Amen. Would you please remain standing and turning your Bibles to 1 John 3. Our sermon text is from 1 John 3 verses 4-9. Let us hear the holy inspired word of God. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. "'Little children, let no one deceive you. "'He who practices righteousness is righteous, "'just as he is righteous. "'He who sins is of the devil, "'for the devil has sinned from the beginning. "'For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, "'that he might destroy the works of the devil. "'Whoever has been born of God does not sin, "'for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin, "'because he has been born of God.'" This concludes the reading as well as the hearing of God's holy and inspired word. Would you please bow your heads and let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have so carefully and so intricately placed the truth of your word in the scriptures, the printed word that you have preserved for us throughout the many ages. And Father, we pray now that you would with that same care and with that same compassion and same attention to detail that you would place this Word into our hearts. May you give us the eyes to see the beauty and the truth of what you have proclaimed here. May you give us the hearts to receive it, the ears to hear. And Father, may it spring up within our hearts to produce the fruit, the righteous fruit that is intended to produce, that of joy, that of peace. that of self-control and all the fruit of the Spirit that is enumerated for us in your Holy Scriptures. And so, Father, thank you according to your great grace and mercy that you have shown us in our Savior Jesus Christ. It is in His name we pray. Amen. And please be seated. A couple months ago, one of the teenagers at Redeemer Presbyterian Church made a statement that if a person is going to understand the discussions that happen within the Christian church, then that person is going to have to know what the word manifest means. And the point that the teenager was making is that the word manifest is used a lot when we talk about the Christian faith. Well, this teenager's statement stuck with me. And over the past couple of months, I've been paying attention to how often we use the word manifest as we talk about our faith. And I've concluded that the teenager's observation is correct. Christians do indeed use the word manifest a lot. And there's a really good reason for this. We use the word manifest because God uses the word manifest. It's a biblical word. And the definition of manifest is to make clear or evident to the eye or to the understanding. To make clear or evident to the eye or the understanding. It basically means to show something plainly. And verse five of our sermon text tells us that Jesus was manifested. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. Now we should read this and we should understand, knowing what the word manifest means, that it's saying, and you know that he was made evident to the eyes of those who beheld him, and he was made clear to the understanding of those who received him in order to take away our sins. And the Apostle John is telling us that the incarnation of Jesus was for the purpose of taking away our sins. And Jesus has been revealed to God's elect for the purpose of taking away our sins. And this is not the first time the Apostle John has made this very same point. Here we are reading in his first epistle, but if we were to look back at his gospel, at the beginning of that gospel, in John 1, 14, he wrote, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, he writes. And we beheld his glory. And the word beheld means to see, John is saying that Jesus was made evident to the eye, that when he became flesh, he was clearly seen and therefore clearly understood as the King of glory. And if you think in terms of alternative universes, all right, let your mind wander there for a second. It would be possible in an alternative universe for the word to come and to be made flesh and to dwell among us, but we would never know it. We would never behold him as the king of glory. And had God chose not to manifest Jesus, Jesus would have just blended in and he would have looked like any other person and nobody would have beheld his glory. And if that happened, then there would be no witness to tell us who he is. And we wouldn't understand that he is the Messiah who came to take away sins. And Jesus would have come, and he would have gone, and nobody would have noticed. But thanks be to God, that's not the universe that he created. That's not the mission of which he gave to our Savior. And the Word became flesh, and he dwelt among us, and his glory was indeed manifested. Yet our Savior was clearly seen and understood to be the Christ, the Messiah. And John makes this point emphatic at the beginning of his first epistle. And I'm going to read from 1 John 1 verses 1 and 2. And as I do so, please listen to the emphasis that he's placing upon how Jesus was made known. that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life, the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. So yes, The word manifests is used a lot to describe our Christian faith. We use it when we talk about our Christian faith because it's a word to describe such an important aspect of our Christian faith. It describes the father's revelation of his son to us. It's the word that communicates to us, manifest is, that Christ has been made known to us. He's been revealed. But why? Why was Jesus manifested? Verse five of our sermon text answers that question. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. But if you keep reading in our sermon text, in just a couple sentences further, in verse eight, it says, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. It would appear, at least on a casual reading, that this is a different reason for Christ being made manifest. Verse 5 says that Jesus was manifested to take away our sins. Verse 8 said that Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. But this is not an error, brothers and sisters. This is not a contradiction. John didn't forget what he had written in verse five by the time he got to writing verse eight, right? Rather, we understand that what John is doing here is making a connection. He's showing us that Jesus destroys the works of the devil by taking away our sins. Jesus destroys the works of the devil by taking away our sins. And by making this connection, John is not only giving us a better understanding of the work that Jesus does, but it's also giving us a better understanding of the work that Satan does. What's the work of Jesus? Well, as we saw in verse 5, it was so succinctly put, he takes away our sins. Satan works in direct opposition to Jesus. And the works of Satan, therefore, are to keep people in their sins. Jesus works to take people out of their sins. Satan works to try to keep people in their sins. And for the unbeliever, the devil keeps them in their sins by reinforcing their bondage to sin, right? He works upon the lusts of their flesh, drawing them deeper and deeper into sin. He works through the enticements of the world, luring them into a more and more depraved way of thinking. And in so doing, Satan is able to reinforce the dominion that sin already has over the unbelievers life. And this is how he keeps them enslaved to their sin. But this tactic does not work with believers because we've been delivered from the power of sin by Jesus Christ. Romans 6.14 says that sin no longer has dominion over those who are in Christ. Sin no longer has dominion. So Satan cannot reinforce our bondage to sin because there is no bondage to sin with the believer. So how does the devil attempt to keep believers in their sin? By deceiving us with falsehood, trying to make us believe that sin still has dominion over us, even though it doesn't. He does this by reminding us, reminding you, reminding me of all the terrible and evil things that you've done. He tells you that you're not good enough to call yourself a Christian. He insists that you've messed things up so badly that there's no way that you can possibly measure up to God's standard of righteousness. and the devil repetitively blames you for your sins, trying to make you feel like you've been, you're defeated through your guilty conscience, trying to make you feel inferior to other Christians, trying to make you feel so ashamed that you inevitably arrive at the conclusion that you're not worthy to receive the favor of God. And in a certain sense, this tactic that the devil employs with Christians is better described as deception than it is to call it a lie. And why do I say this? Because it's true that our sins have made us unworthy of receiving God's favor. When Satan wants to bring to mind all the terrible things that you've done, he doesn't need to make anything up. He doesn't need to fabricate scenarios or incidents because the real and actual sins in your life are sufficient for him to attempt to heap that guilt upon you. He doesn't need to lie about it. Nor does he need to lie about God's displeasure with sin. Satan is only restating what God himself has already said when he tells you that God's eyes are too righteous to look favorably upon a sinner, upon sin. But what the devil does not remind you of is the grace that God gives to his people. Satan's tactics with the believer is to take the truth of our sin and the truth of God's displeasure with sin and then to present these to us in such a way as to make it appear hopeless for us. But it's only hopeless, it only appears hopeless, because he has maliciously and deceptively left out grace, God's grace, from this equation, this gospel equation. As believers, our righteous standing before God is attained on the basis of God's grace and God's grace alone. His favor and kindness, which is given without regard to the worth or merit of the one who receives it. That's what grace is. His favor or kindness, God's favor or kindness, which is given without regard to the worth or merit of the one who receives it. And in spite of what that same person actually deserves. That's grace. And this element of grace makes all the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation. Have you heard of the Thomas Jefferson Bible? Thomas Jefferson was a naturalist. As such, he didn't believe in the preternatural or the supernatural. He thought that Jesus was a good moral teacher. and therefore people would benefit from studying his life and the teachings of Jesus. But Jefferson did not like how the gospel writers included rotes about Christ's deity and included episodes of Jesus performing miracles. So in 1819, Thomas Jefferson compiled a so-called Bible by cutting out all the material that he found objectionable. He said that those things that were omitted only complicated the moral instruction that we can learn from Jesus. So Jefferson just omitted them. He cut them out. Well, if you were to pick up a copy of the Jefferson Bible and begin reading it, the things that you would read would be absolutely true. Right? The words that are in the Jefferson Bible are absolutely true. But you would not, by reading the Jefferson Bible, get an accurate picture of who Jesus is and what he was manifested to do. Not because of what's in the Jefferson Bible, but because of what's not in the Jefferson Bible. The Jefferson Bible has deceptively manipulated to remove certain facts and information, essential truths that are necessary for a proper understanding of the person and work