through which we look to understand ourselves and the world in which we live, and you, salvation in Christ. We pray that you would teach us of these things, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So, gotcha. Sorry. Thank you. Westminster Confession, okay? I know some of you might wonder, why do we care about a bunch of old dead guys, right? I mean, they're old. No offense to those of you who claim the label of old, but they're old and they're dead. What does it matter? That's an important question for us to address. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about that in just a second, but here's where we are in the Westminster Confession document crafted in the 1640s in England amidst civil war. So it's not a bunch of ivory tower theologians who are just up there kind of nerding out for a little bit, okay? You know, these guys had lost loved ones. They had lost children. I've mentioned to some of you before, one of the guys who was there, Samuel Rutherford, he lost two of his kids while he was there. Two of them died. These people, they suffered. They knew what suffering was like, and they're writing this for the purpose of really trying to help us. And as we think about this particular section, chapters 14 through 18, it's focused on redemption applied. And that's a topic that's been discussed in the earlier sections, and it continues to be discussed here. And let me ask you, why does this matter? Why does it matter that we talk about doctrine from the Westminster Confession, for example? Why does that matter? Yes? We want to teach the truth. Yeah, truth matters. Truth matters. We talked a little bit about that a couple of weeks ago in the sermon. What else? Yeah, so if we don't have right doctrine, we'll be blown all over the place, right? We want no stability in life unless we have an anchor for our souls. Is the world going to give back to us? No, it's going to blow us all over the place. Is our own thoughts going to give it? No, come on, be honest with yourself. You know that if you just do what you think is best, You can be blown all over the place, okay? So that's something we need to remember here. We could talk a lot more about this, and perhaps we will at other times in this study, but I want us to make sure that we understand we're not just doing this so that we could nerd out on some doctrine, okay? This is super practical, okay, for our daily lives. And it brings us to Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 14. which Trey started last week on the topic of faith and what is faith. We could spend a lot of time talking about what is faith. There's a sense in which when you walked in this door, when you walk through those doors and you sat down in that chair right there, you exercise some faith. True? I mean, you didn't break out your tape measurer and run through some mathematical equation to make sure that that chair is going to hold you up. You didn't do that. You exercise some faith based off of a pattern that has been developed in the past. You've sat in that chair and you haven't fallen. Or you've sat in chairs like it, so you draw conclusions. That's not really the kind of faith we're talking about here. It's sort of, but not specifically. The Westminster Confession helps us to think about faith in a specific manner. And one thing that it does is it leads us to consider how faith actually is knowledge. It's facts that we assent to, that we believe, and we believe those things to be true. And then we trust them. So faith is a set of facts that I'm believing to be true, and then I trust that set of facts. That's important to make sure that we understand. Faith has an object. When you, it's gonna be Thanksgiving soon. I don't know what you do on Thanksgiving, but one of the things that happens at my house is not necessarily something I'm, yes, I'm most gung-ho about, but my children have always loved to watch the goofy elephants, the goofy Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's not my favorite, okay? But they love to watch it and obviously all the little goofy characters and whatnot and that kind of stuff. And inevitably you're going to see somewhere up there on a sign, what word? Starts with a B, ends with an E. Believe. Leads you to wonder, believe what? Okay? Believe in the tooth fairy? Believe in SpongeBob SquarePants? What? What am I supposed to believe in? Christianity says our faith is grounded and rooted in a particular person. It's not just facts. It's facts that are about Jesus Christ. So, last time we focused on saving faith. Who works to give us saving faith? The Holy Spirit does. And how does the Holy Spirit give saving faith and grow saving faith? Through the means of grace. So if somebody is going to get saving faith, and if someone wants their saving faith matured and strengthened, They need to place themselves under the means of grace. Word, sacraments, and prayer. These are the primary means by which God works and grows saving faith. So that was last week. This week we're going to focus on what faith does and in whom is faith placed. Both of which you may already know the answer to. but we'll try to unpack it a little bit in some detail as the confession leads us to. So chapter 14, sections 2 and 3. Here's chapter 14, section 2. By this faith a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the word because of the authority of God Himself speaking in it. He also responds differently to what each particular passage contains, obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. by virtue of the covenant of grace. Okay, now