Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it says that's a piece of chrome that ain't actually stuck to the bottom of this plate. It's over. And so it just spins heat. And some of the slip-on pipes has got to move. Most of them don't. And yeah, yeah, I've done some of them. A couple or two of them I've expired. And then, after everybody's gone, I said, hey, Pops, I can put them all the way over. And they said, no, no, you can do that. They said, well, if you ever done it, you can. I said, yeah, I'll do it. And especially if they're waiting for, sometimes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see what happens if they make those stops. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to send you a lot of love this year. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a lot of fun. We I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. And if you could describe that now, how does it feel? I tell people to listen. If you get up in the morning and you're not asleep, and you're not sure what you're doing, and you've got a lot of work to do in your life, you're going to be in so much trouble. Good evening. The good thing about a second sermon in a series is I don't have to tell you all where to turn. It also helps that there's this big gaudy green screen behind me that tells me that we're going to be in the book of 2 Peter here tonight. So if you would turn to 2 Peter chapter 1 as we're continuing our study on preparing for persecution. Last week, or I guess it was two weeks ago, last time I should say, we looked at our unity in Christ. And we saw that the foundation for our unity in Christ is our salvation in Christ. And because of that salvation, we are unified in Christ. And now, tonight, we'll look at something that is equally important to us as we prepare for coming persecution in the days ahead. We're going to look at assurance. Assurance of salvation. So, 2 Peter chapter 1. We'll be in verses 5 through 11. If you want to stand, we'll read these verses together and then we'll get started. 2 Peter chapter 1, starting in verse number 5, the Word of God says, And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they will make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's pray and then we'll get started with our study. Dear Heavenly Father, You have set before us a magnificent passage of Scripture. And God, it is my prayer that You would empower me with the Holy Spirit to deliver these words with clarity and with truth. And God, I pray that You would be with each one of the people that hears these words. God, that they would, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be able to apply them to their lives. And God, I ultimately pray that each and every person would be able to leave here tonight with full assurance of salvation. So God, bless the preaching of Your Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You all can be seated. Perhaps the greatest question that you could ever ask yourself is, am I saved? I think it's a good question for you to ask yourselves. You must know the answer to this question. It is imperative that you know the answer to this question. This is the most important question that any of us will ask ourselves and that any of us will answer. If you could only answer one question, I pray that it would be this one question. It is the most important question, am I saved? Yet, there are many people, countless people, who are unable to answer this question with confidence. Many people believe, and what we're talking about here is we're talking about assurance of salvation. Many people believe that it's not even possible to know the answer to this question, am I saved? Some believe that you're not even supposed to ask questions like that. Some believe that if you ask and you answer a question like that, it's arrogant and conceited. Other people are simply lacking in assurance, and they're unable to answer that question with confidence. And there's many reasons why this happens. I wrote down a few this week as I was pondering this. Some people, I think, they sit under preaching that focuses solely on the law. That it's all law, all law, all law, and we never hear of grace. It's all, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner. If I sat under preaching and eventually I'm going to say, I'm a sinner, maybe I'm not saved. If that's all you ever hear and you never hear of the love of God and the grace of God and salvation in Christ. Some people lack an assurance because they have difficulty accepting forgiveness due to past sins. They say, I'm such a bad sinner. God could never forgive me. Some people just don't have a good understanding of what the gospel is. There's no way you can have assurance of salvation if you don't know what salvation is to begin with. Some people think that it's up to them to keep their salvation. That they're so scared of losing their salvation they can never have assurance. If that was me, I'd be terrified. I'll tell you, I would have lost my salvation a long time ago. I would never have assurance. I would have lost it just then. If it was up to me to keep my salvation, there's no way to have assurance. Some people believe that salvation doesn't offer forgiveness for future sins. That salvation offers forgiveness for past sins, but not sins in the future. So you have to be perfect in order to have assurance of salvation. Some people are too focused on an event or an experience. Some people say, well, I don't know the day that I was saved and because I don't know the day that I was saved, I can't be sure because it's all about the event or it's all about the experience. Some people don't have assurance because they have sinful desires. They think that because they've not