In a family setting, fathers must play many different roles in order to make family life function well. Some of these roles may include garbage man, plumber, handyman, TV repair man, chef, groundskeeper, and others.
But I think the role that fathers have really perfected is that of motivational speaker. These speakers talk sometimes for 30, 40, maybe 50 minutes, sometimes maybe an hour, and they expend a lot of words trying to inspire you and motivate you.
Fathers, on the other hand, have motivational speaking down to a science. All they need sometimes is one phrase to get their kids going in the right direction. Think about the motivational power in phrases like: “If I have to stop this car;” “If I have to get out of this chair;” “Don’t make me come in there!” Or what about the other side of things? Think about the motivational power in phrases like: “I’m proud of you, son;” “That’s my girl.”
Like a good coach, many fathers offer their children a combination of both positive encouragement and negative reinforcement to motivate them toward proper behavior. Since God refers to himself as our spiritual father, it should be no surprise that God offers us the same thing to motivate us to obey Him. He offers us the promise of rewards and the warning of discipline to spur us on to obey His commands.
It is important for us to address this matter as we conclude our study of eternal security, because many people criticize the idea of eternal security along these lines. They say that eternal security leaves us without a strong motivation to obey God. So if eternal security is true—as I have argued it is over the last several weeks—then what is our motivation to serve God?
As we will see today, we have many motivations to serve the Lord—both to enjoy positive blessings and to avoid negative experiences. Let’s talk about these negative experiences and get them out of the way!
What are the negative experiences that we may face for sinning against the Lord?
I. We may face the natural consequences of our sin
A. Punishment from legal authorities—Romans 13:1–5
If we choose to sin against the Lord, we may also find ourselves in trouble with the law. This won’t always be the case, because not everything that God considers sinful is necessarily illegal. For example—if we lie on the witness stand, that’s called perjury, and that’s illegal. But if we lie in our personal relationships with one another, that’s usually not illegal. But if we sin in a way that violates God’s law and the laws of our city, state, or country, we could find ourselves in trouble with the law. Notice what Paul had to say in Romans 13 [READ Rom 13:1–5]
What Paul says about human government here can be tough to swallow because human governments all have one major problem—they’re made up of humans! Humans are imperfect and sinful, so human governments face the same problems—they make mistakes and they may even pervert God’s standards of right and wrong. But nevertheless, the purpose of human government remains—they are to reward good and punish evil, so if we choose evil, we may face legal punishment as a consequence for our sins.
But Romans 13:5 brings up another consequence that we may face when it mentions the conscience…
B. Psychological suffering (guilt, anxiety, etc.)—Psalm 32:2–5, Proverbs 28:1
Look at Psalm 32:2–5 [READ Psalm 32:2–5]. David is describing here how he felt when he sinned against the Lord and failed to renew his relationship with the Lord by confessing that sin. He was riddled with guilt, which started to take a physical toll on him. We might experience the same thing—guilt may keep us up at night; it may increase our stress level as we worry about whether someone is going to find out about our sin. Proverbs 28:1 describes this kind of fear—“The wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
In addition to these natural consequences is the second experience that we may face for sinning against the Lord. Not only might we face the natural consequences of our sin, but…
II. We may face divine discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11; 1 Cor. 11)
The consequences that we just discussed flow naturally out of sinful choices; they are natural consequences that are to be expected. But in certain situations, God may choose to intervene directly in our lives to bring about some kind of consequence. Look with me at Hebrews 12:3–11 [READ Hebrews 12:5–11].
These verses compare God to a loving father, and for good reason. When he disciplines us for doing wrong, it is to help us grow, to help us learn so that we won’t pursue the same course of action again. God wants something better for us, so he lets us know that what we did was wrong. When we were young and we went out and played in the street, our parents disciplined us because they knew the danger involved, and they wanted something better for us. When we shoplifted that candy bar from the gas station, they disciplined us because they wanted something better for us. That is God’s motivation, too! The Bible says that God is love, so everything he does is tempered by an inclination to work for our good, not for our harm. This is how we need to view God’s discipline, because his discipline is kind of like a visit to the dentist—it doesn’t feel good, but it’s still good for us.
