If you were here last Sunday you'll notice right off the bat that this is an interruption in our series from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 to 520 that I announced last week.

The reason for the interruption is our deep conviction that every Christian needs

to be in a cluster of comrades who are committed to helping each other fight the fight of faith.

Our focus this morning is on strengthening each other's hands in God.

We believe that eternal security is a community project.

Or to put it another way, we believe that the perseverance of the Saints is a corporate responsibility.

The same loving Lord who said, I know my sheep and I call them and they follow me and I give them

eternal life and they shall never perish, no one shall snatch them out of my hand, also said,

those who endure to the end shall be saved.

To be born of God means that we are eternally secure in the hand of Jesus.

And to be born of God means that we must and will persevere to the end in faith. Now that raises the question about what means God has ordained in between the beginning of the Christian life and the end,

so that he can and will infallibly fulfill the promise that none of his will be snatched from his hand.

What means has God ordained to preserve his people enduring and persevering to the end.

And this morning's message is part of the answer to that question.

An essential part, though not the whole part, or not the whole thing. to that

the question, an essential part, though not the whole part, or not the whole thing. The part that it is is found in our text, I believe, or in a text in Hebrews that I'm going to allude to first, namely Hebrews 3

verses 12 to 14.

Let me just quote it for you so that you don't have to bother to take the time to look it up.

Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief leading you to fall away from the living God, exhort one another

every day, as long as it is called today, lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin,

for we have shared in Christ if we hold fast our first confidence to the end.

Exort one another every day. And so the answer that I'm offering this morning is that God

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