Now Faith Is...

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:02
I want to invite you to take out your Bibles, turn with me to the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews.
00:34
Now, last week was Sanctity of Life Sunday.
00:37
So I stepped out of Hebrews to preach a subject on or to preach on that subject rather.
00:48
So this is part two of what I preached two weeks ago.
00:53
For those of you who are, yeah, I guess I do need to turn, it's on, my mic's on, okay.
01:00
I just want to let you know, and last time we actually dealt with verses one and two, but this time I'm going to simply look at verse one and we may get through the sermon today or we may make this into, it may end up being part three next week.
01:18
It'll depend on how the Holy Spirit moves as I'm preaching.
01:22
But in our last session in Hebrews, which we began Hebrews chapter 11, and we talked about the fact that this is called the great faith chapter.
01:33
It begins with a definition of faith being the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen.
01:42
And in our last message, as I said, we talked about how faith is that internal assurance of the promises of God.
01:52
And that true faith is not just an internal assurance, but true faith is lived out in a conviction of the promises of God.
02:01
It's not just that I believe it internally, but that that internal belief becomes a practical way that I live my life.
02:08
I live my life in view of the promises of God.
02:13
Now, this week we are going to look further at the concept of faith by looking at some of the important aspects about true Christian faith.
02:25
And if we have time today, which we probably won't, but we'll see, we may even get into false Christian faith.
02:32
And we like I said, if we don't do that this week, it'll be reserved for our next time together.
02:39
Either way, that's where we're going to begin this morning.
02:41
So I invite you to stand as we look at Hebrews chapter 11 and verse one.
02:46
And we give honor to God's word as it is God's word by standing together.
02:57
Hebrews chapter 11 and verse one.
03:02
Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
03:09
The conviction of things not seen.
03:14
Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your word.
03:21
We ask, O Lord, now that as you bring us to this time of study.
03:27
That you would first and foremost keep me from error as the teacher, the pastor, the one who stands and speaks the word.
03:36
Keep me from error, O God, and keep me only in the truth.
03:43
I pray for the hearts of the listeners, Father.
03:47
That you would make their hearts attentive to the truth.
03:50
And that this message would glorify you.
03:55
And that you would use it, Lord God, for your purposes.
04:02
We pray, O God, that your spirit would have its way here today in this message.
04:07
In Jesus name, Amen.
04:22
We are going to look at three aspects of faith.
04:30
If you're taking notes, I did work to produce a alliterated outline.
04:37
I don't normally do that.
04:39
It depends on what mood I'm in, whether I'm going to go with the old alliteration of making all the letters the same.
04:45
But I went ahead and did that this time.
04:47
So if you want to outline your notes for this week and potentially next week, we are going to look at the object of true Christian faith.
04:57
We are also going to look at the origin of true Christian faith.
05:04
And then we are going to look at the offense of false Christian faith.
05:11
So, as I said, that's the alliterated outline.
05:13
So when all of you go to lunch today and you have a long discussion about the sermon, which I know everybody does, hopefully that little outline will help you remember what it is we talked about.
05:26
So we're going to begin today with the subject of the object of true Christian faith, because when we began talking about faith, we said faith is the assurance of things hoped for and is the conviction of things unseen.
05:43
And we said that when we talk about faith being assurance of something, that faith demands an object.
05:52
It is not enough simply to believe in something.
05:58
What matters is what you believe in.
06:01
Some people say, well, I have faith.
06:04
Well, the question is not, do you have faith? Everyone has faith of one sort or another.
06:09
Everyone believes something.
06:10
The question is, what do you have faith in? Or more readily asked, whom do you have faith in? Faith has to be focused on something.
06:25
It has to have an object that it is pointed at or a person that it is pointed at.
06:33
The first and foremost object of a person who believes in God, the first and foremost object of faith is the promises of God.
06:45
That needs to be understood, first of all.
06:47
In fact, if you look at Hebrews 11 again and look at verse six, it says this very thing.
06:54
It says, and without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
07:11
So right there in the discussion of faith, it tells us that faith's object, first and foremost, is God and his promises.
07:21
It's not enough simply to have faith in ourselves.
07:24
It's not enough simply to have faith in faith, to just believe enough.
