Ephesians 2:8

August 28, 2022

By Grace Through Faith: Man's Deepest Need and the Point of Divine Contact

Part 1

There is a faith that saves, and there is a faith that does not save.

So in beginning the section we see Here Paul is repeating his thought from verse five, “For by grace you have been saved” and he adds “through faith”. We noted a few verses ago back in verse five, Paul broke his train of thought in order to skip ahead, so to speak to this phrase, “by grace, you have been saved.” It's almost as though he couldn't wait to get to that part of what he had to say that this grace that saved you this grace of the Lord, this is the grace that has saved you. But now he returns to this, “For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it as a gift of God.” And so in returning to this and turning his attention to it twice, really almost with the exact same words, he just adds “through faith” at the end here, we must ask the question, why is it that Paul felt the need to return to this to be so attentive to this reality, this reality of salvation by grace? And I think there's two reasons that sort of pop out for us. One is the difficulty of the reality, the difficulty of the truth. It’s not…this is a counterintuitive truth to humans, the truth of salvation by grace alone, it is something that easily fits into that phrase, that sentence, and easily goes into the back of our mind. But if we bring it to the front of our mind, in the forefront of our soul, and we sort of put a spotlight on it, it is really a truth that goes counter-intuitive to all that we know as humans. So there's the difficulty of the reality, he wants the Ephesians, to be certain that they hear him loud and clear about the grace that has saved them. But secondly, the importance―the importance of this reality, I think is probably unsurpassed, is especially in the letter, if we don't get this, then we may as well close the book of Ephesians. If we don't, in fact, if we don't get this, we may as well close our Bibles. Because if we don't get that we are saved by grace and grace alone, then nothing else that Paul has to say in the rest of Ephesians, nor in any of his other letters is really going to either ring home or even make sense to us―aside from by grace you have been saved through faith. So as to that that we turn this morning, and so we'll spend just a few quick moments and just sort of look at some nuts and bolts of the words. And we'll look at Grace. And we'll look at a couple of things. And then we're going to make a beeline to what is the central focal point of the section and that is the focal point of faith. “By grace you have been saved.” So the first thing that we see there is this ‘have been.’ It's a perfect passive participle, which basically means that it's describing an action that is completed in the past, that has continuing ramifications into the present. For example, you might say something like “you have been educated.” And what that means is that there was an education that took place in the past, but that education is continuing to have ramifications for you into the present. You have been educated the education is done, but it continues to have effect. In a similar way ‘you have been saved’ speaks of an action that was completed in the past, with continuing ramifications, continuing effects, continuing consequences into the present and into the future. You have been saved. So this speaks to us of the nature of salvation as it comes to us in the scriptures, past, present, and future. The New Testament will speak to us very plainly about a salvation that is a past tense salvation, a salvation that is a present tense, salvation and a salvation that's a future tense salvation. The scriptures will say as it says here you have been saved, it will also say you are being saved, it will also say you will be saved. So there's a past, present and future. That speaks to us of the nature about salvation in the past, the penalty of sin was removed for us that's the past tense of saved, you have been saved the penalty of the sin in which you live in which you have committed has been removed. The present tense of Salvation means that the continuing power of sin is being removed. The penalty has been removed, but the power that sin holds over you is continuing to be removed. You are becoming more alive to God and more dead to sin. That's the present tense of you are being saved. The future tense of you will be saved speaks to us of a final day in which the presence of sin is removed from us, that's called glorification. That's the day in which the last remaining sin is completely taken from us as we rise again to see Jesus as he is and seeing him as he is we will become like him. So the presence of sin will be removed. We've got past, present and future, you know that I do not at all do the―what's it called the alliteration thing, but this just alliterated itself, didn't it? The penalty of sin, the power of sin, the presence of sin, that did it on its own, the three P's there, the power and the penalty. The power is being removed, the penalty has been removed, and the presence itself will be removed. That's the past, present, and future. So Paul, speaking here of a past tense that continues to have effects into the future, into the present and into the future, the penalty of sin, the guilt of sin has been removed, you have been saved. Now this word saved is the typical New Testament word for save―sozo. It just means delivered or rescued. You've been rescued, you've been delivered from. And we know from last week, what we've been delivered from, we've been or (I'm sorry), two weeks ago: we've been delivered from the wrath of God. The righteous, just completely, true wrath of God that is fully deserved by us as sinful people. We've been delivered or rescued from the wrath that is to come―you have been saved. And Paul says, By grace you have been saved. So that's how it has happened―by grace. Now this word grace is once again the typical New Testament word for grace Charis. We've talked previously about grace, so we'll just touch on it briefly here. But by grace, the grace of God means this: the grace of God is a predetermined disposition that God takes towards sinners. Disposition means something like attitude or stance, a predetermined stance or position or disposition that God takes towards lost sinners, in which he determines ahead of time to deal with them with favor and kindness and mercy. So God determines beforehand―and Paul taught us in chapter one, verse four, that that was before the foundation of the world, he determined to have this disposition of grace of favor of kindness of mercy toward the sinner. Now, this disposition of favor causes him to deal with favor or with kindness or with mercy toward sinners. Now, we know the concept of dealing with favor of having favor towards something or favor towards a person, we know that it just means a preference towards or, or a special kindness towards dealing with favor. But the thing that about favor in our life is that everything that