Alright, so let me read starting from verse 8, reading out of ESV. But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. We thank you, Father God, for the privilege that we have. We pray, Father, as we've been studying through the book of Romans and being reminded and refreshed, Lord God, of what it is that we already have in you.

I pray that you would strengthen your church with your word, that our time together, Lord God, would be encouraging to you, that as we love you and love one another, that our church may be built according to your purpose and plan. So we entrust this time to you in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I think for the last few weeks and obviously all through the book of Romans, we've been talking about justification by faith and specifically the emphasis, at least in the last few weeks, was on assurance of salvation. How can we be secure? Let me just ask you a rhetorical question to give you a minute to think before we get into it.

Are you absolutely certain that if you die today, that you're going to go to heaven? Just a minute to think about it. Are you absolutely certain? We've been studying through the book of Revelations, talking about the judgment coming upon mankind. Are you absolutely certain that when Christ comes, that you are covered by the blood of Christ?

We've been talking about this faith, this justification by faith alone, and if everything hinges upon the genuineness of this faith, is your faith genuine? Is it something that you've inherited? Is your faith something that you've just assumed? Is your faith something that you just kind of, you know, you grew up in a church and you just thought, "Well, I mean, of course." Or is it true faith?

Is it faith based on Scripture? Is it biblical faith? Is it saving faith? So back to the question, are you sure that if you die today, that you will be saved? Now, this question, as fundamental as it is, and you probably may have been asked this question if somebody ever came and evangelized to you.

Maybe you remember a time when somebody shared this gospel with you and you were asked this question and that maybe led you to salvation. But maybe it's been a while since you've even asked this question of yourself because you've just been assuming it for so long. What is unique about our faith is that we are given, according to Scripture, absolute assurance and that's what justification by faith does.

Because it is by faith, it is not by works, that if we have genuine faith, he says, you will be saved. We have confidence in him. If we confess that he is our Lord and believe in our heart that he has been raised from the dead, that we will be saved.

And so the three verses that we looked at last week, verses 11, 12, and 13, he says it repeatedly three separate times. If you call on the name of the Lord, you will be saved. If you believe in your heart, you will be saved. You will be saved. So three separate times, almost for the purpose of crescendo, it's kind of like this is what he's been leading up to.

You will be saved. You will be saved. You will be saved. I know I've had so many conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses. Either they've come to my door or on campus or meeting somewhere. And the conversation always kind of leads to where I would ask them, if you died, what would happen to you?

And they can't answer that question. They said, I hope that I've knocked on enough doors, that I've done enough good deeds, that if they were persecuted enough for their faith, that hopefully when I die, that I'll be able to go to heaven. But they're not allowed to have assurance.

So they're working hard that they would become one of those 144,000 people that's mentioned in the book of Revelation. If you talk to the Muslims, the Muslims are not allowed to have assurance either. The only way that they can be assured is that if they give their life in jihad, then they are assured that only those who give their life as a martyr and blow themselves up or whatever it is that they're doing, that they die in the context of jihad, that there's guaranteed that they're going to be in paradise.

So no wonder so many young people are being recruited for this. It's like, well, it's an easy way to get to paradise. Instead of living their whole life in fear that they may or may not have done enough, that you blow themselves one time and then you're guaranteed into paradise.

What's unique about the gospel and about the faith that we have in Christ, the scripture tells us that we have absolute assurance in Christ. Assurance of salvation is fundamental and essential to our faith. Assurance of salvation. So when I ask you that question, do you have assurance of salvation?

If you even hesitated for a moment to answer that question, we need to take a step back and examine what Paul has been saying. Because without assurance, you will not be able to pray effectively. Because you're going to doubt, is God answering my prayer? Do I have this access to God without hindrance?

Assurance of salvation is what gives us confidence to enter the throne of grace with confidence because he promised. So every promise in scripture is directly linked to my assurance of salvation. Our assurance that when we die and go to heaven is linked to this, again, assurance of salvation. My desire to love people, sanctification, all of it is directly linked to this assurance.

We can never be certain. We can't pray effectively. We can't even share with other people if we don't have this assurance. So our natural reaction to that is if assurance of salvation is that essential, then let's make sure that every single person has assurance. And I can jump all the steps and instead of going through all of the things that Paul is going through, let's just say, don't ever question your faith.

