Assurance (Transcript)

Jimmy Buehler: Today on the podcast, we talk about a question that we receive a lot, and that is, "how do I know that I am saved?" In other words, we are tackling the topic of assurance. The guys talk about some personal experiences of battles with assurance that we've all had. Then we look at some of the ways contemporary Christianity actually robs assurance.

Then we seek to point you to how assurance was found during the reformation era, as well as what we believe scripture and the reform confessions teach about assurance. We hope this conversation is beneficial for you.

Justin Perdue: John, you just mentioned the fact that we get questions from listeners.

We hear from our listeners on a regular basis and often the questions that we receive in the correspondence, if you read through it and boil it down, I would say 80% to 90% of what we get comes down to the issue of assurance and peace before God and eternal security. What we're going to talk about today are those things.

This is a podcast on assurance, and we want this conversation to be helpful to our regular listeners, but we also want this to be helpful to people that maybe aren't familiar with Theocast or aren't familiar with reform theology. Our hope for the conversation today is to talk a little bit personally from our own experiences and how we have or haven't wrestled with this issue of assurance.

We then want to make some observations of things that we've seen in the broader evangelical church, or even in the Calvinistic evangelical church, where assurance is eroded and removed from people. What we want to do in the last half of the podcast is point people to Christ in his sufficiency using scripture from a reformed perspective.

So that's the plan for today. I think if most people are honest, they wrestle with this. Question or this reality of how can I know that I am safe? How can I know that I'm secure and that I have peace with God? Not just now, but I am guaranteed peace with God forever.

There's nothing more relevant for our day today. This matters for your Tuesday and for your Thursday. It matters every day of your life. We're hopeful that this is going to be a helpful conversation.

Let's start with some personal experiences and some anecdotes, maybe talk about where we've been and some of the struggles that we've experienced.

Jimmy Buehler: I'd be glad to take a swing at that. I know for myself I became pretty interested in the things of Christianity when I was a teenager around 15 years old or so. But it really wasn't until college when I began to question my assurance and begin to really wrestle with my sinful nature and the day to day Christian life.

Where I found a lot of assurance, or where I realized I was finding a lot of assurances in my performance and how well I could live the Christian life; let's just be honest and frank, that I think for a lot of people, when they say how well they are living the Christian life or when they think about how well they are living the Christian life, I would make a bet that they tie it to their spiritual disciplines. AKA their personal Bible reading and their personal prayer life. Just to be clear, those are not bad things like we around the mic would say, we live in such a blessed time to be able to read the Bible in our own language and accessible translations.

It's a blessing to be able to talk to the God of the universe. But at the same time, where I was really beginning to struggle, is when I would miss days of prayer. When I would miss days of personal Bible reading, I would just be completely emotionally wrecked over that. I would feel stressed and even when I would wake up early, make myself a nice pot of coffee and sit down to read and pray, I would have all of these thoughts and feelings rushing through my mind, and my body of, "the only reason I'm doing this is so that I will feel better about my Christian life," and really kind of had the good day, bad day mentality of this morning. I read my Bible, and I prayed, so, therefore, I am going to have a good day. Therefore I'm going to feel good about my spiritual life.

This really carried on for me throughout much of my life. And to be honest, I still battle against this mindset. I would say almost daily that I will find so much comfort in the way I perform the Christian life. My assurance was so intrinsically tied to my feelings and my emotions, and my quote-unquote, the buzzword was my affections for God and how well I was living the Christian life.

I know that for you guys, the things that I'm saying are not strange. I'm sure for some of the listeners, you perhaps have been feeling these ways, but I want to throw it to you guys and give you a chance to speak as well.

Jon Moffitt: Yeah. I grew up in a revivalistic Armenian background.

You know, we went to tent revivals. We heard a lot of fiery preaching. The hotter the preaching, the better. The harsher the preaching, the better. I can remember walking out of services and hearing people thank the preacher for basically beating them that day because they really needed to hear it. That was, that was my world for 20 years.

Justin Perdue: John, you might want to define Armenian for some people, just so that they understand what you mean.

