Our Participation in Sanctification | Last Words of a Dying Man Series

We're going to continue our journey in this series, Last Words of a Dying Man. And today I'm going to talk to you about our participation in our sanctification. Our participation in our sanctification. The sanctification is a word that some of you may be familiar with. Some of you may not. Let me just give you kind of what that is. Sanctification literally is just a washing or cleansing. It's the act of being set apart. Biblically speaking, here's what we learn. When a person is saved, when we become believers, the Bible says that in that moment we are sanctified. We are washed from our sin. We're set apart as God's possession. The Bible also teaches us that that sanctification is a process that happens. That we are being cleansed and being washed and being purified. Being set apart as God transforms us to look more and more and more like Jesus. In fact, this idea of sanctification, this progressive sanctification, is what we would call spiritual maturity. It's growing into the lightness of Christ. In fact, two weeks ago, I preached a sermon called The Power to Change. How many of you all were here for that message two weeks ago? Raise your hand. Okay. So many of you. So this is part two of that sermon. Because in that sermon, what we said was this, is that we have received that salvation, Holy Spirit, resurrection power, so that we have everything we need to look like Jesus. We have everything we need to grow spiritually in Christ. And we gave a definition. I want to remind you of that definition of spiritual maturity. What is this idea of sanctification, our spiritual maturity? Let me give you a definition, reminds you of what we said two weeks ago. Spiritual maturity is the process of becoming more like Jesus through his power at work in us. So it's the work of the Holy Spirit in our life who is transforming us from the inside out so that we're becoming more and more like Jesus. So sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, bringing about spiritual maturity so that we look more like Jesus. Now here's what we're going to look at today. Today, we're going to walk through and Peter is going to show us that we have a part to play in the process. That yes, it's by his power. Yes, he does the work, but we have a part to play. There's a part that we participate with in that sanctification or spiritual maturing process. And here's what we're going to see. Not only when we participate with the Spirit, is it going to produce a life of fruitfulness, but we're also going to see that we will have assurance of our salvation. So how many of you want to see more spiritual fruit produced in your life? Raise your hand if that's you. All right. Now, how many of you would say there have been times where you doubted your salvation and you

would like to have more of assurance of your salvation. Raise your hand. Certainty that you're saying, well, that's what we're going to discover today as we walk through this. So second Peter, chapter one, start reading in verse five. If you dare say the Bible is true. Awesome. You guys are better than the last two services on that. All right. He says, for this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness, brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. If, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, haven't forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you and inheritance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So here's what I want to do. I want to show you three aspects of spiritual maturity. Three aspects of spiritual maturity that will help us learn not only how we participate, but the fruit that comes with it and the assurance that we have that we belong to Christ. Here's the first thing I want you to write down. If you're taking notes right down this, I want us to see what it demands from us. What a spiritual maturity demand from us. And here's the answer. It demands intentional effort and sacrifice. If you want to grow spiritually, you're not going to grow spiritually on accident. It's going to take intentional effort and there's going to be sacrifice involved. Let me show you what I mean here. Look what he says in verse number five. He says, "For this very reason," and then he makes the statement, "make every effort to supplement your faith." When he makes the statement for this very reason, the question we need to ask is for what reason? But what he's doing here is Peter is connecting verse five to verses three and four. Now, I'm going to remind you again in verse three and four. In verse three, he says this, "For his divine power," for life and godliness. So he's telling us that when we are saved, we are given by the power of the Holy Spirit everything we need to look like Jesus. And what he's saying in verse five is for that reason,

