Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Pastor Jeff’s Word and Trop with Pastor Jeff Ministries. On today’s program, Pastor Jeff begins his message "Guaranteed Assured Faith" from the series "Stay the Course" and shows you how you can know that you know that you know you’re truly saved and why assurance flows from a living, growing relationship with Jesus.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Here, we’re committed to equipping you with solid biblical truth so you can live boldly for Jesus. Visit pastorjeff.com and sign up for Pastor Jeff’s weekly email devotionals to get encouragement straight into your inbox every week. And now, here’s Pastor Jeff with today’s message.

I want to talk to you today about how you can have the assurance of your salvation. We’ve just started a new series called "Stay the Course." Last week, we talked about what real saving faith was—that real saving faith is believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that he and he alone is the only one who can save you from your sins, that God the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

Who did he come for? He came for dead, wicked people. If you don’t see yourself as dead and wicked, you have no need for a Savior. It’s only when you recognize that you’re dead and that you’re dead apart from him and that you’re wicked in your sin, you have a need for a Savior, and by placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you can be saved. When we turn from our sin and turn to Christ, we can be saved.

Yet, for so many people, even in the church who have done that, they live without an assurance of their salvation. Assurance means this: you know that you know that you know that you know that you’re saved. Nobody has to tell you that you’re saved. You know deep down that you’re saved. Even if you would say "I know that I’m saved," there’s a lot of people around you that they don’t know that they know that they know.

They’ll ask you questions like this: "How do I know that I’m really saved? I mean, I prayed the prayer like 435 times. I just am not sure." There’s a number of reasons why people don’t experience the assurance of their faith. Some people attend church where the holiness of God is put on display, which is great, but there’s no grace to accompany that. They leave every week feeling like "I’ll never measure up. There’s no way I’m good enough for God."

Other churches preach the grace of God: "No matter what you do, God loves you." But there’s no talk about holiness. So, you’re just living in your sinful life asking for grace, but you don’t feel good because you’re not living the life that God requires. Some people have an oversensitive conscience, and they say "I got saved, but I just feel so bad when I sin. Maybe I’m not really saved anymore." All these different kinds of things, and we could highlight several of them.

But what I want you to note today is that you can walk out of here with guaranteed assured faith. How is it that you can have it? I’m not talking about just in your head. I’m talking about in your experience—that you know that you know that you know that you’ve been saved. There’s nothing more important than that because if you live this life knowing that you know that you know, you’ll live different, you’ll make decisions different, you’ll raise your family different, you’ll live your job different.

Everything will change in you because you know that the God of the universe is walking with you. So today, I want to talk about guaranteed assured faith—how you can have it and if you have it, how you can share that with other people. To do that this morning, we’re going to be in the book of Second Peter chapter 1, starting in verse 5. While you’re turning to Second Peter chapter 1 and verse 5, let me just set it up because last week when we talked about salvation, we talked about these divine and precious promises that God has given us and how he’s given us everything we need for life and for godliness—that in Christ, we have it all, that when we’re born again, God has given us everything we need for this life.

With that in mind, let’s jump ahead. Let’s read verses 5 through 11 and then we’ll unpack them together. He says: "For these, he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for this reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love."

"For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you."

There, the Apostle Peter, through the power of the Holy Spirit at the end of his life as he’s writing to believers, encouraging them how they can be assured of their salvation, really highlights four ways that we’re going to talk about this morning that you can have guaranteed assured faith. You can live your life knowing that you know that you know that you know. If people were to ask you "Are you going to heaven?" you would say "I’m 100%. I’m more sure that I’ll be in heaven with Jesus than that I’ll make it through the day. I know that I know that I know."

How do you know that? He’s going to give us four ways. The first is this: to have guaranteed assured faith, you must tenaciously work to mature your faith in Christ. You need to tenaciously work to mature your faith in Christ. Notice what he says at the start of verse 5. He says "Now for this very reason, for the very reason that you’re saved also, applying all diligence in your faith." What’s all diligence? That’s eagerness. That is making every effort to grow, to develop, to advance, to continue, to do your best, to make sure, to ensure.

When you’re born again through repentance and faith, that’s just the start. Now what the Lord is telling us through the Apostle Peter is once you’ve gotten started, prioritize it. Give every effort to it. Give your life to this. Grow in this. Don’t stop. Don’t stagnate. Don’t stay where you are. Make every effort to grow. When we’re saved, we repent and we believe the gospel. We’re saved from the penalty of sin.

But did you know that God throughout your life wants to deliver you from the power of sin? Did you know that when you get saved, you don’t need to stay where you’re at, that there’s a growth track that he has for you? He’s saying give all diligence to that. Grow in that. Learn how to live that out. Then one day, not only are we delivered from the penalty and the power of sin, but one day when we meet Jesus Christ face to face, we’ll be delivered from the presence of sin. Amen?

