Sola Fide - Faith Alone

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca

This October 31st will mark the 506th year since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

Essentially launching what became a worldwide reformation that would see millions of people come back, return to a biblical understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if you've been with us for any length of time, at least for a year, you will know that we like to make a big deal of Reformation Day.

Or maybe if you were to blame one person, I like to make a big deal of Reformation Day.

And maybe for some of you, you just don't understand why that is. Why would we make such a big deal of an extra biblical day on the calendar?

It is not, after all, Passover or the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur or some other day.

And so why do we make a big deal of Reformation Day? And there is a very important reason for why we do this, why

I do this. And it's not primarily because we are fond here of historical theology.

Though I think we are, and maybe myself especially. But that's not why. It's not because we are enthusiastically reformed in our understanding of salvation, of the doctrines of God's sovereign grace, his electing love of his people.

That is certainly true, but that's not why we make a big deal of Reformation Day. Instead, I think it's because Reformation Day serves as an important annual reminder.

We sang a little bit earlier about raising an Ebenezer, a milestone, a landmark, something that we will pass and remember.

It serves as an important annual reminder of many of the central tenets of the

Christian faith that we find in our Bibles. And these central tenets are worth revisiting.

And revisiting often, because when we look at the whole scope of human history, the scope of redemptive history in the nation of Israel and Christ and his church, and then the scope of human history from Christ to today, what we see is that some of these important truths that were rediscovered in the

Reformation are some of the most easily forgotten by God's people. And so, if Christ should tarry, and if the

Lord should preserve me, and I have the opportunity to stand behind this pulpit on a

Sunday close to Reformation Day, I am always going to bring a message that deals with Reformation themes, lest we lose sight of these doctrines once more.

And believe me, if we do not continuously remind ourselves of these important gospel truths, we will lose them.

Now, we might stand here, sit here very confidently and think that we will never forget the gospel.

Well, perhaps you might not. But what about your children? And what about your children's children?

And what about your children's children? In 1948, the statesman

Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, a few years after the

Second World War, stood in the British House of Commons, and he uttered those famous words, words that we've all repeated a few times at least on our own, that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I think most children learn that. I know I learned that in elementary school. I'm not sure if they still teach it today.

It seems they don't. Because when we look at the world around us today, what we see is the veracity of Winston Churchill's statement, that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

We see it in 4K, on social media, in the news, in public schools, on the campuses of universities, and in the public square.

All we have to do is look at people today marching through hallways in Edmonton, chanting, from the river to the sea,

Palestine will be free. Displacing, destroying the Jewish people in the process.

Just over 50 years since the last Holocaust, we have shorter memories,

I think, than we care to admit. And we're always, even in Christ Church, I would suggest, only one generation away from losing hold of the gospel.

The only gospel that has the very power to save our souls. And I don't think, and I am not, in fact, speaking in hyperbole.

You might have heard of it before, that Ligonier and Lifeway Research, they do this survey every couple of years that they call the

State of Theology Poll. They team up and they go out and they ask conservative, evangelical, and largely church -going

Christians important questions about important doctrines to see what the average

Christian in America, and I would suggest their results are probably friendlier than what they would be in Canada, so we might extend them to North America, what the average, ordinary, evangelical

Christian believes in North America. And just recently, I took some time to look at the 2022 poll.

So the next poll will be taking place again next year in 2024. And after a bit of digging, I found a survey result,

I think, that deals with the most fundamental aspect of what it means to be a Christian.

Namely, what is the gospel? Oh, if you were to go and ask the average, ordinary

Christian basic questions about the gospel. And the question in this survey that I paid particular attention to was this question.

I want you to think about how you might answer it. Agree or disagree. Children, be on deck,

I'm going to ask you a question in a moment. Agree or disagree. God counts a person as righteous, not because of works, but only because of faith in Jesus Christ.

God counts a person righteous, not because of works, but only because of faith in Jesus Christ.

Agree or disagree. And this poll then was put to over 3 ,000 conservative evangelical

Christians. And kids, what would you answer to that?

Agree or disagree. Are we saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ? Agree?

Do we have agreements there? Agree? I think the consensus is that we agree that we are saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ.

And of the 3 ,000 that were surveyed, 43 % of the respondents indicated that they could not agree with that statement.

43%. This means 43 % of the visible evangelical church in North America is hopelessly lost.

In complete and utter darkness about what it means to be right with God. The most fundamental question of the

Christian faith. It serves then only to reinforce what the doctor

Martin Lloyd -Jones said in the 1960s. So 60 years ago now.

He said that Christianity was reverting to a pre -Reformation

Christianity. A Christianity where the growing segment of Christians know as much about the gospel as believers did when the literacy rate in Europe was 11%.

