The sermon titled 'How to Grow and Shrink Assurance' by Scott Brown explores the doctrine of assurance, which is the conviction that one is a Christian. The speaker addresses questions such as how to know if one truly knows God, the tests of assurance of faith, and the importance of diligence in making one's calling and election sure. The sermon emphasizes the use of ordinary means, such as worship, Bible reading, prayer, and fellowship, to increase one's assurance of salvation. It also discusses the reasons why assurance may be shaken or diminished, including negligence, sin, temptation, and God's withdrawal. Ultimately, the sermon encourages believers to diligently cultivate their faith and pursue the ordinary means of grace to experience peace, joy, love, and thankfulness.

Please find in your Bibles Proverbs 24 and find verse 30. Proverbs 24, verse 30. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God. Praise the Lord for such a marvelous help for our souls. Proverbs 24, verse 30.

I went by the field of the lazy man and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding. And there it was all overgrown with thorns. Its surface was covered with nettles. Its stone wall was broken down. When I saw it, I considered it well.

I looked on it and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, so shall your poverty come like a prowler and your need like an armed man. Would you pray with me? Father thank you for the words of life. They're precious, they're so good for us.

Thank you for the refreshment of our souls, for drawing us into things that are true out of this world of falsehood. And now we get to just bask in your truth. Amen. Please be seated. We're continuing our series on the doctrine of assurance.

You may think it's strange to read such a passage of scripture on a message about the doctrine of assurance. We'll get to that in a minute. But assurance is the conviction that you're a Christian. And the question that we ask, that we should be asking ourselves, do I know God? What does it mean to know God?

How do I know if I know God? Do I have doubts? And so this is what we've been dealing with in this series on assurance. It's really in the midst of a series on the church, the body of Christ, and it's really a takeoff of Ephesians 4, 4, there is one body and there is one spirit. In other words, there are some who are in the body and there are those who are not in the body.

And it's incumbent upon all of us to understand whether we are in the body or not. It's part of pastors doing the work of an evangelist to make sure that the people know whether they're saved or not. It's the most important work that we really do. And we understand that the Apostle Peter has told us to give diligence, you know, to take up arms and make your calling and election sure. Make it sure and consider it.

I started this whole series by asking over a dozen questions to help us ask questions that will be answered in time. Are you waiting for some dramatic moment? You know sinners aren't saved by dramatic moments. They're saved by grace. Are you waiting to be holy enough to be assured of your salvation?

Are you waiting to have deep enough repentance, deep enough faith, deep enough anything in order to be saved. And I wanted to make the point that salvation is not by the depth of your repentance. Your repentance will never be deep enough. You're saved by grace. And so we started with that and then moved into the Baptist Confession of 1689 in chapter 18 of that confession on assurance and the the confession begins to talk about two kinds of people, false believers and temporary believers.

And we considered that. And then we moved on to the next section where There are various considerations that all should make to understand whether they really are Christians. And I outlined six of them that are here in the confession. Do you believe? Do you believe in him?

Have you received him? Is he a treasure to you? Secondly, do you have sincere love for him? Thirdly, do you have a clear conscience that you're not pursuing sin, that you really desire the kingdom of heaven? That you believe that the blood of Christ is your only hope of salvation, that your life is changed, that the spirit of adoption of sons is crying out within you saying, Abba, Father, those are various tests of assurance of faith.

And So now we turn to a very important matter, and that is what do you do about your assurance? How can you increase your sense of assurance, of salvation? Is there something for you to do? Well the Apostle Peter makes it very clear there is something for you to do to make your calling and election sure. He says give diligence add to your faith virtue to virtue knowledge to knowledge self control to perseverance, self control perseverance to perseverance godliness to godliness brotherly kindness And he says if these are yours, you're not barren and you can have full assurance of faith.

So that's the point that we're dealing with in this section of the confession. And really, the confession acknowledges that people may have difficulties with their assurance, and We know that it is true. And some may struggle for some time in discerning their assurance. And yet in this paragraph, in paragraph three, in the confession, we're told that there's something you can do to make your calling and election sure. And you don't need any extraordinary revelation.

You need ordinary things. Your hearts need to be enlarged in the joy of the Holy Spirit. How do you do that? Well, That's what this is all about. How do you stir up thankfulness?

How do you stir up obedience? These are really the natural fruits of assurance. And the whole thrust of this third paragraph is really easy to understand. Don't be negligent. Don't be a sluggard.

