Can We Lose Our Salvation?

Sermon preached by Pastor Dan Farm

Autumn Ridge Church, Rochester, MN

May 17 and 18, 2008

 

We have so many great things happening in the services this weekend, God is working in so many lives in such a big way, it’s fantastic, so I just want to jump right in to our Scripture passage. As we dive back into the Gospel of John, John resumes his account in Verse 22 of Chapter 10 after a lapse of about three months in the life and ministry of Jesus.

If you look carefully at the early verses in Chapter 10 you will find that they took place in Jerusalem in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles (which is held in early October), while the opening words of our text today are, "It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem."

That Feast, which we call by the much more familiar term "Hanukkah," is celebrated when we Christians celebrate Christmas, which is in late December, so there is a gap in time between Verse 21 and Verse 22 of approximately three months duration.

That, of course, raises the question: where was Jesus during this time? The most likely answer is that he had returned to Galilee to minister there. The Gospel of Luke records many incidents in the life of Jesus that took place in Galilee.

There sent out the seventy disciples to the various cities in Galilee. Jesus himself did many amazing miracles during this time.

Here, then, in Verse 22 is the record of a quick return trip to Jerusalem.

“Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's Colonnade.” (John 10:22-23 NIV)

Winter in Israel is the cold, rainy season. "Solomon’s Colonnade" was a large roofed-in enclosure supported by beautiful columns that filled one side of the temple arena. There, sheltered from the rain, Jesus resumed his teaching ministry during the Feast of Hanukkah.

The context of this story is important. Hanukkah celebrates the purification and rededication of the temple after its defilement under the Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, in the year 165 BC. The feast looks back on that dramatic, exciting period in Israel's history when the Maccabee family revolted against Israel's Syrian overlords.

Judas Maccabeus and his sons drove out the Syrians, reclaimed the temple for the Lord and re-dedicated it. That event is celebrated down to this day in the Feast of Hanukkah.

So every time the Jewish people celebrated Hanukkah, they not only thought about God and liberation.  They not only thanked God for having the temple back again. 

They also thought about kings, and how they became kings.  And here is Jesus walking in the temple during the festival of Hanukkah, talking about the Good Shepherd, the real shepherd, the king who would come and show all the others up as a bunch of thieves.

Continuing, John tells us in Verse 24:

The Jews gathered around him, saying, "How long will you keep us in suspense?" ["How long are you going to tantalize or annoy us?"] If you are the Christ [the Messiah], tell us plainly." Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. (John 10:24-26 NIV)

In this remarkable scene, it is evident that the Jews deliberately surrounded Jesus so that he could not get away, forcing him to face their question, "Are you the Messiah, or aren't you? If you are, tell us plainly." Our Lord's answer was, "I have already told you."

According to John's account he never had really said to these men, "I am the Messiah." He did say privately to the woman at the well in Samaria, "I am the Son of God," but to these Jewish leaders, these Pharisees, he had never said, "I am the Messiah."

Again context, the reason he never plainly said it was because their idea of what the Messiah would do and Jesus' fulfillment of the predictions of the Messiah were wide apart. They pictured the Messiah as a conquering hero who, like the family of Judas Maccabeus, would drive out the Romans, free the temple and enable the Jewish nation to again gain control of the land.

But Jesus gave no indication that he ever intended to do that. Therefore, for him to say to them, "I am the Messiah" would have been to arouse false hopes in their minds. But he did tell them by other means that he was the Messiah. But they did not believe.

Jesus met with widespread unbelief in his own day just like he does today. And the reason was the same then as it is today: not primarily a lack of clear and worthy testimony ("I have told you . . . the works bear witness . . . of me"), but rather a deeply rooted spiritual unwillingness to love what Jesus loves.

Do you remember John 5:44 where Jesus says, "No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God." (NLT)

The main obstacle to faith is not that Jesus' claims are vague or insufficient, but that people "loved praise from men more than praise from God." (John 12:43).

You see, it is not primarily a problem of knowledge but a problem of pride.

Like Jesus, Paul traces unbelief back through ignorance to the heart which is hardened against the glory of God in Christ. He says in Ephesians 4:18,

"Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. (NLT)

There is a kind of deadness to spiritual things which grips the heart of those who don’t believe in Jesus. The affections of some are so completely imprisoned to the things of this world that Jesus says they will not repent, even if one should rise from the dead (Luke 16:31), for it is not a problem of knowledge, but of what they love, what they are committed too.