Jon Moffitt: Yeah. Revivalistic and Armenian actually tend to often go together and Armenian, meaning that they don't understand or believe that God is sovereign and saving those to whom he has elected, that it is man's decision to.

To accept the offer that God is giving them. It basically is, if you buy a life insurance policy from God, you're good to go, but it's up to you to buy it or not. I would even hear that language of life insurance is like getting your fire insurance, is basically how they would describe it, right?

Justin Perdue: God is, of course, God, but then he has made it possible. For man to be saved and then it's up to us to make the good decision.

Jon Moffitt: Yeah, that's right. The logic behind it is how can God truly beloved if he's forcing people to love him? It must be our choice to love him. And the way in which that you find your assurance is based on that moment in time called conversionism. It's this moment where I knew that I went forward during an invitation that can remember my brother and I both went forward at the same time. We didn't know what each other was doing, and I went to the back with Mr. Thompson, and he shared the gospel with me and asked me if I wanted to say their sinner's prayer.

So I got down on my knees, and I don't know what I said, whatever he told me to say. It was there that I held onto for years and years that I know I'm a Christian because I went into the back room, and I knelt down with Mr. Thompson, and I said, you know what? That's how I know because it was written in my Bible. I learned to phrase it as the sinner's prayer. I still have that Bible around here somewhere.

People will ask you, do you have a time? Do you have a moment that you knew for sure that you gave your life to Jesus? To which, a couple of years later, I rededicated my life to God because I had lost my way. But there was never a moment in my life. I wasn't a really bad kid. I mean, I did the things that most kids would do. You know, I tried smoking, and I can remember having my cussing phase. But I never got into massive trouble to where I had to have that reconversion moment where I needed to convince my parents not to discipline me because I'm going to get saved again. I was baptized twice. I think once when I was seven, and then again when I was 12. Its assurance is based on either me remembering a moment or my decision. When I grew up with people around me when I was in college, the question always was, did I really mean it when I said that prayer back, whenever?

Justin Perdue: Sincerely?

Jon Moffitt: Right. I can't tell you how many times people, including my wife, when they're lying in bed and they're like well just in case I didn't mean it, I'm going to mean it now, and then they say the word prayer again.

Jimmy Buehler: Yeah, now's the time.

Justin Perdue: Right? It's almost like we're saved by our sincerity, you know, in a scheme like that. To be really clear, we will talk more about some of this later. We here at Theocast understand that people make decisions to trust Christ and to follow Jesus. We understand that long before we make a decision for Christ, he made a decision for us.

That's the rock under our feet and that that is a piece of this assurance conversation that we're having. I know for myself, just to start, it might be helpful to say I've struggled with anxiety my whole life. I don't know that I would've been able to frame it that way until recent years.

And by that, I mean a couple of things. Some of it is perfectionism and related to fear of man as well. But then some of it is these kinds of unsolicited thoughts of horrible things happening to me or my family. And I tend to be very pessimistic and assume that that bad will happen rather than good.

My constitution is one that I think lends itself to a real struggle with peace and assurance. In my young life, I was converted as young as. Maybe 10. I'm confident that I meant to trust Christ by 12 or 13. I was baptized at 14, and in my adolescent years, in my teenage years, I probably rededicated my life 150 times because I was constantly wrecked.

I can remember my experience so vividly.  I would read Matthew chapter seven, verses 21 to 23, where people would come before Jesus and say, Lord, look at the things that we did. And he would say to them, depart from me, I never knew you.

I would be haunted by that reality constantly. I know that's going to be me, that I'm going to stand before Christ at the end of history, having met with all my heart to trust him and follow him and honor him with my life, and he's going to say, I never knew you depart from me.

Jimmy Buehler: That's right.

Justin Perdue: Yeah, I was like Jimmy said, I was always very aware of my obedience. Like how well am I obeying? How well am I doing the things that I should be doing? And I grew up in a very moralistic context, though it was liberal theologically. It was a very moralistic, legalistic kind of church environment where there's a hyper-focus on art performance and what we're doing.

I was always kind of like Martin Luther. It's like I could never do this well enough. I can never do enough, and I know I'm failing. Then the other thing was I was always very aware of my feelings. Both of you brothers have touched on. Feelings or sincerity and I was always haunted by that reality too.

