The Power to Change | Last Words of a Dying Man Series

journeying through starting last week through the book of 2 Peter in a series we're calling the last words of a dying man. And this morning we're going to talk about the power to change. Peter's going to show us this morning of the power of the transforming work of the gospel in our lives that there is real power that can transform us in very real ways in our life to make us look more like Jesus. This way of show of hands, how many of you would say every now and then and in regards to your spiritual growth you feel like that you've stalled out or not or are not seeing the progress that you hope to see. Raise your hand if that's you. Most most all of us in this room feel that. Here's another one. Raise your hand if you ever just wonder how do I even know and measure whether I'm making spiritual progress? Like how do I even know if I'm making spiritual progress? That's what we're going to talk about today. In fact we're going to look at today is how the gospel transforms our life and I want to show you what spiritual maturity looks like in us and how we can see more of it as we trust Christ. So 2 Peter chapter 1 we're going to start reading in verse 3 if you dare say the Bible is true. His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires. One of the things that I do kind of on my spare time as a hobby is I love doing woodworking type projects building different things. I've got a little shop set up in my garage and so a couple of months ago I wanted I was had a project that I was going to be working on and I needed a skill saw and so I went and I started shopping around prices were a little higher than I wanted so I waited and finally I found the battery powered skill saw that I wanted and it was like half the cost of what I originally priced before so I run to Lowe's I get the saw I'm fired up I come home this nice big box and I unclip the box open it up grab the skill saw and start looking around and realize that the skill saw did not come with a battery. I was so disappointed I was like I just

wanted to cut something you know and and I'm not a moron because I did you know I'm not going to take it and now start sawing with the skill saw that's not going to work. I looked I was like man did I read the package and it was like little bitty writing that said in this product the battery is not included. I'm like why would you say like battery powered skill saw I felt so cheated so then I go in I'm like hey you know that salt on my wife you know that saw that I got for really cheap I got to go back and buy a battery for it and I get up there and the battery costs more than the skill saw so like it was double the money that I thought I was gonna pay but now it works. Now here's the thing I think sometimes we think when we think about the spirit the the the life in Christ and in Christianity and the Christian faith oftentimes we fail to recognize that that God has given us supernatural power that he doesn't do us like the skill saw did me like he's not you got Jesus but the power the battery is not encrypted and here's what we understand when we receive Christ we receive all the power we need for spiritual transformation to take place in our life we just have to recognize the power that's available and begin to live in it and this is what Peter wants us to see in this passage of Scripture that we have been given the power in Christ to live a transformed life to see spiritual maturity and spiritual progress become a reality in our life so let's look at it verse three look what he says here he says his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness now let me explain this this last phrase life in goddess what is that I believe what he's talking about is spiritual maturity Christ being formed in us so life is a reference to the true life the life that we were created to live before sin that now we have the ability to be realigned and begin to live in submission so that we can reflect the one whose image we've been created and so it's the life of Christ being lived in us and then he says godliness godliness listen to this oftentimes people think godliness is just religious activity like that person is godly like why well they go to church all the time or they read the vibrator they know a lot of scripture and so we equate spiritual or religious activity

with godliness but but really godliness that he's talking about here it's not just religious activity but it's practically living like Jesus in everyday life that's what godliness is godliness is not just religious activity listen it affects if you're a godly person it's gonna affect the way that you treat your spouse and the way that you love your children godliness influences the way that you do your job why you do your job and Godliness is gonna give you a moral compass that allows you to make decisions in your life that are righteous decisions that honor the Lord. It'll give you a set of ethics that you follow in obedience to God's word. Godliness is the life of Jesus being lived out of your life. And what Peter wants us to see in this passage here is that that is available to us. I want you to see the description of this. He gives in verse four, this godliness, this life, that is ours. He said, verse four, he says, so that through them, we're gonna come back to the them in a moment. But through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature. Now, the divine nature here is a reference to the nature of Jesus that we received that conversion. If you remember in second Corinthians chapter five, verse 19, Paul says this about our salvation. He says, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The oldest god in the new is come. So the divine nature that he's talking about is not as if we become deity,

