You are Secure, Part 1

When we look at our life under pressure and we think about what makes us feel secure, what makes us feel safe, what makes us feel like we are in control – how do we learn that?

And we are going to talk today about, I think, something that is at the root of our being is God is going to tell you and me that you are secure. On the front of your notes, pull it out if you will, I want you to get a deeper understanding of even the word security. It means you are safe. There is a firm foundation. It means that there is no outside force that can come in and remove you, in this case, from God.

And, yet, we all struggle, don’t we? I don’t need a psychologist to tell me that I’m insecure. It just takes a few circumstances and it just pops up.

But we tend to have very genuine fears about different things, but I put four categories in your notes.

The first one is the fear of physical harm or death. Or the fear of being alone, of being rejected, of thinking, I’ll never get married. Or, This marriage is never going to get better. Or the sense that something has happened for those of us that have kids.

And then our basic insecurities can produce guilt and condemnation and struggles. So, here’s the question I have for you, where do you tend to feel insecure or afraid? Over eighty times, the Bible says, “Fear not.” Over thirty times it says, “Don’t be afraid.” Jesus’ last words to the disciples: “I am with you always. I will never, ever leave you or forsake you,” the writer of Hebrews says from God’s voice. And, yet, we struggle.

So, at the bottom of your notes, there’s a question I’d like you to do some real pondering and the pondering I’d like you to do is: in what or whom do you seek to find security apart from Christ? We all do this, right? But identify it. Because I am going to tell you, in a fallen world, God is going to allow some storms to come into your life, but the goal of the storms will be like Joseph. I think Joseph, when he was betrayed, Joseph in prison, Joseph’s loss of reputation, Joseph when people forgot him – each and every time if you read that carefully, it says, “And the Lord was with him.” “And the Lord was with him.” “And the Lord was with him.”

If you can identify where you tend to put security, because a test is coming and God wants you to pass the test, He wants you to know, I’ll be with you. I will never leave you. I’ll never let you down. I am for you. And down deep in your psyche, a lot of us don’t believe that.

So, let me just ask you: is your security in yourself? I have certainly had that one. Your brains? Your ability? You’ll figure it out. You can make it happen.

Is it in money? Is it family? You know what really makes everything okay is your family, your wife, your kids, your husband, all that stuff. And when that’s okay, you’re okay, but, boy, if that gets…

Here’s a test. Are you ready for this? Whatever would get taken away or challenged to the level it devastates you, that will tell you where your security is.

See, your security is like a rug. And if it gets pulled out from under you, it might hurt a little bit. If it devastates you, you know: my security is in that job. My security is in me. My security is not in Christ.

So, I want you to identify that. And now, turn your notes with me, if you will, and I want to talk about God’s plan to give you a security that can’t change by circumstances or terrorist or death or abandonment or cancer or rejection or any fear of punishment.

God’s answer is in 1 Peter 3:18. It’s a summary of the work of Jesus. “For Christ also died for sins,” put a circle around the word for, and I’ll tell you why. “Once for all.” Who is He? “The just or the righteous for unrighteous or the unjust.” What was His purpose? “So that He,” Jesus, “might bring us to God.” Well, how did He do it? “Having been put to death in the flesh on the cross but made alive in the Spirit, the resurrection.”

“God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son” – God the Son – “that whoever would believe in Him shouldn’t perish, but have everlasting life.” God’s solution to your security is that you are valuable, He wants to choose you, He cares about you, He has redeemed you, and He wants to reconnect you close to Him so that no one at any time, ever, now or in eternity, can separate you from Him.

So, then the question is: what must I do to experience that security? And the gospel writer John would say, “As many as received Him,” Jesus, “to them He gave the right,” or, the authority, “to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

That little word for means in the place of, Jesus came and He died in the place of you. All that you deserve and I deserve, because of my sin and rebellion or passive indifference, God took all of that and He placed that on Christ. And now He says you are forgiven, but you must respond. “As many as,” not just intellectually believe, “as many as receive Him,” personally, “to them He gives the right,” not to be religious but to become an actual child of the living God.

Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock – of your heart, my heart.” This is the verse I heard when I trusted Christ. 1972. “If any man, if any woman hears My voice and will open the door of your heart,” the promise, “I will come into Him,” and the old translation, “I will sup with him,” or eat with him and he with Me.” And it’s Jesus saying, I want a relationship. The cross has paid for your sin. It is a free gift. Now, turn from your sin and in the empty hands of faith say, “Lord Jesus, forgive me. Come into my life. Be my Lord. Be my Savior.” And the Spirit of God enters your human body and you start a new life. In the old days, people called that, that’s what it’s called to be saved or receiving Christ or trusting Christ.

Now, what I want to talk to you about is I am guessing a great majority of you have down what I just talked about. I’m guessing that those that are watching and those of us that have been around for a while it’s like, Okay Chip, thanks, that’s very helpful. I have known this since fourth grade. Or, for some of us, When I was eighteen.

But in 1972, knowing very little, having no idea that there was a personal relationship with God and I invited Christ into my life, I want you to go back when you did that, I don’t think the average Christian has any idea what actually happened.

What actually happened that actually is at the source of all the security and every challenge that you’ll face of all the fears that we talked about?

So, I want to walk through these. I’ll do them quickly. The moment you received Christ, if indeed you have, this happened: you were justified. The word means, it’s a legal declaration that all my sins are forgiven – past, present, and future. This is God as the judge. Legally, the gavel comes down, you are before Him, Christ’s righteousness, your sin, He looks at the work of Christ, He says all of your sins are forgiven, and the righteousness of Christ is placed in your account. You were granted the righteousness of Jesus; you have a new position as His dearly loved Child.

Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And this peace, that’s not just an emotional peace. It means we were hostile to God. The word is we have the shalom of God. We have the wholeness of God. We have the favor of God. We are now in God’s family.

In the space below, I want you to write this down. Are you ready? God is my Father. You might write down: I am His child. What if you started to believe that? You know what? What do good fathers do? What do good parents do? They protect and they provide.

The second thing that happened to you the moment you received Christ is regeneration. That means that I am a new creation in Christ. I have been given a new nature, fully pleasing to God. It’s different from religion. It’s different from morality. It’s you become an actual new person.

Nicodemus was a very religious rabbi, squeaky clean morally, and he came at night because he saw that Jesus was from the God – the miracles attested to it. And in this night meeting, Jesus says to him in John chapter 3, “He answered him and said, ‘Truly, truly I say to you,’” now, this is a very religious, moral man, “‘unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born again when he is old?’” He is taking it pretty literally here. “‘He cannot enter again into his mother’s womb a second time, can he?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water,’” physical birth, “and spirit,” spiritual birth, “he can’t enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh,” physical, “is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Jesus taught the most religious, moral man we have cited in Scripture that when you pray to receive Jesus and He enters your life, it’s a spiritual birth. You are regenerated. You receive a new nature.

Jot in your notes 2 Corinthians 5:17. It says, “If any man, any woman is in Christ, you are a new creation. The old things,” notice this, “pass away. Behold, all things,” listen to the tense of the verb, “are becoming new.”

Ninth grade biology, right? The little green caterpillar creates a cocoon, and out comes a butterfly. We call it metamorphosis. I love being with such intelligent people. That’s what it’s called, right?

The DNA in that green caterpillar and the DNA in that butterfly are exactly the same. But a metamorphosis occurs where that butterfly is no longer ugly and green and crawls. It is beautiful. It gets a new nature. It gets a new capacity.

That’s the physical picture in nature of what happens when you prayed to receive Christ. Are you ready for this? Write this down. God gave me a new nature. God made me a new person. Do you believe that?

How many Christians are living with: Well, this is how I grew up and my dad was an alcoholic and I have been through this and then this happened. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t consequences. I’m saying what if you believed in the cocoon of metamorphosis and life change that is the Word of God and time in community and time in His Word and your openness and steps of faith – you have a brand-new nature. You can fly! Stop crawling.

We have Christians everywhere that are still crawling and you are butterflies, because you don’t believe you have a new nature. You have been regenerated! Now, it’s a journey and a process. God is my Father, number one. Number two, God made me a new person.

