No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Overcoming Doubt with Thanksgiving
In this Thanksgiving episode, Brody talks about finding peace and confidence in your salvation. He shares key points to help you overcome doubt and rest in the truth that Jesus will never take away your salvation. Brody also explains how trusting God and living in humility can deepen your faith and bring joy.
He gives a simple checklist to help you know if you’re truly saved. This list focuses on things like a love for God’s Word, conviction over sin, and a desire for fellowship with other believers. This Thanksgiving, take time to reflect on the assurance of salvation and thank God for His faithfulness.
John 6
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Today's episode will be recorded on my phone from a tree in the woods somewhere in North Carolina where I'm sitting and the morning has kind of calmed down and it's moving into midday, so I'm just going to record sitting out here in God's creation Got some thoughts I want to share with you. Going into this Thanksgiving holiday and just really grateful that you'd care to listen. Welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:I had the opportunity to travel last week and speak at North Carolina State Campus Crusade event, better known these days as CRU, c-r-u. If you're familiar with that ministry, it's a campus ministry. If I understand it's just college campuses. I don't know of a high school crew and it's a really, really good ministry. And we've been partnered with the chapter or the I don't know what you would call it, but the North Carolina State Crew Ministry. We've been partnered with them for years. They do some things at SWO each year and then I get the opportunity to go out and share. And the way CREW is set up is each week they do what they call large group, which is Thursday nights. They all come together for a worship service and they have someone speak each week. They don't have a consistent one-person speak each week at NC State. They have different speakers both inside the organization and then they bring in guest speakers. So it was just another honor and privilege to get to do that. It was their final large group meeting of the semester. And then crew does a phenomenal job of breaking down into small groups and really discipling students in the dorms, in student housing. And then the other thing they do well is outreach, just evangelistic outreach on campus. Great ministry. We've been partnered with that one for since the 2000s, probably 2006, maybe before that, maybe maybe closer to 20 years, but it was an awesome opportunity to travel and so, as I'm recording this, that event took place last night. It is Friday morning, the Friday before Thanksgiving, and I am actually sitting in a tripod stand overlooking a bean field, a corn field and a sweet potato patch. It is deer paradise. I have a good friend who's like family and for 25 years now I've hunted. He's let me come out and hunt on his farm. So anytime I'm traveling in the eastern North Carolina area I like to try to swing by and visit with these folks. And so I brought my rifle and a crisp morning and it was probably 30 degrees when I climbed up in here this morning at about 530. And it has been a beautiful, beautiful sunrise. I watched four different bucks none of them quite old enough and big enough to shoot yet, but watched them do their thing this morning and it's been wonderful. So I thought it'd be fun to record. I apologize Last week I recorded on my phone and it's just so much more practical when I'm moving around traveling.
Speaker 1:But I did. I got mad at myself because when I was listening to see how the audio came through, I noticed two things. One, I felt like I rambled on the first part of that episode. It's pretty brutal to listen to yourself Not as bad as watching yourself, and I watch any video where I'm preaching, I go back and watch it. Any podcast I listen to, and mainly I've said this before but mainly just because you're your own worst critic At least I am I can't hardly stand to listen to myself. I definitely can't stand to watch myself. I'm like what a doofus. Who is this guy? What a clown. But anyway, last week I thought, you know, the audio came through pretty good, but I was wearing like a nylon sort of material jacket, a puffy jacket. It was pretty chilly that morning and I noticed that every time I moved that thing was rubbing and making just a scratchy noise and I finally took it off and so I apologize for that. I took that jacket off and eventually the audio got better. But anyway, thanks for the feedback.
