we call the doctrines of grace.
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T -U -L -I -P, TULIP, total depravity, the first one, then unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace last week and this morning with the
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Lord's help, the perseverance of the saints. Perseverance of the saints.
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Our confession says those whom God hath accepted in the beloved, meaning Christ, effectually called and sanctified by his spirit, which we have covered in previous messages the last few weeks, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, the perseverance of the saints.
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Colossians chapter one, beginning of verse 19 says this.
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For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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That's the Father working in us by his Son. Now it goes to us. And you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight, if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven of which
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I, Paul, became a minister. Speak to us this morning about the perseverance of the saints.
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And there's so many places in the Bible we can go to coordinate with this topical message that I have.
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Do you ever wonder if you'll really make it to the end that the
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Bible says the faithful, the elect, the church, the saints, the Christian will go to?
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Does it ever startle you a little bit at night where you wake up like that with a start and say, is it true?
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Or will I make it? Will I persevere to the end? Will I get there?
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The scripture says clearly that you will.
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And a better way to say that is not so much you will as you will be brought.
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We're speaking of here as in so many of the other of this acrostic,
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T -U -L -I, the Tula before the P. We're speaking of the veracity and the faithfulness and the credibility of God's own word.
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That word which the apostle says has been implanted in your souls. If indeed you believe.
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Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he your savior? Did he on Calvary's hill accomplish your redemption?
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I emphasize the pronouns because it's personal. Were your sins forgiven in Jesus Christ's suffering?
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Did God give you faith to believe that? Do you believe that?
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If you have that like precious faith, then my hope this morning is to give you confidence in the
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God who gives you that faith. To give you confidence in the Christ who is the object of that faith.
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My hope this morning is to dispel from you your fear. Your fear that maybe
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God in some way will become so displeased with you that you will be the one to break this word and he will cast you from his presence.
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Do you ever fear that? Do you ever wake up with a star and say, maybe I'm the one who is so unworthy that this word for me will be broken and I will be cast from God's presence and suffer eternal torment.
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I wish to dispel from you any such notion this morning in this idea of perseverance of the saints.
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Before I speak a little bit about the Colossians passage I just read, I wanna quote the greatest man who ever lived,
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Jesus Christ. He said in chapter 11 and verse 28 of the
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Gospel of Matthew, it's recorded he said, and he speaks to the multitude. He speaks to all humanity if you will.
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He says, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
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And let me tell you, before we begin this message, that is not a
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Lord calling you to fear. That is not a
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Lord calling you to wonder about your eternal soul.
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That is the Son of God calling you to rest for your soul, to trust in his promises, to believe that you will persevere to the end because it's
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God who is persevering and it's God's word who is at stake. The last verse that I read from Colossians, verse 23, beginning with if.
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If indeed you continue. That's one of those verses, one of those ifs that keep people up at night.
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If they say, if only I continue, if only I walk in the works that God prepared for me beforehand,
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I wonder if I've been faithful enough, I wonder if I've heard his voice well enough and on and on it goes.
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And people hear the Lord saying, come to me, I will give you rest, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, they say, but have
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I done enough? Have I done the persevering well enough?
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There's so many warnings in the Bible. The book of Hebrews can be organized around five distinct warnings.
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And if we take those in a very wooden and literal way, they can be terrifying.
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They can be terrifying. But the Bible, with all its exhortations to continue in the faith, as here in Colossians 1 .23,
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with all its encouragements, commandments to stay steadfast in the means of grace, in prayer, in Bible study, in the fellowship of the saints.
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With all of that, it is primarily a book meant to comfort and encourage us.
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Who is not terrified of God? Well, I would say, just in the most simplistic terms, and I admit
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I'm oversimplifying here a bit, there's two types of people who do not have terror of God.
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The one is, they who don't know God, don't believe in God, don't think he even exists.
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Why would you be terrified of something who's not there? The other who shouldn't be terrified is we who do know
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God by faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we are accepted by God.
