Now I want us to go to the book
of John, John chapter 8. John chapter 8. And I'm continuing on this message
entitled, Christ's Disciples Indeed. The assurance, what we're talking
about in these messages. is the assurance that if I claim
to be a disciple of Christ, if I claim to be saved, if I claim
to be born again, if I claim to be one of God's elect, predestinated
to be conformed to the image of Christ, if I claim to be one
of His sheep, how can I know and be assured that I'm His disciple
indeed? Because here, He speaks of those who claim
to be his disciples, who claim, who profess to be believers,
but he makes this statement. Look at verse 30 of John chapter
8. This is the base text that I'm
using here. Verses 30 through 32. He says,
as he spake these words, and we're going to talk a lot about
the words that he spoke. What are those words? Many believed
on him. And then said Jesus to those
Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my word, what
he spoke, his teaching, his doctrine, then are you my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. Now last week I made the
point that the if there, And it's important that we see this
because of the context of the gospel, the context of grace,
salvations by grace. The if there is not a condition
for being his disciples. In other words, I won't be his
disciples unless I meet this condition. It's not a condition
for, it's an evidence of. An evidence of. Continuing in
his, believing his word, continuing in his word is an evidence of
being his disciple. There are several things about
this. And there's basically, there's basically two issues
at hand on somebody who professes to believe, believe in Christ. Continuing in his word. And of
course we have to understand, now this is in the context of
truth, not lies. I mean, anybody who believes
a lie and claims to be a Christian or claims to be a Christian and
believes a lie, they're not even in His Word, let alone continuing
in it. Those people who say, for example,
I'll give you just a pointed example. If I stand before you
and say, now salvation is by grace, through the Lord Jesus
Christ, but you have to be baptized to be saved. I'm not even in
His Word. He never said that. Not from
Genesis to Revelation. I know they pick out some verses. You can pick out a sentence,
a word, a verse in the Bible and make it say anything you
want it to say. It's kind of like the fellow
who was so frustrated with life He was trying to read his Bible
and he just wasn't getting anything out of it and he just threw it
on the table and he said, he said, I'm just going to open
it, close my eyes and open it and put my finger down and whatever
that verse says, that's what I'm going to do. And he opened
his Bible, he put his finger down, he opened his eyes and
it said Judas went out and hanged himself. He said, well, I don't
like that. He had closed it up and he said,
I'll try it again. He opened it up and he put his finger down
and it says, go and thou do likewise. There are people, think about
it, there are people who start whole denominations on one or
two verses. But as I've often said, and you
know this is true, that the Bible is a book in context. You can't
jerk this verse out and make it say this. Certainly, most
people, when they interpret the Bible, they interpret it with
preconceived notions. So when he says, if you continue
in my word, they believed on him, what he's talking about
is a profession of belief based on truth now. Alright? And then he says, if you continue
in my word, you'll be my disciples indeed. And so when we start
with the true gospel now, and we're gonna see this, all right?
For example, now think about this. He says, if you continue
in my word, and there are two issues at hand here about continuing
in the truth. The first issue is that of repentance. Now, repentance is a gift from
God that comes with faith. You can't have true faith now.
You can't have one without the other. Most of the religious world,
they look at repentance in a wrong way. First of all, they'll look
at repentance in the way of feeling sorry for your sins. Now listen
to me. Should we, as believers, feel
sorry for our sins? Yes. But that's not repentance. That's what the Bible calls godly
sorrow over sin. That's exactly what it is. And
it's a work of the spirit. And it's a sorrow that doesn't
lead to death. All right? Godly sorrow does not lead to
death. Godly sorrow leads to life. You know why it's, you
know what the difference is? Godly sorrow, if you have godly
sorrow, you won't find any relief. or any clearness of conscience
except in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, ungodly sorrow is that sorrow
that leads a person to look to themselves for relief. Oh, I'll
do this. I'll stop doing that. That kind
of thing. I'll join the church. I'll get
baptized. You see, that won't bring life. That won't bring
peace of conscience before God. But the Holy Spirit will always
give us no place to go, nowhere to go, but the grace of God in
the blood and righteousness of Christ. I'm a sinner. Sometimes
I walk around like I don't even know that. And that's a shame,
isn't it? But the other times I get down
in what old John Bunyan called the slew of despond. You ever
heard of that? The slew of despond. You know
what despondency is. Oh, I'm nothing, I'm worthless.
