Evidence of Saving Faith

How do you know that you are saved? That you are truly trusting in Jesus? Do you have doubts about your salvation for a variety of reasons? Not fully sure whether you are saved or not? One thing that can help us  evaluate if we have been graciously given saving faith from God to believe in Christ is to understand what saving faith actually is. My goal in this month’s article is look at that with you.

 

            First, we could say that SAVING FAITH IS A TRUSTING FAITH. It is a trusting in Christ alone for your salvation and that He has done everything necessary for it. That nothing else needs to be done or could be done to put you in a right relationship with God in spite of your many sins. Jesus truly has paid it all. This faith is more than an intellectual acknowledgement of the facts of who Jesus is and what He has done. It is more than just believing that He actually lived and died for sins. Remember James tells us that the demons believe and even shudder over what they know to be true about God (James 2:19). They know the reality of it but clearly aren’t saved. Saving faith is a resting in those facts and what they mean. It’s a reliance on Jesus to have taken care of everything for you to be saved, forgiven, and accepted by God into His family. A man by the name of Charles Blondin became famous back in 1859 for walking across a tightrope 160 feet above Niagara Falls several times between Canada and the United States. He did this once on stilts, another time on a bicycle, once in a sack, and one time he even carried a stove across and cooked an omelet. Crowds gathered to watch him “ooohing” and “aaaahing” when one day he came across on the tightrope pushing a wheelbarrow blindfolded. He asked the crowd if they believed that he could carry a person across in that wheelbarrow. After all that they had watched him do, the crowd shouted “yes!” He then posed the question, “Who here volunteers to get in this wheelbarrow?” And of course, no one did. Just knowing that someone can do something is not the same as trusting and relying on them to do it. Saving faith in Jesus is trusting and relying on Him so much to save you that you “get in to the wheelbarrow” so to speak confident He alone can push you across the chasm which separates you from God.

All of us more likely can relate to the man who responded to Jesus with “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24). We can confess that we believe but at the same time recognize that we don’t believe as we ought to. The good news for us is that it is not the power or size of your faith that matters but the presence of it. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to increase their faith, He told them that if they had faith just the size of a mustard seed, the smallest of the seeds, then they could move a mulberry tree (Luke 17:5-6). As the Puritan Thomas Watson put it, “A weak faith can laid hold of a strong Christ.” It’s not our faith itself that makes the difference as much as it is the object of our faith. Keep in mind that it is not faith itself that saves us but faith in Christ. Jesus is the One who saves us through His perfect sinless obedient life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection in our place. Faith is just our latching on to Him, fully assured that He has done all that is necessary for us to be saved and to become a part of His family. Think of Jesus as being like a life raft thrown out to you while drowning. You believe it will save you. But you must reach out to grab a hold of it for it to do so. Faith is simply our grabbing a hold of Jesus to be our life raft and our holding on to Him as the only One who can save us from drowning in our sin and God’s wrath. Are you holding on to Him for dear eternal life, forgiveness, and to be seen as righteous in God’s sight?

            Saving faith is also AN OBEDIENT WORKING FAITH. Not that our faith consists of obedience or that obedience and works contribute to our salvation in any way. Just that true saving faith always inevitably leads to obedience or produces obedience in the life of the one who possesses it. It will ultimately result in works. We could say that obedience is not the root of salvation but its fruit. Or, to put it another way, obedience is not the cause of our salvation but the consequence of it. The Reformers would say, “We are saved by faith alone but the faith that saves is never alone.” John tells us that a clear sign that we truly know God through faith in Jesus is that we obey or keep His commandments (1 John 2:3). In fact, he even goes so far as to say that the one who claims to know Him but does not keep His commandments “is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected” (vv. 4-5).

