You're listening to audio from Ascend Church. For more information about Ascend or to access more gospel-centered tools to grow as a disciple of Christ, visit AscendKC.org. All right, so we are in a series right now, and we're going to kind of continue on in that series called, Who Are We? And we've really taken the last number of weeks to dig into scripture, specifically the New Testament, to see what God is showing us on how the local church is supposed to live. And we've gotten to see God's character on display throughout this process, and it's just been awesome. And so we're going to kind of continue that this morning. Last week, Tim Yatch preached on sort of the sufficiency of Scripture, and that all Scripture comes from God, all Scripture is profitable, and it equips us. And so with that foundational piece in mind, this morning we're gonna actually dig into an essential piece of Christian orthodoxy or doctrine found in the scriptures, which I believe will help us better see God for who he is, us for who we are in light of that, and then how we are to, as a local church, live out this specific doctrine in our lives. So that doctrine that we're gonna be digging into this morning is called sola fide. How many of you have heard of that phrase? A few of you, yeah. All right, well, this phrase came out of the five solas which were birthed out of the Protestant Reformation, and they are, just so we kind of have a context for where we're going this morning, sola scriptura, which Tim kind of covered a little bit last week in his message, and then myself this week is sola fide, which is by faith alone. And then, sola gratia, which is by grace alone. And then, solus Christus, by Christ alone. And then the last one, soli Deo gloria, which is to the glory of God alone. And really the reformers back in the 16th century came up with these five statements as they searched the scriptures to show where Christians needed to stay and believe in to be under a biblical orthodoxy or truth. And we'll see as we dig into this topic this morning that Sola Fide was really the central contention of the reformers that led them to rally around these five truths. In fact, John Calvin, if you guys know who that is, said this. He said that sola fide was actually the hinge upon which everything turns. So we've got to ask right off the bat this morning, is it really that big of an issue? Were the Reformers more kind of like alarmists or was it just kind of semantics, the way the words were being used? Or is this a gospel issue? Is it still a gospel issue for us today that we need to wrestle with and believe in to stay within Christian truth and orthodoxy? You ready to dig a little bit this morning? All right. So as we continue, let me give you the big idea of the sermon as we kind of move into it. And that is this, once we have a better understanding of the problem and the assault on justification by faith alone, and then we see God's character in light of Sola Fide, we can then be more confident in who we are as Christ followers and how we are to live as a local church in light of this truth. You ready? All right. Here's the thing, though. We might be tempted to think that the Reformers were sort of taking new ground with their pursuit of justification by faith alone. In reality, though, we can go back much further in the scriptures, actually, and see that contending for sola fide has been around for much, much longer. So grab your Bibles or your phones. If you don't have a Bible, you can slip up your hand, the ushers can come down and they'll hand you one. If you don't have a Bible, this is our gift to you. We at Ascend want to be people of God's word, digging in and growing on a daily basis. And that leads us to our first point this morning, which is uncovering the problem. And we're going to start this morning with the Galatian problem. So you can follow me in your Bibles to Galatians 1, starting at the end of verse 2 through verse 9. I'm going to read it for us here this morning. It says this, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. And then in verse six, he kind of turns specifically into the topic we're talking about here this morning. He says, I am astonished that you so quickly You are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if it were an angel from heaven who should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. You know, I read that passage and I thought, what phrases and what kind of language sticks out to me and what sticks out to us this morning? And I immediately thought of the universal and strong language that Paul is using. He says, any other gospel. He says, twice, let him be accursed. That is some extremely strong language. And you can see Paul is very passionate about this topic. So obviously to Paul, this was a gospel issue and eternity was at stake. So we can see that if this truly was the same issue as the reformers had, then of course they could not overstate the problem and the reality of this departure. But here's the question, what exactly was the departure in the Galatian church? Where was the departure from the gospel that Paul preached? And what does this have to do with Sola Fide? Well, we can see pretty clearly that the churches in Galatia were turning to a different gospel in the absence of Paul. And they needed correction, as you can see in verse six. They were abandoning the grace of Christ, which really indicated a move to embrace something other than Jesus' perfect gift of righteousness as grounds for our salvation. One of the reformers said that the grace of Christ means that it has come from