Speaker 1:Those of you that reached out had a lot of good feedback on last week's episode and some requests for some further content on just ecclesiology, plural leadership in the church, healthy church stuff. So we're going to do some more content. I'm going to bring some guys in, we're going to do a couple episodes. One I'm going to I've promised you this already but we're going to sit down after the Thanksgiving break. We're going to sit down with Matt Mustin, who's our student pastor at Red Oak Church, and Joseph Tucker, who's our lead pastor at Red Oak Church, and we're going to have just a practical discussion about what church ministry looks like in terms of community engagement, staff-pastor relationships, church member-pastor-to-pastor relationships, and just try to talk through some things that hopefully will be helpful. Looking forward to that. So that's coming up, that'll be a follow-up and I'll also get into some questions that were asked recently, after that last episode about church leadership.
Speaker 1:But what I want to talk to y'all about as we go into Thanksgiving, I'm just reflecting this morning on the things I'm thankful for and I want to key in on the fact that I'm thankful that the Lord, when he saved me, he gave me what theologians call the assurance of pardon or the assurance of salvation, of pardon or the assurance of salvation. And I want to encourage you this week that if you're a Christian, if you profess and confess that Jesus is Lord, there's some things that you can bank on, that you can rest assured of, and I think this is very important because a lot of people struggle with doubt. So I want to talk about the assurance of pardon, the assurance of salvation, how you can know that you're saved and how that can encourage and strengthen you in your own spiritual journey, your faith journey, and then how you can reflect on that with thanksgiving. I feel like a lot of Christians.
Speaker 1:They don't live with an abundance of joy, and I think the reason they don't live with an abundance of joy is because they don't give abundant thanksgiving. They don't give an abundance of thanks, and so one of the principles in Scripture is that when we express thanks both to the Lord and to others, express thanks both to the Lord and to others. So I mean, I'm talking about you're at the drive-thru and you joyfully express thanks to the person that just handed you that food. When you express that, you know, when you live and show an attitude and a heart of thanksgiving, you will experience more joy, you will experience more confidence in Christ, you'll experience more assurance, which goes against doubt. But if we don't live lives of thanksgiving, then we are going to struggle more with a loss of joy or doubt, anxiety, anxiousness, and so this is a wonderful week to not only reflect on the Lord's goodness and to give him thanks for that goodness, but to really be theological in the way that we consider this. I mean I'm thankful that on Thursday I'm going to hunt in the morning, I'm going to eat a whole lot of food, I I'm gonna take a nap while I watch a football game and I'm gonna hunt in the evening and I'm gonna spend the entire week with family and I'm gonna drive my little granddaughter around on the side by side, all over the family farm. I'm gonna visit with some loved ones and family members on the little side of the family that are just near and dear to us, and I wanna have Kilby and Greg and Alma here, and then on Saturday we're going to go up and see Tuck and Blacksburg. I'm thankful for all those things, but I want to reflect on the thanks that I have, that Jesus Christ has saved my soul, the Lord has washed me in the blood of Calvary's cross and my sin is remembered no more and there is no condemnation, because I am in Christ Jesus. I want to be thankful for that, and what I want to do is I want to reflect on the fact that I can be thankful for because of the assurance of that salvation.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of Christians struggle with doubt. They question whether or not they're truly saved, especially young Christians, and so I want to give you three or four things that I believe are strong indicators and evidences of your faith, so that when you are wrestling with doubting your salvation or a fear about if you're truly in Christ and headed for heaven, how you can be confident. Paul writes, being confident of this very thing, what very thing that Jesus began a work in you and he's going to be faithful to complete it. So here's the first way you can know that you are a child of God, and that is this. One of the first things that it's important to understand in knowing that you're a child of God is knowing that if you are in Christ, he will never take that away from you. Jesus will never take his salvation away from you. So if your doubt is related to losing your salvation, set that aside.
Speaker 1:Anyone that teaches that is teaching you something that is not true biblically. The scripture nowhere teaches or implies that. Let me read you a couple of verses that'll be an encouragement. In John 6, 37, jesus says All who the Father gives to me, all that come to me the Father gives to me, I will in no wise or no means cast out. So he says anyone that God gives me, the Father gives me, in other words anyone who is saved, will never be cast out. And then he tells us a few chapters later, in John 10, that he gives us eternal life. And then he says I give you eternal life and no one will pluck you out of my hand.
