The Faith to Believe

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Years ago, I heard the story about a man who was walking along the edge of a precipice, and his foot slipped. And to his horror, he began to slide off the edge. He grasped for everything he could try to grasp to keep himself from slipping over, but to no avail. He began to fall, and in God's goodness to him as he fell, he reached up and ten feet into his fall there was a small tree sticking out from the edge of the precipice, and he grabbed and latched onto that tree and held himself there, and for a moment he collected his breath and waited.

And then he began to think of the need for help as he clung to the edge of that cliff onto the tree to which he had he had run into, and he began to shout. Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody up there that can help?

There was silence. He waited another few minutes, hoping that maybe somebody would come by on the trail overhead, and he yelled again. Is there anybody up there? Can somebody help, and then a voice a strange voice that he couldn't really tell where it was coming from said, have faith and turn loose.

Well, he was caught in a bit of a quandary, and so he thought for just a moment, and he did the only thing that any of us would do. He said, is there anybody else out there?

You know there's a great lesson in that about the nature of faith. We are often, even as believers, confused about what faith really is. We hear a story like that. We hear about leaps of blind faith, and we began to think that that is really of the essence of faith.

But it's not, and tonight I want us to look at what true biblical saving faith is. In God's providence, we have sort of had a tag team on that issue today. Starting this morning with looking at the historical perspective of saving faith, and tonight we're going to look at faith more specifically.

Now, few weeks ago, I introduced you to a Latin term, which some of you began to hyperventilate, and I was afraid we were going to have to break out the defibulators because there was some panic going on ordo salutes simply means "the order of salvation".

When you look at the order of salvation, we took it biblically and laid it out and said Okay, When we look at the flow of the biblical text, we looked at two passages really to build our framework. One was Romans 8, and the other was John 1.

And when we did that, this was the essential order. Reading from left to right, you have election in eternity past; you have effectual calling and regeneration; faith and repentance; positional sanctification, that is being set apart unto God at the moment of salvation; justification, being declared righteous by God; and adoption. All of those things happen at the very moment of salvation.

When we talk about an order of salvation, we're not talking about a chronology, as if one of these things happens one minute and the next happens five, ten minutes later. We're talking about at one moment in time. But as we take them apart and look at them from a logical standpoint, if you will, from the viewpoint of the mind of God. This is the order in which they occur.

Then the rest of life on earth for a believer after that moment of salvation is characterized by progressive sanctification: that is the process of progressively growing more holy more like Christ, and perseverance: that is continuing in faith to the end; and that brings about glorification, and glorification occurs as the second coming of Christ when our entire person is fully redeemed, not only our souls, but also our bodies as well.

Now, when you look at these events, election, of course is a divine act. Effectual calling and regeneration are also divine acts. Faith and repentance, however, are both divine and human acts, and we'll talk about those tonight. Then positional sanctification, justification, and adoption are acts of God, divine acts. And then progressive sanctification and perseverance are again both divine and human acts in that God has a part of these acts, but He doesn't do everything for us. There are things that we must do, and then finally, glorification is a divine act.

God acts solely to accomplish that. So that is a picture of our salvation from eternity past when God chose us into the future when we are glorified. Tonight, I want us to begin to look at the human acts that occur at the moment of salvation. We have already looked at the first two divine acts there that occur at the moment of salvation, effectual calling and regeneration. Now I want us to look at those acts that involve us where we actually respond in some way, and that is faith and repentance.

Theologians call the reality that these two terms describe "conversion". The word "conversion" simply means "to turn around". When you speak about conversion, we're talking about turning from sin (that's repentance) and turning to God (that is faith). Logically, we can separate these and see them as two acts, but in reality, they are a single act.

When you turn to God, you must turn from everything else, and when you turn from sin, you turn to God. They cannot be separated from each other. Without repentance you don't have true biblical faith, and without faith there is no genuine repentance. Tonight, I want us to examine the issue of faith, true saving faith. And next week, if the Lord wills we will look at repentance.

So, let's begin with the question, and we're going to ask a series of questions tonight. The first is what's the source of faith? Where does this faith come from? Well, I told you it was both a human and divine act, so that gives you a pretty clear hint.

Scripture teaches that all true Christians do believe in Christ; contrary to what you heard someone quoted as this morning, All true Christians do believe in Christ, but we do not; indeed, we cannot, believe on our own initiative completely under our own steam.

John Murray writes without regeneration. It is morally and spiritually impossible for a person to believe in Christ. But when a person is regenerated, it is morally and spiritually impossible for that person not to believe.

