Being Certain You Can Be Certain, Part 2

Life with Jeannie Greer past memory is present.'

We got a lot of Christians were looking back to a past event for their assurance of salvation two years, five years, 30 years. You are to be doing your present posture. If right now you are surrendered to Christ as Lord and trusting in him as your Savior. And right now you are saved because it is the posture of repentance and faith save, not some magical I'm only minutes you were to ask a dozen people at your church how they got saved to get a dozen different answers. Maybe grew up in church and can't remember a time that they didn't believe in God. Others might have said a prayer in Sunday school or at a youth camp much like myself. Still others might have had a more radical conversion later in life. So are all those experiences valid or is there a certain formula you have to follow to truly be saved. Pastor Janie answers that question for us today with a message titled, being certain you can be certain you have a copy of the Bible should take it out and opened it to the book of first John answered your questions. The first question is does God really want us to know for sure that we are saved. The second question will look at is if he does want us to know how do we know right so little to those one at a time when one does God even want to know for sure that we are safe. Verse 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 there's your answer. Yes, you want you to know the gospel is the power that liberate you from sin is the security of the gospel from which everything else spiritually grows in your life. Everything grows out of the assurance of the love of God for you to does God want you to have absolute confidence and assurance that you are saved profoundly. Yes number two. How can we know then that we are saved John in the next verses that I did about two elements that are to be assigned to you that you are saved. Verse 13 again 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.

Here is the first 1A. If you're taking notes you placed your hopes Raven entirely on Jesus when John says I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God, believe in the name of the son of God means you rest in the account of that I think of it this way.

If a really wealthy person invited you to go on a weekend resort vacation that you could never afford on your own but you really go as their guest when you were checking into the hotel and the person behind the desk asked you how you were going to pay for that weekend right you would look back at them and knowing that you could never put this on your credit card because your credit card doesn't have that I have a limit, you will look back at them and you would say I am under the name and you would put the name of that wealthy person and what you are saying to them is do not charge this weekend. To my credit card because I'm under the name of this wealthy person put it on their account. When John says you believe in the name of the son of God. What that means is when you think about how you were going to purchase entry into heaven, you're not making a withdrawal from your own moral bank account you are depending on the account of Jesus Christ which was given to you as a gift. That's what he means is that you have put all hopes for entering heaven, not on how moral you are not on the amount it in your moral bank account, but you're now depending on the work of another, depending on what Jesus did in your place, that he live the life you should've live and die the death you were condemned to die and gave it to you as a gift so you rest your hopes for heaven on his finished work. You see the gospel by its very nature produces assurance because you no longer depending on how well you done your no longer depending on how well you performed to earn your way to heaven, you are resting in his finished work, which means that I'm sure of heaven as Jesus is because he is my salvation means what I was when I asked somebody and eyes people is a lot. Are you a Christian. The number one answer that I get back from people and eyes met disability as well.

I'm trying I'm doing my best. I'm going to church now. I feel pretty good about it. When a person makes a statement like that. I know for absolute certain they have no concept at all of what a Christian actually is because they're still thinking that Christian is a title that you live up to and how well you live up to the title is whether or not you can claim the title.

See what a Christian is someone who understands that that title is not given by something that you earn that title was earned for you by Jesus Christ and given it to you as a gift so you asked me are you a Christian.

My answer is yes. Not because I thought I live up to the title because Jesus died in my place substituted for me and I have taken him as my Savior. Therefore, I take that title because of his finished work, not because of how well I've done assuming the gospel by three nature produces assurance that the Old Testament had a great example of this.

I've used with you before but it's wet when a Jewish family brought a sacrifice and that they got ready to slaughter the sacrifice as they were slaughtering the Lamb that husband that it is the father. The family would reach out his hand and put it on the head of the Lamb.

As the Lamb of slaughter and what he was showing was that the payment for his family. Sin was being transferred onto this land to be converted to Jesus Christ means simply that you have laid your hand on the head of the Lord Jesus Christ that that he is your sin bearer that he is what you are depending on as your entry into heaven.