we favor, or every person that we favor, we do so because of something in the person or something in the thing. There's something about the object, or there's something about the person that causes us to favor them. And so we're responding to something favorable in them, if you were to say, I favor Bojangles, over Biscuitville, then there'll be something about Bojangles that causes you or something about Biscuitville or both, that causes you to prefer or to favor Bojangles, over Biscuitville. However, when we come to the grace of God, the favor of God, since he was determined before we existed―chapter one, verse four, therefore, the favor of God, the disposition of favor towards sinners, cannot be conditioned by anything with us, it cannot be affected or influenced by anything within us. It's completely separate from us. And that's where the grace of God Gods gets difficult, because we don't know how to deal with a grace or a favor, that's not in any way conditioned by the one, or the thing being favored. So that's the struggle with the grace of God, we've struggled with that previously, we just mentioned that now. And we're going to keep going. So by grace―by this favor―you have been saved and impulses through faith. So faith is the means faith is the mechanism. It's the avenue through which this salvation by grace comes to us. So we'll talk just a minute about the means of faith. The, if you want to use the word conduit, the mechanism by which the salvation of grace comes to us―is by faith, we'll get to that in just a moment. But before we go there, we need to talk about another little word and that's the word ‘this.’ By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God. Not a result of work so that no one may boast. All right, so what is the ‘this’ referring to? Does anybody know what part of speech ‘this’ is? Anybody tell me what part of speech the word ‘this’ is? It’s a hard one isn’t it? It actually it could be four different parts of speech, this one of those words, it could be four different parts of speech. It could be an article, it could be an adverb, it could be an adjective, and it could be a pronoun. Or here in this context is the pronoun. And so we know what pronouns do, what's the pronoun do? It’s a word that stands in the place of another noun—he, she, or it right? So that's what a pronoun does. And that's what this is doing in this context is standing in the place of another noun. ‘This’ is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. All right, so the question is, what noun is ‘this’ standing in place of? The word for that as antecedent, every pronoun has an antecedent. And that's just a big fancy word that means that's the noun that the pronoun is taking the place of. So every pronoun has an antecedent. And sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to determine what the antecedent is, right? You ever talk to somebody and you get confused with their pronouns? And you're like, Wait, who is he? Or wait, which one is they? Which one is us? Right? And what you're asking them to do is clarify your pronouns. If you want to sound really smart, you might say, Hang on, clarify your antecedents for me, right? So what you're asking them to do is you're saying your pronouns are confusing, because I don't know what he refers to. I don't know what they refers to. So clarify this for me, right? So an antecedent in English―here's how we normally know what, which word is the antecedent. And you do this all the time, you don't even know you do it. Here's how you do it. In English, if we want to speak clearly, if we want people to understand us, we try to place our antecedents close to our pronouns in our sentence usage, that's just, you're accustomed to doing that, you're accustomed to hearing that, you don't even know you do it. But the further your antecedents get from the pronoun, the harder it can be to understand―the more confusing it can be. Let me give you an example. And this, this will make sense with the example. Here's the example: “The dog ate all of the food because it was good.” What was good? The dog or the food? What was good, was ‘it.’ The question is, what is it? The dog ate all the food? Because it was good. So how many people would say that the food is good? That's most of us. Why would you say that because food is close to ‘it.’ Dog is further than ‘it’, it could be that the dog was a good dog and ate all the food. But usually, we would say the food was good because it's closer to the to the pronoun in the sentence. That's how our minds work. That's how our English speaking brains work. But many of you may know that when we look at other languages, many other languages have something called gender. And gender can often be clarifying, because when languages have gender usually it’s two genders: usually masculine and feminine. And when language has gender, then what happens is, a pronoun takes a gender to match its antecedent. And that helps us, other things happen too, articles match, adjectives match and gender. And that can kind of help us when we're reading or listening to other languages that can kind of help clarify those pronouns that can sometimes be confusing. So a pronoun will take the gender of the noun that it is referring to, all right. And sometimes that can be clarifying for us. So in this sentence, we have two nouns that ‘this’ could be talking about. The two nouns are ‘grace’ and ‘faith.’ Both grace and faith are feminine. And this is neuter. Neuter is the third gender in the Greek language, which just like neutering your cat, it's neither male nor female, neither masculine nor feminine. So what this means for us―and I know that just really interested everybody what I just went through right there―but what this really means for us is, Paul specifically intentionally uses a pronoun that doesn't match either grace or faith. Why? Because he wants it to refer to the whole package. So the gift is not specifically the faith. The gift is not the grace, the gift is the whole package. This not interpretation. That's not my take on it. That's the Biblical Greek language. Every―the whole package is what Paul's referring to. The undeserved salvation by grace that comes to us through faith to the one who's been made alive to God--that's what Paul's saying is the gift of God. We've often heard I've said this myself, that faith is the gift of God, we don't do it. God, God Himself does that work of faith of belief in our hearts. And then I'll say Ephesians, two, eight―by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doings. It's the gift of God. Why? Because this and faith are right beside each other, and my English brain wants to put them together. But Paul didn't put them together. Paul's point is the whole thing. The whole package of salvation by grace that comes to you by means of faith is the free gift of God. You didn't do it. It's not your work. You can't boast in it. Okay. Now does that mean that faith is not the work of God is not the gift of God? Of course it is. Because again, Paul saying the whole thing is