BUT ARE YOU
SURE?
Romans 8:12-17
What are you afraid of? Rarely will someone insist that he is afraid of nothing! Many have such a long list they need a computer to keep them straight!
Parents fear for
the safety of their children…students fear that their grades will not be good
enough…nearly everyone fears rejection from someone…people in coastal states
fear hurricanes!
But there is
another fear that most people entertain at some point in their lives…it is the
fear of what happens when death comes.
Some fear the actual way we die, others what will happen to those left
behind, still others what lies on the other side of death. Even among those who profess faith in Christ
and boast of their assurance of eternal life, there can be occasional moments
of concern…doubt…even times when we cannot explain when we are truly fearful
about the condition of our souls.
In our study of
the fear of the Lord, we cannot leave out this common experience of fear
because it relates to our fear of the Lord and what it will be like to face Him
one day. Good news…God has not left us
alone or without answers to such unsettling questions!
THESIS: Many
Christians are uncertain and fearful about their salvation and fall prey to a
spirit of bondage once again and lose the security and joy of their adoption as
children of God.
Last
week we examined…
i. the
introduction of fear through our sin
II. THE
INTRUSION OF UNGODLINESS INTO OUR FEARS
A. UNGODLY FEARS MAKE HIDING FROM GOD MORE DESIRABLE THAN ABIDING IN
HIM.
1. Fear that
drives a person away.
2. Fear that
pushes the Lord away.
3. Fear that
avoids the Lord’s anger.
4. Fear that
rises from unbelief.
--Today we continue to examine the kind of fear that does
not give God glory, but is in reality an ungodly
fear.
B. UNGODLY FEARS THAT INITIALLY MOVE TOWARD GOD BUT EVENTUALLY FALL
FROM GOD.
Rom. 8:15 For
you have not received a spirit of
slavery leading to fear again,
but you have received a spirit of
adoption as sons by which we cry out,
“Abba! Father!”
--The fear of which Paul speaks once was a godly fear that
broke the chains of slavery binding our hearts to sin by bringing us to a
profound awareness of our bondage to sin.
1. An Initial Spirit of Bondage Is from the
Lord
--There are three aspects to this spirit of bondage that
mark it as an initial work of the Holy Spirit in bringing a person to
repentance and then to faith in Christ.
·
The Convicting
Work of the Holy Spirit
·
The Awful
Recognition of a Corrupted Heart
·
The Gripping
Fear of Hell and Holiness
D. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones calls this the “first preliminary work of the Spirit in
bringing us to salvation and is therefore an indication of sonship…the ‘spirit
of bondage and fear’ always precedes the ‘Spirit of adoption.’” (pp.
206-207)
--An initial spirit of bondage can produce a godly fear that
leads to repentance when brought on by the Holy Spirit.
--That initial awareness of a spirit of slavery was
generated in our hearts by the convicting work and power of the Holy Spirit.
--Once we became aware of the depth of our sin and the
eternal consequences, our fear was overwhelming and our need inescapable.
--Through the leading of the Holy Spirit, we were made to
sense the dangers of damnation and motivated to cry out for salvation.
The Crowd on
the Day of Pentecost:
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pierced
to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
The
Philippian Jailer:
Acts 16:29-30 29And he called for lights and
rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30and after he brought them out,
he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be
saved?”
--The fear and trembling produced by the Spirit was a godly
fear with a godly result—these who feared turned to the Lord and were saved!
Rom. 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus.
2. The Return of a Spirit of Bondage Is Not
from the Lord
--If you fall back into a spirit of bondage again,
after you have received Christ and His salvation, His freedom from
condemnation, you may indeed experience fear-- desperate fear with great
anguish in your soul—you can be sure that such fear is not godly fear, but
ungodly fear.
--It is the fear used as a weapon against you by Satan to
delude and deceive you into thinking that you do not belong to Christ and have
no claim to His covenant promises.
--Once you have been adopted as those who belong to Christ,
there is no more spirit of bondage needed to bring about conviction for the sin
that separates you from God and condemns your soul.
--Therefore, any further trouble in your heart caused by a
spirit of bondage has originated from a source other than the Lord, causing you
unnecessary agony of soul and ungodly fears.
John Bunyan once asked his inquirers
ten
questions about the state of their hearts when they seemed to have
questions about the security of their salvation, and the fears within their
souls—here are four of those questions:
--When ungodly fears plague you, he asks…
1. Are you ever entertain fears that make you
question whether you have ever really experienced a work of God’s grace in your
heart?
2. Do your fears cause you to doubt whether
your initial experience with the Lord was genuine, or a counterfeit?