because you've been given this power, you have a responsibility to do something with it. That there's some part that you play. He says, for this reason, because you have received this power, he says this, make every effort to supplement your faith. The phrase here, make every effort is a phrase that literally means to exert energy, to give yourself over, to seek diligently. Some of your translations even have this idea of seek diligently. The idea is passionate pursuit of something. And what he's telling us is that because we've been given the power to look like Jesus, we must make that the first priority of our life. We must passionately pursue Christ's likeness in our everyday life. And then he goes on to say supplement your faith. This word supplement in the original language is really an interesting word. And you don't really see it as much in the English translation, but that word supplement can be translated, some have translated this as choir master. And here's why that is. In the ancient days, this was the idea, this word was used in this way, is that as a community wanted to have a theatric production, whether it was music or acting or whatever it might have been, there would be business investors

who would supplement the resources needed in order for the production to take place. They weren't gonna sing songs, they weren't gonna play instruments, they weren't gonna act in parts. But what they were gonna do is they were gonna raise the funds. And the way they did this was by making personal sacrifices. They would give generously of their own resources, of their own influence, they would take their money and they would put it in so that the production could take place. So while they were not seeing, playing instruments or acting, they played a part in the production by making personal sacrifices to give themself, of themself in order to make it happen. Does that make sense? Now here's what Peter is saying here. He's saying supplement your faith is the idea is that you need to make a spiritual investment in yourself. You need to generously make sacrifices, you need to reprioritize your life. They're gonna be things that you need to do differently. And so if you're gonna mature in Christ, he's saying you've got to be willing to alter what needs to be altered, change what needs to be changed in order for you to become what Christ wants to produce in your life, a personal investment. So what does this look like? It means that for some of you, you need to get up earlier

so you can have time in the word. That's a spiritual investment you make in your own life. Some of you means that you need to be more diligent to pray and maybe write in a prayer journal and start some new disciplines and habits in your life. So if you're generously giving yourself over to these habits that will help you grow, some of you need to come to prayer meeting, corporate prayer meeting more often because praying with God's people is one of the ways that our faith is increased in our life and our spiritual maturity takes place. And so what he's saying is that there may be some sacrifices, some reprioritizing of things in your life in order for you to experience what God wants to do in your life. I want you to see this. He's telling us that there's a part we play, there's work that we do and the question we need to ask ourself is this, okay? So what are we working for? What is our effort leading us to? What is it, if we're making these sacrifices, what's gonna be the benefit to us if we do that? I want you to see this because what Peter does is he's telling us, you're not just making effort just to make effort. You're not just supplementing to supplement. There's actually some things that you should desire and long for and run after and here's why,

because the Holy Spirit desires these things for your life. In fact, he gives us seven qualities or seven virtues that he wants to see develop in our life that we should be running after and giving effort and making sacrifices for. Let me show you these. He says there's virtue, there's knowledge, there's self-control, there's steadfastness, there's godliness, there's brotherly love and there's affection. Let me give you some definitions or some ways to understand these different attributes that he gives here. There's first of all virtue. So what is virtue? Virtue is what we would call moral excellence. In fact, in verse three, this quality is actually attributed to Christ. So when we develop virtue in our life, this is the idea of moral excellence. This is the picture of living with an uprightness in our everyday life, living the right way, living in a way that has a sense of moral compass in a way that honors the Lord. Here's the next one, knowledge. Knowledge here is a little different than what we've seen so far. And throughout Peter, he's gonna refer to knowledge as more of an intimate experience with Jesus. This particular word, knowledge, is more And here's what I mean. It's wisdom and discernment to rightly understand

and apply the truth to one's life. So in other words, here's what he's saying here, is that your relationship with God, the knowledge of intimacy and experiencing Him should lead to a wisdom and discernment. So it's not just knowing truth, spiritually mature Christians know how to apply truth. I know a lot of Christians who are not mature, who know a lot of stuff about the Bible, but they don't apply it to their life. Spiritual maturity is not just knowing truth, it's the ability to understand how that truth transforms and works in our everyday life. Here's the next one, it's just not just knowledge, it's self-control. Self-control is the ability to not be dominated by the flesh or impulses. Another word for this is discipline. The apostle Paul will use this phrase, self-control a lot to, and he'll apply it to an athlete who's training for a competition, who wants to discipline themself, they put in the hard work, they don't eat certain things, they make sure they work out, because they want to compete well, it requires self-control. Something that my razorbacks was lacking yesterday as I watched the game in heartbreak. I think it's in double overtime for crying out loud. If you didn't watch, let me just give you a summary

