The plain fact of the matter is the Lord wants His children always believing and trusting and knowing the important things are settled and everything else is all right. We are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
No hanging heads. No towels draped over our sorry heads to disguise our disappointment and hide our tears.
“Lift up your heads! Your redemption draweth night!” is how the psalmist put it.
Rejoicing “because your names are written in heaven” means a thousand things, these among them …
—Your salvation is secure.
—Your hope is steadfast.
—Your future is settled.
—Your faith is well placed.
—Your focus is upward and eternal.
—Your troubles are temporary.
—Your joy is constant.
—God’s promises are sure and certain.
—Jesus’ word is dependable.
—God’s enemy (and yours) is out of luck.
—You will live and die with a smile on your face. People will come away from you saying, “He’s either a nut or he knows something.”
Stay with me a moment longer, please.
Do not miss the implications of the Lord choosing as the basis of your joy that “your names are written in heaven.”
Wishing to anchor our joy to something more dependable and more constant than the up-and-down vicissitudes of this life, wanting to secure our joy forever, and intending to settle the matter for all time, Jesus tied it to our salvation.
The strong implications are that you are saved forever.
Implications, nothing! It’s there, plain as the nose on your face. (Is “explication” a word? He wasn’t implying anything, but was as explicit as it’s possible to get!)
If we can be saved one day and lose it the next, then get it back the next day, then He chose the wrong figure of speech. The way some of God’s children believe about the temporariness of salvation—that “one little sin can send your soul to hell,” as I’ve heard it put—makes you wonder what it will take for them to start believing in Jesus and quit taking counsel of their fears.
The Lord Jesus actually thought that the born-again would live forever. “They shall never perish.” “Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand.” “I give unto them eternal life.” “So shall we ever be with the Lord.”
We pitiful humans. We resist believing that salvation is of grace and keep wanting our works to play the starring role in this divine production. Or, we play a little mind game with ourselves that says: I know we are saved by grace and Jesus paid it all, but if I sin after being saved, I’m lost again.
If that’s true, if one sin or a certain number of sins undoes what God did in Christ as a result of Calvary, then no one is secure in Christ, no salvation is settled, no forgiveness is permanent and we are all in big trouble, and Jesus’ death settled nothing.
It’s time to start believing Jesus, people.
I love what some woman told Pastor Tim Keller upon realizing the gospel of grace for the first time …
“I know why I want my morality to save me. If I’m saved by my good works, then like a taxpayer, I have rights. I’ve paid into the system and God owed me a good and decent life, and there is a limit to what the Father can ask of me. But if I’m saved by sheer grace, then my life belongs to the Father, He owes me nothing and there is no limit to what He can ask of me.”
Sheer grace. That’s it.
Sheer grace or we are in a mess of trouble, children.
But, rejoice. Your names are written in Heaven. In blood, actually. The blood of Christ.
“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (I Corinthians 15:57).
Now, let us go forth in joy.
