Well, good morning again. We're continuing our study of the five solas and the local church, and specifically how the five solas of the Reformation are related to the local church. Previously, well, we've gotten through three of the five solas, and now we're on our third week through Sola Fide, Faith Alone. And of course, if we can get through all of our material today, thank you, sweetheart. We will begin Sola Dei Gloria next week, the fifth of the five solas that we've looked at. and hopefully bring this series to a conclusion sometime soon. Depending on how many questions and discussion there is moving forward. Just to briefly review, what is sola fide? We have defined it as faith, and faith alone as the means by which the salvific benefits of Christ become ours. That's what we talked about two lessons ago. We talked about faith in relation to our understanding of justification. What is the Reformed view of justification? We are justified, made righteous, declared righteous before God, based upon Christ's work alone, received by faith alone. This justification is not that God changes us into actually being righteous. It is forensic and declarative. It is the judgment of God in His courtroom that based upon Christ, we are acquitted. Based upon Christ, we are treated as if we have perfectly obeyed His entire law to the full righteousness and perfection of holiness in it. And we, two times ago, and continued this last week, we contrasted this view of justification with other views within professed Christianity. We talked about Roman Catholicism and their doctrine of justification. Arminianism. New perspective on Paul. Some forms of federal vision. Some forms of Lutheran views on faith and salvation in relation to justification. That's where we've come from. Let's compare this to this and see whether what we believe is based upon Scripture or not. And then last week, we turned to, from that, right, we focused on faith and justification, to now, last week, we try to answer this question. What is faith? Okay, we've figured out, you know, faith and justification, the reformer's view, but how do we define what faith is? What do we mean when we say faith? So, who here from last week can enlighten us? How do we define faith? Who wants to take a gander at that? Nathan? Knowledge, assent, and trust. Luke? Cody? Anything to add to that? Hebrews 11. Absolutely. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Absolutely. And faith is believing who God is and what He said, essentially. I'm paraphrasing there, but excellent. Faith is knowledge of the facts of the Gospel. Romans 10-14. You've got to know the Gospel first. Intellectually. But it's not just knowledge, it's also a scent. You have to agree that it's true. But it's not just that either because the demons believe in tremble. Faith, really the essence of faith following these first two aspects is trust. It's turning one's life over in trust. We talked about how Paul in Romans 3 says, all of these things I've gained, my heritage, the family in which I was born into, the tradition in which I was raised, the good works that I did, striving for obedience to the law, I count as nothing, I count as dung, it's worthless, but for the righteousness of God that depends upon faith through Jesus Christ. Romans 4, 4-5, it's the one who does not work, but places faith in Jesus Christ. So, that's what we kind of broke down last week. We defined what faith is, and what the Scriptures mean when they say, the one who believes, the one who has faith, is counted righteous in Christ. So before we move on, any questions? Is there anything that we've covered that maybe has been burning with you this week? Anything you want to cover, me to answer based upon what we've covered so far? I knew the answer was going to be no, but. Whenever that symbol shows up, it's this part to be silent. You guys go, it's like zombies, you know? It's like, oh, no. Kate, yes. Okay, good, good. Oh, no, they're not, but if you want to email me, I'll send them to you. Absolutely. I guess I could put them online. That's a really important question based upon what we've covered. Thanks, Kate. Totally kidding. All right, well, let's move on. Today I wanna talk about how do we come to possess faith? And I wanted this to be brief, but when I put the scriptures together, it's like eight slides, so I'm gonna try to go through them quickly. But how do we come to possess faith and ultimately, why does PowerPoint do that? Why it matters in the local church. What is sola fide? Does it really matter? What are the practical ramifications for this at CRBC or in the local church in general? So I want to ask this question again. If faith is not a work, right? We've contrasted that. They're opposites. It's the opposite of works. If faith is not a work, it's actually the opposite of work, how do we come to have it? Because Okay, I guess maybe that depends also on the definition of a work. But it sounds like a work. You need to do this. You need to have faith is what we proclaim to an unbeliever. That sounds like