Now the source of faith is God Himself, and He gives it to us solely as a gift of His grace. This, by the way, is why the reformers refer to salvation as coming to us Sola Gratia by grace alone, because even the faith and repentance in which to turn to God are gifts of God.

There are a number of passages that lay this out. John 6:44. Christ said, "No one can come to Me (remember come to me as a picture of faith No one can believe in Me.) No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him….

God is the one who makes that faith possible, but there are some other passages that make it even more direct. Acts 13:48, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Notice the order of the verbs in Greek, as in English, the one precedes the other as many as had been appointed.

Those are the ones who believed, Act 16:14, of course, you meet Lydia. And Lydia was listening to Paul, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the thing spoken by Paul. There's a picture of faith. He opened her heart to respond. God is the one who gave her the gift of faith. Acts 18:27 describes those who had believed through grace. It's God's grace that enables them and us to believe. Philippians 1:29,

For to you it has been granted [by the way this word "granted" is an interesting Greek word. It's the verb form of the word "grace" to them.] It has been given as a grace gift for Christ's sake to believe in Him. And then, of course, the classic, turn back to Ephesians 2. This is the one that comes to almost everyone's mind. Ephesians 2:8. Paul described in the first three verses our terrible condition, the circumstances in which we found ourselves dead in trespasses and sins, verse 5.

Then God made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved, and then he comes back to it in verse 8 for by grace, you have been saved. So, it's God's grace from beginning to end.

It's all of God would be another way to say that it's by God's favor to you that you have been saved. That came to you through faith, and that not of yourselves. [Now there's a lot of discussion. You can read reams of material about what that refers to. There's a change.]

There's a particular kind of pronoun that's used here. It could refer to two things it could refer to faith that is, faith wasn't of yourself. It's the gift of God or it could refer to the whole process of being saved. It is a gift of God. Either way faith is included. So. he's saying here that faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of work, so that no one can boast.

So, when we believe, when you believed, if you think back to that time when you heard the gospel, when God, through that preached word, drew you to Himself the effectual calling, He gave you new life, and you believed what you heard. That wasn't because you were bright.

That was because God gave you the ability to believe. Now, God didn't believe for you. You did believe, but you, and I can take very little really no credit for that because it was a gift of God. There are other passages that make the same point. God is the source of our faith.

He's the one that gives it to us as a gift. Well that brings up the next key question. And that is: exactly what is this gift? What is faith? Now, I want us to work toward a definition by first of all identifying what saving faith is not. There are various kinds of non-saving faith.

First of all, there's natural faith. This is everyday faith. In some fact, you'll sometimes hear people a little illustrate saving faith by using everyday faith. They'll say well faith is like when you get on an airplane, you know you walk up the ramp there. And now they've changed this. But in the old days there would be even newspapers and you'd slip up there and you'd see a newspaper, and it said, A hundred and twenty-one went down, forty-three are being looked for, and you sort of hesitate for a moment. You know, is this really something I want to do, and then you say, I believe this huge piece of metal will actually make it off of the end of the runway.

It will elevate because of the force created by the engines, and I'll be safe. I'll arrive at my destination, and they say that is faith, or they'll use a chair. They'll say you're sitting right now in a pew. That's faith. You didn't make that pew. You don't know the person who did, and you have no way to determine if that pew is really going to hold you up, so you set on that pew by faith. Well, you know that sounds good. But really that isn't true. That kind of faith isn't biblical faith.

It's really nothing more than the law of probabilities. The reason you said on that few and expected the whole year. The reason you got on an airplane is because the law of probabilities tells you that chances are that pew is going to hold you up and chances are that airplane is going to arrive its destination that isn't biblical faith.

There's also historical faith. That is, those who intellectually accept the truth about Jesus as historical fact. Yes. There was a person named Jesus The first time I went to Israel. I had a great time talking with our Israeli tour guide, and of course they're seasoned veterans of this.

They're Christians always trying to evangelize them, but it was fascinating to me to talk to him because here's a man who embraces the fact that there was a Jesus; that He made all of these claims that we say He made or at least most of them, and He even flirts with the possibility that He was from God.

It's historical faith, purely intellectual, That is not saving faith. There are a lot of people who have historical faith.

Then there's miraculous faith. This isn't saving faith either. This is the faith of those who believe because of miracles either done to them or even by them. You say, how can unbelievers do miracles? Well, Satan does miracles.

Demons do miracles of a certain kind with a certain amount of parameter put upon them by God. Sometimes it's pure deception. Other times they have incredible power and can accomplish much.

