Good morning. I do covet your
prayers as I try to fill in this morning. As you can see, the
title of today's message is Genuine God-Given Faith. In 2 Corinthians
13, God, through the Apostle Paul, he gives us command to
examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith. Prove your own
selves. And I want to challenge all who
hear this message to heed that command, and in keeping with
today's subject, to examine ourselves by God's word as to whether our
faith is truly the genuine God-given faith as it's set forth in scripture,
the faith that God gives to all who are saved. Our primary text
is, as Mark said, taken from Romans 10, and as he read there
in verse 13, Paul was quoting the prophet Joel. And he boldly
declares, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. You know, akin to that in Acts
chapter 16, when the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas,
sirs, what must I do to be saved? We read, and they said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Then consider
in Mark chapter 16 verses 15 and 16 when the Lord was giving
the great commission to his disciples. We read, and he said unto them,
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
in confession of that shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned. And of course the gospel is the
good news of how God saves sinners in and by. the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one we're commanded to believe on. Now, these and other similar
passages, they communicate very clearly, very boldly a promise
that calling on the name of the Lord, that believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ, that is, his person and work as it's set forth in
the gospel, that that is a clear evidence of salvation. And it's
put without any ambiguity so boldly that in our vernacular
we'd say, you can take that to the bank, and you can. But it's
important. that we understand what this
believing on Christ means, for clearly it does pertain to the
issues of eternal life and death, eternal salvation or damnation,
heaven or hell. And the reason I emphasize this
is because, as simple as that may seem, sadly most of so-called,
quote, Christianity in our day who even though they will, like
me in years past, claim to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they may, like me, sincerely believe that they do, the vast
majority actually are believing in a counterfeit Jesus, not the
Christ as he set forth in God's gospel, in God's word. And I
don't ask you to take that statement on fakes. I'll elaborate that
some more as we go forward. But to begin with, no, that statement
really shouldn't surprise us in light of how replete the epistles
are with warnings to beware of the deception of false preachers,
to be warning of false gospels, warning they'll come preaching
another gospel. They'll come preaching, he said,
even another Jesus. In one place it says, If it were
possible, it would deceive the very elect of God. And the importance
of that to me is enhanced because I have many friends, as I'm sure
you do, that remain tragically deceived. And I know firsthand
the folly of what they believe because I once shared in that
belief what I now know to have been my unbelief. And there's
no joy in drawing those kind of conclusions. But if your house
is on fire, you want somebody to tell you. And that's important. And I want them to hear this
message. I pray that by God's grace and keeping with the fulfillment
of his perfect will, he will grant true faith and repentance
as he's purposed, as he's promised to grant. And listen, that will
outfail to all the objects of his everlasting love in Christ. See, Christ purchased no less
for them. So let's ask ourselves, is your
faith, is my faith the genuine God-given faith of all the saved
Again, as it's distinguished in God's word. First note that
the scripture makes it clear that the faith of the saved is
a gift from God. We often quote God's declaration
of that in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Well, many unwittingly
deny the need for God's miraculous gift of faith. In their presumption
to have fulfilled some requirement as prescribed by their particular
denomination, that is, accept Jesus as your savior, walk this
aisle, you fill in the blank, whatever is being prescribed,
and being prescribed and set forth is that which is needed
in order for you to be saved. And I know many who are that
persuasion will still insist, as I would have, that that believing,
that exercise of faith in something, was the God-given gift of faith. I mean, many have, like me in