And the Bible was locked up in a dead language for only the bishops and a select few priests to read.

So we remember Reformation Day every year in this church. And I am eager to remember

Reformation Day every year in this church because we live in a Christian world that has a rapidly eroding understanding of the gospel.

The banks are giving way. And the gospel that has been assumed for so long has been forgotten by so many.

One professor in our institute program, for those men who are in our Grace Institute, you might recognize this name,

Dr. Michael Riccardi. He is a TMS professor. He doesn't hold any punches when he says why it is that a growing segment of Christianity is ignorant to the gospel.

He said, we are content as a Christian culture to be ignorant about the theology of our own salvation.

We are apathetic about the very doctrines that the reformers gave their lives for.

And that just should not be. And God, help us that that should not be the case in this church.

That we would grow apathetic to the doctrines of justification. Of what it means to stand before God, freely accepted by Him, reconciled and at peace with a living and a holy

God. And so this afternoon, we are going to consider what has been called then the crown jewel of the

Reformation. Sola Fide. Justification by faith alone.

It is the very heart and soul of the gospel. To be justified by faith alone is this.

It is to be declared righteous through faith alone in the unmerited work of Jesus Christ.

Luther called it the article upon which the church stands or falls.

Justification by faith alone. He said, without Sola Fide, the world is utter death and darkness.

John Calvin further agreed. He said, justification by faith alone is the main hinge on which religion turns.

Wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished. Religion is abolished.

The church destroyed. The hope of salvation utterly lost. It has been said that Sola Fide is the sun in the solar system of gospel doctrine.

And so today we are going to look at this text. Romans chapter 1 and verses 16 and 17.

I will describe partway through why this is an important text to the Reformation. We are going to look at this text that turned the world upside down once more.

This text that rescued Martin Luther and subsequent millions from bondage to the cruel dogmas of the

Roman Catholic Church. And it all hinges on this. That we are not made right with God through deeds, through good deeds, through works of the law, through the toil and sweat of our brow.

No, but every Christian who is a Christian is reconciled to the living

God only by believing on Jesus Christ for eternal life. And so this week

I am going to give us from this text three exhortations. I've had a great deal of fun with it in the preparation of it.

In that we are going to look at the text itself. A little bit of what it teaches. And then we are going to look at how these apply to the lives of three different Reformers in the time of the

Reformation. If you have been here for a number of years, you will remember that we started our

Reformation day. This is now our third Reformation day. We started our Reformation day by looking at Martin Luther and the

German Reformation. Last year we looked at the canons of Dort and the

Reformers in the Netherlands. And this year we are going to highlight... We have to deal with Martin Luther because of the text.

So we are going to deal with Martin Luther, but we are also going to look at the English Reformation. This is not a cultural

Reformation. But this is a return to biblical Christianity that transcends languages, that transcends cultures.

And that all at once, as people were reading their Bibles, discovered anew what it means to be saved and to be right with God.

So let's turn our attention back to verse 16. And I am going to read that verse one more time.

Paul writes, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation, to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. My first exhortation to you today is rejoice boldly in Christ by faith.

If you are writing notes you want shorthand, rejoice. We have alliterated today and so they are all our words.

Brethren, I want you to leave here today rejoicing in Christ.

Rejoicing in Christ because of the access that we have to the

Father through Him and through Him alone by faith. This point in my sermon is a call to every person here.

Not only to avoid passively forgetting the gospel, but the way that your child is going to remember the gospel to some respect, is because he saw his father rejoicing in that gospel.

The way the world, I think of our membership class yesterday, if I can use an example that our brother

Neil was speaking about, hearing the gospel spoken, but then seeing a life transformed by the gospel.

Oh, the power of a transformed life. One can argue against the message, but it is hard to argue against a transformed life.

And this is a call for us to love and to rejoice in what Jesus Christ has done for us and to boldly rejoice in it.

Paul tells his Roman audience, in verse 15, he has just told them that he desires to preach the gospel to them.

He is writing to Christians and yet he knows that they need to hear the gospel again. And he wants to be one who delivers, who proclaims, who heralds that gospel to them.

And in verse 16, he says, I am not ashamed of that gospel.

Those words might grow dull in our hearing because we've heard them so many times, because we have read them so many times.

But think about those words for a second. I am not ashamed of the gospel.

How few there are who can repeat those words after the Apostle Paul and truly mean them.

Now, is that a bit of a stretch? Are we all ashamed of the gospel? I'm not suggesting here that we're all ashamed of Christ.

But let me say this. Every intellectually honest person in this room has to acknowledge that we still find it tremendously difficult at times to turn conversations towards Christ.

We hear of brothers and sisters who get on planes. I think of one of our brothers, Joel Beakey, who travels a great deal.

