1 John 2. 1 John 2 is our scripture reading tonight. We'll read the first 17 verses. Hear the Word of God. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word In him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that saith he's in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little children because you have known the father. I have written unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. May God bless the reading of sacred scripture. Dear church family, above thee Lord's Day, we're called to consider tonight, is written, these words, the third part of thankfulness. You could use the word sanctification there. You could use the word gratitude. You could use the word holiness. But what our instructor, is concerned about and will be concerned about for 21 Lord's Days, that's a huge chunk, is now that we have tasted our sin and misery and have been drawn and driven to Jesus Christ to find all our salvation in Him, how do we live, how do we live the Christian life? How do we do good works? And what role do these good works have? How can we steer clear from the error of antinomianism, anti being against, and nomus meaning the law, being against the law, that is to say that we don't think the law is important to live according to the Ten Commandments anymore because, well, we're saved. How can we avoid that error of antinomianism and also avoid the error on the opposite side where our good works actually merit our salvation? And our instructor will tell us in 21 sermons that prayer, verses 45-52, is an important part of living the Christian life, as is obeying the Ten Commandments in the spirit of the law, responding to the commandments out of love. as we'll see in Lord's Days 34 through 44, but also obeying them by abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ. And hence, the Ten Commandments and prayer will actually take up 90% of this section. But what we have in Lord's Day 32 and 33 is more or less an introductory section explaining what they're doing. And I want to look at that with you tonight to understand in Lourdes Day 32 and then next week, Dr. Kyvenhoven will talk about Lourdes Day 33, how this issues forth in the conversion, the daily conversion of sorrow over sin and love for God and good works as a fruit. How these things are so foundational for living the Christian life. That's why when I was a theological student in St. Catherine's, Ontario, under the teaching of Reverend Westrate, the first two catechism sermons he made me write were Lord's Day 4 and Lord's Day 32. He said to me, if you get those two right, You'll probably get all the rest of them right. These are critical Lord's Days to understand the relationship, Lord's Day 32, between salvation in Christ and the connecting link. Now, how do I live the Christian life out of Christ? And so what we're going to especially focus on tonight is what is the relationship between good works and our salvation? And then what is the relationship between good works and our assurance of faith? And how do they reinforce each other? So I want to do that through expounding 1 John 2, verses 3 through 6, mostly in the first half of the sermon. And then we'll turn more in detail to Lord's Day 32 in the second half of the sermon. 1 John 2, 3-6, And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith, he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he, that is Jesus, walked. And then Lord's Day 32 of our catechism, questions 86 and 87. Since then we are delivered from our misery, that's Lord's Days 2 through 4, merely of grace through Christ without any merit of ours, that's Lord's Days 5 through 31, why must we still do good works? And that will be Lorsday 32 through 52. So he's picking up here, you see, bringing together in this global question the entire catechism, the entire body of truth, the entire body of doctrine in the Bible. You can see right away this is a very important question. And then the answer, because Christ Notice it starts with Christ. Living the Christian life always begins with Christ. Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by His blood, also renews us by His Holy Spirit after His own image, that so we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for His blessings, and that He may be praised by us. Also, that everyone may be assured in himself of his faith by the fruits thereof. and that by our godly conversation, others may be gained to Christ. And 87, cannot they then be saved, who, continuing in their wicked and ungrateful lives, are not converted to God? By no means. For the Holy Scripture declares that no unchaste person, idolater, adulterer, thief, covetous man, drunkard, slanderer, robber, or any such like, shall inherit the kingdom of God. So our theme then this evening is good works and assurance of faith. We want to look first at the essence of assurance, then the evidence of assurance, and then the relationship between assurance and good works. So what is assurance of faith? Well, a Christian with assurance of faith knows that he knows. He knows that he belongs to Christ. He knows that his sins are forgiven. He knows that he knows that God loves him. And he knows that he knows he will enjoy everlasting salvation. Now that's a big deal, to know that you know. Not just have, well, I hope that it may one day be so. But to actually know with certitude, I am in Christ, I'm a Christian, I'm on my way to heaven. To everlasting union and communion with Jesus. I'm an adopted son and daughter into the family of God. It's irreversible. I know that I know. I hope every one of you cherishes, cherishes that thought of knowing that you know, really having assurance of faith. That's how our text begins. And hereby we do know that we know Him. And all throughout this book, 1 