[Originally preached 2 March, 2003]
Revelation 3.1-6
I had mentioned to you last week that there was a possibility of returning to this letter to the church of Sardis. As you can tell by this point, that’s exactly what we are going to do. I thought that it would be good to take a look at the promise of verse five.
The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. Revelation 3:5
There are some issues related to this verse that are very important for us to understand. As we look carefully at the verse, and especially as we consider what is implied by the verse, there are some things we need to come to grips with. So, let’s start by understanding what the problem is. To do that we need to understand what this ‘book of life’ is. This idea shows up in several places in Scripture and not all of them are in Revelation. Let me mention one.
But nothing unclean will ever enter [the new Jerusalem], nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. Revelation 21:27
It’s pretty clear that this book is the list of those who have been redeemed. It’s Jesus’ membership rolls of the Church. The promise of our text is that He will never erase the name of any of those who have overcome and have proven to be faithful disciples. On the Last Day the book will be opened and the names of these will be found within and they will be welcomed into the new Jerusalem.
Now, it is implied by this that there may be some whose names will, in fact, be erased from the book. There will be those whose names were once included among the Lamb’s list of the redeemed who will be excluded from that group. And who are these but those who do not overcome, those who do not prove faithful disciples. Now, some resist this and tell us that the text doesn’t actually say that. But I do think that it is implied. If not, what good is the promise? Is Jesus promising not to do something that He would never do anyway? And note the rest of the verse. ‘I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.’ That might sound a little familiar. Listen to something that Jesus said to His disciples during His earthly ministry.
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33
The first part matches what Jesus says in our text in Revelation, ‘I will confess his name before my Father…’ But did you notice that that wasn’t all that Jesus said. He also warned His disciples – note the audience – that there was the possibility of being denied by Christ before the Father. That’s the same as having your name erased from the book of life. What we need to see is that while our text has a great promise for the faithful, it also has a warning. If you fail as a disciple your name will be erased.
Now, here is the problem for us. How does this fit with the Scripture’s doctrine of election as expressed in places like Ephesians 1.3-5? According to this teaching of Scripture God chooses some and He will most certainly get these to the goal of complete and final salvation. There is no possibility that any of these will not make it to the end. This doctrine of election sounds so clear cut and comforting while the warning of the text sounds so scary. How do we put them together? And here I am not asking how do we explain them both. I am asking how do we live them both? I assure you, my concerns are very practical.
Let’s consider a few popular options. Here’s one. ‘You have your verses and I have mine. I like the doctrine of election and I have the verses to prove it. I’ll just believe in that.’ But isn’t this just a way of ignoring our text in Revelation? Can we ignore any part of Scripture? Then there’s this one. ‘I’m sure that these warnings don’t apply to me. I'm a good Christian and I’m sure that I’m going to make it to heaven.’ But isn’t this just ignoring our text again this time simply by being presumptuous? Or consider this option. ‘All of this is too hard to figure out! I’m not going to bother with any of it. Let the scholars deal with it.’ But remember that Jesus didn’t write these letters to scholars. He wrote them to regular folk like you, people who had less education and probably less knowledge of the Bible than you. It can’t be so complicated that you can’t understand it. Then there’s this option. ‘All of this talk about falling away, or being removed from the book of life is just hypothetical. It can’t really happen. We know that the elect can’t fall away. Jesus is just saying this to encourage the disciples to diligence.’ Oh, so Jesus is just fooling here? And what about what He said in Matthew 10? Was He just fooling then also? Where else is Jesus just fooling? Then there is one last way that people deal with this issue. They hear the warning and then just about kill themselves trying to make sure that they are obedient disciples. They make sure that they read their Bibles and pray every day and do other religious things. And then they stay awake at night worrying, ‘Will I be able to keep this up? What if I slip up? Will I lose my salvation along the way somehow?’ Where is peace with God in this?
