Assurance

Night 2 Assurance Who can tell me about last night’s devo? Awesome, I hope that each of you have been thinking about that choice. But I know that there are some of you who are thinking that it can’t be that simple. What if you mess up? What if you do something really terrible? What if you forget to pray? How can I really be sure that I am going to heaven and am going to be accepted by God? Well that’s what we are going to be talking about tonight. And I have another story for you guys tonight. I learn a lot better with stories so I hope this will help you guys to understand as well. This story is found in Luke 15 The Story of the Lost Son 11-12Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' 12-16"So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. Have you ever been desperate? Do you ever feel like you have wasted all your chances and there is no way God could ever accept you? Well the boy in this story sure did. 17-20"That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father. This boy had made a very brave decision. He was afraid of what his father would do. His father could send him right back on his way. But he made the choice to at least try going back. Let’s see how the father reacted. 20-21"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' 22-24"But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time. The father welcomed the son home. This is what God will do with you. If you come to him you are welcomed home. God promises this so many times in scripture. Romans 8:1 says “Therefore there is NO condemnation in Christ Jesus.” John 10: 28-29 says “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” Romans 8:28 says “I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” God makes it very clear that there is nothing you can do to lose God’s love. Once you accept Christ, that gift of salvation cannot be taken away from you. That choice of life or death, of your way or God’s way, of heaven or hell is still open to you. But once you make the choice of life it never goes away. Romans 10:9 says, “This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—"Jesus is my Master"—embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!" That is the simple message of salvation. Once you make that choice and call out to God there is nothing that can take you out of His hands. Let’s close with a word of prayer that God will make each of you know this deep inside your heart.