In extreme cases, God’s discipline may even involve sickness and death. That was the case in the church at Corinth, where some people were showing contempt for the Lord’s Supper in the way that they were treating their fellow Christians. 1 Corinthians 11:30 says, “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”
Some of you will remember The Cosby Show, where Bill Cosby played Dr. Cliff Huxtable. Dr. Huxtable had a line that he used to deliver to his kids when they were in trouble. He would give them a look, and then he would say, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!” What we need to understand is that God really does have that right! Life and death both reside in the divine prerogative of God—the creator and giver of life.
Now if that seems pretty extreme, one thing we need to remember is that even after we become children of God, our sins are not somehow less offensive to God. Even though we have an eternal, saving relationship with God that he will not sever, his justice still points toward discipline for sin.
Now before we move on, please understand this—God does not long for opportunities to discipline us, nor should we think that every bad thing that happens to us is an act of discipline from God. The book of Job teaches us that that is simply not the case. God is a just God which means that he will always discipline in a way that is fair.
So we may experience these things today, and we may experience some other things down the road. We must never forget that the Lord Jesus is going to return someday, and if we choose to sin against God…
III. We may face shame at Christ’s return
Just like we felt shame if our parents caught us doing something wrong, we will feel ashamed if the Lord returns while we are on a sinful path. 1 John 2:28 says, “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”
But not only will we be ashamed at that moment—Christ will be ashamed of our actions, too. In Mark 8:38, Jesus says, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
How sad to think that the moment of the Lord’s return may actually be a moment of embarrassment and shame for us rather than a moment of great joy. As children of God, we have the privilege of looking forward to that day with great excitement and anticipation. We should be eagerly awaiting the Lord’s return, not worrying about whether he will come while we are walking a sinful path. How sad it will be if we stand ashamed before the Lord the first time we see him with our own eyes!
I think these motivations are very powerful in their own right, but there are also some positive motivations that should lead us to serve God.
What are the positive motivations that should lead us to serve God?
I. A desire to bring glory to God—Matthew 5:14–16
To glorify something means that you bring praise and honor to its name or reputation. When you glorify something, it has the potential to raise other people’s opinions of that object. With the choices that we make in life, that is exactly what we want to do in behalf of God. We want to show other people what makes God so great in the hopes that we might raise their opinions of God. Jesus describes this in Matthew 5:14–16 [READ Matt 5:14–16]
Now what Jesus is describing is not showing off or trying to look “holier-than-thou.” He is simply saying that there is an attractiveness to godly behavior that can be recognized by other people, and when people see that attractiveness in our lives, it may lead them to a higher opinion of God. It may lead them to glorify God because of what they have seen of him in us. What an awesome thought, to think that the people around us can be moved by what they see of God in us! The desire to see this response from others is a powerful motivation to serve God. If we believe that God is worthy of such high praise and honor, we should live in such a way that will lead others to acknowledge the same.
II. A desire to show gratitude to God—Colossians 2:6–7
Paul describes this motivation in Col 2:6–7 when he writes, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” I don’t think Paul is exaggerating here when he calls us to be “abounding in thanksgiving,” because we really do have so much to be thankful for. We can hardly thank God enough for all that he has done to provide us with forgiveness for our sins, and on top of that, God gives us new blessings each and every day. Every day that we have is a fresh gift from God. Every meal that we eat is a present from Him. Every little thing in our possession is a gift from his gracious hand.
This motivation is such a helpful one when we are going through difficult times. I think Johnson Oatman was right when he wrote, “When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count your many blessings—name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” I think God’s blessings are only surprising to us because we have received so many of them that it’s hard to remember them all. So all in all, we have much to be thankful for, so gratitude for God’s blessings should be a powerful motivation for us to serve him.