In fact, I've had a conversation with somebody very recently. He said, you should never say that. You should never ask somebody to question their faith because it is so essential. It's so fundamental to our faith. But the problem with that proposition is Paul himself questions that. In 2 Corinthians 13, 5, they examine yourself to see if you're really of the faith.

2 Peter 1, 10 says, be diligent to make sure you're calling an election. Make sure of it. In fact, even in the book of Psalms, the text that we read this morning, 139, he says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there's any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.

Even in the prophets, even in the Psalms, they come before God and say, search me to make sure that there's nothing hindering me, that I have this genuine faith. Again, before we go any further, the point of all of this is justification by faith. The ultimate end goal of this is to have assurance of salvation.

If you are absolutely convinced by justification by faith, that you ought to have absolute confidence that God is hearing your prayers. You ought to have absolute confidence that you are covered by the blood of Christ, that when you die, that you have heaven waiting for you. But this confidence should not be a superficial knee-jerk reaction without careful examination.

See, the purpose of Paul asking this question in Corinthians, examine yourself to see if you're really of the faith, is really because they've been strained. Paul says, did you forget that Christ is in you? The church is in chaos because you've forgotten who you are worshiping, what it is that you have in Christ, and maybe you have drifted away from what it is that you have in Christ.

And that's why Paul is telling the church, he's not talking to non-Christians, he's telling the church, take a step back and re-examine what it is that you have in Christ, that you may be assured of your salvation, and that assurance of salvation would lead you to worship and honor and glorify God.

The goal of what we've been studying is to do that. It's for us to cause examination to see, is this faith genuine? And if you come at the end of this to conclusions, it is absolutely genuine, then what does that mean? How does that affect you? How does it affect the way you think?

How does that affect your marriage? How does that affect the way you raise your children? Last week we looked at how Paul, again, everything that he's been saying, he concludes with an exclamation mark, "If you believe, if you call, if you confess, you will be saved." And so we looked at the first two part of it, and today we're going to look at the third part where it says, "Same God with the same gospel results in the same salvation." So that's what we want to look at today, and then the three sub-points underneath that is that the same salvation, same gift that we have is that we will not be put to shame, that he will bestow riches upon Jews and Gentiles, and then ultimately we will be saved.

It's a simple conclusion that he's been trying to make throughout all of the Book of Romans that we will be saved. So let's look at the first one. He says in verse 11, "For the scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.'" In English, and in our culture, when I hear the word put to shame, at least the way that we use it, it's like, "Oh, he shamed you." Let's say if you're in some sort of sports competition, and somebody shames you means that they dominated you.

He completely overpowered you. He humiliated you. So we think of, "He will not be ashamed." It's like, "Oh, you know, the crisis is going to come in, and we won't be dominated." Because that's the way we would think. But the term that Paul uses, "will not be put to shame," has much more significance, theological significance, than what you and I would hear when we first read it.

So let's think about it in the context of what Paul is saying, theologically. Where is shame first seen, introduced to us in the scripture? Just think about it for a second. Where is the concept or idea of shame first introduced in scripture? Yeah, so I hear you mumbling already.

I see it. I see your lips moving, right? It was at the Garden of Eden. As soon as they fell, what was the very first thing that had happened when their eyes got opened? They recognized their, what, shame. And as soon as they recognized their shame, the very first act that they did was they covered themselves.

They felt this shame. And then in this shame, when they recognized God, what do they do? They cover themselves from God. They try to hide from Him. So the very first ramification of sin coming into mankind was shame. So when Paul is talking about how if you believe in Him, confess that you will not be put to shame, do you think that Paul has that in mind?

That the very thing, the curse of mankind that represented in this shame, he says, basically saying that he will reverse this curse. Think about what shame does to us in our families, in our relationships. Think about what it does to us with friendships, maybe even inside the church. I mean, obviously superficially we can think about loneliness, not feeling connected, maybe not feeling loved, even between husband and wife, that we can't be completely honest and open with one another because we're afraid that we're going to be judged and they're not going to be able to accept my sins.

