This fall, The Master’s University was blessed to have Scott Ardavanis as a chapel speaker.

Ardavanis is a graduate of TMU and a member of The Master’s University and Seminary’s board. He currently serves as the pastor of Grace Church of the Valley in Kingsburg, California. He spoke on assurance of salvation, demonstrating out of Scripture that the Lord intends believers to be assured of their eternal destiny.

He opened his message with a question: “Do you live with eternal insecurity?”

Ardavanis shared his own experience of being fraught with fear as a young man because of a lack of security in his salvation.

“In my teenage years, if you were to ask me that question, ‘Are you assured,’ I would have been frightened,” he said. “I lived a miserable life.”

Ardavanis then presented a working definition of assurance: “Christian assurance is the settled confidence that, right now, you are in a right standing before God — that your sins are forgiven and that heaven is secure.”

To support the idea that this sort of assurance is possible, he pointed to several texts, including 1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (LSB).

After giving a biblical defense of the doctrine of assurance, Ardavanis unpacked the practical aspects of this truth, both in the danger of false assurance and in the fruit of true assurance.

“Is the pattern of your life to obey God?” he asked near the end of his message. “Is the pattern of your life to please God? If you say, ‘Well Scott, it’s not perfect, but that is my heart,’ then I would say, ‘Rest assured.’ … Not in your perfection, but in your direction.”

Past messages and future chapel livestreams are available through TMU’s YouTube channel.