Am I saved? Is there an unpardonable sin? Assurance of Salvation -Lynn Martin

Good morning, everyone.

This morning I'm going to talk about assurance of salvation and some related topics. This is something that I've heard a lot of people have concerns about. You know, it's something that I've struggled with in the past, and it really feels like a topic that should be addressed. So I'm going to address it as well as I can.

There are a lot of sincere Christians out there who are afraid that they aren't saved, or maybe even that they can never be saved. And I'm going to try to show what Scripture says on this topic.

So here are some things that some issues people often struggle with. The question: Is there an unpardonable sin? Or what if I'm not truly saved? Or maybe there's—is there no forgiveness after baptism? Maybe for serious sins or something like that.

And these fears are often fed by their understanding of scary Bible passages, I guess I'll call them that. Here are some of these scary passages. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment. That's the ESV. I'll be using the ESV mostly throughout here.

For whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

So these passages like this really can scare a lot of people. And I'm going to suggest that they should be scary in a way, but also that we need to remember that there is salvation for all who repent.

I believe that God won't turn away anyone who repents of their sin and returns to faithfulness to Him. And I also believe that worrying about our assurance of salvation can actually distract us from serving Christ.

So to start with, I'd like to talk about what Scripture teaches about salvation, because that really is what should—that's what lays the groundwork for answering these questions. And a lot of people have a lot of misunderstandings about the scriptural view of salvation. And I think that's one of the key reasons why people actually worry about the unpardonable sin or whether they're saved or whatever it is.

And I'm going to suggest here that Scripture's teaching is fairly simple. It doesn't always match up with what we hear in the world today. But if we actually understand what it teaches, it's not very complex. I mean, it's very deep. There's a lot of depth to be gained there, but it's not very complex. And it all fits together. And that when it all fits together, we can understand what these passages are talking about.

So first off, Scripture speaks of salvation in three stages. I'll call them stages. You could also call them tenses of salvation. Scripture talks about how you have been saved. Scripture says you are saved or are being saved. Scripture also says you will be saved.

And understanding these three stages, I think, will help us understand how we can know that we're saved.

So the first stage of salvation or of the Christian life is repentance and baptism. This is when we commit ourselves to Christ, our sins are washed away, and we enter God's kingdom and we're adopted into His family. This is the beginning of our Christian life. This is where we change our allegiance, where we're no longer in the world. We are now in God's kingdom. We're now in the church. Our sins are forgiven, and here we are, part of God's family.

So here are a few passages that speak about this. Peter is saying in Acts, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." So this is how we enter the kingdom. We repent and are baptized. This is how our sins are initially forgiven.

And Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water in the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." So he's talking about the baptism and regeneration that brings us into the kingdom of God.

Paul says, "But you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

So this is the first stage, coming into the kingdom. The second stage is remaining in Christ. So during this stage, that's what if you're a baptized Christian today, this is the stage that you're in. We need to remain faithful to Christ. We need to obey the laws of Christ's kingdom. And we will receive temptations. Our allegiance will be tested, but God will give us the strength to overcome our temptation.

And here are some passages about that. Paul writes, "As you have always obeyed, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

John writes, "Whoever says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." And Hebrews says, "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you are called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." So this is talking about what we should be doing now, obeying, fighting the good fight, enduring.

So the differences between these two stages, the first two, is this. The first stage is about joining the family. The second stage is about being the family. The first stage is a one-time thing that happens when we're brought into the kingdom. But the second stage is ongoing while we are in the kingdom. And this second stage requires a lot of growth. It might require a lot of work on our part because being part of a family actually requires a lot from us. And we may have some long, hard struggles that we need to overcome as citizens of God's kingdom, soldiers for Him, fighting the good fight of faith.

So the third stage then is the final judgment. So at our death or when Jesus returns, we'll stand before Christ. We'll give account for the way we spent our lives. And those who endure to the end will be saved.

Here are a few passages that talk about the final judgment. "For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what He has done."

