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Doctrines of Grace Part 5 - Perseverance of the Saints By David Calderwood

The old saying is that diamonds are forever, they're virtually indestructible.
But can you say the same about Christians?
Can you say Christians are forever?
Put it in very practical terms, very personal terms.
Are you, if you're a Christian here this morning,
are you absolutely certain that you will make it to heaven?
In answering that question, and it's a hard question to answer
because you need to have certain things in mind if you'd answer it honestly.
You need to bear in mind some of the awful things you've said or done this past week
and even this morning, things you've said and done to family, friends, work colleagues.
And for most of us that alone would be enough to stir up our real sense of guilt.
But we need to dig even deeper in answering this question
because we need to ask and think about some of the awful thoughts you've had.
I think you'll agree that our thought world is something that, largely speaking,
we can keep reasonably private.
But then we know we can't keep it private from God, can we?
So we need to answer that question with our thought world in mind.
So here's the question reframed.
Knowing your sins, knowing your failures in the past day, the past week, the past months,
can you be certain as a Christian you will last the distance
and ultimately get to be with Jesus in heaven forever?
That ups the ante a bit, doesn't it, for that question
to be put our actions and our thoughts and our words into the mix.
But I haven't done with the mix yet, you see, because what I want you to add to the mix now is
memories of people who once in your mind's eye and in the mind's eye of others
were strong professing Christians but who've now completely rejected the Gospel and walked away from it.
Perhaps they're people you've prayed with.
Perhaps they're people you've been in church with.
Perhaps even they've been people who've taught you as a Christian, a young Christian in the past.
And so the ante gets moved up again, doesn't it?
See, at this moment, speaking personally, at this moment, I look forward to being home with Jesus.
I really do.
But is there any guarantee I won't throw everything in when life gets tough?
Is it possible that I could be safe in the kingdom of God today, safe in the arms of Jesus today,
and yet be lost or rejected tomorrow or next month or next year?
That's our question for this morning.
And I need to say just at the start, the answer is as simple as it is beautiful.
Yes, Christians are forever.
Yes, God actually intends us, His people, His safe people, to feel safe and secure in Christ,
knowing we have eternal life and knowing, being confident that nobody and no thing can take that from us.
Neither our own sin nor the action or forces of others outside of ourselves.
The basis of such certainty? Well, God guarantees our salvation.
Our salvation is guaranteed.
Now, of course, in our day and age, as soon as you mention a guarantee, people become a bit wary.
We've all been caught by the fine print of guarantees, which essentially means that what appears to be really ironclad
actually has so many outclauses that it means nothing when push comes to shove.
So we're wary of guarantees, but what I want you to hear this morning is that it's God's guarantee of our salvation that I'm speaking of.
And therefore, I take it, God means what He says.
And it's at least one guarantee in our world that we can take at face value, with full seriousness.
God guarantees absolutely that we will persevere, that we will make it all the way to heaven and finally be with Jesus and finally be like Jesus.
Why? Because at every step of the way, at every point in our life, He preserves us as His safe children.
So there's two words I want us to bounce back and forward with today.
God guarantees that we will persevere.
Why? Because He guarantees to preserve us.
It's God's preserving power at work in our lives that means we can be confident we will persevere.
And we've got to roll over both those words this morning.
And this is the wonderful assurance in the fifth and final doctrine of grace.
It's like two sides of the one coin. I've already put it like that.
On the one side, God preserves us.
That's God's action on that side of the coin. God preserves us.
And so much of the Bible we read will read about God's action.
We're looking at it from God's perspective. God is acting in our lives to preserve us.
Flip the coin, that means we will persevere.
And so when we read some parts of the scripture, it talks about our actions persevering.
It's what we call sanctification.
So we will act, we will struggle, we will strive, we will persevere.
Why? Flip the coin. We have to flip the coin. Because God preserves.
And the two go together.
Twin truths again, as we've seen several times through this series on the doctrines of grace.
And we say it easily in Romans chapter 8, one of the great passages about the perseverance of Christians.
I want to open up with just a couple of major points here.
God always finishes what he starts. That's our guarantee.
Now, I probably don't need to say it to you, but you're probably like me.
You don't always finish what you start. You may have the best intentions.
