Word of Salvation – Vol.50 No.48 – December 2005

 

Are You Sure?

A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema

on Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 7a

 

Scripture Reading:  Romans 4:16-5:8

 

Congregation…

Is it all so easy? I mean, is it as easy to come to faith as some would have us believe? They say such things as, “You know, God has a wonderful purpose for your life! He wants you so much to be happy and enjoy absolutely everything!”

And, somehow, it doesn’t seem to gel, does it? We know the life of faith is hard. So was coming to faith really that easy in the first place? Is it just a matter of saying “yes” to Jesus? And, as many take this point even further – everyone’s saved anyway, aren’t they?

No! No! No! If there is one thing Scripture is very clear about, it is that only the chosen will be saved. You see, not everyone is… JOINED TO JESUS.

Our first point – JOINED TO JESUS. That’s what we are, aren’t we? Aren’t we joined to God by believing in Jesus? Indeed we are. Without this faith I am as lost as if I had never ever heard the gospel!

Our Catechism in Answer 20 sums up Scripture clearly, “Only those are saved who by true faith are grafted into Christ and accept all his blessings.” And that’s what our reading from Romans 4 showed. There we saw that Abraham himself – the father of all believers – was dramatically changed. The LORD called Him, and his life was radically different. As verse 17 of Romans 4 says, “He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed – the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”

Really, what happens when we’re JOINED TO JESUS is the spiritual parallel to what God did with creation when, simply by the power of His voice, He called vast universes into being. He spoke, and it was so! His Word brought meaning into life. In the same way His Living Word, Jesus Christ, can make the spiritually dead alive again!

But, congregation, it needs to be heard! Our hearts must be opened to receiving the Word for who He is!

Is that, perhaps, a message for you today? You who have always been in the church. You who may have grown comfortable in this familiar setting.

Realise that being in church all your life and being comfortable here is not faith. You may be dedicated to your involvement here. You may even come to church twice on Sundays. And you’re committed to your Bible Study group, or your youth group, or Cadets – whatever! But that’s not faith!

Marcus Loane said it well: “We cannot force ourselves to have faith in God. We are as much in need in this respect as in anything else. Faith can only originate in the soul of man by the gift of God.”

Pure grace – only grace can do it! The thing that Paul so strongly declared in Ephesians 2 verse 8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

It’s like the situation a man is in when he’s trapped in quicksand. That’s where we are spiritually in this world. Without a hope! There’s nothing to grab – only the air as we thrash wildly about. And it’s that useless grabbing – that desperate lunging at other religions – which makes us sink even faster into the quicksand of sin.

Then Jesus appears! He reaches out a stick. The stick of faith. His way to join us to Him. JOINED TO JESUS!

Boys and girls, what do you think holding on to that stick will do for you? Why – you’ll be rescued! You’ll be able to enjoy living again! In fact, life will be so different because it’s new. The Saviour has rescued you!

That difference now is what your life is all about. You’re not the same anymore. You can’t be! You’re not drowning anymore!

This is what the apostle Peter showed when he confessed his faith. In Luke 9 verse 20 he didn’t answer the question asked of him about who Jesus is by saying He’s John the Baptist, or Elijah, or some other ‘good’ man. Peter declared that He is the Christ of God!

For having being grafted through Jesus to God Himself, we receive all that shows Him to be who He really is! That stick of faith not only rescues – it also shows us exactly how we are rescued.

Boys and girls, every time you see that stick used you don’t just see a stick, or that you were saved by that stick once – you also think about everything that came with being saved. Imagine meeting your Mum and Dad for the first time after your rescue. All that despair you went through when you honestly believed you wouldn’t make it. And on your own you wouldn’t have made it!

So you enjoy everything now because you were saved. That’s why we move from our first point about JOINED TO JESUS to see, secondly, that we are JOINED ONLY TO JESUS.

Here our Catechism lifts us beyond what we so easily think faith is. That’s why Answer 21 begins, “True faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true.”

Two major misunderstandings about faith are addressed here. And while they are addressed, they also play their role of pointing to what really counts.

Firstly, “true faith is not only a knowledge… that everything God reveals in his Word is true.” Now, we know that knowledge is absolutely essential. Romans 10 verse 14 says this clearly, “How can they believe in one of whom they haven’t heard? And how can they hear without having someone preach to them?”

There must be the proclamation of the Gospel. It must be said that everything God reveals in His Word is true. No buts about it! But knowledge is only the way in. It’s not the thing itself, though it’s absolutely vital before you have this true faith.

In the past there were those who placed too much emphasis on knowledge. In the 17th century many Reformed churches fell into this trap of insisting only upon the knowledge. But this led right into the trap of the Enlightenment, when everything became so sterile and abstract.