of the last couple of moments of the game, for me on the back porch screaming at my television. We make the tackle, we're pinning them back, it's going to be third and 16 out of field goal range, they're going to go for it, we're going to stop them, we're going to go into the next overtime and we're going to beat them. What do we do? We suplex a guy when the play is over, we get a first down to the other team, which leads to a touchdown and an extra point. Listen, we lose the ballgame, why? Because my hogs did not display self-control. And if I'm quite honest, neither did I on my back porch. I'm not going to tell you what I said or what I did. That's between me and Jesus, all right, self-control. Here's the next one, step fastness. Step fastness, what is that? Some of your translations have the word perseverance there, perseverance, literally this word can be translated to bear up underneath, to be able to withstand the weight. That's literally what that word means. So listen, mature Christians, when you're maturing in your faith, you're going to be able to persevere when times get hard. Like, you know that it's easy to follow Christ when times are easy. But when following Christ begins to cost you, or when it's difficult, when there's decisions to make,

when you're going to be rejected from friends and people around you, whenever Christianity comes with a cost, oftentimes immature Christians will bail because they don't have steadfastness maturing in their life, developing in their life. Everyone can follow Christ, anyone can follow Christ when times are easy. But cheering Christians can do it when times are hard. Here's the next one, the next one is godliness. What is that? That's living with an internal reverence that leads to an outward obedience. So I want you to hear me say this. Listen, godliness, oftentimes, and I said this a couple of weeks ago, godliness can be misunderstood at times for just religious behavior. Like I go to church, I read my Bible, I'll say some prayers, I blessed my food before I ate, all of that are wonderful things to do, but that does not necessarily mean godliness. Godliness, listen, is living with an internal reverence. You have a disposition of humility and you live in all of the Lord, and that leads to an outward obedience. In other words, it's because of my disposition toward Christ inwardly, it leads to the way in which I live my life outwardly. Internal reverence that leads to an outward obedience. And then the next one is brotherly affection. Now, the last two, there's a shift. The first five are more vertical in nature.

The next two are more horizontal in nature. This is, again, attributes of a maturing per Christian, things that we're running after and making effort to obtain. Listen to this, so why is that important to see the vertical to horizontal? Your relationship with God, if you're maturing as a Christian, will affect your relationship with other people. If you say you're growing in your faith but you don't love your wife or your husband better or your children better or your coworkers better, then you're not growing in Christ. What's happening vertically will happen horizontally. And here's what he does. He gives us actually two words in the Greek language that could be translated love in the English language. So in the ESV, it translates its first word, brotherly affection. The word brotherly affection there is where we get the word fileto or Philadelphia. The city of Philadelphia means what? The city of the city of brotherly love. It comes from the Greek word fileto. It's a type of love. It's a love that has a familial effect. people in our lives. And Peter, I think, is using this word primarily in the way that believers treat one another. See, maturing believers, if you're growing in Christ, you're going to have compassion for people around you. There's going to be kindness that comes. You're not going to be harsh all the time. There's going to be a sense of affection. And you're going to want to live benevolently toward