Paul writes, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what He has done in the body, whether good or evil." And Jesus tells, I think this is the church in Laodicea.

Maybe not. I forget which church this is. "The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat with my Father on His throne." So this is what we have to look forward to if we endure to the end.

Another key that I'd like to point out, and this is maybe the biggest key point in this sermon. Well, I guess I have a whole bunch of big key points, so just remember them all. God is eager to forgive our sins. God loves us as a Father.

And when we repent and are baptized, He shows this by giving us a clean slate. And also, as we see from Scripture, as we will see, He reinstates erring Christians if they return to being repentant, obeying and being repentant and faithful.

Now, I'm going to have to clarify this because there are a lot of misunderstandings out there about this subject. So when we say that our obedience is necessary in this stage and the next stage, that doesn't mean that we're earning our salvation.

In fact, we do not have to earn our salvation, and we couldn't earn our salvation. If God required us to earn our salvation or merit grace, then none of us would actually make it. If God required perfection, we would all be damned.

Mostly anyway, I'm sure. But instead, what God requires is faithful obedience. And this is just like any good father requires of his children. This should all make sense in the way a good family works together. It's not about earning each other's love. It's not about earning our father's approval. It's about being faithful children as part of God's family. And that is what God is looking for from us.

Another point I'd like to make is that God takes our decisions seriously. If we refuse to meet His conditions, they're reasonable conditions. He isn't requiring us to do anything beyond what we are able to do, especially with His help that He gives us.

He'll let us go. If we want to leave His family, we can leave His family. And if we trample His salvation under our feet, He won't give us what we reject. If we reject it, we get to reject it. He's not going to save us against our will.

And so even though He doesn't ask us to earn our salvation, He does take our obedience very seriously.

So we're going to talk about proofs in Scripture that God is merciful and that God does want to forgive us.

First of all, even in the Old Testament, God showed that this was very much His character of forgiving God. Here's what Ezekiel writes from his prophecy. "Say to the house of Israel, thus have you said, 'Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?' Say to them, 'As I live,' declares the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from His way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?'" It's not God's wish in any way.

It wasn't God's wish for Israel to be wicked or for Israel to be damned. God's wish was that they would turn from their sin and come back to relationship with Him. Here's another passage.

This is, let's see, I believe God said this to Solomon when Solomon was dedicating the temple somewhere around there. "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." And God constantly throughout the Old Testament, that was the way He interacted with Israel. That's what He showed His character to be. When they repented, He was there for them.

And this is in the Old Testament. This is before Christ. So how much more would God be willing to save repentant Christians now?

Also, Jesus came expressly for sinners. He said, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He also says, "Just so," this is in the parable of the sheep, the one lost sheep out of the hundred. "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance."

So is this the kind of Christ who would turn away a repentant person? Not at all. He is here for the repentant people. He's not here for the people who believe that they're righteous and don't need any kind of repentance. He is here for those who recognize their sin and repent.

We also have examples in the New Testament of people, of Christians who actually repented, sinned and repented and could be forgiven. So for example, Peter, he actually denied Christ, but he was forgiven. And Jesus even entrusted him with leadership here. He said to Peter, "Feed my sheep."

So if Peter actually denied Christ and he repented and was reinstated, then those who sin and repent can be forgiven.

Paul also wrote about a man who was sinning with his father's wife, and he wrote, "You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." So this man was to be excommunicated and put out of the church, put back in the realm of Satan so that he would repent and be saved and could be reinstated.

And in 2 Corinthians, Paul writes about reinstating someone, and who knows, it may be the same person. He says, "For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough. So you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow." So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

Also, Christians are promised forgiveness if they repent in the New Testament. Jesus says, and this I'm pretty sure this is to the church in Laodicea, "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me." So this is Jesus' promise to those Christians who repent.

Peter writes, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." And he's writing this to Christians.

So I think it's clear from Scripture, those who repent can be forgiven. God made this clear even in the Old Testament, and Jesus came specifically for sinners. And we see that erring Christians could be forgiven in the New Testament.