That's it. And so that's the point. Some lack assurance and The problem is that they've been lethargic. They're not diligent to make their calling and election sure. They're not filling their souls with good things.

It is really true. If you talk with people who are really struggling with assurance, almost all the time, they will say, yeah, I just haven't been reading my Bible. I don't really have any, I just don't want to go to pray, I don't want to pray. Well there you have it. There you have it.

They've not been feeding their souls in the things that make them, make their souls want to soar and give thanks for everything that God has done for them. You know, I think it was probably a year and a half ago on a Sunday afternoon, I was reading a book to my wife, Farm Sermons, by Charles Spurgeon. And one of the chapters is called The Sluggard's Farm. And he quotes Proverbs 2430, I went by the field of the sluggard and the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding and there it was all overgrown with thorns. And he applies that to this whole matter of assurance.

And He uses this passage of scripture to illustrate the Christian who is lazy, who is treating his soul with negligence and is not thrilled with God and has no sense of assurance. He says some interesting things about this passage of scripture. He says, you know, God gives nature to us as illustrations of almost everything in life. He says, to the spiritual mind, even thorns and thistles and overgrown gardens can have a spiritual meaning. So he takes off on that and he and he asks what you know What are we learning from nature in this proverb?

He says, many are stung by nettles, but few are taught by them. Some men are hurt by briars, but there is one who is improved by them. He says, there really are no useless plants. They're there to teach you. He talks about the slothful man.

And of course, he quotes the proverb, he's the man without understanding. He says, he's unable to make use of his property. The things that God has given him. He knows the doctrines, but he doesn't do anything about the doctrines. I'm quoting Spurgeon here.

He talks about, they do have a confession. They do have a confession of faith. But it's theological confusion. Do nothing-ism is their creed. Do nothing-ism is their creed.

And he says these, they won't urge other people to labor for the Lord. They say God will do his own work, salvation is by grace, God is sovereign, I don't have to do anything. This is the do nothing-ism of their creed. He says he will sit still, he'll let the grass grow up to his ankles in the hope of heavenly help. To arouse himself would be an interference with eternal purpose, that's bad doctrine.

And then he talks about the use of time. He says this, am I employing the minutes as they fly? Do we sow beside the waters? Do we in the morning sow our seed and in the evening still stretch out our hand? And he refers to the parable of the talents, you know, and he says many have dormant land and you know He asked what what can you do with what you have in order to increase the joy of your salvation It does ebb and flow but it can be fired up again.

And he speaks of people who take very good care of their bodies, but not their souls. Isn't that interesting in the age of exercise? I'm not against exercise. He says, thy soul is uncombed. Thy soul is unwashed.

Thy soul is unclad. Thy soul is a poor neglected thing. He says you're just a Christian half-time. Well there is something you can do to increase the joy of your salvation and your assurance And he ends up comparing the soul with soil. He says land is meant to be cultivated.

All soil is meant to produce something. And then he gives an illustration about raising your children. He says, what's the natural produce of your children if you leave them untrained in God? Well, that's obvious. Neglect is all that is needed to produce evil, he says.

Neglect is all that's needed. And then he talks about what happens to you when you are slothful. He Spurgeon says that the slothful are normally, quote, discontented, fretful, selfish, murmuring, and because they are idle, these are the weeds that grow in Sluggard's Gardens. I've known the slothful to become so peevish that nothing could please them. The most earnest Christian could not do right for them.

The most loving Christian could not be affectionate enough to them. The most active could not be energetic enough for them. They detested all sorts of wrong where God Himself saw so much the fruit of his spirit and his people. And then he urges his readers to take quick action, to jump on it. He says, tomorrow is only to be found in the calendar of fools.

Tomorrow is only to be found in the calendar of fools. Today is a time of the wise man, the chosen season for our gracious God. Seize the present hour, quick, uproot the noisome weeds that without profit suck the soil's fertility from wholesome plants. So This section of the confession makes it very clear that if you're truly a Christian, you can do something about the spiritual funk that you are in. You can do something about it.

My experience with people who really really struggle with the assurance of their salvation is they're not doing that much about it. That's not true with everyone. Some have very sensitive consciences and there are other things that contribute to it, but most of the time, the funk has to do with funky patterns of life. No spiritual routines, no things that continue to cultivate the soul. And that's what this section is all about.

The Christian might say, my passion is low, my energy for God is low, my desire for the Word of God is low, my faith is low. And when that happens, you know, we should be like the disciples who said, Lord, increase our faith. And faith actually comes by hearing, hearing the word of God. And we know that, You know, sanctification and justification are very different. A justification is a work that has been done.