but rather the nature, the life of Jesus. Now we are born again and through the Holy Spirit, we have been made alive and we've received a new nature, which is the nature of Christ transforming us from the inside out. And this is why he says, we may become partakers of a divine nature. The word partaker means to fellowship with or to participate in. So here is what Peter wants us to understand. This life and godliness is the divine nature of Jesus that we now, because of the gospel, can become partners in, fellowship in. This is what the spiritual maturity is. It's the life of Christ in us. And here is the great news. It's actually possible. Does that encourage you? Like you can actually live this life. It is available to us in Christ. Listen to what he says here in verse three again. His divine nature, or his divine power rather, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godness. So everything we need to live a Christ like life and to walk in the divine nature that we've received, here's what he says, his divine power, he has granted to us everything we need in order to live that life. This phrase, all things here in the original language

is in the emphatic form. And what Peter is emphasizing is this. He says, basically, everything you need to be like Jesus, you have access to if you were a Christian. In other words, there is not one thing that you need to be like Christ that you don't already have accessibility to. Isn't that great news? This is done by his power, it's his divine power. And I love this, he says it has granted. Not to get too technical with language, I think it's important in this situation here. Granted is a word that in the original language is a perfect passive participle. Here's what that means. Passive means you receive it. Perfect means it's a completed work in the past with ongoing effect in the future. So when you received Christ as your Lord and Savior, in a moment you were granted the divine power to live a godly life, to live a Christ-like life. You received it. So it was a completed work in the past with ongoing effect in the future so that we have everything we need to be like Christ. So here's the definition of spiritual maturity. Write this down if you're taking notes. Spiritual maturity is the process of becoming more like Jesus through his power at work in us. So it's a power, it's not our work, it's his work.

And his work is doing something. He is making us more and more and more like Christ. It is the life of Christ being lived through us. In this what Paul says in Galatians chapter three, verse 20, this is what Paul says. He says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but who lives in me? But Christ lives in me and the life I now live and the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. So in other words, Paul is saying, when I received Christ, I died to myself and now there is a new life. It is the nature of Christ being lived through me so that life every day that I'm living in this body, I am trusting that Jesus wants to live his life through me. That's spiritual maturity. It's the process of learning how to live in this new nature that we have received. So here's the question we've got to ask, how then do we experience this power to change? If we have accessibility to the power, then he can actually do this in our life. How do we experience that in our life? So here's what I wanna do. I wanna give you three ways from these two verses. Anybody interested in that? Say, "Hey, man, the power to change." Three ways we experience it. Now, before I give the three ways,

I wanna make sure we understand something. I was right here for a second. This is not multiple choice. This is not trying to get two out of three. Listen, these kind of come in a package. It's not like I'm gonna do really great on one and the other two or not. These come together. So we've gotta, if this is ABC, this is gonna be option D all the above, all right? We wanna get all of these in. So here's number one. How do we experience the power of changing in our life? Number one is this, is through the presence of the Holy Spirit, through the presence of the Holy Spirit. I want you to look at what he says in verse three again. He says, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life." And God is his divine power. This word power here is the Greek word dunamis, dunamis. Divine is qualifying this. What kind of power? It's a supernatural power. The word dunamis means abundant power, ample power, power to evoke change. In fact, the Greek word dunamis is translated where we get our English word dynamite in the form of that. Now it's not like the same thing.

So here's the comparison I'll give. Dynamite is explosive power that calls us disasters, right? It tears things apart. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is a power that has the ability to evoke change, an abundant power that can evoke change. And so while dynamite evokes change in a deconstructive way or destructive way, the power that we're talking about here does this in a recreating state, that the power of the gospel recreates us and does it work on the inside of us. This word divine power, it's actually the power that in the Bible that we see in reference to the power of the resurrection. Let me show you what I mean. In Ephesians chapter one, Paul is gonna use this word and he's gonna show us how powerful this power, this dunamis is. Look what he says in Ephesians 1-19. He says in what is the immeasurable greatness of his dunamis, same word that Peter uses, dunamis power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. What kind of great might? Look at verse 20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. You were Paul saying, he said, look, you've received the power of the very presence

of the Holy Spirit and it's the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Here's what Peter wants us to see. We have resurrection power available to us as followers of Jesus Christ. Is that good news? We have resurrection power. He's gonna go on, Paul is in chapter three to bring up this dunamis, this power again. Look what he says in Ephesians chapter three, verse 16. He says that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened how? With dunamis, with power. How do we do this? Through his spirit in your inner being. Now Paul's here for a moment. What he's saying is that by the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given to us at conversion, we now have this dunamis, this resurrection power in our life. Now notice what it produces, verse 17. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So how does the nature of Jesus, how do we become more and more like Christ? By Christ dwelling in our hearts, how does Christ dwell in our hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us so that we can experience resurrection power. So Christ is being formed on the inside of us. And it is impossible for us to experience

