God’s Approval (Hebrews 11:2)

Kootenai Church

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to Hebrews chapter 11. We're going to be looking specifically at verse 2, but before we begin and before we pray we'll read verses 1 through 7,

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Hebrews chapter 11. Actually we will begin in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 39, but we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

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Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

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By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous,

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God testifying about his gifts. And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

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By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

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And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

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By faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

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Let's pray together. Lord, we ask your assistance this morning, that your guidance, the presence of your

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Holy Spirit and your illuminating work would shine the light of truth upon our hearts, help us this morning to understand and appreciate the great gift of faith that you have bestowed upon those who are yours.

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We pray that you would help us to understand your word and to see how it is that we may live God -honoring and obedient lives in light of the truth of Scripture.

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We ask your assistance to that end and the work of your Holy Spirit in that work today, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

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There are only two systems, two religious systems on the face of the planet, only two of them.

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There is the system of human merit and works, and there is the system of divine accomplishment or grace.

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Those two systems are mutually exclusive. They cannot be combined.

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They cannot be mixed. There are two and only two religions on the face of the planet. The religion of human merit and the religion of divine accomplishment.

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And we are familiar with the religion of human merit. It has all kinds of variations and is expressed all kinds of different ways.

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It is the belief that man through something that he does makes himself acceptable to God and is by his works, by his merit or by the works and merit of other sinners is able to atone for his sin, to make himself acceptable, to take care of his sin debt before a holy and righteous

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God. That is the religion of human merit, and it comes out oftentimes like this. God will weigh your good deeds against your bad deeds on the

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Day of Judgment, and depending on what side of the scale is heaviest in that divine accounting will determine whether you go to heaven or whether you go to hell.

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Or if you keep the law and do your best and you are more good than you are evil, then God will take that into account on the

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Day of Judgment and the scales of justice will tilt in your favor. Or people will say if you work on improving yourself, overcoming your weaknesses, amending for your past wrongs, overcoming your addictions and your failures, and if you really…if you just apply yourself to self -improvement in the course of your life,

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God will look at that and that will atone for your sins and your wrongdoing. If you do good to others, if you do good things, then the grace of God will shine upon you and He will be favorable to you on the

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Day of Judgment. Or some people put it this way, if you go to the right church and you're part of the right denomination and you read the right

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Bible translation and you listen to the right teachers, and if you adhere to the right dress code and if you are rigorous enough in all of your attendance and adherence to the religious ceremonies and the religious forms and functions, if you do all of that faultlessly enough, now we don't know what faultlessly enough looks like, but faultlessly enough for God, and we'll find that out on the final day, then that will atone for your sins.

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Or if you do enough religious activities like penance and crawling on your knees and rubbing beads and praying certain prayers and giving money and doing a work or attending an event that God is favorably disposed to, then

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He will be pleased with you. If you repent enough, if you believe enough, if you show enough sorrow and remorse for your sin, if your outward expressions of penitence and repentance and sorrow are convincing enough in the sight of God, then

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He will look down favorably upon you from heaven. It's expressed in all those ways. Now, you can take all those statements that I just made and you can mix and match those and put them together into any kind of religious system you want.

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All of them have one thing in common, that is a religion of human works, human merit, and human achievement.

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And all of the religious systems and false religions on the face of the planet have these things in common. They all mix and match them in various components and capacities.

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One system is going to vary from another system, not in terms of its substance, human merit, but only maybe in terms of its formula for that human merit.

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So they might…one religion might say that your works of human goodness to human sin has to be at such and such a percentage for you to make it in, but all of them have this thing in common that they are trusting in, human merit and human works and righteousness for acceptance before God.

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And this is the issue. This is the heart of the issue. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st, this day in 1517.

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When Luther did that, he did not intend to leave the Roman Catholic Church. He was a monk and he intended to stay a monk.

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What he was hoping was that his nailing of those theses on the door of the church would spark a debate amongst

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Roman Catholic scholars, amongst the monks…amongst the monks…amongst the monks and the priests and all of the hierarchy of the church, and that if they could debate this,

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Luther would have the opportunity to lay out his case that salvation should never be dispensed or doled out on the basis of human merit, that the church should not be involved in selling salvation or selling forgiveness or in any way condoning charlatans and hucksters like Johann Tetzel.

