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Thanks Colin and thank you all, Greenview, for having me here. It’s a great privilege to be here. I’m very thankful for Colin and his impact on my life, pastoring me and Balamuni for that time and if you’ve been at Greenview for any length of time you’ll be deeply thankful, I’m sure, for Colin and the work that he does in pastoring.

He’s an excellent Bible teacher and I’m thankful for the invitation today. We’re going to spend a bit of time in a great little parable in Matthew 25 today, the parable of the bags of gold, as it is in the NIV, you might know it as the parable of the talents and you can help me with this a bit because I’ve been thinking a bit about this parable for leaders in the context of our church plant and so I’d love your thoughts and reflections as we jump into this now. So if you’ve got your Bibles there let’s open up to Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 to 30, let’s read that together.

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags and to another one bag, each according to his ability. And then he went on his journey.

The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold, see I have gained five more.

His master replied, well done good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things, I’ll put you in charge of many things, come and share your master’s happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came. Master, he said, you entrusted me with two bags of gold, see I have gained two more.

His master replied, well done good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things, I’ll put you in charge of many things, come and share your master’s happiness. Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. Master, he said, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

(2:47 – 4:11)

So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground, see here is what belongs to you. And his master replied, you wicked lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed, well then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has 10 bags, for whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance, whoever does not have even what they have will be taken from them and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where they will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Shall we pray? Heavenly Father, as we think about these weighty words, we are thankful for them even though they are bold. And we yearn, Lord, as we come to this passage of Scripture this morning, that you would mould us and shape us to be good and faithful servants, who are good stewards of the gifts that you have given us. We pray that in Christ’s name, Amen.

(4:14 – 4:49)

Now, there’s a dear brother at St Silas, who came to faith in the last year or two, let’s call him Adam, and I was chatting with him after church last Sunday. He was sharing with me his efforts to share Jesus with people at the gym, who he meets at the gym and he was expressing to me that he didn’t feel like he had the right answers to the questions that these people were asking him. He was trying to show videos on his phone and well, the people just weren’t picking up what he was putting down.

(4:52 – 5:26)

And he said to me, I just don’t have everything figured out in my head yet and I feel like I should. Should I wait until I have mastered this thing a bit more before I start trying to convince other people of who Jesus is? I feel like a bit of an imposter. I reckon we all know what it’s like to feel like an imposter in the Christian life, especially when we’re trying to live for the Kingdom in an intentional way.

(5:26 – 7:32)

So, the Christian parent has an imposter syndrome, when they’re trying to disciple their kids, I’m just making this thing up as I go along, maybe I’m making this worse. The Christian university student has an imposter syndrome, when they try to challenge a friend who is slipping away from the faith, I’m just making this up as I go along, I’m nervous I’m making this worse. The Christian retiree has an imposter syndrome, as they try to work out the best way to use their time.

The Christian minister, I assure you, has an imposter syndrome. We’re supposed to be the ones who know everything. The Christian missionary has an imposter syndrome.

Lindsay was saying before how she feels vastly underqualified for the job that she is doing. We all have an imposter syndrome that kicks in and especially when we try to do something for the Kingdom and it doesn’t go as we want. And because of that, I think this parable freaks us out.

If you are a Christian, is there anything that you desire to hear more than your Master at the end of your life saying, well done, good and faithful servant? And yet, as you look at your life, if you’re anything like me, there’ll be moments where you just can’t imagine Christ saying that to you. And so, as we jump into Matthew 25 today, I want to say that this parable is for those who feel like they are imposters. And as we hear these words on the lips of Jesus, there is genuine encouragement for us, as we think about who we are, who you are, with all of your strengths and all of your weaknesses, with all of the experience that you’ve got from life, and all of the baggage that you carry from life as well.

(7:34 – 8:05)

There is encouragement for how you, as an individual, can live life for the Kingdom. And there are three considerations that are fuel for us to live out our lives in a way that makes an impact for the Kingdom, and we have three points for today, the Master’s absence, the Master’s character, and the Master’s servant. Now, all of this will help us to be stewards of God’s gift.

(8:05 – 10:24)

So, I hope you’ve got Matthew 25 open. We’re going to start with our first point, the Master’s absence, verse 14. Again, Jesus says, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.

So, I just want to situate us in the book of Matthew, because we’re just jumping into this on a sort of one-off, so let’s situate ourselves in the book. Jesus is speaking here to the twelve disciples, and we know that because 24 verse 3 says, as Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. And so, it is this very small setting where Jesus is speaking these parables.

And He’s been teaching the twelve disciples, and this is His third of four consecutive parables that He tells. The first one comes in 24, verses 45 to 51, and it’s about a senior servant who is waiting for his Master by looking after the other servants well. And if he doesn’t, there’s eternal judgement.

The second parable comes in 25, verses 1 to 13, it’s about ten virgins who are awaiting the bridegroom to celebrate at the wedding when He comes. And those who are prepared, are watching for Him, they enter into the wedding. But those who aren’t prepared, are not able to come in.

Eternal judgement. Then there’s our parable for today, which we’ll come back to in a second. Then the fourth parable is in 24, verses 31 to 46, it’s about disciples of Jesus who look after other disciples of Jesus, until Jesus returns.

But those who don’t, face eternal judgement. And all four parables are Jesus giving the twelve, a pre-match prep talk, as He comes to the crescendo of His earthly ministry, as He’s about to come to the cross, and He will die, and rise again, and ascend, and He will be gone. And He’s preparing them for life after He has gone.

(10:25 – 12:34)

And He emphasises heaven and hell to remind them that the stakes are high. The life they are living matters because Jesus is entrusting the Kingdom to them, and by extension, He’s entrusting the Kingdom to us. And so it is in our parable.

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. It’s actually a pretty straightforward parable. It is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Christ is the man, the Master, and the twelve, and by extension us, the twelve are the servants. And the Master is going on a journey, and so He gives His servants some Kingdom responsibility, while He is away. Verse 15, to one He gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one, each according to his ability.

And then He went on His journey. So think of a CEO who’s taking an extended sabbatical, and he invites his core team into the office with him, and he’s going to divide up ten areas of responsibility among them. And so to his right-hand man, who has been with him through thick and thin, he says, look, you’re the best equipped to take on the bulk of this, so you take five areas of responsibility.

And to someone else, he says, well, here are two things that I’d like you to do. And then there’s sort of a junior employee who he wants to test out a little bit, and so he says, well, you can take this area of responsibility and see how you go. And then the CEO goes on leave.

When Jesus was on earth, the disciples were learners, they were apprentices, they were following Jesus around, they were scribbling down notes in their notebook to see what He did, how He acted. And then, sometimes they, you know, they didn’t learn all that well, right? Peter asked a few silly questions in his time as a disciple of Jesus. But then Jesus left, and they were the ones who had to step up and do things.

(12:35 – 13:26)

And what do you know, Peter, well, Peter turns out to be a five bags of gold guy. Once the Spirit comes at Pentecost, Peter goes from bumbling, full, nervous wreck, to courageous preacher, bold leader. His personality, his gifts, his leadership potential, all of them used powerfully for the sake of the Kingdom.

And when Peter was martyred, a few decades later, you can imagine him being welcomed home by Christ. Well done, good and faithful servant. Along with Peter, Matthew and John, a part of that group who are listening to Jesus tell this parable, and they go on to pen words of Scripture.

(13:28 – 14:02)

The reason why we have this parable written down is because Matthew wrote it down for us. Well done, good and faithful servants. And they did that after the Master had gone, they stepped up and carried on the ministry of Jesus, for the sake of the Kingdom, in his absence.

And so that’s how the parable plays out. Verse 16, the man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work, and he gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags gained two more.

(14:03 – 15:49)

The Master’s absence, and the fact that He’s coming back, ought to be something that spurs us on to living for the Kingdom. It’s wonderful to hear Abbey say, talk about, talking about her faith in Tanzania, and a place where that can happen. That’s Kingdom work, when we’re sharing about Jesus with others, either that others might come into the Kingdom, or that Christian believers are matured in their faith.

That’s the Kingdom work that we have in mind here, and that what the parable is getting at. And Christ has entrusted gifts to you, to all of us, your personality, wisdom, intelligence, love, grace, and the task is for us to steward those gifts. And we steward those gifts for a short time, either until Christ comes back, or we die.

If you’ve been on a long-haul flight, then you will have been served by a flight steward. Now, I say a long-haul flight because the illustration kind of breaks down on a low-cost airline. I think Ryan Air’s employees are encouraged to give poor service.

But on a long-haul flight, the steward is there, and the steward controls all the resources that are there for the sake of the passengers. So, the steward controls the storage space, the steward controls the meals, the steward controls the blankets, controls the activity sets for the kids. And if you’re a new flight steward, and you’re on a plane, you can’t just say, well, I’m just new, I’m going to wait a few hours before I get involved.

(15:50 – 17:06)

The flight’s over in a few hours, you don’t have long to steward the resources that are there for you. Now, nobody’s expecting you to look after the first-class passengers on your first flight, but you better help with the meal service, because time is short. And so, we are to live with a certain urgency because we are living in the time of the Master’s absence.

The most important thing about living in 2025 is that Jesus has gone, and He isn’t back yet. That is a more important time consideration than what year you’re in at school, or your kids are in at school. You ought to have a stronger hold on how you spend your time, than how many years away retirement is.

Right, if you’re getting married next year, congratulations! And Christ rejoices with you. But the thing that should determine how you live this year, and what your priorities are, this year, and next, and the year after, is that we are servants living in the time of the Master’s absence. And Christ has put you where you are, with the gifts that you have, for Kingdom work.

(17:08 – 18:25)

And this is what the third servant gets wrong, verse 18, but the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and he hid his Master’s money. It seems, incidentally, that he did this straight away and then did nothing else, while he was waiting for the Master’s return. Like, this is an inexplicable response.

It makes absolutely no sense, because, well, it’s his job to do something with this. And so, while the other servants are commended at the end of our passage, this servant is judged, verse 28. So, take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags, for whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance.

Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them, and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness, where they will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And so, from the positive command in the passage, and from this warning, be a good steward of the resources that God has given you, in the short time that you have in this life. That’s the thrust of the parable, it’s a pretty simple parable.

(18:28 – 20:13)

But I think that for most of us, at this point, there’s a few more things going on in our heads, as we get to the end of the parable. If we’re honest with ourselves, and it’s always important to be honest with ourselves when we’re reading the Bible. If we’re honest with ourselves, we think that maybe the Master’s a little bit harsh here.

We’ve got questions, perhaps, over the Master’s character. And if we’re honest, we’re not sure how we stack up as servants. There’s a nagging fear, maybe I haven’t done enough, which goes against our knowledge that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone.

So, we’re not quite sure what to do with that. We’ve got questions over the Master’s character, and we’ve got questions over the Master’s servant, ourselves. And so, the risk is, I think, that if we just walk away from this, with the main general thrust of the parable there, like we can tick off the Bible study session to say that, yes, I’ve understood the parable, but then the little nagging questions are maybe still there, and if they sit there unanswered, we don’t end up believing this with enough clarity to actually have it make any difference in our lives.

So, let’s hunt for clarity, let’s search for clarity. Second thing I want you to think about today, the Master’s character. Throughout the history of the Church, there has always been an awareness that you can’t understand humanity, and you can’t understand yourself, until you’ve grappled with God.

(20:16 – 21:28)

The Reformation theologian, John Calvin, said, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself, unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating Him, to scrutinise himself. If we’re to understand ourselves, we’ve got to think about God, the Master in the parable. The Master has entrusted His servants with the bags of gold, and He’s gone off, but note the tone, as He comes back.

Verse 19, after a long time, the Master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who’d received five bags of gold, brought the other five. Master, He said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold, see I have gained five more.

Note the tone of the Master’s reply, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things, come and share your Master’s happiness. Three things that I think are worth noticing here, about the Master’s character.

(21:30 – 21:46)

He is encouraging, He is incredibly wealthy, and He is generous. He’s encouraging, well done, good and faithful servant. But that says more about the Master, than it does about the servant.

(21:47 – 23:14)

There is a delight that He has, in the faithfulness of His servants, and that is the delight that God has, in the faithfulness of His people. Now, these words are said at the end, after He has come back, but there’s no reason to think that this is not how God thinks of His servants now. In C.S. Lewis’s, The Screwtape Letters, he writes, as a senior devil to a junior devil, that sounds really weird, if you haven’t read the book, but it’s a good book, you should go and read it.

And in there, he’s reflecting on how God matures His people, and he says this, he says, he wants them to learn to walk, and must therefore take away his hands. He is pleased, even with their stumbles. God delights in your obedience.

He’s encouraging. Second, He’s wealthy, you have been faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. A few things, He says, to the person who is in charge of five bags of gold.

Now, it’s hard for us to work out exactly how much the equivalent of that would be, in our day and age. There’s a footnote in your Bible that says, a talent, like a bag of gold, is about 20 years labour. So, we’re talking more than a lifetime’s income, when you’ve got five of them.

(23:16 – 23:31)

This is a few things to the Master, and that’s deliberate, because there is no mentality of stinginess. Christ owns everything in this universe. Christ cannot suffer loss.

(23:32 – 24:40)

In Kingdom accounting, there is no risk of losing, so invest. And Christ invites you into the mission, not because He’s greedy for what you might get for Him, but because He values you, and He wants to bestow on you the privilege of being involved in His Kingdom work. He’s encouraging, and He is wealthy beyond imagination, and thirdly, He is generous.

Come and share your Master’s happiness. Do you know that God is happy? It’s that joy word, a permanent state, for eternity past, eternity future, right now, God is a Father loving His Son by His Spirit. He is delightful, and He longs to welcome His servants in to share His joy.

(24:41 – 25:01)

He doesn’t have good days and bad days, He’s love. And so, the path to joy is being a faithful servant of the Master, because the more faithful we are, the more we experience that joy of our Master. Think of the most joyful Christian who you know.

(25:04 – 26:43)

Have you got someone in mind? I’ve no idea who that is for you, but my guess is that they are someone who sacrifices for the Kingdom. And did you notice too, that the second servant gets an identical response to the first one? The first one did more work, made more profit, but the encouragement, the wealth, the generosity of the Master is shared equally, with the one who had two bags, as the one who had five bags. It’s word for word, the same.

Why? Because this is not a bonus scheme, where the highest producers get the best perks. This is not a works-based Kingdom, where whoever does more gets the most honour. All faithful servants are invited in equally, because your place in the Kingdom is based on God, not on you.

You can’t be made an imposter, through poor performance. So, as we’ve thought about God’s character, that is who the Master is, in our parable, we can now think of ourselves, the Master’s servant. What does it look like if we get God wrong? And what does it look like if we get God right? Well, the mistake of the third servant is that he gets God wrong.