Think about the ramification of sin just in general human life, human experience. He says when Adam and Eve fell, he said, "You shall surely die." But the first evidence of this death came in a form of shame. They hid from each other, and then they ultimately hid from God.

And the problem with hiding from God is that God is the author of life. He's the one that we need to be connected to, to have life, but to have shame and to hide from him means that we were disconnected from this very life. Paul is not simply saying that if you confess your sins or if you confess him as Lord and Savior that you're no longer going to be dominated.

Humiliation is going to be gone. There's a much deeper theological significance of what Paul is saying. He's basically saying that that shame that came in the form of sin, he's going to reverse this curse. This curse of mankind is going to be reversed. In Isaiah 49 verse 23, he said, "Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame." Now again, in our modern understanding to wait simply means to just kind of sit and do nothing, right, and wait for him to come.

Obviously that's not what the psalmist means or Isaiah means. It's like those who wait for him. The word wait is also the way we would understand calling, those who confess or seek or to believe. Those who believe or wait or call or confess, he said, "He will not be put to shame." Think about how much of our life is in pursuit so that we can feel alive, so we can have a better life.

You go to school, get a good education, so we can have a better life. We marry people and have kids and do all the things that we're doing so that we can have a better life. Nobody actively pursues a more difficult life. But how much of life is it disappointment after disappointment after disappointment?

Like in reality. That's why typically when you look at the young teenagers or maybe young 20-year-olds and they have this view of life, and I know some of you guys are in that category, like I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And by the time you're in your 30s, like, "Heh, 40-year-olds don't even flinch.

50-year-olds are cynical." It's like, "Yeah, right. Let's see how long this lasts." Life has a tendency to humble all of us. And you experience enough of it, you just as kid in school, anybody who's happy is like, "Yeah, we'll see." Basically what God is saying is like everything else that we pursue in life, the end result is greater shame, greater difficulty, greater life, greater suffocation of joy.

But it says, "He who puts his trust on you, waits upon the Lord, will not be put to shame." Again in Isaiah 54, 4-5, it says, "Fear not, for you will not be ashamed, but not be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced. For you will forget the shame of your youth and the reproach of your widowhood.

You will remember no more. For your maker is your husband, and the Lord of hosts is his name. And the Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer, the God of whole earth, he is called." You know, we typically think about the love of God or agape, and we always refer that to or compare that to the mother's love or the father's love for their kids.

And yeah, that's probably the closest thing that we can imagine. Every once in a while somebody will say, "You know what? I love you, brother. I'll take a bullet for you." Maybe you mean it, but again, maybe I'm cynical because I think most people will duck when they hear bullets.

You know what I mean? I think you're going to end up hiding behind me and in front of me. Maybe I'm just being cynical. That's just human nature. But I think there's plenty of evidences, and I think if you're a parent, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you're a child, you feel this sense of, you know, like love and benevolence toward your kid.

And if there is a gunfire, if there's any relationship that will jump on their kid to protect them, it's probably mother's love and father's love. But even the mother's love and father's love is limited and is finite. Even with my best intention, I'm limited by my own limitations. I'm limited by my own sin, my own selfishness.

No matter how much I tell my, I would promise my kids or you'd promise your kids that I will be there for you, you may intend that, but you don't have the power to fulfill that. I will never let anything harm you. You may intend that, but you can't fulfill that because you're limited.

You're not all powerful. So God is reminding us, you may pursue all of these things, but he says, "I am your husband. I am your redeemer. And the only one who can make this promise and actually fulfill it is God himself. Everything else will lead to disappointment. But if you wait upon me, if you confess me, if you call upon me," he says, "you will not be put to shame." So he gives us absolute assurance and confidence that only he and he alone could fulfill that.

So this invitation to come to him is not an invitation to abandon your life. It really is an invitation to come and live in Christ because the only one who can actually give us life is Christ and Christ alone. So that's the first thing that he says. Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.

But secondly, in verse 12, he says, "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is the Lord of all, bestowing his riches in all who call upon the Lord." Now we may read that again, Jew, Gentile, of course, you know, us being Gentiles, it's like we've been reconciled, we're in a church, we worship the same God.