None of these options work. And yet, we need to come to an understanding. The Bible depicts our relationship with God in two ways. On the one hand, there is the covenantal perspective. We are in covenant with God, with promises and obligations. If we fail to keep those obligations we have broken the covenant and will bear the consequences. Here, just think about the people of Israel who never made it into the Promised Land. On the other hand, there is the doctrine of election that teaches that before the foundation of the world, God chose some to be saved. This election starts with enabling us to believe the Gospel and takes us all the way to the point where we have entered the age to come. [Romans 8.29-30] Now, how do these two perspectives fit together? Let me be clear. My goal is not to give you some philosophic answer to that question. I’m not even sure that one is possible. Rather, my goal is to be practical. How do we live according to both teachings of Scripture? I am in covenant with God which means that I have certain obligation to Him. If I fail in these obligations I will not receive the promised salvation. I am sovereignly chosen by God for salvation. He has done everything necessary for me to be saved and He assures me that I will get to enjoy the age to come with Him forever. In all of this we are dealing with two questions. Can I be assured of my salvation? What does it mean to place my faith in Jesus? If I lose you along the way, hold on and listen for the answer to these questions.
Let’s start with a basic definition of a covenant. A covenant is a solemn bond between two or more persons with promises and obligations. Thus the summary of our covenant with God is, ‘I will be your God and you will be My people.’ There is a bond, a relationship, complete with promises and obligations. A good example of a covenant would be marriage, a solemn bond between two people with promises and obligations.
Adam had a covenant with God in the Garden. In that covenant God made certain promises, the greatest of which was to give Adam life forever. Adam was obligated to obey God’s revealed will in order to gain what was promised. The bond was put to the test with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As you know, Adam failed the test. The covenant was broken. Now, God was no longer obligated to keep His promise. Adam had forfeited it. Instead of life forever Adam was cast out of the Garden in order to die just as God had warned him. ‘In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ In terms of the language of our text, Adam’s name was blotted out of the book of life. But then, God graciously established another, different covenant. He really didn’t have to. That second covenant took effect after the Fall into sin and is still in effect today. And it has the same basic structure. It is a solemn bond between God and His people. God promises life forever and the people of God are obligated to obey the revealed will of God. This covenant develops through the pages of Scripture from Abraham to Moses to Jesus who talks about the New Covenant in His body and blood. Can this covenant be broken like the one with Adam? Absolutely. It can be broken in the same way that Adam broke the first covenant, by sinning against the revealed will of God. How much sin does it take to break this covenant? Again, go back to Adam. How much sin did it take for him to break that covenant? One sin. And when our covenant is broken by just one sin we have the same consequences. The promises are forfeited and the warnings take effect. And that is what we have in our text. The church at Sardis was breaking the covenant. The people there were obligated to obey the revealed will of God. They weren’t. And so, Jesus is warning them that the consequences are coming. They are going to have their names erased from the Lamb’s book of life. They will then suffer eternal death. That’s what’s happening in most of these seven churches. They are breaking the covenant that they had with their God. The warnings are real. The same applies to us. If any of us breaks the covenant requirements he will forfeit the promised blessings and will earn death. The consequences will take effect and remember it only takes one sin to break the covenant.
Now, I am sure that somebody is thinking, ‘Wait a minute! What about forgiveness? Isn’t that what the Gospel is about? All who have placed their faith in Jesus are forgiven their sins. We don’t need to worry about any warnings. There is no threat. We have been forgiven our sins.’ But let’s consider this very carefully. If there really isn’t any threat then what is Jesus talking about in our text? Is He just bluffing? I don’t think that He is expecting the Christians at Sardis to reply to Him with a, ‘Wait a minute! We’re forgiven of all of our sins because we placed our faith in You, Jesus.’
Something subtle is going on. We need to be careful here. Little misunderstandings lead to big problems. So, let’s proceed carefully. What have I said so far? First, we’re in a covenant relation with God. There are great promises here, but they are tied to obligations. We need to obey the revealed will of God. Next, it’s fairly obvious that we don’t get anywhere even close to good enough when it comes to keeping those obligations. It seems as if the threatened consequences are looming over us. Then, it sounds like I’m saying that claiming faith in Jesus for forgiveness isn’t going to help us any. Well, it’s that last step that we need to consider carefully because it all depends on what you mean by ‘faith in Jesus’. It is absolutely true that our only hope for maintaining a covenant relation with God is faith in Christ. But we need to understand that properly. It needs to be a faith in Jesus as the God who chooses, as the God who elects some to be saved. Remember what this means. It’s not just that He made a decision in eternity past and we take it from there. He doesn’t just start the process of my being saved but rather He does everything necessary for me to be saved, from start to finish because I am unable. This is the essence of election. We are to place our faith in this Jesus, the one who not only chooses but does everything for my salvation. Any other understanding of who Jesus is means that He doesn’t do everything needed. There is something that we do before we can be saved. That Jesus certainly does most of what needs to happen, but I still need to do my small something. Without my part being fulfilled, there will be no salvation for me. Now, if that is true then I hold the key to my fate in my hand. But if I, instead, place my faith in the Jesus who elects then it is clear that I hold nothing. He holds the key to my fate. So, it all depends on what you mean by ‘placing your faith in Jesus’. Is the Jesus you place your faith in the Jesus who elects and saves all on His own, or is he the Jesus who needs you to do something to accomplish your salvation?
