Pastor Jeff discusses the assurance of salvation in the context of a new series titled "Stay the Course." He emphasizes the importance of recognizing our need for a savior and placing faith in Jesus to be saved, while also cultivating a relationship with him through moral excellence and Christlike virtues. Pastor Jeff highlights that true assurance of faith involves actively growing in these virtues and never forgetting that we are forgiven for our sins. Ultimately, by confirming God's calling and election in our lives, we can live confidently with the assurance that we belong to Him and will be sustained through life's challenges.
Sermon Transcript
Amen. Amen. I want to talk to you today about how you can have the assurance of your salvation. I want to talk to you about how you can have the assurance of your salvation. We've just started a new series called stay the course.
And last week we talked about what real saving faith was. That real saving faith is believing that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. That he, and he alone is the only one who can save you from your sins. That God, the father sent the son to be the savior of the world. And who did he come for?
He came for dead, wicked people. If you don't see yourself as dead and wicked, you have no need for a savior. It's only when you recognize that you're dead and that you're dead apart from him and that you're wicked in your sin, you have a need for a savior. And by placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you can be saved. When we turn from our sin and turn to Christ, we can be saved.
And yet, for so many people, even in the church who have done that, they live without an assurance of their salvation. Assurance means this. You know that. You know that. You know that.
You know that you're saved. Nobody has to tell you that you're saved. You know deep down that you're saved. And even if you would say, I know that I'm saved, there's a lot of people around you that they don't know that they know that they know they'll ask you questions like this. How do I know that I'm really saved?
I mean, I prayed the prayer, like, 435 times. I just am not sure. And there's a number of reasons why people don't experience the assurance of their faith. Some people attend church where the holiness of God is put on display, which is great, but there's no grace to accompany that. And so they leave every week feeling like I'll never measure up.
There's no way I'm good enough for God. Other churches preach the grace of God. No matter what you do, God loves you, but there's no talk about holiness. And so you're just living in your sinful life asking for grace, but you don't feel good because you're not living the life that God requires. Some people have an oversensitive conscience, and they say, I got saved, but I just feel so bad when I sin.
And maybe I'm not really saved anymore. And all these different kinds of things, and we could highlight several of them. But what I want you to know today is that you can walk out of here with guaranteed assurance of your faith. And how is it that you can have it? And I'm not talking about just in your head.
I'm talking about in your experience that you know that you know that you know that you've been saved. And there's nothing more important than that. Because if you live this life knowing that you know that you know you'll live, you'll make decisions different, you'll raise your family different, you'll live your job different, everything will change in you because you know that the God of the universe is walking with you. And so today I want to talk about guaranteed, assured faith, how you can have it and if you have it, how you can share that with other people. And to do that, this morning we're going to be in the book of two, Peter, chapter one, starting in verse five.
And while you're turning to two, Peter, chapter one and verse five, let me just set it up, because last week when we talked about salvation, we talked about these divine and precious promises that God has given us and how he's given us everything we need for life and for godliness. That in Christ we have it all. That when we're born again, God has given us everything we need for this life. And with that in mind, let's jump ahead. Let's read verses five through eleven and then we'll unpack them together.
He says, for these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them to you you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Verse five. Now for this reason also applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence. And in your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self control.
And in your self control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. And there the apostle Peter, through the power of the Holy Spirit at the end of his life, as he's writing to believers, encouraging them how they can be assured of their salvation really highlights four ways that we're going to talk about this morning.
That you can have guaranteed, assured faith that you can live your life knowing that you know, that you know, that you know. So if people were to ask you, are you going to heaven? You would say, I'm 100%. I'm more sure that I'll be in heaven with Jesus than I'll make it through the day. I know that.
I know that. I know. And how do you know that he's going to give us four ways? The first is this. To have guaranteed, assured faith, you must tenaciously work to mature your faith in Christ.
You need to tenaciously work to mature your faith in Christ. Notice what he says at the start of verse five. He says, now, for this very reason, for the very reason that you're saved, also applying all diligence in your faith. Well, what's all diligence? That's eagerness.
That is making every effort that is to grow, to develop, to advance, to continue, to do your best, to make sure, to ensure when you're born again through repentance and faith. That's just the start. Now, what the Lord is telling us through the apostle Peter is, once you've gotten started, prioritize it. Give every effort to it. Give your life to this.
Like grow in this. Don't stop, don't stagnate, don't stay where you are. Make every effort to grow. When we're saved, we repent and we believe the gospel. We're saved from the penalty of sin.
But did you know that God, throughout your life, wants to deliver you from the power of sin? Did you know that when you get saved, you don't need to stay where you're at, that there's a growth track that he has for you? He's saying, give all diligence to that, grow in that, learn how to live that out. And then one day, not only are we delivered from the penalty and the power of sin, but one day when we meet Jesus Christ face to face, we'll be delivered from the presence of sin. Amen.