(26:45 – 28:38)

As this was spoken to the Twelve, in the flow of Matthew’s narrative, I think it’s Judas who plays this part. But it’s true too, for anyone who, by their actions, reject, rebel against, the Master. Look at the third servant’s logic in verse 24, it’s full of misjudgment.

Then the man who had received one bag of gold came, Master, he said, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown, and gathering where you’ve not scattered seeds. Where does this idea come from, that the Master is a hard man? This is not what we have seen, this is not what the other servants have experienced. Verse 25, so I was afraid.

Now, there is a godly fear in the Christian life, but there’s also a sinful fear. And a godly fear is one that reminds us that God is all we’ve got, and so we cling on to Him, desperately fearful that we might run away from Him. But there is a holy fear, a godly fear, so that is the godly fear.

The sinful fear is different, the sinful fear causes distance between us and God. It starts to warp your picture of who God is, because it’s not being refreshed by the true God, but just the lies that come. And so, God turns from being an eternally loving trinity of persons, in perfect joyous relationship with each other, and God becomes a harsh, curmudgeonly dictator, who is eyeing you with a suspicious gaze.

(28:41 – 30:18)

And it causes you to live in falsehood, when you’ve got that wrong conception of God. So, the servant, verse 25, went out and hid your gold in the ground, see here is what belongs to you. Misjudgment of God’s character leads to a sinful fear, and that fear leads to someone who makes no investment in the Kingdom, because they actually don’t know the Kingdom, they don’t know the King.

I think that’s the best explanation of verse 29, when it says, whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. What does the servant not have? He doesn’t have a right knowledge of the King, he doesn’t have a right knowledge of the Master, and so he’ll lose everything. I mean, the life that he had been trusted with is not his to lose ownership of anyway, and there’s no place for him in the Kingdom, if he is ignorant of the King.

If you’re here this morning and you don’t know Jesus, it’s so good that you’re here. Now, take that word as a warning. What is your conception of God? And do you need to change your conception of God to be more like the Master that we see in this parable? Get God wrong and it has bad impacts for us, but what about for the servants who get God right? Well, the parable tells us that they will invest in the Kingdom and in its King.

(30:19 – 32:31)

The broader narrative gives us a bit more of a taste of what that might look like for someone who’s an actual character and not just a character in a parable. In both Mark’s Gospel and here in Matthew, Jesus steps down from this extended speech, that’s called, it’s on the Mount of Olives, and He steps down from this in both Gospels, and the next scene is in Bethany, where Jesus is anointed by a woman with a jar of perfume, and this woman of questionable reputation, of little means, has just about nothing in life but she’s got this jar, the jar of perfume, and she breaks it and she honours Jesus with it. And there’s a beautiful line in Mark’s account where the disciples have been criticising the woman for being wasteful and Jesus says, leave her alone, why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing and He adds in verse 8 of Mark 14, she did what she could.

Is that not the heart of our parable for today? Was not the sinful woman who anointed Jesus welcomed home for eternity with the words, well done good and faithful servant, you did what you could and Jesus doesn’t expect anything more from you. You may be the servant who can do very much, entrusted with many bags of gold, well praise God, go and do what you can for the Kingdom, don’t let laziness distract you, as the Master is absent, time is short, crack on. You may be the servant who can do very little, entrusted with just a couple of bags of gold, praise God, go and do what you can for the Kingdom.

(32:33 – 33:05)

Neither of those servants are impostors and regardless of how much or how little you can do for the Kingdom, none of us are the servant who does the most. For of course, Jesus doesn’t demand anything from us that He has not done first. The servant who was entrusted with the most bags of gold was Christ Himself.

(33:07 – 33:47)

He tells this story to His disciples as He is days away from the cross, where He will pay the price for all of their sin and all of our sin, that He might be able to invite them and us into His eternal joy, when He is your Master. You cannot be an imposter and that is a Master who you can actually give your life to. That is a Master who you will want to steward gifts for.

(33:49 – 34:50)

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we’re so thankful that Jesus is our Master, because in our world there are so many other Masters who want us to serve them. So many things that will enslave us, if given the opportunity.

But Christ is a Master who gives and You have given us gifts to use for His Kingdom. And so we pray, Father, that we would use them, boldly, and that each of us would walk away from this parable, these words of Jesus saying, what can I do for the Kingdom? And we pray that in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The post Stewards of God’s gifts– Matthew 25v14–30 appeared first on Greenview Church.

The reading is taken from page 1074, if you have the pew Bibles, and it’s from the Gospel of John, and chapter 8. For me, the most wonderful book in the world.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

(0:29 – 1:30)

They answered him, We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know you are Abraham’s descendants, yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.

Abraham is our father, they answered. If you were Abraham’s children, said Jesus, then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

(1:31 – 2:48)

Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father. We are not illegitimate children, they protested.

The only father we have is God himself. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I have come here from God.

I have not come on my own. God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.

Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God. The Jews answered him, Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon possessed? I am not possessed by a demon, said Jesus, but I honour my father and you dishonour me.

(2:49 – 4:13)

I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever obeys me, whoever obeys my word, will never see death. At this, they exclaimed, Now we know that you are demon possessed.

Abraham died, and so did the prophets. Yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets.

Who do you think you are? Jesus replied, If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him.

If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad.

You are not yet fifty years old, they said to him. And you have seen Abraham? Very truly, I tell you, Jesus answered, Before Abraham was born, I am. At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

(4:25 – 4:56)

Thank you very much Ian, very much appreciative of you reading that. I loved the gravelly voice. Imagine a young guy leaving home after the summer.

It’s not too hard to imagine. Off to some university or college, away from parents, family, and other people who have known him all his life. Now no one is on his case, asking where he’s been or what he’s doing.

(4:57 – 5:14)

He could follow his own rules, make his own plans, live by his own script, independence. And it feels really great. Imagine too, in time, that he meets someone and starts dating.

(5:16 – 5:31)

And it’s an exciting time, yet slowly something shifts. He has to think about someone else. He wants to make weekend plans, but starts to think, I should probably tell her.

(5:32 – 6:03)

And then he feels it, the subtle pushback inside, the little protest. Wait, do I have to? Does that mean I’m losing my freedom? But also he wants to share what he’s up to and what once were dominant feelings and actions of independence, start to bend under the weight of this belonging to her, this love for another. So here’s the tension he’s grappling with.

(6:04 – 6:39)

The more someone matters to him, the more he wants to start giving up things. Time, preferences, control. And part of him resists that.

He’s thinking, I don’t want to be accountable or tied down. I want to be free, do what I want. But here’s the thing, real love is going to cost him.

It’s going to constrain him. He’s going to have to give up his freedom. But what he’s going to learn is that what he gains is far, far better.

(6:40 – 8:46)

And it won’t feel like constraints and limitations, it will feel something richer and deeper. Well, this is the kind of freedom that Jesus is talking about here in this passage in John chapter 8 that was read for us. To this crowd of Jews who said that they believed in him, Jesus brings together two things, freedom and belonging.

And he talks about what genuine disciples are, real disciples are, who belong to him and surrender to him and live his way. So that’s the dynamic of true, genuine and real faith in Jesus that Jesus is exploring here. That’s how Jesus starts in verse 31.

Jesus says to the people who say they believed in him, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. But these people whom he’s speaking to, who claim to believe that, they push back, they get defensive.

So keep your eyes on the passage, look down verse 33, as Jesus challenges them, they answered and said, we’re Abraham’s descendants and have never been a slave of anyone. How can you say we shall be set free? I wonder as Ian read that passage, did you hear the tone of voice, not Ian’s tone, but the tone of voice of these Jewish believers, so-called believers, the challenge, if you like, that was through their tone, the defensive pushback that characterises their interaction with Jesus. So John writes that they protested in verse 39 and in time they racially slur Jesus, calling him a Samaritan.

They basically say to Jesus, you’re crazy by the way. They call him demon possessed, down in verse 48 and 52. They’re upset and it’s like they’re shouting to him, who do you think you are speaking to us like this? That’s down at verse 53.

(8:47 – 9:44)

At the end we read of them actually picking up stones to stone him, down at verse 58, which actually Jesus knew all about. For he tells them earlier in the interaction, he says, you’re looking for ways to kill me. So even as we start, can we ask ourselves, what attitude do we have towards Jesus? Are you defensive? As the Bible passages challenge us week after week about who Jesus is, what he’s calling us to believe in, how to live our lives to please him? Is it getting at your thoughts of independence and freedom? Who has authority in your life? Are you as challenged about the reality of your faith and what it looks like as these people are being challenged? We’re going to unpack that in the passage just that little bit further.

(9:44 – 11:34)

And there’s three arguments I want us to bring that I think Jesus is making. The first argument is about true freedom, that they’re slaves and not free. There’s a second argument about who they really belong to, who they genuinely belong to, the devil or God.

And then this third argument is about real discipleship. Are they going to hold on to his teaching or not? So let’s think about the first argument about true freedom. They are slaves, not free.

So when Jesus offers freedom, he’s exposing their slavery. But they deny it. They point to their heritage as Abraham’s descendants.

Now, of course, as Abraham’s descendants, the Jews were once slaves. They were slaves in Egypt. And later in their history, they were exiled to Babylon.

And right now, the Roman forces are occupying them. But what they mean is this. As Abraham’s descendants, they believe they’re free because they believe they belong to God.

They believe they’re God’s people. We’re the people of God. They don’t need to rely on others to get to know God.

They’ve been given God’s laws. They’ve been given a temple at Jerusalem, the sacrificial system, and so on. They are the people, and that’s what they’re relying on.

Yet their confidence in these things, their confidence in the spiritual status, it reveals an arrogance, doesn’t it? It reveals a self-righteousness even, and Jesus is laying it bare. He’s saying, you’re actually not free at all. You’re slaves to sin.

You know why? Because inside every human heart is a heart of sin. And sin is the ultimate enemy of freedom. That’s what Jesus is exposing.

(11:37 – 11:55)

So let’s think about this a wee bit more. Jesus has already been challenging various people’s perceptions about what really matters. Remember Nicodemus a few weeks back, way back in chapter 3? Jesus challenged his dependence on observing religious rules.

(11:56 – 14:34)

Jesus said, you need something outside of you to change you radically on the inside. It’s not about you keeping rules. You can’t.

You need to be born again. Jesus challenged the Samaritan woman there in chapter 4. Her belief that satisfaction in life was just dependent on having multiple relationships. But she needed Jesus to truly satisfy her desire for belonging.

What about the disabled man beside the pool? He thought he would be free as long as he was physically healed. He thought he could join the community and belong with them by walking again, but he needed a greater healing on the inside. And Jesus challenged the crowds.

Remember the crowds, thousands of them listening to him? They thought freedom was social justice. Social justice from the Roman oppressors. They needed Jesus to be king, the political leader for them.

They thought if Jesus could just fill their stomachs with food and be a never-ending food bank, that’s freedom for them. But Jesus is saying, no, you want to know what true freedom is? To be truly free, you need to know the truth. That’s in verse 32.

The truth that God is our creator, that he made us, that he knows what is good and right for our lives, that actually there’s something that needs to be sorted in our lives. And this contrasts the worldview, doesn’t it? Our worldview that we may have that says there’s no authority over us except ourselves, that we are independent, that we can do what suits us. But it’s a deception.

Jesus is saying, this gets to the essence of the problem, this problem of sin. It’s fundamentally a rebellion against the creator God who made us and his rightful good authority over all he has made, including us. Sin is disobeying the creator.

It’s like ignoring your car manual when things go wrong. God’s laws are not arbitrary, but they’re essential for our human well-being, their human flourishing. And violating these laws actually lead to psychological, emotional, physical problems.

But instead we resist his authority over us. We don’t want to be told what to do. We ultimately resist God and his ways for us.

We simply don’t believe his ways are best. So we believe a deception, a lie instead. And it doesn’t bring true freedom.

(14:36 – 15:06)

We believe this deception that anything that interferes with our ability to choose is a loss of freedom. Yet, that doesn’t work in so many levels. Imagine someone loves certain foods and drink, brings them great joy, comfort, but one day a doctor says, you’re going to have to stop eating these things, you’re going to have to stop drinking those things, or you’re going to face a heart attack, possibly death, severely limited life.

(15:07 – 15:31)

Now what does freedom mean? Our culture says freedom is doing whatever you want, but what if the desires clash? This person wants to enjoy his food and his lifestyle and stay alive, yet they can’t have both. True freedom is choosing the better desire, the one that brings lasting life and flourishing. The decision that brings short-term pleasure is

(15:31 – 16:06)

different. We must give up one freedom to gain another. Freedom isn’t the absence of limits.

It’s about wise limits and constraints. We constrain ourselves for the better good. Musicians, athletes, students, we understand that, don’t we? We understand that the discipline to cultivate and practise means the removal of certain things and the giving up of certain things to gain that freedom and being able to carry out these skills and craft and calling.

(16:08 – 16:30)

The biblical view is that we’re only free when we accept the good, liberating, wise constraints of a God who knows what we need, what is good and keeps us from harm. That includes ultimately spiritual harm, spiritual death and judgement that comes from sin. These things are all wrapped up in who Jesus is and his teaching.

(16:30 – 16:50)

Because as Jesus has already said again and again, he says what his Father God has given him. He is the Word of God. He is truth.

Following him and his way sets us truly free. But there’s another deception. It’s that we believe that our problems are out there.

(16:52 – 17:13)

It’s not about getting everyone to live by a set of religious standards and then, you know, society would be better and it would be so much easier to live. And it’s not simply mandating that people shouldn’t have multiple partners and live a certain way like the Samaritan woman. It’s not about fixing an unjust political system that the Jewish people wanted or providing a never-ending food bank.

(17:15 – 17:30)

A wrong worldview is that the enemy to your freedom is outside of you. It’s out there. It’s people in society that need fixed.

It’s forces out there that are keeping you back. It’s those circumstances in that relationship. That’s a deceptive way the world thinks.

(17:31 – 17:50)

You have a desire to be free and you want to express your true self and there’s things out there that are keeping you from being what you want to be and the enemies of your freedom are out there. Sure there’s enemies out there. Of course there are.

There are oppressive forces. We’ve been thinking about Iran and what’s going on there. We think about Gaza and the Middle East.

(17:51 – 18:42)

People do bad things. There is evil. There is misery.

There is suffering. I don’t mean there’s not. But Jesus says the ultimate enemy of your true freedom is in here.

It’s in you. It’s in me. The ultimate enemy is our sinful hearts.

