The Faith That Saves

Before I begin, I don’t know
which little baby was singing. But, to me, that is such a joyful
sound. And I notice something is missing
in the bulletin, and I don’t even know, things come and they
go, and I know some years later. We used to have a little phrase
in there, and let me just address this real quickly. This isn’t
the sermon. To me, a baby cooing or giggling
or even crying is a sign of life in church, and babies are a part
of the church, just as children are a part of the church. In
fact, even old people make some unpleasant noises at times, and
they’re welcome. We used to have this phrase in
there that said, look, we endeavor to cultivate family worship.
And families sometimes have issues, and we just trust that if you
think it’s a big enough issue, you take care of it. But, to
me, it was just such a joyful thing to have the sound of another
new baby. And, I don’t know, maybe I’m
old and emotional, but I just figured I’d address that. Children
are welcome in our church. So, thank you for that. This
message brought to you by India. And turn to the book of Romans
and chapter four. Come to a beautiful passage and. Here I am about to do an introduction
when Arguably, there couldn’t have been a better introduction
than what Mike so passionately provided in the reading of Hebrews
chapter four. I didn’t plan it that way, but
the whole address of unbelief frames such a beautiful backdrop
to this particular passage. You know where we are. We’re
in Romans chapter four. We have been listening as Paul
has a dialogue, as it were, arguing and presenting counter arguments
for a great deal of what the Jews believed and what the Jews
might say with regards to the doctrine of justification by
faith. Now, Paul doesn’t want to stay there forever. And we
saw last week that he turns the corner, but he had already dealt
with the issue of works, that salvation or justification is
not by works, neither is it by ritual. He addresses the subject
of circumcision, and I think that that is a broad brush in
pointing to one particular right. He speaks of all rights, R-I-T-E-S,
as being unable to sufficiently Now, commend us to God. Salvation
is not by works. It is not by adherence to rights
and neither is it by adherence to the law. That’s where Paul
closed before he turns to this positive message, which we began
to address last Lord’s Day. Last Lord’s Day, we look at the
grace of salvation that Paul so clearly there in verse 16
says that for this reason, if salvation isn’t by works, if
salvation isn’t by rights, if salvation isn’t by the law, for
this reason, it is by faith. There must be a medium. There
must be a way to receive salvation. God has planned it so, God has
designed it so, and that medium, that means of receiving salvation
is faith. Paul goes on to say that it might
be in accordance with grace. Now, Paul lays the groundwork
there, and he, as he so often does, he throws out terms that
he doesn’t fully describe. And such was the case with faith
as we considered last Lord’s Day. Look at that passage just
again and listen to it. He doesn’t elaborate on what
is faith. In fact, the focus really is
grace in this particular passage, as we saw last week, as we saw
last week. Look at verse 16. Just briefly,
for this reason, it is by faith that it might be in accordance
with grace in order that the promise may be certain to all
the descendants that includes us. Not only to those who are
of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all, as it is written, a father of
many nations I have made you, in the sight of him whom he believes,
even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that
which does not exist. Now, the whole design of that
passage was around that word, that concept, that great biblical
theme of grace. We saw that there was an amazing
relationship there, a relationship between grace and faith. We hadn’t
thought of that before. Paul hadn’t mentioned it, but
now he says it boldly that those two aspects of redemption are
totally interrelated. You can’t have one without the
other. We also saw that in that, this
overwhelming nature of grace, that there was a marvelous promise.