years past, I had memorized Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. But you see, my
doctrine told on me, and their doctrine tells on them. I'm talking
about their gospel, what they believe about how God saves sinners. You know, I've heard, as I'm
sure some of you have, some of the feeble attempts that we'll
go to in our spiritual darkness to reconcile a false gospel with
responses like this. Well, I just believe God loves
everybody and he gives everybody the gift of faith, but you have
to open the gift. You know, a more subtle version
of that would be, oh, I believe salvation's all of the Lord,
but God can't do the believing for you. In other words, what
they're saying, first of all, we call that grace, but that's
not grace at all, it's grace in name only. Because see, the
real difference maker, by that way of thinking in their salvation,
and listen, whatever that real difference maker is, if you peel
the onion back, Whatever puts you in that group that will go
to heaven, keeps you out of that group that will perish. You see,
that's your savior. And the real difference maker,
I would have said Jesus Christ was my savior, but now I know
by God's enlightenment, by God's revelation of faith that I was
sadly mistaken at one time in my life. See, that's not God-given
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That would be faith in faith,
because faith was my real difference maker. You see, genuine God-given
subjective faith, that is, our believing, is also distinguished
in God's word by its object, the objective body of faith,
the gospel, the who we believe, and in whom and what do you believe. Well, from our text in Romans
10, I want us to examine two identifying distinctions of genuine
God-given faith here in God's word. First, the object of faith. That is, what or in whom do you
believe? And two, is it a heart work that's
known by its object? And also, is it a heart work
in that it's more than just a mere head knowledge or mental assent
to truth? In Romans 10, 8, just prior to
our text today, Paul was describing the word of faith, the word which
God-given faith receives, that's the gospel, which he preached
saying beginning in verse 9 that they preach that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. Many memorize that verse in isolation
from its context so as to gain a false sense of comfort, as
I once did, from a mere mental agreement with the historical
truth of Christ's incarnation, his death, and resurrections.
And millions who profess to believe on Christ, they truly do believe
that Jesus Christ lived, that he died, and that God raised
him from the dead. And so they claim this verse
so as to conclude that their assent to this truth assures
them of their salvation. But as we consider now the verse
in its fuller context, you'll see the faith of which Paul's
writing here, it goes far beyond that as it's identified more
clearly by its object. I want you to remember what James
wrote in James 2, 19. He said, he told them there,
thou believest there's one God, thou doest well, the devils also
believe and tremble. You see, the devils also believe
and they would confess, they know that God raised Christ from
the dead. So clearly, such an agreement with the facts is not
that of which Paul is writing. It must go beyond that. When
Paul speaks now here of believing that God hath raised him from
the dead, that presupposes, if he was risen, that presupposes
he died, and if he died, That presupposes he lived, and that
in accordance with his life of perfect obedience here on earth,
as we know from the rest of scripture. His coming down from heaven as,
who were we to believe in? The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man
who took into union with his deity a perfect, sinless humanity. The sovereign God-man coming
down to do the Father's will, to save all that the Father had
given him. by perfectly satisfying the law
and justice of God on their behalf, in their stead, and that is evidence
that it got the job done by his resurrection. You see, that's
speaking the merit of that work, the righteousness of God, and
it demands life. It demands he come out of that
grave under a just God. And Paul calls this believing
a belief in thine heart. Well, let's look at the rest
of the passage here to understand this work of the heart. Verse
10, for the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
a mouth confession is made unto salvation. So we see Paul, he's
expressing the genuine concern and interest in Christ for righteousness. In the first verses of this chapter
that Mark read, you know, he spoke there of his fellow Jews.