Let me try to make this clear by adapting a popular evangelistic question. ‘If you were to stand before God tonight and He were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’ what would you say?’ What’s the right answer to that question? If God were to ask me that question tonight, I would say nothing. I would simply turn and look at Jesus and wait for Him to reply. Now, I’m sure that that sounds really weird. You’re wondering why I wouldn’t answer with a sincere, ‘I have placed my faith in Jesus’? But words are funny. Here’s my concern. Too often when someone talks about believing in Jesus what he is saying is something like this. ‘Look at what I did. I believed in Jesus. Because I did that I should be allowed into heaven. Jesus did everything else to make salvation possible for me. I did the last little thing needed to make that salvation mine. I belong in heaven because of what I did.’ But what is the problem with this? Faith has become a good work. It has become something that I have done to convince God to accept me. This kind of faith is the one good work that I can do and must do to be saved.
Now, why is this so bad? Well, for one thing, this is not saving faith. It is a kind of faith, but it isn’t the kind that will save. With this kind of faith in mind, when push comes to shove, we save ourselves. This ‘faith’ is just another cleverly disguised work. And Scripture is clear. We are by no means saved by our works. And the reason for that should be clear. There is nothing that we can do that will pass muster before the holy God, not even believing. This leads to another problem with this kind of ‘faith’. It gives no peace. Those with any sensitivity to God’s holy requirements and any awareness of their own terrible sinfulness will be plagued with doubts. ‘Am I believing well enough? Is God satisfied with this faith? Could I believe better? Do I need to believe better?’ And, of course, we can always believe better. And so, we struggle to have a perfect faith, one that will pass God’s test, which is impossible. And then there is the nagging question, ‘What if at some point I drop the ball? What if I falter in this faith at some point? What if I can’t keep it up? Will I be erased?’ There are many who struggle with these kinds of questions. They are never really sure that all is well with their souls. It’s the question of assurance.
But a true faith understands that Jesus must do it all. I am totally unable to do anything well enough. If faith were to be a work, I know that I could never believe well enough. So it becomes clear: True faith does nothing. True faith can only look at Jesus. ‘You must do everything!’ And so, on the Last Day, at the critical moment when we stand before God and see His holy eyes that know everything about us, what is our hope? It cannot be that we will say the magic words, ‘Oh, I believe in Jesus’. It cannot be that we will be able to point to this good work that we have done, this supposed ‘faith’ in Jesus. Our hope cannot be in anything we have done. Our hope can only be in the God of electing love, the God who holds all the keys. Our hope can only be that at that critical moment Jesus will come forward and say, ‘Father, this one is mine.’ And isn’t that the promise Jesus makes in our text? ‘I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.’ We must be careful lest we fall into the pitfall of thinking of faith as the one good work that God will accept. It isn’t! But the only way to avoid this is to place our faith in the Jesus who elects some to be saved, the Jesus who does everything needed so that you might be welcomed into God’s heaven. The key to your salvation is nothing you do. The key to your salvation is Christ alone.
Looking to Christ in this way results in two things. First, it results in forgiveness for all of our covenant breaking. We break the covenant every day. Jesus is the Savior for covenant breakers like us as we look to Him alone. Secondly, looking to Christ in this way will result in a growing desire to work at covenant keeping. Our hearts will respond to a Savior who saves sinners like us. It is impossible for any true Christian to be unmoved after being loved in this way.
I have given you some challenging things to ponder. And yet, I hope that you can see that what is at stake is salvation itself. I urge you to seriously consider these things, to pray that Christ would help you understand what He is saying in our text so that you might have a solid assurance that comes out of having a true faith in the sovereign Savior.
