That You Might Believe
Notes
Transcript
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
How many of us have ever struggled with our salvation? I mean truly struggled with the thought of whether we are truly saved or not? I think that is a normal reaction, especially among those who were saved at an early age. Are we saved, or did we just repeat a prayer that someone had us to say? This week, I kept coming to this text - and kept thinking on this particular wording - these are written so that we may believe that Jesus IS the Christ and by believing you may have life in His name. Jesus not only gave us His Word, but gave us direction and examples! Things we could reference back to when we start to question.
So, yesterday as I was working in the study while the baptistry filled, everything that could go wrong did. The computer program I use for studying froze up. Tried to restart, and computer froze up. Long story short, I didn’t get to work as I normally do on sermon prep. So…I went back to the basics and looked over at my bible…which was turned to today’s text. Now, tell me Satan didn’t want this preached, but Jesus saw differently! So we are going where God wants us to go today.
Giving some background here, Jesus has resurrected and appeared to the disciples. He gives them directions that “As the Father has sent me, even so am I sending you”. The commission to go forward and spread the Gospel message and in equipping them, breathed on them, giving them the anticipation of the coming Holy Spirit which would come on them at Pentecost. I wonder, was this breath the same mighty rushing wind they heard that filled the place where they were gathered? Was it something familiar to them? Was it something that reminded them of what Jesus had told them? We will not know this side of heaven, but we can look back at what was written…and believe that God sent the Comforter as Jesus has told us.
It is that Holy Spirit, the Comforter that gives us peace in our salvation, guidance in our life, strength on those tough days, forgiveness in times we fail Him. He is that still small voice. It reminds me of the simple answer God gave Moses when asked who should he tell sent him “I am that I am”. I am who I am…God Almighty. There is to be no doubt when it comes to our salvation.
John again tells us in 1 John 5:13 how important the assurance of salvation is.
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
So, how can we have assurance of salvation? Believe in the name of Jesus. Believing in Jesus is the key to Everlasting Life.
Everlasting Life
Everlasting Life
22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,
23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
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.
Judgment has been given to Jesus. Why? So no one can say, Lord you don’t know the struggle of living a human life. Jesus came from heaven to earth, lived a fully human life with all of the same temptations and challenges we have so that He can fully judge with all authority AND experience. Anyone who says they believe in God, must also believe in Jesus, and His divine nature.
So, if Jesus is our judge, how do we escape judgment? By hearing the Word and believing in all God has done for humanity. Sending His Son to pay the price of each and every sin ever committed…and all that will be committed in the future for those who believe in Him. This is the key to eternal - everlasting - life - believing by faith in God’s Promise through Jesus Christ. If we believe in Him? We can be assured of our salvation.
It is this truth that sets us free from the guilt of sin.
Truth Sets Us Free
Truth Sets Us Free
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
What is the opposite of truth? A lie, correct? Who is the liar? A lie is a deception handed out by a deceiver. Who is the world’s deceiver?
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Satan does not want us to be free in our Salvation. He does not want us to feel comfortable. To be honest, those who may be doubting today…Satan would NOT be bothering you if you were not saved!
Listen to me. Satan will deceive us, trying to make us concentrate more on our sin than our salvation. He will make you doubt God’s goodness. Surely God wouldn’t let anything bad happen to one of His children. Surely a loving God would answer your prayer. Surely He would give you some sign. But remember in the first verse of the first chapter of Job we are told he “was blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil.” Yet bad things happened to him, and God did not reveal WHY until His will had been completed.
But notice what Jesus says to us as believers. Abide in His Word, be His disciples, and we will know the truth and the TRUTH WILL SET US FREE. We should have a desire to read and study the Bible - become a disciple - notice this is something WE have to decide to do. If we stay in His Word, then it becomes easier to ward off the deceptions of the Devil.
Truth is absolute. It is the standard by which reality SHOULD be measured. By staying in God’s Word we then can easily spot deception. In one of the books I am reading it made this statement. How does the Secret Service train to detect counterfeit currency? It might be simple to think they would study every known fake currency so they could easily spot the fake. No - they study LEGITIMATE currency to the point they know every small detail of every bill making it extremely easy to detect a fake. Oh my goodness, if we would stay in God’s Word so much that we knew every small detail of it…how much easier would it be to detect when Satan tries to slip something deceptive in front of us. But let me be very clear. When we accept Jesus as our personal Savior, we are freed from our sins and scripture tells us:
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
If we have accepted Him, we are free from our sins as they have been removed as far as the east is from the west NEVER to be brought up again.
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
The TRUTH sets us free. But notice, the truth is not brought upon us by ourselves.
Not of Self
Not of Self
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
The type of peace, comfort, and hope that we desire is ONLY made available through faith. Grace is God’s free gift - received, not earned, by us.
Notice the wording…what have we been “saved” from? We, as believers, have been saved from the fiery pits of hell and through grace, are promised a mansion in heaven. All freely given, but up to us to freely receive. We can’t buy it.
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
No one could ever work enough hours, days, weeks, years to pay the debt owed because of sin. As a matter of fact, if Adam was still alive, even HE wouldn’t have been able to work enough to earn salvation. Why is it not of ourselves? So that no one may boast. You know if there was some way we could “earn” salvation, SOMEONE would be shouting from the top of the mountains “I made it!”, or would be bragging to everyone they came in contact with “I earned my salvation”… but it doesn’t work that way. You see, there was only one capable of paying the cost of sin. His name was Jesus. He left heaven, lived on this earth, taught us, left us His Word, gave us examples, then freely offered His life in substitute for each of us and died on the cross. Was resurrected 3 days later, and now sits on the right hand of the throne of God. All we have to do is accept that gift he offers. You see, we are ONLY saved by God’s grace.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Satan wants us to think that salvation can’t be as simply as calling on the name of Jesus and living our life for Him. He may even try to convince us that a Christian could NEVER sin in the way we do. You see, scripture tells us Satan tries to steal the joy of the Lord from us.
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Oh, but notice the last part of t his verse. Jesus said HE came so that we could have a life that could never be
measured. If we have ever accepted Jesus as our Savior…then we have overcome this world and have the PROMISE of heaven.
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
But my question for you today is this…do you know you have overcome? Do you know, without any doubt, that you have been saved? Can you remember a time in your life where you called out to Jesus, asking for forgiveness? If you have, then He did. But if you never have…you can today. As we sing, the altar is open. Come.