John, you will notice that John assumes it is normal for Christians to be assured of their salvation. That is, he's persuaded that God's people should have at least some degree, now there are different degrees of assurance, but some degree of assurance of their salvation. So that raises the question, first of all, what is the essence of this assurance? What's the heartbeat of it? Well, in the case of 1 John, the problem for John's readers, who were, may I say it this way, ordinary believers in the church, was that they were being challenged by the influence of Gnostic prophets, G-N-O-S-T-I-C, Gnostic prophets. The Gnostics claimed to have assurance, but John is saying their assurance is false, spurious. And yet these false prophets were looking down on the people that John had been ministering to in the churches, questioning the authenticity of the faith of these true believers. And they were saying, in effect, you cannot really be real Christians because you haven't experienced some of the very profound and deep enlightened experiences that we as Gnostics have experienced. We have been enlightened. We have been initiated into the deep things of God. You do not know what we know. So claiming superiority of faith, the Gnostics look down on the ordinary believers. Now claiming superiority of faith has been a problem throughout the centuries, of course. It's not always in the form of Gnosticism, but it's a problem still with us today. Some people who say, well, you either have to be in our church, we only have the truth, otherwise you can't be a real Christian, as if one church has a monopoly on Christian truth. That's the Gnostic spirit. Or, other people might say, if you haven't experienced some extraordinary special blessing like I have, you cannot have any assurance. Or, Pentecostal circles, sometimes the feeling is conveyed that if you haven't received a special spirit baptism or special speaking in tongues or some other extra experiences, you really, at very best, you're a first-tier Christian, not one with assurance of faith, not a second-tier Christian. And so they make you feel inferior in faith, or even doubt if you're a Christian at all. Now it's not that John wants to take assurance of faith lightly. Assurance of faith is a wonderful gift of God. But what he's saying is that people may claim that they know Christ, and even are very advanced in the Christian faith, while They really don't know a genuine biblical experience of the basics of salvation, which of course the Bible defines, as the Heidelberg Catechism expostulates so well, in terms of an experiential awareness of my sin and misery, an experiential awareness of deliverance in Christ, and an experiential awareness of this whole life of thankfulness and sanctification and gratitude. And so John presents us really with this question. This is the foundational question behind the first epistle of John. How do we know that we know? How do we know that we know? 1 John is called the Bible book on assurance of faith. And the whole purpose of John is to assure, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, to assure the believers in the various churches which he ministered that they are indeed the children of God and not let the Gnostics knock them away from that assurance and upset and overturn their assurance of faith. And so John really begins that theme, particularly in our verse tonight, and he offers three dimensions of Christian assurance, all of which belong to this essence of assurance. And of course, as you won't be surprised to hear, they're all centered on Christ, because apart from Christ, apart from the promises of God, apart from the gospel, And in John's mind, these three things are synonyms. Christ is the promises. The promises are the gospel. So apart from Christ, the promises, and the gospel, which are all one in Jesus, for all the promises of God are yea and in Him, there is no assurance. You can't have any assurance apart from Jesus, because if you just look at yourself by yourself, disconnected from Jesus, we're all sinners and we always will wonder forever, like Martin Luther did before he found assurance in Christ, have I done enough? Or am I enough? Or do I know this enough? Or do I have that enough? It's all coming short on my side, right? So John, one more time in the Bible, the Bible does this of course hundreds of times, one more time John shows us that all assurance of faith is grounded and founded in Jesus Christ. And in our text this evening, he's really saying three things. He's saying number one, we know him. We know him. That's foundational to the essence of assurance. Hereby we do know that we know Him, verse 3 says. And when the Bible speaks of that, the word knowing God, just like in John 17, verse 3, and this is life eternal, that we know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. That knowing is not just an intellectual knowledge. The Greek word for know there is an intimate term. It's a relational term. Yes, it involves knowledge, but it involves a heartfelt knowledge. It involves a loving knowledge. It involves a knowledge of which I know Him experientially in my soul. So exactly how does a believer know Christ? Well, first of all, by believing in Christ. That's number one. by believing in Christ alone for salvation. Scripture says salvation is always rooted in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so when you believe in something, you throw your weight on it, and you trust. If you're walking across a bridge and you believe in that bridge, you're going to walk across it, putting your whole weight on it, trusting it will carry you across. When you believe in Jesus Christ, you see, you know Him in the sense of trusting in Him. That's what faith does. Faith knows Him