- The gospel is straightforward and blunt, telling the truth about humanity's sinful nature and rebellion against God
- The gospel also affirms that God loves the world and offers forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ
- The proof of the gospel's truth is found in the Bible, which reveals God's love and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
- The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ provide proof that he is able to save sinners
- True Christians embrace these objective truths and believe in them
- The subjective question arises of how one can be certain of their own belief and salvation
- Lack of assurance of salvation can be caused by various factors, such as lack of impact or results in one's life and service

- The piece discusses various factors that can weaken a person's assurance of salvation.
- These factors include lack of impact in one's life, disobedience, inconsistency, habitual indwelling sin, temptation, a sensitive conscience, neglect of worship, and trouble/disappointment.
- The passage then introduces the concept of adoption as a powerful answer to the question of assurance.
- Adoption is described as being chosen and predestined by God to become a child of God through Jesus Christ.
- Being adopted into God's family is a result of being in Christ and makes believers heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

- The love of God is the driving force behind our adoption as children of God
- We are placed into union with God's beloved Son and become heirs of everything God possesses
- The confirmation of our adoption comes through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts
- The Holy Spirit is the protecting power of God that secures us until we receive our inheritance
- Possessing the Holy Spirit is evidence of being saved
- We are both born and adopted into the family of God, with each metaphor representing different aspects of our identity in Christ

- New birth refers to our nature being recreated and adoption refers to our inheritance as sons of God
- Adoption is connected to election and predestination in Ephesians 1
- We know we have the Holy Spirit through various ministries of the Spirit, such as teaching, leading, comforting, filling, and convicting
- The evidence of being a true son of God is crying out to God as "Abba, Father" in times of suffering and need
- The Holy Spirit in us sends us rushing into the presence of God in these moments
- Nonbelievers do not cry out to God in this way, but believers do, proving the reality of their salvation
- Both the Holy Spirit and believers cry out "Abba, Father" in different contexts

- The Holy Spirit operates through our faith, crying out to God as "Abba, Father"
- The Holy Spirit's crying is something inside of us, connected to our redeemed spirit
- The Spirit testifies with our spirit, empowering us to cry out to God
- Nonbelievers do not have a filial attraction to God like believers do
- Confessing Jesus as Lord is done by both the believer and the Holy Spirit
- All acts of faith, including reading the Word, worshiping, and praying, are empowered by the Holy Spirit
- Crying out to God in need is a partnership with the Holy Spirit
- Distress and pouring out our hearts to God is evidence of the Spirit's presence in us
- Jesus cried out to God as "Abba, Father" in His darkest hour, showing the depth of His relationship with the Father
- Believers run to the Father and cry out to Him in times of stress and pain, knowing the Spirit is in them

- The gospel reveals humanity's sinful nature and rebellion against God, but also offers forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
- The Bible provides proof of the gospel's truth, showcasing God's love and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
- Factors that can weaken a person's assurance of salvation include lack of impact in their life, disobedience, inconsistency, and habitual sin.
- Adoption is presented as a powerful answer to the question of assurance, as believers are chosen by God to become children of God through Jesus Christ.
- Being adopted into God's family makes believers heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
- The presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts confirms our adoption and secures us until we receive our inheritance.
- Possessing the Holy Spirit is evidence of being saved, and believers cry out to God as "Abba, Father" in times of suffering and need.
- Nonbelievers do not have the same filial attraction to God as believers do.
- All acts of faith, including reading the Word, worshiping, and praying, are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

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The utter absence of ambiguity characterizes the truth.

False religion is necessarily and typically ambiguous.

The gospel tells the truth with candor, plainly spoken truth that is so straightforward and so unmistakable as to be

line of the Christian gospel goes like this.

Every human being sins because every human being possesses a corrupt nature, a wicked disposition.

Beyond just that corruption and wicked disposition, all human beings are rebels against God.

They have rebelled against God by the willful and constant

violation of His holy law, which is a reflection of His holy nature.

Consequently, All sinners are under divine judgment for their rebellion and their violation and their innate corruption.

The sentence that comes from God on all mankind is condemnation to eternal punishment in hell.

That is the blunt and shocking and stunning truth of the gospel.

There are people who are eager to remove that part of the gospel, and therefore deconstruct the gospel, and usually end up with a gospel that is no gospel.

And we learned earlier in Galatians, if anybody preaches another gospel, let him be damned.

We're all sinners, we're all under divine judgment,

and we can do nothing to change that on our own.

Now that causes me to pose some questions to get us into this text.

Question number 1, how do we know that we are all sinners?

Pretty popular to think of people as being basically good.

The Old Testament says, the soul that sins, it shall die.

The New Testament says, the wages of sin is death.

If you say you're not a sinner, then you have to explain your death.

If you say you're not corrupt, you have to explain your demise.

And further, if you say you have not sinned, you lie, and you make God who says you are a sinner a liar,

The message of the gospel initially is terrifyingly clear and absolutely true.

But hastily After that first affirmation, there is a second affirmation in the

gospel, and it is this, God loves the world and offers them forgiveness and salvation.

And that answers the second question, is there anything that can be done about my condition?