07:28
As I said last time, there are certain people who think that if you just believe enough.
07:34
That nothing bad will ever happen and you'll be healthy, wealthy and all of that.
07:38
And they have faith in their own faith, but the important thing is the object of faith and the first object of faith is God and his promises.
07:49
However, for the Christian, it goes a step further because when we talk about the object of true Christian faith.
08:00
The object of true Christian faith is the finished work of Christ, that is the object, the pure, simple object of the Christian faith, the finished work of Christ.
08:20
And if you're if you're outlining, taking notes, which I know some of you do, I know some of you don't.
08:25
But those of you do, if you're writing that finished work of Christ, here's what I want you to do.
08:29
I want you to underline that word finished twice.
08:31
I want you to circle.
08:32
I want to put a big star next to it because the word finished is the most important word in that sentence, because the word finished indicates that what we believe about the work of Christ as Christians.
08:47
We believe that the only reason why we have an ability to come before God is because Christ has given himself for us.
08:59
The only reason why we are called righteous before God is because of what is called substitutionary atonement.
09:09
What is substitutionary atonement? Substitutionary atonement is this, that Christ died in our place as our substitute.
09:21
Our sin was placed upon him and at the same time his righteousness was transferred or the biblical word is imputed to us.
09:32
And that word imputed is a word that is used in accounting.
09:37
It is used for the keeping of books.
09:40
If someone takes funds from one account and they take the funds out of that account and they place those funds into another account, that is an action of imputation.
09:51
It's taking the merits of one and placing it into the account of another.
09:57
That is how imputation works.
10:00
And what we believe about the work of Christ is that when Christ died on the cross, I had a ledger book that was filled with sin.
10:10
You say, but Keith, you didn't even exist when Christ was on the cross.
10:14
You weren't even alive.
10:16
Your daddy wasn't even alive.
10:17
Your daddy's daddy wasn't even alive.
10:19
Your whole family tree all the way back to the first generation of Fossey men was not alive.
10:28
And what a generation it is now, all the way back to the beginning of the Fossey's that weren't even in existence.
10:37
How then can you say that your sin was transferred to Christ? Well, there are some people who say, well, my sin is not transferred to Christ until I believe.
10:48
That's not true.
10:51
The Bible says very clearly that when Christ died, he said to tell us that it is finished, not that Christ sits up in heaven taking your ledger book ledger.
11:02
He says our names are already written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
11:07
Well, that sounds a lot like God's in charge of salvation.
11:09
Well, he is.
11:10
Don't let it surprise you.
11:13
That work which is done on my behalf was done when Christ died.
11:18
When Christ died, all my sins were laid upon him.
11:22
And as my substitute, his righteousness was charged in my account.
11:27
That has happened when I come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because the Holy Spirit regenerates my soul and gives me the gift of faith.
11:36
And I come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ when that miracle happens.
11:41
I then come to the understanding of who I am in Christ, a man forgiven because of the finished work of Christ.
11:48
That's why I make a big to do about the finished work of Christ.
11:54
Christ is not working on salvation right now.
11:56
Now, contrary to what Ellen G.
11:58
White and others might have said, I don't know if you know who Ellen G.
12:01
White is.
12:02
She was one of the proprietors, one of the initiators of what's called Seventh-day Adventism.
12:08
And pushed forth the theory that Christ is in heaven doing his second work of redemption.
12:14
That he's watching us to see who is living up to the standard so that he can redeem us now.
12:25
Now, that's a very simplified view of their belief.
12:27
So I don't want to let me just caution to say there's more to it than that.
12:31
But the idea is simply this, is that the work of redemption is continual.
12:36
It's continuing on, similar to how the Roman Catholic communion says the reason why they come around the table of mass is so that the body and blood of Christ can be represented for the sins.
12:50
Beloved, the body and blood of Christ does not need to be represented.
12:55
It does not need to be made over again because the body and blood of Christ was given, according to Scripture, once for all time.
13:05
And does not need to be repeated.
13:12
In the world today, Jesus Christ is the object of many faiths.
13:23
The Mormons say they believe in Jesus.
13:27
How many of you? I know you've seen it.
