Making Sure — Part One
August 13, 2013
Making Sure2 Corinthians 13:1-14Theme: Assurance.This week’s lessons exhort us to examine ourselves to see if we are truly followers of Christ. Lesson
Making Sure2 Corinthians 13:1-14Theme: Assurance.This week’s lessons exhort us to examine ourselves to see if we are truly followers of Christ. Lesson
It is one thing to practice discipline where there is a clear violation of the law of God, and there is unrepentant behavior after much careful concern and pleading with the person, and a great deal of effort in prayer.
There are great passages that talk about the doctrines of assurance and eternal security. There are three key passages. One is the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel where Jesus is speaking. He says there that he holds his people in his hand. He is the Shepherd; he has called them to himself.
Paul said examine yourself. So how can we do that? In John’s first letter, he was writing to people who were shaken up because of the Gnostics – people who had come into their midst professing a greater measure of enlightenment.
I say to you as the Apostle Paul said to the Christians at Corinth: examine yourselves to see whether you are really in the faith. You might have learned many things about God, but if you learn much about the faith and are not actually born again, what you have learned is to no advantage.
When I was talking about the third chapter of Romans, I pointed out that Romans 3 is the heart of the Bible. If that is true, Romans 8 is the Bible’s climax.
You recall what is said in the third chapter of John’s gospel, the very chapter which contains that great verse beloved by Christians everywhere, beginning, “For God so loved the world . . .” The chapter talks about the gospel: that God sent Jesus Christ that we might have eternal life.
But how can that be that condemnation does not come to us? There should be condemnation for us because we are sinners. I think that in the days before Christ’s crucifixion no one really understood how that could be. Certainly the men who set out to trap the woman did not understand it.
Yesterday we concluded by looking at the first reason we might have for being defeated. The second reason is found in verses 17 to 25, where Paul talks about our present sufferings.
The second reason why there will be no separation from the love of God is the impotence of everything, when set over against the sovereign love of God toward us in Christ Jesus. What are things, when set over against God? Paul talks about a number of things that might tend to separate us from that love.
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