SECURITY - 6

Today's message was about 'eternal security,' 'predestination' and 'election,' 'Calvinism' vs. 'Arminianism' - in response to questions sent in by the congregation. Weighty stuff.

Frankly, I don’t know any serious, orthodox theology that claims God ‘takes back’ the gift of salvation. God has done everything possible to save us and He is not in the business of withdrawing His gift. But that begs the question as to whether or not WE can do anything to reject His gift and thereby lose it. The issue is NOT the reliability of God. We know God cannot deny Himself – but what can we say about our denying Him?

If we must exercise faith to get IN Christ – and we DO – then we can exercise that same faith to get OUT of Christ. It would seem, if we couldn’t, we would no longer truly be free to make the choice to worship and serve God or not.

Having said that - so we don't get too far over to one side - there is a danger. We do not believe our standing with Christ is so fragile that it can be shaken by the slightest mistake … that a temporary lapse into some kind of sin immediately cancels all God has done for us up to that moment. We do NOT believe that. The loss of salvation has more to do with prolonged and profound sin that is consciously held without repentance and continued with no regret. In fact, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that God is going to judge Pharaseeism much more harshly than He does the meth addict who hangs on to the forgiveness of Christ while still struggling with his addiction.

Still, there is great security in knowing Christ. The opposite of security is anxiety. I think, as humans, we all value security. We spend huge chunks of time thinking about and planning our FUTURES, our RETIREMENTS, our LIVES – even our DEATHS in some cases. We think about those things a lot. And God has given us tremendous security in knowing Him. In John 14, Jesus said: “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s House are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again … that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

He’s talking about HIS future and OUR future. That gives me a tremendous sense of peace. God is not some arbitrary, unjust Being who chooses some and rejects the rest. Our free will forces each of us to face the problem of our own destiny squarely and without excuse. And you can have assurance and great peace with God because He has revealed in His Word the conditions that must be met and every single person can know whether or not they have met them … because they’re all written down.

I fully believe John Calvin, Jacobus Arminius, John Wesley – the Baptists, the Nazarenes, the Reformed, the Pentecostals and Charles Stanley will all be in heaven if they have all placed their faith in CHRIST. Ours is a conversation among people of faith, not an angry war between opponents.

The fact is, all of us have much more in common than we do in disagreement. We all agree God is the sovereign of the universe.
We all agree that whatever freedom we have comes as a result of God’s amazing grace.
We all agree that nothing more is needed or required for us to be saved besides Jesus.
We all preach Christ and Him crucified.

And actually, we all admit to some form of ‘perseverance of the saints’ and ‘security.’ No believer stands for salvation that is here today and suddenly vanished tomorrow. We do not have a ‘hope so-think so-maybe so’ faith. We are secure in Christ, even if we differ on the scope and nature of that security.

There is a famous saying that originated with Augustine over 1,500 years ago that we would all do well to memorize. Augustine said: ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.’

We are not at the point in our thinking where we believe our position on every single text is the only legitimate way to read each passage. No single system gets it 100% correct. Here's another sneaking suspicion of mine: When we get to heaven, we’ll probably all be attending “Theology 101” and Jesus will be our Teacher. In the meantime, we do our best to prayerfully interpret and understand Scripture and work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

You can listen to the whole thing starting Monday - at http://www.kenoshafirst.com/

And be blessed.