He said, bear in record, they have a zeal of God. They're religious,
but not according to knowledge. The knowledge they were ignorant
of was the righteousness of God. And he says, so by default, they're
going about to establish a righteousness of his own. But when he gets
to verse four, he says, for Christ is the end of the law. He's the
finishing, he's the completion of all that's required for righteousness,
that which we must have to be accepted in God's sight to everyone
that believes. Well, you know, I was guilty
for years. I'd quote Romans 10, 9 or verse 13, whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And without any
additional information, I would share a witness with people and
I'd say, do you see the Bible says that? Can you believe that? Well then let's pray right now
and thank God for having saved you here and now on this day,
you know. Now that, I was sharing a message
at a time when honestly I didn't even have a clue about this wrought
out righteousness of God in Christ. Not the righteousness which Christ
is the end of the law for. See, I probably had a view of
righteousness as the moral perfection of God's character, but I didn't
have a clue about the one that Paul distinguishes here. It's
part and parcel of what the heart, the mind, the affections, the
will, our whole inner being will believe. I noted earlier from
the Great Commission there in Mark, God makes it real clear
that to believe the gospel is to be saved. to believe not the
gospel is to be damned. We'll consider that distinguishing
mark of the gospel that we often quote from Romans 1, 16 and 17. Paul wrote, for I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. It's the gospel of Christ. For
it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. Why is that so? For therein is a righteousness
of God revealed. from faith, I believe that's
the objective body of faith, what we're to believe, to faith,
the subjective gift of faith, whereby we believe. As it's written,
the just, that's the righteous, those made right, not guilty
before God, that shall live by faith. So we see that believing
on Christ is believing the gospel of Christ, and the gospel is
distinguished because therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
I once believed, as most who call themselves Christians I
think in our day believe, that they believed the gospel. I thought
I did, but I now know that what I believed at that time wasn't
God's gospel because I never heard of the righteousness of
God. And here we see it is that which is revealed in the gospel,
the body of faith that we're to believe, that which we believe
by God-given faith, which makes it the very power of God unto
salvation. to all who believe. It's this
righteousness, see, that demanded Christ come out of that grave,
be raised from the dead. Romans 5.21, as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign unto righteousness through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 8.10, the body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
But like multitudes in our day, in my ignorance of the righteousness
of God, both what it is and of my desperate need for it, for
acceptance. I was not making a confession
then with my mouth that would ascribe my whole salvation unto
him, not based upon the sole ground of his imputed righteousness
to me. That's another thing I didn't
know anything about. I was raised in the church. My
mom and daddy had me there every time the doors were open from
the cradle roll on up. Never heard anything about an
imputed righteousness. I don't know what I thought when
I read some of those verses about blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
righteousness. It just wasn't emphasized. That's
another vital thing. See, I didn't know a thing about
the doctrine of imputation. I didn't know I needed righteousness,
nor had I ever heard anything about how I come to possess this
perfect gift, perfect righteousness, impeccable righteousness, the
very righteousness of God. Well, I'm talking a lot about
my past and what I believe, but it's because I can identify with
so many of like-minded, sadly, false faith, and I pray for them. But you know, thankfully, through
the preached gospel of God's grace in Christ that set forth
his righteousness, his perfect satisfaction to God's injured
law and justice due unto sin by his payment of that sin debt
on the cross, I also learned how the merit of that work was
graciously put to my credit, made to be mine. 2 Corinthians
5 21 teaches, for he, God the Father, hath made him, God the
Son, to be sin for us, the spotless Son of God, God-man, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
This describes the imputation, the accounting or charging of
sins to Christ. Sins he had no part in producing,
so that those for whom he lived and died, they would have righteousness
imputed, charged, or counted unto them. A righteousness they
had no part in producing. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. And that's grace,
and that's good news to one who is convinced of their sin. Well,
picking up again in our text in verse 11, we read, for the
scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now, keeping the flow here, the
context, so to believe with a heart unto righteousness is what it
means to believe on him. And he says, and they shall not
be ashamed. That means that won't disappoint. You really can take
that to the bank. Verse 12, for there's no difference
between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe on
him in whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? You know, we know that to call
on the name of the Lord, has to mean more than simply invoking
the moniker, the title, or the name, Jesus, or Lord, Lord. Remember, Christ said in Matthew
7, 21, not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven. He went on to say that he would
profess unto them in that parable of sorts of preachers at the
judgment, they'd said, Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in
your name? Haven't we cast out demons? All
these things that they did presumably in his name. And he said, I'll
tell them I never knew you. He was describing those very
things that they were pleading as being works of iniquity. Things
that men would applaud, works of iniquity. Why? They were inequitable. They didn't measure up to perfect
righteousness. No, see, to call upon the name
of the Lord, his name is what identifies him. And it's to call
on him as he's identified and distinguished in the Bible. In
keeping with the context of Romans 10, I like this description.
