back to index2016-03-06 Why Salvation is by Faith Alone
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If you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 3 verse 27 through 31. 00:00:33.460 |
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 00:00:41.360 |
Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and 00:01:01.720 |
Heavenly Father, we ask for your blessing over this time. 00:01:06.720 |
We pray that you would cause our hearts to be moldable. 00:01:12.880 |
You give us ears to hear and a burning desire, Lord God, to be doers and not just hearers. 00:01:21.320 |
We pray that your word would have its authority and its power. 00:01:25.800 |
That all the fluff, Lord God, that sometimes surrounds what we do, that you would help 00:01:31.740 |
us, Lord God, to get to the core of who you are and your message. 00:01:35.880 |
That your living word will be at center stage. 00:01:39.920 |
That your people will hear the voice of your son Jesus and follow him. 00:01:47.200 |
Again, as you guys know, we're continuing the study in Romans. 00:01:51.360 |
And, you know, after we get through three chapters, and we're going to be, you know, 00:01:55.080 |
many more chapters to come on the subject of faith, justification by faith alone. 00:01:59.400 |
And if you pay attention very superficially, and I can almost guarantee you, it's kind 00:02:05.000 |
If you follow along superficially, after a while, you're going to like, "Enough judgment." 00:02:09.320 |
You know, judgment for this city, judgment for this nation, judgment for this sin, and 00:02:15.080 |
And you're just going to like, "Judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment." 00:02:19.720 |
But you have to pay very close attention, because there's a reason why it's there, right? 00:02:24.560 |
If, especially the book of Romans, it gets into the nitty-gritty of how faith works and 00:02:34.440 |
Because a superficial understanding of our faith leads to a very superficial application 00:02:42.000 |
And so our life is directly a reflection of what we understand and how we are convicted 00:02:50.400 |
We can profess it without meaning anything, right? 00:03:01.360 |
You can see what they really believe and who they really are. 00:03:05.200 |
You know, the Gospel message itself in 1 Corinthians 118 says, "For the word of the cross is folly, 00:03:11.600 |
it's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the 00:03:17.760 |
Now, some of you who've been raised in the church and you've heard the Gospel since you 00:03:22.040 |
were in your mother's womb, and you'll say that you didn't become a believer maybe until 00:03:31.200 |
But you don't ever remember the Gospel being foolish. 00:03:35.240 |
Because you never had to really think about it. 00:03:37.840 |
I mean, you've been told since you were a little kid that Jesus Christ died for your 00:03:41.920 |
sins and He loves you and that your sins are atoned for. 00:03:48.520 |
We have a God who loves us unconditionally, the Son of God." 00:03:51.760 |
So you never really seriously considered the foolishness of the message of the cross. 00:04:01.160 |
I mean, good thing that you grew up in the church and you were around the Gospel, but 00:04:03.960 |
the negative part of that is that sometimes we don't take to serious consideration why 00:04:12.880 |
Some of you may have become a Christian later on in life and you may have remembered at 00:04:15.880 |
one point in your life that somebody tried to share the Gospel with you and how just 00:04:22.040 |
That the Son of God stepped off of His throne and offered His Son, offered Himself as a 00:04:35.160 |
If you grew up hearing that, it may not sound weird, but if you hear that for the first 00:04:41.480 |
Why would, if I told you that I have $100 in my pocket, I'm just going to give it out 00:05:01.800 |
Some of you, most of you are going to, you know, from deduction say, "That's not going 00:05:11.320 |
We're talking about Son of God compared to just even His creation, not even Him, just 00:05:23.720 |
That that God saw a little speck, a bacteria, a small little bacteria, and for whatever 00:05:29.800 |
the reason, thought that we were precious enough that He would pursue us and give His 00:05:34.600 |
only begotten Son to save us, and we never questioned that. 00:05:44.880 |
And because sometimes we haven't thought seriously about what it is that we confess. 00:05:50.800 |
One, we have a hard time understanding why the non-Christians are so, you know, rejecting 00:05:57.560 |
And two, because we don't fully understand, we don't dig and examine what it is that we 00:06:10.880 |
That it doesn't drive us deeper into a deeper walk with God, deeper appreciation, deeper 00:06:17.440 |
You know, we've been talking about justification by faith, right? 00:06:22.760 |