So my question for you right now is very simply, this is your hand resting on the head of Jesus Christ right now is your sin bearer and is your hope for heaven because if so, then it never before been you are saved right at the moment that you do that by the way, it does not matter what you said when you first placed her hand. There write it just matters that you place your hand or that's all that matters now is you have used before the analogy of a chair everyone of you when I was in one of two relationships to the chair but you're sitting on on either your standing beside the chair with the weight of your body on your own legs and feet, or you have transferred the weight of your body off of your legs onto the chair right everyone of you is in one of two relationships to Jesus Christ. Either you are standing as your own authority or you have sat down and submission to his authority. You are either standing in the hopes that you can be good enough to earn your way to heaven or you have sat down in his finished work and trusted and that is your way to have only been one to relationship, by the way, does it matter if you're not sitting down does it matter what speech you made to the chair before you set out oh chair are all great wooden chair.

Though our lovely chair of the wood look strong. You are pretty version of black and I am very confident that you will hold the weight of my 200 pound frame as I transfer my I could mimic the most eloquent prayer and if the chair could hear maybe will be impressed, but if I never sit down prayer or the speech to do anything.

The point is not what you say as you're sitting down point is are you sitting down rise and he says I'm more about this how you know you made the decision to trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior. You know well how do you know you made the decision sit on the chair you're sitting on it is because you remember consciously making the decision. You know that you're sitting in a chair right now because you like our walking in the Volga chair and think about 30 chair with polycarbonate flat frame looks like it's reputable. It looks like it will hold the weight of my body is a right now our covenant with my legs to sit on a chair until several my friends for accountability and I will sign a card on it and that's why I know that I'm sitdown tears.

I remember making the decision no perversity that is his subconscious was a.right you made the decision not is your decision because you're sitting there now. You made the decision to trust Christ is because you remember the emotion you remember the prayer that you prayed no, it's because right now the posture of your life is one of repentance and faith. That's a unity made the decision.

Listen if you are right now in a pot. If you are right now. Surrender to Christ as Lord and right now trusted in his finished work as your Savior never before.

Your say right at this moment civil, but I didn't pray the form of rare boot camps tears is not the prayer if the posture I had the same token you might have a crystal clear memory of when you prayed the prayer and the emotions that went through a bit of right now you are not surrender to Christ as Lord and you're not trusting his finished work that onto what prayer you prayed. It was the wrong one because it's not a prayer that gives you assurance that your posture vectors. I'd say that assurance doesn't come from a past memory assurance comes from the present posture assures encumber the past memory assurance come from the present posture and we got a lot of Christians who are looking back to a past event for their assurance of salvation two years, five years, 30 years what you ought to be doing is looking at your present posture. If right now you are surrender to Christ as Lord and trusting in him as your Savior. And right now you are saved because it is the posture of repentance and faith that saves not some magical prayer right so that's the first wage I give you.

Here's the second way verse 18 is really quickly. We know that everyone is been born of God does not keep on sending, but he was born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him is that he said how you know that you are safe.

You have a new nature of a new nature. If you been born of God or born again you have been given a new nature with new desires. So you don't keep on sinning. Not because you're scared of threats but because you got a new nature with new desires to have an earthly way I described to you before and I will. This is the junior high youth pastor may come about out, but after murder before like a magic down here in front right below the stage there was a bagel power file that were some I have thrown up big warm steaming pile of vomit.

There is not one, not one of you in here that would need for me to stand up here and be like you better not come out here look up Islamic I'm serious. That is a rule to some a church, no looking up other people's vomit animal put to big old guys on your side of Powell vomit and if you try to come up and look vomit when I'm not looking there to stop one of you needs to hear that right. Unless of course you already dog and if you are a dog and we do need to make rules for you to shut all one vomit have to just hotdog bun.

As you know you are looking it up.listen, God does not does not change us. By increasing the threats of consequences for what happens if we sin, God changes us by giving us a new nature and a new desire they desires different things, which means one of the signs of God is in you is that the old things that you still love things like hatefulness, things like pride, things like racism, things like self-glorification dishonesty.

They don't just become wrong to you, they become disgusting to you and what you still struggle with them because you got some of that old nature and you you have a whole new appetite and a whole new desire for different things and when you do start to go back toward those sins which we all do.