other people. So brotherly affection. And the last one is the word love. The word love. What kind of love? What's agape love? What kind of love is that? That's unconditional. It's a covenantal love. It is God is the origin of this love. So agape is the way that God loves you and me. So here's what's happening. Listen, as you become more like Jesus, you will begin also to love like Jesus. That the love you receive is a love that you're going to give. It's unconditional. What is agape love? It's the ability to say to people, like I say to my kids, hey, I tell my kids this, there's nothing you could do to make me love you less and there's nothing you can do to make you love me, make me love you more. I may not like you at times, but you can't make me love you less. You couldn't make me love you more. Like on your bad day, listen to this, God loves you with a perfect love on your good day. He loves you with a perfect love. And here's what happens. As we mature in Christ, this type of love is engrafted into our heart so that we begin to love others in this way. It's an unconditional love. I want to remind you of this. So we got to make every effort for these qualities. Amen. We got to make some sacrifices to work with the Holy Spirit. But I got to remind you, the ability to see this type of transformation cannot happen with your effort alone. It's only in cooperation with the power that you've received through the work of the Holy Spirit. Listen, Christianity is not self-help, self-improvement. It's Jesus Christ radically transforming you from the inside out by his power and your participation with him. Amen. Let me illustrate it like this. So what do you mean our cooperation or participation? I've been on a sailboat one time in my life. It was a blast. We were up in the Northeast and we went on a couple of hour ride in a sailboat. And one of the things you know about sailboats, sailboats have no power in and of themselves to move. There's nothing it does to generate. There's no motor. There's no engine because the sailboat is powered by it is moved by what the power of the wind. And so there's there's really nothing that boat can do to propel itself except the sailor on the boat has to hoist the sail. And why are they hoisting the sail is because the power to move the boat is found in the wind. And so what are they doing? The sailor's responsibility is to hoist the sail and to work in cooperation with the wind. And so constantly, I was on this boat. I was watching the sailors. They were moving and adjusting tightening certain things. They were turning knobs that were turning the angle. And what they were doing is they were constantly being aware of the wind direction and how it was moving because their responsibility was to make every effort to move the sail to keep in step with the wind so that the full power

that's available in the wind could be captured by the sail and therefore move the boat. Does that make sense? So what does that look like for us? The wind of God, the spirit of God is the power to move us towards spiritual transformation. Our part is to move the sail to work with the spirit so that the power of the spirit could be captured in our lives so that we could see the transformation that God wants to bring about. So we're adjusting and we're submitting and we're listening and we're altering. We're constantly trying to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we want to adjust the sail to receive as much of the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us as we can. Here's the second truth I want us to see. So not only what it demands from us, I want us to see when it comes to spiritual maturity, what it produces in us, what it produces in us. And here's the answer, a life of effectiveness and fruitfulness. This is what the Holy Spirit produces in our life, a life of effectiveness and a life of fruitfulness. Look what he says here in verse number eight. He says, "For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now notice what he says here first. He says, "For if these qualities are yours and are increasing," and here's the implication. What he's saying is, and listen to my words carefully, every true ago. Every true believer, why? Because when you received Christ, you received the Holy Spirit who gave you a new nature, he gave you the nature of Christ. So those qualities are yours in Christ, but a spiritually maturing Christian is not someone who just possesses these qualities, but those qualities are increasing in their life. There's an abundance, there's an overflowing of these qualities where you're growing more and more and more. And why is this important? It's important because you've got to recognize it's not like, like some are J.V. Christians and some are varsity Christians where some have these qualities and some don't. No, it's not about that. It's about when you became a Christian, you received a new nature and now growing in that new nature means that those qualities that you received are going to start manifesting in your life and growing more and more and more. Why is that important is because none of us will ever arrive on this side of eternity. So you can look at that list. So if you're here and you look at that list, you're like, man, I'm nailing it. Like, how are we doing in the seven qualities? If I'm honest with you, I'm the poster child of those seven qualities. If you want, I can shoot a video and I can just train you in how to do that. I promise you, I'm like, if you're, if that's your disposition,