the gift of God: the grace, the faith, everything―the being of made alive to God, that's God's work. Plus, other scriptures will tell us the same thing. Philippians chapter one and verse nine, “It has been granted to you, that you not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.” So has been granted, granting is giving something to someone, it's been granted to you that you believe upon him. Or Second Peter one in verse one, “you have obtained a faith and the salvation”―obtaining is meaning, something is being given to you. Okay, so faith is a gift of God. But let's be clear, Paul's talking about more than that. Here. He's talking about the whole package―the entire salvation package that comes to you by means of faith, that is the working of grace, that makes your heart alive to God and dead to sin. And you change your preference from eternal things to Earth―to heavenly things, from anti-God to pro-God. And you see him as beautiful and glorious and desirable and loving and compassionate and merciful, and your heart is drawn to him, and you're compelled to trust him. All of that is the gift of God that Paul says is not your work. It is his work. And so therefore, the boasting is in him, not you. Okay, so now let's turn our attention to faith, this reality, this truth, this spiritual reality of faith. “For by grace, you have been saved through faith.” Faith, oftentimes, we will think of faith in these terms. I've heard it put this this way, many times: Grace is what God does. Atonement is what God does. Salvation is what God does, believing is what we do. Our part is believing, his part is saving our part is believing, right? There's a sense in which that's true. And there's a sense in which that's not true. But let me just suggest a better way to think about the faith-Grace connection. Instead of thinking of faith as what we do, it's more biblical, more biblical, more biblically precise, to think of faith as the touching point. Faith is the point at which the God who saves touches the sinner. It's the contact point, think of think of the outlet being plugged into the wall for the appliance, you plug it into the wall, that point of contact, that point of connection, is faith. Put the next screen up on the graphic, if you wouldn't mind. We're all familiar with this, right? It's called Creation, DaVinci I think it was, or maybe it's Michelangelo, Michelangelo? Alright, so you know what this represents, this represents the creation of Adam. And it's well known, this God reaching out his finger and the fingers are almost about to touch, right. And you can thank me later for cropping it out so that we're not pornographic here at church. So this represents the point at which God is touching the man to give him life. Let me redefine this for you. Let me just say, okay, that's nice, but that point of touching there, if I could paint the picture of faith, that's it. If I could put faith into a picture, that's what faith is. That's the point at which the God who seeks to save touches the one in need of salvation. And by that touch, comes, being made alive to God, having your preferences changed from the earthly to the eternal, seeing his glory and beauty, seeing yourself rightly seeing him, rightly, loving Him, trusting him believing him. All of that comes by way of that touch right there. So when we come to the issue of faith, the topic of faith, let's just first of all, establish some importance. There's no more important doctrine in the Scripture. Faith is the point at which salvation comes to us. And so it's hard to imagine something more fundamental, more important to our life in Christ than understanding properly faith. So there's two misunderstandings, or two misconceptions that I think are common with faith and the first is to think too highly of faith. We can think too highly of faith, by elevating faith itself to the status of being a god. Our faith saves us―your faith doesn't save you. Jesus Christ saves you. He comes to you at the point of faith, but Jesus Christ saves you, faith saves no one. So we can make faith too lofty, of a thing too high of a thing, make even an idol out of faith. We can also think too lowly of faith. And we think too lowly of faith by equating Biblical faith, saving faith with simple mental agreement, mental assent. “I believe the scriptures are true, I believe Jesus was the Son of God, I believe He died for my sins and rose again. Therefore, I'm saved.” Maybe, maybe not. We can take the idea of faith and bring it down, lower it to simply the point of agreeing with what the Bible says is true, and call that saving faith. Now, the Bible speaks to us frequently about a type of belief or a type of faith that does not save. We know what James has to say about the demons and how they believe. We also know places like, well―Jesus's parable, the soils, where Jesus is going to talk about, for example, the rocky soil. And he says that the seed that spread on the rock, those are those who they hear the word, they receive it with joy, but these have no root, they believe for a while. And in time of testing, they fall away. So Jesus speaks plainly there of a type of belief, that is not a saving belief. Or we can look at Acts chapter eight, for example, the story of Simon the magician. We're told plainly in that story, that Simon, the magician, hears the gospel and believes and becomes a disciple, and begins following the disciples and he's even baptized. It's not until later that it's realized well, that his faith wasn't a true saving faith. Or we could turn to the Gospel of John. And John actually makes quite a theme out of this idea of two types of belief. There's a type of belief that saves and there's a type of belief that doesn't save. And we see it brought up time and again, in the in the Gospel of John. Just one occasion, it comes up we see in chapter eight. “And he says, who sent me is with me, He has not left me alone, I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. And He was saying these things. And as he was saying, these things, many believed in him (the very next sentence), so Jesus said to the Jews, who had believed in him, (and then there's going to come this discourse), If you abide in me and my word abides in you abide in my word, you're truly my disciple, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. (But then it begins), well, they answered him, we're all the offspring of Abraham, we've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say to you, that you say that we will be free? Jesus answered them truly I say to you…” …and from that point on is this contentious argument between Jesus and unbelieving people, the same people that John just described as the Jews who believed in him. And there's other places we could see the same sort of thing. But we see here that the scriptures say to us plainly, that there is a faith that saved and there's a faith that does not save.

Part 2

Every person has a deep and penetrating need to have the approval, acceptance, and love of their Father, and this need shapes all of life.

