Kootenai Church Morning Worship

The passage we're going to be studying this morning is found in 2 Peter 1:10–11. And this may be a familiar passage to you because it is often quoted in the context of discussing the doctrine of the assurance of salvation, sometimes quoted in reference to examining yourself to see if you are in the faith. And the passage certainly has to do with both of those issues. Let's read together verses 10–11: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing sure; for in doing these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”
Make your calling and choosing sure. The choosing there, by the way, is not your choice to trust Christ. The choosing there is God's choice of you, which happened in eternity past before the foundation of the world. Peter is describing there making your calling and your election sure. And in fact, that is how some translations translate that, with the word election. The New King James renders this, “Be even more diligent to make your call and election sure”; the NIV, “Be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure”; and the ESV, “Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.”
If you've been with us here for the last few weeks, then you know that these verses are connected to the previous verses in the passage right above that, which deals with the virtues that we've been looking at from verses 5–7. And beyond that, with the reference to calling, it takes us back even into verses 3–4, where Peter talks about us being called unto Christ by His own glory and excellence. And the heart of this section is Peter's encouragement that we would apply all diligence in supplying to our faith these virtues listed in 5–7, indicating that the faith that God gives to us that saves us is not a barren faith. It is not a faith that is devoid of or without works or evidence. It is a productive faith, a fruitful faith that will bear fruit. And the one who has no fruit from their faith is in fact described up in verse 8 as useless and unfruitful, the one who has no evidence of their salvation. In verses 8–9, we see the contrast between those who are marked by such virtues and those who do not have such virtues. And the difference between those two of them is remarkable. So verse 10 says therefore we are to be all the more diligent to make our calling certain and our election certain.
In verses 10–11, we're going to look at this spiritual diligence which we are called to. It has three blessings, three benefits from this spiritual diligence. In verse 10, first, it brings to us an assurance of our salvation. Make your calling and election sure or certain; certify it. Second, it keeps us from stumbling, Peter says, “In doing these things, you will never stumble” (v. 10). And then third, it grants us a triumphal entrance into Christ's eternal kingdom. That's in verse 11. It gives us assurance of our salvation, it keeps us from stumbling, and it grants to us a triumphant entrance into the eternal kingdom of Christ.
So let's look at the first one in verse 10. Read verse 10 with me again: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing sure; for in doing these things, you will never stumble.” Now there is a lot there for us to unpack. There is the imperative, the command that we are to do this, to make this certain. And then there is the question, What does it mean to be sure and certain of our calling and election? What is this calling? What is the choosing that is spoken of here? How do I make this certain? And what are the benefits of it? Why is this so important? Why does Peter, even before he gets to the heart of his message, which is a warning and a description of false teachers in chapters 2 and 3—before he gets to that, he wants the readers to know that they should make certain their calling and their election.
“Be all the more diligent,” he says in verse 10. Now that word diligent is a different form of the same word translated “diligent” in verse 5. And it reminds us that what he is giving to us in verse 10 is a conclusion to what he has been describing at least since verse 5, where he said that we are to apply all diligence. And that was the noun form of that. But then in verse 10 he says, “Be all the more diligent.” That's the verb form of it. It describes the work, the hard work, doing your best at this thing.
And what are we to do? We are to do our best to apply or supply these virtues to our faith. And in so doing, we will make our calling and election sure. You want to know what it means to know that you are saved, to be assured of your salvation? How do you do that? By applying all diligence to add to your faith moral excellence, and to your moral excellence, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, etc. Those virtues, adding and supplying those to our faith, is the very means of gaining the assurance that he's talking about in verse 10.
If you don't want to be useless and unfruitful (v. 8), then apply all diligence to supply these things to your faith. Do you not want to be blind and shortsighted (v. 9)? Then apply all diligence to supply these things to your faith. Do you not want to forget your purification from sin (v. 9)? Then apply all diligence in supplying these things to your faith. And in so doing, you will make your calling and election sure. Be all the more diligent to supply these things, to work at these things, and therefore, he says, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. These are parallel ideas. We make our calling and election sure by supplying all diligence in our faith.