rid themselves of their flesh, of the sinful desires of their heart, one sinful desire, they say, I must not be saved. Some people don't have assurance because they're living in sin, and rightly so. Some people don't have assurance because they fail to see all that God is doing in their life, how God has grown them, and they just don't see that. They don't see all the mighty things that God is doing in their life, and they don't have assurance. We can go on and on and on and on with examples, but all of these things cause people to not have assurance. You say, well, what happens when someone doesn't have assurance? Well, they lead a very unstable life. They lead a life that's full of worry, full of doubt, full of fear. And as we think about the series that we're preaching through, preparing for persecution, when persecution comes, people who don't have assurance, they're going to be overcome. They're not going to make it. I mean, think about it. How can you die for your faith if you aren't even sure that your faith is real? How can you stand when they're hauling off Christians to jail if you don't have assurance? How will you survive the rejection of those around you? The rejection of those who are perhaps closest to you? When you are outcast, how can you stand if you don't have assurance? How will you overcome the doubt and despair that Satan throws at you through spiritual warfare if you don't have assurance of salvation? It is critically important So we've got to answer these questions here tonight. We have to say, can we have assurance? Is it something that we can have? Is it attainable? And if it is, how do we get it? Because we need it. Well, as with every week, every service here, for all questions that we want to answer, we know the place to go. We go to the one place that has all the answers. God's word. And I'll tell you what God says about assurance. God declares that it is possible for us to have full assurance of salvation. That we could know, that we know, that we know, that we know that we are saved. That we are children of God. And not only that, God commands that we pursue assurance. God doesn't say, hey, here's assurance, come get it if you want it. God says in this passage, verse 10, give diligence that you make your calling and election sure. Give diligence that you pursue assurance. He's not saying, well, you know, give diligence if you want to, to make your calling and election sure. He's saying give diligence to be sure about your salvation. And I want to tell you, that assurance of salvation is one of the greatest blessings of life. It is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Assurance is hope in the midst of trials. It is confidence in the midst of persecution. It is certainty in the midst of attack. It is joy in the midst of rejection. Assurance is a beautiful blessing from God. So we should love it. We should desire it. With everything that we have, we should say, I want assurance. People with assurance are able to sing songs like How Firm a Foundation. I hope you've heard that old hymn. We don't sing it here. I hope we do one day. We're going to try to one day, but not yet. But I'll read you just one verse from How Firm a Foundation. The soul that on Jesus has learned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. How firm a foundation. That is what people with assurance are able to sing and are able to live out each and every day, that there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. That I am sure of my foundation in Christ Jesus. And there's nothing that can change me on that. So let's study our passage here tonight, looking at our assurance of salvation. I have three points for you tonight. They'll all begin with the letter C. So we'll look through those. We're gonna start with point number one, In verses 5 through 7, we'll look at how our assurance is confirmed by our actions. Assurance is confirmed by our actions. And what we're going to see here is that your assurance is based on the life that you live, the actions that you live out in your life. And we start here with verse number five, and he says, and beside this, so he's referring back to what we talked about last week. And beside this, you could think of that as being for this reason. So because of all that we saw last week, because of those things that we saw last week, he's gonna say, believers cannot be indifferent. Because we are, we're called to live dedicated lives for Christ. And verses 1-4 describe our position in Christ. So if verses 1-4 describe our position or our salvation in Christ, the next few verses are going to describe our progress. So position, progress. Or you can think about it this way. If verses 1-4 describe salvation or justification, the next few verses are going to describe sanctification or living out the Christian life, spiritual growth. So if you have been granted His divine power, verse number three, it says, according as His divine power. So if you've been granted His divine power, if you have been given these exceeding and great promises, verse number four, if you are a partaker in the divine nature, verse number four, then you should be a possessor of Christian virtues and ultimately assurance. So God is giving us this supreme opportunity for life and for godliness. Again, verse number three, he's talking about, he gives us this divine power so that we can live into life and to godliness. So the question is, what are we going to do with it? God is giving us this power of life and of godliness, now what will we do with it? I want to tell you, God is not hiding assurance from anyone. God's not up there in heaven saying, oh, no, you can't have assurance. He's not hiding it from anyone. But also, God isn't giving assurance to