God doesn't want to take your assurance. God wants you to enjoy it. God doesn't want to make you miserable and doubting. God wants to make you joyful and confident. God doesn't want you to question whether you'll make it to heaven.
God wants you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt and live by hope. But the way to experience that is not to let go and let God. But to follow the effort prescribed, and the virtues to be pursued. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
As you probably know, the focus of our current study is salvation assurance. What it means to know your faith is real, and some biblical ways you can verify it. John's study is called Myths About Salvation.
So far, John has examined several reasons people might lack assurance, for example, not knowing the exact moment they were saved. He's also considered several questions to ask yourself that can help you know if your salvation is genuine. Questions like, Do you desire to obey God's Word? And yesterday, John considered the attitudes required to have assurance, and he touched on the actions needed to know that your faith is real. And now, with some more helpful test questions that can help you be sure of your salvation, here's John MacArthur.
Every true Christian should enjoy the reality of his or her salvation. Peter is very concerned that his readers enjoy assurance.
So it is a main theme in this very brief epistle. The dominant theme of this book is chapter two. And chapter 2 is about false teachers. False prophets. And they are described in very clear, graphic terms in the second chapter.
Now, chapter two, which focuses on false prophets and false teachers, is surrounded by other teaching. directed At successfully countering their attacks. In other words, chapter 1 and chapter 3 are related to the theme in that chapter 1 and chapter 3 tell the believer how to be equipped to deal with the false teachers. To fight off the encroaching, deluding deception of false teachers. The believer must know some things.
The believer must have some accurate, true knowledge. The question comes What? Must we know? What must we know?
Well, in chapter 1, verse 12 through verse 21. We must know Scripture. We must know our scripture. And he deals with that. In chapter 3, We must know our sanctification.
We must know our sanctification. And in chapter 1, verses 3 to 11. We must know our salvation. If you know the scripture, And if you know you're sanctified and set apart under God from sin, and if you know your salvation is real, then the attacks of false teachers. are thwarted.
If you don't know the scripture, And if you do not know and are not experiencing a continued state of sanctification. And if you are not sure of your salvation, you become... A ready victim.
Now we're looking at that section on salvation. Knowing your salvation. That is a very essential defense against. False teachers. If you have on the helmet of the hope of salvation, then the blows of Satan that come against you to make you doubt your salvation and doubt the work of God.
are thwarted. We have in verses three and four indicated that we have everything we need in Christ. And yet, In verses 5 to 11, Peter says we have to do everything. that we possibly can. to add to what Christ has done.
that we might experience certainty. That's quite a paradox. Verses 3 and 4 say you have everything in Christ. Verses 5 to 11 says now add to it. How can you add to everything?
That again is that marvelous paradox of being complete in Christ and yet having. to do everything within our strengths. to follow him. And so we find then verses five through eleven: give us the path. to assurance.
Verse 5, let's look at it.
Now for this very reason also, Applying all diligence in your faith. Supply. Moral excellence. And in your moral excellence, knowledge, And in your knowledge, self-control, And in your self-control, perseverance. or endurance And in your endurance godliness, And in your godliness, brotherly kindness, And in your brotherly kindness.
Love. Seven Virtues. to be pursued. And These virtues Each are embodied.
Somehow In the previous one. Out of faith. comes moral excellence. Out of moral excellence comes knowledge, and so forth. I want you to look at these.
We don't need to spend a lot of time, but you'll be very refreshed as you see what. Peter means. First one is moral. Excellence, arraytate, so word virtue. Virtue.
In classical times, The word meant The God-given ability to perform heroic deeds. And it came to mean the quality of someone's life which makes them stand out as excellent. It is very rare, by the way, in Scripture, but not in secular Greek. It is a noble term. It is a term of heroism.
It is a term of moral heroism, moral excellence, quality. It was usually used to refer to the proper and excellent fulfillment of something. For example, A knife was said to be arete if it cut well. A horse was a rete if it ran strong and fast. A singer was a rete if He or she sang well.
Sometimes the word came to mean courage.
Sometimes it meant efficient excellence or operative virtue. It never meant cloistered virtue or virtue in a vacuum as if it were an attitude, but virtue which is demonstrated in a life.
So he says in your faith With all your heart. And all your mind. Apply with great effort, eagerness, zeal, and haste the lavish supplying of moral excellence to your life. Let me ask you a simple question. Where do you find the model of that excellence?
