Just because we have an imperfect faith doesn't mean that we don't have faith. We're saved by faith in Christ. There's no such thing as a perfect faith in Christ this side of eternity. You know, sometimes we get discouraged when we see the imperfections of our faith. And when we have to live through shortcomings in our sanctification. and when we still feel and still experience sin that lingers and the weakness of the flesh. But please, please always remember that we're saved by faith. As imperfect and as weak as our faith is, it is faith that saves. Faith saves because it receives Christ. It's the perfection of Christ that justifies us before the throne of God. It's His virtue. It's His worth. It's His merits. So although we'll always have some kind of weakness and some kind of sin and some kind of shortcoming in our discipleship and in our sanctification. We can have assurance. We can know that we're saved through faith in Christ. Well, that's really the overarching encouragement that I've tried to give this morning and will continue to labor in the spirit to try to give this as we continue to deal with this topic of the self-condemning heart. We're back in 1 John 3. 18 to 24. Again, a self-condemning heart is the heart of a child of God when it feels unsaved rather than saved, when it feels unforgiven rather than forgiven. And just to get us started before we pray, this idea came from verses 20 and 21. John writes, for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we'll have confidence before God. Let's pray. Father, we know intellectually that you allow us to continue in weakness and sin so that we'll continue to depend on you in all things and not ourselves, to continue to look to you as our savior and not our works, to continue to cry out to you for help. Go to you to trust in your mercy, to plead with you for sanctification. Help us to remember in our hearts that everything that you're doing in our lives, all that you're working is is meant to turn us to see Christ as a great and mighty savior. I pray that, again, you would faithfully, powerfully, by your Spirit and Word, do just that very thing. Fix our eyes on Christ, the merciful and all-sufficient Savior for sinners like us. Show us Christ, Father, we pray in His name. Amen. Well, to review, remember we were looking at five questions. about a self-condemning heart that's within a child of God. Number one, where's the idea come from? We saw that in verse 20, the very first phrase, whenever our heart condemns us. Number two, why does this self-condemning heart need to be remedied? Why does it need to be addressed? Verse 21, because it's an obstacle to assurance, which also makes it an obstacle to growth, which also makes it an obstacle to a growing fruitfulness in ministry. And also in verse 22, we see that it's an obstacle to prayer. It's an obstacle to confidence in prayer. It's an obstacle to fruitful prayer. And also why it needs to be addressed is because of the bigger picture, a heart that speaks a word of condemnation over us contradicts what the gospel speaks over us. Romans 8 1, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if my heart tells me that there is condemnation for me, then my heart is wrong because God is right about that. Those who have faith in Christ. Their sins are forgiven. Number three, what's the remedy? The remedy is to trust in God's word about you rather than your heart's feelings about you. Jeremiah 17 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? That's an important one to remember tonight when we get into the practical reasons of behind a self condemning heart. Where does it come from? What are the reasons behind it? Remember that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Some of these things we just won't understand. I mean, you can't quantify and scientifically explain all of the practical reasons behind the way our weakness and the way our sins manifest in our lives. I mean, there are some weaknesses that we'll mature out of in this life by God's grace and power and our sanctification, but some of the weaknesses in our life, God will allow to persist until the day we die, because that's part of how He wants to discipline us and keep us trusting in Him and keep us humble. And the same thing for some sins. Some of the sins that we have, God will give us repentance. He'll give us the grace of repentance and sanctify out of us, and we'll be able to grow beyond being enslaved or allured by a certain sin. But some sins will persist and some temptations will persist with the peculiar power in our lives till the day we die. Again, God allows that to happen to keep us trusting in him and depending on him and going to him so that we don't grow proud and rely on ourselves. So the remedy is to trust God's word about us rather than our heart's feelings about us, it's easier said than done, right? I mean, it's easy to intellectually get that. But as weak sinners, to put this into practice, it takes time, it takes growth, it takes God's work. So we wait on the Lord. He's our rock, He's our strength, He's our shield, He's our fortress. Boy, I don't know if you could tell when I got all fired up like a madman this morning, but all those Psalms, they give all those different metaphors for this idea that