13:31
I work at a sawmill.
13:33
I have three kids.
13:35
I drive a BMW and I'm a Mormon.
13:39
All right.
13:40
I don't know that I might have made that one up.
13:43
It's very popular right now because there's so many politicians who are Mormons who want to encourage America that they are just normal Christians.
13:54
That's the purpose.
13:55
Don't let anyone fool you.
13:56
That's the reason for the commercials.
14:03
And Jesus is the object of the Mormon faith.
14:09
Jesus is the object of the Jehovah's Witness movement.
14:13
And you know what? Jesus is the object of Islam.
14:21
So what's the problem then? Why don't we all just join hands and sing Kumbaya? Because though Jesus is an object of these faiths, most of them do not even believe in the Jesus of the Bible.
14:47
And I say that not to say they might not believe in the Jesus of the Bible.
14:51
No, they have distorted the name of Christ.
14:55
I had a conversation.
14:56
I sat with a young man, had a conversation about this great thing.
14:58
He said, I have a friend who's a Mormon and he just loves Jesus.
15:02
I said, but he loves the Mormon version of who Jesus is.
15:07
I said, my name's Keith Foskey.
15:08
I said, there's a good chance there's somebody else named Keith Foskey in the world.
15:14
In fact, it's so funny.
15:16
There is somebody named Keith Foskey in the world and he's a musician and he plays in bars up in South Georgia.
15:23
My mom was coming home and she went by a bar and up above the sign on the marquee said the Keith Foskey Band this weekend.
15:31
She was mortified.
15:32
She called me, Keith, you're not playing at a bar, are you? And I said, no, mom, I'm not playing.
15:36
But I'm just saying.
15:37
So there's another Keith Foskey somewhere.
15:41
There's liable to be another Aaron Bell and another Nathan Dutton.
15:44
There's the question is, is my wife in love with the Keith Foskey that's playing at the bar up in Georgia? No, she better not be.
15:59
No, my wife is in love with this Keith Foskey, right? And just because there's another Keith Foskey somewhere doesn't mean that her devotion to this Keith Foskey is the devotion to that Keith Foskey.
16:16
And likewise, the same way I say about the Mormons is that they have a Jesus, but it's not the same Jesus of the Bible.
16:22
Just because he has the same name does not make him the same person.
16:27
And their devotion to him is not a devotion to Christ.
16:33
Mormons view Jesus as one deity among many.
16:37
Because Mormonism is inherently polytheistic, they believe in many gods.
16:45
Don't they, Jimmy? Jimmy had them come to his house and Jimmy said, do you believe that y'all can become gods? And they said, yes, sir, we do.
16:53
And he says, well, isn't there only one God? And they said in there, didn't they say in the universe, a big place? Can't there be more than one God? And in that the very foundation of Christian teaching is that there is only one God.
17:06
And that the very foundation of the Bible, Deuteronomy, chapter six here, oh, Israel, what they call the Shema, the prayer of Israel was here.
17:14
Oh, Israel, the Lord by God is one Lord.
17:21
That was the prayer of Israel.
17:22
That was the focus of Israel.
17:23
And it is still our prayer today.
17:25
We believe in one God.
17:26
But Mormonism says there's many gods.
17:28
They say they said God was once a man who lived on another planet.
17:32
It was a planet that surrounded the star of Kolob.
17:35
And that that that man became Nathan, that man became God through Mormon teachings.
17:46
Nathan and I have had this conversation many times.
17:50
And anyhow, they believe that Jesus is the spirit child of Elohim and that he is the spirit brother of Lucifer and that he is just one of many gods in the universe.
18:11
Beloved, if that's the object of their faith, then they have a wrong object.
18:17
This is why the object of faith is so important.
18:19
Jehovah's Witnesses view the Trinity as a false teaching.
18:25
They do not believe Jesus is divine.
18:27
They do not believe he is eternal.
18:30
And when they face the passages of Scripture that teach that Jesus is divine, they come up with a very strange doctrine.
18:38
They say that, well, Jesus is a created deity or a created God.
18:42
I've heard them say that.
18:43
I've heard one of the one of the Jehovah Witnesses apologists, one who who who goes and debates the Jehovah Witnesses viewpoint.