something they need to do, which is a work, right? I need to place faith. How then is faith not a work? How do we come to have it? Well, here are how some other traditions, maybe some misguided, I'll put it that way, some misguided answers to this question, how do we become, how do we come to have faith? We talk about this with Arminianism, but there's this idea or this de facto position that faith is a mere decision. It's a praying of the sinner's prayer. It is an inviting Jesus into your heart. How do we come to possess faith, we're told? You need to make a choice for Jesus. You need to choose Jesus. The devil's voted for you. Jesus has voted for you. Choose the right team. perhaps simplifying things there, but you get what I mean. So a decision of the will, kind of like who you're going to marry or where you're going to attend college. You've heard people say it before. I cringe when people say it. You know, they'll look at their spouse and they'll say, like, you're the second best decision I ever made, you know. Like, my first decision was to follow Jesus. That's the best decision I ever made. And, I mean, there is an element of truth to that. We'll talk about it in a minute. I don't want to totally dismiss that. But faith is equated with a decision. Where are we going to eat lunch today? Well, are you going to choose to follow Jesus or not? Some problems with this, though, is this fails to account, and I'm not going to go into this, so I'm just going to state it. I trust most of you know where I'm going with this, but this fails to account for the serious ramifications of sin and how flawed our decision-making is apart from God. Let's be honest, okay, most of you guys are pretty young, but I look back at the decisions that I made in college, I'm like, what was I thinking, you know? I mean, oftentimes I regret the pizza I ate last night, you know, like what was I doing, what? All of us look back at times in our life and say, you know what, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was ignorant, I was stupid, I was rash, I was emotional, I was biased, I was sinful, I was corrupt. You can't make good decisions in life apart from the will of God because of the effects of sin. And we could spend another 8 or 10 slides on that. But the effects of sin for us corrupt even our decision making. So, that's one flaw in this idea that faith is a mere decision that everybody can choose to do in and of themselves. Some other problems with this. Faith as a mere decision. It also unwittingly turns faith into a work. It turns faith into a work. If all people everywhere can choose or merely decide to place faith, then this decision becomes a work or a merit that relies solely on the individual performing it. Again, it sounds like a work, and if you say that all it is is a decision that everybody equally can choose to do, then you're turning that choice that everybody can do into a merit. Into a ground for boasting. I'm a Christian because I was smart enough to recognize the truth. I was wise enough to join the right team. the right religion, the right way of salvation. You can look at your unbelieving neighbor and boast. You can look at your unbelieving neighbor and identify something that you have done that he hasn't done and exalt yourself over them. Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians 4-7. He asks them, what do you have that you did not receive? If you then received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Why would you boast in something that God gave you, not something that you yourself chose on your own? Of course, this goes back, we're gonna come back to this, but to Ephesians 2, 8, 9, by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It's a gift of God, not of works, so that no man may boast. Your grace that you have, we talked about that in grace alone, and your faith through which you have been saved is not your own doing. You didn't decide, ultimately. You didn't choose to follow Jesus, ultimately. We love because He first loved us. And of course, if you, your faith is your own doing, the ramifications of this verse is you can boast. I chose Christ and you didn't. So we look at our unbelieving neighbor and say, what's different between our unbelieving neighbor and me? The grace of God. Not, I chose and he didn't, which is a form of boasting. So back to our question. If faith is not a work, and I'll give you a moment for questions in a second. If faith is not a work, and it's actually the opposite of works, then how do we have it if it's not a decision? Well, some more misguided answers to this. And actually, before we do this, yeah, let me, are there any questions on what we just, what I just argued about faith and decision? Faith and choosing? Questions? Questions? Josh? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to mention this in a moment, but faith is a choice. And it is your choice. It's not God choosing for you. But that choice came because the Holy Spirit brought new life to your heart. It is the result of God's prior work. It's not the reason why God works. Charles Spurgeon explained it this way. Walking through a doorway, as you head towards that doorway, you look at the top of it and it says, I think the words he uses choose Jesus or I chose Jesus. You walk through that doorway which is of course metaphorical for your conversion and you turn around and look and it says predestined before the foundation of the world. From our perspective we do choose. But God tells us that we love because He first loved us. He tells His disciples in John 6, I chose you, you did not choose me. He says it very explicitly. So, the problem is when we take that, okay, there is an aspect of me choosing and we make that ultimate. And that turns faith into our choosing. Instead of, as we will see, faith is something that God grants us as a gift. What is the essence of faith? Is it your choosing or is it something that God gave you because of His Holy Spirit indwelling you by grace leading you to choose? Jim? Yeah, I think you hit the two difference, because this is what I grew up with, too, is by me choosing, I basically have now unlocked God's ability to work and sanctify me. But until then, you know, he couldn't do anything. But the other way, correctly, is when we see that, oh wow, I responded by choosing Absolutely. I think maybe that's best illustrated in the Apostle Paul's conversion. It says that while he was on the road to Damascus, he was breathing threats against the church, against Jesus Christ, threats of murder. He's stewing, he's angry, he wants to kill Christians for perverting what he thought was the Old Testament law. And what happened? Christ appeared to him and said, you're my servant now. And it's not that he chose anything. Christ didn't present him with a choice. It was, you're my servant now. I have great, you know, I'm gonna do great things through you, essentially, but also, you know, you're gonna suffer for my sake as well. It's that picture of ultimately Christ invading our lives, invading our world and sweeping us up into his purposes. Kate? Have you ever seen it, like, with predestination, how people get pregnant while, like, I was chosen? Say that again? But, like, you know how you were talking about how people look pretty well sometimes, and they'll be like, I don't know about it, and like, I chose Jesus. Like, have you seen it on the opposite end, when, like, people will be like, oh, I was chosen, and they'll be like... Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yes. Yeah, pride takes many forms. We can boast in being the chosen of God, absolutely. And that's, I don't want in any respect to say that just because people who believe in predestination are free from boasting, no. But that is one form of boasting when we see that salvation is because of our doing instead of God's doing. But yeah, it works the other way as well. We can boast in being the special people of God. I'm chosen and you are not. And that fails to understand grace and sin. Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to get to that in just a minute, yeah. Or some of the verses hit on that, yeah. But again, I'm not so much saying faith is not our decision, because it is. What I'm saying is, my main argument is faith is not to be equated with a decision. So we don't have to get into all the questions of predestination and free will and all that. That's not what I want to do per se, but I do want to argue that faith is not to be equated with just a mere decision. That's a simplistic view of grace. It's a simplistic view of sin. It's a simplistic view of salvation. In fact, you probably heard of some extremes of antinomianism. It's often under the no lordship kind of banner. I've heard men argue before that if someone, all you have to do is think for one moment, or say, Jesus, I receive you, just the words, and someone is eternally secure, it doesn't matter, they can become an atheist five minutes later and renounce everything, God will still save them. Because faith is equated with, essentially, again, just a decision, whether you regret it or not. Because ultimately, if you want to say you can't lose your salvation, and faith is a decision, then you have to say that that decision that you made eternally secures you, and even if you change your mind later on, you're still a Christian. Even if you claim to be an atheist, even if you renounce God, because faith is a decision. See the problems there? Faith's gotta be something more than that. That's my argument. Another misguided. Faith is really just repentance. Repent. Turn away from sin. That's what true faith is. I mean, we hear some of the evangelistic preaching in the New Testament. Repent and believe the gospel. Repent and be saved. It's often the cry. So faith is distorted by being equated with repentance. It's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. You have faith is a mere decision. You can decide, doesn't matter how you live after that. Well, this is the other end of the spectrum. Well, that can't be right. That's not right. So faith is turned into repentance. That's what it