All of this provides the contrasting setting for one of the greatest passages in all of Scripture. It is one of my favorite verses, and perhaps yours too.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 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. (John 10:27-29 NIV)

 

What a marvelous word of assurance to us! In it, our Lord indicates two major things. First, the answer to the question, "How can you tell an authentic follower / disciple of Jesus Christ?" and secondly, the answer to the question almost everybody asks, "Can I lose my salvation?"

Verse 27 answers the first question. "How can you tell an authentic follower of Jesus Christ?" Here are three marks:

First, "My sheep hear my voice." That is, He calls us first, and then we are drawn to what Jesus has to say. We believe that what he says is the truth, and we long to hear more. One of the things that has encouraged me in my ministry has been the hunger of people of the church family for the Word of God.

How it has drawn people, and ministered to them, and fed them, and how they love to hear it!

What brings out such a large crowd as we have here today?

It is the voice of God. It’s his insight into life, his understanding of the secrets of existence, his solution to the problems with which every one of us wrestle, It’s a look inside his heart.

It’s his offer of deliverance from the inner bondage which we experience as we seek to live life and find ourselves continually trapped and entangled in wrong things, in hurt and distress and pain.

It is the word of God that brings you here, the word declared in the Scriptures and confirmed by the Holy Spirit within you.

That is the first characteristic of a true sheep: One who longs to hear the word of God. Who wants to know more. Who reads and studies and learns and comes regularly to hear the word of God. "My sheep hear my voice."

Secondly, "I know them."

John 10:3 is a close parallel to verse 27. It says, "The sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out."

So when it says, "Jesus knows them" (v. 27), it means at least that he knows you by name; that is, he knows you individually and intimately. We, are not anonymous, lost in the flock.

Verse 14 provides another insight: "I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."

There is a real similarity between the way Jesus knows his Father in heaven and the way he knows his sheep.

Jesus sees himself in the Father, and he sees himself in his disciples. To some degree Jesus recognizes his own character in his disciples. He sees his brand mark on his sheep.

Then the third mark: "They follow me." That is, they obey Jesus; we do what he commands. This does not mean that we always do so instantaneously, without struggle.

All of us struggle at times with what our Lord says; all of us resist at times. Sometimes the word needs to be brought clearly and sharply into focus in our life.

But the point of it is, once we see what Jesus wants, the attitude of a true sheep is, "Lord, even though it may hurt, even though it is inconvenient, even though there is a cost, I will do what you say. I will follow you."

Jesus himself made that clear when he said, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me," 

This is the mark of the sheep, an authentic follower of Christ: He calls his sheep. We obey what He says, because we know what he says, because we are in his Word and we are in prayer.

We do not follow the world, we follow Jesus. The two are going in opposite directions. When the choice is made, it is a choice in favor of obeying the Lord Jesus.

The Apostle Paul says the same thing in his letter to Timothy: "But God’s truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” (2 Tim 2:19a NLT). There is divine recognition. But that is not all: “and all who belong to the Lord must turn away from evil.”^[(2 Tim 2:19b NLT). We must turn our back on what is wrong and obey and follow our Lord.

 

 

That is the mark of a sheep. Please hear me clearly… If we are resisting the Lord in an area that we know pleases him and if we insist on living in habitual blatant disobedience, we are we following? To me that life is not one worthy of a Christ -follower.

Jesus says to us… If you love me, you will obey me.  That is how we demonstrate our love to him, by turning our back on what breaks his heart and we embracing what pleases him.

Jesus tells us three things that he has done which make his sheep respond to the Shepherd. It is not something he will do when the sheep do their part -- this is not a chronological succession here; it is based on what he has done, it is an explanation of what lies behind the actions of sheep. Again, there are three things:

First, "I give them eternal life." Literally interpreted, "I keep on giving to them eternal life." What keeps us secure in Christ? It is the life he gives, the peace, the joy, the love that we feel, the sense of inner calmness, the forgiveness, the sense of belonging and being safeguarded and kept and loved, that’s what holds us.

It is a life in which we would give up anything else rather than give that up. We are drawn because he keeps on giving us life, eternal life, God's kind of life.

Secondly, that quality of life has an element of assurance: it will never end. It has a certainty of safety, of security about it. It can never end.

We live in a world that is dying, a world that is headed for ultimate destruction – but, we will never perish! What a wonderful word of assurance.

It is a life that survives death, a life that disdains death.

Every one of us is headed for death, yet we should not be afraid. For those who are his sheep, who believe in Him, we know that a way has been provided by which we will not even know death or sense it when it happens, but we will be ushered immediately into glory and life and truth and the presence of the Good Shepherd.

