There are a lot of maladies out there that are permeating society known by their abbreviations such as HIV, ADHD, STD’S. A great spiritual malady permeates the church of Jesus Christ today. If I were to give it a name, I would call it ADD: Assurance Deficit Disorder. The problem afflicts millions of sincere Christians who have put their faith in Christ for salvation, consistently attend church, read their bibles, faithfully serve the Lord, and pray regularly. And yet these precious people have little or no assurance that their eternity is secure in Christ. When asked if they are on their way to heaven, they might answer if they are being honest, “I think so,” or “I sure hope so.” But they would stutter to say “I know so.” The symptoms of Assurance Deficit Disorder include an inordinate fear of death and hell, a questioning of God’s love for them or of the believers worthiness to be His child, a sense of real insecurity concerning eternity, and-not surprising-a lack of spiritual victory and of joy in daily living.
Assurance is no minor issue. There is real assurance and certainty that God wants you to have. God means for our souls to be anchored in heaven. He does not want us to bob and drift on the sea of people’s opinion, our own feelings and emotions or our works in order to gain assurance. When those become the ground of our security we become insecure because they are only as good as their mood or actions at any given moment. Too many of us are looking for assurance in all the wrong places. God's will for us is that we live in the liberty and the joy and the power of full assurance. He means for us to know assuredly that we are bound for heaven and that we will not fail to get there. That is why John said in 1 John 5:9, 13, "We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater... I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life."
Our experience of assurance is highly subjective and must constantly be brought back to the solid, stable, secure ground of God’s Word. He wants us to be anchored in a knowledge based on the truth and certainty of the Word of God. In Philippians 1:6, the apostle Paul gets our eyes off of ourselves and on to God as the source of our confidence, security, and assurance. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6 ESV
Paul is exalting the fact that the saints can have absolute assurance that they are saved, that the Father is directly involved in their life and that they will go to Heaven! He celebrates the glory of his God who is involved in the totality of our salvation: past, present, and future; a God who does not partially save us, or halfway save us, or even three-quarters of the way save us, but He saves us completely, totally, and eternal; and we can have full assurance of that fact.
Paul was confident in God’s working in their salvation, and you can be confident and assured in your salvation as well. You can have joy and confidence because:
God previously acted by His grace in you- “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you” In regards to our salvation, Paul was “sure”. Paul is not saying that he was hopeful in regards to our redemption, the work of redemption in our lives. Paul uses a strong word peitho in the Greek which means “to persuade, to convince beyond all doubt.” Paul uses the word “you” to make this confidence personal. Just as Paul knew, so you need to know and you need to know based on the evidence. Who was it that began that good work in you? “He.” Who’s the “He”? God! Paul is emphasizing the initiative of God in salvation.
The verb "began" (Greek enarchomai,) is interesting, it is a rare word only used two times in the New Testament. It's used here and Galatians 3:3. It literally means 'to inaugurate'. The tense 'to inaugurate', is employed as a decisive tense, as a deliberate act. In other words, because God at some time in your history has deliberately and completely saved you. God began a good work. And it was true. It is always true.
Salvation is God’s work. He is the initiator of it. This is something that Paul emphasizes over and over. Think of Ephesians 2:1, 5, “For you were dead in your trespasses and sins..But God made you alive in Jesus Christ.” Who took the initiative in that salvation? You? No! You were dead. Dead people are notoriously bad initiators! But God took the initiative and did what? Made you alive in Christ! Listen to John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God even to those who believe on His name...listen...who were born, born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God."
Salvation is God's work. He makes the first move, and if he didn’t make the first move, we would make no move at all. Perhaps you’ve heard of the country preacher who was being examined for ordination to the ministry. When asked how he had become a Christian, the preacher replied, "I did my part and God did his." That sounded questionable, so the learned brethren on the council asked the preacher to explain "his part in salvation." "My part was to run from God as fast as I could," the preacher answered. "God’s part was to run after me and catch me and bring me into his family." All of us were born running from God, and unless God took the initiative to find us, we would still be running away from him. He was the seeker. He was the mover. He was the initiator. Salvation is always of God. We love because He first loved us.
Paul also says that this good work was begun “in you”. God works for us, He works with us, He works through us, He works by us, but before He will or can work for us, with us, through us, and by us, He must work "in us." Becoming a Christian is the deepest and most wonderful change that a person can ever know. It is not a superficial and temporary change. It is a powerful work of God in the very center of our being. Henry Scougal called it, "the life of God in the soul of man."
The Prophet Ezekiel describes it beautifully. Ezekiel 36:25-27: "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws”. God performs a spiritual heart transplant. He removes our hard old heart and gives us a new heart -- a heart that loves Him and desires Him and wants to follow His ways and obey His commandments and is able to follow His ways and do His commandments. You can have joy and confidence because:
This salvation, this good work, is unfinished work here- He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” It’s vital for us to remember that. The Apostle Paul is telling us that the work of grace is but begun in this life, but it is never ever finished here. The Christian life is not one uninterrupted climb heavenward, nor is it some catapulting to perfection and then a continuous experience of perfection in this life. It is a life filled with peaks and valleys, and sometimes the valleys are so deep that we never ever think that we’re going to climb out of them. This word is one of the most encouraging words in all of Scripture. I remember hearing someone say, "Please be patient with me, God isn’t finished with me yet. We are all under construction! We all are a work in progress. I may not look like much—but God isn’t finished with me yet. And when you look in the mirror—and even deeper into your own soul, you may not like what you see, but no matter. God isn’t finished with you yet.