it's God who will protect me. It's God who has saved me. He will protect me. He is my shelter. And all those various metaphors in scripture, I really love those. Especially that one in Psalm 71, that God is a rock of refuge. He's this rock where I go, and I'm in this rock, in the cleft of the rock, to take refuge in the Lord, the living Lord. There's no safer place to be. Number four, the fourth question, what is God's word about us in this passage? Well, that was specifically about this passage in 1 John 3, 18 to 24, but even backing up to verse 14, God's word about the believer in this passage is the reality of Christian love is further evidence that you are a child of God. And that reality of Christian love, a spirit wrought Christian love in the true biblical church is evidence that should reassure our hearts as children of God. Again, easier said than done, because what. What's the temptation? What's the trap? Well, now we, first we look at our faith, and our faith is imperfect, and that can cause a self-condemning heart, but then we can look at our love, and our love is imperfect, and now we don't think we're saved because our love is not what it ought to be. Well, in both of those things, we're looking to the strength of something from us, the strength of my faith, the virtue of my faith, the virtue of my love, and basing our assurance on that. No, our Christian love is not the basis of our assurance, but the reality of Christian love in our lives can help to reassure us and remind us and give further evidence that we are children of God. The basis of our assurance, which we'll talk, Lord willing, a lot about tonight, is the blood of Christ. The basis of our assurance is the blood of Christ and the promise of God in the gospel. But that's God's word about us in this whole passage and in other places in 1 John. And in other places in scripture, obedience to this commandment of Christian love is evidence that we are God's children. Now, the fifth question is what might cause the heart of a believer to condemn itself, even though God pronounces us forgiven? So now we're on to new material. Fifth question, what might cause the heart of a believer to condemn itself, even though God pronounces us forgiven? Well, first of all, just to reiterate, this cannot be traced out scientifically and it cannot be perfectly understood. But for all the details and all the specifics for any individual in any specific situation, the root answer is going to be the same. The heart is going to be prone to condemn itself whenever it's turned its attention away from the promise of the gospel. The root of this thing is unbelief. Whenever the heart turns its attention away from the gospel and the promise of God in the gospel, one way or another, and to one degree or another, a lesser degree or higher degree, or this particular way or that particular way, whenever the heart turns its attention away from the promise of the gospel, the only result is it will be prone to self-condemnation. Because outside of the promise of the gospel, the only thing there really is, is condemnation. So when we turn our gaze away from Christ and the promise of forgiveness in Christ, of course we'll feel condemned because the only thing outside of Christ is condemnation. So we have to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. That's the root cause of why a heart of a believer would grow to condemn itself, even though God pronounces us forgiven. Well, what's happened? We've taken our focus off the pronouncement of God. God pronounces forgiveness over us, but we've turned our attention away from that. And so we've lost sight of that in our hearts. Let me do a little parenthetical here. on a practical way forward. I don't only want to talk about some of the causes behind the self-condemning heart, but some conclusions for practical application moving forward. Where do we go from here? I truly believe the most important thing is to always be grounding ourselves in the true source of our assurance. That's just an ongoing work, an ongoing spiritual work for the Christian. Grounding ourselves in the source of our assurance is not something we do once and then move on. We must always be grounding ourselves in the true source of our assurance. And three, I have verses for these and I aim to close this message with going through these verses. Right now, I just want to give you three bullet points underneath. And remember, this is practical way moving forward. Three bullet points underneath, always be grounding ourselves in the true source or really the true foundation of our assurance. Number one, the blood of Christ. Always be grounding ourselves in the sufficiency of the blood of Christ. If you've been cleansed by the blood of Christ, that's the source of our assurance. So always grounding ourselves in the sufficiency and the power of the blood of Christ will help to ward off and to remedy a self-condemning heart. And secondly, by the way, these are all connected. I've just split them into three points just to help me talk about them a little bit more. The second one is the promise of God in the gospel. You know, these are two different things. They're related. But in seriousness, there are two different things. You have the blood of Christ shed on a