Christ That is why in Philippians chapter 3 you have that monumental statement by Paul. That Lays down the pattern for all believers' behavior. He said it. more magnificently than Any other place in Scripture? And what he said Was I press?
Toward the mark. for the prize. of the high calling of God. in Christ Jesus. What he was saying was, I pursue Christ's likeness.
He admitted, I haven't attained. but I pursue it. The goal to be like Christ. The reward to be like Christ. The goal is the reward, pursue Christ's likeness.
Pursue excellence. And some have even suggested that it might mean moral energy. People who are Speaking about this word, seem to be afraid, lexicographers, people who give definitions, seem to be afraid that somebody will think the word has a static meaning when it doesn't. And so some have translated it moral energy. The power that performs Deeds of excellence.
So Add then to your faith Moral excellence. Quality of life. Spiritual virtue. A sort of Holy heroism.
Now That leads us to the second. of these virtues. Verse 5 says, in your moral excellence, knowledge. Moral excellence couldn't happen unless at its heart was Knowledge, right? Discernment.
Spiritual insight. The word knowledge means correct insight. Understanding. Truth properly comprehended, properly understood, properly applied. And so we want to pursue moral excellence, understanding that in our moral excellence there must be spiritual knowledge, discernment.
We must know before we can live. We must understand how we are to conduct ourselves before we can conduct ourselves in that way. Moral excellence is dependent on gnosis. Knowledge of a high character and a high quality. To borrow another theological term, illumination.
Having your mind illuminated or enlightened about truth. This, of course, involves the diligent study and pursuit of the truth. in the Word of God.
Now, inherent in your knowledge is another virtue. Look at verse 6. In your knowledge, Self-control. All bound up with the true knowledge and true discernment. is self-control.
The word literally means in the Greek holding oneself in. And in Peter's day it was used in athletics. Athletes were self-controlled, self-restrained, self-disciplined. They beat their body into submission. 1 Corinthians 9:27.
They abstain from unhealthy food and wine and sexual indulgence to keep themselves wholly to disciplined exercises for the sake of athletic achievement, controlling the flesh, the passions, the bodily desires, rather than allowing yourself to be controlled by them.
So he says pursue moral excellence. Realizing that the heart of moral excellence is spiritual discernment. Realizing that at the heart of spiritual discernment is self-control. What does it matter if I discern, if I don't control? How can I be morally excellent?
By the way, Just as a footnote, false teachers Typically, they claimed that their true and secret knowledge had freed them from the need for self-control. They preached license to indulge. They were greedy. They were exploiters. They followed their own lusts and they restrained nothing.
But Peter reverses that. And he says, any theology that divorces faith from conduct is heresy. Faith And in that faith, moral excellence. and in that moral excellence spiritual discernment, and in that spiritual discernment self-control. This is essential to Christian living.
Controlling fleshly desires consistent with what I know about truth for the sake of producing moral excellence. Virtue, then, guided by knowledge, disciplines desire and makes it the servant, not the master, of one's life. That is self-control. Self-control has to be One of the greatest of all. Christian virtues.
And there's more. A fourth. Verse 6, and in your self-control. Endurance would be the best translation. Hupamone, patience or endurance.
in doing what is right. Never giving up to temptation. never giving up to trial. never giving up to difficulty, never giving up to sin. Michael Green said, the Christianity of such a man is like the steady burning of a star rather than the ephemeral brilliance and speedy eclipse of a meteor.
This is a magnificent portrait. of what we are to pursue. We pursue moral excellence. based upon spiritual discernment. which produces self-control.
Which produces endurance under temptation without succumbing. By the way, this word hupamone really does resist one-word definition, and there is no English. Equivalent. In classical Greek, it isn't a common word, but it is used in the scripture frequently: of toil, trouble that comes against a person, against his will, making life extremely difficult, painful, grieving, shocking. It even brings along the thought of death.
It is used in classical Greek of those same things. It is used in Reference to the Maccabees. Spiritual staying power. Enabling men to die for their faith in God as they did in the Maccabean Revolution. It's that spiritual staying power that will die before it gives in.
That's strong. That resistant. Again, I Quote from William Barclay in his New Testament words, and now we can see the essence and the characteristic of this great virtue, hupa mune. It is not the patience which can sit down and bow its head and let things descend upon it and passively endure until the storm is passed. It is not in the Scots word merely thoaling things.
