Make Sure Your Salvation

2 Peter 1:
4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6. And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7. And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

That is a bit more than a sound bite, but there is really no way to slim it down. I want to look at verse 10: making your calling and election sure. Making certain your salvation.

That is to say, making sure you bear fruit.

Why is bearing fruit important?

Many people come to faith in Christ, and assume they are done. "I got saved. Now I can go about my life knowing I'll go to heaven when I die." This is not a wise assumption. (Some assume they can continue to live like heathens in the house of the Lord: you don't want to be one of them.) Salvation is a lifelong process, not a one time event.

It is easy to see why people get confused: being born again is a one time event. And you are saved once you get born again. But being born again does not mean you will never forfeit your salvation. You can deny Christ. You can throw him away. You can become a twice-dead (Jude 1:12). You can become someone who has no fruit (Jude 1:12).

Jesus was more direct than Peter:

Johm 15:
1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
.... 6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

But wait! one might say. Didn't Jesus say that if you came to him, he would never cast you out?

Yes, he did.

Johm 6:
37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

But Jesus isn't the Father. Jesus will not reject you. But the Father just might. And Jesus said he would if you refuse to bear fruit.

On the day of atonement, when the high priest divided between the "good goat" and the "bad goat," the high priest didn't decide, God did: the priest cast lots (Leviticus 16:7-10). He cast lots so God could decide which was the good goat, and which goat got to have all the sins piled upon it, and to be cast out to the outer darkness destruction of the wilderness. The high priest symbolized Jesus, the goats, you and I. The scapegoat offering was added because two of the sons of Aaron offered strange fire before the Lord, and were burned to death (Leviticus 10). The fact that not all the sons of Aaron were acceptable is a warning to us. Just as not all the offspring of Aaron were acceptable, not all the offspring of Jesus will be either.

What is the Father looking for? In previous blogs, we saw he wants us to depart from iniquity, not just be forgiven of it, but to have the desire and choices purged from our lives. Now, also, we see he wants fruit.

Titus 2:
11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
14. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
15. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Zealous of good works.

Peter said that if the following things were in you in abundance, they would make you that you should neither be barren, or unfruitful, and would safeguard your salvation.

Faith - This is your faith in Christ.

Virtue - This word means manliness. Valor. Excellence. I would say "boldness" or "backbone." "Man up, and stop being a whiner." Having you act together.

Knowledge - This word means the act of knowing. You need to know what you are doing, and not have a blind aimless faith. You should only get that direction from the Lord.

Temperance - This means having strong self-control. Learning to kill sin-hunger, and to obey when it is not in your personal best interest. Say "no" to yourself, your wants, your goals, your dreams.

Patience - Endurance. To stay under whatever God has for you, and not cut and run. This does not mean you should put up with abuse and say, "It must be God's will." It means, when God has led you somewhere and the going gets tough, you endure. You don't say, "It must not have been God's will after all," and quit.

Godliness - Piety. Be a worshiper. It means to be one who renders quality adoration. Obedience is a quality form of adoration, and hence the translation as "godliness".

Brotherly Kindness - this means being fond of the church family. Being integrated into the church. Finding your social identity and network in the church.

Charity. Agape. Jesus defined the greatest level of agape as "that a man shall lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Would you die for a member of your church? A stranger? Then, how about living for them? You don't have to die to lay down your life.

If you look at these, you will find they all point toward fruit-bearing. The end result of your faith in Christ from God's viewpoint is that you bear fruit. The others are all things that are going to be required of you for you to bear fruit. As Jesus said, the Father will purge every branch in him that bears fruit. When one purges a grapevine, they strip away most of the leafy trappings so that all the sap will go into the grapes.

That is what the Father does: he strips away all the personal glory we have, so that our lives will be focused on the fruit he desires. It takes virtue on our part to accept it. It takes knowledge on our part, so we won't resist it. It takes temperance and patience on our part to submit to it. It takes godliness on our part to thank him for it, and not feel bitter about it. It takes brotherly kindness and agape to let God strip us of our goals and ambitions so that he might use us in service to his church.

But in the end is reward, and eternal life. Think of that. Ten million years from now, we will still be alive, as young and as healthy as we ever were. Will we go to the stars? Will there be whole new universes populated by creatures as yet unimagined? Will I be the one creating them? I don't know. I only know, I will be there, somewhere, sin-free, and bearing fruit.

Copyright © 2009 Burley Ward. All rights reserved.