Good morning, beloved. I invite you to turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22. Luke 22. We will read two units of verses from that chapter, so verses 31 to 34. Then we will skip down to 54 to 62. As you turn there, I want to mention that a number of us pastors here at Grace will be at another church next week. Pastor Michael Lopes will be preaching at Jesus Our Redeemer Church in Baltimore. that's in connection to the fact that that church has continued to dare us to court our beloved pastor. But just to be clear, this is not a preaching in connection to a call. This is not a preaching that leads to a call being given, but it's in the process, and we'll give you more updates, Lord willing, at the first meeting at the end of the month. On my part, I will be preaching, as I'd mentioned earlier, in Morning View Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, Sunday through Tuesday, in the framework of the admissions conference. Pastor Steven Bird and the rest of the Bird family will be in Washington, D.C. for the happy event of Daniel Bird's wedding. Pastor Stu will be preaching here in the morning and Pastor Nathan Allen will be preaching in the p.m. So please pray for all of us in those various tasks and assignments that we have. So Luke chapter 22, verses 31 to 34, 54 to 62. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he may sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. Peter said to him, Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me. Verse 54. Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, This man also was with him, but he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him. And a little later, someone else saw him and said, You also are one of them. But Peter said, Man, I am not. And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying, Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean. But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about. And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he said to him, Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. Let's pray. Father, we come before you this morning and just ask that you would deepen our understanding of just how desperately we need you. Just seeing in this passage how Peter was sorely tempted. We know that that's our life. We know that the enemy hurls flaming darts at us all the time, and it's Only with your help that I could start a sermon and finish without saying something misleading. It's only with your help that your people can hear your word and cling onto it in a life-giving way. So draw near, Lord, and walk powerfully in our midst by your word. Help us to be a people who follow you in the confidence that you will keep us. And use this sermon to that end. I ask in Jesus' name, amen. sometime last year, I don't remember exactly when, but I read a John Piper sermon on this passage that made a profound impact on my heart. I benefited tremendously from that sermon. And I mentioned that to say some of the insights that I share in this sermon will arise from that sermon, but of course the sermon as I preach it this morning is a reflection of my own work in the text, but I did want you to know the Lord blessed my heart with a sermon on this text from John Piper and some of the insights he shares there will come through here. And I want to begin by asking this question. What is it that makes you confident that you will wake up tomorrow morning believing in Jesus Christ and clinging to Him as the Savior of your soul? What makes you sure that that will be your status tomorrow morning? For us as believers in Reformed theology, we, with the deepest gratitude, accept and embrace the truth that the surest ground of our preservation, of our confidence, of our perseverance in the faith is outside of us. It does not lie in us, it lies outside. Our confidence rests on the keeping power of our triune God. He's the one who has taken hold of us and he is the one who is keeping us and will keep us to the end. As our brother read this morning from 1 Peter 1, Peter tells us that those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, we have an inheritance in heaven that is being kept for us. And not only the inheritance that is being kept for us, we ourselves, the Bible says, are being kept by God's power through faith. So Peter is saying, our God is doing two keepings, keeping us and keeping for us an inheritance. And we'll bring the two together at his appointed time. But you know, sometimes a cluster of things in our lives can make us begin to wonder. A cluster of things in our lives can conspire together and plant thoughts of doubt and plant doubt in our hearts that make us wonder like, will God indeed keep us to the end? We all who have believed the Lord Jesus Christ for a time, we are keenly aware of our own proneness to wonder. We sing it in a song, we are prone to wonder. We get exposed to the wanderings of others. We are keenly aware of the stumblings that happen in our lives in secret that nobody knows about. We face the pressures and trials that we experience as we continue the pilgrim road. The flaming darts of the evil one come at us all the time. We are under satanic onslaught. as we walked away to heaven. And these things together can cluster and plant doubt in our hearts and call us to begin to question, will God indeed keep us to the end as He promises? We can sing with our mouth and say, He will hold us fast, and yet in our hearts we are wondering, will that really happen? I mean, I just messed up last week. Or I just heard about this on the news, or I just heard about that. Will God indeed keep me? So in his tender care for us, God gives us some of the most powerful assurances of his commitment to our eternal security. He speaks like this, John 10. Verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life 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. Romans 8. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And Paul continues. Neither death, no life, no angels, no rulers, no things present, no things to come, no powers, no height, no depths, no anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. or the famous beloved missionary texts. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ. These assurances are powerful and priceless. It's nothing more precious than to know the God of the universe with all his power and loving heart speak to you in these ways. They form the bedrock of our assurance that we will land safe on the shore of eternity. But there may still be a vulnerability in our hearts and in our armor. There may still be a chink in our armor that the enemy can exploit. And it can go something like this. We can read these passages and start to assume that these texts are telling us that we will go into heaven Going from the city of destruction to the celestial city is kind of like boarding an aircraft, and once you are on board the aircraft and it's taken off, then everything will just unfold in a textbook kind of fashion until you touch down at your destination. But of course, that's not the impression that these texts are designed to give. The whole Bible speaks in a way that shows there will be turbulence along the way. There will be upheavals along the way as we make a journey from the city of destruction to the celestial city. So in addition to these assurances, like in John, like in Philippians, like in Romans and other places, God also shows us how his mighty and indomitable hand holds onto us in the midst of the turbulence, in the midst of the turmoil and upheaval that happens as we make our journey to the celestial city. And the passage we just read about Peter's trial speaks about that. It shows us how the mighty undefeatable hand of the God of the universe holds onto a feeble saint as he is struggling through the storms that cut across their path as they make their way to heaven. The context is obviously the passion of our Lord. So we are standing right on the cusp of the betrayal and arrests of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus predicts the denial of Peter. And in this prediction, he speaks in such a way, he speaks in such a way and Peter interacts in such a way that highlights for us four emphases that mark our journey as we go from when we are saved until the day when we enter the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. You know, four things that come to the fore in this passage to remind us and show us how God works to keep his own as we make that journey to the city that cannot be, to the kingdom that cannot be shaken. One, Satan aims to destroy your faith. And notice verse 31. It says this. This is Jesus speaking to Peter. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. Meaning of sift you like wheat. What does Jesus mean by that? Well, it means Satan is out to see that you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, disciples, Satan is out to see that we commit apostasy. that we abandon the faith. He wants us to disavow Jesus, to repudiate him, and make a shipwreck of the faith. So Jesus is saying, Satan is seeking to shake you as violently as one shifts wheat. And his goal in doing that, his aim in doing that, is so that we might make a shipwreck of the faith. We might abandon Jesus Christ. Now how do we know that for sure? Verse 32 helps us out. If you just read 31 and 32 again together, you will follow the train of thought. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. So what Satan is demanding, Jesus is counteracting with a specific objective. And Jesus' objective reveals to us what Satan is actually demanding. The fact that the purpose of Jesus' prayer is that faith might be preserved indicates to us that what Satan is demanding is that faith might be destroyed, that faith might not be preserved, that faith might not endure, that there might be a decisive destruction of the faith of the disciples. That's what Satan is seeking. And let's just be clear here. Satan is not only seeking this for Peter alone, it's seeking this for all believers. Satan is not only eager to see Peter make a shipwreck of the faith, he wants that for all believers. And I say that because while you can't see it in the English text, the you there is plural. It's not singular. So when Jesus says, Satan demanded to have you, he is saying, Satan demanded to have you all, all the disciples, the whole church. Satan wants to bring it down. And in the flow of the book of Luke, you have to remember at this point, Satan has already entered into Judas Iscariot, and he's gone out and is negotiating, trying to cut a deal with the Jewish leaders as to how he could betray Jesus Christ. So there's a sense in which, at this point, Satan has already scored a victory among the disciples, so to speak. But he's not satisfied. He wants more. He wants to bring down Peter as well, and not Peter alone, but all the disciples along with Peter. So again, Satan is seeking to unsettle the disciples, you and me, and so do we commit apostasy. We abandon the faith altogether. He is