that's a mouthful, right? So we're going to try to break that down a good bit, right? So think about this. Oops, sorry. Let's just do this. Here we go. Let's just use the old school button, okay, rather than the clicker. So, think about faith's action, okay? Faith's action. By this faith, a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word because of the authority of God Himself speaking in it. So, what is one thing that faith does? Faith believes, or trusts, Scripture. Do you see that there? A Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word because of the authority of God speaking in it. And why does the Christian believe Scripture? because of the authority of God speaking in it, okay? A Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word. What if that thing that is revealed in the Word goes against culture? Do we go with culture or do we go with scripture? We go with scripture. Now here's an interesting one for our day and time. that may be pertinent for us. Matter of fact, I'm sure that it is for every single person in this room. What if Scripture says something contrary to my desires, my emotions, my feelings? What do I go with? Scripture or my emotions, my desires? yet the heart is deceitful. We're going to actually speak a little bit about that in the sermon. I should not, I should not put confidence in myself, but all confidence in God's word. Okay. It's kind of like we are similar to a two year old. Should a two year old trust their own thinking? No, of course not. We, we know that. Okay. And we, we help them because we care about them. We don't want them to trust their own feelings. We don't want them to trust their own thoughts completely. Instead, we want them to trust Scripture, trust their parents insofar as their parents are leading them rightly. In a similar fashion, God wants us to trust Him because He knows what's best for us. He loves us. He cares about us. He does not want us to trust the world and He certainly does not want us to trust ourselves because He knows how dangerous that can be. A Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word. This is Acts 24, 14. I have a vivid memory many years ago teaching theory of knowledge at public high school. And we had been talking about ethics in class and how do we know what is right and wrong. How do we make right decisions morally speaking? And this is a public school setting. Two girls after school that I knew very well, they chased me down to my car to ask me the question, Mr. Daniel, we know that you're a Christian. We are Christians. Do you believe everything that the Bible says? I said, well, yes, I do believe what the Bible teaches. They looked at me and they said, Mr. Daniel, we don't. There are just some things morally we can't embrace, whether that be regarding sexuality or fill in the blank. That's what they meant it as, regarding sexuality and things like that. But do we accept only part of the Bible or all of the Bible? We are to accept all of it because God knows better than we do. How foolish would it be for the two-year-old to shake their fists at their parents saying, why don't you let me play out in the street? You're being mean to me. I want to express my true self. I desire to go out and play in the middle of 575. Quit inhibiting me. They wouldn't use that word because they don't know that word. Okay, two-year-old. But you get the idea. Why has God put boundaries? Because He loves us and He knows what's best for us. We would do well to submit to those boundaries, to submit to what Scripture teaches. Not part of it, but all of it because God knows best. Saving faith trusts the whole of the Bible because God inspired the whole of the Bible for our redemption. You've heard it before. It's worth repeating again and again and again. Everyone trusts in something. It's just a matter of what. What do we trust? Do we trust ourselves over the Bible? Our culture over the Bible? Really? Or how about God who created us and who loves us and has shown his love Jesus Christ. Here's what we shouldn't do, okay? We shouldn't see the Bible as an opportunity, you know, like we're going to the grocery store and we'll pick out some cereal, okay? What's your favorite cereal? Huh? Fruity Pebbles? No, Linda, please tell me that is not true. Fruity Pebbles. Chuck, Really? Okay. You learn something every day when you come to church, okay? Right? Fruity pebbles. But when we look at the Scriptures, it's not like, ooh, I like that, and I think I'll get me some of that over there, and let me get a little bit of this, and I'm gonna bypass on that right there because that's nasty, okay? Fruity pebbles. Keep going. You know, that's not how we should look at the Bible. OK, that's certainly not how we should look at the Bible. Faith's action calls us to embrace all that the scriptures teach, because the scriptures are given for our benefit, for our good, to help us. Faith's action, though, also entails what we see here. He also responds differently to what each particular passage contains. Obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. So faith's action responds appropriately to Scripture. It submits to Scripture, and then it responds appropriately to Scripture. How does it respond appropriately to Scripture? Well, obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God. Let's think about each one of those for just a second. Obeying. Somebody read Romans chapter 12. Verses 9 through 13. Romans 12, 9 through 13. First person there, hit it. Love be genuine before what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. I do want another in showing honor. Do not be slothful and zeal, be fervent in the spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, and seek to show hospitality. Obeying? See any obeying in there? Any call to obey? Any commands given in that section? It's all commands, okay? It's all in the imperative. Very clearly, when we read that, it is a charge to obey. So there are portions of Scripture that are directing us to obey, to do what God has told us to do. As a matter of fact, Ephesians 2 verse 10, we were saved for obedience. We were saved for good works. We were not only saved for heaven, as we're talking about in the morning sermons, but we're saved to be changed now, to be transformed now. And how does that transformation show itself? One way is in us conforming to God's commands, doing what God has told us to do. Because God knows what's best. He cares about us. He loves us. And He doesn't want us to go down sin disobedience's path, sin's path. He wants us to go down the path of righteousness because that's what's for our good in this life and certainly for the life to come. How about trembling? When we read the Bible, should we tremble? Sometimes we should. Let's go to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. I'll read this one. 21 to 23. Perhaps one of the most frightening portions of scripture. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." That should cause us to tremble, a holy trembling that leads us to repentance and to follow the Lord. to stick close to Christ. Isaiah 66 verse 2 speaks about how God is a God upon whom we are to tremble. When we look to Him, when we see Him in His holiness in view of our sinfulness, we tremble. How about embracing? So how do we respond to Scripture? Obey. Where portions call us to obey, we seek to obey. Where God's holiness, for example, is presented to us, we tremble in light of our sinfulness. But we also come embracing. Somebody read Hebrews 11, verse 13. Hebrews 11, verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Yeah, who's he talking about there? Hebrews 11, what is that chapter? A hall of faith. Who's listed in there? Shout out some names. Moses, Samson, David, anybody else? Abraham, Rahab, there's a whole bunch of them, okay? There's a list of them, okay? And what did they do? They embraced promises that had not yet been fulfilled in their day and time. They were looking forward to the better country, to the Christ who would bring that better country. Their eyes were on Jesus Christ who had not yet come. They were embracing God's promises. So when we come to the Scriptures, there are portions of the Bible that charge us to obey commands. There are other portions of the Bible, when we read it, there should be a holy trembling about us that leads us to say, woe is me, I am undone, I need the Lord Jesus. And then there are other portions that drive us to embrace God's promises and to trust the Lord with all our hearts, Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Any questions or comments, thoughts about that? Well, saving faith recognizes that if passages have different emphases, they may require different responses. That makes sense, right? I mean, that's like literature 101. You're reading a book and sometimes the writer leads you to weep because of the story you're reading. Other times it's to get upset because of the story you're reading. Well, the Bible, in many respects, is doing the same thing. Some portions lead us to Obey. Other portions charge us to repent. Other portions might cause us to tremble. Other places to glory in God's promises and to hold tightly to them all our days. So that's faith's action. Faith's action requires us to embrace the Scriptures, to hold tightly to them, and to respond to them in the way in which Scripture dictates that we respond. Faith's action, if we could boil it down to something, like synthesize it down to its core, the confession helpfully does that for us. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. by virtue of the covenant of grace. So if you want to boil down fate's action, fate's response, it's this right here. Accepting, receiving, and resting. Okay? Accepting, receiving, and resting. What do you think is meant by accepting? What can we say about that? Are these just three words that are getting at the same idea? Are they synonymous or are each three trying to teach us something a little different? What would accepting be teaching us? Believe. Yep. We agree that He is our Savior, that we need Him as a Savior. Yes. Yeah. So it's a recognition that, hey, I, I need the Lord. It's a recognition of some Kohar facts. that can be easily empirically verified. I'm a sinner. All you'd have to do is just have somebody watch our lives and take notes. Or, you know, clean off the window of our heart and see what's going on on the inside. And we'd find out pretty quickly, yeah, I'm pretty rotten. So it's an accepting of our own sinfulness and an accepting that Christ is our only hope. We agree with Christ. We agree with what God has said about us and himself in the scriptures. How about receiving? What's the different nuance there? I don't want to give too much of the sermon away. Okay. Right. Um, but if you're going to receive something, what do you have to do? You got to take it. But before you can take it, what do you have to do? I got all this stuff right here, OK? And she wants to give me that pen right there. What do I need to do? I might need to put some of this down, OK? Right? Maybe put it all down. I mean, the pen is small, so just stick it on top. But you get