18:54
And he said Jesus is he is divine, but he's created deity.
18:59
As a created deity is an oxymoron to be creation means you're not God and to be God means you're not creation.
19:08
To say one is the other is a logical fallacy.
19:14
It does not stand to reason.
19:18
So they view Jesus as sort of a partial God or sort of a sub deity.
19:27
The Muslims have an even more interesting view of Jesus.
19:31
And I know many of you want me to teach on on comparative religion, and I am going to do that over the summer.
19:36
Today is just an overview.
19:38
Really, I wanted to talk about the object of faith and how the object becomes askew in other faiths.
19:44
But Muslims do have a view of Jesus and they do have Jesus as an object of faith.
19:51
And here's the thing about Islam is so interesting is if you ask, there are so many things that we would agree with Muslims on.
19:59
They believe Jesus was born of a virgin.
20:01
We believe Jesus was born of a virgin.
20:03
They believe Jesus was sinless.
20:05
We believe Jesus was sinless.
20:06
They believe Jesus performed miracles.
20:08
We believe Jesus performed miracles.
20:10
So on many points of fact, the Islamic person and the Christian would have agreement.
20:18
However, they deny to their extreme that Jesus was the son of God.
20:31
In fact, the Koran says, cursed is he who says that Allah has simple enough.
20:43
We agree on all these points, yet when it comes to that point, which makes the biggest difference, there is a division.
20:56
They say that he was a prophet.
20:58
He wasn't the greatest prophet, though the greatest prophet for the Islamic person is Muhammad.
21:04
And therein lies the issue.
21:08
And because these groups and these are not the only groups, these are just the ones that came to mind in my writing in the notes for this message.
21:14
Because these groups have a false view of who Jesus is.
21:18
They also have a false view of his work.
21:24
None of these aforementioned groups believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
21:32
All three of these groups believe in some way that they work and that their work is.
21:41
Let me rephrase.
21:43
All of these groups deny that the work of Christ is sufficient and they say that they have to add to that work to obtain their own salvation.
21:55
Mormons believe that their works, their external works are an integral part of earning salvation.
22:04
Which is why they are known for such external morality, everybody who I talk to when I start teaching on Mormonism, as I have taught on different faiths in the past, the first thing ever brought up in the class is, well, Mormons are such nice people.
22:21
They're such giving people, they're such philanthropic people, and of that, I can only say this, that is very true of the Mormons that I've met, are very nice people.
22:38
But a lot of the Christians I've met are nice people, too.
22:42
You say, well, I know a lot of Christians for sure, but there's a lot more of us than there are of them.
22:46
And we can't keep the worst amongst the worst amongst us off the television.
22:51
And that really hurts our cause.
22:55
We can't keep the guys on our side of the fence from making fools of themselves, which has really hurt the cause of true Christianity because of those people out there that are really damaging the name of Christ by their actions, because they're attaching the name Christians to themselves and they're living like the devil.
23:18
So, you know, when we start claiming about the outward religiosity and moralism of the Mormons, just remember, there are a lot of Christians who live lives for Christ.
23:32
That's what we ought to be doing.
23:35
But furthermore, we need to understand, too, that part of the reason for the dedication of the Mormon is their belief that that dedication in some way brings about their forgiveness, that they are working towards their own salvation.
24:00
And the more that they can do, the higher up the celestial ladder they will go to the point that they can work to become gods.
24:11
If you really believed that you could work to become a deity, that's a big incentive.
24:24
That's an incentive to grab a ten speed and ride it for two years of your life, calling yourself elder so-and-so when you're 17 years old.
24:35
There is a lot of initiative, you know, and that's why they have so many rules.
24:41
You can't drink caffeine, can't have soda pop, you know, they establish for themselves these rules to try to maintain an exterior righteousness so that they can procure for themselves the highest rung of the ladder of the afterlife.
25:02
There is no trust in the finished work of Christ among Mormons.
25:09
Thus, the object of their faith is not true Christian faith.
25:14
Likewise, with the Jehovah's Witnesses, they believe that righteousness is something that is earned, which is why they're so diligent about their work in proselytizing.
