Okay, so this next question changes gears a bit from where we were. We're talking about planting churches, transitioning, choosing a church. So what's the difference between faith and assurance? That's a big change.

Very big change. I appreciate that we have separate chapters on that in the Confession, which is for a reason, right? I think so. That's great.

I've been translating this book from Dutch, which gets into the the differences as well. And that's been really helpful. But yeah, I think it's a lot of people don't understand this. It's just, it's all the same.

And they're like, am I saved or not? Right. Go ahead. How would you explain that?

Difference between faith and assurance. Sure. Yeah. Well, I think, I think it's important out of the gates to establish that a Christian may have the one without immediately having the other.

In other words, every Christian has faith, but not every Christian has assurance. The Bible sets forth both as, well, one, of course, as the inescapable reality for every Christian. Christians are those who believe. They are those who have faith.

They have heard the gospel declared that there is a glorious Christ who has come into this world, sinners to save, that by his death, burial, and resurrection, everyone who believes on him will have everlasting life. And so our faith rests upon that glorious object, that glorious subject. Those who are Christians are those who have faith. And so the question then comes, okay, are those who are Christians then, or must Christians then necessarily, or else they're not Christians, have assurance?

And the Bible says, No, that it's not a prerequisite for our salvation as if assurance is part and parcel of the faith that one must have in order to have everlasting life. The Bible does set it forth as something that the Christian is to seek after and to rejoice in. If we look at the gospel of John, for example, or let's just say the writings of John, We have in his gospel, near the end of his gospel in chapter 20, sort of a summary statement that he gives with regards to what the purpose of his writing was for. It was so that those who read the gospel or who hear it preached might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that they have life in his name.

And then when we get to his epistles, we see, for example, in 1 John, in chapter 5, he writes there that he's writing those things to those who believe in the Son of God, that they might know that they have everlasting life in the Son. So, John really treats both subjects. He treats the believing on Jesus and he treats that assurance that we may have in our belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, I think getting back to the marrow of the question or the matter and the simplicity of the question, the difference between faith.

and assurance. Faith is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, believing in the glorious one who came into this world, sinners to save. Assurance is the grip upon that, the certain reality, the infallible hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ that we most surely are those who have that faith and will at the last be found everlastingly with Him. So, I think it's important to distinguish not only between the definitions of faith and assurance, but also with regards to the fact that one is necessary for a Christian and the other is held forth as possible for that Christian who has faith to enjoy.

Amen yeah, Jim anything. No. I think that's good. I think it's important though that that believers do seek assurance.

If, you know, somebody may be a believer in Jesus and not have assurance, so what happens? They're always looking at themselves to see whether or not they're a believer in Jesus. I'm sure the devil loves that. Be sidetracked, be sidelined, sit with yourself and stew.

versus look and live, trust that what Scripture says concerning the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is true. I'm a sinner. I've come by God's grace. I believe what Scripture says at some level, at some basic foundational level.

That's what assurance is. I believe the Bible is true. Sure, there's fruit. I'm living a godly life.

There's fruit. I'm not living the ungodly life I used to. There's fruit in the sense of I want to be at church and all that. But if you boil it all down, it is a looking to Christ.

It is a believing on Christ and believing that everything the Bible says is true with reference to that looking to Christ. Right? The chapter on saving faith. We believe everything the Bible teaches, but the principal acts of saving faith have to do with the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, you know, assurance, we're probably thinking of some churches that we are familiar with, that people come out of or stay in, and they struggle constantly with assurance. It seems to me the answer for those people is just more Jesus. Less them, more Jesus. Less introspection, less fruit-searching, less all of that and more look and live.

Trust that what Scripture says concerning the Savior is true. And then be done with it and move on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and serve Him and glorify Him. And then watch your assurance grow. You've put the onus on you or your performance or things that might measure up in a church context.

No, no. It's always about looking to Christ. Get on with it. Amen.

Yeah. You know, and a lot of the onus is on the believer, of course. There's some onus, of course, on the pastor, on the preacher as well. What are his emphases with regards to faith and assurance?

I like what our confession says. Actually, prior to the chapter on assurance, so in chapter 17 of the Perseverance of the Saints, if we ask the question, What does perseverance depend upon? Our preservation by God, but also what is the sum and substance, the ground and foundation of our assurance? We read in paragraph two of chapter 17, this perseverance of the saints, and we may also say this infallible assurance of hope, depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and union with Him, the oath of God, the abiding of the Spirit, and the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace, from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof."