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Certainly, Luther thought that the church can…we can all agree that charlatans like Tetzel should not be canvassing the countryside with the church's imprimatur, selling and shilling salvation like it's a sketchy haircare product on a late night infomercial.

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But the church didn't see it that way. Luther eventually found himself on the outs with the entire church because rather than condemning

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Tetzel for selling salvation, the church actually condemned Luther for his belief that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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And that is what put him on the outs with the Roman Catholic Church. And Luther found that you cannot reform such a system, you can only leave such a system.

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You can't reform it. You can't change it from the inside out because it is fundamentally different from what

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Scripture teaches at its very core essence, and that is that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was a man -centered, man -pleasing, human merit -based system.

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It was 500 years ago, 504 now, and it has not changed.

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In five centuries, it has not changed. The issues are still the same. What marks the division between Roman Catholics and Protestants is the same as it has been for over five centuries.

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That is that Rome's system is a human merit -based system and the Scripture revealed that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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Rome believed, as Tetzel was selling, that if you were to give money, an indulgence, if you were to purchase or buy an indulgence from Tetzel and give money towards the contribution, towards the construction of St.

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Peter's Basilica in Rome, that such a contribution would be seen by God as meritorious enough to bring one of your loved ones out of purgatory, even eternal damnation, and certainly take time off of your own service in purgatory for your sins.

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In Rome's view, the death of Christ was not sufficient to atone for all of the sins of all who will believe, and something else was necessary.

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And so they added human merit to that, and if you want more information on that, I preached a message back in Hebrews 10, it was quite a while ago now, called

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Roman Catholics and the Mass, or Hebrews 10 and the Mass, I think it was called, Hebrews 10 and the Mass, where we contrasted the teaching of Hebrews 10 that the death of Christ, that one -time death, was sufficient for the salvation of any and all who would believe, and that nothing could be or should be ever added to it.

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You cannot add anything to it without destroying it. And so I would just commend you to that if you want more information on that.

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The second option, of course, is divine accomplishment. There is the system of human merit, and then there is a religious system, if you want to call it that, of divine accomplishment.

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It is of grace. The salvation is on the basis of faith, and that faith and human works are mutually exclusive, and if it is by human works, then it cannot and is not by grace.

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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

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It is not according to works so that no man can boast. Titus 3, verse 5, He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the

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Holy Spirit. So that biblical salvation is not according to human merit, it is according to faith.

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It is by grace through faith. We are saved by a work, but it is not our work.

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It's the work of another. There is a sense in which we are saved by works and by a work, but it is not our works, and it is not the work or the works of any other sinner on the face of the planet, certainly not of any of the saints who have gone before.

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We are saved by the work of one person who did one work in atoning through one death for any and all who would believe upon Him.

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That is the work that saves us. His perfect life merited an eternal and unblemished righteousness that is credited to any and all who will place their faith in Jesus Christ.

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And that is so because His perfect death provided atonement, infinite and eternal, for all of the sins of all who will ever believe upon Him.

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Infinite in its capacity to save, infinite in its value, infinite in its glory and its righteousness, that one death atoned for the sins of any and all who will believe upon Him.

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The work of Christ is available on the basis of faith and faith alone. Now, people who believe in a human merit -based salvation system will at this point raise an objection, and they would say, but we believe that faith is necessary for salvation.

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And that is true. Human merit -based systems do believe that faith is necessary for salvation.

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But here's the key. They do not believe that faith is sufficient for salvation.

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Understand the difference between those two things, because it is the difference between heaven and hell, between salvation and damnation.

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Human merit -based systems do believe that faith is necessary for salvation. They just do not believe that faith is sufficient for salvation, that it is faith and faith alone that merits salvation.

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Human merits believe in its necessity, but they deny its sufficiency, which is where the one of the five sola, sola fide of the

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Reformation cry comes from, that it is by faith alone, that faith is all that is necessary to save the believing sinner.