There won’t be sin in your life or in anybody else’s around you, and the only thing you’ll know is how to glorify God and love other people, and it will come as natural as breathing to you. Amen? So wherever you are when you begin this journey with Christ, make effort to continue your journey in faith. Faith is not a one-time decision to say "I believe Jesus died and rose again." That’s your initial faith decision accompanied by hundreds upon thousands upon tens of thousands of faith decisions for the rest of your life.

So continue to grow. If you want to have assurance of your faith, keep taking steps of faith. At Brave, we use the word BOLD. The B stands for being bold in your faith. It means take the next step of faith. If you think about your life as fully orbed, where is God calling you to take a step of faith? Is it in your family? Is it with your spouse? Is it as a single? Is it in your dating life? Is it in your job? Is it with your money? Is it in your career? Is it with your employees? Is it with your boss?

Where do you need to trust God more now? Isn’t it interesting when you hear the word of God proclaimed or you’re reading or studying it for yourself, that the Holy Spirit has a way of putting his finger right on where you need to take that step of faith? Here’s what you need to do. Here’s who you need to forgive. Here’s why you need to forgive them. You need to bless that person, encourage that person. All those different things are taking steps of faith. Be diligent and be eager to take those steps of faith. Don’t think of faith as "one and done, I prayed that, I did that, it’s over, now I’m going to go live my life." No, if you want to have the assurance of your salvation, continue to grow in it.

The reason for that is there’s plenty of scriptures that will highlight the fact that if you’re saved, you’re saved. There’s plenty of scriptures that will tell you that if you belong to God, you’ll always belong to God. But what the Bible wants us to understand, what Jesus wants you to understand, is it’s not enough to just know in your head. He wants you to know it in your experience. Here are some verses that you can write down. In Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6, he says "to him who began a good work in you, may he bring it to completion until the day of Jesus Christ."

In other words, what God started, he’s going to finish. Or how about one of my favorite passages? Jesus is talking in John chapter 10 about being the Good Shepherd and how the sheep know his voice. In John chapter 10 verses 28 and 29, he says: "And I, Jesus, give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one."

What is Jesus saying? "For those that I grant eternal life to, I hold in my hand. And those I grant eternal life to, my Father holds in his hand, and no one can take believers out of my hand." If you’ve been given the gift of salvation, you cannot lose it. That’s what the Bible teaches. You belong to Jesus. Or how about this verse? First John chapter 5 verses 11, 12, and 13. It doesn’t get any clearer than this in the New Testament. First John chapter 5 verse 11: "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son does not have the life."

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you will know that you have eternal life." Now when he’s talking about knowing, he’s not talking about knowing here. He’s talking about knowing in your experience of the person of Jesus—that you’ll know that you know that you know that you know. So the scripture teaches it, but there’s more than just hearing it. There’s putting it into practice so you can experience it. Amen? He’s saying be diligent about continuing to take steps of faith because the more steps of faith that you take, the more you will see Jesus show up.

Guest (Male): We’re glad you joined us for today’s message. Before you head out, a quick reminder. When you give today to help more folks hear the truth of God’s word, we’ll send you Pastor Jeff’s new book, "Holy Identity: Becoming Who You Are in Christ," as our thanks. It’s a timely resource that shows why holiness isn’t something you earn; it’s something God declares and the Spirit develops as you stand firm in who you are in Christ. Your support helps others discover that same identity and victory. Request your copy today at pastorjeff.com and join us next time for more bold biblical teaching from Pastor Jeff.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Think about this verse. Most of us think of salvation as a decision we made and then we get to go to heaven. But that’s not the gospel. The gospel says in Colossians 1:27 that the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Did you know that when you are born again, when you repent of your sin and trust Jesus, that the Holy Spirit of God comes and indwells you? In Romans 8:9, it says if you do not have the Spirit of Christ, you are not of Christ. Every believer has the Spirit of God indwelling them. That’s the good news.

The gospel is God in you. No other faith even comes close to saying that’s what the gospel is. It’s Christ in you, the hope of glory. That’s why everything in the Bible is all about taking what God has put in you and working it out. That’s why Philippians 2:12 says "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Don’t work for your salvation. You can’t earn your salvation. You can’t get yourself saved. But if you are saved and the Spirit of God is in you, work that out.

Let the Spirit of God have his way with you. As we say in this pulpit all the time, Jesus did not come to be resident, but president. Let him have his way. Let him rule your life in every single area. Amen? It’s really interesting because what we recognize is when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, he doesn’t make you do anything. He will prompt you. He will direct you. He will convict you. He will clarify things. He will show you things. But you still have volition and will to choose whether you’re going to partner with what he does or not.