everyone because everyone would have it. So we need to figure out how do we have this assurance of salvation. So as we continue looking in verse number five, we have this assurance of salvation. He says, and beside this, giving all diligence. Diligence is effort. It's effort. The word is actually a word for speed. So it's not just effort, but it's effort with urgency. So it's going to take some work to get assurance. Assurance isn't just falling out of the sky and hitting us on the head. But it's going to require some type of work. It's going to require a pursuit of God. There's no such thing as a non-practicing Christian. Some people, the culture would like for you to think so, but there's not. The Christian life is hard. It requires some work. But ultimately, it's worth it. Because we know, for Matthew chapter 7, verse number 16, Jesus told us that you will know Christians by their fruit. And in the same way, assurance is known by your fruit, by your actions. And he uses the word here, he says, add. And he says, and beside this, giving all diligence, we're just going countless word by word here through verse number 5. He says, add. So give generously. This is a very interesting word. This is a word that was used to say to pay the bill to assemble a choir. That's what this word was used for in the Greek culture or Greco-Roman culture. You would you would pay the bill to assemble a choir. That's what this word means. Other forms of this verb can mean even mean to outfit an army. But really what he's saying here is don't cut any corners in your devotion to Christ. You know, some of you all are probably already getting uncomfortable and saying, he's saying that we've got to do a lot of things. I thought salvation didn't involve works. I thought it was by grace, through faith, no works at all. And I would say, yes, it is. God has given us the divine power. But that doesn't mean that we are to take a back seat and not put forth any effort. Let me teach you a little bit for a second. Theology class for just a second. Justification, it's the word that we use, it's the theological word that we use for salvation. We have been justified before God. Sanctification is God growing us in holiness each and every day until we get to glorification, which is heaven. So three theology terms under the big umbrella of salvation, justification, sanctification, glorification. Now we're gonna get a little deeper here. Hang on, buckle up. Justification is what we call monergistic. So mono meaning one, gistic meaning work. So one work. Justification is by faith or by grace through faith. All a work of God. No work on our part. All God. Monergistic. One work. Sanctification is what we like to say is synergistic, in that we work together, that the Holy Spirit empowers us, and then we have to live out the Christian life. That's why we're not all the same. There are some of us today who are more spiritually mature than others. It's just a reality. We are all not at the same level. of spiritual maturity. Do we all have the same Holy Spirit indwelling in us? Yes, absolutely. That's why we say that sanctification, spiritual growth, is synergistic. So that's where this work side of things come from. Not that we're working to be saved, or that we're working up some level of assurance, but that we're working out the work of the Holy Spirit in us. So we have to supply some things. We have to add some things. And verse number 8 goes on and says, not only do we have to possess some things and add some things and give generously some things, but these things, which these things are going to be the Christian virtues, we'll study here in just a second. But these things that we have to have, we don't only have to have them, but they have to be increasing. Read down in verse number 8, and if these things be in you, and abound. So not only do we have to have these things, but they have to increase. We must be growing in these things. These Christian virtues, there's eight virtues that we're going to walk through each one of them step by step here in just a second. But we have to have these things and those things are the key to assurance in our lives. And some of you are probably saying, well, I've got to have these things, and we're going to go through this list of eight things. I've got to have these things, and then I've got to be increasing these things. This is already sounding really, really hard. No, this is wonderful. This is really good news for you. Verse eight, that's the verse you want to hear. Because what it means that these things have to be increasing is that we don't have them perfectly right now. Think about that. We're going to step through these eight Christian virtues. And the Bible says for us to have assurance, we have to have these things and they need to be increasing. What that means is we don't do any of them perfectly right now. That is such great news to us. You know, I'll be honest. I know we sang blessed assurance at the beginning of this of this sermon or this service. I really like that song. I don't actually think it's all that accurate. This is the word perfect like three different times in the song and That's not what we're called to do. We don't have to be perfect to have assurance. That's not what the Bible teaches. If it was, no one would have assurance. If you had to be perfect to have assurance of salvation, I got news for you. You ain't perfect. And none of us are. And none of us would have assurance. We'd be walking around here chewing our nails off. We don't have to be perfect. This means, you know, if I trip up and I sin, And, you know, I don't have to doubt my salvation every time I commit a sin. If so, I'd be doubting my salvation every single second of every single