you don't understand because there's always more of Jesus that we need and there's always more room for growth in our life. I remember a life group that met a couple of years ago and they started an icebreaker and the icebreaker, the question was, this is like, hey, on a scale of one to 10, I want you to rate your relationship with Jesus, which is kind of, you know, you got to be vulnerable and transparent. So everybody's kind of fidgeting of like, okay, where am I going to say? Am I going to say I'm a five? I'm going to say I'm a three. I'm going to say I'm a three. I'm going to say I'm a two. First person raised their hand. This is what they said. Well, to be honest with you, I'm a 10. And the only reason I'm saying a 10 is because you didn't put 11 on there. You talk about a group killer in a hurry. I'm like, yeah, I'm the, I'm the guy that wants to go. I'm a two because I'd feel stupid to be a one, right? That's, that's the only reason I said two, right? So here's the thing. We, it's not just about possessing the qualities and saying we've arrived. It's about seeing this grow more and more and more in our life until Christ comes to take us home. Amen. Now here's the outcome of this. Look what he says here. Look at the result. So if you possess these qualities, these qualities are yours and are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge or the intimate experience, the relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. And here's what he's saying here. When you have a genuine relationship with Jesus, you have these qualities and when these qualities are growing and active in your life, here's what he says, it will keep you from living and ineffective and unfruitful life. So how many of you would just take me up on this? How many of you would raise your hand and say, Hey, I pastor, I just pretty much want to be an average Christian with no effect in my life. And I truly could care less about displaying fruit. Anybody here that's your position? Okay, I didn't think so. No takers all morning long. How many of you say, though, I want my life to count. I want to live an effective life. I want to bear fruit in my life. Raise your hand if that's you. And here's what Peter is saying. Peter is saying, when your relationship with Jesus is genuine and real, you're going to possess these qualities. And when these qualities are growing in your life, it's going to allow you to live a life that makes a difference. You're going to be effective. You're going to be fruitful. They're going to be transforming. God's going to use you to impact the world around you. Now, listen, the opposite is true as well. If you're not

growing in these qualities, you know what Peter is saying here is that your life is going to be ineffective and it's going to be unfruitful. So, for instance, when I'm playing pick up ball with the boys, which happens every now and then, and I lose my temper and I take the game to serious and I give my, you know, whatever I say, whatever I do to respond to that in that month, not that that's ever happened. I'm talking about hypothetically, if that was where to happen. Here's what's happening in that moment. My lack of self-control in the moment is forfeiting my gospel witness. I'm being ineffective and unfruitful, right? I walk in an ungodly way and lose my temper on my kids or I'm harsh with my wife and I express ungodliness. Guess what happens in that moment? I'm ineffective in the faith. I'm unfruitful in the moment. Whenever we get so self-absorbed that we don't want to show compassion or kindness to people, right? Because you don't know what they did to me. They hurt my feelings and man, I don't want to forgive them and our love all of a sudden has strings and conditions and we're not looking like Jesus. Here's what that does. In that moment, we are ineffective and we are unfruitful for the Gospel. so that we're seeing these grow and abundance in our life, which leads me to number three. This is why it's so important. So we see this, what it demands from us, what it produces in us, finally write this down, what it reveals about us, what a spiritual maturity reveal about us. And here's the answer. It confirms the genuineness of our salvation. By the way, the opposite is true. It also confirmed the fact that our salvation is not genuine and we don't, in fact, belong to him. I want you to listen to what Peter says in verse nine. He says, "For if, for whoever lacks these qualities, forever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten

what he was cleansed from, from his former sins." Now here's, I want your eyes right here just for a second. Because what I'm gonna unpack for you, I think is critical for our understanding. When he says a person who does not possess these qualities, he says they're near-sighted, so near-sighted, they're blind. The word here is myopic in the original language. The idea of they're one-eyed in such a way that they're blind, they can't see clearly. In other words, there's a spiritual blindness that has occurred in their life. And here's what it does. It creates a spiritual amnesia in our life. So we're not seeing clearly, and he says this, he says, and because of this, they've forgotten what he was cleansed from, his former sins. So that he was cleansed from his former sins. Then the point is this, is he's saying, "Look, whenever you're living your life "and there's no spiritual progress, "it's saying something about where you are spiritually." Now, this is the part that I want you to lean into. Peter could be talking to potentially two different groups of people, and maybe even both, and I'll explain that in a moment. So when he talks about a person who doesn't have these qualities, they're so blind, they've developed spiritual amnesia, and they don't even understand what the gospel has done in their life and what the gospel's called them to.