Speaker 1:And then Paul again, I mentioned this a second ago but Paul says to the Philippians, being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Did Jesus begin a good work in you? Was there a time where he stirred your heart and brought you to conviction over your sin and drew you to himself? Then rest in that moment of conviction and the fact that he began a work in you and that Paul says he then will be faithful to complete it. You remain in Christ, not because you're able to remain in Christ, but because you're unable to escape the grip of his grace. So rest in that. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 1:How do I know that I'm saved? Well, I know that Christ has drawn me to himself, that he won't cast me out, that he began a good work in me. Now, the second thing that I want to point to, in knowing that I'm a child of God, is that I will live with a humility before the Lord and a fear of the Lord. Now, what does a fear of the Lord look like? We've talked about this a lot. This is one of those things that I like to come back to in my own life and that I like to bring to y'all.
Speaker 1:Difference in a fear of the Lord and the fear of, say, a helicopter or a roller coaster or, more seriously, a fatal illness, a critical illness. There are things that might bring fear in our lives. You might be afraid of losing your spouse or your loved one. You might have a fear of heights. There are different categories of fear, and a fear of the Lord is in a different category from any other category of fear. I don't fear the Lord the way I fear an abusive father or an abusive law enforcement officer. If you lived in a, say, you're a Christian in Rome, you know in the first century and you're afraid of the law enforcement officers that were persecuting Christians. That's one kind of fear.
Speaker 1:And so to fear the Lord is simply to trust Him and to live in humility before Him. Humility meaning that I humble myself before the Lord, that I walk in obedience to his word, that I understand biblical principles, like you know, in Hebrews 12 and 13, where scripture lays out that if I'm a child of God, that he's going to have a hand of discipline in my life, and that if I'm not a child of God then he's not going to have a hand of discipline. I'm an enemy of God, I'm not his child, he's not going to discipline me. And so a fear of the disciplinary hand of God, that's a healthy fear. A fear of the Lord, will also drive me towards deeper fellowship with him. It'll make me want to be close to him.
Speaker 1:The story I always tell is the story of, you know, kilby and I, when she was about 12 years old and we're walking. We were in downtown Raleigh and we were kind of on the outskirts of the downtown area, but we had walked a good distance to eat at a barbecue place somebody told me about and we're walking, and we walked past just kind of this dark, dingy warehouse, I don't know. It's probably, you know, an eight or ten dingy warehouse, I don't know. It was probably an 8,000 or 10,000 square foot warehouse and it was graffitied down one side. We were on kind of a side street, I don't even know where it was now I don't know that I could find that place. But I said have you ever heard that saying I'd hate to run into him in a dark alley? And she said, yeah, I've heard that. And I said, well, let's walk down this dark alley right here, it's right at dark and let's see what the big deal is.
Speaker 1:And we walked down that alley and it was pretty creepy and I could tell she was a little unnerved. And I've done the same thing with other kids, my other kid's, like walking through the woods, you know, in the dark. And she'd say are you afraid right now? Are you scared? And I asked her that day what would you do if somebody came out from behind those dumpsters over there and wanted to harm us? And she said, well, I'd get right behind you. And I said, that's good, you trust that I would protect you. That's good.
Speaker 1:And I said now, what if they came at us? And she said, well, I would trust you to protect me. Oh, that's good. And then I said no, let me ask you something else. Are you afraid of me? Because you'd be afraid of those people, but are you afraid of me? And she said no, I'm not afraid of you. And I said what if? What if I walked into the house and as I was walking in, you were yelling at your mother. You were yelling at your mama and you yelled at her very defiantly and disrespectfully and then you slapped her. Would that freak you out? If you did that and then made eye contact with me, you didn't know, I was in the room, you did that and then me and you made eye contact, would that scare you pretty good. And she said, oh, yeah, that'd freak me out, I'd be scared. And I said would you fear me in that moment? And she said yeah, I'd fear you.