If your faith does not produce fruit, then you can have no confidence that it is a saving faith. None. In fact, it is the kind of faith described in James 2, where James talks about a faith that is devoid of works. And he says it is a useless and unfruitful faith. It's a dead faith. It's the kind of faith that gives merely mental assent, but it cannot and it will not save you. It is a faith that the demons have. That's what James says. The demons believe and they tremble. So the faith that has no works, no evidences of it, is no better than demons. The demons have a faith that at least causes them to tremble. They have a belief of certain things that causes them to tremble, but that is not a saving faith. The saving faith is a faith that is accompanied with works.
Now, when I say, “Have you believed?” I'm not asking you, “Have you given mental assent to certain truths that you find in Scripture?” That is not the question. It's not mental assent. But have you cast your soul's hope for salvation upon the Person and the work of Jesus Christ, and have you humbled yourself and bowed the knee to Him to recognize that you are a sinner and that you can bring nothing to Him that merits anything but eternal and unending wrath, and have you embraced the salvation that He has provided through the work of His death, burial, and resurrection for you? Or do you still kick against the goads and resist the truth and dictate to Him the terms of your own surrender? That is not saving faith.
So James is warning us against that in James 2, and Peter is telling us in this passage that it is useless and unfruitful faith that does not produce good works, that does not produce the evidences. So he is pressing upon us the necessity of applying all diligence so that we can make our calling and election sure. We are to make these things sure. That word translated “sure” or “certain” means to verify or to make valid, to guarantee or to prove something. The NASB translates it “certain”; the ESV, “confirm.” You're to confirm or validate your faith.
But now the question is, To whom do we prove our calling and election? Who are we giving evidence of our calling and election to? In adding these things to our faith, am I proving to God the reality of my choosing and my election? No. He's the one that does the electing and the choosing and the drawing. He's the one who does the calling. He doesn't need me to prove it to Him. He's the one who elects. He's the one who calls. He's the one who does this work. He knows those who are His own. He knows who the elect are. He knows who the non-elect are. He knows whom He has called, whom He will call. He knows whom He has saved and whom He will save. He knows all of that. So I don't have to give to God any proof of my salvation.
But then am I to prove it to others? Is it everybody else who's supposed to be the ones to whom I make my calling and election certain? Am I validating this to everybody else that's watching? There is a sense in which we do prove to others the genuineness of our faith through the works that we do. This is what is behind James's statement that a man is not justified or shown to be righteous by faith alone, but by works. And the examples that he gives is Rahab and Abraham; their righteousness was demonstrated to others through their works. So when James says, “You have faith; and I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18), that's what he is describing. I will give evidence of the reality of saving faith to you through the works that I do. So there is a sense in which we do show to others the legitimacy of our justification in the sight of God, which is by faith alone. We demonstrate that to others through our works, through our virtues. When that faith produces fruit, that is the evidence to others who see that, that that faith is genuine. But I don't think that that's what Peter is talking about here.
I think Peter is describing here making certain to ourselves and for ourselves that our calling and election is sure. The word to make, that verb translated “to make,” is in the middle voice, which means that the subject of the verb is being affected by the verb. So it therefore has this idea: you are to make certain to yourself and for yourself that your calling and election are sure. In other words, this is describing the doctrine of assurance. Believers are to make themselves sure and certain of their salvation by applying all diligence so that these virtues are evident in their life.
It is possible for a believer to know, for absolute certain, that they are both called to Christ, they have salvation, and that they are elect. It is possible for a believer to know that. It is not a virtue to live your entire life doubting whether or not you're saved and then saying, “I guess I'll find out on the last day when I stand before the Lord.” It is possible for a believer to know that they are saved.
And in fact, we should pursue certainty of that very thing because being certain of my calling and my choosing itself has all kinds of benefits. For instance, knowledge of my election and my calling are very comforting during difficult times. The reminder that God has chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world and then called me to Himself, that can be very comforting during the storms of life. Your election becomes something of a rock that your anchor holds to that reminds you that you are beloved by God and that you are in His Son.