Here's potentially who he's talking to. He's talking to potentially false Christians who are professing of faith that they really haven't been saved by. They're not true believers, they're fake Christians. They're Christians who are, quote, unquote, professing faith in a gospel that has not transformed their life. So they're saying all the right things to a degree, but there's no evidence that they've ever had their life transformed by the gospel. They're just living there. And this is one of the things that he's warning. The false teachers were creeping into the church, and here's what they were doing. They were making a profession of knowing Christ, within distorting the gospel. And the evidence that they were false was not just the false gospel, was the false lifestyle that they were living. Their deeds exposed that they didn't belong to Jesus. So he could be talking to fake Christians who are professing a gospel that's never transformed their life. And the evidence of that is that there is no ongoing progressive sanctification happening in their life. (silence) The other group that he could be talking to are real Christians who because of sin, they've been spiritually blinded, and now they're living a life in sin. And because of this life in sin,

even though they're believers, they have forgotten what it was they were saved from and what it was they're called to. And because of this condition, these people, they don't even know if they're truly saved or not. The first, believe they're saved, but they're not. The second, they're not certain because of the life that they're living. Does that make sense? And you ask the question, well, which is he talking to? I don't know. And a lot of scholars would say that Peter doesn't even know. Because the lack of spiritual maturity puts a question mark on the genuineness of the person's relationship with Jesus. So how do you know that? Well, verse 10, listen to verse 10, he's gonna clear some of this up for us. Verse 10, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. The word phrase calling and election is a reference to salvation. So what is his call? Be more diligent to confirm your salvation. Make sure that you're truly saved. Now, notice this, he says, therefore, brothers, why is that there? That therefore is there because of what he just said. And a lot of the fact that if you don't possess these qualities, you're so nearsighted, you're blind that you've forgotten the work, the gospel in your life.

that takes place. In fact, this is an urgent matter. He says be all the more diligent. That phrase is the same phrase he uses in verse five when he says make every effort. So he's saying, in light of all of this, you need to make it a priority to see if you are truly a Christian. That you are truly saved. Be diligent, make this a top priority. And then he tells us how. He says to confirm your calling in election. Confirm, make sure that you're in the faith. Now I just right here just for a second, 'cause again, the language matters and I'm trying to teach through the Bible. And so I want you to understand this phrase here, be diligent, be more diligent to confirm your calling. This is in the emphatic in the original language. So there's something you can't see in the English translations. Let me explain that, the emphatic. When we're, when we're texting someone and we want to really communicate something to them, like we want to make sure, like of everything that I'm texting, I want you to get this phrase or this and it's, what do we normally do? All caps and exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point,

like we just can keep the exclamation point. So what we're doing, in essence, you know that if you're sending all caps to someone with exclamation point, you're yelling at them through text, right? I don't want you to miss this, all this other stuff, I'm really quiet and calm. And now I'm screaming at you with this. If we were to receive second Peter as a text message, this right here would be all caps and exclamation point. And by the way, it's present tense, ongoing. He's calling these people who are professing Christ but not being transformed by Christ to examine, to see if they are truly Christians. Now, why is that important? It's important because of what it is that we examine. I want you to see this. He says, "For if you practice these qualities, "you will never fall." Now, I want to make sure you see what he says and don't misunderstand. When he says if you possess these, what qualities? The quality of spiritual maturity, growing in Christ, maturing in your faith. If you possess these qualities, he says, "You'll never fall." Now, listen, he doesn't say you'll never fail. If I say him into that, that's good news. He doesn't say you'll never fail. There are gonna be moments where you fail.