day. Now, it does mean that as my life as a whole, I should be a lot closer to God now than I was, we'll say, five years ago. Right. But maybe on a day by day basis, that's not what it looks like. You have good days and you have bad days. And, you know, maybe you go for weeks and weeks on a time and you're you're reading your Bible and you're going to church and you're you're doing all these things and you're growing in holiness and you're just really living out the Christian life. And then you have a few days where I fell back into a sin that I have to now repent of and get back right to God. You know, you don't have to say, oh, well, I must not be saved for those three days. I must not have been saved and things like that. And I think this is true of my life. I've looked back at my life this week, and I've grown so much since I've first been saved. I remember when I was first saved, and you might not think this is a great example, but it was meaningful to me, so I'll share it with you. When I was first saved, I used to listen to like seven to 10 sermons a week. And I'd just listen to sermons and listen to sermons. I just need more, more, more, more, more sermons. But I didn't comprehend half of what I was listening to. I was just listening to sermons. I was living in Kingsport and I was driving over here, so I'd listen to a sermon on my way over. I'd come here, it was Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, listen to another sermon on my way back. And I'm like, I didn't grab half of that. But all I knew was, that's what I need to be doing. But God has grown me so much. since then. And now I listen to fewer sermons, but they're so meaningful and impactful to me. And I find myself meditating on sermons that I've heard for weeks on end. I mean, I still haven't, I mean, I'm still thinking about last Sunday morning, the love of God for sinners. I mean, I'm just floored by that, that God would love me. A sinner. And we need to get there. Right? That we hear a sermon and hear the Word of God preached and it should stay with us. Sorry, I'm getting off here. This is really not where... But I just can't get over how amazing God is. And how God can use one sermon and impact your life for days and weeks and months and perhaps years and even a lifetime. So if I look at my life as a whole, I should be closer to God today than I was. Now if I look at my life as a whole and I say in the last five years I've not really grown at all, or I've regressed, then that's where we have a problem. That's where maybe there is no assurance, and again, rightly so. So he says we have to have these things, verse eight, these things have to be in us and they have to abound or they have to grow, they have to increase. So now I hope you're asking at this point, what are these things? What are these things that we're talking about here? And I like to call them the Christian virtues. Some people will call them the fruit of the spirit, whatever you want to, however you want to call them. But I want you to know about these things. They're not activities. Right? The things that we have to have to have assurance are not activities, they're characteristics. So he's not saying you need to pray a lot. or you need to read your Bible cover to cover 17 times this year. That's what you need for assurance. He's not saying you need to be at church every single Sunday. You miss one Sunday, you're done. That's not what God's telling us. He's not saying these are activities that you have to do. He's saying they're characteristics that you have to possess. Activities are good, right? Prayer is a good thing. Bible study is a good thing. Church attendance is a good thing. But if those things are not causing Christ to be formed in you, they're of little value. So let's look at these characteristics. What are these things? What are these characteristics that we must possess in order to have assurance? Eight things here that we see. The very first one, he says, and really some people don't even put this one on the list. I went ahead and put it on the list, but they say it's faith. He says, verse 5, add to your faith. So faith is the foundation. Really, that's what we were talking about last week, was our foundation in Christ, our faith in Christ. That's what this is. This is genuine saving faith in Christ. If you don't have this one, you're not going to have any of the others. You can't grow in faith if you're not in the faith to begin with. A lot of people are trying to grow their faith. They say, I need more faith, more faith, more faith. Well, maybe you need the faith to begin with. Maybe you need that saving faith in Christ to begin with. One of the things that you're going to see as we go through each one of these, is that these qualities are supernatural. You cannot attain these things on your own. You can't just go out and get these. You must have the Holy Spirit. That power, that divine power from verse number three. That is critical as your foundation for these Christian virtues. So the first one is faith. And I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time on these because we're gonna try to cover them all in one sermon and we just don't have time. One of the preachers that I listened to, he spent 11 sermons on this passage that we're covering tonight. We're not gonna do that. And there should be an amen there. But we're just gonna glance over them, looking at these through the lens of assurance of salvation. But some preachers will go a whole sermon on faith. And then the next one here is gonna be virtue, a whole sermon on virtue. We're not gonna do that. But that is the next one. Add to your faith virtue. You say, well, what is virtue? What does that mean? This word here is used for the ability to