The following is a message given at Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Worland, Wyoming. Well, let's begin today with a word of prayer. Father, as we come to your Word today, we come with the expectation that the same Spirit who inspired it when it was originally written would be at work in our hearts and in our ears to take the truths of it and to apply it to our hearts and our lives, to transform us and to give us assurance of the grace that many of us have received, to convict our hearts where we are not trusting in you, and to do a thousand other things that we couldn't even expect. And Father, we pray that your spirit will be with us this morning through the preaching of the word. We pray this in Jesus's name, amen. When we talk about assurance of salvation, there's really a broad spectrum about how people think about assurance. Some people have so much assurance that it's hard to even imagine them being shaken. Charles Spurgeon once said, I'm so sure of my salvation that I could grab onto a corn stalk, swing over the fires of hell, look the devil in the face and sing, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. There's other people who live on the other side of the spectrum, and they either believe that assurance of salvation is like a dream of something that they wish they had, but they could never really attain to, and even beyond that, there's some people whose theology doesn't even allow for the fact that you could have assurance. I was reading this week an article on Catholicism.org, and the author of this article was attacking what he thought was our church's view, not our church in particular, but people aligned with us doctrinally and theologically, our view of assurance, and he said this. There's a doctrine so diabolical, so sinister and wicked, that it deserves, in this author's opinion, a unique claim to the name, the Devil's Doctrine. This teaching is sheer poison to the soul which embraces it. Like spiritual aids, it kills the soul's built-in immune system, the conscience. And it convicts the sinner in his sin and errors almost without hope of conversion. It either throws the sinner into a bottomless despair for his sin, or more often today, it forces him into another sin, the virtue of hope, the deadly sin of presumption. In Roman Catholic theology, you shouldn't have real assurance of your salvation because at any moment, you could sin and commit such a sin that you could lose your salvation and fall away from grace with no hope of being saved. I think most of us here this morning would say, when it comes to assurance of salvation, I'm not quite there with Spurgeon. I'm not really ready to grab onto a corn stalk and swing over the fire of hell and look the devil in the face and sing blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. But I'm really not on the other side where I'm convinced that we shouldn't have assurance of our salvation. Most of us are probably somewhere between both of those extremes this morning. And this morning what I want to do is turn to Scripture and ask the question, how can I grow in my assurance of faith and how can I know if I'm truly a Christian? We've actually been doing that for the past several weeks. The purpose of the series we're finishing this morning is to answer the question, how do I know if I'm a Christian? And each week we've gone through a series of tests to help us see if we line up to what the Bible says a Christian is. And this morning we're going to finish that series by asking how can I be sure of my salvation, how can I have assurance, and how can I grow in and develop deeper in my assurance? In answering those questions, I think the Westminster Confession of Faith is very helpful to us. I'm choosing to use the Westminster Confession of Faith this morning instead of our own because they're very similar. There's just a few words that I like better in the Westminster. For the sake of not trying to change our confession, we're just going to use the Westminster, which is also a very good confession. Listen to what the Westminster Confession says about assurance. It says, This certainty is not a bare conjecture and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation Now, if you read through that paragraph in the Westminster Confession carefully, you'll notice that the Westminster tells us there's three places to look for our assurance. We're gonna use each of those three places as our outline this morning. First we're gonna see assurance is found in the promises of God. And then we'll see assurance is found in the evidences of grace. And then we'll see assurance is found in the presence of the Spirit. So let's begin by noticing assurance is found in the promises of God. When a lot of people talk about assurance, what it is and how we get it, I think most evangelical Christians would say, assurance deals with the realm of feeling. And so I need to look to my feelings to ask myself, do I have assurance of my salvation? Now, we're gonna see that there is an element of subjectivity to assurance. It does deal with our feelings, but we don't start there. If we start with our feelings, what happens? Well, let's face it, there's minutes I feel saved and there's like, I'm with Spurgeon, give me a corn stalk. And then there's other minutes where I'm like four minutes later on the far other extreme and I'm like, how in the world can I be saved? And if I rely on my feelings for my assurance and that's where I ground my assurance, I'm in trouble. We actually root and ground our assurance of salvation in something that does not change with my feelings. We root and ground our assurance. in the promises of God. And so if we're going to have what Hebrews 10.22 calls the full assurance of faith, we need to root our assurance in something unchanging. And that's why the Westminster Confession says, an infallible assurance of faith is founded upon the divine