There are gonna be moments where you level off spiritually or you let some sin in your life and the Holy Spirit brings you to a place where you're gonna fail. He says, "You'll never fall." That reference there is falling away from the faith, abandoning the gospel in the work of Jesus in your life. He's saying the assurance that you truly belong to him is rooted in the transforming work that he's doing in your life. If you're being transformed by the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit, through your willful participation, that's the evidence that you belong to him. And he says, "You can have assurance that you'll never fall." Why? True Christians can't lose their salvation. True Christians can't fall away. There may be seasons of failure. There may be moments of lapse of judgment and sin, but we can never fall. And then he goes on to say this in verse number 11. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He says, "There's an entrance." And listen, hear me say this, the entrance is not, you develop these qualities and that's your currency to get in. He says, "No, no, no, no, no, here's what you do. If you possess these qualities,

if you're being transformed into the image of Jesus, here's what he says, that's the evidence that you can live with confidence, that you will enter into the eternal kingdom when all is said and done. You don't gain access through your Christ likeness. The evidence that you will have access is through your Christ likeness. We are saved one way. That is by God's grace, amen? Through the finished work of Jesus on the cross, how do we know if we've embraced the grace? How do we know that? Here's how we know. We will be transformed into the image of Christ. Where that is present by the power of the Holy Spirit, here's what we know. We are in His grace and we are growing in His grace. And therefore, we have the assurance that when we die, we will be with Him forever. Where that is lacking, it puts a question mark on whether or not we truly belong to Him. So listen, eyes right here, so the third time I said it this Sunday, this is like my all caps exclamation. Peter is saying, the assurance of your salvation does not come from you taking a journey down memory lane and coming to the place where you go, "Hey man, I pray to prayer." And then asking yourself the question,

"But did I mean it?" Like, was I genuine? Did I say it? I heard this all come, did I say it right? So we're trying to figure out, am I truly a Christian by going back to this singular moment going? I think, I remember crying. But I also remember my friends were going and I went to and maybe I did it for them, but I think I was genuine and I actually got baptized and you're going back and you're trying to, here's what Peter would say. You don't find assurance of your salvation by walking down memory lane and looking at a singular moment. You ask the question, "When I responded to Christ, "was I born again? "Did I become a new creation? "Is Christ being formed? "Is there evidence that I have the Holy Spirit?" You see both Peter, James and Paul all would say the evidence of your salvation is not did you pray a prayer, but were you born again? Were you made new? Are you being transformed? Paul would say it like this, if you don't have the Holy Spirit,

you don't belong to him. James would say if you have faith but no works, your faith is dead, it's not real. Peter would say if there's not a track record of spiritual maturity, then your faith is suspect. So for me, if you were to ask the question, Pastor, are you, you'd know with confidence that you're gonna go ahead when you die, here's what I would say, yes. There have been moments and seasons of doubt for different reasons, but I would say yes, and here's why. Not because I go back to when I was 16 years old, life of train wrecking Christ, intersected my life, not because of that singular moment, but because of what happened after that moment. The assurance of my salvation isn't that I prayed a prayer right, it's that I was not the same person after. And I got 30 years to look back and go, there have been ups and downs, highs and lows, there have been hot moments and cold moments, but I can see a progressive work of Jesus slowly transforming me to look more and more like Jesus. And I got a long way to go, but I can have confidence that what he's done in the past will be repeated in the future. That's the evidence of our salvation.

Here's what James Shaddick says about this, and then we're gonna respond. He says, as believers, we aren't assured of our salvation because we pray a prayer, respond to an altar call, go through a class, memorize verses or even get baptized, we are assured of our salvation as we progressively grow in our likeness to Christ and in the influence of his character to the culture around us. If that's not happening, the authenticity of the believer's salvation is suspect at best. So what do we do? We heed Peter's words in all caps. Confirm your calling and election, confirm your salvation. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna give you three questions. Here's how we're gonna do. These three questions are gonna be on the screen. And this is gonna fill a little more, if you're gonna prayer meeting, it's gonna fill a little prayer meeting a little bit of how we're gonna respond. I'm gonna ask you to everybody to lean into this. Now, I'm putting these questions that I'm asking you. I want you to take these questions and I want you to ask the Holy Spirit on your behalf. So in other words, I don't want you to answer those questions.

