No, I am excited, genuinely excited
to be here, and the subject that you are studying in this series
is something that God has used to ignite extraordinary passion
in my heart and in my soul for the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
have a feeling that God is working in your heart this way as well,
or you wouldn't be up here on a Friday night studying something
that happened 500 years ago in the 16th century, but I want
you to know it was earth-shaking. It turned the world upside down. Western civilization especially
has never been the same. What God did in Europe in that
Reformation, it spread to Scotland, it spread to England. It eventually
spread to America, and when the pilgrims were washed up on shore,
having come over in the Mayflower, and brought to this country in
America the gospel of Jesus Christ, it was really the overflow of
the Reformation. In fact, Philip Shaft, in his
outstanding eight-volume treatise on church history, has a sentence
at the beginning of Volume 7 that has always rung in my ear, in
which he says, other than the first century with the apostles,
there has never been a time that has been equaled in power upon
this earth like the Reformation. And so for that reason, I want
to know what happened in the Reformation, because quite frankly,
I want to see God do a Reformation in my day. I want to see God
raise up a new generation in which we'll see a mighty impact
upon this world, and if that is to happen, then we must recover
the essential truths of the Reformation. Nothing will be different. It
will be coming back to these very same truths. Now, there
are five solas, the Latin word for only or alone. There were
five solas that emerged from the Reformation, and by this
point in the series, no doubt you're familiar with these, but
I want to paint a picture of how these five fit together,
and they all fit together. You cannot have four out of the
five. or three out of the five, they all stand or fall together. So, I want you to picture a temple,
a massive, beautiful edifice. And the foundation of this temple
is Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone is the very foundation
that upholds all Christian living, it upholds all salvation, it
upholds everything that we know and believe because it is the
Word of the Living God, right? So that's the foundation. And
then there is this extraordinary apex of a temple roofline that
is pointing upwards, and it is the apex, and it is over the
entirety of the temple itself, and that is solideo gloria, for
the glory of God alone. Everything pointing upward for
the honor, for the majesty, for the dominion, for the worship
of God in heaven. So the foundation, sola scriptura,
scripture alone. The lines of this facility pointing
upward to the glory of God alone, to the praise of God alone. And upholding this roof line
are three massive pillars. These three massive pillars really
embody the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without these three pillars,
there is no gospel of Christ. And these three pillars, the
two on the outside that rest upon the scripture itself, the
foundation, is Sola Gratia and Solus Christus. Grace alone,
Christ alone. And grace alone means that salvation
is the free gift of God, undeserved, extended to sinners without any
cost, and sola Christos is the work of Jesus Christ upon the
cross. At the very center, in the very
epicenter, the center pillar is what brings this all together. It's been called the hinge of
the gospel. It is sola fide. It is how the
work of Christ and the grace of God are brought to bear upon
the life of the undeserving sinner. Sola Fide is what brings the
grace of God and the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross into
the life of the undeserving sinner and it is by faith alone. Now the backdrop of the Reformation
is For almost a thousand years, the Catholic Church dominated
the landscape of the scene. God has always had a people,
and there was a remnant through those 1,000 years, these dark
ages. There was a remnant of true believers. God has always had his people
in every century, but they were very much out of the spotlight. They were in small places, and
they emerged out of Rome a false religion, a false gospel that
believed in Christ and believed in grace and believed in faith. No mistake about it. If you talk
to a person in the Catholic Church, they'll tell you, I believe in
Christ. I believe in faith in Christ. I believe in grace. But what the Reformation was
all about is that word, sola. You see, the Roman Catholic Church
would preach the fide, they just would not preach the sola. The Roman Catholic Church said,
well, what we believe, we believe by the scripture and church tradition
and the Pope and their ecclesiastical councils. And the reformers said,
no, Let God be found true, let every man be found a liar. Truth resides alone in the Word
of God. And the Sola removed any other
means by which God would reveal His redemptive truth to man. And these three massive pillars,
it's imperative that the word sola be attached to every one
of these, because without sola, we're lost, we're unconverted,
we're hell-bound without sola. The Roman Catholic Church would
say, well, we believe in faith and good works. We believe in
faith and church membership will get you to heaven. We believe
in faith and being baptized. We believe in faith and taking
the mass. We believe in faith and indulgences. And everything that is added
to faith makes it no longer faith because you cannot have one foot
on Christ and the other foot in your own good works and have
committed your life entirely to Christ. It's not until you
place both feet upon Jesus Christ, burn every bridge behind you,
and I put my faith alone in Christ alone, are you truly saved and
a child of God. The Reformation was all about
the sola and sola fide. It became a shorthand for justification
by faith. Justification is the sinner being
declared righteous before a holy God. It is holy God accepting
unholy man and receiving sinners into his holy presence. And the
only way that you and I can be made acceptable in the eyes of
a holy God is when we exercise faith alone, in Christ alone,
and in His grace alone. Now, the one who stumbled upon
this, if you had your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Romans.