means. What are some problems with this? Oscar. Okay, yeah, it's turning kind of towards works now. It's not trusting in Christ, as you were saying, that third aspect, it's more of this is behavior now. Yeah, definitely I'm getting at that. Other problems with this? Cody? Come on, man. This is an important thing to you, that's why. Are there any problems with this? Are you guys disagreeing with me? Is faith repentance? You've never met somebody who turns faith into repentance? Well, yeah, in some sense. I mean, Yeah, that's the one act of repentance, the decision, yeah. It is right. No, no, I'm not. Our call is to repentance. But as Cody said, faith and repentance are two different things. I tie in belief into faith, but maybe that's not what you're focusing on. You're focusing on repentance only. So you mentioned it's much of the evangelicals who are preaching the New Testament. Oh, you're saying that's correct. I'm sorry. I thought you were saying it's this teaching of repentance. I'm like, forgive me, forgive me. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so let's If we talk about faith and repentance, we've got to specify that repentance really is the characteristic of the entire Christian life. Not just conversion. Right? That would place it in the area of, based upon what we've taught these last few weeks, sanctification. Do you ever complete or come to the end of repentance? Who here has repented perfectly? You free on Tuesday? My office, 10 a.m. Who here has come to the end of, oh, I've repented. When is our repentance ever enough to conclude that on that basis we've actually been converted if repentance and faith are the same? See what I'm saying? Repentance is a characteristic of the entire life. It is the call that we make to unbelievers, because what is faith, turning one's life over to oneself, entails a turning away from self, turning away from sin, and turning towards Christ, but that's the general tenor of the entire Christian life. And true faith leads to repentance. True faith is inseparable from repentance. Repentance always follows true faith. But it's not the same thing. And we've got to be careful if we turn faith into repentance so that we doubt the salvation of people based upon their sanctification. Instead of based upon whether they give evidence of trusting in Christ. There's more problems here. Not problems, but explanation here. Repentance also is grounded in faith and objective forgiveness and justification. Why do we repent of our sins? Not to earn forgiveness, but because we are forgiven. We repent because God put forth Christ to be a propitiation for our sins. We repent because Christ came and lived and died and was crucified for us. And so, that is the ground from which repentance flows. We must trust in His work before we can ever repent. And again, I want to say that they're inseparable, but they're not the same thing. Okay? Grace? Can we lose faith? Can we lose faith? Yes, our faith can wax and wane. Our faith can be strong, it can be weak, it can grow, it can become stagnant. But no, we can never truly lose faith once we possess it because faith is a product. Faith is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit. We cannot lose the Holy Spirit. We cannot lose the salvation by which we stand. But from our perception, at times, We can just lose faith, yeah. But faith, those who truly have faith, our confession speaks of, you know, though believers may stumble and doubt and backslide and all these things, but eventually they will be renewed again. Because true faith is lively, that is, even when we don't know it's there. God allows us to fall into those periods of doubt and sin. True faith will always come through again. The righteous man falls seven times but gets up again. The wicked fall and are destroyed. So they profess faith, there's no true faith, eventually they fall away. Yes. Absolutely. You can lose your repentance for a season. Yeah, absolutely. Great point. Repentance, again, is a good work that flows from faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Right? You can't repent. You can't do even one good work without faith. It's the ground of everything. So equating faith with repentance confuses our justification with our sanctification and we're back to Rome again. Cody. Why are you jumping ahead, Cody? We haven't gotten to why it matters yet, but absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. So if repentance, good works, glorifying God, flow from true faith, then, and if faith is the ground of that, then maybe our gathering in worship should focus on strengthening our faith rather than just fixing our lives in repentance. Not to say that we don't preach obedience, good works, but it becomes behavior modification if we're not dealing with the ultimate root. which is the strengthening of our faith. And that's why we come together. That's what I'm gonna argue here in a minute. So again, back to our question. If faith is not a work, it's actually the opposite of works, then how do we have it? It's not a decision. It's not repentance. What is faith? How do we have it? Well, it's a gift from God. I'm sure you knew where I was going with this. In the London Baptist Confession, chapter 11, paragraph 1, our confession states that justification, I'm not going to quote the whole thing here, but the last phrase is, by imputing Christ's act of obedience unto the whole all, and His passive obedience in His death, for their hours, whole in soul righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is a gift of God. Faith isn't something you conjure up on your own. It's not a product of yourself. It's not something you own and have produced in and of yourself. It is a gift from God. How is this true? What is this based upon? Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. By grace you've been saved through faith, it is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. In the Greek construction there, what is the it is? It points to both grace and faith. Grace and faith is the gift of God. 2 Peter 1.1. Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. That sounds like a London Baptist confession here, right? The righteousness of Jesus Christ. And faith not being of themselves. Why? Because it says, to those who have obtained Notice the tense, they have obtained it. Notice the word as well, obtain literally means to receive something. And I looked at this word, every other use of it in the New Testament is used to refer to when someone receives something through the casting of lots. Okay, so if we were to look at this from the standpoint of luck, right, from our perspective, luck, casting of lots. It's not something that you can just choose to do, obtain yourself. He's saying, you've obtained it. You've received it. There's parallel statements, particularly in Romans, that talk about the free gift of righteousness. It's a gift. Philippians 1.29, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake. Paul reminding them that salvation and suffering go hand in hand, both being a product, an outworking of what God has ordained for His people. Don't think that your suffering is an accident, he's saying. And to make his point, he's saying don't think that your faith is an accident either. Granted means to grant graciously. So the idea here is it has been granted by grace. And you think, well, how is suffering an act of grace? Well, because suffering brings great reward and glory to God. Mark. Say that again? Yes. Which means God's sovereign over it. Absolutely. Good point. So faith is a sovereign gift from God, and it follows His sovereign predestination and election, and of course that's not. We don't have time and that's not our purpose to deal with this, at least more than in a cursory manner. But faith is a gift from God. I think the Heidelberg Catechism really gets this where it asks this question, number 65. It is by faith alone that we share in Christ and all his blessings. Where then does that faith come from? Answer. The Holy Spirit produces it in our hearts by the preaching of the Holy Gospel and confirms it through the use of the Holy Sacraments. I'm gonna return to that in a moment. So to summarize this point, it is our faith. God does not believe for us. But this faith isn't something that we conjure up on our own. We're not capable of having saving faith unless it is given to us by God, an outflow of His grace. It is a sovereign, gracious gift by which no man can boast. We cannot boast because we ultimately aren't responsible for why we have it. which kind of parallels most things in life, doesn't it? Are you going to boast in your good looks? Well, where do those come from? Are you going to boast in your ability to play the particular sport or play a particular instrument? Are you going to boast in your intellect? Are you going to boast in your family heritage? So much of life in general comes, if not everything, comes. What do you have that you did not receive? Right? John the Baptist, man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven. James, every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father above. Faith falls in that category of so many other things in life, so I don't know why it's so controversial. Well, we're going to hang on to free will, I get that, but we cannot boast. because even our own faith by which we cling to Christ was produced in us by the Spirit. Not only can we not obtain faith on our own, but we cannot sustain it. Because I just read, you know, this passage that Satan had demanded to have Peter. And he says, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. maintain our faith. And what a comfort to know that Christ is praying for us and praying for our faith. And what a comfort, too, because at the very next verse, he says, Peter, you're going to deny me three times, which makes it look like you lost your faith. You lost everything. But Christ was praying for you. We can't even maintain our faith without His help. That's a great point. I'm glad he mentioned it. If faith is a mere decision, then Peter was done, right? If faith was repentance, Peter