III. A desire to enjoy the normal fruits of godly behavior—Proverbs
The entire book of Proverbs is based on this observation—that there are natural consequences for sinful behavior, and normal fruits for godly behavior. The Proverbs tell us what the normal outcome of our behavior will be unless God chooses to intervene in a different way for His own reasons.
The normal fruit of godly behavior is always something that is desirable. According to Proverbs, the normal fruit of hard work and diligence is success. The normal fruit of wise, honest financial planning is prosperity. The normal fruit of humility is honor from God. The normal fruit of appropriate discipline for your kids is godly character. This is the way that God has established his world, so that we would have the motivation to choose godly behavior.
IV. A desire to reign with Christ in His future kingdom—Luke 19:11–27
I won’t elaborate much on this idea because we talked about it extensively a few weeks ago. Just remember the basic truth that we’re talking about here—according to the Bible, Jesus will return to the Earth someday to establish a kingdom of peace and godliness over which He will rule for 1,000 years. Since we are His servants and His spiritual siblings, He offers us the opportunity to rule under Him in His government, but this is not a guaranteed reward for all Christians—it will be given to us in response to our faithfulness in this life. We will all live in Jesus’ kingdom and enjoy it, but we will not all be given the opportunity to serve Jesus in this special way.
We have been given so many remarkable reasons to serve our God. With all of these things in mind, is it not worth it to serve the Lord? Is it not worth it to bring honor to his name by displaying the beauty of his character in our lives? Is it not worth it to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him? Is it not worth it to endure shame and disgrace and hardship for him today, knowing that if we do we will hear from him “well done, good and faithful servant?” It is worth it, and we will discover that if we make that choice today.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Blessed Assurance--Eternal Security series
There are certain things in life that you want to be absolutely sure of. If you’re married, you want to be sure to remember your anniversary—hopefully before your spouse surprises you with a present! If you’re going on vacation, you want to be sure that you left your house in good order. Have you ever been through an entire vacation with the nagging feeling that you forgot to close the garage door, or you forgot to turn off a hose that was running?
If you’re like me, you want to be absolutely sure that your alarm is set before you go to bed. My wife counted one evening as I checked the alarm 31 times before getting in bed! I’ll admit that was a little excessive, so I’ve cut that number down to a mere 7 or 8 times!
You may not be as concerned about your alarm as I am, but I suspect we share a mutual concern about our salvation. When we consider the stakes that are at play between going to heaven or going to hell, we want to have complete assurance that we will go to heaven.
Over the last several weeks, I hope you have grown confident in the belief that our salvation is secure—that once we have received it, we cannot lose it or forfeit it. That’s a comforting belief, however its one thing to believe that salvation is secure, but its another thing to be confident that I have salvation. No matter how secure we think salvation is, we will not have rest in our souls until we answer the question, “Am I truly saved?” This morning, we are going to address that question, and I hope that you will discover that you can have assurance of your salvation through the Holy Spirit.
1. What kind of question are we asking?
As we think about this question, we need to make sure that we understand what kind of question we are asking. When we deal with this question, we often commit what philosophers call a “category mistake,” which simply means that we put this question into a category in which it really doesn’t belong.
In our quest for absolute certainty, we often treat the question, “Am I truly saved?” the same way we treat the question, “What does 2 + 2 equal?” There is a very specific way to answer a mathematical question like that. You can place two oranges on a table, place two more oranges on the table, count them up, and then discover that you have four oranges. You can be certain about your answer because you’ve followed the correct mathematical procedure.
Sometimes we try to take the same approach to the question, “Am I truly saved?” We think to ourselves, “If I add up the good things I’ve done and subtract the bad things I’ve done and divide all of that by the bad thoughts I’ve had and then multiply by the number of people that I’ve witnessed to, then I can figure this thing out!”
But a mathematical procedure can’t answer a question like, “Am I truly saved?” because the question doesn’t belong in that category. This question is more like the question, “Does my spouse love me?” You can’t answer that question with a calculator, either, but in the context of a growing relationship with your spouse, you can come to a certainty about their love for you that you rarely—if ever!—doubt.
