So with that being said, I want to continue teaching about The Blessed Assurance of the true Believer…
It must be remembered throughout this passage that Scripture is talking about the genuine believer…
He is going to be freed—(if he is a true believer)—freed from all the sin and shame, failure and shortcoming, pain and death...
He is going to be glorified right along with God's dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ… (Notice now these three steps that are put in place by God)
1st step
Some time ago the Spirit called and stirred the heart or summoned the true believer to come to Christ…(Read John 6:44-45, for God's part and man's part in salvation.)
The believer responded to the call and came to Christ… Therefore, the call was effective; the call worked... The believer did respond to Christ…
Scripture definitely teaches that the believer had a choice… He could have chosen to respond or not to respond...
Again, note the past tense… There are some sub points to note about justification… First sub-point:
a. Justification is necessary because of the sin and alienation of man… Man has rebelled against God and taken his life into his own hands… Man lives as he desires...
· fulfilling the lust of the eyes and of the flesh…
· clinging to the pride of life and to the things of the world…
Man has separated and alienated himself from God…
b. Justification is necessary because of the anger and wrath of God… "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11)…
Sin has aroused God's anger and wrath... God is angry over man's...
· rebellion· sin· hostility · ungodliness· unrighteousness· desertion
Man has turned his back on God, pushing God away and having little to do with Him…
Man has not made God the center of his life; man has broken his relationship with God... Therefore, the greatest need in man's life is to discover the answer to the question: How can the relationship between man and God be restored?
Next point
When a man believes in Jesus Christ, God takes that man's faith and counts it as righteousness…
The man is not righteous, but God considers and credits the man's faith as righteousness… Why is God willing to do this?
a. God is willing to justify man because He loves man that much…
b. God is willing to justify man because of what His Son Jesus Christ has done for man…
Jesus Christ has secured the Ideal righteousness for man…
He came to earth to live a sinless and perfect life…
As Man, He never broke the law of God; He never went contrary to the will of God, not even once… Therefore, He stood before God and before the world as the Ideal Man, the Perfect Man, the Representative Man, the Perfect Righteousness that could stand for the righteousness of every man…
As the Ideal Man He could take all the sins of the world upon Himself and die for every man… His death could stand for every man…
He exchanged places with man by becoming the sinner…
(2 Corinthians 5:19 (KJV) 19 To wit,(accordingly) that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Jesus Christ came into the world to arise from the dead and thereby to conquer death for man…
- As the Ideal Man, His resurrection and exaltation into the presence of God could stand for every man's desperate need to conquer death and to be acceptable to God…
~~~His resurrected life stands for the resurrected life of the believer…
Now, as stated. when a man believes in Jesus Christ—really believes— God takes that man's belief and... - Counts it as the righteousness (perfection) of Christ… The man is counted as righteous in Christ…
- Takes that mans belief and counts it as the death of Christ... The man is counted as having already died in Christ, as having already paid the penalty for sin in the death of Christ…
- Takes that mans belief and counts it as the resurrection of Christ... The man is counted as already having been resurrected in Christ…
Very simply, God loves His Son Jesus Christ so much that He honors any man who honors His Son by believing on Him…
~~~He honors the man by taking the man's faith and counting (crediting) it as righteousness and by giving him the glorious privilege of living with Christ forever in the presence of God…
3.How God justifies a man: The word justify is a legal word taken from the courts… It pictures man on trial before God...
Man is seen as having committed the most heinous of crimes; he has rebelled against God and broken his relationship with God…
How can he restore that relationship?
~~~Within human courts if a man is acquitted, he is declared innocent, but this is not true within the Divine Court...
When a man appears before God, he is anything but innocent; he is utterly guilty and condemned accordingly…
But when a man sincerely trusts Christ, then God takes that man's faith and counts it as righteousness…
By such God counts the man, judges him, treats him—as if he was innocent…
The man is not made innocent; he is guilty… He knows it and God knows it, but God treats him as innocent…
"God justifies the ungodly"—an incredible mercy, a wondrous grace… - Justification has already taken place for the true believer…
The point is clear... If the believer has been truly called, if he has been truly saved, then his deliverance from struggling and suffering is assured…
His deliverance is a past fact and it is set eternally by God…No matter how deeply the believer senses his shortcoming and failure, his struggle with the sin and suffering of this world, he is a child of God...
Every time he comes short or stumbles and falls, he needs to get up and begin all over again…
He must not become discouraged and defeated, self-accusing and incriminating, feeling unworthy and undeserving, unwanted and rejected..
~~~Such a state of mind is one the most useful strategies of the devil— A strategy which he uses to defeat believers by the multitudes… God has called the believer, so he must arise and begin to diligently follow Christ once again…
Every believer who is walking about defeated—no matter how great his fall—should arise right now and turn back to Christ. This is our call, our duty…
"And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11).