And the simple message of the cross is, you cannot earn your salvation. 00:06:28.000 |
The Scripture says that we were dead in our trespasses. 00:06:37.160 |
So God did not send a rope down saying, "Hey, you need to climb this up. 00:06:41.640 |
How do you save a dead person from doing that?" 00:06:44.360 |
We were absolutely, utterly helpless that Christ came, and even the faith that we had, 00:06:52.760 |
You know, whenever we talk about salvation by faith alone, if we're not careful, we have 00:06:58.120 |
two ways that we end up ultimately rejecting this truth. 00:07:09.280 |
Where it's just passed out, and it's like, "Oh, anybody want it? 00:07:16.680 |
We don't live in places where we're risking our lives. 00:07:19.940 |
You know, we want to go to churches where nice air conditioning, good Sunday school 00:07:23.240 |
program, and so it's just a matter of choice. 00:07:29.280 |
So when gospel was preached as a free grace, as a gift, why not? 00:07:37.360 |
What do you call somebody who takes advantage of the grace of generous people? 00:07:44.920 |
Don't think about the complicated SAT words, just the immediate knee-jerk reaction. 00:07:51.020 |
What do you call somebody who takes advantage over and over again of somebody who's gracious? 00:08:00.980 |
Somebody who has more stronger emotions, jerk, or you know, like, we call them a freeloader 00:08:05.980 |
because he just, "Oh, that person's gracious. 00:08:17.380 |
Okay, and again, a dangerous way to receive the grace of God is just cheap. 00:08:34.020 |
And so we throw these cliches around to justify all kinds of sin in our life. 00:08:47.060 |
And then we have the other end where, you know, we've been taught since we were young, 00:08:54.340 |
You want to get a good grade, you have to earn it. 00:08:59.960 |
If you're a respectable, honorable person, you don't go and get free stuff. 00:09:10.700 |
This is what we teach, you know, when we're adults. 00:09:14.900 |
And so we have a hard time receiving that which is free because it puts us in a position 00:09:24.540 |
I remember years ago, it's been maybe about six, seven years now, you know, I was out 00:09:29.700 |
in Santa Ana and I ran into this older gentleman. 00:09:32.780 |
And he was probably maybe in his late 60s, early 70s. 00:09:37.220 |
You know, I spent so much time out on the street talking to different guys and I know 00:09:41.180 |
some guys were trying to, you know, they're trying to maneuver to kind of get stuff from 00:09:47.060 |
And, you know, I've been around that enough to kind of immediately like bells go off. 00:09:52.500 |
I started talking to him and I found out that he was on disability and he didn't have his 00:10:00.340 |
He moved out here, got disconnected with his family. 00:10:07.580 |
And because he had a heart attack, he ended up in the hospital and he was there for about 00:10:11.860 |
Well, while he was there, he couldn't follow up on his disability check. 00:10:16.100 |
So he has to check in and fill out forms in every month. 00:10:19.540 |
And he couldn't do that for four or five months. 00:10:23.660 |
So by the time he was released in the hospital, he had to start this process over. 00:10:27.340 |
But the problem was that process would take a minimum of six months. 00:10:31.540 |
So he came out and he had to wait another six months. 00:10:34.860 |
But the problem was the time I met him, it was very cold winter in California. 00:10:45.380 |
So anybody from outside of California, you might laugh at that, but it was a pretty cold 00:10:51.780 |
And I could tell he had bronchitis and he was coughing. 00:10:56.020 |
So I started having conversation and we talked together. 00:11:00.140 |
Maybe I can, you know, I don't know if I can help you for six months, but if I can 00:11:03.420 |
take you and put you in a motel down the street here, that maybe when the weather gets better, 00:11:10.740 |
Maybe I can find some more funds, but maybe when the weather gets better, you can kind 00:11:15.820 |
And so literally I had to beg him to come with me because he was like, "No, no, no, 00:11:27.220 |
And I, you know, I know a motel down the street here and it's not too far from here, about 00:11:33.060 |
I said, "Well, it's not going to be expensive. 00:11:35.180 |
They have a special discount, you know, on a weekly basis and sometimes a month." 00:11:39.420 |
And so I literally dragged him and dropped him off, you know, and then I would come visit 00:11:43.540 |
him every other day or something and bring groceries and do what I have to do. 00:11:46.620 |
But the whole time I would see him, he would say, "Oh, no, Peter, that's not, I just, 00:11:54.980 |
So literally, I was like, I was just, every time I was like, "Don't worry about it, you 00:12:02.700 |
Well, that process went on probably about two, two and a half weeks. 00:12:08.500 |
And then all of a sudden, I go over to check up on him and he's not there. 00:12:14.300 |
And I went down to the office and he said, "Oh, the old man, his name was Robert. 00:12:22.740 |
And then I checked my message, phone, but it wasn't, it wasn't this phone now. 00:12:32.380 |
And then he left a message on my answering machine, message, whatever, answering machine, 00:12:38.620 |
So he left a message on there and I was playing it and he was choking up and crying the whole 00:12:44.740 |
And, you know, Esther remembers we're talking about it and, and he was crying and he was 00:12:49.900 |
saying, you know, "Thank you, Peter, for what you've done." 00:12:51.780 |
And, you know, "Nobody's ever done this to me, done this for me." 00:12:54.500 |
And it really wasn't a lot of money, but he says, "Nobody's ever done it, but I can't 00:13:04.820 |
And so, you know, thank you for what you did. 00:13:07.340 |
I'm not, I'm, you know, I'm not going to forget you." 00:13:09.500 |
And then he just took off and I never ran into him again. 00:13:13.940 |
It was, I was probably maybe three, three weeks I spent with him. 00:13:17.820 |
But during that three weeks, I mean, this was such a kind old man and just ran into 00:13:23.340 |
certain circumstances and, and he just, you know, and it broke my heart when I found out 00:13:29.300 |
And it was, again, it was in the cold middle of winter. 00:13:32.900 |
And I was thinking about that and it's like, you know, we would look at that and say, "Well, 00:13:36.580 |
that's an honorable thing that he just doesn't want to hand out." 00:13:41.020 |
Because everybody else is like, "Gimme, gimme, gimme." 00:13:42.860 |
But it's like, "No, no, I'm going to earn my way. 00:13:44.700 |
Even if I'm homeless, I don't want a handout." 00:13:47.580 |
And we may look at that and say, "Oh, that's an honorable guy and all the more why we want 00:13:54.900 |
There's some, some people who receive the grace of God and say, "Okay, gimme, you know, 00:14:01.420 |
And we don't think too deeply about what that is. 00:14:04.580 |
And then there's some of us who receive it, but, you know, it's received by confession. 00:14:08.260 |
But every part of us is kind of like, "I, this is not good. 00:14:15.420 |
And how that deeply hinders not only our appreciation of what it is that we have, but us coming 00:14:23.260 |
See, what Paul's been laying out for the first three chapters and on, he begins in verse 00:14:30.340 |
27, it says, "Then what becomes of boasting?" 00:14:47.100 |
You know, those of you who have children, you know, we can recognize pride immediately 00:14:52.380 |
because, you know, we're always comparing our children with other children. 00:15:01.980 |
We even compare the size of our, the kid's poop, like, "What? 00:15:21.220 |
And instead of appreciating the various gifts and various talents of other children, you 00:15:26.300 |
know, like deep inside, we're like, "What's wrong with my kid? 00:15:34.700 |
You know, we're perfectly fine until we see what other people make. 00:15:38.060 |
You know, we're perfectly fine with our car, and then all of a sudden we see what other 00:15:50.660 |
And see, pride is at the core of every corruption that you and I experience. 00:16:00.620 |
In the very beginning, when Adam and Eve was tempted, Satan said to Eve, "If you eat of 00:16:14.540 |
It wasn't like they were so hungry they needed to have food. 00:16:16.820 |
The whole Garden of Eden was filled with food. 00:16:23.980 |
The promise was, "If you eat of this, your eyes are going to be opened. 00:16:30.660 |
And ever since then, man's primary motive is self-exaltation, self-determination. 00:16:53.180 |
You know, the time that we spent, the way we present ourselves, all of a sudden is so 00:16:57.180 |
that we could be better than what's around us. 00:17:01.340 |
Not realizing that this rat race is at the core of what's killing us. 00:17:18.960 |
We have a church filled with people who believe that they are better than other people or 00:17:33.200 |
That's why when Jesus came, he did exactly the opposite. 00:17:38.940 |
You know, the whole Jewish system, the law was given to them to humble them so that they 00:17:44.420 |
Instead, they used it as a system of hierarchy, like who's better, who's closer to God. 00:17:49.220 |
So when Jesus Christ came, he came completely outside. 00:17:57.820 |
And then he started collecting disciples from the city of Galilee, a town known for fishing. 00:18:10.940 |
And he gathered a bunch of these people who had been utterly rejected by the religious 00:18:18.940 |
And the whole reason why he did that was because at the very core of what's corrupting mankind, 00:18:25.780 |
it's its innate desire, knee-jerk reaction to self-glorify themselves, even in the context 00:18:43.140 |
And so Jesus comes in completely outside the box. 00:18:56.820 |