perform heroic deeds. Some have defined this as proven excellence from a life well lived. I like to call this zeal. Zeal. That you are on fire for God. That you have faith. and then add to that faith virtue, a zeal for God. True faith is an active faith. It's not a faith that just sits in a pew, but it's an active faith that you want to be on fire for God. The next one. At the end of verse number five, add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge. So this knowledge, this is understanding. This is truth that is understood and applied. I think we all know what this is. This is the study and the pursuit of the word of God, the life changing, living word of God. This is not what culture says, which is, let's just figure out how we can affirm our opinions with some obscure Old Testament verse. That's not what this is talking about. This is the true, unadulterated Word of God. That is what knowledge is. That is what understanding is. That is what truth is, is the Word of God. Learned and applied. Diligently pursued. Next up, Verse number six, and to your knowledge, temperance, or self-control. This is the ability to restrain yourselves. This is a word that would be used of athletes, right? Athletes have to have good self-control. We're getting ready to start talking about the Olympics, and all these Olympic athletes are obviously exercising a great deal of self-control. They've probably been doing that for years on end. to get to where they are, right? You can't eat, you know, 13 cheeseburgers and be an Olympic athlete. You probably can eat like a half a grape on your splurge day if you're an Olympic athlete. I mean, that's what they have to do. They have great self-control in what they're doing. You know, for Christians, this is You know, how well are you doing in your personal fight with sin? How well are you controlling the flesh? Those sinful desires. You know, we talked about that in the introduction about how some people believe that if you have a sinful desire, you must not be saved. And that's not true. The Bible tells us that we will war against our sin for the rest of our lives. So how are you doing in that personal fight with sin? Are you putting sin to death? John Owen used to say that. We must be mortifying our sin, putting our sin to death. There's too many Christians that have no thoughts whatsoever about holiness. Holiness is critically important to God. And I want you to see here, as we step through these virtues, that they build. Right? Faith is the foundation, and we're going to build. And each one of these virtues is building on top of itself. So moral excellence is guided by knowledge, which will result in self-control. I think about it even in my personal life, right? I started with a foundation which was faith, which God saved me. And then God put in me this virtue or this zeal. So you get saved, then you're on fire for God. And you're just going to do anything. I remember when I first got saved, that I was willing to do not just anything, I wanted to do everything. I wanted to serve in every capacity possible. I was like, Josh, you need somebody to help downstairs with the kids? Okay, I'll do it. Yeah, I'll do that. Whatever you want me to do, I want to do all of it. Not any of it, all of it. And so I had a great deal of zeal and just, again, I was listening to 10 sermons a week, but I didn't know what half that meant, but I was just listening to them. And so then you go from this faith, and then you get to zeal, and then eventually you start to build out some actual knowledge and some understanding. And then your zeal isn't just empty zeal, but it's zeal that can be applied to the actual Word of God. So then you've got all this knowledge. And then at that point, you get to the point where you're just beating people over the head with a Bible. Right? I mean, you just... Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible. So you've got knowledge and zeal, but you have no self-control. So you're just a Bible-thumper. And I remember sharing the gospel with somebody one time early, and I was literally yelling the gospel at them. And that's probably not the most effective way to share the gospel with somebody. But again, I had zeal and I had knowledge, but no self-control. And then you get that self-control. Sorry, I say all that to say, I get excited about these things. These things build on each other, right? And we're just going to keep going here. So we add to our temperance or to our self-control patience. So that's enduring. That's endurance in doing what's right. That you would die before you would compromise on the truth. I think this is having a little bit of backbone. Right. This is when you get a little bit of backbone. This is resisting temptation, enduring trials. I think this is Hebrews 12, 2. looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and was set down at the right hand of the throne of God." This is endurance, is really what we're depicting here. And then after this endurance, again, just going on, and to patience, godliness, loyalty toward God, that you start to revere and obey God, that you're not worldly anymore, you're not loyal to the world, you're not revering and obeying the world and the things of the world, but that you're obeying God. 1 Timothy chapter 4 tells us that godliness is profitable unto all things, having a promise of life that is now and of that which is to come. Godliness, great profit to us, loyalty to God. Two more here. And to godliness, verse number seven, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, love for one another. If you have an affection for God, you will have an affection for others. You will. That's what Jesus said, right? When he was asked about what is the greatest commandment, and Jesus answered and he said, you know, the greatest commandment is love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This is the second greatest commandment, according to Jesus. Brotherly kindness. And the last one here, And to brotherly kindness, charity, or love. We know the King James always translates love, or specifically agape love, sacrificial love, as charity. But that's what it is. It's love, it's sacrificial love, selfless love. It's loving people who aren't lovable. 