 If you've ever been worried about the certainty of your salvation and I want to talk to you, I want to show you some truths in the Scripture that will help you be certain, assured that you are saved. No more living in fear, it's time to live by faith. I can't tell you how many times I've had a fearful Christian come up to me or write to me and ask things like, I committed this sin, did God abandon me? Or what happens if I die while having this unconfessed sin? Or what if I think this thought or say this word or find myself in a sinful situation and I die at that moment, what then do I go to heaven or do I go to hell? Many believers doubt their salvation. They go back and forth between living in faith and living in fear without ever being grounded in the certainty of salvation through Christ Jesus. I want you to know this, that it is the religious spirit that causes you to question your salvation and by that I mean religious thinking, imagining that you have to work for your salvation, that you have to work to keep your salvation. We need to understand that salvation comes by faith, period. Now I know there are some people who take issue with me saying that because they'll say something like, well you can't tell them it's by faith alone because if you tell them that, they're going to go on sinning. That's exactly why Paul the apostle had to say, am I saying we should go on sinning? It's precisely because salvation is by faith that Paul had to clarify that. But just because we trust in the Lord for our salvation doesn't mean that we should give way to sin as I'm going to show in a few minutes. But I want to first and foremost cause you by the scripture to understand how you are saved. We must understand first the place of salvation before we can understand the place of holiness. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says this. For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. The reason believers sometimes are so afraid of losing their salvation. The reason believers are sometimes fearful in questioning their salvation is because they imagine that they're the ones working for it. Worry is an attempt at control and we worry about our salvation because we think we've saved ourselves. It's not your devotion to God that saves you. It's his devotion to you. You didn't do anything to earn your salvation and you can't do anything to keep it. How are you saved? Romans 10, 9 says this. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now I often say this because I believe in my heart. Now I often used to look at that scripture and wonder how is someone who can't speak supposed to confess with their mouth? And therefore how are they supposed to be saved? But here confession isn't necessarily the phonetic pronunciation of the words. It's an acknowledgement. It's knowing. It's believing. It's that deep acknowledgement that inner witness, I am saved. Jesus is Lord. I believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead. It's something that takes place internally. Galatians 3, 6 says in the same way, Abraham believed God and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. So then salvation clearly comes by faith. Again, religious thinking will already start questioning that saying how can it be by faith? Aren't we supposed to live holy? What happens if you sin? Brother David, if you tell people that, they're going to go on sinning, they're going to think that grace is a license to sin. No. As I said, we have to first understand the place of salvation before we can understand the place of holiness. Imagine this, you go in for an operation, some issue with your body. If you go in for an operation, you're not the one operating on yourself. You're just the one who chose to get on the table. You see, when we go to God for salvation, we're not the ones saving ourselves. That's not our job. We don't perform the works that save us. Rather, we surrender ourselves. We yield ourselves to that process. It's the equivalent of getting on the operating table. We get on the place and say, God, save me. God, change me. God, make me holy. God, I'm trusting you to do the work. Being saved is like getting on to that operating table. In that, it required simple surrender and definitely trust. Being saved is like receiving a gift. Someone writes you a check. You didn't do anything to earn that. If it's a gift, they just gave you the check. But you do have to deposit it. You do have to exercise your faith, believing that the check will clear. In the same way, it's not your works that save you. It's believing that God is saving you that saves you. Now, this is so simple, and it's precisely because it's so simple that it agitates religious spirits. Remember this, whatever is complicated and tedious and burdensome is always religious. Whatever is simple and liberating is truly spiritual. Now, this is not to say that you can just go on living how you want to live. This is not to say that you can do anything that you want to do without consequence. No, I'm going to show you that other side to the coin in just a moment. But you'll hear people preaching very harsh messages about how just because you think you're saved doesn't mean you are. Or just because you trust it in God doesn't mean you truly are saved. And they cause you to question your salvation at every chance that they get. Remember this, just because someone is speaking harshly doesn't mean they're speaking truthfully. Sometimes we're trained to think that. We think, oh man, that guy's being real harsh. That guy's being real mean. In fact, some preachers are really rude with how they preach and they attack people. They criticize people. And just because they're rude and harsh and rough doesn't mean that they're speaking truth in the same way just because someone is speaking smoothly or kindly doesn't mean they're speaking truth. Our gauge for truth is what the scripture says. But when religious people try to add on the burden of you working for your salvation they become like the Pharisees that Jesus was talking about in Matthew 