· Being tied up in … well, you know …
in knots … or…
· Secure, as in … assured, comforted, safe!
There are a lot of problems for the
Christian who lacks assurance that his or her sins have been forgiven, and
whether he or she is right with God.
And one of the toughest issues to deal
with is what about my sins after I got saved; am I going to Hell because I
didn’t behave once I became God’s child?
What we’d like to do this morning is
explore those problems and match them up against the promises of God. And then, we’ll look at how to apply the
principles of God’s promises, so we can live-into that assurance with
guilt-free obedience to serve joyfully.
So, let’s dig in!
The
“Hell” you live when you Lack Assurance
We don’t have to spend a whole lot of time
on this, because, if you lack assurance, you live there, and you know how
torturous having that nagging doubt can be.
You second guess everything from why you doubt, to if
you’re really saved. You
live on the edge of unbelief, and your prayers are constantly vacillating between
asking forgiveness and wondering if it’s all a mirage … if there’s really a God
up there to hear your prayers.
You feel guilty all the time, and that
makes you a prime target of Satan. It’s
like a football team that is constantly so worried about losing the game
they never play their best. They haven’t
got a snowball’s chance in a hot place of winning, because they think about
nothing but being afraid of losing.
I preached a sermon once entitled Miserable
Christianity; that is exactly what believers live when they are
plagued with doubt.
We are like the man who had a son that was
possessed. They brought the boy to Jesus
and the man wanted to believe, but his doubt, as well as the boy’s disease, had
lasted so long, ever since the boy was a small child. He was a miserable man, living in the shadow
of doubt. The man begged Jesus to have
mercy and heal the boy if he could; this is what Jesus answered:
“What do
you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything
is possible if a person believes.” The father instantly cried out,
“I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” Mark 9:23-24(NLT)
Help me overcome is the doubter’s plea for assurance, to get beyond the unbelief
knot that has tied up his insides.
It’s a miserable place to live and in which to be chained!
God’s Promises that Break the Chains of Doubt
There are a lot of promises, but here are
several that are central to the faith:
But if we
confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John
1:9(NLT)
2.
Pay
attention and remain in God’s care
But you
must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard
the Good News. Colossians
1:23a(NLT)
3.
The Holy
Spirit lives within us to keep giving us assurance in grace
For when
we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power,
for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance
that what we said was true. 1
Thessalonians 1:5(NLT)
And God
has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 1 John
4:13(NLT)
I don’t need to elaborate on any of these
Scriptures; God’s promises speak for themselves. So, let’s move on to how we can rest in those
promises of assurance and overcome our doubt by living-into the kind of
believing faith God wants us to have.
Faith Practices of Believers
Who Overcome (their own) Evil with Good
I want to give you 5 HOW-TO’s
concerning what God expects of forgiven people.
This relies heavily on Scripture, reason, tradition, and
experience. This, by-the-way, is how
John Wesley approached interpreting how a Christian should live. It is called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral; Scripture
is foremost, with the experience of life, relationships, and the moving,
encouraging, and convicting power of God’s Spirit helping us use our reasoning
ability within the framework of the faith traditions of our forefathers
throughout the ages. Now that’s a big
sentence, but basically, we’re talking about using common sense matched up to,
and controlled-by God’s Holy Word.
So, what do I do besides ask God to
forgive me? How do I live-into being forgiven?
1.
Make
restitution, if at all possible
Paying back if you have robbed something, whether it is money,
property, or another person’s reputation, it’s a no-brainer. It’s simple arithmetic to give back or pay
back. But making restitution isn’t
always that simple. Sometimes you’re in
a mess with another human because you just have trouble giving that person
level ground with you. And here’s what God says to do about it:
“If you forgive those who sin against you,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
Matthew 6:14(NLT)
Years ago, there was a church leader that really
ticked me off; I didn’t really know why!
He hadn’t done anything against me that I knew about; there was just
something there that made me dislike him.
Much later I found out that dislike was mutual; I knew he didn’t like me
because he tried to have me fired as pastor.
Perhaps I was unconsciously picking up on his dislike for me, and it got
under my skin.
But, in prayer I became convinced in my spirit that,
as long as I held this against him, my prayers were going nowhere; my prayers were
being chained in a knot with my unbelief about my responsibility to be
a brother to this Christian man.
So, I made it a point to come alongside that man and be a friend if I
could. That was how I was to make
restitution – to restore a relationship that had never really gotten off the
ground.
2.
Put
embarrassment aside
Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in
every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the
church. Ephesians 4:15(NLT)
There are some sins you do that are deliberate, and
God has to break you before you’ll melt enough to confess, be forgiven, and
then, with the knot broken, you can be useable in God’s Kingdom.
But, there are also some sins that are because of
ignorance, or inattention to what’s going on.
These are the sins that sneak up on us and we rarely ask forgiveness,
because they seem either too small, or not our fault in the first place.
Either way, sin is sin, and whether they are by
commission or omission, they must be confessed to be forgiven; otherwise they
grow and lead us to a death of relationship with our fellow believers on earth,
and our Father in Heaven.
Now, it’s embarrassing to bring them up; we look
foolish. But, not dealing with them
means crossing the line of the higher ground to which we are called – to speak
the truth in love to each other.
3.
We must make
Kingdom Priority our rule
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else,
and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33(NLT)
The Golden Rule (treating others
like we want to be treated) is the Kingdom principle. Sometimes you face a situation where the
other person may have sinned bigger, but for the good of the Kingdom of God, a
child of God always makes the first move towards restoration.
4.
Be Humble
And he gives grace generously. As the
Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6(NLT)
Whether you have sinned against someone, or the other
way around, always remember that you have been, are, and will be on both sides
of that fence. Only God is the judge;
our job is to be humble before God and our fellow believers.
5.
Rest in
God’s Forgiveness
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7(NLT)
This verse ought to be tacked-on to any
to-do list. Because at the end of any
list there is always a question or two about what appears to be some special
circumstance not covered by the list.
But what if … is a certain way to slip back through the door into the
shadowy house of unbelief.
Remember, faith in God means a leap of faith in God. If God caring for you isn’t big
enough to cover the questions in your mind, you’ll never have assurance. Remember that the first prayer should
be: God, I want to believe…help me overcome
my unbelief!
It’s
Time to Break the Chains[2]
As a teenager I developed serious doubts
about the existence of God, and my faith went on vacation for a number of
years. In my twenties, through the love
of some neighbors who bugged us about going to church, I re-found my faith, and
assurance began to grow, because I decided to rest in God’s forgiveness. I decided to trust God; I believed that He
was big enough to trust!
There have been struggles and battles over
worrying, assaults on my assurance, and some deep water to plow-through the
last 50 years or so. But God’s rest is
there; His strength is real, and you can find assurance in that simple trust.
You can find assurance that will break
the chains of doubt and unbelief!
In the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Let the church say “Amen”!