By the way, we still have that nature. He protects you he renews you, there's a play on words. It takes place in him or say can look at it again you been born of God, the one who was born of God, that is Jesus. In other words, if you been born of God than the one vote, one was virgin born of God, he protects you with reason. When you do start to go back. He brings you, but all of us backslide into our old ways, but the side of someone who is truly say is that they always come back. That is the side of somebody was truly say they always come back.

We all fall with Mercedes bring about for years I've used as an example.

This Jesus is teaching on the parable of the parable of the soils. He said he said the word of God is like a seed to get started and forgot the soil describing there's a kind of soil and shallow and immediately the seed springs up quickly and will really cool looking little plant is really healthy but has no roots and the sun comes out of the weeds grow up. The plant dies and the question I always ask you is this, those plants that spring up so quickly and then fade away. They represent saved people or unsafe people.

The answer is they represent unsaved people for a wild look like they are safely which means they pray the prayer they get emotional when they pray the prayer they get baptized, they probably go on a mission trip they join a small group, but the proof of their faith was not saving is that it fades over time and they don't come back to its you see the proof of saving faith is not the intensity of emotion at the beginning.

The proof of saving faith is that it endures for a lifetime. And that's what John say they don't keep on sinning. They don't TM affordability relationship is if whoever says I know him Johnson, first John 24, but does not keep his commandments, is a white church liar. That's a harsh word if you say that you know God and you practice and by the way, I don't mean struggle with sin as well that but I mean you engage in a lifestyle of sin willfully and defiantly you are a liar. If you fill up your weekend with the things that put Jesus on the cross, then walking in here checking it would God say in a few God songs does not deceive God into thinking that your heart belongs to him.

The simple fact is, you can't love God and also love the things agreed him, you cannot love God and be neutral toward the things that he hates you can't have a mouth that sings praises to him in a life that openly crucified him. Didn't matter what your mouse is on Sunday morning. It matters what your wife says on Monday through Saturday college students. What you do last night when you conversations like meds causes everybody know what what what you fill your mind with by the way, this explains what he means what John means in the previous two verses verse 16 to 17 sometimes confuse people. This can like to take a drink of water from the fire hydrant section of the sermon. So hang on for six if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death each Alaska gobble given life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is an at least death that I do not say that one should pray for that all wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin, but does not lead to death like okay you got to sense what this is very important to got the sense this kind of sins that we all struggle with some of the bad sins, but we just we struggle with it and when we see one another fall into a Sam like that. We pray for them that God would bring them back to their senses or if you will bring them back to life.

But then there is another kind of sin. And don't think of it, so much as a simple action but as a simple resolve. That is when somebody so hardens their heart toward God, and they defiantly walk the other direction. The God finally says fine and you says you have it your way is is that the Senate leads to death, which means one of two things. Either their believer and God tells him which John says happens a believer so hard the heart. Got to that that bone and he kills him, or it means that they were never really saved and it does look like it for a while and so their practice of continually sending shows that are not saved and there can end up in eternal death.

That means, by the way some of you when I say that you like what I know if I committed that sin. If you're worried about it.

You have it because one of the things that happens is your heart get so hard that you quit desire and repent at all ever. As long as you ever want to repent God will always receive you. John 637 either comes to me I will in no wise for any reason under any circumstances, ever Found.

Maybe the reason I don't want to repent is because of so hard.

My heart was in as long as you breath in your body and as long as there is a desire to repent. The fact is you're asking a question shows me God spirit is at work within you, you better repent today as you might lose the desire altogether some point an old madwoman thing here it's never wise to diagnose somebody else's doubts as to what sin they committed up with them.