of Jesus. This is the tactic that Satan uses against believers when he tries to make us think that we're still in our sin. It's what he does not say that is so deceptive. It's the omission of God's grace that makes the devil's tactics such a terrible distortion of the truth. And by calling this a deception and not a lie, I'm not saying that Satan never tells lies. Certainly he does. He is the father of all lies. Nor am I denying that deception is a form of lying. It is. Lies are told by communicating false information and lies are told by communicating incomplete information. Nor am I saying that Satan doesn't have other tactics that he uses against believers. Certainly he does. He has a big bag full of evil and wicked, dirty tricks that he tries to use against Christians. And this is why 2 Corinthians 2.11 says that we're not ignorant of Satan's devices, right? Notice the plural in that verse, devices. But what I am saying is that one of the primary tactics that the devil uses against believers is to try to make us despair of our sin by telling us how unworthy we are. And I'm making this distinction between deception and lying because the sins he calls to our attention are real. And the displeasure that he tells us that God has for our sins is real. This can be an exceedingly effective tactic if you don't remember that the gospel has declared that you have been saved by grace and by grace alone. There's a statement that Simon Peter makes in the first chapter of his second epistle that's relevant to this point. In 2 Peter 1 verses 5-7, He writes to his readers, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. And there are eight qualities listed here that Peter has in these three verses. Faith is the first one, and love is the last one. And Peter is telling his Christian readers that they've already obtained precious faith from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when they were justified. And so now they are to add to their faith all these other qualities, qualities that build upon one another and build and culminate in love, love for God, love for our neighbors. And then in verse eight, Peter says, for if these things are yours and abound, you will neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's good news for the Christian, right? That's good news. If we diligently seek to improve upon our faith, then our lives will not be barren or unfruitful. That's the promise. But there's another promise. And listen to what Peter wrote in the next verse, verse nine. For he who lacks these things, what things? The things of building upon your faith. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. And he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins. The Holy Spirit inspired apostle is telling us, warning us that it's possible for a Christian to forget that he's been cleansed from his old sins. And this happens when a Christian, according to Peter, has neglected his sanctification. When a Christian has neglected to add to his faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge self-control and so on. And when a Christian neglects his sanctification, Peter says that he becomes short-sighted, even to the point of blindness. And when this happens, the Christian forgets that he has been cleansed from the sins of his past. And this describes a time when the Christian is especially vulnerable to the attacks of Satan. All along the negligent Christian's path of spiritual digression, Satan has been seizing opportunities to heap guilt and condemnation upon that Christian. And the devil's been reminding him of his sins and of God's great displeasure of sin. And the devil never, never, never reminds him that God has graciously cleansed him from his sins. And since the complacent Christian has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his sins, he suffers tremendously under the harassments of the devil. He begins to experience doubt, insecurity, spiritual oppression within his soul. He wallows in the guilt of his past sins. He questions whether God can truly love a sinner like him. He looks around at all the other people in his church and he sees so many of them joyfully worshiping God, but he doesn't have that same joy in his own heart. So he thinks to himself, there must be something wrong with me spiritually. I don't wake up Sunday morning and think to myself, oh good, I get to go to the house of the Lord today. A day in his courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. No, not for me. The Christian life for me is more of an obligation than a joy. It's more of a duty than it is a privilege. I don't have a desire to pray to God. And if I do, it's because I feel obligated to do it. Nor do I have a desire to read and meditate upon His Word. And on those rare occasions when I do, it's because I have this sense of duty that's been put upon me. Maybe I've just been deceiving myself all these years. Maybe I've just been pretending to be a Christian. If I were to die today, I'm not sure where I would end up. Brothers and sisters, do any of you have these type of experiences, these types of feelings, thoughts? Do any of you question whether God really loves you? Whether he's pleased with you? Whether you are truly saved? Do you feel burdened by the sins of your past? Are you struggling to find rest in the promise of God's forgiveness? Do you ever have the experience where you're watching TV or you're reading a book and then something reminds you of your past and then suddenly this huge wave of shame and guilt comes crashing down upon you? Do you ever feel disqualified to approach God in prayer? Do you ever think to yourself, God's not gonna listen to me? I'm just gonna make him angrier if I come to him and pray because he knows that I am such a hypocrite. He