was done. But Christ tells him beforehand, you're going to fall. And I'm praying that your faith may not fail. But that even though his faith essentially disappeared from his and our perspective, It was present and eventually renewed him to repentance. We don't have time to go into why it matters. Surprise, surprise. We'll go four weeks on Sola Fide, but that does give us roughly five minutes for questions or discussion if you guys would like to continue this. Any other thoughts or questions or rebuttals? Amber? Yes, and that's one of the reasons I'm going to argue why it matters. Because where is our faith, excuse me, where is our assurance? I'm going to talk a little bit about the categories of the other beliefs, Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, New PPE, Federal Vision, Lutheran, where their assurance lies. not to give everything away, but then ask, where is our assurance? If it's in, if faith is a decision, our assurance is in that date eight years ago that we wrote in the back of our Bible when we chose to follow Jesus. You're looking to yourself for your own assurance, and that is such a shaky foundation. If faith is repentance, then where is the basis of your assurance? It's in, am I being obedient? It's in my repentance and how well I'm doing, which means you're going to have really good days and also self-righteous days. And you're going to have really, really bad days and you're going to be ready to jump off a bridge. So where's our assurance? It's based upon the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Ultimately, it's based upon Christ, turning our eyes upon Christ and saying, it's nothing of me, but I'm clinging to his righteousness. Otherwise I'm done. Did you say experience? Did you mention that? I thought I heard you say faith and experience like before because that's another form of faulty assurance. It's in an experience that we had. Yeah. Yeah. Tingly moment and the tears flowed and God was present and He was speaking to your heart and that right there serves as the ground of your assurance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what happens when you don't have that assurance, you know? One of the greeters, go greet some of our visitors back there. Please. Any other questions, Josh? What would I say to someone here who might not be a Christian? In relation to what? Salvation? We call men to faith and repentance. We call men to choose to follow Jesus. We don't separate that from our knowledge of how that happens. And we don't present that to them as if it is a simple, mere decision that they need to sign their name to, or altar call where they need to go through the ritual. Again, Charles Spurgeon. Why don't you give an altar call, Charles Spurgeon? Why don't you invite sinners to come forward and make a decision for Christ? And he said, well, if the Holy Spirit is working in their hearts during the sermon, he's gonna be working in their hearts on Tuesday morning between the hours of 11 and one when my office is open. It beautifully illustrates the point. Yes, we call men to make a, to choose to follow Jesus, or in some sense, to repent and to believe, to this is the day of salvation, turn from your sins, we plead from them. But we don't equate it with just a mere decision that they make in the moment. And we never, we're always careful to make sure that they are in God's debt, God is not in their debt. What I mean by that is, you know, Jesus isn't, you know, shivering in the corner, waiting for people to choose him. And that's often how it's portrayed. Choose to follow Jesus. He's longingly, lovingly waiting for you. He's standing at the door knocking. No, that puts Jesus as dependent upon us. We say, no, you're dependent upon God. And pray that God might grant you repentance. That's what Jesus did in John 6, over and over again. You cannot choose me. No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. That's what he says, and they all end up walking away, right? Because he refused to concede that God was somehow waiting for man to act. And he's like, no, don't forget who has the upper hand. That should become evident in our preaching. God has called you to repent because you are under the wrath of God. Does that make sense? Yes. My children ask that. I'll tell my children, keep seeking the Lord. knowing that, you know, if they're seeking Him today, they'll be seeking Him tomorrow, you know, kind of thing. But I think there is legitimacy in pressing people and saying, you know, God calls you this day. Don't wait any longer. Again, that's different from manipulating and that's different from communicating. That's all God's waiting for is a decision. Does that make sense? It's hard sometimes, you know, because some people are ready to sign their name on a card and walk forward, right? But we must be careful in ensuring, as Jesus says, that they count the cost, you know? Cost of following Him, that they understand what Jesus is calling them in the life of repentance and faith. All right, yeah, we got a closing prayer. So, bow with me.