And he talks often how every single stranger that he sits next to on a plane, he makes it his goal to share the gospel with them.

Many of us would be terrified at the prospect of, as the plane is taxiing to the runway, we share the gospel on what's going to be an eight -hour flight.

And then they should reject that gospel. And then we have to sit there in awkward silence for eight hours, trying to argue over who is going to have the armrest.

For some of us, we struggle to share the gospel with our family members. We think to ourselves, a prophet is not honored in his own hometown and among his relatives.

And so we are tight -lipped with the gospel. Some of us, we go to work, we go to school every day.

I can guarantee that for many of you, your colleagues, your fellow students, they know you're a

Christian. And yet you have the message that will bring those lost people eternal life.

And it's true that many of them have never heard that message from your lips. And then, no doubt, there are people here who have never shared the gospel before, ever, to anyone at all.

And all of us lament our frequent failures. That in many respects, we cannot say with the

Apostle Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Because we look at our actions and we say, well, in fact, in this regard,

I am a failure. And yet Paul tells us why this is.

In 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 11, 11a exactly, he says,

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. We know.

This is why we don't share with the man on the airplane next to us. And why some of our co -workers have not heard the gospel from our own lips.

We know that everyone who identifies themselves with Christ and with his gospel will be counted foolish by a perishing world.

But Paul tells us, I am not ashamed of the gospel. And I'm not sure about you, but I want to ask

Paul, how is it that you have gotten to that point, that you are not ashamed of the gospel?

Paul has put his money where his mouth is. If we read the book of Acts, we see in Acts chapter 14, that he was stoned in Galatia.

Then in Acts chapter 16, he was imprisoned in Philippi. That later on in the book of Acts, the people in Jerusalem were ready to tear him into pieces so that the

Roman guards had to intervene. Why? Because he was preaching the gospel. And I want to ask the

Apostle Paul, how did you escape the fear of men's opinions? The fear of men's murderous thoughts.

The fear of men's scorn. Paul tells us that he is not ashamed of the gospel.

And then I think in this passage, he tells us how it is that we get there. What does he say?

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Paul was no longer ashamed of the gospel because he came to realize that it was this message itself that contained the very power of God.

And that that power is absent when the message is not preached. That if you love your neighbors, and if you love your co -workers, and the people around you, you will preach the gospel because inherent in it is the power of God in word form.

But more than that, and where I want to highlight today is this. That Paul realized what the reformers relearned some 1 ,500 years later.

That it is a message that is simply too good to hide, to keep hidden, to remain silent about.

It is a message of salvation. Not for everyone who works. Not for everyone who keeps the law perfectly.

Not for everyone who attends church every Sunday. But it is a message of salvation for everyone who believes.

And I would venture to say that many of us are tight -lipped with the gospel. Because we do not yet fully believe that gospel.

That there is a holy God. That there is a holy God who is good and just and who has created us.

And of whom we have sinned against. And he offers peace and reconciliation with himself.

Not by jumping through hoops and hurdles, but by believing on the Son that he has sent to die for us.

A gospel whereby God justifies everyone, both Jew and Greek, who believes on Christ.

A gospel of sola fide. This was the message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And it was Paul's attitude, woe is me if I do not preach this gospel. Paul would later go on to write to the

Romans about this gospel. In Romans 3 and verse 21, he said, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

The righteousness of God, how? The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This is, for me, the greatest place to be at this very moment.

That I have the unspeakable privilege of standing here before you to tell you the greatest news that has ever been preached in the history of the world, that God has sent his son,

Jesus Christ, to die for sinners, sinners like you and sinners like me and sinners like the rest in the world.

And he does not call us to break our backs to earn salvation today, but to be justified, to be forgiven, to be made righteous, accounted righteous.

How? As a gift to be received at the open hands of faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you have believed on Jesus for your salvation, I don't say this as a prophet, but I say this in general, as a principle, as a rule, you are saved and you are right with God.

What an amazing thought. If you have believed on Christ, I look you in the eyes and I say, if you have believed on Christ, you are saved.

And this is not a truth to be ignored or forgotten or to be ashamed of, but it is an eternal truth to be rejoiced in.

When this truth was rediscovered, this truth of sola fide was rediscovered during the Reformation, it became a wellspring of deep and everlasting joy in the hearts of the reformers.

It meant nothing less than the rediscovery of the gospel of Jesus Christ, pure and unadulterated.

And this afternoon, I want to convince you of the goodness of this gospel of sola fide.

Not just so that you would go out and preach it, that is certainly a secondary benefit, but that you would believe it so that as you sit there in your seats, you might think,

I am not condemned, but I have peace with God. And I have peace with God, not through my own merit, but through what

Jesus has done for me. And there is nothing that can separate me now from that God. If Jesus Christ be

God and died for me, then no one can take that from me.