And sometimes you just can't finish what you start because either you don't have the resources
or you don't have the skills, or you just lose interest in it.
But God has never let that. God always finishes what he starts.
He has the resources, he can see the end from the beginning, he has the skills, and he never loses interest in his projects.
He finishes what he starts.
And the context of these verses that we're going to look at is the whole of chapter 8.
Let me track through it very quickly now to show you just exactly what God does.
Verse 1 of chapter 8. Open your Bible if you haven't got to open it and look at it with me.
Therefore, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
There's objective guarantee.
If we're in Christ Jesus, that is, if Christ's death is ours, that has paid for the penalty for our sin,
then there will never be any condemnation.
That's an objective reality for us who are Christians, that's who are in Christ.
Verses 2 through to 8. How do we experience that?
Because when we look at our lives, it doesn't necessarily feel like that on a day-to-day basis.
So in verses 2 to 8, Paul spells out that the evidence of being in Christ is changed attitudes and desires
that make us want to do the things of God, where before we couldn't have cared less.
So it says, spirit gives rise to spirit, flesh gives life to flesh.
What he's meaning there is that when you get non-Christians,
you just don't see non-Christians who are worried sick about whether their sin is offensive to God.
And that's Paul's point. The fact is that people who call themselves Christians
are so concerned about their sins and failures that Paul says rather than that being evidence that you're not a Christian,
it's actually compelling evidence that the spirit is at work within you,
because that is a spirit-wrought activity, a spirit-produced response.
Verses 9 through to 17. God has put a spirit into us precisely to do that,
to confirm to us that we are as children and heirs together with Christ,
so that we actually feel safe and secure.
So as Paul steps through Romans chapter 8, we're getting one aspect of assurance piled upon another.
But then we say, well it's okay, it's one thing to become a Christian.
We all know that's by grace alone, but what about the rest of my life?
There's so much time lag between me becoming a Christian back then and dying and being in heaven.
There's so much that can go wrong in that period of time.
Will I persevere and get to glory? Paul answers that point in verses 18 through to 27.
In the midst of a hostile and difficult world where we're groaning as a consequence of sin,
there is certainty of salvation. We'll make it to the end.
And Paul gives the basis for this confidence in verses 28 onwards.
The basis of this confidence that we'll make it to the end in spite of our ongoing sin and failure
is verse 28 to 30. We've seen it over past weeks, God's purpose and God's promise.
So think of it like this. This is the way Paul's lining up here, the five links in the golden chain.
Think of it this morning in a slightly different metaphor.
It's a five-stage building project that the Lord has entered into,
carefully planned and carefully managed by God Himself,
and well on its way to being completed in each of our lives as individual Christians here this morning.
And stage one began way in eternity past when God first set His love upon you.
And then the next stage, setting you apart for salvation.
The next stage, calling you to Christ in real time.
The next stage, justification, dealing with your sin.
Right through to glorification, stage five,
which incorporates the rest of our life as it were from when we become a Christian,
sanctification, and the time until we get to die and be with Christ in heaven.
It's a five-stage project. Every part planned and managed by God, He will finish what He starts.
And we finish in eternity future, as God's plan started in eternity past.
Now, here's the problem for us. We can't see God's overall plan on a day-to-day basis.
What we're stuck with is our sin and our failures.
And the chaos of life.
But that doesn't mean God doesn't have His plan.
It's like a building site, and I've used this illustration before.
When you look at a building site, it can start off here and it just looks absolute chaos.
There's people here and bits of construction go on there.
It just doesn't look like anything even approaching a building.
But when you see that building site over months or years, perhaps it's a big building site,
then you see how all those bits that didn't make sense before actually come together.
Yes, there is a master plan and somebody is in control.
The site project manager doesn't know what he's doing until finally the building's completed.
That's what we're talking about in Romans chapter 8 verses 28 to 30.
The great promise of God is that all our circumstances are part of His master plan,
and every one of them is for our good.
You may feel like a building site. Your life is so chaotic, I'm out of control.
But God is saying to you, in all those circumstances, I'm at work renovating your life.
You are a building project and I will bring this renovation to completion, stage by stage by stage.
And every circumstance of life brings that completion one step closer to glory.
