answer our question, can I lose my salvation? Can I lose my salvation? Let me open us in a word of prayer and then we will get right to work. Let's pray together. Father, we come before you as your sons and daughters and we enjoy you. Lord, we really do enjoy you. Here we are on a Wednesday night gathered with our family and friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our choir is rehearsing. Our children have left and headed either into another room in this building or across the street. And we just find ourselves here, Lord, as a Christian community. So thankful that you've called us to live in these times. So thankful that we have the privilege of standing up for Jesus in a world that is so confused. And even though our economy is crazy and people are revolting around the world, they're still, they're not turning to you, Lord. They're just, they're just digging deeper into their own resources. And Lord, so many times we do that too. So tonight we yield ourselves to you. And we proclaim you are the great king. You are our king, Jesus. And we worship you. And we pray holy spirit. You would help us to understand some very deep spiritual truths tonight that you've revealed through your word. We pray this. Oh, Lord, also I thank you for Lynette Austin. Lord, thank you for the way you used her among many others on our search committee. And thank you for our friendship among, between our families. And we're thankful for her Lord and for her gifts. Bless her, mightily we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So when we think about birthdays, oh, I'm sorry, when we think about losing your salvation, that was a really nice segue wasn't it, Lynette? That was a segue. Yeah, maybe a non-secretary actually. I want us to think about something. I get asked this question all the time, okay? And it seems to me that people just kind of want me to give them a quick answer. Like, I have a number of friends here in Chattanooga who are doctors and one of our good friends is our family physician, Dr. Dalin. And when I see Dr. Dalin, you know, I just kind of come up and like, how am I doing? And he's like, well, just slow down. Let's get on the scale. Let's see how that's going. Let's check that blood pressure. Let's go ahead and maybe get an X-ray. And how about we do some blood work, right? There's a sequence here. He's not just going to say, well, you have a pulse. You're fine, right? And I have found spiritually in America. People want quick spiritual answers. And they want a sound bite diagnosis. They want to say to you, I read my Bible all the time. Or I prayed to receive Christ. Or I went to camp and I was just, my parents were going through the divorce and it was just such a needy time. And I felt like the Lord met me there. And there's all these different things they think of when it comes to evaluating their spiritual life. And they just kind of want you to take a quick snapshot of how they are at the moment. And but, you know, the longer we live, the more we recognize that this walk with Christ is a journey. All right, it's this long journey. And we all know people who, when they were in the youth group, oh, they pursued the Lord. They were so faithful. They attended all the meetings. And if the youth pastor asked for any help, oh, they would raise their hand. And then at some point in their relationship with the church, they just kind of walked off into the sunset. They just, we just don't see you anymore. We don't know what happened to them. Or maybe they walked away and they did so purposefully. They walked away and they said, I have enjoyed all of your church that I can. I'm going to move on now. And so we also know people who did not know the Lord or were extremely rebellious as teenagers or as children or as young adults who now vibrantly walk with the Lord. All right, we know, we know wonderful Christian kids who grew up in a horrible home. And we know hellians who grew up in a wonderful Christian home. Right, so it's just not, you just can't walk in and look at a person and say to your doctor, I'm doing without working through a few things. And so I want to work through a few things with you tonight. I've tried to be very dogmatic in the outline. Okay, so hopefully this will be a clear walk through. Tonight we seek to answer the question, can I lose my salvation? Now different denominations answer this question in different way. Some would say we're talking about eternal security. And they would say something like once saved, always saved. Okay, we say things a little differently. We would say once in grace, always in grace. RC Sproul, I love, he says, if you have it, you never lose it. And if you lose it, you never had it. Okay, so I've given you, I've given you a summation of where we're going for the rest of the night. Okay, so you can't get lost. We're already there. Okay, now what I am going to do though is I'm going to unpack it now a little bit with, I hope what you would consider to be some biblical logic. So what do we mean by perseverance or perseverance of the saints? I also like to say the preservation of the saints. Okay, so I know in our tradition, we like the word perseverance. I actually like the word preservation of the saints. And I think you'll know why I would say that. And the argument that I'm going to make for us this evening is that it's God's responsibility to save his people. Okay, I believe it's God's responsibility to save his people. So let's think about this together first. Those whom God has effectually called can neither totally nor finally fall away. This is from the confession of faith. I'm sure you recognize it. If not, it's question 17. Okay, I want to pause for a moment and talk about an effectual calling. There's a general calling and then there's an effectual calling. The reason we preach Christ to everyone is because we don't know which people are going to respond to God's word. And so we give a general call. You know, what if on Sunday