Perseverance

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Okay, so I want to start by asking a question that I've asked probably a million people the last couple of weeks and have not actually gotten many of the answers I thought I would get. But does anyone. Has anyone been watching the Olympics? Yes. Okay, good, good, good. I've asked a lot of people, and I've got a lot of no's, and I've been watching it way more than usual, especially for Winter Olympics. But I've tried to get more into it. I. I appreciate sports and competition, so I've done more work. It's easier to get into the Summer Olympics. Right. Because those are sports that people can actually play anywhere in the world. Winter Olympic sports. If you live in the mountains and are super rich, then you can grow up playing those. But anyone from all over the world can run 100 meters. So that's probably why Summer Olympics is better in my book. Does anyone disagree with me? Does anyone like the Winter Olympics more? You like it more? Yeah. Why? What do you like? Do you. What? What? Yeah, I'm not gonna attack you, but. Well, like, what. What do you like? What's. What's an event you enjoy? Skiing, the snowboarding, the curling? Do you like big jumps? The tricks? Yeah, those are cool. That's fair. Okay. Ice skating. That's a big one. Also, like, what kind of ice skating? Figure skating? Yeah, that's the figure skating. Yeah. That's so, like, actually so impressive the more I think about it. Yeah. I also like. Whenever it's like, they go down, like, a really steep mountain. Yeah, yeah. Just like, straight down. Oh, the slaloms. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's. It's hard to know exactly what sport you mean because there's, like, 50 versions of that. Most of the sports are just going super fast down an icy hill. Ski, snowboard, one person laying on his back, two people laying on their back, one person laying on their stomach, four people in a bobsled, two people in a bobsled, one person in a bobsled. I mean, it's all, like, just variations, which I guess you could say that about track and field. It's just different distances, but. Yes. What do you think? I like watching. That is terrible. There's a lot more in the Winter Olympics. Yeah. I know it looks. I'd be too scared to do most of the Winter Olympic sports, so I got to give, you know, hats off to those people that are doing that. Yeah. [00:02:47] Speaker B: My aunt. You know how moths are with lights? [00:02:52] Speaker A: Moths are with lights. Yeah. [00:02:53] Speaker B: That's what she's like. [00:02:55] Speaker A: She. She is she loves the Olympics. Like a moth likes light. That is, that is good imagery. That's kind. I kind of feel like that too. Callan, do you have something to input? Yeah, I would just like to point out that Ilya Ballin it or sorry, Ballin it. Absolutely sold. Yeah, that was sad. He was a figure skater. He's the best in the world, but he, he choked and fell a couple times. Yeah, it's tough. It was tough. I don't, I don't envy the pressure, but it is interesting. It seems like the pressure negatively affects Americans more than some other countries. Maybe we need to toughen up. Yeah, I mean, good athletes perform under pressure. That's like what they do. So let's, let's man up. There might be. There might be. Yeah. I mean the meat. The media is like spotlight on these, these 20 year olds. You know, I'm way older than most of them. It's crazy. Okay, well, I've told you I like the Summer Olympics, but the reason I like the Olympics I want to talk about it is just because we get to watch people exercise. Hey, common grace their God given abilities to be athletic, to work hard, to just show what they can do. And on top of that, there's the competition for your country. And you know, good country even supports athletes when they fail. They mess up. Because you know what? We still love them, they still represent us. They're wearing the flag now. One of the most well known events that has happened. You know, there's the Ilya Malinin issue, but before that, people at the beginning were talking about, you know, the title on your handout, Lindsey Vaughn. You don't know who this woman is. She's been an Olympian for a while, one of the best ever. And she's a skier. You know, I don't know a ton about her. I'm not going to give you a biography, but she decided to ski this year after tearing her acl. Has anyone ever torn their acl? Anyone? Just me. Am I the only one? Okay, well then you don't know what it's like. But it's a bad injury. You guys know, it takes athletes out for, for a while. You know, it could be up to a year, I guess. You know, with really good pt, you'll see athletes come back nine months later, but it's still a really bad injury. She tore ACL just days before the competition and she decided to compete anyway. She was able to do some runs. I actually have no idea how this is even possible. It just seems really hard. But she had A tragic crash on her first run had nothing to do with her acl. Probably maybe a little balance, but probably mostly just a freak thing. But what I think is interesting, regardless of whether she crashed on that run or not, I found it inspiring that she had the tenacity and desire to do the best for her country that she could. She was a wonderful