Theology - Assurance - Living What We Believe
I John  5:1-5, 11-15

by Pastor Eldon Reich

Continuing our series: Living What We Believe-A working theology

Today we look at the Theology of Assurance.

How many of you feel that if you were to die today

you know that you would go to heaven?

That you are saved and your name is written in the book of life?

For many people there remains a sense of incompleteness.

Something left undone or yet to hitch up.

An opportunity not tried.

Lena and Ole had locked the car in a hurry, forgetting to remove the key, which was in the ignition. Realizing the mistake, Lena asked, " Why don't we get a coat hanger to open it." " No”, said Ole, “that won't work, people will think we're trying to break in."   So Lena suggested, " What don’t you use your pocket knife to cut around the rubber, then stick a finger in and pull up the lock?" " No," said Ole. " People will think we're too dumb to use a coat hanger." " Well," sighed Leo, " we'd better think of something fast. It's starting to rain, and the sun roof is open!"

What would it take for you to unlock the door of assurance that you seek?

What would make your faith complete?

Lets look at the theology of assurance today.

1.    WHAT IS ASSURANCE?

To assure---

To " put beyond all doubt."

To give confidence, boldness, a surety

Hebrews 10:22-23 Let us draw near with a true heart in full-blessed Assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful.

Full blessed Assurance of faith.

Holding fact to the confession of our hope without wavering

There are two facts at work in revelation for assurance.

1, OBJECTIVE FACTS OR THINGS WE KNOW TO BE TRUE.

2 SUBJECTIVE FACTS or things we have come to accept as true.

Objective facts are the given truths.

For example,

Donna and I are planning to go to the Capital Theater.

We know that tickets are available,

We have the money to pay.

We know the date of the play.

We know the actors are prepared.

There are usually plenty of seats open

Does my knowledge of these facts give me any assurance

That I will get into the play that night? NO.

God exists,

Christ is God,

Christ died for sinners,

Sin is forgiven

Christ rose from the dead,

Death is defeated.

Christ saves forever all who believe in Him.

And gives us an eternal home in heaven.

Does my knowledge of these facts give me any more assurance that

I will get into heaven?

No.

Objective facts are statements of truth:

Colossians 1:21-23 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. 

The most agonizing problem about the assurance of salvation

is not whether the objective facts of Christianity are true

The really agonizing problem of assurance is

whether I have personally accepted and believed these facts to be true for myself.

After John Wesley had been preaching for some time, someone said to him,

" Are you sure, Mr. Wesley, of your salvation?"

" Well," he answered, " Jesus Christ died for the whole world."

" Yes, we all believe that but are you sure that you are saved?"

  Wesley replied that he was sure that provision had been made for his salvation.
" But are you sure, Wesley, that you are saved?"

It went like an arrow to his heart, and he had no rest or power

until that question was settled.

In other words, I don’t have any assurance until I go down to Kathleen’s ticket counter.

Buy a ticket for the play and only then can I know with assurance

That Donna and I have a seat.

Once I have a ticket.   

Its no longer objective truth

But Subjective—played out and completed in me.

After Donna and I had dated for a couple of years we talked about marriage

And I asked her “Are you interested in being married?

She said “Oh Yes”

That night I thought about the stupid question I had asked her.

Because it didn’t give me any information about our relationship.

Married to whom?

So I took care of that the another night when I asked her: “Will you marry me?”

Her answer made all the difference in the world.

Objective truth became Subjective reality.

2. SUBJECTIVE  FACTS:

ARE FACTS WE HAVE MADE OUR OWN,

Facts which we claim for ourselves.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23

When you confess Christ as your lord your buying the ticket.

Paul says: by confession you make salvation your own.

Romans 10:9-10 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.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 

Do you have enough faith in THE objective truth of God’s word,

to accept it for yourself?

A construction crew was laying a drain line as part of a new building.

They uncovered a power cable directly in the path of their work.

The excavation was halted.

An electrician was called in

He looked at the cable  and said it was a dead cable.

“Go ahead and cut it out of the way.
The foreman asked: “Are you sure there is no danger?”

“Absolutely” was the reply.

So the foreman said: “Well then you cut it for us”.

Then the electrician said: “I’m not that sure.”

Well friends-- God is that sure.

When he says he has cut off sin and death.

Taken the power away from sin.

We can believe with confidence and assurance.

That our salvation is won at Calvary.

I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. II Timothy 1:12

Richard Niebuhr said:

Such a truth demands a personal response, a direct confession of the heart.

When we move from “there is a God.” to “Thou art my God.”

That requires a willful change of heart or mind.

A father sent his four-year-old son to his room for misbehaving.