Now, the Bible speaks to us frequently about a type of belief or a type of faith that does not save. We know what James has to say about the demons and how they believe. We also know places like, well―Jesus's parable, the soils, where Jesus is going to talk about, for example, the rocky soil. And he says that the seed that spread on the rock, those are those who they hear the word, they receive it with joy, but these have no root, they believe for a while. And in time of testing, they fall away. So Jesus speaks plainly there of a type of belief, that is not a saving belief. Or we can look at Acts chapter eight, for example, the story of Simon the magician. We're told plainly in that story, that Simon, the magician, hears the gospel and believes and becomes a disciple, and begins following the disciples and he's even baptized. It's not until later that it's realized well, that his faith wasn't a true saving faith. Or we could turn to the Gospel of John. And John actually makes quite a theme out of this idea of two types of belief. There's a type of belief that saves and there's a type of belief that doesn't save. And we see it brought up time and again, in the in the Gospel of John. Just one occasion, it comes up we see in chapter eight. “And he says, who sent me is with me, He has not left me alone, I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. And He was saying these things. And as he was saying, these things, many believed in him (the very next sentence), so Jesus said to the Jews, who had believed in him, (and then there's going to come this discourse), If you abide in me and my word abides in you abide in my word, you're truly my disciple, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. (But then it begins), well, they answered him, we're all the offspring of Abraham, we've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say to you, that you say that we will be free? Jesus answered them truly I say to you…” …and from that point on is this contentious argument between Jesus and unbelieving people, the same people that John just described as the Jews who believed in him. And there's other places we could see the same sort of thing. But we see here that the scriptures say to us plainly, that there is a faith that saved and there's a faith that does not save. And since faith is so fundamental and so foundational, it would certainly behoove us to spend some time understanding the difference between faith that saves and faith that does not save. The Scriptures say to us that the crown jewel of sin, that damns us the hell is failure to believe. The crown jewel―you could, theoretically, you could commit no other sin, other than hearing the gospel, and not believing it, and that is enough to dam you to eternal fire. Simply the sin of hearing the gospel, and failing to believe it. Likewise, the scriptures also tell us that saving faith is the watermark of every saint. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish.” John six, verse 29. “This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” John 7:38, “whoever believes in me, the Scripture says out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Acts 10, verse 43, “To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” And we could go on and on and on, because you are well aware, I'm certainly sure of the scriptures testimony, that belief is the watermark of the true saint. We talked about this just back in chapter one, verses 15 and 16. When Paul says, When I heard about your faith, your faith and Lord Jesus Christ, that's, that's when I knew I'm writing to true believers here. So when we come to this topic of faith, it is something that we should spend our energy and our time to understand well. So here's how we want to do this. I want to just kind of set the scriptures aside for just a few minutes. And I want to set the stage or sort of build some, some foundational blocks here just by talking about human nature, human nature. Something that's true about human nature. That is true for everyone in the room, that plays a very, very central role in the saving work of faith. And it's this this is the truth are you ready? Everyone in the room shares the same thing in common and that's this: You have a deep, sharp, penetrating need for the approval, the acceptance and the love of your father. That is true for everyone alive today, that is true for everyone who's ever lived: you have a deep, life-shaping need for the approval, the acceptance and the love of your father. This manifests itself most plainly in our need for the approval, the acceptance and the love of our earthly father. That's where it shows up first. And we all know this dynamic and how this dynamic works. You, yourself may be a person, or you may know someone who has a broken relationship with their father, and those things can be overcome. But they always are a struggle. And they always leave a mark. Because you were created in the image of God, and part of being in the image of God means that God made you with a deep, deep need to have the approval, the acceptance, and the love of your father. So let's just put political correctness aside for a few minutes―It's not the same for mother. The role of the mother is, is―we can't overestimate the importance of the role of the mother. Children need mothers and fathers, right? But it's true that early in the life the child needs the mother more than they need the father, later in the life is when that dynamic really comes to bear. That if a person feels as though they don't have the love, acceptance, and the approval of their father, that is life shaping. But on a spiritual level, it's far, far more life-shaping. Because that need for an earthly parent, or an earthly father's approval is intended to teach you about your need for your Heavenly Father's approval, and for his acceptance, and for his love. That i―hear this, hear this clearly: that is the biggest need in all of humanity―the acceptance and the love and the approval of our Heavenly Father. And that need is absolutely life-shaping. If you study humanity, and you study yourself, you will see how life―not just of you―but of all people around you, is shaped by this need. Here's what I mean: To try to meet this need outside of Christ, and we'll talk in just a minute about how, what the role of faith plays in this and how this solves this greatest problems for us. But apart from Christ, to have this deep need for the approval of your heavenly Father expresses itself in a number of ways. I think probably the most common way it expresses itself is in a deep ambition or a drive to succeed, to accomplish, to achieve, to gain, to accumulate, to accumulate a career, an accomplishment accumulate wealth, to achieve this or achieve that or, or have a reputation or fame or whatever it may be. A deep drive to succeed. Because we've got deep within us this need for the approval of our father. And we instinctively know that apart from Christ, we don't have the approval of our father. And so we seek other ways to get that. And probably the most common way is through a drive to achieve and to accomplish. A