Let's get into the Word. Romans chapter 1. This is the
verse that really lit the match, that ignited the flame, that
spread to the world. I want to show you the verse
that God used in the life of an Augustinian monk named Martin
Luther, who was lost, who was caught up in his monkery, who
was caught up in his religiosity. who had no acceptance with a
holy God in heaven and was doing everything he could do in his
own efforts and in his own works to add to Christ in what he had
done to be accepted by a holy God in heaven. And so in Romans
1 and verse 17, it was like when Luther came to this verse. He was a Bible professor in the
University of Wittenberg, which is a small town in Germany. He
was teaching the Word of God on the college level to his students. He began by teaching the Psalms,
didn't know the Lord at all, gave him the courage to stand,
for his convictions, yet he still didn't know Christ. And he began
to teach the book of Romans. And as he came to this verse,
verse 17, it was as if the floodlights came on. And when that truth
came shining into the darkened heart of Martin Luther, he saw
it. He saw the gospel. He saw the
truth. And once Martin Luther saw it,
he began to preach it, he began to teach it, God began to raise
up others, and the church came to the purity of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Not the Roman Catholic Church,
but God in essence began a new work outside of that church. So, look beginning in verse 16,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, the gospel The euangelion is
the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, and the
it refers to the gospel of verse 16, for in it the righteousness
of God is revealed. Now watch this. from baptism
to baptism, from church to church, from good work to good work,
to faith and other things. As Martin Luther poured over
this passage, he saw the truth for what it was, that salvation
is sola fide. It is by faith alone. the entrusting of your life to
the saving arms of Jesus Christ, the surrender of your life to
Christ, the commitment of your life to Christ, the repentance
of your sins, the repudiation of anything else and everything
else, and the giving of your life to Him who suffered and
bled and died upon the cross, Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners. And so, for in it, verse 17,
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, that's how you enter
into the kingdom of God, to faith, that's how you continue in the
kingdom of God, as it is written, but the righteous man shall live
by faith. Martin Luther was in a tower
at the church in which he served. in Wittenberg, Germany. And when
he came to understand this, he understood it was by faith alone,
and he was born again. I want to share with you just
a few sentences from Martin Luther's testimony that you can hear this,
that you can see and hear this discovery of the gospel of Christ. And Martin Luther, writing of
his own personal testimony some years later, wrote this quote.
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a
sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could
not believe that he was placated, that means satisfied, by my satisfaction,
meaning, he said, I just can't believe that God would ever accept
me on the basis of my good works. And you know what? He was right.
