Sermon Central
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We Have A Job To Do
Contributed by Stephen Belokur on Jan 18, 2017 (message contributor)
Summary: According to God's Holy Word we CAN absolutely know for certain that we will spend eternity with Jesus. In the meantime, what should we be doing? Are we saved just so we can relax or are we saved to extend God's grace to those who are lost in sin?
Scripture Reading: John 14:15-24 (Please open your Bibles to this text)
Last week we took a look the most important question of any moment in time which is, “If Jesus returns or you go to meet Him, are you ready? Are you saved?”
And we found that it is not only possible but it is the will of Almighty God that you can know for sure that you are saved. You can know with absolute certainty that if you were to meet Jesus today that you would spend eternity in the presence of the Lord.
How do we know that? We know from God’s Holy Word.
“Whoever believes in Him (Jesus) is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
“For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.”
“He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.”
So, based on these Scriptures and many others we can say for sure that the Lord guarantees eternal life for those who place their faith and trust their very souls to Jesus.
Now before we go any further we probably should expand a little on this thought of why we need salvation and the provision that the Father and Son made so that we might have forgiveness and reconciliation and transformation.
God is a Holy God – there is no sin or deceit or evil of any kind in Him.
There was a time when humanity was sinless; all two of them. And they communed with God and walked with Him, “in the cool of the evening.”
Then they were tempted to doubt what God had told them and they disobeyed the Lord and became sinful.
Sin separated them from the Lord.
After that God instituted a sacrificial system for sins committed which had to be repeated year after year after year. But, a better sacrifice was needed.
We needed to be reconciled to God, but how? He is too Holy and we were too sinful. Was it hopeless??? No it was not hopeless? Why? Because God had a plan!
He sent His Son, who lived among us, who lived a sinless, perfect life and then the perfect, sinless, Son of God gave His life on the cross of Calvary and shed His blood as the payment for my sin and your sin and everyone sin.
Even though the sacrifice of the Son of God was sufficient and available for the forgiveness of every human who ever lived it was not applied to everyone.
Why not? Because we were too sinful to even know we needed it.
That’s where this thing called Grace came in. Grace reveals our sinfulness to us.
Grace draws us like a magnet to Jesus, the only source of forgiveness and reconciliation with God.
Grace helps us to realize that we must turn away from our sinful ways.
Grace helps us to place our faith and trust in Jesus for salvation.
We don’t deserve this Grace but the Lord makes it available to us anyway.
If we humble ourselves before God, confess and renounce our sins, ask for forgiveness and for salvation from the eternal death we deserve, He will save us.
John 1:9-12 NASB
“The true Light, who gives light to every person, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not recognize Him.
“He came to His own things, and His own people did not receive Him. But as many as received Him - to those who believe in His name - He gave to them authority to become children of God.”
Now, there is one thing that is very important that we need to understand.
When a person who is truly born again says that they are absolutely sure that if they were to die today that they would go to heaven it is not because they think they are righteous enough in their own merit to deserve going to heaven.
It is because God is faithful! God has made a promise to us and God never lies nor has He ever gone back on His word.