Further, this assurance can encourage us, make us confident in the truth about God, and make us bold in proclamation of the gospel and evangelism and in prayer. It encourages us in our striving and our working with all diligence for Christ. This confidence prepares us to face death well. So when you get that terminal illness and you know that you are facing death soon, you have the ability to look at your life and to say, “I have made myself certain of my calling and my election. ‘I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day’ (2 Tim. 1:12). I know this for certainty. And I know that Christ is true and that He has promised me certain things, and I have believed that, and that belief has borne fruit in my life, so that the evidence of that salvation is clear, not only to everybody else, but also to me. And I am resting in that, and therefore, I am ready and waiting to step into the presence of Christ.” To be able to face death with that kind of certainty is the fruit of knowing for certain your calling and your election.
Now, there are two categories of people. Everyone under the sound of my voice right now is either saved or unsaved. Those are the only two categories. There is no third category. Now, you might be saved and uncertain about it. You might be unsaved but think you are. But you're either saved or you're unsaved. Those are the only two categories of people. There is no middle ground because justification, salvation, redemption, regeneration, the work of the Spirit in that way, these things happen instantly in a moment.
In fact, this is the language that Scripture uses to describe salvation: you go from darkness to light. Not spending years walking through dimly lit rooms until you finally come into light—you go from darkness to light. You're either darkness or you're light. Those are the two categories. You're either saved or unsaved. You're either in death—Jesus said, “And he who believes in Me is no longer in death, but has eternal life.” You're either dead spiritually or you are alive spiritually. Those are the two categories. You're either a child of the devil or a child of God, unforgiven or forgiven. You are either at this moment under the wrath of God and if you died at this moment, you would perish everlastingly, or you have been transferred into His kingdom and you are His child, adopted into His family, expecting everlasting glory. Those are the only two categories, and that's just a sprinkling of the ways that Scripture describes all of humanity falling into one of those two classes.
Now, though salvation takes place like that, instantaneously, the process by which we experience coming to Christ can take place over a longer period of time. There's a time in your life when you thought nothing about the things of the gospel, you weren't concerned about it, you were living for yourself, living your own way, walking in immorality, not even giving a thought to church or to Christ, to Christianity, the truth, none of that. And then something happens or a series of things happen. You hear a street preacher and you think, “Well, that sounded like something I heard when I was a kid at one time.” And then you kind of go on with your life. And then somebody invites you to church or you're at a wedding and you hear the gospel and somebody shares Christ with you. And then you come to this study and you do this thing. You start considering the claims of Christ and giving some thought to it. And your mind begins to race. Could this possibly be true? You start to think about it, read Scripture a little bit. You're curious. Somebody hands you a book. This can take place over the course of years. What we would call the drawing of God could take place over a long and extended period of time.
But at some point, if you are a believer today, the light clicked on and you went from darkness to light. You went from death to life. You went from one kingdom to another kingdom. Now, you may not be able to pinpoint the exact moment that that happened in your life. And for many people, this can be a cause of great angst, especially people who grew up in a Christian home, when they are exposed to the gospel regularly and consistently and they go to church and they grow up in a church. And they will say to me, sometimes during our baptism interviews, something like, “I grew up in a church. I kind of did this when I was a teenager. And then I don't know exactly when it happened. I kind of remember a season, a period of life when something changed. I don't remember the day. I don't remember the hour. I don't remember even necessarily the year.” And then sometimes people will say, “Does that mean I'm not saved?”
My answer to that is no, not necessarily. The question is, Are you trusting in Christ right now? Are you believing, present tense, upon Him right now? Yes? Then here is His promise: you have passed from death into life. You can't nail down the exact day or moment or time? See, the question is not in Scripture, Can you identify the moment you trusted Christ? For me, I can. But my experience is not the standard. For me, I can. And for many of you, you can. But many people can’t. But the question is not if you can identify the moment, the day, the hour, but can you at least identify a season when I know at about this point I was like this, and now I know that at this point and today I'm like this, and I don't know when that changed. From God's perspective, it changed in an instant. From your perspective, maybe it took years or months for that to happen. At some point in there, you went from death to life. Now again, I'm not describing here an intellectual assent to truths. I am describing a trust in Jesus Christ. Among those who are saved, there are those who are saved and know it, and there are those who are saved and are uncertain about it.
Now, what I just described to you, the fact that this process can take a longer period of time, is one of the causes of uncertainty of salvation for people who grew up in a Christian home and are not sure when exactly that change took place. But there are other causes of uncertainty. Sometimes it's the fact that you still struggle with indwelling sin. Well, welcome to the club. This is the club of people who continue to struggle with indwelling sin. That will never end until you go to glory.