The same is true in our relationship with God. As we grow in our relationship with Him, we can enjoy an assurance of His love for us that is provided by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:16 says, “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” By walking with God and allowing His word to fill our hearts, we can come to an assurance of our salvation that we will rarely be tempted to doubt.
Nevertheless, our doubts do come, don’t they? Normally these doubts spring up from the presence of sin in our lives. We don’t walk with God perfectly, and when we fail Satan uses those opportunities to tempt us to doubt God’s love and forgiveness. So what can we look to in order to restore our assurance in those moments? I believe we have both a primary and a secondary path to assurance available to us.
2. The Primary Path to Assurance
We can walk the primary path to assurance simply by taking God at His word and resting in His promises. You might say that this is simply preaching the Gospel to yourself all over again. By bringing to mind the promises that God has made about salvation, we can defeat our doubts by faith through believing that God will be faithful to do exactly what He has said.
Just think again about the powerful promises of the Gospel. You may even want to write these references down in the front of your Bible:
• John 5:24—“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
• John 3:16—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
• John 6:37—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
Reminding yourself of God’s promises is the bedrock of assurance. After all—it is faith in Jesus that brings salvation in the first place, so to defeat doubts about your salvation, you simply need to look to Him again in faith. Focus on Christ—not on your feelings or your failures!
Now sometimes, we find ourselves wrestling with the question, “How do I know I’ve truly believed? I think I’ve believed, but how do I know I’m not fooling myself?” This question can drive us into a long discussion about philosophy and psychology and “how we know that we know” something, but let me simply say this—I believe that faith is a form of what philosophers call “knowledge by acquaintance.” In other words, since you are acquainted with what goes on in your mind, you know right away what you think, what you feel, and what you believe. You don’t have to search the depths of your soul in order to discover those things, because you already know them.
Think about this for a moment with the question that we used earlier—do you believe your spouse loves you? You might wish that they expressed their love more often, but that’s not the issue right now—the issue is what you accept to be true about their love for you. You know that right away—don’t you?—because you know what you think and what you believe.
I think our faith in Jesus falls into the same category. You know your own thoughts and beliefs, and you know if you believe in Jesus or not. Sometimes we’re tempted to put our faith in Jesus in a different category because the stakes are so high, but that’s not necessary. If you’re tempted to doubt the sincerity of your faith, the answer is not to take a long look at your faith, but to take a long look at the Savior! Look again at Jesus—remember what He has done and what He has promised. If you want to examine something, examine the message of the Gospel and renew your faith in it. Ultimately, our assurance isn’t based on our faith anyway; it is based on the faithfulness of God.
3. The Secondary Path to Assurance
There is a secondary path that can also provide a smaller measure of assurance. It will never provide the same kind of assurance that the primary path will, but I mention it for two reasons: 1) because it can help to calm our emotions when we’re dealing with doubt; and 2) because it is a very popular idea that is frequently mentioned by pastors and authors.
We walk down this secondary path by looking for God’s work in our lives. When our relationship with God is strong and healthy, we can see how the Lord is working in our lives by producing spiritual fruit and by using us to touch the lives of others. Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit that he will produce in our lives when it mentions love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When we see these qualities present in our lives, it gives us a small measure of assurance about our salvation. It can’t be more than a small measure of assurance, however, because we also see things in our lives that are displeasing to God, don’t we? Those are probably the very things that led us to doubt our salvation, so this examination of our lives can only be a secondary path to assurance, at best.
It is popular, however, among some pastors and authors to elevate this examination of your behavior to the position of the primary path of assurance. In other words, they say that I cannot personally rest in God’s promises until I see enough evidence of God’s work in my life. Thus, they encourage us to examine our behavior to see how closely it lines up to biblical standards. Our assurance is therefore tied to the outcome of this self-examination.