But you see this in Matthew 7, these people who appear at the judgment and they say, Lord, what a minute what do you mean? We know you, and in fact remember the miracles that we did in your name.

And Christ says, I never knew you depart from me, so miraculous faith is not. Saving faith by the way, this happens often in the gospels be careful when you read and a miracle happens, and it says they believed him, or they believed in him. It can be this kind of miraculous faith.

It's not true saving faith, and then finally there's temporary faith. This is the faith described in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, the rocky soil that had no root or the thorny soil that got choked out.

But in both cases, those were people who seemed to respond to the gospel; seemed to respond in truth. There was an emotional response. They looked for a moment like everything, or for a while like everything was going to be great. They were going to develop into true maturing fruitful Christians, but in reality, it never happened.

Theirs was a temporary, non-saving faith. You and I have all seen this people that we've witnessed to, or people who come to the Church or come to the Church as we used to go to and they come and they weep, and they make professions of faith in Christ and a month two months later you never see them again, and they're back into the lifestyle and the pattern that they knew before it's temporary faith and the cares of this world choke out the seed of the gospel, or the fact that there's no foundation.

When persecution and trouble comes, they fall away. Berkhoff writes that temporal faith, or temporary faith here is grounded in the emotional life and seeks personal enjoyment rather than the glory of God.

Only one kind of faith is biblical saving faith, and it's none of these, and by the way it is supernatural. As we've already discovered, it comes as a gift from God. It bears similarities.

To or appears to bear similarities to what we call natural faith, the stuff we do every day, but it is wholly different. It is supernatural. It is a gift from God.

Now we can further define our understanding of what faith is by not only looking at what saving faith is not, but also looking at what true faith is contrasted with. You see throughout the New Testament faith is put in contrast with all types of human effort.

For example, Paul says, "Faith is the opposite of works of the law." You could look all of these references up. You would find that's exactly what he's saying. Faith is the opposite of works of the law. For example, Romans 3:20-22.

He makes that point very clearly you can believe, or you can go through the works of the law in an effort to obtain salvation, but the two are diametrically opposed. Also works of any kind turn to Romans, Let me just show you this one Romans 4:5.

Whatever faith is, it has no relationship to human effort of any kind.

Verse 2 Romans 4. … if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about…. In other words, if Abraham did anything to gain his justification, if there was any human effort involved, then he's got something to brag about.

He could say look what I did. Look how I pleased God. Look how I made myself acceptable before God, he says, but not before God, in other words, can't happen, not going to happen, didn't happen with Abraham and not going to happen with anybody else.

For what does the Scripture say, ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS [now watch verse 4] Now to the one who works, [the one who extends effort.]

his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. [In other words, you work a job you get paid and that paycheck you get. That's not a gift. You earn that you have a right to that. Verse 5, Here's his point,] But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness….

You see here how Paul juxtaposes, puts in two different corners of the ring, if you will, faith and works. Works of any kind. He does the same thing in Romans 11. In Philippians 3:9, he contrasts true faith with a righteousness of one's own making, a standing before God that you accomplish there's faith on the one hand, and there's a righteousness of your own making on the other.

And then finally, in Ephesians 2, he says, It's not of yourself. It's not of yourself. It has nothing to do with you. Faith has nothing to do with any of these things. That means as the reformers like to say, "salvation is by faith alone by faith alone". True faith is the diametric opposite of all types of human effort and work.

By the way this is not what Roman Catholic theology teaches. Just so you know, because we live in a day when there's an attempt to sort of blur the distinctions, nothing could be more clear than the distinction between what we embrace about faith and what Roman Catholicism teaches you.

You'll notice, the Council of Trent makes it very clear where they stand, and by the way Vatican III only affirmed the doctrine of the Council of Trent.

If anyone says that by faith alone, the sinner is justified so as to mean that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to attain the grace of justification, let him be anathema. It couldn't be any clearer than that.

The Roman Catholic Church argues that Paul never uses the word faith alone, and in fact the only place in the New Testament where the words faith and alone occur together is in James 2 as we saw this morning where it says not justified by faith alone.

Well, that's true, and by the way, if you ever hear some of the Catholic apologists like Scott Hahn that are out there trying to win Protestants over to the Catholic Church. They'll use this argument. But when Paul says by faith apart from the works of the law, when he says, the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly when he says, we are not justified by the works of the law, but through faith, and when he says by the law, no man is justified before God.