What do you believe is true? Or what deceptions are you holding on to? What’s shaping your life, truth or lies? You know the practise of sin proves that you and I are slaves to sin and the practise of sin actually enslaves us. Jesus is calling out the real barrier to true freedom which is sin. It’s why these people are getting so narked with Jesus, so annoyed and they argue with him.

(18:43 – 19:09)

Their defensive responses to him come from this proud self-righteous heart. These supposed believers are actually rejecting Jesus’ rightful authority over them and they don’t listen to his word. They hold on to their heritage and their own standards.

Their pride is blinding and deafening them. They don’t see their need and they don’t see Jesus who’s standing right there in front of them. Yet their very words and actions reveal their slavery to sin.

(19:12 – 19:20)

But the ultimate source of freedom is Jesus. He is the true liberator. So let’s think about the second argument and it’s a wee bit shorter.

(19:22 – 20:59)

Who do we belong to? Genuine belonging. They assume their heritage guaranteed they belong to God but Jesus is challenging that. He says they belong to the devil.

Now that’s a shocker isn’t it? And here’s how it happens. Here’s how Jesus reveals this. He tells him in verse 35, look down, now a slave has no permanent place in the family but a son belongs to it forever.

Then he tells him, verse 37, look I know you’re Abraham’s descendants yet you’re looking for a way to kill me. You are doing what you’ve heard from your father. And then down in verse 39 Jesus goes on.

He says yes you’re Abraham’s descendants but really that counts for very little. If you’re truly Abraham’s children you would act like him. Abraham obeyed God fully.

But here’s the contrast. Look in verse 40. As it is you are looking for a way to kill me.

A man, that’s him Jesus, who has told you the truth that he heard from God. Abraham didn’t do such things. But instead they’re rejecting Jesus and they want to kill him and that’s the proof that their hearts aren’t tuned to God’s voice.

It proves they don’t really belong to God. Jesus says if you belong to God you’d love me. Look down in verse 42.

But instead they’re opposing Jesus aren’t they? They’re refusing to listen because they actually don’t know God. They don’t know the truth. It’s why they can’t hear the truth.

(21:00 – 21:29)

So instead Jesus contrasts their behaviour and attitude with the devil’s. These so-called believers actions show a different source. Their real father isn’t God at all but the devil.

Verse 44. And their desires are matching his. Jesus says he’s been a murderer from the start.

He’s been killing through deception since the beginning. He’s been a liar since the beginning. He lied to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

(21:30 – 21:37)

He’s continued that deception ever since. There’s no truth in him says Jesus. He’s a liar by nature.

(21:38 – 22:08)

So when Jesus speaks the truth they reject it because it is the truth. They don’t believe the truth because they don’t belong to God. And who we belong to actually really matters.

And genuine belonging is shown by likeness to Jesus. So we’ve got to ask who do we belong to? Real disciples belong to God. There is children.

(22:09 – 23:21)

We’re to become sons and daughters. Children of God. And as we’ve been learning through John’s gospel that needs a different work entirely.

It starts with a new birth. It needs a divine drawing from God. But it calls for our response.

We are to believe. We are to follow. Know him who is the truth.

The only one who can make you a child of God and not a slave is Jesus. And how does he do that? Well let’s think more about Jesus and the third argument. In last week’s section back in verse 25 in the interaction that’s continuing here they’d already asked Jesus who are you? And Jesus is now explaining a bit more.

And he says in verse 42 he says I’ve come from God. He sent me. So they call him crazy.

That’s the implication of being accused of demon possession. You’re out your mind by the way. Still Jesus insists he honours the father.

(23:21 – 23:46)

Verse 49 he knows him and he obeys his word. Verse 55 look down. Everything Jesus does flows from his relationship with his father.

And it’s for a greater purpose that will mean the removal of death. You want to know who I am and what I’m doing? Listen he says your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad.

(23:48 – 24:10)

And so they say you’re not even 50 years old and you’ve seen Abraham. And Jesus says before Abraham was born I am. We’ve seen this before remember.

Jesus is the I am. He’s saying my name is the divine name. He’s telling them I’m God.

(24:13 – 25:37)

Jesus can do many many things. He’s God. We might want to do many many things but we can’t.

We’re limited. Reality constrains us. Our bodily limitations, intellectual constraints, emotional weaknesses, geographical location.

But Jesus the I am is the omnipotent God. It’s interesting John the writer includes that in verse 58 when they picked up stones to kill Jesus for claiming to be God he slipped away and hid himself. How did he do that? It’s like when Jesus calmed the storm back in chapter 5. Do you remember they were in the middle of the lake.

It’s miles wide this lake. They’re in the middle of the lake and the storm’s happened and Jesus calms it and so on. And John writes and says they get to the other shore immediately.

Both moments hint at something beyond the natural don’t they. He’s the I am. John had previously written about when Jesus knew what was in people’s hearts chapter 2 after the miracle in Cana turning water into wine.

In chapter 4 remember the Samaritan woman. She said come listen to a man who’s told me everything I ever did. They only met for a short while at that well and this is her testimony.

(25:39 – 25:58)

In chapter 5 Jesus knew that the disabled man’s hope was only for physical healing. And Jesus knew that the crowd on the hillside really just wanted their stomachs filled and they just wanted to remove the Romans. Remember John writes at the beginning of his gospel.

(25:59 – 26:45)

How does he put it? In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory. The glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth.

And what did Jesus come to do? Something glorious. Jesus the I am willingly constrained himself. He took on a human body and one day when the right time would come he would let them take him.

And he would let them falsely accuse him and he would let them kill him. They would nail him to a tree. The all-powerful I am nailed to a cross.

(26:46 – 27:47)

And they mocked him. If you’re God come down. And he could have but he didn’t.

He was truly free but he chose to constrain that freedom for our good out of love and for glory. And there it is. Jesus honoured his father and gave up divine freedom so that we might belong to God and freely serve him by choice.

He gave up infinite freedom to enter our world to live in a body in a specific place under human limits. He let himself be wrongly condemned and brutally tortured and crucified. Why? So we could know true freedom.

So we could genuinely belong. So our relationship with God would be transformed from slave to child from mere rule keeping and standards and duty to loving and serving with choice. And that’s the ultimate freedom and belonging a relationship with our father in heaven.

(27:49 – 28:20)

So we come back to where we started. Verse 31. Look up.

It says if you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. To hold to Jesus’ teaching means to abide.

Jesus is going to talk a little bit more about this in the chapters coming up in chapter 15. But here it means to remain in Jesus to abide. It’s not simply agreeing that Jesus is God or picking parts of his teaching that suit us.

(28:21 – 28:47)

It means his whole teaching, the full gospel, it shapes our life. We trust it. We live by it.

We follow Jesus even when we don’t fully understand. Even if circumstances and relationships are difficult, we keep learning by his spirit and we apply what we learn so we persevere and we endure to the end. It means God’s word and Jesus has authority over our lives.

(28:48 – 29:17)

His word reforms us. It places constraints on us, our thoughts, our desires and actions, some things must stop. You’re a disciple of Jesus.

There are some things in your life that must stop and other things must start and continue. We’re to believe and repent. It’s a continuing believing and repenting and following that’s caught up in this abiding in Jesus’ teaching.

(29:19 – 29:41)

Rather than defensiveness and arguing with God and trying to hold on to our independence and believing the lies of the devil that whispers into our ears and says, you’ll lose your freedom if you follow Jesus. Instead, what was once independence bends under the weight of belonging to God and loving Jesus. Jesus said to them, if you belong to God, you will love me.

(29:42 – 30:11)

Later he says to his disciples, if you love me, you’ll obey me. Here’s the tension that real disciples grapple with because we don’t do this stuff perfectly. God in his wisdom allows us from the day we are given new hearts to the day that we die, he keeps us here on this earth to go through all the different circumstances and challenges and situations of life to grow in trusting him and live out this discipleship.

(30:11 – 30:37)

So, here’s the tension that we’re grappling with day by day and moment by moment. The more Jesus matters to us, the more things we have to give up for him. Our time, our preferences, control, and we have to fight against the simple desire that says, I don’t want to be accountable.

I don’t want to be tied down. I want to set the rules. But who we belong to is going to be shown in how we respond to Jesus.

(30:38 – 32:19)

Real love for Jesus is going to cost us our independence, at least a real discipleship. You see, Jesus is not looking for converts. As you read John’s gospel, note that.

He’s not trying to maximise the number of people that come and follow him. He’s telling them again and again, if you want to be my disciple, this is what it means. He’s going to lay that out in further detail about here’s the cost of being a disciple.

He’s not looking for mere converts. He’s not looking for mere surface level followers. He desires real disciples.

Real disciples learn that what is gained is far, better because following Jesus and his teaching doesn’t feel like constraints or limitations anymore. It feels something richer and deeper because you’re truly free and you genuinely belong. So let me pray.

Father, Jesus’ words are challenging, even as they come to us down through time. And your spirit is speaking to us about what it means to truly, really follow you and to hold on to his teaching. Lord, we can’t do this on our own.

We need your spirit. We need help from each other as your people, the people of God together to grow into the likeness of Jesus. So Lord, encourage us and help us and strengthen us.

And for those of us here who don’t know you, who may claim to know you, but don’t really know you, Lord, may today be a day when they turn to you and truly seek you and follow you. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The post Whose Child are You?– John 8:31–58 appeared first on Greenview Church.

Well, let’s come to God in an opening prayer. Let’s pray for his help. Our God and Father, we thank you tonight for these great words of confidence and hope.

(0:16 – 0:36)

We thank you that as we go through the valleys of life, as we go through the dark places, that indeed Jesus is with us. We indeed follow the light as we were thinking this morning. We thank you that we have a shepherd who is beside us and before us.

(0:36 – 1:13)

We thank you that we have one who laid down his life for us, one who is risen for us, one who is reigning for us, and one who is coming for us. And so we pray tonight that you will fill us afresh with hope, not in ourselves, in all of our feebleness, Lord, but that we will have a strong hope in Jesus tonight. And we pray then as we open your word and as we hear from you, that you will build up our faith, that you will challenge us where necessary, and that you will lead us to yourself.

(1:14 – 2:33)

And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Well, this is the last of three messages on the subject of assurance. And just to define that, assurance is the inner certainty that I am a Christian.

It’s that inner assurance that I am God’s child. And one of the things when you preach is that you get feedback. And after both of the messages that we’ve done in this series, I received a few questions.

And the questions were about the issue of false assurance or fake assurance. And what people were asking was, how do I know the difference between a genuine assurance of salvation and a false assurance of salvation, where I’m confident I’m a Christian, but really I’m deluded? And false assurance is a real thing. Jesus speaks about it in Matthew chapter 7, when he says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

(2:34 – 7:24)

Imagine that. There will be people on a day to come who will call Jesus Lord, and yet they won’t enter God’s eternal rest. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? There is such a thing as false assurance.

And when you think about it, it’s actually a much bigger problem than to be a genuine Christian and struggle with assurance. To be a genuine Christian who struggles with assurance, well, that’s difficult. That’s hard for us.

But it’s so much worse to think that you are saved and be eternally wrong. That’s an infinitely worse kind of problem. And so the question hangs in the air.

And I was scurrying around trying to kind of answer it. How do I know that my assurance is the real deal? Well, to answer that, we firstly need to know what genuine assurance looks like. I think they maybe still do this.

I don’t know. But they used to do this. When they used to train people to spot fake money, like cashiers and whatnot, what they did was they made them study genuine cash.

And they would spend days and days studying genuine sterling. They didn’t train them by making them look at all of the fakes because there’s millions of fakes. But they made them so conversant with the authentic article that they could then spot the difference.

And I think fake assurance is detected like that. You need to get a grip of what real assurance looks like, and then you can fairly easily spot the difference. Because you see that there’s something badly missing in what you believe.

Or you see that there’s a huge hole missing in terms of evidence in your life that the Holy Spirit is at work. I’ll come back to this at the end of the message, because we’re going to look a little bit more at some of the genuine evidence for assurance. And once we’ve put all of that in place, I’m going to come back to this and we’ll think about, well, how would we discern fake assurance from real assurance? But tonight, we’re going to focus on the inner evidence in my life that I’m saved.

And just a recap of last week, we said last week that our assurance primarily rests on something outside of ourselves. The gospel is not search for the hero inside yourself, to quote a song. The gospel is Jesus saves and Jesus has died for you.

That’s the gospel. My assurance rests on Jesus’ finished work. It rests on His advocacy, His righteousness.

And as we thought last week, it rests on the testimony of God, His testimony about who Jesus is. That was last week’s message. And all of that is true, but it isn’t the whole story.

Remember Fanny Crosby’s hymn, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Well, how do I know that the saving Jesus is my Jesus? How do I know that His sufficient finished work on the cross is mine, that it’s been applied to me? Yes, the work is all sufficient for all who believe, but how do I know that I’ve believed that Jesus is my Saviour? You might call this the personalisation question. How do I know that this has been personalised to me? And the answer is that the only way we can know is to take a steady look at our lives.

Indeed, this is something that the New Testament actually encourages. And I could give you quite a list of references, but let me give you perhaps the clearest and most famous, which is from 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5, where Paul says, examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. I wonder if you or I have ever done that.

(7:24 – 9:38)

He did that command to examine myself, to see if I am in the faith. So, salvation isn’t found in ourselves, but there will be evidence in our life that salvation has come to ourselves. We ended last week with a quote from Sinclair Ferguson, and I think it still holds true.

Remember that he said that most people in contemporary culture, and often Christians too, are far too inward-looking for their own good. We tend in our culture to be very self-absorbed, and I think that is true. But we’re going to see this evening that we mustn’t swing to the opposite extreme of eliminating the personal, ignoring the subjective, because the gospel is always personal.

Even as we place all of our confidence outside of ourselves, we must examine ourselves to see if God is at work. And so to help us do that, let’s turn to Romans 8 for a few minutes. After that unseasonably long introduction, but I hope it sets things up for what’s to come.

And we’re going to look at Romans 8. You might remember actually that we looked at the end of Romans 8 in our first sermon, and we focused on objective assurance largely. But actually in the middle of this chapter, there’s a big focus on God’s work in our lives. So, let’s turn to the personal, and we’re picking up at verse 12 and reading to verse 17.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

(9:39 – 11:36)

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.

And by him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now, if we are children, then we are also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

If indeed we share in the sufferings, in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory. This is God’s Word. Now, I’m not going to give an exposition of every phrase and every verse in this text.

I want to home in particularly on verse 16, but I do then want to understand verse 16 by referring to some of the context. So, verse 16 says this, the Spirit, that’s the Holy Spirit himself, testifies with our spirit, that’s with our soul, that we are God’s children. So, the Spirit testifies with our spirit.