So then what do these scary passages mean? Let's look at these passages, and I'll try to put them in the context of Scripture. So here's Hebrews 6. Here's what the writer of Hebrews says. "Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instructions about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up in contempt."

Sorry about the curly brackets. They were accidental. I was working through, this is one of the more difficult parts in my sermon, and I was working through putting it on PowerPoint, and then all of a sudden it crashed and I lost like 20 minutes of work. So I went back and had to redo this, and there may be some mistakes here.

But this looks very much, doesn't it? As though those who fall away from Christ, they can't ever have their sins forgiven. Paul says, or whoever wrote Hebrews, it is impossible, right? Well, let's look at these particular words. So these words, the highlighted words in yellow, these are actually not in the original Greek of the passage. These are added by translators who were trying to basically, it's a confusing passage, and they're trying to do their best to help us understand what the passage is saying. However, in this case, I think they made a mistake and that this is not actually what the passage is saying.

So here's what a very literal translation says, the Young's literal translation, I think it's called, "For it is impossible again to renew them to reformation, having crucified again to themselves the Son of God and exposed to public shame." So you can see the sins they are is just not there. There's no sins between repentance, renewing them again to repentance, and crucifying again.

And this is from the post-Nicene Fathers' set, Chrysostom's Homilies on Hebrews, "For it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting him to an open shame." So that may not look like it makes a big difference, but I'm going to suggest that these words actually do make a difference.

So first of all, let's look at this phrase, "For it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance." Hebrews doesn't say, "It's impossible for them to repent." He says, "It's impossible to renew them again unto repentance." So in other words, I suggest that this means that they can't go back to the first stage and get a clean slate. They have to repent in another way. If you remember, I said the first stage of salvation, it's a one-time thing. We're brought into the kingdom, but now we're not in that stage anymore, and we can't be renewed again to that stage.

So they need to repent in a different way. And so let's look at this phrase, "The crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh." So the difference that the translation makes is that Scripture is not saying that these people are currently crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, as it would be suggested if we said, "Since they are crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh." Instead, Hebrews is saying that sending them back to the first stage of repentance would be crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh. That's impossible.

So again, they can repent, but it has to be a different way. So if we think about the first stage kind of repentance, initially God adopted us into the family and He gave us a clean slate. But now that we're in the family, God can't just pass over our sins by readopting us and just sending us back there, readopting us and saying, "Okay, we're all good again." That would be as though God never adopted us in the first place. That would be giving the lie to what God actually did, which was adopt us into His family.

So God deals with sin outside of the family by adopting repentant sinners and washing their sins away. But how does God deal with sin when it is in the family?

So this is the second stage repentance. This is the kind of repentance that we're called to if we sin. God is our Father. He's all ready to forgive us if we repent. However, He does require we need to become faithful children, and He's not just going to pretend that we are faithful children if we really aren't.

So how do we become faithful children? How do we do this repentance? Well, how is any child faithful? They're loyal to their family. They're obedient to their parents. And faithfulness works the same in God's family. God wants us to live for God and for our neighbor, and He wants us to obey God's commands. That's how we become faithful children, and that's what we need to repent and become when we have sinned as Christians.

So if we think of this obedience that God requires, if we think of this as earning our salvation, I think that's because we're using the wrong paradigm. That's not what Scripture, that's not the way Scripture speaks of this. I think instead, God isn't trying to reconcile a balance sheet. He doesn't need to, He doesn't need us to do enough good deeds to outweigh our bad deeds or something like that. That's not how God looks at these things. God is a Father. He's a King. He wants faithful children, and obedience is about faithfulness. He wants faithful subjects, and obedience is all about faithfulness. So that's what He's requiring. He wants us to repent and become faithful.

And this is how we do that. This is part of repenting and becoming faithful. And it's not about some kind of meriting something in particular that somehow earns our way to heaven. It's simply about being faithful children of God.