So the Spirit’s power is only unleashed in partnership with my willingness. If I choose not to, if I’m listening to a message and the Holy Spirit prompts me "I need to forgive somebody" or "I need to be more generous with my money" or "I need to go encourage somebody," it doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to do that. I can not listen to what he says. I can do what the Bible calls "I can grieve the Holy Spirit." He’s wanting me to do what Christ wants and I don’t want to do what Christ wants.

All of us have a testimony where at times we’ve grieved the Holy Spirit. I can resist the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us not to resist the Holy Spirit. It tells us to resist the devil and he’ll flee from us or oppose the devil. But sometimes the Holy Spirit’s been prompting us for a long time to do something and we’re like "I am not doing that." That’s resistance. I can resist him, and if I resist him long enough, I can quench him. I can silence that voice in my life because I’m just going to do my own thing until I’m ready to come back to him and say "Okay, I’m willing to do what you want me to do."

This is why the grace of God is so important. We talked about multiplied grace and peace last week, but the way it gets multiplied is God wants to give it to you but you have to respond to it. The Apostle Paul said it this way in First Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 10. In First Corinthians 15 verse 10, Paul was talking about how powerful the grace of God was. He said "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove in vain." Paul says the only reason I’m able to do what I do is Christ. He’s given me grace. It’s by grace I’ve been saved through faith. It’s not my own doing. It’s a gift.

And however, what does he say next? "But I labored even more than all of them." I worked at this. I prioritized this. I was allowing the Spirit to come out of my life in every instance. I was letting Christ lead my life in all relationships. I labored more than any of them, but not I, rather it was the grace of God that was with me. So even when I’m prioritizing my relationship with Christ, it’s Christ that’s working through me. That’s the gospel.

The gospel is not about making bad people good or good people better. The gospel is about making dead people alive and then those people who are alive in Christ through the Holy Spirit allow the Holy Spirit to take over all sorts of areas in their life and rule and reign in ways that you wouldn’t have allowed to happen before. That is what is called growing in your faith. That’s why I pray every time before I preach that you would hear the Lord and whatever he shows you, you would by faith put it into practice.

Because I could preach this message today and some of you need to go home and make a change in your marriage, and some of you need to go home and make a change in your dating life, and some of you need to go home and make a change with your finances, and some of you need to call somebody on the phone and ask their forgiveness, and some of you need to go forgive somebody else. You hear all of those things even when I don’t say any of those things because the Spirit of God is showing you what you taking a step of faith looks like. Amen?

You need to prioritize that. You want to go and grow in Christ? When the Lord shows you what to do, just do it. You don’t need to pray about it. You don’t need to ask all your friends. You don’t need to call people on the phone. "Hey, should I forgive that person?" Yes. "Should I be more generous with my money?" Yes. "Should I be more kind to other people?" Yes. Prioritize your faith. Make it central to all you’re doing in your life—that the one centrality of what you’re going to do is take steps of faith and continue to grow. Amen?

Now with that as a baseline for what you’re going to do, this is how you can begin to experience more and more of the assurance of your faith. So it starts with tenaciously working to mature your faith, and it continues. If you’re going to have guaranteed assured faith, you must pursue a variety of Christ-like virtues. You must pursue a variety of Christ-like virtues. What you’re going to see here is a list of seven different things. Now I don’t want you to think about it as "Oh my goodness, here comes the list, this then this then this." They’re not stacked. They’re not like stair steps.

Notice what the Bible says. It says this in verse 5: "In your faith, supply." He’s going to talk about supplying things. That word "supply" means to add. The Greek word has the idea of a choreography—what you’re going to put together. Like, all of these things need to be part of your life. It’s not working on one of them and then the next and then the next. It’s if faith is central, all seven of these things are coming out of your faith. You can work on them all simultaneously.

You want to grow in each one of these. As you grow in each one of these, you’re going to know in your heart that you belong to the Lord. You’re going to see a difference in your life as you prioritize. So let’s walk through these seven. The first five of these seven are going to be about your relationship with the Lord. Because remember, just to keep things simple, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind."

Jesus said "You want to sum up the entire law? What is it? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself." You can sum up the entire Bible understanding this: that ministry, service to the Lord, is relationships. It’s a relationship with God that translates into relationship with everybody else. You get your relationship with God right, that translates into relationship with everybody else. You got the whole thing.

So these first five of the seven are going to be about your relationship with God. So what he’s going to say is in your faith, he’s going to supply what? Supply moral excellence. One of the ways that you’re going to know that you’re saved is when you start supplying moral excellence. Moral excellence was a Greek word for outstanding goodness. If you were exceptional at a quality, you were considered to have moral excellence. It’s really overall goodness. The way I would say it in our vernacular is there’s demonstrable difference in your life now than when you first got saved.