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The Bible is a book meant to comfort us. So Paul calls it in 1
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Corinthians 1 .3. 2 Timothy 1 .7 says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
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And as I go through this message this morning, I wanna make a point for you that if you're scared that God is going to cast you away after you have made a profession of faith in his
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Son, Jesus Christ, by the faith that his Spirit gives you to believe in his
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Son, Jesus Christ, that is not a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
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We wonder sometimes why we're not progressing in the faith the way we had hoped we would, why we don't seem to be as spiritually mature as that man or woman sitting next to you or around you or some friend that you know who's a
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Christian and just seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of you. I would suggest a couple of things.
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Lord willing, you hear a pastor's heart here. The one is, don't judge yourself against others.
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We spur one another along to good works, yes. Those are the reasons for the fellowship together.
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We all grow at different rates. God knows our weaknesses. Mine are as many as yours, though they're different than the person next to you.
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But I also say, if you as a
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Christian are scared of God, concerned that he could possibly, as a child, a blood -bought child of his who is covered by the precious blood of his son, be cast from his presence and go to eternal perdition, if you are scared of God in that way,
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I would suggest that holds you back. I don't think we can live before God rightly if we're constantly crouching and covering our head to protect us from the thunderbolt that he's gonna smite us with.
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Because have you ever seen a child who's raised by too strict parents? Even maybe abusive, but just too strict.
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You see that kid who's timorous and nervous and unable to concentrate. They can't develop into confident teenagers because they're fearful of when the boom's gonna be lowered again.
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They've learned to mistrust. What they've been taught is that their parents' affections, even their goodwill, depends on their performance.
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Can I say on their persevering? You can see where I'm going. If they're good, they're loved, they get benefits.
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If they don't measure up, you get the point. We've seen that. Maybe some of us have been that.
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We speak this morning of perseverance of the saints. Perseverance, coming to the end that God has proclaimed.
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But what I just described a moment ago, that's not the sort of father our God is.
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This is not the father whose love for his children Jesus Christ said is the same as his love for him.
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This is not the view we should have of a father who's given us a spirit of power and love and of a sound mind.
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Some of us will ask about the warnings in the Bible. What if we ignore, so great is salvation?
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Those sorts of things. Well, all the warnings of the Bible are real. They're real, they are true, they are severe.
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And the dangers they tell of and the consequences of ignoring and rushing headlong into that danger, those are real.
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Those consequences are told to us, they're meant to catch and hold our attention and gain our compliance.
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They are real. But I speak this morning of perseverance of the saints which is not the same exactly as eternal security.
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But I need to begin with some of an indirect approach because too often I speak to Christians who are stunted in their growth, whose faith is not shipwrecked, though they may fear it to be, but is stagnated.
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And one of the reasons I believe is this fear of God, being scared of God.
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Not fear of him in the biblical sense of being awestruck by him, as I was mentioning a few minutes ago, but scared in a timorous sort of way.
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So before I exhort us to persevere in the faith, before I present to you the biblical doctrine that if God has elected you, if Christ has redeemed you, if the
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Holy Spirit has applied this great salvation to you, then you will certainly come to the end intended by God, the salvation of your souls.
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Before this, I feel the need to dispel the fears that some of us have.
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I need to expunge from you the terror that God will not allow anyone to snatch you out of his hand.
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Even yourself, even you cannot snatch you out of the Father's hand. But then we think, but God himself may open his hand.
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And see, well, she didn't measure up today, so out she goes. And him, he fell into that trap again, so away with him.
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No one can snatch me out of the Father's hand, but God can open his hand. We cannot live with that kind of fear.
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We cannot progress in the Lord with that kind of fear. That is not the mind of the Father. That is not the mind of Christ that the scripture tells us.
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And that's not what perseverance of the saints is about. That's not what this final doctrine of grace, chapter 17 of the
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London Baptist Confession, our statement of faith, teaches us. There are too many places to list that speak of the certainty that we should have in God.
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I'll go back to the one that Steve read from the Romans passage. I'll make a few comments about the warnings about the ifs in the
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Bible. If this, then God will do this. And Lord willing, I'll have time enough to preach something about perseverance of the saints to get to that topic proper.
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But first, again, I feel the need to dispel the fears before we can understand this great doctrine.
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I do reserve the right as your pastor to look at the clock, and I tell you
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I will look at it. And if I'm going on too long, I'll stop.