He is, as Robert Raymond says, asserting the aloneness of faith as the alone instrument of justification as surely as if he had used the word alone, and he is asserting even more vigorously than if he had simply employed the word alone each time, it's true. By saying it different ways and turning the phrase, he's punctuating it even more than just repeating the same thing by faith alone each time.

There's no question, but what that's Paul? What Paul means faith alone is the means by which we receive justification. The reformers called this "sola fide" "by faith alone".

Now, how is true faith pictured or illustrated? We're still asking the question. What is faith? How is it pictured? This helps us because pictures are worth a thousand words right. In the New Testament, faith is pictured several different ways.

First of all, it's pictured by looking to Jesus. You remember that story in the Old Testament when the serpents came and were biting the people of Israel, and Moses made the serpent, and he lifted it up. And if you looked at that serpent, and you kept your eyes focused on that serpent, then you were saved from the biting serpents all around.

Jesus, or John the Apostle, uses that image in John 3, when he says, The Son of Man that is, Jesus Himself must be lifted up. So faith is compared to looking at Jesus in the same way that those people had to look at that serpent and keep their eyes fixed on that serpent.

It's also described (and this was a very troubling one for those who heard Him say it) as eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood. Now this has been made to being that transubstantiation that the wafer and the blood become the actual body and blood of Christ. When you eat it, that's not at all what this is saying. He says at the end of that passage, the words which I speak to you. They are spirit, and they are life.

He says, I'm talking to you about spiritual things. I'm not talking about wafers and actual blood. His point is having faith in Christ is like so participating in Him that it's as if you were partaking of Him.

That's a picture of faith in John 1 receiving Him is another picture of faith, receiving Him. But my favorite, and I think the one that's clearest for me is coming to Him. We can all picture that. I remember there was a time early in my Christian life and experience when I struggled with doubts about my salvation. You know, am I really in Christ, and I remember reading those passages where Christ says, if anyone comes to Me. I'll not cast him out.

I'll not turn Him away and that picture of coming that's a great picture of faith. Christ is saying, "If you come to Me." And so, as I contemplated that, it occurred to me that that is faith, Lord.

If you were anywhere here on the world, if you were on the earth, still I would sell everything. I have to get the fair to go where you are. I would come to you and seek salvation from you. And so that's a picture of faith. It's coming to Christ not coming to Him physically, but coming to Him spiritually, approaching Him. That's how true faith is pictured now, with all of that in mind. Let's see if we can define faith. Here are several definitions

I, like John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, refers to faith as a kind of vessel With which we come empty and with the mouth of our soul open to seek God's grace. It's just a vessel, a vessel we come seeking God's grace.

Spurgeon, in his excellent book All of Grace, defines faith as believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do and then to expect this of Him. That He is what He is said to be that He will do what He's promised to do, and then to expect this of Him.

And then finally, Louis Berkoff gives a very technical systematic definition.

It is a certain conviction wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit as to the truth of the Gospel and a hearty reliance or trust on the promises of God in Christ. That's faith, that's saving faith, but there's still more. We can learn about saving faith.

Let's look at the elements of faith. What are the elements of faith? This is the next question I want us to answer. In the New Testament, the Greek word translated "faith" and its verb form "believe" occur about two hundred and forty times each.

And when you look at how the New Testament uses these words, you uncover three basic elements or components of true faith. Note, these are logical elements. Faith comes as a package. Through saving faith comes as a package, but let's look at them.

The first element is "knowledge", or the Latin word that you'll sometimes read is "notitia". "Knowledge" this concerns the intellectual aspect of faith, the factual content of faith, and this is the only foundation of true faith. Saving faith is always based on divine revelation on content. There're certain things you have to know in order to have faith. You can't have this sort of contentless faith by the way. John Calvin in his Institute spent forty of the fifty pages on faith on this first element, knowledge, it's crucial.

On the other hand, there are some religions and some aspects of the Christian faith like Roman Catholicism that argues for an "implicit faith"; implicit faith that is faith in doctrines you don't even know.

It's faith if you believe what the Church teaches, even if you don't have a clue what it is the Church teaches. It reminds me of the man who was interviewed by his elders for membership, and the elders ask him what he believed about salvation, and he said, well, I believe what the church believes.

He said, Well, okay, what is it that the Church believes he said, well, the Church believes what I believe.

You know at this point they were getting a little exasperated, so they tried one more time. They said, So just what is it that you and the church believe. Well, he thought for a moment, and he said, "We believe the same thing." That's how some people are when it comes to faith. There's no knowledge no content to their faith, so it's not faith. The intelligent comprehension of truth is essential to faith. We can believe only what we know.

When you say, I believe the Bible, if you mean by that, I believe the Bible is the word of God. That's fine, but if you mean I believe all that's in the Bible, then that's not really true because you can only believe of what's in the Bible what you know. The Greek phrase that occurs throughout the New Testament that highlights this element of faith is translated, and you'll see it often "believe that" you must believe that something, and then there's a factual content that follows it.

You see it in a number of passages. For example, if you were to look at, let's look at John 8, John 8:24.

Jesus here says, I said to you that you will die in your sins for unless you believe that (there's our formula). This is the knowledge portion of faith. Here is content. You need to believe (unless you believe that). I AM, He literally says, I am to claim to deity. That's God's personal name. He's claiming to be the I AM of the Old Testament, Jehovah God, Yahweh God. He says unless you believe that, you'll die in your sins.

So, there's this content aspect of faith if you were to look at John 20:31, he says, These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

There's knowledge. That is the basis for faith, Romans 10:9, You must believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. It's content.

Now when you look at that? What does the Scripture include in this knowledge? What are the aspects or the facts, if you will, of saving faith that we need to know? Well, this is just a little study, but the Scripture says there are some things you have to know about God in Christ.

You have to know about Jesus' preexistent deity that he is God, his identity as the son of God, his identity as the Messiah, his incarnation, his full humanity.

These are all things in which, in the context of which it said, you must believe that, and this content is supplied.

You have to believe His oneness with the Father. He and the Father are one, but there's also, in addition to knowing some facts about God in Christ, you must know the message of the gospel and embrace that message. Turn to Romans 10, Romans 10:14.

How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed, and how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How can they believe in someone about whom they've not heard? There has to be content about Christ. Verse 17, So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word [or the message about] … Christ. You have to know certain things about Christ and what He's accomplished the Gospel, the good news.

These other passages identify the same thing. Of course, a classic one as 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. We won't take time to turn there, but it's clear when you study the Scripture and you come across this expression. You must believe that. You're talking about the content of faith.

Faith has to have a certain content, but (and this is crucial) the demons believe in this sense as we've studied in James 2. They have an emotional response to the truth. They know the truth, and they have an emotional response to it. They tremble, they shudder.

So, true faith is more than just knowledge. In fact, in Hebrews 4:2, it's speaking of those Israelites who died in the desert. It says the word they heard (they had knowledge) did not profit them because they had no faith. They died in the desert. So, let's move on.

That's the first element. It's foundational. This element is essential. There is no faith without content, but this is only one aspect of true saving faith to be true saving faith. It has to have this, but it has to have more.

Secondly, the second element of faith is ascent. "Ascensus "is the Latin word. This speaks of the emotional aspect of faith, the emotional response to the facts about Christ and salvation. It's being convinced that the knowledge you gain from Scripture about Christ is factually true, and it's what you actually need.

One writer put it this way. It now remains to pour into the heart itself what the mind has absorbed. For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart. Now the Greek construction that highlights this element of faith is usually translated in English.

You still have to be careful and lie on the context, but usually you'll see something like this "to believe", and then there'll be a person or a proposition without the word that, or there'll be a preposition followed by a noun. There'll be a prepositional phrase. Let me give you some illustrations, and that may help. Here are a number of passages in which this is described.

Let's look (that's Romans 4:3 by the way there at the beginning Romans 4:3 and Romans 10:16). Let's look at those. Turn back to Romans 4:3

For what does the Scripture say? ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD. He believed, and here's God's name God. He had an absolute assurance that God was telling the truth and that he needed what God was promising. Over in chapter 10:16, However, they did not all heed. The good news for Isaiah says, "Who has believed our report?" Here you have believed followed by a noun. Our report. This is the same sense; they didn't assent to it. They didn't believe it. They didn't say that's true. They didn't agree that it's true, so this is the way this word is used. It means "to emotionally assent to the truth" believe. A person or a preposition that follows it. Now finally, The third element of faith is trust. "Our fiducia" is the Latin word. This is a volitional word. This is the will's response to Christ, and this, by the way, is the heart of faith. This is the difference between saving faith and non-saving faith.

This was also the thrust of the Old Testament faith. There are passages (such as Psalm 4:5 and particularly Psalm 9:10. We'll look at that a little later) that show that this was the heart of the kind of faith described in the Old Testament. The word "trust" is actually the Hebrew word that's used, one of the words used for trust is "to lean on". This is the heart of faith. By the way, it was on this element of faith that Jesus focused many of His calls to salvation. I told you that this morning, this idea of putting your entire trust and reliance on.

He said in Matthew 11:28-29. Come [unto] … me [there's that picture of faith] come to me, all you who [labor] are weary … and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you…. That's a pretty clear picture, if you live in an agricultural society. Take my yoke on you, the kind of yoke you put on an ox. I have a yoke, and I want you to put it on. If you're going to come to Me in faith, you put it on. This is this decision of the will to follow. John Murray says, "Faith cannot stop short of self-commitment to Christ, a transference of reliance from ourselves and all human resources to reliance upon Christ alone for salvation."

Louis Berkoff writes, "This third element consists in a personal trust in Christ as Savior and Lord, including a surrender of the soul as guilty and defiled to Christ, and a reception and approval of Christ as the source of pardon and of spiritual life." This, listen carefully, this third element is transferring all your reliance for pardon and righteousness away from yourself, away from your own resources in complete and total abandonment to Jesus Christ.

Resting entirely on Him alone for salvation. Now there're several Greek constructions that identify this element. They are translated in English with these expressions.

First of all, to believe in, you can see that in John 3:15 in Acts 13:39, also to believe on, for example, in Romans 10:11, it says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES ON HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."

And then there's "believe." Literally, the Greek text says, "believe into" it's translated in English, as in. This is the most common way to express it. For example, in Romans 10:14, we already looked there how shall they believe in Him.

Unto Him, in whom they have not heard. Philippians 1:29 … to you it was granted for Christ's sake to believe [literally into] … Him.

First John 5:13. "These things have I written unto you who believe into the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life." Now what does this mean "to believe into or on someone".

Well, there are, some interesting light comes to us from the ancient secular documents that have been uncovered, Greek documents, the Papyri it's ,those documents that were discovered in the trash heaps of the ancient world. A man by the name of Diceman in a book called Light from the Ancient Near East, gives several convincing quotations to prove that this expression "to believe into" meant "surrender or submission to". For example, in the Papyri, there's a document that talks about a slave who was sold into the name of the god of that temple. In other words, to be a temple servant, thus, to believe on or to believe into the name of Jesus means to renounce yourself, and to consider oneself the lifetime slave of Jesus Christ. To believe into Christ has that picture behind it.

Sinclair Ferguson, who was with us for our Evangelism Conference, writes, "Such trust is always a costly thing because it involves us in surrendering our lives to Christ." That is why, in the synoptic gospels Jesus does not speak simply of faith. He speaks about carrying the cross. He does this to emphasize what faith involves.

It means the practical recognition that Jesus is the Lord of our lives. It means forsaking everything else for His sake. That's why in Romans 10:9, it says, you want to be a believer, if you want to come to Christ, fine. You must confess that Jesus is that Lord. That doesn't mean, saying He's God. We traced that word before, and we did our study on Philippians. Instead, it means acknowledging Him as master, a sovereign.

We went through a number of quotes this morning, so I won't belabor, but this element of trust is the key element. It involves the repudiation of self and the reliance on Christ for everything.

Now what is the role of our function of faith? What role does it play by the way? This is a picture of the canal at Corinth, where it's been cut through the isthmus there to give access to ships. Scripture always speaks of faith in the terms of, by or through our salvation comes to us by faith or through faith. This is an absolutely crucial expression. Faith is merely an empty hand outstretched to receive the free gift of God's righteousness in Christ, it's only a channel.

It's an instrument. What it is not, and never is, is the cause are the grounds on which we are accepted before God. Now let me give you a real warning here about faith. The Scripture sometimes speaks in shorthanded. If you're not careful, you will come to the wrong conclusion.

When the Scripture says, Abraham believes God, and it was credited to him for righteousness. Your first thought may be to say, well, his faith was credited to him for righteousness. In other words God decided to accept his faith as if it were righteousness as a substitute for righteousness. Listen that is absolutely wrong. Your faith is not the grounds of your acceptance with God. God did not decide to say okay he can't measure up with righteousness, but he has faith, so I'll accept his faith instead of his righteousness. That makes faith a work. God is receiving you on the basis of your faith, but believing and working as we saw earlier are absolute opposites.

Scripture always speaks of salvation as being by or through faith, but never does it say that we are justified because of or on account of our faith. When I was a senior in high school, we, as many youth groups are prone to do, went on a canoe trip. Now we had a canoe in our family. I loved to canoe was very, very good at it, actually because we did it. We lived in southern Alabama. There was water everywhere, and it was something that was a constant part of our lives, and so we went on this canoe trip.