So, sometimes the angst over “I sin and I don't want to sin, and I'm wondering if I'm truly saved”—guess what happened before you were saved and you sinned? Were you in angst over it? No, you weren't. You sinned with impunity. You sinned without any twinge of conscience whatsoever. Today when you sin, it bothers you greatly. What do you think that that might indicate? That something has changed, right? That shouldn't be a cause of angst or lack of assurance for your salvation. It should be something that brings you great confidence.
Sometimes lack of assurance is caused by a lack of knowledge, in which case I would just say add knowledge to your moral excellence that you've already added to your faith. Sometimes lack of assurance can come as a result of neglecting the means of grace—Bible reading, Bible study, prayer, confession, church, mortifying sin. Acts of disobedience, spiritual indifference, and neglect—you neglect those things, and you're going to start to question the legitimacy of your salvation. You're not going to have any assurance. And you shouldn't if you're neglecting those things. You shouldn't enjoy the blessed fruit of assurance if in fact you are neglecting the means of grace.
Now, how do you get assurance? You apply all diligence in pursuing holiness and adding these virtues to your faith. Be all the more diligent to give evidence of your faith, primarily to yourself, and thus you will have assurance. And if there is no evidence, then you should have no confidence. It is possible for a Christian to know they are saved and to be certain that they are saved. And it is not just possible, but I would suggest to you it is desirable. You should desire that. And so you should apply all diligence to make your calling and your election sure to yourself.
Now there are two truths in Scripture that we need to balance. I'm going to give you both of them. I'm going to emphasize both of them. And I'm not going to sacrifice either one of these truths because these are two truths that must be balanced and held at the same time. Now what you think I'm going to say is election and human responsibility. Nope. Maybe you think I'm going to describe choosing and us coming to Christ. Nope. Two different—two other truths. Here it is. The most important issue that you must settle is whether or not you are saved—the state of your eternal soul. That is the most important question in life that you must settle. Do you have faith? Have you been made new? Have you gone from darkness to light, from death to life? Has God brought you out of those conditions?
Now here are the two truths of Scripture. Both of these are true, 100 percent. Number one, we have in Scripture warnings about false converts and false conversions, false apostles, false disciples, false believers, people who are not saved and convince themselves that they are. There's no evidence or fruit of it, but they continue to keep up the show. They are cosplaying Christianity Sunday after Sunday. Scripture describes sheep and goats, wolves in sheep's clothing, tares among the wheat, and tells us that the potential for self-deception is incredible. We have an amazing capacity for self-deception. This is why Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! . . . Unless indeed you fail the test?”
So there is this emphasis in Scripture. Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. Don't put your confidence in the wrong thing. There are some people who believe that they are saved and they aren't. They think that they're saved because they had an emotional experience or they went to a class or they were baptized or they grew up in a Christian family or they've gone to church for years or they have had an awareness of the existence of some higher power for at least their whole lives or they've made a decision or they have given intellectual assent to certain gospel facts. But none of those things save you. That is not what God requires.
Such people have never been changed. Their affections have never been altered. They have never left the state of death. They have never given off loving sin. They have only covered it up to fit in with a new group of friends. Their affections, their desires, their priorities, their lifestyle is all identical to the way it was before they had that experience or started attending church. They are as lost today as they have ever been. They have always been this lost.
Such as this have every reason to doubt your salvation. And listen to me, and I say this with a heart full of love. It is the loving and the pastoral thing to remind such people that if you are hoping and trusting in anything else for your salvation except only the Person and the work of Jesus Christ as your substitute in death, burial, and resurrection, your hope is misplaced and you are lost. You will perish on the Day of Judgment unless you repent and place your faith in Jesus Christ. He promised life to those who come to Him, believe upon Him, place their faith in Him, repent and turn to Him, and He will accept no counterfeits. He will accept nobody else's word for it. He will accept no other substitute, only what He has done. And I warn you this day, if that describes you, your soul is in a state of peril.