So my friends, the promise of God for us in our salvation today is that we'll persevere,
because God is with us in the mess of life, slowly but surely renovating us in their beautiful structure.
That clearly has designed and built by God stamped on it.
And that's why it's such a terrible loss, I think, for Christians who teach that God is in the good things of life,
but not in the mess of life.
God is in the successes of life, but not the failures.
That robs Christian people of assurance at the point where we most need it.
Because more than anything else, chaotic life is almost just hanging on to sort of functional dysfunctionalism.
God is in the mess of life, working out through the mess of life.
A beautiful renovation. That's His purpose and His promise.
The second thing, verses 31 and 32, God's power.
The verse says there, if God is for us, who can be against us?
Given God's guarantee that we can be against Him, who can be against us?
God is in the mess of life, working out through the mess of life.
Who can be against us?
Given God's guarantee of salvation and His purpose and promise, then who could possibly be in a position to mack that up?
Who could possibly be in a position to thwart God's purpose and God's promise?
Throughout scripture, God's cabinet has shown Him to be absolutely trustworthy.
God does what He wants in His world when He wants, with whom He wants.
Verse 32, we have proof of this.
He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?
The point there is a very simple point.
Having done the hard work in loving those who are totally unlovable,
having done the hard work of loving those who deserve only condemnation and destruction,
having sacrificed His Son to save those who are totally unlovely,
having called us, having renewed us by a spirit, by putting a spirit within us,
having done all of that,
Paul's argument is, could we possibly consider that God would sort of be niggardly or hold back on a few relatively minor needs
that's needed to complete the transaction to bring us home to heaven?
If He's done all of this to equip us for heaven,
could it possibly be that God would hold back on the last few things to get us to heaven?
That would be the equivalent of saying that some father gave their child an $800,000 Ferrari as a gift,
but then refused to give him $50 for petrol, and so the Ferrari just sits there.
It just doesn't make sense.
And that's Paul's argument here.
Having done all of this, God's now, as it were, at the fitting-out stage.
And He's not going to leave His beautiful structure minus a few cupboards.
God's power will complete.
And the second principle, that God's love for us people will never be spoiled, verses 33 through 39.
Now again, you see, when we talk about love, we talk the language of spoiling, because that's what our world is about.
Marriages, marriages that come to grief do so over a long period of time.
The initial love and commitment that was so very real and so very strong gets eroded,
and it gets eroded one disappointment, one hurt, one failure after the other.
Until abandonment is the outcome.
Could the same happen to God's love for us?
After all, God knows more about hurts and disappointments and failures from us than even we know.
He has put us back on our feet so many times, and God works with the mess that is in our lives daily.
The mess that oftentimes we actually create, even as Christians, by our ongoing love for those very things that we've said to the Lord, we would turn our back on.
Surely if anybody has a right to feel love diminish until abandonment becomes a real prospect, surely it's God.
But God's love is total and unconditional. In what sense? Look at verse 34.
Who is he that condemns? Or it's law court language. It's almost as if the bailiff of the court stands up.
Who will bring a charge?
So you've got a Christian in the dark. Who's going to bring a charge against this person, this died-for person, this person who is God's building project from eternity in the past?
Who's going to bring a charge that says there's a single sin that hasn't been paid for, there's a single failure that hasn't been covered by the death of Christ?
Who's going to bring that charge? That's the picture of verse 34. And it's a public summons. Come on, stand up or shut up.
Paul's point is that there will be salons in the corporate, because God's dealing with sin was so perfect and so complete, there was nothing covered up.
There was no half-becked treatment. There was nothing that could come back to haunt him like happens so often with political figures.
And so there's salons. There's salons.
And so not only is there salons in this world, as it were, because nobody can bring a legitimate charge to stick on Christ's people, but there's also salons in heaven itself.
Because the Father looks at Jesus and sees the mark of slaughter on him and is reminded that all offence for sin has been dealt with, all penalty for sin has been paid, relationship has been re-established.
And so the Father himself is silent. When this call is issued, who will bring a charge against this sinful creature?
Verse 35 to 39, the picture's extended. No person and no thing in the entire universe could separate us from God's love.
You see, the reality of life for us as Christians is that there will be many times, many tough times, when we suffer, when we just think that life is so heavy it just slows in on us and becomes a sort of black shroud that threatens to engulf us.