morning I came out and I said, well, if anybody's not a Christian here, get out. Right? No, we preach God's word to the world. Remember the illustration I used with Tommy Bain when he and I were looking for the condominium when we went golfing and Tommy hadn't written down the exact address, but he knew the street. And so we went down the street clicking on a garage door on each side of the street until we finally got there. And then the garage door that opened, well, that was the right one. And I want you to know that a general call is the preaching God's word to everybody at all times, every opportunity. But an effectual call is the call that the Holy Spirit accompanies and regenerates a person. So that might be a new word for you. And I thought I'd just take a moment and explain it at least superfluously. Now, I want you to think a little bit about first John 219. They went out from us, but they were not of us. So there were people who walked with the disciples, but they left them. They walked away from them. And what they're saying here is, well, they were with us, but they really weren't of us. They really stood away, apostasy, literally means standing away from. They literally stood away from these other believers. They walked away from them. And I want you to recognize that within our church, there are people who are here, but they're not of us. Now, that I don't mean that in a judgmental way. I just mean it in terms of a general observation. There could be people in the room tonight diligently following the notes and studying their Bible or listening and really soaking it in. And maybe you're really not of God's people. This is why we ask the question like, can I lose my salvation? I mean, what's going to happen to me in the future? What's my assurance of my salvation? So I wanted you to see from scripture that there are a number of places we need to consider. I want us to look over in Luke chapter 8, this wonderful parable. I'll be teaching a parable this Sunday on the, Jesus says, I am the true vine. That's the last I am statement of Jesus's I am statements in the gospel of John. And I want us to recognize that he qualifies the word vine with the word true. I want you to think about that. He says, I am the true
vine. What's the other vine? You might think about that. I'll touch on it in my sermon and then you'll figure it out in your K group. But look at Luke chapter 8. Let me read this passage for us. I think it'll frame up where why we have these things to think about this evening. Beginning in verse 4. And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled under foot. And the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock and as it grew it withered away because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns. And the thorns grew up and with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold. And he said these things. After he said these things, he called, he who has the years to hear led him here. And when his disciples asked him what the parable meant, I just love it. Now you love the disciples. They're like, what? Good story, huh? What's it mean? It just makes me feel like I belong. And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. But for others, they are in parables so that scene they may not see and hearing, they may not hear. Now that alone is worthy of some pretty good thinking, isn't it? But let's go on, verse 11. Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root. They believe for a while and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life. And their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who hearing the word hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. So we see Jesus himself explaining that there will be people who enthusiastically embrace Jesus or the Christian religion or the church, but they don't last. They don't stay. And then all of us, when we hear that parable, we're wondering where the line is drawn. Is the line drawn between soil number two and three and four, or is it drawn between soil number three and four? Because most times when I've taught this in the past, I've asked people which soil in which do you find yourself? And most Christian people say, soil three. I want to be soil four, but I think soil three. I feel like I'm walking with the Lord in a way, but the fruit of my life is being choked out by the desires of this world. And then some people would say, well, I don't think that's where the line's drawn. I think the line's drawn between soil number three and soil number four. My son, you're just kind of twitching, right? And like you've lost my salvation, did I ever have it? I want you to recognize this is a legitimate struggle among the people of God. And I want us to see that it's clearly delineated in the scriptures that there are people who have made a profession of faith, a joyful profession of faith, and then have repudiated that faith at a later date. The Bible doesn't say that true believers won't backslide or strain. And I've given us three examples of this. You can just kind of look with me with the life of David. I don't know how well you know the life of David, but if you think about the life of David for a little while, you'll see he's a man who has written, he's written portions of God's word, right? He's a man who loves the Lord. He's a man after God's own heart. He's also a man who had fallen into heinous sin, right? If you don't recall, go to 2 Samuel chapter 11 and you'll hear the story of how he'd lusted after Batshiva. And then in my opinion, he forced her into a sexual relationship. Now in our culture, we call that rape. I don't know what else this young girl could have done but to relinquish herself to the desires of the King. That's why I'm saying it so strongly. But he not only forced that Shiva at some level to be sexually involved with him when she was pregnant, he had her husband murdered. Okay, just let that sink in on you. This is a man after God's own heart.