as we read of in Jeremiah. Jeremiah described him as the
Lord our righteousness. See, that's what genuine God-given
faith believes with the heart into and confesses as their sole
ground of salvation. And then notice there at the
end of our text, the preached gospel is emphasized as God's
ordained means of calling his people unto himself. Again, that
gospel wherein his righteousness is revealed. So keep this all
tied together here. And that's, yeah, I mean, that's
a message that's a rarity in the pulpits of our day. But it's
a vital message, and that's why we do what we can to spread the
gospel from here, the gospel wherein that righteousness is
revealed. So what we can see here from Romans 10, and where
the righteousness of God is not preached, the gospel is not heard. And how shall they believe? From
the heart unto righteousness, that which they've not heard.
But you know, we needn't fret about that. God's people, they
will hear. And they will believe, as Jason
quoted in the 10 o'clock hours. Christ said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Well, in my opening remarks,
I mentioned several verses there, like Romans 10, nine, and others. Verses that are often quoted
in isolation from their immediate context and the broader context
of the whole of scripture. Quoted so as to promote the heresy
of salvation based upon man's ultimate, presumed, difference-making
decision to receive or accept Jesus, or do so in the quietness
of their own heart, or some work that's prescribed to be done
in order to be saved. And as I hope you've seen from
Romans, that by looking at the fuller context, you see not only
there the objective, I mean the subjective faith mentioned, our
act of believing, but we see that distinguishing object of
that faith. To what and in whom genuine God-given
faith looks. We know from Hebrews 12 too,
we're to look unto Jesus as the author and listen, the finisher
of our faith. He got the job done. Well, I
want to consider one of those verses a little more in depth
than I mentioned at the onset from Acts chapter 16. I think
it's worth spending just a little time here because I've heard
people who hear gospel messages like this and they'll say, I
don't know about all that doctrine. Interestingly, I think I've told
some of you before, I was asked to speak at a men's prayer breakfast type thing,
a men's meeting, about my book. And the guy's a friend of mine
had asked me to come, and he headed up that group. And I said,
well, in full disclosure, you need to know I'll be bringing
doctrine that is contrary to your denomination's doctrine.
He said, oh, that doesn't matter. We don't care about doctrine.
I'm telling you, doctrine really does matter. But they'll say
things like, I don't know about all that doctrine. He says, I
simply take God in his word when he says, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And they take that to
mean that they're saved because they believe something pertaining
to Christ. Listen, no one's saved because
they believe. True believers believe because
they've been saved, and there's a world of difference. Now these words, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, they're the unambiguous
God-inspired recorded words of Paul and Silas in response to
the Philippian jailer. If you recall the story, Paul
and Silas had gone to Philippi and they were persecuted for
preaching the gospel there. They'd been beaten, they'd been
placed into shackles and thrown in jail. And then at midnight,
Paul and Silas, they prayed and they sang praises unto God That
in spite of their circumstances, we're told the prisoners heard
them, and then suddenly there was a great earthquake. It shook
the foundations of the prison. All the prison doors opened,
and even the shackles miraculously all fell off. So the keepers
of the prison, the keeper of the prisoners, he awoke, and
in seeing that the doors were open, he assumed all the prisoners
would have fled. We're told he drew out his sword
with the intent to kill himself. Apparently preferring that to
maybe what would be a potentially torturous death he may have endured
due to the escape of the prisoners under his watch. And then picking
up in Acts 16, 28, we read, but Paul cried with a loud voice
saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he, the
jailer, he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling
and fell down before Paul and Silas. and brought them out and
said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house. And look at verse 32 there. And
they spake unto him the word of the Lord. That's the gospel.
The gospel wherein the righteousness of God's revealed. They spake
unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house.
