Eternal Assurance: Knowing Your Salvation

We're going to divert from the book of Joshua.

We'll pick that back up here in a couple of weeks.

Brother Sam Davison will be with us.

Next week, we'll start our revival meeting.

And Brother Davison's one of my favorite preachers, expository preacher.

And that service will run next Sunday morning through Wednesday night.

And so encourage you to be here, be a part of that service.

And then the following Sunday, we'll pick up in our series of messages in the book of Joshua.

We'll be In Joshua, Chapter 6, the Battle of Jericho.

I can't wait.

I've been studying it.

It's going to be.

It's an awesome, awesome story and a lot of great truths there about how to have victory.

But this morning I do want to kind of go along the theme of Brother Stone on Wednesday night and preparation for revival.

Preparation for revival.

And so we're going to be in First John.

I'm going to read a verse real quick.

In fact, since you're there, you might as well turn over there.

First John, chapter five.

For most of us, a familiar passage, verse 13.

This is a verse we quote a lot when we are talking with someone about assurance of salvation.

These things have I written unto you.

So look at this.

But I want to give an application this morning to this particular verse.

So first John, chapter 5, verse 13.

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.

So who is he speaking to?

He's speaking to Christians, those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, those who have believed on the name of the Son of God.

So the book of First John was written to Christians, was written to believers primarily.

And so I just want you to see that this morning.

And so why did he write it?

He says, I wrote it.

That you may know that you have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

He said, I've written this in order that you might have confidence in knowing that you're saved, that you're a child of God, that you know that when you die, heaven will be your home.

And throughout the book of First John, it gives you several indications or proofs of being saved.

In other words, here is if you're saved, here is proof that you are saved.

Here's an indication that you are saved.

Here's some characteristics of what a saved person is and how they would live.

Right?

So one of the first ones we find in First John 1.

So let's look over there.

First John, chapter one.

I'm going to read the whole chapter.

Ready?

Verse one.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled the word of God or the word of life.

For the life was manifested and we have seen it, and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.

So a little running commentary.

So he's saying here we have seen it.

Who's he seen?

Well, he's seen Jesus Christ.

You see, we as apostles, and we as Christians in this time have seen Jesus Christ physically.

He who was manifested to us from heaven.

And so who had been with the Father, we've heard him, we've seen him.

Verse 3.

That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.

And truly our fellowship was with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full.

That.

Notice the wording there.

He said, I've written these things unto you that your joy could be full.

So he's already said, I've written these things unto you that you might know that you have eternal life.

And now he's saying, I've written these things unto you that your joy might be full.

Verse 5.

This, then, is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.

And then anytime you have the word ith on the end, it's continually, continually cleanseth us.

I'm thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ.

I am a bloody Baptist.

The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.

And the blood of Christ is continually being applied to my sin and my life because I am a sinner.

And he's fixing to go into that in just a moment.

All right, so look there, verse 8.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Okay, class, who's he speaking to?

Saved people or lost people?

Saved people.

So who's he writing?

Who's he?

Who's.

Who is the.

Who's the audience here?

It's Christians.

So here he is specifically addressing Christians.

If you say as a Christian, as a born Again, believer as a child of God, that you have no sin, the truth is not in you.

And he just keeps emphasizing this.

Look at verse nine.

I'm thankful for verse nine, by the way.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Again, he kind of repeats it.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, again we come to you asking for your wisdom.

Lord, help me to say exactly what you'd want me to say.

There's so much here.

Lord, help us as we get ready for our revival meeting next week.

Lord, may our hearts be pliable, may they be soft, and may our ears be attuned to whatever you would have us to do.

May we yield to whatever you ask us to do.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Revival is admitting that we are not.

Okay, somebody has said, and I use this every year, that revival starts with me, right?

Brother Stone said that Wednesday night.

It's drawing a circle around yourself and so singing the old song.

It's me, it's me, oh, Lord standing in the need of prayer.