example of perseverance. Pushing through difficulty, showing up even when it's hard. She showed up, she persevered. And that's the topic of the day. Perseverance. We're going to talk about perseverance. Perseverance in a theological context is when Christians continue in the faith because of their love for Christ. That is persevering in the faith. That is what we mean by it. Now, real quickly, a little review. What is theology? Oh, Jeremiah, what is theology? Yeah. The study of God and how to be more like Him. That's great. So we've been studying the doctrine of salvation for a while. This is actually our last lesson in that subheading. So we've been talking all about salvation. We talked about common grace. What is common grace? Who remembers? It's been a while. Yes. It's like grace from God. That's like giving. Yeah, It's a grace that is given commonly to everyone. It's not saving grace, but it functions in a way that can point us to the reality of God and of our need for a Savior. Okay, so that's common grace. We then talked about election. Who remembers what that is? [00:07:22] Speaker B: Lincoln, like, the election is like him, like calling his kids and all them 20 towards him. Like in the beginning, before the creation of the foundation of the earth, he chose his people. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think. Yeah, you're right on the right track. So it's just, in short, how. How God has chosen his people. That's what we talked about. Regeneration was next. What was regeneration? Yeah, being made new. That's right. Regenerated, created again. New creation, a work of the Holy Spirit. The new birth. Being born again. That's another word we might use for it. What is conversion? Yes, yes. That is what conversion is. It's converting to God. But what's. What's the kind of. The formula. Does anyone remember this formula? Yes, That's right. Faith plus repentance equals conversion. That's right. So turning from sin, believing in Jesus equals conversion. That happens with regeneration. What is justification then? Yeah, to be made or declared righteous in God's sight. Then what's adoption after that? You become adopted. Yeah, yeah. Adopted by God. You are like one of his children into his family. That's a very intimate idea that we see in the Bible. Then we talked about baptism with the Spirit, often kind of overlooked in these studies, but I thought, given our geographical context, it'd be good to understand what this means. What is baptism with the Spirit? Yeah, Yeah. I would say maybe when you're saved, it's the reception of the Holy Spirit. So there's the main debate we talked about was, is this something that happens when we're converted or is this something that happens later? Like a second blessing? It's sometimes called, can it happen more than once? We said it happens at conversion one time when the Holy Spirit fills a new believer and a believer is equipped to persevere. As we'll see, they are equipped with gifts to exercise for the sake of the gospel, those sorts of things. And then we talked about sanctification last week. What is that one? What was that about? Yeah, to be made holy. To be made holy. To be sanctified is to be made holy. So typically we are thinking about in theology, we're thinking of a progressive being made more holy throughout your lifetime. But sometimes in the Bible, it does refer to kind of being set apart by God all at once. So you got to make sure that the Bible does speak of it in two different ways, but usually we're talking about progression in holiness. All right, so we now turn to the final section of salvation, the doctrine of salvation, which is perseverance. So here's the summary. Your summary is at the top of the page. Perseverance is the mighty act of God to preserve Christians. So perseverance is the mighty act of God to preserve Christians by his power through their ongoing faith until their salvation is complete. So it's the mighty act of God to preserve Christians by his power through their ongoing faith until their salvation is complete. Now, to talk about this subject. Like, we actually did this with election. This is probably a while ago, it was last year, but maybe you guys remember that lesson. I want to split and talk about two separate groups of Christians. This is kind of oversimplifying it into two groups, but these are kind of the main two you would read about historically. People might find themselves in between, but I think these are two good representations. So we'll talk about Calvinist Reformed position and an Arminian position on the other end, kind of just to compare how Christians, true, legitimate Christians, have held this doctrine differently throughout time. So, you know, I'll teach the Reformed views what I believe personally, but I'm going to teach both again as Christians Believe both of these views. So for major affirmations, the first blank, the first one is that Arminians believe that God provides the means for perseverance. So the means, M, E, A N S the means for perseverance, but not perseverance itself. So he provides the means for it. God's grace to unbelievers according to this view. So I'm going to just kind of argue for this view the best I can. If you have any questions, please ask. God's grace, according to this view, his grace