1 Corinthians 13, I think Josh is going to start preaching that next week. So we'll become very familiar with love very soon. In an excerpt, verse 4 from 1 Corinthians 13, charity or love suffereth long and is kind. Charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth. Love, sacrificial love. So we just keep building on all these virtues. And I think some of these toward the bottom, I looked at my own life and I said, well, you know, I think I have the room to increase more on some of these toward the bottom than toward the top. And I think that's right. I told you, I think these build on each other. Because I think the earlier you are in your walk with Christ, you're probably better off at the top than you are on the bottom. The ones at the bottom are harder. It's hard to really, truly love someone. I appreciate the the example of people in this church, people like Johnny Boggs. I hate that he's here. I was going to use him as an example anyways. I think he's the most loving person I've ever met. Some of you all don't know, I have a Johnny Boggs Bible that I preach out of. It's got his name on the front, and I love it. Because every time I open my Bible, he inspires me to be more loving. And it's not him. It's Christ in him. But yeah. I'm amazed by that example of even these areas where I know that I need to increase more. There's a great example of that in the local body. But as I said, all of these characteristics are interrelated. So let's go back a second. And I know we're still on point number one, and it's 651. So you guys are probably really worried. But my last two points, they're pretty short. So no, it's OK. So we said very early on, that word add meant to assemble a choir. So in verse number five, it says, add to your faith virtue. And so that add was, so we think of an acquire example. Any good choir, you need multiple parts. So what we're doing here is we are assembling an eight-part choir. So we've got a low bass and a high bass, a low tenor and a high tenor, a low alto and a high alto, and a low soprano and a high soprano. And those eight things, these eight characteristics that we just described, they are going to come together and form a beautiful choir, to form an eight-part harmony. This is your assurance. The harmony of the Christian virtues. If you have these eight things, and they are increasing, you can have full assurance of salvation. You say, how? These eight things are supernatural. You cannot, you will not have these eight things as the Bible describes them on your own. They have to come from the Holy Spirit indwelling in you. If you have these eight things, you can be certain that Christ is in you. So if you are pursuing these eight things, these virtues, you have assurance. If you say, I ain't got any of them, I was 0 for 8. You don't have assurance. We'll talk more about that in a minute. Actually, we'll talk about it now. Because for point number two, which is starting in verse number eight, we're going to see that assurance is concealed by our disobedience. Verse number eight says, For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. So we're going to ask the question here in verse number 8 and verse number 9. Why do people lack assurance? And the primary reason why most people lack assurance is disobedience. And rightly so. Because I really think this point serves as a warning. Because he says here in verse number 8, He says that you would neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So barren here means empty. That you would not be useless. That your faith would not be worthless. That if you've got a piggy bank full of assurance, that it wouldn't be empty. In contrast here is to be useful, that your assurance would be full. Or he also uses the term that you would not be unfruitful, ineffective, unproductive. God uses those who have assurance. You say, why? Because they're being faithful servants. Those two things go hand in hand. Being a faithful servant and having assurance, those things are going hand in hand. And God doesn't use those who don't have assurance. Why? Because they aren't being faithful. They don't have any of these Christian virtues that we're talking about. And He even goes on to say, verse number 9, But he that lacketh these things is blind, cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. So if you're lacking in these things, you're indistinguishable from the world. You have no more reason to be assured than someone who's out living in the world. If you don't have these things... But when they're present, they display the divine nature that we talked about last week in verse number 4. And he goes on to say, he that lacketh these things is blind. He that doesn't have these things, you're unable to see. You're unable to discern your current condition. You're unable to, you're living in darkness. Can you imagine what it would be like to be blind? I think it would be a terrible thing. How much, if you were blind, how much certainty do you think you would have walking down the street? I'd be terrified. I mean, how would you know if you walked out into traffic or not? I mean, that's why they use the white cane to scan for obstacles that they cannot see. That's the only way that they can have any level of