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And this will be a two -parter. And we'll pick it up next week, and on the 16th, Lord willing, we'll start in 1
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Kings 17 with the prophet Elijah. Steve just read this a moment ago.
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus Christ.
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Christ Jesus, our Lord, shall be able to separate us from the love of God that I have displayed today?
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No. From the love of God as I perceive it to be? No. An objective love of God that has really, in the broadest sense, nothing to do with you or me.
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It's the love of God for his people that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It's the love of God that is in Christ Jesus who redeemed that people.
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This is objective. This has nothing to do, in the broadest sense, with our performance.
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Now some people, I understand this might get posted onto a YouTube someday, we've got the camera going.
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I'm getting used to it, by the way. I stopped looking over at it. Just as a little, hopefully, humorous anecdote.
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Somebody was trying to warn me that I was doing something kind of characteristic of someone who doesn't remember there's a camera there a few weeks ago when it was first set up.
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And I got so self -conscious about it, I couldn't stop staring at it. And I'm getting better now. Someone might be seeing this on YouTube and say,
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I know what he, he's an antinomian. He's against all law. There is no responsibility upon the Christian. All you have to do is believe, right?
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No, no, no, no, no. That is not what I'm saying. There are works to do. We're gonna talk about them a little bit in this message, even though it's a separate topic from Perseverance of the
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Saints. There are works to do. You are to grow in holiness and sanctification into the image of Christ.
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The fruit of the Spirit is given to us for a reason. Love, joy, peace, long -suffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self -control.
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Why are they there? Because we, not optional, we must display those. That is the Christian.
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All I'm saying is a separate subject from Perseverance of the Saints. I do not deny that God's law has many imperatives in it, and we must obey those imperatives.
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They're given for a reason. In the language, they're specific. I do not deny that. And we must grow in holiness and sanctification.
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We must reach after the prize that is Christ. Hear me clearly. I'm not being antinomian.
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I'm saying that Perseverance of the Saints is a separate subject from those things. What Paul says, neither death nor life, angels, principalities, and so forth.
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None of that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That's a comprehensive list.
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Now listen, it's not fully comprehensive. It's not exhaustively comprehensive. It's not profoundly comprehensive.
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It's just comprehensive. Don't weaken it by trying to put a strengthening adjective in front of it.
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It's just comprehensive. It covers everything. Let these comprehensive words sink down into your ears.
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If you are in Christ Jesus, our Lord, then the Father's love for you, which is his love for his
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Son, a love premised on his worth and not ours or yours, this love is insuperable, period.
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We can almost stop there. That love will never be removed from a true child of God.
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Paul says if, if indeed you continue in the faith, if you keep going, if, those ifs are, they're terrifying to people.
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You know, when I first took my son to Half Dome, forgive me if some of you have heard this story before, but you go along on the trail, you climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, and you get to a certain place,
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I think it was about halfway, and you're along the
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Merced River there, and there's a place, there's an outcropping of granite, kind of a bank there, and it's just a few yards,
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I can't tell you exactly, maybe it was only 40 or 50 yards upstream from Vernal Falls, 318 foot fall, obviously straight down.
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The first time I took my son there, I gave him a warning. I said, listen, if you go in that water, it's a very strong current.
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See, it's a very wide river, so you can't see how strong the current is. Who was that gold medalist swimmer we just had with Mike, what was his last name?
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Somebody help me. Thank you. If he was three times stronger swimmer than he is, he couldn't swim out of that current.
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That's how powerful it is. I told my son, if you go in there, you're gonna die. You cannot get out of the current, you're gonna go over the edge 300 feet, you're done.
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It's a true warning. It was a literal warning. Every year, it seems, people challenge that warning.
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It's a big sign there that says that that will happen. The warning is real, the warning is literal.
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Would I ever have let go of my son's hand? Course not. Would I have let him put his foot in that water?
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Nope. It was a real warning.
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If you ignore me, if you remove yourself from my protective care, if you go in that water, you will die.
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The warning was real. Of course, the father, myself, long before the multiple sclerosis had manifested,
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I would never let it happen. Now, the question is, and here my short illustration is a dim picture of God.
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The question is, would I let him? Well, no, of course I wouldn't let him do that. I let him go into Poison Oak once because he wouldn't listen to me.
