to pray Matthew 6 beginning at verse 7 or verse sorry verse number 8 is what I meant to say verse 8 and Jesus is speaking and he says to them do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him Pray then like this, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Let's pray, shall we? Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we give you thanks again for the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank you that he is indeed exalted and lifted up. And Father, we thank you that he is enthroned at your right hand in glory. And Father, we give you thanks also that he is here with us today as we gather like this, Father, to open the word together, to remember the Lord Jesus in communion, to sing songs of worship together, to fellowship together. And Father, we would join with Apostle Paul this morning and pray that, according to your riches in glory, that you will grant to us all to be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, so that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know, to really know, Father, the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, and we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Father, we pray with the psalmist as well that you would revive us this morning according to your word. Father, that you would strengthen us according to your word, that you would revive us through your righteousness. Be gracious to us, O God, according to your word. And Father, we pray that you would comfort us with your loving kindness again, according to your word, and you would sustain us, O God, according to your word. Revive us this morning, Father, we pray, as we come now to open your word together, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, what we're doing right now is we're looking at a series of messages entitled, Lord, Teach Us to Pray. And we've looked at Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6 about what prayer is and how we are to pray. And what we're going to look at this morning is Jesus' description in one simple phrase of who it is that we are praying to. That's really worth looking at, looking at very carefully. So our text for today is really only four words, just four words. In fact, you could boil it down to three words if you like, and they are this. In verse nine, he says, our Father in heaven, or our Heavenly Father. A Father in heaven is four words, our Heavenly Father is three words, so there you go. That's what we want to look at, that simple relationship. And we want to ask and answer for us all three critical questions this morning from the text, and they are this, is God everybody's Heavenly Father? And we'll look at that very briefly. Then in more detail, we'll look at what works has God done to be our Heavenly Father? And thirdly and finally, how can we know, how can we be sure this morning that he is our heavenly father. If you're struggling, as some of us do at times, with the assurance of whether or not we're truly saved, then this morning I want to give you some evidences that you can know for an absolute certainty that you are saved, that he is your heavenly father. So first of all, sorry, I'm having trouble with my voice in my throat this morning, so if I keep blanking out in silence, it's just my voice giving up. First of all, is God everybody's father? Is there a sense in which all of us can call him our father? And the answer is yes, we can. We can all call him father in one sense only, and that's the sense that we were created by God. He is the creator, father of all human personalities from kings to slaves. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, every single human being can simply call him father in this one aspect only, that he is our creator. The Bible says in Acts 17 that God made, who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. And the Bible says in Acts 17 and verse 28, for in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said. And Paul says, for we indeed are his offspring. Meaning what? Meaning that we are all children of our Father in one sense, because He created us. Every single human being on the face of the earth can say, well, I'm the Father of God because... I mean, sorry, I'm the children of God because God created us all, in that one simple sense. He's also the Creator Father of all angelic personalities. The Bible says, in Colossians 1.16, for by him all things were created, both in heaven and earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. So archangels to angels, seraphim to cherubim, all the demonic hosts, all the fallen angels, all had their beginning because they were created by God. Okay, so all of them have that sense. So in the sense that God created us, all men have God as their creative father. But just because we are created by God does not mean that we are automatically in a spiritual father-child relationship with God. God is not everybody's father in the sense of an intimate, personal father-child relationship. So then the question becomes, how do we become spiritual children on spiritual sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. And that's our second question this morning. What works has God done to be our Heavenly Father? And I want to give you four of them. There's four works that God did. We'll keep it as simple as we can. Number one, God chose us. Number two, God saved us. Number three, God gave us new birth. And number four, this is a cool one, God adopted us. I think that's a really cool thing. I know Kathy is, most of you know Kathy is adopted. And she understands something that most of us don't quite understand. She understands