This is a very common idea that you will read in books and study Bibles and hear from radio preachers, but I cannot agree that such a self-examination is the primary path to assurance for several reasons. First—and most importantly—I think this idea is based on an incorrect interpretation of passages like James 2 (which talks about a dead faith) and 1 John 3 (which talks about sin and the child of God). I think some pastors and authors who have strongly emphasized a theology called Calvinism have read their theology into those passages rather than drawing the author’s meaning out of those passages.
Second, it is impossible to define how much holiness must be present in my life before I can conclude that I am a Christian. How holy must I be before I can have assurance? Some people would say that a true Christian could not have an habitual sin in his or her life, but what is an habitual sin? Is it a sin that I commit once a day? How about once a week, or does it have to be once an hour before it becomes habitual? What if regularly fail to do the good things that I know I should do? James 4:17 calls that sin. Would that mean that I am not a Christian?
Ultimately, we all end up defining an habitual sinner as “someone who sins a bit more often than me.” If we put too much emphasis on examining our behavior, we will be set adrift on a sea of uncertainty with a current that will always pull us away from having assurance of salvation.
Third, we are not saved by good deeds, so why should we look at our deeds to try and find assurance of our salvation? Some people would say that God will not fail to produce the fruit of the Spirit in us if we are truly saved, but why does God need to command us to love each other if He will automatically produce love within us? Why does He command us to rejoice if He will automatically produce joy within us? Why does He command us to put away anxiety and fear if He will automatically produce peace within us? If He commands us to do these things, I think we must conclude that they are not automatic results of salvation; rather they will come as we learn to draw strength from the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, our behavior is not solely the product of what we believe. There are other factors that influence our behavior, such as our desires; thus, your behavior is not a perfect representation of what you believe. For example, I firmly believe that it would be good for me to get some vigorous exercise every day, but often times I choose to follow other desires in the way that I actually behave. I may desire to sleep longer in the morning, so I choose to stay in bed rather than get up and exercise. Or I may desire to simply relax in the evening, so I’ll choose to turn on a ballgame and watch other people exercise!
Our behavior is to our beliefs what a light is to the contents of a room. A light can reveal the contents of a room when it is turned on, but the contents of the room are there whether the light is turned on or not. In the same way, your behavior can reveal what you believe, but you can genuinely believe something whether your behavior reveals it or not. We fail to reveal our faith in Christ every time we choose to sin, but that doesn’t mean we’re not saved. It simply means that we chose to follow the other factors that influence our behavior.
We should be very concerned about our behavior, but NOT for the purpose of trying to assure ourselves that we are saved. Our assurance is found on the primary path, which we follow simply by taking God at His word and resting in His promises.
Someone once asked Martin Luther, “Do you feel your sins are forgiven?” He replied, “No, but I’m as sure of it as heaven, for feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving. My faith is in the Word of God; nothing else is worth believing.1 The stepping stones on the path to assurance are the promises that God has made. If we will walk through life on those promises, we can live with the assurance that we are saved.
Notes:
1. From Emery Nester, “Assurance of Salvation,” http://bible.org/seriespage/assurance-salvation-session-5. Accessed 11-29-11.
If you’re like me, you want to be absolutely sure that your alarm is set before you go to bed. My wife counted one evening as I checked the alarm 31 times before getting in bed! I’ll admit that was a little excessive, so I’ve cut that number down to a mere 7 or 8 times!
You may not be as concerned about your alarm as I am, but I suspect we share a mutual concern about our salvation. When we consider the stakes that are at play between going to heaven or going to hell, we want to have complete assurance that we will go to heaven.
Over the last several weeks, I hope you have grown confident in the belief that our salvation is secure—that once we have received it, we cannot lose it or forfeit it. That’s a comforting belief, however its one thing to believe that salvation is secure, but its another thing to be confident that I have salvation. No matter how secure we think salvation is, we will not have rest in our souls until we answer the question, “Am I truly saved?” This morning, we are going to address that question, and I hope that you will discover that you can have assurance of your salvation through the Holy Spirit.
1. What kind of question are we asking?
As we think about this question, we need to make sure that we understand what kind of question we are asking. When we deal with this question, we often commit what philosophers call a “category mistake,” which simply means that we put this question into a category in which it really doesn’t belong.
