Pillars of Assurance

 TEXT:  1 John 5:13

TOPIC:  Pillars of Assurance

Pastor Bobby Earls, First Baptist Church, Center Point, Alabama

Sunday Evening, October 30, 2005

            Can anyone really know for sure that he is saved?  Can any of us really know our sins have been forgiven?  Can we be sure that we are really on our way to Heaven?

            What about the fear of the judgment and the frightening possibility of going to Hell?  Can the Bible help a person know without a doubt that God has saved him and that he will spend eternity with God in Heaven?

            For those of you who have asked such questions, I have good news.  The answer is yes!  Not maybe, or I hope so, but yes!  Yes we can know without any doubt whatsoever that we are saved and on our way to Heaven!

            Please open your Bible today to one of my favorite verses in the New Testament,

1 John 5:13.  Here, John the Apostle, the beloved of our Lord tells us very forthrightly one of the reasons why he wrote this first letter to the believers of his day.  Let’s read this together since it’s only one verse.

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

1 John 5:13, NKJV

            Jesus told those who followed Him in His earthly ministry “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven.”

            If we were to ask the Apostle Paul, “Paul, do you think you can really know for certain you are saved?”  I’m convinced he would respond something like this:  “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day.”  2 Timothy 1:12

            God’s people can be assured that they have eternal life!

            Assurance is only as good as the facts on which it rests.  The Christian’s assurance rests on the pillars or the facts of the objective word of God.

            What I really want you to hear today are the five pillars of assurance.  (Notice the “these things” of 1 John 5:13)

First of all,

1. THE PILLAR OF THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST, 1 John 2:1-2

1My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

1. Jesus Died to Pay the Full Price for our Sins.  2 Corinthians 5:21

For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us (you and me), that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

1. Jesus’ Work of Salvation is a Finished Work.  

When I think of Calvary, and the price that was paid to provide me with salvation, the thought of my having the power to somehow undo or lose His precious gift of eternal life, a gift that cost Him so very much, why the very thought of it all is preposterous!

1. There is not a sin so terrible that it is not covered by the blood of Jesus.  

Think about this.  If I could somehow sin away the salvation I received when Christ saved me, wouldn’t it have been a far better thing for God to have taken me on to Heaven as soon as He saved me rather than risk the possibility that I may throw away what He has given me?

            At that point, salvation is no longer a work of grace alone.  It is a work based not upon our faith in the finished work of Christ, but a work of faith and my good works.  Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us, For by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it (salvation) is the gift of God.

1. THE PILLAR OF FAITH IN CHRIST AS SAVIOR, 1 John 5:1  

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,

No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

     1 Corinthians 12:3

1. THE PILLAR OF OBEDIENCE TO CHRIST, 1 John 2:3-5

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

            We do not live perfectly after salvation.  Yet we are to live lives characterized by obedience and right living rather than by sin.

            Christians are a lot like the Mississippi River.  I’ve flown over the Mississippi on numerous times in my life.  The Mississippi always flows south.  It may take many different twists and bends on its journey southward.  It may flow east or west and even north at various stages, but it always returns to a southward track.  That’s the way we  are.  We may for a short period of time in our Christian lives make the wrong decision and turn from perfect obedience to Christ, but if we are truly saved, we will always return to Him.

1. THE PILLAR OF LOVE FOR OTHER CHRISTIANS, 1 John 3:14, 18-19

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death……..My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.

            John specifically mentioned loving “the brethren” six times.  Inherent then is the concept of family.  We also speak of our special relationship to one another as a fellowship.

            Why would you think you are going to Heaven to spend an eternity with the family of God and fellowship forevermore with a people you tried so hard to avoid here on earth?

1. THE PILLAR OF THE SPIRIT’S WITNESS, 1 John 3:24, 5:10-12

Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God

 does not have life.

            In Romans 8:16 the Bibles teaches us, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.”

            Finally, I want to share with you what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:35-39.

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.