            This is what James means when he says that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-17). It is only a living faith that produces works of obedience. If someone claims that they have faith but there is nothing in their life to show it, James says that such is a dead false faith that cannot save (v. 14). There is nothing to it. One of the examples he gives in that passage proves this. He points to Abraham’s obedience to do the unthinkable and kill his son, Isaac, for a sacrifice (vv. 21-23). Exactly what God had told him to do. That is recorded for us in Genesis 22. It is important to realize that Abraham’s faith preceded this act of obedience as earlier in Genesis 15:6 we read, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” His righteous standing before God resulted from his faith and not his obedience to God’s commands. It was his obedience which revealed the reality of his faith. It showed that he didn’t have a spurious or false faith in God’s promise to provide for him descendants and, ultimately, the One who in whom “all the families of the earth would be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). His faith that God would do as He said could easily have been all talk with no substance to it whatsoever. However, this willingness to sacrifice Isaac which would have put the promise he believed God for in jeopardy, showed that not to be the case. In fact, what we see is that he trusted God so much to keep His promise that if He would have him to sacrifice the child through which the promise was to be given, it must mean that God intended to bring Isaac back from the dead afterwards somehow (Hebrews 11:19). It wasn’t just wishful thinking when he told the young men who had accompanied them that he and his son would go on from there and that “we will worship, and WE will return to you” (Genesis 22:5). He was fully convinced he would not be coming back alone after the sacrifice. God somehow was going to bring Isaac back, even from the dead if necessary, in order for Him to keep His promise.

            It is important to point out that we are not talking about the perfection of obedience here but the direction of obedience. This does not mean that a true Christian will never sin. Far from it! But the believer will be striving, with the help the Holy Spirit inside him or her gives them, to walk in obedience to the Lord’s law, repenting all the many times we fall short of it and then seeking to get back on the horse yet again we could say to labor to be obedient again. However, the longer one walks in unrepentant disobedience, the greater cause of concern he or she should have when it comes to the reality of their faith. As Joel Beeke points out, “One cannot enjoy high levels of assurance [of their faith and salvation] while he persists in disobedience.” And the remedy to that is repentance. Another way true faith is shown.

            Finally, saving faith is A PERSEVERING FAITH. A faith which remains to the end without ever fully and finally falling away. Scripture is clear that a true sign of real genuine saving faith is that it continues and lasts. Jesus told a group of Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples” (John 8:31). In the parable of the soils, it is the seed which lands in the good soil, with deep roots which grows up and bears much fruit that represents the true Christian with real faith. The other three were characterized by either never starting to grow as in the case of the seed which fell along the side of the road and was snatched up by the birds or devil or grew but did not continue such with the seed in the rocky and weedy soils. Both of them picture the one who appears to believe at first but over time falls away due to troubles, persecution, the worries of this world, desire for riches, and other things so that they do not bear any fruit (Mark 4:1-20). The reason for their failure to continue and produce was due to them having no root in themselves. No true saving faith. We are assured to belong to Jesus’ household and to have become a partaker of Him “if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope” (Hebrews 3:6) and “if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end (Hebrews 3:14). We have been reconciled to God on account of Christ and can be sure that we will one day be presented before God holy, blameless, and beyond reproach “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel” (Colossians 1:22-23). On the other hand, we are told about the group of false teachers in the church which John wrote to that “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for it they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). Their very leaving proved that they never belonged to the church because their faith did not remain. And “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).

The question should not be whether you have trusted in Christ sometime in the past but whether you are trusting in Him now. Past faith is never the best barometer for one’s relationship with the Lord. Present faith is because it means you are still believing and trusting in Jesus. You are continuing in that faith. While a true believer with genuine faith will falter and fail at times, he or she will not ultimately and finally fall away from the faith. And this is not because of their strength and power but God’s. When Paul calls the Philippians to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, he is quick to next point out, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). The only way any believer with true faith can persevere in that faith and make it to the end still believing is because of God working in them in His Holy Spirit to ensure and enable them to.

             If you are concerned that you do not have this trusting obedient working persevering faith, the solution is not to try to drum up some faith from within yourself but to focus more on the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He has done for believers, praying that as you think more deeply on Who He is and His work that the Spirit would bring you to put your full trust and faith in Him as your only Savior and enable you to continue on in that faith no matter what may happen in your life or comes your way. Look to Christ as your only hope of salvation today and keep looking to Him.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Lee

The Two Most Important Words in the Bible

            They are arguably the two most important words in all the Bible. The sweetest words to the Christian’s ears. Two words we could never read enough or be reminded of too much. The famed preacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, once said, “These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the gospel.” James Montgomery Boice claimed that “if you understand those two words . . . they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely.” What are these two most important words? They are the words, But God . . .”