this type of transformation apart from the presence of the Holy Spirit. Brothers and sisters, you were never meant to live the Christian life in and of yourself. You never meant for that. I mean, think about the opening that skill saw. Imagine if I open up the skill saw and Adrian walks in the garage and I got the skill saw and there's no battery and I'm just sawing away. She's like, we need to get you some help. Like something is off. That's not like it was never designed to be used with using your just elbow grease and personal effort. Like it actually has a power for it to do the changing for you to the wood, right? This is what it's supposed to do. And the same is true for us spiritually. So many of us laugh at that. Like we're to use the skill saw like that. And yet that's exactly how you're living the Christian life. You were trying to see your life transform and be changed into the image of Christ, but you're doing it through your own work you're trying to overcome things in your own effort. You were never meant to live the Christian life without being filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit who empowers you to experience transformation in your life.

So the question is, how do we walk in this power? If it's essential, how do we walk in this power? Here's truth number two, I want you to write down. We experienced it through the pursuit of intimacy with Jesus. The pursuit of intimacy with Jesus. I'm gonna spend tons of time unpacking the first part of this because it's a little work that we did last week, but look at verse three. His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. So how do we experience that? Here's what he says, "Through the knowledge of him "who called us to his own glory and excellence." How do we experience this? Through the knowledge of him, the knowledge of Christ. Through knowing him in last week and verse two, we see the same Greek word and we recognize last week that this word knowing, but the knowledge of him is not intellectual knowledge alone. It's experiential knowledge, it's relational knowledge. It's intimacy with Christ. So it's not just looking at the Bible and going, I gotta extract information about Jesus like I'm gonna take a test, no, no, no, no. This is about meeting a person. Like I'm reading about someone who I can talk to right now and interact with, this is the goal. So here is what we're talking about. We're talking about knowledge. We're talking about engaging Christ

not just intellectually, but rather with our affection. So here's right this down if you're taking notes. To know Christ, here's what this means in this way. Here's what it means. It means that your mind's attention and your heart's affection are engaging in relationship with Jesus. Your mind's attention, you're learning more about who he is. Your heart's affection, you're loving him more. It's knowing him and it's loving him. This is the knowledge we're talking about, a relationship with Jesus. And this is where we begin to see the transformation and how we live. Let me illustrate it like this. Last week I talked about my marriage and I talked about how age or not dated, long distance and we'd spend hours on the phone trying to get to know one another. And I made the comment that I was getting to know her not like learning information, but I wanted to know her as a person and our relationship with growing, not just intellectually, but with the affection we had toward one another. So the more I knew about her, the more I loved her. And here's what I can say. Listen to this, we're 23, almost 24 years in marriage. And here's what I can honestly say. Look, I said it, she was in the eight o'clock service.

I loved that woman more this morning than I did the day we married. Like I'm serious, I'm crazy about her. Like I love her more today than I did any other time in my life. And I can honestly say that like, like I told her, like you can't get rid of me. Like you ever decide to leave me, I'm packing it back, I'm going with you. Like we're, you know, I love her. So why do I love her more today? Because I know her more today. And can I tell you something else? Not only do I love her more today, watch this. I actually love her better today than I did the day we got married. You know why? The more I know her, the more I love her, and the more I know and love her, the more I know how to love her. This is the picture Jesus painted for us in John 15. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So we say, if you know me, you're going to love me. If you love me, you're going to keep my commandments. So what he's saying is that knowing Christ should lead us to loving Christ and loving Christ and knowing Christ is going to lead us to obeying Christ. And here's what he says in John 14. And if you love me and you obey me and you keep my commandments,