He communicates in some way with our inner person. And Paul says, the Spirit conveys to us that we are God’s children. This verse could not be clearer in the sense that it shows us a Christian should normally have an inner sense of personal assurance.

(11:37 – 12:25)

With all the caveats that we’ve said before, that this may not always be a consistent thing, that the level of assurance may rise and fall at times, it’s nonetheless plain from the text that there is this internal witness, that somehow the Holy Spirit communicates to our hearts that we are the children of God. And so, while to use the old Murray McShane quote, for every 10 looks to Christ, we should only then take one look to self. Well, we do need to retain that one look to self, especially in moments of doubt.

(12:26 – 13:01)

I should ask myself, am I a child of God? We shouldn’t be afraid of asking that question, of speaking also to Christian loved ones and saying, do you see evidence in me that I am a child of God? Because I’m promised in this verse that the Spirit will communicate assurance to me in some shape or form. Now, I choose those words very carefully. I’m promised that the Spirit will testify to my spirit in some shape or form.

(13:02 – 13:24)

And here’s why I say it like that. Because often, when we read this text, we frankly read in to this text. We take this promise, and it is a promise, but often we decide the form in which we think the Spirit must testify to us.

(13:25 – 14:06)

So, for instance, when I was a Christian teenager, I remember reading this verse and making the assumption that what Paul meant was, when he said the Spirit testifies with my spirit, what I thought he must mean is that in something like an internal whisper, there would be actually a mysterious small voice, and the Spirit would audibly say, Colin, you’re God’s child. And I waited around for that, and I prayed for that, and it never quite came. But of course, when you look at the verse, it says no such thing.

(14:07 – 16:57)

Paul doesn’t say that the Spirit will testify to your spirit in a small interior voice. That’s something we’re just adding that in, aren’t we? One of the reasons people get themselves in knots with this verse is that they read their ideas into it, and they don’t look at the surrounding context, which actually gives us the real meaning of the verse. John Piper has done some really helpful work on this verse.

And, you know, preachers are always indebted to other preachers, so most of this sermon is basically John Piper’s point, so I’m just going to confess that. But he says in the context, there are three ways in which the Spirit testifies with our spirit. So, how does the Spirit do it? Well, number one, here’s the first one, the Spirit creates a cry.

The Spirit creates a cry of prayer. Go back to the end of verse 15, by Him, that’s by the Spirit, we cry out, Abba, Father. Now, at one level, you know, let’s not misread this, anyone can pray and simply say the words, Abba, Father, in terms of just saying the mechanical words.

You know, I could put it into my chat GTP or something and get it to audibly repeat it back. It wouldn’t mean that the computer is saved, would it? So, this is not about a form of words. The word here, cry, is significant.

Those who cry, Abba, Father. It’s not about just saying a form of words, it’s that genuine cry from a dependent heart, a cry of dependent faith in God as Father. To put it another way, you may never have had a little small voice whispering to your soul, by the way, you’re a Christian, but have you ever spoken to God in prayer and meant it? Have you ever prayed with a genuine sense that the heaven is not some brass obstacle, but actually God can hear you through Jesus? Have you ever recognised that God is not only transcendent, but He’s also reachable by your prayers through Christ? And have you ever prayed with intimacy to God as a Father? Well, if so, it’s a major flag that you’re a Christian.

(16:58 – 17:20)

That’s what Paul is saying here. Some of us who say we struggle with internal assurance, and we feel uncertain about our standing, and yet we pray, we pray. The existence of a prayer life with God our Father at its heart is the Spirit’s testimony.

(17:23 – 20:14)

I was thinking of the illustration of Paul or Saul as he was before he was converted. Remember that story that this guy, he’s basically a hunter of Christians. He’s hunting them down from city to city.

He’s throwing them into prison and all the rest of it. The kind of guy you can’t imagine being truly converted. And then this poor bloke, Ananias, gets this job that no one else in the church wants to put their hand up for when he’s told, can you be the one just to go and double, you know, go and see this guy that we think has been converted and just, you know, just see if he’s a Christian and see if he’s okay.

And of course, the wonder of it all, the reassurance that’s given to him is, behold, he prays. The evidence of Paul’s conversion is seen in how he prays, and it’s seen in how we pray too. So that’s the first thing.

The first thing is that the Spirit creates a cry. Here’s the second evidence. Paul also says that the Spirit creates a commitment.

The Spirit creates a commitment, a commitment to wage war against sin. Again, it’s in the context. Look at verse 13.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. When the Holy Spirit is genuinely at work in your life, you will have a new commitment to oppose sin. And even as Paul describes it here, you’ll have a commitment to slay sin and kill it.

Our attitude towards sin changes when we’re converted. Our hatred towards sin, it’s as if someone turns a button on and it suddenly becomes operational. Like, even when we sin, even as we do it and part of us wants to do it, we also hate the thing that we’re doing.

And our approach to sin becomes one of warfare. Now, this is not a matter of sinless perfection, but it is a change of attitude that really can be seen in our lives. You know, just to be blunt about it, if someone claims to be saved by Jesus and their life continues along exactly the same trajectory, you know, like a ship that’s on a particular course, and it doesn’t move even a single degree in how they live, and they continue in the same behaviours as before they were saved, then the claim that they are saved is highly dubious.

(20:15 – 21:04)

If a casual attitude towards sin continues, then the Holy Spirit cannot be at work, because the Holy Spirit gives us a different mindset towards sin. You can see this positively. Let’s be positive for a moment.

I was chatting to a friend of mine who’s a pastor, and he saw it wonderfully. He saw this young couple, totally unchurched couple, they both came to faith in Jesus. And he was a little bit uncertain as he was trying to start discipling them, because for quite a number of years they had been, as many people do, they’d been living together in the same house, and they’d been sleeping together, and they weren’t married.

(21:04 – 23:43)

And so this pastor, he was building himself up for quite a hard conversation about purity and all of that kind of stuff. But when he met up with them, before he managed to get it out of his mouth, they said to him, we’ve actually sat down, and we’ve decided, because we’ve been reading the Bible, and we’ve decided that the right thing to do is to stop what we thought was okay, and we’re just going to fast-track getting ourselves married. That is an evidence of the Holy Spirit being at work in someone’s life.

And it might be, I mean, I’m giving that example, but it might be seen in a hundred different ways. I’ve heard people say that when they became Christians, like overnight, their language started to change, and people began to notice it. It might be a difference in our financial ethics.

It might be that we no longer consciously lie about things. These are all the work of the Spirit. And it’s not perfection from then on, but it is a change of attitude from then on.

John Owen, the Puritan, said that the difference between a Christian and someone who isn’t, isn’t that a Christian never sins. It’s that a Christian hates sinning, and so they sin less, and they repent more. No Christian can be consistently casual about sin.

That’s why, incidentally, when we are casual about sin, our assurance is massively undermined, you know, in a certain area where we’re just like, I’m just cool with this, and we’re not even trying. We will never have a strong sense of assurance because no Christian can be casual about sin in their lives and have a strong confidence that they’re saved. And so we shake ourselves out of the casualness, and we re-engage in the fight.

And so there are two things we’ve seen so far, that if I’m crying out to God as my heavenly Father, and if I hate sin and have some commitment to wage the war, then the Spirit in these ways is testifying to my spirit that I am God’s child. But there’s a third evidence, thirdly and finally. Not just a cry and a commitment, but the Spirit creates a creed or a belief in our hearts.

(23:45 – 26:17)

And for this, we go to verse 17, where we’re very much going to see something that we believe as Christians. In verse 17, we’re not only called the children of God, but we’re also called heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. The word Christ here is significant.

If we think back to John’s gospel, the whole gospel of John is written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And there’s a whole catalogue of truth that lies within that word Christ. But here in verse 17 is a believer who has a belief in Christ.

But I love the emphasis of verse 17, because in some ways, it summarises all that we believe about Christ. It doesn’t just say that we believe in His life and death and resurrection, although we do, but it says that because of that, we are heirs with God and co-heirs with Christ. We believe that through Jesus, we will actually share in a heavenly inheritance with Him.

The intimacy Christ enjoys with the Father is something that we too will enjoy by grace. The glory that Jesus will enjoy with the Father is a glory that we will enjoy with Him. And the point here is that a genuine Christian is not just someone who’s praying to the Father now and fighting against sin now with their head down, but it’s someone who has that upward belief, that upward creed that their future is bound up with Christ.

They have very simply the hope of heaven within them. And I hope that that encourages you as you see these marks, because while each of them is remarkable in one sense and they are God-given, they are in another sense not extraordinary. You know, this is the kind of stuff we expect to see in any believer, a real prayer life, a real evidence that the Holy Spirit might have moved into the premises because I think of sin in the same way He does.

(26:19 – 28:14)

And I hope within my heart that because of the cross and the empty tomb, that one day I will share in the blessings with Jesus of heaven. I mean, in one sense, that’s fairly normal everyday Christian living. We don’t need to be able to do miracles or speak in tongues or have had some super dramatic encounter with the presence of God to know that we’re saved.

We simply need to have a prayer life that’s real, a mindset towards sin that’s different, and a real hope for the future in Christ. Now, I said at the start of the sermon that I would come back to the issue of false assurance. And so I’m going to do that now.

How do I know if my assurance is false? Well, by comparing it. By comparing it with what genuine assurance looks like. Think about last week and think about this week.

The objective truths that we believe and then the subjective impact in our lives. Here’s the kind of questions you need to ask. Do I believe the gospel of the Bible? Do I believe the testimony of God and the gospel of the apostles? And if I do, do I have that inner testimony of the Spirit seen in prayer, in an attitude towards sin, and in a hope for the future in Christ? If any of these major aspects is lacking, then the assurance we have is on a shaky nail.

(28:15 – 28:39)

Right? Because real Christians believe the gospel, they pray, they seek to live a holy life, and they have the hope of heaven. That’s normal Christian assurance. But the encouragement is that in the, I was going to say the average Christian, in every Christian actually, these things are seen and these things are true.

(28:40 – 29:14)

Even when you’re having a really bad day and you’re mucking it up in 101 ways, these things are still the case. That we know whom we have believed in, and the Spirit is giving us the confirmation that we are God’s children. And even when we don’t necessarily see that because we’re really down on ourselves on a particular day, we can ask someone else, do you see these things in my life? And either they’re going to look at you and think, yeah, they’re lacking, or hopefully they’re going to say, of course you’re a Christian.

(29:14 – 30:33)

We can all see the evidences of these things. Now, the sermon is done really, but I want to leave you with an illustration that is a good one, and I couldn’t work out where else to put it. And so I thought, I’ll finish with it.

I’ll finish the little series with it. One of my favourite preachers is Charles Spurgeon. In fact, he’s really one of my favourite Christians.

And I think part of why I enjoy Spurgeon is not only because his sermons are so full of Christ, but also when you read his biography, he’s such an ordinary guy. And despite the amazing giftedness, he’s really, you know, it’s warts and all when you read him. And one of the things Spurgeon struggled with was a lack of assurance at times.

Isn’t that amazing, right? This guy, the most famous preacher in the world at that time, had seasons, often, I think, because of his depression, actually, where he doubted that he was a child of God. And there’s this story about him that he was going through a time like that. And he went a long, he was on holiday, and he went along one Sunday morning to a little country church.

(30:35 – 31:44)

And in that little country church, there was a man who wasn’t a minister, he was just a layman. And in the days before you could grab a sermon off the internet, he had a printed Charles Spurgeon sermon in the newspaper. And so Spurgeon’s sitting in the pew, this guy gets up at the front of the church, not knowing that Spurgeon is there in the congregation.

And word for word starts to preach one of Charles’ own sermons. Well, as he went through the sermon and preached about Christ and the gospel and all of that, Spurgeon says, the tears began to roll down my cheeks. And he said, I knew in my heart that I believed it.

And it was amazing, he got to the door and the guy was out of himself, you can just imagine it, he was so embarrassed. And Spurgeon said, this was in God’s providence that you preached my own sermon to me today. It assured me once again that I believe the things that I preach.

(31:45 – 32:33)

So may the people of God be assured as we hear the gospel again tonight, that we do believe it despite all of our ups and downs. And if you do have doubts and struggles with that, please do come, please come to one of the elders or come to myself, seek the help of fellow Christians and don’t battle with it alone. Father, please, would you take this pastoral encouragement tonight? Would you help us with the battles that we have to believe, the doubts we have about ourselves and help us, Lord, to feel that confidence in you, in your keeping power.

And it’s in Jesus’ name we ask, amen.

The post Assurance from Within– Romans 8v12–17 appeared first on Greenview Church.

You are from below, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins.

If you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins. Who are you? they asked. Just what I have been telling you from the beginning, Jesus replied.

(0:22 – 0:47)

I have much to say in judgement of you, but He who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from Him, I tell the world. They did not understand that He was telling them about His Father. So Jesus said, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own, but speak just what the Father has taught me.

(0:48 – 1:49)

The One who sent me is with me, He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him. Even as He spoke, many believed in Him. Many thanks, Alison.

There’s a massive difference between disliking something and opposing it. Let me just give you a silly example of the difference. You might dislike cauliflower.

Fair enough. But if you dislike cauliflower, you probably haven’t banned it from the house so that no one else can eat it, and you probably haven’t written to your MP saying cauliflower must be stopped, because you just dislike it, and dislike is just a matter of preference. But think by contrast of when preference becomes a matter of allegiance.

(1:50 – 2:12)

So think about a soldier, for instance. Now, a soldier may or may not like the enemy. In one sense, that’s kind of immaterial.

A soldier has picked a side. They fight for a country. They have an allegiance to their country and their commanding officer.

(2:13 – 3:06)

For them, it’s not just a matter of preference, it’s a matter of allegiance. Now, what I would like us to see this morning is that when it comes to Jesus, as we carry on our journey in John, following Jesus is a matter of allegiance. Now, often people don’t think of Jesus in this kind of way.

In a world of choice and tolerance, people may see Jesus as little more than a preference. So, maybe you prefer to follow Jesus, but I prefer fishing. Maybe you prefer to follow Christ, but I prefer to have football

(3:06 – 3:23)

as my religion, or you could fill in the other options. I prefer another religion, or I prefer another kind of spirituality. And it’s not that I deeply oppose Jesus or hate Jesus.

(3:24 – 4:27)

He’s just not my thing. And so in this kind of mindset, belief is preference in a supermarket of options. And you can pick any belief you like, so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.

That’s the way that many people think today. And yet it’s not the view of the passage that we just read a few moments ago. It’s certainly not the line that the gospel of John takes, is it? Because in the gospel of John and in this text, we meet a Jesus who isn’t a preference, but a light.

