The Believer's Strong Confidence

Well, let's continue in our series, Fundamentals of the Faith in 1 John. If you would open up your copy of God's Word in 1 John, Chapter 5. We left off in verse 13, but I want to reach back into verse 11. So we will read verses 11 through 18. And tonight we will look at the Believer's Heavenly Confidence. Our great heavenly confidence. So let's read 1 John, Chapter 5, verses 11 through 18. And I'll read. And this is the testimony that God gave us, eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son does not have life.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask and God will give him life. To those who commit sins that do not lead to death, there is a sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin.

But there is a sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. But he who was born of God protects him. And the evil one does not touch him. Let's pray together. We'd ask the Lord to bless this reading of His word and that it would be lived out in a blessed assurance in our life. Lord, I just want to thank you for the tremendous opportunity that we've had to look into your word to sit under your word. And Father, when you give us this instruction in 1 John through the Apostle, we are staring over his shoulder as he writes a letter to his beloved little children in the faith.

He desires for them to have a blessed assurance. And this is our hope, Lord, that as we study this summer and as we continue to read this book, that we would be overjoyed, that you would save us, that you would think of us and you would even write us a book guaranteeing that we are saved. You have written a book through John so that we would have a strong confidence of our salvation. And so, Lord, we love you. We ask you to help your weak servant proclaim the truth that you have given. I've got nothing in myself to give. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You know, this summer has been like a great spiraling staircase of strong assurance.

I used that metaphor last week in speaking of the first time I encountered a spiral staircase at the age of about six across the street. And you know, John continues to go over the same three principles and he goes over them several times throughout the book. But every time he passes these three themes, we get higher and we get closer into our blessed assurance. He talks about growing in truth or growing in doctrine. He spends a lot of time speaking about the doctrine of Christ, who Christ is. You know, as you come to faith in Christ and you learn truth, you grow doctrinally. But that enables you to grow morally.

You know, Christianity is not just an intellectual religion. It is a heart religion. We should grow not just in knowledge of truth, but in our affection for Christ. And that should change how we live. So we grow doctrinally. We grow morally in our obedience. And we also grow lovingly. So as we learn truth about God, we change. And eventually we begin to love him and love others more. And as we love him and love others more, we discover more truth about him. You see how this goes? So we we love him more and we love truth more. We love going to church. And so this is a sort of family tradition we spoke of last week, which is overcoming faith.

As a Christian, you overcome the world. We've been learning that the world is the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. So I've just been explaining that the lust of the eyes, that's the stuff the world wants. The cars, the houses, it's the lust of the eyes. The lust of the flesh. This is the pleasure the world seeks. This is why drugs are a problem and alcohol is a problem. It's wanting to fill spiritual pain or spiritual needs with pleasure. But also the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. This is the praise the world kills for. And as a Christian, you have the power to overcome.

In fact, Christ has already overcome sin in your life. You have overcome the world. And so as a Christian, we grow doctrinally, we grow morally and we grow socially as we love him and love the saints. And this is the victory that overcomes the world. You know, in ancient societies, nothing could be made in a contract, not a marriage, not a purchase without a witness. In fact, before there were lawyers who notarized things, the witness was actually the one who notarized. It was sealed oftentimes sometimes with a signet or sometimes with a pledge or an oath. And the Lord has established a witness.

And so when Jesus was baptized, we learned last week. When Jesus was baptized, he gave the witness of the father. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He also gave the witness of the spirit because the spirit descended upon Jesus. And we see that this spirit who descended upon Jesus descends upon us. When we are born again, we have the spirit and this spirit bears witness in our hearts that we are born again. So I wanted to kind of catch you up if you have missed a sermon or two, we will be completely caught up with having all the sermons online this week.

So I want to encourage you to start working back of any messages that you've missed. Well tonight, I want us to see a believer's strong confidence. And I want us to see five different elements of this strong confidence. So the first, the believers strong confidence is our heavenly possession. If you're taking notes, you just write down that your assurance of salvation is your heavenly possession. So let's go right to the passage, 1 John 5, 11 through 12. And let's see what is this heavenly possession. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life and the life is in his son.

Whoever has the son has life and whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. So we read in this text, God's given humanity eternal life, eternal life. And God has given us this eternal life in his son. So right from the text, if you have Jesus, you have eternal life. If you have Jesus, and this is one reason why I chose the songs that I sang and brother Chris and I didn't talk about this. He didn't know what I was preaching on and that song ministered to him and he just spoke out of overflow of his life.