lot of people will do that, others will try to meet this need through a vigorous pursuit of religion, whether it be false religion, or true religion. I have known many people in my life, many people in my life, who are trying to meet the need in their soul for their father's approval and acceptance. And they're doing it through a vigorous pursuit of the true religion. And they can oftentimes be the biggest volunteers in the church, and do the most, and be the most energetic. But deep in their soul, they're trying to meet a need by showing their Father that they're worthy of his approval and his acceptance. For others, this expresses itself in a lifelong struggle with depression and anxiety. Because of the weight of the knowledge that you don't have your Father's approval can be too much for people to bear. And so for many people, this will express itself in this lifelong anxiety or this cynicism towards life. For others, this can express itself in a hatred toward the people that you think do have the approval of your Father. That's where the hatred of Christians comes from. That's exactly, precisely where the hatred of Christians comes from―from people who know instinctively deep in their soul, that they don't have the approval of their Father and they see you as someone that they think does. And…that's where anti-Semitism comes from. That explains the Holocaust, that explains the anti-semitism that still exists today, that defies any other explanation. The world has a deep need for the approval of their Heavenly Father. And they instinctively, their soul knows they don't have it, and they see the ethnic people of God as the ones that have it and they hate them. So it can express itself in a number of ways, but it's always there. It's like the old wound that healed over but didn't quite heal over completely. And there's still a little bit of sensitivity, there, or maybe a limp or something like that. That's what this is, we can learn to deal with it, we can learn to put it down, we can learn to put it out of our mind. But we can never make it go away. Because God created us in such a way that it cannot be put away. Because the deepest and most important need of our life is to have the approval and the acceptance and the love of our Heavenly Father. We can deny it, some people try to deal with this by denying that there is a heavenly Father that they need to have the approval of. Other people will deny it by saying that the approval of the Heavenly Father is easier than you think, I can get it by just simply being a person who does more good things than bad things. And that's how I am getting the approval of my heavenly Father. Or they can seek it, they can they can express this need for it in a host of other ways. But if you become a student of humanity, you will see that all people have this need. And the need is, of course, we know only met in Christ. And so therefore all who are apart from Christ, have this old wound, this thorn that was stuck deep into the bottom of their foot years ago, and they never got it out. And it's still there, and their foot just sort of grew over, but it’s still there. And that shapes, and that defines all of their life, people deal with it differently. It looks different on the outside. But if you peel away every layer, that's what you end up with. And so this need for our Father's approval, sometimes here's a, here's a real clue. That helps us to see it in ourselves and in others. This need for our Father's approval oftentimes shows up in disappointment in yourself. When you are disappointed in yourself, that is sometimes a clue that you are still looking for the approval and acceptance of your Father through means other than Christ. And you failed in some moral way, or you failed in some other way. And you feel like that, that sets you back in the approval of your Father. Now, let's be clear, you can take that too far. Because as believers, we don't just have this nonchalant attitude about moral failures, you know, doesn't matter. But if a moral failure in your life or another type of failure in your life, causes depression, causes a spiritual depression, causes you to feel as though that approval has been jeopardized. That is a clear sign for you that you are not (Colossians two verse six), living by the faith by which you came to know, the heavenly Father, okay. So with that groundwork being laid, let's turn to some scriptures that show us how this faith comes to be, and how this is actually the active agent that connects us to the approval, and to the acceptance, and the love of the Father that we so desperately need. The Scriptures speak of faith, particularly the New Testament speaks of faith, not in this simplistic sort of belief―what the Bible believes and that’s kind, kind of thing The Scriptures speak of faith as a bonding agent, that binds together two. It's like a spiritual glue. And so the one who has faith is bonded to the One that the faith is placed in―there's this connection, there's this binding there. And part of that binding together includes the very, very important truth, that the one who has faith is taught that the acceptance and the approval and the love of the Father is given to them by means of this faith from the One who has the acceptance and the love and the approval of the Father. Who's the one who has the acceptance of the Father? Jesus, right? That's why the baptism of Jesus was so important. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God said that about nobody else. God is pleased with Jesus. God approves completely of Jesus. Jesus has the Father's complete and total love. And so the one who is bonded together with God by faith is the one whose heart is being taught that the approval, the acceptance, the love, that Jesus enjoys of the Father is given to us―by means of that bonding together. There’s many places we could see this, I think the best place to see this is Galatians chapter two, verse 20, and verse 21. I got those two verses in your scriptures. But let me…I'm going to open my Bible to it. And I'm going to set a little bit more context. And I want to just show us briefly here how the flow of Paul's thought is this flow of thought that: acceptance of the Father doesn't come the old way. Acceptance of, the from the Father comes by dying to self and living in Christ. Okay, so from chapter two, verse 11, verse 11, starts out with this opposition to Peter or Cephas. And you know, the story there in Antioch. And here's Peter, and Peter is there with the Gentile Christians and his eating with them. He's sharing table fellowship with Him. But then when other Jews come to Antioch, then Peter withdraws and doesn't eat with the Jews. Paul sees this, and he lets Peter have it. Peter, that's, you're being a hypocrite. You can't eat with them, when the Jews aren't here. And then when they come, then now of a sudden, you're not eating with them. So he lets Peter have it. Why? Because Peter is not living by faith. Peter is starting to see his acceptance, his approval of God, or God's approval of him rather, as based on once again in the old way of keeping