Christ as its author, or that it purely exhibits Christ. Since there is no other gospel than the one Christ entrusted to Paul, the new teachers to which the Galatians were turning did not come from Jesus. Neither did they present Christ truly, for they said one must follow Jesus and rely on the works of the law for salvation. Apparently they were telling the newcomers that true Christians submit to circumcision, taking upon themselves the yoke of the Mosaic law in addition to faith in Christ. These instructors have traditionally been called the Judaizers because they imposed Jewish practices like circumcision and kosher law and so on and so on on the Gentile believers. But to be clear, where they did not go wrong in their departure of the true gospel, we need to realize this. The Galatians' departure from orthodoxy was not over the person and work of Christ, like the Corinthian church, if you go read Corinthians, and the questioning of the resurrection. It was actually a departure on how the benefits of the ministry of Jesus were given to or administered to sinners. Let me say it this way, and this is important. This is important for us to realize. This is a theology that we need to understand. A Christian orthodoxy and staying within its framework not only rests on the objective truths and content of the gospel, but it also rests on the critically important question of how that content is given to or appropriated to the sinner. I'm gonna say that one more time so we can kind of think through that reality here this morning. Christian orthodoxy and staying within its framework not only rests on the objective truths and content found in scripture on the gospel, but it also rests on the critically important question of how that content is administered to or given to the sinner. See, they hadn't fallen into what we today would call Pelagianism, and that's essentially the doctrine that we aren't tainted by original sin, and in fact, solely our works would get us into heaven. Now, the false teachers in Galatia were much more subtle than that, and the church was much more susceptible to this dilution of the true gospel. that it actually, as you can see in the text that we read, it actually astonished Paul how quickly they had turned. So maybe at this point, you need to ask yourself the question as we're engaging with this topic, where might there be areas in your life that you are adding to the gospel, that you are contributing to a faith plus gospel Do you see how Paul's words to the Galatians really start to help us uncover the problem? Well, let's actually move forward a little bit in history and look at the Roman Catholic problem and see how it compares. Let's see what the actual dispute was in regards to the Catholic Church and the actual need for the Protestant Reformation. So we're gonna dig into a little bit of history here for a few minutes. Here's what Rome taught, and you gotta follow the progression to kinda understand how they got to where they got. They taught that justification was accomplished through the first administration of the sacraments, like baptism and communion. See, Rome then got to define the means by which all the benefits of the person and work of Christ were communicated to the people. They would have said that the instrumental sacrament of baptism sort of allows justification to be infused into the soul of the recipient, not by Christ, but by the actual power of the sacrament itself. You see the problem kind of brewing here? Pretty obvious. That person then, so continue to follow the progression, that person then must operate in a state of justification afterwards to attain righteousness, until or unless they commit a mortal sin. And what a mortal sin does is it kills the grace of justification in the soul. And if committed, they would say that faith remains, but that justification is killed. I know that's a lot to kind of start wrestling through and think through. But you gotta hear this progression, you gotta see this progression. So you need to be justified, so we'll tell you how that happens. That's what they would say. And you don't stay justified, so we'll tell you what you need to do in order to stay justified. So if Rome holds the keys to justification, they sort of hold the keys to the kingdom and have unbelievable amounts of power and influence. So then again, the progression here. Rome's next step is if justification is killed in someone, what's the next step? How do they get it back? Everyone wants to know. Enter the sacrament of penance or confession. Here's the thing. The Reformation wasn't ultimately fought over the confession of sins to a priest. Confession is biblical, amen? And Christians have an assurance of the absolution of the guilt and the penalty of sin when authentic confession takes place. Now, of course, the importance of a priest in that equation was called into question, but the offense was actually much deeper than that. So what was it? What was the actual offense? Well, it could really simply be said like this. Works of satisfaction were necessary to reattain justification. Let me say that again. Works of satisfaction were necessary to reattain justification. One commentary I read, in one commentary I read, the author talked about how the Catholic religious system is like running on a sacramental treadmill, so to speak. Working and toiling and trying to gain favor with God and ultimately falling off the treadmill just to get back on over and over and over again. Or just running as if you were never actually moving. So we got to turn that analogy on ourself, I think, this morning as we