Ephesians 6:17a, Beloved We are at War, (Part 6)

Ephesians 6:17a
Assurance of Salvation

 

The fifth thing you need to win in Spiritual Warfare is the assurance of your salvation.  Notice verse 17 says, “Take the helmet of salvation”.

 

Why do you need a helmet?  To protect your head from attacks by your enemy.  Why do you need a helmet of salvation?  Because when it comes to your salvation Satan is going to attack your head.  To use a phrase from our day, Satan is going to “mess with your head”.  He wants you to be confused in your head about your salvation in Christ.

 

So, in studying this I believe Paul is saying to us this important point:  Christians, know you are saved.  In other words, learn to have the confidence God affords to Christians that they are saved and going to heaven.  John the Apostle in his later years pastored in Ephesus.  And in his later years he wrote the letter we know as 1 John.  And he wrote, probably from Ephesus, to help believers be sure of their salvation.  He said in 1 John 5:12 “I write these things to you who BELIEVE in the name of God’s Son so that you may KNOW that you HAVE eternal life.” 

 

John seems to be talking to people who on some level have asked the question:  “Am I really saved?”  John wants people to have assurance of their salvation.  He wants them to know the basis of that assurance is their belief in the Son of God.  Notice he doesn’t instruct them to get more religious or to serve more.  He points them to Christ.  He says, “Look, you believe in God’s Son and on that basis you are saved.”  To put on the helmet of salvation is to be assured of your salvation and not let any head game from the enemy make you think otherwise.

 

So if we are going to stand firm in our battle we need to stand firm in the assurance of our salvation.

 

It is normal in the Christian battle that we will on occasion have feelings of doubt.  But how do we respond on those occasions?  When Satan attacks our heads and tries to cause us to doubt our salvation there are 2 things we must NOT do.  Then we will look at what we should do.  First, let us look at 2 things we should not do when our heads are attacked regarding salvation. 

 

First we must not drown in doubt.  We must not go off into some corner and fret and worry and shake our head from side to side and say “I just don’t know.”  Satan wants us to doubt our salvation and to drown in that doubt.  He want us to vacillate, to waffle, to be blown around like a leaf in the wind as we agonize in uncertainty.  Am I saved or not?  I just don’t know.  Satan also wants us to live in fear that we may lose our salvation at any moment if we cross God.  That kind of confusion and uncertainty can paralyze a Christian.  That doubt is debilitating and can keep a Christian from pure devotion and service to Christ.

 

Now, that doesn’t mean that there will never be times in your Christian life when you ask yourself, “Am I really saved?  Is this really true?”  Again, this is a war we are in, and, it is spiritual in nature, and, one of the tactics of the enemy is to weaken our faith and strengthen our doubt.  Doubting more and trusting less, that’s the enemy’s goal.  But, sometimes these questions are asked when we are weak.  If we drown in doubt we might be tempted so say “I’m such a sinner I don’t know how You could really love me God!”  As if somehow God is only just finding out how bad we are at the same time we are.  As if God is somehow saying, “Man, if I knew this about you I wouldn’t have gotten involved with you in the first place.” 

 

But our God is the God of grace, and He is gracious.  This means that at some point He is going to help us to learn more and more about how deep our sin runs inside us.  This is where theology helps.  We need to realize that God is omniscient.  He knows everything there is to be known and He has always known it.  So while you are just learning about how deep your sin runs, God always knew it.  And by His grace He is showing you what He has always known - how sinful you really are. 

 

Why is He doing that?  Because He is gracious towards us.  How is that gracious?  So that you can see that while He has always known how sinful you really are, He has also always loved you.  “God you’ve always known this about me, and yet You love me?  How amazing your love is!” 

It’s realizing this kind of love that God has that inspires lines like this from John Newton “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!”  Or Stuart Townend who wrote:  “How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure”.  “Amazing Love How Can it Be, that you my king should die for me?  It’s what the Psalmist was talking about in Psalm 63:3 when he says, “Because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you.”  Or Psalm 89:1-2 when it says, “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness known through all generations.  I will declare that your love stands firm forever…”  And it is Paul who was inspired by God’s love, but also by the Holy Spirit to write in Ehpesians 3:18, “I pray thjat you may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…”  Paul prayed for them that they would learn how high, wide, deep and long is the love of Christ.  Sometimes it means learning first how high, wide, deep and long is our sin.  So when we are attacked by the enemy and we doubt our salvation first of all we must not drown in doubt.

