Wednesday, October 11, 2023 PM

Let's pray. God, thank you for this evening. We thank you for this time to pray and sing and to hear from your word. Lord, I pray that you would be with me and my tongue as I speak from your word. Lord, I pray that I would say what needs to be said and not say what doesn't need to be said.

Also pray for those hearing that your Holy Spirit would be with them as we look into your word and that they would see the truths of it and who you are and what you've done as we celebrate doctrines that we have learned from scripture from men that have gone before us.

And we thank you for that tradition. And primarily we thank you for scripture that we can search these things to see if they be true. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. If you would turn to Romans, being October and us celebrating the reformation on the 31st, I thought it appropriate that we talk about faith alone.

Justification by Faith Alone in Romans

Faith alone. So one of the, well, let's read the text. So Romans chapter one, let's start in 16. Romans one, verse 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. If you would turn over to Romans chapter three, so that text we just read talked about the righteousness of God.

And here we're gonna continue it. Romans chapter three, starting in verse 21. 21 going to 28. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus to all and on all who believe.

For there is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. So I'd like to talk about this a little bit.

In that first passage we read, it says, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. There's an old black and white movie, I think it was 1953 about Martin Luther.

And there's a scene in which he's talking to one of his mentors at a monastery. And on this giant desk is a Bible that's opened up to this passage. And they're talking about faith and they're talking about works and they're going through it.

And they're arguing about this text. And the monk ends up leaving and Martin Luther is there and he looks down at the Bible and he reads this text. And it says, the just shall live by faith. And he takes up the quill and he writes in alone.

The just shall live by faith alone. And he writes this in the text. And so some Roman Catholics would argue, he's adding to the text. He's added the word alone there. In my Bible, it doesn't say alone.

The word alone is not there. It just says, the just shall live by faith. So where is he getting that from? Where's he pulling that from? Well, in the next text that we read in Romans chapter three, it says, this was to show the righteousness of God because in his divine forbearance, he passed over for me sins to show that he is the just and a justifier.

And it says that we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. That's Romans 3 .28. Romans unpacks this for us. It talks about the relationship between faith and the relationship with the law.

And it says apart from the law. There are other contexts that we could go to in Paul's other writings, like Galatians 2 .16. He says, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.

So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified. And so we get this idea that we are justified by faith apart from works.

And this is where we get, if you've ever heard of the five solas, meaning alone, faith alone in Jesus Christ alone to the glory of God alone. So sola fide, faith alone. We are justified by faith alone.

Now this is a discussion that goes back farther than the 1500s when Martin Luther was talking to the Roman Catholic church. This predates him. You can go back to the 400s AD where you have an Augustinian monk, Augustine himself.

In one of his prayers, he wrote this. Oh Lord, command what you will and give what you command. So God commands certain things of us. And in this prayer, he's asking God, give us the ability to do what you command.

Now this caused a lot of controversy in his time. There was a man named Pelagius that argued with him and said, no, no, no, no. If God commands something, then that means we have the ability to do it.

So what are you talking about? Grant what you command in his prayer. So this raises the question, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to believing, what does God command in relation to salvation?

What are some things that God commands of us? Are there any things that he commands us to do to be saved? Except Jesus, yeah. Yep, believe, right, belief. Repent, repent and believe. Those are things that he commands, right?

And so if he's giving these commands, some would argue, well, this is something that we can do to be saved, right? And then some would say, well, those are acts of works. And Paul says that we're justified by faith, not by works.

So which is it? Does God command it and we can do it? Or does God command it and then have to work in us to do those things? And so I want to build out a little bit of background and we'll come back to this text and work our way through it.

So I'm gonna read some passages into your hearing to kind of build this. And so like Martin Luther, as he's reading scripture and he's being confronted with his culture, that is saying, you have a part to take in this.

And if you know the culture then, they had these things called indulgences where you could pay money for God's grace. And if you paid a certain amount of money, then a certain amount of your sin would be forgiven.

And then that could get you out of purgatory. And so you had to do these different works and that was the indulgences. Or you had penance where you could climb a certain amount of stairs on your knees and this would give you grace.

And so they had all of these systems worked out for you to try to gain favor from God. And Martin Luther argued against that. And he read there, we are justified by faith alone. And he knew this because of the context of reading through scripture, his knowledge of scripture.

And so I want to read some of these into your mind. So Genesis 6, five, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and in every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

So here we have our thoughts and our hearts are affected by the fall. Mark 7, 21 through 23. For from within, out of the heart of men come evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, theft, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and defile a man. Titus 1, 15, to the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and their conscience are defiled.

So we have our thoughts are defiled, our hearts are defiled, our consciences are defiled. What about our flesh or what about our will? John 1, 13, talking about salvation, it says that those who are saved were born not of blood.

So not because you were born into a certain group of people like the Jews. So not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And so we see that we aren't saved by what ethnic group we're part of.

We're not saved by our flesh and we're not saved by our will, our very wills are affected by it. Charles Spurgeon said this about will. Free will I have often heard of, but I've never seen it. I've always met with will and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in the blessed bonds of grace.

The Bible talks about being a slave to sin or a slave to Christ, but there's no free agent. You're one or the other. And in the fall, there's no aspect of our human nature that comes out of that unscathed.

Like we read our minds, our wills, our consciences, our hearts, our emotions. Every part of us is permeated by the fall. There's no part of us that could do good if it wanted to. It does not want to. Romans 8, seven through eight.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So when God commands, repent and believe, that would be pleasing to God.

And here it says, well, the carnal mind is at war with God, is against God. It cannot be subject to the law of God, and it cannot please God. So this is a fancy word for this is depravity. We talk about the depravity of man, our sinful nature.

And it's in fact total, because every aspect of our being is affected by sin. There is no part of us that could seek to work itself towards God, because we are in fact enemies of God. We are against him.

If a gift were offered to us, as the Bible says, grace is, we would not want the gift, because we are at war with the giver of the gift. And so this is called total depravity. And with it is this idea of inability, because we don't want to follow God.

So John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I raise him up at the last day. A few verses later, and he said, therefore, I have said to you that no one can come to me, unless it has been granted to him by the father.

1 Corinthians 2, 14. But the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. If you are spiritually dead, you cannot spiritually discern things, because you're dead, spiritually.

So it cannot be done. And yet, here we are, saved, right? Here we are, believing in God, adopted by God, friends of God. How did this happen? It's a miracle, right? It's a miracle. The issue is, what are we looking at?

Are we looking at man, or are you looking at God? These are the descriptions of what man can do. All the things that I just read. This is when we're looking at man. So there is no contradiction, because then we turn and we look at God.

Matthew 10, 25. When his disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "'Who then can be saved?'. But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "'With men it is impossible, "'but with God all things are possible.'".

The act of salvation is a miracle, and scripture equates it to the act of creation. When God spoke and created the universe, scripture equates that with salvation. In Romans 4, 16 through 18, it says, "'Therefore it is of faith "'that it might be according to grace, "'so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, "'not only to those who are under the law, the Jews, "'but also to those who are the faith of Abraham, "'who is the father of us all.

"'As it is written, "'I have made you the father of many nations "'in the presence of him who believed.'". Now, listen to this. "'God who gives life to the dead "'and calls those things which do not exist "'as though they did.'".

That's the act of creation. There was nothing, and he called out and created. And here, he's talking about spiritual life. "'God who gives life to the dead "'and calls to those things which do not exist "'as though they did.'".

Who, and listen to this, contrary to hope, right? That list of things that I just read, it's impossible for man. It's contrary to hope. "'In hope, so that he became the father of many nations, "'according to what he has spoken, "'so shall your descendants be.'".

He's talking about Abraham here, Abraham's faith. Abraham's descendants would be like the sands of the sea, the stars of the sky, and that was through faith. And that's how we are saved. He speaks into non-existence and creates life.

And so we talked about faith alone. That's where that concept comes from. It must be from faith. There was a song a while back that came out called Reckless Love, and there was some controversy over it because it talks about God's reckless love, and it talks about how love conquers, and that's very true, but the word reckless doesn't really seem to be a fit descriptor for what God did.

So someone took that song, and they changed it to sovereign love, and they changed some of the lyrics, and it fits more aptly. So there's a doctrine here. We talked about total depravity, but on the other side of that is what some people call irresistible grace, effectual call, or what I like to call love conquers all.

Effectual Calling and New Birth

So Ephesians 2, 1 through 8, if you would turn there, Ephesians 2, 1 through 8. And you were dead. What do dead people do? Nothing. They don't do anything. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, the desires of the body, of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

That's a bleak description of us before salvation. But God, being rich in mercy, this is not a small group of people that is saved. God is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Notice loved is past tense there. It happens before we're even around. He loved us. Great love, rich in mercy with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He loved us while we were sinners.

He loved us while we were dead, dead in our trespasses and sins. He made us alive together with Christ by the grace that you have been saved and raised up with him and seated with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace.

Again, immeasurable riches. This is huge. This is vast. This is a large amount of riches, the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith.

And this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. If you continue, lest anyone should boast, right? There's nothing that we did. This all happened while we were dead. This all happened while we were blind, while we were in our sin.

Christ did this. John 3 .16, you know the verse. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The writer of that book in 1 John writes this in chapter four of 1 John.

And this is love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. In verse 19, we love him because he first loved us.

We love him because he first loved us. And while he first loved us, while we were in our sins, we hated him. And yet he first loved us. Before we were saved, while we were dead, in our sins, he loved us.

And that's why he sent his son. Knowing what mankind would do to him, knowing that we were enemies of God, he was willing to go to the cross to die for us, to redeem us as a propitiation for our sins.

So I wanna talk a little bit about this love and continue on the idea of how it is that we are saved. If that's the case that we cannot save ourselves, there's no part of us that can save us, how is it that God does so?

And we talk about the work of the Holy Spirit. So the author of the second birth, we talk about being born again, the author of the second birth is the Holy Spirit. And the instrument he uses is the word of God.

And you've heard this, this is John chapter three, Nicodemus is talking to Jesus. He says this, Jesus answered him, most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes.

So is everyone who is born of the spirit. So when I said, what does a dead person do? We said nothing. You could ask a similar question to those that are born. Did those, when we were born, did we have anything to do with us being born?

No, we did not. And he says, so it is with the spirit, life, wind, the spirit moves. We don't know where it comes from or where it goes, but that's how it is with those that are saved. It's of the will of God.

The spirit moves and life comes and you are born again of the spirit. The spirit works, excuse me, the spirits work as the dead sinner is given a new heart. We talked about the heart. I'm going to bring up a passage from Ezekiel.

I was talking to Josiah earlier about Ezekiel. I'm not going to bring up one of those scary passages with the crazy beasts and the eyes and the wings. This one is pretty straightforward. And it's one of my favorite passages from Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 36, 26 through 27. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. Question, who gives the new heart? God. Who gives the new spirit? God does. I will take out the heart of stone, take out, excuse me, take out the stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. Many people want to start with the last part of that verse. If you walk in his statutes and you keep his judgments and you do them, you will find favor with God.

But that's reading this backwards. Here it says something has to happen before you can do those things. And while God does find delight in us doing those things, it's not those things that earn us his favor, right?

We do those things because he first loved us. And how do we know that he first loved us? He takes out the heart of stone, puts in a heart of flesh. He gives us a new spirit. And with that new heart, with that new spirit, we are able to walk in his statutes, to keep his judgments and to do them.

It's out of that new heart. It's out of that new heart that we repent. It's out of that new spirit that we believe. There are passages in the New Testament that tell us how to walk with unbelievers when we're talking with them, to be gentle with them so that God may grant repentance to them.

Who grants the repentance? It's God. We don't grant the repentance. And if I'm nice to them, then they'll come to salvation. We pray to God for their salvation. We pray that it is the Lord's will that he would save them, right?

When we pray for our friends and our loved ones, and we do plead with them and we do teach them, but like we talked about earlier, and I would fall in this trap when I was an early Christian. If I could just give them enough information about the Bible, then their mind would believe it.