Revelation 3.1-6
I had mentioned to you last week that there was a possibility of returning to this letter to the church of Sardis. As you can tell by this point, that’s exactly what we are going to do. I thought that it would be good to take a look at the promise of verse five.
The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. Revelation 3:5
There are some issues related to this verse that are very important for us to understand. As we look carefully at the verse, and especially as we consider what is implied by the verse, there are some things we need to come to grips with. So, let’s start by understanding what the problem is. To do that we need to understand what this ‘book of life’ is. This idea shows up in several places in Scripture and not all of them are in Revelation. Let me mention one.
But nothing unclean will ever enter [the new Jerusalem], nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. Revelation 21:27
It’s pretty clear that this book is the list of those who have been redeemed. It’s Jesus’ membership rolls of the Church. The promise of our text is that He will never erase the name of any of those who have overcome and have proven to be faithful disciples. On the Last Day the book will be opened and the names of these will be found within and they will be welcomed into the new Jerusalem.
Now, it is implied by this that there may be some whose names will, in fact, be erased from the book. There will be those whose names were once included among the Lamb’s list of the redeemed who will be excluded from that group. And who are these but those who do not overcome, those who do not prove faithful disciples. Now, some resist this and tell us that the text doesn’t actually say that. But I do think that it is implied. If not, what good is the promise? Is Jesus promising not to do something that He would never do anyway? And note the rest of the verse. ‘I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.’ That might sound a little familiar. Listen to something that Jesus said to His disciples during His earthly ministry.
So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33
The first part matches what Jesus says in our text in Revelation, ‘I will confess his name before my Father…’ But did you notice that that wasn’t all that Jesus said. He also warned His disciples – note the audience – that there was the possibility of being denied by Christ before the Father. That’s the same as having your name erased from the book of life. What we need to see is that while our text has a great promise for the faithful, it also has a warning. If you fail as a disciple your name will be erased.
Now, here is the problem for us. How does this fit with the Scripture’s doctrine of election as expressed in places like Ephesians 1.3-5? According to this teaching of Scripture God chooses some and He will most certainly get these to the goal of complete and final salvation. There is no possibility that any of these will not make it to the end. This doctrine of election sounds so clear cut and comforting while the warning of the text sounds so scary. How do we put them together? And here I am not asking how do we explain them both. I am asking how do we live them both? I assure you, my concerns are very practical.
Let’s consider a few popular options. Here’s one. ‘You have your verses and I have mine. I like the doctrine of election and I have the verses to prove it. I’ll just believe in that.’ But isn’t this just a way of ignoring our text in Revelation? Can we ignore any part of Scripture? Then there’s this one. ‘I’m sure that these warnings don’t apply to me. I'm a good Christian and I’m sure that I’m going to make it to heaven.’ But isn’t this just ignoring our text again this time simply by being presumptuous? Or consider this option. ‘All of this is too hard to figure out! I’m not going to bother with any of it. Let the scholars deal with it.’ But remember that Jesus didn’t write these letters to scholars. He wrote them to regular folk like you, people who had less education and probably less knowledge of the Bible than you. It can’t be so complicated that you can’t understand it. Then there’s this option. ‘All of this talk about falling away, or being removed from the book of life is just hypothetical. It can’t really happen. We know that the elect can’t fall away. Jesus is just saying this to encourage the disciples to diligence.’ Oh, so Jesus is just fooling here? And what about what He said in Matthew 10? Was He just fooling then also? Where else is Jesus just fooling? Then there is one last way that people deal with this issue. They hear the warning and then just about kill themselves trying to make sure that they are obedient disciples. They make sure that they read their Bibles and pray every day and do other religious things. And then they stay awake at night worrying, ‘Will I be able to keep this up? What if I slip up? Will I lose my salvation along the way somehow?’ Where is peace with God in this?