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And he really regretted it, but he didn't die. He learned a lesson about how reliable Father's word is.
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Now, all illustrations, especially if we're trying to say something about God, they all fall apart.
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Any analogy gets weak at some point. And this one, I'm sure, before I finish this message,
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I'll have thought of something. Whoops, I could have made it better, but you get my point. The warnings are real, but the
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God behind the warning is not gonna let us go into final, terminal danger any more than I would have let my son go into that river with the fall just a few yards downstream, period.
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One comment about if, if in the Bible, again, from the Colossians passage, if indeed you continue, notice what he doesn't say there.
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And my prejudices will come out with this. What he does not say, what I refuse to add, but if you do not continue steadfast in the faith, then you're no longer reconciled to God.
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That's taken away. Christ's blood has not bought you peace with the Father. You're once again his enemy, and we've cleansed you of the blood, and you will not be presented by Christ to his
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Father, wholly blameless and above reproach. In fact, you are wretched, you are to be blamed for all your sins, and you're a moral disaster.
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It doesn't say that. Paul doesn't say that, and I would argue he doesn't imply it or anything of the sort.
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Listen, F .F. Bruce wrote an excellent study of Paul's letters called Paul, Apostle of the
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Heart Set Free. It's in my office. You'll find it well dog -eared. If you borrow it, don't keep it for more than a few days.
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Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free. I mean, the title says it all, right? He's not the apostle of the heart constrained or the neurotic
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Christian trying to do whatever he can to please God when it's Christ who pleased God on our behalf.
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Now let us speak of the perseverance of the saints. He's heard my passion.
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Don't be afraid of God. Don't go thinking that God's gonna take you out of his hand.
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I don't speak of everyone. I speak of those whose faith is in Jesus Christ, the blood he spilled on Calvary for your sins, the redemption he purchased for us, the peace he won for us with his
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Father. Those who know that his word is true. I speak to the
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Christian. If you don't have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as I'm trying to describe, be scared.
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Fear him who can do more than destroy just the body, but body and soul in hell forever.
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Do fear him, but not if you know Jesus Christ. Not if you know Jesus Christ.
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Well, this topic of ours, perseverance, well expounded in chapter 17 of our
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London Baptist Confession. And much of what I have to say here, I don't quote him directly or follow an outline from him, but I rely on him so much,
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I don't wanna footnote myself all over the place. I would just tell you, Sam Waldron's exposition of the confession is one of the things
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I really relied on to put these thoughts together. Though not this, that I wanna begin not from Waldron's work, but with a definition of what
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I mean by perseverance of the saints. Lord willing, I've set aside the fear, the trembling before God.
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It is this. It is simply the continual and patient dependence of the
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Christian upon Christ. The continual, patient dependence of the
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Christian upon Christ. The parable of the importionate widow is a clear example of what is meant, to continue to pray, to continue to go before God, to not give up.
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She is easily seen in Hebrews 4, 6, or excuse me, 11, 6, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
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You see, Christian perseverance is a quality in the believer because it is a gift of God. It is by God's power that we who trust in him are, 1
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Peter 1, 5, guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
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Believers will certainly keep their faith to the end through all the tests, all the temptations, and will finally come into their heavenly inheritance, better to say, will finally be brought to their heavenly inheritance, that won by Christ.
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Those whom God says the confession has accepted in Christ can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but God continually nourishes them in the faith, repentance, and joy.
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It begins where we must, with Christ. Ephesians 1, 3 says that we're accepted by God in the beloved, in Christ.
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In him we find our acceptance. In him we actually, in fact, are accepted.
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Our works, our worth, even the subjective quality of our persevering are not in play here.
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Only Christ and what he has done, only his spirit and what he does. So who perseveres?
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Who continues? Well, it's Christians. Christians persevere. Those accepted,
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Ephesians 1, 3 again, those accepted in the beloved. This means more than someone who has accepted
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Jesus into his heart or has let Christ be his savior or any such thing that is taught in the easy believism that is so prevalent, so widely proclaimed.
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I've described enough of the content of faith. I think already. Those effectually called to Christ by his spirit do persevere.
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We discussed this last week. It is we who've been sanctified by his spirit. It is those who've been given the precious gift of faith.
