EverGrace Church

Guest (Male): It's good to be in your church. My wife and I and our family have been wanting to come for a while. Thank you for having us. I tried to wear a regular bathing suit in Eastern Europe. We were missionaries in Eastern Europe for a while and then moved on to Africa to do missions. In Eastern Europe, you can't wear regular baggy shorts. They won't let you go swimming there.

You'll go into a place like the Y, and I had my surf shorts on and they said, "Oh no, you can't wear those." I said, "Well, what should I do? I don't have a Speedo." They said, "You can rent one." I said, "No thank you, I'll just use the sauna."

That's to kick off the message. Let's pray before we go downwards fast. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your joy. Thank you for the music we had and the fellowship. Lord, speak to us. You want to do a new thing, Lord. Not to remember the things of the past, even the victories, but Lord, you are very present. You're new. You're fresh. We ask for fresh oil. We ask for your leading. Speak to us in your precious name. Amen.

Pastor Dennis and I also started doing sketch board together here in the United States. We learned it in Eastern Europe, but this big board where you put a piece of paper and paint and do street preaching is a lot of fun. I want to resurrect mine. It had cobwebs in the garage, and now I have to get to using it again.

If you can turn in your Bible to Isaiah chapter 32, starting in verse 17, I want to talk about a doctrine that can be very misunderstood in Christian circles today, but I think it's vital. It's vital to our faith, it's vital to us being fruitful, and it's vital to us going forward with the Lord. It's the doctrine of eternal security.

This idea that once you're saved, you're always saved is somewhat controversial. It's been controversial throughout Christianity because it goes against common sense sometimes or it goes against reason. I think God likes that. He wants to show us that he's so gracious and so long-suffering that it's easy to misunderstand that.

I don't know who said it in my time in Bible school, but if you don't preach grace to the point that it's misunderstood, then maybe you're not preaching it properly. God wants his grace to be misunderstood. It's almost like what Paul said: where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. This shouldn't make us lax or familiar with God's grace, but it should just give us an incredible appreciation for God. It will bear fruit to the Lord.

And I think this is what this verse is talking about when Isaiah is prophesying. God is giving Isaiah this prophecy and saying that in the future, it's not going to be easy for Israel. Israel is going to go through some really troubled times. They went through a 70-year captivity where the Babylonians came and took a big group of all the Jews out of their homeland and marched them 700 miles north to the country of Babylon where Iraq is today.

By foot, they took 75% of the population, including all the young people. They abused them and did some horrible things. But God is saying, "I'm going to remember you. I'm going to do a new thing," like Pastor Dennis said. And he said this is what the effect of this is going to be. It says, "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever."

Because of the grace of God, which is his character and who he is, we have Jesus Christ. John chapter 1 says that Jesus Christ is the grace man, full of grace and truth. And of his fullness have we all received grace upon grace. He lived it. He's the God-man who came here and says, "This is my character for the human race."

"I'm going to pour out my nature and my character on you, and I'm going to give you my righteousness." Our righteousness is nothing on its own. It doesn't measure up. But when Christ gives us his righteousness, it says that the work of righteousness, the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross giving his perfect, sinless life as a sacrifice for the whole world, that work will bring peace.

And that's the same thing that it says in Romans chapter 5, verse 1: that we have peace with God. Because of the righteousness of God, we have peace. You don't have to worry about how God sees you. I don't have to worry about how God sees me. I have peace with God. I'm not at enmity with God anymore the way that I was when I was unsaved.

But the moment by faith that you and I just look to God and really just said yes to God by faith, God says, "Would you like me to come in your life and change your life, give you new life, take out your stony heart of unbelief, and I'll give you a new heart that's full of faith? Do you want to do that?" And you say, "Okay, sure." Then God says, "Boom, here it is. This is yours. You're a new person."

And you don't even realize it. I remember after I got saved—and I grew up in a Christian home with my dad and he brought me into the church—but I had to make a decision to receive Christ. In Africa, I heard this: God doesn't have any grandchildren. He only has children. You can't ride on the coat-tails of your parents' faith to come to God. You have to have your own personal meet-up with God.

