The Fruit of Assurance: Gospel Certainty

Schedule

1/21: Defining Assurance: Gospel Promise & Comfort

1/28: The Fruit of Assurance: Gospel Certainty

2/4: Lacking Assurance: Reasons Why

2/11: Cultivating Assurance: Certainty from the penal, substitutionary atonement of Christ

2/18: Cultivating Assurance: The testimony of the Holy Spirit

2/25: Applying Assurance: Living with gospel certainty in our pursuit of holiness

Review

The concept of assurance is throughout the Scriptures.

The promises of God, namely that the people of God lack nothing (see Psalm 23) and that God uses the conflict of our lives to increase our assurance (see Romans 5:3-4) serve to strengthen the foundation of our assurance.

Biblical faith (see Heb. 11:1-2) also contributes to the strength of our assurance.

The Definition of Assurance

Assurance is God’s gift to those whom He has united to Christ and His righteousness that results in a certainty that His promises have been personally applied to them.

The Fruit of Assurance

Hope

If we possess assurance of our salvation, we will be hopeful people. Of course, we need to understand what we mean by hope.

Thomas Brooks, in his Heaven on Earth suggests that hope is a grace of God whereby we expect good to come, waiting patiently till it come.

I think Brooks is right in connecting the possession of hope to the grace of God. Hope is a gift from God, that is grounded in salvation.

Rom. 15:13.

Romans 15:13 ESV

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Paul’s benediction towards the end of his letter to the Romans

People are not born with hope. People are given hope by God.

Notice that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we abound in hope. So the God of hope grants His people joy and peace as they believe His promises, and the result of this is the Holy Spirit will empower His people to abound in hope. Abound in our expectation that good will come because God’s promises are true. This is one fruit that comes with assurance

Another is

Perseverance

Perseverance is stability, but we need to be clear on what distinguishes this stability from worldly stability.

Heb. 4:14.

Hebrews 4:14 ESV

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

The same author expresses a similar idea later in the epistle:

Heb. 10:23.

Hebrews 10:23 ESV

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

To hold fast is a forcible holding on. It’s holding on with both hands. Holding fast the confession is recognizing the that the gospel is true, but beyond it is true, it is our life. When we are confronted with our own sin, our trials, the burdens of this world, we hold fast, as if our lives depend on it, to the gospel. And though our clinging to the truth is hard and even exhausting, it is a certain work.

We are not holding onto something that is immovable. It’s not going to give way. Back to Heb. 4, the reason given for being confident in holding fast to our confession is because of Jesus who secured this confession. Look at Heb. 4:15.

Hebrews 4:15 ESV

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Jesus knows the struggles we face. The struggles that challenge our assurance, yet the Author and Perfector of our faith never sinned. He is God, and we cling to Him. That is what we are doing when we hold fast to our confession, we hold fast to Christ, and this is the work of persevering.

Obedience

Obedience that springs from assurance is not merely conformed behavior. It is a response that results from the transforming work of God.

Rom 6:17.

Romans 6:17 ESV

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

Paul said this in response to the rhetorical question he posed in the previous verse: are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?

Of course the answer is no but the reason we don’t look at grace as license to sin is due to the transformation that God accomplished in us. We want to obey because we love God. Assurance of our salvation clarifies this for us. We obey because we are happy in our salvation. We are happy in our salvation when we are assured of it.

Witness

I’m not a sales person. You know that because you know I’m here as a pastor. But beyond my occupation, I don’t consider myself to be a person who possess the skill set to sell people on something.

If you and I do not live with the assurance that God gives us when we are united to Christ, we will end up being a poor witness. But if we live with this assurance, it will be evident.

When we are assured of our salvation, we will possess a joy that transcends our experiences.

When we live with this assurance, we will be able to more effectively speak the truth into the sin and despair the plagues the unsaved world.

This is not to suggest that if we lack assurance we will be unusable by God to proclaim the gospel to others, but it is to suggest the the strength of our witness is increased as we lay hold of the assurance God desires His people to have.

The example of Queen Esther

Esther and her people are living in exile in Persia

She is chosen by King Xerxes to be the queen

Haman, on the the king’s royal officials seeks to have all the Jews killed

Mordecai (a Jew), finds out about the plot and sends word to Esther to urge her to petition the King to stop it.

Esther is afraid because no one is allowed to approach the king without a summons or they will be put to death.

Mordecai says in response

Esther 4:14 ESV

For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

So Esther has her people fast and pray and she then approaches the king.

All worked out, but what I want us to see is that while Esther was scared and even uncertain what would actually happen, she was confident in God. How do we know, she turned to God for what she needed to do what she was called to do. She called on others to do the same. She had a confidence in God and His promises, and this resulted in a powerful witness to the faithfulness of God to His people.

Yearning

Heb. 9:27-28.

Hebrews 9:27–28 ESV

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

A question that someone may ask in response to considering these verse is, am I among the many.

We can know that our sins have been forgiven through Christ in our eagerly waiting for Him.

Those assured of their salvation long for Jesus to return. For all the joys and blessing that we may experience in this world, we know it is no comparison to the joy it will be to be with our Savior in this new and glorious way.