certainty, any level of assurance. That's what it's like to not practice these things. It's to be blind. You can't have assurance if these things are not in you and are not abounding in you. And he goes on one step further to say, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins, that you've just fallen back into the sins that you were committing before you were saved. How can you be assured if your life has not been changed? We need to be like Psalm 103, verse 2, it says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits. That we would forget not what God, all that God has done for us. That we would not forget, as it says here in verse number nine, and fall back into our old ways. That we would forget not what God has done for us. So don't you want to be a fruitful and effective Christian? I think we all do. Do not let your assurance be concealed by your disobedience. Disobedience is, and rightly so, disobedience leads to lack of assurance. That's point number two. The final point here, and then we'll be done, we've seen That assurance is confirmed by our actions. Assurance is concealed by our disobedience. Finally, in verses 10-11, we're going to see that assurance is celebrated by our reward. It's celebrated by our reward. And I think for verses 10-11, remember the context here. We're talking about a people who have been beat down and they need some encouragement. And ultimately, God is going to tell them in these final two verses, assurance results in perseverance. Assurance results in perseverance. What does that mean? If you have assurance of salvation, that means you're going to make it to the end. These people were being persecuted. They were dying. And God's going to tell them, ultimately, assurance results in perseverance. He's going to tell them, you're going to get two rewards if you have assurance. A present reward and an eternal reward. So let's look at those. Verse number 10 says, Wherefore the rather, brethren... No, sorry. Yes, verse number 10. Wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things, you shall never fail. So wherefore the rather means even more so, even more than all we've been talking about, all these eight different virtues and you need to diligently pursue these things and be increasing in these things. Even more than that, there is a greater priority than the virtues. There is a greater priority than avoiding disobedience. There's one supreme priority in this passage. It's the actual assurance. Don't get fooled here. Don't start just pursuing the virtues. I mean, those are good things, but that's not the point of the passage. Don't say, OK, I'm just going to be really obedient to God. Avoid disobedience. He's saying, no, the main point here is to make your calling and election sure, to have assurance. That's the main point of the passage. confidence that you possess salvation. Philippians 2 talks about this as well. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It's the same thing that he's getting at here. Make your calling and election sure. We won't spend a great deal of time on it for sake of time, The calling and election, these are inseparable realities in the Bible. Romans 8, the golden chain of salvation talks about this. Romans 8.30 says, Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. So that's the calling and election. Predestination is the election. Whom He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called, He also justified. And whom He justified, He also glorified. These two things are inseparable realities. You say, well, what does that mean for us? Well, here's what it means for us. God is sure of who He has given faith to. Right? God knows who he saved. God is all-knowing. God didn't save somebody by accident. That's not what happened. God is sure of everyone who he has given faith to. However, Christians may not be sure of their salvation. That's what we've been talking about here. So this is why we have to make our calling and election sure that we would never fall there at the end of verse 10. If you do these things, you will never fall. You will never be surprised. You will not get to heaven and have God tell you, you didn't make it in. You won't live a life that is full of doubt and fear. You won't focus your life on worrying if you're saved or not. But you'll be like Psalm chapter 1 verse 3. You'll be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth its fruit in his season. His leaf shall also not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. So that's our present reward. If we do these things, if we have these virtues, we will have assurance throughout this life. That is a great reward to us. I told you at the beginning, assurance is a great thing. It is one of the most supreme blessings of life that you would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're saved, that you're in Christ. But not only that, there's also a future reward. Verse number 11, For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we'll have entrance into eternal kingdom. So this is the culmination of assurance. I'm going to go back to theology class for a second. We talked about justification and sanctification. Eventually, one day, sanctification, the Christian life, becomes glorification when we get to heaven and spend forever with God. Right? So ultimately, if you have assurance, you're going to heaven one day. How wonderful is that? That we have a future reward in heaven. That we can not only be sure of our life here today, right? That's great. But that we can also be sure of heaven one day. Sure of a future reward. Sure of this everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it says here, it'll be abundantly supplied. Again, it's meant to give an encouragement to these