A COMMON ANSWER ABOUT BEING SAVED: “I hope so.”
- Often when you ask someone if they are going to heaven, they will answer, “I hope so.”
- Or you might ask someone if they’re saved and they’ll reply, “I think so.”
- [Maybe share those two as more developed stories.]
- Maybe you’re in that situation yourself this morning. There’s a lot of cloudy thinking surrounding your spiritual condition. If so, this sermon should provide some helpful insight.
WHAT SIMEON SAW: “My eyes have seen your salvation.”
- Luke 2:30-31.
- We continue to dig into the story of Simeon in this sermon series.
- Verse 26 tells us that the Spirit had revealed to him that he would see the Christ before his death. Now, he comes face-to-face with the fulfillment of that promise. He enters the temple and sees the Child.
- What Simeon says in v. 30 is a literal, physical truth: he has seen the Lord’s salvation. The Christ Child! Verse 31 emphasizes the point that He is there for all to see.
- After centuries of hope and anticipation, how breathtaking it must have been to hold the Messiah!
- After 400 years of prophetic silence, how unbelievable it must have been to know that God was speaking again!
- It wasn’t just Simeon, though, that could say that v. 30 was true for them. In various ways, throughout the life of Jesus people could say that was true.
- What are some of the other ways that happened?
a. His unique teaching.
b. His compelling compassion.
c. His sacrificial love.
- Just to cite a few examples, look with me at these passages in Luke and how they physically saw evidence of who Jesus was: Luke 3:22; 4:34; 5:8; 5:26; 5:30-31; 6:10; 23:47; 24:7.
- It was evident that Jesus was someone different.
- This phrase that Simeon shares here opened up some thoughts in my mind about how it might or might not apply to today.
- Specifically, to what extent could the same thing be said today, all these years later.
- Let me ask a question and then get into what I’m getting at.
IS IT ALSO TRUE TODAY? Is salvation mysterious or obvious?
- I want to go back to the idea that I opened with: “hope so” faith. I want to pair it with the question I just asked about seeing your salvation.
- So often today many people think of salvation as mysterious. “Are you saved?” “I hope so.” Why say that? Because faith is a mystery.
- “Are you going to heaven?” “I think so.” Why say that? Because faith is a mystery.
- When you have that way of thinking, it seems as though we are worlds removed from Simeon’s situation. Simeon saw the Child, knew that He was the Messiah, and said, “My eyes have seen your salvation.” What we have today is nothing like that. Or is it?
- Certainly we don’t physically see Jesus walking down the street, but I think that there is a lot more certainty here than many people presume.
- I want to look at a couple passages and argue that salvation is more obvious than a mystery. I’m not saying that there are not mysterious aspects to it, but when we act like the whole thing is a mystery and there is no way to know whether God is in our lives, we have completely misunderstood what salvation means and what salvation is.
MORE THAN "HOPE SO" SALVATION:
1. THE FRUIT SHOWS WHAT KIND OF TREE IT IS.
- Matthew 7:17-20.
- In spite of Christians regularly saying that faith is a mystery and there’s no way to understand whether you truly have God in your life, these verses point in a different direction. In spite of Christians saying, “There’s no way to know whether you are having an impact or not” or “We will know until we reach eternity if we have done any good,” this passage points in the opposite direction. It states that fruitfulness is clear and obvious. Certainly that doesn’t mean that we will necessarily fully know our impact, but to say that there is no way to know at all whether we are making an impact is just incorrect.
- A major reason that this isn’t taught as much as it should be is that we have dumbed down Christianity to mere assertion of belief. You just have to say you believe in Jesus and that’s it. There’s no expectation of a changed life.
- Certainly we are saved by grace, but it is also certain that true salvation changes us.
- How do we handle the bold statements of Christ here when we tend to think of each life as a decidedly mixed bag?
- Two thoughts:
a. Concerning bearing good fruit, Christians underestimate what Jesus’ power can do in and through them.
- We’re content to believe a list of doctrines and call that Christianity. We don’t expect God to actually change us.
b. Concerning bearing bad fruit, we overestimate the importance of being nice or accomplished.
- Many non-Christians are nice. How can you say they bear no good fruit?
- Fruit is not being nice or accomplished. Fruit is followers of Christ becoming Jesus themselves and pointing people to Christ. Understanding that, you know that “good fruit” is not a good life as defined by the American Dream.
- Going back to Simeon’s statement for a moment, while we are not seeing Jesus walking around, we can “see salvation” happening all around us.
- We see it in the addict who is living clean and victorious.
- We see it in our changed priorities.
- We see it in our joy, peace, and quickness to forgive.
- We see it in how we become like Jesus!
2. WE BEAR THAT GOOD FRUIT BY DOING GOD'S WILL.
- Matthew 7:21-27; John 15:5, 10.
- When we hear the truth that I’ve just shared, it creates an immediate question: how would someone bear good fruit like that?
- Fortunately for us, Jesus quickly answers that question in His sermon: v. 21 tells us that doing God’s will is the line of demarcation of genuine faith and pretend faith.
- We need to obey the teaching of Jesus.
- As you look over at John 15:5, 10, we see that as we obey the teaching of Christ, we abide in Him; as we abide in Him, we see fruit naturally produced in our lives.
- The most important point for our purposes today is that this is not a mysterious thing. Being a Christian isn’t a mystery with no way to discern where you are in relation to it.
- I absolutely love this quote from Dallas Willard: “First of all, we should note that being a disciple, or apprentice, of Jesus is a quite definite and obvious kind of thing. To make a mystery of it is to misunderstand it. There is no good reason why people should ever be in doubt as to whether they themselves are His students or not.” Yes, yes, yes.
- The point is that faith isn’t an inscrutable mystery where we are left with “I hope so” faith. On the contrary, it is a clear and obvious thing. I believe in Jesus and I seek to follow His commands. When I do that, I will increasingly see good fruit produced by my life.
- This makes us able to, again, “see salvation,” or at least the obvious signs of it.
CONCLUSION:
- If you today have had a “hope so” faith, I urge you this morning to lay aside that worthless thing, move out of the mystery, and stand on the solid rock.
