Eternal Security - Genesis Part 28

Now last week we began a four-part miniseries within our study of the book of Genesis entitled, Our Salvation in Jesus Christ. And in part one last week, we talked about how our salvation works.

In other words, how does believing in Jesus Christ as my Savior, how does that make me righteous in God's sight and allow him to let me as a sinner into heaven? And we learned that the answer to that question is imputed righteousness. We saw it in Genesis 15 verse 6. The Bible says Abraham believed God and God credited Abraham's faith. God accounted Abraham's faith. God imputed Abraham's faith to Abraham as righteousness.

And we looked at the Greek word logizomai, which is translated, credited or imputed and said what it really means is to make a deposit in somebody's bank account. And so what the Bible's teaching is that in response to his faith, God deposited righteousness in Abraham's bank account. And we also learned last week that this offer was not just open to Abraham.

It's open to you and me and everybody else. Romans chapter 4 verse 23. These words, that is, it was counted to him as righteousness. Genesis 15 were not written for Abraham only, but also for us.

Watch now. To whom? Us. To whom God will also credit righteousness if we believe in Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. We learned last week that imputed righteousness means that you and I don't really become righteous. We're still sinners through and through, but rather God credits our account with righteousness, not the righteousness that we earn with our own good works or our own human activity, but with the righteousness that Jesus bought for us on the cross and that God credits to our account as a gift. And since our account now reads righteous, since our sins are now paid in full in the sight of God, well, that frees God to reconcile with us, to make us his adopted children, to become our Heavenly Father, to take us to heaven when we die. All kinds of great things happen when our sins are paid in full by imputed righteousness. Now, if you missed last week, then I want you to go out in the lobby and pick up a copy of the CD from last week or to go online and download last week's message or podcast it, because imputed righteousness is one of the most important theological truths in all the Bible. And friends, it's one that is critical that you understand if you're a follower of Jesus Christ.

Now, what we want to do today is move on because all that we said last week raises the question. And the question is, OK, so I've got imputed righteousness. That's great. God deposits it in my account. That's great. But my question is, does God, can God, will God ever on impute righteousness to me?

In other words, will he ever take it back out of my account? Can I lose my eternal life and my salvation? And this is what we want to talk about today. As many of you know, I was led to Christ on the streets of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, by a street preacher named Bob Eckhart. But you may also know, but you may not, that I was prayed into the kingdom of God by a dear African-American woman named Coralee Goodman.

Coralee was our housekeeper, but she began working for my family when I was two months old. And for twenty one years, Coralee Goodman prayed for my salvation. As far as I know, to this day, she's the only person that ever prayed for me to come to Christ that I know of. And I came to Christ.

Well, four years after I did in 1975, Coralee was diagnosed with throat cancer and she was here in a hospital in the Washington area. And I went to visit her. And as we were sitting in the room and I was holding her hand and we were talking together, I said to her, I said, you know, I'm really looking forward to seeing you again in heaven. And she said to me, well, I sure hope so. And I was like, flabbergasted. I was like, you hope so?

I mean, I was shocked. Here was this godly woman, this this woman who who loved the Lord and was the committed follower of Christ and who prayed me into the kingdom of God, lying on her deathbed, still not certain that she was going to heaven and had eternal life. Now, friends, is this what God wants for followers of Christ? Well, the answer is no. No. A thousand times no. As followers of Christ, God wants us to be absolutely, utterly, totally, completely, definitely, unequivocally.

If I could think of more adjectives, I'd put them in there. Sure, that we have eternal life and we're on our way to heaven. And so this is why he said in the Bible, First John 5 13, these things I write to you who believe in Jesus Christ that you may. What's the next word?

No. Look that you have eternal life. Friends, the Bible says that it is perfectly normal for followers of Jesus to know for certain that they're going to heaven. And so I had the wonderful privilege sitting in that hospital room of taking out the Bible and walking Coralee Goodman through and showing her that she could know for sure that the instant she left this earth, she was going to be in heaven in the presence of the risen, living Christ. And if you're here today, then from the word of God, that's exactly what I want to show all of us, that our salvation in Jesus Christ is eternally secure. Can't be lost, can't be forfeited. We can know for certain that we're going to heaven.