the law. And so Paul just loses it. Peter is not committing some small offense here. He's not just offending the Gentile Christians a little bit. Peter is rejecting the faith that has saved it. And Paul is right to come along and say, Whoa, hang on, brother. Think about what you're doing. You are now reverting back to thinking of your Father approving of you, because you do so well at keeping the law. Then we come down to verse 13, or 15. And I'll pick up right here, “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.” In other words, our approval, our love, our acceptance, doesn't come by works of the law, doesn't come by success or achievement, even religious achievement, it comes by the approval of Another, the acceptance of Another, the love of Another. Another had the love of God, and that now comes to us by way of the connection point. “So we have also believed in Jesus in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ Jesus and not by works with the law (once again), because by works of the law, no one will be justified (there again, verse 17), but if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ in a servant of sin?” So what Paul is saying here is that if our approval by the Father, if he doesn't approve of us by the works of our life, are we found to be outside of his approval? No. Because our approval wasn't in works of the law, our approval wasn't in some external means of pursuing the right thing vigorously, or keeping the law vigorously. That's not how God ever approved of us. He approved of us by means of the approval of Another. “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I proved myself to be a transgressor.” In other words, if now but after being approved by God and accepted by God, and loved by God by means of faith in Another, if I now revert to thinking of myself as being approved by God, because I'm such a good Christian, then I'm tearing down the faith that I began. “For if I rebuild what I tore down, I proved myself to be a transgressor.” I prove myself to be a transgressor because I'm living for the approval of God, by my own means by my own strength. Verse 19, “For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God.” The law taught me that there was no ultimate approval and acceptance of God to be found in myself. That's what the law taught me. “So through the law, I died to keeping the law in order to please God. But now I live by faith in Christ,” he says. So now verse 20, here it comes, “I have been crucified with Christ is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” I have been crucified with Christ the ‘I’ there is Paul's way of saying: the Paul that strove for God's acceptance because I was a good person, that ‘I’ had been crucified with Christ. It's not that ‘I’ who lives anymore. The ‘I’ that now lives is the ‘I’―the Paul―that lives by faith, by this connection point that communicates to me the acceptance approval in the love of God by means of Another who has his acceptance, His love and His approval. “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me in the life I now live by in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” In other words, as I go about my life, I strive to continue seeing my approval by God as coming by faith, not by Paul doing such good works, or Paul being such a good law keeper, or Paul, sacrificing himself on his missionary journey so much, etc., etc. And then it continues, “I do not nullify the grace of God for a justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose,” and he reiterates himself there. So you see there, we're starting to see, I think the connection, okay. There's this acceptance, approval in love of God that we so deeply, desperately need. And we know we need it. And faith, as the contact point between the God who seeks to redeem and the sinner in need of redemption, that contact point is what then transfers to us by faith, the love, the acceptance, and the approval that we so desperately need. So, this only works, if we have this right understanding of God. This only works if we see God as one who desires to give us his approval, as one who wants to give us his acceptance, who wants to give us his love. None of this works. If in your heart, you think of God as not wanting to give you his approval. If you think of God as one who is not quick to be gracious, quick, to be merciful, quick to be loving. If that's how you think of God, then all the grace in the world won't bring you to the place that you see your approval in the approval of Another. You must see God rightly in your heart, as one who desires to give you his full approval, his full acceptance, his full love, he needs―the righteousness of Jesus that comes through faith―he needs that to give it to you so that he can give you His love his acceptance and his approval. Which is why being made alive to God was necessary. Because when we were dead to God, we didn't see him rightly. We didn't see him as compassionate and loving. We saw him as vindictive and judgmental only. And not until we saw him as this kind, gracious, merciful, loving God, who desires deeply to give his approval to us, and his love to us. It's not until then that his approval and his love can come to us by means of Another. There's so many places that are thought of where can I illustrate this from the scriptures? Where can I illustrate this right view of God that sees God as a God who deeply desires to give his approval to lost sinners? Well, I thought of Zephaniah three, verse 17, “The Lord your God is in your midst a mighty one who will say, he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by His love, He will exalt over you with loud singing.” First Timothy, chapter two and verse four, “God desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of Him.” Zachariah to Verse eight, for he who touches you for who touches you touches the apple of my eye. What is the apple of your eye? You got an apple? I don't have an apple in my eye. What's the apple of your eye? That same phrase in Spanish is “La niña de mis ojos.” And literally that means the pupil of my eye. That's what is this old English phrase that literally means the pupil of my eye. Now, what does it mean that God says when someone touches you they touch the pupil of my eye? What if I were to come up to you right now and poke you in the pupil? Would you know that I did that? Would you have an immediate reaction? Would you react right away? Would you not let that happen again? That's what God means. When you touch my children, you touch the pupil of my eye. And you better believe that you're not gonna touch the pupil of my eye and I just looked the other way. So many other places we can illustrate this. This is the right view of God that the heart must have. It must be made alive to God. So that we see him rightly as compassionate, merciful, loving and desiring to give us his approval, and his acceptance and his love. But he needs our sin problem to be taken care of. Before we can do that.

Part 3

Saving faith can only reside in the heart that rightly sees God as compassionate and mercy, and desiring to save.

