April, 2007
Series: What is Christianity #4
How Can I Know for Sure?
Acts 9:1-22
INTRODUCTION: Saul of Tarsus had a dramatic conversion experience changing from a person who was extremely intent on persecuting anyone who followed the Lord to becoming one of them himself and preaching the gospel. Many people do not have such a dramatic turnaround in their lives and have continual nagging doubts about their salvation. They wonder, “Am I really saved?” “How can I know for sure that my sins are really forgiven?” “Will God hold my past against me?” “How can I know for sure?”
You might have some of the same nagging doubts about your salvation and at times wonder if God even cares about you or knows that you exist.
“How can I know for sure?” is the question I want to explore today. There is much we could come up with on this subject, but I want to limit it to four main ways that we can know for sure. I want to give you some specific scriptures to reinforce your faith when doubt tries to creep in.
1. We Are Meant to Know: God does not intend for us to wonder and fret about our salvation. Scripture helps us to answer this question so that we can be sure of life’s most important question concerning our eternal destiny. Scripture tells us that we are MEANT to know for sure whether or not we have salvation. We don’t have to just “hope so” or “wonder if” we will get to heaven some day.
Some people say, “I hope the scales will tip in my favor. If I can do enough good deeds, be nice to my neighbor, do enough good in my lifetime, be a good person, pay my bills and be good to my family…then maybe I will make it to heaven.”
I John 5:13 says, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God, that ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the Name of the Son of God.”
Even after receiving Jesus into their lives, many people still live under a great weight of condemnation feeling that God will still punish them for their sins even after they have been forgiven. What does scripture say about this?
Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”
Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”
I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
John 5:24, “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death into life.”
God wants us to know this. We don’t have to live with a vague question about our salvation thinking that we won’t know for sure until we get there.
2. Access By Faith: We worship God in Spirit and in truth and access things spiritually by faith. John 4:24 says, “God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth.” This may be difficult to understand when we are used to using tangible means to access things--money to buy things, credit cards to charge things, keys to unlock doors. We have to learn a new way from how we are used to operating. We receive our salvation, our healing, our answers to prayer by faith which is a SUBSTANCE that brings us into contact with the Lord. Scripture says that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Scripture says that it is important that we have faith because “without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
We must learn how to use our faith not only to initially believe for salvation but to also continue to believe that “he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day” (II Tim. 1:12). We not only access our salvation by faith but we will begin to have a new experience of answered prayer.
I John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask we know that we have the petition we desired of him.”
Much of our problem stems from not believing that the Lord hears us--maybe we think we are not worthy, or that because we don’t “feel” anything or “see” some tangible sign taking place when we pray that God is not hearing that prayer.
STORY: There is a story told of an atheist who was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tossed him and his boat high into the air. Then it opened its mouth to swallow both. As the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, “Oh, my God! Help me!”
At once the ferocious attack scene froze in place; and as the atheist hung in midair, a booming voice came down from the clouds. “I thought you didn’t believe in me!”
“Come on, God, give me a break,” the man pleaded. “I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either.”
You don’t have to “feel” a thing for faith to work. It doesn’t have to be some spectacular, dramatic scene for God to be there. Faith is not “feeling.” We don’t have to “see” a thing happen when we pray for that prayer to be effective and for it to be answered. Why? Because “we walk by faith and not by sight” (II Cor. 5:7).
Faith comes first, and then the “sight” or “feeling” may come later. Harry Greenwood an evangelist from England used to say, “Believe you’ve got it before you get it.” We’ve got to re-educate ourselves to believe first.
How can I know for sure that I am a Christian? Take a look at the following verses:
The jailer asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
Paul answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30,31).
Romans 10:9, 10 says that “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
John 1:12 says, “But as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God, even to them that BELIEVE on his name.”
Here is a question for you to think about:
If you were found along the side of the road, dead, why would you go to heaven?
Story: There were three women standing outside the gates of heaven knocking to get in. St. Peter came to the gate and said, “Why do you think you should be admitted to heaven?”
One lady said, “I have been a good person all of my life and have helped the less fortunate. I have always been good to my family.”
The next one said, “I have served on committees, sang in the choir, and taught Sunday school.”
The third one was busy rummaging in her purse for something. St. Peter asked, “What in the world are you looking for?” She said, “I think I’ve got a casserole in here somewhere!”
Why would you go to heaven? Is it because you BELIEVED on the Lord Jesus Christ and RECEIVED him into your heart?
When we do our part, be sure that He will do His part because He is true to His Word. This is His job to “seek and to save the lost.”
3. Spirit Bears Witness: When we become a Christian something happens inside us. We become a new creation.
II Corinthians 5:17 says, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.”
How do we know this? One way is that God’s Spirit will bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
Romans 8:16, “The spirit testifies with our spirit…(NIV)
The Message Bible says, “God’s spirit touches our spirits and CONFIRMS who we really are.
There is a new kind of dust mop advertised on TV called a magnadust. The dust mop attracts the dust particles like a magnet. That’s the way we are with God. Here we are and there is a MAGNET that is in us and in the Lord that pulls us toward one another. There is something in us when we become Christians that just CLICKS with the Lord.
He makes His presence felt in us. I John 3:24 says, “Those who obey his commands live in him and he in them. And this is how we know he lives in us: we know it by THE SPIRIT he gave us” NIV. There is something that just “clicks”---his presence is there and it is felt in our spirit.
The Message Bible says, “As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: BY THE SPIRIT HE GAVE US.
I John 5:6 says, “and it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.”
Scripture says that we also have a new sense of pardon. I John 2:1-2.
Other places we can know that the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit is because of a new sense of peace. As a part of the Spirit bearing witness with our Spirit it will manifest itself in a new measure of peace that our sins are forgiven.
John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, give I you.
John 16:33 “These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.”
Romans 5:1 “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 2:14 “For he is our peace…and he came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh for through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the father.”
Philippians 4:7 “And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.”
Colossians 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
4. A Changed Life: Saul of Tarsus began to change after his conversion experience. Where he had once threatened and harmed Christians, he no longer did that. His life turned around in a different direction and so will ours. It may be that the change is a gradual one rather than a sudden one like he experienced. That’s OK because the Lord works in a variety of ways. When we once had the hold of sin in our lives, now we have the freedom from sin. The things we once did which were clearly against God begin to drop off, and we begin to walk in newness of life.
The fruit of the spirit begins to show up in our lives. Galatians 5:22-24 gives examples of this fruit--love, joy, peace,… We have a new joy and confidence in our lives. I John 1:3,4 and 5:20 tells us “and these things I write that your joy may be full.” Is your joy full?
Desires. We begin to have different desires. We want to go to church, to pray, to learn more about the Bible. We see ourselves beginning to grow spiritually.
Grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We find that we have a new desire to please God (I John 2:5-6) and a new appreciation of Christian fellowship (I John 3:14). We have a new attitude toward people. Where we once hated people and wished them harm, we now have a love for them. I John 3:10, 11 speaks of this love for one another.
Our conduct verifies His presence in our life. We are no longer in bondage to habitual sin. Since receiving Christ into your life, are you a different person? Have you grown spiritually in proportion to the length of time you have been a Christian? As we walk in the light He has given us, we should have the evidence of a changed life.
CONCLUSION: How can I know for sure?
Let’s review:
1. We are meant to know.
2. Access by faith.
3. Spirit bears witness with our spirit.
4. A changed life.
Let us Pray:
