Romans 4:22–25Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles this morning with me to Romans chapter 4, and we are closing out chapter 4. How long have we been doing this? Just quite a little bit, haven't we? Since July, yeah, so that's good. I didn't actually know that. But July we started in Romans, and we have 16 chapters, and although it seems like we're moving slowly, honestly we are quickly moving through some very heavy doctrinal things that are, in my opinion, foundational for the Christian life. And if ever there—you know, Romans has some verses that you will hear often preached on, but many of the verses we have gone through up to this point, you will find very little sermons on. The reason for that is it's not the most pleasant, what we've been traveling through, and although there is a great amount of hope in what hope we have in Jesus Christ, it is hard to take a look at ourselves, our sinful state, the depravity of man, the natural inclination to spiral down into dark places that is in the heart of men. That's hard to look at, because we have to take a look at ourselves and begin to evaluate ourself in the light of Christ and God and his holiness, and that's hard.
That's hard for people. It's hard for people in a world where we want to just put out there in the, I don't know, the internet land all of the best parts of us. When we take a selfie, we take seven of them, we had fifteen filters and stars to our face, and then we post the best of ourself. Even in—even BeReal, there's a new app called BeReal, and I have my family from
Introduction
Different parts of the US and actually the world that will take pictures of themselves at different parts of the day, and then I will notice that people have taken six pictures of themselves, because even on BeReal we're not real. I do the same thing. I realized that it was telling people that I had taken four pictures, because I didn't like the way that my face was, or my head looked like a peanut on that shot, so I needed to tilt it a little bit better so I could get the best, you know, possible image of myself. And so it's hard, then, when we open up Romans and we see ourselves for as we are, that all of us are sinners and we need a Savior. That's hard. Some of us are like, "Come again. Let's take another picture. Let's re-look at ourselves. Let's find the good parts of us."
But listen, there's nothing good in you. That's why you need Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:59
And so today we really close out chapter 4, and it is a very wonderful couple verses, 22. I'm going to do 22 through 25. I think that's what I'm supposed to do. If not, oh well, that's what I'm doing today. All right, here's the verses: "That is why his faith"—Abraham, that's what we're talking about here—"That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone." Now here's some good news coming. It's not just talking about Abraham, it's talking about us. "It was not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord." Now stop right there. Now listen to this: "It will be counted to us who believe in"—who? Read it again.
You see that? Now, this is important. Now, I'm going to try to break this down as simply as possible, because whenever we hear the gospel, we go straight to— Jesus! That is unanimous. It was in the house. Everybody muttered it real carefully, but you know that I'm tricking you every week, so you're careful now and you're a little bit quieter, but everybody unanimously said Jesus, and that's a problem in our society, because the issue is not to just believe in Jesus, because there are other world religions who believe in Jesus. The issue is not to just have faith in Jesus and the good things he did and the way that he lived, and it is not to just believe that he resurrected, although that's essential and it's pivotal to our faith. But it's to believe in him who sent Jesus, who hung him, who unrolled his wrath on Jesus on the cross, and then resurrected him from the grave. God is key in this. You've got to believe in the one who sent him, and just in case you didn't know, Jesus is God. So
You can't take God in part. You can't just worship the Jesus part of God. You have to take all of him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:33
You don't get to just love the Jesus part of the New Testament and forsake the God of the Old Testament. In case you didn't know, Jesus was there when God was sending down hellfire from the heaven, or what I call rotor to kill people. Jesus was there and he was in agreement, and so was the Holy Spirit. So in a world where we have separated the parts of God that we don't like, that we're uncomfortable with, so that we can give ourselves permission to be the type of parents who never disciplined but who always want to be buddies, so we create a god that is like us. We fashion him that way so that we can be okay with failing as a parent.
Come on, listen to me. I'm not trying to be hard, but I want us to understand that many of us fashion a God that makes us comfortable with us.