truth of the promises of Scripture. And so what the Westminster Confession is teaching us is that if we want to grow in the confidence that we are saved, it begins by looking at the promises that are given to us in scripture and embracing them by faith. In other words, if you want to grow in your confidence that you're truly saved, it starts with growing in your knowledge of what God promises His people and then growing in your confidence in those promises. Isn't that what Paul does in 1 Timothy 1 verse 12? He says, for this reason I also suffer these things. But I'm not ashamed for I know in whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him. Where is Paul's assurance? His assurance is rooted and grounded in a promise that God has made to him. I know that the God who promised my salvation, he's going to do it. God has promised to guard and to keep what Paul has entrusted to him and therefore Paul doesn't have to doubt because he's not looking at his feelings. He's looking at the promises that God has made him and the faithfulness, the character of the God who made those promises and he's concluding God is able to do, he will keep what I have committed to him until the great day of salvation. Peter uses the promises of God the same way in 2 Peter 1, 2-5, and 10-11. Peter writes, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. And his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises. That through these, through these promises, You may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lusts. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make your calling and your election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Where does assurance come from in 2 Peter? Where has God given us assurance? He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, including the assurance of our salvation through the knowledge of him who called us and also made precious promises to us. And Peter tells us in light of the fact that God has made us these precious promises, we ought to make our calling and election sure. How do we make our calling and election sure? How do we grow in our assurance through the precious promises that God has made to us? And the promises of God work the same way in our lives that they did in 2 Peter and in the life of Paul. We grow in our assurance of salvation not first by looking at our feelings. We grow in our assurance of our salvation first by looking at the promises that God has made his people and the character of the God who has made those promises. There's far too many promises for us to look at today. But listen to a few of the gospel promises God has made his people. Hebrews 13, seven. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. For he himself said, I will never leave you or forsake you. What is God promising his people in Hebrews 13, seven? I will never leave you or forsake you. God makes us this promise knowing we will leave Him, knowing we will forsake Him, knowing we will sin against Him, and we will continue to fall back into the sins of our past. And in spite of that, God comes and He says, here's a promise. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. The work of Christ is so perfect in His people that He will never leave them in spite of who they are. We have the promise of Philippians 1.6, being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. What's God's promise in Philippians 1.6? He's promising us that if he begins a salvific work in the hearts of his people, it's actually going to continue and he's going to complete it and he's going to finish it all the way up until the day of Christ. between Cody and Yellowstone on the North Fork Highway, there's an eccentric mansion on the left side called the Smith Mansion. Francis Smith started building it in 1971 and he built for 12 years until he fell off one of the upper levels and he died. and I think someone recently started working on it again, but up until a couple years ago, it sat unfinished, untouched, uncompleted, with the wood just starting to fall apart and rot. Francis Smith started something, but he couldn't finish it. And the promise that God is giving us in Philippians 1.6 is that our God is not like that. He begins a saving work in his people and he promises to complete it and to perform it and to perfect it all the way up until the day of Christ. God makes another gospel promise in 1 Corinthians 1, 6-9. Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you will be blameless in that day, the day of our Lord Jesus. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. What's God's promise in 1 Corinthians 6? His promise is that if we are God's people, He will confirm us. He will keep us. He will preserve us all the way up until we are blameless on Judgment Day. We could literally look at thousands of promises God gives His people in Scripture. But you have to understand, this is the way the child of God uses the promises of God. The child of God sees the promises God has given him. He sees that all of the promises are secured and they find their yes and amen in Christ. And he embraces them by faith to the end that in believing them, his assurance is built. The child of God goes through seasons of doubt. He ebbs and he flows in his relationship to his assurances. The daily battle against sin and assurance wages war in his heart. But the child of God can always come back to the promises that God makes his people, that he secures in Christ and he embraces them and he grounds his assurance there. And so when you struggle with your assurance. When you want to grow in your confidence that you are truly one of God's people, When you wonder, am I really going to make it to the end? When you sin and you're dealing with guilt and shame and that guilt and shame tribes tries to rob you of your assurance of salvation. Come back to the promises. Come back to the character of the God who makes the promises. Come