cross for the forgiveness of sins and the sufficiency of that sacrifice for the sufficiency of sins. But then in our, that's in history. That's a completed work. It's a finished work that purchases forgiveness, that purchases souls for God. But then in our lives, we personally hear the gospel. The promise of God comes to us in the gospel, where God says, if you believe in Christ by virtue of his death, your sins are forgiven and you're reconciled to God and you have the gift of eternal life and you have overcome the evil one. The promise of God comes to us. based on the blood of Christ. So these two things are connected, but they are distinct elements of the basis of our of our assurance, the sufficiency of the blood of Christ and the truthfulness of the promise of God in the gospel. And this third one, this third one, remember, practical way forward, always be grounding ourselves in these things. Just like every day, we're always eating, always drinking water. We're always breathing. These are the things we need to do to sustain life. The third one is the ongoing intercession of the living Christ. Christ shed his blood for our sins and Christ was buried, but he did not stay buried. He was risen from the grave to imperishable life, to incorruptible life, to eternal, glorious, heavenly life. And he did not stay on earth. He did for 40 days teaching and ministering and preparing the disciples for the day of Pentecost and for the apostolic era. But he ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God, where he reigns as Lord over all things and where he serves as a great high priest over the household of God. We have a living savior. We have a living hope. The supreme authority in all the universe is for us, is interceding before the throne of God for us. This living Christ. the intercession of the living Christ. So you have his blood, the sufficiency of his blood as the basis of our assurance. You have the promise of God in the gospel that if we come to him in faith, all our sins are forgiven. That's part of the basis or the source of our assurance. And then you have the intercession of the living Christ. who speaks to us and comforts us and listens to our prayers, helps us in our time of need. If you're being sanctified at all into the likeness of Christ, it is Christ who is doing that work in you. The intercession of the living Christ. Now, back to the question. What might cause the heart of a believer to condemn itself? even though God pronounces us forgiven. Well, I've got four of these. You can come up with more. I'm sure of it. First of all, obviously, it'd be a misplaced assurance. You'll be looking to something as a source of assurance, as a source of confidence that you should not be looking to as a source of assurance. You're drawing from the wrong well. You're believing the wrong message. You could be trusting in good works. This is a common one. Trusting in good works, either the actual works that you're doing in church or the amount of good deeds that you're doing in your life or how well they go over or how many, how well people notice them and what they say about what you're doing and the praise they give you for what you're doing. Any way, there's many ways we can trust in good works or the result of doing good works in our lives. That can become a false source of assurance. So if I'm not doing enough or if I'm not doing well enough, if I'm not measuring up, then I don't feel confident before the throne of God. That's a misplaced confidence. Could be trusting in subjective feelings. That's another source of a misplaced source of assurance, rather trusting in subjective feelings. So if I come to church and it's songs that I like and it's a style that I like and the, you know, the whole mood and style of the sermon is something that I like and I really get stirred up emotionally and the pastor told these these heart tugging stories. I even shed a tear during this one story that he told. I know I don't tell stories. So there's really no chance of that happening. But you can be emotionally stirred up and you can feel spiritual. This is the number one M.O. of false teachers. that gets you stirred up emotionally, which is very easy to do, to get you emotionally charged and then do some twist where to make you feel like something spiritual happened just because your emotions were stirred up. And if your emotions are not stirred up, then you don't feel spiritual and therefore you don't feel like you have assurance. You don't feel confident before the throne of God. That's a misplaced assurance. Our confidence before the throne of God is not based on works or the result of works. It's not based on subjective feelings from participation in religion or anything else. And another misplaced source of assurance could be trusting in intellectual knowledge, intellectual knowledge. So I have more of an intellect. This is really the other side of the spectrum of the emotionalism. You could have an intellectualism. There is an excitement that can come from learning new ideas, even learning new theological truths or learning a deeper level of truths in the Bible. There is a good and proper place of an intellectual excitement, but if you go too far and you're unbalanced in this, there can be this intellectualism