There won't be sin in your life or in anybody else's around you. And the only thing you'll know is how to glorify God and love other people, and it will come as natural as breathing to you. Amen. And so, wherever you are when you begin this journey with Christ, make every effort to continue your journey in faith. Faith is not a one time decision to say, I believe Jesus died and rose again that's your initial faith decision accompanied by hundreds upon thousands upon tens of thousands of faith decisions for the rest of your life.
So continue to grow. If you want to have assurance of your faith, keep taking steps of faith. At brave we use the word bolden. The b stands for being bold in your faith. It means take the next step of faith.
If you think about your life as fully orbed, where is God calling you to take a step of faith? Is it in your family? Is it with your spouse? Is it as a single? Is it in your dating life?
Is it in your job? Is it with your money? Is it in your career? Is it with your employees? Is it with your boss?
Where do you need to trust God more now? And isn't it interesting when you hear the word of God proclaimed or you're reading or studying it for yourself, that the Holy Spirit has a way of putting his finger right on where you need to take that step of faith? Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to, here's who you need to forgive. Here's why you need to forgive them.
You need to bless that person, encourage that person. All those different things are taking steps of faith. Be diligent and be eager to take those steps of faith. Don't think of faith as one and done. I prayed that.
I did that. It's over now. I'm going to go live my life. No, if you want to have the assurance of your salvation, continue to grow in it. And the reason for that is there's plenty of scriptures that will highlight the fact that if you're saved, you're saved.
There's plenty of scriptures that will tell you that if you belong to God, you'll always belong to God. But what the Bible wants us to understand, what Jesus wants you to understand, it's not enough to just know in your head, it's he wants you to know it in your experience. Here's some verses that you can write down in Philippians one six. He says now that him who began a good work in you, may he bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. In other words, what God started, he's going to finish.
Or how about one of my favorite passages is Jesus is talking in John chapter ten about being the good shepherd and how the sheep know his voice. In John chapter ten, verses 28 and 29, he says, and I, jesus, give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. I and the father are one.
What is Jesus saying? For those that I grant eternal life to, I hold in my hand. And those I grant eternal life to, my father holds in his hand. And no one can take believers out of my hand. If you've been given the gift of salvation, you cannot lose it.
So the Bible teaches you belong to Jesus. Or how about this? Verse one, John 511, twelve and 13. It doesn't get any clearer than this in the New Testament. First John, chapter five, verse eleven.
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the son has the life. He who does not have the Son does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you will know that you have eternal life. Now he's talking about knowing.
He's not talking about knowing here. He's talking about knowing in your experience of the person of Jesus, that you'll know that you know, that you know that you know. So the scripture teaches it. But there's more than just hearing it. There's putting it into practice so you can experience it.
Amen. And he's saying, be diligent about continuing to take steps of faith, because the more steps of faith that you take, the more you will see jesus show up. Think about this verse. Most of us think of salvation as a decision we make, and then we get to go to heaven. But that's not the gospel.
The gospel says in Colossians 127 that the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Did you know that when you are born again, when you repent of your sin and trust Jesus, that the holy spirit of God comes and indwells you? And Romans eight nine says, if you do not have the spirit of Christ, you are not of Christ. Every believer has the spirit of God indwelling them. That's the good news.
The gospel is God in you. No other faith even comes close to saying, that's what the gospel is. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. And that's why everything in the Bible is all about taking what God has put in you and working it out. That's why Philippians 212 says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Don't work for your salvation. You can't earn your salvation. You can't get yourself saved. But if you are saved and the spirit of God is in you, work that out. Let the spirit of God, have his way with you.
As we say in this pulpit all the time, Jesus did not come to be resident but president. Let him have his way. Let him rule your life in every single area. Amen. And it's really interesting because what we recognize is when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, he doesn't make you do anything.
He will prompt you, he will direct you, he will convict you, he will clarify things, he will show you things. But you still have volition and will to choose whether you're going to partner with what he does or not. So the spirit's power is only unleashed in partnership with my willingness. If I choose not to, if I'm listening to a message and the Holy Spirit prompts me, I need to forgive somebody or I need to be more generous with my money, or I need to go encourage somebody, doesn't mean I'm automatically going to do that. I can not listen to what he says.
I can do what the Bible calls. I can grieve the Holy Spirit. He's wanting me to do what Christ wants, and I don't want to do what Christ wants. And all of us have a testimony where at times we've grieved the Holy Spirit. I can resist the Holy Spirit.
The Bible tells us not to resist the Holy Spirit tells us to resist the devil, and he'll flee from us or oppose the devil. But sometimes the holy spirit's been prompting us for a long time to do something, and we're like, I am not doing that. That's resistance. I can resist him. And if I resist him long enough, I can quench him.
