Disipleship: Be Confident (Romans 8.28-39 and John 10.2-30)

Introduction

The first human to fly in space, Yuri Gagarin, was asked when he returned to earth “did you see God?” They say that he replied, “No, I didn’t see God anywhere,” which was heralded by the Soviet Union as clear evidence for the non-existence of God.

But in fact, there is no record anywhere of Gagarin saying any such thing; the words were put in his mouth by the soviet news agency in their report on his mission.

The first American to fly in space, John Glenn, was apparently asked the same question when he returned to earth. “Did you see God?” And you can read online saying that he replied, “No, I didn’t see God, but I would have done had I stepped out of my space suit!”

But again, it seems that this is completely made up, as there is no trace of this question, or answer, in any interview with John Glenn anywhere in the NASA archives.

It’s like Winston Churchill said, “the problem with quotes on the Internet, is that most of them are made up…”

This culture of fake news and urban legends has two consequences.

Number one, people naively make things worse by sharing and passing on bogus quotes and spurious facts, thus unwittingly making things worse.

If I pass on every silly bit of hearsay or Internet rumour I am just letting everyone know that I’m gullible and easily led; and no one will take my faith seriously.

Number two, people become instinctively sceptical; it’s like when one politician says, “We’ve increased spending on health by 6%” and another one from the opposite party says, “No, actually it’s decreased by 8%.” We just don’t take any of these statistics seriously anymore.

Because we’ve become so used to spam stories, true testimony just washes over us as well. And worst of all, I can even become numb to the truth claims of Jesus on my life.

This is a toxic cocktail for followers of Jesus.

In other words, what I’m saying is this: we are living in an age of truth decay. It has a negative and pernicious impact on the strength of our faith.

In a culture of post truth, how can we keep our faith strong and robust? How can we deal with our doubts?

Assured of So Much

Romans 8 is a purple patch in Scripture about how we can be sure of what God thinks about us.  

Verse 28: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Verse 29: “Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

Verse 33: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Verse 34: “No one will.”

Verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Trouble? Hardship? Persecution? Disaster? Poverty? Danger? Death?

Verse 38: Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

These are not vague fancies and empty platitudes. These are copper-bottomed promises from God himself, paid for in full by the blood of Christ.

The New Testament is intentional in its language. It makes it absolutely plain that says what he means and he means what he says.

As if you need reminding, it was the World Cup final last Sunday. If you could have walked around the stadium in Moscow a few hours before the match you would have seen some Croatian and French fans with tickets, and others empty handed and desperate to buy one by whatever means.

The people with tickets would be drinking in bars before the game, reading the official programme and enjoying a bit of banter. Those without tickets would be holding up placards, pacing up and down, and smoking nervously.

Fifteen minutes before kick-off, the supporters with tickets would be really excited and those without would be frantic and stressed.

If you knew that in fifteen minutes you would have to stand before the holy God, who is described in the Bible as a consuming fire, to learn your eternal fate, how would you look and feel?

An angel opens a door, walks over to you and says, “Welcome to the theatre of judgement. Relax…” A big screen descends and the projector starts a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

This is the film of all your private thoughts from the last week. Everybody you know is in the audience as a special invited guest. It’s This Is Your Real Life. Question; would it be suitable for family viewing? Confession; mine would not be.

After the show, (in my case an X-rated horror film, after which no one would speak to me again), would you sweat anxiously and pace up and down whilst you waited for the verdict?

Would you say to yourself, “I don't know what God's going to say - will it be “Welcome home,” or will it be “I never knew you?” Or would you be calm, and assured of what the outcome will be?

If I could hold up in front of you a special mirror, in which everyone sees themselves inside and out as God sees you, what would you see?

If you are a Christian believer here this morning, because of Jesus, no matter what the film of your inner life contained, you would see the image of someone for whom there is an indelible ‘not guilty’ verdict for the sins of your past. No condemnation.

You would see somebody completely set free from the reign of sin and spiritual death.

You would see someone able to be led by the Holy Spirit.

You would see someone loved from all eternity, a child of God, adopted to be an heir of all the riches of heaven.

Looking closer, you would see that God has given you all you need to be sure that you belong to him. Your eternal security is anchored in him, stretching back into eternity past, before time began - and before you existed.

So you would see someone foreknown by God, predestined by God and chosen by God from before the creation of the world to be like Jesus.

You would see that God himself is on your side and that, therefore, nothing can bring you down.

You would see the image of someone whom God has declared to be inseparable from his love and more than an overcomer.

The Bible says all that about you. This is a true portrait of who you are in Christ - and all of that is from this magnificent chapter of the Bible we call Romans 8.

God has chosen to put all this down in writing because he wants us, he wants you, to be confident about who you are and where you’re going.

How Salvation Works

I know how important this is, because I have spent time with many who struggle with a lack of assurance about the status of their relationship with God. Some have recurring and intense doubts about whether God really loves them.

There may be habitual sin that just seems to have a grip on you that robs you of your joy and peace with God. You may have a paralysing fear as to whether you are a genuine believer at all.

This kind of doubt, questioning your own faith, is a common experience for Christians. It’s not just you. It is the same for all of us.

The reality is that we live in an unseen and ferocious spiritual battle. There is an enemy to contend with and Brian/Erin will be saying more about spiritual warfare next Sunday.

But the Bible says that Jesus “is able to save completely [not partially, not slightly, not to a certain extent; he is able to save completely] those who come to God through him.”

So you don’t have to worry about not being good enough. All that matters is that Jesus is - and always will be - good enough to secure your eternal destiny.