God provides deliverance from sin, from judgment, from death, from hell to those who have faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world.

There is eternal life in Him, forgiveness, escape from hell, and entrance into the glories of God's own heaven.

How do we know that that good news is true?

The Bible, obviously a book written by God, authored by God, lays out the message of God's love and forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The proof of that second affirmation of the Christian gospel is found throughout the pages of Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament.

God has the desire to save because He loves sinners, and God has sent a Savior who provided a sacrifice for sin that granted salvation to those who believe.

The Bible is the proof of that, and the Bible stands on its own internal merit as inerrant and absolutely true.

How can I be sure that Christ is able to save anyone?

How can I be sure that Christ is the Savior?

If I'm going to turn to Him, put my faith in Him, how can I be sure that Christ is able to save me?

He died a death That essentially was the wrath of God on him, not for any sins that

Father imputed all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history to Christ, and punished Christ for all their sins.

His was the death for the sins of all who believe.

How do we know that His death satisfied God?

God was satisfied, His wrath was propitiated, and God raised Christ from the dead as a divine affirmation of the satisfaction of His own sacrifice.

Those are the objective truths of the gospel.

All men are sinners headed to eternal punishment.

God loves and will forgive sinners who put their faith in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is able to save.

He has offered the sacrifice that satisfied God, and therefore God declared that a satisfactory sacrifice by raising Him from the dead.

You're a Christian because you believe that.

All those, again, unambiguous truths are the objective historical realities about the gospel.

All true Christians understand them and embrace them and believe them.

But there's a fourth question, and this is

the 1 to which I want to draw your attention today.

It is this question, how can I be certain that I have truly believed and received that salvation?

This is not the question, does Christ have the power to save?

We believe God loves us and has provided a way of salvation.

We believe Christ has the power to save, as demonstrated by His sacrifice and His resurrection.

The question is a more personal question, not an objective question, but a subjective question, not about something that happened historically, but about our own hearts.

How can I be certain that I have believed in Christ and been saved?

And this addresses the difference between confidence, faith, and assurance that the Lord Jesus Christ has the power to save, and confidence, assurance, and faith that I have actually been saved by that power.

Even though we believe those objective facts of the gospel, as Christians there are times when we struggle to be assured of our salvation.

1 of the things you deal with as a pastor a lot is the Problem with people who lack assurance of salvation.

They don't doubt that God loves and provides a sacrifice in Christ.

They don't doubt that Christ has the power to save.

They don't doubt the resurrection, but they doubt that they are saved.

What is it that steals a believer's assurance?

Well there are a number of things that will weaken your assurance.

1, and we'll give you a few, Lack of impact, lack of results in service.

Some people look at their life and they say, you know, I'm a Christian, supposedly, I have been transformed, and I have power from on high.

But I look at my life and I don't see any impact.

I try to do some things to serve the Lord.

I have to say I don't see much as a result of that." And someone in that kind of situation gets discouraged and wonders whether they actually possess

the power, whether they've actually been given life.

And then another reality that steals your assurance is disobedience.

You fail to obey the Word of God, you get caught up in transgressions, iniquities, and sins.

And because of your disobedience, which is a willful disobedience, you naturally will question, am I genuinely a believer?

And I'm not talking about the occasional paroptima when you stumble, but I'm talking about the fact that you're realizing that there's something in you that continues to will to disobey.

You see that, and you wonder, have I really been saved?

You go to the spiritual highs occasionally.

You're here today, and your heart is lifted up in worship.

You'll find yourself a day later in a situation that you shouldn't be in, and you look at that situation and you see inconsistency in your life, inconsistency in your attractions and your desires, and you wonder whether you're really

Here you are, you've been a believer for a while, and you're still struggling with the same exact sins that have been beleaguering you for years and years, and you wonder, if I'm really a believer, why can I not get victory over these besetting sins?

to face the reality of temptation to doubt.

Satan tempts us to doubt, and doubt is a temptation.

your assurance can be very weakened by lack of results, lack of impact by your life, disobedience, inconsistency, the presence of habitual indwelling sin, temptation.

There are some people who are more sensitive than others.

They tend to be wired to be more introspective and more fearful, and they tend to be more doubtful in their own minds.

And as they look at their lives and they begin to become introspective, they see things they don't like there.

Their conscience causes them pain and suffering over their condition, and that begins to steal their assurance.

You come now and then, And then you wonder why you're not certain of your salvation.

You worship only on occasions with the people of God in negligence of fellowship, negligence of prayer, negligence of boldness in the proclamation of the gospel.

All these things are thieves that steal your assurance.

We're not saying they steal your salvation.

There's another reality that has a way of stealing our assurance, and we'll just call it trouble, trouble, trouble with corollary disappointment.

You find out about some illness, or the death of a friend, or some tragedy with regard to a child, or you wonder why your relationship, maybe even your marriage and your family, is falling apart in horrific ways that

Some theologians have called this a frowning providence.

The providence of God seems always to be frowning on you, and things never go the way you think they should go.

And you begin to wonder whether you are a child of God, and if you are a child of God, why doesn't God pay more attention to you, and why does it seem that you're suffering

These are the kinds of things that weaken and steal your assurance.

