1 Thing you must get right today!

Kootenai Church

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Adult Sunday School - By Many or By Few 1 Sam 14:1-23

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Man cannot please God. Faith pleases God. Therefore, fallen man cannot believe because fallen man cannot please

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God. So it must be then, faith must be a divine gift. Ephesians 2, eight and nine, 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. And you say, but John, 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.

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That faith to believe does not come from within fallen, corrupt, rebellious human nature. That faith to believe is a gift from God.

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To you it has been granted, both to believe upon Christ and to suffer for his namesake, Philippians 1, 29. Acts chapter five,

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Acts chapter 11, speaks of repentance as something granted by God. I think it's in Acts chapter four, the apostles speak of God turning us from our wicked ways.

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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, his sovereign grace.

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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, his chosen ones, all of whom will believe.

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So I ask you this morning, who are you trusting in? What are you trusting in for your salvation?

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Your merit? A gift that you think you're gonna offer to God? Something good that you have done?

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Your own capacity to believe? Do you have faith in your own faith? Or do you have faith in Jesus Christ?

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All of us without Jesus Christ are in this hopeless, helpless state that I have described here from Romans chapter three and Ephesians chapter two, 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 gonna offer to God on the day of judgment? You're gonna stand before him and offer up to him the own righteousness, your own self -righteousness?

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Here's what 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 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.