That given in the middle of verse 16, that the promise may be certain
to all the descendants. That if salvation was here by
faith and there by works and over here by some other means,
it’s a very uncertain offering, isn’t it? It’s a very uncertain
promise. But so that the promise might
be to each for all time, one in the same. The promise was
by faith. The promise was a means of God’s
grace that it was one way for all time. It was always salvation
by grace. The third thing that we saw about
grace was an incredible conclusion, the recipients of grace includes
even us. What an astounding thing that is to stand and pause and
ponder the truth of that passage. And finally, I almost obviously
a magnanimous benefactor. That’s what we saw, the fourth
overwhelming truth of the nature of grace and the overwhelming
point that this is a magnanimous benefactor, the giver of grace
and the nature that he was. Paul points out that it is he
who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does
not exist. Well, with that, Paul begs the
question. He has painted with beautiful
strokes the subject of divine grace, but he has left faith
yet unaddressed until now. And it is that which he seeks
to elaborate upon in verses 18 through 22. Would you consider
God’s word to us this morning? Romans four, verse 18 through
22. In hope against hope, he believed
in order that he might become a father of many nations, according
to that which had been spoken, so shall your descendants be. And without becoming weak in
faith, he contemplated his own body now as good as dead, since
he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief,
but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully
assured that what he had promised he was able to perform. Therefore,
also, it was reckoned to him as righteousness, Paul’s not
about to leave faith undefined, Paul’s not about to leave faith as a second-rate religious term,
because faith is at the very core, not only of this chapter,
it’s not only at the core of the very book of Romans, it is
the core of the gospel. We looked last week at Paul’s
positive turn as he began to address the subject of grace. But as positive as that subject
is, Paul still has much work to do. Paul had mentioned faith,
as we saw last week, a number of times already in this epistle. Romans 3.22, the righteousness
of God through faith. But he doesn’t describe it. He
doesn’t define it. He doesn’t color it in big, bold,
beautiful colors. Even in Romans 3, 25 and 26,
where the gospel is laid out there in full, Paul doesn’t elaborate
much on the nature of faith. He just mentions Christ, whom
God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This
was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of
God, he passed over the sins previously committed. For the
demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present
time so that he would be the just he would be just and the
justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 4, 3,
he mentioned it. Here we are in the midst of this
passage that it’s not salvation by works, but it’s salvation
by faith. And so perhaps Paul is going
to describe in color faith. No, he doesn’t. Not in chapter
four, verse three, not in chapter four, verse five, not in chapter
four, verse nine. He mentions faith repeatedly
throughout these chapters, but he leaves it largely undefined.
Now, we know what faith is. Obviously, a child could be able
to describe what faith is, faith is trust, faith is believing
in someone or something. But Paul here is going to go
much beyond that. Paul here wants to go to the
nature of faith. What is the nature of faith?
And specifically, what is this faith that saves? What is the
nature of saving faith? That’s what we’re concerned with.
Look back, if you would, at verse 18. that saves, first of all, believes
beyond what seems hopeless. It believes beyond what seems
hopeless. Look at verse 18 in hope against
hope, he that is Abraham believes. Now, Paul returns again to the
great patriarch. That’s where he started in chapter
four. And he brings him back up to
the Jew to present him as a great example of salvation by faith,
justification by faith. Remember, the core of the gospel. Now, basically, this idea of
hope, which has been hijacked in recent years by particular
politicians that offer no hope at all. But this hope essentially
refers to an expectation of something that is desirable. That’s what
hope is. I hope we get to go to the mountains. I hope, you
know, I get something in particular for my birthday. I hope, I hope. Well, there’s a little bit more
to this idea of hope, especially as a biblical concept. Terms, if you will, faith and
hope, are certainly interrelated. And they feed off of one another.
