“I’m Not Sure I’m Going to Heaven…” (Francis Chan Wasn’t Either)

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Francis Chan just admitted to doubting his salvation. Watch this. How can one of the most well -known pastors, who has written a book about having a radical love for God, get to the point where he doubts his own relationship with God?

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What if I told you this is very common in the Christian church today, and when you finally understand why so many people feel this way, it's going to unlock your relationship with God?

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This is going to be one of the most important videos that I ever make on this channel, so let's get right into it. Welcome back to Wise Disciple.

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My name is Nate, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be, which includes understanding what to do when you struggle with doubt.

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Make sure to like, sub, and share this video around if it blesses you, and I pray it does. When I was 50, seven years ago, almost eight years ago,

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I told my wife, I go, I was reading 1 John 4, and it talks about how perfect love casts out all fear, and if you have fear, your love hasn't been perfected.

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Okay, real quick, for reference, let's take a look at that passage together. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

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Okay, so there's, just so you know what Chan is talking about, there's the verse. And I said, I'm still a little bit insecure in my relationship with God.

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I'm 50 years old, I've been preaching since I was 22, whatever, and I'm still only 90 some percent sure

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I'm going to heaven. There's a part of me that's going, my love hasn't been perfected.

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I've spent my whole life almost trying to prove to God that I love Him. I will do this,

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I'll sacrifice anything, I don't need any money, I don't need any of this, you know, it was all, because I love Jesus, and I do.

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But it was like this, I want to prove that He's Lord in my life, I want to prove it to Him, I want to prove it to myself.

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I mean, it goes all the way back to college and seminary, when I first understood the Lordship of Christ and Lordship salvation,

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I thought, man, I don't know if He's Lord in my life. Why did I lust this week? Why am I struggling so much?

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He must not be Lord. And, you know, we were just taught to, you know, judge others. I don't know if that guy's saved.

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I don't know if that guy's saved. I don't know if I'm saved. Judge yourself. And you just get in this pattern. And so a lot of stuff

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I did for years, I mean, I believe I was a believer, loved by God, I just didn't know it.

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I'm still like, I'm trying to earn His love somehow. Have you ever felt this way?

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So Chan is doing a really great job of framing the problem here, right? Does this sound familiar to you?

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Because I can tell you right now, the answer to this problem comes down to one word. And we'll get there in a moment.

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And I realized it was so easy for me all those years to say,

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I love God. I love God. I'm going to do these crazy things for God. But it's much harder to go.

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He is crazy about me. I am so loved by Him.

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I don't know if it was my upbringing, schooling, whatever, but I was 90 % sure that He loved me.

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And I remember just telling my wife, I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to just tell the church, gather them together for my birthday.

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And all I'm going to ask is that they pray that this is the year all insecurity is gone.

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And I'm sure that He loves me. Let's get real for a moment. I felt this way before.

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I've tried to navigate my relationship with God, and I felt exactly the same way.

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Now in my case, I can tell you that one of the biggest factors for this, you know, what

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I was experiencing was I grew up with a horrible relationship with my biological father.

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And it shaped the way that I viewed my heavenly father. Is that your story? Is this hitting home for you yet?

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And as I've been talking about that recently, it has blown my mind how many believers wrestle with this, how many pastors wrestle with this.

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I just did a pastor thing two weeks ago. I said, how many of you are only like 80 % sure that you are loved by Jesus?

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And I would say 70 to 80 % stood up of pastors. And it just broke my heart.

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I'm like, the enemy has so messed us. I mean, can you imagine if your kids were only 80 % sure you love them?

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That's crazy to think about. And now you imagine God, the perfect father, and he has a church full of kids that aren't sure that he loves them, and they're loved by him.

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They're like 80 % and, you know, partially, I don't know, I don't know if I've done enough. I might be going to hell because I don't know if he's

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Lord of every area of my life. And like, if our chief aim is to glorify him and to enjoy him, how do you enjoy a

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God that you're kind of sure he loves you rather than, this is supposed to be the foundation.