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In a word, the ones who persevere are those whom God has caused to believe. It is those whom
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God has given something worth persevering in. But here's our question.
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In what do we persevere? Our perseverance has an object.
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There's a goal we reach to, and basically it is just this. It is faith. It is faith.
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Let me say again, I don't deny the works that we must do. I don't deny the fruit of the spirit that we must display.
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I don't deny all the imperatives of the Bible, which you've heard enough times from this pulpit. But for just perseverance, what is it?
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It is faith. What did Paul say in Ephesians, or excuse me,
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Colossians 1 .23? If you continue in the faith.
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Not if you continue doing the works. Keep doing the works, but that's not the basis of God's love for you.
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Keep displaying the spirit as best you can, the fruit of the spirit from Galatians 5 .22. But continue in the faith, is what
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Paul says. Faith, of course, has an object, which is
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Christ. 1 John 5, 4 and 5 says, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
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And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world?
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But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 1 Corinthians 15, one to two.
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Don't let the if or the unless here shake you up. Just listen to it. Moreover, brethren,
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I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which
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I preached to you unless you believed in vain. What's the object? Our faith, believing in Christ.
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Hebrews 10 .39 says this, but we are not those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
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Notice, it's not a list of works. Perseverance means to continue in the faith.
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It means to keep believing. Works there are. Ephesians 2 .10 speaks of the works that God prepared in advance, that we should walk in them.
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And if God prepared them, I would say we'd better walk in them. Perseverance, though perseverance means believing that God has saved you in Christ.
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It means to live in the certainty of your salvation. I don't particularly care for these illustrations where if God asked you, because God's not going to ask.
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There's no indication in the Bible that we're gonna have an interview or anything like that. But if God were to ask what you persevered in, or you can say, well,
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Lord, I persevered in going to that conflict, that adolescent home and preaching the gospel.
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I persevered in teaching the gospel to children at Sunday school. I kept doing the ushering duties at church.
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I persevered. I never stopped. I prayed every day, Lord. I persevered. It's just this.
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With all the qualifications I've already given, I don't have to go through them again. Father, to my dying breath,
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I believe that Jesus Christ is your son, your eternal son, and that he saved me in his death and suffering on the cross.
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I persevered in believing that. Christian life is a struggle against the world, struggle against the flesh that is indwelling us, struggle against the devil and his wiles.
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There's a lot we must do to guard ourselves. Mentioned earlier, prayer, Bible study, fellowship with the saints, the means of grace that God has given us to keep us on track.
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These are done in fear that the faith we have, this precious gift from God that allows us to believe, if this foundational brick can be taken away, then the rest is for nothing.
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Philippians 2, 12 to 13 give us the two sides of this question
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I'm trying to discuss here. Paul says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who works in you to will and to do for his good pleasure. Note that our salvation, won by Christ, must be regarded in a spirit of humility.
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Fear and trembling doesn't mean covering our head and being frightened of a thunderbolt coming from heaven.
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It discusses humility, coming to God properly. Paul speaks in Ephesians.
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The author of the Hebrew speaks the same way of coming boldly to the throne of grace, having access to God because of Christ.
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Avail yourself of that access with the humble spirit depicted by fear and trembling.
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God works in us and we do what he works. Not just when the apostle's watching, not just when we're here in church, but at home, at work, in private, in all of life.
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We work through the meaning, the implications, the duties of our faith, all the while believing, having faith, trusting that it is
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God who is the enlivening agency that makes it all possible. Persevering is not the doing.
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It involves doing, but it is not the doing. Think of all the doing that you wanna do to keep yourself in the faith.
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And then think of Hebrews 11, six. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. It's not the work that pleases
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God, but the faith that led to it. Not the persevering in the doing, but the persevering in the believing in him for whom we do the doing.
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We can work our fingers to the bone. We can sacrifice everything as Mother Teresa did, but if it is not by faith, it is not pleasing to God.
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Jude, longest list of the best, most holy works that all men have ever done does nothing compared to this.
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I believed, I believed. We do the works in faith, believing it is
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God who prepared them. It is faith that makes the effort of any value. This balance is everywhere in Scripture.
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Jude 20 and 21, but you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the
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Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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Build yourselves up, that is working at it. Do the deed, do the things that you need to do to build yourself up in the faith.