Not even God will cross His Son in that way. And I want to illustrate this in the life of a reformer.

I tried this week, I tried, I tried, I tried to find reformers that you have never heard of.

Because at Reformation Day, who am I going to quote? Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Knox.

We can just run a list of names that we've all heard of that are pivotal, that are giants of the

Reformation. And so I pushed the giants of the Reformation aside for a minute, so that I could reach for someone of a similar stature as I.

And his name is Thomas Bilney. Thomas Bilney grew up in eastern

England. He was born in 1495. Just east of Cambridge.

So if you know where that is, it's about part way up England to the right, on the east side.

Near the strait. he was a man who grew up in a very

Catholic England. So much so, in fact, that he decided he was going to devote his life to being a

Catholic priest. And so he went and he studied to be a Catholic priest in his native country of England.

And though he was a tremendous scholar, he was a sharp -minded man, there were a lot of things going against Thomas Bilney.

Thomas Bilney was a very unremarkable man. He was not a man of great courage and valor.

He was not a charismatic leader. In fact, he was very shy. If you find yourself at most hours of the day, and maybe especially in church, shy and feeling a bit subdued, not knowing how to have a conversation, feeling that you're plagued by awkward silence, well that was

Thomas Bilney. And not only was he shy and reserved, but he was a very little man.

Probably my height. So that because of his personality and because of his stature, he became known as Little Bilney.

Now, I'm not sure men, those of us men who want to be the providers and the protectors of our homes, the leaders of our families, how someone might feel if they said, ah,

Little Malta. You're an easy one to pick on, brother, because you're not little. But here we have

Little Bilney. And so not only was he an unremarkable man in terms of his personality and in terms of his stature, but he was a man that was plagued with the question, how can a man be right with God?

In fact, he used to ask his fellow scholars and his fellow priests exactly that. Can I, oh, can

I truly be right with God? But every time he asked, he received no satisfying answer.

All he got was a longer list of to -dos. More Hail Marys. More of this. More works of the law.

More deeds. And then maybe, just maybe, your time in purgatory will be just a little bit shorter.

He was, in every possible sense of the word, a hopeless man, a man of complete despair. But one day as he was hearing news of recent developments in the

Catholic Church, he heard about a man named Erasmus. And Erasmus, if you've ever heard of Erasmus, if you like the

Textus Receptus, the King James Bible, then you will know a little bit about Erasmus. Erasmus had made his first translation of the

Greek New Testament. And it was a forbidden book in the Catholic Church. To be in possession of a copy of the

Hebrew Bible or the Greek Bible was a sin in the Catholic Church, tantamount to heresy.

But little Bilney had to have a copy of God's Word. And so he saved up and he found a copy of Erasmus' Greek New Testament.

And when he took it and held it in his hands, we've lost this wonder in the

Christian life for most of us. He looked at what he had in his hands and between the two covers he said, that is the

Word of God. That is God's Word to me. And so eagerly, some of us need to rediscover this.

Eagerly he went home, he locked himself in his room, deadbolt shut with his forbidden book and he opened his

Bible and what did his Bible turn to? The first page that he found in his Bible it fell on 1st

Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15. I normally would not recommend the plop and point method but this is the first time this brother had a

Bible and so we'll forgive him. But where did his eyes land?

On 1st Timothy 1 .15 the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom

Paul says, I am the foremost. The chief of sinners. And reading that little

Thomas Bilney cried out, he said what? St. Paul? The chief of sinners?

And yet, St. Paul is sure of being saved? O assertion of St.

Paul how sweet art thou to my soul. And then he said I am like Paul and more than Paul, the greatest of sinners.

But Christ saves sinners. At last

I have heard of Jesus. I have heard of Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ saves.

I see now that all my vigils, my fasts, my pilgrimages, my purchase of masses and indulgences were destroying instead of saving me.

And discerning this truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, little Bilney fell to his knees and joyfully praised

God. And immediately he went out having prayed to God that he would do just this, he went out and began preaching that same gospel that had saved him.

Like the Apostle Paul, who had discovered for himself the truth, the joy, the glory of Sola Fide.

And you might have heard, there's a podcast there's I believe a publishing company named after this now,

The White Horse Inn if you've ever heard of that. Thomas Bilney began preaching the gospel.

Some were saying he found other men of like mind. And they began meeting in a place called the White Horse Inn. And there they would study the forbidden book together.

To the point that they became known as, the nickname, I would like this a lot more than Little Poirier, Little Shane, the

Scripture Men. And it was not long then, after they became the

Scripture Men, that the Catholic Church caught on. And they ripped

Thomas Bilney from his pulpit. He was charged with heresy. And he was sent to the stake to be burned.