to unbelievers specifically is the freedom and general ability to choose God. That's his grace. It is a grace that gives them the ability to choose God. If you can freely choose God or not based on your own will, then it logically follows that you can choose to not follow him anymore. That's the line of thinking. Does that make sense? If you have the freedom to choose him, then you should have the freedom to unchoose. Right? That's the logic. Thus you can leave the faith being, you can commit apostasy. That's the word I was forgetting. What's the noun form of that? And you, you just can't leave the faith, go to hell, be an apostate. That's what I was trying to think of. So this view is based on the notion of free will, meaning that you have the power. This is a. This would be typically how they might define free will. So if you want to write it down, might be helpful. They would define free will by saying that it means you have the power of decisive self determination. I know that's kind of a lot right there. You have the power of decisive self determination. So you get to decide how yourself is determined. Yeah, that's kind of a crude way to maybe rephrase that. If you just think about those words, decisive self determination. So at the point of salvation, it is. It is the person that makes the final decisive move, not God. It is the person that makes the final decisive move. It is the person's free choice in that moment to be saved. Does that make sense? Is that making sense? So let's read a couple of verses that would make sense of this. Right, so second Peter 3:17. Flip there two Peter 3:17. Make sure you're in 2 Peter, not 1 Peter. 2 Peter 3:17. Could somebody read 2 Peter 3:17 for us? Yeah, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own system. Okay, so it seems here that what Peter is saying is that if you do not take care of, you can be carried away with error of lawless people. You can lose your own stability. This has been interpreted to mean losing your salvation. So that would seem to indicate that it's possible to leave the faith. Flip over to the left a little bit to Hebrews now. Hebrews 3. Can someone read Hebrews 3:12? Hebrews 3:12. Beware brethren, lest there be an end in you. An evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. Yeah. So again, what these two verses show is that apostasy or leaving the faith seems very possible. This means that perseverance only happens when a person chooses God for all of life. This would be, at least to the best of my knowledge, the view of the Arminian position. So does that make sense? Are there any questions about that? If you have any questions as I am comparing them, please let me know. So second kind of affirmation point is that the Calvinists believe, or Reformed believe, that God accomplishes perseverance for each believer. So God accomplishes perseverance for each believer. So one of the key things to know is that there's a just a debate on how we define the freedom of the will. What exactly does that mean? It might seem obvious to you. Well, what? It can only really mean one thing. You can will whatever you want. Well, there is a long standing historical debate on how exactly we should understand it. So the Reformed view would define free will or freedom of the will like this. So here's another definition to write down. If you wrote the other one is it is the freedom to do and believe what we most desire. The freedom to do and believe what we most desire. In other words, your will is free but driven by your heart. If you are not elected and taken from your sins, then you'll always do and believe what is false, because that is what your heart most desires. If you are elect and called by God, then he gives you regeneration. And when he makes you new, he becomes what you desire most unless you obey him and believe the gospel. That's how this freedom of the will works. Perseverance then does not happen because we choose hard enough and never give up. God instead is at work to protect us from temptation. God is at work to protect us from trials, from demonic attacks and from overwhelming sins. It is God at work protecting and persevering the Christians. But perseverance does not apply to everyone who professes faith that's important. Professing faith does not earn you eternal perseverance. It is only those who are elect and called by God. So it is only those with genuine repentance and faith in Christ we know that people can profess falsely can take it back. So that is another key difference between the two. Let's look at some scripture to kind of under. Well, before we do that, did anything I say not make sense? Any questions? Okay, let's look at some scripture, see what the Bible says. So we'll stay kind of close to where we are. Go to First Peter. Now, we just read this verse recently on Wednesday night. First Peter, chapter one. I'm going to start in verse three. I'll read if you guys follow along. So first Peter 1:3, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Okay, so just looking at a couple verses here. From this point of view, we would argue that. So for Arminians, you can look at verse seven. For Arminians, you can have genuine faith yet still fall away. But Peter says that perseverance is a sign that your faith is genuine. So it seems to