How Can I Be Sure?

John 10:27-28

INTRODUCTON

Several years ago when I was volunteering at a nursing home, I was talking to a friend who was close to death. She was troubled. Trying to be helpful, I said something about our assurance of eternal life with Christ.

She said, sadly, “I just don’t know. I just don’t know.”

I think this is a problem with many who really love Jesus.

They know the facts. They believe in Christ. They’ve tried to live for him. But they aren’t sure that they have the kind of faith that saves.

Some people have wonderful stories of how they came to faith.

For others, faith seemed to come gradually—or, at least, their understanding came by stages.

They may not have realized that point in their life when they actually passed, as Jesus said, “from death to life.”

But genuine assurance doesn’t come from clinging to the memory of some experience.

Genuine assurance comes from experiencing God in my life day after day.

Genuine assurance comes from seeing the changes God is making in my life.

I was raised in a God-fearing family. We went to Church three times a week—Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday night

I believed everything I was told about Jesus, God, the Bible, heaven, and hell.

I knew the verses.

But I wasn’t sure that if I died I’d be in heaven.

This lack of assurance is common.

I remember several years ago having a discussion with another Christian in the narthex of the church. I had said that we should be sure of salvation. My friend said that that was presumptuous.

His idea was that if a person was “sure” of salvation, he would become careless about God.

I said, “No, God wants us to be sure.” I quoted the verse in 1 John (5:13): “I write this to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”

I didn’t convince him and he didn’t convince me, and we let the matter drop.

There is some truth in his idea that we shouldn’t casually assume that all is well because we believe all the right things.

But I still am convinced that the Bible teaches that we can be confident about our salvation.

I. Let me first talk about doubts—because most people, at one time or another, have doubts.

A. First of all, doubt is not the same as unbelief. When a person doubts, he wants to believe, but he is struggling with his faith.

You know about “doubting Thomas.” When his friends told him that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they had seen him, he couldn’t believe the good news. He wanted to believe, but it was just too impossible. So Jesus graciously came to him and assured him. He invited Thomas to put his finger into the holes in his hands and the wound in his side.

Doubt is the twin brother of faith. If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for faith.

I don’t need faith to know that you are sitting right in front of me; I can see you with my eyes.

But I need faith to believe that Jesus is here in the midst of us.

I have his promise, but I can’t see him.

The Bible says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

If there were no room for doubt, we’d be walking by sight.

It isn’t the strength of our faith that saves us; it is the strength of our God. Suppose you are falling off a cliff and the only thing that can save you is a branch sticking out of the side of the cliff. You doubt that it is strong enough to save you, but it is the only hope you have, so you grab it. It holds, and you don’t fall, not because of the strength of your faith, but because of the strength of the branch you are holding onto.

Someone told a woman that they admired her strong faith. “No,” she said, “I have weak faith—in a strong God.”

B. Some people seem to have no doubts, ever. I had a brother-in-law, Russ, who I think never had a doubt. He was always totally confident, even though he had some serious troubles in his life—he had a severely handicapped daughter who died young, and his first wife had a long debilitating illness and lingered for years in a nursing home before she died. But Russ took it all in stride. Later, his doctor told him he had the beginnings of prostate cancer and offered him treatment. He said, “No, I don’t know how God will take me, I don’t want treatment.” He died at 91 of something else. Russ had strong faith.

Others—who love God just as much—have doubts and fears. But they cling to God. They keep living for God, whatever their feelings tell them.

Sometimes these people are especially useful to others because they know the problems of fearful people and are able to understand and encourage.

C. Some people doubt their salvation because they are especially sensitive to sin in their lives and they wonder whether they are good enough for God.

They brood on such Bible verses as Hebrews 12:14: “Without holiness no one will see the Lord.”

They may think they aren’t good enough to deserve salvation.

We need to remind ourselves that salvation is a gift—a gift we can never earn or deserve. A Bible verse many of us memorized in Sunday school is this: “By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

II. Finally, I come to my scripture text for today.

In John 10:27-28, we read where Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

A. This comes after a discourse in which Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd.

Jesus has compared himself to a Shepherd and his followers to his sheep. His sheep know his voice and they come when he calls. He leads them and they follow him.