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Praying in the Spirit, it is seeking his will and his help by faith believing he will give it.
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He says keep yourselves, that is abide in Christ. Read John 15, abide in me and I in you.
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You're the branches, I am the vine. How do we grow, how do we produce fruit?
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By abiding, by remaining. That's what Jude's talking about here. Looking for eternal life that is trusting and knowing that the end of it all depends on him.
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Not the quality of the works you did, not the consistency, not the volume of them, not even the quality of your believing.
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The object of your believing is Christ. Philippians 2 .13,
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which says to work things out because God works in us, it's a balanced statement.
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Work out your salvation, our responsibility to strive for godliness. Work it out, you do it, for it is
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God who works. He's the one on whom we rely. So many times we read in the
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Old Testament this same pattern for Israel's victory over their enemies. Didn't Israel go to battle and fight?
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And it is God who delivered? How many times did Joshua or David say, shall
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I go up against? And God says, yes, go, because I have delivered them. Well, you haven't even told the men to put on their swords yet.
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I have delivered them. And then what'd they do? They put on their swords and went and took those who had been delivered.
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In Deuteronomy, God reminds Israel of his watch care and his provision over them. Their sandals and their clothes were miraculously preserved for 40 years.
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And then Israel daily put them on and followed the pillar of cloud or fire. I try to picture this.
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Mr. Israelite gets up in the morning and says, hey, Mrs. Israelite, look at this sandal.
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There's not a scratch on it. We've been walking in this thing for 15 years. Well, okay, let's put them on and follow again.
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And the next morning, there they are. There's no holes in the soles. None of the buckles broke. Well, look at that.
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Let's put them on and follow again. It's God preserving, it's God working. No denial of our part in the doing.
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Always two sides of the same coin. Not unbalanced, not a penny with Lincoln on both sides, which would be a counterfeit.
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God calls us to circumcise our hearts that has lived consistently with the calling by which we've been called.
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But then what does the prophet say? And the Lord will circumcise your heart.
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We could read into this easily and do no harm to the text. And the Lord and he alone is able to circumcise your heart and will do it.
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Which of course is what we're speaking of about faith in Jesus Christ. That is the circumcision of the heart that all of that was pointing to.
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In 2 Thessalonians, a letter was a great call to sanctified holy living. In verse 3 -3 it says, but the
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Lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. Question we often ask ourselves.
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The reason we become insecure. If I am believing, pastor, okay,
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I believe in the cross of Christ and all he accomplished. I believe he is the eternal son of God.
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He is God the son. Not the son made God, he is God the son. I believe these things.
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I have faith. Why do I sin? Why do
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I stumble and fumble and fall so often? Sometimes, perhaps even often at the point of decision, when
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I take the step that I know from God's word I ought not to take, why do I do it? And we ask this question and it has to do with this whole idea of persevering in the faith.
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And I'm afraid that sometimes we mix up the categories. We say, okay,
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I'm not growing in holiness in this way. I'm still sinning in this other way. And therefore, my faith isn't real and I'm not going to persevere.
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We're bleeding the categories together when we do that. The first answer why we do it is, it's the world, it's temptations, it's the devil and his wiles.
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The remaining flesh that's still attracted to it all. We won't go into all those this afternoon.
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Tonight, later when you get home, read 1 John, it will all come up. For those of us beset with spiritual failures, and you ask why if I have real faith?
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Why does it happen? I would ask you, are you immersed in the means of grace that God gives?
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How do we grow? By diving into these means of grace.
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Are you in prayer? Ephesians 6, 18 says, praying always with all prayer and supplication of the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
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And Jesus said in Luke 22, 46, why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
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Rise and pray. And can we say, and don't enter into the temptation.
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Pray to God right then for the way of escape that his word in 1 Corinthians 10 promises. Did not Jesus command us to pray and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?
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If the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, it seems that if we pray before we act, if our knees bend before all else, if in faith we ask
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God for help, right then it is a prayer he will answer. Does constant failure discourage you?
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Does it make you think that you're not persevering in the faith? Well, you can't cure your constant ethical or moral failures if you're frightened of not being saved.