None of these options work. And yet, we need to come to an understanding. The Bible depicts our relationship with God in two ways. On the one hand, there is the covenantal perspective. We are in covenant with God, with promises and obligations. If we fail to keep those obligations we have broken the covenant and will bear the consequences. Here, just think about the people of Israel who never made it into the Promised Land. On the other hand, there is the doctrine of election that teaches that before the foundation of the world, God chose some to be saved. This election starts with enabling us to believe the Gospel and takes us all the way to the point where we have entered the age to come. [Romans 8.29-30] Now, how do these two perspectives fit together? Let me be clear. My goal is not to give you some philosophic answer to that question. I’m not even sure that one is possible. Rather, my goal is to be practical. How do we live according to both teachings of Scripture? I am in covenant with God which means that I have certain obligation to Him. If I fail in these obligations I will not receive the promised salvation. I am sovereignly chosen by God for salvation. He has done everything necessary for me to be saved and He assures me that I will get to enjoy the age to come with Him forever. In all of this we are dealing with two questions. Can I be assured of my salvation? What does it mean to place my faith in Jesus? If I lose you along the way, hold on and listen for the answer to these questions.
Let’s start with a basic definition of a covenant. A covenant is a solemn bond between two or more persons with promises and obligations. Thus the summary of our covenant with God is, ‘I will be your God and you will be My people.’ There is a bond, a relationship, complete with promises and obligations. A good example of a covenant would be marriage, a solemn bond between two people with promises and obligations.
Adam had a covenant with God in the Garden. In that covenant God made certain promises, the greatest of which was to give Adam life forever. Adam was obligated to obey God’s revealed will in order to gain what was promised. The bond was put to the test with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As you know, Adam failed the test. The covenant was broken. Now, God was no longer obligated to keep His promise. Adam had forfeited it. Instead of life forever Adam was cast out of the Garden in order to die just as God had warned him. ‘In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ In terms of the language of our text, Adam’s name was blotted out of the book of life. But then, God graciously established another, different covenant. He really didn’t have to. That second covenant took effect after the Fall into sin and is still in effect today. And it has the same basic structure. It is a solemn bond between God and His people. God promises life forever and the people of God are obligated to obey the revealed will of God. This covenant develops through the pages of Scripture from Abraham to Moses to Jesus who talks about the New Covenant in His body and blood. Can this covenant be broken like the one with Adam? Absolutely. It can be broken in the same way that Adam broke the first covenant, by sinning against the revealed will of God. How much sin does it take to break this covenant? Again, go back to Adam. How much sin did it take for him to break that covenant? One sin. And when our covenant is broken by just one sin we have the same consequences. The promises are forfeited and the warnings take effect. And that is what we have in our text. The church at Sardis was breaking the covenant. The people there were obligated to obey the revealed will of God. They weren’t. And so, Jesus is warning them that the consequences are coming. They are going to have their names erased from the Lamb’s book of life. They will then suffer eternal death. That’s what’s happening in most of these seven churches. They are breaking the covenant that they had with their God. The warnings are real. The same applies to us. If any of us breaks the covenant requirements he will forfeit the promised blessings and will earn death. The consequences will take effect and remember it only takes one sin to break the covenant.
Now, I am sure that somebody is thinking, ‘Wait a minute! What about forgiveness? Isn’t that what the Gospel is about? All who have placed their faith in Jesus are forgiven their sins. We don’t need to worry about any warnings. There is no threat. We have been forgiven our sins.’ But let’s consider this very carefully. If there really isn’t any threat then what is Jesus talking about in our text? Is He just bluffing? I don’t think that He is expecting the Christians at Sardis to reply to Him with a, ‘Wait a minute! We’re forgiven of all of our sins because we placed our faith in You, Jesus.’
Something subtle is going on. We need to be careful here. Little misunderstandings lead to big problems. So, let’s proceed carefully. What have I said so far? First, we’re in a covenant relation with God. There are great promises here, but they are tied to obligations. We need to obey the revealed will of God. Next, it’s fairly obvious that we don’t get anywhere even close to good enough when it comes to keeping those obligations. It seems as if the threatened consequences are looming over us. Then, it sounds like I’m saying that claiming faith in Jesus for forgiveness isn’t going to help us any. Well, it’s that last step that we need to consider carefully because it all depends on what you mean by ‘faith in Jesus’. It is absolutely true that our only hope for maintaining a covenant relation with God is faith in Christ. But we need to understand that properly. It needs to be a faith in Jesus as the God who chooses, as the God who elects some to be saved. Remember what this means. It’s not just that He made a decision in eternity past and we take it from there. He doesn’t just start the process of my being saved but rather He does everything necessary for me to be saved, from start to finish because I am unable. This is the essence of election. We are to place our faith in this Jesus, the one who not only chooses but does everything for my salvation. Any other understanding of who Jesus is means that He doesn’t do everything needed. There is something that we do before we can be saved. That Jesus certainly does most of what needs to happen, but I still need to do my small something. Without my part being fulfilled, there will be no salvation for me. Now, if that is true then I hold the key to my fate in my hand. But if I, instead, place my faith in the Jesus who elects then it is clear that I hold nothing. He holds the key to my fate. So, it all depends on what you mean by ‘placing your faith in Jesus’. Is the Jesus you place your faith in the Jesus who elects and saves all on His own, or is he the Jesus who needs you to do something to accomplish your salvation?