It's not my mom and not my daddy but it's me, oh, Lord standing in the need of prayer.

So like our nature to think about others who really we believe need revival and not think about ourselves.

But we need revival.

We need revival.

Revived.

We need to be revived.

What is this?

When you revive someone, you bring them back to life.

You bring them back to life.

Revival.

We need revival.

All of us, to some degree, need revived.

You might be 80% dead, might be 50% dead.

I could talk about chickens here, but I won't.

No.

We all to various degrees, all to somewhat somewhere.

We need revived.

We need revived.

When I think about revival, I think about our worship.

I think about our walk, our fellowship with God.

I think about the work in which we are to serve and do.

And I think about faith here.

Recently, there was a car broke down here just right out of my neighborhood.

I live beside the fire station.

As I pulled out of my neighborhood, there was.

Someone broke down right in front of me.

And it was a Toyota.

I know that that never happens, but it was a Toyota.

Honestly.

Never happens.

Toyotas don't break down.

Dodges bad, Fords worse.

Chevy?

Eh, no, Chevy good.

But they were broke down right in front of me.

And I, you know, happened to be at that.

That day.

I was in work clothes.

What I Real work clothes.

Not not preacher work clothes.

I was in real work clothes.

And so I stopped.

I had.

What's wrong?

And so.

Well, we had to jump it off yesterday.

I guess it needs another jump.

And went back to the house, got anyway, tried to help them.

And we hooked the jumper cables up, tried to give it a jump start, bring it back to life.

It wouldn't start.

Needless to say, I wasn't much of a help.

But they were thankful that I tried.

All of us from time to time need a jump start.

We just need a.

We need another start.

And when it comes to worship.

So think about our purposes as a church up on the wall.

Loving God, growing together, serving others.

Loving God has to do with our worship.

And our worship affects our fellowship or our walk with Him.

And that affects our growing in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and growing together in unity as a church, as a church family.

And then that produces.

So our worship and our walk produces our work, which produces our outreach.

The natural product, the natural.

In other words, the evidence of revival in your life.

The evidence of revival in my life.

The evidence of revival in the church's life is service.

Because service is naturally produced when one experiences being revived.

Because if our worship is right and we're worshiping the Lord, we're fellowshipping with him, therefore we're walking with him, living for Him.

We will serve Him.

We won't have to be begged to serve Him.

No, we'll serve Him.

It'll just come natural.

But the order of that is important.

The order is important.

Our worship first affects our walk, which affects our work, which all affected by our faith.

Think about Abel in Hebrews, chapter 11.

Abel offered up a sacrifice.

He worshiped the Lord.

Cain offered of the fruit of the ground of his own works.

But Abel worshipped Hebrews, chapter 11.

Then you have the walking of Enoch.

He walked with God, the Bible says, and was not for God took him.

And then the next verses talk about Noah.

And Noah built an ark.

He worked.

And then Abraham, man of faith.

A man of faith.

Revival starts number one with seeing the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's manifested us, it says he was manifested to us.

We saw Jesus.

We saw God in the flesh.

They physically saw him.

They heard him speak, the Bible says there, they handled him.

You realize again when you bumped into Jesus, you bumped into God.

Imagine these disciples, when they bumped into Jesus, when they shook his hand, or when they gave him the kiss on the cheek, the holy kiss on the cheek, they bumped into God.

Jesus said, if you have seen me, these are Jesus words.

If You've seen me, you've seen the Father.

Well, if you've seen me, you've seen God.

Jesus was indeed God in the flesh.

There in the next verse, it says it was manifested unto us.

But it says unto you that eternal life.

What?

That eternal life.

Who's that referring to Jesus Christ.

He is eternal life.

Jesus said himself again in John, chapter 11.

I am the resurrection and the life.

He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

Through Jesus we have life.

God is the giver of life.

I'm talking about physical life.

We, lo.

Children are a heritage of the Lord.

They're given to us by God, but He also giver of eternal life.