back to the person of Christ who secures the promises and embrace them once again by faith and find your assurance in the promises of God. But the confession doesn't just point out we grow in our assurance through the objective promises of God. The confession also points out that we grow in our assurance by noticing the subjective work of God's grace in our lives. That brings us to our second point. Assurance is found in the evidence of grace. Listen again to what the Westminster Confession says. It says, this certainty is not a bare conjecture and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope. but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation and the inward evidence of those grace unto which the promises are made. And so the Westminster is not only telling us that we get assurance as we believe the promises of God, it's also telling us we get assurance as we see the evidence of grace associated with salvation actually working itself out in our lives. In other words, one of the ways you grow in your assurance is by examining your life in light of Scripture and what Scripture says will be present, the grace that will be at work in the child of God, and asking, is that true in me? Listen to how Scripture does this. Turn over to Romans chapter eight. We're gonna spend most of the rest of our time this morning in Romans eight, so I'll have you turn there, and if we leave it, leave your bulletin or your finger there, because we're coming back. Romans chapter eight. And I'll read verses one through 17. It says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For the law of the Spirit is life in Christ Jesus, has made us free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. "'For those who live according to the flesh "'set their minds on the things of the flesh, "'but those who live according to the Spirit, "'the things of the Spirit. "'For to be carnally minded is death, "'but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, "'because the carnal mind is at enmity against God, "'for it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be. "'So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.' but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we're debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. We did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. The first thing I want to draw your attention to is in verse 14, where Paul tells us, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Verse 14 is important because as you read through the first 17 verses of Romans 8, it's largely about the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's people. And then in verse 14, what does it do? It says, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. In other words, what it's doing is it's showing us the work of the Spirit is always present in the life of all of God's people. That's important to notice, because there's a lot of people that teach that the presence, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is some second blessing, some second benefit you get down the road after you're devoted, after you pray enough, after you fast enough, after whatever. And actually, Paul's argument in verse 14 is that if you are a child of God, you have the Spirit of God. There's no children of God who don't have the Spirit of God. And so each and every true Christian has what Paul is talking about in Romans 8. This isn't for some special class of Christians and not for others. It's for all of God's people. And notice one of the things Paul tells us the Spirit will do in verses 13 and 14. He says, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. So verse 14 tells us anyone who is led by the Spirit of God is a child of God. But we have to ask, what does it mean to be led by the Spirit of God? Does that mean if I sense the Holy Spirit telling me, this is the job I want for you, Buy this house, meet this person, share the gospel here. Does that mean that anywhere we have senses and like urgings that the Spirit of God is leading us? I don't think that's what Paul means and the reason I don't think that's what Paul means is because verse 14 begins with a conjunction. Notice the conjunction that starts verse 14. It starts with the word for. which is linking what he said in verse 13 to what he's saying in verse 14. In verse 13 he tells us, if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. And then in verse 14 he says, for, or in other words, this is what I mean. In other words, being led by the Spirit of God is the same thing as putting to death the sin in verse 13. And so it's as the Holy Spirit works in us so that we put to death the deeds of the flesh, that the Holy Spirit is testifying to us that we have salvation and we are sons of God. In other words, the leading of the Spirit in verse 14 is the same thing as putting to death the deeds of the flesh in verse 13. And Paul's telling us one of the ways the Holy Spirit gives assurance to his people that we are God's children is by leading us in paths of righteousness, by causing us to grow in holiness, to grow in righteousness, enabling us to put to death sin, giving us desires to hate sin and to love what is good. Or we could put it like this and we could say, one of the ways God gives his people assurance is by working in them the spiritual graces and gifts that could only be explained by the fact that the Holy Spirit is in us and changing us. John does this in John 13, 35. John says, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Where does the love of God's people come from that's evidence that they're God's people? It comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit living in them, changing them. We are not naturally loving people. We're naturally self-centered, self-loving people. And so John is saying one of the evidences that you're a Christian is if the Holy Spirit is in you making you love the people of God. 1 John 3, 9 and 10, whoever has been born of God does not sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. How do you know if you're a child of God or a child of the devil? Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. What's the evidence that someone's a child of God in 1 John 3, 9 and 10? It's that they practice righteousness and love God's people. 3 John 1, 11. Beloved, do not imitate evil, but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God. Whoever does evil has not seen God. 1 John 5, 2. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. Over and over and over again, Scripture tells us one of the defining marks of a child of God. One of the defining marks of someone who has eternal life is that they are being transformed and they are making war with the sin that is still in them. And so really what Romans 8, 13, and 14 are doing is they're creating in our minds this logical syllogism that goes like this. If all of God's children are led by the Spirit into putting to death the deeds of their flesh, and if I can look at my life and see I am putting to death the deeds of my flesh, therefore the conclusion I should draw is that I am one of God's children. And so what about you? As you look at your own life, do you see a settled, comfortable resolve that has made peace with your sin? As you look at your life, do you see you are comfortable with your sin? Or as you look at your life, do you see the Spirit of God at work in your life, both creating a desire and some measure of success in actually waging war against the remaining sin that's still in your heart? If you're a child of God, one of the ways you grow in your assurance is by looking at the evidence of grace, that the Spirit of God is working in you to put to death the deeds of the flesh. And as you see that happening, you probably aren't happy with the speed at which it's happening, but you can see it happening. And the evidence or the reality that it is happening is evidence to you that God's Spirit is working in me. He's changing me, He's saved me, and this is the evidence that I am truly one of God's children. A lot of times I have the chance to counsel people as they're dealing with sin in their life. And as people fall into sin, one of the things they often struggle with is assurance. So often I have people tell me things like, I don't know how I can do this if I'm really a Christian. And if it's obvious they're really wrestling with their sin, they're discontent with their sin, they're waging war against their sin, sometimes I'll say something like this, I don't know how you can be so at war with your sin and not be a Christian. Isn't that what Paul's saying in Romans 8, 13 and 14? That there's a battle going on. The evidence that you're a Christian is that there's a battle going on because a battle implies there's two parties at war. The Spirit of God is in you. Your remaining flesh is still there, and the two are waging war, and that should give you evidence that you are one of God's people. Imagine you're a 17-year-old young man fighting in World War II. You enlisted with the American Army, and you're sitting in the trenches of France, fighting for America. And as you're there, you get a letter from your mom. and you're reading it, and there's no fighting going on today, you're reading this letter, and she breaks the news to you that you are not actually her biological son, you were adopted into her family from a foreign country. So here you are fighting for America when you get the news that you were adopted from a foreign country. And it just wrecks you. You're like, am I even American? And one of the guys who's fighting with you comes over and he's talking to you and he says, you know, are you fighting against Germany? You're like, yeah. Isn't that what Americans are doing during World War II? The evidence that you are a true American is that you're waging war against America's enemy. And the same thing is going on in Romans chapter 8. Paul's saying if there's a spiritual battle going on, if the Holy Spirit is in you waging war against the deeds of your flesh, you may be some other identity, but if there's a war going on spiritually in your heart, you are truly one of God's people. There's a third way that the Westminster Confession tells us we grow in our assurance. It also tells us assurance is found in the presence of God's Spirit. Listen again to what the confession tells us. It says, This certainty is not a bare conjecture and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidences of those grace unto which these promises are made, So the confession tells us you don't just get assurance by believing the promises. You do that. You don't just get assurance of your salvation by observing the evidences of grace in your life. You also get assurance by the testimony of the spirit of adoption, witnessing with your spirit that you are children of God. Now that phrase, the testimony of the spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we're children of God, is almost an exact quote from Romans 8, 15 through 17. So hopefully you're still in Romans 8. Let's look back there together and we'll read Romans 8, 15 through 17. Paul writes, you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. but you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. Notice the word testifies in verse 16. The word testifies in verse 16 is a legal word. It means to give evidence. It means to make a solemn declaration to establish the facts and the truths of something. It means to bring personal knowledge to a situation in order to establish what is true and what is false. And in verse 16, the Holy Spirit is testifying. The Holy Spirit is taking what he knows to be true, and he is speaking it, he's declaring it, he's exposing it in the courtroom of where? Our personal spirits. To establish the facts, to settle a matter. And really, the matter that needs