How You Can Be Sure of Your Salvation
I John 5:13
2 Timothy 1:7-12
Christians of all ages need the assurance of salvation. Carollyn’s step-father was an outstanding Christian gentleman. He was a retired School Superintendent in Michigan. He moved to Florida and married Carollyn’s mother after a short dating time. All his life he was active in the Free Methodist Church.
He because very sick and had to go to the hospital. While physically weak he had some doubts? He asked: “How Can I Be Sure I am Saved?” “Maybe there’s some sin in my life that I have forgotten to confess?” “If I die I want to be sure of my salvation?”
How can You be sure of your salvation? God’s word has clear teaching on Assurance. According to God’s Word you can not just sing words, but you can sing from your heart: “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God.
God’s Word teaches a clear message on “How You can Be Sure of Your Salvation.”
I. Assurance of Salvation is not by feelings.
Human nature is such that judgments and decisions are often made according to feelings. If it makes you feel good it must be okay. If what you do brings pleasure it must be okay.
Emotions and feelings either good or bad come and go. Emotions and feelings are often determined by how your day goes. When you have stress, pressures, hurts, conflicts, and problems you may become frustrated and fell like giving up. But when you day goes great, you have extra money on hand, everybody likes you and all is well you feel great.
One simple life principle is this: “Don’t deny your feelings or emotions, but rather focus on the big picture of life.” When you are sick or weak or in crisis don’t panic. Be assured that Jesus is with you all the way in good times and bad.
If you gage your spiritual vitality by your feelings you will be disappointed. If you have to be on an emotional high and full of enthusiasm all the time to feel like your have spiritual victory watch out. Feelings don’t drive your spiritual health or vitality.
I like the example that the late Bill Bright, Past President of Campus Crusade for Christ uses to describe the Christian Life. He uses an old time train to describe the Christian Life.
Train Engine = Fact - God’s Word
Coal Car = Faith – faith in God keeps you going
Forward…
Caboose = Feeling comes at the end of the train
The caboose (feeling) has no power to pull the train.
By your human effort you can work up feelings of emotional high. You can take drugs to get an emotional high.
# When I was pastor of the Taylor FMC, Taylor, Michigan - I went to the church early one Saturday morning. A young man was kneeling down before the big tree at the back of the church near the parking lot. When I walked up to him he was very friendly and said he felt close to God and wanted me to pray with him. I said sure I’d be glad to pray with him. Then he said, “Do you see that tree. That is a spiritual tree. It has a sign for me. See the “M” in the trunk. That M gives me inner joy and peace. Of course you know what he was high on – marijuana. When I talked to him about surrendering his life to Jesus he had no interest. He was only looking for a good feeling. Neither good works or good feelings give the assurance of salvation.
Ephesians 2:8-9 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God - not by, works so that no one can boast.”
II. Assurance of Salvation is by Faith.
The Apostle Paul said, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…” In Romans 10:9 - Paul also said: “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
# Years ago Dr. Fred Smith, a renowned biochemist and professor at the University of Minnesota, was asked by a neighbor to attend the Billy Crusade in their city. He was skeptical of all churches and laughed at the invitation and said, “I don’t go in for that silly stuff.” He finally gave in when his neighbor persisted and attended the crusade with the neighbor.
He came away from the service thinking the song service was poorly done, and the sermon lacking in logic. But he said, “I could not get away from a verse of Scripture that had been quoted, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
That night he had difficulty sleeping. The passage of scripture kept going over and over in his mind. A few days later he personally humbled himself and asked Christ to come in and take over his life.”
Faith can be stated as simply “Taking God at His Word.” Faith spells out an acrostic:
Forsaking
All
I
Trust
Him
In college a student was asked to prepare a lesson to teach a truth in the speech class. The students were to be graded on their creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. This certain student chose as his topic: "The Law of the Pendulum." He spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
The student attached a 3-foot string to a child’s toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. He pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back he made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved his thesis.
Then he asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of his classmates raised their hands, so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room was a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.). He invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. Then the student brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face, He once again explained the law of the pendulum he had applauded only moments before, "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when he released this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. The teacher’s nose will be in no danger."
After that final restatement of this law, he looked the teacher in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?" There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes." The student released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back. You never saw a man move so fast in your life. He literally dived from the table. Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, the student asked the class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?" The students unanimously answered, "NO!"
God gives you the gift of free will. You can choose to have Faith to Believe or not believe.
People refuse to believe that which they don’t want to believe, in spite of evidence. When explorers first went to Australia they found a mammal which laid eggs; spent some time in water, some on land; had a broad, flat tail, webbed feet, and a bill similar to a duck. Upon their return to England, they told the populace of this, and all felt it was a hoax. They returned to Australia and found a pelt from this animal and took it back to England, but the people still felt it was a hoax. In spite of the evidence, they disbelieved because they didn’t want to believe.