But imagine what that would have sounded like to the first readers, to the Jew and the Gentiles. I know if you've been following the news, North Korea has been acting up, beyond acting up. For years, they've been concerned about North Korea. They may possibly get a nuclear bomb and they may possibly, if we don't stop it, that they're going to be able to develop technology that's going to get the bomb all the way over here.

Now they're talking about the last nuclear test that they did or the bomb that they launched, that it may have the capability to reach Alaska and Hawaii. And this is not a maybe threat, it seems like they've already gotten there. And so now it's been heightened, now it's not a hypothetical.

Now like if something isn't done, and we may have to use force, right? We've been talking about all this rhetoric before, but now we're on the brink of that. There's a group of people in Korea that is protesting, that's trying to, "You know what? Let's back off our rhetoric and this conflict.

Why don't we get everybody to the table and we can reconcile our differences." And eventually the two nations becoming one, North Korea and South Korea reunite. And there's a whole movement, especially the younger generation in South Korea, wanting to reunite. And there's a bunch of people in North Korea, obviously they want to reunite so that they can dominate more people in the end.

In my mind I said, "It's just ridiculous. How are you going to have a totalitarian government who's brainwashed their people for the last 60, 70 years that their leader is a kind of a deity, and they're living at least by our modern day standards, the majority of the people are living in poverty level, and then reunite with South Korea and live together and pound out our differences and have one government and live kumbaya." You know what I mean?

I mean, ridiculous. And as strange and as ridiculous as that may sound, if you said that the Jews and the Gentiles would be worshiping the same God, calling each other brothers and sisters in Christ, having a tax collector be their leader, and a Pharisee sitting there and listening to them, it would have been just as ridiculous or even more ridiculous.

The whole point of Phariseeism is to be set apart. The name itself, Pharisee, means to be set apart. And they believe that they needed to be set apart in order to be right with God. And you know the primary thing that they needed to be set apart from to be considered righteous?

Gentiles. Their whole spiritual leadership, their whole identity was to be set apart from the Gentiles so that they may receive the blessing of God. And all of a sudden, these apostles are coming and saying, "No, we worship the same Lord. Not only are we worshiping the same Lord, we are one in Christ, that all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all of us need to be washed in the blood of Christ." Imagine how difficult that would have been for them to accept, just humanly speaking.

It's impossible to say, "Oh, if we get together and if we just kind of agree on right theology." Imagine how little it takes to divide even within the church. We have, even within the church, we are divided by denomination, by age, by culture, by language. And even within the church that hold the same doctrines and live together and we're serving together, even within the church, even this church, how easily we can get divided.

Ministry of philosophy, certain decisions are made, certain people that we like or don't like. How difficult it is to just gather a group of people together to unite to do something. If you've ever led games, you probably will never do it twice. You know what I mean? And if you've done it twice, Andy Wong, we love you and keep doing a good job.

But if you've ever led games, you know exactly how it is to lead anything because it's very difficult to get a bunch of people who have different opinions about everything together and say, "Let's be together." How can you possibly think that the Jews and the Gentiles are going to come together and worship the same God and call each other brother and sister in Christ and develop any kind of community?

Humanly speaking, it is absolutely impossible. What could possibly bring these people together? If it wasn't for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, if it wasn't for the power of the cross, humanly speaking, it would have been impossible to bring them together. Their apostle couldn't be articulate enough. They couldn't have preached well enough.

They couldn't have been organized well enough. Are you kidding me? Ephesians chapter 2, 17 and 18, it says, "And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father, so that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." The reason why they came together is because God made it, brought peace.

And he's been prophesying this. He's been telling this for hundreds of years, that peace offering. Every time they would come and bring a peace offering, they would take the meaty portion of it. After they gave offering of the fatted portion, they would sit alongside and have a picnic with the priests and with the family members, signifying that because they have peace with God, they have peace with one another.

So even between Jews and Gentiles, even between tax collectors and Pharisees, that because they have peace with God, now they are able to have peace with one another. The only thing that brings us together is the love of Christ. Church is an awesome place of fellowship, community, love, when it is filled with people who are being affected by the love of Christ.

