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This page was last modified on July 12, 2010
Week Of: May 2, 2010 Title: Security of the Believer Series: Systematic Theology - Part 26 Scripture: Romans 8:28-39
May 2, 2010 Study Sheet—“Salvation and the Security of Believer” (downloadable/printable study sheet) - Most religious faiths and denominations would say that being right with God (or experiencing salvation) is a matter of faith.
- Even those in the Jewish tradition believe that it takes faith to obey God’s commandments.
- In the Christian tradition, Roman Catholics also believe that they are made right with God by faith as well. Except they will say: grace + faith + works of love = Salvation. Works of love are necessary for salvation to be complete.
- Lutherans and Protestants will say works of love are not necessary for salvation: It is grace and faith alone that yields salvation. Works of love are important just not for salvation.
- Yet each group of believers has their own anxiety over whether or not they meet the criteria for salvation in their own group. Anxiety and worry are problems for most people in religious beliefs so don’t despair, by the grace of God and the practicing of what faith you have, the anxiety will pass.
- Each denomination also has its own understanding of believer security as well. Roman Catholics believe their security rests within the church itself, with confession of sins, and with good works. However, salvation can be lost. Christians can go to hell.
- Lutherans believe their security rests in confession of faith in Jesus Christ alone, but one must be confessed up at the time of death. If I am correct, they believe that salvation is won in faith in Jesus Christ and lost in not having faith in Him. Really, the only difference in Roman Catholics and Lutherans is the faith alone part. Both believe that salvation can be lost.
- Calvinists believes that true faith cannot be lost. For once you find out you are one of God’s elect or “chosen,” you cannot be un-chosen. However, the anxiety rests in really knowing that you are one of the elect. You could have false faith instead of true faith. (Come Sunday night and I will explain that to you)
- What then is our security of the believer? (Be sure to stay for this morning’s preaching.)
1. How much do you worry? I’ve come to believe that everyone worries. Would anyone here care to say they don’t worry? If you don’t, I am envious of you because it is my belief that most everyone is anxious and worries about something or someone to one degree or the other in their lives at one time or the other.
2. Has there been a time in which you’ve found yourself worrying about your salvation? I’ve studied about salvation and the topic of security of the believer and I can tell you that it is normal to have some anxiety about salvation.
3. Even though most Christians would say that it is easy to be saved, most Christians would also say that the way some Christians act throws a lot of doubt whether all Christians are saved or not.
4. So if some Christian’s behavior and attitudes seem less than Christian, what about mine or yours? Another thing is, I don’t always feel like I am saved. Do you? Could it be that we might be fooling ourselves to believe that we are right with God?
5. It could be—but I think it is just the nature of salvation. After all, salvation is about faith. Most Christian groups believe that salvation is a matter of faith and anytime faith is involved in anything there is always room for doubt.
6. Look at your study sheet at what I’ve got down for salvation in the Roman Catholic tradition. Salvation is by grace, plus, faith, plus works of love. Security of the believer is a matter of keeping in a right relationship with the church, confessing one’s sins, and doing works of love. You might know someone who is a very devoted Roman Catholic and if they do something they think is seriously wrong they’ll go to mass that very day and confess their sins. I am assuming that they do so because if they should die with a mortal sin on their conscience they might go to hell. Roman Catholic’s believe that there are Christians in hell. If I understand this correctly, the security of the believer means remaining in good standing with the church and remaining confessed up.
7. Yet according to Martin Luther in 16th century, confession and being in a right relationship to the church wasn’t enough. Luther was a devout Augustine monk who wanted to be very pleasing to God and worried that he didn’t love God enough. After all if your salvation was based in part on loving God, how would you know if you loved Him enough?
8. How many of you worry that you don’t do enough for God? If your salvation was based on that in part, wouldn’t you be anxious about it as well?
9. Well, Luther and the rest of the reformers finally figured out what we take for granted today, salvation is a matter of grace plus faith alone. Works of love are still very important but not necessary for salvation. But they come after we are saved.
10. So what was Luther’s security of the believer? It was confessing your sin and professing your faith in Christ. In other words, your salvation today is based on professing your faith in Christ today, but unless you profess it tomorrow you aren’t saved. You could be saved today and lost tomorrow based on what kind of spiritual day you’re going to have tomorrow or the next day. We have a lot of folks in area that are not Lutheran, but they believe you can be saved today, lost tomorrow, and so on and so forth. If this was my understanding of the security of a believer, it would make me a nervous wreck.
11. In the 16th century, there came another theologian by the name of John Calvin. He noticed that Lutherans had just as much anxiety as Roman Catholics about their salvation. Their worries were different than Catholics but just the same, they were worried about their salvation. Have you ever noticed that for the people who worry a lot, worrying just seems to change objects? They worry about one thing one moment and then another thing the next moment.
12. Well, what is worry anyway? It is over concerning yourself about things that you cannot control. Worry is always a control issue. People who need and demand control usually are people who worry a lot.
