Truth Unites - How to KNOW You're in the Right Church

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

People involved in ecumenical study and dialogue between Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and other Christian traditions often experience "ecclesial anxiety" -- the worry and dread that comes from the fear of being in the wrong church. In this video I offer a way to arrive upon assurance and peace from a broadly Reformed perspective. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

I got into ecumenical issues of Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, other traditions, how these relate to each other, the arguments back and forth and so forth, just because of a sense of the need for greater representation of Protestantism on YouTube especially, and then interested in the theology of it, one of the things I've come to see slowly, more and more and more, and now it's a major point of awareness in my mind that I'm much more alert to now, is at a practical level the ecclesial anxiety that is underneath a lot of these discussions. By ecclesial anxiety, I just mean anxiety, angst, even like what Luther would speak of as a sense of dread. He had his own word in German for this, the sense of absolute dread.

You know, think of the way you feel when you're extremely nervous before public speaking or something like that, this sense of utter dread, you know, that you feel. he felt that in his relationship with God for many years, as everybody knows. But a lot of people feel the sense of, maybe not that extreme, but the sense of anxiety, a lot of times people will lapse in and out of it. You'll make a decision, you'll feel good, and then you lapse back and you feel anxiety. You're like, did I make the right choice? Did I make the wrong choice?

Have I not made the choice I should make? People are worried about that at different levels, you know, just my relationship with God now, but also for salvation. A lot of people are worried about damnation. So this is, and this is across different traditions. I'm not trying to speak to this one tradition. I'm speaking to a human reality. It affects every tradition within Christianity, people outside Christianity as well. So I wanted to give a briefer and more pastoral video. Every now and again, I kind of go out of academic mode into pastor mode, especially when I sense a need for that. And I do in the conversations right now, I just feel this so much. I've come to see it more and more and more. So I want to speak to this because, in know, it's important to do, we don't want to stop doing the technical stuff at a deep level of theology, studying the filiocue is the filiocue is the filiocue true or not? We've got to keep working at that. But we also need pastoral instruction along the way concerning the promises that God has given to us

in and through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I want to offer a brief pastoral encouragement to anyone who is wrestling with ecclesial anxiety, and I want to talk about assurance of salvation and how we get that. In the tradition that I'm from, the reformed tradition, the confessions tend to give three grounds for assurance of salvation. Number one, faith in the promises of God. Number two, the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and number three, what the canons of Dord call a serious and holy pursuit of a clear conscience and of good works. Just to work through those by reverse real quick. The third there is helpful actually to push away a lot of the caricatures about easy believism, as though that's the Protestant view. Assurance of salvation

is not to be assumed for people in a position of laziness, people who are very backslidden. When we neglect Christ, when we run away from the church, when we avoid the means of grace that Christ has provided for us, we often lose a sense of assurance of salvation. Even if we are saved, we often have the sense of cloudiness in our relationship with God. Assurance of salvation comes in the context of a sincere pursuit of Christ, pursuit of a clean conscience, pursuit of good works, etc. The basis for the second of those grounds, the testimony of the Holy Spirit is Romans 816, which says the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. That's an amazing verse. I've been reflecting about this recently, which is sharing.

with our church on Sunday of just how encouraged I've been lately and just being reminded about how God answers prayers. There's just been so many times recently where my wife and I, for example, do stones of remembrance at January 1st each year, and then we do it in the middle of the year at our anniversary as well. We look back and see how God's been faithful and we pray for things, and I was reflecting with her over the past year. We were running out of things to pray for because the Lord has been so overflowingly good to us and answered so many prayers. And then at our church, we're praying for revival at our church and in our valley, and we've seen answers to that.

And it's just, I've just been reminded, you know, that it's actually a promise. We think of Jesus saying, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. our father delights to pour out the Holy Spirit upon his children. He promises to answer our prayers. There's so many scriptural passages about how God answers prayer. And I just believe this with all my heart when we come to him and say, Holy Spirit, give me that assurance, testify to my heart that I know that I'm a child of God.

I've even seen times where someone will, you know, go to another brother or sister in Christ, ask them to lay hands on you and pray for the Holy Spirit where it's like, it's like physically undeniable. The Holy Spirit is working on this person. And, you know, I just say to anybody out there, just however you do it, the key is sincerity, but just come to the Lord and ask him to give you that assurance in your heart. But here's what I want to focus on, kind of as the point of this video, and it'll be very brief, is the first of those three grounds that I mentioned clinging to the promises of God. There's so many promises I love to direct people to when they're struggling with anxiety, whether it's ecclesial anxiety or any other kind of anxiety.

A favorite of mine is John 524, where Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but is passed from death to life. What I love about this passage is that it's a promise straight from the mouth of Christ. We can cling to it and know that it is true. and I'll just put this extremely bluntly. When we're struggling with ecclesial anxiety or any other kind of anxiety, with ecclesial anxiety, I think the way I want to pastor someone is to help them understand that our doctrine of the church is so important,

but it is not to be our ultimate object of trust. We can make an idol out of the church. We can look to the church for something that actually comes from Christ. This gets very tricky and very nuanced because the church is necessary. The way, a classical Protestant way to put it could be putting it in my own language. The church is the arena of salvation, but it's not the distributor of salvation. So in other words, salvation comes through the church, but it comes from Christ ultimately. So the church is essential, but the church is essential in the form of a servant, not in the form of a master,

certainly not in the form of a cruel taskmaster who's going to leave your eternal destiny hanging on whether you get the filiocque right, you know. So the blunt way to put it is just to say when you're wrestling with anxiety, ecclesial anxiety, any kind of anxiety is to come back to this simple focus. Do you trust in Jesus Christ? In the deepest places of your heart and soul, are you surrendered to him? This often bubbles up in those, you know, the poignant moments of life. When you're really nervous right before public speaking or something like that, I may have mentioned that already, when you're in pain or in a moment of the moment of

joy, you know, when you kind of see like, who am I really? And it bubbles up and you see, this is who, this is what my deepest heart is. This is what goes into who I am. In that place, that place that is your deepest level of identity, are you surrendered to Christ? Are you entrusting your soul into his care? Are you asking him for salvation and surrendering your soul and everything else in your life to him for salvation? It's not perfection. Justification by faith alone is not like you have to have perfect faith. Okay? But faith is wholehearted.