And Bilney was faced with a decision. That probably many of us have put ourselves in that hypothetical position.

If they're about to strap me to the stake and light me on fire, am

I going to say, or am I going to remain resolved? Yes, I believe in Christ. Or am

I going to deny him? And little Thomas Bilney, enduring torments and persecution that none of us in this room have ever experienced, recanted of his faith and said,

I deny the Gospel of Sola Fide. Well, what proceeded then was probably worse than death itself.

That the Roman Catholic Church released him. You are free. Carry on as a Roman Catholic priest.

But Bilney was so weighed down by this denunciation of Christ that when he finally came to his senses he said,

I'm going to get arrested again. And so Bilney went back to preaching the Gospel.

Not ashamed of the Gospel. Not afraid of the consequences of preaching that Gospel. But he went and preached that those who believe in Jesus Christ, count on it.

You will be saved. And the Roman Catholic Church in 1531 came for little

Thomas Bilney once more. And he got his wish. And was imprisoned again. And the men and women of the

White Horse Inn came the day before he was scheduled to be burned at the stake. And they came there to comfort him.

After all this was little Bilney. The man who had already once before recanted and denied

Christ. And what they found in that prison cell was not little Bilney.

But what I might say, who I might say was giant Bilney. In that when they walked into his cell, he was sitting there with his open

Bible. His Bible turned to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 43. And he was reading verses 1 and 2 by candlelight.

And he looked at his comforters and instead of being comforted by them he emboldened them.

And he read these words. He said Fear not. Isaiah 43 verse 1. I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name. You are mine. And then in verse 2. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned.

And the flame shall not consume you. Now when I was in recruit class training for law enforcement one of the things that I found is that sometimes if I subjected myself to things that I knew

I was going to be subjected to it helped to reduce the anticipation of it.

And so Nicole's not here. It's really too bad she isn't here to enjoy the story with me. But I recall a time when

I was going to be pepper sprayed that week. And so I thought well the best thing for me to prepare myself is I'm going to put a bit of pepper spray in a container and I'm just going to smell it and acquaint myself with it.

And so in the can of bear spray, as I shot my can of bear spray into a little sour cream container it exploded in the backyard and contaminated me and contaminated

Nicole who was standing behind the door so that we were both coughing and sneezing and our eyes and our mouths and our noses were running just to prepare myself for that anticipation.

And so this is what I think Thomas Bilney was doing as he read that text that you are mine.

I have redeemed you. I have called you. The flame shall not consume you. He looked at his comforters.

He took his finger and he put it in the candle that was lighting the room to the point that it began to consume his finger.

And then his friends realized I think Thomas Bilney is serious this time. And so the next day as he was walked to the stake, he stood tall.

He got onto the stake. They prepared to fasten him there. And he looked out at the crowd of people and he said oh she just missed it.

Looked at the crowd of people and said I am prepared to die.

Good people, I have come here to die. And as they lit the wood underneath him and the fire consumed him.

His last words in Latin was Jesu credo Jesus I believe.

That little Thomas Bilney huge Thomas Bilney's greatest confidence.

His only hope in that moment it was not the masses. It was not the pilgrimages.

It was not the indulgences. It was his faith in Jesus Christ. And he was going to not only not be ashamed for that gospel of Jesus Christ but he was going to die for that gospel of Jesus Christ.

His confident hope even as he breathed his last breath was this sola fide.

He believed in Christ and so he was saved. And let me say if you believe in Christ so will you be saved on the day of Christ's return.

On the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in and therefore we speak.

The second exhortation in key fashion that is my longest point. In my typical fashion.

In verse 17 Paul says for in it the righteousness of God in that gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

And from this text I want to exhort you to reckon yourself righteous by faith.

That's an old word. I had to fit it into the alliteration a little bit. To count yourself righteous.

Oh to consider yourself righteous. To remember even on your deepest darkest days that if you have placed your faith in Christ.

Brethren you are counted righteous in Christ. Oh that when he looks at you he sees the unblemished righteousness of his own son.

I want to transport us back in time to the place where the greatest sermon in the world was ever preached.

Kids do you know where that was? It wasn't here. I promise you that. Where was the greatest sermon ever preached?

Maybe ask your parent for help. We're going to test the parents. Ask dad.

We're getting a little bit of help in the back. Acts 2 maybe that's the second best sermon.

The sermon on the mount. Out of the mouth of babes. The sermon on the mount.

I'm going to transport us back to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 20. There was Christ was standing on that mount with the crowd standing before him.

He could have said any number of things. But one of the things that he did say I think is a masterful use of the law.