Now here's the second truth. We are warned solemnly in Scripture about all of that, and we are also given a blessed encouragement that if we are in Christ and we have trusted Him, we can and should have confidence and boldness. We can have confidence to approach the throne of grace, boldness to trust in that Intercessor, a willingness to rest and take comfort in our own calling and election, to know for certain that we are the child of God and that that comes with all of the attendant benefits. We can assure our hearts by that truth, and we should endeavor to repose our soul to trust in this truth that we are indeed saved. And we should be encouraged by it and rejoice in it and take delight in it and thank God for it constantly.
Warnings? Yes. But oh, the blessed encouragement that I can know this is true and that I would rest and trust in it. Because doubting God's Word concerning my salvation when I am saved and trusting Christ is not a virtue. The one who believes in Him has passed from death to life. So, believer, repose your soul upon that truth. There are some who are redeemed and you have trusted Christ for salvation and you are believing today. You are His precious child. You've been taken from death and made alive. You have been taken out of darkness and put into the kingdom of light. And your perpetual hesitancy to believe that and to trust that is a sin that you must mortify. That is the sin that you must mortify.
You've progressed in sanctification. You've added these qualities to your life and to your faith. Your affections, your desires, your life has changed. So I say to you, dear brother or sister in Christ, stop your doubting and trust Him. The evidence is in front of you, before your very eyes. Rest in the confidence of your own calling and your choosing. And rest your soul upon that truth. And don't go back upon it.
Now notice what I have said. I have not said when you doubt, go back to the beginning of your Bible, look to that date that you wrote down at camp in 1978 when the camp counselor told you, “Look, you prayed the prayer. Any time you doubt, just go back to this, read that date, and remind yourself that you're all good to go.” I didn't say that, did I? What did I tell you that you were trusting in? Christ and His Word. And for the one who has that faith, that evidence will be clear. That fruit will be there. And doubting what God says we can take as the evidence of genuine conversion is a sin that you must mortify.
So those are the twin truths. There's a warning against false conversions. And all of us should examine ourselves to see if we're in the faith. But having examined myself to see if I'm in the faith, if the fruit of that is there, I am encouraged to rest my soul upon it and to not doubt. If the fruit of that is not there, then you have every reason to doubt. Assurance comes to us because we are sure that we are trusting the right thing and that we are sure that we are trusting for the right reasons.
Now what are we to be sure of? Our text answers this. Our calling and election. Second Peter 1:10: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing sure.” Make yourself sure, certain. Validate unto yourself your calling and your choosing. And we're going to tackle each of these in order. But before we do, I want you to observe that these are not in chronological order. Notice that. Peter says make your calling and election sure. But the order in which those things actually happened were before time—that's election—and your calling took place in time. So they're not in chronological order.
But listen, they are in the order in which I can know them. So if you're an unbeliever and you're sitting here listening to this, you might be thinking, “How can I know if I'm elect?” You can't. If you're a believer, you can know you're elect. How do you know you're elect? Because you have been called. And all those who have been called in time were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And all those who were chosen in Christ before the foundation have been, are being, or will be called in time, so that He loses none of those whom He has chosen. These two truths go together, calling and election. We can't know them in chronological order. We can only know them in the order that Peter gives us. I can only know I'm elect because I have been called. And therefore, because I am called and this transformation has taken place, I have been saved, God has redeemed me, therefore I can know that God's purposes for me in Christ before the foundation of the world were that I would be one of His.
So now calling. It hasn't been long since we covered this subject. We're going to cover calling and choosing. And you may be looking at your watch or down at your tablet time on there and thinking to yourself, “I don't know how he's going to cover calling and choosing, calling and election, in the next fifteen minutes.” I have good news for you; I'm not. But I am going to cover the calling part of this. Dealing with the calling part—it hasn't been long since we talked about this. You remember up in verse 3—look at verse 3: “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” We looked back at verse 3 about what that calling is, and I'm not going to rehash all of that here this morning because that's not my purpose. I only want to remind you and sort of expand upon the foundation that I laid in verse 3 enough to show you how this ties in with what Peter's saying here in regards to assurance.
This calling is the work of the triune God. All three Persons are said in Scripture to call God's elect to Him—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This calling is attributed to all three Persons of the Trinity. It is a major theme in Peter's Epistles. Peter mentions it five times in 1 Peter and twice in 2 Peter. And there are two different calls, and I would just remind you of this—two different calls. There is a general call and there is the effectual call.