I want you to ask the Holy Spirit and have him answer those questions. Here's question number one. Are you truly saved? Or are you professing a gospel that has never transformed you? Are you trying to clean yourself up and get better on your own? Or is there the evidence in your life of Jesus Christ making you a new creation and the effect of that has been happening in your life? Ask the Holy Spirit that question, Holy Spirit. Am I truly saved? Or am I professing a gospel that's never transformed my life and then listen to what he says and respond accordingly? For some of you, he's gonna say, no. You've never truly received me. Your life has been about you and there have been moments where you've done good to clean yourself up. But the trajectory of your life is that you don't have a love for me. You don't grow in a hunger for the word. You don't desire to be transformed every day. That's not existing in your life. And listen, if he does that, that's the grace of God. Here's what I'm gonna get you to do. We're gonna have some response. I want you to get up from your seat. There's gonna be prayer partners available. You go to them and all you have to do is say,

I gotta get the first question settled in my heart before I leave today. If you'll say that, our prayer partners will help you with the rest. All you gotta say, we had several people in the last service come up and that's exactly what they did. Hey, I gotta settle the first question today. Here's the second question for those of you who know your believers who worked through this and the Holy Spirit confirms that you are saved. Which of these qualities do you need to grow in the most? So look at your life and go, okay, where am I lacking right now? Do I need more self-control, am I? like I should. Ask the Holy Spirit to answer that question for you and then whatever He says to do about it, you do. Here's number three. What sacrifices do you need to make to be more intentional in your spiritual maturity? For some of you, the Holy Spirit is going to say, "You got to start getting up earlier. You got to spend less time on social media. You got to start getting back into the prayer meeting on Wednesday night because that's helped you in your spiritual journey. You're not doing that anymore. There's some sacrifices, some re-prioritizing of your life. Ask Him what sacrifices, what re-prioritizing of my life needs to happen, and He'll show you and then whatever He says, you do what He says." Here's how we're going to respond. I'm going to pray in a moment when I say, "Man, I'm not going to tell you to stand.

I'm not going to tell you to sit. Here's what I'm going to tell you to do. Find a posture of humility." What does that mean? Because we have to physically get in the position that we want our heart to go. That's why we always open up this stage, turn it into an altar, an altar is a place of surrender, altar is a place where you lay yourself before the Lord. It's act of humility. You can do that. You can kneel at your seat. You can sit. Some of you, a lot of service, we have people that were standing in that posture of submission. Whatever that looks like for you, I want you to find that spot and then once you find that spot, I'm going to encourage you. These questions are going to be on the screen. I'm going to encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to answer those questions for you on your behalf and then whatever he tells you to do with it, you do it. If the first question is what you've got to get settled, then just go to one of our prayer partners and say, "I've got to get the first question settled." He may show you something in the other two questions and tell you to go get prayed for. Let's just be obedient to whatever he says. I'm going to pray when I say, "Man, the band's going to be out here. They're going to lead us in song. I'm not telling you to sing. I'm not telling you not to sing. I'm telling you. I want to give you about 15 seconds to find that posture of humility, whether it's at the altar, kneeling at your seat, standing or sitting, and then pray through those questions and let him lead you into truth. Father, I love you.

I'm asking now in the name of Jesus that you would do what only you can do in this place. Open our eyes to see, open our ears to hear, let your spirit give us freedom in this place. For those who are fake Christians who have put a false sense of hope with no evidence of salvation, Lord, show that to them and give them courage to act upon it. Show us the qualities that are lacking and the sacrifices that need to be made to grow in those areas. Holy Spirit, we trust you, that you know us. We want to hear your voice in Jesus' name. Amen.