Sanctification is a work that is not done. It's never done until you meet the Lord. It's unfinished business. But sanctification is something that you participate in. Justification you have no participation in.

God does it, praise the Lord for that. But then there is something to be done, and that's what Spurgeon is dealing with. And this element of the confession speaks about how you grow it. And then also how you shrink it in the fourth paragraph, which we'll touch on briefly. It's a very important topic for the Christian.

That's why The Puritans wrote more on this chapter of the Westminster Confession than any other chapter. 23 of the 100 divines that met to write the Westminster Confession wrote entire books on this chapter alone because it's such a critical matter and people do struggle with it. Lloyd-Jones says you are a defective Christian without assurance and so paragraph three makes it makes the case that the way you govern your life has an impact on whether you have assurance of salvation. J.C. Ryle has a brilliant section on this in his book Holiness, and he says, assurance after all is no more than full-grown faith.

It's masculine faith that grasps Christ's promise by both hands, and then it says, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So assurance is something that grows over time. And how does it grow? It grows not with extraordinary revelation, but it grows by the use of ordinary means. And sanctification happens through ordinary means.

People want some big lightning bolt, and you know it's interesting, authors often capitalize on the desire for the lightning bolt among young people. They tell them you need to do something great for God and so they write books like Radical or Crazy Love. Well you know what, the Bible doesn't really talk like that. The Bible doesn't talk that way at all. The Bible talks about normal, ordinary, rhythmic means of grace That you get involved in so that your soul is fed and we're involved in them right now today People who neglect the worship of God They're they're not gonna have the kind of assurance of salvation than the person that makes this makes a point of immersing themselves in the means of grace, in the blessings of the songs, the drawings out of the prayers.

I loved the prayers this morning, they were so helpful to me. You know, all the things that happen when you gather together for worship, if you don't gather together for worship, well, of course you're gonna be in a funk. It's just the way it works. And the ordinary means of grace are just the simple things that God has given us to do. And it's not crazy love, It's love that continues to open its Bible.

It's the love that continues to worship God, continues to pray with the saints. Psalm 119, verses one through nine speak of it. It was really a struggle for me to understand what passage of scripture I should read for the opening of this passage so I did choose to read Proverbs 24 about the sluggard but I could have read all over Psalm 119. Psalm 119 verse 1, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the counsel of the Lord. Happy are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.

These are ordinary means of grace. Seeking the law of the Lord, seeking the Word of God. Verse 25, my soul clings to the dust, revive me according to your word. That's how you get revived. Verse 31, I cling to your testimonies, oh Lord, do not put me to shame.

Verse 32, I will run the course of your commandments for you shall enlarge my heart. If you want your heart to be enlarged, run the way of his commandments. Verse 45, I will walk at liberty. Why? Because I seek your precepts.

He says, I remembered your judgments of old, O Lord. And then what happened? He says, and then I comforted myself in his judgments, in his words. So it takes cultivation. You know, at Bible study this week, one of the men was telling us that he's growing plants.

There's a man who's growing microgreens in his garage and he was saying how miraculous it was that you have a tray of plants and he put a cover on it and put bricks on it and the plants will just raise raise the cover right up like that. It's just so strong. And, you know, how does it happen? Well, it doesn't just happen. Because somebody has to sow a seed, have a seed, somebody has to go get dirt and then somebody has to go get water And then in his case somebody has to mount lights above the plant so that they'll grow.

And somebody has to get a fan to blow so that They don't mold. So they don't just grow, and neither do we just grow either. We need to take action for our growth. We need to worship God. We need to come to the worship.

We need to open up our Bibles. We do need to sing the songs. We need to pray and hear prayers. We need the fellowship of the saints. We need the scripture readings.

Oh, by the way, did you notice, do you know how many times we read scripture in this church every Sunday? I won't tell you, you can count them. There's so much scripture that gets read. You know why? We need to grow.

We need the words of God to grow. You know, we could do a lot of tricks and funnier things. We could probably hire some funnier men to come up here to entertain you, but the word of God will change your life. And that's why we read it so much. We need these things.

And we don't need extraordinary revelation, we just need to do the things that God has ordained for us to do. And if you're not doing them, don't expect much assurance of your salvation. Because in sanctification, work is involved, focus is involved, diligence is involved. Be diligent to make your calling and election sure. The diligence is something that you do, like 2 Peter chapter one says.