As Jim is saying, if we're pointed to, or if we point ourselves to Put it this way, if we look inwardly, if we look with one eye upon Christ and one eye inwardly, looking inside for the motions of the Spirit and the evidences and the things, the deeds, the thoughts, and that sort of a thing, and we're not looking principally at Christ as the ground of our preservation and as the ground of our infallible and certain hope of assurance, then we're faltering. And the pastor or the preacher that points us That points us in any direction other than the Triune God, the Mediator Jesus Christ, and the perfection and exclusivity of His salvation as the foundation for our faith and assurance. then something is wrong with the system, something's wrong with the preacher, and something's wrong with the believer who is either being directed elsewhere, or himself or herself is getting carried off by faulty thoughts of where our perseverance and where our assurance most truly and certainly rests, and that's in God and His Christ and the perfection of amazing and victorious grace. And I don't doubt that persons struggle with assurance.

They do. It's the reality. Dispositionally, by nature, some tend that way, melancholic spirits. But for a church to address a lack of assurance and almost present it as noble, it's good that you struggle.

That seems to strip away the simplicity of the gospel. Look and live. Not, it's good that you struggle. It's proof that probably the seed of faith is there.

Well, that is bizarre rationale or bizarre reasoning. Look and live. You knew you lived because you looked by God's grace and you were healed from the bite of that fiery serpent. It's good that you really don't believe that you were healed from that fiery serpent No, you've been healed now move on and live like you've been healed.

I don't know. I just think it's weird Yeah, it's like you're getting through the gate and sitting there, but you're not gonna be a healthy productive soldier exactly in the army pick up your gun and move on and combat the enemies and You've got to move past the bottle feeding to get into your steak meal. It seems like they want that perpetual adolescent state. But yeah, I've been doing this project to analyze hundreds of these sermons, and it's about a third of it is this introspection and nothing to really help encourage people to grow in grace and knowledge and be productive.

It's bizarre. I also had an email conversation with somebody, I think, who reached out because of these videos. I'm not sure. His name is Andrew in the US somewhere.

I can't remember exactly where he is, but he's like, am I saved? I'm getting these wicked thoughts coming in my mind. I just shared some of them and just vile things, right? He's like, am I saved?

I'm like, no, go back. You're looking to Christ, right? I'm not. Your perfection of your thoughts isn't Yeah, I mean, I'd love to say that every Christian, no Christian has ever had a wicked thought.

You know, I mean, that's unfortunately part of life in a fallen world. Even as Christians, we have remaining corruption. The answer still is the same. Look, ye, and live.

And that reality drives us back to Christ, the struggle that the Christian has. It grieves me, and I know it grieves you, Jim, as well. I'll speak for you. For those who come to Romans 7 who are Christian pastors, preachers, theologians, and who treat Paul there as unconverted, I think that can be soul-destroying, or it can certainly cast a burden upon a Christian that ought not to be cast.

Paul there says, the good that I want to do, I find myself not doing. The evil that I don't want to do, I find myself doing. And what does this do? This reality, this struggle, it drives him to the Savior.

It drives him to his God. It drives him to his Christ. You know, praise be Christ who has brought me forth from the deadness of sin to life in him, whereby I can be in a position that I struggle with my thoughts. I struggle with my deeds.

I'm seeking to be one who who conducts himself in a manner worthy of that gospel by which I have been saved. So that's never a cause for despair. Not that we relish in sin, that we relish in remaining corruption, but the very existence and presence of the struggle is encouraging because that means there's a struggle. That that Christian, that believer, recognizes his or her sin and recognizes Christ as their Savior, as the one who has saved them, and as the one they have as their exemplar for conduct in this lower world until we get to the beatitude of glory.

Amen. Amen. Yeah, it's bizarre. Yeah, we're just reading Romans 7 with the family the other morning.

I just saw that some Paul was saying, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. The next part, we don't really remember. I thank God through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, I know.

He's with me. He's going to deliver me, and we've got glory coming. And I'm not going to panic. I'm going to keep looking.

I'm going to seek to mortify by the Spirit the deeds of the flesh. But I'm not going to conclude that because this remaining corruption is in me, I must not be saved. I thank God through our Lord Jesus.