I know I'm not sincere enough. I'm not feeling it enough. And when I did have any semblance of assurance was when I was hyper-emotional about Jesus or about the things of the faith. Like if I was moved to tears. But what Christ has done for me, it's like, okay, maybe I'm saved and if I wasn't, if I was feeling apathetic or whatever, I just was constantly wrestling and was haunted by the fact that I'm not going to be accepted by God and I will have wasted my life in trying to follow Christ, and it will all be for nothing. That's just some of my experiences as a teenager, and then through college, it wasn't much different. It honestly wasn't until I encountered the reformed theology, that you're on the ship, even though I still battle it all the time.

Jon Moffitt: Yeah, right.

Jimmy Buehler: Justin, you, you brought up Matthew seven, and I'm just mindful of other scriptures, particularly when Jesus says if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross.

There would be moments in my Christian life and walk, where I would just be feeling like I'm nailing this. Like I am the only one that is taking up my cross. Then there would be moments where I'm like, I don't even know what that means or what that looks like. And I think you said it really well. That often when somebody is struggling with assurance, when they're struggling to know kind of in the deepest recesses of their heart of whether or not they are a Christian. What they really mean, if I could put some words into the listener's mouths, so to speak. What you probably mean by that is you tie your assurance so keenly and so intrinsically to your feelings and your emotions and the way that you live and your thought life. Honestly, that is a deep black hole that once you start going down, you will never be able to get out of. Places like Romans seven have actually served to bring me a lot of comforts where you see the apostle Paul wrestling with his own frame, wrestling with his own flesh, wrestling with his own sinful nature. Now to kind of shift the conversation a little bit from kind of our personal anecdotes.

What are some of the things that you guys observe just in contemporary Christian culture? What are the things that you would say kind of Rob the average believer of their assurance?

Jon Moffitt: I would say one of the themes that come up over and over as you listen to Theocast and read our material, is the struggle between this new nature we have, which loves God, once righteousness. Now it's very much like the light has shown on in the filthy room, and we can see the clutter. And then still living in the clutter and still lying down in the bed of sin. So we use the very famous Paul struggle that you even mentioned in Romans seven, of the things I don't want to do with the things I do. Wretched man I am, who will save me from this body of death?  And I would say most struggles with assurance have to do with the reality of sin that remains in our life.

Justin Perdue: Absolutely.

Jon Moffitt: People don't struggle with how much they have changed. I think that is true. But most of the time, it's, I still sin, or I still struggle as a sinner, or I still want to sin. There have been movements that have come out, and these movements, I think, have created more questions of assurance, not assuring it up.

Movements like a confusion of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, being a radical Christian, or even the whole discipleship movement, which I know all three of these are ones that we're going to speak to here in a moment, but I would say all of them are a confusion of what Luther was clarifying. This isn't new to Luther. It's part of scripture, but the saint-sinner reality, you are a sinner and a saint at the same time. Just because you are justified does not mean that God has removed your nature. He's given you a new nature, but the old nature still remains. He's given you a new life, but the old life is still there. This is why Paul says we are flesh battles against our spirit.

I think in this conversation, where we're going to go. What you're going to see is a contrast between putting your faith in realities that are outside of you and outside of your circumstances and outside of your efforts in a person, which is Christ. This will be my last comment then I'll throw it over to you guys.

Assurance has to be that Jesus saved me, not that I walked towards salvation and Jesus. This is the reformed faith that by God's sovereign grace, he came to this earth, and he saved me. That's where assurance has to be found. If you do not hold that, you can always question, did I truly walk enough towards Jesus? Did I truly accept him? Am I holding onto him tightly? Whereas we are told in John 10, Jesus holds on to us, and no one takes us out of his end.

Justin Perdue: I know there's a number of ways we could go here. I want to talk a little bit about the emphasis that exists in the broader church. This is true in just evangelicalism in general, and it's true amongst the Calvinistic evangelical crowd to a hyper-focus on discipleship.