In our quest for absolute certainty, we often treat the question, “Am I truly saved?” the same way we treat the question, “What does 2 + 2 equal?” There is a very specific way to answer a mathematical question like that. You can place two oranges on a table, place two more oranges on the table, count them up, and then discover that you have four oranges. You can be certain about your answer because you’ve followed the correct mathematical procedure.
Sometimes we try to take the same approach to the question, “Am I truly saved?” We think to ourselves, “If I add up the good things I’ve done and subtract the bad things I’ve done and divide all of that by the bad thoughts I’ve had and then multiply by the number of people that I’ve witnessed to, then I can figure this thing out!”
But a mathematical procedure can’t answer a question like, “Am I truly saved?” because the question doesn’t belong in that category. This question is more like the question, “Does my spouse love me?” You can’t answer that question with a calculator, either, but in the context of a growing relationship with your spouse, you can come to a certainty about their love for you that you rarely—if ever!—doubt.
The same is true in our relationship with God. As we grow in our relationship with Him, we can enjoy an assurance of His love for us that is provided by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:16 says, “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” By walking with God and allowing His word to fill our hearts, we can come to an assurance of our salvation that we will rarely be tempted to doubt.
Nevertheless, our doubts do come, don’t they? Normally these doubts spring up from the presence of sin in our lives. We don’t walk with God perfectly, and when we fail Satan uses those opportunities to tempt us to doubt God’s love and forgiveness. So what can we look to in order to restore our assurance in those moments? I believe we have both a primary and a secondary path to assurance available to us.
2. The Primary Path to Assurance
We can walk the primary path to assurance simply by taking God at His word and resting in His promises. You might say that this is simply preaching the Gospel to yourself all over again. By bringing to mind the promises that God has made about salvation, we can defeat our doubts by faith through believing that God will be faithful to do exactly what He has said.
Just think again about the powerful promises of the Gospel. You may even want to write these references down in the front of your Bible:
• John 5:24—“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
• John 3:16—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
• John 6:37—“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
Reminding yourself of God’s promises is the bedrock of assurance. After all—it is faith in Jesus that brings salvation in the first place, so to defeat doubts about your salvation, you simply need to look to Him again in faith. Focus on Christ—not on your feelings or your failures!
Now sometimes, we find ourselves wrestling with the question, “How do I know I’ve truly believed? I think I’ve believed, but how do I know I’m not fooling myself?” This question can drive us into a long discussion about philosophy and psychology and “how we know that we know” something, but let me simply say this—I believe that faith is a form of what philosophers call “knowledge by acquaintance.” In other words, since you are acquainted with what goes on in your mind, you know right away what you think, what you feel, and what you believe. You don’t have to search the depths of your soul in order to discover those things, because you already know them.
Think about this for a moment with the question that we used earlier—do you believe your spouse loves you? You might wish that they expressed their love more often, but that’s not the issue right now—the issue is what you accept to be true about their love for you. You know that right away—don’t you?—because you know what you think and what you believe.
I think our faith in Jesus falls into the same category. You know your own thoughts and beliefs, and you know if you believe in Jesus or not. Sometimes we’re tempted to put our faith in Jesus in a different category because the stakes are so high, but that’s not necessary. If you’re tempted to doubt the sincerity of your faith, the answer is not to take a long look at your faith, but to take a long look at the Savior! Look again at Jesus—remember what He has done and what He has promised. If you want to examine something, examine the message of the Gospel and renew your faith in it. Ultimately, our assurance isn’t based on our faith anyway; it is based on the faithfulness of God.
3. The Secondary Path to Assurance
There is a secondary path that can also provide a smaller measure of assurance. It will never provide the same kind of assurance that the primary path will, but I mention it for two reasons: 1) because it can help to calm our emotions when we’re dealing with doubt; and 2) because it is a very popular idea that is frequently mentioned by pastors and authors.