And I am. All that. Why doesn't God just
strike me dead right now? The kind of thoughts that I've
had, some of the things I've done. But here's where I always
end up. And this is how I know it's godly
sorrow. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of
Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but this is all my hope and peace. This is all my right.
You see what I'm saying? Now that's godly sorrow. Religion
can make you sorrowful. Religion can make you cry all
night. But unless it's a religion that
leads you to Christ for relief and him alone, his blood, his
righteousness alone, it's ungodly religion. But now this repentance, and
he says, if you continue in my word, it's the word that brings
us not only to faith in Christ, but repentance of dead works.
You can't hold on to Christ and hold on to all that other junk,
religious or otherwise. When you turn to Christ, you
automatically turn away from the world, from self, from religion,
false religion, your own works, all of that. Another way that
people think about repentance is change of habits. Now, do
I or you have habits that we need to change? You're darn tootin'. Isn't that right? And I'll tell
you what, it really takes the work of the Spirit to change
those habits, doesn't it? The Bible calls that a warfare.
You think a warfare is something light? I mean, it's a warfare, declaring
war. We're not talking about little
skirmishes. A warfare of the flesh and the spirit. Yes, I
have habits that I need to change. I need to pray more. I need to
study God's word more. I need to do a lot of things
more than what I do. But here's a couple of things
that I need to understand. First of all, that's not repentance. That's growth in grace and in
knowledge of Christ. And secondly, if God by his power
and goodness and grace gives me any improvement or gives me
strides in those areas, I'm still no more righteous before God
than I was always in Christ. Do you understand that? Oh, we ought to strive to be
the best of the best in every area. But that's not going to
save us. That's not going to make us righteous. This is all
my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. So that's not repentance. Now,
what is this repentance? Well, continuing in His Word,
believing in Christ unto repentance, And look over at 2 Peter. I'm gonna look at 2 Peter 3 here,
but I'll first want you to go to 2 Peter chapter 1. And I want
you to notice to whom the Apostle Peter is inspired by the Holy
Spirit to write. Who's he writing to? Somebody
said one time that if we're going to interpret the Bible correctly,
we've got to find out who's talking, what they're talking about, and
who they're talking to. Now who's Peter talking to here?
Now I understand that because that's going to be the context.
And look at 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 1. servant and an apostle of Jesus
Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Or
literally it says, through the righteousness of our God and
Savior Jesus Christ. Who's he talking to here? He's
talking to believers. Are you a believer? Everybody
in here in this building this morning who's a believer, we
have obtained by the grace of God like the same precious faith. We believe the same thing about
salvation, about who God is, about who we are, and about who
Christ is. It's like precious faith. So
that's who Peter's writing to. Now go over to 2 Peter chapter
3. Now what he's talking about here is that some people who
deny that Christ is coming again, and they accuse God of being
unfaithful. In other words, everything's
gone on like it always has been, which was a lie, but that's what
they said. And God has not sent Christ to destroy the world,
to judge the world, so God is unfaithful. Why is God delaying
the process? Well, first of all, Peter tells
them, he says, number one, Things have not gone on like they always
were. Do you remember that there was a flood? And we're not talking
about the flood here in Albany. We're talking about the great
flood with Noah in the ark. So things have changed. Secondly,
God is not unfaithful or even slack concerning his promise. But let me tell you the reason
this world is going on. Look at verse 9 of 2nd Peter
chapter 3. The Lord is not slack concerning
his promise. He's not unfaithful. As some
men count slackness, as some men accuse him, but is long-suffering
to us-ward. Now who's that? Who's he writing
to? Believers. Not willing that any should perish. There's not any person without
exception. It's us-ward. It's the believers.