2313. What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces you won't go in yourselves and you don't let others enter either. First John 5.3 tells us, loving God means keeping his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. In other words, there is obedience involved once we've been saved but God's commands are not burdensome and he gives us the grace to keep them. So often you'll hear paranoid questions as I was talking about earlier. They say, well, what if I'm driving down the street and I look at a woman of lust and in that moment I get in a car accident. My last act on earth was lust. Am I saved? Or what if I committed something that I'm working on or that I'm striving for holiness in? What if there's an area in my life that I'm struggling in and I haven't yet confessed it to another human being and then I suffer a heart attack? Where do I go when I die? People even ask about suicide. People who commit suicide, where do they go when they die? Now, in every case it would be different because we're all at different places with the Lord but rest assured on this, if your salvation depended upon what you last did here on this earth, if your salvation depended upon getting the timing of your death just right then there would be no need of the cross. When Jesus died for your sins, he died for your past and your future sins and it really is that simple to be saved. So where in is the balance? The scripture says, what is it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked in destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself if it does not have works is dead but someone will say you have faith and I have works show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God, you do well. Even the demons believe in trouble but do you want to know O foolish man that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works and by works faith was made perfect and the scripture was fulfilled which says Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Likewise was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead. That's James 2 14 through 26. Now when comparing James chapter two with Ephesians chapter two it can seem like a contradiction for in Ephesians we're told it's by faith alone and then in James we're told ah but faith without works is dead. There's no contradiction here. What James is describing is not being saved by works but being saved by genuine faith. He's not saying that works save you but that the kind of faith that produces works actually results in salvation. Picture a tree the trees roots go deep into the ground and that tree bears fruit we'll call it the tree of salvation. Now most people imagine that the roots of that tree are good works and the fruits therefore manifested their salvation or those fruits represent salvation but it's actually the other way around. The roots that go deep into the ground are faith the roots represent faith and what then is produced by this tree of salvation is the fruit of good works therefore works are not the roots of salvation they are the fruits of salvation. It's the transformed heart the transformed nature that produces good works. I don't live holy to be saved. I can live holy because I'm saved. I don't live righteously to try to convince God to save me. I live righteously because I know he saved me and it's my offering of thanks back to him. Another illustration I'll give you. Imagine that there before you is a door. That door when you open it leads down a long hallway and that hallway is very long. At the other end of the hallway is another door. So then the first door that's before you we'll call it justification. The long hallway is sanctification. The door at the very end that's glorification. Justification is me being in right standing with God. It's a legal term meaning it's done I'm forgiven. There's nothing that I've done in God's eyes that would disqualify me from being justified. That hallway is long. It's the process of sanctification. It's the process of becoming like Jesus. It's the process of being made holy at the very end glorification. That's when I'm a finished product. So the first door is justification or position. The hallway is sanctification or process. The door at the very end is glorification or perfection. Justification, sanctification, glorification. No matter where I'm at in my sanctification, the process, I know that the door behind me justification is closed my position. Where I am in the process doesn't affect my position. Now there's some debate among believers about whether or not I can go back through that door. There's a whole debate on whether or not you can lose your salvation because we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about sincere believers who want to live right, who are doing their best and struggle. Sometimes in that hallway of sanctification, you feel like you're taking 10 steps forward and on other days you feel like you're going 100 steps backwards. But here's the good news. God is not looking for perfection. He is looking for you to be submitted to the process of perfection. Our salvation rests on the finished work of the cross. All wrath was poured out on Christ. Therefore God has no more wrath to give. So when I come under the cross, when I come under the benefits of that salvation, that means that I do not receive the wrath of God. Now if I wasn't saved, there's plenty of wrath for me. But because I'm in Christ, when God looks at me, he sees the holiness of his son. When God looks at his son, he sees my sins upon him on that cross. God is looking for you to be submitted to the process of being perfected. So justification is my position. Sanctification is my process. Glorification will one day be my perfection. You may go up and down that hallway, but that door of justification you've already gone through, that's salvation. Now the Bible promises that there would be a guarantee of our salvation. Ephesians 1.14 says, The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him. 2 Corinthians 1.22 says, And he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us. Now