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We're so like. Part of the issue here is that the way this is being framed is unhelpful.

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And I'm not sure if Chan is doing this on purpose or not, but clearly you can understand the rationale behind people feeling this way, right?

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I can't overstate how many Christians I've met, pastors as well. Chan is right, who have felt this way.

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It's amazing. We can be sitting here doing that. If we weren't doing this podcast, I could just sit here and know that almighty

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God is looking down at his son and going, I can't wait till he gets up here.

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I desire him. That was not me. And I have a fear, maybe fear is not the right word, a concern that because I was like that for so many years, then those who follow me, it's going to come across however you are as a parent, you know, as a person, it's going to come out to your kids.

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And in the same way, who I am as a pastor, it's going to impact my congregation.

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Kind of like when Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew, I think it's 23, 15 or 16, he says to the

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Pharisees, you, you go over land and sea to make a convert, but once they convert, you make them twice the son of hell you are.

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And I think, gosh, if I was that insecure, then in my teaching, I probably made other people insecure.

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If I was so focused on my actions rather than his, then I probably helped lead a generation that's focused on their actions rather than his.

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He's so right. I heard it said like this, uh, you teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are, pastor, parent,

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Christian, this applies to you. Now, Chan is framing this for us very nicely.

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I'm going to let him finish and then you and I are going to roll up our sleeves and find a solution for this by going to the scripture.

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Amen. Yeah. And I got to rectify that. I've got to teach that I got to help people really understand how much

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God loves them. I mean, I mean, just let me ask you, like if I could stand before his throne, because right now there's a holy

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God in heaven glory, like we can't even understand, we can't even look at him. We would die. And a hundred million angels, just the sound of one angel makes the ground shake a hundred million, just screaming out.

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And if I could come before that almighty God right now, and if I were to say to him,

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God, what do you feel towards Lecrae right now? What do you think he'd say?

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Well, I. So Lecrae goes on to admit that he knows the truth, but he struggles to believe it.

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Watch this. I, like you, am always well, like your 50 year old self in battling that.

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I know the truth, right? I know what Zephaniah 3 .17 says that he delights.

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He sings over me. I know that, but knowing that and believing that and trusting that are like two different things.

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And so I think it's, I'm so glad you're saying this because it's, it's a reality that I think even if someone can say they know, they don't believe.

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I'm so grateful that Chan and Lecrae are having this conversation because it gives us the impetus to take it even further.

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You know, that is, if this is a real problem for a lot of Christians this, this, what would you call this?

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The question of gospel assurance, you know, but actually it's even deeper than that though. It's also insecurity about your relationship with God, right?

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What does God really think about me? Is he mad at me? Is he pleased with me? You know what I mean? Now the

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Bible provides us a formula for understanding how to navigate this particular issue.

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And it starts with one fact, by the way. So let me just say this.

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I'm speaking to Christians right now. Okay. If you're seeking the Lord, but you've not given your life to Christ, you've not committed to following after Jesus and you've not been saved.

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I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to those who have committed themselves to following after Jesus and they're struggling, right?

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Like I said, the formula for understanding this issue starts with one fact.

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You are in Christ and Christ is in you. Look at this. Ephesians chapter two, verse four says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

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Here it is in Christ, Jesus. Okay. Note that last phrase, believers in Jesus are in Christ, according to the scripture.

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And you got to let that sink in for a moment, because here's what we do. We read this and we go, yeah, I got it. We move on.

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Right? Because we're doing some kind of word study or some other kind of study. No, let's stop and really let this sink in.

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What does that mean? Paul says it like this in Colossians chapter one, verse 27 to them.

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God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is here it is again,

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Christ in you hope of glory. Now think about this.

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Notice what is not being said here. Notice Paul is not saying, well, you assented to certain intellectual propositions guys.

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And so now you're saved, right? No. Paul is describing something much more spiritually radical.

