Our Assurance

How do we know we’ve been pardoned? (Saved)

Chains of sin released, Walk in liberty in ways of God, We know we’ve been saved

Two things can do for assurance:

1. Examine ourselves

Peter 1:10 “Wherefore the rather, brethren, use diligence to make your calling and election sure, for doing these things ye will never fall;”

2. (Hebrews 3:1) “Consider Jesus” or, (Hebrews 12:2) “Look to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” In other words, do not dwell on yourself, dwell on what God has done in Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, the more we examine ourselves, the more uncertain we become

The second method is better. Why?

Idea is to turn focus off of us and onto God

We can also examine ourselves and think there is no hope

Must turn our focus to reality of God’s work in Christ to have assurance

It tells us in Romans 3:25-26“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

In other words, by focusing on Jesus we focus our attention not on what we are doing to prove that we are saved but on what God has done to save his people.

This will give us confidence because: as we focus on the great work of God, He will glorify that work in us by creating faith and assurance and joy and freedom and obedience and power.

The more we dwell on what He has done the more deep and lively our assurance will be.

Look at Ephesians 1:3-6

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

The first foundation of assurance is this: "God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world."

Our salvation did not begin with our choice to believe in Christ―a choice which was real and necessary, but our salvation began before the creation of the universe when God planned the history of redemption, ordained the death and the resurrection of his Son, and chose us to be his own through Christ.

If we have any doubts consider this:

The glorious, unshakable, foundation of our being a Christian is that God chose us to be one. God put us in Christ.

Why did He do this?

1 Corinthians 1:29 “That no flesh should glory in his presence.”

1 Corinthians 1:31 “That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

The reality is this: Before the creation of the universe God thought of me. He fixed his gaze on me and chose me for himself.

He did not chose me because I was in Christ already, but that I might be in Christ.

He id not choose me because he saw me as a believer, but so that I might become a believer.

He did not choose me because I chose him, but so that I might choose him.

He did not choose me because I was holy or good but so that I might become holy and good.

So, By looking toward God and His work in Christ we can be assured that we are sons and daughters of the one true God.

We can be confident, just as God wishes us to be, that because we can know that God created us and then chose us, and boast only in Him for doing so, that we are saved and Children of God.