3. Are you ever afraid that your salvation was
the result of your own imagination or from Satan’s deceptions?
4. Do you ever give in to the fear that perhaps
you do not have a claim in Christ’s promise of salvation for you?
--Have you gone through these times when you had severe doubts
about your salvation accompanied by troublesome fears down deep in your
heart? Or perhaps you have known others
who have?
--However, some who should not fear, do; and some who should
fear, don’t!
There is a fine line between warning the unconverted
who are deceived into thinking they belong to Christ, and abusing those who do
belong to Christ by constantly assaulting the security of their salvation by
calling into question the authenticity of their faith.
Some preachers make it their calling to question the
salvation of every congregation they face.
The usual response is a number of insecure believers who are suffering
from a lack of assurance, not a lack of salvation, who want to “make sure” and
recommit themselves to Christ, or even pray for the Lord to save them and “this
time I really mean it!”
In some
churches where such things are customary practices, there is a virtual ferris
wheel in the baptistry as some of the same people come back again year after
year because of their uncertainty, because they fall prey to the accusations of
the enemy instead of the assurances of the Holy Spirit.
Back during the days of the Great
Awakening, in 1742 in particular, many itinerant preachers made their living
going from town to town undermining the faith of many, accusing the pastors of
being unconverted themselves, and demanding that people be truly and rightly
saved by responding to their message
with faith…usually accompanied by extraordinary demonstrations of outward
expressions.
Nearly every age has its problems with questions of
assurance, doubts and ungodly fears prompted not by the Holy Spirit but having
as their source the accusations of the devil and a return to a spirit of
bondage that leads to fear.
--What answers can we give those who fall prey to ungodly
fears that threaten to strangle their spiritual vitality?
--If God has secured us and sealed us in Christ by the Holy
Spirit, what then is the source of the ungodly fears that plague many?
·
Not attributable to the Holy Spirit
--The fear that our guilt still hangs heavily upon us, that
our sin still remains unforgiven, cannot be a fear that has been generated by
the Holy Spirit.
--If the Spirit has released us from the spirit of slavery,
a spirit of adoption has been given to us, not a spirit that would have any
reason to take us back again to the kind of bondage that would produce a godly
fear that would lead where God has already taken us!
·
Baseless accusations by Satan
--In his role of Accuser, Satan realizes that he cannot take
away the reality of what God has given, but he can rob us of the joy of it by
doing what he can to make us fearful, to frighten us into thinking that we
still have reason to dread the Lord due to his lies, not due to the convicting
power of the Holy Spirit.
·
Insecure hearts in the doubter
--Some poor souls seem to find some perverse satisfaction in
wallowing in self-pity and will not allow themselves to believe that the grace
of Christ works in their case.
--Therefore, it takes very little to send them into a state
of perpetual fear about the condition of their souls…they are already inclined
by their insecurities to believe themselves to be beyond the reach of Christ’s
promises and provisions.
a. The
Covenant
--One of the best answers for those who are afraid that they
have been led once again into a spirit of slavery or bondage is that God has
called us into a covenant relationship
with Himself—He has “cut a covenant” with us (Hebrew word, berith; Greek word, diatheke)
--The security and contentment we have as a result of that
covenant makes it clear that we should have no fear of His condemnation, no
dread of His judgment, because through this covenant, the Lord does two things
that take away our fears!
1) He gives His word by swearing an oath to us by His own name
Heb. 6:13, 17-18 For when God made the promise to Abraham,
since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself… 17 In the same way God, desiring
even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His
purpose, interposed with an oath, 18
in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to
lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying
hold of the hope set before us.
--His solemn oath, sworn by the strongest possible name…
…Strengthens
our confidence and gives us His greatest assurance
…Places
Himself under the most solemn obligation to console, comfort and contend for us
2) He gives Himself to us, going beyond words to offer everything
needful for our security and freedom from fear
…He bestows His almighty power,
infinite wisdom and incomprehensible mercy on us
…He gives His protection,
support, deliverance, direction, pardon and refreshment
…He overcomes our times of
ungodly fears, unwarranted guilt and unnecessary doubts
--According to this covenant, He comes to us when ungodly
fears arise
Is. 43:1-2 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O
Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you
are Mine! 2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And
through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.
Is. 41:10 ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not
anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I
will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
2 Sam. 23:5 “Truly is not my house so with God? For He
has made an everlasting covenant
with me, Ordered in all things, and secured;
For all my salvation and all my desire,
Will He not indeed make it grow?
