How does grace transform us?

Grace as the Power That Transforms Believers

We must, Harold, look to and put before sinners grace, because grace is what transforms us. It's the grace of Jesus Christ that transforms us into his image. It is not fear, guilt, and law. Those can only condemn us.

Amen. Yeah, John, you're exactly right. So 2 Corinthians 3, 1 John 3, Hebrews 12, we've just referenced those things. Those passages, amongst others, are why we are called, as guys, all three of us, pastors of churches, our main job every single Lord's Day is to hold the Lord Jesus Christ out for our people.

And he, that beholding of the Lord Jesus on a weekly basis through the ordinary means of the word, is a huge piece of what the Holy Spirit uses to transform us into the image of Christ. So sometimes you'll hear people say, like, okay, well, brother, if the point of your message, if the main point of your message every week is Christ, and look to Christ, trust Christ, rest in Christ, behold Christ, like, don't you need to say a lot more about how we should be living?

Saved by Grace Through Faith, Not by Our Faithfulness

I want to respond to that two ways. Well, one, if you come to CBC and listen to a sermon, you're going to hear plenty of things about how we should live, because it's in the Bible. When it's in the text, we're going to preach it.

But then second thing is, like, look, how do you think, to your point, John, how do you think your life is transformed? You don't change your own heart. The Holy Spirit of God does. As you look to Christ and run towards him in faith, you're casting yourself headlong upon the mercy of God in the Lord Jesus.

And by that means, through beholding Christ, we are changed. This is because the Christian life is fundamentally outwardly oriented. We don't look in on ourselves, we look outside of ourselves to Christ, and then, of course, loving one another.

And this is perhaps where some category confusion comes in, because I think in our world, the five solas are pretty standard stock language. But I think in the broader community, even our use of prepositions, we can almost say we're saved by faith, rather than saying we are saved by grace through faith.

And here's how that really practically plays out. It almost becomes we are saved by our faithfulness to Christ, rather than we are saved by the object of our faith, which is Christ. And faith becomes this simple channel posture of receiving from Christ.

And so this can almost become this element of, hey, you're saved by faith. And the average shmoo congregant can hear, okay, well, my faith is this action to go do the Christian life, so to speak.

Assurance Grounded in Christ's Saving Work

I think to add to what Jimmy is just saying, what is helpful here, the reason why we would hold this position is that in the gospel, there is a fundamental truth that we are saved not by the quality of our faith, but we are saved by the quality of the one saving.

In other words, your level of salvation and security can never be based upon your intensity of faith. As a matter of fact, Jesus uses an illustration that I think we confuse. It is the smallest amount of faith, the smallest amount of faith that is required to in order, and he says move mountains, but I think that in the point of the illustration is that is the evidence of going from death to life.

I think coming from death to life is a bigger movement than moving a mountain. Our point is that if Jesus is the point of salvation, we need to clarify that it's his grace that saves us. It's not our intensity towards his grace that ever affirms or confirms or saves us.

I would even add to that, John, not only is it not our intensity, it's not our sincerity either, because that's another thing that's often said. It's like we're saved by our sincerity of faith or by a sincere effort to obey or whatever it may be, but yet we cannot say enough that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who saves us, and so therefore the ground of our assurance and our hope and our confidence is always found outside of us in the person and work of Christ.

The Father's Will, the Good Shepherd, and Eternal Security

This is why it's glorious to just continually herald these truths as a pastor and sit under them as a pastor or a congregant, where it's like, hey, all the Father has given me will come to me. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

I will raise them up on the last day, where Jesus makes it quite clear in John 6, 37 -40, hey, this is the will of my Father, that anybody who looks on the Son and believes in him will be saved, will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

I'll lose none of all that the Father has given to me. John 10, the passage of Jesus being the Good Shepherd, it's like, hey, look, my sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. Nobody's going to pluck them out of my hand.

Our confidence is in Christ and his sufficiency always. The reason that we know that we're going to make it to heaven is not because of the sincerity of our faith or the intensity of our effort. It's because the Lord Jesus will never fail.

He has accomplished everything that we need, and he still lives even now to intercede for us, and therefore we are secure.