Sometimes when we think of our favorite preachers it's because they are just masters of the use of the law.

They show us our tremendous need for Christ and the use of that law and then masterful use of the gospel that they show us our need to the point that we are undone and then they show us

Christ and how he meets our every need and then we are redone anew, afresh in Christ.

And here Christ uses that law masterfully. He says this, as he looked at those crowds, I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I repeat that to you now. For you in this room unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Let me tell you, if the gospel is good news that is about the worst news in all of the world.

That is taking the law like a scalpel and going to every person in that crowd and right into the heart with the law.

Who amongst you is more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees? If you were standing in that crowd, you would say, there is no one.

There is no one whose righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Not even the scribes and Pharisees could meet their own standard.

Let alone exceed it. Which is what Christ is calling for. It was an impossible task that here we have a holy and a just God and a man, sinful and unrighteous.

The wages of sin is death. And this man you and I, we deserve eternal separation from God.

And God's word confirms it. Oh, when we use the law in this way.

Habakkuk 113. It says of God you are of purer eyes than to see evil.

You cannot look at wrong. Well, if God is of purer eyes than to see evil, and he cannot look at wrong, then how in all the world can we come to him?

How in all the world can we live with him for all of eternity? Proverbs 17 .15

He who justifies, who counts righteous, who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous are both like an abomination to the

Lord. Theologians have called this the great dilemma.

Oh how, how, oh how, oh how is God going to justify a sinful people that he might reconcile himself as a holy

God. Reconcile to himself as a holy God. A previous boss that I had,

Steve and I shared this boss. He was our boss's boss's boss. He was a very devout

Catholic man. And he took very seriously this idea. I believe that he had a sense that God was holy.

And I believe he had a deep, a profound sense that he was not. And I recall when

I first heard about this man, we were having a conference, and they said that our new

CEO will be joining us in a few weeks time. Currently, he is traveling the desert barefoot on a pilgrimage.

Walking some, I believe it was 30 or 50 days barefoot through some desert in the

Middle East, burning his feet. Why? That he might bridge this unspeakably great chasm between him as a sinful man and the holy

God of the Bible. Well, as we've heard from Thomas Bilney, not even if you were to get on your hands and knees and crawl across a sea of broken glass, could you bridge that chasm between a holy

God and a sinful man? And so we ask ourselves the question then, how shall we be reconciled with that holy

God? Do we do like the Pharisees? And the best that we can, maybe we can't exceed the righteousness of the

Pharisees, but we'll tithe from our mint and herbs, we'll do every possible thing, we'll wear long phylacteries, we'll have the law in a little box and we'll fasten it to our foreheads.

Is that how we are to find ourselves righteous before God? As Paul was speaking to the

Romans, if we fast forward to Romans chapter 10, he speaks about these kinds of people, like my former boss, who tried to cross a desert in barefoot, that he might finally please

God and be accepted by Him. He speaks to the Jews, in Romans 10 .1, he says

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

Speaking of his Jewish brethren. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

So then, what then is the answer? If even zeal, that's why when people ask, well, you know, he was sincere, yes, but he had a zeal for God, not according to knowledge.

What then is the answer? Romans 10 .4 is the answer. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.

To whom? To everyone who believes.

That what man has never been able to do, in bridging the chasm between a sinful man and a holy

God, God did for man, through His Son, by sending

His Son to die on the cross for man's sin, and by imputing

His righteousness to everyone who calls on Him. How? Not by works, not by merit of our own, not by indulgences, the sale of indulgences, the purchase of indulgences, not by anything written in the law, or in the imaginations of men, but one way, by believing on Jesus Christ.

By placing our hope in Him. We heard our brother read the text, I'm not going to read it again, but from Philippians 3, how

Paul had this righteousness of the Pharisees. If ever there was something that was close to a perfect self -righteousness,

Paul had it. And what does Paul say? He says, indeed

I count everything loss. Throw it all away because of the surpassing worth of knowing

Christ, Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish.

The Greek word skubala, dung. You want a vivid picture?

It's like going to the fairgrounds and trying to find your righteousness at the bottom of the port -a -potty.

He counts it as dung in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

The righteousness of God that depends on faith. This has been called the great dilemma, and this has been called the great exchange.

When Christ went to that cross, He became sin on our behalf.

Not that sin was put into Him, but that our sin was imputed to Him.

And at that same time, His act of obedience, His whole life lived as a righteous life, is imputed to those who have faith in Him.

It's called double imputation. It's one of the greatest truths in the world.

Double imputation. I remember doing evangelism with a friend one time, and he had the slick saying, and boy,

I really liked it at the time. As we were doing evangelism, he said, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you will be justified.

Well, there are fewer words in the English language that are as sweet as that word justified.