Speaker 1:And then we began to unpack the difference between fearing that assailant in that dark alley versus a healthy fear that, hey, my dad loves me, but he's not going to let me behave like this. I've breached, I've crossed a line that I don't have the authority or the freedom and autonomy to cross. So, understanding that a fear of the Lord is an awareness of the consequences of my action, but also an awareness that those consequences are always going to be for my own good. And that fear that drives me closer into the presence of the Lord, not further away from and you'll see this For parents of young kids. If you'll discipline that child, you'll see sweet, sweet fellowship with that child when they come back to you for restoration of fellowship.
Speaker 1:So to walk and live in humility is to have a healthy fear of the Lord, and that is a good sign that you're a child of God, because the scripture teaches us again and again that a person who does not submit to the Lord is not a child of God. Paul says it this way I think it's in Romans 8, where he says the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God. So the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, so the mindset on the flesh is hostile to God, the mind that is not the mind of Christ. And so a good indicator of your salvation is a healthy and humble fear of the Lord. And I talk about fear because the opposite of humility is not pride, the opposite of Pride is not humility, the opposite of pride is fear, and a fear of the Lord produces humility. So we can say the opposite of humility is pride, the opposite of pride is humility. But that's semantics. The real thing is that if I fear the Lord, that's the opposite of pride. And both Peter and James write that if I humble myself under the hand of God, he will exalt me, he will lift me up. So fear the Lord, that's a good indicator of your salvation. And the next would be, I would say, a good indicator, a good confidence-building indicator of your salvation is do you desire the things of the world or do you desire the things of God? What are your affections? What are your desires? What do you desire most? Would you desire what the world offers you or would you desire what the Lord promises you through his word?
Speaker 1:I was watching a sporting event recently. It was a fight. Sporting event recently. It was a fight. It was the lead up to the Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight, which let me just rant a minute. Mike Tyson didn't fight that guy. That was all rigged. Mike Tyson got paid $20 million to go in there and not throw punches. I don't know if you watched the training montage video of Mike Tyson, but he's hitting the pads, he's hitting the gloves and then he gets in there. People have broken down now some videos of Mike Tyson. But he's hitting, he's hitting the pads, he's hitting the gloves, and then he gets in there and there's, you know, people have broken down now some videos of Mike Tyson training versus the actual fight. It was so many times he could have landed shots on Jake Paul and he didn't do it. But whatever, it's entertainment, it's just, you know, I kind of put it. I don't put it in the category of real boxing or UFC or MMA or Muay Thai or the one what's it called. I forget what it's called, but there's like a fight league. I don't put it in that category. I put it in the category of WWE, if you're familiar with that. But anyway, I'm kind of ranting here because it was just dumb. Mike Tyson, he could destroy Jake Paul.
Speaker 1:I feel very confident, even as a 58-year-old man. I didn't feel confident before. I thought, oh, I don't know if he can handle this, he's 58 years old. But after watching it I'm like, oh, mike Tyson could have totally whipped this kid, but he didn't.
Speaker 1:But what I was going to say is I'm watching this thing and the crazy, just worldly, carnal nature of the atmosphere at that fight, you know, it just felt like devoid of spiritual presence. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but have you been in a situation where you're like man, this is such a worldly place, such a worldly environment and atmosphere, and I thought I was uncomfortable watching it and I reflected on that and I thought, you know, I desire to be in the presence of the Lord and I desire what he offers to me. And that is a warm feeling for my soul because it's a reminder that in Christ my desires and my affections have changed. I do not have affection for what the world offers me. Now. That doesn't mean, like in my flesh, I still desire things that the world offers me. I'm still what's the word? Stimulated or tempted by worldly things. But that's in my flesh and in my mind. My mind has a power at work in it, warring against the desires and demands of my flesh. And that battle, that internal battle, is evidence of your salvation. You're a child of God If the things of God matter to you and your affections are for the things of the Lord. Do you have an affection for God's word? Do you see the effect of it on your heart and your mind and your attitudes. That's a good indicator that you're a child of God. The next thing that I would point out that could be helpful and a strong indicator of your relationship with the Lord, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, and that's going to be conviction over sin.