I can silence that voice in my life because I'm just going to do my own thing until I'm ready to come back to him and say, okay, I'm willing to do what you want me to do. And this is why the grace of God is so important. We talked about multiplied grace and peace last week, but the way it gets multiplied is God wants to give it to you, but you have to respond to it. The apostle Paul said it this way, in one corinthians chapter 15 and verse ten. In one corinthians 1510, Paul was talking about how powerful the grace of God was.
He said, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove in vain. Paul says the only reason I'm able to do what I do is Christ. He's given me grace. It's by grace.
I've been saved through faith. It's not my own doing. It's a gift. And however, what does he say next? But I labored even more than all of them.
I worked at this, I prioritized this. I was allowing the spirit to come out of my life in every instant. I was letting Christ lead my life in all relationships. I labored more than any of them, but not I. Rather, it was the grace of God that was with me.
So even when I'm prioritizing my relationship with Christ, it's Christ that's working through me. That's the gospel. The gospel is not about making bad people good or good people better. The gospel is about making dead people alive. And then those people who are alive in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, allow the Holy Spirit to take over all sorts of areas in their life and rule and reign in ways that you wouldn't have allowed to happen before.
And that is what's called growing in your faith. That's why I pray every time before I preach that you would hear the Lord and whatever he shows you, you would by faith, put it into practice, because I could preach this message today. And some of you need to go home and make a change in your marriage, and some of you need to go home and make a change in your dating life. And some of you need to go home, make a change with your finances, and some of you need to call somebody on the phone and ask their forgiveness. And some of you need to go forgive somebody else.
And you hear all of those things, even when I don't say any of those things, because the spirit of God is showing you what you taking a step of faith looks like. Amen. You need to prioritize that you want to grow in Christ. When the Lord shows you what to do, just do it. You don't need to pray about it.
You don't need to ask all your friends. You don't need to call people on the phone. Hey, should I forgive that person? Yes. Should I be more generous with my money?
Yes. Should I be more kind to other people? Yes. Prioritize your faith. Make it central to all you're doing in your life, that the one centrality of what you're going to do is take steps of faith and continue to grow.
Amen. Now, with that as a baseline for what you're going to do, this is how you can begin to experience more and more of the assurance of your faith. So it starts with tenaciously working to mature your faith, and it continues. If you're going to have guaranteed assured faith, you must pursue a variety of christlike virtues. You must pursue a variety of christlike virtues.
And what you're going to see here is a list of seven different things. Now, I don't want you to think about it as, oh, my goodness, here comes the list. This, then this, then they're not stacked. They're not like stair steps. Notice what the Bible says.
It says this in verse five. In your faith supply, he's going to talk about supplying things. That word supply means to add the greek word has the idea of choreography or what you're going to put together. All of these things need to be part of your life. It's not working on one of them and then the next, and then the next.
If faith is central, all seven of these things are coming out of your faith. You can work on them all simultaneously. You want to grow in each one of these. As you grow in each one of these, you're going to know in your heart that you belong to the Lord. You're going to see a difference in your life as you prioritize.
So let's walk through these seven. Now, the first five of these seven are going to be about your relationship with the Lord. Because remember, just to keep things simple, in deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four, hear O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.
Jesus said, you want to sum up the entire law. What is it? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. You can sum up the entire Bible understanding this.
That ministry service to the Lord is relationships. It's a relationship with God that translates into relationship with everybody else. You get your relationship with God, right? That translates into relationship with everybody else. You got the whole thing.
So these first five of the seven are going to be about your relationship. So what he's going to say is, in your faith, he's going to supply what? Supply moral excellence. One of the ways that you're going to know that you're saved is when you start supplying moral excellence. Moral excellence was a greek word for outstanding goodness.
If you were exceptional at equality, you were considered to have moral excellence. It's really overall goodness. The way I would say it in our vernacular is there's demonstrable difference in your life now than when you first got saved. If you have moral excellence, you're living differently in the different areas of your life than you were prior to getting saved. I remember I was preaching at a church in my hometown when I was in my thirties.
It had been about twelve or 13 years since I was in high school. And as I finished preaching, I came down off the platform and I was greeted by a guy that I played high school baseball with. And he was standing there with his wife, and I looked at him and said, hey. And I told him his name. And the first words out of his mouth were, what in the world happened to you?
I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, you're not the same guy I went to high school with. And I won't tell you what he told his brother I was, but he was looking at me and I'm like, well, Jesus. Because for the last twelve years since I met you, I've been trying to take steps of faith with him. Not perfect ones, but I'm definitely different than I was when I knew you.
And my thought life is different than when I knew you. And my behaviors are definitely different than I knew you. Cause I'm different now. If you're truly saved and you take steps of faith, you won't look the same ten years from now that you do now. You can't.
It's called growing in Christ. And there's demonstrable evidence for you and for people who have known you. You're different. That's moral excellence. It's pursuing the virtue of Christ.
I want to be more Christ like. Do you have that in your life? Because if you begin to have that in your life, increasingly you'll know he has a hold of you because you start making decisions that you say, I would have never made that decision before. I would have never done this before. I wouldn't have gone that way before.