Think a little bit, if you will, about Peter. Peter denied the Lord and he denied the Lord on the night of the Lord's great testing in the Garden of Gethsemane. I want you to just work your way through this passage with me when we think a little bit about Peter. I want you to look in John chapter 17 11 through 12. I'm assuming you have a fairly good working knowledge of the Scripture. I know I'm tossing you around a lot and just assuming you can hop over and get a sense of where we are in the Scripture and these stories. But remember in John 17, this is after the Lord has washed his disciples feet. He's talked to Peter about his denial and we also know that Judas is in the process of denying the Lord. But I want you to hear what Jesus says in John 17 verses 11 and 12. He says, and I am no longer in the world but they are in the world and I'm coming to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the Son of Destruction that the Scripture might be fulfilled. I want you to have this sense that Judas' betrayal of Christ was not a falling away of the faith but it was actually a fulfillment of the prophetic Scripture that he never knew the Lord though he was with the Lord. And that when Peter was in a position of denial of the Lord, the Lord said, Peter, Satan wanted to sift you but I prayed for you and after you returned to me. Do you remember this passage? Let's just kind of look over here at Luke 22. I think I have it in your notes there. Verse 31 to 32, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like weep but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again, in other words, return, strengthen your brother. So to Judas Jesus says, go and do what you must do swiftly. To Peter, he says, when you return to me, strengthen your brother. See, I want you to have this real honest meaningful sense that when we ask the question, can I lose my salvation? We have pictures in the Scripture that if you did not have the Bible explaining Judas' denial, you would probably conclude that Judas was a believer who lost his faith and betrayed the Lord. And the Scriptures don't say that. The Scriptures say that Judas was with them but he really wasn't one of them and he turned against the Lord as a fulfillment of Scripture. And so this isn't just a hypothetical question that we're asking tonight. We believe that true believers will not totally nor finally fall away. So we won't totally or finally fall away but it means that we might go through seasons of rebellion against God, seasons of rebellion, that we might commit heinous sin. Sin that we would look back on and say, I think I lost my mind. I don't know what I was thinking. I just got involved in this activity or with this person. I cannot believe I did that but I did that. I want you to know that the Scripture, the Scripture clearly teaches that you can be a saved believing Christian in the Lord and you can sin over a season of your life and you can sin heinously. So I don't want you to come away tonight thinking that if you are in a heinous sin pattern right now, it means that you're not a believer. What I want to say to you is that it might mean that you're not a believer. What I have found in my work in the pastorate over the last three decades is pastors in general to readily try to assure people of their salvation. Now that might sound a little offensive to hear me say that to you but I'm going to go back to my dear friend Dr. Dalin and if Dr. Dalin is practicing good medicine which he does, he's not just going to tell me something right. He's just not going to say hey you're doing great buddy. He's going to say you know let's go down. Let's run these tests. Let's see how you're doing and as a pastor and our other pastors and elders and deacons here, we have the spiritual responsibility to not seek to give assurance in a person's life apart from the work of Christ. And if we give assurance to readily, we could actually discourage a true conversion and we could also discourage true repentance. There's times that I purposefully will tell a person, I want to meet with you in a week, do not repent yet.