But that all should come to repentance. You know what Peter's saying
there? He's saying the reason this world is continuing on is
God still has some sheep out there whom he chose before the
foundation of the world, whom Christ redeemed, and he's going
to call them into the kingdom, into the sheepfold by the preaching
of the gospel. He's going to bring them to repentance.
is always in the Bible under the umbrella of the preaching
of the gospel. How God justifies the ungodly. How God reconciles sinners unto
himself. How God saves sinners. Who is
Jesus Christ? He's God in human flesh. He's
the God-man. What did He accomplish? when
he died on that cross. There's the gospel now. Did he
die to make me and you savable if we would cooperate, or did
he die to save his people from their sins? What does the Bible
say? You say, well, I used to think he died to make us savable. Repent. See what I'm saying? Now this word repent, I want
you to turn to Philippians chapter 3. I'm going to give you an example
of this repentance or God gives us an example in Paul the Apostle. The word repentance, you know
what it means? It means a change of mind. Now
a lot of people don't like that because they believe it indicates
that it's nothing more than just a mental thing. It's not a heart
thing. But you have to understand the
scripture. In the scripture, the heart,
the inner man, we talked about this, yeah. The heart is the
mind. Somebody says, well, it's not
just head knowledge, it's heart knowledge. Well, I understand
that because there's a lot of people, Christ is talking about
that. If you continue in my word, you're my disciples indeed. In
other words, there are many who just had a head knowledge an
intellectual knowledge, but it wasn't a saving knowledge. It
didn't reach the heart. But the heart in scripture is
the mind, it's the affections, and it's the will, and it's the
conscience. And I'm going to speak more on
the conscience later on in light of these verses. What is the
conscience? It's how we judge things. Judge
ourselves, judge others. You say, well, I don't judge
others. Yes, you do. You either say they're lost, they're saved,
or I don't know. That's three judgments. that we make. So don't get bogged down in that,
but I'm going to talk about that later on because Christ dealt
with it. But here's the thing. The heart
repentance is a change of mind that consumes the whole person. The mind, the affections, the
will, the judgment. And look here. in verse three
of Philippians three. Here's the Apostle Paul talking
about his repentance, his being brought to faith in Christ and
repentance. And he says in verse three, for
we are the circumcision. Now what that's referring to
is spiritual circumcision of the heart. All right? We've been born again. That's
another way of putting it. Born again by the Spirit. If
you've been born again by the Spirit, you've been circumcised
in heart and ears. You've been given a new heart.
A new mind, a new affections, a new will, a new conscience.
And he says, we worship God in the Spirit. I believe the Spirit
there should be capitalized, but that's the Holy Spirit. We worship God. Now, when you
worship God in Spirit, it does mean you worship God from the
heart and sincerely. But here's what it means more
than anything else. We worship God as God reveals Himself in
this Word. In other words, if God says it,
That's how we worship Him. May not understand it. Oh, we
don't. Not may not, we don't understand
it all. May not be able to reconcile it, but it's true. This is the
God of the Bible. If it says He predestinated all
things, that's the God I worship. Can I understand all that? Lord,
no, I can't understand all that. Nobody can. There's only three
ways of approaching that. Well, really, there's only two
ways of approaching it. You either believe it or you deny it. You
worship God in spirit. You worship God as, if he says
he chose a people, that's who I believe that God. Did it by
grace. If he says he sent his son to
die for those people and secure their salvation, that's what
I believe. I'm not saying God said it, I believe it, that said
it. God said it, that settles it, I believe it, that's what
I'm saying. So we worship God in spirit and look here, he says,
and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Now that word rejoice doesn't
mean be happy. Now certainly we ought to try
to be happy in Christ, joy. He says that up there in verse
one, finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord. That is to be happy