We're starting to see, I think the connection, right? There's this acceptance, approval and love of God that we so deeply, desperately need. And we know we need it. And faith is the contact point between the God who seeks to redeem and the sinner in need of redemption. That contact point is what then transfers to us by faith, the love the acceptance and approval that we so desperately need. So, this only works. If we have this right understanding of God. This only works if we see God as One who desires to give us his approval, as one who wants to give us his acceptance, who wants to give us his love, none of this works. If, in your heart, you think of God as not wanting to give you his approval. If you think of God as one who is not quick to be gracious, quick, to be merciful, quit to be loving. If that's how you think of God, then all the grace in the world won't bring you to the place that you see your approval in the approval of Another. You must see God rightly in your heart, as one who desires to give you his full approval, his full acceptance, his full love, he needs the righteousness of Jesus that comes through faith, He needs that to give it to you so that he can give you His love his acceptance and his approval, which is why being made alive to God was necessary. Because when we were dead to God, we didn't see him rightly. We didn't see him as compassionate and loving. We saw him as vindictive and judgmental only. And not until we saw him as this kind, gracious, merciful, loving God, who desires deeply to give his approval to us and his love to us. It's not until then that his approval and his love can come to us by means of another. There's so many places I thought of where can I illustrate this from the Scriptures? Where can I illustrate this right view of God that sees God as a God who deeply desires to give his approval to lost sinners? Well, I thought of Zephaniah three, verse 17, the Lord your God is in your midst a mighty One who will save, He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you by His love, He will exalt over you with loud singing. First Timothy, chapter two in verse four, God desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of Him. Zachariah two, Verse eight, for he who touches you, for he who touches you touches the apple of My eye. What is the apple of your eye? You got an apple? I don't have an apple in my eye. What's the apple of your eye? That same phrase in Spanish is “la nine de mis ojos.” And literally, that means the pupil of my eye. That's what the is this old English phrase that literally means the pupil of my eye. Now, what does it mean that God says, when someone touches you, they touch the pupil of My eye? What if I were to come to you right now and poke you in the pupil? Would you know that I did that? Would you have an immediate reaction? Would you react right away? Would you not let that happen again? That's what God means. When you touch My children, you touch the pupil of My eye. And you better believe that you're not gonna touch the pupil of My eye, and I just looked the other way. So many other places we can illustrate this. This is the right view of God that the heart must have. It must be made alive to God so that we see him rightly, as compassionate, merciful, loving, and desiring to give us His approval and His acceptance and His love. But He needs our sin problems to be taken care of before He can do that. So this faith is something that the Scripture says is absolutely foundational, right? But if we were to search the pages of the scriptures, in search of a definition for faith, you know that nowhere in the Scriptures do we find a definition of faith. We might think of Hebrews 11, six, that kind of gets it the but not really. nowhere in Scripture, is there just a pure dictionary-type definition of faith. But instead, the Scriptures do something far better. The Scriptures give us vivid examples of what saving faith looks like; vivid word pictures of what saving faith looks like. And we can take all those and put them together and actually come up with―I think―a far more precise understanding of what saving faith looks like. And so there's lots of these but I picked, I think five of the most common, I think, what probably are the most important images in Scripture that say to us: this is the picture, this is the biblical picture of what saving faith looks like. And so, the first one for us to see is biblical picture, the first biblical picture of saving faith is the picture of the fearful, dying person, looking and finding life in the look. The beleaguered the dying, the sick, the fearful, looking and finding life in the look. This comes to us from places like John three, where Jesus speaking there of the bronze serpent from numbers 21, remember we talked about that a few months back, and they looked upon the serpent and lived in Jesus says, that serpent is Me. All must look upon the Son of Man, the Son of Man must be looked upon, must be lifted up and looked upon, and that look, looking upon the Son of Man is what saves. So it's this image of the one who looks and sees the Deliverer, sees the Healer seals, sees the bronze serpent that brings healing. The look is what brings that salvation. There's many parallels to this that we can see in Scripture, Isaiah, 45, and 22. To turn to me, and be saved, for I am God and there is no other. We see other, other parallels as well of looking. So this is a picture of looking to one looking to Him. Faith looks to Jesus and sees the One who takes away the deadly sin. Or think of John, behold the Lamb of God, it takes away the sin of the world. Another biblical picture of saving faith is, is the picture of the empty hand, receiving. The empty hand, receiving. John chapter one and verse 11, and 12, but to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. So there's this there's this image here, this picture of, of a hand, holding out this empty hand and just receiving. Or we see the same sort of picture Colossians two and verse six as you receive the Lord Jesus Christ, so also walk with Him. The saving faith looks to Jesus and sees Jesus as the Giver of all things. Another biblical picture of saving faith is the picture of the hungry and thirsty person, eating and drinking, the starving person, the person thirsting to death, eating and drinking and being given life in the food and being given life in the water. Many places that we see this John six, verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. John 60, John seven, I'm sorry, John six, verse 50, and 51, John seven, John eight, John 11. It's a popular picture in John's gospel. Also the manna, there's so many other places that we see that the picture of saving faith as this picture of the one who's hungry to death, thirsting to death, and receiving life by means of the flesh and the blood of Jesus. So saving faith looks to Jesus and sees Jesus as the Provider of all things the great Provider. Another biblical picture of saving faith we see as the is the picture of the hunted criminal or the endangered person, the endangered soul, who finds refuge and safety in Jesus. They find Jesus as the strong and willing Protector. Think of the Psalter as, as God is our our fortress, our rock and our salvation. Or, or Martin Luther, a Mighty Fortress Is our God, a Bulwark, never failing. This picture that you run to Jesus you see in Jesus, your Fortress, your Safety, your Refuge. This comes from the cities of refuge from the Old Testament, remember the, the cities of refuge there, or think of Mark chapter four, that Mark Chapter Four is a picture