Does that sound crazy? Thank you. Is that you Jim? Oh thanks so much. The reason I say that is I have seen a pattern in the Western church of people saying I'm sorry, oh I'm sorry, they haven't thought about it, they haven't looked beneath the surface to the pattern of their sin. I'll use examples from Dallas but there is a particular person in our church who regularly mouthed off. They said things they shouldn't say in a public setting and they regularly over the 20 years of my ministry there would come back and say I'm sorry and after about 10 years of it I said don't tell me you're sorry today. Think about it for a week and then come and let's talk. Why? Because I want them to think, because I'm going to ask them hard questions when we get back together. Like what were you trying to accomplish when you mouthed off? What were you trying to feed your idol when you mouthed off? Do you always have to be right? Do you always have to be in charge? Are you always in control? Right? Now that's not a mean pastor. I think that's a good pastor. Right? You don't want people to say I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Just all the time. It's like in gardening. If you go out and you see a weed in your garden and you just go lop off the top of it all the time, you know, just go and maybe just pull the top off. Well, you got that done, you know, right? No, that's not practicing good horticulture. You want to get the roots out and that's why I'm saying what I'm saying. I have found in the Western church in particular that people are not willing to sit down and say, wow, what was I trying to accomplish with that sin? Why do I do that all the time? Instead of just quickly saying, I'm sorry. Lord, do you have to forgive me? I'm sorry. And they just go on their merry, ignorant, sinful way. Right? So I want you to wrestle a little bit with this and you might be thinking, wow, I need to think about my sin pattern. And I would say, yes, we do. We do. We shouldn't just simply say all the time, I love to sin and Jesus loves to forgive. You know, this is a great deal I got going here. At some point, I think we need to say, wow, what's the pattern in my life? And if you don't know and you're married, you're only one question away from that answer, right? And you might not even have to ask the question. And if you're single, you're close friends will be scared to death to tell you what they could. They know, they know. Okay? So I just wanted to pause at this moment and let you know this is the reality to this. All right? It's not just a hypothetical. It's kind of where we live. And I never want to give somebody assurance of their salvation to simply kind of be the nice person. You know, let's just go along and get along. That's irresponsible as a spiritual shepherd. That is not an option for us. Okay? I know a lot of us in here are preparing to be officers or we are officers. We just don't have that option, guys. We just can't glance at a patient and go, yeah, look fine, we've got to pulse. Right? We need to slow down. We need to take the time to ask questions. Now here's a little secret. You ask questions and you listen for the right answer. And then you question the right answer.
You want them to articulate their biblical understanding of how they reach the conclusion of the right answer. It's like an algebra test. Right? If a kid just shows up with the right answer, you're like, time out. Show me your work. As an officer in the church, we are asking people to show us their thinking. Show me your thinking on that. Where did you get that? Show me the scripture for that. Okay? Now, let's, I can't say race on, but let's move forward. Why do we say true believers persevere into the end of their earthly life with such confidence? We say it because we have confidence in the character of God that ensures salvation of the elect. In other words, because God preserves His saints, they will, they must persevere to the end. It's the character of God. What do I mean by that? It's not man character in which we trust. I decided to follow Jesus. Give me five minutes with anybody whose testimony is I decided to follow Jesus and I will have them groveling for help
because we changed our mind. I decided to follow Jesus. Well, maybe I'm gonna decide not to follow Jesus or here's the stumper. Did you really mean it? Did you mean it 50% or did you mean it 70%? Did you mean it 100% really? 100% uh-huh. You mean it 100% right? You see how you can quickly unfold a person's confidence when they place their confidence in themselves, in their ability to make a good decision, right? You, salvation comes outside of us. We are not religious Dr. Phil's on Oprah, right? Dr. Phil always points people inwardly because he believes that the answer is inside of man. He believes that salvation will come from man's enlightenment about himself. We don't believe that. We believe there's a need for external salvation that comes vicariously through the substitutionary work of Jesus. Now that was a fairly theologically loaded symptom. Let me say it another way. We believe that salvation has to come from outside of us and so our faith is not within us in something we did. It's what Jesus did. I remember when I prayed and asked the Lord to come into my heart. I decided to follow Jesus. My friend said go out in the backyard and hammer a stake in your backyard. And anytime you doubt your salvation, go look at that stake and go that's right. I decided to follow Jesus. There it is. He was making my decision a means of grace. God never does that. We don't look within ourselves for confidence. We look outside of ourselves. Philippians 1-6, one of my favorite verses, being convinced of this. Just think of, I know a lot of you know this. Some of you are already smiling at me, but being convinced of this, he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ. So just take it apart. It'll preach being convinced of this. What's he convinced of? Where's he placed in his hope that he who began a good work? He, God, who started this good work in me, he will carry it to completion until the day of Christ. You see, he places his confidence on God and on God's fulfillment of God's promises. That's where our confidence lies is with the character of God. Let's look at Romans 8, 29 to 30. I'm sure we know it. Let me read it. Romans 8, 29 to 30. For those whom I'm going to go ahead and put the word God in there, but it's a pronoun. For those whom he or God for new, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. Now I want you to notice the nature of those verbs. They're past tense. I'm going to show us again when we get to Ephesians 1. They're past tense. They are completed works of Christ. And that's where we place our confidence that he predestines us and then he calls us, effectually calls us. And then he moves us to completion of glorification. So I go back again and say, it's God's responsibility to save his people. And so our hope is not within ourselves. I hope this will fix it by just doing that. No, the battery's almost gone. Maybe it is right there. Thank you. Where's the power? Man, that's a time to testify right there. Brother, the power is in Jesus Christ. Come on. Thank you. Let's look at Ephesians. We're going to study this in the fall, meaning the season, autumn, not the theological term. Man, you are still listening. That is so good. You're giving me the courtesy Christian laugh. It's kind of like, oh, we're not quite bored. That's funny. Ephesians 1, 3, 3, 6. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who has? Look at the tents. Blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he, look at the tents, chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined. Look at the tents. For adoption, as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious right to the praise of his grace, not to the praise of our decision, to the praise of his grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. So through Christ, thank you, Jason. So our certainty comes from the finished work of Christ. Our certainty comes from what Jesus has already accomplished for me. So we don't believe and move God to action. God has acted, therefore we believe. Okay? That's a really good thing to catch right here. It's not like Jesus is up in heaven circling with a load of salvation. And he's just looking and saying, oh, Jim would just, if Jim would just say that prayer, I could release this load of eternal blessing on him. But I'm awaiting the Lord of the universe is just a wait. If somehow they can make that decision, if they could figure it out, I want you to know the Bible doesn't teach that the Bible teaches predominantly the work of Christ. His completed work is our confidence. I'm going to read one of these passages that is very common and I think you'll enjoy it. And then I want to take a part of very controversial one. Okay? So let's look here at Hebrews 10.