in Jewish wedding culture, the father of the groom would usually be the one who picked the bride for his son. After the father of the groom found whom he believed to be the choice bride, he would approach the bride and her family. There would be a written marriage agreement made. After the written agreement was finished, it was customary for the father of the groom to give a gift to the father of the bride. That gift acted as a deposit for the bride. It was a promissory note, a guarantee of the groom's intentions to marry. Once that deposit was made, the intent to marry would become official. The Jewish wedding traditions, like many of the Jewish traditions, mirror the spiritual realm. Just as the father of the groom selects the bride, so God the father has chosen to give the church to his son. And just as the father of the groom leaves a gift representing a promise, so God fills you with his Holy Spirit, his divine promise. In other words, God's Holy Spirit in you is the guarantee that he's coming back for you. God's Holy Spirit in you is the seal of salvation, the proof that you belong to him. The Holy Spirit gives us that inner witness. So let's revisit these truths. I'm saved by faith, simple, believing on the Lordship of Christ, believing on what he accomplished on the cross, saying, Lord, I trust you. I believe what you did was enough for me and I'm putting my hopes in what you did. It's that simple. If it wasn't that simple, we'd mess it up. It is simple and people still mess it up. But God made it simple. That's the good news of the gospel. You couldn't save yourself if you tried. Even if you stopped sinning from now until the day you died, it wouldn't be good enough. We just can't meet God's standard. We cannot save ourselves, period. So we're helpless and hopeless without Christ and his cross. We surrender ourselves to him. We get on that operating table, say, okay, you do the work, but we have to surrender. Faith is not a work in God's eyes, but it does require faith on our part. Now, if that faith is genuine, it will produce results. This doesn't mean we won't struggle, but remember, as long as you're in the hallway of sanctification, that means you've already passed the door of justification and you're on your way to the other side, the door of glorification. And the Holy Spirit lives in us to confirm this to our hearts. God's Holy Spirit in you is proof that you belong to him. Now, hearing these truths is one thing, but sometimes it's not necessarily the intellect that we want to address. We hear the truths, we know what the scripture says, but still sometimes we feel like we don't belong to him. What do you do when you know you're forgiven but you feel the shame of your sin? What do you do when you know you're found but you still feel lost? What do you do when you know you belong to God but you still feel distant from God? What do you do when you know you're a new creation but you feel the heaviness of an old nature? This is where we must allow the Holy Spirit to do his work. Romans 8, 15 through 16 says this, so you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him Abba Father. For his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. This is perhaps one of the greatest works of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I love the miracles, I love the spiritual gifts, I love that he moves in power to heal, I love that he does all of those things. But this right here is perhaps one of the most important works that he does and that is simply convincing you of your sonship, convincing you that you belong to God, causing you to cry Abba Father, causing you to realize that you're not a slave, that you're not distant from him but in fact that you do belong to him. Think about this, Galatians 5, 17. The sinful nature wants to do evil which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants and the spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. This is about to set someone free here. I want to read that again, Galatians 5, 17. The sinful nature, take note, the sinful nature wants to do evil which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants and the spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. Think about this for a second. If I'm struggling with sin, that struggle is there for a reason. If I have a desire to overcome sin, if I have a desire to live holy, if I have a desire for righteousness, if I'm concerned about my salvation, if I'm concerned about being connected with God, if there is something in me pooling me toward righteousness, if there is something in me pushing back against my flesh, if there is something in me that's frustrated with my own behavior that comes from the Holy Spirit, only the Holy Spirit can give you desires contrary to the flesh. And therefore, if you have desire to overcome the sin, if you have desire to overcome that nature, that is proof to you that you have the Holy Spirit, otherwise who is there to struggle with sin? If the Holy Spirit was not in you, you would just live in the pleasure of sin and never think another thing about it. But because the Holy Spirit is in you, it's caused you to be frustrated with your old self. Because the Holy Spirit is in you, it's proof to you that he is there fighting. The Holy Spirit doesn't abandon you when you make a mistake, why? Because if he abandoned you, you would have no chance at living holy. What sense would it make for God to remove your only chance at being holy as a punishment for not being holy enough? No, the Holy Spirit is not a reward for holiness. He's our only chance at being holy. He's not going to abandon you. He's not going to give up on you. And we must learn to identify with the Spirit. We must learn to trust in the work of the cross. We must learn to trust that God has saved us. God will transform you first and then the works will come. God will save you first and then the desire to live holy will come. That battle is proof that you belong to him. Some of you feel like a fake. Some of you question whether or not you truly belong to