So note this conversion didn't take place without the gospel,
the word of the Lord, being set forth and heard. Verse 33, and
he, the jailer, took them the same hour of the night and washed
their stripes and was baptized he in all his straight way. And
when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before
them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. So
I want to consider this most natural of questions asked by
the Philippian jailers after his interest had been stirred
up by this providential earthquake. And you know that's what needs
to happen in the conversion of the sinner. God has to get our
attention, make us interested at some point. The literal translation
of Sir's what must I do to be saved is just as you might expect. He's asking what is it necessary
for me to do in order that I might be saved? Well, it's a good question
in the sense that it shows an interest in eternal things. And
it will prove to be a fruitful one but only if one properly
understands and heeds the answer given. And as we know from Scripture,
that takes a new heart. That takes spiritual life. The
natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. Well, note the underlying preposition
in the question. You know, many questions are
like that. They presuppose something. Well, here's what's presupposed
here, that there is something necessary for me to do, something
that I can do in order to be saved. You know, a lot of questions
have presuppositions. If I say, are you feeling better,
that presupposes you probably weren't feeling so well before.
And the presupposition here in this question of verse 30, I
think it's as natural to a fallen man as taking our next breath. We don't even have to think.
It's the first thoughts that come to our mind. I believe people
who are even brought up under the gospel who, for example,
believe the biblical truth of election, the doctrine of election,
you know, when they, if they ever, God gets their attention
and they become interested. You know, even they, their first
question in their mind is, I wonder what I need to do to be sure
I'm counted among the elect. We think there's something we
can do by nature, even if we've been taught differently, until
God does a work. Let me suggest to you that the
answer given is one that corrects that presupposition embodied
in the question rather than confirming it. Yet it still provides the
relevant information that's needed. It'd be like this, if I invited
you to a dinner party and you politely asked, well, what would
you like for me to bring? And I said, oh, it's all being
catered. The food's prepared. It's being
completely taken care of. It's finished. Well, rather than
answering your question to confirm what I might like you to bring,
I correct that assumption in that answer, that I'd like for
you to bring something by telling you, no, it's already been taken
care of by someone else. That's good news in the gospel.
You see how that's akin to the gospel that sets forth how we
can know? And it's because of the gospel,
it's because of the rest of scripture that we can know that's the intent
of his answer. You see, there's nothing here
in the Senate structure or anything of Act 16. One could argue, one
can certainly logically say, well, I could see how it might
be that way. But if I look no further than beyond Act 16, I
would say, but I also could see that maybe he's trying to tell
us, Jayler, here's something you gotta do. Well, we know from
the whole of scripture, from the gospel, the gospel of God's
grace, It's a gift of God, not a faith lest any man should boast.
You see, we know from there, from the broader context, that
he's talking about Christ in a finished work. So when he gives
the answer, Paul and Silas say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. We can know from that that they're
telling the jailer, well, there's nothing you can do. You gotta
believe on the doing and the dying of another. You're to trust
in, you're to rely on. What he, another, has done, he,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has already finished. You know, I think the
folly of thinking otherwise can be like walking into a morgue
and going up to a corpse. I think of the evangelistic sermons
that are preached, where preachers are presuming that some of their
hearers are not saved, even as they judge saved and lost. And
so they get up there, and it'd be like going into the morgue
and going up to the dead body and saying, hey, fella, I'd like
to talk to you a few minutes and tell you what you can do
so you can come back alive. so that you can be raised to
life, you see. Well, that's silly. Dead man
can't hear. He can't see. People who are spiritually dead,
they can't spiritually see. And yet people stand in pulpits
and tell, presumably be people that they think are spiritually
dead, that if they'll do something, that as a result of their doing,
they can gain life and that eternally. The scripture describes even
those whom God saves. He says, you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. If you're spiritually alive
today, you were spiritually dead. We start out that way. When we
consider passages like this that can be, if you interpret them
outside of the gospel context of the whole of scripture, you
can really go wrong. In 2 Peter 1.20, we read that
no scripture is of any private interpretation. So the Bible
isn't there for us to cherry pick a verse here and cherry
pick one there to concoct what we choose to believe, but rather
it sets forth a very specific gospel that's to be believed. So from our Romans 10 passage,
I hope you've seen today how the validity of our faith as
to whether it's genuine God-given faith can be examined one by
its object, Faith looks unto the Christ as the Lord our righteousness. It believes God's gospel wherein
his righteousness is revealed. And secondly, we can know the
validity of our faith by considering whether it is more than just
a mere mental agreement with truth, but that it's reached
the heart. That it is a heart work. That
as we saw in Romans 10, a heart work that will have us believing
unto righteousness. Pleading, see, the very righteousness
of God imputed is our only hope and plea for salvation. Seeing
its necessity in order to stand accepted before a holy God. We're
accepted, as the Bible says, in the beloved. That's in Jesus
Christ, our surety and our substitute. based upon the merits of his
substitutionary, justice-satisfying work of redemption that God has
freely credited to my account. Now, how do I know he's put that
to my account? Because he's graciously brought
me to rely solely upon it for all my salvation and to repent
of the evil of ever having thought otherwise. And you can't do that
on your own. You won't do that. It's what
the scripture teaches. Many people think, you know, that believing
with the heart would mean to just really believe something.