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If you had a moment where you turned from your sins and had been following after Jesus, then

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Christ is in you now. This is not a truth claim that can be deconstructed later when you run up on hard times.

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As a matter of fact, the problem sets in because you focused on your circumstances and your circumstances made you forget what is biblically true.

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When you got saved, you were brought into an intimate relationship with God that should be part and parcel to your experience today.

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All right. On this particular idea in Colossians, here's what scholar

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Douglas says. The point is the same, stressing the intimate relationship between Christ and his people and the way in which, because of this relationship, this intimate relationship,

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Christ fully represents us. It is because of this that we can have the hope of glory.

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That is the certainty that we will experience final glory. This is what we're tackling.

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This is what Francis Chan was bringing up, right? It's right here. The answer is right here. And you need to chew on it.

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You need to meditate on this concept long and hard until it sinks in, ladies and gentlemen, the way that you can have gospel assurance, the way that you can have confidence about your salvation is by maintaining an intimate relationship with Christ.

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Here's the best part. He's already in you. You just need to cultivate the relationship.

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Okay. So if you're taking notes, um, here's your first point, you're ready. You don't work to get close to God.

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You start from your union with Christ. That is already true. The reality is you're not far from God.

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Even if your circumstances make you feel that way, Christ is in you already. That's your starting point.

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You need to start from that promise of the scripture. You with me so far? Because here's the second point.

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You need to take that promise of the scripture and you need to believe it by faith. And I think that's the point, like many of us struggle because we, we don't do this.

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We, we don't cultivate this life lived by faith in the promises of God. We're actually bad at it.

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You know, again, um, a lot of us, I mean, this is my circumstances. This is how I came up, uh, cutting my teeth on theology and all this, like this is how it was for me.

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We focus on the intellectual propositions of God's existence. We focus on the intellectual propositions of the resurrection of Christ, right?

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And then of course, you know, the other doctrines that we think are important, but then we do that to the neglect of what the

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Bible teaches about developing our intimacy with God. It really starts by exercising this particular faith muscle.

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It really does. You know, uh, let me say it like this, right? Um, many of us understand that faith in God gives life, okay?

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Eternal life, right? Amen. But we don't understand that that's just the beginning of our faith journey.

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As it turns out, every aspect of our life must be lived by faith.

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This is what Paul means in Romans one. As a matter of fact, watch how Paul breaks this into two parts for us, two component parts.

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Okay. This is Romans one 16 for, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes okay.

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To the Jew first and also to the Greek stop right there. That's Paul focusing on the salvific effect of your faith, right?

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Everyone who believes will be saved, right? That's the beginning of the faith journey. You with me so far?

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Okay. Watch this verse 17 for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written.

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The righteous shall live by faith. Okay. And that last part here, uh, Paul's, uh, quoting from the old

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Testament. So this is something, the point is it's, it's, he's bringing this in from the old Testament. This is not new, but notice the phrase here.

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Let's go back a bit from faith for faith. All right. Another way of saying that is out of faith into faith.

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Okay. Hmm. What is Paul saying here? He's saying that your faith leads to more moments of faith.

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This isn't about how you stood up at an altar, uh, an altar call 10 years ago, you know what

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I mean? And came to the front, right? This is about a lifestyle of faith moment to moment.

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I like how mounts puts it, right? Faith is the origin of righteousness and the direction in which it leads.

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Think about that. When you live inside the reality of the salvation of the gospel, it goes beyond salvation and reaches into sanctification and reaches into glorification.

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You know, uh, this is why my mentor said it like this. You never outgrow the gospel, ladies and gentlemen, you always grow further and further into the gospel.

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Why? Because it's a lifestyle of faith. God is not interested in giving you spiritual fire insurance.

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As it turns out, he's interested in conforming you into the image of his son. And the only way that happens is when you moment to moment continue to live by faith.

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Oh, but Nate, you know, what does that mean? When I, I just feel so insecure about my salvation.