where you equate head knowledge with spiritual maturity, or you equate head knowledge with spiritual growth, or the accumulation of head knowledge with spiritual growth. But you can accumulate a lot of head knowledge and not grow at all spiritually. For example, if you're growing in knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and knowledge, but you haven't moved one millimeter in Christian love, that's not growth. Knowledge puffs up. Love, if you're growing in love, you'll be building up, not becoming puffed up. And you're trusting in intellectual knowledge as a source of spiritual confidence and assurance. When you're not excited by learning new things. Or maybe the sermons on something that you already know. So, you know, why do I need to hear this again? I've known this since I was in six since I was six years old, or when it's something that you don't grasp and you feel insecure because you're not understanding it. All of these things can be a hindrance to your assurance because you're treating intellectual knowledge as a source of assurance and you should not be. So the first reason, the first underlying cause Why the heart of a believer can lose its assurance and start to condemn itself is a misplaced source of assurance before God. Works, or the results of works, or subjective feelings, or trusting in head knowledge. Secondly, a misplaced source of personal fulfillment. a misplaced source of personal fulfillment. What I mean by personal fulfillment is that which makes you feel affirmed as a human being. That which makes you feel like you are of worth as a human being. That which makes you feel accepted. Personal fulfillment. And when we find personal fulfillment the right way, we are filled with joy and a sense of peace. And when we find it in the right way, we are invigorated by a sense of true meaning and purpose in this world. Misplaced source of personal fulfillment. Some examples. First of all, looking to other people's approval, even looking to other people's love as the primary source of personal fulfillment. So when you feel unnoticed, when you feel unapproved, when you feel unloved, when people aren't focused on you the way you need people to be focused on you, Your assurance can go out the window because you're not feeling personally fulfilled. Well, that's a misplaced source of personal fulfillment. The only true source of personal fulfillment is the one true living God. God himself is the source of personal fulfillment. The pastor is not a source of fulfillment. Having a special relationship or having a special discussion with the pastor, yeah, that may be an added bonus. People at church, we don't come primarily to church for each other. We do come to church for each other, but not primarily. Brothers and sisters, we come to church for God. We need God to minister to us through his word. We need God to reveal himself to us by his spirit. We come for God. Personal fulfillment, true personal fulfillment only comes from God, not from people. Not only looking to other people and their approval, but also looking to a ministry job in the church, that could be a misplaced source of personal fulfillment. I would hope, I would like to hope and pray that if I never preached another sermon in my life after this one, that I wouldn't lose one ounce of joy and fulfillment in knowing the Lord God above. I think I would struggle with that. I think I would struggle with that. It's difficult because you do want to pour yourself into your ministry. And there is a sense of joy that comes from ministry. But we've got to make sure that we don't allow ministry to become an idol. Doing ministry is not God. God is a living being. He is our joy. He is our fulfillment. He gives us meaning. He's the one who gives us approval. So anything else, whether it's people and what they say, what they think or how they welcome us or a ministry job and all the good feelings that come from a ministry job, we must be looking to God alone as a source of fulfillment. Looking to any lesser thing to provide what only God can provide. That's the problem. Looking to anything other than God. Acceptance in the broader culture. That's a popular one. Many who who stake their feelings and source their feelings of fulfillment on whether they're accepted in the broader culture. Accomplishments at work, maybe accomplishments in some kind of hobby, or being recognized at work, or being recognized in some kind of hobby. This is a temptation. to stake our feelings of personal fulfillment on accomplishments. Maybe appearances. Maybe appearances in the community. Maybe appearances to people at school. Maybe appearances to people at work. Keeping up appearances. And that's connected, of course, to what people think of us. But that can become a source of personal fulfillment. Maybe material things. An accumulation of material things. may be assets, liquid assets or otherwise. It can be a sense of personal fulfillment. You have a certain amount of things, a certain kind of thing, a certain amount of money, and now I feel like I've really made it. That's a misplaced source of personal fulfillment. So a misplaced source of assurance, misplaced source of personal fulfillment. Either of those things will lead to a heart that's prone to