"To Him be glory forever": assurance

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Assurance

Yesterday I preached a funeral, using Isaiah 43:1-3a as the text, which reads:

"But now thus says the Lord, he who created you,

O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.""

As Isaiah brings this word from the Lord the people of Israel are in a bad spot, and a bad spot that is entirely of their own making. They have ignored God and many calls by Him through the prophets, particularly Isaiah, to repent of their sin and return to Him. And in spite of the way they have acted towards God the message that they receive is not "You are about to get what you deserve, so tough luck" but "You are mine. Things will be hard but I will be with you. In all things I am your Savior."

The words Isaiah brings are words of assurance and while the specific context involves bad behavior by God's people the truth of the assurance they provide applies to God's people in any time of hardship or struggle. God, looking down from above, sends a message of His assurance to His people in the midst of their troubles.

The other scripture I used during the funeral was Psalm 23, which says this in verse 4:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

In this verse David speaks to God during a time of hardship, expressing assurance that he trusts God in the darkest of situations. In a sense these two passages express the same thing. They look from one side, through hardship to the other side, and yet say the same thing: God is good and He is with His children in even the worst of times. They are almost mirror images.

Almost, with the difference being in the one speaking. David speaks to God with confidence, but David is human, and even the best of humans have their moments of weakness, when the strongest and best of intentions may waver.

But not so God. There is no weakness in God. There is no good intention with bad follow-through in God. There is no doubting that everything He promises to provide for His children will one day be fulfilled. It may not happen in the way we desire, or according to our timeline, but it most certainly will happen.

Yesterday I tried to use the text from Isaiah to bring a family comfort, assurance and hope as they go through a trying time. But so many Christians are going through their own struggles and so I share this bit from yesterday to bring the same assurance to them. And to you.

The assurance that by faith in Jesus Christ you are His and though things may be hard, He is always with you. This is assurance that comes from God through His word. It is assurance that will never fail. Amen.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Assurance in adoption

I am spending a few weeks preaching on the Bible, asking questions about it so we might better understand how God speaks through it and that we would grow in our love of Him.

The first week we asked questions of "What?" Since then we have dealt with "Who?" "Where?" and "When?" This morning we asked "How?" Specifically, the questions I tried to answer were:

How was the Bible put together?

How do we know the Bible is true?

How do we know if we are using the Bible correctly?

How does the Bible assure us of our place with God?

How does God call us to live in the world?

How does the Bible assure us of our place with God?

The Bible answers that question in a number of places, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. The place I decided to go to find that answer was Galatians 4:1-7, which is an answer of the more indirect sort.

Paul teaches a number of things in those verses and what I brought out of them was this: Prior of coming to faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord we were sinners, "enslaved to the elementary principles of this world," but that now, by faith, Christians have been adopted as children of God. Paul says that we are saved "so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters]."

A dictionary definition of adoption says: "To choose or take as one's own; to make one's own by selection or assent." This is what has happened when we come to faith in Jesus. By faith we are made children of God. Adopted children of a perfect Father.

It can be easy to read references to fathers in the Bible and get caught up with memories of our own fathers. Some of those memories may be very good, but I stand in the pulpit fully aware that for some of the people I preach to, their father is the last person they want to think of. They have had fathers who, at best, failed them in every way possible, and who, at worst, were abusive and/or absent.

So we need to remember what kind of father God is. He is a father who always acts according to His character, meaning that He is always loving, always protective, always seeking the best for His children, even when our reaching for the best means learning some lessons the hard way.

He is a father whose children, every single one of the save one, is adopted. Except for Jesus, every single one God's children was once on the outside. Lost in their sin and unable to do a single thing about it.

And now, by faith in Jesus, they have been adopted into the family of God. Their sin has been washed away and they stand before the Father with the same sense of assurance as every other child of God. Their place in the family, as children in the very best of families, is certain.

At times when life is hard, when things are going wrong and you can’t understand why, or even at times when life is a mess of your own making, know this beyond any doubts. If you have faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord your place in the family God is certain. You have been adopted into the very best of families, the family that knows God as Father. And He is a Father that will never, ever, fail to hold onto every one of His children.