To be counted righteous. But he proceeded with this. He said, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you will be justified.

Just as if I had never sinned. Just as if I'd never sinned.

I thought, that's a great definition for justified. Just as if I'd never sinned.

I thought, I'm going to use that next time I preach the gospel. In fact, I do believe I used it at least once.

But if I were standing there with that brother today, and he was preaching that same message and said, you will be justified.

Just as if I'd never sinned. I would remember that in my mind. And when we were done doing evangelism for the day,

I would take that brother aside, and I would rebuke him. I would rebuke him in the kindest of terms.

And I would say this. Christ did not die to give us a neutrality of righteousness.

That we would just be in the neutral grounds. Between sinful and between righteous.

No. No, in fact. Not just as if I'd never sinned. But when we are justified, God looks at us and He counts us just as if we had lived the life that Christ lived from the day

He was born until the day that He perished on the cross in our place. You and I, if we think about God's attitude towards Christ as He was on that cross, even, let's do a few minutes before that.

As He was led to the cross. Before He became the object of God's wrath. What was God's disposition?

What was the Father's disposition to the Son? Oh, He was pleased with His Son.

Oh, that His Son would be born. And from the moment of His conception,

He would be a holy and a righteous man. That He would fulfill all righteousness every single day of His life.

And then in those moments leading up to the cross, there He is in obedience to His Father.

Going to die for sinful man. What is the Father's disposition toward the

Son in that moment? It is one of perfect love. Perfect acceptance.

Perfect approval. Brothers and sisters, when you believe in Christ, it is not as if you have never sinned.

It is as if you are standing there with the righteousness of Christ in that moment.

That when He looks at you, oh, He loves you. You might feel like total garbage some days.

You might think, I have, if I could have done it wrong, I have done it wrong today.

Let me tell you, if you have placed your faith in Christ, He looks at you as if you have that righteousness of Christ.

It has been imputed to you. And it is not an accident. It is not a loophole. It is

God's design that He would save you to the uttermost through faith in Jesus.

And so, brethren, reckon yourselves. Consider yourselves.

Count yourselves, then, as possessing, not intrinsically, but externally, forensically, legally, righteous in Christ.

In Romans 6, some might say, is that unbiblical for me to reckon myself?

It doesn't mean it's true. In Romans 6, as Paul was writing to the Romans, he said, so you also must consider yourselves, reckon yourselves, dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Many of you who are miserable today, it would change your life.

It would turn your world upside down if for a moment you could see your standing before God in Christ.

But we do not walk by sight just yet. And we certainly do not walk by feelings.

What do we walk by? We walk by faith. And so we believe. And so we reckon ourselves righteous.

Martin Luther. This was the verse that turned his world upside down.

That many of you know the story. I'm not going to recount it. He was riding his horse in a field. There was a lightning.

It knocked him off the horse. He cried out to his father's favorite patron, St. Anne. St. Anne, save me!

It's been said that St. Anne answered that prayer twice. Saved him in that moment and saved him in the future.

It was God, let me tell you, that saved him. He went to live in a monastery to serve there.

It is said of Luther that he hated the word righteousness. That that word drove him mad.

He went to Rome and he climbed what's called the Scala Sancta. It's 28 steps that the

Catholics, and I do not believe this, that the Catholics say were the steps that led up to Pilate's Praetorium that Christ ascended.

And in Rome today, you can go to the Scala Sancta and ascend those steps on your knees one at a time in the hope that that will reduce your time in purgatory.

Luther went to the Scala Sancta and he found that experience worthless.

It did nothing for his guilty conscience, knowing that he had sinned against God. He was left empty.

At one point even, kids think about this. If someone were to ask you, do you love

God? How would we answer that? I think we would be like Peter when

Christ said, Peter, do you love me? We would say, of course, of course I love God. Well, if you were to ask

Martin Luther during that time, do you love God? There were times when he would look at the person asking him and he would say, sometimes

I hate God. Because God is righteous and I am not.

Martin Luther one day was preparing to teach his students. He was already a theology professor.

That open Bible on your laps in Romans 1, he turned to and he read those words.

This is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. In verse 17, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

And in that moment, it was as if the scales fell off his eyes. Luther said,

I realize for the first time that my own justification depends not on my own righteousness, which will always fall short, but it rests solely and completely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ which

I must hold onto by trusting faith. I'm going to skip over a bunch of my notes.

I'm going to share with you one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther. He said this, he said, when

I look at myself, I don't see how I could ever be saved. If you feel that way, you're in good company.

I feel that way as well. Oftentimes, we live there, don't we? When I look at myself,

I don't see how I could be saved. But the second part of that quote from Luther, hold onto this.