But you gotta be careful, because I know firsthand you can sincerely,
really believe a lie. What the Bible in 2 Thessalonians
2 calls the deceivableness of unrighteousness. That would be
looking for anything for acceptance before God other than the perfect
righteousness of God in Christ. And that would not be the heartwork
of genuine God-given faith as distinguished by its object.
See, no matter how much one really believed that false gospel, yet
we know that this heart faith, it is indeed a sincere faith. It's indeed impressed upon our
whole being, our minds, our affections, and our wills. I'm not denying
that. But I believe there's a third identifying characteristic of
genuine God-given faith that isn't explicitly brought out
in the text for today, but I think it's one of such importance,
I'd be remiss if I didn't include it at least briefly here. I'm
planning in the future to bring a message on this, but I'm referring
to the initial repentance that takes place in the regeneration
and conversion of all who are saved. And it does relate to
our text in that, one, we see the object of our faith, our
gospel changes. We're enlightened to something
we didn't know before, so repentance takes place. And I believe this
initial repentance only exists where a believing with the heart
has taken place. See, the work of the Holy Spirit
that brings us to repent of our former, natural, mistaken notions
about salvation and about our former God, little G, as we imagined
him to be. You see, whatever you think about
how God saves sinners, it has a tremendous impact on your view
of what God is like. We only know God through Christ
and his work. So I'm speaking of the repentance
from former idolatry and dead works that always accompanies
genuine God-given faith. If faith is described as turning
to the true and living God by faith in the newness of life,
that means you're turning away from something, turning away
from the false god or gods of our imagination. Remember how
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that he knew of their election
because of their belief in the gospel. He said a gospel that
came to them not in word only but also in power by the Holy
Spirit. It's a work of the heart, see?
He added that he knew how they had received their gospel message
in that they had turned to God from idols to serve the living
and true God, 1 Thessalonians 1.9. This repentance, see, it's
a turning away from what Proverbs describes as There's a way that
seemeth right unto a man. Whatever seems right, we're told
right here, it isn't. What seems naturally right unto
a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So I'm not
talking here about the ongoing repentance or sorrowfulness over
sins that believers do experience, but rather I'm talking about
that same initial repentance that Bill mentioned, Paul described
in Philippians 3 last week. I'll just touch on that briefly.
Remember Paul, he began that chapter, Philippians 3, citing
all those things he thought really commended him to God. They counted
for something. He was the Pharisee of Pharisees.
And then he said of all those things, beginning in verse 7,
but what things were gained to me? Not those things, well I
kind of knew I shouldn't have been doing it now, I'm really
sorry for it. No, the things I thought counted for something,
commended me to God, those I counted lost for Christ, yea doubtless,
and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of
all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness. No longer
looking to my dead works, the works performed by a spiritually
dead man desiring to please God. No longer looking at that, not
having my own righteousness which is of the law, that is, of me
fulfilling the requirements or the conditions or the rules.
But that which is through the faith or the faithfulness of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. If I can
look back and count myself or others saved apart from belief
of God's true gospel, wherein his righteousness is revealed,
well then that shows I really haven't been brought to a heart
faith where Christ and his righteousness. And nothing else will do for
me. See, that would be to have no need to repent. You know,
sad, many who even profess to believe the doctrines of grace,
they seem to have received the truth in word only. In other
words, some believe that they've just progressed or they've grown
into this higher knowledge of things. They're just a little
deeper or more mature. yet they don't view those things
as vital to their salvation. In other words, they do not distinguish
the gospel that is believed upon unto salvation from what they
fail to see is a false gospel embodied in those false doctrines
concerning Jesus Christ. We don't continue to give credence
to a lie about how God saves sinners, in other words, a false
gospel, If we recognize and truly believe from the heart that it's
a lie, that it's doctrine that dishonors every attribute of
the true and living God, that dares see to place some work
of the sinner's hand, just my little small part, actually in
rivalry with what it took, the precious blood of Christ, and
that alone, and we should repent of that. See, no one knowingly
will worship an idol, and neither will anyone repent of an idol
that they don't recognize to be one. So, in their minds, it's
not idolatry. Not if I can count myself or
count others saved while denying the gospel doctrine of Christ,
of salvation by grace. That is, we're in Christ fulfilled
at every condition. See, that would be to not see
the need for repentance. It certainly would not prompt
someone to identify and say with Paul that, boy, I count those
things but dung, that I may win Christ, not if I imagine others
could somehow be saved under such teaching. See, the absence
of this repentance is evidence that though one may have learned
some truth, They may not have been granted the genuine God-given
gift of faith, whereby one believes with the heart unto righteousness. We'd all do well to keep in mind
that, contrary to what my friend told me, doctrine really does
matter, the doctrine of Christ. 2 John 1 verses 9 through 11,
whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ
hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. And look at verse
10. If there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house. Now
that's not talking about into your homes. That means into your
houses of worship, there's what that's referring to. In other
words, he's saying, if it's contrary to the doctrine of Christ, Don't
cry peace to them. Don't, in your mind, say they're
just believing, you know, they're just a less mature Christian.
Neither bid him Godspeed. Don't say peace, peace, where
there is no peace. For he that biddeth him Godspeed
is partaker of his evil deeds. Well, I'm running out of time,
but to bring this all together, I want you to consider after
Paul left Philippi in Acts 16, in the very next chapter he ends
up in Athens and he's speaking to the philosophers there on
Mars Hill. And I wanted to touch on this
because I want you to see how this repentance that always accompanies
genuine God-given faith is related there to this righteousness,
which with the heart we look to by faith. In Acts 17 at the
end of his discourse, he noted in verse 30 how God commanded
all men, not just some, but all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because he hath appointed a day
in which he'll judge the world in righteousness. Whose righteousness? By that man whom he hath ordained
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men and that he raised
him from the dead. It got the job done, see? The
standard by which all are judged is the perfect justice satisfying
merits of the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
his righteousness. And because of this, we're commanded
to repent, to turn away from the evil and natural notions
that anything other than that perfect righteousness of Christ
imputed could qualify me so as to be accepted in God's sight
before a holy God. So look to Christ and his righteousness
alone because we're assured he got the job done by that resurrection. As sin demands death, righteousness
demands life. The sins of God's elect imputed
or put to the account of Christ, they demanded his death as just
payment for their sin debt, a debt he willingly incurred. And his
perfect work of righteousness demanded that he live. along
with all those for whose sins he died, those to whom his righteousness
is imputed are put to their account." See, it's based upon his imputed
righteousness that they all, without fail, shall be risen
up in the newness of life in their respective generations.
They'll live spiritually and ultimately be raised to heaven's
glory. Well, that's where genuine God-given faith looks. For with
the heart man believeth unto righteousness.