And I think this makes a lot of sense if we think about a real-world example. So let's say Joe adopts a child named John. Okay, Joe doesn't hold John accountable for his previous misdeeds when he was someone else's son.

Joe just, he gives John a clean slate. He adopts him as his child. He's like, "John, you're my son. We're all good here." But if John disobeys Joe, they need to work it out as a family. Joe and John can't just go back to square one. They can't just redo the adoption every time John sins.

That would be like saying, "Okay, John wasn't adopted." They can't just pretend that John is faithful. No, John has to be faithful. He needs to become faithful, and then Joe will be perfectly satisfied. He doesn't need to reconcile some kind of balance sheet, John's good deeds against John's bad deeds. He's looking for John to become a faithful child.

And God also wants to work through our sins and bring us back to repentance and faithfulness. His end goal is for us to be faithful. And so that means that He's not going to be satisfied just to ignore our sin, but He will be satisfied if we repent and are faithful. That's what He's looking for in the first place.

So I think if we understand this passage again, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame. It's saying we can't just be readopted. Instead, we need to repent and become a faithful Christian.

So let's look at another scary Bible passage. This is from Hebrews 10.

The writer of Hebrews writes, "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay.' And again, the Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

So what I would first point out is this is about going on sinning deliberately. For if we go on sinning deliberately, that's the type of people that this is referring to, not just anyone who sins.

And so let's look at what he might mean by there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins for those people. He might mean those who go on sinning deliberately are no longer saved through Jesus' sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus' sacrifice no longer will save them. And instead, I would point out that they need to repent in order to be saved, to return and be reinstated. So that would be one possible meaning. I don't think anywhere in this passage that it says that it's impossible for them to be reinstated. It's just that where they are, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins for them, those who sin deliberately.

Here's another possible meaning. It might also be saying about the same thing that Hebrews 6 is saying, that these people can't just go back to square one and have their sins washed away, applying Jesus' sacrifice through baptism. Instead, they need to repent in order to be saved.

So that would be another possible meaning. I think this is, I think the first meaning that makes more sense to me, but I think this would also be a possible meaning as well. And I would point out one further thing about the passage.

Paul says, or whoever wrote Hebrews, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." And those who are living in sin, they're in a very dangerous place. However, I would point out when David sinned, he said, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is great."

David knew that he could trust God, that he could trust Him more than anyone else, that God would be merciful to those who repent. So I think this, at the same time, it reminds us we do need to take sin seriously, but it also means, it also reminds us that God is merciful to those who repent.

So I conclude that this passage, this isn't saying that you can't repent. This is actually saying, "Repent." That's what it's telling people in this position to do.

So another passage that people often struggle with is the passage where Jesus speaks about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And this is found in Matthew, Mark, and John. I'm using Mark here.

Let me just read this. "And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, 'He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.' And he," that's Jesus, "called to him and called them to him and said to them in parables, 'How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of men and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. For they were saying, 'He has an unclean spirit.'" So let's just ask the question, what was the sin that Jesus is talking, or that Jesus is speaking in context of here?

So these scribes, they were the leaders of Jesus, of God's people, but they were actually rejecting Christ. But that wasn't the full thing in itself, because many have rejected Christ, but have been saved. For example, Paul rejected Christ initially, and Jesus' brothers didn't accept him. But at least two of Jesus' brothers, James and Jude, became Christians. So this is something more than just rejecting Christ, because people can return after rejecting Christ.

Even the demons knew that Jesus was working miracles through the Holy Spirit. And the scribes and Pharisees, they were the people who had the fullest knowledge of holy things. So they certainly knew that they certainly had the ability to know this as well.

But they were so opposed to Jesus that they didn't only, they could have just said, "No, Jesus isn't working miracles through the Holy Spirit." But they went one step further and they called God's Holy Spirit the prince of demons in order to reject Jesus. They were so opposed, they blinded themselves to that extent that they were willing to do that.