But listen to the course of the song that we sang and he highlighted this living in you, Lord, you're living in me constant abiding. This is my plea. And so this is eternal life. It is having the life of Jesus in our life. So is eternal life heaven? Yes. But is eternal life here now? Yes. And so this is the confidence that we have that Jesus died so that you would have eternal life here now and you would have eternal life in the hereafter from time to time. We encounter people who are uncertain whether or not they have the life of Christ within them.

And in many cases we have to not think about heaven so much and start thinking about the here now. What is the evidence of your salvation? Now some people think that that is us being spiritual bullies. And let me ask it. Ask it this way. If you come to me and I say, well, you're a Christian, you say yes. And I would say, how do you know? Some people have perhaps thought that we are trying to unsettle people. Charles Spurgeon said this way. We're not trying to get you to doubt your salvation. In fact, you can't doubt your salvation if you have the life of Christ in you. And it's evident if you have the life of Christ in you.

It just so happens that in the South, in a Southern culture, a lot of people profess Christ and they don't possess Christ. And 1 John is being written in a similar context. You know, there were people who claimed to know Jesus, but yet they were teaching something that was foreign to sound doctrine. And even after they had left the church, they were still trying to deceive the saints. And so John is writing this book to bring clarity and not to bring confusion. And he's saying there's some doctrinal things that you got to get straight. The person of Christ. Jesus is fully God, fully man. There's some doctrine you've got to get right.

But there's also some life change that you got to have. You have to be impacted morally. You can't walk in darkness and still claim to know Christ. And then there's something that has to happen socially. There has to be a love of God and a love of people. No one who says they love God and hates people is genuine. So let me just ask you this question. How does the believer know they possess the son? How do you know that you possess Jesus Christ, that he lives within you? As we grow in the fundamentals of the faith, we display these vital signs I've been talking about to you. We show signs of life.

Someone can't claim to be alive spiritually if they're dead morally. Does that make sense? Someone is very evidently alive if they have a heartbeat and if they have lungs, respiration that is working. And if we give them a PET scan or MRI, we see that there is function in the brain. If they're walking and talking, we know they are alive physically. But in the church, someone may claim to be alive and yet be dead. And so this is a vital question. Charles Spurgeon said, "If I ask you how much you have in the bank and if you're uncertain, that's not a problem. You can go to the bank and find out.

And if you go to the bank and you find out that you actually owe money, then you can do something about that, right? Maybe, hopefully. Well I would say this, you would want to do something about it now before the creditors come and call for that. No, does that make sense? You want to be unsettled if you owe money, but you need to do something about it. In the spiritual world, if I say, "What's your spiritual bank account look like?" Would you get upset if I asked you that question? There are a lot of people who get upset if you ask them, "Are you saved?" And they say, "Yes." And you say, "Well, how do you know?

Well, you're trying to make me doubt my salvation." I'm not trying to make you doubt your salvation if you got it. But if you pull on a tree that is not firmly rooted and it comes right out the ground, we've got a problem. Does that make sense? It's because I love you that I ask those questions. It is because a doctor loves you that he tells you the bad news and your banker is actually doing the right thing if he tells you we've got an issue here. Now the problem comes in when people don't want to address the issue.

When they have some spiritual deficit, perhaps the reason people get upset when you ask them, how do they know that they're saved is because they have religious pride. In fact, I got mad when people asked me that question when I was lost. You know why? I had religious pride. I was proud of that King for Christ. That was my high school, Grace King High School in Metterly, Louisiana. And I started King for Christ my senior year and I got all kinds of made fun of and all of that, this was before CE at the Pole and I started King for Christ. We had eight people, mostly freshmen.

And I was proud that the summer before my senior year of high school I went to Michigan for six to eight weeks and I lived up there and I was a summer mission, high school summer missionary was proud of that. I was proud that I didn't use the four letter words but see, I stopped using the four letter words because I wanted to play the part when I was in Michigan. Does that make sense? And why did I apply to summer missions? Because that's what good Christian young men did.

You see what I did was I was a Pharisee and I washed the outside of the dish and I was trying to be what a Christian should be, but I didn't realize the song that I sang tonight. Oh, for holiness. Actually I did write the course of that song because of my journey the Lord took me on. What I needed was a holiness that I could not produce. That was more than just what I did do and what I did not do. More than just the movies that I didn't watch or you know, because I could not change my heart. Does that make sense? So how do you know the life of Christ lives within you? We grow in the fundamentals of the faith and the vital signs.