to be settled is the reality of whether we are indeed God's children. In other words, Paul is telling us in verse 16 that the true child of God has the Holy Spirit indwelling him and witnessing within his human spirit that he is in fact one of God's children. And the question we have to ask is how does he do that? Is this where we get into the squishy subjective feeling stuff? What does that look like? What does that feel like? Do we have this little voice in us like a tape recorder that just plays over and over and over again? You are a child of God. You are a child of God. Is that how the Holy Spirit does this? I don't think that's what Paul means. The reason I don't think that's what he means is because of verse 15. Notice that verse 15 tells us we have received the spirit of adoption. This is still speaking about the Holy Spirit, but it's focusing on this particular aspect of the Spirit's work. And what's the Spirit called in that verse? He's called the Spirit of Adoption. And then verse 15, it tells us it's by the Spirit of Adoption that we are enabled to then cry out, Abba, Father. I take that to mean the way the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are indeed children of God is by the Holy Spirit creating in us A sense inability to cry out to God, not as our judge, not as the one we are fearful of because of our sin, but to cry out to him as our father. So I take this inner witness of the spirit to be a change in our spirits that the Holy Spirit produces, where we no longer view God as our sin in light of our sin is the one whom we should fear and dread. What is this loving, gracious, compassionate Father who loves us and treats us like a son? And so everyone who has come to faith in Christ has been united to Christ as a son or as a daughter, which means that if you're united to Christ by faith and you're adopted into the family of God, your relationship to God has changed. He's no longer your final day judge who you should expect to squish you in judgment and wrath. He's now your compassionate, caring, providing, loving, tender, inviting Father who treats you exactly as a father should. And what is the Spirit doing? The Spirit is working in our spirit, making that a reality for us. Or we could put it like this. One of the ways God gives assurance to his people is by removing the fear and dread of God as their judge, and by the Spirit instilling in them a sense of God's fatherly love and care for them, so that they no longer view God as a terrible judge, but as someone they can compassionately call Father. Galatians 4, three through seven teaches the same thing. Even so, We, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent his spirit, the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, father. So you're no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. Galatians is teaching us the same thing Romans does. We should expect that because it's all inspired by God. It's teaching us that when God saves a person and adopts them into his family, the Holy Spirit actually comes in and dwells us in such a way that he communicates with our spirit that there's a radically new relationship formed here. God is now my father. And so I have to ask you, do you feel that this morning? Someone prayed it this morning in our prayer meeting. There's this immense privilege that God is not my scary judge. He's not the executioner. He's my father. He loves me. He provides for me. He cares for me. He protects me. And do you feel that? If you feel that, that's one of the ways that God communicates to you that you are his children. Only God's true people have the spirit of God testifying in them that they are God's children. Only God's true people have the Spirit of God communicating to them the immense privilege of having God be their Father. How do we apply a sermon like this on assurance? I think one of the ways we apply it is by realizing that there's a priority in the progression of how the Westminster Confession deals with the topic of assurance. Notice the confession works from promises to graces, to feelings. And we need to recognize that priority. And it's important because if we get that backwards, if we start with feelings, that's not to say feelings aren't important, but feelings need to come from something greater than our feelings. Feelings need to come from reality. Feelings need to come from the promises of God and the work that Christ has done to secure us as his people. And so when you wrestle and struggle with your assurance and you're like, am I saved? Am I not? He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. When you're there, come back, not first to your feelings. Come back to the promises of God. Look for the objective reality of graces in your life. And as you look for the graces, don't look over five minutes. Don't be like I'm more holy now than I was five minutes ago. I'm less holy now than I was five minutes ago. Look at a long track record. Look at years. Look back five years and say, thus far the Lord has brought me. I can tell I'm one of His people because the sins I loved and I engaged in five years ago are being mortified today. By God's grace, I'm not what I used to be and I know it's because of his grace because that's not who I used to be. Another way we can apply this message is by realizing the importance of the means of grace in seeking to grow and gain assurance. Where do we find the promises of God? We find them in the means of grace. We find them in scripture. We find them as we're reminded of them as they're preached on Sunday mornings. We find them on Wednesday morning at six o'clock when we wake up and we open the word of God and God speaks to us and communicates his promises, tells us what evidence is of grace we should be looking for. So don't neglect the means of grace. It's no wonder that some of you struggle with assurance because your Bible remains closed. How would you expect God to speak to you and to grant you assurance? He's not some magical fairy that has this assurance wand that comes and hits people on the head and like magical assurance pixie dust falls over them. That's not how this works. God speaks to us and he communicates with our spirits by his spirit, yes, but through his word. And so be people of the word. When you struggle with assurance, come back to the word of God and saturate your mind and your heart with scripture. Third way we can apply some of these truths is found in 1 Thessalonians 5.19. 