Eternal life.

This life is so short compared to eternity.

It's so important that you have eternal life.

Settled here and now said we've handled him.

We've seen him.

The word of life.

The word of life.

There in verse one.

I hope this morning you know Jesus Christ as your savior.

Hope there's been a time in which you've confessed your sins.

You've repented of your sins.

You've come to Jesus believing that he lived, that he died, that he was buried, and that he rose again.

In order that you might have your sins forgiven.

In order that I could have my sins forgiven.

And that we might have a home in heaven.

In order that we might escape God's wrath upon sin.

That debt that we owe to him, Jesus paid that debt on Calvary.

He died in our place.

The Bible says the wages or the penalty of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life.

Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We can have eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Hope there's been a day and time, a place that you've accepted him as your Savior.

The Bible goes on to say in verse three that the fellowship we have with him, again talking to Christians, that fellowship we have with him, so important to God, that we which have seen and heard, declaring to him that we may have fellowship with us.

Talking about fellowshipping with the Christians there.

And truly our fellowship is with what?

The Father and the Son, Jesus Christ.

In other words, we are children of the Lord.

We're children of God.

We're fellowshipping together.

Once you accept Christ as your Savior, become part of the family of God, then we have that opportunity to fellowship with each other.

Fellowship with the Son, fellowship with the Father, that your joy may be full.

Verse 4.

Fellowship is when we come to Jesus Christ and accept him as Savior.

Understand, believers.

When we sin, fellowship is broken.

And when we confess Our sins, fellowship is restored, but fellowship with God.

Verses 5 through 7 He referred to as the light.

Everybody understands light dispels darkness, right?

You ever been into a really dark room, turn a light on, start scattering, you know you're in trouble.

Light dispels darkness.

Said, I am the light of the world and man, we could spend some time here.

I won't do it.

Don't.

No, no.

Good on.

The Bible says again that we are children of God.

As children of God, we as children of the light.

Ephesians 5, 8 says, for ye are sometimes in darkness.

Let me say that again.

Were sometimes darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord.

Walk as children of light.

Walk as children of light.

We see this a lot in the Bible, don't we?

The light versus darkness, good versus evil.

This and here it's contrasting again that God is light and him there is no darkness, and that we ought to fellowship with him, we ought to be light, that we ought to walk as children of the light.

In other words, a test of genuine salvation is that you walk in light.

If you're genuinely saved, if you've really accepted Christ as your Savior, you've come at a point in time when you have trust in Jesus and Him alone, transferred your trust from whatever else you might be put in, whether that's a baptism that you experienced when you were a kid or whether that's being a good person, whether that may be.

And putting your faith and trust in Jesus, transferring your trust to him at that point, you're children of the light.

And as Christians, we ought to walk as children.

The light.

Again, the test is here.

Are you walking in light?

Walking in light.

I'm going to explain it.

You ready?

If I say, in other words, if I say we, if I were to say, yes, I am a Christian, I'm saved, I know I'm saved.

Walk in darkness.

The Bible saying here says you're a liar.

That's what it's saying.

To put it bluntly, what does it mean to walk in?

Well, it means to live in.

It means to continually live in.

It means habitually live in sin.

As a Christian, if you can habituate, if you can walk in darkness, here is the checkup is.

Here is the battery may be dead again, that's between you and the Lord.

And I want to be careful here.

But Jesus said himself, by their fruits you shall know them.

That's Jesus words.

Jesus words.

Who can really know the fruit?

Well, only the Lord does and only that person's heart.

So be careful.

By the way, ought to always be careful about judging someone's spirituality.

Not my place to judge your spirituality.

God does that.

And I do believe there are certain instances where someone can live.

In fact, the Bible does.

Paul said, I keep my body in subjection, lest by any means I should be.

What a cast talks about being set on a shelf.

So again, we know that as a Christian here, John is saying that we should walk in light.

If we're not walking in light and we're walking in darkness, then maybe we're not saved.