It is the spirit which can bear things not simply with resignation, but with blazing hope. It is not the spirit which sits statically enduring in the one place, but the spirit which bears things because it knows that these things are leading to a goal of glory. It is not the patience which grimly waits for the end, but the patience which radiantly hopes for the dawn. It has been called a masculine consistency under trial. It has been said that always it has the background of Andrea, which is courage.
Chrysostom calls Hupamone a root of all the goods, mother of piety, fruit that never withers, a fortress that can never be taken, a harbor that knows no storms. He calls it the queen of virtues, the foundation of right actions, peace in war, calm in tempests, security in plots. and neither the violence of man nor the powers of the evil one can injure it. It is the quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind. It is the virtue which can transmute the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain it sees the goal.
End quote. Courageous, steadfast, joyful, self-control, under pressure, resisting temptation, built on spiritual wisdom, pursuing moral excellence. And at the heart of this persevering endurance is number five. And in your perseverance or your Endurance. Godliness.
Godliness. What a magnificent word that is. Use back in verse 3 also. Eusebia. It really means reverence.
Now listen carefully as I Describe this word. It means reverence. It means a practical awareness of God in every area of life. It used to be translated true religion. It could be translated true worship.
It has the idea of worshiping God. It has the idea of God consciousness. The Greeks used to say that a man was Eusebia, a lover of the gods. It's a word to describe someone who worships, who has reverence, who adores God. In fact, Josephus, the Jewish historian, contrasts This word with idolatrea, idolatry.
Eusebio, reverence, gives God his rightful place, worship God as he ought to be worshipped. Idolatry does the opposite. And so We are to pursue lavishly, zealously, eagerly, with great zeal. With passion. Moral excellence.
And in the heart of that moral excellence, is a focus on God. To sum up all that the Greeks said about this God-consciousness. They said the word included all the rituals connected to worship. They said the word included loyalty to God. They said the word included respect toward everything that belonged to God.
And that it included the spirit of devotion to the will of God. Whatever the Greeks said about the word Eusebia, the Christians made it greater. The Christians made it greater. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4.8, Godliness is profitable in all things. The believer is to worship God and love God and adore God, not with stained glass and organ music, but with a life of reverence for God and devotion to His holy will.
He is to do what David did in Psalm 16, set the Lord always before him. This is to be our commitment. False teachers are irreverent. Irreligious, ungodly. True Christians.
Pursue practical awareness of God in every detail of life. They are characterized by deep reverence for God, which leads to courageous, steadfast, joyful self-control under temptation, built on spiritual discernment in the pursuit of moral excellence. It's a marvelous fabric. woven here. And then a sixth virtue.
And in your godliness, Verse 7 says. Brotherly kindness. Philadelphion. At the heart of godliness, The heart of reverence in God. is loving each other.
In fact, 1 John 4, 20 puts it that way. That if you love God, you'll love each other. 1 John says that if you say you love God and don't love your brother, you're a liar, because if you really loved God, you'd love your brother.
So, if you are a true worshiper, if you are really you say they are godly and reverent. You will show affection toward others. See, those two are inseparably linked. What is the great commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And the second is what? Love your neighbor as yourself. inseparable. inseparable. The first half of the Ten Commandments are how to love God.
The second half of the Ten Commandments are how to love your neighbor.
So the crowning element Flows To the next point. The seventh. And in your brotherly kindness, Love. Love. Agape.
Sacrificial. Selfless. Love. This is the love of the will. This is the love of choice.
This is the love of volition, not the love of emotion. This is the highest virtue. This is the sunum bonum of Christian living. This is what Paul called the greatest thing. Love.
At the heart of my worship toward God is the word. Is that concomitant? Kindness Toward my brother. At the heart of that kindness toward my brother, is the love of God shed abroad in my heart. There is the pursuit.
And much more could be said about all of that, but I think you get the flow. We pursue moral excellence. Moral excellence means being like Christ. Diligently, zealously, with all of our energy and power, we apply ourselves to the lavish degree to lay alongside what Christ has done for us the maximum effort in the pursuit of these things. And the first thing is we pursue moral excellence, virtue, quality, spiritual heroism.
Which means that we really are pursuing love. the highest and purest and noblest love which will then be reflected in kindness to other Christians. rising out of a deep reverence for our beloved God. Leading to a courageous, steadfast, joyful self-control under temptation, built on spiritual discernment and the consuming, compelling pursuit to be like Christ. It's just a big circle.