 

Second we must not try to become over religious.  Sometimes people get real energetic to serve and do all sorts of good things in and out of the church.  But the reason they’re doing it is because they’re still trying to perform.  They’re still trying to convince themselves that if they do enough Christian works and decorate their life with enough Christian activities then they will feel like they really are a Christian.  The problem with this is that a person is looking to their own religious efforts to make them feel saved, or to prove to God and others they are saved.  If we do that we are looking to the work we are doing instead of the work that has been done for us.  Assurance does not come from the amount of sweat we put into the Christian life.  Don’t become over-religious if you are struggling with assurance of salvation. 

 

These are 2 of the wrong ways to respond when we are attacked in our assurance:  Do not drown in doubt and do not become over-religious to make yourself feel like you’re saved. 

 

What do we do then?  What is the right response when we have doubts?  Let me offer 4 responses when you have doubts. 

 

First, look fully to Christ and not at all at yourself .  ***We looked to Him the first time to receive salvation, but, we must also look to Him again and again to be reminded of our salvation.  That isn’t really so strange to say is it?  After all, when we sin as Christians doesn’t God look to His Son again and the payment He made for that sin?  If Christ is God’s basis for accepting us it should be our basis for our assurance.  I love how Miles Stanford says it in the Green Letters.  In the 3^rd chapter titled “Acceptance” he says, “God’s basis must be our basis for acceptance.  There is none other.  We are ‘accepted in the Beloved’.  Our Father is fully satisfied with His Beloved Son on our behalf, and there is no reason for us not to be.  Our satisfaction can only spring from and rest in His satisfaction.”

 

If you look to yourself you will only become discouraged.  Look to Christ.  Here is a poem that I read last week that expresses the struggle with the old sin nature but the certainty that comes from seeing Jesus Christ.  It is called “Thank You!  Thank You!”  Listen to how the author’s eyes go from himself to Christ:

 

“Overshadowed by his strength, so much,

Straining weak, to him in death cast back,

Old man!  Old man!  At what length I clutch,

Christ’s tree, my sin forever tacked.

 

Thank You!  Thank You!  God’s own Son, Stronger!

You my sin, to earth’s womb plunged,

Praise You!  Praise You!  Rising won, ensured

In heaven, all my sins expunged.”

 

We do what God does.  We look again to the One who paid for our sins and purchased our salvation.  We don't look to ourselves.  We never saved ourselves, He did.  So we must be reminded of His finished work on the cross for us.  He made atonement for our sins.  He gave us the right to be children of God.  He gave us His Spirit.  He who began a good work in us will finish it.

 

When we are overwhelmed with uncertainty, let us rest our eyes on our risen Savior.  Because He lives, we live.

 

Secondly, realize our assurance is grounded in our justification, not our sanctification.  This is the all-important point.  Get this down.  Write it down.  The confidence and certainty you have about being saved comes from understanding you are justified in Christ.  That’s how it was with Abraham.  Romans 4:3, “What does the Scripture say?  ‘Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.’”  Then in verse 5 it says, “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.  Notice it says his faith, not his faithfulness.  It does not come from trying harder to grow spiritually.  When we talk about growing spiritually we are talking about something entirely different than justification.  We are talking about sanctification.  Sanctification is the process of spiritual growth where we are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ in our day-to-day experience.  Some days we do well, other days we don’t do so well.  If we pin our assurance to our day to day experience our assurance will be based on performance.  The problem with that is it is OUR performance and not Christ’s performance for us.  How much or little we are sanctified, that is growing to be like Christ, becomes the measure of how sure we are about our salvation.  This is shaky ground to be on.  Instead of looking at our ongoing performance in Christ we have to look at Christ’s perfect and finished performance for us.  What He did is He justified us by His death, burial and resurrection.  That is done, and, that is unchangeable.  Therefore, our salvation is done, finished and unchangeable. 

 

The great evangelist and preacher Horatio Bonar who also wrote over 600 hymns, said this about when we confuse justification with sanctification it can be detrimental.  [Read pg 5]

 

Someone might say however that there are some sins that are so bad that if we commit them we would lose our salvation.  Wrong.  There is no sin we can commit that will cause us to lose our salvation.  And again, someone might say that if we repeatedly commit a sin or sins often we will lose our salvation.  Wrong, again.  The answer to both of these lines of thinking is the same:  Jesus paid for each and every one of our sins.  What sins did Jesus Christ NOT pay for when He died on the cross?  There is not one that went unpaid. 

 

Jesus paid for 2 kinds of sin when He died on the cross:  1)  every that ever was committed, and, 2) every sin that ever will be committed.  So if you commit the same sin again today as you did yesterday then understand that Christ paid for the sin yesterday, for the sin today, and for the sin you will commit tomorrow.  If you commit a “big” sin, Christ paid for that on the cross as much as He did the “little” sins.  Colossians 2:13 says, “God made you alive with Christ, and forgave you ALL your sins.” 