people. I think it's meant to give an encouragement to us as well. Hope for us that every Christian that desires assurance can and will have it. If you desire assurance, it will be abundantly supplied to you. These rewards, this present reward of assurance, this future reward of heaven, it will all be supplied to you. assurance results in confidence now and heaven later. So I want you to know, and we're going to try to wrap this up a little bit, you can have assurance today. I want you to take that home with you. You can have assurance today. God is not hiding it from you. Not only can you have assurance today, you need assurance today. You need assurance when persecution comes. That's the series that we're going through here in 2 Peter. Persecution is on the horizon. It is coming soon. When is that? I don't know these things. I don't know if it's tomorrow, if it's next week, if it's years down the road, but it will come one day. You need assurance for when persecution comes. You will not make it without assurance. So seek that out today. Get that assurance today. Know for certain today. Follow the command that's given to us. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. Do that now. Don't wait and say, you know, I'll do that when times get hard. No! Do that now. Get that right today. Be sure today that you are in the faith. And I just think it's wonderful. So you need assurance today. And take home with you that you don't have to be perfect to have assurance. It's not perfect Christians that get assurance. Because those don't exist. It's imperfect Christians that have assurance. All there has to do, we have to have these virtues and there has to be progress. There has to be fruit in your life. That's all it takes. I mean, it's, you know, we've kind of gone through this. You know, Second Peter is probably the expanded version of You'll know them by their fruit. That's almost the core of assurance. If you have fruit, you have assurance. If you don't have fruit, you don't have assurance. This is just a slightly expanded version of that, of what does that fruit look like, and so on and so forth. So you don't have to be perfect to have assurance, but there does have to be fruit in your life. That's what you need for assurance. So you can have assurance today. But I firmly believe that this passage is both a blessing and a warning. Because some of you perhaps don't have assurance, and rightly so. I don't think that everyone should have assurance of salvation. I said it before. If you're living in sin, open sin, you should not have assurance. And that's right. That's God working in you. He's saying you don't have assurance. You might not be saved. You need to take a deeper look at your life, at the life that you're living. Right? If you don't have these virtues and they're not growing in you, you need to look deep within. Maybe you're not saved. So sometimes not having assurance is the right thing. But I don't want you to be confused here. I don't want you to think that, oh, I don't have these things. I need to pursue these things. As we were stepping through the eight virtues earlier, you said, I don't have any of those. I'm going to go pursue them. I'm going to go do, do, do, do, do, do, do. I've got eight things that I need to do. No, I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to do any of them. If you do not have these things, do not pursue them. Because you can't. If you do not have these things whatsoever, you can't pursue them on your own. They're supernaturally given through the power of the Holy Spirit. If you don't have any of these things at all, you're likely not saved. You don't have any assurance. You can't get any assurance. because you need to be saved. So if you don't have these things at all, I'm not saying that, you know, if you say, well, you know, I don't I don't I've not I've not increased in my, you know, brotherly love in the past five hours. That's not what I'm saying. If you look down that list of eight things and you said, I don't I don't possess any of these whatsoever. That's when you need to be saved. That's when you need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him. Believe on the life that you didn't live and the death that you deserved. Believe in the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change your heart. He will change your life. The Holy Spirit will indwell you and empower you to display these virtues. And then, you can have assurance too. You'll be able to sing with the rest of us. I was thinking about it. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. When darkness veils his lovely face, I'll rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. His oath, His covenant, His blood, Support me in the whelming flood, When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found, Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you too can have assurance of salvation today. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for our time here this evening, and God, we thank you for your passage here tonight. It's a phenomenal passage of scripture, and God, it's my prayer that assurance would be had by everyone that's gathered here tonight. God, I pray that each and every person here would have full assurance of salvation. God, I pray that they would know that they are saved because of their foundation in Christ and because of the virtues that they're living out each and every day. So God, help each and every one of us with that. God, that we would realize that we don't have to be perfect to have assurance, but we have to be growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So God, thank you for our passage and help us to have assurance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.