And faith is the foundation for the whole thing, and love is the culmination. If I had time, I could take you through all those passages that talks about faith that works by love. What a pursuit. What a pursuit. We have everything in Christ, he says, and yet We are to add to what we have in Christ.
with maximum effort. Moral virtue. Practical wisdom. Internal self-control. Endurance in all temptations.
God-conscious reverence, brotherly kindness, and all-pervasive, pure love to God and everyone else. I think there is. Enough here to keep us occupied, don't you? And then he says in verse 8, For if these qualities are yours, and are increasing. They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He who lacks these qualities blind or short-sighted, having forgotten His purification from His former sins.
What's he saying? He's saying if these things are in your life, and increasing. You're going to be fruitful. And you're not going to forget. whether you've been saved or not.
In other words, you're going to enjoy assurance. God doesn't want to take your assurance. God wants you to enjoy it. God doesn't want to make you miserable and doubting. God wants to make you joyful and confident.
God doesn't want you to question. Whether you'll make it to heaven, God wants you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt and live by hope. But the way to experience that is not to let go and let God. But to follow the effort prescribed, and the virtues to be pursued. Doesn't this in a great measure sum up what we learned in 1 John?
Where are these things Are realities in your life? There is the confidence of salvation. And when the false teachers come along, They have nothing to offer you. For knowledge. They want to give you Blindness.
For self-control, they want to give you license. For enduring in temptation, they want to give you succumbing to temptation. For reverence for God, they want to give you irreverence. For the love of God's children, they want to give you resentment toward God's children. For true love.
They want to give you lust. But they're not going to be a problem to you. If you experience these things in increasing measure. Because you have Diligently Applied yourself. to supply them.
in your life.
Well, let's pray. Father, it seems like the time flies by so fast. We just Begin to Be able to breathe at the depth. and it's time to surface again. We just start to get acclimated.
to being divorced from the stuff of the world. to think deeply about you and Time is gone. The Lord help us not. To come up too fast. But to stay down long enough.
to experience everything you have for us. to understand. Help us to know that you long that your children have life and have it more abundantly, and abundant life must mean assurance. that you want us to have assurance. And you've given us the means.
If we will but dedicate ourselves to this pursuit, Of the resources that are already there. The moral excellence, it's there in the spirit. The knowledge, it's there in the word. The endurance It's there in the promise that no temptation has taken you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful. who will never allow you to be tempted but always make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
It's all there. The brotherly kindness and love is there. For we have been taught of God to love one another. Love is there, but Because you shed it abroad in our hearts. You've lavishly given it to us.
Help us to eagerly pursue it. We don't understand the mystery of how everything is ours in Christ. And yet we have to pursue it all with every ounce of energy we have. But that's the way you've designed it. Make us faithful.
that we might enjoy. Assurance. that greatest of all Christian experiences. to know We belong to you.
Now And forever. and out of it flows all our joy. Thank you. for giving us the means. to that full joy.
For the sake of Christ, we pray. Amen. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today, John looked at the qualities you need to pursue in your life if you want to know that your salvation is real. Our current study is called Myths About Salvation.
Now, if you ever find yourself questioning your salvation, you don't want to stay there. We want to help you enjoy the blessing of assurance. And along that line, John has written a helpful booklet called Unshakable Assurance, and we'll send it to you for free. All you have to do is ask for it. This booklet is designed to help you honestly evaluate your spiritual condition so that you can know whether or not you're saved.
Again, the title, Unshakable Assurance. Request your free copy when you contact us today. You can use our website gty.org. Again, that's gty.org. You can ask for your free copy of Unshakable Assurance when you call us during regular business hours, 7.30 to 4 o'clock Pacific Time at 80055 GRACE.
That's our phone number one more time, 800-55GRACE. Also, if you want to learn more about the assurance of salvation or any topic in the Bible, Maybe the nature of God's sovereignty or creation or how God designed the local church to function. you will likely find what you're looking for at gty.org. We have thousands of online resources that are available at no cost to you. That includes devotionals, blog articles from our staff, as well as 3,600 sermons.
all free to download. Our website again, gty.org.
Now, for the entire Grace DU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace TU Television this Sunday. You'll find it on DirecTV Channel 378. Then be back tomorrow as we continue John MacArthur's series Myths About Salvation, showing you how hard it can be, but how rewarding it is to live the kind of virtuous life. that leads to assurance.
It's another half hour of unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on tomorrow's Grace TU.