I wouldn't have handled it this way before. But because Christ is in me, I'm different now. And that's a testimony for every true believer in Christ. Amen. It's moral excellence.
So that's one of them. Starting with your faith, take steps of faith and moral excellence. Notice what else he says. He says, and in your moral excellence, knowledge. Knowledge is not just cognitive.
Knowledge is understanding and experiencing the person of Jesus Christ. Knowledge is not a classroom. A classroom is different than experience. You can take a class on golf and shoot par every single time without ever picking up a club. But if you go pick up a club for the first time, you won't shoot.
Parental I have two children that have gone through driver's ed that aced it. I can attest. Just because you aced driver's ed in a classroom does not mean that you know how to drive, right? What he's talking about here is you can go to church your whole life and pack yourself with knowledge, but if you don't put it into practice with experiencing the person of Jesus, you can't grow. It's growing in Christ.
It's not how much you know, it's how well are you demonstrating that? That's why I loved being a youth pastor, because I loved watching teenagers walk with Jesus in a way that their parents weren't even walking with Jesus and they were more mature in the faith than their parents. Even though their parents may have had more biblical knowledge, they had more experiential knowledge of the person of Jesus. So I'm here to tell you, it doesn't matter your age, it matters how you put into practice what the Lord shows you. Amen.
That's growing in knowledge. Pride is when you're around somebody and they make you feel bad for your lack of biblical knowledge. Don't hang out with people like that. That's prideful. Knowledge puffs up.
Love builds up. Get around people that encourage you to grow with the person of Jesus. So in your moral excellence, knowledge, then he says, now, and in your knowledge, self control. Self control. In Galatians chapter five, it talks about the fruit of the spirit.
There's one fruit. It's nine sections, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. I miss gentleness. Gentleness too, but self control is the last one. This understanding of self control was used for athletes, for self restraint, self discipline.
Paul used it in one corinthians nine. He said, I beat my body and make it a slave. If you're walking with the Lord, there will be times and there will be evidences that the Holy Spirit is restraining you from doing something, saying something, watching something, thinking something in a way that's different than what you would have done before he was resident in your life. It's an element of the fruit of the spirit. And self control really isn't self control.
It's spirit control over yourself because it's Christ in you that's doing the work. It's the spirit of God that's restraining. It's the spirit of God that's withholding. That's why you do not need to pass out condoms in high school and tell students, oh, nobody's going to be a virgin until they're married, just protect yourself. That's garbage.
And the reason it's garbage is for the believer. The spirit will control you. The spirit can get you to say no. The spirit can get you to say yes. To the things of God.
But apart from the spirit, you can't. As you walk with Jesus, there will be evidences in your life of the restraining power of the Holy Spirit, where in a moment, you will realize, I know he's with me because I wouldn't have handled it that way before. A couple decades ago, when I was living in Illinois, I remember being at the DMV. Anybody here work for the DMv? God bless you if you do.
And I remember waiting in line. And the way that my brain works is when I'm watching things that aren't organized or working well, it bothers me. And I start thinking about solutions for people I don't know. And I started putting it together in my mind what they needed to do and how they needed to do it differently. And the line that I was in had the guy that needed the most help by far.
And by the time I got to the front of the line, I was ready to tell him exactly what he needed to change to make my life better. But I didn't because I felt like it's not right to do this. And I handed him my driver's license to get my new one, and he looked down at it, and he said, hey, you're the guy that preaches at Northwoods all the time, aren't you? Yes, I am. Glad I didn't say anything.
Thank you, Jesus. Do you know what I'm talking about? And I find at different times, there's just a restraining power on my life. Like, don't go there on your phone. Don't look at that.
Don't think that thought. Don't hang out with people like that. It's different now than it was before, because I'm open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and how he's leading my life, not perfectly, but what? Increasingly, because I want to be more like Jesus, and the Holy Spirit's job is to magnify and manifest Christ in my life. The spirit, self control.
And in your self control, what? Perseverance. Perseverance. The greek word is hypomne. It means to remain under.
In context of a burden, a trial, and a difficulty. Can I tell you this? Burdens, trials, and difficulties are the ultimate litmus test. To give you the assurance that you're truly in the faith, let me say it another way. If you are truly a believer, you will go through burdens, trials, and tribulations in ways that you would have never, ever expected.
I'm not talking about consequences. I'm talking about trials. A consequence means you did something and you earned something for what you did. So if you stole from a store and you got arrested, that's not a trial. That's a consequence to your bad behavior.
A trial is when I'm doing what God wants. I'm honoring the Lord, doing it his way. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this thing comes in like a wave and hits me. And I think to myself, I would have never guessed in a million years I'd be going through this right now in my marriage, with my health, with my finances, with my family, with whatever it is. Like, there's no way.
And it's really, really hard. And hypomne perseverance means this. You'll know that. You know that. You know you're a Christian.