13. Anyway—I am assuming that Calvin noticed that people were really concerned and worried about the security of their salvation and their place in Christendom so he began teaching and preaching Romans 8, especially where Paul says: “Who will bring any charge against whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who (then) shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Verse 38 reads, “For I am convinced that 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.”
14. In my way of looking at this scripture, Paul is trying to comfort the people at Rome by saying: “You are God’s people. You are God’s elect. He called you out of the world to be His people; he will protect you. Don’t be afraid not even death or the devil himself can separate you from the love of God.” Really, the security of the believer rests with God, the only question is how much rests with God and how much is our freedom of choice?
15. John Calvin takes this simple message of comfort that Paul was giving the church at Rome and turns it into a full blown theory about how from before the beginning of time God pre-determined (or predestined) you to be a Christian and pre-determined others go to hell. No one has a choice (we think we do, but we don’t) everyone is just following the script that God has set in motion before time began.
16. This is how Calvin solves the problem of the security of the believer—he takes away human freedom and says “God chose you before the very beginning of time and so if you’re chosen by God then He won’t “unchoose” you.
17. But even a Calvinist has their worries. What do you think they worry about? Well, how do I know that I am one of the elect?
18. How do you know that you are a Christian? Have you ever professed Jesus as you Savior and Lord? Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” In other words, if you’ve confessed with your month and, most importantly, that Jesus is your God and Lord – if you believe that Jesus is who and what the Bible says He is, you shall be saved.
19. Salvation is about having faith in Jesus and really in God’s word. There is an old statement I can remember quoted a lot by preachers when I was young. “God’s Word said it, and I believe it.” Bottom line is that no matter understanding salvation you got if you’re a Christian you going to have faith. And faith will always have some uncertainty in it.
20. But even faith needs witnesses to it? I need an internal and an external witness to the fact that God has saved me. 1 John 5:9 says, “We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which He has given about His son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart.” The external witness comes from without. It can be as simple as someone saying you’ve really changed. You’re different, what has made a difference in you? The internal witness is the witness that we get from the Holy Spirit that we are changing—that we are different. It is the Holy Spirit giving us a transfusion of love and compassion.
Week Of: May 9, 2010 - No sermon / Children's Choir Presentation for Mother's Day
Week Of: May 16, 2010 Title: Ekklesia – The People of God Series: Doctrine of the Church – Part 1 Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:16; Matthew 16:18 1. Today I would like to begin a new series of teachings on the church. In fact, the series is titled “What does the church look like?” The New Testament refers to the church in a number of ways—one as the “Bride of Christ.”
2. On her best day—the day of her wedding, the bride is the center of attention and by far the most beautiful woman in the church. Imagine if you will your daughter, granddaughter, or your wife to be walking down the aisle adorned for the bridegroom in all her glory and beauty. In her radiant white flowing dress, escorted by her father, everyone standing—the organist playing “Here Comes the Bride” and no one can take their eyes off the beautiful bride.
3. On her best day, the church is supposed to look like that, but we also know that’s not always what the church looks like.
4. So I would like to challenge you to visualize and conceptualize what the church (the bride of Christ) is supposed to look like.
5. First off, you know that the church is not a building. God forbid someone could burn this church down to the ground, but they wouldn’t be destroying this church. The church is not…this structure. It is not these four walls and the roof over our heads.
6. The earliest church didn’t have a building to meet in—they were small house churches. It wasn’t until the 4th century that Christians had free standing and independent buildings of worship that they called churches.
7. So while we call this building the house of God (and respect it as such), we should never get overly attached to it, because the real church is the people that gather here. You are the church of God and where ever you are there will be God also. (Amen)
8. The church is always the people. We are the body of Christ that comes together under the Holy Spirit and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We are the people of God, called out by God, and led by the Spirit of God.
9. In fact, the word for church in the New Testament is the Greek word “ekklesia” which means “gathered out of” or “assembled together from.” We are gathered from the world to be the children of God.
10. Have you ever heard the statement that faith is a step into the unknown or into darkness—inferring that faith is blind faith? I believe that is a poor analogy. Faith is taking a step from darkness into light. In fact, you might say that by the grace of God we have been called from darkness into the light of God. Imagine that you are in a dark, pitch black cave or coal mine. It is so dark that outside light cannot penetrate. But you see a small light in front of you glowing faintly at first, but calling you to come toward it. The light grows brighter as you get closer to it, until you are out of the darkness into the light.
11. This calling out of darkness has expressed itself in two ways: one, our spiritual body of Christ and two, the physical body of Christ. The spiritual body or some people call it the invisible body of Christ is universal. It is a strong kinship that is built on our faith in Jesus Christ. It transcends nations, boundaries, ethnic groups, races, gender, economic, and social standings. It is the very thing that gives us brothers and sisters that we’ve never seen that are located all across our world. Even brothers and sisters that lived and died a long time ago. And even brothers and sisters that have yet to be born or born again. You and I have more family than we can begin to imagine—people who have professed and who will profess the name of Christ as their Savior and Lord.