Maybe you weren't truly saved in the first place.

Now the whole book of John is doing this.

It's saying, are you sure?

Are you sure that you're saved?

Sure, without a shadow of a doubt.

If you were to die today, that heaven would be your home.

Do you know that for sure?

He says these things.

Have I written unto you that ye might what, hope so?

No, that you might know that you have.

And Christian, there ought to be a time in your life when you've settled it.

I hope you I settled it at age of 6 years old.

I can't say that I've never doubted.

But I can say very few times in my entire life have I ever doubted that I was saved.

I know it.

I put it by trust in Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection.

I know.

And again, we ought to be walking in light.

I'll move on.

When we sin as a Christian, well, we break fellowship with God.

Not only do we break fellowship with God, but many times it's breaking fellowship with others as well.

When we break fellowship not only with God, but with others, many times, walking with the Lord and living for him and fellowshipping with him is important to him.

If we walk with him and we walk in the light, fellowship with one another.

I've used this verse a lot over the years, but it's still an amazing verse.

It basically says, if you are right with God, you will be right with your fellow man.

If you are right with God, you'll be right with your spouse.

Now, maybe not on their end, but on your end, you're going to be right God.

You're fellowshipping with God.

You're walking in the light, as you should.

Then you will be right with your spouse.

And you're walking with the light, and you're fellowshipping with God, you'll be right with your fellow Christian.

In other words, they won't another Christian you will be in fellowship with.

Now, again, I love my brother.

I'm talking about my biological brother.

He's four years older than him.

Him And I have some disagreements, but I love him to death.

Right.

Because we're brothers.

Hello.

That mean I have to like him all the time.

I mean, that's kind of a biblical principle.

But I love him.

There ought to be one of the tests that goes on to say John in a latter passage, says one of the tapes is a love for the brethren.

Love for your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

Loving God.

Amen.

Walking in this light.

The fellowship we have with the Lord affects our fellowship with.

Remember when you first met your spouse, the time you spent with her, the talking, you know, on the fall.

And you had to dial it like this.

Dad would say, you got five minutes.

My dad was very particular.

You got five minutes.

Plus it cost back then, you know, still costs today.

But anyway.

But you talked and you learned about each other.

You talked and you talked and you talked.

You learned each other.

Spending time with each other and living to be with them.

You wanted to be with them, hear them.

That's a relationship.

Christianity is not a religion.

It's a relationship desires a relationship with you to walk in the light.

And we as Christians ought to be on pray.

We ought to be on praying ground, walking in the light.

Again, as we see in verses 8 through 10, sin breaks our fellowship Again, we know that Adam and Eve, whose Adam sinned in the fellowship was broken with God.

The Bible says that at that point when Adam sinned, that mankind with God.

But Romans chapter 5, verse 1 says, Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

How?

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm thankful the peace we can have with God.

And again his life, his death and his resurrection.

Christian sin breaks our fellowship with God.

I'm thankful I'm still a Christian.

Life does not cause a loss of salvation.

I'm saved eternally.

Eternal life.

And you Baptists are always saying, once saved, always saved.

That's because the Bible teaches it.

No man can pluck me out of the Father's hand.

I can't be cast out for eternal life.

But sin in the believer's life does cause broken fellowship with God.

Again, the result of sin is broken fellowship.

And we as Christians need to deal with that sin.

I'm thinking, well, again, we're.

But we sin by nature.

We're just sinners saved by grace.

I love that song that Ms. Linda sings from.

We're sinners saved by grace.

Forgiveness is confessing that sin.

It's found in confessing the sin.

If you confess your sin, sins plural, he is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness we sin.

He makes that very clear in verse 8 and 10.

If you say you have no sin, you're a liar.

There is no sin.

I don't know what that means.

You can look it up later.

Google second blood blessing.

There is a sect of believers who believe going in your life as a Christian that you don't sin.

Well, that's a farce.

And the Bible totally, totally teaches it.