It's like the man beating his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, or the blind man on the side of the road who won't shut up. And he keeps saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. It's earnest. It's sincere. So in that place of deepest sincerity, have you come before Christ?

Are you trusting in him? If so, you have his promise. Whoever hears my word will not come to judgment. He has passed from death to life. And there's so many promises like this that we could mention. Let me drive this home with another promise of Christ as it's sort of refracted through John Bunyan. This is one of Bunyan's favorite verses, John 637, all that the father gives to me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

Bunyan in typical Puritan fashion wrote a whole book on this little verse. I love how the Puritans would do this. In his older translation, it was, I will in no wise cast out. That's getting at this double negative in the Greek. It's an emphasis. You could just think, I will never, ever cast out or something like that. Let me read to you what Bunyan said. I'm getting this from my brother Dane's book, Gentle and Lowly.

If you struggle with these questions or really, honestly, for anybody, this is such a fantastic book that I think would be so helpful for people on these questions, but so many other things as well. he quotes, I think it's chapter eight or so. He is all about, no, chapter six. He's all about this passage in John and he engages with Bunyan a lot. Here's how he quotes Bunyan. Bunyan said, they that are coming to Jesus Christ are oftentimes heartily afraid that Christ will not receive them. This word, in no wise, cuts the throat of all objections,

and it was dropped by the Lord Jesus for this very end. to help the faith that is mixed with unbelief. My brother comments on this and gives his own sort of imaginary conversation that I think points us to the beauty and wonder of who Jesus is in his deepest heart and his compassion for sinful people like you and me. Let me read this to finish off. He says fallen anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ's love. Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast out, such as specific sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tired of us and hold us at arm's length.

Bunyan understands us. He knows we tend to deflect Christ's assurances. No wait, we say, cautiously approaching Jesus. You don't understand. I've really messed up in all kinds of ways. I know, he responds. You know most of it, for sure. Certainly more than what others see, but there's perversity down inside me that is hidden from everyone. I know it all. Well, the thing is, it isn't just my past, it's my present too. I understand. But I don't know if I can break free from this any time soon.

That's the only kind of person I'm here to help. The burden is heavy and heavier all the time. Then let me carry it. It's too much to bear. Not for me. You don't get it. My offenses aren't directed toward others. They're against you.

Then I am the one most suited to forgive them. But the more of the ugliness in me you discover, the sooner you'll get fed up with me. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. I love that. It shows us the compassion of Christ, which knows no bounds. even for struggling and weak and despondent believers. And the simple encouragement for people when they are struggling with ecclesial anxiety that I would like to offer to them is this basic gospel appeal of we need to bring that before Christ.

We need to come before Christ and say, Jesus, you know, here's the thing. A lot of times we think, oh, if I can, if I study this enough, a lot of people are on this quest for infallibility. Like, I need to know for sure. I need to get this Cartesian certainty that I'm in the right ecclesial system or I've thought about the doctor of the church right enough and I'm wrong. And, you know, honestly, so much of the vitriol of online discourse, I wonder if anxiety is affecting it because people are so nervous. Like, what if I'm wrong?

What if they're right? And they're hearing an attack on their view and they're feeling their defenses go up and so forth. And I think we've got to be so careful that we don't get pulled into this mindset that, you know, we should debate, we should study, we should work at all of that. We're not going to find our resting place in that. We're not going to get to this place where it's like, oh, because I thought about the filiocque for 20 years, now I know and now I have confidence. No matter what you do, you will always have the panic attack if your trust is in your own reason.

You'll get to a point where after 20 years, you realize, you know, all knowledge, all finite knowledge is like this. It's a paradox. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. You study the filiokwe for 20 years, I guarantee you. you will have more questions at the end of that 20 years. And you think, well, maybe after another 20 years, that's like, no. Or you'll study that. Maybe you do come to peace of mind, but now there's another issue that pops up. You're never going to get to that resting place of peace and assurance through study.

Study is so important to do, but our ultimate object of faith must be Jesus Christ himself. And that resting place comes in this more existential way, in communion with Christ and in the experience of his love and compassion. And I would want to strongly encourage anyone who struggles with ecclesial anxiety to not think, I'm going to overcome that through getting a better argument or whatever, but through personal communion with Christ because he is the one from whom we receive salvation. And he has promised us that whoever has come to him, he will in no wise can. out, and that is too precious a promise for us not to use and cling to and bring all of our

anxieties under its dominion. So I hope that video will help someone else out there because I think a lot of us, I was going to say a lot of us need this, all of us need that from time to time, I think. So anyways, God bless you all. Thanks for watching. It is now, I'm recording this on Monday, November 28th. We're almost into 2003. Crazy enough. I've planned out my videos for December. I have a tentative plan for January through May. I'm going to take summer 2023 off from social media, but I'm really excited about the things coming up, and I'll share more about that in the weeks ahead. Thanks for watching this. Let me know what you think in the comments. God bless.