 

 

Thirdly, this is a life which is guarded, kept, protected by two unconquerable Beings. Jesus said, "No one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." In Colossians, Paul puts these two things together: "Your life is hid with Christ in God," (Col 3:3).

What a wonderful view that is of our safety! No one can take us out of the Father's hand because the Father is greater than all. We are kept by the sovereign power and love of God.

We may struggle, we may hurt, we may go through times of dark, deep depression and times of doubt and despair, but we shall never perish if we have come to him and are part of his flock.

Well, Jesus ends his discourse with “I and the Father are one,” at which point, his hearers pick up stones to stone him. The careful reader of John knows what’s going to happen next, because they remember 7:30 when Jesus was in the temple and his opponents tried to seize him and he slipped away.

Again, at the end of chapter 8 — Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am” his opponents pick up stones, and then he disappears. So now, again he says something controversial, they get ready to stone him, and Jesus ... stops them.

He says “Now wait a minute — I have shown you many great miracles from the Father — for which of these do you stone me?”

Why does Jesus stop them here, when he just disappeared so many times before?

Certainly, he’s showing that his opponents were more interested in their agenda than in faithful interpretation of Scripture, but he’s had ample opportunity to demonstrate that.

Why does he now stop his opponents? Why does he face off against people he has said are not his sheep and say “Wait, just try believing in me. Have you seen the miracles I’ve done? Believe in me that you might know the Father.”

 

Why? Because he’s giving them a second chance. His entire ministry has been about second chances. The woman at the well who was so ashamed because of her sin; a second chance for blind beggars who had given up all hope on life; a second chance for Nathaniel, who had become so cynical about life.

Even those who reject him, he gives a second chance to those who shake their fist in his face — the reality is, he has kept coming back to Jerusalem and giving a second, third, fourth and fifth chance. And still they reject him.

And here, Jesus, knowing that the next time he comes to Jerusalem, he comes to die at these peoples hands; even now he offers another chance.

We talk about divine sovereignty and human responsibility, but those concepts fade away when you are faced in the moment with the calling of Jesus Christ upon your life and you have to say, “What am I going to do?”

Those of you who are not disciples, you have not lived your life for the praise of Jesus, and you are confronted today with Jesus claim as the Good Shepherd over your life — what are you going to do?

You have rejected him in the past, like all of us have done and he’s giving you a second chance today? What are you going to do? Let me encourage you to tell him you are sorry for your unbelief and you believe in him and want to follow him and be one of his own.

The Bible tells us we can be assured of our salvation by belief, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.”  What are you going to do?

I also realize that those of us who are his sheep, his followers need second chances. How many good intentioned resolutions have we dropped? How many kindnesses have we left undone? How many injuries have we failed to apologize for? How many times have we ignored God’s clear teaching for our own convenience or comfort?

Christ-followers need second chances. How will you respond?

How do we all respond to this Good Shepherd? Will we pick up a stone and say “I don’t need him” or will we go to him and pour out our hearts and accept His grace and live a life of obedience and follow him with everything we have?

Unfortunately, the hearers in this story chose to pick up stones, and again, Jesus escaped their grasp and left their presence. But the postscript to the story offers us some hope.

Jesus slipped away from Jerusalem back to the other side of the Jordan River.

There, out in more rural backward country, we see people coming to him based on the testimony of John the Baptist, expressing their faith. It is three years later and now John’s testimony is bearing fruit. These people respond to their second chance.

Whatever you battle today, no matter what it is you are struggling with or burdened with, Jesus gives you a second chance today. Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30
“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke are easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”(NLT)

 

Jesus offers you the chance to lay your burdens down at his feet and pick up again with a life of discipleship and joy — the life for which you were made. The life of an authentic follower of Jesus, a life that brings security and salvation. He gives you a second chance. The Shepherd holds out his loving, strong and secure arms to you.  What are you going to do?

Can We Lose Our Salvation?

John 10:22-42

Pastor Dan Farm Preaching

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 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.” (John 10:27-29 NIV)

1.       Introduction: Feast of the Dedication

 

2.       Three Marks of an Authentic Disciple

a.       The Sheep Hear the Shepherd’s Voice.

b.       The Shepherd Knows his Sheep.

c.       The Sheep Follow the Shepherd

3.       Why The Sheep Respond to the Shepherd

a.       He Gives Them Eternal Life.

b.       He Give Them Assurance.

c.       He Gives Them Protection

4.       Our Response…

 

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)