It was about 21 miles down the Blackwater River in Florida, and we had a lot of fun. But that morning the rain started coming, and of course, as it can do in South Alabama and over in the Florida panhandle, it just poured in buckets, which of course meant that the river began to rise, and the current picked up speed. And so, we were more careful than we had been. We've had a few miles left to go, but my friend and I arrived. He was in the canoe with me, and I was in the back staring, and we arrived at a place in the river where there was a little bit of a broad spot, and across the river there was a beach on one side, and across the river there was a tire hanging over the water.

Well, you know being high school students. We said that sounds like fun, so we pulled the canoe into the beach, pulled it up on the sandbar there. And then he and I swam across to the other side and started playing around on this tire, swinging out over the water and dropping in and all of this. Well, I don't know exactly all that happened, but I began to get fatigued, and the water was rushing faster than ever, and I had this feeling that things weren't right, and I started to be swept along barely struggling to stay above the water, and I went down. It's about ten feet of water. I went down and touched off the bottom and came back up out of the water.

And when I came up, my shoulders shot out of the water about this much, and I yelled to my friend who was over on the bank. Hey, give me a hand. Now I was serious about this, but as you can imagine a high school friend might think he assumed that you know I had other things in mind that this was actually a trick and so, he laughed, and I went down a second time.

I was continuing now to be swept along by the water, and I went down and bounced off the bottom a second time, came up this time. Just my mouth came out of the water, and there was no pride. At this point. I yelled "help" as loud as I could yell it. Well, he realized that I was in trouble, and he'd seen me continue to drift down the water, so I continued to drift, and he ran down the creek bank. I went down a third time, and this time I came up just with my head below the surface of the water.

I didn't break the plane of the water at all, and even in this murky water I could still see up through the water that my friend had run down the bank, and he had grabbed on to a tree that was hanging over the river and reached out his other arm down toward the surface of the water trying to save my life. Well, I reached out, and I grabbed that finger. It was about all I could reach, and in two seconds I pulled myself into his face, out of the water and right into his face, and I've never been so happy to be out of the water.

Now, I can take absolutely no credit for grabbing, for saving my life. I didn't save my life. My friend saved my life, you say well yeah, but you grabbed his hand. Listen, there is no more merit in our exercising faith and to believe in Christ than there was my grabbing the hand of the one who saved me. We can take absolutely no credit for saving ourselves.

That brings us to the final issue. What's the object of our faith?

Some people say, Well, you know it doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. Try that with a bottle of poison. It doesn't matter that it's poison if you really believe it's medicine, it'll help you. That's ridiculous.

Of course, it's ridiculous, and so is it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere. If you take poison as medicine, the greatest amount of faith won't help you. So, what is to be the object of our faith?

Well, theologians normally divide the objects of faith in this way. First of all, there's general faith that's simply faith in God and His revealed Word, but then there's special faith or saving faith. This is faith in Christ and in the promise of salvation through Him.

Whenever Scripture identifies the object of saving faith, it is never the truth in general. But it's always the person of Christ Himself. John 1:12. You remember that picture of faith, as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become the sons of God to as many as received the truth about Him, so, to as many as received Him. Listen, salvation is not in a plan; it's not in a prayer; it's in a person, and faith grabs hold of that person. John 3:16, Whoever believes in Him…. Galatians 2:16, … we have believed in Jesus Christ….

I've counseled a number of people through the years, including a pastor who had served as a pastor for many years. When I was at Grace, he called and asked to make an appointment with me, and he was struggling deeply with his own assurance of salvation. And we're tempted, I've noticed this is a temptation. We're tempted to become introspective about our faith. We're tempted to ask the question, well then, do I really believe enough? You ever answer that question of yourself, did I have enough faith?

B. B. Warfield writes, It's not faith that saves but faith in Christ. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves, and He does it through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith, but in the object of faith. One wise old Puritan wrote,

It is not the quantity of thy faith that shall save thee. A drop of water is as true water as the whole ocean, so a little faith is as true faith as the greatest. It is not the measure of thy faith that saves thee. "It is the blood that it grips to that saves thee."

It's a great quote. Spurgeon wrote, "A faith The weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. It's the object of your faith that matters not the amount of it. Is it in Christ, the person of Jesus Christ, is He your only hope of heaven, of eternity, of a right standing before God."

It's interesting when you think of faith. The New Testament speaks of little faith, great faith being full of faith weak faith. It's important to understand something about your faith. Faith is not a switch. You know you have these little switches on your walls like I do. Sometimes we think of faith that way you know you either have faith or you don't have faith. It's on or it's off. But in Scripture faith is not a switch, you decide to turn on. It's a muscle you build.