And at some point, all Christians will have gone through a time where they will say, "'Am I really saved?

Am I really saved?'' Now our passage is going to give you

an answer that is marvelous to this question, how can I be sure that Christ has truly saved me?

"'Now,' I say, as long as the heir is a child, he doesn't differ at all from a slave, though he is owner of everything.

But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.

So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "'Abba, Father!' Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a Son, and if a Son, then an heir through God." Now this is about sonship.

This is about the great doctrine of adoption, adoption.

Verse 5, we have received the adoption as sons.

There are, as we saw last time, and looking at the earlier verses, there are many aspects to the doctrine of salvation, regeneration, conversion, justification.

This is the doctrine of adoption, the doctrine of adoption, 1 of the magnificent realities in the glorious complex of our salvation.

We have been adopted into the family of God and are sons of God.

Go back to, or forward to Ephesians 1, and I just remind you of how Paul begins this epistle in verse 3, blessing God.

what he says, "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

He chose us, He predestined us to adoption as sons.

takes place when someone makes a child out of someone born into another family.

Adoption is when you take a child born to another family and bring that child into your family.

your father the devil, you're of your father the devil.

But God has chosen you, predestined you to adoption as sons according to the kind intention of His own will.

This is part of realizing the richness of salvation.

We were a part of Satan's family, but God has adopted us.

We are adopted, Ephesians 1 says, in His Son.

We are blessed, verse 3, with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.

Verse 5, predestined to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself.

God only has 1 Son, and it is the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are placed into Christ, and therefore we become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, as we read in Romans 8.

This is the great doctrine of adoption, And we looked at it in some detail last time.

and He loves those who are in the Son because they are 1 with the Son.

This is the marvelous reality of salvation.

Behold what manner of love the Father has, that He has made us, 1 John 3, 1, children of God.

He loves us enough not only to do the negative, save us from our sins, but do the positive, adopt us into His own family, into His 1 eternal Son to share His full inheritance.

God's astounding love is the cause, the motive, the drive behind our adoption.

He loves the Son, He places us in the Son, and He loves us the way He loves the Son.

We see that laid out so magnificently in the seventeenth chapter of John, where our Lord prays and binds those for whom He prays, all believers, together with Himself and with the

We are loved by the Father because Christ is loved.

We are blessed by the Father because Christ is blessed.

We inherit all that Christ inherits because we are in Christ.

This is how we are to understand our adoption.

We have been placed into His true Son, and therefore are heirs of everything God possesses.

God graciously places justified, regenerated, sanctified believers into His own family by placing them into union with His beloved Son, so that in Him they become sons of God." Now that takes us back to this question again.

How can I be certain that I have had that occur in my life?

How can I be sure that I have truly believed in Christ so as to be saved?

How do I know that I am really in Christ and have been adopted?

How do I know that?" The confirmation of that comes in verse 6, and this is what I want you to see.

We saw the preparation for sonship, we saw the realization for sonship, and here's the confirmation.

This is a familiar verse, but 1 not understood.

God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "'Abba, Father.'" Because you are sons, God does this.

The fact is, you are sons, and because you are, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

The Spirit of His Son is the same as the Spirit of Christ, as He's called elsewhere, the Spirit of God.

God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, because we are sons.

Back again to Ephesians 1 and the end of that long section down to verse

"'In Him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, you listened, you heard, you believed also.

You were sealed in Him." That is, Christ was your Savior permanently.

You were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who has given us a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory.

When you were justified, when you were converted, when you were saved, you were sealed with the Spirit of promise.

The Spirit of promise took up residence in your heart.

The Spirit was given to you as a pledge of our inheritance, which is coming later at the redemption of our bodies when we enter into the presence of the Lord.

You have an inheritance that the Lord has prepared for you because you are a true believer.

That inheritance is laid up for you in heaven.

We have an inheritance, verse 4, which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

Jesus said, "'I go to prepare a place for you, and I'll come and take you to where I am, and you'll be with Me always.'" We have a place, we have a full inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and reserved for only us in heaven.

Then it says, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

So now we have this future inheritance, and we have a present protection, and that protection is the power of God.

The Holy Spirit in us is the protecting power of God that secures us until we receive our inheritance.

We are protected by the power of God, and that power is the Holy Spirit.

Peter says also, you have become partakers of the divine nature." That is to say the very nature of God is part of you.

Again, that is a reference to the indwelling Holy Spirit who provides for us this divine life and transformation.

So if you are a true son of God, you possess the Holy Spirit.

In fact, it's so personal that verse 6 says, "'God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts." That is clear in Scripture.

"'Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have of God?

If any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His.

But you are His, and so you have the Holy Spirit.

Ezekiel 36, the great new covenant passage in Ezekiel, says that when we come to salvation, God puts a new spirit in us, His own spirit.

First Corinthians 12, 13, we are all made to drink of 1 spirit.

Jesus said in John, Chapter 7, that when you come to faith and when you come to Him and come to salvation, something dramatic will occur in your life, and it relates to the Holy Spirit.

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The Christian’s Assurance of Salvation