out to obliterate from our minds and from our hearts, beliefs like Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. He wants to wipe that out from our minds and make us make fun of that and reject that. And he will give anything to lead a believer to do that. He will deploy all his power to lead a believer to do that. If he believes that afflicting you with a devastating health condition will lead you to reject and repudiate Jesus, he will do so. He did so for Job. If he believes that destroying all your investment and bringing you in the worst financial insecurity possible will lead you to abandon the faith he will do that if he believes bringing a shocking death into your family will result in that he will do it we saw i mean if you remember the book of job he did all of this for job Because he hoped that Job will deny the faith. In fact, he can throw someone in jail in hope that they will abandon the faith. That's what Jesus spoke to the church in Smyrna. And he doesn't only use bad things. He doesn't only use tragedies. He can use an easy life as well. If he believes that just poshness and easy cash and an easy life will lead you to abandon Jesus, he will. Remember how he dangled the glories of the kingdoms of this world to Jesus Christ when he tempted him? If he knows that you will be bought over, with money or the spotlight or prestige or prominence in any kind of way. He can even help a pastor seem to be succeeding in ministry if he believes that that pastor will turn around and worship that so-called ministry. The devil will give any and everything to lead any one of us to abandon the faith. The Bible is not playing games with us. The Bible is not silent in telling us of just about the power, the sheer power that this creature called Satan has. refers to him as the ruler of this world, as the God of this age, as the prince of the power of the air, as the one who blinds the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ, refers to him as the one who can take someone captive and make them obedient to his will, and only God can deliver from such a snare. He is one who is able to torment with demons. He can cause death. He can cause natural disasters. He has power that is utterly unparalleled. With ours, he has great power. Now that is all true. None of that is made up. That's all true about Satan. And also very terrifying in many ways. But this story of the trial of Peter is not meant to frighten us. It's meant to comfort us. and console us, and strengthen us, and show us, as I said at the beginning, how the mighty, indomitable hand of God holds to His own in the midst of all the trials, in the midst of all the flaming darts that Satan hurls at them. So here's one way this passage helps us see that, helps us see how God's hand holds onto us. You know, even in just telling Simon that Satan had asked to sift him as wheat, there is encouragement there. Because Peter did not discover this by his own sharp mind. Jesus told it to Peter. If Jesus did not tell it to Peter, Peter will not know it. So Jesus knows everything about what Satan is seeking to do against his blood-bought people. Jesus knows it from beginning to end. He sees it as it is. I mean, listen to what he said to the church in Smyrna. Revelation chapter two, verse nine. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for 10 days you will have tribulation. So this is Jesus speaking to God-born community in first century Smyrna and telling them about the schemes of Satan. You know, when Israel was attacked brutally by Hamas on October of 2023, I almost said last year, because time has changed and I was staying a little bit behind. But when Israel was attacked, many people asked the question, Israel, the one country on the planet that is known to have a top-notch intelligence mechanism, be Scots off guard? That was the sort of question people were asking. And maybe you asked that too. Maybe you asked that when 9-11 happened in this country. I remember being in Cameroon and just wondering like, wow, I thought that could never happen in the US. But here's the reason. The best intelligence mechanism and enterprise that any country on this planet can design is designed by human beings. It's manned by human beings. It's going to have chinks there. It's going to have cracks that an enemy can exploit. But that's never the case with believers in Jesus Christ. There's never a breach of security for those who are held onto by the mighty hand of Jesus who defeated death. He knows all the schemes and aims and plannings and plottings of the devil against you. So while we must reckon with the fact that Satan is powerful, We are not to be scared to death by that. We are to rest in the confidence that our God is on our side. Satan's power is always and only by permission of our sovereign God. There are no two sovereigns in the universe. There is one God, the God of the Bible, and he is the one who is on our side. So yes, Satan is seeking to destroy your faith, but Jesus knows it all. Truth number two. Jesus prays for believers. So Jesus does not only know what Satan is aiming to do against his blood-bought people, he does indeed pray for them. Look again at that passage, verse 31. Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. So the demand of Satan to sift believers like wheat is not the end of the story. Jesus prays for them. Praise be to God for that. Praise be to God that we have a high priest who prays for us. Jesus' prayers set in complete and radical and effectual opposition to the schemes and strategies of the devil. He will not succeed. Luke uses a word here when he talks about Jesus's prayer that conveys intensity. It's a word that is often translated plead. Jesus pleads with the Father that our faith will not fail. That's the word that is used to speak of a leper who saw Jesus and knelt down and begged him saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And on and on that word is used in the Gospel of Luke to say that. So there is intensity here. There is investment here on the part of Jesus to see that your faith does not fail. Now why does God allow the activity of Satan at all? Why does it have been easier if Jesus, after rising on Easter Sunday morning, to have just been done with Satan and obliterated him completely? Would life not be better? Would God's glory not be seen more brightly if Satan was not there to harass us and trouble us up until when we make it to heaven? And the answer is, God always chooses the best ends, and he always chooses the best means for those ends. His plans and purposes and ways cannot be improved upon. We would not be better off if Satan were not here. God chose the best means for how we make it to heaven, and that includes these Harassment from Satan because in the end it will show God's glory far more powerfully. I just want you to step back and just think for a moment. Jesus prays for me. That's part of God's work to keep me from making a shipwreck of the faith. That's part of God's work in keeping me from abandoning Jesus, apostatizing, and going away. I mean, when a brother meets you at church, or a sister meets you at church, or a pastor says to you, you have been on my mind, and I've been praying for you last week. How does that affect you? And then transpose that to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, exalted to the right hand of the Father. He is praying for you. I mean, think of some of his prayers for us in John 17, verse 9. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. That's Jesus praying. You are included in that. Verse 11, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. This is Jesus praying for you, that your faith might be sustained. And all this praying of Jesus is bound up together with his work to justify you, to count you righteous. Romans 8.34, who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised? Who is at the right hand of God? Who indeed is interceding for us? Jesus prays for believers, and that's why Hebrews will tell us that he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercessions for them. Now, Jesus prays for you. I just hope that sinks in and gives you a fresh perspective as you continue on in the new year. You're not going into the new year on your own. The Lord of the universe, sitting at the right hand of ultimate power, prays for you. Now, there's something profound in the details in the passage. In verse 31, I mentioned the youth. So it's talking about all the disciples. But then when he addresses Peter directly in verse 32, he switches back to the singular. But I have prayed for you, Peter. that your faith may not fail. So what's going on there? Here's the logic of the passage. Because Peter will become a key means by which the disciples are strengthened, Jesus prays for him in that context by name and tells him about it. Jesus is walking by a logic where The sifting of Satan is going to impact all the disciples. You remember when Jesus is arrested, all of them leave him and flee. In fact, according to the Gospel of Mark, one of them fled naked. It was that terrifying for him. And Peter will follow closely and deny Jesus three times, but because Jesus prayed for him, Peter will turn around, his faith will be strengthened, and he will become the means by which the rest of the disciples will be strengthened. That's sort of the logic that Jesus is working with right here. It sounds very much like the logic of 2 Corinthians chapter 1 where Paul tells us the father of mercies and God of comfort comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted. So Peter will be strengthened and will be made the means by which others will be strengthened. And so Jesus tells him, I have prayed for you. So Satan wants to destroy your faith. Jesus prays for you. Here's the third truth. Jesus is unflinchingly committed to destroy all your self-reliance. Every reliance on any resource in you, Jesus is out to destroy. And that's part of his work to keep you. Look at verse 33. Peter said to him, Lord, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Jesus said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me. So Peter rashly, very rashly promises to follow Jesus to prison and death. He assumes he has what it will take to go all the way with Jesus Christ. But before dawn that day, Peter will learn one of the most bitter lessons of his life. And he will learn that no one, absolutely no one, is able to go with Jesus to prison and to death in their own strength. No one is able by their resolve and strength of personality to keep the faith. And Peter will learn that before it's done that day. So may I just say, if you are in a season of your life where you feel like the Lord is weakening you, and overwhelming every strength you thought you had. Do not begrudge it. That's part of God's work to keep you. If Peter were to be left to his own devices here, that will set him up for a catastrophic fall in the future. But because Jesus can't let Peter float away into perdition, he would undermine anything in Peter