When he was under trial, King Felix said, "Your great learning has made you mad." 00:19:06.900 |
Even before he came in front of it, he knew who he was. 00:19:11.240 |
He was possibly a member of the Sanhedrin, possibly. 00:19:14.700 |
At the minimum, he was a direct disciple of Gamaliel. 00:19:19.100 |
And yet, when he became a Christian, what happens? 00:19:25.220 |
Let's use his position and preach the gospel." 00:19:31.460 |
Today we're in the middle of election season, and everybody is pretending to be Christian, 00:19:38.860 |
Because that's the only way you're going to be elected. 00:19:40.940 |
Then there's a part of all of us thinking, "Oh, only if we can get a real Christian in 00:19:48.700 |
Man, the highest office in the United States, only if a real Christian, right? 00:19:53.180 |
Because we think that that person could be useful, or maybe a movie star. 00:19:59.220 |
Their famous movie star, and they say, "Yeah, you know, Jesus and me, like that." 00:20:06.020 |
Or a basketball athlete, you know, talks about, "I want to thank my Lord Jesus Christ." 00:20:13.180 |
Somebody of significance, somebody of power, who's confessing to be a Christian. 00:20:17.140 |
Now they're going to make a mark on Christianity. 00:20:28.940 |
A Pharisee would have worked all his life just to be where he was. 00:20:33.940 |
Yet he encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus, and then, you know what happens to him? 00:20:45.340 |
I'll bet you that man has never made a tent in his life until he met Christ. 00:20:53.100 |
I'll bet you he wasn't a tent maker by trade before he met Christ. 00:20:56.260 |
Because this guy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. 00:21:01.220 |
You know, you don't become a disciple of Gamaliel living on a farm. 00:21:04.740 |
His dad was probably a very wealthy, very wealthy Jewish businessman. 00:21:10.500 |
And then he meets Christ, and then he gets thrown out of that. 00:21:13.780 |
Thrown out of the Pharisaic system, thrown out of the temple, thrown out of the thing 00:21:18.700 |
that he's, him and his dad may have been working for all his life, and all of a sudden, you 00:21:25.140 |
I know how it is to be content in every and all situation, whether I have a lot or a little. 00:21:36.460 |
If he was a person of prominence, wouldn't God be able to use that? 00:21:42.100 |
Why did he take him out of that and make him nothing? 00:21:45.700 |
Why waste all of that energy, all of that prestige, all of that honor that he was getting 00:21:51.020 |
from the Jewish community, and then make him start as almost like a peasant? 00:21:57.620 |
Because the whole system of corruption of mankind is about self-elevation. 00:22:04.340 |
Jesus came as a carpenter to a family of no significance, lived most of his life in Galilee, 00:22:14.020 |
did most of his ministry in Galilee with a bunch of fishermen who, again, were of no 00:22:20.660 |
Scripture says the Lion of Judah came as a Lamb of God. 00:22:25.700 |
A lion, the lion turned into a lamb to be a sacrifice for us. 00:22:34.460 |
It goes against everything that you and I are taught to pursue. 00:22:39.060 |
See, the Gospel message flips the world upside down. 00:22:46.900 |
See, the repentance that leads to salvation isn't simply, "You know what? 00:22:57.780 |
See, repentance basically is recognizing our whole life and our whole being that I've been 00:23:06.180 |
Every thought that I had, every desire, what I thought to be right and wrong, it was all 00:23:13.140 |
And so when we encounter Jesus Christ, it all changes. 00:23:27.700 |
In Isaiah 53, 2-3 it says, "For He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root 00:23:33.900 |
He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire 00:23:42.940 |
You would think, you know, He could have come as the handsomest man, the tallest man, the 00:23:49.100 |
most athletic man, the most built, strongest, most intelligent, because some of that would 00:23:56.780 |
But He said, "No, He came as nothing, no beauty. 00:24:01.160 |
He was despised and He was rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, 00:24:08.940 |
There's nothing about Him that a natural man would be attracted to. 00:24:15.780 |
Not the world, the same things that attract us to movie stars and basketball stars. 00:24:27.940 |
And not only did He come that way, He said, "If you want to follow Me, you pick up your 00:24:34.400 |
Not only am I going to die, if you want to live the life that you're pursuing, the life 00:24:42.420 |
that you've been laboring to pursue, you must also die to that, because that's what's killing 00:24:51.940 |
Hebrews chapter 13, 12, 14 talks about Jesus. 00:24:55.540 |
It says, "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through 00:25:01.380 |
You know what it means in the Scripture to be outside the gate? 00:25:07.320 |
If you're punished inside the gate, you're punished and hopefully that you would repent, 00:25:13.280 |
and that you would still be inside the gate, it's really for your benefit. 00:25:16.640 |
But when somebody's taken outside the gate, you are banished from the city. 00:25:21.680 |
And only the worst of criminals, only somebody who has committed the worst infraction of 00:25:28.280 |
the law would be taken outside the court and they would usually be stoned. 00:25:33.760 |
So when the Scripture says that Jesus was taken outside the gate, it meant that He was 00:25:41.420 |
He says, "Therefore, let us go to Him outside the camp." 00:25:50.180 |
How counterproductive and counterintuitive it is for us to try so hard to build a life 00:26:07.340 |
If you find your life, if you seek your life, what did He say? 00:26:15.900 |
Now that doesn't mean that if you live selfishly, self-exaltation, that one day you're going 00:26:23.100 |
The very thing that you think is going to cause life is actually causing death. 00:26:31.660 |
If you think about even the symbol of the cross and what that signified at that particular 00:26:39.380 |
Today, every once in a while, you'll see a hideous image of an ISIS terrorist with a 00:26:45.380 |
beheaded, somebody's head who's beheaded and they would raise it up for people to see and 00:26:50.700 |
they're flaunting it with everyone and we're disgusted. 00:26:53.460 |
The whole purpose of why they're doing that is to basically serve as a threat to anybody 00:26:59.300 |
You get in our way, this is what's going to happen. 00:27:00.980 |
If you don't submit to us, this is what's going to happen. 00:27:04.040 |
And as disgusting as that is, that is their goal, is to bring fear and threat and humiliation 00:27:16.540 |
Well the cross served the same purpose for the people who created it. 00:27:24.660 |
It was to serve to humiliate whoever went against, and at that particular time, the 00:27:30.340 |
So they didn't even carry that out with their own citizens. 00:27:35.540 |
And the whole purpose of that, one, is to humiliate you. 00:27:39.740 |
So the first thing that they would do is strip you naked. 00:27:43.780 |
Now I know we have pictures, we have images of Jesus on the cross and he's usually well 00:27:52.380 |
But the actual crucifixion, the first thing that they did was to strip you naked. 00:28:05.860 |
It doesn't matter what kind of family background you are. 00:28:09.740 |
Once they strip you naked, there is no pride. 00:28:14.780 |
Once they completely take that away from you, you're standing in front of a crowd, stripped 00:28:19.980 |
Whatever was important to you is no longer important to you. 00:28:26.900 |
And then they would mock you, and you know the beating process. 00:28:30.580 |
And the whole purpose of that is after they beat him, they give just enough life, give 00:28:34.700 |
up just enough energy so that he would hang on that cross, sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 days. 00:28:42.660 |
So that every human being, everybody in that area that would walk by this cross, that this 00:28:47.820 |
cross and that person's humiliation and that person's suffering would serve as a reminder 00:28:59.260 |
When a nation chooses to have a symbol on their flag, we choose what is good, what is 00:29:08.140 |
So in the United States, they chose the stars that represent the colonies, the states, and 00:29:13.980 |
And so we have that because what we're saying is that collectively, all these states collectively, 00:29:21.180 |
It's almost like having 50 nations together as one. 00:29:27.060 |
The Russian flag has the hammer and sickle, the communist symbol. 00:29:30.420 |
And basically what that means is the power of the people. 00:29:33.620 |
The people have collectively got together, and so we're strong in this way. 00:29:39.420 |
But the symbol, the banner that every Christian is under is the cross. 00:29:44.300 |
Symbol of humiliation, symbol of suffering, symbol of rejection, symbol that takes us 00:29:54.220 |
And it is an absolute oxymoron for Christians to be under this banner and to be pursuing 00:30:04.740 |
Everything about justification by faith screams out, "Be quiet." 00:30:14.740 |
That's why Paul says in Galatians 6, 14, "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross 00:30:19.540 |
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world." 00:30:38.600 |
Justification by faith is not anything new to you. 00:30:44.220 |
The question that he's trying to answer is, if that's the case, if salvation is by faith 00:30:47.620 |
alone in verse 31, then do we overthrow the law? 00:30:55.500 |
It's about what he did, what we do doesn't matter, so therefore why even talk about it? 00:31:01.340 |
He says, if that's the case, is that the case? 00:31:04.060 |
If salvation by faith alone doesn't nullify the law, what is the answer? 00:31:10.220 |
Not only does it not nullify the law, it says on the contrary, we uphold the law. 00:31:17.260 |
Again, a superficial, cheap understanding of grace stops right there and it's like, 00:31:22.820 |
"Oh, we're saved by grace, so let's just, you know, how, as long as I feel love for 00:31:33.900 |
Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 00:31:37.580 |
If my sin highlights his grace, then do we just keep sinning and then that just kind 00:31:51.540 |
Inconsistent with the very salvation that we profess. 00:31:54.620 |
In fact, Ephesians 2.10, he says, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 00:32:06.140 |
He says he saved us for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk 00:32:11.860 |
Diederik Bonhoeffer says of this cheap grace, "Cheap grace is a grace we bestow on ourselves. 00:32:22.860 |
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance. 00:32:27.780 |
Cheap grace is baptism without church discipline. 00:32:31.220 |
Cheap grace is communion without genuine confession. 00:32:35.460 |
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus 00:32:53.740 |
And let me make that very clear in case anyone is confused, because there's some confusion 00:33:00.300 |
That somehow if you're gospel-centered that we don't need to focus on pursuing righteousness 00:33:16.580 |
When you look at the way Jesus looked at people, he distinguished between three different kinds 00:33:24.660 |
People who had no faith utterly just rejected him. 00:33:26.460 |
They heard the Word of God and said, "I don't believe this guy. 00:33:32.300 |
That his disciples when the storm came, they were anxious and said, "Hey, Jesus, do you 00:33:41.780 |
He saw their anxiousness and he said, "Hey, you need to be, you need to suck it up, man." 00:33:46.100 |
No, he says, he looks right through that and says, "It's because you have little faith. 00:33:51.820 |
Remember that when the disciple, when Peter's walking on the water and he's, "Let me come 00:33:57.060 |
And as he's coming, the storm comes and he begins to sink. 00:33:58.900 |
Jesus raises him up and he says, "Ye of little faith." 00:34:02.660 |
In other words, their life and their anxiousness was evidence of the kind of faith that they 00:34:14.700 |
He comes and he says, "I have a servant who's sick." 00:34:20.340 |
I have many servants myself and if I just tell them to go, they'll do it. 00:34:23.180 |
So you're powerful and you're, you know, clearly you're a prophet. 00:34:29.100 |
And Jesus says he was amazed because he saw great faith. 00:34:33.420 |
Same thing with the Gentile woman that comes, the Canaanite woman said, "You know, my daughter 00:34:38.940 |
And Jesus says, "It's not right for us to give to pagans, to pigs." 00:34:44.340 |
And instead of being offended, she says, "Well, even the pigs, they take the scrap off of 00:34:58.060 |
See, faith, when it is genuine, always produces righteousness. 00:35:03.620 |
Let me tell you, you know, like I had a conversation with an atheist. 00:35:11.020 |
And again, this is a common conversation that I have with an atheist. 00:35:15.740 |
Typically the conversation would go, it's like, "Wow, you guys are based on faith. 00:35:23.860 |
So you have to make a leap of faith, even if it's completely nonsense, but we're dealing 00:35:28.100 |
You know, and I've learned years ago, going out and talking to people that it doesn't 00:35:32.260 |
do any good to get into this back and forth and like, who's right and who's wrong. 00:35:36.100 |
So usually when they get like that, I just sit there and I just ask questions, you know, 00:35:44.660 |
And where a monkey comes, "Well, we are from Mamiba. 00:35:49.620 |
It was like, you know, there was matter that was there. 00:35:54.500 |
Usually obviously you keep asking like, "I don't know." 00:35:58.380 |
And the answer that they would give is, "Well, you don't know where that comes from. 00:36:02.660 |
You're rejecting God because you don't know where he comes from, but you receive science." 00:36:06.100 |
And I say, "Yeah, but I believe that one day that if we study enough, that science is going 00:36:13.340 |
It's like, "Okay, let me get this straight, okay. 00:36:16.900 |
So you're rejecting God because you don't understand him. 00:36:19.460 |
You don't know where he comes from, what his origin is. 00:36:23.300 |
So you say our faith in that is ridiculous, right? 00:36:31.740 |
You don't know, you have no idea now, but you believe that if you stick with it long 00:36:37.060 |
enough that science is going to answer all your questions. 00:37:01.660 |
Let me just get to the application of that, okay? 00:37:09.500 |
If you didn't have faith, you wouldn't have been able to come here. 00:37:13.260 |
You got in your car and every time you crossed a green light, you had faith that the other 00:37:20.120 |
driver that's coming on the other side was going to stop. 00:37:24.740 |
And if you didn't believe that, you wouldn't have been able to come here. 00:37:28.820 |
Because every time you see a green light, you're going to have to stop, right? 00:37:33.180 |
Because I'm not sure if that guy, maybe he's a teenager, he's got a license, he can't determine 00:37:40.340 |
Maybe he just doesn't care, you know what I mean? 00:37:43.300 |
But at some point you have to believe that these people are going to follow these rules 00:37:47.020 |
and that's why you're able to drive through this thing or else you can't survive. 00:37:52.840 |
Everything in life requires some kind of faith, right? 00:37:55.800 |
You buy a house, the bank is taking a chance on you based upon your credit and all this 00:38:00.980 |
They're taking a chance, okay, we believe that you're going to be faithful and you're 00:38:03.020 |
going to pay this back based upon your credit. 00:38:09.460 |
But the question is, where is this faith, right? 00:38:13.820 |
What is your faith and what does that lead to? 00:38:16.540 |
So typically we think faith is just, oh okay, we feel it in here, so any pressure of application 00:38:24.580 |
If you read the whole book of Hebrews, Hebrews is a bunch of, at one point, professing Christians 00:38:30.380 |
who are going back into Judaism, like into workspace salvation, and the author is trying 00:38:36.020 |
to convince them, why would you go back to that when Jesus is superior to everything? 00:38:40.020 |
And the whole point of Hebrews is justification by faith through the blood of Jesus Christ. 00:38:47.020 |
You know, the difference between Romans and Hebrews is Romans is basically teaching us 00:38:51.180 |
the essence of the gospel in detailed form, talking about the new covenant. 00:38:56.860 |
Book of Hebrews teaches justification by faith in connection to the Old Testament. 00:39:05.980 |
And both of these books dissect it in two different approaches. 00:39:10.200 |
When we get to chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews, he's making a conclusion of justification 00:39:16.300 |
And so, chapter 11 of Hebrews is the chapter of faith. 00:39:21.860 |
But here's what he says about faith, and I'm not going to read all of it, but highlight. 00:39:27.220 |
"It is by faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent 00:39:34.540 |
fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household." 00:39:38.660 |
He said, faith caused Noah to believe in God, and that's why he did this ridiculous thing, 00:39:44.900 |
building this ark in the middle of the desert for a hundred years. 00:39:48.580 |
It wasn't his works, but it was faith that caused him to obey God. 00:39:54.700 |
"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive 00:40:13.100 |
The reason he believed was because he believed in the promises of God that he followed. 00:40:16.300 |
So his actions were evidence that he had genuine faith. 00:40:22.500 |
"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises 00:40:31.420 |
Even something as incredible as offering up his son, who was supposed to be the line of 00:40:39.740 |
the promise of God, he said even that he was willing to offer up because he had faith. 00:40:50.660 |
Because the question is, then does salvation by faith nullify the law? 00:41:03.780 |
If you've embraced justification by faith without deep contemplation, maybe you have 00:41:12.060 |
at one point but you haven't recently, it automatically leads to a superficial application 00:41:20.140 |
You know, when you bring the gospel to the students in China, some of you guys who've 00:41:25.660 |
been there with us before, you know, it takes them a long time to come to faith. 00:41:33.540 |
And as they're thinking through, they understand the consequence of what this means. 00:41:37.620 |
So they'll question about the validity of the Bible. 00:41:43.700 |
They'll question the communist system versus capital. 00:41:45.940 |
I mean, they examine where did the Bible come from? 00:41:53.660 |
And they go through all of this and sometimes it takes them years. 00:41:56.540 |
And then even after they've heard all of that, they take time to say, "But do I really believe 00:42:06.780 |
And then when they finally make a decision, they've counted the cost. 00:42:17.380 |
So if our whole salvation hinges upon faith, shouldn't we be much more careful to examine 00:42:41.500 |
Instead, if it hinges upon this faith, and if everything is founded upon this particular 00:42:50.100 |
faith, shouldn't we take careful time and examination to see, "Is this genuine?" 00:43:00.460 |
If it is not about works, it's not about our pursuits, it's not about our knowledge, it's 00:43:06.260 |
not about our talent, it is on faith that if it is real, has power to even move mountains. 00:43:15.380 |
