Well that's, I think, one of the biggest questions for many Christians.
I dealt with that with an older saint on Sunday evening.
After the sermon, we spent some time together talking.
We had a wonderful conversation and really struggling with that question.
And the question that many Christians ask was a question I asked for many years of my
life, and I couldn't find a good resource on it.
I couldn't find something really helpful dealing with the theology of assurance.
And so, I put together a little book with some friends and Dr. Sproul wrote the forward
to that book called "Assured by God," trying to help Christians with this answer.
And of course, many have written on it.
Dr. Joel Beeke has done a great deal of work on it academically as well.
But that's a significant question, and it's not as simple as I think we sometimes want
to make it, because we have to also deal with not only lacking assurance, but we also have
to deal with false assurance.
And we could say that both are problems, but I would, I would actually suggest that false
assurance of salvation is in some ways a bigger problem.
People who think they're Christians, but actually aren't.
They go through a lot of the motions, they go through a lot of the actions, but they
are not truly resting in Jesus Christ and His work for them.
And that's sort of the warning we hear from Jesus in Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount,
"There'll be many who come to Me in that day," Jesus said, "I never knew you."
And they were focused on what they were doing for God, what they were doing for Christ rather
than on what Christ did for them.
And I think that's really sort of the center point, the focus of our assurance is, are
we looking to Christ?
Because if we're looking to our own works, we will always be disappointed.
If we're looking to our own hearts, we will always be sad and fall into despair.
But if we're looking to the cross, if we're looking to what Christ did for us that objective
reality that He didn't just come to make salvation possible, that He didn't just come to offer
salvation, but He came to actually accomplish salvation, that it's a redemption that has
been accomplished and applied, as John Murray said.
That Christ actually did something, He affected something.
He actually saved people in His atonement, and that atonement was a substitutionary atonement
for sin.
And God imputed Christ's righteousness to all who put their faith in Him, and He imputes
our sin to Christ on the cross, and that sin has been paid for fully and finally, once
for all on the cross.
And so the question is, the question is of course, "Do you believe Christ?"
And if you believe Christ, then you can know that you have eternal life.
Right now you can know you have eternal life, and I think there's been a great deal of confusion
in many churches and in many denominations, in many circles where they want to add to
that.
They want to put more on top of that.
Now the reality of it is, if we have faith in Christ, if it's real faith that real faith
will bear real fruit.
If there is no fruit, if fruit never comes, then we can say there's never been real faith.
But if there's real faith, there's going to be real repentance, there's going to be real
fruit in our lives.
And so when we feel like we're lacking fruit or we're not exhibiting or demonstrating the
fruit as we might like and in one sense, if we're being honest with ourselves, that's
every day of our lives.
We're never demonstrating or manifesting all the fruit that we would like to be.
But the question is, are we living a life of repentance and faith, trusting Christ and
Christ alone, because it's all by the grace of God alone and faith alone.
Some people though, I think this is important, I know this is a lightning round but let me
just go on here for just a moment.
Too often the question that saints ask, that Christians ask is this, "How do I know, how
do I know if my faith is strong enough?"
And I think that's where many Christians are really wrestling with this, "Is my faith strong
enough?"
They're not asking, "Is it real?" because if you say, "Do you believe in Jesus?"
They'll say, "Yes, I believe in Jesus."
"Do you love Christ?"
"Yes, I love Christ."
"Do you love the Lord?
"Yes, I love the Lord."
"Do you repent of your sins?"
"Yes, I do, but I don't feel that my faith is strong enough."
And as I said to this dear, wonderful saint on Sunday evening as our friend and mentor
of mine, Sinclair Ferguson, has said and many throughout history have said something like
it that whether we have a weak faith or a strong faith, we get the same strong Christ.
Because ultimately it's not our faith that saves us; it's Christ who saves us.
Faith is that instrument or that means of salvation.
And so, we need to be reminded of that.
That at times our faith will feel weak to us, it will seem weak and sometimes it might
feel strong, but the strength is in what Christ has done, not in the strength of our faith.