"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2).
Paul the apostle, who was a converted murderer, is a dynamic example of this victorious attitude, the very attitude needed so desperately by all believers...
"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13-14; cp. Job 17:9; Psalm 84:7; Proverbs 4:18; Hebrews 12:4).
3. God has glorified the believer. The word "glorified" means "to receive a glorified body at the resurrection…" It is good as done… God has DONE so much for you and me... What can we say? Praise the Lord! If God be for us, who can be against us…
This, too, is past tense: the glorification of the believer is an accomplished fact, a fact that has already taken place in God's mind and plan…
God already sees and counts the believer as glorified in His presence for eternity…
"Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto himself" (Phil. 3:21).
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4).
4) (8:31-33) God has acted for the believer, not Against him...
This is the fourth assurance of deliverance.
This is the greatest truth in all the world…
God did not have to act for man, but He did… God loves every man, no matter his condition or sin and shame…
Therefore, believers can rest assured that nothing, absolutely nothing shall ever separate them from the plan and purpose of God…
God's love is absolute… It is perfect… And God shall have His perfect love expressed by completing His perfect plan and purpose for each life…
The believer can have absolute assurance that God will work all things out for his good, even things that fail and are painful to the heart…
The true believer shall be conformed to the image of Christ and glorified with Him (Romans 8:29-30).
The point is this: God Himself is the believer's assurance…
God Himself has acted for the believer; He has done everything necessary and then more:.. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"
1. God is our Savior…
It was God who "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all" (Romans 8:32)…
The words "spared not" mean that God did not hold back or refrain from giving His Son…
He did not refuse or even hesitate to give His Son…
~~The picture is that of God weighing man's eternal separation from Him against the sacrifice of His Son…
He had a choice to make and He made it; He deliberately chose to sacrifice His Son for us…
God knew exactly what He was doing… He wanted man delivered from this struggling and suffering world, and there was only one way for man to be saved:
· Someone had to bear man's penalty for transgression and sin, which was the judgment of death…
Therefore, God handed His own Son over to die for us—in our behalf, in our stead, in our place, as our substitute…
God spared not His own Son…He delivered Christ Jesus up for us all…
What a glorious, marvelous, wonderful love!
And just how wonderful His love is, can be clearly seen in this: It was while we were sinners, acting and rebelling against God, that He gave His Son to die for us…
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6).
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
2. God is our Provider…
Since God has done such a great and glorious thing, how shall He not also give us all things?
Giving His own Son for us was the greatest gift in all the world; therefore, He is bound to give us everything else…
Nothing could ever cost God anything close to the price He has paid in giving up His Son; therefore, God shall give us everything else.
Note three points.
A1. God's provision includes spiritual, eternal, and material gifts…
· The spiritual provision is the fruit of the Spirit…
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22-23).
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephes. 1:3).
· The eternal provision… It is the gift of eternal life, of living gloriously conformed to the image of His dear Son, Jesus Christ
· The material gifts are the necessities of life
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?...But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:31, 33).
B2. The provision is freely given… God's gift of His Son was freely given; therefore, all that God provides for man is freely given…
No man can merit or earn God's provision… God provides and meets the need of the believer because He loves the believer…
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephes. 2:8-9).
Next. C3. The provision of God comes through Christ and through Him alone…
Note the words "with Him,in vs 32…" It is with Christ that God gives us all things…
If we are with Christ, then all things are given to us…
We shall be delivered from struggling and suffering…
Believers can rest assured of this…
No matter how much we struggle and suffer through the sin and shame of this world, God will see us through it all…
He is going to conform us to the glorious image of His Son.
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
3 God is our Justifier...
This is the most glorious truth: God does not charge us with sin… In fact, He does not lay anything to our charge; He justifies us …
Note the question: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God; only God can charge us with sin and shame…
But note: if we have truly trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior, if we are one of God's elect, he does not charge us with sin… He justifies us…
He forgives our sin and counts us righteous in Christ Jesus…
If we are God's children, no one can charge us with anything… We are God's; we belong to God…
Man is not our judge; therefore, man cannot judge us, only God can… God is our Judge, and this is the glorious truth:.. God does not judge His elect…
He does not lay sin and shame against His children; He justifies His children… No matter how much we have struggled and suffered through the sin and shame of this world, God delivers us…
No matter how far we have fallen, no matter how discouraged we have become, if we are truly God's child, He picks us up and justifies us in Christ Jesus and continues to conform us to the image of His dear Son…
God does not leave us down and defeated, nor does He go around charging us with sin and shame…
God justifies us and continues His work of forgiveness and grace in our lives...
"Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6).
Minister Robert N. Graves, Sr.
Fisherman For Christ Oak Grove Baptist Church…
Grays, S.C. October 17, 2010
posted by Fisherman For Christ at 10/16/2010 11:02:00 AM
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