The animal is called a duckbilledplaterpus.
The Gospel of John 1:11-12 gives the promise that when you receive Jesus by faith you have the assurance of eternal life. “Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. But to all who believe him and accept him, he gave the right to become children of God.”
III. Assurance of Salvation is by Commitment
I John 1:7-9
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Assurance of salvation is conditional. Assurance demands a daily walk of obedience to stay spiritually fit. You get into trouble when you compromise and go off exploring on your own without Jesus walking with you as your Guide.
Have you ever gotten lost? Turned around so you didn’t know which direction was the way you needed to go?
During my senior year in college I visited Carollyn at her home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. One afternoon I went exploring in near by woods – they were thick woods. I wanted to see a deer or other wild life, but before I knew it I was lost. I turned around to go back from where I started but drifted further and farther into the woods. After a very long time I finally came to a clearing and a road. I was a long way from where I had started but thankful to get out of the woods.
The Bible teaches you have the assurance of salvation as you continue to walk in the Light of God’s Word. In a way it’s like eating three square meals a day or at least one good meal a day. If you go without food and water for too long a time you grow weak and can die. If you go too long without walking in the light and keeping close to the Lord you grow spiritually weak and can become spiritually dry and indifferent. Only with regular repentance and surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus do you experience spiritual renewal. Assurance of salvation demands a daily commitment.
Acts 3:19 says: “Repent then and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
“As you walk in the light you have fellowship with one another and the Blood of Jesus cleanses for all sin.”
IV. Assurance of Salvation Comes by Invitation
Jesus gives every person the invitation to know him in a personal relationship.
Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was inspired by Rev. 3:20 to paint three versions of the verse called “The Light of the World.” In Revelation 3:20 Jesus gives the invitation: “Here I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”
The painting, Jesus the Light of the World, stands at a door, which is overgrown with ivy and weeds. The door clearly represents the door of someone’s life. This person has never invited Jesus to come into his or her life. Jesus is standing at the door and knocking. He is awaiting a response. He wants to come in and be part of that person’s life.
On one occasion a person approached Holman Hunt and told him he made a mistake and told him he had forgotten to paint a handle on the door. “Oh no,” replied Hunt, “that is deliberate.
Jesus always gives people the freedom to choose to invite Jesus to come in.
When you invite Jesus to come into your heart and life you are asking him to come in and manage your life. When Jesus is in charge of your life He gives you the assurance of salvation and eternal life.
Like the good Shepherd in Psalm 23 Jesus promises to be with you even during the dark days of the shadow of death. The Psalmist David lived by the promise: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.”
When life’s challenges press upon you from all sides Jesus is with you.
Many of you have experienced the sustaining grace of God – sickness and death of loved ones, personal dark days, family crises, health problems and all kinds of stress.
Jesus promises to be with you in the valley. The valley is sometimes a long and not a short trip. Shepherds often guided sheep through the valleys to get to the next green mountain for fresh grass. By going through the valley the sheep could find plenty of refreshing water. Rivers and streams and springs are found in the deep valleys.
Even in times of walking in the darkness of a valley Jesus the Light of Life is there to refresh you.
# Five small boys had obtained permission from their parents to camp outside their small town near a wooded area. They were having a wonderful time until darkness settled in. Then they began to have certain fears and misgivings about their adventure. However, they eventually snuggled down in their sleeping bags under the tent hey had set up. They talked loudly among themselves and laughed a great deal to counteract fear, and were finally settling down then they heard a noise rustling in a nearby bush. They panicked until their flashlight revealed a friendly dog.
In the middle of the night the wind howled through the trees making a moaning noise. The rumble of distant thunder kept coming closer on the winds of an approaching storm. The closer the storm came the more they huddled in fear. Then they heard the sound of footsteps outside. A new fear assailed them. But one fellow had the courage to look out under the tent flap and there, lantern in hand, stood hi father, who had become concerned for the boys and had come to stay out the rest of the night with the boys. The young boy said: “It’s all right now, fellows, my Dad is here.”
Jesus comes to you in the valley experiences of life and says: “Do not be afraid, I’m with you. I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Your assurance of salvation is not by feelings it by faith.
Your assurance of salvation is by commitment – a daily commitment to walk as Jesus walked and live according to His Word.
Jesus gives you the assurance: “you can know whom you have believed.”
1. I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me He hath made known, Nor why, unworthy Christ in love redeemed me for His own.
Chorus: But “I know whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that Day.”
2. I know not how this saving faith to me He did impart, Nor how believing in His Word wrought peace within my heart.
Chorus: But “I know whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that Day.”