the idea, OK? Maybe I should have used a different analogy than a pen. But the idea here is that receiving, it's not, I'm not doing something to get salvation, to get these things that are mentioned a little bit later on. Okay, not ultimately, I'm not doing something, I'm receiving it. That may require me to repent, certainly requires me to repent, to put down some things in order to receive Christ. Yes, go ahead. Yes. and yet not willing to accept grace. Yes, exactly. Which then leads to that third one right there, resting. What does that mean? Trust. To trust. Each one of those are important. Really, each one of those parallels the three aspects of faith that we talked about at the beginning. Accepting. There's these facts that you believe to be true. You accept them as true and you receive them as true. And then you trust them as true. That's the idea here. That's faith's action. Accepting, receiving, and resting. And resting upon what? Christ. What's the significance of the words there? Resting upon Christ alone. What's the significance there? Start with Christ. Don't go to the lone yet. Okay? Because that's easy. What's the significance of accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ? Why doesn't it say accepting, receiving, and resting upon a set of theological truths? Why upon Christ? Yes, Chris. So the doctrine is meant to explain the person and work of Christ. We're putting our faith in a person, which does drive home the importance of relationship in Christianity. We're not just assenting to a set of propositions. we are submitting ourselves to the God of the universe who took flesh and bone in order to come into this world to redeem us. Some of you have read perhaps C.S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress. I don't necessarily recommend it, it's super difficult. But one of the brilliant things that he does there in that book is he describes how the guy's name is John, the pilgrim is John. John, you're in the book. John is trying to get to this city, this place, and along the way, he thinks that I can get there by doing this, and by doing this, and by doing this, and this, and this, and this, and this. But eventually over time, he comes to the realization, those things are not going to get me where I desire to go. And it's actually not by following a list of rules either, or simply embracing a set of propositions. What I most want, what I most desire is actually not to get to heaven, but it's to be with the God of heaven, okay? That's one of the brilliant things that C.S. Lewis does there is he says, listen, our focus is actually on the landlord, the one who is over it all. And it is upon him that we rest our fate, that is upon Christ. So the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone, only, okay? Only Christ, not Christ plus something else. For what? For justification. What's justification? We don't have time to go into that. We talked about that. being declared righteous, okay? So we rest upon Christ alone for justification, for the forgiveness of our sins and being declared righteous in God's sight. We don't rest on what we do, rest on Christ. For our sanctification, that's interesting, how do we, what is sanctification? Yeah, ongoing holiness, growth in godliness. That's telling us that the way in which we grow in godliness is how? It's Christ, okay? It's Christ. Now does that mean I just sit back and do nothing? Of course not. But the motivation for holiness is found in Jesus Christ. The means of holiness is found in Christ. And so I'm always I in Christ. And of course, eternal life, the way to heaven, is Christ in Christ only, okay? In fulfillment of what? The covenant of grace, which we don't have time to really get into. Again, it's kind of the so what question, okay? Why does all of this matter? Well, it impacts you in the day to day, okay? What would be an answer to the so what question? Why does this matter? What we're talking about here, faith's action. Embracing scripture, holding tightly to scripture, responding rightly to scripture, and then accepting, receiving, and resting in Christ alone. Why does that matter? To be ready to give an answer Right, so maybe an answer to minister to others? What were you going to say? The object of your faith makes all the difference. Absolutely. If it's not the person, the God, man, Jesus, then you're lost. Absolutely, be lost. Anything else? Yes? Prevents that you may have a belief that's okay, Christian, but the next generation, if you believe something in error, it's going to keep you from that error. Yeah, absolutely. And think about it like this. Remember again, Who's writing this? A bunch of folks who have faced tremendous loss, who have personal scars, emotional scars, physical wounds from being in battle or from being persecuted. Some of them had faced significant jail time. They had lost children. They had lost wives. These folks had suffered immensely in ways that you and I probably never will. and they're writing this theology in order to bring you comfort, okay? To comfort you and encourage you that you would stand and go on standing and holding fast to the truth. However, very quickly, this last one here is just pretty brief. We do know, we do understand that faith has degrees, okay? Faith has degrees. This faith varies in degrees. It may be weak or strong. It may often and in many ways be assailed and weakened, but it gains the victory. It matures in many to the attainment of a full assurance through faith, who is both the author and the perfecter of our faith." Notice this part right