Because when hard times hit, you press into Jesus even more, not less. That's the evidence. I mean, you think through your life as a Christian. When you've gone through those hard times, was it you dropping to your knees, saying, jesus, help, I can't get through this without you. Because if you don't have the Lord, here's what happens when you face a trial, you try to fix it, or you run away from it and you're done with anybody that caused you problems.
When you're a Christian and you go through it, you realize, God, I don't like this at all. I would have never, ever picked this circumstances. This is breaking my heart. But I am not going to stop trusting and loving you in some way. Even though I don't see it right now.
I know this is for my good and boy, that's hard for me to say. And I'm not leaving you bring me through this. That's who pulmonary. That's perseverance. Grow in that.
That's why I do not. I do believe we have a prospering God and a blessing God and an encourage. I believe that, but not 100% of the time. If you're a Christian, you will experience trials, you will experience burdens, and you will experience tribulations. It's a promise.
Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That's you and me. You live fully for Jesus. It's going to be hard at times. Perseverance is evidence that you have the assurance of your salvation.
And in your perseverance, what? Godliness. Godliness. Godliness is your religious piety. It's living out the faith and having reverence for God in all areas of your life at all times.
It's when you start prioritizing the things of God, not because you have to, not because you should, but because it gives you great delight and joy. It's o taste and see that the Lord is good. I want to be in church because it's a delight. I want to read my Bible because it's a delight. I want to pray because it's a delight.
I want to trust the Lord with my finances because it's a delight. I want to lean more on Jesus because it's a delight. I'm doing the things that he requires, not because I have to, but because I desire to. I want to be in a cadre. I need to be around other christians.
Delight. I want to be at prayer meetings because it's a delight. I want to express the things God wants me to express, not because I have to, because I want to. That's when you know that you have Christ like virtues and these five, moral excellence, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness. He says, grow in those.
If you have faith, have faith in all those. Continue to grow in those because each one of those will give you evidence that you know that you know that you know that God is at work in your life. And then he adds, two more, and the final two that he adds are really the outpouring of what the first five do. If the first five are going to towards the Lord, the last two are going towards others, he says, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness. It's the word.
Philadelphia, Philao is love. It's brotherly love. Adelphos is brother. Phileo is love. Philadelphia.
It's brotherly love. It's the warm, affectionate love you have for your family and your friends. If you truly love God, you will truly love God's people. One of the evidence is that you know that you're born again, is that you'll go from thinking church people are just weird to loving those weird people and realizing that you're one of them. That's evidence that you've been born again.
Like before I was born again, I would go to church. I'm like, what's wrong with you? It's weird. Christians are weird. They're nerdy, weird people.
Then you get born again and you start becoming friends with those nerdy, weird people, and you're closer to some of them than you are to your own family because they share Christ in a way that your family doesn't. It's brotherly love. It's brotherly affection. That's why the church of God is called a family of believers. We love one another like that that's that warm, affectionate feeling.
One of the evidences that you have Christ in your life is you will begin to love other people that you once thought were unlovable. And then what does he say? He says, and to brotherly kindness or brotherly love. What's he say? Love.
That's a different word for love. That's agape love. Agape love is the highest form of love. It's the committed, sacrificial, selfless. I'm not feeling it, but I'm gonna love you anyway.
Love. It's the kind of love Jesus had when he died on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't brotherly love like, oh, this is fun. This is warm. That wasn't that.
It was a committed, sacrificial, selfless love. Agape love is the kind of love that you have in a marriage. It's the kind of love that you have with your kids. Not, I love you because it's I love you in spite of. And whether I feel like it or not, I'm gonna love you.
Agape love is when Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. I get asked this question all the time as a pastor. Pastor Jeff. Jesus tells us to love everybody. Here's my question.
Do we have to like them?
The answer is, you have to agape them. You may not feel like liking them, but you demonstrate love towards them regardless of how you feel about them. It's not taking counsel of your feelings. It's doing the right thing. It's loving your enemies.
It's praying for those who persecute you. It's blessing them with your mouth and your generosity, even when they treat you poorly. And only a believer in Christ can do that. And that's evidence that you're walking with the Lord. When you have agape love.
Amen. And these seven things put together, it's loving God in greater capacities and loving others in greater capacities. That's all it is. So add to your faith and grow in these things, and don't be overwhelmed. Cause I know some of you, you're so sensitive.
Okay, all seven. Which one do I do? Just pick one. Let the Holy Spirit show you a way in which you can grow. And life is fully orbed, right?
I mean, some of you are sitting there, where am I gonna find unlovable people? Where am I gonna find difficulties and circumstances? They're coming. I promise you. You can't escape them.
God's sovereignly weaving people and circumstances into your life so that you can put these into practice. And when you do, you will know that you know that you know that you're more like Christ, and you'll be assured of your salvation. Amen. That's what he wants you to do. So tenaciously work to mature your faith and then pursue a variety of christlike virtues.