that takes away confidence from Jesus and places in Peter, because that confidence will not hold. Only confidence in Jesus will bring disciples all the way to the end. And therefore, Jesus will utterly destroy anything in us that distracts us from Him to ourselves. Jesus is unflinchingly committed to destroying all your self-reliance. For some of us, the lesson was learned acutely when we got married, or maybe when we started having children. Or maybe when a situation came up in church or in the family or whatever. The Lord uses those things and the purpose is always as it was in the life of Paul. That his power might be made perfect in weakness. Because any power less than the power of Jesus will not make it all the way to heaven. Here's the fourth truth. Jesus' prayers never fail. He does not only know the schemes Satan is plotting against you. He does not only pray to counter them. He is not only committed to destroying. All the resources that you may be tempted to bank on in your life at the expense of banking on His indomitable power, His prayers for you never fail. They always accomplish the purpose for which they are prayed. Now, Jesus, when he speaks to Peter, he knows Peter will deny him. It's from his own mouth that he said, before the rooster crows three times, you will deny that you know me. And we who are reading the Gospel of Luke, we also know Peter did indeed deny Jesus three times. I mean, right as the third denial is on Peter's lips, we read in verse 61, that the rooster crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times. So Peter stumbled grievously. He stumbled. Unfortunately, that's one of the first lessons that we learn about Peter when we become Christians. We hear more of his stumbling than we hear of the powerful preaching that he did at Pentecost. But he stumbled. So what does this teach us? It teaches us that the content of Jesus's prayer is not to be understood as saying Jesus was praying that Peter will not deny him even once. That's not what Jesus was praying for because if that's what Jesus was praying for, then his prayer would have failed woefully. because Peter denied him three times. Rather, what Jesus was praying for was that Peter will not apostatize, that he will not abandon the faith. When Jesus said, when you have turned again, he means this, you will grievously and shamefully stumble, but you will repent. That's what Jesus meant. You will stumble grievously, you will stumble shamefully, your heart will be broken over your stumbling, but you will not stay fallen. Why do we say that? Because when he says, when you turn, when you have turned, that word is used in conjunction to repentance. Repeatedly in the book of Acts, turn to Jesus, that times of refreshing might come from him. Acts 3, 19, 26, verse 20, repeatedly, look who is writing this gospel, uses that same word to speak of repentance. So Jesus is saying, you will stumble, but you will come back. In other words, Peter's faith, the genuineness of Peter's faith will be proven not by sinlessness, but by true repentance. And that's the story for each one of us. No one of us has sinlessness to show and prove our faith. All we have is repentance. The only thing that can prove you truly are saved and are walking with the Lord is repentance that is bearing fruit, befitting of that repentance. For Peter, this turning after he stumbled was marked by deep emotion and weeping. We see that in verse 62. And he went out and wept bitterly. Of course, it is possible to weep because of sin without necessarily repenting. Very possible to weep. So tears and grief and sorrow are not in themselves the litmus test for repentance. Someone can weep over consequences much more than over the sin and the dishonor that is brought to the name of the Lord. But what Peter was experiencing was true godly grief. He was indeed cut to heart as his sermon will do to others. in the book of Acts because he knew he had brought shame on the name of the Lord. This kind of weeping produced repentance in Peter that left no regret. How do we know that for sure? You know, Jesus said to Peter two parts. When you have turned, he spoke to Peter in two parts. When you have turned, strengthen your brothers. And he did a lot of the strengthening of his brothers. And therefore, the strengthening would not have happened if true repentance had not happened. It took true repentance in Peter for the strengthening that he did to happen. I mean, just think about his ministry in the book of Acts. He is the one who led the disciples to replace Judas Iscariot. He's the one who preached powerfully on Pentecost. almost 3 000 about 3 000 were saved on that day he was used of the lord to work astonishing miracles and acts of leadership in the book of acts he was an instrument in expanding the gospel to samaria he was the first jew to bring the gospel face to face to a gentile in a significant way and he resisted that if you remember from our study of acts in chapter 10 when god was sending him to the house of cornelius This is Peter who stumbled. And may I just ask, who of us sitting here this morning has not been strengthened by Peter? Who of us sitting here this morning has not derived strength in their walk with the Lord because of this man, Peter? But why did that happen? Why has he been such an instrument in the strengthening of the believers of the Church of Jesus Christ? And the answer is, it is because he turned. And he turned because Jesus prayed for him. And Jesus prayed for him with prayers that