in the Lord. But the word rejoice in verse
three is another Greek word. It means to glory. It means to
boast. It's the same word that he used
in Galatians 6.14 when he said, God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross. In other words, I'm gonna brag
this morning. Now in my mind, I've got some things to brag
about. I could stand up here and talk to you about my grand boys
for a week and brag about them. But that's not what I'm going
to brag about today. I'm going to brag on Christ. I'm going
to talk about the glory of His person. I'm going to talk about
the accomplishment of His finished work on the cross and His righteousness
imputed, His blood. I'm going to tell you about my
Savior, my Lord, my Advocate, my Sovereign. I'm going to brag
on Him. I'm going to try to decrease
and hopefully, by the power of the Spirit, He'll increase. You
see that? We glory in Christ. We boast
my salvation. I didn't make the difference
in my salvation. He did. That's right. I'm glad he did. How do I know
he did? Because I'm glorying in Christ
Jesus. I don't have any other boast,
any other brag. You say, well, listen, I had
a dream the other night. Big deal. Go tell your dream somebody who
cares. You know, that's that country song, here's a quarter,
call someone who cares. I want to know what God's Word
says, because dreams, visions, feelings, they come and they
go, don't they? I don't always feel saved. How
about you? But it doesn't matter. Who am
I trusting for salvation? I trust Christ, but look on.
Now here, that's faith. Here's repentance. Verse three,
and have no confidence in the flesh. What is the flesh there? Well, it's anything that I do
or anything that comes through me or in me or from me. My best works, that's what Paul's
talking about here. Look on verse four. He says,
though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man
thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I more. Now you have to understand what Paul's saying here when
he lists these things. What he's saying is this. I used
to think that this list of works made me right before God. That this list of works was part
of my righteousness that I could plead before God. That this list
of works were things that I thought proved me to be a child of God.
And listen to what he lists. This is the flesh. He says circumcised
the eighth day. Now there's nothing inherently
wrong with these Jewish males under the old covenant being
circumcised on the eighth day. In fact, it's what God commanded. It linked them with the covenant
of Abraham. But here's what was wrong. Here's what Paul had to
repent of. Not just being circumcised the
eighth day, he had to repent of thinking that that made him
righteous before God. You see what I'm saying? I'm glad that I was born in the
United States of America. Aren't you? I'm glad that I,
you know, I'm proud to be an American, yeah. But I don't believe
the gospel of the flag. That just because you're an American,
that you're ticking into heaven. You see what I'm saying? Well
look here, he says in verse 5, of the stock of Israel. Being
an Israelite doesn't damn you, but it doesn't save you either.
Of the tribe of Benjamin, that was an honored tribe, the reason
he mentions that. A Hebrew of Hebrews, full-blood Hebrew. I
don't know how Paul knew that. But the Holy Spirit inspired
him to write it, didn't it? As touching the law of Pharisee,
he was one who went above and beyond the call of duty in obedience
to the law. Concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blame his
persecution of the church. When he was an unbeliever, he
thought that was a godly way to behave. That's what he's saying. Because he looked at Christ as
being accursed, he looked at the church as being accursed,
he wanted to stamp it out. Now, here's faith and repentance. Verse 7, But what things were
gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. You see that? That's repentance. God changed this fellow's mind.
What he used to think was godly, honoring to God, and made up
his righteousness before God, he says, now I count it loss. For what? For Christ, and what
Christ accomplished on Calvary. And he says in verse eight, yea,
doubtless, I count all things but loss, for the excellency
of the knowledge. of Christ Jesus my Lord. Who
Christ is and what He accomplished. Who God is. How does God justify
a sinner like me? It's based upon one ground. And that's the blood of Christ.
His righteousness imputed. It's not based on anything else.