So are you ready? OK, here we go. Let's begin by answering the question, what exactly do we mean by eternal security? Well, this phrase, eternal security, that never actually appears in the Bible.

It's a phrase we've come up with to summarize a theological truth that is found all over the Bible. And here's that truth, that once we have genuinely trusted the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross as our one and only payment for sin, God immediately grants us salvation and eternal life. And we can never lose that salvation or that eternal life, regardless what we do or what we don't do from that point forward. And the reason for this is that our salvation is not based on our human performance, which changes day by day and moment by moment. But our salvation is based on what Jesus did for us on the cross, which never changes. Now, let me give you some scripture to back this up.

Here we go. John, Chapter five, verse 24. Jesus said, I tell you the truth. Whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me.

Notice the present tense now coming up. Has eternal life. Folks, eternal life is not something we get when we die and go to heaven. Eternal life is something that every true believer in Jesus has right now here on earth.

Heaven is merely the place where people who already have eternal life here on earth go when they leave this earth. How about some more scripture? John three thirty six. Jesus said, whoever believes in the son that is himself has present tense. Eternal life. John six forty seven. Jesus said, I tell you the truth. The person who believes in me present tense has eternal life.

If you're a follower of Jesus, my friend, you are never going to have more eternal life than you have. Right. This moment sitting in that chair. You say, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right. So say long. That's great.

I got that. But that's not the question. That's not the issue. The issue is not whether God gave me eternal life when I trusted Christ. The issue is, can he ever take it away?

Can I ever lose it? OK, you're right. Let's answer that question. Can a person lose their salvation, their eternal life and their place in heaven? Once again, let's go to the word of God to get the answer. Romans Chapter eight, verse one. Therefore, the Bible says there is now no condemnation, no exposure to God's judgment for our sin, for those who are in Jesus Christ.

You say, no matter what I do, no matter how badly I mess up. Well, what does the Bible say? It says no condemnation. And as I used to tell my children all the time growing up, no means.

No, that's exactly right. And when God says no condemnation, that's exactly what he means. How about John 10, 27? Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Jesus said, hey, once you're one of my sheep, you are unpluckably saved for the rest of time and eternity. Hey, earlier we read John five twenty four.

I tell you the truth. Whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life. But there's more to the verse. It goes on to say and that person that is the one who has eternal life because they believed in me. That person will not be condemned, but rather has crossed over, literally in Greek, has changed their place of residency.

That person has moved from death to eternal life. And the tense of the verb here that Jesus uses has moved, crossed over, has moved is very significant. It's perfect tense in the Greek language, which is a very seldomly used tense in the New Testament. So when somebody uses it, it's significant. Let me tell you what the perfect tense means.

It means that there was a past completed action. I trusted Christ. God gave me eternal life. God saved me and gave me a place in heaven, a completed action. The results of which go on into eternity, infinitely, indefinitely. There's no coming back.

There's no changing. So let me re translate John five twenty four now in light of the perfect tense. What Jesus is really saying here is the person who believes in me has eternal life and will never be condemned because perfect tense.

Here we go. That person has crossed over. That person is presently crossed over.

And that person always will be crossed over from death to eternal life. There's no going backwards. There's no reverse gear. Praise the Lord. How nice is that?

No reverse gear. Now, let me give us another way of looking at this. Hebrews 10 16 says that this is the covenant that I will make with them, says the Lord. Now, the them here is us as followers of Christ. And God says, when we become followers of Christ, he makes a covenant with us, a legal agreement with us, a legal contract with us. And this legal contract has certain terms like any legal contract. Let me give you a few of them that the Bible tells about this.