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If you think the blood of Christ can be removed from you, I would suggest you can't move ahead or get away from your sin.
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That's not the spirit of strength in a sound mind. Do you pray?
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Some people will say, yes, I go to my prayer closet all the time and I pray. I say, no, no, no.
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Supplication for all the saints. We should pray alone in our closets. Yes, we need to pray together.
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We're commanded to both. And if we err on one side and not forget the other, we're forgetting what the
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Bible says. Our progress will be stunted, if at all. Do you pray?
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You who might worry about this. Am I really saved by God? Will I really make it to the end? Why then do
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I, fill in the blank. Do you pray? Hearing God's word is a means he's given us to escape temptation.
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Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit.
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For without me you can do nothing. He abides in us by his spirit. We know him by his word.
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He's revealed himself in the scriptures to us. James 121 says, therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.
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Do we read our Bibles? Do we study our Bibles? Do we come together with other saints who can encourage us, who can edify us, who might have a different take on a different verse or insight into a part of scripture that we've ignored that would answer our questions.
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We're told not to forsake the gathering together of ourselves. Do not avoid being with the church where we stir one another up to love and to good works.
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Does spiritual failure discourage you? Does it make you feel less secure in your salvation?
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Are you here for the meetings of the church? Are you here when we together hear and help one another?
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This may start to sound like a message that's about trying harder and doing better. It's not. I covered some of these practical questions because they come up so often.
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If I'm a believer, if I want to do better and mortify sin, why do I stumble? Maybe the answer is as simple as this.
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You're not covering yourself in the means of grace that God has provided. And if you're here in this place this morning,
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I would say has made readily and easily available to you. The real question, though, is this.
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What then is my position with God when I sin? Have I failed to persevere?
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James 117, after describing for us in that first chapter so graphically how sin goes from thought to action, he writes of God these words.
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God, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
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There will be ethical failure. There will be moral stumblings. There will be prayers that we do not pray.
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Knees that do not bend when they should. It will happen, but that doesn't change God's disposition.
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That does not change God's disposition because God's disposition towards you is not based on you.
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It's not based on your works. It's not based even on your perseverance. It's based on Christ.
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It's based on Christ and him only. Peter failed horribly during Jesus' trial.
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First John 1 .9 provides for our fumbles and for our stumbles. The verse does not say seek
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God so you can get saved again. It says seek his forgiveness because you have been saved. So what is perseverance of the saints and what do we persevere with?
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All I've said, with all the fears I've tried to allay, it's just this.
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Keep on believing. Keep on believing. Does that sound mawkish? Does that sound too simplistic to you?
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I've said over and over again. It's so important to me that we get this clear.
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I'm not denying works. I'm not denying law. I'm not denying the imperatives. They are all there and they must be obeyed.
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It's incumbent upon you. It's your responsibility. I'm not denying all that. But what is the perseverance of the saints?
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It means when I draw my last breath, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
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They died for my sins. I believe that. However badly it manifests or manifested in my life,
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I believe it. That's what perseverance of the saints is. I do want
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Jesus to be pleased with what I do. I do want that.
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I want my last breath to be a breath of faith. I wanna say with Paul, I fought the good fight.
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I finished the race. I've kept the faith. Our final preservation, our final perseverance depends entirely on God's grace in Jesus Christ.
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If it depended on my effort, if it depended on yours, if it depended on the quantity or the quality of our works or our persevering or our prayers or anything else, then all is lost.
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It's all lost. But it doesn't depend on any of that, but on Christ and his faithfulness.
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We are never left to think that the fate of our eternal souls depends on something so insecure, so weak, so mercurial as us.
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But it's all vested in this, in Christ and him alone.
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Amen? Amen. Heavenly Father, we do wish to be those who persevere in all things in your scripture, in good works, in holiness, without which no one will see
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God. We wish, Lord, to persevere in prayer, wish to persevere in recognizing more and more sin and repenting of it with more and more anguish before your throne and at the cross of Christ.
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We do, Lord, wish to continue in the good works which you prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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But Lord, may we persevere in believing. May all these things flow from this one fact, that we believe in your
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Son, Jesus Christ, your eternal Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, who was
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God in the flesh and died for our sins to bring us to you. Lord, may we persevere in that and you help us and all the others.