Introductory Comments
1. I have a confession to make. There are times that I wonder if I am really saved.
2. I believe that God did call me to be His child. When I first knew this, I could not read enough, worship enough, or talk enough about Him. The joy and excitement of a new found love. A deep desire to run away from all my sins. But there have been many times when I have not felt that way. Some days, even some weeks or months I struggle with spending time with Him. My desire seems to be on other things rather than in spending time with Him. I find it hard to read His word. I fall back into some sins that I thought I had overcome. My faith often feels dry and lifeless. Then I feel I am not living as a believer ought to, let alone a minister.
3. I know that I am not alone in this struggle. When I have mentioned this to a few of you, you have been surprised that I have these struggles. But you have also confessed to me that you struggle just like me.
4. And when you do, you wonder if you are really saved.
5. Today we look at the last of our Reformed doctrines that form the word TULIP.
6. And as we do, many we find assurance and peace and confidence that our faith is genuine and that we are truly saved. May we find that we share in the living hope of which Peter writes to us.
7. The doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints should give us that assurance.
8. What is this teaching. The Westminster Confession of Faith has defined perseverance as follows:
They whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved (chap. 17, sec. 1).
9. In simpler terms this doctrine says this about our salvation: "If we have it, we never lose it. If we lose it we never had it." In other words, if we are true believers, we can rest assured that we will never lose our salvation.
10. But don't we still sin and even have times when we do not act or feel like saved Christians?
11. This definition does not deny the possibility of living in sin or falling away for a time:
Nevertheless [believers] may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and for a time continue therein; whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve his Holy Spirit: come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts; have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves (sec. 3).
12. But even the sins we continue to commit cannot take our salvation away from us. We will persevere in our faith.
Jesus said: Mat 24:13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
The KJV says "But he that shall ENDURE to the end, the same shall be saved"
13. We may fall into sins and even periods of sin, but we will not fall from grace. It means that we do not fall into a life of sin and/or a life that repudiates or denies or rejects our faith.
14. But do we not know peopel who have done just that? Those who made profession of faith and showed real zeal. Does this not show that we can loose our faith?
15. There are two explanations for this situation.
a. The one is that their faith was not genuine in the first place. They are like the seed that fell in shallow soil and sprang up quickly, then withered and died. The seed never really took root. There may have been some outward of conversion, but it was not real. They are like those who honoured Christ with their lips but whose hearts were far from Him. We might include Judas as one of these.
b. The second is that the person has fallen into serious apostasy and sin but they will repent of their sin and be restored before they die.
c. eg. my brother-in-law and me. Both served in consistory and confessed Christ with lips. But the we both denied Christ. Took five years for me to be restored. He has not been - after 20-25 years. Seems like he was never saved but God may still restore him.
16. If our faith is real, we will persevere or hold onto our faith until the end. But the reason we will do so, is because God preserves. Our perseverence does not depend on ourselves but upon God. As RC Sproul says, God’s preserving grace makes our perseverence both possible and actual.
17. Logic makes it clear that God preserves us. Remember that God chose us. He elected those whom would be saved. God’s purposes cannot be thwarted or frustrated by our weaknesses or sin. That would take away from the sovereignty of God and make Him powerless. That would make our salvation dependent upon ourselves rather than upon God.
18. Scripture makes it clear that God preserves us.
a. What He began in us He will bring to completion.
Phil 1:4-6 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
b. That He preserves us is also based on His unchanging love for us.
Rom 8:31-39 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
c. And as this victorious passage says Jesus is praying on our behalf. We see this in John 17 when Jesus is praying for the believers. He is asking His Father to preserve all the believers.
John 17:15-21 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
19. Friends we can rejoice over these words of Scripture. God will preserve. God gave these words because He wants us to have assurance of faith.
20. This assurance is not necessary for salvation but assurance. Enables us to grow more in the love and service and worship for God. It gives us hope and joy and gratitude.
21. God wants you to have this assurance. Do you have it? Are you sure you are saved? Are you persevering in your faith because God is preserving you?
22. Unlike our justification which is the work of God alone, the work of our persevering or sanctification is a work done by God and the believer together. God holds unto our hand and we hold unto His hand. We may let go and fall and scrape our knees but God is still holding on (Sproul - "Grace Unknown" p. 212f)
23. As we said, to be saved we need persevere. But God enables us to persevere.
24. As we read from Westminster Catechism, we can:
fall into grievous sins; and for a time continue therein; whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve his Holy Spirit: come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts; have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.
Then we have no peace or assurance. Then we doubt if we are saved.
25. Why do we have our hearts hardened? Why do we lose some measure of the grace and comfort of knowing our salvation? Three ways:
through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation,
26. In order to remain in Christ, to see that we are being preserved, we must not neglect the means by which God preserves us.
27. In our passage we are given six means by which God enables us to persevere. Six ways He preserves us. To be aware of these in our lives and to respond to them will give us the living hope that Peter is talking about. And we can have that hope despite our failures.
28. If any biblical character was ever prone to failure, it was Simon Peter. None of the Lord's disciples`excluding Judas stumbled more ·7H1~1 HTM