Underneath that heading, that banner of discipleship, would be things like discipline, spiritual disciplines, how well are you doing? And by applying those and being consistent with those. Then also our affections, meaning our feelings, our emotions toward God and the things of God, and then also our obedience.

Underneath discipleship, all of those things exist amongst the crowd, where discipleship is really just championed. Just to be very clear, we understand that every Christian is a disciple. To be a disciple is to be a Christian. There's not this kind of subset underneath. Some people are Christians, and then there are the real serious types who are disciples. It's not a biblical category. In this kind of culture where discipleship is just kind of being pounded all the time, disciplines and affections and obedience are talked about constantly.

Inevitably what happens when you begin to talk about those things is you are pointing Christians back in on themselves. If you want to know that you are safe, and you want to know that you're God's, and you want to know that that you'll be with the Lord forever. Then here are the things that you need to be doing, and then here are the things that you need to be doing with respect to assessing yourself, and so assess your spiritual disciplines. How consistent have you been in reading and praying? Maybe fasting and family worship. We could go on down the list. How are your affections? How are your feelings toward God? Is there a trajectory of improvement in your life in terms of how you feel about God and the things of God? Are you more geeked up about the things of God now than you were?

Because if you're not, then you should be concerned. And then how is your obedience? Are you obeying God's word better? Now then you were a month ago or a year ago or a decade ago? Are you more excited about obedience? Does obedience come more naturally to you now? You know, as you're being transformed.

Jimmy Buehler: It's all about the trajectory.

Justin Perdue: Yeah, and so all of that, if you're listening to me talk, none of that has anything to do with the work of Christ outside of you, for you. All of that has everything to do with you. As a Christian, how am I doing? We'll use this term, navel-gazing, a lot. What we mean by that is that you're looking at your own navel all the time. You're looking at yourself all the time, rather than having your gaze fixed upon Christ and upon the work of Christ that stands rock solid objectively outside of you.

We'll say this a lot on Theocast, and I'm about to throw it over to you, Jimmy. On Theocast we'll say a lot that we are always looking outside of ourselves to save what's wrong in us. If you're pointing people in any way inside themselves, so their own obedience, their own affections, their disciplines, their performance, there is nowhere to stand.

That's at the heart of the issue here for us is point at the center. John, you said it so well. We are at the same time justified in center point, that struggling center. To something that is solid rock, not sinking sand, and the only solid rock is Christ and his righteousness for you.

Jimmy Buehler: Yeah. The Christian Church throughout history has used this word, the sacrament. The sacraments historically understood is, we see visibly the word of God. We see visibly the gospel. But the things that you are talking about JP that where we are reminded of Christ sufficient sacrifice on our behalf. Historically, the sacraments have been understood in a Protestant way as baptism and the Lord's supper. But one of the things that we have pointed out is that really in modern contemporary evangelicalism, the sacraments, to be honest, really have become spiritual disciplines and the worship time. AKA singing in Sunday morning church. The place where we quote-unquote, feel God's grace, or we receive God's grace is when we sing when we worship. Did you get the goosebumps, or as Michael Horton likes to call them, the liver shivers. Did you feel something during the singing time?

As you've woken up early and you're digging into the Bible, and you're praying, did you get something out of it? That is something I get all the time teaching high school students. Well, I just don't get anything out of it. When I read the Bible, and I really think about what they're trying to say, and often what people feel and think and put forth when it comes to these evangelical sacraments of, you know, personal, spiritual discipline and worship is that if we're not feeling something, then something is wrong with us. An observation I'd like to point out is this: when God's grace becomes something you receive based off of something you do, it is no longer God's grace.

Justin Perdue: That's right. It's now conditioned, it's not unmerited in any way.

Jimmy Buehler: Absolutely, yeah. It's merited favor. Whereas what we see historically, that Christians have understood and baptism and the Lord's supper, those things are two things that happened to you. You know, someone places you under the water, somebody gives you the bread and the cup, that these are outside of you. Objective realities. But even in a modern evangelical sense. You know, the Lord's supper has become such a place of undue stress and anxiety that we take the examine yourself, and certainly, there is room for that in biblical Christianity. But at the same time, what the Lord supper points us to is these objective realities that as surely as I eat this bread so, I can trust that Christ's body was broken for me. And as surely as I drink this wine is so I can trust that the blood of Christ was shed for me. Justin, I think you wanted to make a couple of other brief comments about the sacraments here. I'm going to toss it to you.