12. But then we are a part of a physical body of Christ. We call it the visible or local body of believers. This is the people who give flesh and blood to the love of Jesus—to the invisible body of Christ. You my brothers and sisters are ones who give hands and feet to the love of Christ. You are the ones that speak the love of Christ to one another and to the world that is around us. You are the local body of Christ that exists in the First Baptist church of St. Paul building on 4th and Wise.
13. Let me give you a church history lesson. There always have been people who believed that their church was the one and only true church. Roman Catholics, Ana-baptists, and even Southern Baptists have had their share of believers who believe they are the only ones going to heaven. I personally believe that we may be surprised one day who is in heaven and who is not in heaven.
14. In 1851, there was a group of Southern Baptists led by a man named J. R. Graves. They believed that Baptists had the only true churches and thus there was only one true baptism and one true Lord’s Supper.
15. These people were called Landmarkers. The name comes from the KJV translation of Proverbs 22:28 “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” The landmark was the local Baptist church. No one was going to heaven except Baptists and no church but the local church was recognized but the local church. They didn’t believe in the spiritual, invisible, and universal church. So they didn’t recognize anyone else’s membership, Lord’s Supper or Baptists.
16. I am proud to say that we are not Landmarkers. I am an only child. My mother and father did not seek my counsel or my option on whether or not they wanted more children or not. You, I am assuming, didn’t have any say so in whether you had brothers or sisters or not. We were not asked.
17. The same way our spiritual father gives birth to whom He pleases. He only asked the person who is under the conviction of the Holy Spirit if they want to be one of His children. I am not, and you are not consulted. My job is to love and accept those who are Christians and who are trying to love and follow Christ no matter what church they belong to.
18. Why? Because we are a part of the people of God who have been called out of darkness.
Week Of: May 23, 2010 Title: The Body of Christ Series: The Doctrine of the Church Scripture: Ephesians 1:22-23; 4:15-16 1. We are the children of God called out of darkness to be the people of God. One of the ways the Bible uses in talking about God’s people is the image of the body of Christ. Ephesians 1:22 says: “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything to the church, which is his body…the fullness of Him who is filling the universe in all its parts.”
2. Now obviously, we don’t know what Jesus looked like because there were no drawings made of Him, nor was there a sculpture or statue made in His honor until many centuries after His death. I have a book here that has paintings of what artists have envisioned Christ to look like, but really the pictures say more about us than they do of Christ.
3. What is interesting about this subject is that, while the Bible says we are the body of Christ, we are by implication the reflection of who Christ is. Meaning that, as people look at the church in general and Christians in particular, we are the only images of Christ that lost people will see.
4. What if a visitor from another planet visited in our community and was interested in understanding our religious beliefs, what we worshiped, and why we believed what we do, what would that being think about Jesus? What kind of picture would they get of Christ?
5. Really, the greatest stumbling block for a lost person in our present day culture is not learning what the real Jesus is like, and believing in that. But the greatest stumbling block is unlearning what they think that Jesus or God is like so that they can believe the right thing. Because people have so many misconceptions about Jesus that they need to unlearn before they can believe in what the New Testament teaches about Jesus. And where do they get the vast majority of those misconceptions? By looking at unhealthy and unbiblical representations of the body of Christ—the present day church.
6. And you know as well as I do how hard it is to get someone to change their minds about something that they made their minds up about. The Holy Spirit truly has His work cut out for Him, because there are so many bad representations of the body of Christ walking around claiming to be Christian.
7. But what do you think the body of Christ should look like? What should we look like? You tell me! Like Christ… I know, but how would the real Christ look like in culture? Give me some concrete examples! Love? Passion for the lost? Crusader against sin?
8. Let’s look at least in part what Paul thinks the church should look like. Turn to Ephesians 4:2 “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
9. According to Paul, unity is a very important aspect of the body of Christ… Ephesians 4:3 says “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
10. Jesus himself said that “any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.” (Luke 11: 17) So it is with the body of Christ, a divided and fractured body of Christ cannot function as it should. No organization, nation, kingdom, or just a group of human beings in any capacity can exist very long divided and going at one another’s throats. So we must always have unity in the midst of diversity. Diversity we can always count on, but unity is something that we must always work on.
11. With unity, peace, and love there comes something else that we must do or else we will perish—it is called service. So once you are unified, you are not at one another’s throats, but that will not last long without a purpose.
12. Service to God and glorification of God is the natural purpose of the body of Christ. Look at Ephesians 4:12-13 “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ might be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
13. Becoming “mature”, according to Paul, is “attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” The body of Christ needs to “attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” It needs to grow up so that it can be a fully functioning body of Christ.
14. How do we know if/that we have begun to reach our maturity as a body of Christ—when we get gray headed and old? True maturity in the body of Christ is service to God. When the body of Christ becomes a fully functioning group of believers, it becomes mature—it is grown up.
15. Until then we are immature no matter how old we might be….
Week Of: May 30, 2010 - No notes
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