When dad went to talk to his son, the boy was still angry and unrepentant.

So dad waited a little while longer. When he went back again, the boy was beaming,

  “It’s OK now, dad, I have a new brain.

  That was the boys way of saying I have a new attitude.

He had surrendered his right to control the situation and had given it to his dad.

Our God

saves absolutely.

forgives implicitly

provides unreservedly

sustains perfectly.

Then why do so many people live with joyless uncertainty?

Case One. An elderly lady who was on her deathbed said to her son, " I believe in Jesus Christ. I love Him and have tried to live for Him. But I have been far from perfect. Now I can only hope my faith is acceptable to God." She died as she had lived--with a sad uncertainty.

Case Three. A young housewife who received the Lord a few years ago underwent a remarkable change. She believes that assurance is possible, and she longs for it. But she is plagued with feelings of doubt and fear--including her relationship to the Lord.

Is there any hope for these?

Lack of assurance for salvation usually comes from one of two reasons.

(1)    A faulty interpretation or misunderstanding of Gods word, and

(2) Our own emotional makeup, and need for continual affirmation.

If anyone should have doubted his salvation

it was the murdering killer of Christians the Apostle Paul.

But listen to him:

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ live in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Why do we struggle with lack of assurance?

(1)    People often lack assurance because they cannot remember or point to a specific time when they received Christ..  The real issue is not a past point in time, but do you know today, now,  that you trust Christ for your salvation.

(2) People often lack assurance because they question the procedure they went through when they accepted Christ. Perhaps they didn’t go forward in a worship service, or didn’t say a particularly prayer, or maybe received Christ privately.

Was it done correct? is it enough?

What matters is not how or why, or when, but that you did it.

You signed on the line.

Does it matter when, how, why or where you got married?

In a court house, church, Las Vegas or back yard.

Or are you married because you said: I Do and signed on the line.

(3) People often lack assurance because of struggles they have with certain sins.

  How can you be a true believer and still sin?

We’re human and we will always sin

But God said he had defeated sin for us.

Thinking our sin is bigger than Gods provision at Calvary is the greatest arrogance.

Sin remains but no longer reigns in the Christian.

Having sin does not forfeit the grace of God

Accept the forgiveness of God and go and sin no more.

Work at it, grow in it. Get help for it.

(4) People lack assurance because they misunderstand the doctrine of the finished work of Christ for us.

And He Himself [Jesus Christ] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for us only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2).

The word propitiation carries the meaning of satisfying God's justice.

God's justice against sin is absolutely satisfied in Christ.

If we have received Christ's offer of forgiveness,

then we are forgiven and no longer have to fear eternal punishment for sin.

(5) Finally, people often lack assurance because they incorrectly think they need to work out their own faith as primary proof of their salvation.

HA Ironside said: Faith rest on the naked word of God that word believed, gives full assurance.

When a person is in Christ he is safe. All the devil can do is worry him. --Loveless   

I John 5:11-13 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son of God has life he who doest not have the Son of God does not have life. I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Not only can we trust Gods word

But we can see evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our character that we are saved.

We see the fruits of the spirit evidence of .

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self- control. Against such things there is no law. 

No law.

No condemnation

No doubts

God’s Word and Spirit give us the assurance of

Forgiveness of sin,

Freedom from fear,

Release from Guilt

Promise of heaven.

Guarantee of Salvation

Because we are Gods children.

And no matter what happens we

“Nothing shall ever separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our lord.”

Romans 8: 39

Anthropologist and Naturalist Loren Eiseleys writes this story.

The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestlings’ parents, who flew helplessly in circles around a raven that had raided their home to eat the babies.

The sleek black monster was indifferent to them.

He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and continued to rip and tear.  But suddenly, into the glade fluttered other small birds,

Drawn by the anguished cries of the parents.

They began to raise their cries of complaint.

And fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer.

No one dared to attack the raven. 

But they cried in some common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved.

  And he the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat there, glistening in the common light, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.   

The sighing died.  All became quiet

And then one little bird hesitantly began in the hush to sing a song.

Then another and another passing the song form one bird to the nest.

As though some vile thing was being slowly forgotten.

Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats.

They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful.  

In simple truth they sang, because they had forgotten the raven,

for they were the singers of life and not of death.  (The Immense Journey pp 174-175)

They could only sing what they knew.

That was the assurance that their creator God cares

about even a sparrow that falls to the ground.

That even they are counted and numbered in the chosen.

John Wesley emphasized the privilege of all believers,

Is that we too can sing of an assurance that

There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are set free.

So let us join with all creation in singing.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,

O What a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God

Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood