FBC Daily Devotional – February 1, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good February 1st to you, the start of a new month, and I hope hope your month is getting off well this morning.

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So, one of the best ways to start a new day, to start a new month, is to be in God's Word, to meet with the

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Lord. Were you able to do that this morning? If not, I hope that this devotional time will provide some direction in that, and we'll encourage you, on your own, to open up God's Word and see what it has to say.

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Today, we're in Romans chapter 4, and something

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I read recently comes to bear on this passage. One of my goals this year is to read a couple of biographies.

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So, I started a week or so ago reading the biography of George Whitefield. It's a two -volume work, but, you know, it's very good.

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I'm into about up to about 150 pages or something like that. But, in the biography of Whitefield, you can't really do a satisfactory job of writing about George Whitefield's story without also talking about John and Charles Wesley.

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And so, what struck me as I read what the writer Delamore had to say about the

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Wesley brothers, is they were involved, and Whitefield was too, at first, involved in this thing called the

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Holy Club, and it really had the basic idea that, you know, we in this club are going to do stuff.

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We're going to do things to be holy in the hopes of gaining salvation.

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And they pursued this all within the framework of Christianity of a sort.

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Here's what I mean by that. Every other religion, other than Christianity, essentially teaches that in order to get to heaven, you have to earn your way there.

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There's got to be some meritorious way of getting there. Well, even Roman Catholicism, under the big umbrella of Christianity, essentially says that.

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That you can't get to heaven without doing good works. Your good works are meritorious for earning

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God's favor and so forth. Well, especially in religions other than Christianity, do you see that emphasized?

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But anyway, so John and Charles Wesley, they really had that view that they had to gain merit with God.

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You know, well after they parted ways with with Whitefield, and it wasn't until John Wesley's heart was strangely warmed as he describes it, did he come to understand that, no,

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I can't earn salvation. I can't be justified by my works.

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So anyway, I was reading that the other day and then right about the time I read

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Romans chapter 4, our reading for today, and Romans chapter 4, it emphasizes that very thing.

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That you can't be justified by your works.

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So listen to the way Paul puts it. He says, now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.

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So Paul's talking about Abraham and how Abraham believed God and his faith was accounted for righteousness.

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His belief, his trusting in what God had said was accounted to him.

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It was credited to him for righteousness. And he goes on to emphasize that Abraham wasn't justified by works, but he was justified by grace through faith.

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Listen to what Paul says as he continues, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

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Just as David describes the blessed man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

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So here's the point that Paul is making. That you and I will never be justified before God by our works.

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And aren't you thankful that God doesn't demand that? Because after all, who could ever get there?

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Who could ever get there? That's one of the things that led John Wesley, and Charles Wesley too for that matter, to realize how deficient their whole scheme of thinking was.

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Because you know, even though they were involved in all of these holy club things, and they were doing good things for people, and all the rest of that kind of thing.

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And even John Wesley even went, and Charles too, they went to, they left

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England and came to the colony of Georgia for the purpose of missionary work.

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And it was a total failure. Total failure. They had all kinds of good motives.

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They tried to do good things, but it was a total failure. And Wesley went back to England dejected, despondent because of his failure.

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It was like everything he tried to do it just kept ending up in failure.

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And all of his noble good works just frustrated him. Because he knew that he wasn't justified before God.

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And it led him back to the Bible. And it led him to the realization

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God finally opened his eyes to see that you cannot be justified by your works, no matter how many you accumulate, no matter how good they are.

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You're not justified by your works. How in the world can a man be just before God?

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By believing in him who justifies the ungodly. By faith.

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Aren't you so thankful that justification, salvation, is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and it is not dependent upon any works of your own.

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Let's rejoice in that glorious truth today, shall we? And so Father, we are grateful this morning that we can stand justified in your sight, not on the merits of our works, but on the works of Christ.

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And our faith in those works, and in his work on the cross, and in his perfect obedience, and in his resurrection from the dead, our faith, depending upon Christ, is accounted for righteousness.

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Thank you, Father, for this glorious truth that justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

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We rejoice in that today. Thank you for it, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

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Well, again, I hope your Tuesday and your February gets off to a great start.