Turn to Romans 4 as we finish our study together. I want you to see how you can build your faith how you can strengthen your faith. If you're a believer, you believed at the moment of salvation, and you continue to exercise faith, and your faith needs to be strong. It needs to be strengthened. How does that happen? How do you strengthen this muscle? The spiritual muscle of faith, look at Romans 4:19.

Here's a description of Abraham. Paul says without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, yet notice he did not waver in unbelief. Now what's Paul's point here? He's obviously talking about the promise that God made to Abraham that he was going to have a son, but Abraham was an old man. It didn't seem possible. Paul's point is that if Abraham had merely focused on himself and his impossible circumstances, it would have undermined his faith.

The picture that immediately jumps into my mind is Peter. You remember Peter. He gets out of the boat. He's doing great walking on the top of the water, going to meet his lord, but he starts looking around and what happens. He starts to sink.

That's what Paul is saying here about Abraham. That didn't happen to Abraham, but weak faith results (Listen carefully, there's really nothing I'll say to you that'll be more helpful than this right here) weak faith results from dwelling on ourselves and our own circumstances.

If all Abraham had thought about was his own body and his wife's body and how old they were and how impossible it seemed that it could ever happen, it would have undermined his faith. And when you do that, it'll undermine your faith too.

If you spend all of your time thinking about yourself and your weaknesses and your sins and your problems, then your faith will only grow weaker and weaker and weaker. But what produces strong faith? Look at verse 21. Back in verse 20, it says he grew strong in faith, being fully assured that what God had promised, he was able to perform. Fully assured here means to be certain to be fully convinced that defines what strong faith is.

He grew strong in faith, and here's what strong faith is: being fully assured. Well, be assured about what? About God's character, fully assured that what God had promised, He was able to perform. Listen, you want to know the difference between strong faith and weak faith.

Weak faith always focuses on self and its impossible circumstances. But faith grows strong when we begin to look away from ourselves, and we begin to look at our God. That's what Abraham did. Look at the attributes that he looked at in this passage. He looked at God's truthfulness;. God doesn't lie, verse 5. He looked at God's saving character; God is the one who justifies the ungodly, verse 21. He looked at God's faithfulness; He says, I'm hanging on to what God promised.

He looked at God's power Verse 21; God is able to perform. Abraham's faith was strong. He could believe that God was going to make him the father of nations when he's a hundred years old. How could he do that? That's strong faith because he didn't look at himself and his circumstances. Instead, he looked at his great God. You want to build your faith? You want to grow your faith, stop looking at yourself. Stop spending so much time looking in the mirror. Stop contemplating and introspecting yourself to death. As a friend of mine likes to say, stop examining your own spiritual navel, and start looking up at God.

And that'll strengthen your faith as you remember who He is and what He is, and what He's promised to do. As Abraham meditated on those things, his faith grew strong, and he grew strong in faith, being fully assured that whatever God promised, He could do.

I want to close by having you turn to Psalm 9. This is the verse that I find my own heart coming back to time and time and time again. It is an absolute rock for my soul. Psalm 9:10, David writes, And those who know Your name. Now this doesn't mean they know, oh yeah, He's Yahweh. He's Jehovah, known in Old Testament terms. This meant to know the character of someone. That's what he's saying. He's saying God, those who really know You, who know your character, who know what You're like.

They will put their trust in You. If you really understand God, if you really have a grip on the greatness and the character and the power and the Majesty and the goodness of God, then you will put your trust in Him. For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You. You want to build your trust, your confidence, your faith in God, stop looking at yourself and your circumstances and start dwelling on God. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him for those who come to God must believe that He is that is that He is all that He said He is. And that He rewards those who seek Him.

Let's pray together.

Father, it's been a wonderful study of faith. We acknowledge that it is a gift from You to us. We thank You, and Father we pray that You would help us to exercise the spiritual muscle of faith. Help us Father to contemplate You and not ourselves; to dwell on Your character and not our character; to think about Your Word and not our own failings.

Father, I pray that in so doing You would cause our faith to grow strong, that we, like Abraham, would be fully assured; That You will do every promise; You will fulfill every promise You've made; You will do everything You've said.

Father, I pray that even this week our faith would grow stronger from the principles we've learned tonight.

And Lord, as always, I pray for the person here tonight who has not yet known saving faith in Jesus Christ. Lord, help them tonight to look to Him, to turn away from everything they've depended on, everything they rely on and to throw themselves at the feet of Christ.

We pray it, in Jesus' name. Amen.