of the opposite is the picture of those who had opportunity to have saving faith but didn't have it? At least not yet. Mark chapter four, Jesus speaks to the storm: “Peace be still.” And he turns to his disciples and says, Why don't you have faith? So that's a picture of faith that wasn't had. They didn't see Jesus as their Refuge. They didn't see Jesus as their Rescuer. Saving faith looks to Jesus and sees him as our Refuge, our Fortress, our Salvation. Lastly, the biblical picture of saving faith, sometimes is the picture of the weary and burdened person casting their heavy burden upon Him. Mark 11, “Come to me all ye who are week and heavy laden,” Cast your cares upon me first, Peter five, cast your anxieties on me for I care for you, so it’s this picture: that Jesus is the One who says, Cast your burden upon Me, cast it upon Me, I want your burden. Give it to Me. So saving faith looks to Jesus and sees him as the great burden Bearer. So we begin to put all these together. And we got a number of pieces. And all this is working towards a goal. This isn't just sort of random thoughts, in case you thought it was. All this is working towards a focused goal. And the focused goal is this: to give us a vivid picture of saving faith. We don't want a vivid picture of unsaving faith. We don't want to just be satisfied with mental agreement. We want to see what saving faith looks like. So what's the commonality? There's a couple of commonalities that we're seeing. First is the commonality of this: and all those biblical pictures, as well as what we talked about earlier about the heart that deeply needs the approval, the acceptance and the love of the Father, all this is shaping for us a picture number one, have a deep felt need of a perceived need of a perception, there's a realization, I'm missing something. There is some something that I don't have. And that something is not optional. That something is the deepest felt need of my life. All of those biblical pictures have that in common. The one dying from hunger, the one who's dying from thirst, the accused convict who's running to the City of Refuge, the one with a heavy burden that he can't keep. Think of Pilgrim’s Progress, if you’ve read Pilgrims Progress. That is, that's the most vivid illustration of this. Because the whole premise of the book is the main character ‘Christian’ who has this burden that he just can't bear, he's got to get this burden off. So there's this common theme that there's this felt need, there's this soul perception that there's something that I absolutely have to have, and I don't have it. And the second commonality is, this is the direction of the faith. The direction always turns away from self, and always towards Christ. All those pictures are the same. All of them are turning the faith focus away from self and turning it toward Christ. So this has started to develop for us to starting to sort of flesh out this picture of what biblical saving genuine, true faith looks like. Is this real felt need. And that felt need looks to Jesus and looks away from self, think about the Philippian jailer. I mean, if there was a felt need, he had it. His need was so deep and so sharp, he was ready to end his life. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?,” he begs. “Believe upon the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, and you're household.” So there's this looking to Jesus, seeing my need, rightly seeing Jesus as the contact point through which the love acceptance and approval of the father comes to us. So, sort of in a nutshell, here we go with what I'm offering is kind of a definition. “Saving faith is the sinner having been made alive to a right view of God and self…” So God has acted upon the heart so that we lose the misperceptions of God as this unloving, hateful God, we lose those and we gain the right perception that he's a loving, compassionate God. And we have a right view of self seeing in ourselves this deep need for his acceptance and approval. “The redeem sinner perceives, joyfully surrenders, surrenders to and lives in the deeply needed acceptance and approval of the Father.” That is rightly deserved by Another” (capital A.) The acceptance the approval and the love is deserved by Jesus. Yet, it is perceived, joyfully surrender to and lived in, as it's freely given to the sinner. And this delves into next week but rightly understood, “Saving faith frees the center from thoughts of guilt and disappointment itself and binds the redeem center to God with a bond that rejects all boasting itself and necessitates boasting in the Lord.” That's part of next week right there. So our question is, have you perceived within yourself, your need for the Father to approve of you and to accept you? Have you looked at Jesus and seen the great Provider? The great Rescuer? Have you looked away from self? Realizing that approval by the Father will never come to me by myself? If you haven't, what awaits you are the fires of hell. The last question for us to try to answer is this question that I think always comes up. As you describe those things, maybe some would say, Yeah, I kind of see that. But I'm not sure how deeply I understand that. That sort of resonates with me, but how much does it have to resonate with me? So let me finish with just a story that I'm gonna take from Robert Louis Dabney. Robert Lewis Dabney was a 19th century theologian. He actually fought in the Civil War, in the Stonewall Brigade, he was actually Stonewall Jackson's chaplain. But he writes the story, I'm going to take it from him, I'm going to kind of modify it a little bit. He tells this story of this small village in which some strange disease comes to this village, and everyone in the village becomes afflicted by this disease. And for some, the disease is severe unto death. And for others, it's just mild, maybe a cough and a slight headache. But it affects everybody, people differently, but it affects everybody. And they don't know the cure for this. But then somehow, this mysterious stone comes to the village and it's a healing stone. And to be healed of the disease, all you need to do is believe, touch the stone believe that the stone is going to heal you and you'll be healed. And so people flocked to the stone, and they touch the stone, and they're healed as soon as they touch the stone. And among those who flocked to the stones, one of the first ones, there was a young man who was barely afflicted at all, just had a little bit of a headache look tired. But he comes in, he throws himself upon the stone doesn't touch it. He lays across it in full faith and full belief and he said you meanwhile, there's an elderly man, sort of a grumpy old type. Who doesn't believe that the stone can heal. But he's afflicted seriously, he's afflicted under death. And he lies on his deathbed nearing death barely has any energy. And finally it dawns upon Him. Maybe, maybe the stone heals. I don't know. I'm not sure maybe it does. But by this point, he barely has the energy to just barely crawl down to the town square. And all he can do is just reach up and just barely touch with one finger with a heart that believes but also doubts. What happens? He, too, is healed. Because it's not faith that saves, it’s Jesus Christ that saves. And it's that simple point of contact, that's His means of saving. Doesn't Jesus talk about faith like a mustard seed? That it’s not the faith, faith is not the Savior. So a lot of our struggles, do I believe enough? Do I believe fully enough? I still struggle with doubts. Jesus Christ saves and He saves by grace through faith.