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I get it, but here's what it means. It means that you can believe what the scripture says, even when your emotions tell you otherwise, have

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I lost you? Are you still with me? Here's how Paul put it in Romans chapter six.

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So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, right?

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You must consider yourself. You must reckon yourself dead to sin. In other words, you must believe by faith that you're dead to sin, by the way you realize.

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So think about this and I know I'm going quickly. Okay. So maybe pause this or something. And anyway, but the point is this right here, this concept is distinctively different from believing that Jesus rose from the dead.

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You see that, right? Take a look again. What Paul is doing right here in chapter six, verse 11 and 12, well, the whole actually you zoom out and you take a look at the context.

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He's taking it one step further. In other words, this isn't about salvation.

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Now that you're saved, this is about sanctification. And the only reason that Paul has to give this command to the church is that a lot of believers don't do this part.

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They understand believing in the gospel message for salvation, but they don't understand living their lives, believing that they're dead to sin, believing that Christ is in them.

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They have no basis for this, you know, and they certainly don't know what to make of Paul in Galatians two.

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Watch this. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

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There it is again. Are you noting the pattern, right? And the life I now live in the flesh,

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I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Do you see the pattern?

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Because it's all over the place in the scripture. If you have the eyes to see it, the bottom line is if you are feeling insecure about your salvation, maybe it's because you have reduced what is meant to be an intimate relationship with God down to a set of intellectual propositions, down to a set of commandments that must be obeyed.

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Somebody needs to hear this. Ascending to intellectual propositions can carry you a certain distance, so I don't want you to hear what

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I'm not saying, like I don't want to knock that aspect of the Christian faith. That's that's important. But if that's what you reduce

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Christianity down to, you are robbing yourself of experiencing the God who is there with you.

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Of Christ, who is in you. There's a whole category of study here that you're missing, it's called union with Christ.

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Another way to say it is abiding in Christ. So many people who go to church are missing this aspect of their faith journey, and they're starving for intimacy with God and they don't even know it.

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Is that you? Is that somebody you know? So what should we do about this?

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Right. Well, step one, begin with the fact that Christ is in you because the Bible tells you he is.

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Step two, believe it. Believe it by faith. Even when you don't feel it, believe it.

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Affirm the truth of your position in Christ, even when you feel cold or distant from God.

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That's what it means to live by faith, friends. By the way, I mean, this is what many of the psalmists would do when they felt distant from God.

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You know, they they would begin by confessing how they're feeling, but then they would always turn around and end the

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Psalms in the same way. They would affirm what they knew to be true. God is there. There is hope in God.

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He will rescue them out of the depths of their despair. And that's the point.

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Right. Because step number three is take the focus off of yourself and your situation and put it solely on God.

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Look at this, Psalm 27, verse four, one thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after one thing and one thing only that I may dwell in the house of the

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Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire or meditate in his temple.

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Let that sink in because David desires to do one thing. He wants to gaze upon the beauty of the

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Lord in God's temple and he wants to meditate on God, meditate on what he's gazing upon.

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Right. Hebrews 12 says, let us lay aside every weight and sin and fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

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Why? Because our faith should be exercised as a muscle every single day, moment to moment.

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This is a lifestyle of believing by faith the promises of God's word that Christ is in us, that he will finish what he has started.

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That we have access to him whenever we desire, even if we don't feel it in the moment. And what's our job?

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What's our job here? Right. Are we, are we working so hard to prove like perfect ourselves, to sanctify ourselves, to make our faith stronger?

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No. What we need to do, ladies and gentlemen, is we just need to carve out the time necessary to be with God and to fix our eyes on Jesus and keep them fixed on him.

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Keep our gaze fixed upon God because that's where the transformation takes place. Some of you look at me.

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Some of you click this video, feeling the most low you've ever felt in your entire life. You're going through the motions of reading your

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Bible. If you're even reading it at all, you know, you're going through the motions of Sunday morning, but you feel distant and far from God.