And I think this is a difficult passage to understand fully, but, and I think that we need the context of all Scripture to help us understand what the full amount of what we can learn here. So the sins that are committed in ignorance, they can be forgiven. For example, Paul writes in 1 Timothy, he writes, "Because he was ignorant of Jesus, of the truth of Christianity, he was forgiven for persecuting the Christians."

Jesus said in Luke, "Those who knew what was right but didn't do it, they'll be beaten with many stripes. Those who didn't will be beaten with few stripes." So I think the principle is that sins of ignorance are a lot more easily forgiven.

And also, again, those who repent of deliberate sin, they can be forgiven, because that's the, again, that's what the Scriptures that I've been reading from, the Old Testament, the New Testament, that's what they teach us. But this sin is something much worse. What the scribes and Pharisees committed here is much worse than just deliberate sin.

These were the people, again, who had full knowledge of Scripture and what is holy. But they deliberately hardened themselves against repenting, and it's like they broke their God-given ability to perceive truth. They could have known perfectly well that Jesus was casting out demons through the Holy Spirit. They were the people who should have been able to see the signs better than anybody, but they actually rejected him by calling God's Spirit the prince of demons. And they broke, I think, their God-given ability to perceive truth.

It's like they chose to destroy their ability to repent.

And again, God respects our choices. If we repent, God respects that. If we choose not to repent or choose never to repent, God will respect that. He takes us and our choices seriously. So here's my conclusion from this passage. It is possible to harden ourselves so that we can never repent, and so it can never be forgiven. But if we do repent, Scripture teaches us that we can be forgiven. So those who do repent haven't committed this sin.

And later we're going to talk about the signs of repentance as well, how we know that we have repented. So that's my take on that passage. It's a difficult passage, but I think this makes sense of it.

Another passage that people point to is a passage about the sin unto death. So John writes in 1 John, "If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death."

So we can see here that there are different levels of sins. Some are serious enough to lead to death or bring about our damnation. But does John mean that we shouldn't pray for people who have committed serious sin? Does he mean that they can't repent? That's not what John says.

So the words translated "pray for" here when John says, "I do not say that one should pray for that," that's more literally rendered "ask about." The word used for "pray" is a word that's only about one other time in the New Testament is it ever translated "pray" in our translations, because that's the only time that it really is about, well, it might not be the only time it's about a prayer. But my point is that this isn't the typical word for "pray." It's a word meaning "ask."

And this makes a difference because if we compare the two things that John says, for sins that are not unto death, he says, "Ask, and God will give them life." But for sins that are unto death, he says, "I do not say that one should ask about that."

So in other words, he doesn't actually say, "Don't pray for sinners." He says, "Don't pray for God to give life, ignoring serious sins." So for those who haven't committed serious sin, we can pray and God will give them life. We can ask for that. But we can't ask for that for people who have committed serious sin. For them to have life, they need to repent. That's the way back for them to have life.

So I suggest we can understand this distinction a little better if we think about this in terms of a family. So in a family, we can cover for each other's small misdeeds. We can move on from there. But if they commit, if people commit big sins, they do need to be addressed. And we can't just ask our Father, "Oh, just ignore this. This will be fine. We don't need to worry about this." Instead, things need to be made right. The sinner needs to make things right with their Father, or they're going to lose their position in the family. It's not something that can just be ignored.

So here's my conclusion on that passage. Let's pray for God to forgive each other's small sins. But we need to recognize our prayers won't bring forgiveness to someone who won't repent of serious sin. So we need to pray for their repentance and for God's mercy and encourage them to repent.

So that was a lot in a short amount of time. But my suggestion is that these passages shouldn't scare us into thinking that we can't repent. These passages should scare us, but they should scare us into repenting rather than thinking that we can't repent.

So in the next part of my sermon, I'm going to talk about how we can know that we're saved.

And this is something that is discussed in Scripture multiple times and very consistently. So here's one thing. If we're in obedience, we can know that we're saved. John writes, "And by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. And if you know that he is righteous, Jesus is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him."