Romans 1 through 3 says you don't need to be comfortable with you. You are a problem. We are a problem. We had a—Wednesday night we break up with teens and small groups and we have discussion, and this last Wednesday night we had a discussion, one of the students raised up this story of Hosea. How many of you know the story of Hosea? God had told Hosea to marry a prostitute. One of the students was talking about this and just saying how crazy that was, and Brook looked across the table and said, "Isn't it amazing to think about the fact that we're like that prostitute, that God loves us no matter what, and no matter how much we cheat on God or reject God or fail God, his love for us never fails?" That was beautiful. Then one of the students across the table said, "Well, you know, we are around here. We're just a bunch of dirty rats and prostitutes." Now, you won't know what that means unless you've been here a few months ago when I called everybody in our service a dirty rat, a filthy, dirty rat that is spreading disease across the world, but ever since Adam and Eve the world has become disease-ridden with sin, and all of us are guilty of passing this on.
But God loves us unfailingly, faithfully, in spite of who we are. That's really the beauty of the gospel, that no matter how much you are you, it doesn't change who he is. That's really one of the most wonderful things about the gospel. So it's not written for just Abraham alone, for these pillars of faith we read about in the Bible that we look to and we go, "If I could just have faith like that man." We look at people like Paul, and we see him have this unshakable faith in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, and we say, "If only I could have that type of faith."
Point 1Abraham's faith is the same faith we have
Paul here reminds us, and he uses Abraham as an example, that it's not just his faith, but it's ours as well.
In other words, and I would say to you, encourage you with this, that the same faith that Abraham had is the same faith we have. The same saving faith that Abraham had is the same saving faith that you have.
It is not a different faith. It is the same faith.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:36
The same faith that Abraham had, Enoch had. Now, it manifests in the life of each person differently, but the faith itself is not different. How many of you know that every apostle's life did not look the same? But, ladies and gentlemen, that does not mean that the faith was different. The faith was the same. The same faith for Abraham that saved him is the same faith you have that will save you.
It's the same. Now, that's important today in a world where we try to have the type of faith that is different than our brother or sister. Listen, it's our faith.
It's a saving faith, and it's the same. "It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord." I believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord, "who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." So faith, true saving faith, is in all ages the same. It may exercise itself upon different things, but yet the faith of Abraham is the same faith as that which was in the heart of Paul, and the faith of Paul was precisely the same faith as that which is in the heart of every believer at this moment who believes in him who raised Jesus from the dead. We have what is referred to by many theologians, and I quote, "like precious faith." It's the same with the godly of all the ages, with the men and women who've come before us, who are in our midst now, and who will come after us. Same, or like precious faith.
It is always the same faith, as it is always the same God and the same Savior. Don't let that be lost on you. The faith is as there is the same God, and as there is the same Savior. Abraham had faith that God could make dead things alive.
So is our faith. Our faith knows and is confident that God makes dead things alive.
That's good news.
Abraham had faith that man, in all of his stumblings, cannot kill what God bids to live.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:29
And so was our faith. We have faith and confidence in and hope in the fact that even in our stumblings we can never kill what God bids to live.
That's good news. When you have a week that is not such a good week, when you find yourself Monday through Saturday stumbling through your week, we have faith that although we have stumbled, we have not re-entered into death.
Because what God makes alive, he keeps alive.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:09
That's good news. That Abraham is a good, I would say, model of the faith of every man who comes to Christ. We cannot choose in life to avoid suffering and death. I want to talk about this for a second. I was reading this book, and I would encourage you—so far I would encourage you, I'm not all the way through it, so it may take a right-hand turn and go to crazy town, but so far I like this book, and I'm going to talk about it over the next, in chapter 5, quite extensively. But the book is called The Will of God, and then it says, "A Pagan Notion,"
Interesting, right? In this book he breaks—and I actually had to retype it, because I had to print this book out. I bought an eBook, and then I had to print it out. EBooks drive me crazy because I can't mark in those things, but then when I print out the eBook, then I can't get—I have to type out the information, so I don't know how well this will be, because I was typing this really quick this morning, but listen to this section here: "we cannot choose in life a type of life that avoids suffering and death. We please God, however, when we walk by faith in him into an unknown future. We please our audience of one when we depend on his sublime attributes to do what is best for us,
Point 2Same faith, different outcomes
Not by our attempt to achieve worldly success. The outcomes of living by faith vary considerably." Now here's the thing I want to talk about. The faith is the same. Amen?
Are you with me on that? The faith is the same, but the outcomes vary. Now listen to this, I love this: "The outcomes of living by faith vary considerably. Consider the outcomes of faith for the first three heroes of faith celebrated in Hebrews 11." Now, how many of you know the faith chapter, Hebrews 11, where it goes and it begins to list off all the heroes of faith, that we might have an understanding of what faith looks like, and we see that the same faith that saves each of these individuals, although manifest differently, is the same faith, and the same faith that saves some caused others to die a martyr's death.
Now, that runs crossways in a world where we say, if you have enough faith, you'll escape punishment, escape suffering, escape hardship. If you have enough faith, you'll have money show up whenever you need it. Say that to the second half of Hebrews 11. Although, because faith—we have faith, but that doesn't mean it'll manifest the same way, and you'll have somebody across the aisle being blessed financially and on this side of the aisle foreclosing on a house. Same faith. The faith isn't different. So what you shouldn't do is, shouldn't, from this side of the aisle, look to this side of the aisle and say, "Their faith must be better than my faith." Wrong. Same faith, manifested differently, all right? And the writer of Hebrews tries to draw a picture of this that we would, I believe, be able to understand and have hope in our faith in spite of our circumstances, to have confidence in what God gives regardless of what we see on the outside. Ladies and gentlemen, faith is not by sight. So just the fact that we have to describe faith that way lets you know that what you will see will actually try to prevent you from believing in the faith you have. There are circumstances at some point in your life that will run crossways and make you wonder if your faith is true.
Listen, your circumstances do not determine your faith.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:20
"The outcomes of living faith vary considerably. Consider the outcomes of faith for the first three heroes, just the first three heroes of faith celebrated in Hebrews 11." Let's list them. Abel's the first one. It said Abel believed God, and he died. That's an outcome.
He believed God. Abraham, what? He believed God. Abraham had a mighty nation. He took what was dead in Abraham's womb, made it alive, and a nation came out of him as many as the stars and the sand of the beach. That is what happened with Abraham. What happened with Abel? He croaked. Crazy.
Abel believed God and he died. Enoch believed God and he did not die. Well, that's a bummer. I mean, if I'm Abel, I'm looking at Enoch and going, "What makes him so special?"
He just—he, and actually, listen, you know what's even crazier? He didn't do anything that special. It just said of him that he walked with God. Well, whoopty doo. So he gets to escape death because he just walked around and did nothing with his life? Well, that's not fair. I mean, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. Abel did a bunch of things. What does he get in repayment for that? Death.
Just talking about faith, and he's trying to help us understand that the outcome is not indicative of the faith we have, for faith is to be glorified here, not the men who carry it. Talk with me here. Why are we saved by faith? That no man may boast.
So then if we look at one man's faith and their outcome, and we see them as, "Oh, you've offered an awesome sacrifice and you should be blessed and you should be honored,"
That gives them reason to boast.
Some of us worship this. Some of us worship the outcome of people's life greater than the faith that they bear.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:47
You know who wrote every day of your life in a book? God.
Not even the outcome of your life is something that you can take glory for. It is all his.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:11
It is all his.
So how can we die and die well, knowing God has ordained it and it is his decision, and we have faith in him regardless of the outcome? Matter of fact, faith helps us live in the outcome with hope of something greater than our earthly outcome. Okay. Abel believed God and died, and Enoch believed God and did not die, and Noah believed God and everyone else died.
I mean, if you don't think God's funny, this is hilarious. Think about it. Three different men, three different outcomes.
What do I believe that God is trying to teach us through Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, is this: that although faith looks different on the outside, it truly is the same on the inside. The saving faith that we have today is the same saving faith that Enoch had. I've heard some preach, "Oh, to have a faith like Enoch, where we could be taken up and not taste death." Ladies and gentlemen, it's the same faith. It's the same saving faith, the same faith. And I think that's important for us today in a world where we're jockeying for attention, for notoriety, for young people who want to be famous.
In a week we boast much in ourselves and we think little of God. He is calling us to something different than this. Though their outcomes differ, they all please God by living by faith, and he rewarded that faith in him not by success as the world defines it—listen to me—but by giving them eternal bliss in his presence regardless of their circumstances. I want to repeat that. He rewarded that faith in Abraham not by success as the world defines it.
Now, some pastors would do well to read this part over and over again, because in case you didn't know, pastors are human, and they're still sinners saved by grace, and the reality is that in life today we don't always understand that he rewards faith not by the success of the world, and so we make decisions at times that drive us towards worldly success that we might boast, and we fail our church, we fail those we're called to disciple, we fail the sheep. And parents, we do this with our kids. We want to be successful parents, and for many of us that looks very differently, but God determines what success is, and it's not worldly. The reality is that I truly believe
Point 3Faithfulness in the mundane is most divine
That it is in the mundane things of life that we discover the most sacred things of God. For instance, I think Paul says this to Timothy in a roundabout way when he begins to talk to him about what qualifies him and other elders that he would appoint to lead the church. What are the qualifications? There are some grandiose things that he says in there, but there are these—he begins to drill down out of the surface- level stuff of the role of a pastor. He drills down into the house, behind closed doors, of a man and his character. He said these are men that are qualified to do the work of the church, to be elders in the church, to lead the church. They look like this in private. If you can't lead your home, you shouldn't be leading the church. In other words, if you can't do the mundane, faithful things in your home, like smile to your wife or say hello or be kind or love your children or discipline them properly with love and grace and kindness and call them into repentance and train them up in the Lord, if you can't do that behind the closed doors of your house where no one's looking and you can't get credit, don't you dare release them into the public arena. Why?
Because it's the faithfulness in the mundane that is most divine.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:57
Today I think we should take note of this, because we live in a very boastful generation. Let me tell you, no matter how humble you think you are, everyone is impacted by this generation, and if ever we needed to stay in chapter 4 a long time, although it seems repetitive, this generation needs to stay here a while.
Just take inventory today at our potluck, at the conversation. Listen to what people talk about.
Now, you're going to be careful, so it may not—listen to who can't stop talking about themselves.
Listen to the people who want to tell a story because you told a story that beats your story. Listen to people talk about their jobs and what they've accomplished and all of these things, and it is not that we should not share our life with others, but you need to understand much of our life is wrestling to boast.
We look for quiet breaks in conversation to make much of us, and when we do that, we make little of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:28
And so the most faithful way in your home that you can make much of God is in mundane conversations where you're not even talking about God.
And how do you do that? You stop making much of you. It's the little things. And I would propose to you today that a saving faith begins to work itself into the heart of men and women and begins to transform the simple, mundane activities of life and take what seems mundane and make it divine, where a mother who stays home can faithfully and gratefully serve the Lord behind closed doors by serving the children, serving the husband, and serving the Lord by making dinner.
Some of the holiest work you will ever do is just walking around your house with God in mind.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:29
That's when we treat the mundane things of life with such holiness and such reverence that pleases God. Guess what? The same faith Enoch had, you have. You have the same faith Noah had, where you have been quickened and saved and redeemed from the wrath of God while other people around you, in your family, your friends you went to high school with, are drowning in a sea of sin and are dying in their sin. You were saved and redeemed out of his wrath. The same faith he had, you have. That is awesome, because when we read Hebrews 11, we think, "Man, to have faith like—don't those guys, man, just if I could have faith like those guys." If you're a believer today, you do.
You do, and that is the joy of our salvation. Our faith looks to God the Father in the matter of salvation, not to herself.
Point 4Never separate the Father from the Son
It looks to God. We do not alone look to Jesus Christ, as some say that we do, but we believe on him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, not on Jesus our Lord alone. We do not believe on him, but we also believe on God that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Some overlook the Father. They speak of Jesus as though we were indebted to him and to him only for our salvation. We are immeasurably indebted to him.
Bless Jesus' name, we should celebrate him, but Jesus does not save without the Father.
We are not justified by belief in Jesus alone. A lot of men have laid down their life as a martyr and sacrificed their life, but it has not caused a propitiation for our sin. What makes Jesus' death and resurrection different than other men, the other apostles, the other men who've laid down their life? What makes it different is that God unrolled his wrath as an atonement for all men's sin who believe. Do not miss this. You cannot forsake the Father in light of Jesus.
We are immeasurably indebted to Christ, but Jesus does not save without the Father, or apart from the Father, or against the Father's will.
Matter of fact, I propose to you today to go look in the New Testament at Jesus talking about saving those that only God allows. They work in tandem with one another.