The v and brave is virtuous. It's moral excellence. It's growing in all of these things. That's what the v stands for. I've had the unfortunate privilege now being in ministry for 30 plus years of knowing people personally that I know love Jesus with their heart, who I've watched fall out of ministry, not because they don't know the Bible, and not because they don't love Jesus, but they didn't pursue these things.
They didn't pursue virtue. They didn't let God change them. They weren't growing in his grace. They lost their first love long before they lost their ministry. Do you know what I'm saying?
He wants you to grow in all these so that you can know. That you can know, that you can know that you belong to Jesus. Let me give you a third. To have guaranteed assured faith, you must keep growing and never forget that you're forgiven. You must keep growing and never forget that you are forgiven.
Notice what he says in verse eight. For if these qualities are yours, if these seven qualities, in addition to your faith, are yours and are increasing, remember, God is asking you to grow increasingly. Not perfectly. I can't say that enough. Because the enemy will always lie to you when you fail, until you see, you loser.
You're no good. You didn't do it right. It's not about you getting this right. Every. It's about you increasing in it.
And when you fail, repenting and saying, jesus, help me, because I want to do it better. And if you're growing in these and they're part of who you are, and you grow in them, increasingly, notice what they do. They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge is the experience of the person of Jesus. Right?
So what? Is it possible to be useless and unfruitful? Two words you would not want to be said about you as a believer. What do you think about me? I think you're useless and unfruitful, not what you want to have said about you.
Why? Because a genuine believer, according to the Bible, always produces fruit in the parable of the soils. When the good seed fell on the good soil, what did it produce? Always 30, 60, or even 100 fold, it is normative for a believer to see fruit produced in and through their life by the Holy Spirit. In John, chapter 15, Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing.
But what is the whole text about, about fruit, more fruit and much fruit? I don't produce fruit. You don't produce fruit. God produces fruit through a believer's heart that is rightly related to him. And if your heart is rightly related to him, and if you want to grow, I don't care if you're eight years old or 80 years old, if you have a love for Jesus, he will produce fruit in your life, and he will use you for things that you don't know that he's using you for.
And he won't show you all the things that he's doing in your life, because if he did, you'd get a big head and think it was you. But every now and again, he'll give you, like, a little glimpse that he used you for something that you didn't know that he used. You ever had that experience? I was talking to a pastor this last week who I've known for a while. We went to a conference together about a year ago.
We saw each other on a plane, and he was really kind to me and nice to me, and I couldn't figure out why. And I saw him again this week, and he was telling my wife, wife about the time that he had heard me. We were at a panera one time and apparently had heard me on the radio preaching, and they heard me give my order. And he's like, I know that voice. He goes, are you pastor jeff?
And I said, yes. And he had just moved out here to plant a church. And he's like, I remember he was talking to Kim. He goes, I remember when your husband said, let's meet, and I'll sit down with you and tell you everything that I know, which is not a lot, but I'll do it. And he goes, I still have all the notes from the time you sat down with me from 2 hours at panera and told me everything.
Made a huge impact in my life. I don't remember meeting.
Do you know how many things that you've done in your life that you don't even know? Cause if you're walking with Jesus, streams of living water are flowing from you. You don't even know what you're doing. And the enemy will lie to you all the time and say, you good for nothing. You're not doing any.
What are you doing? What are you accomplish if you're walking with Jesus. Let him bear the fruit in your life. You have no idea how impactful you're being. Amen.
And that's what he's talking about here. There's no need to be useless or unfruitful, because if these qualities are in your life, even if you don't see them, you're not useless and you're not unfruitful. You're an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ and you are producing fruit which you do not see that the Lord is using to bless other people. That's the good news. Verse nine is the bad news.
It talks about what happens if you lack these qualities, if you're not growing in your faith. And by the way, there's no. There's no. Continue. I mean, there's no plateau in the christian faith.
You're either green and growing or you're ripe and rotting. There's no place. Well, I've walked with the lord now 35 years, and so I'm just going to soar off into eternity? No, you stop growing, you start plummeting. That's just the way that it works.
There's no. I got momentum and I'll just keep doing this. I don't need to do anything. I don't need to go to church. I don't need to.
No, you'll plummet. And here's what he says. For he who lacks these qualities, notice what he says about them, is blind or short sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. So here's what he says. He says, if you think that you're doing it God's way, but you don't have these qualities, you're either blind, which means you're not really a believer, and you need to examine yourself to see, or you're short sighted.
Short sighted is what I am without my context. Without my context, I can't read my bible. Without my context, I can't see faces. Without context, I can't even read the time, which I know you guys don't think I do anyway, but I can't read it right. I can't see it.
And you're short sighted because you forget. What? That you've been forgiven from the purifications of your former sins. So keep growing and never forget you're forgiven. Never forget you're forgiven.