It will change your life. But when I look at Christ, I don't see how

I could ever be lost. For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ and see that because of what

Christ has done, you will never be lost. If you believe in Him, you will be saved.

And so we can sing then a song that we're going to sing later. And we can sing it loud. It is well with my soul.

Not my sin. It is well with my soul. I was testing you. My sin.

Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to that cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. And my third exhortation is very fast.

In 17b, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

To believe in Christ, brethren, is not a one -time decision for Christ.

It's not a flash of faith in the pan. It's not a camp time, a one -time decision at Bible camp, and then

I live forever, completely ambivalent to Jesus Christ. But it is a call.

Brethren. My third point. Remain. Remain in Christ's righteousness by faith.

Not just to believe for a moment, but to believe forever. So that now, maybe you're convinced by this sermon, that you are convinced about this truth now and tomorrow and on your deathbed that when you go to be with the

Lord, it will be because you believe in Jesus Christ. Believe in the gospel so much.

Stake your life on the gospel to such an extent that if the gospel is not true, your soul will be damned.

Because that is your only hope. But I assure you on the basis of God's word, it is true.

So you will never be damned. Hebrews 12 .1 Therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

How? Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

He founded it, he will perfect it. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Brethren, believe today, and then wake up tomorrow. And by God's grace, believe tomorrow.

And then by God's grace, believe the next day. And you will find that in the end, it was all

God's grace. But God uses means and so we believe. When you're feeling miserable and downcast and sullen, believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'll finish off with this third biographical sketch. A man named

Hugh Latimer, another English reformer. He said of salvation by faith alone, he said, as many as believe in him shall be well, shall be as well justified by him, as though they themselves had never done any sin, and as though they themselves had fulfilled the law to the uttermost.

For we without him are under the curse, but Christ with his death has delivered us from the curse of the law.

He said, a faith that embraces Christ and trusts his merit, this is a lively faith, a justifying faith, a faith that makes a man righteous without respect of works.

He said, let us study to believe in Christ. I said something at the beginning.

I said, maybe we don't believe the gospel as much as we think. I believe it's possible to increase in our faith.

It's not simply an on -off switch. We do believe or we don't believe, but we can believe more still.

Does that make sense? Let us study to believe in Christ. Let us put all our hope, trust, confidence only in him.

God has given us Christ unto us to be our deliverer and to give us everlasting life.

What a joyful thing this is. Hugh Latimer. We're going to talk about him next week as we talk about the

Bible. Hugh Latimer staked his life on that gospel, the gospel of Sola Fide.

He lived his life for it and then he died for that.

It's interesting when we move from Germany to England, when we're dealing with the reformers, we see how many more reformers in England died because they believed in the gospel of Sola Fide.

The Council of Trent outlawed justification by faith alone. They said that anyone who believes that you are justified by faith alone, let them be anathema, meaning let them be accursed.

When Queen Mary Tudor, Mary the First, came into power, she heard of Hugh Latimer, who was a man who was a

Roman Catholic priest, who now was a reformer, who believed in this gospel that is by faith alone.

She delivered him to be burned at the stake. To be burned at the stake with Hugh Latimer was another man,

Nicholas Ridley, another reformer that we're not going to talk about today. As they prepared the fire, the crowd noticed that under Hugh Latimer there was good seasoned wood.

If you'd like to make a campfire, you want to pick seasoned wood. That's going to burn.

Green wood is going to be very difficult to light. The crowd noticed that under Hugh Latimer, there was good seasoned wood.

That fire was going to burn hot. Under Nicholas Ridley, there was green wood. As expected, when they lit the manablaze,

Hugh Latimer almost immediately began to go up in flames. Nicholas Ridley stood there and they fiddled with their lighters in the

Reformation era to light this flame. Eventually, as the flame began to burn,

Nicholas Ridley cried out, I cannot burn! He had already been waiting, watching Hugh Latimer burn.

Hugh Latimer said, out of the flames, he said, be of good comfort

Master Ridley and play the man. Oh, play the man!

We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

And like a candle there at the stake, he burned alive, believing in justification by faith alone, in Christ alone.

Brethren, this whole world might go dark. Let us stand as a burning candle, proclaiming, believing, trusting in everywhere we go, the people here, justification by faith alone.

There is a God. He created us. We have sinned against Him. He sent a Savior. His name is Jesus and we believe in Him and so we are saved.

On this side of the cross, rejoice in Christ. Reckon yourself righteous. Remain.

And next year if Ligonier calls you and they ask you agree or disagree, we are justified by faith alone.

For the love of all that is good, say we are justified by faith alone, apart from works.

And when we come to stand before the living and true God, let us have the same response. Not I, not

I, but Jesus Christ. He is my righteousness and I believe in Him.