If you have moral excellence, you’re living differently in the different areas of your life than you were prior to getting saved. I remember I was preaching at a church in my hometown when I was in my 30s. It had been about 12 or 13 years since I was in high school. As I finished preaching, I came down off the platform and I was greeted by a guy that I played high school baseball with. He was standing there with his wife and I looked at him and said "Hey!" and told him his name. The first words out of his mouth were "What in the world happened to you?"

I’m like "What are you talking about?" He goes "You’re not the same guy I went to high school with." And I won’t tell you what he told his brother I was, but he was looking at me and I’m like "Well, Jesus, because for the last 12 years since I met you, I’ve been trying to take steps of faith with him. Not perfect ones, but I’m definitely different than I was when I knew you, and my thought life is different than when I knew you, and my behaviors are definitely different than I knew you because I’m different now."

If you’re truly saved and you take steps of faith, you won’t look the same 10 years from now that you do now. You can’t. It’s called growing in Christ and there’s demonstrable evidence for you and for people who have known you. You’re different. That’s moral excellence. It’s pursuing the virtue of Christ. I want to be more Christ-like. Do you have that in your life? Because if you begin to have that in your life increasingly, you’ll know he has a hold of you because you start making decisions that you say "I would have never made that decision before. I would have never done this before. I wouldn’t have gone that way before. I wouldn’t have handled it this way before, but because Christ is in me, I’m different now."

And that’s a testimony for every true believer in Christ. Amen? It’s moral excellence. So that’s one of them. Starting with your faith, take steps of faith in moral excellence. Notice what else he says. He says "And in your moral excellence, knowledge." Knowledge is not just cognitive. Knowledge is understanding and experiencing the person of Jesus Christ. Knowledge is not a classroom. A classroom is different than experience. You can take a class on golf and shoot par every single time without ever picking up a club. But if you go pick up a club for the first time, you won’t shoot par.

I have two children that have gone through driver’s ed that aced it. I can attest, just because you aced driver’s ed in a classroom does not mean that you know how to drive. All right? What he’s talking about here is you can go to church your whole life and pack yourself with knowledge, but if you don’t put it into practice with experiencing the person of Jesus, you can’t grow. It’s growing in Christ. It’s not how much you know; it’s how well are you demonstrating that.

That’s why I loved being a youth pastor, because I loved watching teenagers walk with Jesus in a way that their parents weren’t even walking with Jesus, and they were more mature in the faith than their parents. Even though their parents may have had more biblical knowledge, they had more experiential knowledge of the person of Jesus. So I’m here to tell you it doesn’t matter your age; it matters how you put into practice what the Lord shows you. Amen? That’s growing in knowledge. Pride is when you’re around somebody and they make you feel bad for your lack of biblical knowledge. Don’t hang out with people like that. That’s prideful. Knowledge puffs up; love builds up. Get around people that encourage you to grow with the person of Jesus.

So in your moral excellence, knowledge. Then he says now "And in your knowledge, self-control." Self-control. In Galatians chapter 5, it talks about the fruit of the Spirit. There’s one fruit; it’s nine sections: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This understanding of self-control was used for athletes for self-restraint, self-discipline. Paul used it in First Corinthians 9. He said "I beat my body and make it a slave." If you’re walking with the Lord, there will be times and there will be evidences that the Holy Spirit is restraining you from doing something, saying something, watching something, thinking something in a way that’s different than what you would have done before he was resident in your life. It’s an element of the fruit of the Spirit.

Self-control really isn’t self-control; it’s Spirit-control over yourself because it’s Christ in you that’s doing the work. It’s the Spirit of God that’s restraining. It’s the Spirit of God that’s withholding. That’s why you do not need to pass out condoms in high school and tell students "Nobody’s going to be a virgin until they’re married, just protect yourself." That’s garbage. And the reason it’s garbage is for the believer, the Spirit will control you. The Spirit can get you to say no. The Spirit can get you to say yes to the things of God. But apart from the Spirit, you can’t.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with his message "Guaranteed Assured Faith" from the series "Stay the Course," showing you how you can know that you know that you know you’re truly saved and why assurance flows from a living, growing relationship with Jesus. We’re glad you joined us for today’s message. Before you head out, a quick reminder. When you give today to help more folks hear the truth of God’s word, we’ll send you Pastor Jeff’s new book, "Holy Identity: Becoming Who You Are in Christ," as our thanks.

It’s a timely resource that shows why holiness isn’t something you earn; it’s something God declares and the Spirit develops as you stand firm in who you are in Christ. Your support helps others discover that same identity and victory. Request your copy today at pastorjeff.com and join us next time for more bold biblical teaching from Pastor Jeff.