And we are compelled by this love to serve one another, to give to one another. But church is an ugly place when we forget about what we are united with and we begin to highlight our differences. There's a lot of people in this room sitting maybe next to you, to the left, to the right and front behind you, you would never talk to if it wasn't for Christ.

You wouldn't be in the same room with these people. And I bet you you've thought of it. I bet you sometimes you've been told, "Man, if I wasn't a Christian, I wouldn't have to deal with these people." When what unites us isn't highlighted and we're not being affected by it, and we're all with our own ideas, with our own gifts, with our own uniqueness, and everybody's coming in, all of a sudden you've got everybody in this room together having their own opinions about how all the things have been.

I mean, it's an ugly place to be. And a lot of times the church has become ugly for that reason. When people are not being affected by the love of Christ, when our central thing, why we gather together and why we do what we do isn't because of our reconciliation with God.

How such trivial things could easily divide us. Every once in a while I get an email from somebody and says, "You know what? I really want to come to your church, but I can't stand your drums." And it's not because our drums are bad. It's just that I don't want rock music.

Or I get emails sometimes, it's like, "Oh, you know, I love this and that, but it's not rock enough." You know what I mean? I came from this church and their praise band is this, or vice versa. I've heard it on both sides. Our service is too early, too late.

Our people are too young, too old. I mean, just things that can easily divide us. But the beauty of the church is that God gathers people, Jews and Gentiles alike, who would have nothing in common other than the love of Christ. God brings them together and says, "We worship the same Lord." Fellowship is so different and it changes everything.

When people who are gathered together with absolute assurance of Christ, assurance of eternal salvation, who desire to worship God in spirit and in truth, live in harmony with one another. One of the greatest evidence of the power of the gospel is that. I mean, one of the greatest evidence of something spectacular happening in the early church is the fellowship between Jews and Gentiles.

That's one of the things that even non-Christians, even people who want to deny the resurrection of Christ, can't explain. How do the Jews and the Gentiles come together? I can see why the fishermen maybe, they thought that if they follow Jesus that they're going to get something from him.

Maybe the poor people came because there were promises of food being distributed at the church and they can try to explain all of that, but they can't explain how the Jews and the Gentiles got together. So even the non-Christians, something happened. Something happened. There's no denying something powerful happened.

The only thing that you and I know that explains that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power of the gospel has brought people together. When we are being affected by the love of Christ and the richness that he says he gives us, both Jews and Gentiles, he will bestow riches upon us.

In Romans 9, 23, "In order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory." That you and I, again, the assurance of salvation assures us that we are rich in Christ. How many of us are frustrated because we've forgotten the riches we have in Christ, that we live every single day complaining like we're beggars?

Because we don't have this, we don't have that. Not realizing what he has given us. In 2 Corinthians 8, 9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sake he became poor so that by his poverty might become rich." That's us.

That's a description of what Christ has done for us. We've become rich. He became poor so you and I could become rich. And that's why Paul's core prayer in the book of Ephesians as he's describing predestination, the election, and he's talking about his salvation. He says, "My prayer is that according to the riches of his glory," Ephesians 3, 16, "According to the riches of his glory that he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted in grounded love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is a breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Paul's main reason why he's been expositing for three chapters is that you may understand what it is that you have in Christ together with all the saints.

You know, we're in the NBA offseason where these players are going back and forth, re-signing contracts and just the amount of money that they're signing for is just ridiculous. Some of you guys who are Golden State Warrior fans, you know that Steph Curry signed a contract for $201 million for five years.

Ridiculous. It was record-breaking. It was the highest paid NBA player ever in history. And then yesterday, James Harden signed a contract for four years for $228 million, and then they broke it down to somehow like, I guess, the last year of his contract, he's going to be making almost half a million dollars per game that he plays, per game that he plays.

That's per game that he plays. He gets half a million dollars. Oh my gosh. I don't know about you, but the first thought that I had was, "Why couldn't I play basketball?" That was that first… Only if I was a little bit taller, younger and faster, right? Maybe you have thought that.