But they’re not the same thing. It’s not the same thing to say
that you believe in something and that you hope in something
necessarily. Hope, as one said, is the desire
for something that might be true or might happen. Whereas faith,
even as our brother read earlier, is the firm confidence. that
it is true or will happen. Now, hope can be built up to
the point where it is very similar to faith, where our hope is such,
our bold confidence is such, that it is akin to our faith. Hope, as scripture describes
it, as one said, is the settled confidence in the soul that looks
to the fulfillment of a promise. The settled confidence in the
soul. That sounds an awful lot like
faith, does it not? As one other pastor described
it, hope is that species of trust which gives the mind a firm persuasion
that all promises and expectations shall be fully realized. How sad, then, that those so
often described in Scripture Those without faith in Jesus
Christ are described as having no hope. No hope. One pastor describing the hopelessness
of unbelievers He said they are as sailors without a compass,
adrift in a rudderless ship during a starless night on a stormy
sea far from harbor. What a what a tremendously descriptive. Sentence that is about the believer’s
life. But the Christian. But the Christian
does have hope. The Christian exudes hope he
should. The Christian reads and by faith
takes in the promises of God and the hope that is in Christ
wells up within him to where hope is seeing the unseen. Hope is no longer wishful thinking. Hope is a firm confidence, a
settled confidence that all promises will surely come to pass. The core, the focus, Of any believers,
hope is God and particularly the Lord Jesus Christ. That hope
was promised by God to Israel and was open to the Gentiles
and is now our only hope. Scripture goes on to refer to
believers confidence as the hope of the glory of God. The hope
of righteousness, the hope of salvation, the hope of eternal
life, all of which point to our eternal glorification in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if you go back to the text. There’s a conflict. You see,
Abraham sees the facts. And he says that. In a sense,
it’s against hope. It’s a hopeless situation. In
hope, against hope, he believes. This against hope and in hope,
they basically point in opposite directions, don’t they? One says,
cash it in, it’s over with, it’s pointless. There’s no sense in
pressing on. It’s not working. We can’t do
it. As one said, against hope, envisions
the circumstances of one’s hopeless lot and talk about a hopeless
lot. We’ll consider the facts in a
moment in Abraham’s life, but he had come to the point of looking
at the facts and concluding it was hopeless. It was calculated
to destroy all hope, and in terms of human resources, there was
no possibility of fulfillment. And that is what places that
other term in such bold relief. Even at the head of our sentence
of most translations in hope against hope. He believed somehow
Abraham had his hope well up within him, even though all of
the facts, all of the data from a human perspective said, no
way, no way, Abraham. It’s over and done with. Cash
it in. Go home. In hope, against hope,
he believed, and that is because the hope that he, that welled
up within him was a God-given hope. It was hope that was completely
independent of all human possibilities. It went well beyond all human
calculations, well beyond natural age and the natural process of
conception. God was going to take care of
this one, and that was Abraham’s hope. As one said it in hope, he believed.
Which is a strange thing, and it’s sad that you have to. Point
out these clarifications, but the fact that anybody could conceive
it means that many people do. In hope he believes does not
mean that he had faith in his own hope. Do you know how many
people live that way? They just simply get some crazy
notion in their head that some crystal brings them energy or
if they only, you know, read their horoscope or whatever.
All of those crazy things that people put their hope in. Faith in their own hope. The
object of faith is clearly God. and the omnipotence of his character,
the determinateness of his purpose and the security of his promise.
Abraham’s faith was exercised in the confident hope which the
promise of God engendered. It wasn’t his hope that Abraham
placed his faith in. It wasn’t his idea. It wasn’t his notion. It wasn’t
his quirky little belief system. God said it. and Abraham took him at his word.
I love the bumper sticker. I saw some time ago. It said
God said it. I believe it. That settles it. You know what’s interesting about
that? The bumper sticker had a line printed through the middle
line. God said it. That settles it. It doesn’t matter a hill of beans
whether we believe it. It’s true. It’s going to come
to pass, but in Abraham’s case, he took God at his word. When all hope was gone, against
all hopelessness, Abraham’s faith, trusted in the promise of God
and the hope within him, As one said, Abraham believed God at
a time when it was no longer a human possibility for him to
go on hoping human hope. Hope’s utmost limit had already
been reached and surpassed. And so far as hope of any human
possibility was concerned, he had given up hoping. Abraham
looked at the facts, we’ll see that in a moment. Humanly speaking. Abraham looked
at the facts and said, From a human standpoint, I don’t get it. It’s
not going to happen. Especially if you consider the
timeline of the promises of God. Genesis 15 5 says this. God took him outside. He, that
is God, took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens
and count the stars if you are able to count them. And he said
to him, So shall your descendants be. There’s the original promise,
right? Meanwhile, 25 years roughly passes. And how long, you know, we talk
about this in our home, sometimes you make a suggestion that, you
know, one day we should go down to such and such place for ice
cream. Well, from that point on, it is. What about the ice
cream? What about the ice cream? When are we going for ice cream?
It’s it’s right there at the forefront of everything that
we could ever do. And that’s how we are. When are
we going to get there? Are we there yet? You know, All of those
things are at the forefront of our mind, and we are so impatient
about promises and offers and things like that. What if Abraham
had done that 25 years? How long would you have waited?
You know, look, Abraham, I’m going to give you a son. All
right, God. Get to work. Genesis 12. Rather, Genesis 15 is a promise
that follows Genesis 12, some 25 years prior, where God said,
I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your
name great. You shall be a blessing. Oh, bless those who bless you.
The one who curses you, I shall curse in you. All the families
of the earth will be blessed. Well, there’s kind of the allusion
to this promise. Twenty five years goes by and
where is the boy? Where is the son? It’s faith. It’s faith that caused
Abraham’s hope to well up within him. The faith that saves believes
beyond what seems hopeless. The faith that saves, secondly,
believes to the fulfillment of a divine promise. Look at verse 18 once again in
hope against hope, he believed. In order that he might become
a father of many nations. According to that which has been
spoken, so shall your descendants be. Now, I want you to be very
careful. I know what you’re going to say. Very few promises do
we ever get. That are as grand as this one. where we are basically asked
to take God at his word for something that is so incredible, so fantastic,
so on a human scale, unbelievable. But that’s what Abraham did,
and he knew that if it was going to come to pass, it required
his faith. He had to exercise his faith
in God’s promise. He had to take God at his word
in order for this to come true, in order that he might become
a father of many nations. According to that which had been
spoken, so shall your descendants be. Look at the stars, count
the sand on the sea, and that’s what you have as far as descendants,
Abraham. And Abraham, unless he believed
God, it would not have come to pass. This little phrase here, this
section expresses essentially the content of Abraham’s faith.
This is what the divine promise was to him, Genesis seventeen
five. No longer shall your name be
called Abraham, but your name shall be called Abram, but your
name shall be called Abraham, for I will make you a father
of a multitude of nations. It’s going to begin with the
son and it is going to grow and flourish into not just one, but
many nations. Harkening back to Genesis 15,
which verses we just read, look at the heavens. and counts the
stars. And he said to him, so shall
your descendants be. The great design of Abraham’s
faith. And I believe that the design
that he consciously undertook is he believed God. God, you
said you’re going to make me a father of many nations. I take
you at your word. Have at it. It was consciously entertained
by Abraham. And his faith was directed From
the very beginning toward the fulfillment of those very promises.
Now, you say now, Pastor, you said that not often do we get
a promise so grand, so great that requires our faith for its
very fulfillment. Is there anything greater than
the offer of salvation? Is there anything greater than
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ died for you, a sinner?
and offers you salvation, forgiveness from sin, free and full. And
all God requires of you is not a life of works, but faith. Take him at his word. Lay hold
of salvation and then one day enjoy it. That’s exactly what
Abraham did here. He took God and you said. To
believe. You said that I’m going to have
a son in order that I might be the father of many nations. He
believed. Third. There’s a third element
of. Detail here with regards to the
nature of faith that must be considered the faith that saves
believes beyond what seems hopeless, it believes to the fulfillment
of the divine promise and the faith that saves believes in
spite of dismal human perspective. Now, many of us are really good
at this, we’re really good at greening and cultivating and
gathering and chronicling and filing away dismal human perspective. All is lost. We’re really good at it. It’s
absolutely worthless. In spite of a dismal human perspective,
Abraham believed, look at verse 19, without becoming weak in
faith, He contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since
he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s
womb. He looked at two facts. He looked
at the fact that he was just about, you know, he probably
should go back in the shop and start building the pine box.
That’s what it says, essentially. He was as good as dead. He could
write his own obituary. His life is over and he knew
it. And his wife, lo these many years,
was unable to conceive. That much had been proven. But to take God at His promise, Abraham was going to have to
overlook a few facts, wasn’t he? He didn’t let his faith be weakened
by those little facts. Rather, he believes he took God
at his word in spite of those facts. And those facts are no
less real than your dismal human perspective on whatever it is
that you’re building a file on. You know what, I almost never
do this, but there’s a variant reading here. The reason I don’t
go into variant readings, there aren’t that many of them that
really amount to much. And I don’t want to undermine
anyone’s faith in doing so to say that, you know, two thousand
years ago, there was some scribe sitting in a tower that wrote
an A when he meant to write an E or what have you. But there
are those in the manuscripts. There are plenty of them. And
as we said in the Institute years ago, no article of faith hangs
on a variant reading. That’s a comforting thing. But
there’s a there’s a different reading here. What I mean by
that is there’s a significant spelling error in various manuscripts. And I say significant because
one, if you insert one little letter, it makes it a negative. That essentially says this, Abraham
did not contemplate his own body. The positive is the other spelling. where it says that he did contemplate
his own body. You say, well, Pastor, this rocks
my world, I don’t know if I can go on the remainder of the Lord’s
day. It isn’t even the Lord’s day
if you don’t fix this. OK, let me fix it. So the negative
would go something like this because of his unweakened faith,
Abraham did not concentrate all his attention on his own unpromising
circumstances. That’s how one person put it.
In other words, he didn’t even think about it. Oh, 99, who cares? With God, all things are possible.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. He did not consider,
another one said it this way, he did not consider his own dead
body and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not set his mind
upon, he did not become so absorbed with, so as to become weak in
faith. That’s an interesting idea. What about the positive? He did contemplate his own body.
He did look at his circumstances, his situation. Because of his
unweakened faith, Abraham considered steadily, said one without attempting
to deceive himself, his unpromising circumstances. He did not allow
what he saw to make him doubt God’s promise. And you say, well,
which one is it? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you have situations that
you face just like that? You know what? Look, I know the
situation looks impossible. I don’t care. I believe in God.
I’m going on. Or, you know what? Look at this situation. Look
at how utterly hopeless this is from a human perspective.
You know what? God can do it. At the end, it
says it right in the text. Without becoming weak in faith. And either way you take it from
there, his faith wasn’t weakened, whether he focused and dwelt
upon it daily. Lord, I’m ninety nine now. I
blew out more candles on the birthday cake than I could even
count. And yet you’re promising me a son. The difference in thought, said
one genius. is not so great and both readings
are compatible with the context and with what we know of Abraham.
And that’s really what happens with almost all the variant readings.
No article of faith hangs in the balance and neither did it
here. Abraham’s ability, his power,
his strength was gone. As the text says, he’s almost
dead, as good as dead, and yet that did not diminish his faith. Whether he contemplated and dwelt
on the facts every day or whether he made a passing glance at the
facts of the case, it did not harass his faith. There’s a fourth
point, a fourth edifying detail in the nature of saving faith.
The faith that saves believes fourthly without embracing faithlessness. Yeah. That’s not just my quirky little
point, the text says it, the Bible says it right here. The
faith that saves believes without embracing faithlessness. Which
means that faithlessness is going to be there. We heard it in our
elders prayer this morning, he said it. Faithlessness is going
to be there. Missteps, curiosities, difficult
moments, moments of doubt, moments of distress, a file that we’re
keeping with dismal human perspective. That’s all faithlessness. But what I’m pointing out here
is that Abraham refused to embrace it. He refused to welcome him
in as a stranger. You know, come in and sit, faithlessness. Let’s enjoy tea. Look at verse
20. Yet with respect to the promise
of God, he did not waver in unbelief. Now, if you know your Bibles
and particularly the book of Genesis, we’ve already talked
about this, and I’m not going to go all through it again. Abraham’s
belief wasn’t stellar, was it? Abraham had many glitches to
his faith. He had many missteps. He had
many moments that were less than God honoring. And yet, Paul says here his faith
did not waver. So it can’t possibly mean that
he didn’t ever have a crisis of faith, that he didn’t ever
experience a struggle. Genesis 17 says when he heard
about this, these promises, Abraham fell on his face and laughed.
Now, how’s that for not wavering? So this not wavering must mean
something different than just a complete and pristine walk
of faith. I’m meaning to encourage the
faith. Your faith isn’t perfect and
neither was Abraham’s. One pastor said the reference
to the divine promise at this point is vitally important. It
makes clear that the faith which Paul is concerned is not belief
in the impossible that is wholly based on controlled by the divine
promise. It is the promise which rests
upon which it rests its power. It exists because a man has been
overpowered, held and sustained by God’s promise. In other words,
Abraham, even though he had moments of doubt, yet he would not, did
not, could not embrace. faithlessness, he could not.
Lose his faith, he could not walk away from God in disbelief. This unbelief points to more
than just an absence of faith, what it points to is an active
rejection of faith. Abraham never did. Abraham did
some silly things, things that you and I might even scoff at. But Abraham never walked away
from God. Abraham never went and embraced faithlessness. He
never made a affirmative decision to refuse to give God. Glory. As one said, Abraham did not
stagger, he did not entertain doubting thoughts, if Abraham
wavered at the promise, it would have been through unbelief. Yet
Abraham persevered through that. He didn’t hover in that realm
of. Disbelief. Another said that
had he been weak in faith and allowed himself to dwell on the
obstacles to the fulfillment of the promise, he would have
staggered. This does not imply that there
was no inward conflict without doubt, without it only says that
his faith triumphed over all difficulties. And that’s really
where we are, isn’t it? We constantly are in that. It’s
like being pressed between two walls or being torn in two. We’re constantly in that state
from the moment that we became a Christian, right? We became
a Christian. We thought it was going to become
smooth sailing, right? Easy to believe in God and all
things. And yet the longer we walk with
Christ, sometimes the more difficult it is. Why, God? John Calvin himself. knew of
this struggle. John Calvin said it this way.
The mind is never so enlightened that there are no remains of
ignorance, nor the heart so established that there are no misgivings.
Do you hear what he said? Your Christian life is going
to be one chronic, constant battle against doubt. Throw the file
away, right? Calvin goes on and says, faith
maintains a perpetual conflict in which it is often sorely shaken
and put to great stress, but it still conquers. No wonder
Jesus in teaching his own disciples
said, if you have faith, not a great faith, not a mountain
of faith, a mustard seed. If you have the faith of a mustard
seed, The faith that saves fifthly.
The faith that saves believes beyond what seems hopeless, believes
to the fulfillment of divine promise, believes in spite of
a dismal human perspective, believes without embracing faithlessness
and believes to the strengthening of faith. It believes to the
strengthening of faith. Did you hear what he says? Look at the text, because the
text says it even more clearly than I ever could. He did not
waver in unbelief, verse 20, but grew strong in faith, giving
glory to God and being fully assured that what he had promised
he was able to perform. Your faith is what it is today,
prayerfully, By God’s grace in 10 years, it’ll be that much
stronger. You will still waver and still
struggle, even with doubt in those moments. But. It will be stronger still, that’s
the design of struggles, that’s the design of God’s trials in
our lives. Abraham, it says that as he faced
the prospect of his situation, Called in one sense to be the
father of many nations, called to enjoy the promise of God,
and yet still waiting after 25 years. Instead of becoming weaker in
faith, as the text already has told us, he became stronger in
faith. He was emboldened by this. It empowered him all the more.
He said, as the years ticked off, this is really going to
be good. I thought it was going to be
an amazing miracle 25 years ago. Now let’s watch God work as I
approach 100. You could almost put it like
this. Faith begets faith. Faith builds faith. Faith in
God begins to grow and flourish in the believer’s life to where
he begins to take God at His word in all kinds of new areas. Having seen God work, we pray
for more. We can’t wait to see what God’s
going to do next. This, as one said, this serves
to bring out the more clearly the true nature of faith by showing
in its opposition to its victory over unbelief in a situation
in which everything seems to be stacked against the promise.