think through this. Are you on your own sacramental treadmill? Are you working? Are you toiling? Are you trying to gain favor apart from God's grace and faith given to you in your life? Are you just repeating the same cycle of works over and over and over again? Or are you being weighed down by the extra baggage you're adding to the gospel and not going anywhere as a result? You need to hear this this morning. It will never work. You will never be right before God because of any of your own merit or any of the things that you do. Christ makes you right and Christ keeps you right. Amen. So ultimately, the problem that the Reformers had and the case that Martin Luther was trying to make was that the instrument of justification, being right before God, was not baptism. It was faith and faith alone. He knew that a faith plus gospel is no gospel at all. As R.C. Sproul puts it, the Romans ultimately choked to death on the word alone. Can you see how the root of the Galatians problem and the Roman Catholic Church's problem is sort of one in the same? Can you see how they both were trying to add to faith in order to be justified before God? Well, as we look at those two realities, we'd be a fool to think that It's a Galatian problem. It's a Roman Catholic problem. We'd be a fool not to think that we are affected by this reality in our own lives and that we aren't susceptible to the same temptations or that we don't have false teachers that are trying to sway us away from the truth. Listen to the statement by John MacArthur, which I think really encapsulates our present day struggle and warning for us to not be swayed by any other gospel than the one Paul preached. He says this, Christianity is a religion of divine accomplishment, with the emphasis always on Christ's finished work. All others are religions of human achievement. They become preoccupied, inevitably, with the sinner's own efforts to be holy. Abandon the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and you cannot honestly claim to be evangelical. Now, I got the opportunity a few months ago to preach this message when I was in Romania, and an obvious impact that this had on them as they were thinking through this topic was the Eastern Orthodox Church. And for us, here and now, we probably have relationships with or know somebody who's in the Catholic Church that this impacts and affects. However, remember, first, that it's not the Eastern Orthodox title or the Roman Catholic title that really puts a person outside of biblical orthodoxy. It's ultimately their departure from the true gospel. So to the degree that they adhere to the doctrines and the principles of those religions is the distance they have departed from true Christianity as the Bible defines it. But here's another layer I'd like us to consider this morning. There oftentimes, I think, is a temptation for us to think that we've uncovered this problem that's outside of ourselves, that's outside of our church, and that we just have to seek out and destroy, kind of seek out and destroy this problem with our Bible hammer, or with our superior theological knowledge so that we can just win an argument. which I also believe just so happens to be the mindset of the entire social media realm. What I really want us to do this morning is crawl out from underneath this narrow-minded rock of pride that we may find ourselves in and look inward first to ourselves and ask questions like, where might I be tempted in my life to not see Christ's finished work as enough for my justification before him? And while I might claim that truth theologically, how might I be functionally living in a way that cheapens God's grace and elevates my works to a place outside of orthodoxy or the true gospel? Again, am I trying to just run on my own sacramental treadmill, working and struggling to gain favor with God? All right, as we're processing these things, I just want to take a quick exit ramp. It's not really an exit ramp, but it's just kind of to expound on something maybe a little bit more, a question that you might have. You might be asking the question and you might say, okay, well, I get all the things that you're saying, but what about in James? What about in James chapter two, and he says, faith without works is dead. What's he saying there? Is this whole argument that we've been talking about, uncovering the problem, is it really turned upside down and it's really no problem at all because works are part of the salvation story? Well, of course, the answer to that is no, that's not the case. James is not calling into question the reality that true faith in Christ and from Christ saves you. He's calling into question whether or not the faith you claim to have is authentic. And so he says, a faith without works. What kind of faith is that? He's saying that if you're truly saved, a natural outflow of that salvation will be works. So let me just give you an analogy this morning to shed a little bit more light on that distinction. Imagine that I traveled over to Romania, which I did not that long ago. And when I was over there, I lost my passport. No formal identification. Don't have it. And I travel back into the United States. I get to customs. Don't have any identification. Don't have my passport. I walk up to them and they pull me aside into some room. They probably think I'm a spy. I don't know. Something. But they're interrogating me, all those things. I don't have my passport. But what is the purpose of a passport? A passport is there to authenticate what's already true about my citizenship in the United States. A passport does not make