You know, I recently read a book. It's called talent is overrated. Talent is overrated. And it was a huge, it was a huge correction to my thinking in a lot of ways. I used to tell people, especially young people who wanted, trying to figure out what to do with their life, you know, what should I do with my life?

And for years I've said, what do you love to do? What are you really passionate about? And I've been saying that. So I read this book and and And the authors of this book are really attacking the whole idea of following your passion. And the idea is if you follow your passion, guess what happens to your passion?

Your passion ebbs and flows. It goes up and down. If you're following your passion, you're probably going to do a lot of different things and you're not going to do any of them well because you didn't do them very long. That's what they're saying in this book. And so this book is full of case studies, dozens and dozens of case studies, personalities, business owners, musicians, athletes that you know the names of, actual statistical studies of and really stories of their lives.

And basically the authors come to the conclusion, these people didn't become great because they followed their passion. These people became great because they became really good at what they did and they practiced more than anybody else. And the authors make this point about chess players. You think, you thought, you thought the great chess players in the world were great because they're brilliant? These authors say, no, no, no, it's not true.

The great chess players are great because they played more chess games than anybody else. That's what makes them great. But that same principle I think applies to our spiritual lives. What we focus on is what we become. We really are victims of our patterns, and assurance of salvation becomes the victim of our pursuits.

That's what this third paragraph of our confession makes very, very plain. Focus on the things that will make you a successful Christian and do them every day. If you're not feeding your soul, don't expect much fire in your bones. If you're not worshiping God, Don't expect that your soul will feel washed. If you're ho hum about the ordinary means of grace, you can just expect to be ho hum in your experience with God.

And You might even come to the point where you say, I don't even know if I'm saved. Because you've done nothing to fan the flames. You know, there are different illustrations of this in the Psalms. One of them is in Psalm 77 where David cries out to God. I mean he is he is in pieces.

He's it's a day of trouble. His soul refuses to be comfort And then he says in Psalm 77, 5, I considered the days of old. I call to remembrance my song of the night. I meditate within my heart. My spirit makes a diligent search.

And I said, This is my anguish, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember the wonders of old. I will meditate on your work and talk of your deeds." That's how you get out of a poor state of your soul. And then the confession speaks of the results, the diligent duty is of such extreme importance to us.

And in the confession, they use this language that we can all relate to. It results in peace and joy. It results in love. I'm quoting the confession. It results in thankfulness.

It results in strength. It results in cheerfulness. It results in fruits. And it happens because a person has thrown off their sluggardliness and laxity. So you can grow your assurance by being diligent.

And I don't know if anybody here is struggling with that, but this is one of the common struggles that people have in assurance. And then, however, In the next paragraph, you can also shrink your assurance. You can grow it, you can shrink it. You know, and there are different ways that you can shrink it. I mean, you could just explain it, you know, in the metaphor before, you know, You just quit, you quit providing water, you don't have any seeds, there's no dirt, there's no lights, there's no fans.

There's nothing to make it grow. But it goes beyond that. And that the idea here is that your assurance can be shaken, that's an important word. The stability of your assurance can be shaken. And it can also be diminished, not just shaken, but also diminished in its intensity, it can also be intermittent, which means it's temporarily discontinued.

And there are reasons, there are four reasons that are given. Why it might be that your assurance has shrunk. Negligence is the first thing that's mentioned Because actually faith does come by hearing the word of God. And the second reason it might be shaken is by falling into some special sin that wounds the conscience and grieves the spirit. Theft or hatred or pornography or all manner of dissolute behavior.

A third reason I might be shaken is the sudden temptation. A sudden or vehement temptation. You know, you're beset with thoughts of sin. Maybe you're around people who all they can talk about is filthy things, and there's this temptation, and it vexes your soul. And then the fourth reason is that God may withdraw.

God may be withdrawing from you. Did you ever think that God would do that? God sometimes pulls back. He, in the words of the confession, he withdraws the light of his countenance and you're you feel like you're walking in darkness and there's no light and and it is true there are occasions in the Bible that help Help us to understand this might happen to us from time to time. Hopefully not often.

I think I've experienced this. Thankfully not often. In 1 Chronicles chapter 32, in the story of Hezekiah the words of Scripture are, God withdrew from him. Hezekiah was a godly man. God withdrew from him.

Why? In order to test him. That he might know all that was in his heart. In Psalm 10 verse one, the psalmist says, why do you stand far off, O Lord? Why do you hide in times of trouble?