We show that we have life. We produce a blessed assurance as we grow in the faith. Five things that show the life of Christ lives within you. Truth. This is a recap of a lot of things we've been talking about, but truth. You know that God is good, which is His grace and forgiveness and mercy, but you also know that God is great. You understand He is wrathful and He has to punish sin. He's angry with the wicked. And He was so angry with your sin that He poured out the wrath that you deserve that would send you to hell. He poured that out on Jesus. So when you see Jesus dying on the cross, He is dying not just for you.

As Leonard Ravenhill said, He's dying as you. He was your substitute on the cross. That was your death and your punishment. You deserved it. And you understand God is good and He's God. God is great. But you understand that Jesus is the Christ. He's fully God. He's fully man. See, these are doctrinal things that you've got to know. Like we learned last week, He was fully God at the virgin birth, the incarnation. He was fully God at His baptism when the Father bore witness. He was fully God at His crucifixion. This is the atonement. This means that He was a sacrificial lamb. He was fully God at His resurrection when He ascends.

At His ascension, He was fully God as well. But He was fully man. And so as a Christian, we know the Son lives in us if we believe these truths. But we also know that we have not just truth, but light. No Christian walks in darkness. John says this, we've learned this this summer. What does this mean? Darkness, to walk in darkness. We would describe darkness as a pattern of unbroken sin. If someone can live in sin and not be unsettled by that, they are walking in darkness. This is not just a guilty conscience because lost people have a guilty conscience. But unbroken sin is the ability that someone has to go and live in the world.

They are living in the lust of the eyes. They're living in the lust of the flesh. They're living in the pride of life. And there is no life of Christ in them to say, "You don't need to say that." There's no life of Christ within them to say, "No, you don't need to go there." These are people who are not grieved by the Spirit. The life of Christ lives in those that love truth, that have light. And also love. The third evidence the Spirit lives within you. This is all under our heavenly possession. We know we have this heavenly possession because we love. You know, I couldn't love truth before God gave me a love for truth.

I didn't love singing hymns. I didn't love singing hymns and meditating on hymns. You know what I liked? I liked singing the songs that were going to make the kids at the youth group raise their hands. Just whatever was popular, regardless of how it may have been doctrinally wrong or off. I loved writing songs that people would give me applause for. When the Lord changed this Pharisee into a man broken over my sin, He gave me a love for God and a love for others. So we see truth and light and love and joy. You know, this was one of the reasons why John wrote this book.

1 John 1.14, "I write these things that your joy may be full." He was writing to his beloved children in the faith. John was an eyewitness of Christ. He actually heard Jesus say in John 10.10, "I have come that they may have life and they may have it to the full." I believe real born again Christians have joy. This does not mean that we don't go through periods, maybe, of depression. This doesn't mean that we can't battle things like anxiety. But I've got to believe that Jesus said, "I have come that they have life and they have it to the full." That means you have the Spirit who is the wonderful counselor.

You have the Spirit living in you, the life of Christ in you, who is the wonderful physician. There is something that He can do in you to give you an abundant life that a psychiatrist can't do. I have a background in psychology. I have a background in counseling. And I have got to bow my knee to the great physician who can do more in giving you victory over depression and anxiety that any psychopharmacologist... Does this mean you're perfectly filled with joy? I had a friend, good friend, heard him preach last night. He talked about forward progress.

The life of Christ within you ought to be able to make you make measurable forward progress, even if it's baby steps. You ought to be able to say, "I know truth better than I did when I was saved. I'm changed morally. I'm different than I used to be. And I love God and I love people more than I used to." And we ought to see measured change that is not because of anything that you did. At the very least, when you wake up in the morning, you sing this song, "Lord, for holiness I can't produce." That is the Christian's heart cry. At the very least, you want a lot more. You want more holiness. You want more truth. You want more doctrine.

Our heavenly possession is simply this. We possess Christ. Christ possesses us. Can I just ask you, does he own you tonight? Does he have you tonight? And do you have him? It's a song based on Song of Solomon, "I am my beloved and my beloved is mine." I grew up singing this, "The Banqueting Table." He brought me to the Banqueting Table. I am my beloveds and my beloveds is mine. Is this your joy? That in heaven you have a possession and that's Christ. And on earth, he has a possession, it's you. If we go to the throne room in heaven, we see Christ, we're going to see you because you're hidden in Christ.

