Good Friday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I know I’ve kept you waiting 24 hours to discuss one of the most important questions any person could ever ask. Did you know it’s a question being asked everyday by many people all around the world? Maybe it’s a question you’ve wrestled with? Let’s rejoin Peter and our discussion of the durability of our God accomplished salvation and let’s find God’s answer to the question. Let me repeat the question as I left it with you yesterday:
The life and death question is this:
Will God REFUSE to reconcile back to Himself someone who has turned away from God?
Will God REFUSE to restore, into holy relationship with Himself, the person who has turned away from God, or even blasphemed God by renouncing his salvation accomplished by God?
Peter thrust us into this discussion by writing these words which we began discussing a few days ago found in 2 Peter 2:20,21 “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in that worldly corruption and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then turn their back on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” Clearly Peter is describing someone who has authentically trusted Jesus Christ for their salvation and has experienced the glorious work of God in transforming them and has experienced the victorious life of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
But then this same person has yielded to the temptations of the devil and through their choices, and the hardening of their heart, they have turned away from God and have again entangled themselves in the corruption of our sinful world. It’s important we understand the person Peter is describing did not wake up one day and find themselves far from God.
This person chose a path, probably through repeated yielding to sinful temptations, to quench the work of the Holy Spirit in them, and give the devil a foothold in their life, which by now has grown to an irresistible stronghold of evil in their life. That’s what Peter means by describing them as “…again entangled in that worldly corruption and are overcome.”
As we saw yesterday this person has turned away and rejected God and God’s truth. God has NOT turned away from them nor as God rejected them. The barrier that exists in the relationship between this person and God is a barrier this person erected, brick by brick, choice by choice, all the while ignoring, resisting, and rejecting the loving invitation of God the Father, and the convicting work of God the Holy Spirit, within them.I’m reminded of two stories in the Bible which help us see this situation. Jonah, in the Old Testament, who refused God’s invitation & commission to go to Nineveh and preach God’s truth to the wicked people there. Instead, in Jonah’s refusal, he boarded a ship bound for the opposite direction! A storm arose and he was thrown overboard and spent three days in the belly of a huge fish, before being spewed out onto the shore. In those three days Jonah felt deep conviction regarding his rebellion and rejection of God, and Jonah’s response, as recorded in Jonah 2, is deep repentance before God.
As Jonah lay on the shore, God spoke again to him. It’s extremely important to see what God said to Jonah in that moment. There is no REJECTION of Jonah! There is no JUDGMENT of Jonah! Rather, Jonah himself records it for us: “Then the word of the LORD God came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.” (Jonah 3:1,2)Now look back at our question about God’s willingness to forgive a repentant person; and reconcile a relationship with that person; and restore that person into relationship with God. What do you see in the example of rebellious Jonah who totally rejected God and God’s word, but then later came to a place of repentance?
Do you see God forgave Jonah’s rebellion? God reconciled their relationship and even trusted Jonah with the same commission which Jonah had first rejected? When you read the rest of Jonah 3, you’ll see Jonah did faithfully go to Nineveh, and he did preach God’s message, and the people received Jonah’s message, they repented of their sin and there was great spiritual revival in Nineveh!
In the New Testament Luke records for us in his 15th chapter, the story of Jesus one day telling three parables all with the same meaning. The parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the prodigal son. You remember that a man had two sons who worked with him in their family business. One of the sons refused to continue working with his brother and his father, demanding that his father give him his inheritance immediately, rather than waiting until his father’s death. Tearfully, the father did so and joyfully the son turned his back on his father, his family, his home and he ran off to a faraway city where he squandered all his inheritance in wild living.
Eventually that son became repentant but wondered if his father would receive him home if he returned? To his amazement not only did the father receive him, but the father restored him to his place in the family and a great celebration followed! Now my friends, I again urge you to apply this story of Jesus to the big question today, and what do you conclude? Do you see Jesus was teaching that God will ALWAYS receive, forgive and restore a repentant person no matter how far away from God they have run?Finally, let’s look directly at the words of Jesus as recorded in John 6, when Jesus faced this same question. Jesus said: “All those the Father gives Me will come to Me and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37) Jesus is promising that under no circumstances will He, God the Son, who paid the full atonement price so God the Father could forgive our sin… under no circumstances will Jesus EVER reject someone who has fully trusted in Him and repented of their sin.
No matter how far that person has walked away from Jesus; no matter how strongly that person has rejected Jesus or renounced Jesus or denied Jesus or betrayed Jesus... once they have fully trusted their life to Jesus and God has done the full life transforming work of saving that person from their sin condemnation, regardless of that person’s behavior, God will never reject that person and negate their salvation or erase their name from the Book of Life, or withdraw His Holy Spirit from that person. That is the covenant relationship of salvation God offers every person He saves!
On that day, Jesus also gave this promise: “This is the will of My Father who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day . For My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:39,40)
Do you see there are no conditions in these statements regarding our human behavior or our words or our religious practices AFTER God authentically saves us? The miracle of our salvation is entirely accomplished by God and is irreversible. The relationship established in that miracle salvation work provides a daily opportunity for us to live victoriously, in the power of the Holy Spirit, rejecting any effort of the devil and dark kingdom to draw us away from God.
OR we can choose to yield to the temptations of the devil and the dark kingdom and turn our backs on God. But either way, God will never REJECT us, God will never turn HIS back on us! And God is always ready to lead the rebellious through His process of repentant restoration. Now do you see my friends how that answers our big question?
But we all know that God holds us responsible for our choices, our actions, our attitudes, our words, our behavior, right? And that’s another powerful part of Peter’s words which we can’t ignore and we will discuss tomorrow. What did Peter mean when he wrote: “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then turn their back on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” Oh my, that’s frightening, isn’t it? I’ll meet you right back here tomorrow and we’ll seek God’s explanation to those words.
Today’s Scriptures: Jonah 2; Luke 15; John 6:37-40.
Choose below to read or listen.
Jonah 2
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Luke 15
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John 6:37-40
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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