what it means to be adopted into a family, taken as someone's own child. And there is no physical relationship there, but there is an adoption relationship. It's a beautiful thing. But God also has adopted us. So let's unpack them. God, our Heavenly Father, chose us, number one, like every earthly father who plans and considers his children, so also our Heavenly Father planned and purposed that we would be his children according to the counsel of his own sovereign will. The Father chose us before we were even born. The Bible says, in Ephesians 1, verses 3 and 4, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. You know what else? The Father chose us not because of anything that we have done or will do. It wasn't like God looked down and said, hey, I know what's going to happen with this person, that person, the other person, and because they behave really badly, I'll choose him, and because he behaves really good, I'll choose him. No, that's not it at all. In fact, the Bible tells us that God saved us and called us to a holy calling, listen, not because of our works, but because of God's own purpose and grace which he gave in Christ Jesus. You and I didn't do anything good enough to win God's choosing. You and I didn't do anything bad enough to result in God's not choosing us. If you go to the book of Romans in chapter 9 and verse 11, you'll see there that Paul is describing Jacob and Esau before they were born. He says, not before they had done either good or bad, I chose one. That's God's right to choose. The Father chose us, literally, in agreement with His own eternal plan and purpose. Did you know that God had a plan and a purpose for everything? They call it the eternal decree of God. And the Bible says in Ephesians 1 verse 11 this, in Christ, we were predestined according to the purpose of God, who works all things according to the counsel of his own will. God's own will was what made his decision. Nobody influenced God. You can't buy off God to choose. He did it in eternity past, before he even created the world. Think about it. Before anything, time and space and all the universe even existed, he looked through all of time and he saw this little chubby 11-year-old kid at a place called Avalon Bible Camp, and he chose him. Happens to be me. Just saying, right? He chose, based what? on his own will, his own eternal purposes. We call this work of the Father election. And secondly, God saved us. We call this redemption. We are sinners. We refuse to obey God's will. We are actively, openly rebelling against God Most High. We're running full on straight toward God's judgment against us for our sin. We're doomed to suffer the full fury of the wrath of God against us for that sin, and we don't care anything for God. We don't care anything for His Word or for His love. We don't even want to be saved from that wrath. And even if we did want to be saved, there's nothing at all we can do to save us from God's wrath. You remember the story in the Old Testament, and Moses leads a people of Israel out of Egypt, and they go trucking across the desert, and God's Spirit puts a great pillar of cloud above them and a pillar of fire by night, and Pharaoh and his army, Egypt's all decimated from all the judgments that God has brought, and Pharaoh has just lost his only son that night in God's judgment. But Pharaoh, in the stubbornness of his heart, he decides he's going to pursue after these people of Israel, and he's going to bring that slave nation back. And God says to Moses, listen, Moses, I am going to get my glory over Pharaoh. And God causes a strong wind to blow, and he splits the Red Sea into two parts. And in my mind's eye, all I can see is Jesus standing there, and he's got one hand on one side of the wall of water and one hand on the other side. And Jesus is holding back the wall of water, just figuratively. And then in the morning, the people of Israel go down into the Red Sea, and the Bible says they walked across on dry land. I always figured, you know, down there it would be like slimy and slippery, because where I grew up in British Columbia, the beaches all had seaweed and moss and horrible, and you slip over the rocks at low tide. No, the Bible says they walked through on dry ground. And they went through, and God held the water back as a wall on one side of the other side. And Pharaoh looked off in a distance, and he saw what was going on. He said, I'll get him. I'll chase him into the middle of the Red Sea. They'll come up out of the Red Sea on foot, and I'll come right behind them with the chariots. And he went trucking down to the middle of the sea, and he's going along on the ferret. The chariot wheels are coming off, and the wall of water on both sides is way above their heads. And God said, enough, and he pulled back his restraint, and all the waters of the Red Sea came crashing down on Pharaoh. Listen, if we think we could stand and face the wrath of God, it's like Pharaoh putting his hands up to say, wait a minute, I'll protect myself. to try and hold the water back, all the tons of water coming down on me. We could not save ourselves. There's nothing that you and I can do to rescue ourselves from the wrath of God. The reality is that we need someone to rescue us. We need someone to save us. And for us, the situation is absolutely desperate. You and I, in our sin, stand underneath and stand facing the full fury of the wrath of God against us for our sin. But the Bible says this in Titus 2 verse 11, for the grace. of God has appeared, the kindness of God, bringing salvation for all people. How did God save us? In Titus 2.14, it says this, that our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works, he saved us because Jesus Christ gave himself for us. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, it says this, that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Literally, Jesus was crushed under the weight of his father's wrath against sin, against, sorry, against us. God was angry at us for the sin we committed. Listen, Jesus' death was more than enough. It was sufficient to pay the penalty for all the sin of all mankind. But Jesus' death is only effective, it's only efficient for those who are born again. And so the question becomes, how is it that we are born again? How can we get this benefit of being rescued from the wrath of God? Well, you know what? The Bible says that God gave birth to us. Pretty cool. God didn't just choose us, he didn't just save us, he also gave birth to us. Like every earthly father who is intimately involved in the conception of his children, so also our heavenly father is intimately involved in his children's spiritual birth, our being born again. He caused us to be born again. I was really glad that Wes repeated that song from last week, the first Peter song. We're gonna read that verse in just a second. The Bible says, In 1 Peter 1, let's read it now, 1 Peter 1, God gave birth to us. That's what it means. In Ephesians 2, verse 4, the Bible says this, listen to the love and the mercy of God. But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. God gave birth to us in the exact same manner that he raised Jesus from the dead. He caused us to be born again. We're spiritually dead. You say, well, yeah, but Before I was a believer, I walked around. I wasn't dead. I wasn't lying on the ground. No. But what that means is that you were oblivious to the wonders and the glories of the grace of God. We were totally unaware of them. But God caused us to be born again. Why? Because he loved us. Why? Because God had grace on us. Why? Because God saw us and decided to exercise his mercy toward us. An amazing God we have. So not only did God choose us and save us and give birth to us, the Bible also tells us that God, our Heavenly Father, adopted us. The Bible says this in Ephesians 1 verse 5, in love the Father predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. What's that mean? It means according to his eternal purpose way back before the foundation of the heavens and the earth, God had a purpose to take a people for himself. And so he chose them, he saved them, he gave them birth, and then he brought them into a family. We've been adopted into a family. God took us as his own children. Having been born again, we now have a stronger, a closer, a greater bond to our Heavenly Father and the family of God than our own human, physical relationships. You know, one of the toughest verses in the Bible to read is this one in Luke 14. Jesus describes the disciples like this. He who does not hate his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, cannot be my disciple. What did Jesus mean by that? That's a pretty tough verse to choke down. You mean I'm supposed to turn around and just hate my parents? Hate my sister? Okay, hate my brother, you know, sometimes it's not so hard. They're not always easy to get along with, but no, we don't hate them. And what Jesus is saying is, listen, the relationship that you have with me, with God, with Jesus Christ as our Savior, that love relationship is so much greater and so much stronger and so much better that in comparison, The love for our natural human family becomes almost like hate. We don't actually hate them. It's just a difference in love there. The love we have for God, it must be, it is infinitely stronger. God brings us into the family of God. The word adoption indicates that we are embraced as full, legitimate sons of the Father. That's an unbreakable bond. You know, when people leave KC Bible Church, I get upset. I do. It's not because I just try to build an empire and one person leaves and I've got no problem now because we're now a short some people. Great, now what are we going to do? No. The reality is that for us, Heather and I, Living so far from home and family, this group of people in this room is our family. And there is a love relationship that we have with you guys that we love this church. And to us, you are our family. It hurts when people leave. People say, well, don't take it so personally. Well, you know, it's tough. And the reality is, guys, listen, that we are a family. God didn't just save us to be by ourselves over here, and by ourself over there, and a little group over here, a little group there. He saved us to be part of a family. And one of the most beautiful things is when we get together. You ever discover someone in your workplace or someone you go to school with that's a believer, and all of a sudden there's just a connection? Oh, yeah. Hey, you're a believer. Oh, yeah, you're a believer too. Hey, cool, what gives you go to? You go back and forth, right? You get all excited. The next time you see that person, right away there's a connection. Oh yeah, he's a Christian too. Oh yeah, they read the Bible. Hey, they love Jesus too. And you instantly have that connection that you don't have with any other person on the face of the earth who doesn't know Jesus. The beautiful thing is that God adopted us into a family. That's the amazing God that we have. And so the works of God that is done to be our spiritual heavenly father, these, he chose us and he saved us. He gave birth to us and he adopted us. But wait, what does God require of us? I mean, what