I will actually manifest myself among you. In other words, I'm going to give you more of me. So you know him and you love him and you love him. He says, I'm going to, you're going to obey me. And if you obey me, I'm going to give more and more of myself to you. Is that happening in your life and your relationship with Jesus? So how do we experience this? Look, notice what he says at the universe three. He says through the knowledge of him who has called us to his own glory and excellence, to his own glory and excellence. Say, what do you mean here? Glory is a reference to his majesty, to his beauty, to his splendor. Excellence is a reference to the moral goodness or the moral perfection of Christ. Now, here's what Peter is showing us. because by the Holy Spirit, your eyes were open to the glory and the majesty and the splendor of Christ. You were like, I will turn from everything because there's no one greater than you. You saw his moral goodness and perfection, his excellence. You're like, I'm a sinner and you're perfect and I want to surrender and receive your righteousness. So you entered into a relationship with Christ because the Holy Spirit revealed the glory

and the excellence. Listen, and you've been called to this. In other words, you've been invited into a relationship where you could experience his glory and his excellence in your life, amen? And now the Christian life is the act of living in this position of experiencing more of his glory and more of his excellence. So the more we know him, the more we know of his glory and his excellence and the more we experience his glory and his excellence, the more we love him and are transformed by him. It's the beauty of Christ that draws us into spiritual maturity. It's this huge here. Let me show you what I mean by this. Paul picks up on this idea of glory and excellence. In second Corinthians chapter three, verse 17, listen to this. Paul says, now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there's what? There's freedom. Now look what he says next. And we all, this is believers and we all with unveiled face, beholding what? The glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another for this comes from the Lord who is spirit. Now here's what Paul is saying. By the spirit of God, through the finished work of Christ,

the veil that kept us from experiencing the glory and the excellence of Jesus has been removed. We've been invited to experience His glory in a real relationship. And then this is what Paul goes on to say. And we with unveiled faces beholding this glory, this excellence of the Lord, what happens? We are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. And he says, and this happens through the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. So if spiritual maturity is Christ being formed in me and me being transformed into the likeness in the image of Christ, where does Paul say this happens? It happens by beholding the glory of the Lord, living in relationship and knowing Him more deeply. Eyes right here for a second, hear me say this, you will become what you behold. You will become like what you behold. If you're beholding and you're gazing and you're meditating and you're in relationship with the things of this world, you're gonna become like the world. If you're letting certain cultural voices and you're letting that influence and you're beholding those voices in your life, you're gonna begin to think at and talk like those voices that you're beholding. But when you behold Christ, when He and His glory and His excellence becomes where you fix your eyes and you're in relationship and pursuit of Him in your life,

here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna be transformed in the likeness of His image. Why you become like what you behold. I illustrated like this. Oftentimes on the weekends, Friday and Saturday, my son, we spend a lot of times doing yard work and so I'll be mowing and weed eating and just working out in the sun for several hours. And inevitably, when I come into church on a Sunday, somebody will make a statement like, "Oh, man, you must have been laying by the pool." I'm like, "Oh, actually, I've been a lawnmower and I'm doing a sweet eater. You gotta come over and help sometime." And the point that they're making is that they can tell I've been in the sun. So in other words, every time I spend time in the sun, as you in, it affects my appearance so that people know I've been in the sun. When you behold the sun, the S-O-N, there will be the evidence that you've been in His presence where other people can see it. Why? Because you'll begin to look like Him. So here's the question then. So the flow is this. How do we experience this power to change through the presence of the Holy Spirit? How do we experience the presence of the Holy Spirit? To the pursuit of intimacy with Jesus and what this leads us is the third way we experience His power

and that is through the promises He has granted to us. Through the promises He has granted to us. Look what He says here in verse four. He says, "By which He has granted to us So that through them, now, I want you to follow the scripture here. Look up here for a second. By which, by what? By the knowledge of the glory and the excellence is, we know him in this way and experience intimacy with him. He says, we begin to realize and experience the promises that he's made to us. So as we know him, we begin to know the promises. He begins to reveal more of what he has for us in his word and who we can become in him. Look what he goes on to say, so that through them, what is the them, through the promises, we may become partakers, fellowship, partners of the divine nature. So he says, somewhere and somehow, through the work of the Holy Spirit and intimacy with Jesus, God's promises become real in our life and they begin to empower us to become participants in the divine nature that we have in Christ. You say, what do you mean the promises? What are those promises? I think there's so many promises in the scripture, but this is my personal opinion. I think what Peter is referring to here are the promises that relate to the salvation

and the transformation of salvation in our life. You say, what kind of promises? And okay, well, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the two prophets in the Old Testament, they prophesy and they make a promise that when the second covenant is established in Jesus Christ, that we will receive a new nature. In fact, he says that heart of stone, that is rebellious toward the things of God, he'll take that heart out, he'll put a heart of flesh in, our heart will begin to beat for the things of God. He says that he'll actually etch the commandments on our hearts and he will train us and cause us to walk in his ways. Isn't that a great promise? It's the promise of Jesus in John chapter 14, 15 and 16. Here's what Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you as orphans trying to figure this thing out. No, no, no, no, no, I'm going to give you the comforter, the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is going to be a companion, a guide, a teacher, one who convicts you of your sin. You can rest assured that you're not going to be alone. One is going to come and live inside of you. That's a great promise, is it not? It's the promise of 2 Corinthians 5 verse 19. If anyone is in Christ, there are new creation, the old is gone and the new is come.