are infallible and omnipotent. Prayers that are unstoppable by anything whatsoever. When the son prays to the father, there is power released that keeps all the schemes and aims of Satan in check. and therefore Peter turned, and therefore Peter was an ease, an instrument for the strengthening of the brothers. Let me close with two quick applications. Here's the first. As you go on in the new year and beyond the new year, as you live the Christian life until the Lord calls you or until he returns, Keep a sober mind and keep a watchful eye. Now Peter did indeed learn his lesson that night when he stumbled. Peter learned his lesson. It is he who in his first letter will say in 1 Peter 5, be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Peter had gotten into the fangs of the lion and been snatched out of it by a mightier lion. And he is now warning the believers, be sober-minded, be watchful. There is a lion prowling around seeking someone to devour. And the way to resist that lion is to be sober-minded, to be watchful, to resist him firm in the faith. And not as if what's happening to you is unique to you, but knowing that your brothers all across the world are experiencing the same thing. And then here, this encouragement. And after you have suffered a little while, now Peter can tell you something about suffering. He could tell you something. He knows something about suffering for the name of the Lord. And this is what he says. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever, amen. That's Peter speaking. God has called you and me to eternal glory. So when you take all the temptations and all the afflictions and all the pains that we go through, some by the assault of the evil one, when you put that side by side with the eternal glory to which we have been called, that is like a little while. So Peter says, when you have suffered a little while. Beloved, let's remember, our enemy is supernatural. And therefore, our weapons cannot be natural. Our weapons have to be supernatural. One of the first books I read early on in my ministry was a book on spiritual warfare that said, to try to fight the devil with weapons of the flesh is like trying to fight nuclear warfare with a bow and arrow. In fact, there is more hope for somebody trying to win a nuclear war with a bow and arrow than somebody trying to resist the devil in the arm of the flesh, or the strength of personality, or the resolve of your heart. So it could be that giving into anger as often and giving into lustfulness as often and continuing to click on that porn site may be happening because you are resolving in the arm of the flesh. It may be happening because, yes, you want to stop, but you are not allowing the resources of heaven to be deployed to give you the victory that you need. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. It's by the spirit. that we put to death the deeds of the body. So as believers, we shouldn't be cavalier about the devil. We shouldn't be scared of the devil. We should be sober-minded and watchful and resist him firm in the faith. And here's my second and last application. We do all of this, all of the sober-mindedness, all of the watchfulness, all of the resisting of the devil on the basis of one unshakable foundation. Jesus will keep me all the way home. Jesus will keep you all the way home. Jesus prays for you. He will never let Satan destroy your faith. If you love God and have been called according to his purposes and you are forsaking all your own resources and turning your back on whatever you can do in your own strength and looking to Jesus, one thing is certain about your life. The most powerful intercessor in the universe is on your side. He is praying for you. He will keep you. His prayers will bring you home. If you get old and develop Alzheimer's, His prayers will bring you home. If you can't think again, if you can't remember a Bible verse, if you can't remember a hymn you sang when you were young, His prayers will bring you home. Ultimately, it's not us holding to Him, it is Him holding onto us. And therefore, He will bring each one of us home who are named by His name. And if you're here this morning, and Jesus is something you have heard people talk about, you hear church people talk about, or maybe you hear your parents talk about, and He's never really been personal to you. You've never known what it even really means to know Jesus. Could I just say, on the authority of God's word, he can become your keeper even now. He can become one who is holding onto you in the midst of all the storms of life, even now, if you will turn to him in repentance and faith. He suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring believers to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. That's who he is. If you turn to him in repentance and faith, he will hold on to you and will never let you go until you land safe in the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Let's pray. Father, thank you that our confidence in our final salvation does not depend on anything we can do. Thank you that It's not because Satan is without power that we'll make it home, it's because you are sovereign and all-keeping and will never renege on any one of your promises. So help us, Lord, that as we go through this year, whatever may come that we do not know, that we will live in the confidence that we know one thing for sure. You, who is our keeper, will indeed keep us all the way home. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.