Not all, but it's a few. Ready? Here we go. Term number one, Hebrews 10 17 says, and this is the covenant I will make with them, says the Lord, their sins and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. That's term number one, term number two. Philippians four three in Revelation 21 27 says that term number two is that God inscribes our name in the Lamb's Book of Life. Term number three, Romans eight one says we already saw it.

There is now no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ. Term number four, Micah, chapter seven, verse 19 says God buries our sins in the depths of the sea. Term number five, First Corinthians six 19 says that we are now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The verse says, For do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?

Just a couple more term number six. Galatians four verse six says that we are now God's adopted Children because God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. Term number seven, Romans eight verse 35 says, Who shall separate us from the love of God for neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor things present or things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing. Pretty well covers it. Yeah, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Two more. Ephesians one verse 13 says, Having believed in Jesus Christ, you were marked with a seal. This word literally means branded. You remember the old westerns where they take that old hot poker and they stick it in the fire and get it red hot, and then they take that poor animal and lay him down and they stick that old hot poker on him. Remember that and burn a mark a seal a brand into that animal that told everybody that ever saw that animal who it belonged to. You remember that?

Yeah. Well, the Bible says God does the same thing to us when we become followers of Christ. Now, thank God it's not a literal seal of physical seal. It's a spiritual seal.

Look what it says. And what is that seal? The promised Holy Spirit that guarantees our inheritance. God puts the Holy Spirit inside of us. So every angel, every demon, every creature in the universe knows we are branded and we belong to God.

And finally, number nine. John 10 verse 28. Jesus said, I give my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish.

Now think for a moment. If there's anything you could do to lose your eternal life, anything that could make God mad enough that he would take your eternal life away, anything the devil of hell or the demons of hell could do to rob you of your eternal life. Jesus can't say never here. He could say almost never or maybe never or 90 percent never, but he can't say never. But what does Jesus say?

He says never. We shall never perish. Meaning there's no way anyone can take our eternal life away. And so let me summarize and say that as followers of Christ, according to the terms of our contract with God, in order for us to lose our salvation, here's what would have to happen. We're going to run these backwards.

Ready? In order to lose our salvation, number one, somebody would have to sneak up into heaven and erase our name out of the Lamb's Book of Life. To lose our salvation, number two, somebody would have to cancel our adoption papers as children of God. Number three, to lose our eternal life, somebody would have to unbrand our hide and cast the Holy Spirit out of us. Number four, to lose our salvation, someone would have to separate us from the love of God in Christ. Number five, to lose our salvation, somebody would have to talk God into remembering our sins and our lawless deeds once again. Number six, in order to lose our salvation, somebody would have to scuba dive down and dredge our sins up from the bottoms of depths of the sea. Number seven, to lose our salvation, somebody would have to turn us from Jesus' sheep into the devil's goats. Number eight, in order to lose our salvation, somebody would have to convince God to rewrite Romans 8, 1 so that it now read there is no condemnation to those who are in Jesus Christ except in the following circumstances.

Friends, God's not rewriting the Bible, trust me. And last of all, number nine, to lose our salvation, somebody would have to make a liar out of Almighty God. Because we have a contract, a legal document from Almighty God in which He promises that He will never do any of these things. Friends, the bottom line is when you and I give our lives to Jesus Christ, we are irreversibly saved, we are irrevocably saved, we are irretrievably saved for all of time and eternity. We're as saved as saved can be. We didn't do anything to get our salvation. We can't do anything to lose our salvation. It is the undeserved grace of God from start to finish. Amen and hallelujah for that. And I got to tell you something, I need a salvation like that.

Speaking personally, if God were to give me some kind of salvation that I could possibly mess up, I would have messed it up already in 40 years that I've walked with the Lord. You say, how do you know that? I know that because self-destruction is one of my spiritual gifts.

I know that. I'm good at self-destructing. I was born. This is a natural thing for me.