25:29
The reason they are so regular in their attempts at winning converts is because it is part of what helps procure their salvation.
25:38
They work for it rather than working because of it.
25:46
That's the difference.
25:49
Probably the one that is most appalling to me, at least in how sad it is, is that the Muslims don't even believe Jesus died on the cross.
26:02
They believe that such a death is not fitting for a prophet of God.
26:07
They believe that God would not allow his prophets to suffer in such a way so that the death of Christ on the cross is not actually an historical event.
26:16
They say it couldn't have happened because God wouldn't have allowed his prophet to suffer that way.
26:25
Thus, when they look at the scriptures and they look at the Torah, which is what they refer to as the laws of the words of Moses and then the Injil or what we would call the gospel or the words of the New Testament, when they read those words, any time they come upon a passage where a prophet suffers, they say, no, this is this is not true.
26:45
This is not because it disagrees with the Koran, particularly in effect with Christ dying on the cross.
26:52
It says in the Koran that Jesus appeared to them to have died, but did not.
26:58
Now, some people have some people have disagreed on how to interpret that passage in the Koran.
27:03
Some people think that what that means is that Jesus just fainted on the cross.
27:07
We didn't die, but that still wouldn't go along with their theology because he still suffered, even if he only did was pass out.
27:12
That's the old swoon theory.
27:15
But the other view of Islam is that someone took Jesus's place, and it's often conjectured that potentially Simon of Cyrene, remember who Simon of Cyrene was, Simon of Cyrene carried the cross of Jesus.
27:27
And and it is it is commonly conjectured within Islam that potentially Simon chose to stand in for Christ.
27:36
Or that they didn't know that it wasn't Christ, so they sacrificed Simon on accident.
27:44
And I only giggle because you got to imagine Jesus had gone through so much already beaten, had already experienced the flogging, had had it wasn't even able to carry himself.
27:57
So he had to get Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross.
27:59
When they get to the mountain, they can't determine who's whom, you know, the guy with the guy with the bruises and bloody.
28:06
Well, we're going to go with a guy who's healthy enough to carry the cross.
28:08
Now, I think they would have known better.
28:10
And the foolishness of such an inane statement is obvious on its face.
28:17
But again, I mention this because in Islam, the view is that we do not need a sacrifice.
28:30
We do not need a savior.
28:32
What we need is simply to live according to the laws of Allah.
28:37
And if we live according to the laws of Allah, when we die, our good works will be placed on a scale and our bad deeds will be placed upon the other side of the scale.
28:49
And they will be needed out and it will be determined at that point who has enough good works to go in to be in the presence of Allah and whoever's good works outweigh their bad works.
29:01
They will get to go into the presence of Allah and those who have bad works will not.
29:06
And again, this is a huge problem theologically.
29:15
Even for the Islamic person, because the Islamic person has no assurance of salvation.
29:25
Even the top Muslim scholars will say the only way that anyone can know for absolute certain that they will be in the presence of Allah when they die is if they die in the jihad or die for the cause of Allah, which is why there are so many that are willing to strap themselves with bombs and go out and kill others because they believe in the action of doing so.
29:49
They are placating the only way they know how to have assurance of salvation.
29:55
Because even though they pray five times a day facing Mecca, even though they do all the acts of penance that they do, the acts of the acts of alms and giving, all of these things that are done in the five pillars of Islam, none of them will guarantee that your good will outweigh your bad.
30:17
The only guarantee is the life given in the service of Allah.
30:24
Again, just another group that has Jesus in their faith, but it's the wrong Jesus.
30:36
And furthermore, it's not the finished work of Christ.
30:43
That is why I am firmly convinced that the Bible teaches us beyond doubt.
30:51
That true Christian faith, the object of true Christian faith is the finished work of Christ.
31:03
If we seek to add to that anything, we are denying the very foundation of the gospel.
31:16
When someone says Mormons believe in Jesus or Muslims believe in Jesus, they are not believing in the finished work of Christ.
31:27
And again, it is true that when you deny the finished work of Christ, you have denied the very heart of Christianity.
31:39
Any group that tries to add to the work of Christ by their own works, acts of penances or other religious activities denies the very heart of Christian faith.