How many times have you contemplated or thought about, it's like, you know, the Powerball or it's at 60 million or 100 million, and maybe you don't normally play lottery or whatever, and it's like, "What if?" And you daydream, you know, "What would I do with $100 million? I'll quit my job, pay off the mortgage, help my parents, pay tithe, of course, you know, I'm a Christian, so I got to, you know, give to the church and feed the poor." You know, and you fantasize about what you would do with the travel and do all this stuff.

And these are all imaginations, you know, just wishful thinking, daydreaming. But when was the last time we thought about what we would do with the riches that we have in Christ? Not daydreaming, not fantasizing "what if," but to have absolute assurance that we have these riches, that we are co-heirs with Christ, that He says that if you ask in faith, I will answer you, that we have this.

This is what assurance salvation does for us, to have these riches in Christ and then to not to think at all about, "What am I going to do with this?" When was the last time that we actually thought and contemplated, "What am I going to do with these riches that I have in Christ?" And that's what He says that we have.

Colossians 2, 2, "That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ." This unsearchable riches that beyond our understanding, that even now, even after all this time, we're still searching and we're still scratching the surface of what it is that we actually have in Christ.

That happiness is not what we, not having what we have, but wanting what we already have. And that's what assurance of salvation is, is assurance that we have this. If we are assured that we have this, how does it affect our life? How does it affect our worship? How does it affect our fellowship?

How does it affect our future? What unites us is much more powerful than what distinguishes us. The love of Christ compels us. And that's why in Revelations 3, 18, He says to the Laodicean church, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, white garments so that you may clothe yourself with the shame of your nakedness may not be seen and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see." Not to run to this world and everything else to cover it up and only if I had this, only if I had that, and all it does is lead to more frustration.

But to come to recognize through faith that He is my life, that He is my treasure. Whoever comes to God must first believe that He is. And He is a rewarder of those who diligently seeking. He is a rewarder. Not my company, not my kids, not my family, not my friends.

So if I have this assurance of salvation, wouldn't that cause me to seek Him out more than anything else? Let me conclude with this because the third and final thing that He says is a repeat of what He's been saying. He says, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Absolute certainty that you will be saved.

Let me illustrate it this way. Some of us knew we were in need of salvation. So when the lifeboat came to get us, we rejoiced from the beginning. You know, let's say you were on a boat and you kind of drifted and you ran out of gas or whatever and you ran into a storm and you were about to sink and you're about to die and you're crying out, "Save me, we're going to die." And then all of a sudden this lifeguard comes all the way out and he said, "Wow, the lifeguard's out here?

We're like hundreds of miles away and we're in the middle of the storm and they risked their lives to come and save me." So when they tell us to get on the boat, we get on the boat and say, "Thank you so much." So from day one, you're, "Thank you so much for what you did.

I can't believe that you actually risked your life. You have family too and you came to get us. Thank you." Some of us were saved that way. And so some of us, when we got saved that way, from day one, you lived your life to the fullest. And even to this day, you remember when you got saved and you remember what you got saved from and you remember who came to save you and what he risked and what he sacrificed to get you and it affected you deeply and changed you.

A lot of us didn't get saved like that. A lot of us were sitting on a boat, we drifted out hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from shore in danger and a storm is coming and you're not even aware of it. If you just kept on going this path, the storm would have come and you would have just been engulfed by the waves and you would have died.

But you weren't aware of it. You were just enjoying yourself. You're sipping on your boba, watching Netflix. You don't know what's going on. And then the lifeguard comes and he comes and says, "You've drifted away. What are you doing? You're hundreds of miles, thousands of miles away. A storm is coming in.

You're going to die." And he's like, "What?" And you start thinking, "Hmm, why did they come all the way out here to do that? Maybe there is a storm coming." And so you believed him. You didn't know that you were in danger. You never sensed it. You never saw the storm coming.

You didn't even know you were lost. You just found out because somebody came and got you and said, "Okay, I believe in you." You got on the boat. And as you're going back, they're showing you, "Look at the storm coming in," and showing you all the news, showing you where you were at and then where you should have been.

And then it starts to dawn on you, "Oh, my gosh. That's where I was?" And then you start realizing, like, "Why did you come out here? You would have died. If you didn't find us in time, you would have died." And you start thinking, "You risked your life to come and get me." And so it didn't happen immediately, but it started dawning on you what it is that you've been saved from and what it is exactly these lifeguards did to come and get you.