The general call is the call of the gospel. It is the command to repent and believe. You heard that already here this morning when I was encouraging you to repent and trust Christ and place your faith in Him if you have not already. That's the proclamation of the gospel. That call comes from the mouth of the speaker, the preacher. It is the invitation that is given widely and indiscriminately that all people everywhere must repent and trust Christ because He is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and that He is the only substitute for men's sin, and if your sin is not laid upon Him, then your sin will be laid upon you, therefore repent and believe. That's the general call.
Millions upon millions of people hear the proclamation of the gospel without ever responding to the proclamation of the gospel because that general call is not powerful to save by itself. If it were, everyone who hears it would get saved. But not everybody who hears it gets saved.
We are called to offer the general call to everybody, but there is something that must take place in order for that call of the gospel that is given through the mouth of a preacher or a witness, a faithful witness—something must happen outside of his voice to make that calling effective, to actually bring the dead, lost sinner to the Son. And that is what we call the effectual call. That's described in 1 Thessalonians 1:4–5. Paul says, “Knowing, brothers beloved by God, your election” (v. 4). Notice what he said—we know your election. How could he know their election? Well, he says, “Our gospel did not come to you in word only [that's the general call], but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full assurance; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake” (v. 5). Paul says we came, we preached the gospel to you, and it wasn't just a gospel proclamation that you turned and walked away from, but instead, by the power of the Spirit of God, it came not just in word but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction or assurance, resulting in their salvation. So Paul says we know that you are elect and we thank God for your election because you have responded to that effectual call by the Spirit of God.
This calling by the Spirit of God is always effectual. Those summoned in this way by the Shepherd always hear His voice. That's what Jesus is describing in John 10—My sheep hear My voice, and they come to Me, and I give them eternal life. That's the call He's describing there. In the New Testament, believers are those who have not only been generally called by the voice of a preacher or a faithful witness, but believers are those who have been drawn by the work of God to the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. They have been drawn by His glory and His excellence, and that is the work of the Spirit of God. That is the effectual call.
Now, sometimes that can take place over the course of a number of weeks or months or even years. That's the process that takes a while. When the Shepherd is calling His sheep and drawing them to Himself, He is bringing them to salvation. That's the effectual call that results in, always, 100 percent of the time, their salvation. We are called in Scripture “the called.” I should say, we are referred to in Scripture as “the called.” It's a better way of saying it. Romans 8 describes this.
29 Those whom [God] foreknew [that is, He loved beforehand], He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers;
30 and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified. (Rom. 8:29–30 LSB)
So all those predestined are called. All those called are justified, declared righteous. All those who are declared righteous are then sanctified. And all those who are sanctified are ultimately glorified. And Christ loses none of them along the way.
This effectual call awakens the dead sinner to his need for spiritual life. It quickens the conscience. It brings the sinner effectually and fully to the Son, overcoming the resistance of the sinner to that call. For years before the Lord effectually called me, I heard the gospel shared with me by people. For probably five years of my life, I heard that. But it fell on dead ears, a stony heart, a dead corpse. The preachers were saying, “Jim, believe.” And I'm a dead sinner who has no ability to believe or to turn from my sin or to do anything. I'm spiritually dead. So the general call came to me. But then sometime in July of 1985 when I heard the gospel, it came in power, with conviction, in the Holy Spirit, and God saved me. I heard it and I understood it and I responded to the effectual call. That was the Shepherd calling me to Himself.
Now every believer has heard both of those calls, the general call to salvation and the effectual call that results in eternal life. We are commanded to give the general call to any and all, but we can't give them life. I wish we could, but we can't. Only Jesus has the ability to summon the spiritually dead sinner to spiritual life, doing to them spiritually what He did for Lazarus physically.
Here's an illustration between the general call and the effectual call. Any one of us could stand outside of the grave of Lazarus and say, “Lazarus, come forth!” Any one of us could do that. “Lazarus, come forth! Lazarus? Lazarus? Lazarus, did you hear me? Lazarus, come forth!” We can do that all day long. But only Jesus has the ability to say, “Lazarus, come forth!” and to give Lazarus life. That's the effectual call. The general call is we share the gospel with the sinner. The effectual call is the Shepherd saying, “Lazarus, right here, front and center,” and Lazarus gets up and comes, perfectly, fully, 100 percent of the time, and alive. That's the effectual call.