There is good news and bad news in this truth. The good news is that since God isn’t finished yet, we have great hope for the future. The bad news is that since God isn’t finished yet, he won’t let us stay as we are today. Romans 8:29 tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” He’s going to keep chipping away at us until we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Most of us have a long way to go—and some of us have an enormous distance to travel. But it doesn’t matter. John Newton put it this way when he said: “I am not what I ought to be – ah, how imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor the evil in me, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be; soon, soon, I will put off with mortality both sin and imperfection; but though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. And so, therefore, I can heartily join with the Apostle Paul and say, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’”
That’s where Christians live, right there. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is saying. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." Our lives are being transformed, as the King James Version has it, from "glory to glory." Paul says in Philippians 2:13,“It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” The Apostle Paul is emphasizing that God is at work in you now.
God always finishes what He starts- “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Yes, God began it, yes you are not perfect yet; but it is a certain work. It is absolutely certain that He will complete it. Because God finishes what He starts. He inaugurates it, He continues it, and what a blessing today for you child: the outcome is guaranteed - do you know why? Because God's working to a schedule. He is working to the day of Christ Jesus, a day on His calendar marked when He's going to make you perfect! He has begun in you. Everything and everyone will be ready in time for that day.
Paul, in Romans 8:29-30 tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” The word “glorified” is in the aorist tense. Paul is not saying that one day we will be glorified but right now we are seen as glorified in the Father’s eyes. The reality is, that is how God sees you, the finished project, a finished work of art, a masterpiece of grace! That is how certain our glorification is, 100%! As one person put it, “The Lord always looks at His people as they will be when they are done.” We will be brought to safety, not by our own efforts or our own devices, but solely by the faithfulness of our heavenly Father. God's purpose in the salvation of his people is invincible—it cannot fail. I Thessalonians 5:23-24, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (Read 1 Cor.1:8; Jude 24, 25)
God is working and He will set us apart, completely, for His glory, He will finish the work! We can resist the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can reject what He is doing, but God will keep working because in the end, John tells us, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” ( I John 3:2-3). Someday you and I will stand before Jesus Christ as redeemed children of God—holy, blameless, and complete in every way. We’re a far sight from that today. But a better day is coming for the people of God. What is incomplete will be made complete. What is unfinished will be finished. What is lacking will be made full. What is partial will be made whole. What is less than enough will be far more than adequate. What is broken will be fixed. What is hurt will be healed. What is weak will be made strong. What is temporary will be made permanent. We are saved by grace; kept by grace and eternally secured by grace. God will preserve us and persevere with us so that we will stand at the end. That was the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 32:40, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”
Once there was an artist who had conceived in his mind a great picture, which he meant to be the masterpiece of his life. He was working on a large canvas, putting in the drabs and grays that were to compose the background, when a friend entered, unnoticed. The artist worked on with enthusiasm not aware of the onlooker’s presence. But, finally happening to turn, he saw him, and exclaimed, “What do you think of this? I intend it to be the greatest work I have ever done.” His friend burst into a laugh, and exclaimed, “Why, to be frank, I don’t think much of it. It seems to me to be only a great daub.” “Ah,” replied the artist, at once sensing the situation, “you cannot see what is going to be there. I can.” And so it is with God our Father. He sees in every believer the finished product of His masterpiece of the work of grace that He began in each of His children and, and He is working on right now toward that end.
Oh the assurance of God’s sovereign grace over our shaky, fickle, and frail lives! How many times have I not felt saved since I've been a Christian? How many times have I felt that the performance of my life did not measure up to what I profess? How many times did I not feel that I was sincere enough? How many times of I feel like I have not been trying hard enough? Well, the grace of God triumphs over the flaws of men.
Remember that “God’s grace was, is, and shall always be sufficient for you” (2 Cor.12:9). Let your assurance rest firmly on the faithfulness of God and His word over your own weakness and proneness to wander. Arm yourself with the truths of God’s word such as John 6:37-40; John 10:27-30; Romans 8:35-39; and 2 Timothy 4:16-17. You will not fall away because He will keep you. If you ask me how I will know tomorrow that I will still believe in Christ, my answer is not that I am a disciplined, strong, man of faith, or that I finish what I start, or that my will is reliable, or that the benefits far out way the costs. My answer is God’s sovereign grace over my fickle will is my only hope to persevering till the end. It is not the intensity of my faith that saves me, it is the object of my faith that saves me.
I put my trust in nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness's. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly on Lord Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
Oh Christian, you can testify this day like John Newton that “I am not what I ought to be – ah, how imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor the evil in me, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be; soon, soon, I will put off with mortality both sin and imperfection; but though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. And so, therefore, I can heartily join with the Apostle Paul and say, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’”
Therefore I am not discouraged by my weakness, sins, and flaws that I wont go to heaven and be with Jesus!. I am not doomed by my limitations and flaws. Instead, I ,embrace the grace of God that triumphs over each and every flaw in my life. I see that God has, is, and will triumph over ever area of my flawed life. Why? Because I am convinced by the word of God and my own experience thus far that "the faithfulness of God triumphs over the flaws of men!"
I pray like Paul that you will gain confidence in it; that you will understand it and believe it; that you will be amazed and exult in it; and that you will revel in the security and joy of it. What can be sweeter than to be “Kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5)? John Newton also wrote: “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures”.