And you laugh at me, but let me just say, you're the same way. Don't you believe you're not? Don't you believe that the enemy could, if he could convince Adam to eat that apple, if there was one single thing you and I could do to lose our salvation, believe me, the enemy would go to work on you and go to work on me and every one of us would do it. If I'm going to get to heaven, I need a way to get there that I can't mess up. If you're going to get to heaven, friends, you need a way to get there that you can't mess up. Aren't you glad that the Lord Jesus loves us enough and knows us well enough that he gave us a way to get to heaven that we can't even mess up?

Praise God for that, huh? Now you say, well, that's great, but this still leaves me with a few questions like, well, what about the person who claims to be a follower of Christ, but their Christian life isn't what it ought to be? And are you saying that it really doesn't matter how we live once we come to Christ because we're eternally secure? What if a person once claimed to be a follower of Jesus, but they've walked away now, didn't they lose their salvation?

And what if I wake up one morning and I don't feel saved like this? Oh, those are great questions. And we're going to answer them all. Guess when?

Next week. You're right. You are so smart, you people are so smart. But hey, wait a minute. There is one more question we're going to answer today before we stop, though. There is one.

And you know what this question is, don't you? Uh huh. All right. So you ready? Ready? All right.

All of you loud and in Prince William and Prince William, this is your anniversary. So what? So don't mess this up. All right. At Bethesda, are we ready? In the edge. Here we go.

One, two, three. You say, all right, line, this is great. I understand that God imputes righteousness to me. And I understand that once I really come to Christ, I can never lose my salvation. But in my everyday world, what difference does any of this make? Huh?

Well, I've got two quick suggestions to give you and I'm done. Number one, eternal security, knowing that we are salvation is eternally secure in Jesus Christ. The first difference it makes is that friends, we are not afraid to die.

And you know why? It's because we know some things. We know number one, second Corinthians, five, eight, that to be absent from our body is to be present with the Lord. We're not in purgatory. We're not in soul sleep.

We're not floating around in the stratosphere somewhere. The instant we close our eyes on Earth, we open them on the shores of heaven. That is the promise of God. And we know that we know Romans eight one that when we get there, there is no condemnation, no judgment for sin to those who are in Christ and covered by the blood of Christ.

So why should we fear death? You know, I know you're not supposed to like your mother in law. I understand that, but I like my mother in law. Her name was Beatrice, but we called her Beatzy. And we were great friends. I love Brenda's mom and we got along great. In fact, she was rooting for me to marry Brenda when I don't think I'm not even sure Brenda was rooting for me to marry Brenda.

Anyway, when Brenda's mom got cancer and passed away several years ago, she got so weak that she could hardly even hold her head up off the pillow. And I'll never forget the last time I saw her was up at her house. Brenda and I had gone up to visit and she called every one of her children in, every one of her children's spouses in to have a final conversation with us. It was private one on one.

Nobody else was there. And we talked about a lot of things, but I'll never forget one thing that happened in that room towards the end of our conversation. It's almost like Beatzy was infused with a new rush of energy and she lifted her head gently off the pillow and she looked at me. And the last words she ever said to me were, Lon, I'll see you in heaven.

And she said them with excitement. I'll see you in heaven. You say, ah, well, that was just kind of wishful thinking on her part. No, don't you believe that, my friend?

That was not wishful thinking. That woman was a godly woman. That woman knew the word of God. That woman believed the word of God. That woman took Jesus Christ at his word and she knew that her eternal security was settled forever. And she was going to heaven and that she would see me there.

Man, I've never forgotten those words. And you see, my friends, this is the gift that God gives us as followers of Christ when he gives us eternal security. It's a gift to be able to look death right in the eyeballs and say, I'm not afraid of you.

You know what? I might have a tiny bit of apprehension, but I've dealt with that because I know the promises of God. I know my eternal salvation is secure and there's not a thing in the world that you can do death to take it away from me. That my parents can't take it away from me. My friends can't take it away from me. My enemies can't take it away from me. The demons of hell can't take it away from me. I can't even take it away from me. I'm not afraid of you. Folks, that is a gift to be able to face death like that.