And Jesus himself says, "Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. So those who are abiding in Christ, those are the ones who are obeying him, who are bearing fruit, and the ones who aren't, those are the ones who aren't obeying him and aren't bearing fruit."

So another thing that is a sign of whether we're saved is our brotherly love. John writes, "Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling."

And Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

So these are the signs of salvation that we're given. Those who obey Jesus' commands will be saved. Those who love each other will be saved. But I would point out that nothing is said about perfection. We're not, Jesus doesn't say, "Those who obey me perfectly will be saved," or "Those who love each other perfectly will be saved."

We're told to obey, to love each other, to obey. What about those who are living in frequent sin? So those who are being obedient, they're saved. But what about those who are struggling with a sin that keeps cropping up?

And most Christians, at least in my experience, have times when they're struggling with sin and can't gain victory over it for a long time. Should they be worried about their salvation? Well, my answer is yes and no. If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, John writes. However, Scripture is clear that living in frequent sin is a dangerous place to be.

So here's my recommendation for those who are in this position. Your fear should motivate you to grow. It should not lead you to cripple your, it should not cripple you or lead you to focus on yourself. And we grow by focusing the most on the greatest commandments. That's one of the best ways of building character, to focus on loving God, loving our neighbor.

I would also point out that, so when I've struggled with frequent sin, I wondered, why couldn't God just forgive or just remove this sin? Why couldn't he just take this away and then, like, what good is this possibly doing? Well, the sin isn't good. But what God is doing is like any good Father. He wants us to be part of our own growth. He doesn't want to just zap, take it away. He wants us to be part of growth. He wants us to be building our character in struggling with the sin. So the sin itself is not good. That's not from God, but God allowing us to struggle with it and allowing us to struggle against it, to fight that fight.

That's actually an opportunity for us to build character. So let's embrace every opportunity we have to build character without actually calling sin good. That's not good. That's not from God. God never chooses us to be living in sin. But he does let us struggle with ourselves to help us grow, to become better.

So the next question that I'm going to look at is, how can we know that we're sincere? This is a question a lot of people have. What if I'm not totally sincere in my repentance? What if I haven't truly repented? What if I have doubts about Christianity? What if I don't always feel loving toward my brother? What if I obey Christ partly just to appear good to other people?

What should I be concerned about, about my salvation in this case? Now, I'm not talking about the people who don't love, don't have any love, but deliberately lie and claim that they have love. There are people out there who are convinced that Christianity is just bunk, but they brazenly claim to be Christians. And I'm not talking about those people, the people who are actually deliberately lying about their love.

I'm talking about the people who want to obey Christ, but they also want to appear good. And you know, sometimes we're kind to each other because it's our duty to be kind to each other, not just purely because purely out of love for each other.

So if we have a mixture of motivations for what we do, are we saved?

So I suggest that it's unrealistic to never have a mixture of motivations. I think as humans, we're always going to have all sorts of different motivations, both good and bad motivations.

If only that weren't true, but I think it's going to always be true. But God is our Father. He's not out to get us. God is our Creator. He knows our tendencies. So what does God judge us by? What are, yeah, what are we going to answer for?

So, you know, God could judge us maybe for our actions, what we do. God could judge us for our intentions, what we intend to do, or our motivations, what, you know, we have wishes to do, or our feelings, what we feel like or feel like doing.

I think that God judges us by our actions and our motivation, or sorry, our actions and our intentions, but not by our motivations and our feelings. So here's why I think so. Scripture lists our actions as signs of salvation, as I showed before. And also, that's what we're judged by in the last judgment.

But also, I see that Scripture teaches against hypocrisy. And if we don't actually have the right intention, the action counts for nothing. So here's why I think that our intention matters. For example, Paul writes, "Let love be without hypocrisy." So hypocrisy is the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess, falseness.