intellectually, yes, but even that knowledge is a savory experiential knowledge of trusting in Him. It's the kind of knowledge that Paul has when he says, for the which cause I suffered these things, writing to Timothy from prison, but I'm not ashamed for I know in whom I have believed. And I am persuaded he's able to keep that which I've committed to him against that day. See, Paul's saying, I know him personally, relationally, in whom I have He's speaking with assurance. I'm persuaded, he goes on to say, this is 2 Timothy 1, that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Paul is speaking with assurance. He knows that he knows. That's what John means here. In the seminary this past week, I used this example. I was talking about something similar, and I was mentioning that Reverend Elsout's father, who passed away in Nigeria a few decades ago. He once walked into a bookstore, and he had written some books, and he saw his own books, and he went over to check out the price the bookstore was offering his books for. And a man, store owner, walked up to him and said, well, good afternoon, can I help you? And he said, well, I'm just checking the prices here. And oh, the man said, do you know that author? That's a really good author. Oh, he said to him, do you know him? Oh yeah, I know him. And he's a really a great author. Oh, Reverend Nelson said, if you would have known me, you would have called me by my name when I walked in the door. Oh, you know, the man got embarrassed. But you see, the man was saying, I know him because I've read his books. But he didn't really know him relationally. And you see, when you believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, the Holy Spirit works in that believing a personal relationship with Christ that He becomes precious to you. He becomes your Lord, your Savior, your treasure, your all and in all. You know what it means to pour out your heart in prayer to Him. You know what it means to receive His Word in your soul. And you live by these things. You live by that personal knowledge. Jesus Christ. This is life eternal, to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. That is a knowing, that is a believing, a trusting, a casting all of my weight upon that Savior for time and for eternity. And then secondly, to know him It's not only to believe in Him, but it's also to experience Christ. To experience the redeeming power of His saving grace. In granting us His righteousness. And in helping us to beat back our sins. It means experiencing something. And hopefully it's a growing measure all our lifetime. But at least something of Christ in his person, his offices, his prophet, priest, and king. His natures, his states, his benefits. All the things of Christ. I want to know him far better than I know him. Oh yes. But I cannot deny that, I cannot say he's a total stranger to me when I'm a child of God. Because he's become precious. And the little that I've experienced of him is exceedingly precious to me. In fact, I can identify with Paul, can't you, when he said, I count all things loss but for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For I yearn, he goes on to say, to be found in Christ that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. See, that's what I long for when I'm a believer. I long to know more and more of Jesus Christ experientially, to be crucified with Him, to be raised with Him, to find my life in Him. And then thirdly, to know Christ is to commune with Him. It's to believe in Him, to experience Him, to commune with Him. In Job 22, verse 21, we read, Acquaint now thyself with Him. How do you acquaint yourself with God in Christ? Well, you receive His Word, and you go back to Him in prayer. It's a two-way communion. And that Word speaks to you with power and with direction. And you speak back to Him. You come to God through Jesus Christ, speaking to God, pouring out your heart before Him. When the Bible speaks about knowing Jesus, it means having communion with Him, enjoying His presence, hearing His voice through His word. It means unburdening your soul before Christ, speaking to Him through prayer and through praise. But secondly, to know that we know is not only knowing Jesus, but it means being in Jesus. in Jesus. John goes on to say that in verses 4 and 5, that the foundation of our assurance really is in Him, by being in Him. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keepeth His word in Him, verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in Him. Now, when we're born again, through the power of the Holy Spirit, you see, we are personally united with Christ. Our forefathers called that union with Christ. And out of that union flows communion. Now, John uses the words, in him, being in Christ, four times in our text tonight. And Paul, of course, never tires of using that expression, in him. I once went through Paul's epistles and counted all the times that Paul said in him. I read through the whole group of epistles. I came up with 164 times. 164 times. Paul's speaking of believers being united with Christ, being in Him. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For ye are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So what Paul and John are saying is that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is in Christ first of all. Hence, assurance means knowing that if the Spirit is in us, Christ is also in us, and we are in Christ. And that assured knowledge of being united to Christ is a growing process. A growing process of assurance that results from increasingly being anchored in the person and work of Christ by word-centered faith. Word-centered saving faith. Which leads me to my third thought. That we don't only know Him, we aren't only in Him, but we also abide in Him. This is the essence of the ground of our assurance. It's all in Christ. We know Him, we're in Him, and then we abide in Him. John goes on to say, in fact he uses this wonderful expression, that we abide in Him. He says, verse 6, he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as he, that is Christ, walked. So, if you're in union with Christ, in the state of union, and you're saved, and you're now walking in communion with Him that flows out of that union, that also solidifies your assurance, because as you walk with Him, you are abiding in Him, and so there's a relationship there that is stable. Take an earthly marriage. The day you married your spouse, were you absolutely sure that you loved each other? I would hope that everyone who's married in this audience could say, yes, absolutely sure. I had assurance. But if you've had a good marriage, 20 years later, if I were to say to you, are you sure your spouse loves you? and you love her and that, are you sure of love in your marriage, sure of a solid relationship, you would say, way, way more sure than I was the night we got married. Because you see, abiding together for those 20 years has solidified those convictions. You've grown in those convictions. He loves me, I love him. And so 20 years later, because your spouse has a track record of showing you that she loves you or he loves you, you are more sure than ever. And when you're a Christian and you see God's track record with you, his faithfulness in continuing to love you. Now, in human relationships, of course, there's always imperfections, but God in his relationship with us, His track record is perfect. He's always been faithful. He's never made one mistake. And so, to be assured we're in union with Him is a wonderful thing, but also to abide in Him and to keep growing in that assurance is an even more wonderful thing. John 15 puts it this way. John says, as a branch draws its life from its vine, the branch grows and bears fruit by abiding in the vine. And so Jesus says in verse 6, that if a man professes to be a Christian, but does not abide in Christ, his profession is meaningless. He becomes a withered, dry branch, good only for burning. And so, the essence of Christian assurance, then, is knowing that we know Christ personally. Knowing that we are personally united to Him. Knowing that we are, by the grace of God, abiding in Him day by day. Resting in Christ. Resting in His promises. Resting in the Gospel. Not perfectly. No, no. Sometimes weakly. Sometimes feebly. But we cannot deny, He's my only hope. He's my only rest. My only trust is in His promises. My only clinging ground is His gospel. And so, you see, Christianity is not just some, well, decision I made in the past. True Christianity is the progression of a life, a life linked to Jesus Christ. And so long as my rock is not Christ, so long as my linkage is not to Christ, no matter what experiences I have, no matter what struggles I have with sin, no matter how much I wrestle, I will never get assurance apart from Jesus. Jesus is the ground. Jesus is the essence. Jesus is the foundation of my salvation. He's the rock of my assurance that I'm a child of God. So that's point one. Now the second point of the sermon is the evidence of assurance. In our text, John also supplies us, as he supplied us with three grounds for the essence of assurance, he supplies us with three facets of evidence for our assurance. And he's saying, those who personally know Christ, those who are in Christ, united with Him, those who abide in Christ, they will know these evidences. They will know these evidences. So go back with me to verse 3. Evidence number one is obedience. Obedience. Obedience to the law of God. Not out of a meritorious ground, but out of thankfulness. That's what this whole Lord's Day is about. Thankfulness. Let's read verses 3 and 4 again. He's speaking, of course, of the moral law, the Ten Commandments. which the summary of, you know what they are, right? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God above all, thy neighbor as thyself. He that saith, I know him and keepeth not his commandments, verse four, is a liar and the truth is not in him. So what John is saying, of course, about the Gnostics is that a person can have wonderful experiences, super ordinary experiences and feelings, can make many big claims and put down others, but if he doesn't walk in the way of God, he's a liar. He doesn't know, really know, what he claims to know. He just thinks he knows. So when Christ saves a sinner, Christ's presence becomes evident in how that person obeys God's commands. And what does that mean? Well, the practical evidence of an authentic God-given faith is a new lifestyle. A lifestyle in which I want to please God. A lifestyle in which I want to obey God. A lifestyle that reflects a different orientation from what I had before. A different spiritual orientation. A different emotional orientation. A different orientational drive. You see, before I might have tried to avoid sin out of fear of hell, or out of fear of a guilty conscience, or out of a fear of the consequences of sin. But now, you see, I want to obey out of love, because I love the God who's saved me and, shall I say it this way, who is continuing to save me. So I'm no longer then shaped primarily, even though it still is too big of an influence, I'm no longer shaped primarily by the thinking, the opinions, and the values of this world, but my life is shaped by the commandments of God that please God. So I want to obey God. When God enters into a sinner's life and saves that sinner, He also grants that sinner that loving desire. He places three jewels in the heart of that sinner. Hope and faith and love. And love is the greatest of them all. And that love gives me a