is our part in this father child relationship? And the answer is, it's the same thing that's God has always required of his people. And this might stun you a bit, but listen, the answer is this it's obedience. I'm not a heretic. It's obedience. That's what God requires of us. Listen to the Bible. Listen to what the Bible says. The inerrant living word of God says this. In Acts chapter 17 and verse 30, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands, I missed that, he commands all people everywhere to repent. So God issues a command to repent. God commands us to repent. Repentance simply means that we have a complete and total change of heart and mind and action from rebelling against God to obedience to God. Before we were saved, Everything we thought, everything we did, all our actions, all our habits were always in rebellion against God. We had no care for God, no love for God, no concern for God. And God says, listen, I'm commanding you now to repent of that. Turn around completely and love me and serve me and obey me is repentance. And the second thing God commands us to do is this. God commands us to believe. The Bible says in 1 John 3, 23, this, and this is God's commandment that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. When Jesus began his ministry, Mark 1, verses 14 and 15, he was walking down the beach. And the Bible says that Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. He was preaching the gospel and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Those were commands that Jesus preached forth for the people to obey. The Bible promises us, listen, the Bible promises us that those who obey God's command to repent and believe the gospel have been born again. Listen, 1 John chapter 5 and verse 1 says this, everyone who believes, present tense, that Jesus is the Christ has been born again, that's past tense, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. The Bible commands us to repent and believe, to preach the gospel. To stand up and preach the gospel is to command all people everywhere on God's behalf to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. When I hear people stand up and go, the gospel is like a brightly packaged gift. You know, you can take it or leave it, and God's really quite indifferent what you do about it. That's heresy. People stand up and say, you can invite Jesus into your heart and you can be saved. If you hear someone stand up in church, right in the middle of church, and say, excuse me, preacher, could you show me in the Bible where that is? It's nowhere in the Bible. The biblical gospel message is this, repent and believe. Obedience to God's two commands for all people everywhere, all the nations of the earth is to repent and believe. The Bible commands us to repent and believe. Now, if you're listening closely to what I just said, you would have noticed a third item. I just kind of slipped in the verses there. It's the item of love. He says not only do you command this thing to repent and to love the Father and love whoever is born of the Father. So if we're saved, if we're born again, the reality is that we love God as well as we love all those who are also born of God, all our brothers and sisters in Christ. What did Jesus say? The two greatest commands in the world, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, everybody will know that we are his disciples. Why? Because we love one another. Love of the Father and love for other believers is the proof that we have been born again. And maybe you're sitting here and you're thinking to yourself, I think I've believed. You know, I think I've repented, but I'm not totally sure. I think I'm born again, but I'm not really sure. How can I know for absolutely certain that God has done a work in me, that I am truly a son or daughter of the living God? How can I know? Now, question number three, how can I know for sure that he is my heavenly father? What are the evidences that we are indeed his sons and his daughters? C. H. Spurgeon, great old English preacher, said like this, he said, No man hath the right to claim God as his father unless he feeleth in his soul and believeth solemnly through the faith of God's election that he has been adopted into the one family of which is in heaven and earth and that he has been regenerated or born again. Do you catch that? He feels it in his soul. He believes fully in the faith of God's election. In other words, he's convinced that God has chosen him and saved him. So you're asking, how can you truly be sure that you have been born again? Look and see what fruit is being born, is being produced in your life. Listen to what Jesus said. In fact, take your Bibles or your iPads or your phones, whatever you got in front of you, and flip over to Matthew 7, verses 13 to 20. It's quite a long section, but I want to read it for us all. Matthew 7, verses 13 to 20, it says this. Jesus is speaking again. He says, Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So, listen to verse 17. Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. You ask, how can I know for sure? Look at the fruit in your life. Look at what kind of fruit is being born by your life. The book of 1 John also In case you didn't know this, the whole book of 1 John is written for one purpose, and it says this in 1 John 5.13, that you may know that you have eternal life. So if you're asking a question this morning, I know some of us struggle with assurance and struggle with knowing for sure where we stand before God. If that's a struggle for you, take a home, open your Bible, get somewhere by yourself where you can sit down and slowly, bit by bit, go through 1 John. Roddy you had here preaching here a couple weeks ago. He's reading right now through 1st John every single day to get himself in tune, understand fully all those different tests that the book of 1st John gives. I went through the book of 1st John this week and I went through and listed down all the different tests that 1st John gives us so that we can know for sure that we're born again, that we have eternal life. And some people go through their whole lives not really sure. And I would hate for you to sit here week after week after week wondering, do I really, I don't really know. Am I sure? How can I be sure? So listen, I wanna give you the test. What I did was I boiled down all the different tests and summarize them into four tests. We'll go through all four of them so you can ask yourself the question. The Bible says, in case you don't know, the Bible says examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. It's a totally biblical thing to give yourself, give your life, and a test, an examination to see whether you truly do belong to Jesus Christ. There's four tests. Here they are. Number one, if we have the Holy Spirit in us. Number two, if we are keeping God's commands, and we'll look at that, what it means. If we are practicing righteousness, we can know that we have been born again. And number four, if we are not practicing sin, and I'm gonna explain that, It has an odd connotation when you first hear it. So four things. If we have the Holy Spirit, if we're keeping God's commands, if we're practicing righteousness, and if we're not practicing sin. 1 John, take your Bibles flip over to 1 John chapter 4, and verse 13, it says this. In 1 John 4, verse 13, it says this, by this fact, we know that we abide in Him, that's abiding in God, that He is in us because He has given us of His Spirit. What John is saying is, listen, you can tell for sure that you belong to Jesus Christ, you can tell for sure that you have eternal life if you have the Spirit of God in you. In Romans 8 verse 14 it says this, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons and daughters of God. Sitting here this morning, and you know what it is to be led by the Spirit of God, you know what it is to feel the Spirit of God prompting you to do something and leading you in a certain direction, and you've responded to that. You know for sure that you have the Spirit of God in you and that you have eternal life. Romans 8, 16 says this, the Spirit himself bears witness that we are the children of God. Sitting on my camp bunk, however many years it was now, I can't remember, 33 years ago, and crying out to God for salvation, and just believing in Jesus. I didn't know how to do it. I was no theologian. I barely read my Bible. And I know in my heart, I desperately wanted to be saved. And crying out to God for forgiveness and having that soft voice in my heart saying, not an audible voice, just an assurance that everything was okay, that I was saved. The Spirit of God, the Bible says, testifies to us. His voice speaks into our heart and says, you belong to Jesus. You belong to the Father. You are one of his children. The Bible also says in Galatians 5, 22 and 23, but the fruit of the Spirit, that means the production, the working out of the Spirit, of God is love and joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law." And you say, how does that work? Does it mean I've got to struggle all of a sudden to be loving? I've got to love more? You know, I've got to be more patient. So I try to be patient with people. And with some people that's so hard. And you go, I'm trying to be more gentle. And is that what it means? No, what it means is this. When the circumstances that you're confronted with at that particular moment, your natural body, your natural reaction to what's going on would be impatient. And instead, you have patience. If your natural reaction is to be good and to do the right thing, or your, sorry, your natural reaction is to do the wrong thing, and instead you feel good and you do the right thing. If your natural reaction is to be harsh and difficult, and instead your reaction, surprising to you, is gentle and kind. If your natural reaction in certain circumstances is to lose all control, but instead you have self-control in those moments, that's the Spirit of God bringing forth those fruits. He's working in your life. to bring out those different fruits of Him. We can know we have the Spirit because He teaches us, He leads us, He whispers in our hearts, if you like, that we belong to Him, and the fruit of the Spirit is being born in our lives. Second test is this. If we are keeping the commands of God, then we can know that we have been born again. In 1 John 3.23 it says this, we read it earlier, I'll read it again. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. Keeps is more than just once. Keeps has the idea of an ongoing, repetitive thing. If we are believing, listen, don't let anybody tell you, you believe once and that's it. The reality is that biblical conversion is ongoing belief. We have believed, we are believing, and tomorrow we're gonna keep on believing. We're persevering in belief in God. Yes, we absolutely believe once saved, always saved. But we also believe once believing, always believing. You're still trusting God. You're still carrying on in belief. It's loving on an ongoing level. We are loving the Father. We are loving those who are born of the Father, which means I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. No, you're not going to do it perfectly. And yes, you're going to stuff things up from time to time. But God in grace provides a way to be forgiven and carry on. If we're ongoing, if we're keeping the commands of God, then we can know we have been born again. The third test is this, in 1 John 3, flip over to verse 7. 