Well, the mind is darkened. The mind is sinful. If I could just make them feel the impact of what Jesus did for them, their hearts are darkened. Their hearts are stony. If I could just somehow try to say the right thing or do the right thing, then they'll believe.

But it's actually God who does that work. Now, we are to be faithful to use the tools that God gives us, prayer, the word of God. We are to be obedient, right? We're to walk in his statutes, what he tells us to do those things.

So in obedience, we do those things. We plant the seed, we water, but it's God who brings the increase. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 18. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. All things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Old self, new self. It's the new self that believed because of the work of God.

The Holy Spirit raises the sinner from spiritual death to spiritual life. So in the last few minutes, I wanna go through a few metaphors that the Bible uses. And again, if we look at this from man's point of view and from God's point of view.

From man's point of view, all things are, it's impossible. From God's point of view, all things are possible. So one of the metaphors that it uses is clean versus unclean. Job 14, verse four, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing?

No one, it's no one. You point to the man, you can't make yourself clean. But in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6, 11, and such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the spirit of our God.

God washes us. Notice it says such were some of you because you're not that old man. You're the new man. Our sinful nature, pre-salvation is part of our nature. It's who we are. It's part of our identity.

Jeremiah 13, 23, can the Ethiopian change his skin or can the leopard change his spots? Can a leopard change the spots? No. Can the Ethiopian change his skin color? No. The answer is no. It says, then may you also do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

It's part of our identity. And yet 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Colossians 3, 10, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of the creator.

So we are a new creation, dead. Genesis 2, 16 through 17. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Romans 5, 12, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Man, we're dead. John 5, 24, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.

Colossians 2, 13, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. He makes us alive. Some analogies, we talked about being born again.

We talked about it being like the wind. The word church, ekklesia, it's the Greek word. It means a gathering of those summoned. You've been summoned. If you're a believer here, you have been called by God.

Adoption, creation, right? We talked about God creating the universe and in the same way, the God of life creates life within us. Another one might be Noah. Noah amid a wicked generation, and he chose Noah and his family to save them in an ark.

Why didn't he just save everyone? Because he saw fit to judge that wicked generation and save Noah and his family. What about Israel? Israel was only one nation and it was a small nation. And in the Bible, it says, I didn't choose you because you were more numerous than the other nations or because you were better than the other nations, but he chose Israel out of the nations and he set his love on Israel.

What about Lazarus in the cemetery? Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. Why didn't he just speak and say, come forth? And the whole cemetery come forth, right? He said, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus came forth.

He chose to bring Lazarus forth. That's God's prerogative, but God is rich in mercy, immeasurable riches. And so when we pray for our loved ones, when we pray for our friends and our family, we know these truths to be true, but also God is good and he is big.

He's loving and he's kind and he's merciful. And that far outweighs his wrath as we see in the Old Testament. And so I wanted to encourage you with that. God is able. Man is unable. I know in my family, there are people that I have been pleading with for years to come, but I can't make them do it.

They seem unable to do it, but God is able. And so his love conquers all through faith alone. Let's pray. God, thank you for this evening. We thank you for your word. I thank you that is not dependent upon man or it would never happen because of our sinful state and our rebelliousness against you.

But I thank you that you are rich in mercy and you forgive and you wash and you sanctify, you justify, you redeem us from our sin. You pay for our sin and it costs you. We look to the cross and the death that you endured on our behalf, our death.

We thank you for doing that. We thank you for saving us and for giving us your word so we would know how to live uprightly, how to walk now being made new. Lord, we pray that you would make us into the image of your son.

We pray that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that we would imitate you as we seek to follow your son, as we read your word, as we pray. Lord, we pray to hear from you. Lord, we pray that you would hear us and we know that you do because of the work that you've done.

So we pray for confidence as we approach the throne room. We pray for boldness. We pray for encouragement as we think of the world around us and its sinful state. There's so much evil in this world, but you are over all of that.

You are sovereign and you are good and you are working a plan that we are part of. So we pray that you would help us play our part, trusting you each day and thanking you for the blessings that you give us.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.