Perhaps you’ve met this in a certain attitude. It says, “Look, we know it well enough! There’s nothing new in the preaching!” They’re really saying that they can know it all. And that’s all there is to know!

But, then, there’s the other side as well – the second misunderstanding addressed here. As Answer 21 says, “True faith is not only a…conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true.”

With knowledge we have that which is the way into. Now with conviction we have the result of faith.

But, again, conviction is the not the thing itself! Certainly feelings and emotions arise out of faith – but they are not faith! And even though it may seem that this opinion holds sway in Christianity these days, yet it only goes to show how many don’t actually understand faith. It could even be that they don’t have faith themselves because they’ve actually become caught up in the emotions generated by Christians.

Boys and girls, think about that stick which Jesus reaches out to save us with. We see that stick. We know that’s going to rescue us. But does knowing that we will be saved actually save us? Of course not! It’s the stick which Jesus uses.

Then, when we’ve been rescued, is faith the relief we feel in our hands when we hold that stick? No, that stick is the way we’ve saved. That’s the faith we have.

Of course, spiritually, we cannot see that stick. Faith isn’t faith unless it is unseen. In the words of Hebrews 11 verse 1, the beginning of the great chapter on faith, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don’t see.”

That’s why we cannot ourselves receive or give faith. It’s the great intangible! And it can only be truly itself when we recognise it for what it actually is – faith! “True faith is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything God reveals in his Word is true; it is also a deep rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel.”

Our confession clearly states it! But how can you quantify “deep rooted assurance?” In which box can you put the Holy Spirit?

To ask the question is to realise the futility of all that we had done before coming to faith. We had ulterior motives in what we were doing, whether we were doing it for the knowledge or the conviction.

But, congregation, we’re… JOINED ONLY TO JESUS! All those layers of sin we had thrown up around us are stripped away to show… faith! After all that we had done against this kind of possibility ever happening, God uses us still!

For, in the third place, we move from being JOINED TO JESUS through JOINED ONLY TO JESUS to JOINED BY JESUS!

No one else could hold out that stick. We’ve seen in the previous Lord’s Days how everyone else is in their own pool of quicksand. It could only be God! And resting in that is assurance indeed!

This is what one man in Scotland found. He wasn’t sure where he stood with the Lord. But one Sunday these words struck him from the pulpit, “You are saying, I am willing to have Christ but Christ is not willing to have me. It’s a lie from the pit! Christ is more willing to have you than you are to have him.”

It was this that the apostle Paul wrote of in Romans 1 verse 16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” You see, it is beyond us! In fact, so much beyond us that it has overwhelmed us! We are quite beside ourselves! For our old selves would never have seen it at all!

JOINED BY JESUS. It’s a mystery, to be sure! But definitely not to Him who planned it all so! As Answer 21 concludes, “out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ, not only others, but I, too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation.”

What a stick to make us alive! It’s the most marvellous thing! In the words from Romans 5 verse 5, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

No wonder John Newton wrote:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost but now am found,

was blind but now I see.

But even more expressive about faith is the second verse:

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

and grace my fears relieved;

how precious did that grace appear

the hour I first believed.

And then boys and girls, brothers and sisters, that stick positively melts into insignificance against the might and love of the One who holds it out to us. What a price He paid in His one and only Son upon that rugged cross at Calvary! And not one single drop of that blood was spilt in vain! It was all part of the most supreme plan for our eternal good! Here we can have no talk about greater or lesser faith – the very object of faith is there before us!

Tell me, could you leave church now without realising that? Can you come away from the Lord’s Supper without seeing that?

My friend, it is pure love! Surely you must realise the finest quality through the poor imitations that only make it taste better!

Then, on top of all this, to taste His forgiveness, His righteousness, and His salvation – that’s just got to be out of this world! And it is! But it’s also very much in this world! Because that’s where He has found you!

To sum up: The Gospel is about this living heart of faith in Jesus Christ. A faith which goes beyond knowing and feeling. A faith through which God’s Spirit makes yours the grace by which you are forgiven; by which you are made forever right; and by which you have salvation itself!

In the words of John Murray, “Faith is self-commitment to Christ in all the glory of His person, and perfection of His work, as He is freely and fully offered in the Gospel. Faith is not a commitment to certain truths about Christ, but a commitment to Christ.” Faith brings about a personal union with Christ.

Friend, if true faith is the key into the rich storehouse of all God’s blessings, how will you open it up – today? Don’t look for it tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. But you have come – today! And today is the day of salvation. The stick is right here before you now, and Jesus is holding the other end. Grab hold of it today!

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O Lord Jesus, what marvellous and earth-shattering love you showed in your own self. We still can’t properly understand that, LORD, but hold on to it we will! For your work in our hearts isn’t in vain. You don’t let go. Please help us to hold on, too.

Amen.