There is not sin if you want on what happened. I this is not something you and I know but will easily say listen so important. You say that when you are born again you have a fundamentally different relationship to sin. Yes, you struggle yes you fall often, but God always picks you up and put you back in a posture of repentance and faith. I love how Proverbs is this right will click. This is one of a verse by verse 2460. Listen, the righteous man falls seven times and get back up again 7�7 in the Bible's number of completion dude fall seven times. It's like saying that all he does is fall you will fall machine. Imagine if you were walking behind somebody in the mall who fell 7 times what you conclude about the price of the first time they fall 11 fell right second time before you get out your camera and you fill it and send it to your friends third time they fall you put on YouTube. They fall 4567 times you feel better, but on YouTube that person Dobbs got a problem you may find out right problem. The righteous man falls seven times which means that his life is characterized by falling, he didn't show his righteousness by never falling, he shows his righteousness by what he does when he falls is that he always gets backup. He always re-assumes the posture of repentance and faith. Conversion is not sinless perfection. Conversion is a new direction. What you believe about the gospel is not shown by never falling at sure about what you do when you fall, what John says is always saying the one who's been born of God does not go on sinning. If the one who says he is born of God does not keep God's commandments is not growing in his love for God loves if he is not continually being renewed in this posture, repentance and faith and he is a liar when I was in college I had a couple of friends who lived off campus college men are not typically known as paragons of cleanliness, but because of domestic fill to a whole new level that it ever did the dishes never change the sheets on the bed whenever they needed and who � they just get one out of a pile of that was dirty and rinse often use that one that we breakfasted like a Gorgon in the mornings and under cereal bowls from three hours earlier were still sitting on the table with the milk curdling inside it that a cat in their house that, for whatever reason didn't get the litter box concept so you walk in their house going to be started in the bathroom. By the way, you just put it this way if you going to bathroom you and your children would have been defiled for 10 generations. You walk in their house and you were good you were greeted by a concoction of fragrances that I have not seen or his ear heard was entered into the heart of man, you look at it was overpowering what one the guys mother used to visit them about every two months. Too much income in the first thing that she did when she got there on Thursday was the bases again. She would clean the place from top to bottom, which usually involved napalm and a blowtorch. But when she did it. It would smell like lemons and Ajax. So if I walked in there on a Sunday afternoon and was greeted by the usual concoction of file fragrances and that friend comes up to me and says hey guess what my mom got here on Thursday. I was back at him and say you are a liar because if your mom was here. It would smell like mildew and Fecal matter, it would smell like lemons and Ajax. What John is saying to you is if Jesus is in your heart and your life. You're not perfect, but you got a fundamentally different attitude towards that you are changing your beginning the level God loves in the matter how often you fall he always he protects you he takes you back up and set you down. The posture of repentance and faith.

So here's my question for you what posture you and right now in relation to Jesus, knowing that you get all of you want to. Are you standing in your own authority or you seated and submission to him what he wanted. If you've never sat down. I don't care what prayer you pray you're not saved. If you are sitting down on it.

Fred prayer not because is not a prayer that saves us the posture of repentance and faith maybe for the first time some of you get it right now and right now you your life needs to just think that you reach out your hand of faith and put it on the head of Lord Jesus Christ and Satan, my Savior, my sin there. I trust him what he had to get your hand if not now, when start today like more information. JD Greer.com to learn more about what it means to follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

You're listening to Senate life and pastor Jeannie there seems to be really only one question that every religious seeker is asking and that question as what must I do to be safe my that really is the question that every world religion is answered in the minute uses words that I want to go to heaven when I die right now.

I know that I'm on the good side, I wanted that God accepts me, and I think a lot of Christians still wrestle with knowing how to understand this but how to explain it to others. Specifically, a lot of Christians will will wonder sometimes like hey I might have believed enough. Have I repented enough and I was true for me. I pray the sinners prayer. This is not an exaggeration or Job operator probably 5000 times between the ages of 13 and 20 because I just wanted to know for sure. I got baptized four different times� Okay, now I'm saved I'm I'm I'm delightedly in this series Molly to be able to help people walk the path in the Bible of how to find absolute rock solid assurance you belong to Jesus. This devotional that were offering called assured will show you how to come to that kind of assurance and how to lead others around you to it. Would love to put that in your hands is a is a free gift. When you become a partner here with our ministry just get a JD Greer.com get over this resource will send you a copy today. Our way of thinking donate ministry level like $25 or more right now by calling 552 28 five Jeannie Greer.com tomorrow for Katie is talking about when I Molly 15% by Jeannie Greer minutes