I said, "God, if this is true, if you are this gracious, I want that work that you did on the cross to be applied to my life personally. I want you in my life." Maybe you don't even know those words, but you say, "Yes, Jesus, yes, that's what I want." And God says, "I'm going to come in and I'm going to save you." Hebrews 13:5 says, "Let your lifestyle be without wanting things and covetousness, for Christ has said, 'I will never, no never, no never leave you or forsake you.'" It's like five times. "I'll never leave you or forsake you."

That work of righteousness that Christ did gave you and me peace. When we give away the backpacks and we pack them and we give that message, a person that has been through all kinds of things in their life will have peace with God. No matter what's gone on in their life, they will have peace with God.

So the work of righteousness, the work that God did, the work that Jesus Christ did, the work of it is peace. We have peace with God. But then how does it affect us? The effect is quietness and assurance forever. You have a peace in your soul so that even though there's a storm outside or a hurricane, maybe in your life you're going through a lot of things. Man is born unto trouble, it says in Job, just like heat rises. That's part of the human existence.

God allows it because he wants to bring us to himself. He wants that heat to bring us to him. We're like an eagle that soars on the heat that rises from the earth. He doesn't have to flap his wings so much; he just extends his wings and kind of just goes on the updraft of the heat that pushes him up. God wants that with our trials. He wants that to happen for us.

And so you have trials and these things, and God says the work that I've done in your life is going to give you a quietness and an assurance, and it's not just for a day, but it's forever. And that's why I think that doctrine of eternal security is so important.

My wife and I were missionaries in Southern Africa for 15 years. We started in Zambia for five years and then we moved to the neighboring country of Malawi. Much like the church here, we were a new church plant. The southern part of Africa has the legacy of David Livingstone as a missionary that came from England. Especially in those countries—Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe—that's where he traveled.

So there are places where David Livingstone went. He ministered personally to some of the tribes that are there, so they have that in their legacy. There's a lot of Christianity; the nation of Malawi is about 88% Christian. But there's always this question: "Will God leave me? Will God turn his back on me? Will God walk away from me?"

That's why I called here at the Y and said, "Let's shut the heat off so we can feel like we're in Africa for a minute," just so you get a little taste. Sorry about that. It's so that when you go to the new place, it's going to be like paradise. Pastor Dennis also planned this so you can move to the next place and say, "Man, we've got to get out of here!"

There's a great story I used to tell in Bible college. It's the story of how the Golden Gate Bridge was built. In the 1930s, they started building the Golden Gate Bridge. Like any great work of its time, there was a lot of collateral damage that happened with it. People fell off the bridge as they were building it. Over the San Francisco Bay, it's a 200-foot drop, so most people didn't survive that.

Someone had the bright idea of, "Hey, let's put a safety net underneath." And it was expensive for that huge amount. It was $135,000 to put a net under the whole construction project, which was a lot for the 1930s. But when they put that net underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, they had far fewer deaths.

The only deaths they had were because a scaffold fell and tore the net, and the people that were in the net fell also because of it. But other than that, they had no deaths. And the productivity of all the workers went up 25%. It's a great picture of when we know, when we have a quietness and assurance in our hearts forever, we become more productive in the Christian faith.

We work more by the grace of God, not because of who we are, but we're just so thankful to God that if we fall, we're under his everlasting arms, from Deuteronomy 33:27. So I think this doctrine is such a vital part of what we believe as a church because it's what makes us fruitful.

If I don't believe that my salvation is secured, then the work that I do is out of fear. I'm doing it to make sure I'm saved. I'm doing it to make sure that I'll be in heaven. But when I know that I have quietness and I have assurance forever, I'm doing that work as gratitude unto the Lord. I'm doing it out of my heart.

It's like when Jacob was serving his father-in-law. He said, "You have to serve seven years and I'll give you Rachel for your wife." That was her dowry. And he served for seven years and then at the wedding day, he married the wrong one. He married the older sister, Leah. He said, "Hey, you double-crossed me. I was working all this time for Rachel."

