Is Assurance the Pursuit of the Christian life? | ask Theocast

Assurance Is Not the Pursuit of the Christian Life

Is assurance the pursuit of the Christian life, or is it the essence of the Christian life? Let's talk about it. Hi, I'm Jon Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church and host of Theocast. This is Ask Theocast, where we answer your questions from a Reformed and pastoral perspective.

If you find this video helpful, please hit that like button. That helps us out. And make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell. That'll let you know when our next video comes out. This is an important question because it's probably going to start to change the way you think about Christianity and what you do from day to day.

Is pursuing assurance, confirming our election, calling, looking at our redemption, is that what we need to pursue every single day to make sure that we won't end up in hell and up in God's wrath? And I would say a lot of Christianity feels as if that's what they do.

Everything they do as far as relating to Christianity or the church is centered around how do I know that I am saved? How can I bring assurance to my salvation? Well, when you look at the New Testament, it really doesn't do that.

I know we use verses, and we've heard sermons, and they preach that. When they preach to you, you better be examining yourself. You better be looking at it. You better be looking to make sure that you're calling an election and sure.

But why are those contexts there? Could we say that those verses are being taken out of context? And I'm here to say, yes, they are being taken out of context. And we need to look at what all of the Bible has to say about the relationship between us and God.

Otherwise, you are going to live in what I would say a fear-based state for the rest of your life. And we are called to not do that. As a matter of fact, Paul says that we should not be afraid, and there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

Examining Yourself in Context

Yet, we live every single day worrying about being separated. So let's think about it, for instance, even when he says, examine yourself to see if you're of the faith. Well, Paul is talking to people who are questioning his apostleship.

He's talking to people who are saying, yeah, Paul, we don't really think your message, your gospel is legit. He says to them, okay, well, if I'm not a legit apostle and the gospel that I handed to you is not real, then you better examine yourself because I'm the one that gave you the gospel and the authority from God to do it.

So you better make sure and affirm your own salvation because if you're denying my gospel, then you're not a believer either. So let's just be careful when we take verses out of context. That's called biblicism, and we have a podcast about that.

I'll put that below. Biblicism is dangerous. It's not allowing all of scripture and what we know of the history of Christianity to influence the way in which we understand the Bible. We narrow into one or two verses and try and make an application, or be sure to make your calling and election sure, or work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

These are all these verses that we hear and we would use to argue saying, see, John, we really should be acting in such a way or pursuing the confirmation of our salvation. Well, in both of those cases, to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, he's saying God is the one who's working within you.

This is literally what he says afterwards. And so you need to literally act it out. And fear and trembling is not in... we often interpret those verses to mean, well, you should be afraid if you don't do it.

No, it's talking about reverence and honor. You're obeying and you're working it out, not for pride and not for glory and not to draw attention to yourself. You're acting out, you're obeying the Holy Spirit's working the fruit within you out of reverence and honor to the Father, not so that you would be afraid that God might dump you at the end of your life because you haven't done enough.

Assurance in the Finished Work of Christ

Let's flip it and think about it other ways. Paul writes the majority of his epistles trying to affirm and settle our hearts within the finished work of Jesus Christ. This is why he says we walk by faith and we trust in something that is outside of our own actions.

Nothing we ever do can save us. Even thinking about something like the pursuit. So what are we to pursue? What are we going after? Well, Hebrews 12 talks about the pursuit being not confirming but looking.

And I love this when he says this. We're going to do another episode on this. But in Hebrews 12, it says, set aside the weight and the sin that easily besets us. What does it say? Looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of your faith.

If the pursuit of the Christian life is affirming of your salvation or gaining assurance, if that's the pursuit of it, then why did the writer of Hebrews say he gave it to you and he's going to perfect it?

Your assurance is not based upon you. Your salvation is not based upon you. Your salvation is based upon the capacity and the promises of the one who is saving you, that's Jesus. And Jesus says, I have the right to save you because I am the perfect substitute.

I died in your place. Not only that, I have the right and the capacity to give you righteousness because the righteousness that I earned, I now give to you. I substitute it to you. I started your faith and I'm going to finish it.

So then what are we supposed to be doing? We are supposed to be resting in those truths and then pursuing the very thing that we have been handed, which is to love our neighbor and to love God. You see this come out in multiple different expressions.

Loving God, Loving Neighbor, and Building Up the Church

When Jesus says, go out into all the world and preach the gospel or make disciples, the most loving thing you can do is administrate God's good news of Jesus Christ to everyone. Consider how to build one another up in love and good works.

I can't help but get away Ephesians 4 when he says, those of you who are called, he says, walk in a manner worthy of this. He doesn't say, okay, now that you hear the gospel, the first three chapters of Ephesians, the glorious sovereign grace of God, no one will boast.

It's given to you as a gift. It is secured by the work of Christ. He says, now those of you who have been called by God, you have faith in Jesus Christ. You trust in his righteousness. He's walking away that reflects that.

It's not pursuing assurance. It's actually pursuing unity because he says with gentleness and meekness and patience, be eager to maintain the bond of peace. That's what he says. The pursuit of the Christian life is administrating mercy and grace to the church and to the lost.

That is what we focus our attention on. If you go to 2 Peter 1 and you read through this list, he says, by God's sovereign grace, this is verses 3 and following, by God's sovereign grace, he chose you and he transformed you and he is now living within you.

He says, now that this is true, he says, add to your faith godliness and meekness and patience and longsuffering. I love what he says. He says, if these are not true about you and increasing, you have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your former sins and you are ineffective.

You are not effective in accomplishing what you've been sent here to do. He is not saying you're not effective in affirming your salvation. He doesn't even question it. If the fruits of godliness and meekness and patience aren't being evident, he doesn't question your salvation.

He says, you're not effective and you forgot your weakness. You forgot your position. You forgot your forgiveness. He's saying, go back to that point where you realized God had to save me. He had to forgive me.

He had to cleanse me. It's at that moment gentleness and meekness and patience and godliness comes out of you. You can be effective in giving mercy and grace and the gospel to those in the church and those in the world.

Faith as Evidence, Not the Ground of Salvation

The pursuit of the Christian life is not affirming my salvation. That is securing Christ. The pursuit of the Christian life is to love God and love neighbor. What does that look like with gentleness and meekness and patience, reflecting godliness, bearing with one another's burdens, and administrating the gospel?

My encouragement to that weak sinner, or I would say the sinner who is just so beat down. You're so exhausted. You're so tired because every day all you do is question. I don't know. Am I saved? Am I saved?

What can I do today? What can I do today? If you can trust in the promises of God where he says, by faith I save sinners. It's not your faith that saves you. It's not the quality of your faith. It's not the amount of your faith.

Jesus does the saving. Your faith is the evidence you're being saved. It's the evidence. Understand the difference. Faith is not what saves you. Jesus does and the faith is the evidence you're being saved.

Allow that to be strengthened and allow that to be encouraged by loving God and loving neighbor and hearing the word of God and allowing it to strengthen you. So no, the pursuit of the Christian life is not you trying to find out if God's good with you.

Trust his promises. Believe in them and then pursue giving grace and mercy and kindness to others. Hopefully you found this helpful and we'll see you next time.