Jesus is the light of the world. And anything else we try to build our lives around and build our core identity around, Jesus calls darkness. With Jesus, you have to pick a side.

(4:28 – 6:50)

And the question is, what side are you on? In the language of the passage today, am I opposing the light or am I following the light? Let’s use those as our two headings this morning, these two questions. So, first question, am I opposing the light? Throughout Jesus’ ministry, there were many people who opposed the light of who He was, including here in this. This is a really clear example of it.

And you might remember that back in John chapter 1, John gave us a little spoiler that this would be the case. He’s got this spoiler in chapter 1 verse 5. As he sets up the gospel, John says this, the light, which is Jesus, shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. That’s John chapter 1 verse 5. It seems like a really cool verse until you notice that it implies a conflict, doesn’t it? It actually implies a battle.

Jesus’ light overcomes the darkness. But you see there that the darkness needs to be overcome. There’s a conflict, there’s a resistance there.

It’s like when you flick a light switch in a pitch black room. There’s a darkness that the light must overcome. And we don’t think about it because the battle lasts for a split second, but there is a darkness that must be overcome.

And so it was that when Jesus entered the world, when He revealed His identity, when He displayed His godness, there was a darkness that kept resisting Him. So, for instance, at the end of chapter 7, just have a flick back to there, and you’ll see that a group of religious leaders, the Pharisees, were trying to arrest Jesus. They were trying to detain Him and shut down the light of His ministry.

(6:52 – 7:25)

And here from verse 12 of chapter 8, the same opposition, the same darkness, is continuing to push back against the light. Now, just as a little aside, let me say something quickly about the little story at the start of chapter 8, which in your Bible might be in italics or brackets. Maybe you’re wondering why we’re just skipping over that story in our series, the story of the woman caught in adultery.

(7:26 – 11:54)

Very briefly, it wasn’t part of the original text of John’s gospel. We absolutely do know that because of the early manuscripts that we have. And so while it’s a wonderful little story, we are committed to preaching the inspired Word of God as it is found in the original text of Scripture.

I think it’s possible that this incident really did happen, and it was so good that people thought, we need to stick this in John’s gospel somewhere, because it’s an amazing story. Now, if you’ve got any questions about that, come and speak to me afterwards about it. But you will see that when we pick up at verse 12 of chapter 8, it really does carry straight on from the end of chapter 7. Jesus is still in the courts of the temple.

It’s still the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus is still declaring who He is, and now He declares, I am the light of the world. It’s one of the greatest lines that Jesus ever said.

But did you notice that immediately it was challenged? The darkness is pushing straight back from verse 14 onwards. The Pharisees, who were the spiritual leaders of Israel at the time, are having none of this claim of Jesus. They’re having none of it.

And incidentally, this is a reminder that opposition to Jesus sometimes comes from the strangest of places. It sometimes comes from religious places. It can come from Pharisees.

It can come today from archbishops of Canterbury. It can come from ministers of religion. It can come from people who wear a collar and look a part, and yet they’re not always on Jesus’ side.

We see that here, don’t we? Although it’s a danger for all of us, isn’t it? Even those of us who are punters in the pew. It can be fairly easy, really, to look religious, but in our heart of hearts, are we really submitting to the lordship of Jesus? Now, here’s the question, why do people resist Jesus? When He’s such a wonderful person, why do people resist Him? I guess there’s a bunch of reasons and answers that the Bible gives us to that, from wanting to run my own life, to personal pride, to worshipping the wrong alternative. I mean, there’s a number of reasons.

But the reason that Jesus highlights in this incident is the reason of ignorance. Ignorance is where we lack knowledge of something, or we lack an awareness of something. And here’s the thing about ignorance.

The thing about ignorance is that people who are ignorant tend to not think they’re ignorant. They tend to be very confident that they’re right, when they’re ignorant. And so, in this case, they’re very confident that they’ve figured Jesus out, and they’ve figured life out, and they have a different view of life to Jesus, and a different view of Jesus.

And there’s an ignorance in that. Now, I wouldn’t say that to anyone this morning. I wouldn’t point at any of you and say, you’re ignorant.

But it’s actually Jesus here who’s saying this to whoever it’s relevant for. He says to these religious men, who thought they knew better, that they were ignorant in three ways. Firstly, they were ignorant about Jesus’ origin and destination.

His origin and destination. We’ve seen this theme before, actually. This emerges here in verses 13 and 14, where Jesus mysteriously says, you don’t know where I’ve come from, and you don’t know where I’m going.

(11:55 – 12:40)

Now, if we understand the rest of the gospel, we know that Jesus came from heaven, and he’s returning to heaven. But they don’t know that. If they knew that, they wouldn’t have challenged Jesus’ claims.

They wouldn’t have come back with his, I am the light of the world, by saying, what right have you to testify to yourself that you’re the light of the world? Because here’s the thing. A heavenly man who is God in the flesh doesn’t need to have his credentials checked. He doesn’t need permission to speak and to say things.

(12:40 – 12:47)

If he’s the creator of the cosmos. But they don’t know that. They don’t know where he comes from.

(12:47 – 13:01)

They don’t know where he’s going, that he’s the heavenly man, that he’s God in the flesh. And they’re also ignorant of something else. They’re ignorant of Jesus’ identity and the Father’s identity.

(13:03 – 13:28)

Jesus, in verse 15, says something that sounds a little bit strange on first reading. Jesus says that he judges no one, whereas his opponents judge by human standards, which I think means that they judge, the Pharisees judged Jesus on a superficial level. You know, that he comes from Galilee, and therefore he can’t be all that he claims to be.

(13:28 – 13:48)

So they’re really superficial in their judgement, and they’re mistaken. But Jesus says of himself, I judge no one. I think what he’s saying is that on this point in the salvation timeline, it’s time for salvation, not judgement.

(13:50 – 18:01)

Right? At this moment, when Jesus has come into the world for the first time, he has come to be the sacrificial lamb who suffers and bears away the sin of the world. At this moment, Jesus has come to be the sacrificial lamb out of God’s great love for sinners. Judgement is in the future.

But actually, Jesus says, if I were to make a judgement right now, you know what? My judgement would be right. And notice the reason he gives for it. He says, because I stand with the Father who sent me.

Now, word to the wise, don’t use this next time you have a disagreement with someone. Don’t say to them when you’re having an argument, you know, I’m always right, because I’m in perfect sync with the God of heaven. Wherever he stands, I’m standing right beside him.

Only Jesus can say this as the second person of the Godhead. Only he can say in verse 18 that if we want a second witness to verify who he is, then go and ask the Father. My second witness is the God and Father of heaven.

But actually, they can’t go and ask him, because they don’t know who Jesus’ Father is, as their question in verse 19 reveals. And they don’t know who Jesus is either. Later on in the passage, they actually say to him, who are you? They don’t really know who he is.

So, they don’t know Jesus, and they don’t know the Father. They’re ignorant about both of them. They’re ignorant about Jesus, and they’re ignorant about God.

And let’s not miss the bombshell that is, because what Jesus is really saying is, if you don’t know me, you don’t know God either. Think about that. There’s a lot of people who think they know God, who think they have a grasp of who God is in their own framework, but Jesus is saying, if you don’t know me as Lord and Saviour, then you don’t know God at all, because only if you know me do you know the Father.

That’s one of the great messages of John’s gospel. So, that’s a second example of ignorance, the ignorance about Jesus and the Father. And then, Jesus isn’t done.

He’s not making himself very popular here, is he? But he’s not done with exposing the darkness, because listen, until we see we’re in the darkness, we’re never going to seek the light. So, this is a loving thing that Jesus is doing. But the third thing he says is that they are also ignorant about death, ignorant about death.

Now, they’re actually ignorant about Jesus’ death and their own death. On the side of Jesus’ death, they think that when Jesus talks about, he keeps saying, he’s going away, he’s going away, he’s going away, and they wrongly think that he’s threatening suicide. They really don’t get how Jesus will actually die.

They don’t understand that the cross is coming, when his life will be taken and surrendered there. But even more crucially for them, they don’t know the danger of their own death. Jesus, in verses 21 and 24, twice warns them that if their opposition doesn’t change, they will die in their sins.

(18:03 – 18:52)

See, there’s two ways to die. People often think that there’s lots of ways to die. Maybe that’s true physiologically, but spiritually speaking, there are only two ways to die.

Either we die in Christ, which means that through my faith in Jesus, I am united with him spiritually, and all of my sins are forgiven in him, and the condemnation I deserved is removed by him, and all of his righteousness and perfection becomes ours, even though it’s not inherently mine. That’s the first way you can die. You can die in Christ.

(18:54 – 23:18)

Or secondly, you can die in your sins, which means that you take your sins not just to the grave, but through the grave, beyond the grave. To die in your sins is to face a holy God after death, to be guilty, and to have no excuses. And this is the conversation we need to have most urgently about death.

David mentioned earlier, like other Christians, I was grieved this week by what decision was made in the House of Commons. We need to keep praying for that as it goes to the House of Lords. We need to keep having the bold conversations with people, including those in power, around the tragedy of this.

But you know what struck me as I thought about that, how energised Christians have been, and other groups, to speak out about that. You know what struck me was, I wonder if we have the same urgency to have this other conversation around death, which is of eternal importance. Because you see, however quickly or slowly people are moving towards death, the big question is, how are people going to die? Are they going to die in their sin, or are they going to die in Christ? Jesus was brave enough to have this conversation, and He was loving enough twice over to point out where these Pharisees were heading if they died right now.

You see, the wonderful thing is that those in the darkness can come over into the light. In fact, isn’t that how the apostle Paul describes conversion? He describes it as Colossians 1.13, a transfer from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light. In sports right now, it’s off-season in football, there’s people getting transfers, well, you could have a transfer.

And it’s the gospel transfer from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light. No one in the dark needs to stay in the dark. No one dying in their sins needs to die in their sins.

And it’s to them and to us that Jesus cries out invitingly, I am the light of the world. And so we come to the second question. Second question today is, am I following the light? Am I following the light? And for this, we come back to the opening verse of the passage, which is a very backward way to preach a sermon, right? I’ve basically preached verse 13 pretty much to the end, and now we’re coming all the way back, and I’m going to finish in verse 12.

But you’ve got to finish on the positive. I want us to end with this great claim that Jesus makes. The second ‘I am’ statement in the gospel.

First, ‘I am the bread of life’, and now ‘I am the light of the world’. But to understand this verse, I think we need to get a grip of the context of the verse. And I’ve already highlighted part of that that’s often missed, which is there’s a conflict context to this verse.

These lovely I am statements that we frame and we put up on our wall, and we think, how beautiful is that? When Jesus first said them, they were explosive. Many people came to believe, as we see in verse 30, but many people opposed it immediately. So there’s a context of conflict we mustn’t ignore.

(23:19 – 23:38)

However, there is also another context that’s very significant, and that’s the historical context. Because Jesus says this, again, at the festival of tabernacles. And as we’ve said in previous weeks, there’s connotations that come with this feast.

(23:39 – 24:21)

This festival is about things like Exodus, harvest. Remember, we said it’s also about water and the water ceremony. But there’s another thing that was associated with this festival, and that is light.

On the first day of this festival, there was a celebration of light. One of the courts in the Jewish temple, it was actually the women’s court, they would have this great ceremony where they would light these four enormous lamps. And historical reports say that it was as if the whole of Jerusalem was lit up by them.

(24:22 – 25:19)

And people would bring their own torches as well, and they would dance into the night, singing songs to God. It was this wonderful festival of light. And what was the significance of it? Well, the Jews were remembering that way back in the wilderness, God had been Israel’s light.

Remember, they had followed a pillar of fire. And this pillar of fire had lit the way and guided the people to the promised land. And so with all of that as background, and additionally, further promises God made in the prophets, where God started to say that when the Messiah appears, when the Saviour of all appears, He will bring light again to the people.

(25:20 – 25:43)

That once again, people will be able to follow a light in this Messiah person. With all of that in the background, Jesus stands up and says, I am the light of the world. Not just Israel’s light, but the world’s light.

(25:44 – 26:20)

A saving light that can lead sinners to the promised land. But of course, the only way to get to that promised land is to follow the light. And so notice that alongside the claim here, we also have a call here.

Jesus doesn’t just say, I am the light, full stop. He then says, essentially, come follow the light. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.

(26:22 – 28:11)

Such a beautiful picture of that, isn’t it? Following and enjoying the lights along the way. It’s quite an image, isn’t it? I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and it’s easy to become overly familiar with the way the Bible describes being a Christian. And this came, at least to me, with some real freshness, that being a Christian is about following the light, following the light.

It’s really just another way of saying that we must have faith in Jesus, because to have faith in Jesus is to follow Jesus. There is no faith that does not follow. We’ve discovered this on holiday a few times, gone on a few of those walking tours.

And you know, the people, the guides on these tours, the whole point is they’re meant to know where they’re going. And they know everything about the place, and they usually do. And they’ve got these umbrellas.

Have you ever been on one of these tours? They often have an umbrella, so that even if you’re a bit further back, you can still see them and you keep following them. And you keep following them because you have faith in them. The moment you lose faith in them, the moment you think, this person’s not trustworthy, they don’t seem to have any clue what’s really going on in this city, you’re going to leave them, aren’t you? You’re going to follow another path and find another guide, because who you follow reveals who you trust.

(28:15 – 32:04)

And in the imagery of this passage, here’s the wonderful thing, that as we trust Jesus and follow the light, He leads us through all the dark places on the way to the promised land, so that we have His light in every situation. As we follow Jesus into the arena of the workplace, as we follow Him into the challenging conversations where there might be opposition that comes against us, or as we follow Him into moments of suffering in our lives, perhaps even into those darkest of valleys, maybe even the valley of the shadow of death itself, the darkness can be all around us, but we’re never left in the dark, because right there beside us and right there before us is the light. It really struck me this, there is no truly dark place for the child of God, because Jesus is always with us, and so there is a light with us on the way if we will respond to the call that is given.

The consequence of that is found at the end of the journey, because you’ll notice, don’t miss the very end of verse 12, it ends by saying that those who never walk in darkness will have the light of life. Where is this light leading us to? It’s not the land of Canaan, it’s life. Life is the destination, and we’ve seen in John’s gospel this means eternal life, where the glory of God’s light will shine forever.

And this is why following Jesus can never be just a matter of preference, because it’s either heading to life with Jesus or being stuck in death without Him. Jesus is the light and the life giver, and He’s not looking for people who just say that they like Him. There are too many people, even many professing Christians, who never seem to get beyond a vague admiration of Jesus.

Jesus isn’t looking for admirers. He’s looking for followers, people who will go beyond clicking the like button every so often, people who will say, in the words of an old chorus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. Or in the words of the second verse, which you always must sing if you sing the first verse, though none go with me, I still will follow, no turning back, no turning back.