But if we go to earth where you work, we're going to see Jesus because he is in you. And that gives you a blessed assurance. That gives you a strong confidence. Let's go to the second strong confidence tonight, our heavenly priority. Our heavenly priority. Let's look at verse 13. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." Everything that we have eternal life is our heavenly priority and the life of Christ in us is our priority. You know in this verse we have, I would call the thesis statement. Have anybody ever struggled in English to find a thesis statement?

You have to write it on the very top in some classes, your English composition. What is a thesis statement? If a teacher reads your whole five page paper, double spaced, and they say, "What's the point?" Then you may struggle with a thesis statement. I call the thesis statement the elevator pitch. If you get in the elevator and you want to tell your instructor what the paper's about, you ought to be able to just, boom, the paper's about this. If somebody asks you, "What brother Chris, what has brother Keith been preaching?" You should be able to say, "First John 513." This is the thesis statement of the whole book.

Now before I read this verse in first John 513, I want to say, if you were with us when brother Chris preached through John, John has a pattern. He gives the thesis statement at the very end of the book. So in the book of John, you read 20 chapters and he doesn't get to that till John 17 towards the end. So let's find the thesis statement to the book of John before we look at the thesis statement to first John.

So in John 17.3 he says, "And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." And he says in John 2031, John's purpose, "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John wrote the book of John so you would believe in Christ. But he writes first John so that you know you believe in Christ. So let's read the whole purpose of this great book.

First John 513, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son that you may know that you have eternal life." John's purpose for writing the gospel of John was that you believe in Jesus. And his purpose for first John is that you may know that you have eternal life. So in my college class in sociology I teach about a guy named Max Weber. He's from Germany, W-E-B-E-R. He was not a believer by any stretch of the imagination. But he had a mother who was very devout. And I tell my students this, he wrote this book, basically a sociology of Protestants, especially in America, the Protestant ethic spirit of capitalism.

He was talking about Protestants and this kind of thing. And he has this idea and his really based historians think on him watching his mom. He said, "You know believers can't really know for sure whether they are elect." He said, "Christians can't really know that they are elect for salvation." You know, obviously I've never read first John 513. Certainly didn't believe it. You know there's some theological positions. Friends do not believe in eternal security. So we have friends, denominations that are charismatic or Pentecostal, are assemblies of God friends. Do not believe in eternal security.

So they believe that you're on the path of salvation and you can get off that path. And so we would believe, if you've heard of once saved, always saved, this is the idea of the perseverance of the saints. We like to say here the preservation of the saints. But basically if you're saved now, the life of Christ within you, then you can't lose that. Why is John writing first John 513? That you know you have eternal life. And all summer we've been talking about things that should be in your life. And if they're in your life, you can rest assured that you know Jesus.

He's not going to give you the spirit and make you love the things of God and evidence of life change and you get all the way to the end. He said, "Ah, I changed my mind." It is a rock solid firm foundation. So let's look at John's purpose for writing John is that we believe. John's purpose for writing first John is that we know. And this is a strong confidence. And this is a heavenly priority. That means the Lord puts a premium on you knowing you know Him. It is very important to God that you know Him and that you know you know Him. Because you are going to be a more productive Christian who is confident in your salvation.

And let's look at our heavenly purpose. This is the strong confidence that we obtain when we develop heavenly purposes. Heavenly purposes. Let's move to verse 14 and we're just walking right through our text tonight. Verse 14. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. Bless you. And this is why I sang Teach Me to Pray. This has been a song that we have been singing for 10 years.

And the song Teach Me to Pray acknowledges that we cannot pray according to the Spirit by ourselves. Now how do we pray according to God's will? You know, if you were to study prayer in the Bible, the Bible says that we have the Spirit and the Spirit prays through us with groaning. What this means is that you can't pray God's will. But as you pray, what happens is that the Spirit within you begins to bend your will to His will. The song Teach Me to Pray that we sang tonight goes through verse by verse. You could tell the person who wrote that understood deep praying.

And deep praying is that when you spend a considerable amount of time and energy, not because you have to, because you've got to, what happens is the Lord in you, the life of Christ in you begins to change you and you stop praying for that which you want to pray for. And you start praying for the things He wants you to pray for. So at first, maybe you're praying about the things that are worrying you. And you're praying about the health of family and we should pray for physical things, jobs, houses, cars. In fact, I got great assurance in the faith when I began to just give my worries to the Lord and he began to answer prayer.