loving desire to embrace God's will. It's a love of loyalty. I want to pledge allegiance to my God, and I grieve that I still sin every day against Him. Obedience. So, what John is saying here is that the Gnostics can talk big, but you know that someone truly loves a person, not by the fine words he says, but by how he treats the person he loves. We all need to hear that we are loved, of course. Think again of a marriage. I mean, a husband or wife would be a fool not to say the words to each other regularly. I love you. I love you with all my heart. I love your special or whatever. Maybe some of us should express it more often. But it's even more important, you see, To show that you love your spouse. To show that you love God. True love desires to please the loved one. And that desire is best expressed by the way you treat a person. Showing how much you prize and cherish that person. And so John says, we know that we know God, first and foremost, if we keep His commandments. If we have this urge, this love in our heart, planted by the Holy Spirit, to love God. And by loving God, we will obey His commandments. And the Holy Spirit will testify in our conscience, with our conscience, Romans 8, 15 and 16, that we are a child of God because there is that corroborating witness. I can say, Lord, though I don't serve Thee the way I wish, with the consistency I wish, and not the degree of love I wish, Thou knowest all things, Lord. Thou knowest that I love Thee. And so John says, you may know that you know. that you're a child of God by the deepest desires of your heart, that you want to walk in God's ways, you want to obey His commandments, all of grace. Now what that means, of course, is that if we walk against God's commandments, and we go our own way, and we fall into all kinds of sins, and we live in sin, we live in sin, we had better lose our assurance. If you go out next week and you're unfaithful to your spouse, you better not go around saying, I've got a wonderful marriage, I'm so sure we love each other, when you're unfaithful. No, no, no. You see, here's the point. Here's the point. You can't maintain high levels of assurance when you exercise low levels of obedience. Charles Spurgeon put it this way. The lack of practical obedience to Christ is the root of 999 out of every 1,000 of our doubts and our fears. Can I read that again? The lack of practical obedience to Christ is the root of 999 of every 1,000 of our doubts and fears. You see, assurance is a gracious privilege that God sometimes removes from His people when they do not walk in obedience before Him. When we backslide, the withdrawal of assurance is actually beneficial for us because it shows us the disastrous fruits of our disobedience. And it convinces us to repent afresh of our sin, to vow again to obey God by His grace, and to plead with God to restore unto us the joy of His salvation. As one theologian says, you had better lose your assurance when you walk in disobedience. So, two important truths are being declared to us here about obedience. First, no one keeps God's commandments perfectly. Don't say, well, because I don't perfectly obey these commandments, and only Jesus did, therefore I can't be assured. No, your assurance is in Jesus' obedience. But there's a corroborating assurance that flows out of the foundational assurance of Christ that you know you're not what you once were. You know you're made a new creation because even though you fall short, you have a new orientation that is geared toward loving God and loving your neighbor, and you can't deny that. And so you get up each morning with a longing in your heart to do God's will today. Each morning you're praying something like this, aren't you? Lord, help me to do Thy will today. Shape me today by Thy Word, even in a world that repudiates Thee. Help me to walk in obedience before Thee. But then secondly, we need to remember that there are two kinds of obedience. Two kinds of obedience. There's a legal obedience, which says to my own soul, well, if I obey God, He will be good to me. That kind of obedience, of course, does nothing for the believer. In fact, it's a sign that you're not a believer if you just want to obey God so He'll do good to you. That's a selfish It's a sporadic and partial obedience at best. Legal obedience is exemplified in the prodigal son's elder brother who said, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment. That's legal obedience. It doesn't move beyond a sense of duty. But the obedience John is talking about, Our forefathers called that evangelical obedience. Obedience spurred on by the gospel, by Jesus. That obedience says something like this, God loved me and gave his son for me. He saved me and forgave me and adopted me into his family. It's my newfound joy and desire to obey him, not to win anything from him, but just to express my love for all that he has done for me. You see, the source of that God-pleasing obedience is Christ. So what prompts our hearts to evangelical obedience is being gripped by the Gospel. Such obedience says, the Son of God did everything for me, the very least I can do. I mean, He died for me. The very least I can do is live for Him out of love and obey Him out of love. So how are you doing? What obedience are you motivated by? Are you motivated just by a fear for hell or fear of the consequences of sin, fear of getting caught? Or are you motivated by, oh Lord, I've come so far short, but I do love Thee. I just long to obey Thee. Help me to be more like Christ. Help me to be more godly. Help me to obey from the heart more and more. Thou knowest, Lord, I don't love Thee the way I should, but Thou knowest I do love Thee. Can you say that tonight? Well, that's the first evidence. The second evidence is adherence