1 Thessalonians 5.19 says, do not quench the spirit. One of the realities is that while the Holy Spirit does indwell all of God's people, that does not mean the presence of God's Spirit is felt to the full measure and full degree in all of God's people at the same time. In other words, there's a sense in which the Holy Spirit will withdraw the feltness, I don't know, that's probably not even a word, but the feltness of God's Spirit in us. While he's still there, he allows us not to feel his presence like we should when we do things that actually quench him. Think about it like this. Let's say you're married. Does the feltness of your marriage vary? Big time, right? You get mad and you yell at your spouse, guess what? There's going to be some feltness in this division that's there. We need to contact a dictionary place. We just made a new word. But you're not gonna feel it. The feelings are going to suffer. But when you are loving your spouse, when your spouse is loving you, when you're on this nice romantic evening and you're drinking wine and you're passing flowers and chocolates back and forth, staring into each other's eyes, that feels different, doesn't it? And in a similar way, we can hinder the felt presence of the Spirit of God when we quench His presence with our sin. And so, one of the ways we can apply this truth is by going to our sin and identifying it, repenting of it, confessing it, turning away from it, asking God by his spirit to expose anything in your life that would quench the presence of the spirit of God so that you're not guilty of 1 Thessalonians 5.19 quenching the spirit. The final way we can apply, there's probably a lot of other ways, but the final way we're going to apply this message is by realizing that if you don't have assurance of your faith, that's not something you should ignore. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have assurance of their faith. They look at their lives and they say, I don't actually believe the promises of God. I'm not embracing all that God has done in Christ by faith. I don't see the evidences of grace at work in my heart. I don't view God as a father. I view him as a creepy judge. But I'm going to fake it till I make it. I'm just going to pretend. I'm just going to try to blend in with all of God's people because I have them deceived when in reality, in my own heart, I know I'm not a Christian because these three things aren't there. You do no one any favors by trying to fake it until you make it. Because if you lack assurance of faith and you can say objectively, I'm not believing the promises of God, I don't experience the grace at work in my heart killing my sin. I don't look at God as a father. I view him as a creepy judge. This is God's grace in exposing to your heart that it's not right between you and him. Don't ignore that. Instead, use that reality, use that revelation in your heart to actually come to Christ and to trust Him for the first time. The truth of Scripture is that God sent His Son to be born of a woman, to be born under the law, to redeem those who are under the curse of the law, which means Christ came into the world and took all of the sins of his people on the cross, and he died to take the wrath of God, that creepy wrath that we should endure. To take all of it on himself and to suffer and to die as an object of God's wrath so that anyone and everyone who will embrace Christ by faith, who will look at the promises of Scripture that the one who trusts in me will not be disappointed. If you confess your sins, he will forgive you. The promises of Scripture are for you, and they're for you if you will embrace them by faith, looking at Christ who died to take your sins and who rose again to give you eternal life. So if you lack assurance, that doesn't have to be the end of the story. If you lack assurance, you can actually come and receive the full forgiveness that is offered to you in the gospel by trusting in Christ, by turning away from your sins, by confessing your sins to him and looking to Jesus by faith. The promise of scripture is that whoever does so will not be disappointed. And Father, we pray that you will give us what the writer of Hebrews is talking about when he says we can have the full assurance of faith. Father, we struggle in our walk because we lack assurance. So many of the problems in our lives are simply owing to the fact that we don't know where our assurance comes from. And so, Father, for all of your people here today, I pray that you will teach us to be quick to trust your promises. I pray that you will make the grace that is at work in our hearts, changing us to wage war against our remaining flesh, make that evident. I pray that the Spirit who is conforming in us and confirming in us the spirit of adoption, enabling us to call you our Father, I pray that his presence will be felt. I pray that we will not quench him with our sin. I pray that we will not quench him with the lack of faith. Lord, I pray that you will use all of the means of your grace to communicate to us the grace of our assurance today. We pray this in Jesus' name. We hope you've been edified by the message you heard from Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Warland, Wyoming. For more information about Sovereign Grace Bible Church, or to support the ministry, contact them at sgbcwy.org. sgbcwy.org.