It's the promise of Galatians chapter 5 verse 16 where Paul writes this and says, if you walk in the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful flesh. It's the promise of Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 where Paul writes to the believers and says, being confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you, he will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Those are some great promises, are they not? And those all of a sudden begin to be infused so that now the divine nature, because these promises begin to shape our life and transform us from the inside out. It's the promises that are right here in the text. Verse three, he says, his divine power has granted us everything we need for life and Godliness. That's a promise we can take to the bank. It's the promise we find in verse four. Listen to verse four. He says at the end of verse four, having escaped from the corruption. That is in the world because of sinful desires. This idea of having escaped from the corruption, this is what I believe is an already but not yet promise. Already in that it's already at work in our life and being experienced, not yet in that we won't experience the fullness of it until Christ returns. Are you following me? See, some scholars will read this and they'll go,

Oh, having escaped, he's talking about your salvation. You escape the corruption that is in the world. Others have interpreted this as going, Oh, it's having escaped from the corruption. He's talking about the future hope of when Christ returns and we're freed from the very presence of sin. You say, where do you land? I think it's both. So what do you mean? I think it's this, listen to this. Our mission statement here in the beginnings is people connecting people to Jesus and his ever-restoring life, ever-restoring life. Here's what the Bible teaches us. When you came to faith in Christ, in an instant you escaped the corruption that is in the world. In other words, you were restored to Christ because Jesus paid the penalty of your sin. Believer, hear me say this. You are no longer a slave to sin. It's no longer your master. You've escaped this. How Jesus paid the ransom. He paid the price. You've been delivered. Since penalty, no longer rest on you. You've been fully restored because of Jesus's work on the cross. Anybody thankful for that?

Amen. (congregation applauds) But also, you are. the ever-restoring work in your life. So not only have you been set free from the penalty, listen, you are being set free by sin's power in your life. Is that this is what we're talking about, spiritual growth, progressive sanctification, becoming more and more and more like Christ, because you've been set free and you've been given a new nature, you're learning how to live in that new nature. And so there's this ever-restoring work of Jesus in your life that's happening, making you little by little, day by day, more and more like Christ. But there's a third aspect of this. There's a day coming when Jesus Christ is gonna return. And on that day, it'll not be the penalty of sin he deals with or the power of sin, it will be the presence of sin itself. We will be given a new body and the sin of flesh, the desires toward things that are rebellious against the things of God will no longer, will no longer yearn for sin or desire sin. Anybody looking forward to that day? When Jesus returns, listen, everything will be made new and we will have once and for all, be restored, escaping the corruption of this broken world because of sinful desires. How long for that day?

In fact, Peter is pointing, he's gonna spend a lot of time as we go in this book talking about the second coming of Christ. And here's why, so many of the false teachers were saying things like, where is this promise that God made to you that Jesus was gonna return? Man, he's been going a long time, where has he been? And they were rejecting, these false teachers were rejecting the resurrection, they were rejecting the second coming and Peter is gonna remind us, no, no, no, no, no, he's gonna make good on his promise. And on that day, all sin will be taken care of and we will be renewed. So here's what we understand is that we have been set free, we are being set free and we will be set free. So what do we do now in the interim? I want you to listen to what John says about this. First John, first John, chapter three, this is beautiful. Beloved, we are God's children now. I could just stop right there and that could be a sermon in and of itself. We are God's children now. He's not talking to every person, but those who have received Christ, here's the statement about you and me. We are God's children when, right now. And I love what he says this, and what we will be has not yet appeared. And this is the fullness of our salvation,

the finished work of redemption when sin is once and for all destroyed. He's like, hey, we're not who we're going to be. It's not yet been revealed in its fullness, but here's what he says. But we know that when he appears, when Christ returns, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. So what is spiritual maturity? It is when we look like Christ. So based upon 1 John, when will the work of spiritual maturity be finished? When Christ returns and we see him in his fullness, in an instant we will be transformed and the work of this spiritual maturity will be finally complete. I'm looking forward to that. So what do we do now in the interim, verse three? And everyone who thus hopes, anybody hope in that return of Christ and being like Christ one day. So what do we do now? Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So what do we do? If the end of the end game is spiritual maturity when Christ returns, what do we do now? We participate in the process of becoming more and more like Christ. Between the day of our salvation and the day of our death or the return of Christ,