to the Word of God. They're similar here. But John goes on in verse 5 and says, But whoso keepeth his word in him, verily, is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. So John takes obedience to God's law here a step further by saying, we not only desire to obey the Ten Commandments, but we actually want to respond to the entire Word of God. The entire Word of God. All the doctrines, all the teaching of the Bible. You see, when you have a new heart, you really do become like that fourth soil. in the parable of the sower of seeds that is on good ground. The seed falls into good ground. You're hungry. You're hungry for the word. Jesus said the good ground represented those which in an honest and good heart having heard the word keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. So John says when you you know the Gnostics are trying to tell you need these extraordinary experiences and I'm telling you that just receiving the Word and putting to practice the Word, that's what pleases God. You must receive the Word of God, you must hold on to it, you must strive to live according to it. Verse 5 goes on to say something astonishing, Amazing. If someone adheres to God's Word gladly from the heart, John is saying, God's Word is perfected in him. And to be perfect here doesn't mean that you never sin, but it means to accomplish. It means to reach its goal. John is saying in this person God's love accomplishes its purpose. Because the purpose of God with us is to adhere to His Word. The love of God is perfected in those who adhere. God's Word. So there's a link. There's a link between gladly embracing God's Word and experiencing the fullness of God's love in our lives, and that increases our assurance so that we say, yes, I cannot deny that there's a new life in me, even though I come far short of what I want to be. So this too is a foundational mark and evidence of true assurance of Do we adhere to the Word of God? Is there a trajectory in your life that says, I just want my life to be reflected by this book. This is my guidebook. This is my authority for what I believe, for what I practice. I want to live in accord with the whole Bible. And so I want to search it. I want to love it. I want to memorize it. I want to sing it. I want to live it. I want to be bibline. And then there's a third evidence that John speaks of here, and that is walking as Jesus walked. Walking as Jesus walked. We abide in him who so abideth in him, verse 6, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. So like a branch engrafted into a tree, The branch slowly becomes part of the tree. It's part of the tree the moment it's grafted. But it doesn't realize, you know, the fullness of the relationship yet. But the life of the tree increasingly flows into the branch, doesn't it? Now you're going to say, I know what you're going to say. Oh wow, that means I'm not a Christian at all because I'm so far away from where I ought to be. No, no, no, I'm not saying that you become Christ, but you become like Him. in certain ways that you were not like him before. It doesn't mean always to large degrees. It can be a small degree. But you can't deny it, you see. That gives you assurance. You can't deny you're different. It's like John Newton said, I'm not what I once was. I'm not what I shall be in heaven. But I'm just grateful that I'm not what I once was and that I'm on my way to perfection. So what happens is this. In Romans 8, 29, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit works in us, not just to regenerate us and then say, well, I'm going to let you squeak by into heaven. I'm going to regenerate you and then you can die. No, no. You get born again, you get regenerated, so that the Spirit works in you and makes you more and more like Christ. Paul says in Romans 8, 29, the purpose of regeneration, the purpose of the new life, is that you would be conformed to the image of Christ. That's what Lord's Day 32 is all about. Listen to it. Since then we are delivered from our misery merely of grace through Christ without any merit of ours. Why must we still do good works? Because Christ having redeemed us and delivered us by his blood also renews us by his Holy Spirit after his own image. I become more like him. that so we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for His blessings, that He may be praised by us. You see, when the Spirit works in me, and I am engrafted into the vine, and I become increasingly benefiting from the sap of the vine, and the life of Christ goes through me, then I want more and more and more in my life. I want my whole life to praise Christ. I want Christ to be everything for me, the whole of my conduct. You see, then I don't walk around and say, well, you know, this part of my life, Sunday worship, I'll try to worship Christ in church. But now on Monday, yeah, well, you know, you can't be righteous over much. I know this is wrong, but I'm just going to go ahead and do it. What? No, no, no. I want to please Christ with my whole life, the whole of my conduct. So what does it mean, then, to become more like Christ? Well, it means lots of things. I'm just going to give a few of them to you very quickly. It means, number one, making Jesus' priorities your own by faith. His priority was to do the will of His Father, and that will become your priority as well. I want to do the will of God. I want to adhere to the word of God. I want to do the commandments of God. I want to be governed by God. I love His lordship. I love His kingship. and I want to bow under it. It means also that we will increasingly have a servant heart of compassion for others, because that's what Jesus had. Jesus was embracing babies when it wasn't kosher for a prophet to do so. He was touching lepers. He was washing