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You're like Francis Chan, or at least how he was. You're not even a hundred percent sure you're going to heaven.

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That's how far from God you feel. Let me tell you something. I've felt this way before.

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I've been here before and I know how it feels. You are not alone in feeling this way. Many Christians have felt this way.

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You know, there's, there's even a term for this in Christianity. It's called the dark night of the soul. But the solution, um, and by the way, so let me back up.

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Um, I'm offering these pieces in this video very quickly. Okay. But this is not easy. Uh, the things that I'm talking about here and I'm highlighting for you, they require time to, to think through, to process, to let it sink in, right.

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To go to the scripture, to study it, to chew on it. So if I'm making this sound like, Oh, just do these three things, guys, it's not easy.

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And there's way more to share. I'm barely cracking open the door to this particular concept with you now.

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And there's so much more to share, but here's what I can promise you. The answer to the problem of feeling insecure about your relationship with God, it boils down to two essential things.

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Are you listening? Living by faith and abiding in Christ. Both of these concepts, they require practice on a daily basis, but both of them are thoroughly biblical.

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This is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples, whoever abides in me and I, in him, he, it is that bears much fruit for a part from me.

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You can do nothing. So again, uh, step three, take the focus off yourself in your situation and put it on God.

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Behold, the Lord gaze upon him. As you spend time with him, where the focus is on him, this is what it means practically to abide in Christ.

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Ladies and gentlemen, to fix your eyes on Jesus. As you study God's word, as you pray, as you sing songs of worship, as you fellowship with other believers, as you go out into nature and take in the beauty and the wonder of God's creation, you put your focus on God and you keep it there.

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And here's what's going to happen. As you continue to do, to do all of this, you will be conformed into the image of Christ and your emotions are going to change.

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Your feelings about your situation is going to change. The, the, the, the, the feeling of being far from God, it's going to change.

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Why? Because all of these things are going to align to the truth of what is real. That God is with you.

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He's always, he's always been with you. And Christ is in you. The Holy spirit is going to assure you of this in your soul.

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You're going to sense a real presence of God in your life. And out of the overflow of your intimacy with God, you will be given peace.

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Look how Isaiah put it. Isaiah 26, verse three, you keep him in perfect peace. This is the

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Lord. The Lord keeps him in perfect peace. Whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.

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Now, the Hebrew captures this, uh, like this, you keep him in Shalom, Shalom.

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This is a double piece, which entails in all encompassing peace. This is what

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Paul was referring to in Philippians. When he talks about a peace that surpasses all understanding and look at what the formula is, because it's incredibly simple.

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It's everything we've been talking about in this video, keep your mind stayed on God, behold

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God, gaze upon him and keep doing it moment to moment. Amen.

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Like I said, at the outset, the problem for a lot of us is we look at our circumstances.

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We look at our situation and all of a sudden our focus turns and now we're focused on that.

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Here come the emotions. And now we feel far from God. If you revert that and put your focus back on the

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Lord and spend time with him where the focus is on him, you find your solution. Peace comes out of that overflow.

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Do you understand? Look, I'm, I'm, I'm praying for you.

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Okay. Those of you who are struggling or, you know, somebody struggling. Like I said, I've been there.

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I know how this feels. I'm praying that you understand what it means to develop your intimate relationship with God so that you can have hope so that you can have certainty.

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It's there in the scripture. If you study it closely, start with God's truth, respond by faith, put the focus on God and keep it there and let him produce the necessary growth as well as the assurance in you.

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Amen. All right. That's enough out of me. Look, you're among friends here.

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Okay. If you are struggling and you would like to share a prayer request please do so by putting it in the comments.

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I'm going to be coming back around every now and then and looking closely at the comments and I'm going to be praying over them.

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Okay. I'm going to be praying for you share your requests. And I'm going to even invite my Patreon community to join me.

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We'll be praying for you. You are not alone and you can find true peace. I promise.

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