God. But I have good news for you and it's not going to sound like good news at first. If you sin, if you're struggling with sin you are most certainly a fake. But you're not a fake Christian. You're a fake sinner. That's not really who you are. You're not a wolf in sheep's clothing. You're a sheep in wolves clothing. Your identity rests in him. Your salvation has been sealed. And if that desire is in you for holiness if that desire is in you for connection with God and the Holy Spirit put it there and if the Holy Spirit put it there he's in you and if he's in you that's the seal of your salvation and you can rest assured in the finished work of the cross. God I surrender myself to you. You must do the rest. We come to him. He transforms us and the behavior follows later. Let God do the work. Trust him to save you. He is making you holy. He is faithful to finish the work that he began. All it takes is surrender. All it takes is faith. So let yourself yield to the work of the Spirit. Don't let the enemy lie to you. You stay in this. You belong to God. And if the Holy Spirit is in you that's a sign that you are saved. Father in Jesus name I pray you break the power of religious mindsets. I pray today Lord that the blood of Jesus the revelation of what you've done for us on the cross would liberate your people. I pray Lord that they would realize they couldn't save themselves if they tried. I pray you cause us all to realize that there's not a thing we could do to save ourselves. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come to you. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for redeeming us. Thank you for making us holy. Thank you for transforming our nature. Father produce that faith by the Holy Ghost in the name of Jesus. I want you to say it because you believe it. Say amen. Well that is it for the lesson. I would like to know in this message what truth did you find most liberating and what do you do when you begin to doubt your salvation? Let me know in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube don't forget to subscribe. You're watching anywhere else. Don't forget to follow. But when you subscribe to us on YouTube click that notification bell so that you can receive notifications when we release new content. And now to your comments. These comments come from the video titled This Is Why Jesus Is All You Need. It's actually the first of a series that I did on the I am declarations of Jesus. What did Jesus mean when he said I am the bread of life? That's what we explore and more in that video. This Is Why Jesus Is All You Need. Adam loves God writes, this was an anointed word brother David. Thank you brother Stephen. For doing the song I love you Lord. Thank you, God bless you all. Teacher Carla writes, the first topic of this new series I am is very powerful. It rebuked me and reminded me to find satisfaction in Jesus alone. For the world cannot satisfy us. Thank you for making this available online. God bless you and your team pastor David. The next commenter writes, I receive this word. The timing is perfect because I've been talking to God about this very topic. I feel my fire coming back. Thank you, David. Akim Danla writes, thank you brother David for this message. It was at just the right time. Well, we know that all the glory belongs to Jesus for what he's doing in your lives through these videos. This is the Holy Spirit's channel and he is always right on time. And the final comment I'll read from this video comes from Yeshua's Lily who writes, I am so amazed. Whatever God has been speaking to me in the recent seasons of my life, you post a video on that same topic. It has happened more than four times this month. Recently he has been speaking to me about I am and I was shocked when you posted this video. Thank you so much for your ministry. God speaks to me a lot through your videos pastor David. I want to read something to you before we end this video. It's found in Romans chapter 10 I'm gonna begin reading at verse number 13. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? If you're like me, you not only have a love for Jesus that burns in your heart, but you also have a love for souls. You want to see souls saved. It's because of the love of God in you that you have a desire for people to be saved, healed, delivered, filled with the Holy Spirit, discipled with the word, raised out of bondage. And we want to join hands with you. I want to partner with you. I want to do something together with you. Yes, you for the kingdom of God, for the glory of God, for souls. How can they hear unless someone tells them? And how can they be told unless someone goes and they are sent? I'm asking you to send me. I'm asking you to help this ministry continue to spread the gospel all around the world in the power of the Holy Spirit through events and media. Your support goes a long way by helping us to produce programs like this, by helping us to host live streams and live in-person events all around the world and by helping us to host the Holy Spirit School Online which is a Bible training program that's offered for free. In fact, the broadcasts, the live streams, the events, the school, all of it, we give it away for free. It's supported by donors like you who allow their love for Jesus and souls to become action. So let's not just talk about it. Let's not just think about it. Let's not just hope that some change is gonna come to the world. Let's join hands. Let's link hearts and let's do this together. Let's win souls for the glory of God. 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Do it now, do it because you love Jesus, do it because you love souls, do it because you want to join us in our efforts to spread the gospel all around the world. Until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God. Thank you for watching EncounterTV. Don't forget to subscribe and click the notification bell. Also, help us spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Make a one-time donation or become a monthly supporter by clicking on the donate link now.