self-condemnation. Number three, this is a big one. At least I think this is a big one. Another underlying reason of a heart that will condemn itself is measuring spirituality with the worldly measure. Measuring what's spiritual and what's not spiritual with a worldly way of measuring rather than a godly way of measuring. So maybe, maybe we judge ourselves by a man-made standard of spirituality rather than a biblical standard of spirituality. Maybe there's a standard of outward devotion that you either see or think you see in others. but you do not see it in yourself. I think that's a common one. In fact, I've seen that a lot in ministry. People struggle with their assurance because they're looking out and they either see or they think they see this high standard, this high level of spirituality in others, which, of course, the only way they're judging that is by outward appearances and outward performance because they don't see the heart and they don't see the mind and they don't see the Holy Spirit. But they see or think they see this high standard of spirituality based on outward appearance. Then they look at their life and then also based on outward appearance, they're not measuring up even close to what they see or think they see in others. You have a worldly measure being applied to spiritual realities, and the result is the self condemning heart. Maybe measuring your heart by the quantity of outward devotion. Measuring heart by the amount of outward or even outward and formal devotion. Outward devotion is critically important to the Christian life. But if all we have is the outward devotion and there's nothing going on truly inwardly, then that's hypocrisy. There's more than just the outward devotion is what I'm saying. We're not going to say and I'm never going to say, Lord willing, Christianity is only an internal matter. That's not true. Being holy is not only an internal manner. Loving each other is not only an internal manner. And giving devotion and worship to the Lord is not only an internal matter. There's always going to be an outward expression. But it definitely is primarily an internal matter. It's primarily a matter of the heart. It's primarily a matter of the spirit. And then we give outward devotion as an expression to those inward spiritual realities. But you cannot measure the heart simply by measuring the amount of external devotion. You cannot do it. You can pray for nine hours straight and be trusting in yourself and your own wisdom the whole entire time, or you could pray for nine seconds with a true, sincere, broken heart that's trusting in God 100%. Well, I'll take that nine seconds. That's the nine seconds that I would die for right there. Nine seconds of sincere spirit prayer over nine years of self-centered trusting in my own wisdom prayer. So measuring spirituality with the worldly measure will never end well. It's either gonna end to chronic self-condemnation or chronic self-righteousness over against others. That's the only two results. So underlying reasons, again, they're root causes. just taking our gaze off of the promise of God in the gospel, but in practical situations, a misplaced source of assurance, trusting in works, trusting in feelings, trusting in head knowledge. Number two, a misplaced source of personal fulfillment, other people's approval, a ministry job or the feelings I get from doing a ministry job. In any way, look into a lesser thing to do what only God can do. Number three, measuring spirituality with a worldly measure. And number four, it could just be sin. There could be ongoing sin in your life that you haven't been repenting of, that you haven't been addressing. Maybe you're plagued by a guilty conscience, and legitimately so. Maybe there's sin in your life, and as a child of God, God is not just going to leave that in your life. The spirit of God within you is going to impress against you, press upon you rather, press upon you the displeasure of God. He wants to discipline you and he wants to wake you up. He wants you to feel the weight of your sin. He wants to bring you to a point of conviction where you'll repent. Maybe sin is the reason your heart is condemning itself, because, you know, in your heart, you should not be living as a slave to sin. Secret sin. And living the life of a hypocrite, living a double life. Acting and speaking one way at church and then going home and being a completely different person at home. Or acting and speaking one way at home and then going to work and being a completely different person at work or when you go out with your friends. Doing things you would never even talk about at home or church. There could be a legitimate reason why the spirit of God within you is speaking a word against your heart if your heart is an open rebellion against God. There's not always bad reasons, sometimes there's a good reason why the spirit is stirring us up. So that we would repent. That too is a sign of God's love. What kind of a mother and father never disciplines their children? A good mother, father, or a bad mother, father? Bad. Discipline children in a proper way is an act of love, not an act of hate. Negligence, hate, discipline, love. God's a better father than any of us could ever dream to be. Negligence, hate, discipline, love. And