indicate that true, genuine faith does persevere. Verse 4 also indicates that this inheritance, this salvation, is kept safe in heaven, protected by God's power. Philippians 1:6. When you get a chance, I'll just read this. So you guys just listen. Philippians 1:6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. So he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Again, this seems to indicate that the work of salvation began by God when He called and elected Christians will be completed. It will not fail. God will not fail to keep those who have believed in him. Now go to John. You guys should flip here because we'll spend more time here. John, chapter six, verse 37. John 6, 37. Guys ready? Yeah. Follow along. Verse 37. Says all that the Father. This is Jesus speaking. All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should. That I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. So keep that in mind and flip over to chapter 10, John 10:27. 27 John 10:27. Jesus again says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So what do you guys think is being implied by these verses? Well, I'm arguing, and this tradition is arguing that no one will be snatched from the Father's hand. He loses none of his sheep. Yes. You have a question? [00:22:54] Speaker B: No, I thought you were talking like said, what is the point? [00:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah, you can give an answer that. [00:23:02] Speaker B: He never casts out his own people. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he definitely never casts them out. But more than that, it even seems that he does not lose any. Yes. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Which one did you say was your personal? [00:23:16] Speaker A: This one. The reformed view. Yeah. So it seems like he does not lose them. They persevere. If you look back at chapter six, Nothing will be. He should lose nothing of all that he has given me. But raise it up on the last day, all of those who have been given to Christ will be raised up by him. And then one more verse. Go to Ephesians, chapter one. Ephesians 1, 13, 14. Can someone actually read that? Yeah. Could you read that? 13 and 14. Yeah. [00:24:13] Speaker B: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who is a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. To the praise of his glory. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah. So again, here we talked about the work of the Spirit. Even before salvation, we went through the work of the Spirit. Ephesians 1, not Peter. Paul is saying that, that the Spirit is called a seal. He is a seal, a guarantee of something. Now, how could he be a guarantee if it's not guaranteed? I think what it seems to be is that he's a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. So the sealing work of the Spirit is a guarantee that those who have the Spirit keep the Spirit and will acquire possession of the inheritance of eternal life. Does that make sense? Okay. Okay. Well, with those two views in mind, again, obviously, I'm trying to be, you know, somewhat level. I do believe one over the other. But Christians believe these. I'm not. This is not intended to start a disruption or a fight, but we just want to make sure we're familiar. Now, let's talk about some errors we want to avoid. I think in terms of this section, errors to avoid and even enacting the doctrine, there's a lot of really helpful things we can think about. So first, I want to encourage us that we must not abuse the motto once saved, always saved. You guys have probably heard this, once saved, always saved. And I worry that sometimes we might abuse this. I'm not rejecting it inherently as a false statement, but it can be abused, certainly. So the way these words sound, even kind of the makeup of this sentence kind of sounds like a trump card. You know, this is my ticket. Once saved, always saved. Now, we should never sin and remind ourselves of this motto. It's not a license to sin. If you ever sneakily find yourself using this understanding and this belief as a license to sin, you've missed the point entirely. Romans 6:1 2 says, Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? That's a great question. How can we who have died to sin still live in it? We cannot use anything as a license to sin. That's why I prefer talking about perseverance over this motto. Talking about perseverance 1. Because God deserves the credit for perseverance. He either accomplishes it or he gives us the means for it, depending on how you view it. So I like the word perseverance. For that reason, and also because we still are involved in that we actually persevere. It is not that my actions are irrelevant. Nothing I do matters anymore. We are still involved. We are still called to be holy because if you have believed, then you should be transformed. You should be transformed. If your life demonstrates no fruit at all, then this motto can fool us into unknowingly being dragged to hell. We don't want to be fooled by a motto. We want to make sure Christ is our comfort. Don't let Amato be your comfort. Let Christ be your comfort. Doesn't mean you beat yourself up when you sin and doubt salvation. Instead, your reaction, your inclination, should be to lean on Christ, not something to