Assurance and Perseverance: Safe in the Arms of Jesus

1 John 5:18-21 Assurance and Perseverance (Safe in the Arms of Jesus) Introduction: Something that we have not dealt with directly through our teachings in this book is the real fear of whether or not we as individuals are secure in the salvation that God has given us in Jesus Christ. Do you ever have thoughts like, maybe you are just having a religious experience? Maybe you’ve had a friend who once was a committed Christian but now they are in a place where you would never guess that they had ever even heard the name of Jesus much less professed and followed him. What if that happens to you? Will you really make it? Will I? The question I want to consider this morning is, can the Christian have assurance that he is eternally secure? John Calvin based assurance on God’s election. He said that we can never be certain in this life. John Wesley based assurance on religious experience. He believed that we have the ability to live above known sin. Roman Catholics and the Church of Christ base assurance on an authoritative Church. The group to which one belongs is the key to assurance. Most Evangelicals base assurance on the promises of the Bible, linked to the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the believer (cf. Gal. 5:22–23). John says, that we don’t have to wonder and have these huge doubts in our lives. We can know that we have eternal life, we can know that we are secure eternally. Believers face three main test according to John: 1. The Doctrinal Test - Who is Jesus? (The Christ, the Son of God) 2. The Lifestyle Test - Does our life reflect his life? (Holiness) 3. The Social or Love Test - Does God’s love work in us and through us? (Love for Neighbor) But even if we can answer positively to these tests, there often still remains in us doubt and fear. What do we do with that? 1. Kept by the Power of God a. “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.” i. John is absolutely assured of this truth. Here John teaches the absolute security of the believer. He says, “we know”. There is no doubt in his mind that those who are God’s are safe from any long term damage by the devil. My desire this morning is that you would walk away with that same assurance -that, “to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” ii. Over and over again the scripture says that those who believe in Christ are kept safe or secure by God’s power. 1. “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” -Jude 24&25 2. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:31-39 3. “(T)o an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” -1 Peter 1:4-5 4. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” - John 10:27-30 a. It is good to have a healthy view of sin, the world, and the devil, even our own sinful desires that remain. These are true threats, and they do have the ability to destroy our lives. But thank God that Christ protects us, and intercedes for us, that the Holy Spirit is at work in us, to convict us, and sanctify us, until the day that God redeems us. i. “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing: For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabbath, His Name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle”. -Luther ii. “My name from the palms of his hands eternity will not erase; impressed on his heart it remains, in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I to the end shall endure, as sure as the earnest is giv’n; more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heav’n. -Augustus Toplady 2. Persevering Until the End. a. So while John does teach the absolute security of the believer he also teaches that the believer has the responsibility to persevere in faith. ii. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” b. The doctrine of the Security of the Believer must be inseparably linked to the doctrine of Perseverance. It is not an either/or option, but a both/and, biblical reality. c. While the Bible teaches that those who believe in Jesus are eternally secure it also teaches that those who believe must continue to believe to the end. Christians, while eternally secure, have the responsibility to continually believe, to continually repent, to continually pursue righteousness, to continually pursue love, and to continually flee sin. d. John is not the only one who teaches this: ii. “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” - Mark 13:13 iii. “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” -1 Corinthians 15:2 iv. “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. -Galatians 6:8-9 v. “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” -Hebrews 13:4 vi. “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” - 2 Peter 1:10 vii. “But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”- Jude 20-21 viii. vii.Revelation 2: Jesus says to each Church, “to those who conquer or overcome that they will be given eternal life. 3. What about those who “fall away”? a. Again the question we are dealing with is the question of assurance or eternal security. b. I would say, and believe that the Bible teaches that these have no assurance, but only continual warning to repent and to return to the truth. c. In the context of this letter John says those who “left the faith” or “fell away” did so because they were never truly saved. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” -1 John 2:19 ii. Their lack of truth, love, and perseverance are evidences that they are not believers d. "We do not teach that any man is entitled to believe that he is justified, and therefore shall not come again in condemnation on the proposition "once in grace always in grace," although he be now living in intentional, willful sin. This falsehood of Satan we abhor. We say, the fact that this deluded man can live in willful sin is the strongest possible proof that he never was justified, and never had any grace to fall from. And, once for all, no intelligent believer can possibly abuse this doctrine into a pretext for carnal security. It promises to true believers a perseverance in holiness. Who, except an idiot, could infer from that promise the privilege to be unholy?" - R. L. Dabney Conclusion: John’s aim all throughout this letter has not only been to assure those who have believed in Jesus that they are in the truth and possessors of eternal life, but to encourage them to continue in the faith in which they stand. Here’s the great truth that I want you to walk away with - “to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, know that you have eternal life. “Redemption cannot be undone; we have been delivered - we have been emancipated and set free. We belong to Christ, and we are children of God. We belong to the heavenly family, and though in our weakness and frailty we may often listen to Satan and his insinuations and suggestions, let us never forget that great word of John, “that wicked one will never get us back.” -Dr Lloyd-Jones We are safe in the arms of Jesus! “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.... You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” John 15:4-5,16