If the whole building is founded upon that one cornerstone, don't you want to make sure 00:43:25.300 |
Don't you want to make sure that that cornerstone is the perfect stone for that corner? 00:43:30.180 |
Because anything you build on that is going to be like building on sand. 00:43:37.340 |
You know, when I was in China, there's a term called "guanxi." 00:43:43.220 |
Some of you guys who know Chinese know what guanxi is. 00:43:45.660 |
Guanxi basically means connection or relationship. 00:43:48.340 |
And in China, they say everything functions under guanxi. 00:43:52.220 |
No matter how much money you have, how educated you are, you have to have connection. 00:43:56.660 |
So there was a guy, an official of the school that we were at, and he was all about guanxi. 00:44:06.740 |
And he was a little bit closer to my age, so whenever I was in China, I spent most of 00:44:12.420 |
And so everything was about guanxi, this guy. 00:44:18.460 |
He was an English teacher, and he was kind of moving up. 00:44:20.620 |
But this guy had connections with the weather bureau. 00:44:23.540 |
I mean, literally, we would sit down and say, "Oh, you know, we're having an activity next 00:44:31.540 |
And he would punch a number, and he's just like, "Hey, you know, is it going to rain 00:44:37.140 |
"Oh, it's my friend from the weather bureau." 00:44:39.180 |
And this guy had connections everywhere, because he believed that his way of advancing in life 00:44:46.940 |
So he invested everything in guanxi, and so he was trying to have guanxi with me. 00:44:53.420 |
He didn't know, you know, he was cooking up with the wrong guy. 00:44:55.740 |
But he, he, I'm from America, and I have all these young people coming, and so we have 00:45:01.100 |
kept in touch, and every once in a while, he'll still email me. 00:45:03.860 |
Usually when he needs something, you know, he'll email me, and he'll say, "Hey, what's 00:45:11.540 |
But for his life, all of it was dedicated to guanxi, because guanxi meant everything. 00:45:19.780 |
If our whole salvation is founded upon faith, then shouldn't we be careful to examine if 00:45:47.060 |
See Paul tells this church in Corinth, there's all kinds of chaos coming in, all kinds of 00:45:53.300 |
bickering, all kinds of division, immorality in the church. 00:45:57.700 |
And he says, in conclusion of the two letters that he writes, 2 Corinthians 35, "Examine 00:46:04.340 |
yourself to see whether you are in the faith. 00:46:08.940 |
Test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourself, that Jesus Christ is in you, 00:46:19.220 |
We receive this grace so superficially, without even questioning, we just assume, "Of course 00:46:26.940 |
And Paul says, "If you have faith, why does your church look like that? 00:46:34.540 |
So Paul's not saying that, "I don't think you're a Christian." 00:46:38.180 |
Paul's causing them to say, "Take a look at what you confess. 00:46:43.900 |
Take a look at what you confess to believe, and see how you're living. 00:46:51.620 |
Is your confession, and your life, consistent with the things that you confess?" 00:46:59.380 |
He's not saying that if you do good works, you're going to be saved. 00:47:04.260 |
But if it has genuine faith, would it not change us? 00:47:10.300 |
If we genuinely believe that our loved ones are headed to hell, would that not change 00:47:22.300 |
Our friends, our co-workers who are sitting next to us, that we confess in this comfortable 00:47:29.340 |
safe room every week about the judgment of God that's coming, and we really believe that, 00:47:41.340 |
If we really believe that this world is headed toward destruction because of pride, and we 00:47:49.020 |
really believe that Jesus Christ came to save us from this empty way of life, in comparison 00:47:56.780 |
to the knowledge of knowing Jesus Christ, wouldn't that become rubbish? 00:48:09.820 |
Why are we still the same before and after we believed? 00:48:23.900 |
Have you forgotten the grace of Jesus Christ? 00:48:27.980 |
Have you forgotten when you first heard the Gospel message and God opened your eyes, and 00:48:34.260 |
when you believed for the first time, how that changed everything? 00:48:43.580 |
Every suffering that you experienced, now it made sense that that's why you suffered, 00:48:49.940 |
because we were in a broken world, that God orchestrated all of this to bring you to Him. 00:48:55.380 |
That when you realized for the first time, the Son of God knows my name. 00:49:07.060 |
That fact alone caused you to come before His throne in tears. 00:49:18.220 |
If you believed that, wouldn't that change us? 00:49:22.540 |
Wouldn't that change the direction of our lives? 00:49:26.180 |
Wouldn't that cause us to pursue Him with all our might? 00:49:30.660 |
Wouldn't that cause us to have compassion for those who do not know Him? 00:49:37.780 |
See, justification by faith does not nullify the law.