Just get the guilt out of you. I don't want to feel the guilt. So let me remind. Yeah, I'm good, I'm good. I got the ticket. That's not the point. You want to say, wow, my Savior is great. I have Christ and he forgives me for that sin, and you repent. That is a different heart posture, a different response. That is how Christians should respond. Again, it's not that you can never say this phrase and definitely don't snap at people that might say it, but just be cautious. Let Christ be your comfort, not a motto. All right. Second, we must not discourage assurance of genuine Christians who love, trust and obey God by warning them about losing their salvation. Now, I'm not saying you should never warn people. The Bible does give us warnings. But we don't want to discourage people who genuinely love, trust and obey God. People who love, trust and obey God, even if they sin, if they repent and follow Christ afterward, then they should have assurance. They can have assurance. If you love Jesus if you obey His Word. And if when you sin, you repent, then you do have reason to feel assurance. You do. This is a benefit of the view I hold, I think, is that you can truly know that you will have eternal life. You can have assurance if you live a life of repentance. And we know that this assurance is not something that's unattainable. It is attainable to have assurance. First, John 5:13 tells us, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. You can know that you have eternal life. You will persevere if the Spirit is indeed in you. That's what I believe. So you can actually know that you have eternal life. Third, error to avoid we must not view assurance in a way that leads to pride and or complacency. So if you profess faith, you cannot let that bring pride or presumption to your life because Jesus gave a very serious warning. So again, if you live a life of repentance and love Jesus and obey His Word, you can feel assurance. But there is a warning for those of us who do not live like Christians. Jesus says in Matthew 7, 21 and 23, he says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So this is a warning. So we need to balance these things. There are warnings. And so don't be led to pride and complacency. Let even your failures lead you to repentance and more dependence on Christ. Now to enact the doctrine. I think even just talking about those, I can think of a number of ways we can apply this doctrine. But here's just a couple. First, embrace the comfort of assurance if you have trusted in Christ. So embrace the comfort of assurance if you have trusted in Christ. I don't remember if I wrote this down on the handout, but especially if you've been baptized, why would I bring up baptism? Well, because baptism is not just an individual act of faith. It's sometimes wrongly talked about like that. It is much more than that. For a church to baptize you, the entire church is affirming of your profession of faith. That's a big deal. When you have a whole group of Christians saying, yes, you appear to be a believer as well. Welcome to our church. That should give you assurance and confidence. That should be an encouragement to you. It's more than just your individual faith. That's not irrelevant. It is an individual act, but it's also a church act. And so when you have the whole church behind you and you have trusted in Christ, then you can embrace comfort through that. So that might make some of you think about baptism. If you ever do want to talk about that, you can talk to me or one of our pastors. You don't have to talk to me. They would talk to you as well, because that is an important step for Christians. Second, rely on God for perseverance. Rely on God. The reason being is we need God. None of us would be where we are today if it weren't for him, even just in his act of creation. But all the works we've studied, from election, union with Christ, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, God has a hand in all of these. Now, we talked about sanctification. That's cooperative, right? God works and you work and you become more holy. And then there are different ways to conceive of perseverance. But God has a hand in it, at the very least, in some way or the other. We need the power of God. We need his guidance. We need the Spirit to help us persevere. We need his help. And that is why we can trust him so much, because he does not change. He has the power. And he has made wonderful promises to those who have faith in Christ. So if you haven't believed in Him, I would encourage you to do that, to live a life of repentance and believe in Jesus. Christ, who will give you his spirit and can help you persevere until the last day. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word and for the Spirit that helps us. God, we pray that you would draw new believers to yourself today. For others, God, we pray that you would work in their hearts about obeying you through baptism. And then still for others, God, you would comfort us and help us to persevere in the faith, to grow in sanctification, to honor you more and more in our life, that you would help empower us to live lives of repentance that don't lean on external things for comfort, but instead lean on you, Jesus Christ, for comfort. We pray all of this in his name. Amen.