Everything else is loss in that area. In that area. He says, the knowledge of Christ
Jesus, my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things
and do count them but dung. You can't get any more repentant
than that. That I may win Christ and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ. The faithfulness of Christ is
what that means. The righteousness which is of
God by faith. You see, it's repentance in light
of the gospel way of righteousness. The gospel way of righteousness
is through Christ, our surety and substitute, who took our
sins, the sins of His sheep, upon Himself as God charged Him
with the dead of our sins. He died on that cross and drank
damnation dry. He satisfied the justice of God
and He brought forth a righteousness that's imputed, charged, accounted
to us whereby we can stand before God. bragging on Him, glorying
in Him, pleading His blood and righteousness. Nothing else. Nothing else can even compare. You say, well, I've been through
some really great experiences. Well, that's okay. But they cannot
compare to Christ and His righteousness. You see that? You say, Lord,
I preached in Your name. I've cast out demons. I've done
many wonderful works. What did he say to them? Depart
from me, I never knew you, you that work iniquity. I thank God that I've preached
the gospel for over 30 years. But there's not enough preaching
of truth in the world that can make a sinner like me righteous
before God. I used to think there was. But
God brought me to repentance. It's called repentance of dead
works in the Bible. So to continue in His Word is
to repent. Over here in John 8. We read
last week over there in John chapter 12 of those who claim
to believe in Him, but they would not confess Him because of the
Pharisees. They wouldn't repent. Oh, I believe in Jesus, but you
Pharisees are okay too. Repent! You see what I'm saying? You say, oh, I know it's all
of Christ, but I'm the one who made the difference. Repent.
You see that? Now the second issue of continuing
his word is obviously perseverance. Perseverance in the faith. And
the Bible teaches us these three things about perseverance. Let
me give you these three and I'll close. We'll pick up here next
week on this. Number one, all of God's chosen
people justified in Christ based on his righteousness alone, all
whom he redeemed by his blood, all who are called by the Holy
Spirit in the new birth under the preaching of the gospel,
they persevere in the faith. Not one of them will apostatize
or fall away or go back unto perdition. You know why? Because God preserves them. He won't let us go. My sheep
hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. And he says that no man will
pluck them out of my Father's hand. I give unto them eternal
life. They shall never perish. That's number one. What he say
over in John 6, verse 37, He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. That's election, folks. All that the Father giveth me.
He said, they shall come to me. That's irresistible grace. And
Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise or no way cast out.
That's perseverance and preservation. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.
And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all
which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise
it up again at the last day." They all will persevere because
He preserves them. If God would remove His sovereign,
gracious hand of preservation from me right now for one second,
in that one second I'd be lost. That's how bad this thing is
with me. Mark read it in Romans chapter... Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Listen, it's God that justifies. If God cannot charge you with
sin, the debt of sin, He cannot send you to perish. Who is He that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. Yea, rather He's risen again,
seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. If Christ died for you and intercedes for you, you cannot
be condemned. And you cannot be separated from
His love. Well, here's the second thing.
And it answers this question. How will God's people persevere?
They will persevere continually by looking to Christ for all
salvation, for all forgiveness, for all righteousness, for all
life and glory. That's how you persevere. You
say, well, they keep on keeping on. Well, keep on keeping on
what? Looking to Christ. Hebrews 12 and verse 2, we run
the race of grace looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. We look to Him alone. Continually. And when we get our eyes off
Christ, we're like Peter walking on the water. Remember during
the storm when they were in the boat and they saw Christ coming
toward them walking on the water? And Peter got out of the boat
and started walking on the water. And when he took his eyes off
Christ, what happened? Sunk like an anchor. Don't take
your eyes off Christ. And see, here's what it is, the
Holy Spirit will not, even when we as believers, if we look away,
He'll always bring us back to looking to Christ. He'll never
let us go. And here's the third thing, as I said before, perseverance
is an evidence of being a disciple indeed. If you continue, my word,
if is the evidence of, not a condition for. So this continuing in His
Word has to do with perseverance, without turning away from Christ,
turning back to the world, without totally forsaking Christ and
His teaching. And that's how God preserves
His people. Unto death, unto glory, by His
power and His goodness and His grace. It's not by our power.
We don't have any. The grace of God is sufficient
for us. Who's sufficient for these things? It's not by our
goodness, because our goodness is Christ. It's only by His.