we see our children doing things that's harmful for them and displeasing to God and displeasing to their parents, dishonoring their parents, representing the family in a bad way. We want to speak into that. We want to wake them up and we want to teach them and help them and discipline them so that they'll turn and behave in a different way. Well, we got that from God. That's God's idea, to discipline. Maybe what you're experiencing in your heart is the Lord simply showing up as a disciplinarian because he loves you and he wants to get you on the right track. Gospel is the power of God to restore the child of God just as much as it's the power of God to redeem the lost sinner. It's both and not either or the gospel is the power to redeem a sinner out of darkness. But then once the sinner is redeemed and is now a child of God, but that child of God goes astray, a child of God has been ensnared by sin. He's in a season of sin or she's in a season of sin. The gospel is the power of God to restore that child of God to proper obedience and a humble, repentant heart. Where would any of us be if God didn't work in our lives this way? Where where would we be? We would leave the Lord in a second. We slide down that water slide of sin in a second. Apart from God working in our lives. The self condemning heart. We've talked about it mostly and when it's a negative, it needs to be remedied by faith. But sometimes it can maybe be something else that's related, but a little bit different. True sin that needs to be repented of. By and large, we've talked about that self condemning heart as just our heart for one reason or another. Um, not believing God's verdict over us. Think of a young child that their parents love them. They're a good child, and they're always telling, telling her we're proud of you. We love you so much. You've been doing so well. We're so proud of you over and over week after week, pouring positive encouragement and building her up, filling her with love. But then there are a few bullies at school, and the bullies at school start to say, you're a nobody. And the bullies at school start to call her names. And the bullies at school start to tell her, you're an idiot, and nobody likes you. After a few weeks, that little child starts to believe the word of the bullies over the word of the parents. But the parents are the one who love her. And the parents are the one who know her better. And the parents are the one looking out for her best interest. The bullies don't know anything. The bullies don't love her. So why is the young child prone to believe the bullies? Well, why would a child of God be in the courtroom of heaven? And they plead Christ as their only hope. So God brings down the gavel and declares you justified and innocent for all eternity. Why would the child of God get in the hallway of the courtroom and start to doubt the verdict of God? Let's see if that's even a sillier situation than the young child believing the bullies over her parents. But we can fall into that trap. God pronounces us forgiven. We can get into the hallway and turn around and doubt God before we get. Get outside. Now the way forward. This is what I'm most excited about. The way forward. And I've said these already. I want to end by looking at some passages. This has mainly been. We haven't done a lot of exegesis because we're just tying up loose ends from this morning's message. I want to get our eyes on some scriptures, though, with the way forward is to always be grounding ourselves in the true source of assurance. Number one, the blood of Christ. So let's look at Hebrews 10, verse 19. I do want this to go on record for time, for time and eternity. Well, I guess not eternity because this age won't last for eternity. I do want this to go on record. That Pastor Matt, in issues of assurance and in issues of struggling with assurance, that the only place he ever pointed us to as a remedy is Jesus. I want that on record. Where do we go? Where do we look? What do we do? Jesus. That's it. He is your assurance. What am I going to do? Give me something to do. Give me three steps to assurance that I can do, that I can go and do, and I can be assured. You can't. Look to Jesus. That's it. That's all I have. Brothers and sisters, that's all I have. I'm a messenger of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as Savior, and a messenger and announcer of the supreme authority of Jesus Christ over all the universe. That's all we are. We're mouthpieces. That's it for the sufficiency of Christ. Where did Pastor Matt tell us to go? What did he tell us to do when we're struggling with assurance? Look to Jesus Christ. That's it, but I have nothing to give him. Yes. Now you're starting to get it. Yes. Right. That's it. That's where you need to be. Hebrews 10. Beginning in verse 19. Therefore, brothers. Since we have confidence to enter the holy places, what's the holy places mean? Where's that? Yes, Vince is pointing upward. I'm going to interpret Vince going like this to mean heaven. This is where God lives. This is the dwelling place of God. We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is his flesh. And the old covenant symbol of a tabernacle or the old covenant symbol of the temple, there was an actual architectural