Faith is being enabled to rest on the promise alone, refusing
to demand a visible or tangible sign of proof. Don’t you know
those people? You know, you’ve talked to them and they’re all
they’re kind of interested in religious things, but they always
you know, they want proof. So they read about the Shroud
of Turin. They can’t wait to hear if they found Noah’s Ark
finding or, you know, whatever other relic they dig up. That’s not faith, that’s doubt,
waiting for faith to kick in the head. Hebrews 11 said, by
faith, even Sarah herself can receive the ability to conceive
even beyond the proper time of life. She took it in faith, she
saw the facts, she knew the situation, since she considered him faithful
who had promised. Well, if God said it, even though
the facts are what they are, God said it, so I believe it. And look at how this strong faith
exhibits itself. This faith that is growing and
flourishing and becoming stronger every day exhibits itself in
giving glory to God. And in being fully assured, bold
confidence, fully persuaded, absolutely convinced, translated
elsewhere in Colossians 4, 4, 12, fully assured In Hebrews 10, 22, let us draw
near with a sincere faith and full assurance of faith. God is in the midst of building
us up if we are in Christ. God is in the midst of building
our faith, and the goal is to make sure that we are fully persuaded,
fully assured of these promises that he’s given to us, just as
Abraham is exhibited as an example to us. Abraham took God at his
word that was good enough. Glorifying God, praising God,
seeking to please him in all that we do, worshiping him not
just here on Sunday, but in all that we do with our lives. As one said, giving glory to
God and being fully persuaded, defined for us That in which
the strengthening of faith consisted in the ways in which the strengthening
of faith was expressed. What was involved in the strengthening
of faith, it had outlets and the outlet was to please God
and to build him up all the more. You say. Just not sure I’m ready
to put my faith there, I need a little more proof, well. I
love the way Charles Hodge parked this. He said it is a very great
error for men to suppose that to doubt is evidence of humility.
To doubt is evidence either of ignorance or of stubbornness.
Either you don’t have enough data or the data that has been
clearly presented to you, you will not yield to. That’s what
he’s saying. He says, on the contrary, to
doubt God’s promise or his love is to dishonor him because it
is to question his word. Multitudes refuse to accept his
grace because they do not regard themselves as worthy. The thing
to be believed is that God accepts the unworthy, that for Christ’s
sake, he justifies the unjust. Many find it harder to believe
that God can love them. than Abraham did to believe that
he would be the father of many nations. I mean, haven’t you
heard that as a supposed excuse? Oh, I just can’t forgive myself,
right? I can’t take this salvation by
grace. I need to do some work. No, you
don’t. There’s a sixth point as we close. The sixth edifying detail on
the nature of faith. The faith that saves believes
to the justification of his soul. That’s why it’s so crucial. That’s
why this point, the discussion, this rabbit trail, if you will,
this point that Paul wants to make about faith is so crucial. Because our very salvation hangs
in the balance. Look at verse 22, therefore,
He’s painted the picture for us. He’s told us the nature of
saving faith. Therefore, also, it was reckoned
to him as righteousness. Paul basically sums up this entire
argument. And it leads right back to this
statement on the justification of faith. When Pearson said it this way,
Abraham was accepted as righteous on the on account of his faith.
Not that faith itself was the ground, but the condition of
his justification. He believed in God, accepted
him as righteous. Just as now we believe and are
accepted as righteous, not on account of any merit of our own,
but simply on the ground of the righteousness of Christ. Which
is imputed to us when we believe. It is given to us whenever we
are willing to receive and rest upon it. That’s the nature of
saving faith. We don’t work our way to heaven.
We don’t get our way to heaven by adhering to certain rituals.
We don’t get our way to heaven by adhering to the standards
of the law. We acquire heaven as a gracious
gift of God by placing our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Have
you done that? Let’s pray. A merciful God, we thank you
for this clear presentation of what faith is, the nature of
it and our need to do like Abraham did and to take you at your word. That’s faith. God, grant us the
grace, grant any in the room today who do not know the Lord
Jesus Christ, grant them the grace to place their faith fully
and only in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Thank you and
praise you. In Jesus name.