Justin Perdue: Yeah, thanks, man. I think the way that evangelicals treat the sacraments is really just a symptom of the larger systemic problem. I want to illustrate it this way: the way that evangelicals talk about baptism and the Lord's supper, those sacraments are made to be more about our devotion to God than they are about God's devotion and commitment to us. That's the kind of fundamental paradigm shift that we're talking about here.

Everything in the Christian life and the sacraments included has more to do with God's commitment and God's devotion to us to save us in spite of ourselves. And it could never be about our devotion to him. Because if you turn it into being about our devotion to God, we are all done. Like we got no shot. Right? But if it's about God's devotion and commitment to us, okay, now we've got something that we can actually sing about and that we can actually rejoice over.

Jon Moffitt: I would say if you look at Paul's epistles, let's just take Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians as examples. What does he do? He points you to the objective realities of Jesus Christ. He's talking about what Christ has done, who he is, his nature, his faithfulness, his power. He then talks about how all of that is ours by faith alone that we receive it. Then he goes after the Galatians harder than anyone. The moment that someone tries to add work back into. What he means by this is, if you think God accepts you as faithful, or he accepts you as righteous before him, by Christ's death and your works, you are believing something that is akin to witchcraft, is what he's saying.

He gives us some very harsh language, and I would say there are movements out there that have good intentions, but they have caused more people to lose their assurance. I think they're trying to help them. Maybe not help them with their assurance, but they're going after what we call nominal or lazy Christians and calling into question these people.

Because if you weren't making Jesus Lord of your life, and this is what it looks like to make Jesus Lord of your life, our response to that is, Jesus is Lord. You can't make him anything other than he is. You either accept him for who he is, but you do not make him that. I think it's a rebranding of rededicating your life. They just call it Lordship. I don't think there's two qualities of the disciples. This goes into discipleship as well, or even radical. There aren't two levels. Those who are God in by prayer. And then those who have really dedicated their life, making Jesus Lord or becoming a disciple or radical Christianity.

I'm just going to throw that out there. I know you guys are probably going to blow up on that, but I think that those movements have stripped people because they look at their life and go, that's not me. I don't fit in that category.

Jimmy Buehler: Yeah, absolutely. I would say within the radical Christianity mindset, there's just no room to live a normal Christian life. There's no room to be boring, so to speak, just to be ordinary. My goodness, if you have free time and you're not using it to evangelize to your neighbor or do this or do this spiritual discipline, then are you actually even saved?

There is a phrase that we use here on the podcast all the time, and it's called pietism. Pietism is overly obsessed with what we call the interior of the Christian life. How, how good you feel about Jesus, your affections for Jesus, your actions for Jesus. We contrast that with what we call confessionalism, where it's the exterior of the Christian life. It's pointing to the objective realities of Christ. Where pietism likes to ask the question, are you even saved?

What we like to ask in confessionalism is, is God gracious? Is God good? Is that either all Jesus or all nothing? You know, that's what we want to point people to, is that assurance, rest, hope, peace, life, faith, trust. All of these things are outside of you. The reformation era term is extra notes outside of yourself.

Justin Perdue: Yes, that's right. I want to talk a little bit about scripture that's not frowned upon on this podcast.

Jimmy Buehler: Indeed.

Justin Perdue: Let's turn people in the last, 15 minutes or so here, let's talk to the listeners about Christ and his sufficiency, and in light of our experience, why that's such glorious news.

I'm going to begin with Romans 7, Galatians 5 realities that we've touched on. I'm just going to be really clear. Our understanding biblically is that we are, at the same time, saint in sinner, meaning that we are justified by faith in Christ. We are declared righteous by God, and we are safe. We still struggle against our corruption that we inherited from Adam.