But the starting point is that you and I have to face and accept a hard and humbling fact; the truth is that we are hopelessly and eternally separated from God by our sin and we absolutely deserve to be.

Nobody likes to hear that. It’s hard to find any nice way to say it. But the Bible presents ‘being hopelessly lost in sins’ as the default position of every human being who has ever lived.

But Jesus has made a way. He has done it! God’s word says that it is possible to be born again to a completely new life.

It says, if we turn to Jesus in faith, God speaks an irreversible verdict over our lives as “not guilty.” And in addition to that, he bestows on us the perfect righteousness of Christ.

That means when he looks at you, it’s just like when he looks on his beloved Son with whom he is well pleased.

It says we are reconciled to the God from whom we were estranged because of unbelief and our rebellion against his ways.

It says we are accepted, that God lavishes his love over us, that we are chosen and adopted into God’s family as his children and that we are made heirs forever of every divine promise.

All that is a gift. And it is completely free.

What do you bring to the table? The three z’s. Zero. Zilch. Zip. What part do you have in your salvation from hell and death? None at all.

Some people say, “Yeah, but don’t I need faith to get right with God?” Absolutely!

“So doesn’t my faith, in some small way, achieve my salvation?” Not at all. Let me try and explain.

I am sure you’ve been following the story of the 12 boys and their coach in northern Thailand who got trapped deep in a cave and were dramatically rescued. Wasn’t that a great news story?

I think it’s a perfect picture of what happens when God saves us. 

• They got lost through their own fault. 
• I cannot blame anyone else for my spiritual lostness.
• They were in total darkness. 
• I was in complete spiritual darkness. 
• Someone gave their life in the operation to get them out. 
• Jesus gave his life in God’s plan to save me.
• There was only one way out. 
• There is only one way to spiritual salvation; Jesus.
• Without the divers’ oxygen tanks and torches each of the thirteen would have no chance. 
• Without the breath of the Holy Spirit and his illumination I was spiritually dead.
• The boys entrusted their lives to the divers to deliver them to safety. 
• I entrusted my life to Christ in faith – in whom is life in all its fullness.

The boys all cooperated with the rescue plan. But did any of them in any sense at all “save themselves”? Absolutely not.

John McLeod Campbell was a Scottish preacher and a brilliant theologian. One day, a friend came to him really troubled and weighed down. God felt distant and remote. He couldn’t feel God’s presence anymore or hear the voice that once seemed so clear. Reading the Bible felt sterile and boring. “Tell me,” he said, “how do you know that you have got hold of God?"

“How do I know that I have got hold of God? I don't always know; but I do know that he always has hold of me!”

Listen to Jesus in our second reading: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

And Yet...

And yet one of the most frequently asked questions for a church leader is, “If I am a Christian, can I lose my salvation?” What if I love the Lord but have a moment of madness or drift off into a whole season of rebellion and foolishness? Can I forfeit eternal life and burn my bridges?

Personally, I don’t think it’s quite the right question. Because salvation is not something we own. Revelation 7.10 says, “Salvation belongs to our God.” It’s a gift that he gives to sinners who don’t deserve it. So if we couldn’t do anything to get it, we cannot do anything to lose it. It’s a treasure that is kept in God, not in us.

Jesus says in John 6.39-40, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose (how many?) none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

So “can I lose my salvation?” is not the right question to ask. Perhaps a better question to ask is, “Will God lose one of his children?” And the answer to that is, “emphatically no.”

Well, what about Judas who was one of Jesus’ disciples? Well, yes, you and I can wilfully wander off and end up rejecting Christ altogether. But no one can snatch us out of his hand if we want to stay there.

We can convert to a false religion and throw his gift of life in all its fullness right back in his face. But no one can snatch us out of his hand if we want to stay there.

We can shipwreck our faith and spiral down into apostasy. But no one can snatch us out of his hand if we want to stay there.

Thomas doubted Christ, Peter denied Christ and John Mark abandoned the work of Christ, but Jesus sought them out and brought them back and restored them - and he is faithful to do the same for us.

But there is no sin so grievous, no crime so heinous, no fate so dreadful, no persecution so fierce that it pulls us away from Christ and his great salvation.

“My Father,” says Jesus, “is greater than all; no one can snatch you out of his hand.”

I’ve laboured this a bit today because we’re looking at what a disciple is over this summer and the life of a disciple is a right old battle. It’s carnage at times. As we’ll see next week, the devil fights back and he doesn’t fight fair. And in all those ups and downs it’s important to know we can be confident; not in ourselves and our own righteousness, but in Christ and his.

Ending: Your Portrait in Christ

Some years ago, I broke my glasses. For about a week, while my new glasses were being made, I had to use a scratched, old-fashioned pair I used to wear in the 1990’s and left lying in a drawer. My eyesight had deteriorated a bit since when I used to wear them so when I finally got my new glasses everything looked crisp, sharp and focused, like seeing a beautiful world for the first time.

When we talk about salvation, we need new lenses, because we’ve heard it all before and it’s kind of gone blurred over time. We’ve got to see it from God’s perspective.

Let me finish by telling you what God sees when he looks at you:

Your story with God goes right back… not just to when you were born, but actually to before you were conceived, before time even began, before the universe, before creation, to a point when only God was.

It was then that God delighted in you and chose you. He had it in his mind even then, because he loved you, that he would be pleased to adopt you into his family, knowing you would have good days and bad days, knowing - like everyone else - that you would turn out a sinner, knowing you would never really deserve it. All this was in his plan from the start.

And he wants you to enjoy these truths as a confident and loved child, fully persuaded that he will deliver on his promises to you.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 22 July 2018