knows how many times I've already come to him asking him to forgive me for this very sin. And now here I am again. I promised him I wouldn't do it again. I promised him I would change, but here I am again, standing, sitting in this mess that I've made. I'm disqualified myself from ever standing in the presence of God again. Those are the thoughts of a Christian who has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his sins by the grace of God. Those are the thoughts of a Christian upon whom the oppressive tactics of the devil have been working. And if this is you, then this oppression will eat away at your assurance of salvation. It will rob you of the peace that you ought to be experiencing as a child of God. It will diminish your joy in worshiping the triune God. It'll take away your desire to grow in the knowledge of your Lord. It'll take away your confidence to pray to him. It'll take away your appetite to read and study his word. It'll even take away your ambition to live your life for Him. Because all of these things, all of these things come out of a heart that is thankful to God for cleansing us from our sins. But if you have forgotten that He has cleansed you from your sins, then how much gratitude can really be in your heart? How much motivation will you have to serve Him? The work of the devil is real, brothers and sisters. It is real. He's doing everything he can to make you believe that you are still in your sin. You give the devil a foothold in your life when you are not diligent about adding to your faith. That's when you're most vulnerable to his attacks. But as oppressive as his tactics can be, the devil can never, ever take away the salvation that Jesus Christ has earned for you on the cross. Now, let me say that again, because this is something that every Christian needs to hear, especially those of you who might be experiencing these feelings of doubt, of defeat, of despair, or of insecurity. If you neglect your sanctification, the devil's tactics may very well bring spiritual oppression upon you. He can take away your hope. He can take away your peace. He can take away your joy. but he can never, ever take away the salvation that Jesus Christ has earned for you on the cross. Romans 8.33 rhetorically asks, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? Who can condemn God's elect? And Paul answers these questions by pointing the Christian back to the manifest work of Jesus. It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. So Paul then returns to asking rhetorical questions. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, shall distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? And the point here is that Jesus is alive in heaven. actively making intercession for us before the Father, actively petitioning the Father to extend his sustaining grace to us. And with this intercession from Jesus, there is nothing that's ever going to be able to separate us from the love of God, nothing. And this is such an important point that Paul is making here that he does not feel comfortable ending it with a rhetorical question. He wants to make sure that everybody who reads this fully understands the security that we have in Jesus Christ. And so he answers his own rhetorical questions. Yet in these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul could not have written a more comprehensive list of things which are unable to separate us from the love of God. And if you notice, included in this list are angels, principalities, and powers. That's where Satan and his demons fit in. Because of Jesus's life, death, resurrection, and ongoing intercession for the saints, we are more than conquerors over Satan and all the demons. The Christian life, therefore, is properly lived with our focus on the grace that we've received from Jesus Christ. That's our focus. Don't focus first and foremost upon yourselves, the things you've done, the things you haven't done, the things you feel, the things you don't feel. Focus on what Jesus has done. Focus on what he has accomplished and how the benefits of his work are applied and maintained to the lives of his elect, according, of course, to the amazing grace of God. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has already accomplished all that's necessary to secure God's favor and approval for sinners. Do you hear that? Jesus has already accomplished everything that's necessary to attain God's favor and approval of sinners. So living in the finished work of Jesus leads us to an assurance that's unshakable, to an assurance that's immune to the tactics of the devil, because it's an assurance that's established in the grace of God and not the imperfect efforts of a weary pilgrim. You see the difference there? This is why it's so important that we make diligent use of God's ordinary means of grace by regularly assembling ourselves together for worship, stirring up love and good works in one another, as it says in Hebrews 10, 24, and teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, as it says in Colossians 3, 16. This is an interesting verse, Colossians 3.16, that we would actually teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. The songs that we sing during our Lord's Day worship play an important part in our Christian walk. Not only do they express praise and glory to God, not only do they give us an experience of awe and wonder in the presence of God, Not only do they provide a means for us to express our innermost affections to God, but the songs that we sing train our minds and help us to train each other's minds to remember that Jesus has cleansed us from our sins. Something we might be prone to forget. And because God created us as people who memorize and retain information more easily when it's set to music, The songs that we sing on Sunday are readily accessible to us Monday through Saturday in a very accessible manner, I might add. One of the songs that we sing back in California at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, since we're so progressive out there, we sing songs that have been created within the last 100 years. We sing a song called Before the Throne of God Above. It's a beautiful song. And I mention this to you because in that song, It has our lyrics that have application specifically to the spiritual warfare that we encounter from our adversary. And when Satan's attempting to make me feel defeated by my sin, he's heaping that tactic upon that he uses with believers. He's telling me how unworthy I am of God's love. The words of that song, before the throne of God above, remind me of my status with God. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin. Because my sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. To look on him and pardon me. And this is a beautiful, beautiful articulation of what it says in verse five of our sermon text. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. This means Jesus has been plainly revealed to you. you understand who he is from what has been written about him by the eyewitnesses of his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus has been so plainly revealed in the pages of scripture that even unbelievers, right, get this, even unbelievers like Thomas Jefferson understand what has been made manifest to them. They don't like it, They don't receive it as truth. They suppress it in unrighteousness, as Romans 1 tells us. So they don't want to accept it. They quickly discover that what has been made manifest about Jesus is a stumbling block to them and a rock of offense. And so they do whatever they can to try to edit Jesus. For Thomas Jefferson, he tried to edit Jesus with a pair of scissors. But a pair of scissors is not going to change who Jesus is and what he has done. It's not going to change what has been manifest about Jesus. Our Savior is immutable. Hebrews 13, 8 and 9 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Therefore, do not be carried away with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that your heart is established by grace. It is good that your heart is established by grace. So brothers and sisters, it is the grace of God that establishes our hearts with respect to the love and favor that God does have towards us. It is the grace of God that builds our souls upon the foundation of Jesus so that we can know and remember that he has cleansed us from our sins, from all of our unrighteousness, and thereby once and for all delivering us from the dominion that sin once had over us. And it is by the grace of God that, or it is the grace of God that makes us prevail in living holy and righteous lives in gratitude for what he has done for us. Do you know this grace? Have you experienced the grace of God? Verses six and eight of our sermon texts have often troubled Christians as they contemplate these questions. Verse six says, whoever abides in Christ does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor knows him. Verse eight says something very similar. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. And we read these statements and we ask ourselves, well, then who can have an assurance of salvation if this is the standard? This is the obvious and logical question to ask because our life experience tells us that we do in fact continue to sin. There's not a single Christian here who does not sin. So is John really setting the bar that high? Is he really saying that only those who have a life of sinless obedience can have an assurance of their salvation? No, that's not what John is doing here. You need only to look back at the beginning of the same epistle in chapter 1 verse 8 and read what John has written there. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Or what John wrote at the beginning of chapter 2. My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is a propitiation for our sins. Clearly, very clearly, John does not believe that Christians are able to live a perfectly sinless life. Yet here in chapter three, he writes, whoever abides in Christ and him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. He who sins is of the devil. So how are we to understand this? Well, this is a classic case of the limitations of the English language, which make it difficult to accurately translate what John has written in the Greek. The sin that John is writing about in our sermon text here is ongoing sin, perpetual sin, the sin that persists over time. As one of the biblical commentators put it, John is not writing about a single action of sin, but a course of sinning. And so when we read in verse six that those who abide in Christ do not sin, it's saying that those who abide in Christ do not persist in an extended course of sin. Their Christian life is not characterized by sin. So a genuine Christian may stumble into sin on certain occasions, but he's not going to remain in that sin. He might steal something on a specific occasion, but he's not gonna make his living as a thief. He might lie on a specific occasion, but that's not characteristic of his everyday behavior. A Christian might gossip on a certain occasion, but that's not his customary practice to gossip. And the distinction that John is making here is between the children of God and the children of the devil. It has everything to do with how Christ was manifest to them, and then the persistent behavior of each, right? A Christian will sin on a specific occasion, but then repent of it, turn away from it. He'll confess it to the Lord, and he'll turn away from his sin, disowning it as his