This means that we, like the apostle Paul describes in Romans chapter 7 and in Galatians 5 verse 17 in particular, our experience goes like this: there are good things that we want to do because we're born again. We have God's spirit in us. There are good things that we want to do that we find ourselves not doing, at least as much as we want. There are bad things that we don't want to do that we sadly find ourselves doing much more often than we want. There's this internal war. You'll hear us talk about that and use that phrase. There is a war going on inside of us between our spirit and our flesh. Paul says in Galatians 5:17 that because of that war between the spirit and the flesh, it results in you not doing what you want to do.

This is the great struggle for every Christian that I want in my inner man to obey and honor God and glorify God and do righteousness. Yet I find that I am unable to pull it off. God tells me that I'm his child, but I feel like I'm his enemy because I'm sinning. I hate it, and I know God hates sin.

So what do I do with this? Ultimately, the answer has to be, as we've said, it's outside of us, and it's found in Christ Jesus. I immediately go to a passage like Hebrews 10:11-14, it's one of my favorite paragraphs in scripture where we hear about the fact that Christ has made a sacrifice once and for all that is sufficient. It's so sufficient that he sat down at the right hand of God like it's so over that there's nothing left to be done because Jesus has accomplished redemption. Then verse 14 of Hebrews 10, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Your life is changing. The sanctification is a process, right? It's ongoing. While that process is happening and it's all over the map. Sometimes it's going well; sometimes, it's not going well at all. But it doesn't matter because you are safe in Christ because he has perfected you for all time.

Jon Moffitt: Amen. I can remember, I was driving on the way to seminary talking to a good friend of mine, and he mentioned Galatians to me. It was here that the reformed faith finally felt like the puzzle came all together. The confessions, this constant pushing of us towards Christ. So in Galatians, Paul says 3:1, "Oh foolish Galatians, who has Bewitched you is what before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed and crucified. Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit. Are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

That is the crux of assurance that you think you get in by faith, but you maintain by your performance. Paul says no. Your justification, the right standing you have before God, him declaring you. Righteous and your sanctification being transformed into his image are both works of the spirit that come to us by faith.

Therefore, your progress, how you are being transformed, you must be dependent upon Christ by faith. You cannot measure yourself up against the ruler on the wall saying, I should be here by now because I've been a Christian for so many years. Why am I still struggling with the same sin that I struggled with when I got saved?

All these other Christian testimonies have it to where they no longer struggle. And may I point you back to the constant reminding of the New Testament, that we have to be aware of Satan who is coming to deceive and tempt us, that our flesh is going to war against our spirit that. May I just read to you the end of Colossians chapter 3 where he says all of these things, and he's got all of these works, they sound spiritual and wise, but they are of no value of stopping the flesh. And then what does Paul say at the beginning of chapter 4? Look to Christ. And he only tells you the finished work of Christ, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. What is he saying? Your fight against sin, your assurance, your protection, is always based upon what Christ has done. What we always say, his faithfulness, our faith in him, not our faithfulness. Faith versus faithfulness is our faith in Christ, not our faithfulness.

Jimmy Buehler: Yeah. I can almost hear all of the objections though, coming through our computers and our screens right now on our phones.

All I can hear right now is the alarms off, yeah, but what about this, and what about this? And I think the largest objection is just like, okay, well if it's all about Christ and not me, and it's all outside of me, well then, one, how is it that I grow as a Christian? And two, are you saying that I can just kind of do whatever I want?

Let me answer the latter question, and then I'll move back to the former. No, that is not what we are saying. I mean, Paul makes that very overly and abundantly clear in Romans chapter 6 that, just because there's grace, we just don't go on sinning, but rather what we are putting forth is there is a fundamentally different posture in what we are.

What we are saying is that the reason we fight, and we talk about this in our primer on faith versus faithfulness, the landscape of fighting sin is rest, and it's resting in the objective realities of Christ. To go back to my former question, which is, then how do I grow as a Christian? As we've quoted all of these scriptures, something that we need to take to mind in our overly individualized American culture is that what we see in scripture, as we read other people's mail in the epistles of the New Testament, is that often the commands, the imperatives, the things that we see to do are corporate realities. We need to be ever mindful that as we grow as a Christian, we don't do so on an Island. That we grow within the larger communion of the saints and the gathered church and the worship of church.

