April 28, 2025

Good morning Church family, 

As always, I enjoyed seeing you all yesterday and worshipping our King together. 

Yesterday’s message from 1 John 2:18-28 should have sounded like a motivational message to you, one where John spurs us on to continue in our faith in Jesus and in our fellowship with the saints. 

1 John 2:18-28 is one of the greatest Texts in Scripture that clearly teaches on the ‘perseverance of the saints.’ It provides 2 layers to how a true Christian must and will continue (“abide”): 

1. Continue in our Church fellowship (2:19)
2. Continue in our Christ centered faith (2:23-24)

I want to make three comments on this (pick 1 or 2 if time is an issue): 

1. This should have been encouraging for you because of the confidence that John uses for our remaining. v27 says that our abiding in Christ will occur because the Holy Spirit (“anointing”) abides in us. Therefore, our abiding is dependent on the Holy Spirit’s abiding in us.

1. In John’s language, he does not mince words about his confidence that his audience is equipped with all that they need to continue in their faith with Christ and in their fellowship with the Church. 

1. Particularly, John is focused on continuing in our confession of Christ’s identity against these antichrist liars. But he says twice, “you have all knowledge” (v20) and “you have no need for anyone to teach you.” (v27) That is to say that they know enough about Jesus. They know Him intimately through the Holy Spirit’s ministry in their life so that they’ll recognize a false Christology when they hear one. It doesn’t sound like Jesus’ voice that they know (read John 10:3-5!), Jesus’ characteristics that they’ve become acquainted with, and it doesn’t sport Christ’s features that they’ve come to appreciate. Just like any personal relationship, you’ll be able to tell the difference between a look alike and your true wife/husband/child/parent, etc…

1. So the bottom line is that John encourages us as if to say, “my little children, I know that you’ll continue with Jesus and resist these lies about Jesus because you know Jesus, you really know Him and His Spirit’s DNA dwells in you. Literally, you have it in you to continue with Him!” 

1. And to be honest, I’ve been praying through our Church family this past week, that we would all continue with Jesus, knowing that some don’t, and knowing how important it is for our young ones and old one’s alike to continue in their confession of Jesus. 

2. However, this doctrine of the perseverance of the saints may have been discouragingfor some of you who know close ones who have not continued in (a) their faith in Jesus or (b) their fellowship with the Church. 

2. Personally, I know people who have absolutely abandoned their faith in Jesus (or Christ ALONE, which is to abandon Christ all-together). It’s sad and sobering. I have one particular friend who I walked closely beside as he gave up his faith in Jesus. It was gut-wrenching. 

2. And it’s gut-wrenching and a burden to bear for those of you who have friends, children, parents, or relatives who have abandoned (1) Church fellowship or (2) faith in Christ. 

2. What we need to be sold on is how 1 John clearly lays out that if we don’t continue (“abide/remain”) in our fellowship with the Church and our faith in Christ (the right One), then we are not Christians.

2. 1 John 2:19 says clearly concerning these antichrists, “if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.”That’s such a clear sweeping statement. The underlying presupposition here is that if somebody is truly of the Church (in the fact that we are actually God’s family, God’s children), they will continue with them (this is not talking about older folks who can’t make it any longer!).

2. And 1 John 2:23-24 makes it clear that our continuing in our confession of Jesus locks in our relationship with God the Father. If we don’t continue in our profession of faith in the True Jesus, then we don’t know the Father, therefore we are not Christians. 

2. Now I think that somebody denying their faith in Christ is easier for us to manage in our assessment of their Christianity & eternal destiny. That case is easier for us to swallow and accept.

2. But here’s what is trickior for us to navigate. We all know professing Christians who have not denied their faith in Jesus, but they show no to little interest in the Church. They don’t abide/continue with the Church. For those folks, I say like I said during my sermon, they’re in dangerous waters as they’re putting themself in a negative camp with these antichrist figures that established their falsity.

2. Here’s an even more tricky scenario to navigate: you have loved ones who made a profession of faith at one time, perhaps a child when they were younger, and they made it appear that they loved Jesus, were ‘on fire for Jesus’ and demonstrated what seemed to be a genuine relationship with the Lord. But now they’ve slipped away from that life in either confession or Church life. However, you want to appeal to the doctrine of eternal security by insisting that they are still saved even though they don’t act or show it.   

3. This brings me to one last comment: how do you relate the doctrine of eternal security and perseverance of the saints?

3. Eternal security: once saved always saved.

3. Perseverance of the saints: true Christians will continue in the faith and if you don’t, then you were never a true Christian. 

3. Note: John teaches BOTH at the same time – the comfort of eternal security and the warning of not continuing. 

3. So how do the two go together? First of all, they both need to go together. Imagine the danger of accepting one or the other in exclusion to the other:
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5. If you hold to eternal security without the perseverance of the saints: you will completely deny the whole message of 1 John (and others in the NT, see Titus 1:16 for an example). 1 John ultimately says that there are perceivable signs that prove one’s Christian ID such as continuing with the Church fellowship, in Christ’s doctrine, in love for the saints, in confession of sins, and in a love for God’s law. 

3. If you hold to eternal security without perseverance of the saints, then you will be gullible into thinking that everybody who says they are Christians are Christians. You will also ignore the balance of Scripture, for instance, in James 2:14-26. 
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4. If you hold to the perseverance of the saints without eternal security: you will act like your Christian faith and life with God just depends solely on you and you will be anxious and fearful that at any point you could lose your salvation. 

3. How do these two merge together? 

3. When Jesus converts a person through the Holy Spirit, He begets lasting change and we can have confidence in this. 

3. Eternal security and the perseverance of the saints’ merge together in Christ’s parable of the 4 soils in Matthew 13. 

3. If you would like to study that, notice how God’s word (the message of the Gospel) gets sowed into 4 different types of people, and 2 out of the four receive the message and start growing, but they don’t last. Only 1 out of the four “produces grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” 

3. The message is that there are many folks who appear to begin growing in their faith in the Gospel and fellowship with the saints, but they don’t continue. They wither away. The fact of the matter is that this contradicts the fact that Jesus gives us “eternal life” (1 John 2:25), hence it is a lethal sign that shows that one has not been truly born again (John will go on to explain this in 1 John 3:1-10!), therefore we should not justify them. Jesus died for our sins to justify us completely, but He does not justify misinterpreting Scripture. “Persevering is proof of possession” as John says, though not to be confused with merit of possession. 

3. We are not saved by our persevering, but those who are saved will persevere in faith and fellowship. 

3. Do you remember the words of Jesus? “He who perseveres until the end will be saved.” (Matt. 24:13)
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But I will say as the author of Hebrews says, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. BUT we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve our souls” (Heb. 10:37-39).

I’m glad that I can have confidence like John and the author of Hebrews that God has re made you with an enduring spirit and persevering ability to continue in your faith in Christ and fellowship with the Saints. Nevertheless, I’m praying for all of us together that we would continue in our faith in Jesus even when it’s fashionable in culture. 

With abiding love in Christ, 

Aaron