here, faith varies in degrees. It may be weak or strong. Now, there's a sense in which that should encourage you, okay? Think about weak faith. Is weak faith faith? Yes, yes, okay? Unbelief, exactly, yes. In Matthew 17, 19 through 20, you know, if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed, that's a whole bunch of faith, right? No, not much, okay? Very, very tiny. And yet, that kind of faith is faith that the Lord blesses. So weak faith, small faith, is saving faith. You don't have to have the faith of spiritual giants. That should encourage you in your weakness. Praise the Lord for that. Does that mean we just stay there? Weak faith will do good enough. I think I'll just stay here. Why would we want to? If we have true faith, why would we want to stay in weak faith? That is not how love responds to Christ with weak faith. Instead, we want to have strong faith. Weak faith saves, but weak faith must grow. Why do we have weak faith? Faith varies in degrees. It may be weak or strong. It may often and in many ways be assailed and weakened. Why might we have weak faith? Difficult circumstances. What else? Sin. Anything else you can think of? Persecution. Things like that. Physical suffering. Sometimes our faith can be assailed and weakened by the flesh, by the devil, by the world, by hardships, all of these things can weaken faith, okay? How do we get stronger faith? You ask for it, okay? You might remember that when we did 1 Peter, I encouraged us all to pray a song from John Newton. I asked the Lord that I might grow, And you can look up the song to get the rest. But as the story goes on in that song, John Newton, the writer, realizes that I'm going to suffer because oftentimes God uses the difficulties of life to help us to grow within the context of the means of grace being administered to us. We get strong faith by remembering the victory that we have in Jesus Christ. That's one way that we get stronger faith, reflecting on Christ, His victory in the cross. Colossians 2, 13-15 talks about that. How do we get stronger faith? Well, we look to Christ. I mean, that's pretty straightforward in the Confession. It matures in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ. So if I want stronger faith, I focus on Christ. And we never can exhaust ourselves of Christ. Why? Who is Jesus? He's infinite. He's the infinite, eternal, unchangeable God who is incomprehensible, who put on flesh and bone in order to save us. Okay? You'll never reach the limit of knowing Christ. He's unlike the things in this world where your kid gets a toy at Christmas and after about two weeks, hey, can I have another one? Because they just have gotten tired of it. We can never grow tired of Christ, okay? And if we feel ourselves moving in that direction, it's not Christ's fault. It's the man or the woman in the mirror's fault. It's my fault, okay? Faith's impact also, well, it includes assurance. So faith's impact will lead us to, of course, salvation in Christ, growth in faith, but also assurance of Christ's love. Why do we need that? Why is assurance important? Anything you can think of? It gives us hope. Yep. In what sense? So if you live long enough as a Christian, you probably have already experienced this. The devil will throw past sins back up in your face in order to beat you down. Maybe you really blew it, like big time blew it. And the devil loves nothing more than to bring that back up to kick you to the curb so that in your weak moments when you fall into sin, you begin to question whether you really are a believer. This particular section of the confession will build to a later section on the assurance of salvation. We can have assurance of Christ's love. That's one of the impacts of faith. We can be assured that Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us, but has bled and died for us. Saving faith saves, sanctifies, and assures us of God's love and of God's commitment. Saving faith eyes not just its benefits, but especially the one who brings them. Saving faith looks to Jesus Christ Himself. So as we kind of land the plane here, what faith does, what is it that faith does? Well, it embraces Scripture, holds tightly to Scripture, trusts Scripture over ourselves and over the world, and faith goes about maturing and growing in the faith and responding rightly to Scripture, obeying Scripture, being threatened when we should be threatened, feeling a sense of tremble, okay, as we consider God's holiness in our sinfulness, but then also embracing God's promises and the hope of the gospel. And faith grows, okay, faith grows. In whom is faith placed? Sunday school answer is great. Christ. And Christ is the one who makes it so that our faith grows and matures and is strengthened. And so we want to eye Christ each and every day. Any questions or comments, thoughts? Make sense? A little bit? Great. Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are worthy of all praise and adoration. You have given us Christ crucified and resurrected. You have given us the scriptures to tell us about Christ. Let us be people who trust Christ, who trust your word and not ourselves. How foolish we are to think that we could trust the world or ourselves. Let us be those who ultimately rest upon scripture and who place our hope and confidence in Jesus Christ. And may such action, Holy Spirit, induced action on our part cause us to grow, to grow in faith. Let us not have a weak faith, but a maturing faith. We pray that you would use the means of grace even today to do that. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you guys.