own. The non-Christian will not do that. The non-Christian will persist in that sin. So the Christian might fall into the sin of fornication, but he's not going to shock up with his girlfriend. He's not going to live persistently in that sinful relationship. Do you get the point? The distinction here? As Christians, we groan under the infirmity of our flesh. Yet we struggle against the flesh. And that's the point. We struggle against the flesh. Like the Apostle Paul, we can truly say, we can truly testify that the sin that we do, we're doing is the evil that we do not want to do. Consequently, we're grieved over our sin. When the Holy Spirit convicts us, we are sorrowed over our sin, saddened. It's an ugly expression in our lives that we wish never happened. That's not the experience that the children of the devil have. The children of the devil go back to their sin. As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. They are enslaved to sin. But our sermon text is telling us that the person who persists in a course of sin has never truly experienced the glory, the beauty, the fullness, and the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has never experienced the Lord so as to enjoy Him and to have communion with Him. Nor has he ever known Him as his own Savior. For though he may profess to know him in words, he denies it in his life, his works. For every tree is known by its fruit. Men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. So the words of our Lord. And that's what John is teaching us here in our sermon text as well. Yet Satan's tactic is to try to make you think that you are still in your sin. So he distorts this gospel message by telling you that your actual sins are no different than all the heathens out in the world. And if you've been guilty of any of the quote unquote big sins in your past, then the devil will capitalize upon this and try to heap guilt upon guilt and shame upon shame, making you feel less of a Christian than those who are around you. But even if you do have some great big ugly sins in your past, isn't the grace of God sufficient for that? Surely the blood of Christ wasn't shed merely for little sins, right? He's not merely a school teacher who only heals bumps and scrapes with a bandage. He is the great physician who resurrects the dry bones that have been scattered about the desert floor. He brings bone to bone, covers them with sinews and flesh, and breathes into them the breath of life into the body so that it becomes a member of the mighty army of God, standing ready to do his bidding. That's us, brothers and sisters. And what John has written here is intended to be a comfort to us. It's intended to increase our assurance in Christ. John is presenting Jesus to us as our Redeemer who clothes his people with his spotless robe of merit and righteousness. He's the ascended, exalted, glorified Redeemer and the great advocate and high priest to all who draw near to him through faith. Jesus has been made manifest to us as the conquering Redeemer, right? Who overcame sin, overcame the world, overcame death, overcame all the powers of darkness, and who is presently working through His Spirit in the hearts and souls of His people to prepare us for an eternity of fellowship with one another in the fully manifested presence of our triune God. And that's the road that we're on. That's our destination. And for this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Amen. Let's pray. Our dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have manifested your Son Jesus Christ to us, that you have revealed Him to us, that you have opened our eyes, you've given us eyes to see and ears to hear, that we may lay hold of Him and that our hearts may be inclined towards Him, and that you've placed within us the faith that we might embrace Him as our Savior. And Father, having justified us by your grace, your grace alone. Lord, we pray that you would strengthen us, that you would keep us strong, help us to desire to continue to participate in your grace. Father, may we place ourselves along the road that Jesus travels, like the blind man Bartimaeus did. May we Set ourselves where we know the Lord will be traveling so that when he comes by, we might receive grace from him. And Father, we know that he comes here each Lord's day to dispense his grace to his saints. And so Father, may we be diligent and responsible of coming here to participate by faith in the prayer, in the sacraments, in the preaching, and the other means of grace, Father, so that we might be strengthened from week to week, from day to day, from hour to hour. in order that we might never forget that we have been cleansed from our old sins. And Father, may we take great assurance in your grace as the devil reminds us of our sin, which is real, and of your great displeasure with sin, which is real. May we also be reminded of the reality of your grace in order that we may not fall to the tactics of the devil, but that we may resist him, that we may stand firm against him, that he may flee from us, in order that we may continue to walk closely with our Savior in the paths which He has illuminated for us. And Father, may this be those paths which are characterized by love and characterized by all the virtues that are impressed upon us in the passage we read from Peter. So, Father, we pray again that Your grace and Your mercy would be very real to us. And if there are any here who have been struggling with the insecurities and doubts, that You would, by Your remarkable grace, that You would deliver them from such insecurities and reaffirm to them again the great promises of the Gospel that have been made manifest in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in His mighty name that we pray. Amen.