here's what we do. We submit and we trust the work of the Holy Spirit. His presence becomes essential in our life. We pursue intimacy with Christ, embracing the promises so that we can lay hold of this divine nature. We're a work in progress, amen. How many of you would just look at your life and go, "Hey, man, there are things I used to struggle with "that I don't struggle with anymore. "Raise your hand and fetch you." Yeah, me too. How many of you have sins that you struggle with now that the Lord is still in the progress of delivering you from "Raise your hand and fetch you." Should be all of us. We just participate. We join in the work. I think about my own Christian life and I've been saved since 1993. And when I think about where I was when the Lord found me. I look back on that and I see over the last 30 years what Christ has done in my life. And it is, it's nothing short of a miracle to take where I was and to do this work. And it's only by His grace. I don't look back sometimes at the life I lived before Christ and the decision, some of the way I thought about life.

And I look back and horror going, "Man, you saved that." I'm just overwhelmed by grace. Anybody ever went by grace? I've made spiritual progress, spiritual growth, sometimes it plateaus, sometimes it's like two steps backwards and then it's like this seasons where the Lord just strips me of things and grows me and then there's other seasons of plateau and then there's there's little dip moments and then there's like you're to stand still and all of a sudden God does something and but over time there's this movement toward more of Jesus I can honestly say I'm more like Jesus than I was 10 years ago and prayerfully next year I'll look back at this guy on stage and be like that guy was I moron and 10 years from then I'm gonna look back and listen to sermons and goin I can't believe they let that dude preach but there's this progress of this growth here's what what Peter says he's gonna say it later on in the text he's gonna say this make your election and calling sure in other words confirm your election calling what is he saying there you need to examine yourself and make sure that you're seeing the progress make sure that you're seeing the growth where there is no transformation most likely there's never been salvation if you're not becoming more like Christ experiencing deeper commitment deeper love for him and inside out transformation if you're not experiencing that in your life you may not belong to him and you're this is what he's saying the confirmation of your salvation is not going back to 10 years ago oh I prayed a prayer the confirmation of your salvation is what's happened in my life since I prayed that prayer is there spiritual maturity is there growth because where there is no sanctification there may not have been ever salvation some of you this morning that is your life you got a religious behavior but you've never surrendered to Christ or you look at your life you're like I don't see that kind of transforming work in my life it could be that you need to talk to someone today to to confirm your election and calling to confirm your salvation if it all is is religious behavior and no inside-out transformation you may not know Jesus you can get that settled today hey man so in a moment we're gonna have a decision to encourage your standing come and pray with them ask them to help you figure this out they'll talk with you and some of you may know I have never experienced that kind of transformation in my life you need Jesus today come and tell him that others of you in this room you know Christ but here's the question

are you seeing his power right now do you love him more today than you did a month ago or six months ago or a year ago are you seeing the evidence of his of surrender deeper commitment to him or are you at a season of spiritual standstill here's the thing it's not a lack of power it's a lack of walking in the power so ask the Holy Spirit what needs to change in my life to give me off of this this plateau that I'm on what do you want to do what sin you want to remove what is it that's keeping me from the more of you how many of you just raise your hand and say I want to see a fresh work of Jesus in my life this year so here's what we're going to do in a moment where the worship team's gonna come out and we're just gonna pray about it if it's his divine power let's go to the source of power let's go to him right if it's by the spirit let's go to the spirit and ask the Holy Spirit look just would you do this fresh work show me he will and let's start that right now I'm gonna ask you to stand father I love you and I'm asking right now that you would give courage to anyone who's prayed to receive you that or needs to pray to receive you or is uncertain about the relationship that you would allow them to have the freedom to come and be saved or have a conversation with someone for those who want to see more spiritual growth who may be at a standstill well would you just give them a humility today to come kneel before you or to pray with someone or grab the hand of a spouse or a friend and say like I need I just need some prayer today or would you do this work in this room we ask this in Jesus name listen as we worship and as we sing this is an opportunity to respond this altar is open let's pursue Jesus and the power that's available amen as we worship and sing