disciples' feet. He said, I've given an example that as I do to you, you should do to others. He came not to be served, but to serve. And the more you become conformed to Christ, the more you fall in love with Him, the more you find your all in Him, the more you'll gradually become like Him and you want to serve others. You want to tell others about Him. That's what the end of question 86 is all about. I must still do good works that by our godly conversation, others may be, that conversation there is the old-fashioned word, by my godly lifestyle, my whole way of life, that others may be gained for Christ. So it makes me an evangelist, not just with my words, but with my walk. And then, if you become more like Christ, you are increasingly acting out of love. You see, if you want to see love personified, you have to look to Jesus. Jesus loved. He just loved. He even loved the rich young man at a certain level who rejected Him. He loved widows. He loved children. He healed the sick. He loved sinners of every type. He sat down and visited with prostitutes and saved them. And He draws sinners of every kind to Himself. And above all, He loves His Father. You see, the more we walk as He walked, the more we will be not only having a servant heart, but a loving heart. And we will then repay evil with good, as Jesus did. Peter tells us, 1 Peter 2.23, when He suffered, He threatened not. When He was reviled, He reviled not again, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. Well, you may shrink at the thought of comparing yourself with Jesus. You're too aware of your own sin, your own shortcomings. So again, I want to stress with you, I'm not looking for legalistic perfectionism. I'm looking for an attitude of life, a trajectory. Is your life bent toward Christ? Do you want to walk as He walked? Do you strive to walk as He walked? Do you strive to adhere to His Word? Do you strive to act in love? Do you long to be conformed to His image? See, these are the evidences of assurance that reflect that I am in Christ. Now, after we sing, we're going to bring this together and look at then how these good works in assurance, how they strengthen one another, how they strengthen one another, So why must we do good works? Well, we've seen that one reason is that we have a new trajectory in our life, that the whole of our conduct, a whole of our conduct may be, God may be praised by us, got a new direction in our life. We saw briefly also that by our godly conversation, others may be gained to Christ when they see us reflecting Christ's image. But then you notice our instructor has something in between these two things. Also, that everyone may be assured in himself of his faith by the fruits thereof. So this is not the primary ground of assurance, that's Jesus, that's the promises, that's the gospel. But this is a secondary ground, that out of Jesus, when our lives change and we have a new orientation, and we're made new creations in Christ, We also have our assurance strengthened by the fruits of our lives, by our good works. So good works strengthen assurance, and assurance strengthens our good works, because when we have assurance, we want to go out and do everything for God, because we're so grateful to Him for our salvation. So I just want to take the last 10 minutes of this sermon and focus on this. how the good works and assurance are reinforcing each other. In the next Lord's Day, good works is defined this way, only those, what are good works? Only those which proceed from true faith, performed according to the law of God, that is the spirit of the law which demands love, and are to his glory, and are not such as are found on the imaginations or the institutions of men. So how does that work in the experience of our life between our assurance and our good works? How do good works help us strengthen our assurance in Christ? Well, our impressions of being a Christian are helped when they are confirmed by our expressions of being a Christian. Our impressions of being a Christian are confirmed by our expressions of being a Christian, said one of our forefathers. Now that does not mean that good works can justify us before God. No, no, a thousand times no. Our justification is totally in the blood of Christ. It also does not mean that good works promote our human pride. As soon as they promote our human pride, they're no longer good works. Nor does it mean that good works can ever be the primary ground of our assurance of faith. If it's not in Christ, we have no assurance. But what it does mean is this. Number one, without good works, our assurance of faith by means of God's promises and the Spirit's testimony would be only a delusion. Only a delusion. That's the whole point of the book of James. Show me a man's works and I will show you who he is. That's what James is saying. Or as our forefathers put it, our sanctification visualizes our justification. If we're like the Gnostics and we claim we're justified and we've got full assurance, but we don't love God and we don't love our neighbor and we don't adhere to the Word of God and we're not concerned about increasingly becoming like Christ, these are the basic marks of grace, not extraordinary experiences. You see, then all these things are a delusion. Promises embraced and the testimony of the Spirit within us cannot help but bear the fruit of good works. This is what Paul says in Titus 2.14. Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity. That's great. He might save us. And that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. zealous of good works. So our good works, when they're done out of love to God, they find a corroborating witness in our soul, the Spirit testifying with our spirit, that we are the children of God because God works in us fruits that we never could have worked in ourselves. Love for the lost. Love for never-dying souls. Love for the glory of God. Love for Jesus. I never could have worked that up in myself. So the good works that I do help fortify my own conscience with the Spirit's co-witness with me that I'm a child of God. The Puritans put this in the form of a syllogism. It would go like this. The major premise is, according to Scripture, only those who possess saving faith will receive the Spirit's testimony in their conscience that their lives manifest some fruits of good works. Minor premise, when I reflect on my life by faith and by the Spirit, I cannot deny that through the Spirit's testimony, I manifest fruits of good works out of sheer grace. Conclusion, I'm assured I'm a partaker of saving faith. or in the language of the Westminster Confession, good works done in obedience to God's commandments are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith, and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of adversaries, and glorify God. 16.2. And so that's what John is doing in this book over and over and over again. John's epistle is not so much about getting the basic assurance in Christ, it is that, but his focus, his focus is on the secondary form of assurance. So over and over again, 11 times, John says something like this, we know that we know because, and then he mentions some fruit in the believer's life. Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. We know that we pass from death to life because we love the brethren. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God." See, John has given us marks to reflect on. And he's saying, if you can even find one of these marks that are true in your life, and some of them you can't ascertain yet, don't be too worried about that because we're often blind to God's graces in us. But if we have one mark of grace, God does a complete work. He'll do all the rest. So good works aid assurance. And that is particularly true in times of trial, in times of trial. God has a way when we are in the midst of trial, when we do not respond slanderously, do not become angry, but respond with Christlike meekness. The Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit. I never would have responded that way apart from God's grace. I'm a new creation by the grace of God. Now, good works strengthen assurance, but it works the other way around, too. Assurance strengthens good works. Assurance provides many fruits. It provides peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And that peace and joy gives me energy and zeal to go out and do good works. If I'm always doubting my salvation, if I wake up every morning and I'm consumed with that, I won't have much space or room or energy to do good works. That's why the Puritan Thomas Goodwin said, a man who's assured of his faith in Christ will be ten times more active in proclaiming Christ and in doing good works than those who are not. Then secondly, assurance provides love and thankfulness to God, says the Westminster Confession, for doing good works. Love and thankfulness to God. When you're motivated by love, what happens? When you're motivated by thankfulness, what happens? Well, you go out and do good works and you don't want any credit for them at all. You just do it out of the love of your heart that Christ put in you. That's a beautiful thing. And then you experience it is more blessed to give than to receive. And then thirdly, Westminster says, assurance provides strength and cheerfulness. Strength and cheerfulness and duties of obedience. Think about a child of God you know that's very active for the Lord, does it out of love, and obviously loves Jesus, and loves God, and loves the souls of others. Isn't that person cheerful? If that's an assured Christian, you'll see a certain joy radiate. Sometimes it's even tangible on the face, but radiate out of the life of that individual. That's a beautiful thing. Assurance motivates us to do good works. Assurance, well, it works in me, this desire, Lord, give me a single eye, thy name to glorify. I want to go back and out of love. I know I'm an unprofitable servant if I give my whole life to thee, but I want to, so there's no merit here, but I want to do it out of gratitude. That's why we've got 21 Lord's Days on thankfulness. This is living the Christian life. So, in conclusion, a lack of good works undercuts assurance. A lack of assurance undercuts good works. But it's the combination of assurance and good works that is a testimony to the watching world. And then my life, my very life, becomes more evangelistic. One of the old Puritans said, a life of assurance and good works combined is a sermon walking in shoes. A sermon walking in shoes. Oh may God help us to be such an evangelist. I pray that as a minister that my life might be a transcript of my sermons. I know I come far short, but that's my desire. it ought to be your desire as a Christian that your life will be a sermon walking in shoes so that by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ. Amen. Great God of heaven, we thank thee so much for for grounding our assurance in Jesus Christ, and then for buttressing it by the fruits of grace that the Holy Spirit works in us so that we cannot deny that our lives have new desires. But oh, do help us, Lord, do help us to become more and more and more like Christ. Thou knowest who we are. Thou knowest that we love Thee, but Thou knowest we wish we loved Thee more, and we wish we would be much, much, much more like our Savior. O God, sanctify us further as we proceed through these 21 sermons of thankfulness and good works and sanctification and holiness conform us more to the image of Christ, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.