We walk down this secondary path by looking for God’s work in our lives. When our relationship with God is strong and healthy, we can see how the Lord is working in our lives by producing spiritual fruit and by using us to touch the lives of others. Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit that he will produce in our lives when it mentions love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When we see these qualities present in our lives, it gives us a small measure of assurance about our salvation. It can’t be more than a small measure of assurance, however, because we also see things in our lives that are displeasing to God, don’t we? Those are probably the very things that led us to doubt our salvation, so this examination of our lives can only be a secondary path to assurance, at best.
It is popular, however, among some pastors and authors to elevate this examination of your behavior to the position of the primary path of assurance. In other words, they say that I cannot personally rest in God’s promises until I see enough evidence of God’s work in my life. Thus, they encourage us to examine our behavior to see how closely it lines up to biblical standards. Our assurance is therefore tied to the outcome of this self-examination.
This is a very common idea that you will read in books and study Bibles and hear from radio preachers, but I cannot agree that such a self-examination is the primary path to assurance for several reasons. First—and most importantly—I think this idea is based on an incorrect interpretation of passages like James 2 (which talks about a dead faith) and 1 John 3 (which talks about sin and the child of God). I think some pastors and authors who have strongly emphasized a theology called Calvinism have read their theology into those passages rather than drawing the author’s meaning out of those passages.
Second, it is impossible to define how much holiness must be present in my life before I can conclude that I am a Christian. How holy must I be before I can have assurance? Some people would say that a true Christian could not have an habitual sin in his or her life, but what is an habitual sin? Is it a sin that I commit once a day? How about once a week, or does it have to be once an hour before it becomes habitual? What if regularly fail to do the good things that I know I should do? James 4:17 calls that sin. Would that mean that I am not a Christian?
Ultimately, we all end up defining an habitual sinner as “someone who sins a bit more often than me.” If we put too much emphasis on examining our behavior, we will be set adrift on a sea of uncertainty with a current that will always pull us away from having assurance of salvation.
Third, we are not saved by good deeds, so why should we look at our deeds to try and find assurance of our salvation? Some people would say that God will not fail to produce the fruit of the Spirit in us if we are truly saved, but why does God need to command us to love each other if He will automatically produce love within us? Why does He command us to rejoice if He will automatically produce joy within us? Why does He command us to put away anxiety and fear if He will automatically produce peace within us? If He commands us to do these things, I think we must conclude that they are not automatic results of salvation; rather they will come as we learn to draw strength from the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, our behavior is not solely the product of what we believe. There are other factors that influence our behavior, such as our desires; thus, your behavior is not a perfect representation of what you believe. For example, I firmly believe that it would be good for me to get some vigorous exercise every day, but often times I choose to follow other desires in the way that I actually behave. I may desire to sleep longer in the morning, so I choose to stay in bed rather than get up and exercise. Or I may desire to simply relax in the evening, so I’ll choose to turn on a ballgame and watch other people exercise!
Our behavior is to our beliefs what a light is to the contents of a room. A light can reveal the contents of a room when it is turned on, but the contents of the room are there whether the light is turned on or not. In the same way, your behavior can reveal what you believe, but you can genuinely believe something whether your behavior reveals it or not. We fail to reveal our faith in Christ every time we choose to sin, but that doesn’t mean we’re not saved. It simply means that we chose to follow the other factors that influence our behavior.
We should be very concerned about our behavior, but NOT for the purpose of trying to assure ourselves that we are saved. Our assurance is found on the primary path, which we follow simply by taking God at His word and resting in His promises.
Someone once asked Martin Luther, “Do you feel your sins are forgiven?” He replied, “No, but I’m as sure of it as heaven, for feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving. My faith is in the Word of God; nothing else is worth believing.1 The stepping stones on the path to assurance are the promises that God has made. If we will walk through life on those promises, we can live with the assurance that we are saved.
Notes:
1. From Emery Nester, “Assurance of Salvation,” http://bible.org/seriespage/assurance-salvation-session-5. Accessed 11-29-11.
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