 

Let the accuser announce before the court each sin you have committed and let Christ’s words from the cross resound with each charge:  “Paid in Full!”  That means that God looks at you and does not see a single sin that must be punished.  He remembers Christ’s atonement for your sins as 1 John 2:2 says, “My dear children I write these things to you so that you will not sin.  But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ the Righteous One.”  Does that mean we should keep on sinning so that grace may abound towards us?  Of course not, as Romans 6:1 says.  

 

But regardless of where you are at in your sanctification process, He sees you as though you are perfect and never committed any sin.  That is what it means for you to be justified.  That is where your assurance of salvation comes from. 

 

Thirdly, we must learn the difference between our position in Christ and our condition.  Our position refers to our justification whereas our condition refers to our sanctification.  Let us look at each one separately. 

 

When we talk about our position we are talking about our new and permanent status before God.  We are talking about the way God now and forever sees us.  He sees us in Christ.  Our status before Him is in Christ.  Our position is in Christ.  We used to be separate from Christ.  We used to be under judgment.  God used to see us in all our sins.  Now He sees us without all our sins.  He sees us in Christ.  ***This only happens by faith in Jesus Christ.  Works have no place in this matter.  Not one person will ever merit a righteous standing before God.  The Bible says that all our righteousness is not clean and white and acceptable, but rather all our righteousness is as filthy rags before Him (Isa. 64:6).  That’s why the Bible says God has to transfer His righteousness to us.  He only does that when a person trusts in His Son.  That is position.  It is gained by faith.  It never changes.  Our position in Christ is permanent and it is based on our faith, not our works.

 

We must learn the difference between our position in Christ and our condition.  Our condition is based on our work.  Our condition refers to how we act day to day.  It’s the degree of God’s righteousness we manifest in our lives each day.  It’s how often we choose to put on the  breastplate of righteousness.  It is how far or behind we are in our spiritual growth.  It’s how much or little success we are experiencing with the sins we face.  It’s how much we exploit the opportunities given us to do good.  It is how like or unlike Christ we are in our day to day experiences. 

 

Turn with me to the following passages and see the Bible talk about the Christian condition.  Read Heb. 5:11-14 and 1 Cor. 3:1-3 and 2 Peter 1:5-8 and Philippians 3:12-14

 

Our condition is seen in our Christian (or un-Christian) living whereas our position is based on our faith.  Our condition has to do with our works whereas our position has to do with Christ’s work for us.  Our condition is based on our effort, our position is based on our faith in Christ’s finished effort for us.  Romans 7 paul moaned over his sinful condition but he was fully assured of his salvation because he knew his position in Christ.

 

We must look again to Christ’s finished work on the cross.   We must look to our crucified and risen Lord and what He has completed for us.  That is the basis of our position.  We are IN Christ.  And that is where our assurance is found.  In Him.  Romans 5:1-2

 

Well what about spiritual growth then?  ***Now here is the key:  We must become sure of our position in Christ if we want to strengthen our condition in Him.  Not vice versa.  Being sure of our position will strengthen our condition, but, it doesn’t work the other way.  Trying to strengthen our condition to be sure of our position doesn’t work.  The wrong thing to do when we are attacked in the area of assurance is to try and strengthen our condition in order to be sure of our position.  Rather we are to look with our eyes and see clearly that we are positioned in Christ, and by doing that with our eyes, we will strengthen the condition of our walk with Christ.  Who we are determines what we do.  The better we see who we are in Christ the better we will live for Him.  Put on the helmet of salvation, to protect our head, so that what we know about our security in Christ is in no way damaged from the blows of the enemy. 

 

Lights On!:  When we had that powerful storm in April and the city experienced 10,000 power outages, we went without power for a little over 2 days.  We weren't sure when the power was going to come back on, and we were staying with my folks until it did.  Well, when we drove up to our house to get some things we saw that people's lights were on in the neighborhood.  Here is a question:  Was there power connected?  Yes.  How could we tell?  The lights were on.  How can we tell if someone truly is connected to the power of God?  God's light is shining out from them. 

 

Fourthly, we must understand who we are in Christ.  New Creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  Children of God (John 1:12; Rom. 8:15-16).  Temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:15).  A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen people, belonging to God (1 Pet. 2:9).  Saints, or “holy ones”.  Members of Christ (Eph. 1:21; 1 Cor. 12:12).