And he said, "In this culture, the older sister has to get married first. You have to work another seven years to get Rachel." And it says that those seven years were like a few days for him because of the love that he had for Rachel. That's the kind of service that God gets from us when we do it. We're not looking for reward. We're not looking for what God is going to do for us. We're just doing it out of gratitude.

We're saying, "God, I'm so thankful that you never leave me. You never forsake me. You will be with me through my ups and my downs." And actually, God puts it in you. It says in Philippians 2:11 and 12, God puts the will and the do of his good pleasure. He puts the ability and he puts the motivation to do his good pleasure.

Before that, it says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that gives you both the will and the do of his good pleasure." So he puts it in us. He gives us that new heart. And that righteousness, the result of that righteousness is that God puts all these gifts in us, he puts this desire in us, and we start walking with God. And it's amazing.

As you take this new journey with the church, it's awesome. As we left Malawi, when we moved back here and just handing everything over, it was incredible. This is a new step for the church. After being there for 10 years and serving there, even my dad and my step-mom were there with us for seven of those 10 years. They lived there in Malawi and were pouring out and ministering and training people.

And then we said, "Alright, here are the keys. This is for you." We didn't say, "Don't mess it up," because we all mess it up. But it's God's church. Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell won't prevail against it." So we said, "Here are the keys." And you know what? Just like Christ said, "You'll do more than what I will do."

We knew it. God would do more through them than what we could do when we were there. When we left there after 10 years, there were six churches in the country of Malawi. And now today, there are 13 churches. They doubled everything themselves. And they did more because it's like their own countrymen. And so they said, "Hey, let's do it. Let's go for it."

I think part of that fruitfulness comes from this understanding that God is going to be with you. In closing, remember Peter. Peter said to Jesus—Jesus said, "I'm going to the cross"—and Peter said, "No, you can't go to the cross." And Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan." And then Jesus said to Peter, "You're actually going to deny me." And he said, "No, I won't deny you. Even if I have to die for you, I won't deny you." What did he do? He denied him.

Think how crushed Peter must have been. Maybe he thought, "My calling is over. I'm going to go back to my old way of life. I'm going to go fishing again." And Christ had quietness and assurance. He didn't even know, but Christ went after him. And even if we go and we backslide and we go the wrong direction, God comes right after us.

And he had a meal ready for him. Peter's a fisherman; he caught a ton of fish when Jesus said to throw the net on the other side in John 21. But God didn't even use any of the fish that Peter caught. It's like even the things that you do, God doesn't even want one bit of it. He said, "I'll do it for you. I'm going to cook the food for you." So he had a fish ready there. He fed the disciples.

And then he said to Peter, "Do you love me?" And Peter said, "Well, you know I'm your friend, but I don't have this agape love that you're talking about for you." He said, "It's okay. Feed my sheep." And he said that three times.

And then he says in verse 15, "Peter, when you're young, you walk wherever you want to walk. But when you get older, you're going to lift up your hands and another one is going to carry you where you wouldn't normally go." And that's realizing that it's God's work. That's realizing that he's never going to leave you.

Christ is going to be the one that's going to carry Peter throughout the rest of his life. And he had ups and downs. He had this time where he was not assembling with the Gentiles, he would only be with the Jews, and he had to get corrected by the apostle Paul, who was his younger, less than him almost in the church hierarchy. But he received it and he grew from it. He was a humble person to the point where church history says that he was crucified upside down with his wife. The two of them were crucified upside down.

It's like God carried him. Maybe he just probably didn't want to go out like that, but God said, "I'll carry you and I'll be with you, even in a place where you wouldn't normally go." And God will do that for us. God will do that for the church in Frederick. He's going to carry you. And in the new building that you go to, he's going to carry you. He's going to bring new people and he's going to give you wisdom on how he will build this church. But in all that, he will always let you know that I'm never going to leave you. I'm going to give you a quietness and assurance, and it will be there forever. Amen.