I like the expression that is used in the book of Genesis concerning Abraham and his son when they were going to the mountain of sacrifice, and it's why I believe Paul uses this in Romans. It is written, "They went both of them together." And in the great sacrifice that was made for human sin, I may say of the divine Father and his equally divine Son, they went both of them together. There was a secret agreement and concurrence between the Father and the Son concerning our redemption, and the Father has our love and gratitude, even as the Son has. Jesus gave himself for us, but the Father gave Jesus, his other self. Jesus says, "I and my Father are one." I might say, in a certain sense, that it was God the Father who suffered for us, for he gave his Son whom he loved to suffer on our behalf. He gave up the darling of his heart, and in the person of his Son he became our Savior. It is "God our Savior," as well as Jesus Christ our Savior. Never dissociate the Father from the Son and the work of redemption. Jesus did not come into this world to die to make his Father gracious. His Father already was gracious.
That's why he sent his Son. Jesus did not come into the world to die to make his Father loving. He already is love, and because of his love he sent his Son.
And I know this seems simple, but, ladies and gentlemen, listen to our worship songs. We— some of us had such a hard time. I remember one person saying, as we were working our way through some Old Testament texts, "I really don't like God a whole lot. He's judgy." My question was, "What do you feel about Jesus?" "I love Jesus."
And that attitude is in the hearts of men today, but you don't get to love Jesus and hate God, because that's not a faith that saves.
This is not a popularity contest. You take all of him or you take none of him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:58
And today we need to talk about this, because we celebrate Jesus and we villainize God. Never dissociate the Father from the Son and the work of redemption. No, the covenant of grace was made from eternity, and Jesus came to fulfill a stipulation of the covenant, through which it God was pleased to suffer.
It is an equal, precious—or pernicious—error if we overlook the Son. It is not okay. How many talk about God and pray to God and speak of God's mercy, but what have they to do with God if they ignore or despise his Son? That other way happens in our world today. It's all about God, but they reject the Son. Think about world religions. Think about non-believers who will pray to God, but they reject the Son.
Now in our world we say, "Well, we make much of Jesus," very innocently oftentimes, and we forsake God, but there is a world that embraced God but rejected his Son.
You can't do that either, because that type of faith is not saving faith. It's not faith at all, certainly not that which the Lord gives. It may be secular in nature, but it is not divine. Let us not err to reject Jesus or reject God, for both of them are important.
God will not hear you, he will not answer your prayers if you do not come to him by Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible says. There is but one way to come to the Father, and that is through his Son Jesus Christ, and you cannot approach God without one mediator between God and man, who is Jesus.
So every time you pray, the only way your prayer gets to God is through Christ.
It's the only way he hears you, and so those who pray to God without Christ, what a way to exhaust your breath.
But let us not forget that the delivering up of Christ and the raising of Christ from the dead are ascribed to the Father. So the two fruits that come from them are also of the Father. The first fruit is this: the pardon of sin. "Who was delivered for our offenses," that was in chapter 4, verse 25. He was delivered for our offenses. The second fruit is justification, "and was raised again for our justification." That's the two fruits of believing in both. These are both the work of the Father. It is the Father who forgives, and it is the Father who justifies. Don't forget that. It's not Jesus who does it's the Father who does it because of Jesus.
It's the Father who extends grace. It's the Father who justifies. It's the Father who has mercy.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:35
The faith which saves concerns itself with Jesus Christ alone. True faith looks to nothing else that is ours for hope. It looks at nothing in ourself for hope.
It only looks to Jesus Christ and God the Father. When we look inward for hope, we should find nothing there worth having, nothing worth trusting to save us, for anything we do or have done in our own strength is filthy rags to the Lord.
Saving faith views Jesus Christ as the true treasure, and we are grateful to God for that sacrifice.
Do you notice in this Scripture there's a couple things three times over that I want to draw attention to, and if you're comfortable writing in your Bible, and I certainly am, if you're comfortable doing that, I would encourage you to circle these things three times over. Just mark with a pencil under each
Point 5Saving faith receives Jesus as Savior and Lord
Little pronoun each time it's mentioned. And here it is, true faith receives Jesus Christ as our Lord. Jesus our Lord, our Jesus, our Savior. Not only a Savior but our Savior. Not only my Savior but our Savior, and being Lord as well as Savior. We acknowledge him as our Lord. Jesus, we take him to be our Lord.