And as a result, guess what, you might jot down: Jesus lives in me. If something is born – that’s what it says. Jesus actually lives inside of you in the person of the Holy Spirit.

The third thing that happens is reconciliation. That means that although I was once hostile to God and alienated from Him, I am now His friend. Paul would write, inspired by the Holy Spirit in Colossians chapter 1, verses 21 and 22, “Although you,” speaking to these new Christians, “were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He,” Jesus, “has reconciled you in His fleshly body through His death.”

Do you see how all these keep coming back to what happened at the cross and when what happens at the cross gets received by faith and then this journey from your head to your heart where you actually not just know about it, but you know it, you digest it, you absorb it, you believe it. It becomes a part of your life-focus and how you see God, see the world, and see yourself. “In order to present you,” this is how He presented you, “holy and blameless, beyond reproach.”

Some of you have been through the very painful experience of irreconcilable differences, either in business and in marriage. You know what the word reconcile means? It means two people that weren’t getting along, in our case, we were enemies of God. We were hostile to God. The One who made us, it was either passive indifference, “I don’t care about God,” or actual rebellion. “Don’t any of you tell me what to do, even though You made me.” And it’s you become friends.

Would you write this down: God is my friend. What if this started inching its way. Maybe at least it got down to the collarbone. God is my Father. God made me a new person. God is my friend.

What do friends do? Okay, this is not a trick question. There’s not some, Oh, I hope I get this one right. What do you do with your friends? You hang out! You enjoy each other. You get to know each other. You do things you both enjoy. Real friends, you can share the good stuff and they are not jealous, they are happy for you. You can share the bad stuff and, Ooh, man, and they’ll even help you. You can even share the deep, ugly stuff and they don’t judge you. But they also don’t let you stay the same.

What if you actually could believe that God is not down on you? He is your friend. He can take whatever you want to share. He wants to hang out. This isn’t: I will now be religious. I’m going to church regularly. I need to read the Bible. I need to pray. I probably need to pray longer. I need to give some money. Am I okay now?

That’s how some people live. How about this? “Come unto Me all of you that are stressed out and heavy-laden and labor and just overwhelmed with life, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke,” let’s do life together. “I am meek,” power under control, “lowly of heart,” and I want to help you get through this life and I will never leave you or forsake you.

You have been justified, you have been regenerated, you have been reconciled.

And then I love this next one. It’s a big word. Propitiation. It means that Jesus satisfied the just wrath of God by His death on the cross and, therefore, Jesus took all my punishment forever.

Let me say that again. Jesus took all your punishment forever. Jesus took all of my punishment forever. 1 John chapter 4, verses 9 through 11, “By this, the love of God was manifested,” or made known to us, “that God sent His only begotten Son into the world” – why? “so that we might live” – well, how? “through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Now, you need to understand that God has emotions. He’s a person. He’s one essence; three distinct persons. He has feelings and emotions and a mind and a will and we are made in His image. And there is something that makes Him very, very angry. It’s called evil.

But His anger isn’t like our kind of anger that flies off the handle or just is capricious and He’s going to blow up one day. John Stott writes about propitiation and he says, “The reason why propitiation is necessary is that sin arouses God’s wrath or anger. This doesn’t mean that he is likely to fly off the handle at the most trivial provocation. Still less, that He ever loses His temper for no apparent reason at all. For there is nothing capricious or arbitrary about the Holy God, nor is He ever malicious or spiteful or vindictive. His anger is neither mysterious nor irrational. It is never unpredictable, but always predictable because it is provoked by evil and evil alone. The wrath of God is His steady, unrelenting, unremitting, uncompromising antagonism to evil in all of its forms and all of its manifestations.”

I am listening to the life of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas right now and I am in the section where the most horrific things were done to the Poles and the Jews that it’s even hard to hear of gassing people and going into villages and just indiscriminately lining everyone up and killing them and then dancing on their bodies. The human heart, in the right circumstances, is desperately wicked.

What you need to understand, when Jesus was hanging on the cross and crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” It’s in that moment that the just wrath of God took the punishment you deserve and I deserve and all people of all time deserve and He placed it on Christ, and He who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. And in that single moment, all the punishment of all time was on Christ.