But we're really changed in terms of our strong confidence when we start praying for things that we would not pray for, like His kingdom come and His will be done. Look at Jesus in the garden. He is praying and He's got drops of blood and He says, "Lord, He's starting to feel the wrath of God and God's anger towards sin on Him and He does not want to become sin because He hates sin, He's fully God. He doesn't want to feel the wrath of God because He is God. He hates sin as much as the Father because He and the Father are one. But what does He say to Jesus?

Jesus says to the Father in the garden by Himself when everyone's abandoned Him, He says, "Lord, I would this cup pass from me, but nevertheless, not my will, your will be done." You see, He is praying according to the Spirit. The life of God within Him is changing Him. And there's going to be times when you will say, when you are praying and we get confidence from this, it's a blessed assurance. "Lord, I really don't want to have to tell this person this.

You know, I've got this person and there's some conflict there and there's some sin in their life and I know this is going to make them angry and in my flesh, you know, I like people that like me. And at first you might be praying, God, I really don't want to have this conversation, but you're praying and you're praying and you're praying and then you say, Lord, I still don't want to have a conversation. But nevertheless, not my will, your will. And what happens? By God's strength, you have the conversation and you are able to speak the truth in love because you died to your flesh and you had costly obedience.

Our Christian confidence happens in prayer as we see our will bent to the Lord's. This word here, perezia, the original language says something to boldness and openness. It means we come before the throne room of Jesus with boldness. Who are we? You know, when you're saved, you are awakened to how bad of a sinner you are. And so how could a sinner who is as filthy as me go before Jesus in the morning with boldness and openness? Because I've been washed by the blood of the lamb. The father welcomes me because I go to the father through Christ and I have a paraclete, the paracletus.

I have an advocate, the divine defense attorney who who is going to the father on my behalf, but also enables me to be heard by the father. And when you pray and the spirit is praying within you. Well, the father is basically praying. The spirit, the spirit is praying through you to Christ, to the father. So we come with openness and boldness. Four types of prayer. I wished we could do a whole summer on prayer. Maybe next summer. But four simple components to your prayer life that should be there. If you're like, hey, brother, Keith, I know I'm born again. I know I'm saved and I get convicted that I just don't pray like I need to.

Four things really easy. Every believing prayer, every believer's prayer should include confession. This just says, Lord, forgive us. Every believer's prayer should include consecration. This just means, Lord, help us. Consecration means that's what that's what Jesus is praying in a garden. Supplication supplication just says, lead us, Lord, lead us and intercession. Work in us. So four simple prayers, forgive us, help us, lead us, work in us. And we could spend a lot more time there. Barclay cites a commentator named Westcott who says the end of prayer is purity in the church.

I think it's one thing when you're praying about yourself and your own needs. Actually the Lord has taught me, I ought to be as broken for you and your burdens as I am for me and my problems. And it is not you in your flesh to be that way. So let's just get that, that just means you're human. But prayer is the hard work in Christianity where you are before the Lord in boldness and openness and you are wrestling with God on behalf of somebody else's spiritual problem. If you're only thinking about yourself, we need to grow beyond that.

We also have a strong confidence, not just as our heavenly purposes change, praying with heaven's purpose in mind, but we see a heavenly purity, a heavenly purity. Real quick, I want to talk about a type of intercession that we need. Our strong confidence is in preservation. I want us to talk about something. Let's look at verse 16. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask God and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

We talk about our heavenly purity. We're also talking about heavenly preservation. We talk about our heavenly purity. We're also talking about our heavenly preservation. Now verses 16 through 17, one commentator I studied said, are the most disturbing and some would say perplexing verses in the entire book because there's an extent to which we can't know exactly what John is talking about when he talks about the sin on to death. But let's continue this idea of intercession and praying for people with verse 16. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, not leading to death, he shall ask God. God will give him life.

So first, before we talk about this controversial sin on to death, let's talk about the nature of the sinner. So inevitably we have to question, all right, well, who is committing this sin? So we'll look at the nature of the sinner and then we'll look at the nature of the sin. John MacArthur says this person in the church, a brother committing a sin that doesn't lead to death. There's only two options. So let's look at the nature of the sinner. Let's say this is a true possessor. This is someone who sins, who possesses the life of Christ. This is a real Christian who is sinning. Can Christians really sin? Yes.

In fact, John says, if anyone says they don't sin, they're lying. He's not talking about sins of omission, mistakes, what we're calling unintentional sins. What does Proverbs 18.1 say? Proverbs 18 says that if you're going to isolate yourself and live without the eyes of the church, then this is actually going to be to your detriment. So I believe one of the evidences of a Christian is that they're in church and when they sin, fellow Christians notice it. In fact, you would even say, I need you in my life. I need you in my life because if something is in my life, it doesn't need to be there. I need you to tell me.