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Faith and works are mutually exclusive in terms of our justification. When we are talking about what makes us righteous, what makes us acceptable in sight of a holy

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God, faith and human merit and works, they are mutually exclusive. They do not and cannot go together.

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They cannot mix and they cannot mingle. They have no relationship one to another. Now in terms of our sanctification, in terms of our service, in terms of our rewards, faith and works go together perfectly when we understand the role of each, that the role of faith is salvation, the role of works is service that is motivated, prompted by, and spurred on by a saving faith.

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But we do not mingle them in terms of our justification and believe that our works in any way contribute to God's grace or merit us in any way

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His grace. The degree to which you believe that human works, including, listen carefully, including a willingness to believe, a propensity to believe, or even a capacity to believe have any part in eliciting

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God's saving grace, that is the degree to which you deny faith alone and grace alone and salvation in Christ alone.

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The degree to which you believe that that human ability to believe, that human willingness to believe, a capacity to believe, elicits

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God's work of grace in our hearts, that is the degree to which you deny grace alone and it is the degree to which you think you can boast in your own salvation.

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Salvation is by grace alone and if it is by grace, then it cannot be by works, Romans 11 verse 6.

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If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. And so here is the age -old question, how is the sinner made acceptable in the sight of God?

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How is the sinner made acceptable in the sight of God? How is it possible that a fallen person like you and like me can stand in the presence of an infinitely and perfectly righteous and just being?

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And that as fallen, rebellious, hateful, lustful, blasphemers who have joined in that rebellion against God, how is it possible that we can stand before Him and be accepted and approved and declared righteous?

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On what basis? That is really not only the age -old question, it is the only question that should concern us in terms of our salvation and our justification.

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How can a sinner, unrighteous as we are in the sight of God, ever be approved of by God, accepted by God, and even spoken well of by God?

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That is the question that is answered in Hebrews 11 verse 2, by it, by faith, the men of old gained approval.

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God commended the men of old for their faith, that is the consistent testimony of Scripture and you are going to see it goes all the way back into the book of Genesis that from the earliest of times, from the

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Garden of Eden itself, salvation was by grace alone, through faith alone. Ultimately we know now because of the merits of Jesus Christ alone.

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They would not have understood that but we understand that now, who the payment for that sin was and what

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He did in order to atone for the sin of even the men of old. So this is our passage here, 11 to last week we looked at 11 verse 1 which is the definition of faith that we saw it comports and fits perfectly with the context and the point of the author in encouraging us to stand firm in our faith and to not waver in unbelief in any way.

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Verse 2, by it, the men of old gained approval. That word men of old is the word presbyteroi, it's a word that is translated in the

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New Testament as elder. In fact, it's used in terms of the elder of a church, the pastor of a church, it's the same word used.

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He doesn't have in mind here elders of a church, it's sometimes also translated as elders just referring not to an office within a church but to older men and He's not here describing older men either.

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It's not the officers of the church and it's not the older men. The context tells us who it is that He has in mind.

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He has in mind the men of old, not older men but the men of old, the men from of old. Those are the presbyteroi and He begins to list them later on in the context.

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You see a reference to Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, etc., all those heroes of the faith that He's going to give to us here in Hebrews chapter 11.

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Those are the men of old that He has in mind. And by going all the way back as He does in verse 4 to Abel in the time of Cain and Abel right after the fall of man near the

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Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and their progeny, by going all the way back to there, He is showing us that this faith that affects salvation, this faith that was present that He requires to be present in us for salvation was also the very same kind of faith that was operative all the way back after the

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Garden of Eden, the fall in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. This is nothing new. This goes all the way back to the beginning.

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So it's not as if we come to the New Testament, we say, okay, the Old Testament was on the basis of works. It was human merit, a human system of merit, keep the law, be good, do your best, do better than 50%, and God will look favorably upon you.

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That's the Old Testament. Now we come to the New Testament, we have to switch gears, radically switch gears. Now it's something different.

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Now it's all on the basis of faith. And the author would say, no, it has never been on the basis of human works. The law was never intended to show us that the way of salvation was through human merit and accomplishment.

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The law was intended to show us the holy standard of God and that nobody in this room and nobody in humanity can match up to that standard.

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And since we cannot match up to that standard, then we cannot in any way earn our salvation. And if we cannot in any way earn our salvation, then it must be entirely of grace and by faith alone.

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So that's why he goes back to Abel to show us that all the way back in the very beginning, God still called upon men to believe

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Him in the same way that verse 1 describes, an assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.

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Abel was to have that kind of faith. Now there is a works that lies behind all of the examples that he gives us in Hebrews chapter 11, and this is the tendency that everybody who finds an affinity for human merit -based salvation leans toward.

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We're all inclined to this naturally, to think that our works, the deeds that we do, even our righteous deeds are somehow meritorious in the sight of God.

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And you read through the Old Testament, you look at all the Old Testament heroes of faith, even the ones that are mentioned here in Hebrews chapter 11, and the inclination is to look at what they did and think that it is what they did that pleased

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God. Abel offered an appropriate sacrifice.

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The inclination is to look at Abel's sacrifice and say, well, that's what merits salvation. He did this thing.

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He offered to God a certain kind of sacrifice, and because he offered to God that certain kind of sacrifice, his doing of that made him acceptable in the sight of God.

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Or to look at Enoch and say, here was a man who devoted himself to walking with God. He drew near to God.

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It was his devotional life and being pleasing to God, and all that he did, that's what made him acceptable in the sight of God.

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Or that it was Noah's building of the ark. It was the construction of the ark that made him acceptable in the sight of God.

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Because he did this thing, God approved of him. And the point of all of the examples in Hebrews chapter 11 is to say the exact opposite.

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It wasn't the works that they did that made them acceptable by God. It was the faith they had that made them acceptable to God.

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And the faith is the very thing that motivates the works. And here's the connection between faith and works. Faith is related to works not in the sense that works bolster our faith or that the works make our faith acceptable to God, but faith is related to works in the sense that works is the evidence of genuine saving faith.

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So that it is Abel's faith in God which made him give the sacrifice that he did.

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It was Noah's faith in God, his belief in those things that caused him to build that ark. It was Moses' faith that made him leave

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Egypt. It was Enoch's faith that made him walk next and close to God. These men are notable.

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Abraham's faith made him leave Ur of the Chaldees. These men's works are notable only because they were prompted by faith.

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So there is a relationship between these two, but we ought not to think that going back into the Old Testament that all of a sudden it was what these men did that made them acceptable to God.

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It was by faith. Verse 2, by faith they gained approval. Faith was present before they ever did the work.

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The work was evidence that they had the faith that pleased God. And by their faith they gained approval.

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It's an interesting phrase. It almost suggests that faith itself is a meritorious work, right, that faith is a capacity inside of us and that if we believe, if we switch on that capacity, if we do that thing of having faith, that that thing of having faith is what makes us acceptable on the side of God.

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Faith then becomes a meritorious work, something we do that merits God's grace. Is that what faith is?

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Is faith a meritorious work? We're going to deal with that here in just a moment. The word gained approval here is interesting.

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It's the Greek word martyreo. It comes…it was the basis of the word martyr and it had the idea of testifying or witnessing.

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In fact, the word means to witness, to bear witness, to speak well of or to testify of someone.

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A martyr then later on in later centuries was one who bore witness by giving of his own life, by not only the living of his life but the giving of his life.

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That was what a martyr was, one who testified even giving his own life as a testimony to the truth. And the word when used in an active sense or first -person sense of one who bears witness or testifies describes what the person bearing witness and testifies does.

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In that sense, it means that he bears witness of something else. But the word is not used in the first -person active here, it's third -person passive which means that the men of old are ones of whom were testified by someone else.

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Someone else was testifying of the men of old that their faith pleased God. That's the idea here.

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And so it means in this way, when used in this way, it means that they were spoken well of or commended. These men of old were commended.

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And it's used…this word is used that way throughout the New Testament in numerous places. I'll give you a few examples. Acts 6 verse 3, therefore brethren, and this is in selecting deacons, select from among you seven men of good reputation.

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That's the word. Seven men spoken well of, full of the spirit and wisdom who may put in charge of this task.

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Acts 10 .22 says, Cornelius was a righteous and God -fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the

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Jews. Acts 16 .2, Timothy was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra. Acts 22 .12

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says, Ananias was a man who was devout by the standard of the law and well spoken of by all the Jews. 1

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Timothy 5 .10, widows were only to be put on the list if they had a good reputation. That's the same word, a good reputation.

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3 John verse 12, Demetrius has received a good testimony. It's the same word. It means to be spoken well of by others.

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So if it's not the men of old who are speaking well of something by their faith, who is speaking well of the men of old?

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Somebody testified of the men of old that they were pleasing in the sight of God. Who was that? It was

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God Himself. These men of old by faith, we might say had a good reputation in the sight of God.

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These men of old by faith were spoken well of, commended by God. It was faith in these men that God commended, that He approved of, that He spoke well of.

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God gives His approbation, His praise to this faith that He finds in these people and God speaks well of them.

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That's the idea. He speaks well of them by their inclusion in Scripture because it is the witness of the

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Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture that these men were righteous and that they were godly. Their inclusion certainly in Hebrews chapter 11 is

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God speaking well of these men because these men are held out as heroes of the faith. This is the faith hall of fame.

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God also speaks well of all of these men in Hebrews chapter 11 by blessing them and showing His favor toward them in and because of all of their obedience to Him.

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God gave Abraham a land and blessings and the promise of a seed and a descendant. God gave

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Noah and his family salvation through the worldwide flood because of Noah's faith. God accepted

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Abel's worship and sacrifice. The fact that God used them, that He blessed them, that He commended them, that He approved of them is in fact

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God's own testimony, His own speaking well of and commendation of these men of faith.

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You see it just in the examples. Look at the language that is used beginning in verse 4 of chapter 11. By faith

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Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain through which he obtained the testimony. Notice that it is Abel who obtains a testimony.

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Somebody is testifying of Abel something. He obtained a testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts and through faith though he's dead, he still speaks.

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Verse 5, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death and he was found, not found because God took him up for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.

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God testified of Enoch that Enoch was acceptable to Him. Verse 6, and without faith it's impossible to please

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Him for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. By faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

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Noah, the fact that Noah was saved through the flood and the fact that Noah became an heir of righteousness, that was

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God's commendation of Noah that his faith saved him. All of these men, Abel, Enoch, Noah, later on Abraham, Gideon, Joshua, the rest of them, all of these people were commended by God because of their faith, not because of their works but because of their faith.

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That is what made them acceptable to God and that is what the passage means when it says they were, they gained approval by their faith.

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Not that faith is a meritorious work but that God Himself was testifying of them. So when we read the

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English phrase the men of old gained approval, we think the men of old believed and therefore God approved of them, that's not the idea.

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The idea is that God commended them and God spoke well of them and God testified of them that their faith was a saving faith.

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Not that their faith was meritorious but that God testified of them that their faith was a saving faith, that He was pleased with that.

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Now how different this is that God speaks well of those who have faith, how different is that from the way that the world approaches these issues?

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It's radically different, is it not? What does the world value? The world values fame, reputation, influence, power, wealth, notoriety, intellect, ability, achievements, awards, skills, beauty, strength, accomplishment, those are the things that the world values.

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And the world speaks well of all of those things, they have all of the awards that they give, the commendations that they give to one another, the

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Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, Emmys, Grammys, awards, all of the other stuff that clutters up your television channel 15 times a year as all of these self -loving narcissists gather together in their opulent displays of wealth and pat themselves on their own backs for hours on end talking about how great they are to one with another, convincing each other that they are so fantastic.

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And the world, our God looks upon all of that and He says that that is foolishness, it is useless and it is all going to burn up.

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The entire world loves that stuff and God hates it. To Him it is folly.

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To Him it is not only folly, it is the height of foolishness. It is the height of blasphemy when the world does that.

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But those are the things that the world loves. You've never seen the world build a monument to Abraham, have you? You've never seen pagans give out the

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Enoch Award. They're going to have three hours on national television, we're all going to get together, we'll have our red carpets and we're going to give out our

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Enoch Award for the man or woman who walked so closely with God that year. You've never seen them give out the

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Noah Award for whatever Christian in faith had some accomplishment that saved somebody else's life or something like that.

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They never have any kind of awards like that because the world doesn't view those things in that way at all.

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God sees the faith and it is faith that He approves of and God honors faith and that is foolishness to the world.

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So here's the odd thing about the times in which we live. That everything that God values, the world hates and everything that the world values,

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God hates. So Christian, choose which side of that divide you're going to stand on because you can have the world's approval or you can have

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God's approval but you cannot have both. You can have the world's applause and their acceptance and their approbation and their praise or you can have

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God's applause and His approbation and His praise but you cannot have both. For if you love the world, you will be an enemy of God and if you are an enemy of the world, then

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God will approve of that as long as that is by faith. So the very thing which God loves and which

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God approves of, the world hates. And those whom God approves of, by the way, they're never going to lack the world's hatred.

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Never worry in your own heart and mind, man, if God speaks well of me, is the world going to hate me enough?

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And it will take care of itself. If you are a man or a woman of faith and obedience to God, trust me, the world will heap upon you its hatred, its scorn, its ridicule, its rejection and just let it come.

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Because the very thing that God loves is faith and the world hates that.

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And you know why? Because the faith that saves, the faith we're talking about here, is a faith that treats as real unseen things, as present realities yet future events.

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And that kind of faith the world cannot understand, that kind of faith the world cannot applaud, that type of faith, the world cannot see those things because the world is blind and the world is dead and the world has no spiritual capacity to applaud or approve of those things.

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So as a Christian, when you speak of the faith that you have and its implications in your day -to -day life, the world sees that as foolishness because they cannot even begin to walk down that road of understanding what that faith is or the significance of it.

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It is otherworldly, so the world cannot understand it, and the world will hate it for that very reason.

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Now, let's answer this question, is this faith that we're talking about a meritorious work? So if we say to somebody that you are saved by grace through faith alone, is that faith that you…that belief that you have in God and in the gospel that has saved you, is that a work, is faith a work that merits or elicits

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God's favor? Is that faith a work which itself contributes to salvation? So that you can in some way say, well, yes,

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Christ died for my sins, He paid the penalty for all of the wrath of God against me for all of my iniquity, and He has opened my eyes and He has caused me to see this,

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He has brought the gospel, He has done all of this, but it is I who have believed.

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The belief comes from me. That's my contribution to my salvation. Okay, well, that's your contribution to the boasting then, however big or small that you think that is.

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That's what you get to boast about. Let me applaud you for your faith. Isn't that great?

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Your faith. This is what makes you to differ from another man. Walk out of here this afternoon and go to Walmart and walk past your average garden variety pagan, and I ask you, what is it that causes you to differ from the average garden variety pagan on the street?

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You think it's your capacity to believe? You think it's because you're smarter than other people? That you reasoned more well through the gospel than somebody else?

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Or do you think it's possible that God has worked through faith in such a way that it cannot be a meritorious work, that you cannot boast in it, you cannot take credit for it, because it does not come from you?

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Is it possible for an unbeliever, a fallen man, to please God? Is it possible for a fallen person, an unbeliever, to please

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God? No, it's not. Romans 8, verse 7 and 8, the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, it does not subject itself to the law of God, and it's not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. Not that they can please God if they believe, not that they have the ability to please God sometimes, those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. So, if you think that faith, then, is a human capacity that all people are born with, and all you have to do is tap into that capacity, and you'll have salvation, then

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I ask you, do you think that an unbeliever, in an unbelieving state, can suddenly look deep down inside of himself, conjure up enough faith to believe, and then in believing, present that to God and say, okay,

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I believe, here's what I have contributed to my salvation, that becomes a work of the flesh, and those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. So if an unbeliever, if you're suggesting that faith is something that an unbeliever can do, and an unbeliever has the capacity to do that, then you have to be suggesting that faith, then, can be a work of the flesh, and that the unbeliever, as an act of his own flesh, as an act of his own unregenerate nature, without any assistance from divine grace, without any supernatural infusion into that or work in that or on that will, that that will has the ability to turn itself, that heart has the ability to turn itself, and that heart has the ability to believe in and of itself, that would all be a work of the flesh.

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Regeneration must take place before, before that act of obedience can be done.

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Regeneration has to happen, and if regeneration has to happen before the sinner is able to do that very thing, then it cannot be a work of the flesh, it must be then a work of grace and grace alone.

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Ephesians 2 verse 1, we read it at the beginning. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, not sick, not terminally ill, not diseased, not slightly incapacitated, not crippled, you were dead, spiritually dead with no recuperative powers of your own to do anything.

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This was your condition as you were without Jesus Christ. Romans 3 says, there's none righteous, not even one, none who understands, there is none who seeks for God, they have all turned aside, together they have become useless, there is none who does good, there's not even one.

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Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of snakes is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the path of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes.

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Man cannot turn from his sin, man cannot change his nature, he cannot do good, he cannot please

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God, he cannot give himself a sight to believe or a heart to believe or a heart of flesh, we lack the capacity without the grace of God to do any of those things.

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And therefore, the one thing that marks us as sinners without Jesus Christ is our complete inability to save ourselves, our complete inability even to believe, because we are three -fold slaves of our sin.

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We are slaves to our own iniquity, our own sin, we are slaves to ourself, and we are slaves to Satan.

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We're in bondage in three separate ways, dead in our trespasses and sins and entirely enslaved.

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This was your condition before you knew Jesus Christ. This was your condition before God regenerated you, gave you faith, gave you life, changed your heart.

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Since man is a sinful, enslaved, fallen, hopeless, rebellious, darkless, loving, God -hating lawbreaker, that's putting it graciously, he cannot please

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God, and since faith is that which pleases God, apart from God's grace, man cannot believe.

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Did you catch that? Man cannot please God. Faith is that which pleases

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God. Therefore, man, apart from divine grace, cannot believe. It's a very simple syllogism, and it's all backed up by the

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Scriptures that I've just read to you. Man cannot please God. Faith pleases God.

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Therefore, a fallen man cannot believe, because fallen man cannot please God. So it must be then, faith must be a divine gift.

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Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, the faith, is not of yourselves.

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That doesn't come from you. Then you say, but, you know, I believed. I know you did. You did.

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You believed. But that faith to believe was a gift from God. It was not of yourselves.

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It didn't come from within your corrupt, wicked, sinful, darkened heart. For any of us, that faith to believe does not come from within fallen, corrupt, rebellious human nature.

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That faith to believe is a gift from God. To you it has been granted, both to believe upon Christ and to suffer for His namesake.

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Philippians 1, 29. Acts chapter 5, Acts chapter 11 speaks of repentance as something granted by God.

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I think it's in Acts chapter 4, the apostles speak of God turning us from our wicked ways. My turning from sin to righteousness was a gift of divine grace and something that God did upon me so that I would not continue in my sinful steps.

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Even the faith to believe has not come from inside the wicked and dark heart of Jim Osmond. It doesn't come from inside the wicked and dark heart of any sinner who's been saved in this room.

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It doesn't come from within you. It is a gift of God. And listen, if the faith to believe, the faith that we're talking about in Hebrews chapter 11 is itself a divine gift, if that saving faith which motivates this kind of obedience is itself a work of divine grace, and if divine grace is necessary for it, if it is the result of the regenerating work of the

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Holy Spirit, then it cannot be a human work, and if it is not a human work, then it cannot merit God's grace.

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It cannot be meritorious. If you believe that all people have the capacity to believe and to exercise faith in God in this sense, then there's no way you can escape the conclusion that faith then is a meritorious work, because if it comes out of the sinful heart of a human person and is offered to God as something which

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God should approve of, and that's what the sinner gives to God to contribute to his salvation, then faith must be a meritorious work.

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And the only way you can say that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and that faith is not meritorious in any sense whatsoever is if you affirm that that faith that causes us to believe is itself not a meritorious work, but entirely a gift of God's divine grace,

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His sovereign grace. That's the only way you can escape that conundrum. The only way you can give God all the credit and all the glory for all of your salvation from the first to the last is if you believe that faith is a divine gift, and therefore it is not meritorious.

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It is a work of His grace. It's a work that God does in the hearts of His people,

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His chosen ones, all of whom will believe. So I ask you this morning, who are you trusting in?

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What are you trusting in for your salvation? Your merit? A gift that you think you're going to offer to God?

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Something good that you have done? Your own capacity to believe? Do you have faith in your own faith?

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Or do you have faith in Jesus Christ? All of us without Jesus Christ are in this hopeless, helpless state that I have described here from Romans chapter 3 and Ephesians chapter 2, dead in our trespasses and sins.

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Your own works, your own merits, your own accomplishments, your own abilities, your own capacities, all of that is useless in the sight of God because you are a hellbound, rotten sinner deserving of His wrath and not deserving in any way of His grace.

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You have broken His law. You stand before Him condemned. If you're outside of Jesus Christ, you stand before Him condemned, guilty of blasphemy, of adultery, of idolatry, of lust, of hatred, of murder of the heart, of fornication, gossip, slander, misuse of your tongue, violating the

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Sabbath, taking God's name in vain. You're guilty of all of that.

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So what are you going to offer to God on the Day of Judgment? You're going to stand before Him and offer up to Him the own righteousness, your own self -righteousness, here's what

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I did to atone for that? How far do you think that that will get you? It will get you nowhere.

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Instead, you must turn to Jesus Christ who kept all of that law on behalf of all who will believe in Him.

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He kept that law perfectly. He never sinned in thought, word, or deed. He lived a perfectly righteous life and then

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He died a perfectly submissive and perfectly righteous death on the cross to pay the sin price for any and all who will believe.

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And sinner, you who are outside of Jesus Christ, if you come to Him in repentance and faith,

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I promise you He will not cast you out. He will embrace you and He will receive you. This is the gospel command to you.

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You are unable of yourself to believe, to repent, or to turn to Christ, but you must because the command of Scripture is that you do so.

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And in hearing that command, if you will come to Him, He promises He will forgive your sin and He will grant you everlasting life.

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Come to Him. Christian, being in Jesus Christ, this is

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God's testimony concerning you and I that the one who has faith in Jesus, God speaks well of.

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We have His approval, His commendation, not because our faith is in any way meritorious, but because we have been approved of by God because we have been made acceptable to Him in the

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Beloved. It is because we are in Jesus Christ. And because we have repented of our sin and trusted in Jesus Christ, we have received regeneration, we have received the gift of repentance, we have received the gift of salvation and faith in Him.

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And by virtue of the fact that we are in His Son, God speaks well of us, He commends us, He approves of us. Not on the basis of any deeds which we have done in righteousness, but only by grace alone because of our faith alone in our

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Lord Jesus Christ alone. And that is the only way that God can have all of the glory and have it alone.

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Let's pray. Our Father, we do love You and we thank You for the great gift of salvation.

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And this passage is a reminder to us again of the great work that You have done in saving a people for Yourself.

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It reminds us again that all that we have to boast of is only in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

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For apart from Your grace and what You have done in Your Son on our behalf, we could never have eternal life.

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We would never have turned from our sins, we would never have believed savingly upon Jesus Christ. But You have so worked upon our minds, our hearts, our wills, and in regeneration

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You have given us all that is necessary for salvation. We thank You that Jesus Christ has done this.

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We thank You, Father, for sending Your Holy Spirit to draw us to Your Son that we may behold

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Him and believe in Him and have eternal life. And we thank You for the work of the Son in saving and securing everlastingly all who come to Him.

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Thank You, Father, for this great work and this great plan of salvation of which we are only unworthy recipients.