I wonder if you are following, and I wonder if your life would reveal to those around you that you’re continuing to follow. Let me pray for us all. Our Father, may we never in our ignorance treat Jesus like a preference or keep Him at a distance.

(32:05 – 32:24)

Forgive us for where we have been respectful but not repentant. Forgive us for when we have been impressed but not surrendered. Forgive us for when we have loved the darkness and not chosen to follow the light.

(32:26 – 32:37)

Draw us today to follow Him afresh, that we will be surrounded and blessed by His light. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

The post The Light of the World–John 8v12–30 appeared first on Greenview Church.

Well, good evening everyone. Tonight is the second message on the subject of assurance, and it is encouraging you’re back for a second round on this. Assurance is the inner certainty, the inside your soul confidence that you are a Christian.

It’s that belief, that assurance that you’re saved. And there were really two things last Sunday that I emphasised. So number one, it’s possible and even normal to lack assurance at times as a Christian.

(0:39 – 1:21)

It’s not strange if from time to time you wonder if you’re saved. But we also said, and I was quoting Donald Whitney with this, that it is abnormal for a Christian to never have assurance. So that would not be typical.

That would be deeply concerning if at no point in our lives had we ever had a sense that we were a child of God. In the kindness of God, He not only grants us salvation, but He wants us to know that we are saved. Let me use a little bit of an illustration to give you maybe a picture of this.

(1:23 – 2:51)

Imagine a very wealthy billionaire, maybe one of the most rich men in the world. And he has a number of priceless items in his collection. And one of the things he has is a priceless jewel.

And this extremely wealthy man, he wants to pass on this priceless jewel to one of his children, his son, his daughter. He wants them to possess it. Well, here’s what he won’t do.

Here’s what he won’t do. He won’t secretly slip the jewel into the inside pocket of his son’s jacket and not tell him that he put it there. He won’t take the priceless jewel and hide it at the bottom of his daughter’s bag, you know, the one with 50 things in it, where she might not find it or discover it for years.

No, if that father gave his child something so precious, he would surely tell them that they possessed it. He would want them to know that they had it in their possession. And when God gives His children an even more precious gift than that, the gift of eternal life, He wants His children not only to have the jewel, but He wants us to know that we have it.

(2:52 – 3:47)

The normal Christian life is where you know what you possess. You know that you have eternal life, you have a heavenly inheritance, you know that God’s Spirit is living within your life. That is the normal Christian experience.

And yet, as we were saying last week, there can be times and seasons when it might not be like that. Times where we may question whether we do possess the jewel of eternal life, where we’re sort of padding around our person and we can’t seem to locate it on our person. We talked last week of some of the reasons for this, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

(3:47 – 4:14)

Sometimes these things will cause us to doubt our possession of salvation. And this little series is really just trying to speak in to those unsettling moments of doubt. I want to try and point us in the right direction the next time we feel lost about where to go next, where maybe you don’t know where to look or what to do.

(4:15 – 4:29)

Well, this evening is the first part of the answer to that. Over these next two weeks, we’re going to look in two directions. So tonight, we’re going to look outside of ourselves, and then next week, we’re going to look within.

(4:30 – 5:29)

What we’re going to say this evening is that the first thing we should do when we feel unsettled about our salvation is we should look out from ourselves to the glorious gospel. What we’re going to see is this, that our assurance must be built on the solid rock of Christ and on the glorious gospel. We don’t look first to our experiences of Christ or the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

That may provide additional confirmation that you are a Christian, and we will look at that next week. But these things are not the rock on which we rest our soul. You will never find an assured Christian who spends most of their time looking within, trying to examine how saved they are.

(5:30 – 7:18)

But you will find assured Christians who spend most of their time looking to Jesus and His finished work. Now, we could go to different passages to see this point, but I want to turn for a few minutes to 1 John chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. The whole letter of 1 John is an interesting place to go when it comes to assurance. This letter points us to an assurance that does come from without, but it also examines the assurance we can find within.

There’s both an objective assurance and a subjective confirmation that you’re a Christian. But John lays a great emphasis on the objective gospel, which should give us confidence that we’re saved. So, let’s read about that in chapter 5, verse 6, down to verse 12.

Verse 6, this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

For there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And the three are in agreement. We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about His Son.

(7:19 – 7:51)

Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. And this is the testimony.

God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

(7:54 – 8:38)

Now, for better or for worse, this message has one main point. It goes like this. Our assurance must not rest on anything within us, but on the Word and work of God that comes from outside of us.

I’ll say that again. Our assurance must not rest on anything within us, but on the Word and work of God that comes from outside of us. The fruit of the Spirit within us may confirm that I am God’s child, but it never can be the basis for the fact.

(8:39 – 9:06)

Our assurance must rest on the Word of gospel grace, and our assurance must rest on the work that is finished and complete. James Denny, the 19th century Scottish theologian, who I recently discovered came from Paisley, he once said this. This is a great little quote.

(9:06 – 10:23)

He said, the acid test of any version of Christianity is its attitude towards assurance. If someone tells you that they are preaching or believing the gospel, the way you can test that is genuine comes down to their attitude to assurance. Does their gospel produce a sense of assurance? Because if their gospel can never produce a sense of assurance of heaven, then it is not the genuine gospel.

People talk about the bad state of Europe today, but I was thinking about this just this week. You know, if you were living in the 1400s anywhere in Europe, including here in the UK, or the early 1500s, I think the situation was far worse. On the face of it, it didn’t look that way because the church looked bigger at the time.

There were filled churches all over the place. There was preaching happening all over the place. And yet the official church of that day was denying the possibility of assurance.

(10:24 – 12:20)

The Roman church of that time said that it was presumptuous to think you could have assurance this side of heaven. Because in their version of the gospel, yes, you needed the work of Christ, but your sin hadn’t been dealt with to the degree that it was dealt with forever. You could go back to being lost if you committed a serious sin and you didn’t perform the right ritual of repentance through the church.

And this was why the Reformation brought a wind of change through Europe. This is what guys like Martin Luther, this handsome bloke on the screen, this is what he was saying as he re-emphasised the biblical gospel, that you can be justified by faith alone, through the work of Christ alone, by grace alone, and to God’s glory alone, so that you will not only be saved through this gospel, but you can know you are saved. In a sense, what the Reformers recovered was the cry of Jesus on the cross, it is finished.

When Jesus said that, He meant it. And so, yes, Denny is right. The test of our gospel is, does it lead to assurance? Can it lead to assurance? When John was writing his first letter, there were false teachers whose gospel, and I put that in air quotes, their gospel was not producing assurance.

(12:21 – 13:54)

It seems from what we can gather in this letter, that these men were dismissing a number of things. They were dismissing the full humanity of Jesus. They were discarding the divine sonship of Jesus, that He was the Christ.

And it seems, at least implicitly appears to be the case, that they may have been undermining the work of the cross. Because it’s only in this letter that three times over, I think there’s also another appearance of it in Romans, but this is the other two places where the word propitiation is used in the New Testament. John says so much about the wrath of God being turned away at the cross.

It seems that these men were undermining the work of Christ at Calvary. So, these men had the wrong gospel, and it was undermining the assurance of the church. Because how can you be assured of any sort of salvation if Jesus never became fully human? How can you be assured of anything if Jesus is not the Son of God? And how can you be assured of sins forgiven without the cross on which the wrath of God was appeased because of the love of God? You can’t have assurance without that gospel, can you? And this is why John writes these verses.

(13:55 – 15:55)

He says, and I’m going to just paraphrase him heavily here, he says in effect, stop listening to these mere men and start listening to the testimony of God. Look at how he puts it in verse 6. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.

Now, it seems a puzzling phrase at first, but along with most of the commentators, I think, very likely John is speaking here of the baptism, the water of Jesus, and the death of Jesus, the blood. You’ll notice that he puts them in that particular order. It’s water before blood, not blood before water.

I think that’s significant. If you read it, some people think the blood and the water are both about the cross, but when you read in John’s gospel, the order’s in reverse. Here, it’s water before blood.

Why? Because what John is talking about here are the facts of Jesus’ life and death. He’s talking about the key markers in the life and ministry of Jesus, the staging posts, as it were. How did Jesus’ public ministry begin? It began with water.

He comes by water. He is baptised by John the Baptist. And what is significant about that event is not only that he got baptised, but much more importantly, that the Spirit came on him in earnest as a symbol that he was the Spirit-filled Messiah, and the voice came from heaven from the Father declaring Jesus to be God the Son.

(15:56 – 17:01)

These false teachers in 1 John might be denying that Jesus is the Christ, but the Father has already publicly declared it in the waters of baptism. And he didn’t come by water only. He also came by blood.

We’re seeing this in John’s gospel, I think, in a way we don’t normally think of the cross. The cross is a moment of revelation. It’s a moment of disclosure.

It reveals something of who Jesus is. It’s a public reveal that Jesus is God the Son. As we witness the manner of his sufferings, and as we see the signs that accompany the event of the cross, remember that centurion that when he witnessed all the manner in which Jesus died, and the signs that accompanied it, he then said, surely this man is the Son of God.

(17:02 – 17:19)

Do you see the events of the cross had testified to him from God to him that this man is who he claimed to be. So, Jesus’ identity is revealed by water. It’s revealed in the blood of the cross.

(17:20 – 18:54)

And more than that, the Spirit also testifies. And John here, of course, is speaking of the Holy Spirit. And whereas the other two testifiers are historical, they happened in the past, the Spirit is utterly contemporary.

The ascended Christ has sent the Spirit of truth, who testifies to hearts and minds today that Jesus is the Christ. If you’re a Christian, why are you a Christian? Because the Spirit testified to your heart that Jesus is the Christ, and you believed his testimony. And so John says, add them up.

Add them up like a sum. And you will see that there are three that testify. In a Jewish court, you only needed two witnesses.

Three was even better. John says, I’ve got three witnesses. The water, the blood, and the Spirit all testify that Jesus is the Christ of God.

And this testimony is greater than human testimony. I love verse 9. Verse 9, it kind of comes across almost as a circular argument. John says, you should accept God’s testimony because it’s God’s testimony.

(18:56 – 19:23)

See, everyone else can lie, but God can’t lie. God is the benchmark of truth. And everyone else must testify on the basis of something greater than themselves, whether they swear on a Bible or they swear to tell the truth on the law of the land, whatever the greater thing is that might come down on you if you fail to tell the whole truth.

(19:24 – 21:27)

God doesn’t need to swear on any of those things because there’s nothing higher than Him or greater than Him to swear on. If we should listen to anybody’s testimony, surely it would be the testimony of the Creator. And John says, God has been very public about this testimony, and He’s ongoing in it.

He testifies even today by His Spirit. And so, the great question, verse 10, is whether you will believe this testimony or not. That’s the great question.

It’s always the great question. And it’s the decisive question, because those who believe it have life, and those who do not believe it do not have life. Now, that’s a bit of the detail of the text, but as we step back from it, I think it’s really quite suggestive and directive to us.

It shows me that when it comes to my personal assurance, my assurance must rest on God’s Word, not man’s Word. How does one have assurance? We see the answer here, by believing in the Word of God. It’s not by listening to my thoughts or my inner assessment of things.

It’s not by fixating on my inner life, but by believing in the things that come out of the mouth of God. What is a Christian? A Christian is not someone who believes in themselves and in their testimony. It is someone who believes that Jesus is the Christ.

As the Spirit persuades me, that is the case. You may have heard this illustration. It’s been used by more than a few preachers.

(21:28 – 24:20)

It’s the one of the person approaching the gates of heaven, and there’s a kind of checking system at the doorway, because there’s always a checking system whenever you’re trying to get into somewhere good, isn’t there? And there’s some security guy at the door, and he asked the question, by what rights should I let you in this door? You know, what is the basis that I should actually let you cross the threshold of the new creation? The only proper answer must begin, because God, or because Jesus. Because God said I could come by grace. Because Jesus died for me.

That’s the only reason I think I’ve got the entry ticket. The sentence can never begin with, because I. Because I did such and such a thing. You know, one Thursday in 2025, I did this nice thing.

Helped an old lady across the road. I think that’ll just about cut it. Can’t be that.

It can’t be I’ve lived such and such a life. Because if we start to hold up the good things, God’s going to start to hold up all the bad stuff, and we’ll be quickly condemned. It can’t even be our sense of assurance.

You know, I think I’ve had just about enough faith. There’s been enough of a flicker of it on the dashboard that I hope you’ll let me in. Even our assurance is not the basis of the entry.

No. There will be people there who struggled all of their life with a feeble faith and a flickering sense of assurance. And as they say, because Christ, the heaven’s gate will fling open for them.

The most important way to counter a lack of assurance is to continually open our ears to God’s word and to fix our eyes on the lamb who was slain. Is there never a place to look inward? Come back for next week’s sermon if you can. Although just a little glimpse of it.

Look at how John does it. Earlier in 1 John chapter 1 verse 8, John says, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Well, there’s some self-examination, isn’t there? You need to be looking in yourself to the degree that you are aware of your sin, aware enough that you can confess your sin.

(24:21 – 24:47)

But notice how he quickly goes on. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. There is the gospel summed up in the faithful and just character of God and in the cleansing work of Christ.

(24:48 – 28:10)

I’m not faithful, but He is. I’m not just, but He is. My sin is the ailment, but His cross is the cure.

And it’s the same thing at the beginning of chapter 2, isn’t it? I write this so that you will not sin. Well, there’s a look inward, isn’t there? There’s self-awareness. But if anybody does sin, and of course we will, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

I must be aware of my inner self and inner life and inner sin, but it can never be the place where I rest my soul. My reassurance comes as I look at the way He describes Jesus here. This is all significant.

As I look to Jesus Christ, His humanity and His divinity, His earthly life, His righteousness, He calls Him here the righteous one. I look to His righteousness, not my own, and then He describes Him as my heavenly advocate pleading before the throne on the basis of His own blood. His sacrifice hasn’t just paid, look at verse 2 there, it hasn’t just paid for our sins.

It’s so much greater than your sin that it’s able to pay for the sins of the worldwide church, the whole globe. This is a remarkable thing, but we will only see it if we look up and if we look out. Sinclair Ferguson, I found him really helpful on all of this.

If you don’t get so much out of me, go and read him and he’ll sort it out. But commenting on the church today, I wonder if you agree with this. This is his assessment.

He says, the evangelical orientation, that is where we tend to look in our lives, the evangelical orientation is inward and subjective. It’s looking to me. We are far better at looking inward than we are at looking outward.