Sometimes that will be our own making as we get lost and distracted into sin, and sometimes it will be through no fault of our own. It will just be part and parcel of living in a sinful world.
We just get caught up in the mess that is a rebellious world.
In either case, Paul's encouraging us here that we don't need to fear missing out on heaven because we will fail to persevere, because God will preserve us.
Now, that seems outrageous to be able to say that, but that is the clear teaching of scripture. Nothing can separate us from God's love.
Nothing will stop God's building project being completed.
Not your own sin. And I'm talking about sin that you actively engage in. And we've got to say that because each one of us has our own particular sins, including me, our own particular sins that we quite love, even though we wouldn't be prepared necessarily to say it publicly.
Even though I just did say it sort of publicly. But that's true for us, isn't it?
And so often we make a big fuss of sins over there that we think we're dealing quite well with because we're hiding the sins over here that we're actually hanging on to or secretly loving or not even trying to attempt to deal with at this stage.
And that is all the picture that comes in here. There's now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
In more practical terms, think of the worst torture that a Christian has ever endured.
And I don't speak for myself there. I've never endured anything even remotely that would be close to being called torture. But Christians have.
Think of the most powerful spiritual forces of evil in the universe, what these verses talk about.
What are we going to do about these? How do these get factored into this guarantee that we will persevere?
Well, they also are under the sovereign hand of God. None of these things will overpower or erode God's love for us or diminish God's commitment to us.
In fact, what we're told here in Romans 8, in fact, these things, hard as they may be for us on a day-to-day basis, awful as they may be for us to be part of or to witness, these are the very circumstances in which God's love will thrive and we will conquer.
Now, it doesn't mean we're going to be happy, happy, happy, but it means we will persevere, persevere, persevere.
Friends, this is an absolutely wonderful promise. There are still some objections to it, but today I decided I wasn't even going to go to the objections.
So, in other weeks some have thought I've made it too complicated. Perhaps today you'll think it's been too simplistic.
But I'm not going to go to any objections today. I just want to set this wonderful promise on the table before you.
We will persevere because God will preserve us. Christians are forever. Once a Christian, always a Christian.
The same point is made in 1 Peter chapter 1. I just want to touch down on two other passages just to let you see this in two other ways, two other sort of languages.
1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3 says this,
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope. Remember that's what Chris said, a living certainty.
A living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance, listen to this, an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
Kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation is ready to be revealed in the last time.
Verse 6,
What is it that makes Peter so thankful for these Christians and so confident in his prayers for them?
Well again, it's verse 5 and 6, God guarantees that what He starts He will complete. The renovation will be completed.
Look at the conditions. There's new birth, living or enduring hope and a guaranteed inheritance.
But the conditions, verses 4 and 5, it's a two-way guarantee. God guarantees our salvation. Why? Because He keeps it for us and He keeps us for it.
It's a two-part action by God. He keeps us for our salvation that's been planned and He keeps our salvation for us. In other words, the picture here is that it's kept in heaven.
Now you say, what do you have to do if you're a parent? You have to keep really special things out of the hands of your children because once your children get them, they'll most likely wreck...
Sorry, children. Or once children. But that's the sort of picture here. So God doesn't leave anything to chance. He keeps our salvation for us in heaven.
Until the time comes when He brings us away, the two parts together. He keeps us for our salvation and He keeps our salvation for us. And finally He brings them together.
Now that's pretty special. Same point made in Philippians. Turn with me if you would to Philippians chapter 1.
And again, ask the question, what is it that makes Paul so thankful for these Christians and so confident in his prayers for them? Chapter 1 verses 3 to 6.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now.
Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion, on to the day of Christ Jesus. The day when Jesus comes back and takes us to be with Him forever.
That's what fires up Paul's prayer. That's what underpins Paul's confidence.
The renovation, well in its way, already evident in changed attitudes and desires will be completed in Christ. Now flip across to chapter 2 of Philippians verses 12 and 13.
Therefore my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.
Now again, you see, this is the two sides of the one coin thing again. On the one hand, we're to continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
We need to apply effort, we need to strive to be like Christ. We want to strive to be like Christ. That's our desire, is it not? Generally speaking, as Christians.
