Preservation and Perseverance
John 10:27-30
Jesus said He is the Great Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He knows them and calls them by name. The sheep He spoke of are those who have received His grace by hearing and responding to His call by yielding their lives to Him and following His leading. In verses 27-30, Christ presents two great truths regarding the relationship of the Shepherd – Christ, and the sheep – the born-again child of God. These truths are preservation and perseverance. There is a great difference between perseverance and preservation and we must not confuse the two. Only God can perform the one while the believer with the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit is enabled to do the other.
I. Preservation
A. John 10:28-29 “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand
B. Some years ago at the great Keswick Convention in England, a brother said to the Rev. George Silwood, "Is it not blessed to be safe in the arms of Jesus?" "Yes," said Brother Silwood, "but I am safer than that." "Why," said his friend in astonishment, "how could you be safer than in the arms of Jesus?" "Why, I am as safe as an arm of Jesus," said the preacher; nor did he over-emphasize this great and glorious fact, "for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Ephesians. 5:30).—P. W. Philpott, in Moody Church News.
C. Psalm 121:4-8 “Behold, he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
D. Webster's 1828 dictionary gives the following definition for preserve, “to keep or save from injury or destruction; to defend from evil, to uphold, to sustain.” Strong’s Concordance gives the following definition, “to guard; to protect, attend to; to save, i.e. deliver”.
E. John 5:24 ““Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
F. Eternal life is not something we get in the future or pie in the sky by and by. It is something that we have the very moment we receive the grace of God by faith. By its very nature, eternal life must last forever, or it could not be eternal.
G. Kept every day from morn to night,
We know His promises are sure.
Kept by His truth, His power and might
No jot shall fail, while words endure.
Kept all the way from youth to age,
Thus far the Lord hath sheltered me.
Kept from the fangs of Satan's rage,
Safely we'll cross life's troubled sea.
Kept all these years by God's own hand,
To Him be praise and homage given.
Kept by His grace we'll hope to stand.
At evening time, in sight of Heaven.
Kept from the power of hell and sin.
Home of the pure in heart we'll see.
Kept by His love we'll here begin
The life that fills eternity.—Copied
II. Perseverance
A. John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”
B. John 10:3b-5 (NKJV) “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
C. Webster's Dictionary defines perseverance in the following words: "To persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counter-influences, opposition, or discouragement."
D. Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it's hard.
E. 2 Timothy 2:4-5 (ESV) “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.”
F. Perseverance is one of the best evidences of one’s salvation.
1. John 10:27 “…they follow me”
2. 1 John 2:3-4 “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
3. Proverbs 4:18 “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day.
G. Mark Talbot in the book “The Signs of True Conversion” lists seven signs of true saving faith:
1. Faith in Christ's sufficient work on the cross
2. Signs and evidence of true biblical repentance
3. Deliberate turning from a life enslaved to sin to embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior
4. A desire/joy to follow God's Word-(obeying God's law from the heart)
5. Bearing fruit (attitude [fruit of the Spirit] and action [good works]) - Continual working out our salvation
6. A desire to live for God's glory
7. Christ-like desires and emotions
H. When one becomes a child of God by receiving His grace through faith he or she is transformed by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
I. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
J. The necessary result of God’s saving work is a transformed person. When a soul is redeemed, Christ gives a new heart (cf. Ezekiel 36:26). Implicit in that change of heart is a new set of desires – a desire to please God, to obey, and to reflect His righteousness. If such a change does not occur, there is no reason to think genuine salvation has taken place. - John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, p. 96.
K. “Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.” – J C Ryle
L. “Another proof of the conquest of a soul for Christ will be found in a real change of life. If the man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of and his conversion is a fiction. - C.H. Spurgeon
M. God calls us to persevere
1. Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”
2. 1 Corinthians 16:13 “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.
3. Galatians 5:1 “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
4. 1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
N. God promises to bless those who persevere
1. James 1:25 “But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues (or perseveres) in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”
2. The Greek word for continues or perseveres here is paraménō which literally means to remain close alongside.
3. Revelation 2:10b (to the church of Smyrna) “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
4. Revelation 3:11 (to the church of Philadelphia) “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.”
5. 2 John 1:8 “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”
6. Christians do not practically remember that while we are saved by grace, altogether by grace, so that in the matter of salvation works are altogether excluded; yet that so far as the rewards of grace are concerned, in the world to come, there is an intimate connection between the life of the Christian here and the enjoyment and the glory in the day of Christ’s appearing. - from George Muller of Bristol and His Witness to a Prayer Hearing God, by Arthur T. Pierson, p. 460,
7. Spurgeon once said, “One reason some saints will have a greater fullness of heaven than others will be that they did more for heaven than others.”
O. Perseverance does not mean sinless perfection.
1. There are times when true Christians do fall and become victims of sin. Even some those who have been champions of the faith have at times backslide temporarily.
2. 1 Kings 15:5 “Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”
3. David lapsed into sin over Bathsheba and as a result lost not his salvation but the joy of his salvation. That is why he cries out in Psalm 51:12 “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
4. A Christian can find himself filled with his own ways if he repeatedly lets his selfish sin nature have its way until he finds himself sliding back into the habit of practicing sins that he thought he was free of. Due to preoccupation with sin, he may forget that Christ had to endure the wrath of God the Father for each and every one of his wicked sins. He can willfully ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit and he may even look to backsliders in the Bible to justify his own backsliding. But a true believer will be chastised by God when he sins as can be seen in the situation with David committing adultery with Bathsheba (and God then took David's son at childbirth and allowed David's grown sons to go their own way) and Jonah not doing what God told him to do - go to Nineveh and preach to the people (and then God caused Jonah to be swallowed by the great fish). – Ray Kane, Coming in the Clouds
5. Note what the Psalmist admitted in Psalm 119:157 “I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandment”
6. Note true followers of the Lord “cannot erase the law that has been written on their heart by the Spirit of God.” A person who truly knows Christ as their Saviour are deeply and thoroughly miserable when they are out of fellowship with God. You cannot backslide without suffering."
7. Robert Robinson had been saved out of a tempestuous life of sin through George Whitefield's ministry in England. Shortly after that, at the age of twenty-three, Robinson wrote the hymn Come, Thou Fount.
Come, Thou Fount of ev'ry blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace, Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise.
Sadly, Robinson wandered far from those streams and, like the Prodigal Son, journeyed into the distant country of carnality. Until one day -- he was traveling by stagecoach and sitting beside a young woman engrossed in her book. She ran across a verse she thought was beautiful and asked him what he thought of it.
Prone to wander -- Lord, I feel it --
Prone to leave the God I love.
Bursting into tears, Robinson said, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then." The woman suddenly understood. “You also wrote, ‘Here’s my heart, O take and seal it.’ You can offer your heart again to God, Mr. Robinson. It’s not too late.” And it wasn’t too late for Robert Robinson. In that moment he turned his heart back to God and walked with him the rest of his days.
8. Proverbs 24:16 “For a just man falls seven times, and rises up again”
9. Romans 6:12-15 “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.”
10. We have been redeemed by His blood and are kept by His grace and do not have to live defeated lives but can find victory in Christ. If we have faltered He stands ready to restore.
11. 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