As long as we're in this body, as long as we have the old nature, we selfish.

You know, I'm thankful for the new nature that wants to do right and tries to live right and leaning upon the grace of God, lives for Jesus and lives holy.

But we are sinners.

I'll conclude with this.

Are you a child of God this morning?

Do you know Jesus as your savior, Christian?

Are you living for him?

Are you walking in the light?

Are you hatching with him?

These things have I written unto you that your joy might be full.

See, fellowshipping with others is.

Is hurt broken by our sin.

Because then when we sin, we're not right with God.

For instance, gossip destroy fellowship with others.

It amazes me how much gossip goes.

You say a preacher will never know that I said no, I'm telling you, you would not believe.

The staff can tell.

Amazing how the birds and the just kind of flies back and I'll.

Yeah, I hear it.

Well preacher, you know I was telling truth.

Well, truth.

One else besides the person who you're talking about even truth talked told to someone else.

That is dis is gossip.

Amen.

Egos get in the way.

None of us are egotistical, are we?

We preached nights ago.

Man, you think about Nebuchadnezzar, boy, that was actually a Sunday night we preached.

Boy, he was prideful, wasn't he?

We got to be careful.

I'm telling you, it's going to be right with God.

But cleansing is needed in order to be right with each other.

Unified and unity in the church is maintained by each member walking in the light, having fellowship with the Lord, maintaining that.

And then verse four says as we maintain that fellowship, we experience joy.

We experience joy.

Where he said.

John says, we have handled the word of life.

We seen him, we touched, we heard.

And yet he was manifested from God.

We trusted in him, believed on him, and now we fellowship with him.

You can fellowship with him too and experience fullness of joy and Christian from time.

We just need to jump start.

We do.

We need to be revived to cleanse the palate.

Food came in.

I told you it would.

It always does.

Cleansing.

We need a cleansing.

Revival meeting starts next week.

Again, I ask you, do you know you're saved with the Lord?

How's your fellowship with a fellow believer?

I hope that you to be on praying ground.

Psalm 66 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, God will I want to be on praying ground.

Be on praying ground.

Let's all stand.

I have a verse invitation.

That joyness of that fullness of joy is found in knowing that you're saved.

Well, you want joy, make sure and be sure that you know you're saved.

If you were to die today, would heaven be your home?

If you don't, we encourage you to step out of your chair and come forward.

We have some counselors here who can show you from the Bible how you can know joy may be full.

How?

How?

By walking with Jesus Christ.

Every day we walk with each other.

How are we to experience the fullness of joy?

By fellowshipping with Jesus Christ.

Amazing.

How when we fellowship with each other, we have that joy.

That joy.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the joy we give you.

Lord.

I do pray that we as Christians would have soft hearts, Lord.

That anything that's between us and you, Lord, that we get that right.

And Lord, there's something not right between us and the fellow.

That right.

Lord, we do want to see revival.

And Lord, we thank you for the joy that we can experience through joy unspeakable and full of glory.

In Jesus name, Amen.

All right, we're going to sing hymn one for all.

If the Lord spoke to your heart, you come this morning.

Or whatever you've got picked there.

Lord spoke of your heart you come this morning.

One of my favorite hymns.

Let's sing the chorus together.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus Turn your.

Eyes upon Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory.

Grace several still at the altar as the pianist continues to play for us sin no more dominion for more than conquerors we are.

Let's sing the chorus again together.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow straight in the light of his glory.

Still have some praying.

Let's sing.

We'll go through another verse here.

Not fail ye promised.

Believe him and all be well.

Then go to one that is dying his perfect to tell.

Turn our eyes upon Jesus, look in his wonderful face.

Things of earth will grow strangely in the light of his glory and grace.

All right.

Please, beasters, get ready to take.

Take the offering this morning.

Do remember, our youth in Prayer is there in Alabama doing a VBS meeting.

Starts next week with brother Sam Davison.

Hope that you'll make plans to be.