And my mother-in-law did and left an example that I hope I can live up to. But if we know we have eternal security, we can. The other thing that eternal security gives us is, number two, it gives us true hope in life. You know, I was thinking the other day, what does hope come from? Well, I think there's several different answers, but one of the things that hope comes from is the anticipation that no matter how bad things are right now, that in the future they're going to get better.

Right? I mean, let's say you have a child who has a bad infection and the doctor prescribes an antibiotic. Suddenly you feel hopeful because there's the promise they're going to get better. Or let's say you got a really bad boss and they get transferred somewhere and you get a new boss. There's the hope that at least that's going to bring a better working situation. Hopefully. Hopefully.

Right? Hopefully. And every time you're stuck on the beltway and nothing is moving and you look over and you see those two lanes to your left, completely empty, but they're coming. They're coming. I may not live long enough to see them, but they're coming. There's hope. I think that this is going to get better. Hope comes from anticipating that the future is going to be better. Now, all these things I just talked to you about, these are hope so hopes. We don't really know if the boss is going to make it better. We don't really know if the antibiotics are going to work.

We don't really know if those two lanes are going to make any difference at all. Ah, but friends, when you know that you're going to heaven because you're eternally secure in Christ, that is not a hope so hope. That is a no so hope that is powerful and allows us to face anything in life with absolute and utter hope. You know, there was a book that came out just recently by Christopher Hitchens, the famous atheist. And the title of the book is Mortality. The book was actually published after his death. And when he developed cancer, he tells about in the book how so many of the theologians that he had debated in public and how so many people who knew him and were Christians and had been praying for him, how they all started coming to him and trying to convince him to give his life to Christ and trying to tell him about the hope that he could have of heaven. And he says in this book, he says that when Christians talk to him about the hope of heaven, quoting now such talk, he said, quote, should bear its own health warning.

So sugary that you may need an insulin shot to withstand it. End of quote. Well, I got to tell you something.

Our talk about heaven is not sugary. I don't care what Mr. Hitchens thinks. It's powerful. It's powerful because it doesn't matter how dark the day is. It doesn't matter how bleak the night is. It doesn't matter how badly we may have stumbled. It doesn't matter how people are picking on us.

It doesn't matter how we may have failed. It doesn't matter who's for you or who's again you. As the old hymn says, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. I'm on my way to a place called heaven. And you know what? I can put up with all of this because I got to know so hope of where I'm going.

Friends, that's not sugary. That's real. And that's powerful in the circumstances of life.

So let's conclude. Knowing for certain that our eternal life is secure in Jesus Christ means that we don't have to be afraid of death. It means we can have hope in every circumstance of life. And it means that we're not on a performance treadmill with Almighty God.

My friends, get off of that treadmill. You don't have to be good enough to keep your salvation. You don't have to work hard enough to keep your place in heaven. You don't have to do enough religious activity that God won't take your eternal life away. Get off of that crazy treadmill that will ruin your walk with God.

Learn just to walk down the road holding hands with Jesus, knowing that because of what he did for you and the contract he made with you, you are as secure as secure can be in your relationship with him. You don't have to work to get secure. You don't have to perform.

You don't have to do a number of things right. You can't mess it up. Enjoy. He wants us to enjoy. Enjoy the truth of the word of God. That we are secure in Christ.

Do it. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I meet so many Christians who are in bondage to their performance. They're so worried about what they have to do or keep doing or not do in order not to lose their eternal life. And they lose all the liberty and all of the abundance and all of the joy that you want us to have in the Christian experience. Father, I pray that as a result of what we've talked about today, you would liberate every one of us here into the liberty of the sons of God, as the Bible says. The liberty of knowing that our relationship with you is secure. Our place in heaven is secure. So bring hope to our lives today, Father, and encouragement to our hearts. Fortify our souls for the week ahead of living for you because we sat under the teaching of the eternal word of God today. And we pray this in Jesus name. What do God's people say? There you go. You