Well, you know that he doesn't always hide in times of trouble. Most of the time in times of trouble are the times when you're closest to him, but not always. There are times in trouble when he seems to hide himself. God is doing this. In Psalm 30 verse 7 there's this illustration of a metaphor of the face where God hides his face.

The psalmist says, by your favor, you have made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face and I was troubled. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that David prayed, cast me not away from your presence, do not take your Holy Spirit from me, restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous spirit." Now David was experiencing this because of his sin, but at the same time the joy of his salvation had been diminished because of his sin. So there are actual real there are real reasons why we might not have assurance. But one of the most comforting things about what's written in this confession, it says that if even if God is hiding his countenance, even if you've fallen into some sin, it's not lost.

He says that they're never destitute of the seed of God and of faith. And they still do have flickers of love for the brethren. And they do have a clear conscience that they want to walk with God. Now, you know, in saying these kinds of things, I don't want to try to convince anybody whether they are truly saved. I think these are matters that the individual must wrestle with before God.

But it's very important that you consider your assurance according to the teaching of the word of God. But I want us to be very careful to examine ourselves. Carefully, diligently, go deep on it. JC Ryle, he talks about how diversionary it is to lack assurance. He talks about how actually harmful it is to have deep struggles with assurance.

And he talks about people who just they waste their time worrying about their assurance and they're always wondering, they're always nervous. He says They are hypochondriacal. They're always checking their pulse. They're always doubting. They're always questioning.

Is that you? He says that it's like two men who were given property as a gift. He says these men were given a gift of property in New Zealand. Wouldn't that be nice? And he says these two men, they both had the same experience.

The deeds were granted. The legal matters were settled. Everything was signed. It was settled. And it was recorded forever.

He says one man, he gets to work on his land, he's focusing on his land, he's doing nothing but cultivating his land, and he's not stopping day after day. He's taken what God has given him. But the other man, he just can't believe it. He just can't believe that this land is his and he's always leaving his farm to go back to check the records, to check the public records, to see if it's really true. And he asks if the land is really his and he asks, he goes back over and over, was there a mistake, was there something left out of the legal documents did it lack a proper survey are all the signatures there and he goes back day after day and JC rile he asks which of these two men will make the most progress in a year?

Who will have done most for the land? Who got the greatest breadth of soil under tillage? Who had the best crops? Who was the most prosperous? Well that's obvious.

The person who cultivated the land, not the one who kept asking questions constantly about it. Because the Bible says that salvation is a work that is done. It's done. It's signed, sealed, and delivered. So now get to work.

That's the doctrine of salvation and sanctification. So If you're like that second landowner, stop going to going down to the county to verify if the land of milk and honey is yours. It's yours. Drink it in. Make it happen.

David said, say to my soul, I am thy salvation. David said, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Paul says, I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Paul said to Timothy, I know who I believe, whom I believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I have committed to him until that day. That's assurance.

JC Ryle, he talks about many of the blessings of assurance and I want to close with some of these. Assurance will help a man bear poverty and loss. Assurance will support a child of God under the heaviest bereavements and assist him to feel, it is well with my soul. Assurance will enable a man to praise God and be thankful even in prison, like Paul and Silas. Assurance will enable a man to praise God and be thankful even in prison like Paul and Silas Assurance will enable a man to sleep with the full prospect of his death the next day like Peter inherits a dungeon Assurance will make a man rejoice to suffer shame for Christ's sake.

Assurance will enable a believer to meet a violent and painful death without fear as Stephen did. Assurance will support a man in pain and sickness and make all, and make his bed smooth. Assurance is to be desired because it tends to make a Christian an active, working Christian. So that's what I'm here to encourage all of us to do. Work out your salvation, work it, work it hard, get really good at it, forget about your passion, your passion goes up and down.

Go for it, go do it. Go open your Bible, go to worship, go to prayer, engage in the fellowship of the saints, Do the things that make you grow. And I pray that God will grant every Christian in this church the strongest biblical consolation, the most empowering consolation, the most happifying consolation in their souls, which comes from diligence, being applied to the saturation of the Word of God and the worship of God in the ordinary cycles of the day. So stop following your passion, because your passions will ebb and flow. Follow God, and do the things that God, the ordinary things that God has called you to do.

Stop thinking you're gonna be some kind of a great person for God. Stop thinking that you're gonna be crazy for God. No one is crazy for God. Would you pray with me? Lord, I pray that you would give all of us more diligence to feed our souls, to take in the finest of wheat, to be saturated with the living water, to eat the bread of life, and that you would make this little church a church that is assured and confident and happy in Jesus.

Amen.