How much have you been forgiven of how many of your sins did Christ forgive when he died on the cross? How many? Say it really loud. How many? But think about this.
At the time that Christ died on the cross, how many had you committed. You weren't even living yet. You hadn't even committed any. You didn't even have a heredity of sin. And Christ died for how many of your sins?
All. So what sins did he die for? All your past ones, all your present ones, and all your future ones. That's called freedom. Amen.
When Christ died, his death on the cross was sufficient. Some of us falsely believe if you came to Christ this year, he died for all my sins up until 2024. But now I get to work off all the rest of my sins with Jesus and hopefully they get. That's not the power of the cross. When Jesus died, he said, tetelestai, it is finished.
It's paid in. When you repent and trust Jesus, how many sins are paid for? They're all paid for. And if you don't know that, you're short sighted. If you don't know that, you have amnesia, you've forgotten.
It's already been paid for. The sins you're going to sin today, they've already been paid for. Then why confess your sins? Because when you live in an unconfessed state, you don't have a clean relationship with the Lord. I'm confessing my sins and I'm turning from my sin and I'm repenting of my sin because Christ has already forgiven that sin and I want to walk into freedom of knowing that that sin is gone.
Amen. That's what it looks like. And if I know that, I'm gonna live differently. Cause there's some of you in here and God bless you. You have a very tender conscience and you're the ones that will come to me afterwards and you'll say, I don't know that I'm really saved because I, like, sinned this week and I felt so bad.
Okay, that's really, really good. Because pagan sinners don't feel bad when they sin. That's the Holy Spirit in your life showing you you have a sensitive conscience. That's a good thing. So just confess it to the Lord and thank him that he's willing to forgive that.
Amen. I mean, the assurance of your salvation is not. If I do good, then God. No, no, no. The assurance of my salvation is Christ is working himself out of me.
He's doing all the work. And my goodness, I see his evidence in his hand in my life and I know it's not me. Because if I know what I lived like before I had Christ, and I know what I'm living like now, and I see the evidences of his grace working through me. Amen. It's a verse that tells you this.
If you're not seeing these things, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. If you're not seeing these things, maybe today's the day you repent and believe that Christ died. Or if you're not, maybe it's today. It's like you just forgot. Cause some of you have a testimony similar to me, like you came to Christ, but for a period of time you weren't working it out.
I didn't know how to work it out. I didn't go to a church after I got saved. I was mad at church because they never told me how to get saved. So I didn't go to church and I went to different ministries. But what I heard in ministries is that you needed a testimony, which my understanding of testimony back in the day is you have to do really, really bad things before Jesus can save you.
And I hadn't done enough bad things yet, so I went and did a bunch of them so that I could feel like I had a testimony. And it made me feel even worse. But had I walked into a church like this when I was in college, I know I would have sat there and wept and said, lord, I know I'm saved, but I'm not living how I'm supposed to live. Help me. And for some of you, that's what it means to be short sighted, forgetting that all of your sin has been forgiven.
And here's the way you walk. You grow in all of these things increasingly, and that's where the joy and hope is found. Amen. That's what he wants you to do. And so this is how we do it.
We keep growing. We never stop growing. We grow increasingly knowing that it's paid in full. If you're a believer in Christ, all your sins have been forgiven. And here's the way I'd say it, and I'm borrowing this from somebody else, but the faith that hasn't changed you hasn't saved you.
In other words, if you say you have faith but there's no change or evidence that Christ is in you, that faith really hasn't taken over in your life. Because faith is not lip service. Faith is action. Amen. And so it's a way to examine ourselves like, is there any of these evidences in my life, no matter how small the evidences may be?
If there is, then you're saved. Keep growing in those. If not, lord, today I come to you because I want you to take over. Come into my life and save me and grow me with these things. Amen.
Keep growing. Never forget your forgiven. And then finally he says this. To have guaranteed assured faith, you must confirm his calling and choosing of you. You need to confirm his calling and choosing of you.
He says, therefore, brethren, therefore, those of you who are saved, brothers and sisters in Christ, be all the more diligent. That's that eagerness like. Be super eager and certain about this. To make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
So what's he say to make sure? What's he say to validate? What's he say to make certain his calling and choosing of you. Now some of you might say, well, he didn't call and choose me. I found him.
I went to church and I found Jesus. And I decided to be a follower of Christ. And I gave my heart and life to him. And I attend church and I got born again. And I give and I serve.
It was me. What do you mean, his calling of me? What do you mean his choosing of me? Here's what I mean. Jesus Christ died for who?
The world. The world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. That means Jesus is able to save anybody, anywhere, at any time. Christ died for all right?
And anybody who comes, the Bible says he'll never turn away. So there's this big sign on the gate coming into heaven. Whosoever will may come. You want to give your life to Jesus today? You can give your life to Jesus.
If you never give your life to Jesus, romans 120 says you'll be without excuse. It's your fault for not giving it to him. Because Christ came all the way for you. He paid the way, he made the way. It is up to you.