This is God's work. You didn't call yourself to salvation. You're not commanded to be called. You're not commanded to make yourself callable. You're not commanded to cultivate a voice so you can hear the call of the Shepherd when He calls you. You're not commanded to open your own eyes. You're not commanded to turn your own heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. You're not commanded to change your affections or change your mind at the moment of salvation. All of this is a work of God. This is God at work in salvation. He does all of it. God Himself elects and calls. Man responds to the call and lives in accordance with it.
And the evidence that you are called is the evidence of a changed life. That's it. A changed life. No heart change, no life change, still making excuses, still dictating the terms of your own humility and surrender, still living for yourself? Not only should you have no confidence of your salvation, but I would hope to dislodge any false confidence you have. We aren’t commanded to call ourselves to salvation, but we are commanded to live in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called. That's Ephesians 4:1. Paul says, “I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called.”
Then Paul in Ephesians 4–6 goes on to describe what that worthy walk looks like. And guess what. It sounds a lot like 2 Peter 1. Knowledge, holiness, diligence, life, light, self-control. He fleshes that out in Ephesians. In the home, in the workplace, in society, with each other, in the church. It's the worthy walk—Ephesians 4, 5, and 6. If you were to boil all of that down to one passage, it would be 2 Peter 1. Apply all diligence to add to your faith these virtues, thereby making your calling and your election sure.
Now time does not permit me and I'm not going to try to unpack and unfold what the doctrine of election is. I think it's been a little while since we covered that in any detail, and we're going to do that next time that we are together. For now, I want to give you a few passages that link these two truths of calling and election together. I read to you already one from 1 Thessalonians 1. Here's one from 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14:
13 We should always give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.
14 It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (LSB)
I give thanks that God has chosen you because He has called you through our gospel. Those two truths go hand in hand.
Romans 11 describes the sovereignty of God in salvation. In Romans 11, Paul, speaking of election, says that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v. 29). He's talking about election. God's choice and His calling are irrevocable.
And 2 Timothy 1:9—listen to what Paul says to Timothy. “[God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” You're chosen. He's given you grace in eternity, and He has called us to Himself. Election and calling. Those who are chosen are called. All those who are called in this sense have been chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
Now, my friends, our assurance does not come to us through dreams, visions, experiences, emotions, signs, feelings, private revelations, modern-day prophets, or quivers in your liver. None of those things should give you any assurance of salvation. I am asking you for your assurance of salvation to look to things outside of you, eternal truths and eternal verities which would be true if you never existed and had no experiences whatsoever.
What are those eternal truths and verities? That Jesus Christ is God, and He came into this world to die on a cross for guilty sinners, and He lived a perfectly righteous life, and He died a substitutionary death on the cross, which paid the penalty for any and every sinner who will ever trust in Him. And He was buried and He rose again the third day triumphant over sin and death. And He is now ascended to the Father's right hand, where He sits and makes intercession for those who are His. And He is coming again to judge the living and the dead and to establish His kingdom. And this day, during the day of grace, He grants to you this promise: if you will turn from your sin and believe upon Him and trust upon Him, believing that that sacrifice that He suffered on that cross was sufficient to pay the price for your sins, if you will trust that and trust Him like you trust a parachute, if you will put on Him and believe upon Him and come to Him, humbling yourself, turning from your sins, declaring spiritual bankruptcy, and trusting in His merits and His merits alone for you to stand before God on that great day—here is His promise to you: the one who believes upon Him has passed from death to life.
So if you are uncertain of your salvation, and you know that you have done that, and there is fruit in your life, dear brother or sister in Christ, repose your soul upon the truth of what He has said. He is not a liar. He has promised, and He will do it.
And if you have not trusted in Christ, I would just simply say to you everything I have just said to you in the last sixty seconds. There is a Savior. And He offers Himself to you today. Look to Him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. Trust in that One, and the one who trusts in Him will not be disappointed. You don't need to walk an aisle. You don't need to pray a prayer. You don't need to write something in the front of your Bible. You need to look to Christ. And in looking to Christ, He will give you life.