And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. If you go back to 727, you'll see this idea of once and for all. I want you to get a sense of finality. He who has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily first for his own sins. And then for those of the people since he did this, once for all when he offered himself up, the priest of the Old Testament was in a constant system of doing two things. He would offer an offering to purify his sin. And then he would offer an offering to temporarily atone for the sins of the people. So he was constantly doing those two things. Since Christ is sinless, he did not have to make an offering for himself. And since his offering was efficacious or effective for all the sins of his people, he made that offering once of his life. That's what the author of Hebrews is teaching us. That's where I want your confidence to be. I don't want you to think I'm going back to my backyard and there's a stake in the ground when I made a decision for Jesus. I want you to say Christ has accomplished what God predestined and for ordained before the foundation of the world. And I have faith in God that he will complete in me what he started. That's our confidence. That's our assurance of our salvation. Now, what about a verse like in second Peter 3.9? Let's look at this. We'll have a good time with this. Some of you are about to change your mind and some of you are about to get really mad. This is the verse where it says, the Lord is not willing to any should perish, okay? Second Peter 3.9, let's make sure I have that right. Okay, the Lord is talking about the day of the Lord that will come. So this final judgment, let's go to verse 8 of second Peter chapter 3. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you. Not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance. Some people make an argument that that is a verse that denies election. I'm going to make an argument tonight that that is one of the strongest verses in the Bible for election. Okay, you might think, really? Yeah, we're going to do it in a couple different ways. There's two ambiguities in the verse. The first ambiguity is behind the idea of the word will or the word wishing, depending on which translation you have. The translation I have says that in verse 9, not wishing that any should perish. This idea of wishing or willing, the word willing is in the Greek in a testament, it's predominantly two Greek words. The two Greek words are Thalema and Boulin. And they have several nuances. Actually, there's about eight nuances of those two verses. Those two words that mean willing or wishing. And I want to take a minute and talk about the definition of this idea of wishing or willing. The first definition of this word of willing is like when God created the universe, He said, let there be and there was. In other words, He willed it and it happened. This is called His efficacious will. Okay, His efficacious will. The Lord willed it and it happened. There's another form of this idea of will. It's called His preceptive will. And that is, when He says, you're not allowed to do this, He says, thou shalt not steal. So God's revealed more will is that you do not steal. But you have the volitional ability to deny that. You can steal. So that's God's perceptive will, if you will. You're not allowed to do this. So we started with efficacious will, the idea that He said it and it happens. We move to an understanding of His preceptive will. In other words, you're not allowed to do it, but you are able to do it so we can violate it. And then we, the last thing I want us to think about is God's dispositional will or His attitude toward the world. God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. So this is the idea that His will describes His disposition. You know, He doesn't delight that the wicked are killed. So I want you to think about those three views of the word will. But there's another ambiguity in the text and the ambiguity of the text is the word any. Now, you might think, well, Tim, of those three views, which do you hold in terms of which do you think the will is? I believe that when God speaks of, He's not willing that any would perish, that it's not the idea of His will in the efficacious sense that just think this through with me. I'm going to read, I made a copy of a work from RC Sproul and I wanted you to hear it in His words. He says, if the text teaches that God is not willing in the sovereign efficacious sense that any should perish, then no one would perish. You can see that if God says no one is going to perish and that's as efficacious will, then no one is going to perish. But in order to believe that text, you would have to be a universalist, right? And I don't believe that we're universalists in this thing. Secondly, we could say that God is not willing in the sense that His law does not allow any to perish, but that doesn't make a lot of sense, right? God's law does allow for people to perish. Nonetheless, I think the text does refer to God's sovereign efficacious will. Peter is saying that God sovereignly decrees that He will not allow any to perish. The second ambiguity in the text is the word any. And you have to identify the referent of the word any, right? If I use the word she, we have to decide if I'm referring to my wife or I'm referring to my daughter, right? Every, every pronoun and it needs a referent. And we have to decide what does the word any mean that God is not willing, that any. If you study the passage in second Peter, you'll find, and if you just look right back at the text, I think it'll be helpful. Look at verse 8. But do not overlook this one fact, and then there's the word beloved. The any are His people. It's not anybody in the whole wide world. He's saying that the any, and of course, the rule of the referent is always the closest noun, right? We get that. Some of you are like, no, no, we don't. We'll just trust me, okay?
