How Do I Know I’m Saved?

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00:00:05.000 | Josh from Duluth writes in to ask a very common question that we get almost every

00:00:09.540 | day through email and is this, "Pastor John, how do I know if I'm saved?"

00:00:16.000 | Josh, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Acts 16 31.

00:00:25.000 | "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever

00:00:30.500 | believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3 16. Romans 3 28.

00:00:42.000 | "We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law."

00:00:51.000 | The whole book of John according to chapter 20 verse 31 is written so that you might

00:00:56.000 | believe that Jesus is the Son of God and have believing have life in his name.

00:01:03.000 | So the unmistakable message all through the New Testament is we are saved by

00:01:10.000 | believing on Jesus. So rivet your attention on Christ in the Gospels, John,

00:01:19.000 | Matthew, Mark, Luke, the whole Bible. Rivet your attention on Christ and say what you

00:01:26.000 | see. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and say what you feel

00:01:32.000 | about this. I receive him. I love him. He's my God. He's my Lord. He's my

00:01:40.000 | treasure. Confess that. Let yourself hear yourself saying that. Say that to others.

00:01:47.000 | Say it to your wife. Say it to your kids. Say it to your friend. Jesus is my Lord.

00:01:52.000 | The Bible says no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Isn't that

00:01:58.000 | amazing? Nobody can say Jesus is Lord. So if you say it and mean it, God's at work

00:02:03.000 | in your life. You have the Holy Spirit. So what is faith? This believing. John 1 12.

00:02:13.000 | He came to his own. His own did not receive him, but to as many as received him who

00:02:18.000 | believed on his name. So receiving and believing are mutually interpreting. And

00:02:23.000 | receiving means when he offers himself to you as a Savior, as a Lord, as a

00:02:29.000 | treasure, as a counselor, you receive him. You don't reject him. You receive all

00:02:34.000 | that God is for you in Christ. And so receiving is a welcoming and embracing.

00:02:42.000 | Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.

00:02:45.000 | Whoever believes in me shall never thirst." So believing is a coming to him to have

00:02:50.000 | your thirst satisfied. Or it's a receiving of the waterfall of grace that's pouring

00:02:56.000 | out of the crevice of the cross and receiving it as the soul hunger satisfyer.

00:03:05.000 | The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from

00:03:10.000 | seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So what we see when he

00:03:16.000 | opens our eyes is Christ is glorious. Christ is the image of God. Christ is the

00:03:22.000 | greatest person that ever was. The greatest Savior, the greatest Lord, the

00:03:26.000 | greatest teacher, the greatest counselor, the greatest friend. That's what faith

00:03:30.000 | receives from Christ in believing. Now maybe the person who asked this question

00:03:38.000 | was thinking about all the passages that talk about the tests of faith in our

00:03:45.000 | lives. And we can talk about that maybe more detail another time, but I would

00:03:50.000 | just say 1 John is written to give lots of those tests, but they all come

00:03:58.000 | down to this. Is your life reflecting the preciousness of Christ that you have

00:04:08.000 | received as your Savior? It's not the fruit that justifies you. The tree of

00:04:16.000 | faith is the good tree. The fruit is the evidence that the tree is good. And when

00:04:23.000 | we're talking about good here, we don't mean perfection. I think a lot of people

00:04:28.000 | probably struggle with, "Am I saved?" because they have unrealistic

00:04:33.000 | understandings of Christian growth and how sin works. So let me end there maybe

00:04:39.000 | by saying in 1 John 1, it goes like this, "If we walk in the light," this is

00:04:45.000 | verse 7, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with

00:04:50.000 | one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." So walking in

00:04:54.000 | the light is essential. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin if we

00:05:00.000 | walk in the light. Well, does that mean that walking in the light is perfection?

00:05:05.000 | Well, it can't because there wouldn't be any sins to cleanse. So walking in the

00:05:09.000 | light must be something else. So we keep reading, "If we say we have no sin, we

00:05:14.000 | deceive ourselves." In other words, we're not walking in the light. In the light,

00:05:17.000 | you don't get deceived. In the light, you see. What do you see? You see the sin you

00:05:20.000 | just committed. And what do you do with it? Verse 9, "If we confess our sins, he's

00:05:24.000 | faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

00:05:28.000 | So walking in the light might sound to people like, "Oh shoot, I can't walk in

00:05:33.000 | the light. I can't keep from sinning." No, that's not what walking in the light

00:05:38.000 | means. Walking in the light means that the gospel is so plain to you, the

00:05:43.000 | holiness of God is so plain to you, the terribleness of sin is so plain to you

00:05:47.000 | that when you stumble into sin, your reaction is, "I hate this. I am sorry,

00:05:53.000 | Father. Please forgive me." You confess it, you receive forgiveness, and you press on

00:05:59.000 | with the Lord whose treasure is bigger because of the grace that He's offered to

00:06:06.000 | you. So I would just say, "Josh, in the end, the assurance of salvation is a gift

00:06:16.000 | from the Holy Spirit." Romans 8, 15, "You have received the Spirit of adoption by

00:06:23.000 | whom you cry, 'Abba, Father,' the Spirit Himself bearing witness with your spirit

00:06:31.000 | that you are a child of God." When you cry out, "Abba, Father, Jesus, Lord," that's the

00:06:39.000 | Holy Spirit testifying with your spirit that you are the child of God. So ask Him

00:06:45.000 | for that gift. Ask Him for the gift of His own personal testimony that you are His.

00:06:52.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email

00:06:56.000 | your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. At DesiringGod.org

00:07:01.000 | you'll find thousands of free books, articles, sermons, and other resources

00:07:04.000 | from John Piper. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.

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How Do I Know I’m Saved?

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