31:50
And beloved, I want to turn that towards us today, rather than trying to force and go and make too short of a point on my second.
32:02
I just want to focus the attention of what we've said on ourselves.
32:09
How often do we truly rest in the finished work of Christ? I think more often as believers.
32:20
We tend to have feelings of not measuring up.
32:25
Oftentimes, we'll look at our lives and we'll say things like, boy, I don't know if I'm living for Christ like I should.
32:35
What does that equal? Well, I don't know if I'm saved.
32:39
And it begins the feeling of fear and the feeling of doubt.
32:45
And I tell you what, I don't know about these churches that believe you can lose your salvation, man, because I tell you what, I couldn't live that way.
32:55
To constantly be worried if I'm in or I'm out, it's like the celestial yo-yo, I'm up, I'm down.
33:00
And I talked to a man like that one time.
33:02
I talked to a man who told me, he said, well, yes, you can fall from grace.
33:08
And I said, but I said, but what happens then? He says, well, then you come back.
33:12
He says, and if you're good, you'll be you'll be in.
33:15
But if you fall, you're out.
33:17
And if you're good, you're in.
33:18
And I said, I said, but wait a minute, I know you personally, man.
33:22
I said, and I know there are times in your life when you struggle.
33:27
And he said, in those times, I'm out.
33:31
I said, where are you at now? He says, right now I'm living for Christ, so I'm OK.
33:37
I said, brother, the two most dangerous words in that sentence are the word I, because you used it twice.
33:45
I'm OK because I'm doing right.
33:47
Beloved, if your salvation is based on what you can do, might as well hang it up.
33:54
Because, number one, you'll never have assurance that way.
33:58
And number two, you're trusting in the wrong thing.
34:02
You see, the object of the faith of Christians can often be askew, too.
34:06
Because even though we say the object of our faith is Christ.
34:10
Oftentimes, the object of our faith is ourself.
34:15
We forget that the finished work of Christ has already.
34:20
Made us say, somebody says, now, wait a minute now, that sounds awful dangerous, like you're saying we can just live like the devil and be confident in our salvation.
34:31
Paul had that same argument.
34:34
That's, you know, oftentimes I know I'm preaching right, if the arguments that I hear are the same arguments that Paul had to deal with, because that means I'm agreeing with him.
34:42
And, you know, I do believe he was correct.
34:45
He wrote 13 of the 27 books.
34:46
I think if I'm if I'm on par with Paul, I think I'm doing pretty good.
34:51
And Paul taught justification by grace through faith alone, through the first five chapters of the book of Romans, and then he came to chapter six of Romans and he says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace can abound? Certainly not.
35:03
Why did he ask that question? Because he knew that when you teach that salvation is on the finished work of Christ, the first thing the natural mind thinks is, well, that means I can just run amok in sin.
35:20
But beloved, if you truly have been redeemed and you hear about salvation being because of the finished work of Christ, your first desire is not to run amok in sin.
35:31
Your first desire is to praise the God who didn't base your salvation on your failed behavior, but based your salvation on the finished work.
35:49
Father, as we consider the finished work of Christ this morning, that once for all sacrifice that was made and when we consider the fact that as believers, that is where we place our trust.
36:07
And that is where our hope is formed.
36:09
That is, O God.
36:12
The assurance in our heart and the conviction that we live by, we pray, O God, that you would just encourage us even more to live for him, that Christ gave us all that we might have salvation.
36:30
And in turn, we might give our all for him.
36:35
We pray, O God, that we would work because of our faith, but never work for our salvation.
36:44
For, Lord God, when we do so, we make grace something that can be purchased rather than the gift that has been given.
36:53
We pray, O God, now, as we come to the conclusion of our service, that there is one here or many here who are not trusting in the finished work of Christ, who maybe are trusting in themselves.
37:04
Maybe they're trusting in a Jesus that's not the Jesus of Scripture.
37:08
Maybe they're trusting, O God, in their own vain attempts at righteousness.
37:17
We pray, O Lord, your Holy Spirit would use this message.
37:21
However, he sees fit.
37:24
To convict and to convert.
37:27
According to your will, in Jesus name, we pray.
37:36
Amen.
37:38
Beloved, stand with us now as we sing.