And the referent of the any is the beloved. It's the people of God. And the context of this passage is the return of Christ. So God is taking care of His people. He's not willing that any of His liquid perish, right? And so people who use this passage to defend an Armenian view, I believe, are out of context, they're out of order. In fact, it's one of the strongest arguments for God's election. Why do I take time to do that with us tonight? Because I want you to have confidence that it's the work of God. It's the work of God that when He wills His efficacious will, that none of us, not any of His beloved, He's not willing that any of us would perish. That is, that is what this is speaking of. It's us. We're His beloved. We're the beloved. If you go back into chapter one of Peter, I think it's verse 10, you'll find the introduction of the beloved. So I want us to just not be afraid to look at verses that are difficult. Let's talk just a moment about Ephesians 1, 13 to 14. This is another comfort or assurance of our salvation. Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, and you're thinking right now, oh, that's that Holy Spirit passage. That's right. Good thinking. We have the work of the Trinity between verses 3 and 14 and Ephesians 1, and I'll preach that as coming fall, but I'll speak of the work of God the Father, and then the work of God the Son, and then the work of God the Spirit in salvation. So this is just a little bite-sized heads up that this is coming. But I want you to notice, this says in Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, we're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. So part of our confidence is that we're sealed in the Holy Spirit, and that word sealed is just like I remember when people used to actually put their letters, they would have a, they would melt a little wax over the seam or the seal, and then they would put their family seal or their initials, they would seal it. That's that word. It's the Holy Spirit has sealed us. He closed us in. He's encapsulated this, but it goes on. It says not only did he seal, I want you to notice in verse 14, he's the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, and that idea of a guarantee of inheritance is that idea of earnest payment. When we were in the process of purchasing our home here, we had to put up a certain amount of money that was earnest money. It was money that if the deal didn't go through, that was money that we just had to give. We lost, right? The Holy Spirit has given, but it also goes on to insinuate that the Holy Spirit is the down payment, and once God has made the down payment of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, he's responsible for the mortgage payment. And so this idea of our confidence comes in the work of the Holy Spirit in sealing us and in the earnest that was given. Although Christian sin, and sometimes we sin grievously, you see, if I can make this word, they do not practice sin. You might be thinking, oh my goodness, you know, holy, Wesleyan perfectionism, Batman, where are you going with that?
Thank you for those of you who like Batman. And I talked about Wesleyan perfectionism in the fossil. There's obviously no need to review that. No, review it. Okay, what Wesley did is Wesley rewrote his concept of sin. An orthodox concept of sin is a lack of conformity in thought, word, or deed to God's law. And what Wesley said is as long as you don't act upon anything you think, as long as you don't outwardly actively sin that you've seen as perfect in the eyes of God. And then he went on to develop the idea of, this is a whole other lesson, but I'll give you this for three, that there was a second baptism of the Holy Spirit that one would receive after they became a believer, and that second baptism of the Holy Spirit would work in you in such a way that you would remain sinless until your death or Christ return. Not a biblical view, but the method is religion gave birth to the charismatic movement, and it gave birth to that movement largely due to the teaching of the second baptism of the Spirit. Okay, so that's just the little church history. You might go home and read that if you have trouble sleeping this evening. I find it incredibly intriguing. What does it mean they don't practice sin? Since we know we're not talking about Wesleyan perfectionism, we are talking about the concept of practice and meaning that you are not habitually continually in a pattern of sin without a desire to repent and break that sin. So you might say, I don't know, I've been involved in pornography for 20 years now. You know, that's a pretty, that's a habitual pattern of sin, pastor. How do you feel about it? Oh, I feel horrible about it, pastor. I hate it. I hate that I've gotten myself addicted in this horrible way. It demeans women. It degrades myself. I feel terrible about it. And so there's this detesting, this hatred of the sin and a longing to be delivered with the help of God. But so a Christian isn't one who practices sin without a sense of conscience.