            The word, “but,” often means a turnaround or contrast to something else that has recently been stated. Sometimes that may not be a good thing. When you are told that someone would love to come to your party or get together to be disappointed to hear that BUT they cannot because of this, that, or the other. Or the doctor says that your health is looking pretty good BUT there is one major concern that he or she has about it. Kind of like when Jesus in the book of Revelation has John write to those seven churches commending them on several things that are going well with the congregation only to follow that with the statement, “BUT I have this against you” (2:4, 20) or “BUT I have a few things against you” (v. 14). However, often when the word “but” is coupled with God and something He has or will do, it signifies a much needed divine intervention in the midst of our perilous plight and desperate situation or circumstance.

            We are told that after God had destroyed every living thing on the earth in the flood and Noah with his family were stuck on the ark as the flood waters remained for 150 days, “BUT GOD remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided” (Genesis 8:1). When things looked pretty grim for Joseph as he had been sold to a man named Potiphar to serve as his slave, we have “BUT YAHWEH [or the LORD] was with Joseph, so he became a successful man” (39:2).  Likewise, later when the young man finds himself in prison falsely accused of wrongdoing, “BUT YAHWEH [or the LORD] was with Joseph and extended lovingkindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer” (v. 21). And then looking back at the end of his life, he is able to say to his brothers, “as for you, you meant evil against me, BUT GOD meant it for good in order to do what has happened on this day, to keep many people alive” (50:20). We read of David, “And Saul sought him every day, BUT GOD did not give him into his hand” (1 Samuel 23:14). And regarding ourselves and our salvation, “For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. BUT GOD demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8). “For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. BUT GOD has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29). “No temptation has overtaken you but such is common to man, BUT GOD is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). After pointing out to the saints in Ephesus that “you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Paul shares the wonderful good news, “BUT GOD, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

            Oh, what hope these two words bring us! That God will not forget us Noahs who have been saved by His grace and preserved from His wrath. When we find ourselves in less than ideal circumstances such as Joseph in slavery to Potiphar and in prison for a crime he never committed to know that in the middle of all that God is with us working out His greater good purpose. That God will not give us into the hand of our enemy, the devil. Or in the moment of temptation when the pull to sin seems so strong to be reminded that God is faithful in not allowing it to get to the point of overwhelming us where we cannot fight against it and even providing the way out so we don’t need to give into it. The times where we may think that God would not want us or desire to use us since there is nothing special about us according to the world’s standards we can be assured that we are exactly the kind of person He chooses. That when no else would even consider to die for us not being a good person or a righteous one, God sent forth His Son to. And that we are not left in the deadness of our sins receiving what we deserve for them. All because of these “BUT GOD’S” in the Bible.

            Think about the difference these “BUT GOD’S” make. Without the truth of these words, Noah never would have been able to get off of the ark. Joseph could never have went from Potiphar to prison to Pharaoh to the palace where he and his family, God’s people from whom the promised Seed would come, would be saved. David would have been killed by Saul. None of us would ever have been chosen to be a part of God’s family. We each would still be dead in our sins with no one willing to die to remove those sins and pay the penalty they entailed. No spiritual life being given to us. Temptation would always get the upper hand without any way for us ever to escape it.

            None of these things of the “BUT GOD’S” are things we can do ourselves. Noah didn’t have the power and strength to blow the waters of the flood to cause them to subside in the least little bit. It is unimaginable that a Hebrew like Joseph could curry such favor with Egyptians in such a short time left on his own. Young David, as fit and strong as he was, may not have stood a chance against the older King Saul and his forces. We do not have the power to overcome temptation on our own. In fact, we fail at such every time we try. In and of ourselves, we can no more breathe spiritual life into our deadness than a corpse can breathe life back into itself. Than Lazarus or the old dry bones in the valley of Ezekiel’s day could without the Spirit’s working through God’s Word in each of those cases. We cannot save ourselves or earn our salvation in any way. We are not able to go even a day with keeping the Ten Commandments God has given which reveal His righteous standard.

