Sunday message: Don't be fooled- you can be assured

This is going to be short and to the point.  There are denominations (and don't get high and mighty before God, you ARE a denomination) out there that try to tell you, "You cannot be sure of your salvation."  And of course, you go to these people with Romans 10:

8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 


And you have the person tell you, " Paul spoke about hoping to be saved, and about working out his salvation with fear and trembling. He didn't speak of assurance of salvation. "


And my question is, how do you go from, "You WILL" to, "He was HOPING"?  Answer, YOU DON'T.  The verse he was misquoting was in Philippians 2:

12 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, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.



To take it as he does requires totally ignoring two key points of this passage.  The first being, YOUR salvation.  IF you have met the requirement in Romans- believe in your heart, confess with your mouth- and this is the serious part, not an, "oh, yeah, I believe that Jesus is really cool," but "I believe I am hopeless and am deserving of hell BUT FOR Jesus"- you have YOUR salvation.  Salvation, because of our being embedded in time, comes in three aspects:  You get "your ticket" when you are saved; you then have to 'make your way to the theater', ie you have a life to live in which the "confess with your mouth" needs to be a priority; and then you die, hand over your 'ticket', and join Jesus in heaven.  It was yours when you got it, it is yours now, it will be waiting for you when you get there.


The second part is "work OUT".  This doesn't mean you are building it through your good works- it means you are 'working out', EXERCISING it to gain that better reward.  The longer you are saved, the better Christian you become.  Paul's HOPE was in the REWARD waiting for him as a RESULT of his salvation- not hoping he did enough to "get in.".

There was a lot more "bad theology" that came in this discussion, but like their arguments, it detracts from the point.  We CAN be assured in our hearts of salvation.  But it IS an "if-then" thing.  The working out can come as you go, but it has to start with the IF.