We might be caught in a rut of a sin. You might say, I just speak rashly or I tell lies all the time or I steal. I'm afraid the Lord's not going to provide for me, right? You might have these patterns but you you long to be delivered from them. You have a sense of guilt. You have a sense of I'm not honoring the Lord when I do this. So a Christian isn't one who falls into a pattern of sin and just simply says, well, that's the way I am. That's my personality. Get over it. I'm in charge. You're not honey. Right? People don't confront me at work. They think I'm good at church. You know, why do you have a problem with me at home? Come to my office so we can talk. I'm in charge at church. We don't take that, right? Were you humbly say, oh, I've offended you. Help me understand my sin and my you say it's a pattern of sin honey? Right? We humbly want to address and repent and then sin brings temporal judgment. I want us to recognize that we truly do experience temporal judgment. Look over in 1 Corinthians 1132.
We're not going to finish the outline for those of you who need to take some medication right now. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. You know, I sound like bad news, but it's really good news, isn't it? The Lord brings a temporal judgment because he's disciplining us. He's moving toward pre-ness. And then I didn't use Dr. Down's name in the print here, but I said the work of a good doctor is thorough and not quick to draw conclusions. America's current universalism is basically justification by death. Let me just unpack that briefly and then we'll spend five minutes on the second point. The average American believes, how do you get to heaven? You die. You die and then you wake up and heaven. It's justification by death. I'm a good guy. You're a good guy. I've tried to be my best. I'm doing better now. You know, it's like when a rock band, you know, maybe some brazenly evil person dies and you listen to people on the news and they're like, well, he's in the big rock band in the sky. There's this idea that he's a horrible hillion, but all he had to do was die to get to heaven, right? That's a American view of justification, right? We just simply believe in justification by death. We don't believe in justification through the vicarious substitutionary atonement of Christ. Okay. So our faith is in the work of God. So assurance of grace and salvation. There is such a thing of false security, yet those who sincerely love Jesus may be assured of grace. This is the argument, but I pray to receive Christ. There's this sense that we give a false sense of security to people who are going to hell. And I want to call especially our officers to account on this. We have to be very careful. When I was the youth pastor in Dallas, I interviewed every new member, the children, you know, the teenagers. And I would, they would come to my office or I'd meet them at McDonald's and we'd have a coke or something. And I'd say, well, I'd talk to them a little while, oh, she loves the band. And she does a recital and he's a football player, whatever. We talk, small talk. And then I'd say, tell me about your relationship with the Lord. And I was very careful not to ask them leading questions like, so you've asked Jesus into your heart now. Heaven's your Lord, right? I wouldn't do that where he could go. Right. I would say, tell me about your relationship with the Lord. And they would say, oh, I was at Kinnaka and I asked Jesus into my heart. That's great Lord. Tell me what that means. And they would look at me kind of the way you're looking at me, right? Like a cow in a rainstorm. Like, just, where am I going with this? What? What? I asked him in my heart. So Jesus came into my pastures stupid. Jesus, I asked him, now he's in my heart, right? That's what they believe. That's their concept of justification. And they've been assured by their counselors, and I'm not trash in Kinnaka. It could happen in any camp, any church, right? In any of our lives. We've given them assurance based on words they said that they did not understand that had nothing to do with the gospel. And we've assured them they're going to heaven. Yeah, those drive a stake in your backyard. You got it. He give people false assurance of their salvation. They don't even know about their sin and their need for Jesus. And we applaud them. Oh, that's great. Go get them, Sally. All right. So we give false assurance to people because we don't believe the gospel. Jesus said, depart from me. I never knew you. Right? This Matthew 7 passage. So false assurance can be a result of false understanding of salvation, usually good works. Something they've done. I set a prayer. I read my Bible. I go to church. My parents are Christians, right? They have this idea. The question you always have to ask them is, well, how good is good enough? Anytime you're talking to a Muslim, you're talking to a self-righteous person, you're talking to the older brother of the prodigal son, right? You say very simply, how good do you have