Now, I would say that there is a good bit of truth in that. There’s a very good kind of introspection where we apply the gospel to our lives, where we seek to see real change in our lives. That’s very important.

But it is also the case that one of the reasons the church today is so filled with anxiety, not least about personal assurance, and one of the reasons why there is such a malaise in the contemporary church is because we’re giving far too much attention to ourselves. We are obsessed with ourselves. We are caught up with ourselves.

(28:11 – 28:58)

Even the way we live the Christian life can be very self-absorbed and self-focused. I mean, if you think about it, that’s the essence of godlessness, isn’t it? To be godless is to be obsessed with yourself, to not look out and up to him. And so to finish off with another Sinclair quote, I’m going to conclude as he concludes, what is the answer to the self-absorbed kind of introspection that’s unhelpful, that looks all to me to the exclusion of looking to the one who is my redemption? It’s this.

(28:59 – 29:26)

He says, instead, we need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ. Let’s pray. Father, this is a sermon that all of us, I’m sure, need to hear.

(29:27 – 30:27)

Lord, there’s more than a bit of the older brother in our hearts. We so easily get caught up in self-absorption, in concern about our own lives, even the condition of our own souls and our own feelings. And Father, while these things are not inconsequential, we thank you that we don’t need to sit around measuring the increments of our faith, but you call us to explore and admire the basis of it.

And we pray tonight that you will help us as a people, as a church together, and also as individuals, to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one who for the joy set before him endured the cross. And it’s in his name we pray. Amen.

The post Assurance from Without – 1 John 5v6–13 appeared first on Greenview Church.

[Perhaps this morning when you] come downstairs, there’s a nice surprise sitting for you. Or there might be some other people this morning that have arrived at church, and the first thing that’s been said is it’s Father’s Day, and that’s a terrible surprise, because they didn’t know anything about it at all, and they’ll be stopping at BP on the way home, hoping to find something. We all like surprises, don’t we? This morning, as we start to dive into this story and think about some of these themes, I would love you to be open to the idea of being surprised.

(0:30 – 1:04)

Because as Jesus told this story to the people around about him at that time, they weren’t just surprised, they were shocked and appalled, but they were surprised by the message that Jesus had for them with this story of the prodigal son. And we want to be surprised today, don’t we? We want to see, here’s a surprise for me, we all want to be surprised as we go through our day, and today, our surprise might be something extraordinary. Just so you know, whoever bought this lectern, Perspex tops, not the friends of a magician.

(1:07 – 1:26)

But anyway, there’s a surprise for me this morning. But you know, as I was driving here this morning, I was a little bit early, so we decided to stop in at a drive-thru and get some breakfast. So when we get to the drive-thru, the lady said, do you know, we’ve got a big surprise for you today, because it’s Father’s Day, you can get your drink supersized.

(1:27 – 1:43)

I said, oh, I like the idea of that. Is there any chance I could get like a large supersize? And she said, I like how you think, what about an extra large supersize? And I said, well, I like how you think, maybe an extra, extra large supersize. And she said, I’ll go one better, I’ll get you an extra, extra, extra large supersize.

(1:43 – 2:00)

And you should have seen the size of the drink. It was such a surprise as it came out, we couldn’t get our heads around it, couldn’t get our arms around it. Would you like to see the drink? Well, I can’t show you the drink because I’ve drunk it all, but what we can do is we can show you the straw that came with it. [Draws a straw—about 4 inches thick and 8 foot long—out of his small, sparkling pouch]

(2:01 – 2:24)

It was absolutely massive, this straw that came through with our drink this morning. We want to be absolutely surprised by this story as we start to go through it, this story of the prodigal son. And it starts with a father and it starts with a son, and we can see the next slide.

(2:24 – 2:33)

The son comes to the father. Oh, I think we jumped to the end there. There’s another surprise for us.

(2:36 – 2:47)

Well, we’ll keep going as we go through. But this son comes to the father and says, Dad, see this life that I’m living, it’s not for me anymore. It’s good for you and it’s good for my brother, but it’s not for me.

(2:47 – 3:02)

I want you to give me all of the money that I would get when you die, and I want to go and I want to start my own life. I want to start a better life. And that would have been quite a surprise for the father, but not a very good one, would it? And so the father says to the son, he says something very surprising.

(3:02 – 3:16)

He says, since you’ve asked for it, I’m going to give it to you. And so the son gets one third of all of the father’s property and wealth, everything that he has. He gives it over to the son and the son goes away and he starts to spoil all of this wealth.

(3:16 – 3:25)

He starts to spend it on crazy, crazy things. Anything he sees that he wants, he buys. He’s going down the TikTok shop and he’s just click, click, click, click, click.

(3:26 – 3:38)

Everything that he sees, all of the rubbish, he’s not thinking about it. And he starts to have this riotous life. And you can see that in the next slide, that we see him just spending all of this money on the people around about him.

(3:38 – 3:53)

And eventually his money starts to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And then he’s left with absolutely nothing. And not only is there a problem with him having nothing, but everyone around about has nothing either because there’s a great famine in the land.

(3:54 – 4:02)

And so he starts to look for a solution. He’s got this great problem and he thinks, I need to try and fix this problem. So he comes up with solution number one.

(4:02 – 4:20)

And solution number one is, I’m going to get a job. But he looks around and everyone’s in famine, everyone’s in poverty and everyone’s looking for a job and there’s not very many jobs around. So he finds himself with possibly the worst possible job that he could have got, feeding pigs.

(4:20 – 4:36)

And every day he gets up early and he starts to feed these pigs. And as he does this more and more and more, he starts to get hungrier and hungrier and hungrier. And eventually the food that the pigs are eating starts to look quite good for him.

(4:36 – 4:46)

And he decides that he’s going to try some of this food as well. And as he starts to eat some of this food, he thinks, this is awful. Even back home, even my father’s servants live better than this.

(4:47 – 4:59)

And he comes up with solution number two. And solution number two is he’s going to go home and he’s going to say to his father, father, I have sinned against heaven and I’ve sinned against you. Make me like one of your hired servants.

(4:59 – 5:11)

Treat me like a servant. I’m not your son anymore, but treat me like a servant and let me stay on the land with you. And so he comes to his senses and he starts to walk home.

(5:11 – 5:22)

And as he’s starting to walk home, I bet he’s memorising this phrase again and again, father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

(5:22 – 5:28)

And he’ll do it again and again. Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.

(5:28 – 5:47)

Make me like one of your hired servants. And as he’s walking home and memorising this in his head, his father is at the window and his father is looking out. That’s where his father has spent his days, just optimistically, hopefully looking out in the hope that his son is going to return to him.

(5:48 – 6:09)

And one day, as the father is looking out, he sees way, way, way off, he sees this man coming towards him. And this man probably wouldn’t look like he looked as he set off, he’d be very different because of everything that he’d endured, but the father knew who his son was. His father had been thinking about this every day, the idea of his son coming home.

(6:10 – 6:22)

And he ran out from the house and he ran towards his son and he embraced his son. And the son started to say, Father, I have sinned against heaven, against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

(6:22 – 6:48)

What comes next? Make me like one of your hired servants, isn’t it? And that’s what he says, but he says, Father, I’ve sinned against heaven, against you. Make me, I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. But he doesn’t get the next words out because his father interrupts him, throws his arms around him and doesn’t even let him present his solution of working back the debt, of working to become part of the family again.

(6:48 – 7:02)

The father just embraces him and he welcomes him home. He puts a robe around him, he puts a ring on his finger, he washes him up, he gets him looking perfect. And then he says, we need to kill the fattened calf.

(7:02 – 7:23)

And as they do that, everyone starts to gather together in the village and join this celebration. But there’s the older brother outside, he’s coming in from the farm and he hears all the music and he hears all the celebration. He says, what could possibly be happening? And one of the servants says, your brother’s come home and your father’s throwing a party.

(7:24 – 7:36)

And the brother’s furious. He is not going to come back, come into this party. And as he stands outside, the father comes out and says, what is wrong? And he says, I’ve worked so hard.

(7:36 – 7:41)

Every day I’ve got up early. Every day I’ve went to bed late. Every day I’ve worked and I’ve worked and I’ve worked.

(7:42 – 7:52)

And what have you given me? Nothing. I can’t believe this. And the father said, son, you need to be happy because your brother, he was lost and he’s now found.

(7:53 – 8:07)

He has come home. You know, the brother thought the harder he worked, the more he would deserve. And he looks at the younger son who hasn’t worked for anything and yet is getting all of this reward.

(8:08 – 8:21)

And the brother learned that lesson that day that with his father, it wasn’t about how hard you work. It was about your reliance on him. It was about you coming to him and recognising that, coming to him and recognising that you weren’t worthy of anything.

(8:21 – 8:32)

And you know, that’s the story of the prodigal son. That’s what God asks us to do. He asks us to be surprised by this great love that he has for us and to come to him and not say, God, I have worked so hard.

(8:32 – 8:37)

I’ve kept all of your commandments. I’ve done everything that I could possibly do. Let me be part of your family.

(8:37 – 8:46)

That’s not what God is looking for from us. God’s love is completely different to that. Right, I want to try this one.

(8:46 – 8:54)

Is there anyone that wants to give me a little hand today? A few people down here. Okay, perfect, right. You can stay there, I’ll come to you.

(8:54 – 9:03)

We’re just gonna do a little card trick here. So it’s really simple, okay? I’m gonna go through the cards like that. And when we get to the one that you want, do you know who I’m speaking to, yeah? Yeah, cool.

(9:04 – 9:14)

So we get to the card that you want, you shout stop, and then that’s your card. Understand? X, like three people nodding there, but that’s fine. Okay, so we’re gonna go here.

(9:15 – 9:24)

You sure? That’s the one you want? Okay, excellent, you take that. Perfect, right, we’re gonna go. Anyone else wanting to help? One over here.

(9:27 – 9:33)

Okay, we’ll go here, and then we’ll go there. Okay, so again. Stop, I’ve went all the way through, hang on.

(9:33 – 9:35)

Right. Stop. Sure? Yes.

(9:36 – 9:41)

Okay, one for you, and then in the red. Excellent, we’re gonna go again. Stop.

(9:41 – 9:49)

Sure? One more. Please? No? Okay, there you go, that’s one for you. Okay, brilliant.

(9:49 – 10:14)

So what we’ve got here is we’ve got three cards. Need someone else, just a normal deck, yeah? Nothing special about that deck, all normal, yeah? No idea? Okay, good. So what we’ve got is we’ve got three cards out there, and I am going to very, very impressively tell you exactly what, I can’t even remember who took a card, let alone what the cards are, but anyway.

(10:15 – 10:26)

There we go, we’ve got one over here. So I’m going to tell you what card you got. Just a little trick, if you don’t show me it right now, because that’s less impressive.

(10:27 – 10:37)

Okay, so keep them well hid. Okay, so your card is, it’s black, it’s a spade. It’s an eight, eight of spades.

(10:38 – 10:49)

Is that right? No. Okay, good. Right, eight of spades over here? Eight of spades? Is that an eight? No, okay.

(10:50 – 11:00)

Eight of spades? We’ll come back to you. Right, so over here we’ve got, it’s a heart, it’s a king. It’s the king of hearts.

(11:02 – 11:16)

King of hearts? Don’t show it to me! Nope, not the king of hearts. King of hearts? Okay, we’ll come back to you. Right, we’re going to go three of diamonds.

(11:18 – 11:28)

Three of diamonds? He’s fell asleep. Three of diamonds? Excellent, right. So, what we’ve learned there is all about mistakes, and it’s a really good lesson to learn, and we’ll just move on.

(11:29 – 11:42)

No, maybe not. Right, let me see what I can do here. Has anyone ever seen the adverts with the meerkats and the insurance? You ever seen that before? I think that might be able to help us here.

(11:42 – 11:52)

If we click onto the next slide, let me see what I can do here. Right, insurance, insurance. Right, if we click on all insurance, there we go, next slide.

(11:52 – 12:02)

Is there anything that we can see up here that might be able to help me? Income protection, dog insurance? No, that’s not it. Lifetime pet? No. Over 50s? I think not.

(12:03 – 12:26)

Anything else? Magician, magician’s insurance policy. Perfect, right, we’re going to click on that. And then, what have we got? We’ve got, okay, and the next one, next slide, we’ve got our, perfect, right, our magician’s insurance policy is all here and set up.

(12:26 – 12:43)

So, who was our first card over here? Now, the magician’s insurance policy is brilliant because what it does is for 9.99 a month, it gives me three other chances to guess what card has been taken. So, if this doesn’t work, I’ll just sit down. But, we’re going to give this one a go.

(12:44 – 12:56)

Okay, so the first card over here, is your card the ace of hearts? Does that look the same? Yes, perfect. Okay, oh, this is worth the money. Excellent, right.

(12:57 – 13:08)

One for three, right, we’re going to go for the second one. Is your card the, I can’t even remember what that one is, 10 of clubs? Excellent, right. Two for three, right, so we’ve got one more.

(13:09 – 13:20)

Drum roll, please. Is your card the queen of diamonds? Oh, perfect, right, well done. Thank you very much.

(13:22 – 13:52)

Man, isn’t it good when you get a second chance at something? Isn’t it really, really good when someone gives you a second chance? You know, the good news of the gospel is that God gives us a second chance. That we have decided in our lives to walk away from him and go our own way, just like the prodigal son, but the Bible says that if we turn around and we go back to him, he will welcome us. Not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of who his son is and what his son has done for us.

(13:52 – 14:05)

He shows us this great love that he has for us through his son. And we read in Romans chapter five that God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

(14:05 – 14:25)

While we were still in with the pigs, while we were still looking for our own solutions, he gave us a solution, the greatest solution, through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we turn around and we follow after him, he’s looking for us. He wants us to return.

(14:26 – 14:41)

And that’s the hardest thing to accept about the gospel, that we get into our heads that he wants us to turn around and come back to him. In our sin, in our shame, knowing everything that we’ve done against him, he wants us to come back to him. He is looking for us to make that return.

(14:42 – 15:05)

In Ephesians chapter five, we read, follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We might think that we’re all smelly and stinky and in with the pigs, but that’s not what God sees. God sees his son, a fragrant and perfect sacrifice.

(15:05 – 15:17)

I love the way the message puts it in these same verses. It says, mostly what God does is love you and keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us.

(15:17 – 15:28)

His love was not cautious, but it was extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us, but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

(15:29 – 15:42)

You know, this is the message that we can take from the prodigal son. If we want to know what real love is, we don’t look to ourselves, but we look to Jesus, who has paid the greatest price he could possibly pay. He gave his own life.

(15:42 – 15:56)

That’s how much Christ has loved us, that he gave his life for us. And there’s nothing that can get in the way of that when we come back to God, not in our own name, but in Christ’s name. Not because of who we are, but because of who Christ is.