room that symbolized God's dwelling place in heaven. But there was a curtain that blocked anyone off from even looking in there, going in there, just a high priest, but just once a year. And they had to tie something to him in case he died in the presence of God. They had to drag him out. But there was a curtain that blocked you off from the symbolic holy place. But in the new covenant, there's a new way, and it's a living way, and it's not a curtain that divides. It's something that's opened as a gateway for sinners to pass through. The new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is His flesh. Which is another way of talking about His sacrifice on a cross. Verse 19, by the blood of Jesus. Verse 20, through His flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. How so? How those two things? How? How do we approach God, the holy God, this way? the blood of Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us on a cross that erases all the guilt of all of our sin, that we can walk. God, think about this. You can walk confidently into the presence of God and not be afraid. I'm afraid to walk into some people's living rooms so I don't track dirt on the floor or something. There are places on earth that aren't approachable. You can't approach the president. You can't approach dignitaries. There are just some places and people we can't approach. But the holy God of the universe, we can approach confidently with full assurance. It's an incredible thing. The infinitely holy infinitely powerful, perfectly holy God has made him self approachable to pathetic, corrupt sinners. He's approachable because of the blood of Christ. Number two, second aspect of the always be grounding ourselves, always be grounding ourselves in the true source of assurance. Number two, the promise of God in the gospel. The promise of God in the gospel. Let's flip backwards a couple pages to Hebrews 6, verse 17. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, that's us, when God desired to show more convincingly, that's what he wants to do, he wants to show you something more convincingly, to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, just stop right there, two unchangeable things, the first is promise, he made a promise that they'll save us, that's one unchangeable thing, but then to show us more convincingly, He confirmed his promise with an oath. That's another unchangeable thing. He didn't need to do that. If God makes a promise, that's it. It's sure. You can trust it. But he confirms it with an oath to show the heirs of the promise more convincingly so that by two unchangeable things in which it's impossible for God to lie. So it's impossible for God to lie in a promise. It's impossible for God to lie in an oath. To show us more convincingly We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. That's what I want us to have. Hopefully it's come through my heart behind the preaching on this Lord's Day. I want us to have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. With all the distractions in the world. and all the accusations from the evil one, and all the temptations from within and from around, and all that's going on, all the turmoil in the world, the sufferings and trials of life, have strong encouragement, strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope that's set before you. Don't give up. Don't give up the fight, whatever you do. And number three, always be grounding yourself in the true source of assurance. Blood of Christ, the promise of God in the gospel. Number three, the intercession of the living Christ. Flip backwards a couple more pages. Hebrews 4, 14 to 16. Since then, we have a great high priest who's passed through the heavens. That's referring to the ascension. He's passed through the heavens. He was risen and he ascended up through the first heaven, through the celestial heavens, into the heaven of heavens, the invisible heaven. He ascended to the right hand of God. We have a great high priest who passed through the heavens. Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are and yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. What a great day to end this Lord's day on. This is the remedy. This is the answer. This is to go when we're battling a self condemning heart. This is this is where we need to go if we are ensnared by sin, if we are discouraged. Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. If on the exam at the end of the semester I say, where do we receive mercy and where do we find grace to help us in our time of need? The answer is going to be the throne of God in heaven, where Jesus Christ is stationed as your great high priest. Let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his sacrifice on our behalf. Thank you for his ongoing intercession on our behalf. Thank you for his powerful work within us by the Holy Spirit. You know our weakness. Each one of us in here is fraught with our own personal weaknesses, shortcomings, sins, and attacks from the devil, and all of that, and only you can help us. So we are crying out to you, God, be our rock, be our refuge, be our shelter, be our shield. You are our only hope. So we cry out to you. And it's in Christ that we lift this prayer. It's in Christ we lift this whole day to you. Amen.