I have read travelers’ accounts of how in the Holy Land the shepherds will bring their sheep to a place of safety for the night, letting the flocks mingle in the enclosure. Then when morning comes, each shepherd will go to a place by himself and call his sheep. The sheep know their shepherd’s voice, and will unerringly run to him. Then each flock will follow its shepherd to the grazing ground he had chosen for the day.

This would have been a vivid metaphor for those who lived in that day in Palestine. They would have seen the shepherds leading their flocks and calling to them.

Jesus told his listeners that, like a shepherd protecting his sheep from wolves, he would protect his followers from dangers.

Then Jesus went on to tell his listeners that, as a shepherd loves his sheep, he loves his followers—and will lay down his life for them.

Whether any actual shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep, I don’t know, but that’s what Jesus said he would do for his sheep.

Jesus says (vv14-15), I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

If we fear that we can never measure up to God’s requirements, we can take heart from the knowledge that Jesus died for our sins.

Do you believe that?

B. Now let’s look again at verse 27: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…”

Jesus is telling us that those who belong to him, listen to him and follow him.

Following Jesus means trusting him and obeying—just as sheep trust their shepherd and follow where he leads.

Faith and obedience are so closely related that sometimes in the Bible the words are interchanged. If we believe in Christ, we depend on him. If we depend on him, we obey him.

C. “…I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish…”

Now Jesus is no longer talking about sheep and a shepherd. He is telling us that as we follow him in faith and obedience, he gives us life everlasting—a more glorious life beyond this one that will last forever.

D. Then Jesus caps it off with this promise: “…and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

Jesus is telling us that we can be sure of salvation. We can feel secure. We can be confident.

Jesus’s hands are strong. He will not let us go. Doubts and fears may shake us—but he will never let us go.

We may experience great pain and anxiety—but he will never let us go.

We may feel like we could never be good enough to deserve salvation—but he will never let us go.

III. Here are some ideas that may help you to be confident of your salvation.

A. I told you about my lack of assurance as a young person, about whether I was really “saved” and on my way to heaven.

What helped me was when I realized that another word for faith is “commitment.”

I had been worried about whether I believed in the right way.

When I realized that faith meant simply giving myself to God, taking him as my Lord, and living for him, my way became clear.

The Bible became an exciting book. I found God in the Bible—and direction for my life.

Gratitude and love for God changed my behavior. I made it my aim to please my Lord who died for me and rose again. I began pray that God would direct my life.

Another kind of doubt is the doubt that there really is a God. I have also doubted God’s existence—in a time when things were going badly for our family.

But whether our doubt is the doubt of my salvation or the doubt about whether there really is a God who loves us—the solution is the same.

B. What we want is for God to be real in our lives. We can’t see God or hear his voice, but we can feel him to be in our life.

Some people say that we shouldn’t think about our feelings. But feelings are important because feelings motivate behavior.

We love and serve others because we want to, not because of some rule or another.

Here are some ways that I have found to make God more real in my life.

1. Act on the faith you have. If you’re not sure, go ahead and obey God. If you make it your aim to please God, confidence will come.

I told you once of a time when I was almost overcome by doubts about the reality of God. But I kept going to church, teaching my Sunday school class, and putting money into the offering—and my faith became stronger.

If doubts assail you, continue to pray every day. Read your Bible. Read Christian books. Go to church. Connect with Christians. Talk about spiritual things; don’t keep your spiritual life to yourself.

Ask God to strengthen your faith.

2. Leave your Bible in plain sight, where it will remind you of God, and where you can pick it up and read it. If you haven’t been in the habit of reading the Bible, start with the New Testament, the gospels. Read the stories about Jesus and the first Christians. Read the letters of Paul and the others. Underline good verses so that you can find them easily.

I find memorizing scripture a big help. I know that when we get old, memorizing is harder, but it is worth it. Start with little bits and repeat them often to yourself.

3. Invest money in God’s work. Our security is in God, not in our bank account. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The more you have invested with God, the more real God and heaven will be to you.

4. Last of all: remind yourself, in what ways you can, that God is close to you.

When I was looking for a place to live last summer before I came here, I was taken to an apartment in another facility to look it over. On the wall were beautiful pictures of Jesus. I said to the person who was showing me the apartment: “This woman is a woman of faith.”

Some people use crosses or Bible verses or Christian symbols on their walls to remind them of their faith.

CONCLUSION

Let me leave you with these words from Romans 8. St. Paul writes at the end of that great chapter:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,

nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.