Speaker 1:Conviction is we define conviction as a convinced conscience. I don't remember who I first heard say that, but somebody said that and it just man. I thought it really made. I've been a Christian for 20 years when I heard that phrase and I'm like that's the way you articulate what conviction is. And that's when your conscience is convinced by the Holy Spirit that you have sinned against the Lord in a thought, an attitude, an action, a conversation. It's when your conscience becomes so convinced of something that's conviction. Now, some conviction is conviction before sin, so like a conviction to do or not do something, to say or not say something. So conviction is not a word that is only associated with wrongdoing and sin, like after the fact. So it works both ways.
Speaker 1:Let me give you a couple of examples. An example of conviction my conscience being convinced before something would be If I'm about to do or say something or go into a situation that I know would be dishonoring to the Lord, and my conscience becomes so convinced of that that I don't follow through with it. That's conviction. But then, on the backside of that, what if I go into a situation or I do something, say something, think something that's not honoring to the Lord? And then, after the fact, I experience a convinced conscience that says that you need to bring this before the Lord in repentance and you need to lay this before the Lord. That's evidence of the Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin. So that's an evidence If you're a Christian, you're going to have conviction in your life and a non-Christian is going to have a conscience. There's going to be things that they recognize as right and wrong. There's a moral law written on every person's heart. Everyone's an image bearer of God. So the vilest of sinners have an understanding of right and wrong. But for a child of God who is indwelt with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit guides our conscience.
Speaker 1:Okay, just a couple more thoughts here. The next one kind of ties into the first couple, or the first couple which has had to do with you know our affection, love for the word, love for the lord. But it's this. The scripture says that we will be known by our love, our love for one another. Specifically, the scripture teaches that people will know us by our love for one another.
Speaker 1:So do you? This is a simple question for somebody wrestling with their salvation Am I really a child of God? Am I really saved? Do you love to be with God's people? Do you desire the fellowship of the saints? Do you enjoy and look forward to going to church, not just to hear the preaching of the word, but do you desire and long for the fellowship of God's people?
Speaker 1:There was a few years ago. There was this weird little hitch or movement with a handful of people at SWO. They quit going to church. They weren't going to church and when we sat down and talked to them, the answer was disturbing because it was something to the effect of you know, we do ministry day in and day out. We're constantly around people.
Speaker 1:When we finally get to Sunday, I just want to be alone. I want to sit at home. I want that solitude and don't get me wrong, I desire and need a lot of solitude, but not at the expense of rejecting fellowship with God's people. The writer of Hebrews says don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, I have a hard time being convinced that a person is truly indwelt with the Holy Spirit, in other words, a hard time being convinced that a person is saved, that they are a child of God, that they are going to heaven, that they have eternal life if they don't desire to be with God's people in corporate worship and in all of the other extracurricular, peripheral activities of the church, whether that's outreach or local ministry or fellowship around meals, to be a part of a share group.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people will show up to church on Sunday just to sit through a service, because it's kind of like this spiritual duty. But do you desire to be part of a small group? You know, at our church and this is pretty common in churches these days we have one corporate worship service on Sundays and then different nights through the week. You can be part of a home group. We call them discipleship groups or dGroups. Some churches call them community groups, some churches call them grow groups or you know, or whatever.