But Proverbs 18.1 describes a person who is isolated. They don't want, even if they're coming to church physically, they're not coming to church spiritually. They don't want people in their life. And I believe that's one evidence of salvation. Brother Chris preached on church discipline, Galatians 6.1, brothers, if anyone is caught in transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you to be tempted. So if we are going to be a church that encourages and prays for sinners, you got to be spiritual. Before you talk to God about men, that's necessary.

We also can't forget we need to talk to men about God. That we need to do both. First, I'd recommend when you see sin in someone's life, you need to talk to God about it. First, you don't need to talk to anybody else. And then after you've talked to God about that sin, perhaps pray for an opportunity to talk to them about your concern. But four tips here. You need to be spiritual. You need to be an intercessor. You need to be gentle. And you need to be humble. Because Galatians warns, keep watch on yourself lest you be tempted. What that means is we need to be humble to realize that that I see in your life that I'm speaking to, I'm possible.

I'm capable of the same sin. So the other option is that this is not a true possessor sinning. This is a false professor who is sinning. Matthew 7 21 says there's many people on that day who will say Lord, Lord, they people who prophesied in his name, they've cast out demons in his name. They are false professors. They don't know God, but yet they may be going to church. They may be playing the part. If this person is sinful, then what this is going to tell us is that they will not take your speaking into their life.

Well, in fact, Matthew 18 says that you go to them after praying, you go to them in a spirit of gentleness, a spirit of humility. If they do not respond, you take a witness. They do not respond to two people, you take it before the church. And scripture says you teach them, treat them like a pagan or a tax collector, which just simply means if they're not going to respond to God's word truth, then what they're saying is you're praying for me, but I don't need it. I don't need you speaking into my life. I don't need you praying for me. And that's acting like an unbeliever and that's not how you get blessed assurance.

So when we see the nature of the sinner, you have true possessors who sin and false professors who sin. Now, let's look for a second at the nature of this sin. John never mentions specifically what the sin unto death is. This is hotly debated. MacArthur says there are two, two options. One says that this is the sin of a non-Christian that leads to eternal death. Matthew 12, 31, 32, these were people who attributed Jesus's miracles to Satan. Also there were people who died because they abused the Lord's supper.

First Corinthians 11 30, Paul said, for this reason, some of you are falling asleep, which is why we must be very reverent when we partake of the ordinances. First Corinthians 15 or 5 13, Paul tells the Corinthians to expel the immoral brother. These are people walking in darkness, right? So people who don't have strong assurance of faith, they have great immorality in the church Corinth. So we see a heavenly purity that happens. This is an important time to talk about eternal security. The sin unto death does not mean that we can lose our salvation.

Scripture tells us, Philippians 1 6, I'm confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion. It's the life of Christ is in you, God is faithful to complete that work. The power of God guarantees assurance of salvation and God's eternal, unchangeable purposes are to save the elect. Jesus is praying in the garden, John 17 11, and he prays that the father would keep them in the in his name, the father's name. And believers have an inseparable union with Christ, MacArthur says, speaking to Romans 6 3 through 5. What this means is we have a union with Jesus that we experience in our prayer closet that we can't describe.

It helps us through difficulty. It gives us a strong assurance. We see a heavenly possession, heavenly priority, heavenly purposes, heavenly purity. Verse 18, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep sinning. But he who has been born of God, God protects him. What this means is sin has no longer dominion over us. The prayer of the saints gets us out of the ditch, the correction of the saints gets us out of the ditch, the ditch and the preaching of the word. You show up Sunday morning for a reason. The preaching of the word every Sunday and Wednesday is church discipline.

Y'all a lot of the sin in our lives will be corrected if we just show up to church ready. If we just listen to the word and be and mean business and go home and put to practice what the Lord is teaching us, we won't get to these further steps because the Lord will correct us. We also have a strong confidence is our heavenly protection. Let's go verse 18 and we will conclude. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God, God protects him and the evil one does not touch him. This does speak to spiritual warfare.

We're commanded to put on the full armor of God, Ephesians six, eight through 10. But our blessed assurance is that the Lord is going to keep you. The Lord is going to protect you. You've been born again. There are no habitual pattern sins in your life because the Lord is protecting you. We see a supernatural protection. We see moral protection. We put off the sin that easily entangles and we see a great heavenly protection. The life of Christ within us is protected.