--Nothing else is needed if I have a covenant with God
Almighty—what else can cause my heart to return again to a life filled with
fear?
b. The Adoption
--Once I have responded to the spirit of bondage that has
pushed over the edge my fears of punishment for sin and dread of a
confrontation with the God of Holiness and Righteousness, I never look back!
--For then I am give a spirit of adoption and called a son
of the Most High God and granted the privilege of calling Him “Abba.”
Many times in my life I have done things I was
ashamed of. Had they been known, they
would have embarrassed my family and dishonored my father’s name. I also did things which were discovered and
warranted punishment by my earthly father.
But for all of that, I never once feared that I
would be disowned, cast out of the family.
I belonged to my father’s house by birth and was never afraid that I
would be rejected from bearing his name.
By birth and adoption, when you come to Jesus Christ
you are made a part of the Father’s family and given a spirit of adoption that
he will never withdraw.
You need never fear that He will go back on His
Word, never be afraid that you will do something to cancel His promises to be
your “Abba.”
--You received a spirit of adoption, not a spirit of bondage
leading again to fear, so when you have doubts and are afraid that God will
reject you, remember His covenant promises and His everlasting adoption.
c. The
Grounds
--A third answer you have been given to allay your fears is
that your place in God’s family was not based on your conduct to begin with and
will not be based on your behavior at any point along the way.
--The grounds for your place in His family happens to be the
completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross as His death provided a perfect
atoning sacrifice for your sin.
1)
The Sacrifice was
sufficient for all who believe in Him and receive Him as Savior, trusting Him
by faith.
2)
The Spirit who sealed
you in Christ brought you forth to new life as you were born again to eternal
life.
3) The new life to which you were born is eternal life—meaning that
it has no end, and can never come to an end (i.e. you cannot lose it because
you did not gain it…it was given to you and it lasts forever!)
--When your enemy tries to stir up your fears and rob you of
your peace, remember that he has no legitimate grounds for his accusations—do
not be afraid!
d. The Fruit
--Although we all are guilty of failure, and we all have
sinned since we received that blessed spirit of adoption, the sure sign that we
are new creatures is the presence of spiritual fruit in our lives.
--Our assurance does not depend upon the fruit since our
assurance is based upon the covenant, the adoption and the grounds for our new
life in Christ.
--However, genuine conversion to Christ always demonstrates
something of a changed character as we become new creatures in Christ.
2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a
new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Jonathan
Edwards was
quick to acknowledge that no one can truly judge the heart of another, and not
in objective measures even speak with absolute certainty about his own, he did
make it clear that the assurances of salvation were established in the Lord God
alone.
However, the evidence of genuine
conversion, and true salvation, could be seen in the fruit of the Spirit in our
lives. The problem of hypocrisy and
self-deception would be corrected in large part if people would look not to
each person’s experience of a saving event, but look instead to the lasting
fruit of a genuine, life-changing encounter with the Lord.
Superficial and misleading assertions of faith could
be avoided if “it would become more fashionable for men to show their
Christianity, more by an amiable distinguished behavior, than by an abundant
and excessive declaring (of) their experiences.” Edwards said elsewhere that he saw more credibility in “evangelical
humility,” a “lamblike, dovelike spirit” and “tenderness of spirit” that would
‘manifest a “beautiful symmetry and proportion” of virtues, as opposed to the
imbalance often seen in the meteoric zeal of the hypocrites.”’
--The basis of our confidence does not rest in our
experience, nor does it rest in our declarations.
--The basis of the confidence that we no longer need fear
any spirit of bondage is Jesus Christ and His life-changing power to forgive us
and then conform us to His own image.
If you have ever doubted your standing
with the Lord or questioned whether your faith is genuine, you can understand
how easy it would be to fall prey to those fears that take you prisoner and
hold you captive in their powerful claws.
But God’s power
is greater. Once He shows you His mercy
and pardon through His Son, once you have understood that you have now received
a spirit of adoption instead of bondage, your fear will be replaced by the joy
of the Lord!
Then you will
realize that you are free to walk in the fear of the Lord, bowing with adoring praise and thanksgiving instead of cowering with
trepidation and doubts.
2 Tim. 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear
(timidity, cowardice); but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Are you sure this morning that you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? The Holy Spirit wants you to know the power of sin’s control over you so that you will understand why nothing less than the death of Christ will release you from the spirit of bondage your sin has held over you. Today you no longer need to be afraid with an ungodly fear of returning to that condition again…if you trust Christ and rest secure in all that He has done, and all that He is. Then you can be sure…and no longer afraid!
Providence Baptist Church
© David Horner 2003
Sermon outlines may be used for preaching and teaching
purposes,
but may not be published or sold.