1 John 3 and verse 7, it says this, and we'll read down to verse number 10. And John writes and says, little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he, that's God, is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason that Jesus, sorry, the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on singing because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God." You see what he's saying? It's evident. It shows you can know who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Listen. What is practicing righteousness? What's Matthew 6 all about? Do not practice your righteousness to be seen by men. And Jesus describes, you know, giving to the poor, praying, and fasting. The practice of righteousness includes things like the worship of God, the spreading of the gospel. It's doing the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to do. That's what it means to practice righteousness. It's doing the things, it's living in such a way that we are pleasing to God. In all that we do, we please the Father. So we are practicing righteousness. We're doing those things. And the fourth test is this, we are no longer practicing sin. And that can be a tough one because a lot of people have tripped over this. What does that mean? Does that mean if all of a sudden I'm saved and I came out of a time and I've read the Bible and the Spirit of God has filled me and I know I'm saved and I go out and I commit a sin and they read this and go, Oh, I guess I'm not saved. And they trip back and forth. They can't get their head around it. What does it mean? Well, the idea there in verse 9, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning. What does that mean? What he means is this, that it's not sinless perfection. We don't all of a sudden we get saved and then we never sin again. That doesn't happen in the course of our lifetime. The moment we're caught up to be with Jesus, the moment he finishes that work in us, We'll never know what sin is again. We'll never know what it is to commit sin again. Once we're face-to-face with Jesus, between now and then, that's difficult. And what he's talking about is no one is in the regular, accepted practice in our lives of committing sin. In other words, you see sin in your life, and you try and put it off. You see a thing you're doing in your life, you know it's displeasing to God, so you try and stop it. The only way I can describe it to give you a picture is like this, if I had two bodies lying on the ground in front of me, one's a live one and one's a dead one. Take a great big rock and put them on, one rock on the live one's body and one rock on the dead one's chest. You're saying, that's kind of weird, man. What are you on to? Look it, which one will push the rock off? Well, not the dead one, because he doesn't know it's there, but the live one? He's constantly pushing that rock off. And here's the point. What John is saying is we can know that we have eternal life when when we come across sin in our lives, there is a struggle, there's a striving to put the old man off, to put sin off, to stop committing sin. And while we struggle with it, and we will go on, and we're going to keep on struggling with it, the thing is we never give up that struggle. We keep trying to push sin off. We're no longer in the regular accepted practice of sin. We don't let sin go unchecked, unchallenged, and unchanged in our life. We deal with it constantly. So four tests. If you're wondering about how to know if you're really saved or not, here they are. If we're filled with the Spirit of God who leads us, testifies to us, teaches us, and bears fruit, you can know for sure that you're a believer, that you've been born again. If we're keeping the commands of God, we are believing in an ongoing way, we are loving in an ongoing manner, we are repenting of sin, we're constantly turning back towards God, you can know for sure that you're a child of the King, that you're born again. Number three, if we're in the ongoing practice of righteousness, if there's a desire inside of you to do the things that please God, if there's a desire inside of you to go and pray, if there's a desire inside of you to spend time in God's Word and time with God's people, doing the things that please God, you know that you've been born again. And if you are in the regular practice of putting off the sin, that displeases and angers our Father, we can know for sure that we're born again. So when we come to pray, this is what this whole series is about. It's about prayer, right? When we come to pray, we can pray in the assurance of a relationship with God. We have been born again. Listen, the unbeliever who attempts to dress God, our Heavenly Father, can't do that legitimately. But you and I, as children who have been born again, saved, given birth to, regenerated, adopted, all those things, we can approach God and say, literally, my heavenly Father. And he turns like a father. Any other father in this room, if a child came up, if little Kaylee came up to Wes and started grabbing on his pant leg, daddy, daddy, daddy. Wes is going to go, whoa, and look down and start talking to her. That's the assurance that we have that he is our heavenly father. To dive into Jesus' prayer without first considering who it is we're praying to and the basis of the relationship that we have with him would