This is what we talk about on this podcast as the ordinary means of grace. That we sit under the preached word. We sit under, and we remember our baptism. We remember the promises made in our baptism, and we look to the promises that God gives us in the Lord's table. That God will indeed grow us and sanctify us. However slowly that he desires, however he sees fit under the ordinary means of the gathered church.

Justin Perdue: Yeah. The Romans 6 reality, to pick up on that briefly Jimmy, is critical for our understanding because Paul's response to that question, should we send all the more that grace may abound, he doesn't respond with law and commands and all those things and threats. He responds with the reality of our union with Christ by faith, meaning that by faith, we have been united with Jesus. The language of the New Testament is that we are now in Christ. We were in Adam. In Adam, we fell and were ruined. We are now in Christ, and so everything that is Christ is ours. If somebody were to press me, Justin, how do you know that you'll make it to heaven? How do you know that your elect even, if we're going to use the language of reformation theology, how would you know that you're alive?

My answer to that is quite simple. The answer is Christ. I mean, what is your confidence? How do you know you'll be in heaven? The answer, Jesus, I'm thinking about Christ's words in John chapter 6 or John chapter 10, even John 15 where he talks so intimately to us and says that all that the Father has given to me will come to me and I'll never cast you out.

That's John 6:37, and then in 38, 39, 40, he goes on to talk about how he'll lose none of all those the Father has given him. He'll lose none of us who are in him by faith, but he'll raise us up on the last day. In John chapter 10 that we are in his hands, and nobody can pluck us out. John 15 that we have been united to him, and apart from him, we can do nothing. How we are safe and secure because of those realities. At the end of the day, our confidence is wholly and completely and only Christ. It's his sufficiency, not our obedience or our performance or our sufficiency, you know? It makes all the difference when we understand that my security rests on the fact, not that I will never fail, but that Jesus will never fail me.

I can rest there.

Jon Moffitt: That's right. I would say each one of these men were all that are called confessional Christians. We hold to a confession. What that means is it's an explanation of scripture. There's so much that scripture says, everyone has a confession. It's not a very good one if it's not built on tried and true fighting against, basically Harrison. In the confessions, we are told that our assurance has to have a foundation that is unshakeable, and that assurance is Jesus Christ.

People will say, well, John, what about fruit? Or what about examining ourselves, which is an inappropriate passage? We can talk about it at another time, but when we talk about fruit checking, this is where assurance gets blown apart by a 12-gauge shotgun because people's fruits, they're just not bounded.

I will tell you this, if Christ is your assurance, meaning that what he has done on my behalf, faith in him. This is why the five solos are so important. Faith alone in Christ alone, that is where your foundation begins. Now do good works. Can they bolster? Can they be added to your assurance? Sure. Christians, for years, have found encouragement by seeing God transform their lives.

But the moment you flip that, and you make the foundation of your assurance based on your level of good works. I promise you; you will never feel safe or secure because let me ask you this. Are you sure you did those good works in the spirit or in the flesh? Because Paul tells us on the last day, those that are done in the flesh will burn in a be of no use.

So do you truly want to bank your eternity on that which may burn? I'm telling you right now you don't because scripture tells you not to.

Jimmy Buehler: Yeah. That's the interesting thing, John, is that when you are seeking to find assurance in your own fruit and what you have done and accomplished for Christ, you're actually giving yourself the exact opposite outcome that you desire. You're constantly going to be stressed and anxious and worried about whether it's not enough.

Conversely, what we are trying to put forth is that. When you rest, hopefully on and receive the objective promises of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what motivates and pushes and drives the believer toward a life of love and good works. I feel like we could talk about this topic all day.

It's probably one of our favorite topics to discuss. Here at Theocast, we have what's called a member's podcasts. And in that member's podcast, we tend to take the topic to the next level and perhaps get even a little punchier at times. And so just to kind of give the broader listenership a taste, we are going to make today's members podcast free. We invite you to join us over there, where we will continue to discuss these themes. Thank you for listening. We hope this conversation is fruitful for you and beneficial as you seek to find your rest in Christ.

Thank you. See you over at the members' podcast.