Let me try to make this clear by adapting a popular evangelistic question. ‘If you were to stand before God tonight and He were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’ what would you say?’ What’s the right answer to that question? If God were to ask me that question tonight, I would say nothing. I would simply turn and look at Jesus and wait for Him to reply. Now, I’m sure that that sounds really weird. You’re wondering why I wouldn’t answer with a sincere, ‘I have placed my faith in Jesus’? But words are funny. Here’s my concern. Too often when someone talks about believing in Jesus what he is saying is something like this. ‘Look at what I did. I believed in Jesus. Because I did that I should be allowed into heaven. Jesus did everything else to make salvation possible for me. I did the last little thing needed to make that salvation mine. I belong in heaven because of what I did.’ But what is the problem with this? Faith has become a good work. It has become something that I have done to convince God to accept me. This kind of faith is the one good work that I can do and must do to be saved.
Now, why is this so bad? Well, for one thing, this is not saving faith. It is a kind of faith, but it isn’t the kind that will save. With this kind of faith in mind, when push comes to shove, we save ourselves. This ‘faith’ is just another cleverly disguised work. And Scripture is clear. We are by no means saved by our works. And the reason for that should be clear. There is nothing that we can do that will pass muster before the holy God, not even believing. This leads to another problem with this kind of ‘faith’. It gives no peace. Those with any sensitivity to God’s holy requirements and any awareness of their own terrible sinfulness will be plagued with doubts. ‘Am I believing well enough? Is God satisfied with this faith? Could I believe better? Do I need to believe better?’ And, of course, we can always believe better. And so, we struggle to have a perfect faith, one that will pass God’s test, which is impossible. And then there is the nagging question, ‘What if at some point I drop the ball? What if I falter in this faith at some point? What if I can’t keep it up? Will I be erased?’ There are many who struggle with these kinds of questions. They are never really sure that all is well with their souls. It’s the question of assurance.
But a true faith understands that Jesus must do it all. I am totally unable to do anything well enough. If faith were to be a work, I know that I could never believe well enough. So it becomes clear: True faith does nothing. True faith can only look at Jesus. ‘You must do everything!’ And so, on the Last Day, at the critical moment when we stand before God and see His holy eyes that know everything about us, what is our hope? It cannot be that we will say the magic words, ‘Oh, I believe in Jesus’. It cannot be that we will be able to point to this good work that we have done, this supposed ‘faith’ in Jesus. Our hope cannot be in anything we have done. Our hope can only be in the God of electing love, the God who holds all the keys. Our hope can only be that at that critical moment Jesus will come forward and say, ‘Father, this one is mine.’ And isn’t that the promise Jesus makes in our text? ‘I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.’ We must be careful lest we fall into the pitfall of thinking of faith as the one good work that God will accept. It isn’t! But the only way to avoid this is to place our faith in the Jesus who elects some to be saved, the Jesus who does everything needed so that you might be welcomed into God’s heaven. The key to your salvation is nothing you do. The key to your salvation is Christ alone.
Looking to Christ in this way results in two things. First, it results in forgiveness for all of our covenant breaking. We break the covenant every day. Jesus is the Savior for covenant breakers like us as we look to Him alone. Secondly, looking to Christ in this way will result in a growing desire to work at covenant keeping. Our hearts will respond to a Savior who saves sinners like us. It is impossible for any true Christian to be unmoved after being loved in this way.
I have given you some challenging things to ponder. And yet, I hope that you can see that what is at stake is salvation itself. I urge you to seriously consider these things, to pray that Christ would help you understand what He is saying in our text so that you might have a solid assurance that comes out of having a true faith in the sovereign Savior.
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