And so it didn't happen immediately, but as your understanding of salvation began to grow, you start saying, "Oh, my gosh." And you have the same reaction as that person who was crying out. It's like, "I didn't understand it, but now I get it. Thank you so much for risking everything to come and get me." So he didn't know immediately, but eventually as he began to know, he started to change.

He started being sanctified. And then there are some people who didn't know that they needed salvation, that they didn't know that they were in danger. And all of a sudden, this lifeboat comes and they come and say, "Hey, what are you doing? If you keep going down that path, you're going to die." And he said, "Well, okay, I'm tired of being on this boat anyway.

Maybe I'll try this." And so you kind of jumped on the boat because that guy seems very serious. And what have I got to lose? I'm tired of being on this tiny boat. That boat looks a lot bigger. And so you got on the boat. And he's taking you back, but the whole time you're on the boat, you never even knew that you were in danger.

You've never come to the conviction, the danger that you were in. So therefore, you don't even know. I mean, you say, "Okay, you say so. Do you know how hard it was for us to come here? We risked our lives." It's like, "Okay, thank you. You know, what do you got to drink?

You know, I'm running out of boba. You got something?" Some people's response to their salvation is just that. So we're trying to muster up thankfulness, but it's not really there. We're trying to muster up worship, but it's not there. And you see other people like just in love with, "Thank you for saving me.

Thank you for saving me." And you're watching that. It's like, "Huh, they're really emotional. They're really emotional." You know what I mean? They're like, "Jesus freaks over there." So it's like maybe some people are like that because of their personality, and some people like really want to give their life and follow Christ.

And you know, not everybody was called. Not everybody. And so you're trying to kind of justify it. It's like, "Well, maybe I'm just not that emotional type of a person." Not realizing that it might be because that you don't realize what you've been saved from. Because you know it in your head, but you never realize the danger that you're in.

You know in your head theologically what Christ has done, but you don't really know the sacrifice that He made to come and get you. And as a result of that, your worship is something that you're just trying to muster up instead of having a reaction. Why is this so important?

Because if we're saved by faith and faith alone, if faith is the only thing that connects us to God, if genuine faith is the only way that we can have assurance that when we pray He hears us, to long and to look for His coming, then shouldn't this faith be absolutely certain?

Shouldn't every Christian take a step back and examine in order that I may revisit why I got saved, what I got saved from, and what it is that I hope in Christ? Let me conclude with this reading of this passage in 1 John 4, 16 and 18. Again, the end goal of all of this is not simply to give you a knee-jerk reaction, "Hey, nobody ever questioned your faith." Or the other extreme is like, "Nobody should ever have assurance." The end goal is that we have assurance, a real assurance, that we understand the power of the gospel.

We understand who we are in the light of who He is, and as a result of that, we are changed. First John 4, 16 and 18 says, "So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us." God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and whoever abides in Him.

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

I pray that as we examine ourselves, that our conclusion would be, "Yes, I do have faith. I do believe." And with that belief, come to the throne of grace with confidence. As we open up the communion table, I'm going to ask you again one by one to take your time, contemplation and prayer, unconfessed sins to confess.

If you've been living day to day in lukewarmness, confess that as well, because God calls that as sin as well. So come before the Lord and confess. And when you come in, we're not inviting you because you're good, we're not inviting you because you've read your Bible and you've been perfect.

We're inviting you to remember your riches in Christ, to come and celebrate. So I want to read a passage for you in 1 Corinthians 11, and then again I want to remind you, if you are a born-again Christian, to come when you are prepared, when we open up the table.

If you have not been baptized and you haven't confessed Him as Lord and Savior, we ask you to remain in your seats. And those of you who are coming up, just as a reminder again to come on both sides and go down the middle aisle so that we don't create traffic here.

So these two rows come this way and these two rows come that way. Okay? So 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given things He broke it and said, 'This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also He took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.'" Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we entrust this time to you. Help us, Lord God, for each one of us as we come to carefully examine where we are, that we may reaffirm your love for us, reaffirm our confidence in Christ, and as a result, Lord God, that we may truly live a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So as we open up this table, we pray for your grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.