Speaker 1:But there should be a desire to be a part of that, that fellowship with believers. Do you desire to be with God's people? If you do, that's a good effect of, or that's a good indicator of your salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so, not just that I desire to be with God's people, I desire to be with them because I love them. The love that we have for one another, the warmth that should exist between Christians, is the warmth of the Holy Spirit binding us together. You can read about that in the book of Ephesians, particularly in chapter four. It's the love that we have for one another.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me give you, I wanna give you one last thing. That is a good indicator that you're a child of God. That's evidence of your salvation. And this is a hard one. It's not fun to talk about, but when you need it it's invaluable. And it's this a person who is truly saved, who is a child of God, will endure hardship and trials in a way that is going to give. How am I saying this? It's going to be evident that there's a power at work in you to sustain you through the trials of life. This is a constant teaching in scripture. This is a constant teaching in Scripture. This is something that you will see again and again and again in Scripture that as Christians, we endure suffering, we endure trials, and we do so with peace and confidence and strength. So the way that we go through a difficult situation is going to give evidence of the strength of the Holy Spirit in us. So a child of God doesn't have to fear hard times or hardship. You don't have to freak out over difficulty in society or in the government or in your family. We know that trials bring about the perfecting of our faith. The Bible says in James, 1. And then Peter talks about suffering, as Christ endured suffering and Paul writes about the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory that's to be revealed. So the evidence of a Christian will always stand out, the evidence of a person's true salvation and faith and the presence of the Holy Spirit will always stand out when we endure suffering.
Speaker 1:There's a word that's used in Romans 8, and the word in the Greek language is philipsis. Philipsis is a word that refers to the squeezing that takes place when grapes are mashed and squeezed so that the juice comes out, so that it can be turned into wine, or, if you're Baptist, it can be turned into Welch's grape juice. But when that grape is squeezed and the juice that comes out think about squeezing an orange to get that juice out, the squeezing that takes place to bring about the nectar or the fruit juice that's a word that's used to describe a Christian being squeezed in the hardship and trials and tribulations of this life that we will respond differently. And if you I will say this if you're someone who's been a Christian for 20 years or 30 years, then you probably deal with doubt much less than a person who's young in their faith, who hasn't yet had the opportunity to endure trials. The longer you walk with Jesus, the more you're going to endure difficulty and hardship and the more you're going to see the evidence of Christ at work in you. That's just a biblical truth. So, taking all of this on Thanksgiving week, what I hope that you'll be able to do is reflect with thanksgiving, with a heart full of thanks and joy, over the goodness of the Lord to save you and to keep you, that you have affections for the Lord, that you love God's people, that you're on mission, that you desire the things that God desires, that you love his word.
Speaker 1:You know we could continue this conversation, but do you love God's word? Are your affections for the things of the Lord? Do you desire that other people? One thing that we didn't really drill into. But do you want other people to know Jesus? That's one that you. If you do, then that's an indication that you're a child of God. Do you feel the presence of the Lord when you go through hardship? That's an indication. Do you feel the affection of God towards His people? That's an indication. Do you experience the conviction of sin? That's an indication. So lots of things here that we can use.
Speaker 1:And again, we could go on and on and on and on. I mean you could talk about fruit. What is the fruit in your life? Everyone's life displays fruit. Everybody, everybody's life gives either the fruit of the spirit or the fruit of the flesh. What is on display in your life? That's a little bit harder one, because self-evaluation in that area can be hard and you almost need someone to speak into your life there. But when you're wrestling with doubt, you're struggling with am I a child of God? Walk through this checklist and think about these things and trust the Lord and then make sure, not just this week but every week and every day, that you give Him thanks. He inhabits the praise of His people.
Speaker 1:Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I hope this is a wonderful week for you. It will be for me and my family. I trust and I'm so thankful for who God is and what he's done in Christ Jesus, and I pray that God would continue to keep his strong hand of blessing on my family and on yours. I'm grateful for his goodness and grace and I want to express that this week, and one way we can express it is by just enjoying it. Enjoy the week, enjoy what this holiday represents, and we'll talk to you next week. God bless.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
