Session Five: Doubting Salvation

“Comfort, comfort my people, says the Lord.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned and that she has received double from the Lord’s hands.”

Isaiah 40:1-2

In a more religious age, it was more common – but we still find it today:  a terrifying fear of hell, God’s rejection, a lack of salvation.   This story, told by a 15 year old boy from Texas, is not so uncommon:

My Dad was a Deacon at our church, my Mom played the piano and taught Sunday School, my older siblings were all admired for their strong faith and commitment to the Lord.  I was different.  I always was.  I always felt like a…. failure.

Oh, I started fine – nice little Christian boy, singing all the Jesus songs, saying lots of Scriptures from memory; the usual stuff.  It really started when I was 13. 

It didn’t start with doubting God, it starting with doubting ME.  It was a deep, terrifying, haunting doubt in ME.  As if I had cancer and it was spreading everywhere and killing me.  Every sermon, every Bible study, every youth group meeting, every retreat – it always seem to shoot me right through the heart with doubts about me – my faith, my commitment and especially my life.   God HATES the likes of me – it said so, right in the Bible!  Everything required – I failed at; my report card was just a long list of “F’s.” Great big F’s.  Maybe I get credit for EFFORT?  My youth pastor said no.

I finally took it out on God.  I mean, how DARE God call Himself “love!”  This God who sends guys like me to hell, this God who stays so silent and distant and cold!   This God who makes things IMPOSSIBLE and then blames US for not attaining it!  The youth pastor kept asking why I was rebellious, why I was “hard-hearted”, why I was so unlike my brother and sisters?  The youth pastor said he was praying for my soul.   I thought I DID believe!  I thought I WAS saved!   I came to hate this God.  And because that was unbearable, I just came to doubt him.   Life seemed better without God.  And His church.  And His people.   “God is DEAD!” I told my Dad.  He slapped my face.  I didn’t care.

·         Do you know similar people with similar stories?

·         Do you think this boy believe (or at least once did)?   Why/why not?

·         There’s not just doubt here!  What else is going on?

·         How might parents, teachers, pastors have contributed to this (intentionally or otherwise)? 

·         If YOU were this 15 year old’s parent, youth pastor, sibling, friend – what would YOU say/do?

Causes:

The SAD situation we see with this teen can have several interrelated causes:

1.    Focused on SELF – our sins, guilt, inadequacies, failures, lack of merit.   The more we look in the mirror and the less we look to the Cross – the more fear and insecurity will result.   The bigger we are, the smaller Christ is – and the more fear results.

2.    Hoop Jumping” – the common human religion that WE save ourselves (perhaps with divine HELP) by doing X, Y, Z… (and when that’s done, there’s more to do!).   Justification is about what Christ has DONE, not what we must DO.   D.O.  not  D.O.N.E.

3.    A confusion of Law and Gospel, confusion of discipleship with salvation.   Mixing things leads to confusion, doubt and fear (OR to little self-righteous Pharisees!)

4.    Ignorance of the Gospel.   ALL other religions (and as the boy in our opening confirms, even in misstated Christianity) are based on fear and striving because there is no Gospel. 

5.    Confusing doubt with a lack of faith.  Doubt  results from a lack of cognitive certainty (we ALL have doubts!).   Faith is trust/reliance; we all have trust in MANY things but if such is lacking where it is needed/desired – a problem results.  Since knowledge and reliance are not the same thing, nor is the lack of them.

·         Which of the above do you think might have been the problem for the teen in the opening example?

·         Have you struggled with any of these?   Someone you know?

·         One of the common Evangelism Questions was, “Are you certain that if you were to die tonight, you’d go to heaven?”   By far, the most common answer (even from Christians!) was, “I hope so.”  What issue exists there?

Justification:

I John 1:8  “God is love.”

John 3:16  “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but has everlasting life!”

Romans 5:8  “God shows His love for us in that while we were enemies, Christ died for us”

Titus 3:5  “God saved us not because of deeds done by us but in virtue of His own mercy, that we might be saved by His grace”

1 Corinthians 15:3  “Christ died for our sins.”

1 John 2:2  “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins”  

Ephesians 2:8  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing but it is the gift of God”

Romans 6:23  “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

1 John 5:11  “God gives us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” 

Acts 10:43  “Everyone that believes in Christ receives forgiveness of sins through His name”

Acts 16:30-31  “Sirs, what must we do to be saved?”  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” 

·         We proclaim that JESUS is THE Savior!  Therefore, am I the Savior?  Even 50%? 10%?  0.0000000000000000000000000001%  

·         “In God I trust, in me I doubt!”   Discuss….   In light of the Scriptures above, why is that not cause to doubt our salvation?  

·         “Monergism” is the affirmation that salvation (justification) is GOD’S doing – a result of God’s heart, God’s righteousness, God’s works, God’s love; it’s all in and through CHRIST – His Live, His Cross, His Resurrection.  We just receive – the GIFT – earned entirely and solely by Christ.  “Synergism” is the affirmation that salvation is a cooperative, collaborative, joint effort between God and us: God doing His part, we doing ours – and TOGETHER … eventually… WE get the job done.   Which view is reflected by the boy in our opening example?  Luther said that ALL forms of synergism are “a terror to the conscience.”  How so?

Assurances:

Romans 8:29-39, For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. "

John 4:14, "but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

John 20:28, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

1 Thess. 5:24, "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Hebrews 10:14, "because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Rev. 3:5, "I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels."

Sanctification:

Just a word…..   PART of our teen’s “problem” was a confusion of justification (what is commonly referred to as “salvation”) with sanctification (“discipleship”).   Yes!   God calls on us to be absolutely PERFECT in the same sense that God Himself is (Matthew 5:48), God requires that we be HOLY just as He is (1 Peter 1:16).  God calls us (especially we Christians!) to VERY, VERY high things!  However, this is not the CAUSE of salvation (justification) and is not to be confused with it.  God GIVES us salvation (remember:  Jesus!  The Cross!  Easter!), but now that we are His own, He calls us to live like it.  

Since God gives the tree life – He expects fruit.  The fruit don’t make the tree alive, the tree being alive means there can be good fruit.   God gives a baby life – then expects him to grow and mature!  The growing doesn’t cause the life, the life means there can be growth.   It’s important to not confuse or blended the two – they are different issues.