Are you sure? Absolutely certain? Final answer?
Dreaded words in Who wants to be a Millionaire.
The difference between 1000 and 32 000 or 250000
and the hapless contestant has to be sure.
Is it that way with us and God?
We believe in Jesus, we think ...
we will go to heaven, or we hope so
we want to be forgiven but maybe we won't be.
Of course, being a Christian is not like a quiz show:
it's more about who you know than what you know
but many of us are anxious about it, aren't we?
How can I be sure of my faith?
How can I be confident in Jesus Christ?
How may I know that I am going to heaven when I die
and my sin is forgiven?
1 John 5.13
'I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
so that you may KNOW that you have eternal life.'
To believe in the name of the Son of God goes beyond rattling off the Creed
it is to be committed to him.
A missionary in Papua New Guinea
had the task of trying to translate the New Testament
for people who had no positive concept of trust,
they did not have a word for it in their language
One day he called his servant in to his study leant back on his chair
so that his whole weight rested on it
and asked what was the word in the language for that action,
resting your whole weight on something.
That was the word he used for trust and faith,
to believe in the name is to put your whole self as utterly dependent on
the saving character of Jesus Christ
And once you believe in that committed way you may know
(like the Christian teacher long ago
who urged to believe in order that you may understand)
But you may say,
'I think I've done that. I really do want Jesus to be first in my life
I want to depend upon him completely
but I'm not sure, I don't feel anything specially holy or religious.'
Becoming sure of Christ is a bit like having confidence in a 3 legged stool
or the way a screen is supported on a tripod - 3 legs.
THE WORD OF GOD, TRUSTING THE FATHER'S PROMISES
We must not trust our feelings which are changeable and deceptive
but rely instead on God's promises
Listen to this list of things which God says to us through the Bible:
You may not know me, but I know everything about you...Psalm 139:1
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered...Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image...Genesis 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being...Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived...Jeremiah 1:4-5
I chose you when I planned creation...Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book Ps 139:15-16
You are fearfully and wonderfully made...Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother's womb...Psalm 139:13
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love 1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you...1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father...1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could...Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father...Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand...James 1:17
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope...Jeremiah 29:11
And I rejoice over you with singing...Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you...Jeremiah 32:40
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul...Jeremiah 32:41
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me...Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart...Psalm 37:4
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine...Ephesians 3:20
I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles...2 Corinthians 1:3-4
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes...Revelation 21:3-4
And I'll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth Revelation 21:3-4
I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus...John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed...John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being...Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you...Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins...2 Corinthians 5:18-19
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love...Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me...1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again...Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen...Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father...Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is...Will you be my child?...John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you...Luke 15:11-32 Love, Your Dad. Almighty God
Take even one of these promises
and think it over, pray it through, memorise it and build faith!
THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST - APPLYING HIS DEATH TO OUR LIVES
God loves us and died to prove it
God shows his love in that while were still sinners Christ died for us
That's the extent of God's love,
he gives up his own son as a sacrifice in our place
We did look at this a fortnight ago,
but we did not mention two very important reminders of the cross
the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper
A sacrament is a sign and seal
that can remind you and reassure you that Jesus died for you personally
In the renovated Church of Ireland building in Blarney
there is a baptismal font which causes quite some talk:
it is shaped in the shape of a coffin.
Now this is quite shocking for many of us.
We associate baptism with little babies and the start of a new life.
What we haven't grasped is that Baptism is about death
but not death in away that should terrify us
death that saves us, because Jesus died for us.
Our baptism is a sign and seal of being identified with the death of Jesus.
When he died, we died: the penalty of our sin is dealt with.
That's why Paul writes to the Colossians in c 3
'you have died and your lives are hidden with Christ in God.'
It does not really matter
when you were baptised or how you were baptised or who baptised you:
the point of baptism is to remind us that Jesus died for us once for all
and that we are pledged in baptism to belong to him, to be one with him
and that we shall one day be with him.
Peter and I went to Musgrave Park one autumn day to watch Munster
but we had no tickets, we hadn't realised we would need them.
How foolish we felt, seeing so many others go in and we had to go home.
Supposing someone came up and saw the crowds flocking in
and began to wonder could they be admitted, would there be room.
If they had a ticket they would be reassured:
how foolish they would be if they went home unsure of their right to enter
Baptism is the ticket we need to remind and reassure
that Jesus has paid the price of our acceptance by God.
It is the same with the Lord's Supper
a visible enacted reminder of the body broken and the blood poured out
for the taking away of our sins
Look back to your baptism and through it to the cross
and look forward to the Lord's Supper
sharing again and again in the reminder of his death
THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT
- ASSURING US THAT WE BELONG IN THE FAMILY
Romans 8.15- 16
'You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear
but you received the Spirit of sonship.
And by him we cry Abba Father
The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children.
There was once a missionary who came home a complete failure.
He had been to America to try and convert the native Americans
and had got nowhere, sent home in disgrace
as an embarrassemnt to the church authorities out there.
What was he to do? He had no peace, no joy in being a Christian.
One Sunday night he went to a meeting in Aldersgate St in London.
He went in broken and defeated by his failure as a missionary
But he found his heart 'strangely warmed'
'I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.
And an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine
and saved me from the law of sin and death.'
John Wesley (the founder of Methodism) concluded
that he had exchanged the faith of a servant for the faith of a son.
Servants have to do things for the master. They are forced.
Sons and daughters don't have to, they want to, they are accepted, free!
Is what we do for Jesus a duty or a joy?
When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us a couple of things happen:
1 He transforms us from within our characters our relationships
a new love for God
a new desire to read the Bible
a new sense of forgiveness
a new concern for others
a new enjoyment of worshipping God
a new desire to meet with other Christians
a new sense of the life of Christ.
2 He brings a deep personal conviction that I am God's child
that I belong, that I am loved by my Father.
Years ago, I was a student in England in 1974
It was a time of economic crisis and there was a sugar shortage.
Then somebody started a rumour that there was a salt shortage
and people panic bought in the shops, so that there was no salt.
It was the autumn, I arrived to start the autumn term and to cater for myself
and I couldn't buy a packet of sugar nor a packet of salt.
As students do, I complained to my parents in a phone call or a letter home.
A couple of days later, two bulky packets arrived:
from my parents, a packet of sugar and a packet of salt, more than I needed.
It probably cost them more to post them than to buy them.
A token of my parents' love and provision, and I was thankful.
But more than that, God spoke to me through that event.
A quiet voice within me said
Your parents love you, but I love you even more than they do.
I believe that to be the work of the Holy Spirit assuring me that I am God's child.
I am not always fully conscious of it, and sometimes my selfishness blocks it out
but I am thankful for a quiet sense of God's light and love shining on my life.
And there have been moments,
dark moments of despair, going beyond no salt and no sugar
when I have heard that quiet voice simply saying 'I love you.'
How do I know that is not just a religious delusion?
Because I can also think of the cross, the great demonstration of God's love
I can meditate on my baptism, and share in the Lord's Supper
as seals of the cross in my life, as I believe
And I can remember God's promises, his declarations to keep me
Sure? Confident? Final Answer?
Yes, you can be sure.
None of us should be living a shadowy Christianity.
We can walk in the light of his love
Heaven above is softer blue / earth around is sweeter green.
Something lives in every hue, Christless eyes have never seem:
birds with gladder songs o'erflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine.
Since I know as now I know, I am his and he is mine.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless before his presence of his glory
with exceeding joy,
to the only wise God our saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever
2 Cor 3.16
Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory,
are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory,
which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
|