So if we're professing to have love and we really do not have love, that's hypocrisy. Those are the people I'm not, those are the people I was clarifying I'm not speaking this to. So if you are acting like you love, but you really do not intend to love, that doesn't count.

Also, Paul writes, "If I give away all I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." So if we act loving, but we really do not have love, that means nothing.

So this is the difference. I'm going to try to explain the difference between intentions versus motivations or feelings. Scripture doesn't say, "If I, et cetera, et cetera, but also have some motives as well as love, that counts for nothing." Scripture says, "If I, et cetera, but have not love, that counts for nothing."

So I created this little diagram to try to show what the difference is here. So let's say there are two possible actions that we're considering: to feed the poor or to be stingy.

And we have motives. We have all sorts of motives inside ourselves. We want to love, you know, we care about our appearance. We're also a little bit selfish, and maybe we don't really care about the poor as much as we should.

So those motives are not enough to just make us act. We actually have to intend to act. And that intention is different from the motivation because we can have multiple motivations, but we can intend, we can choose one of the motivations, and our intent can be to act for that motivation.

Does this make sense to people?

Shake your head if it doesn't. Okay. All right. Great. So I suggest this is our ideal. We want to be absolutely sincere. We want to feed the poor just because we love them. That's we want to, that's our, that's the highest and best way of doing things. So that is absolute sincerity. We might have other motivations floating around in there, but the one that we actually choose based on is the good motivation or motivations.

However, that's not always the way it's going to work realistically. This is sincerity. This is still just not absolute sincerity. This is still obeying Christ by loving each other. We just chose based on love and also based on appearance. It would be nice if we didn't choose based on appearance, but only because of love. But at least we did actually love the people. That was our intention to love them as well as to appear good.

So I suggest this is not ideal, but this still means that we do have love for each other. Now, this is hypocrisy. This is someone, this is what Paul is talking about when he says, "If we have not love, it profits us nothing." So if someone is just feeding the poor because they want to look really great and they really don't love the poor, that's going to profit them nothing. That's hypocrisy.

And then, of course, if you choose to be stingy because you're selfish and you don't care about anyone, that's the carnality. It's not really hypocrisy, but it's also a sin, just a different kind of sin.

So is that making sense to people? Okay.

So can hypocrisy appear like love? We saw that if someone cares about their own appearance, but doesn't care about the poor, that they might still choose to feed the poor. Well, yes, for the short term, it can actually appear like love. However, Jesus gives our actions as the signs of our salvation. So I believe that means that even though hypocrisy might appear like love, it will soon become obvious that we don't actually have love, that we aren't actually obedient to Jesus. And I think we need to trust Jesus' word on this because Jesus does point to our actions as whether we're saved or not. And it appears the Scripture is teaching, "Those who faithfully obey, those are saved."

This is going to be a little bit of a longer sermon, just letting you know. So here's my summary. We're going to be judged by our action and intention, not by our motivations and feelings. We'll probably always have a mix of those. And Jesus says that the action is the sign that we should go by. However, it is important for us to work on our motivations and feelings because that is something that can influence us to take the wrong actions if we're not careful.

So here's my answer to the question, "Am I really saved?" Did you intend to repent and believe in Christ? Were you baptized intending to commit your life to Christ? Do you obey Christ and love your brother in your actions and intentions? Then yes, in that case, I believe that you're saved.

But I don't want to stop there. You might want me to, but I don't. Why is assurance of salvation actually an issue? There are so many people who are worried about this, even though Scripture does seem clear that if you are acting rightly, that you're saved.

So the people who tend to feel insecure, it's not typically the people who are living in unrepentant sin. Those are the people who should feel insecure about their salvation. It's actually usually the people who are most conscientious who feel the most insecure. Often they're obedient and living self-disciplined lives.

This is the type who obsessively self-examines their lives. They're constantly looking at, "How did I do?" And I'm one of those people. I know a lot of other people like this. And often they examine themselves so obsessively that they can no longer get a good perspective on themselves. And I think that's why they worry about this.