The following resource is from desiring God.org.

Before I pray and ask for God's help and before we read the text, which is going to be from

Romans 8 if you want to go there already.

Let me tell you where we're going, what my aims are, why I'm talking about what I'm talking

about, and then we'll get into it in Romans 8.

My goal is to help you who are born of God

know that you are children of God.

Know it, beyond the shadow of a doubt, feel it in your bones and thus walk in

confidence and boldness I am a child of God. To be able to say that to yourself to God and to others with

confidence and not say when somebody says you a Christian I hope so that's where we're going. I want from the word by the spirit to be an

instrument in giving you the assurance of your salvation. That's the aim. Why would you talk

about that? And I wrote down two reasons this morning, about 7.30.

One, in my experience of 33 years at Bethlehem, it probably was the most common thing I prayed with people about after church.

I would stand at the front for an hour or so after the second service,

for as long as I could after the first service,

same thing in Sunday evening, Saturday night, I mean.

And that would be the people, they would be unsure.

And they wanted to be sure.

So that's the first reason.

It's been my experience that that's been the most common thing I've had to wrestle with people about and the second thing

is I tried to picture you I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina and Southern Baptist

Church and it was marked, I would say, by a vague handling of the word of God,

...