Do You KNOW that You have Eternal Life? Rev Curtis Emerson
1 John 5:11-5:13
Has anyone ever been asked this question, if you were to die tonight would you go to heaven? I know that I have asked that question to numerous people and have received various responses.
The answer that I received the most is usually; I hope so, I think so. Every once in awhile I might hear a truly honest person who tells me I don’t know.
If I get a response, that usually triggers the next question which is; if you were to die tonight, and you would go to the gates of heaven, Jesus meets you there and asks you this question; why should I let you into my heaven; what would you say? At this point I will get various responses usually having to do with some sort of work, or behavior or attitude that they have had in this life that should allow them to get into heaven. Most of the answers that I have received to this question are incorrect according to the Scripture.
There are all a lot of people today who do not know if they possess eternal life. I had an elderly gentleman in the last parish that prayed with me to receive Christ and later prayed with one of our elders to receive Christ, and yet when you would ask him, do you know that you have eternal life, he would say “I hope so”. He could not say that he had the assurance of salvation.
Do you know that you have eternal life?
And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. 1 John 5. 11-13
How can a sinner know that He belongs to Jesus Christ and that he is saved for eternity? Doesn’t our God want us to know for sure? Of course He does. Clearly, God’s purpose is for those who genuinely believe on the Son to have real biblical assurance of salvation.
John states plainly, “He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.” (1 John 5. 12). How much more direct and simple could he possibly be? There is no in between. Either a person is saved or lost. You are not “partly saved” or “partly lost”. You are either one or the other. The only issue is whether or not you “have the Son.” But how can a person know, for sure, that he “has the Son?”
What are some of the thoughts that keep you from knowing for sure that you have eternal life?
There is a devastating conspiracy to keep you from knowing the truth of God’s Word and to keep you from being assured that you belong to God. That devastating conspiracy is again found in the wickedness of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. If any one of these can keep you from gaining the assurance of faith the Devil rejoices.
Most of the time that people fail to gain God’s assurance of faith is because of these three little things;
1. Condemning themselves
Some condemn themselves because of their own personal weakness. For some odd reason they think that they cannot help but fall into sin. They are weak, incapable of ever living up to what God has said in his word.
At this point a person might feel because of their genetics, or being prone to some weakness or sin, they can never feel fully forgiven. They may confess their sin but never enjoy the sense of being fully forgiven. They have come to a conclusion that they are just so bad that God will not forgive.
Listen to the word of the Lord; 1 John 3:19-20, we will know by this that we are all of the truth, and will a sure our hearts before him in what ever our heart condemns us for God is greater than our heart and know all things.
Our heart or our mind will constantly try to condemn us for the things that we have done. God is telling us in this verse that he is greater than our heart and he knows all things. If God doesn’t condemn us, then why should we condemn ourselves?
2. Personal responsibility for sin
Many times we feel a personal responsibility for our sin: meaning that it was us who sinned and it must be us who pays the penalty for our sin. It is hard for us to believe that all we have to do is "confess our sins, and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins".
Some people cannot think that it is simply that easy to get our sins forgiven. 1 John 2:1-2, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone’s sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he himself is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our’s only, but also for those of the whole world.
Propitiation; (Greek word used is; hilasmos). Christ is "the propitiation," because by his becoming our substitute and assuming our obligations he expiated our guilt, covered it, by the vicarious punishment which he endured.
There is no doubt that we are under obligation to God when our sin remains upon us. We are all indebted because of sin. But Jesus, when he went to the cross and suffered and died upon the cross assumed our obligation for our sin, he not only took away our sin, he removed the guilt of that sin upon our hearts.
Propitiation is more than just a word, it is a concept of God’s wonderful grace.
We no longer need to take personal responsibility for the punishment of our sin, Jesus Christ took our punishment for us.
3. Comparing ourselves to others
There is a third reason why people don’t have the assurance of faith: it’s because too many people compare themselves to what other people are or what they think they are, or what they think they’re supposed to be.
My own brother-in-law once said to me, if I’m going to become a Christian I want to become one like you, but I’m not ready to do that. Even though I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him, he still thought being a Christian was trying to live up to a certain set of do’s and don’ts. He was comparing his life to mine and he did not feel that he could measure up.
2 Corinthians 10:12 ….but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.
You may have thought that your Christian life had to measure up to someone else’s Christian life in order for you to have the assurance of salvation. Let’s face it, there will always be somebody who has a better Christian life or does a better job for the Lord than what we think we are doing.
God tells us to stop looking at others and simply look to his word; he that has the son has life.
Whenever God moves into someone’s life He makes drastic changes. Ezekiel 36. 26-27 says:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
When God comes into a life He changes it, he changes you.
He wants you to stop looking at others,
He wants you to stop condemning yourself and
He wants to let you know that he was willing to pay the price that God demanded for your salvation.
Understand salvation is what God has done in you; it is not what you have done to become pleasing to him. All he asks of you is that you would accept the work that he did upon the cross of Calvary, repent of your sins and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
Do you know for sure that you have eternal life? The only way for you to know for sure is to invite Jesus Christ into your heart and life today. He that has the Son has life; he that does not have the Son of God (living in his heart) does not have a life.