Now flip the coin. What we see is that God is actually working in us to produce the exact same thing as our desires want.
So God's purpose in working in us is to make us like Christ. Our desires are to be like Christ and so this works together in a beautiful harmony.
We persevere because God preserves. We're both working to the same goal, if I can put it in those terms.
So how do we respond to this twin truth of God's preservation and our perseverance? Well, friend, we need to be careful.
We need to be careful in this. Perseverance does not mean that every single person who says they're a Christian and goes to church or is baptised doesn't mean that they're going to go to heaven no matter what.
There's often a big difference between what people say or think and what's true in their heart.
But hear this, and I don't want to now undermine you once I've tried to give you confidence. Hear this, going back to Romans 8 again.
All true Christians will persevere because God will preserve them and that truth has to be applied in the context of Romans 8.
In other words, if you are in Christ, if you know in your own self you've got change, desires and attitudes, so you actually want to serve Christ.
If you actually are realistic about the struggle that is for you that so often the very things you want to do are the very things you don't do and you actually do the opposite things and you're so, in a sense, overcome with your sense of sin, struggling all the time to try and get it right knowing you get it wrong.
You struggle to get it right because you want to please Christ. That's the context of Romans 8 and we can say in that context, if that's you, you can be absolutely confident that you will persevere.
And again, perseverance does not mean you'll be free from sin or temptation or a tough life.
Nor will it mean being free from losing the plot perhaps for a time or even being called towards Jesus and the things of God.
Scripture is full of examples of this very thing.
Sometimes when we talk about the process of sanctification, the process of holiness, growing in holiness, we get this sort of linear onwards upwards thing.
And so we say, well, a Christian for two years we should be here and a Christian for five years should be there and a Christian for ten years should be there and it's just not like that.
It's more like forwards backwards lands, one step forward, three back, two forward, one back, three forward and so on and so forth.
That's how the struggle is and it's in that context of struggle that we can be absolutely certain we'll make it to heaven.
We will continue to sin and fail daily. We will trip up, but the person who is truly in Christ will sooner or later come back to Christ with renewed commitment and new discipleship.
As well as being careful, we can also be confident. We can be confident knowing we're safe and secure and the second question of your response groups this morning actually encourages you to think about that whole context of confidence.
The proper understanding of this truth that Christians are forever will free us to be confident servants of the Lord.
And it works like this, if the big business of life is secure, that is our relationship with God, our eternal destiny, then we can get on with the task that the Lord has assigned us.
Persevering in our struggle with sin, speaking the gospel, knowing that we'll mess things up, knowing that we'll struggle.
If the big things in life are settled, then by comparison our struggles will be more manageable.
And this in turn will allow us to be more honest with one another I think.
Because you see, this assurance works in community.
Many Christians will have black thoughts, will live with a paralyzing sense of guilt, will struggle against persistent and awful sins.
And yet rarely do we come clean with each other and seek help with our struggle. In part it's because we think our struggle reflects the state of our salvation.
So we think because we are struggling, because we are failing, therefore we can't possibly be Christians.
But Paul's word in Romans chapter 8 is the exact opposite.
Because we are struggling, because we are concerned about our sin, because we are concerned to please the Lord, that's almost irrefutable evidence of the Spirit's work in our lives.
And we need to join with one another in that struggle, not hide from one another.
Christians are forever. If you're in Christ then you can be confident in the words of Jesus in John chapter 5 verse 24 and I'll finish with these.
I tell you the truth says Jesus, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will never be condemned.
He has already crossed over from death to life.
Let's pray.
Let's pray.
Lord there's nothing Satan would love to take away from our minds and our hearts more than this truth of your absolute sovereignty and salvation.
That what you begin and have begun in our lives you will bring to completion.
And Lord there's some ways in which even for ourselves there's nothing we'd like more to be rid of than this truth of absolute sovereignty and salvation.
For, as I said last week, we do not like charity.
Even though it's such a beautiful truth that takes us out of the equation in terms of the security of the equation and only brings us in terms of privilege and benefit.
In spite of that Lord we feel uncomfortable about being in your debt.
So Lord help us at both those extremes to just really relish this wonderful truth and be confident that there is now no condemnation for those of us here in Christ Jesus.
Amen.