This is how he himself puts it: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." And this we desire to do. This then is the true, unfeigned faith which saves the soul, the faith which appropriates Jesus as our Savior and as our Lord. That matters in a world of individualism, because this is saving faith. Not me, mine, I. Our savior, our Lord, and not just Savior. Lord. He is Lord whether you take him and call him Lord or not, but to be saved, you've got to accept him as your Lord. He's your Lord regardless, but you have to allow him to be Lord of your life. That's the key. That's important. Our faith for salvation relies on Christ's death and resurrection, not just his death but also his resurrection. Our faith for salvation relies on Christ's death and resurrection, who was delivered for our offense and was raised again for our justification. Those who do not believe he was raised again will not be justified, and those who are not justified will not be saved.
This all matters, ladies and gentlemen. It matters. It matters.
You know the only difference? See, because Satan believes all of this. He believes he died, he believes he resurrected, he believes he is the Savior of the world, he knows what it's going to do. He believes in all of that, but he does not have faith. Why? It's a Lordship issue.
It is an issue of wanting to be worshiped as Lord versus worshiping him as the Lord. Are you with me today? So you can get all the head knowledge right, and you can have an understanding about who God is, and you can believe in him, and you can believe that Jesus was real, and you could believe that he was more than a prophet, you can believe that he died, you can believe that it was atonement for sin, you could believe in propitiation, you can believe in justification, but you don't have justification.
And you can believe that he raised from the dead, but if he's not your Lord, then you believed in vain.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:22
And all those other things. Are you with me today? And today we need to consider this today, because one thing I know is that we have people that are sitting, that will worship in churches and then stand before the Lord, and God will turn them away because Jesus was everything to them except for Lord. Does that mean you'll be perfect? No, it didn't say that in the Bible. 1 John says those who say they don't have sin are liars, and the truth isn't even in them. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to do that, but you're going to keep turning to the Lord, not to yourself. You're going to keep turning to the Lord and putting your faith and trust in him, not yourself. Even when you put your faith in yourself, you're going to be like, "Idiot," and turn yourself to the Lord. How many of you have an idiot moment every once in a while? Amen. You can raise your hand. I'm not going to trick you with anything, right? I mean, I have that, and it doesn't disqualify you, because you're saved by faith, not by the fact that you never make a mistake. You're saved by trusting in his righteousness and his goodness. And just in case you didn't know, like, let's go back to the very beginning of this, just because I want to talk about this: "That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness." It doesn't mean that you're righteous.
It means his righteousness covers you, so when God looks at you, he sees the righteousness of Christ, not your silliness.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:09
All right, it's not—his righteousness was not imparted to you, it was imputed to you. Those are different. Go look them up, I don't have time. His righteousness was not imparted to you, it was imputed to you. Go take some time and think about that, because the way you interpret that matters, and those who interpret it "imparted"
Begin to carry a burden that they're not saved, because when they look at their life they still see sin.
You've got to get an understanding. "In all thy ways, get an understanding" about this, because it matters. All right. Our faith for salvation relies on Christ's death and resurrection. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to understand that his resurrection is important, his death is important, and his lordship is important. "Observe then that a faith which only deals with the historical narrative of Christ's life will not save you. If you believe that there was such a person as Jesus Christ, even if you truly believe that he was both God and man, if you believe all that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote, and all the epistles as well, yet if you believe this only in the sense that they are historically true, you have not yet attained saving faith. You must go beyond that, if you are to possess the faith mentioned in the text here. There are some who do not truly believe, although they have faith in the accuracy of Christ's teaching. Yes, they say he is a wonderful teacher and whatever he taught is true, but then they do not particularly believe that it is merely the doctrine that they take and not the God. It is the doctrine they accept but not the God, the Christ who gave the doctrine. They don't accept that. They simply exercise their brain intellectually, but they do not trust him with their heart spiritually.
They do not trust God who raised Christ from the dead. There is a difference between someone who believes in God and someone who trusts God with their life.
These are not the same. The chasm between them is great, one that cannot be crossed without the help of Christ.
Those who do not trust God who raised Christ from the dead, in fact, after all, they do not build upon the two main foundational stones of saving faith, namely the death and resurrection of our Lord Christ."
I don't know, I hope you're encouraged today, and I think you should go home this week and you should read the faith chapter in Hebrews 11. You should read about the men and women who've gone before us. You should listen to their lives. You should hear about their faith, and you should remember this message and know that our faith is the same. It manifests differently, but our faith is the same, if you believe in God who sent Jesus and raised him from the dead and he is your Savior and your Lord.
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49:07Now playing
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