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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.
14 The Self-Condemning Heart, Part 2
Series 1 John: Confidence in Christ
| Sermon ID | 921231722147294 |
| Duration | 46:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | 1 John 3:18-24 |
| Language | English |
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