me a citizen of the United States. It only authenticates that I'm a citizen of the United States. The fact that I was born in the United States makes me a citizen. You see the distinction? Works is sort of like your passport. It authenticates but it does not save. Only Christ's shed blood and justifying work on our behalf is the thing that saves us. Works only ever authenticate that reality to be true. Make sense? All right. So these are important observations to make, both about history that we've thought about and theology, as well as important questions to ask about our reality now. Thankfully, God has given us his word, not only as a guide, but as an incredible window into who he is, his character. And I want us to take a few minutes to look into God's word, to see his character, see him for who he truly is in light of this doctrine of sola fide. And that's gonna move us to our second point, promise the next one won't be as long as the first one, which is uncovering God's character. And I believe as we study scripture that the doctrine of sola fide jumps out of the pages. The reformers, as I said earlier, didn't just pull that phrase out of thin air. They searched the scriptures, reflected on God's character, and the natural byproduct of those things produced the solas. So the question is, where did they see that playing out in scripture? Well, this morning, I just wanna give you a handful of passages that you can write down and take with you, kind of as ammunition to continue your study on this topic. So get your pens out, and I'll give you a few passages here. First one is Galatians 2.16. Next is Romans 3.28. Romans 4.5. Romans 5.1, Philippians 3.9, and Ephesians 2.8 and 9. And there's more, but those are just a few that it would be great for you just to take those with you and kind of continue to study after today. And I'm just gonna read a couple of those for us this morning and kind of pull out some of God's attributes and characteristics and show you how they're linked together. The first one I'm gonna read is Philippians chapter three, verse nine, and it says this. And being found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. Number two, I'm going to read Romans 5 verse 1. It says, And the last one I'll read is Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no man may boast. All these verses share the common theme of sola fide and give us a beautiful window into God's character. And so let's just look at three particular attributes this morning. First one is God is righteous. You know, we can go to scripture again and see categorically that God is righteous. Like Ezra 9.15 says, O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous. But how does God's righteousness play out in Sola Fide? Well, we've seen pretty clearly that the problem with the Galatians, the Romans, us, and any other religion for that matter, apart from Christianity, is that there is a pursuit of righteousness in the strength of the individual, not in submitting to the perfectly righteous and holy God, rather relying on our own filthy rags, as Isaiah 64 says, in some way to give us right standing before the Father. The beautiful thing that we see on display in Philippians 3 verse 9 is that God extends that righteousness to us through Christ. It comes from God, not our own doing. He clothes us in his righteousness and calls us sons and daughters, not by our own works so that no one may boast. We don't get sola fide without the righteousness of God. In fact, God's righteousness becomes the centerpiece for the theology of Sola Fide, and by faith, we are the benefactor of that righteousness. How awesome is that? Amen? Well, the second attribute of God I would like to point out is God is peace. And as a starting point, we see that the scriptures say this about God and peace. In Philippians 4, verse 7 says, Here's the thing, when we read a verse like that, of course we want God's peace. We all want God's peace. We want our hearts and our minds to be guarded in Christ Jesus, don't we? But the reality is that so much of how the world and many times us views peace is that it's just merely an absence of conflict. When in reality, it is the active pursuit of and presence of harmony, ultimately harmony with and in Christ. You know, every person in history at some level was and is in pursuit of peace or harmony with God. Listen, when sin entered the world, the harmony or the peace we once had with God was severed and humans for all of history have been trying to work their way back to peace with God. But here's the reality, God is peace. God extends peace, God grants peace, and God always initiates. And we respond in faith. And not only that, but we respond in the faith that God gives us. Let me ask you this. Are you on a journey this morning trying to find true peace? Well, if you've admitted that you're a sinner, if you've admitted that you cannot stand before a holy God, if you've believed in your heart that Jesus is who he says he is, he did what he said he would do, he died on the cross for your sins, rose from the grave, and if you have confessed Jesus as Lord and committed your life to him, then Christ will give you the faith necessary for justification to take place once and for all. You can have peace with God. Have you done that? If you haven't, maybe today's your day. Lastly, I want to point out that God is sovereign. You know, we can uncover a verse like Psalm 115 verse three that says, our God is in the heavens and he does all he pleases. And we can theologically in our heads believe that God is sovereign over us and in all of our circumstances. But sometimes a verse like that can seem cold and distant as if to imply that God's character somehow shows us a God who is uninterested with our well-being. But our sovereign God, as I said before, He initiated. While we were yet sinners, Romans 5, 8 says, He died for us. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit, as Psalm 34, 18 says. The reality of God's sovereignty is actually one of the most comforting and greatest things you will ever hear as it pertains to Sola Fide. Imagine. the stress, the fear, the worry, the anxiety that comes with questions like, did I do enough? Will I ever do enough? Am I too far gone? Have I done too many bad things? Will God ever forgive me? Without God's sovereignty and sola fide, there only remains the crushing weight of works. With God's sovereignty, and sola fide, we can move out from under the weight of the what if in our lives and have confidence in the even though. We can move out from under the weight of the what if and have confidence in Christ and be able to say even though in all of our circumstances, amen? Now that's good news. Praise God that we serve a God of sovereignty. So we've uncovered the problem a little bit. We've seen a few characteristics and attributes of God's character and how that kind of plays out in this whole sola fide topic. So now what? Now where do we go from here? We need to go to point number three, which is to uncover our response. You know, I often like to say, what good is it to have a bike of theology without any handlebars or pedals? to move forward with. Good theology without application, after all, is not good theology at all. Application is implicit in good theology. They go together. You can't just have one or have the other. If you have good theology, that means you're applying it correctly. So where do we go from here? What do we do with sola fide? Well, let me start by just asking this question. Think about the last 24 hours of your life, your thoughts, your actions, and everything in between. Now pause. In the light of that, take a moment to think of God's absolute righteousness and holiness. In light of those two realities, when you woke up this morning, why weren't you afraid of the wrath of God? With your recognition of the insurmountable gap between your life and God's holiness, why weren't you afraid? I'm sure you might be able to see where I'm going with this, but the reality is that there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear. As believers, we have experienced God's love through His justifying work on our behalf so that when we wake up in the morning, we do not have to fear His wrath. Amen? So one response that we have, or one response that we don't have, is fear. So what's a response that we do have? We love. And what do we love? We love the true gospel. Remember that Paul was astonished at how fast the Galatians departed from the true gospel. We need to be, in God's word, constantly studying, growing in our knowledge of his character, constantly cultivating our relationship and intimacy with the Father. If we don't, the easier it will be to drift and to be tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine. We need to be constantly returning to our first love. We need to love the true gospel. You know, I heard it once said that the farther you are away from truth, the easier it is to rewrite it. Let me say that again. The farther you are away from truth, the easier it is to rewrite it. Where might you be tempted to rewrite truth in your own life for your own convenience? because of the way you want people to see you, to promote your own self-serving agenda? Or are you immersing yourself in the truth of God's word because you love Jesus and the true gospel? But make no mistake, the gospel is at stake in our culture, amen? Sola Fide, though, was never meant to be a neat and tidy theological package that we carry around in our heads, only to take it out when we just want to win that argument. If this truly is our identity, we also live it out. We live out the true gospel. Whether it be in word or deed, we live it out so that others may come to know and love Christ, all for the ultimate purpose to bring glory to God. So when you're tempted to add something to faith, do not choke on the word alone, like the Roman Catholics have done. When the religious culture around you wants to take control of justification and faith away from God and put it into their own hands, you got to live the gospel. You have to live out the true gospel. Do not be tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine. Hold fast to the true gospel as Paul put it to the Galatians. Lastly, we need to lead others to the true gospel. We need to be bold witnesses for Christ and his gospel. We should want others to see the beauty of a doctrine like Sola Fide and not be crushed under the weight of a works-based religious system, always struggling and toiling to gain favor with God. We need to show true love for others as we show them the true character of God revealed in scripture. which then I believe will lead them to the true gospel of Christ. So as I close this morning, as we've thought about these things, I invite you to bow your heads and close your eyes. We get an awesome opportunity this morning to continue our reflection with a time of communion, a time for us to remember our problem and inability to justify ourselves before a holy God, a time for us to remember God's character and his pursuit of us amidst the problem, and a time to rejoice in Christ's shed blood for us and then reflect on our response as we give glory to Christ.