Come totally true when you enter that gate that says whosoever will may come. And you walk through that gate and then you are like, this is so incredible. I chose Jesus. And you turn around, you'll see the sign that says chosen before the foundation of the world, that you've been predestined to come. And predestination is not a doctrine for the unbeliever.
It's a doctrine for the believer. The doctrine says that anybody who's in Christ, he always had his hand on you. You thought you were going to church. He was drawing you to church. You thought you were going to believe he was the one regenerating you.
You thought you were the one coming to him, he was the one drawing you. You thought that you came through the gate. He was pulling you through it. And you recognize that all the good things in your life was Christ coming for you, because as a believer, you realize he did it all. So what we're validating and confirming is that he's the one who saved me.
Because if there's any inkling in my life that I participated in my salvation, then guess what? Then there's some inkling in my life. Like, what if I lose it? But if you understand the Bible, you didn't do anything. Dead people don't make themselves alive.
Only Christ can make you alive. If you were dead in your sins and you were made alive, you didn't participate in that. That was Christ in you, the hope of glory. He brought you to himself. So make that calling and election.
Sure. And here's the truth. When you begin to walk around and recognize. Wait a second. All the good things that happened in my life is God choosing?
That's amazing. But that doctrine of predestination, that it's amazing that he chose you doesn't keep you from going out and sharing with everybody else, because whosoever will still may come, you say, well, that doesn't make sense. There's a tension there. Yeah, he's an eternal God, and I'm not. I'm just telling you the truth.
And there's not one theologian in the history of the world that's ever been able to harmonize that in a way that makes any sense. Anybody can come to Christ. He died for everybody. And when you come to Christ, you realize he did everything. How does all that work?
Because he's God and you're not, right? So confirm and validate that. Did you know that Jesus loved you that much to bring you to himself? For Christ died once for all the righteous, for the unrighteous to bring you to God. There's not going to be anybody in heaven when you get there.
According to DL Moody, that's going to brag about what they did to get there. You're not going to meet any saint in heaven. Like, what did you do to get here? Well, I was really, really good. And I remember I found this church and I did this.
There's nobody like that in heaven. The only people in heaven are going to be like, I was dead, and Christ showed himself to me and showed me the gospel and showed me I was a sinner and that I was dead. And I trusted him. By his grace, he gave me and I belong to him. And he's been growing me ever since.
And praise God because I'm here to praise him for the salvation he's worked in my life. Amen. That's the gospel.
And here's what he wraps up by saying. He says in verse eleven. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our lord and savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. Abundantly supplied to you. I was meeting with somebody this week again on hospice who has confidence of where she's going.
That gives me great hope. We don't get to choose our death date. Most of us. We don't know when it's going to be. It's a good thing that we don't know.
But could be today, could be in five years, ten years, we don't know. Here's the question. Are you ready? If it was today, I know I am. I'm more certain of the fact that I'll be with Jesus and then I'll wake up tomorrow.
I know that. But it's not because of anything I've done. I just know I've seen God at work in my life, and I know what he's done according to his word. And I'll tell you this, I'm yearning for that day. And if you walk in this way, notice what he says about you.
You will never stumble. It doesn't mean you won't have hard times. It doesn't mean you won't have times that you don't do it right. It means on your journey to heaven, you're not going to stumble. He's going to bring you all the way home.
It's the same thing the half brother of Jesus says in Jude 24 25. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy to the only God, our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time. And now and forevermore, he can bring you into his presence and make you stand firm and keep you from stumbling. That's what he does.
So you think about the ways that God is growing you. And if you make your faith central to your life and tenaciously work to grow in your faith and pursue a variety of christlike virtues and keep growing, and never forget, you're completely forgiven and confirm his calling and election or choosing of you, guess what? You can have. Assurance. Blessed assurance.
Assurance is not just knowing in my head. Assurance is knowing in my heart that I know, that I know that I know. And guess who it's available to all of you. You can have that. And if you have that, you have every single thing you need in this life.
Amen.
Doesn't make life easy all the time. Sometimes it's harder for christians than for non christians. But what you have is the assurance that this life is a vapor, this life momentary. The big things that devastate you, the hurts, the pains, the losses in life, the devastations I could have, would have, shoulda. That's just blinks.
If you have the assurance of your salvation, know there's an eternity coming that Jesus Christ is gonna bring you into without stumbling and present you faultless before his father with exceedingly great joy. Blessed assurance, amen. Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste. Glory divine.
You can have it. You can experience that. Let's sing about it. Would you stand with me, our Father in heaven, as we sing this closing song? Blessed assurance, let us be mindful of everything you taught us from your word today.
Let us go put into practice the things you're showing us so we can experience your presence in and through us. We give you all the praise, all the glory, and all the honor for your word, word this morning and for all the ways we get to worship your name. And it's in Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen and amen. Can we give God praise for his word today?