            These two words remind us of God’s grace. God would have been fully just to leave Noah on the ark among the flood waters or even to have him perish with the rest of wicked humanity in the flood. After all, we should not forget that Noah and his family were just as much sinners as the rest were. Keep in mind that the statement of Genesis 6:5 is universal without any exceptions given. The evil of man in general was great on the earth and that EVERY intent of the thoughts of his heart was ONLY evil CONTINUALLY or ALL HIS DAYS. Noah would have been included in that statement being a part of sinful humanity and a descendant of Adam sharing his guilt and sinful nature. And we read about his sinful drunken nakedness after the ark as well (9:20-21). The only reason Noah and his family were spared the flood of God’s wrath was the same reason any of us are spared such; God’s grace. Remember that we are told that “Noah found favor [literally “grace”] in the eyes of Yahweh” (6:8). Not merit on account of his own righteousness. The mention of his rightoeousnness and blamelessness FOLLOWED him finding that favor or grace in God’s eyes (v. 9). As is always the case, it is the result of such and not the cause of it. On account of our sins and unrighteousness, we certainly don’t deserve God to intervene in sending His Son to die in our place and to make us alive in Christ. In fact, we give Him every reason not to. Whenever we read these two words in Scripture, we should remember God’s great grace in our lives and be amazed by it.

            D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones also said in a sermon one time, “Thank God for the ‘buts’ of the Bible.” Certainly, we should especially thank God for the “But God’s” of the Bible and the difference they make in our lives and praise Him for each of them. Be sure to pay attention to them the next time you come across one in your Bible reading and give thanks.

Celebrating the glorious truths of the “but God’s” with you,

Pastor Lee

A Proper Perspective During Election Season

            We find ourselves now in yet another very contentious presidential election season. You can’t turn the TV on, listen to the radio, or even watch a YouTube video without some sort of political ad popping up. The billboards and yard signs supporting one of the two candidates are inescapable as we drive around. (Of course, it doesn’t help that we live in one of the biggest swing states they are saying may just decide the election.) We keep hearing how if the other candidate would get elected, it very well could be the end of our nation as we know it and only the one is able to save our nation and ensure it has a future. How many times do we keep being told that this is “the most consequential election in our nation’s history”? (Never mind the fact that they say this every four years.) It is so easy to get sucked into it all and allow ourselves to get so worked up and worried about what might happen if the wrong person would get elected and the damage that would cause. However, as Christians, we have no reason to be such. I think that when we become overly concerned about this election, it is because we have forgotten about a number of truths. My goal in this article for the month is to help us keep our head in all the waters of the election fervor. And I aim to do that by reminding us of those very truths.

First, we must not forget that God is sovereign over all things, including who serves as president. Ephesians 1:11 states that He “works all things according to the counsel of His will”. Who winds up occupying the Oval Office as a result of the election would be certainly be counted as part of that “all things” Paul mentions. Jesus tells us that not a sparrow will fall to the ground apart from the Father (Matthew 10:29). What is true of each small sparrow must also be true of every great king or leader. Daniel acknowledged in his prayer that God “removes kings and establishes kings” (Daniel 2:21). King Nebuchadnezzar was brought to realize “That the Most High is the powerful ruler over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes and sets it up over the lowliest of men” (Daniel 4:17). And Paul makes clear in Romans 13:1 that “there is no authority except from God, and those which exist have been appointed by God.” There is no way around the fact that God always has the final say so in whatever takes place down here.

God even can and does work through the election process to appoint the individual He sees fit for the office for such a time as this. He will use the citizens’ votes to accomplish it. And sometimes we need to recognize that the sovereign appointment of certain rulers very well may be for the purpose of judgment of a nation as well. John Calvin put it this way, “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.” We have seen cases of this throughout biblical history. Just read through the books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles as well as the prophets. And if it is a good leader or the better leader of the two choices we are faced with, then we have to realize that to be God’s mercy towards us as a nation as we certainly don’t deserve such in light of our many sins and wickedness.

            And regardless of what happens with this election, it will not hinder God’s work to grow and complete His kingdom as He has promised. His kingdom will come and replace all the kingdoms of man on this earth. The dream given to King Nebuchadnezzar indicated such with the rock representing the Messiah’s kingdom striking the statue symbolizing a number of the major earthly kingdoms in the near future of Daniel’s day and bringing them all crashing to the ground (Daniel 2). His kingdom “will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself stand forever” (v. 44).  Revelation 11:15 pictures the result of the victory of Christ’s kingdom over all others when the angels will declare, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.” While the outcome of the election very well may have a major impact on the future of our nation, it won’t for the future of God’s kingdom. And we can be sure that whichever candidate does win, he or she will not be able to stop Jesus from continuing to build His church which is the visible manifestation of His kingdom now on this earth. Not even the gates of hell itself will prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