(15:57 – 16:05)

Not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ has done. That is the true message of extravagant love. Thank you very much.

The post The Prodigal Son – Luke 15v11–32 appeared first on Greenview Church.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. The triumphant words that we’ve just been singing, the words of Fanny Crosby, the blind 19th century Christian hymn writer, and her confidence continues.

Listen to the third verse, perfect submission, all is at rest. I and my Saviour, I’m happy and blessed, watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love. Well, it seems that Fanny Crosby was having a good day in her Christian life when she wrote that hymn.

She was clearly feeling an overwhelming sense of personal assurance. Assurance, just to define it, being the inner sense of confidence that I am God’s child, or to put it in the terms of this song, the assurance that Jesus is mine. Well, that assurance is exuding from Crosby.

But what about you? And what about me? Can we sing these same words with the same confidence tonight? And what if we can’t? What if we have little assurance or even no sense of assurance tonight? What does that mean? And what should we do about it? Well, over the next three Sunday evenings, I want us to think about that together. This evening is going to be the introduction to the little series. I’ve titled it, The Battle and the Blessing, because assurance is both of those things.

(2:18 – 7:25)

It is a blessing that God wants us to have as believers, but it is also something we often need to battle for. Tonight, we’re going to be really setting up the problem, if you like, mainly, starting to look at the solution. But really, it’s in messages two and three that we’re going to focus on what we do when we lack assurance.

In week two, we’ll think about assurance from without, the objective assurance that we can look for in the gospel. And then in week three, we’ll think about assurance within. What kind of assurance can we expect internally? What can we reasonably expect biblically, in terms of an internal sense of assurance? And my hope is that by the end of these messages, we will be able to sing more often the words of blessed assurance.

And even when we can’t sing it with full gusto, I hope we’ll have some idea of what to do. So, let’s turn this evening to Romans chapter 8, Romans 8, which in the New Testament is arguably the most important chapter on assurance. It really is the great assurance chapter.

It’s a chapter written by Paul to assure God’s children that we will never be condemned or separated from God’s love. And Paul brings his argument to the climax from verse 31. We’re going to read from verse 31 to the end.

Let’s hear God’s Word. What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.

Christ Jesus who died, more than that who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we face death all day long and are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What amazing verses. And one of the reasons I love them is that they set the blessing of assurance in the context of the battle for assurance.

I mean, clearly Paul really wants the Roman church to rest in the assurance of their salvation. He wants this church to revel in the fact that they are not condemned. He wants them to rejoice in the truth that they are safe in God’s love.

Or to use another image, he wants them to be confident that they will be conquerors. He wants them to know that when the dust settles in history, they will be with God on the winning side of history, on the winning team. And Paul wants these Christians to be blessed with that knowledge right here and right now.

Very famously in verse 1 of the chapter, he says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And yet, even as Paul points us to these great blessings, he does so in the context of the battle for it. He mentions, did you notice, various things that may threaten our assurance.

(7:25 – 8:53)

For instance, in verse 34, Paul says, who is he that condemns? One thing that could threaten my assurance is if I am still guilty and condemned before a holy God. Or similarly, look at verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Now, Paul answers that a few verses on, and he says that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. But sandwiched in between his question and his answer in the second half of verse 35 and in verse 36, Paul lists a number of things that might separate us from the love of God, things that we might think could separate us from His love.

Trouble, hardship, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. And further down in verse 38, he then mentions death and demons. Maybe they could separate us from the love of God in Christ.

(8:54 – 9:18)

But I think my favourite verse is verse 39, where Paul adds, nor anything else in all creation. Paul says, if I’ve missed anything else off the list, if there’s anything else you can think of that might separate you from God’s love, then chuck those in as well. Anything in all creation.

(9:19 – 9:44)

Even they won’t keep us from God’s love. You see, Paul is well aware that there are multiple threats to the assurance that we have. While he is writing to offer us the blessing of assurance, he’s aware of the battles that often accompany and seem to threaten our assurance.

(9:46 – 10:56)

And in that sense, Romans 8 is much more balanced than Fanny Crosby’s hymn. Not that I’m criticising the hymn, and it’s really what that hymn is. It’s a strong expression of Christian assurance, and it’s wonderful to hear that.

It’s wonderful to sing that. But the hymn does lack any context that there might be potential threats to that assurance. Paul’s triumphant call to an assured faith is pastorally aware of the issues that believers might struggle with.

And I just want to highlight some of those issues that believers often struggle with as we introduce this series, because this battle comes in so many different forms and in different ways to different people. Now, some of these common issues that relate to assurance are actually found in the text itself. We’ve already mentioned a sense of condemnation.

(10:58 – 13:01)

Who is he that condemns? A sense of condemnation is where we feel that our sin is an evidence that we are condemned before God, and that we’re not truly saved, we’re not truly forgiven. It’s notable, to give an illustration of this, that when King David commits adultery and murder, when he comes to confess that to God in Psalm 51, it’s very notable that he says, “‘Cast me not out of your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.'” You see there that David is fearful that his great sin will mean separation from the presence of God and from the presence of the Spirit. And so sometimes maybe there’s something we’ve done that just seems so… maybe there’s a memory even from the past, and you think, that was so bad.

How can someone like me be truly forgiven? Or for some Christians, it’s more just the kind of constant murmuring of a particularly sensitive conscience. Maybe we have a really heightened sense of our sin and our failings, and we just can’t believe that God would accept a person like us that feels so guilty all the time. Or maybe there’s a habitual sin, say, an addiction to pornography, for example.

Or maybe a pattern of serious anger in our lives, or some other issue. And that pattern of sin makes you think, how could I be genuinely saved? Otherwise, surely the pattern wouldn’t be there. Well, Paul is aware of that as he writes this passage.

(13:03 – 13:22)

Also notice as well that Paul is aware that circumstances, here’s a certain thing, circumstances can affect our sense of assurance. Many of the threats to assurance come out of the circumstances in our lives. Paul speaks in the passage of believers suffering troubles.

(13:24 – 14:11)

Troubles can be, of course, of many varieties, but it would include things like illness, illness, serious illness, maybe mental health issues, for example. He also talks about nakedness, which you think, well, what kind of problems is he talking about here? Really, it’s an experience of poverty. That’s the idea, poverty.

Maybe you lose your job. Maybe your income plummets, and you wonder, has God left me? Does God love me? Or even death itself. There’s a circumstance which Paul mentions quite a bit in this passage, and maybe it’s in the face of that, that we wonder whether we truly are saved.

(14:14 – 19:58)

Many Christians have a reasonable sense of assurance until a crisis hits in life. A spouse leaves them. A serious illness comes upon them, or something of that nature, and they lose the sense of assurance.

They feel separated by God because of the trial. They wonder whether they belong to God, and they wonder whether God is even there. I think those issues are covered in this passage.

But of course, Paul does then speak of anything else in all creation. He says, whatever else you chuck in can’t separate the believer from God’s love. And so, let me just take the liberty of throwing in a few other circumstances, I think, in which people can lack assurance.

One is a lack of a dramatic conversion story. Or maybe you’re even someone that’s sort of gradually come to faith, and so you wonder, well, was I ever really converted? And related to that is the whole issue of comparison, because often what we’re doing there is we’re comparing our conversion to someone else’s. But this is not just about the entry to the Christian life, but even the continuation.

Maybe we look at other Christians, and we think they’re so godly, they’re so holy, they’re so full of faith. And so, as we compare ourselves to them, we think, I’m just not sure that I’m the real deal. Or another example, which is a bit different again, is when we start to doubt the credibility of the gospel.

Now, this is a different issue but it is related. In fact, just as a little sidebar, one of the tricky things when discussing assurance is the terminology itself. Sometimes when we’re speaking of assurance, we can be speaking of two different things.

Sometimes when someone says they don’t feel assured, what they mean is, I’m not assured I’m a true Christian. But they also might be saying, I’m not sure that Christianity is true. In one case, the question is, am I true? Am I the real deal? And the other question is, is the gospel the real deal? This series will be dealing a little more with whether we’re the real deal.

But actually, these two things are closely connected. Because obviously, if you start doubting that the gospel is true, then that will undermine your sense of personal assurance. The big point I’m trying to make here is that there are so many angles from which a lack of assurance can come.

And that means that we shouldn’t be surprised that struggles with assurance are common. Because there are so many ways through which your blessed assurance can be disturbed, through a sin you commit, through a circumstance you’re in, through a demonic attack. Paul mentions demons here can’t separate us.

But it might be coming from the evil one himself, through doubts about the Bible. There are so many ways in which your settled assurance can be unsettled. Donald Whitney, in his helpful book on assurance, I think has it right when he says this.

To me, this was worth the price of the book. He says, he’s answering the question, is it possible for a genuine Christian to lack assurance? And his answer is, it is possible and even normal for a Christian to have struggles with assurance. It’s possible and even normal for a Christian to sometimes lack assurance.

Now, he also then says, it is abnormal for a Christian to never have a sense of assurance. It is abnormal for you to be a real Christian and for you to never have a sense that you are a child of God. That is abnormal and is a deep concern.

But it is possible and even normal for Christians to have moments of time or even seasons of time where we feel less assured or even unassured. And I think the evidence of that is found in Scripture itself. It’s found in the very fact that Paul writes Romans chapter 8. Why is Paul writing the chapter? He’s writing the chapter to reassure us in our faith.

Think of the letter of 1 John. It’s famously known, isn’t it, as the letter of assurance. Why is John writing the letter? He’s writing the letter because Christians at times are sitting around saying, I’m not sure that I’m the real deal.

We can also go to personal characters in the Bible. It’s interesting just to try and make a list of some of those. We’ve already mentioned David and his struggle, teetering on the brink of wondering whether he’s going to be seen to be lost.

(20:00 – 20:49)

Job, I think, is another really obvious example, as is Asaph in Psalm 73. And so, I want to say to you tonight that if you have moments of horrifying doubt, you’re not alone. And if on a fairly consistent basis you feel your assurance under attack, you’re not in an abnormal category.

And yet at the same time, it is not something you should ignore. I would say that a persistent lack of assurance is a little bit like a warning light on your car dashboard. It indicates that something is wrong.

(20:51 – 22:59)

But the thing is, it could be various things that are wrong. The warning light doesn’t necessarily indicate that you’re not saved, but it always will indicate that something is wrong. And in such a situation, we should seek help and prayer to try to understand what’s going on, and we should seek the church’s help to come through that time where we’re lacking assurance.

We shouldn’t panic, but neither should we ignore the warning light on the dashboard. And I’m speaking here particularly of where there are seasons of time when that’s the case, or maybe it’s not seasons, but we have a very strong sense of attack on our assurance over a short-term basis. Well, I’ve said quite a lot about the battle for assurance, but I think it’s important that we just delve into that a little bit before we start looking at the blessing of it.

And I want just to notice here, following Paul’s lead, where he starts to point us as he takes us from the battle to the blessing of assurance. How do we get to that blessing? How do we get to that sense of assurance? Well, let’s go back to verse 34 for a moment. Paul asks, who is he that condemns? And he confidently answers, no one, because it is God who justifies.

In other words, what Paul is saying here is, if God’s verdict on you is that you are justified, that is legally in the right before him, if God says you are not condemned, you are not condemned. He’s saying God makes the decision about your justification, no one else. Your feelings don’t make the decision.

(23:00 – 23:28)

Your accusers don’t make the decision. Whether the accusation comes from Satan or from your own guilty conscience, nothing outside you or from within you, not even your own sense of assurance, determines whether you’re justified before God. This is why a believer can have no sense of assurance and still be saved, still be justified, because it doesn’t depend on their feelings.

(23:29 – 26:56)

It depends on God’s gracious verdict. And Paul explores this in Romans 3, of course. He makes it clear that justification is God’s decision.

And he doesn’t make the decision on the basis of your works or through your keeping of his law. His justification is imputed to you by a gift, a gift of righteousness that is received by faith in Jesus. So, what we’re beginning to see here is that our assurance fundamentally does not come from looking inwardly.

It comes from looking upward, looking away from ourselves and looking up to the God who justifies the sinner through the blood of Jesus. And it’s a similar idea in verse 34, taking another step. Paul continues, who then is the one who condemns? Paul now gives another reason why we can have the assurance that we’re saved.

This time he points not to God the Father who justifies, but God the Son in his death, his resurrection, and in his high priestly session. Christ Jesus died and paid the price for our sins. He was raised showing that death’s curse had been dealt with.

But notice where Paul puts the emphasis. He says that Christ is now, because he’s very keen on us seeing that we’re not condemned now, he is now at the right hand of God and, if you like, he is in the Father’s ear. He is speaking to the Father on our behalf and interceding for us.

And what is Christ’s plea? Well, it’s not that you and I are great Christians. It’s not that Colin has a strong faith or a perfect life. It’s that His righteousness and blood have brought about a position of no condemnation.

Notice again that as Paul tackles our assurance, his primary way of assuring us is by pointing us away from ourselves, first to the God who justifies and second to the Son who, having accomplished his earthly work, intercedes for us. So, our assurance is primarily built on looking to the God of grace and the Jesus of salvation. And then notice the third question, the third great question, who shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Paul now brings together the Father who justifies and the Son who intercedes and he says that God has loved us in his Son and who can separate us from the love of God in Christ? His answer, absolutely nothing.

(26:56 – 28:00)

Not trouble or hardship or famine or persecution or nakedness, not death or demons or anything else in all creation, including our weak faith and our battles for assurance. Paul says nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, not now, not ever. Because you see, the chain of salvation can never be broken.

That chain that Paul talks about in verse 30, those who God predestines, He calls and those He calls, He justifies. And those He justifies, He will glorify. My assurance is not built upon, can I keep this up all the way to heaven, but built upon God will keep me in His love all the way to heaven.

(28:02 – 28:25)

But I’m getting into next week’s sermon about the assurance that comes from outside of us. What I hope this evening is that we will all realise a couple of things, that the battle for assurance is every Christian’s battle. At some point in your life, you will battle with this, you will.

(28:27 – 28:44)

Assurance, secondly, is a blessing that God does want us to have. Assurance is the birthright of every Christian, not only to be saved, but to know that you’re saved on the way to glory. God does want you to have that blessing.

(28:45 – 29:22)

And yet there will be times when you will struggle to have it in a world where we’re wrestling with the flesh and the world and the devil. And you will only enjoy this blessing if you spend most of your time looking outside of yourself to the God who justifies, to the Christ who died and who now intercedes for you, and to the God who has promised to keep you in His love.

The post The Battle and the Blessing – Romans 8v31–39 appeared first on Greenview Church.