be irresponsible. I'm convinced in my heart that there are some of us here this morning who are not sure of where we stand before God. There's some of us here who may have made some sort of intellectual agreement to a set of facts. And that's not salvation. Salvation is being born again and repenting and believing in Jesus Christ. So Casey Bible Church, as I'm thinking this morning, this is the gospel message for us. I'll give it to you very quickly. Then we're going to, uh, we'll pray and then Manny will come and lead us in communion. God who is infinitely holy created us for the purpose of glorifying him through obedience to his word and will. But all of us, the Bible says, all of us have sinned and failed to glorify God through obedience to him and to his word. God who is holy and righteous is also gracious and loving. And God the Father sent Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, to die on a cross for you and for me. God, the father crushed the son under the weight of his own righteous indignation against you and against me for my sin and your sin. Why do you do it to save us and rescue us from facing God's wrath on our own? Then God, the son displayed to all of creation that he was the son of God with power by rising from the dead. Now that Jesus has raised again. This is the gospel message. God is commanding us this morning to repent, to change your mind, your heart, your attitudes, your actions. God is commanding you and I to believe in Jesus Christ, to trust God, to keep his promises. God promises us, all of us, that if we repent and believe, we are born again. We are his child. He is our heavenly father. And the Father will brand you. The word for sealing with the Spirit of God, it's the idea of taking a hot iron and branding so everybody can see. He will brand us. He'll seal us. He'll mark us. with the Spirit of God that will show everybody around us that we are his child. And he will finish the work that he has already started in you. Isn't that a great hope? To know one day the work that God is starting and all the wrestling and striving we're having against sin and striving to grow in our faith, one day Jesus is going to finish it off, done. And he'll look at Manny and say, finish the work. But if you continue to rebel and refuse to be obedient to the command of God to repent and believe on the basis of scripture, I want to assure you of something. You will face the wrath, the full, unrelenting fury of a righteous, holy, just God against you. For the sin you're still committing, I'm begging you this morning, if you're sitting here, And there is a pull in your heart and you want to be saved. I'm begging you, don't be so foolish as to stamp your foot and say no to God. I'm begging you this morning, I plead with you, with all of us, repent and believe the gospel, the wrath of God is coming. That's the message of the gospel, KC Bible Church. And you can look at me and say, who are you to tell me that? I've been going to church since I was a little kid. How dare you imply that I am not a Christian? If you're feeling that right now inside, my question is, well, the Bible tells me to preach that message. The Bible tells me to call all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why. And I'd far rather you get mad at me and storm out of here and never come back, thinking that I'm saved and anybody you tell me I'm not saved. I'd rather you do that than to stand here and preach something that's not true and not biblical. Would you stand? We're going to close in prayer and then Emmanuel will come and lead in communion. Let's pray. Father and our God, this morning we come before you and we give you thanks for those great works that you have done according to your eternal purpose and decree. Father, we love you because you chose us. We love you, oh God, because you saved us. We could not, we cannot save ourselves. Oh God, we thank you for your great mercy because of the great love with which you loved us and you loved us in this way. You gave your son to die on a cross for us. We love you father that you have caused us to be born again. And father, we love you so much that you have adopted us and brought us into a family. Father, we give you thanks this morning for those things. And Father, we thank you for the command of scripture that stands before us to command, to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank you so much for the promise of scripture that you will fill us with your spirit. And father, you will change us from the inside out and you will finish the work in us. Father, we give you thanks that we can stand and we can follow Jesus direction to his disciples. And when we pray, we can say our heavenly father. And father, if there's someone this morning who is wrestling and struggling with something I said this morning, if they're wrestling and struggling with repent and believe, Father, I pray that the Spirit of God would give them no peace whatsoever until they're sure, absolutely sure, what it means to know that they are saved, that they have eternal life. Father, I plead with you for this church. I cry out to you, O God, with the psalmist's words again. Revive us, O God, according to your word. Strengthen this church, O God, according to your word. Father, we plead with you that you would pour out your spirit on this church and this community around us, that we would come in repentance and belief and be saved. Father, we ask you these things in Jesus' name, for he alone deserves the answer. Amen. Please have a seat. If you're not sure and you want to talk about it, come find me and I will sit down.