Second, we must not forget that no politician can ever save us or the country. Oh, sure, they may speak like they can but we should know that’s not the case. They’re not Jesus. In fact, they are far from Him. Scripture warns us not to trust in princes but to trust in the Lord our God. Psalm 146:3-5 could not make this any plainer. “Do not trust in nobles, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his plans perish. How blessed if he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Yahweh his God.” Know that your preferred candidate is going to let you down. It’s inevitable because he or she is a sinful human who is bound to make their share of mistakes and not always do the right thing. If you wind up placing your hope in him or her, you will get disappointed. However, if your trust is in the Lord, you will not be disappointed no matter who winds up being in the White House come the end of January. You can be assured He won’t fail you and He alone has the ability to save the individuals in this nation which will in turn have a transforming effect on society.

Third, don’t forget that in light of eternity, every election here, no matter how significant it might seem at the moment, will only be a small tiny blip in history. When we get to heaven, we will look back and wonder why we got so worked up over someone who was placed in charge of our country for a maximum of eight years only to be replaced by someone else who in turn will be replaced by someone else only eventually to be read about one day in a history book.

Fourth, don’t forget your real citizenship. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). Our true home is not here. Like the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, before us, we should confess ourselves to be “strangers and exiles on the earth” “looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God”, aspiring to a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:10, 13, 16). As the old hymn puts it, “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.” Don’t allow yourself to get so caught up with the things going on down here that you lose sight of the “better home awaiting” yet to come for you. Yes, it matters who is in charge of this nation and there could be long-lasting consequences with it. But you are not going to be here forever and ever without an amen. Eventually, you are going to go to your true home to be with Jesus. Also, eventually, this world as we know it will be destroyed by fire to make way for the new heavens and new earth Jesus will create upon His return (Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 21:1). We need to make sure that our greater concern is found in preparing ourselves and others for that kingdom instead of this kingdom which WILL sink by the time that the better kingdom sails in. And, who knows, depending on how the election may go, God may intend to create in us an even greater longing for our true heavenly home and keep us from becoming too comfortable here where we won’t want to leave.

And so you don’t think that I am implying with all this that we should just forgo voting and have nothing to do with the political process at all, my last reminder to us is not to forget to seek to promote the welfare of the city we reside in while here on this earth in our voting. In his letter to the exiles just before they were taken to Babylon, Jeremiah wrote that they were to “seek the peace of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to Yahweh on its behalf; for in its peace you will have peace” (Jeremiah 29:7). When Dwight L. Moody was asked why he was taking a strong stand on a specific political issue of his day since he was a citizen of heaven, he answered, “Indeed, I am a citizen of heaven; but right now I am voting in Cook County, Illinois.” That voting was significant since it was a way he could seek to benefit the city in which he lived and love his neighbors by supporting policies which would be for their good and not their detriment. Voting is significant for us for the same reason. We want to love our neighbor and benefit the place where we temporarily reside as we work to keep our focus on our heavenly home yet to come. Praise God that in His good and all-wise providence we live in a country where we do have a say-so in its laws and policies through the democratic process the founder of the nation designed for us under God! Let’s make sure that we take advantage of that whenever we are able to promote the peace or welfare of the city in which we live.

And when you’re in Babylon, you are going to have to vote for the least problematic of the two Babylonians. We’re not going to have an ideal candidate to choose from. That would be Jesus and He is not on the ballot. (Yes, I have seen the bumper stickers and yard signs that read “Jesus 2024. Save America.” Thankfully, He doesn’t have to run for office because He reigns over every individual to ever serve in that office. And, technically, He is not the One needed to be elected. We are but that discussion is for another time.) And, let’s be honest, there are problems with both candidates from both parties. We must vote for the one who promotes policies more in line with God’s Word and who would be better for our country, our children, our neighbors, and their future.

            So, be sure to go vote for such a candidate in November, entrusting the results of the voting to God in His sovereignty and keeping in mind that neither candidate will be able to save us, in light of eternity this is nowhere near as consequential as it is made out to be, and we vote as citizens of heaven looking forward to the day of our Lord’s return when all this will be a distant memory and we will be enjoying our close intimate fellowship with Him. This is the only way we will retain our sanity this election season and honor God in our civil duty of voting.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Lee