Audio Transcript

Welcome to a new month on the podcast on this first Monday in November. Well, last time we saw how finding personal assurance in Christ is essential as we find that cry of a trusting child to his heavenly Father inside of us, that “Abba, Father.” That heartfelt, authentic cry of trust is the witness of the Holy Spirit that we are the children of God: “Abba, Father.” But assurance is not something you get from sitting around and thinking about it. Assurance is a lived-out pursuit. So, how do we do it? How do we live out our personal assurance? We get to this answer through Chloe’s question today, a question considering several Bible reading texts we are looking at in this season in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan.

Chloe writes, “Pastor John, thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. I keep wrestling with this question: How can I know for sure that I’m truly following God and not just chasing after my own desires or misconceptions about him? In John 7:38 [which we read recently], Jesus offers ‘living water,’ but how do I know I’m really drinking from that well and not just from my own wells of self-sufficiency? Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to fill myself up with things that ultimately leave me unsatisfied. Second Peter 1:4 [another one of our recent reads] speaks of ‘becom[ing] partakers of the divine nature,’ but how do I actually know this is my trajectory? I want to grow in godliness, but how do I know if that’s truly happening in my life? First John 1:3 [coming up in our reading] says Christians enjoy fellowship with God and each other, but how do I know if I’m part of this fellowship? Is it about feeling connected, or is there something more concrete that shows I truly belong to God? I long for assurance, but sometimes I feel like I have no final answers. How can I be sure I’m genuinely following Christ and not just going through the motions or being misled by my own thoughts? How do I live out confidence in Christ?”

I don’t think there is an issue in the Christian life that troubles the hearts of God’s children more than the issue of assurance. At least, it seems that way from my experience. Chloe puts the question from several different angles. Can I know that I’m drinking from the right well? Can I know I’m partaking of the divine nature? Can I know I’m in fellowship with God? Those questions show that the temptation to doubt — to doubt the reality of our own position in Christ — can come from almost any angle.

You can be reading the Bible almost anywhere, and the question will pop into your mind: Is this real? Or maybe more commonly, Am I real at this point? Which is why, perhaps, the Bible provides so many different ways of helping us maintain our confidence, our assurance — not only that Christ is real but that we are real, that our faith is true, saving faith that will bring us all the way through death into God’s happy, everlasting presence.

“Assurance is not automatic. We pursue it.”

So, what I thought I would do, instead of lingering over just one of these assurance-giving places in the Bible, is to simply point to eight of them, because who knows which of these kinds of help the Holy Spirit will use to actually bring about the miracle of assurance for Chloe, or for (goodness!) thousands of our listeners, and for us.

1. Pursue assurance.

So, there is the straightforward exhortation: Go after it. Go after assurance. Don’t think that the pursuit of assurance is a defect. Here’s Hebrews 6:11–12: “We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the [same] full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” So, the Bible knows that assurance is not automatic. We pursue it. We show earnestness to go after it. So, fight for it with the confidence that the fight is a good fight. That’s number one.

2. Believe God’s testimony.

God’s testimony to you that you are his is that he has given you spiritual life. You are no longer dead in trespasses and sins. You are alive, alive to God. Here’s 1 John 5:11: “This is the testimony.” Now, we should ask at this point, What’s he going to say? What’s the testimony of God to my soul that I’m his? “This is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life.” That’s amazing. Giving us eternal life doesn’t mean he gave us a ticket or a certificate. It means he gave us life now and forever. He brought us from spiritual death to spiritual life. This is why the whole New Testament relates to the issue of assurance — because the whole New Testament describes this life, this life in Christ. So, reading the whole New Testament can awaken in us, “I’m alive; I’m alive. He made me alive to him.”

3. Abide in Christ.

We enjoy assurance as we abide in Christ. And the word abide simply means stay in him. Don’t run away from him. Don’t drift away from him. Stay. Abide means stay. Keep trusting; keep drinking; keep close. Here’s 1 John 2:28: “Now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence.” So, confidence comes from abiding. And the older I get (and I think most aging saints would say the older we get), the more skirmishes my faith has survived, and therefore the more this promise of abiding makes sense. Abide, abide, and your confidence will grow. Don’t drift away.

4. Think and pray.

Combine theology (or doctrine) and prayer: doctrine and prayer, theology and prayer, meditation and supplication. In the book of Ephesians, Paul first gives weighty theology, and then he prays in Ephesians 1:15 to the end of the chapter. Then, again, he gives heavy-duty, glorious, beautiful, deep theology or doctrine. And then, again, he prays in Ephesians 3:14. And what he prays in both of these prayers, in chapter 1 and in chapter 3, is for Christians (not unbelievers, but Christians) to really know their hope, to really know the love of Christ — experientially, beyond ordinary human knowing. So, copy Paul. Immerse yourself in serious doctrinal teaching, and mingle it with constant prayer. “O Lord, open the eyes of my heart to know.”

“Immerse yourself in serious doctrinal teaching, and mingle it with constant prayer.”

The book of Hebrews is a great example of how the New Testament expects theology or doctrine to produce assurance. For example, Hebrews 4:15–16: We have a sympathetic high priest; therefore, let us draw near with confidence. Or Hebrews 10:18–19: There is forgiveness for all our sins; therefore, we have confidence to enter the holy place. Or Hebrews 10:34–35: We have an eternal possession; therefore, don’t throw away your confidence.

So, even if you say (and I’m sure a lot of people would say this), “Doctrine doesn’t always have that effect for me,” I know that. We all read blankly from time to time. But don’t give up. The Bible is insistent that truth, doctrine, theology is designed — by prayer and the Holy Spirit — to make you more confident.

5. Serve with steadfastness.

Be faithful in the service that God has given to you. Have steadfastness in your ministry — and I don’t mean professional ministry; I mean ministry of the simplest kind. Be steadfast in your ministry. That steadfastness is designed by God to make you confident. Here’s 1 Timothy 3:13: “Those who serve well as deacons” — or ministers; you can generalize it, whatever the ministry God has given you. “Those who serve well as [ministers] gain . . . great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.” Steadfastness in ministry deepens your confidence in God.

6. Make war on your sin.

Hate the remaining sin in your life. Make war on it. You’ll never be done with this battle until you die or until Jesus comes. The evidence that you are a child of God is not that you have no sinful tendencies, but that you hate them and make war on them. Here’s Romans 8:13–14: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body [that is, sinful temptations that rise in your body], you will live. [Because] all who are led by the Spirit of God [namely, into making war on their sin] are sons of God.” That’s the assurance. The evidence that you are a child of God is that the Holy Spirit leads you into mortal combat with your sin.

7. Endure suffering.

Let affliction of any kind have its assuring, strengthening effect. None of your suffering is without purpose, and one of those purposes is not to threaten your assurance, as though God were against you, but to strengthen your assurance, because God gave you grace to endure it. Here’s Romans 5:3–4: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” — that is, the hope that you’re real. You made it. You made it through the affliction; you’re real.

8. Believe the promise.

And then, finally, embrace the promise that God will keep you. Believe it. For example, 2 Thessalonians 3:3: “The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.” Or Romans 8:35–37: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? [And he answers:] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” He will keep you.

So, my prayer, Chloe, and all of us who pursue the fullest assurance of faith, is that God will take one or more of these eight means of assurance and make it powerfully effective in your life.