The Downtown Presbyterian Church

Sermons

Are You Sure You’re Saved?

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

Nashville, TN

When I was a boy a regular part of our church services was the “testimony,” when someone would stand and talk about how they came to be saved. The story usually began with being at church camp, or Mom having cancer, or maybe they woke up from a horrible car crash or in jail or something like that. Whatever it was their salvation stories always began with something out of the ordinary happening. They weren’t caught up into the Holy of Holies and saw flying cherubim, they weren’t out fishing and suddenly caught a whole bunch of fish, but their stories always began with something unusual happening.

As I got older that began bothering me because those things didn’t happen to me. No one in my family had cancer, I wasn’t on drugs or in jail and when I went to church camp I sure didn’t sit around the campfire crying and singing Kum-by-yah. When I got to college and started talking to people about their experiences I began wondering if I was really saved. And some of them were asking me if I really was saved and how did I know I was saved? I hadn’t had an Isaiah or Peter experience, so how did I know I was really saved?

I think frustration over that question was part of what drove me away from the church when I was in my 20s. I knew I was saved. I knew Jesus loved me and had died for my sins. I knew God loved me and wanted good things for me. But I had never felt the rapture. I had never had the blinding light of Paul on the road to Damascus. Salvation wasn’t something I could feel and all my tradition and all my heritage taught me the importance of feeling and out-of–the-ordinary experiences.

It wasn’t until I was older I began realizing salvation is ours, it is given to all of us, in the love of Jesus Christ, regardless of whether we have a flash of light or a sudden peace or a torrent of tears or nothing at all. God loves us whether we feel loved or not. And salvation is given to us whether we feel it or not. The realness of our salvation does not depend on the nature of our experience or how we feel.

So friends, if someone asks if you know The Six Secrets of Salvation or starts quizzing you on The Seven Signs You Are Saved, be polite but don’t get uptight. Our Presbyterian theology is very clear we don’t earn salvation, we don’t capture it, we don’t acquire it. It’s not a secret we have to learn or an experience we have to have. It’s just given to us, just the same way God’s love is given to us. So for us the question is not “are you really saved?” Of course we are. That question is totally bogus. For us the question is always “how are you responding to God’s salvation? How are you responding to God’s love? What are you doing in thanksgiving for your salvation?”

And for that we have a model. Throughout the Bible people are always responding to God’s love by proclaiming God’s love. They stand up and say, “Here am I. Send me!” They fish for people. They go out and be disciples.

Whether you come to know the love of God in a blinding flash through a life-changing event, or whether you just gradually grow aware of it to the point you say, “Of course God loves me, I’ve always known that,” how we become aware of God’s saving love is not important. What is important is for all of us to go out into the world and proclaim God’s love, fishing for people.

Obviously my remarks have only begun scratching the surface. Like anything else in religion talking about salvation can get complicated. Perhaps one day we can get into the issues of justification and sanctification and predestination and how the understanding of salvation in the Eastern and Orthodox churches differs from the Western and Protestant churches. Those are fascinating subjects and I’d love to discuss them with you.

But also like anything else in religion, at its core salvation is pretty simple. God loves us and wants us to be with God always.

So put this in your hip pocket and take it home with you and carry it to work and school and the grocery store and when you start wondering or people start asking questions just reach back and remember this: in Jesus Christ, God loves you. In Jesus Christ, you are saved. So for us the question is never “are you sure you’re saved?” For us the question is always “how are you responding to God’s loving gift of salvation?”

May God grant us the grace of the prophets of old who replied, “I can go fishing. Here am I. Send me!”