to be to get into heaven? How good is enough? Immediately you blow up their reasoning, right? You just ask with a really nice question, even with a smile on your face, but you just blew them up because now they have to say, whoa, is me? Whoa is me? Or they compare themselves to other people? Right? Well, you know, I'm better than he is. He drinks every Friday and he comes to youth group on Sunday, but he's not drunk. I don't do that. So we need to understand it's not our good works because we can never be good enough. It's Christ good works. That's where we place our confidence. Okay. Our time is all gone. Let me close with one thought for us. Because in our world, the PCA world, where we are a little arrogant about our doctrine, I mean, I believe we're right. Don't get me wrong, but we're arrogant about our doctrine. We kind of beat people up over, you know, you know, here I am speaking pejoratively of camp or Methodist or charismatic, right? Who? Get off your high horse pastor. Let me say something that I think will equal the playing field a little bit. We're finite people, the word finite means limited. So we will never fully comprehend all that God has revealed about himself. Okay? That's a pretty big statement, but I believe it's true. So we're finite. We're limited. We can never fully comprehend all that God has revealed about himself. Secondly, we're fallen. And when we fell, we lost our ability to comprehend that intimacy with God. So we need a regenerative work of the spirit. And not only are we finite and fallen, but we're frail. God hasn't fully revealed everything he could reveal to us about himself. So even what we know about God is limited. It's limited in three ways. It's limited because we're finite. It's limited because he didn't reveal everything he could reveal about himself. And it's limited because we're frail. We might be confident tonight and in the morning we're going to wake up to press. I'm like, I was so good. I'm ready to go. You wake up in the morning. Oh, I know. I'm going to hell. Oh, I can't believe it. I'm such a, you know, what I want you to recognize is no matter how much you know about the Lord, you don't know everything about him. Number one, because he didn't reveal it. Number two, because even if he did, you couldn't comprehend it because you're falling in finite. So no matter how much you know about the Lord, there's a gap between who he is and what you know. I don't care if you're a baby Christian, and you know one verse, well, God's the love of the world who gave his own. That's your verse. That's your whole arsenal. That's it. That's your one bullet, okay? Or if you know the Bible by memory, and you've studied and mastered every systematic theology known to man, especially Calvin,
you don't get it. We don't get it. Let's say you know 95%. You still have 5%. Let's say, you know, 50%, you have 50%. Your assurance must always be trusting in God's faithfulness to save these people, no matter how much you know. Even when you have reform pastors like me and others who will stand up and on the verge of arrogance present what we think we know about the Lord. We need to humbly look to the Lord and say not because of that pastor, but maybe you might say in spite of that pastor, I believe in the work of God. You have revealed yourself to me. You have revealed that you will accomplish what you purpose to accomplish. I thank you for the way you have revealed yourself to me. I trust in you, Lord, that you will save me. Can we improve on our position in Christ? Yes, there are things that we can do that will strengthen, I think. We should avail ourselves of the means of grace. Should always worship the Lord. Should always read his words. Should always memorize scripture. Should always have honest fellowship. You should always be an earnest prayer. There are the means of grace of which we avail ourselves, that we might be more sure of God's work, not of our faithfulness, but of his faithfulness. That was kind of what I was going to give you for the second half. But now Jerry is going to teach this coming week on the law, and then I'm going to come back and teach in two weeks about Christian liberty. So you better be ready for that one. Because you might get your box pushed out a little bit. Maybe not. Let me pray for us. Father, I do thank you for our confidence in you. Oh, God, please forgive us when we put our confidence in our theological system. Lord, I do believe we have the most beautiful biblical system. But may we not put our confidence in the system? May we put our confidence in Christ? May we not miss you in the midst of our right thinking? Oh, God, we humbly receive your salvation and our confidence is in you. So we worship you tonight. We praise you tonight. We celebrate your salvation, as the words of David said, when he talked about your salvation, Lord, not his salvation, yours. Thank you, Christ. Thank you for being our savior. I thank you and praise you and the name of our great Redeemer, Jesus. Amen. Thank you all.