I did not love, yes, I hated the righteousness of God who
punishes sinners. And secretly, if not blasphemy,
certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God and said,
as if indeed it is not enough that miserable sinners, eternally
lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity
by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to
pain by the gospel and also by the gospel, threatening us with
his righteous wrath. Thus I raged with a fierce and
troubled conscience." You see, Martin Luther understood that
he could never be good enough for God to be accepted by God
because he rightly understood that God is not great on the
curve, that God demands absolute perfection for anyone to be accepted
by a holy God in heaven. And Martin Luther rightly understood
that he could never be perfect He could never remove sin, no
matter how many good works he ever tried to do. And so, he
was in this turmoil. God had set the standard so high
that he could never meet the standard, and God would never
lower the standard where he could reach the standard. And God had
set it so impossibly high that he was angry with God, until
at last, By the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave
heed to the context of the words, namely, and now he quotes this
very verse, in it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is
written, he who through faith is righteous shall live. There I began to understand that
the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives,
by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning, the
righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive
righteousness, meaning nothing that he would do with which merciful
God justifies us by faith. And so he says here, I felt that
I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself.
through open gates. I wonder if you've done that.
I wonder if you have entered through the gates of paradise
into the kingdom of heaven, if you've entered through the narrow
gate that leads to life, and the only way to enter through
that narrow gate is by faith alone in Christ alone. Well, tonight I want to talk
about this Sola Fide, and I've taken maybe a little more time
than I had intended in this introduction, but I want to walk through some
essential points with you tonight to help us really have a handle
on what is the centerpiece of the Reformation and what is the
centerpiece of evangelical truth It is sola fide is how the work
of Christ and the grace of God becomes attached to your life
and credited to your account in heaven. It comes exclusively
through faith alone. Now, I want to give you seven
headings. And for those of you who are
note takers and we'll flash them up on the screen, I want to walk
through these points and I pray that God will use these in your
life. So here's what I want you to
see. Number one, faith alone is absolutely necessary. You see, without faith alone
in Christ alone, there is no salvation. What if someone has
had faith and they trust in their baptism to get them to heaven?
No salvation. What if someone trusts in faith
and their church membership to get them to heaven? No salvation. You haven't come all the way
to Christ yet. You haven't put the entirety of your trust in
Jesus Christ until you come to that place where it is by faith
alone in Christ. Why is it absolutely necessary?
Look at the next verse in Romans 1 after verse 17. I want you
to notice verse 18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That describes the entirety of
the human race outside of Christ. The wrath of God abides upon
every unbeliever in this world. Sometimes after we hear John
3.16, we have the idea that God just is so in love with everyone
that presently there is no wrath of God, and nothing could be
further from the truth. Right now, from heaven, the wrath
of God abides. It rests upon the head of every
person upon this planet who has not yet come to put faith in
Christ alone. This is why it's absolutely necessary. Without it, you're going to hell.
Without it, you will suffer under the righteous wrath of Almighty
God. Turn to Romans 3 in verse 9,
and we read of Paul's summation of the entire human race outside
of Christ, apart from Christ. We read in Romans 3 verse 9,
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have
already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. And to be under sin is to be
under the wrath of God, because God is a holy God, and God is
a righteous God. It says in verse 10, there is
none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks for God. They have all turned aside. Together
they have become useless. There is none who does good.
There is not even one. Come down to verse 23, we read,
all have sinned. and fall short of the glory of
God. You see, all the world has been
weighed in the balances by a holy God in heaven, and all the world
has come short of the perfect standard of God, and because
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wrath
of God abides upon every sinner upon this planet. And there is
divine judgment at the end of this age. Look at verse 19 of
chapter 3. Now we know that whatever the
law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that
every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable
to God Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified. Sola Fide is absolutely necessary
because apart from Sola Fide, a person is under the wrath of
God. If you've not come to the place
in your life where you have repented of your sins and turned away
from the lures of the world and the selfish self-pursuits of
your life, If you've not yet come to the place where you have
entrusted your life to Jesus Christ, this very moment you
are under sin and you are under the wrath of Almighty God and
you are in dire need of the salvation that comes through Christ alone. Let's continue to think about
sola fide. Number one, it's absolutely necessary. Number two, it's uniquely exclusive,
meaning in order for a man or a woman to be right before God,
there is only one requirement, not two, not three, not four.
I remember the time the richest man in lower Alabama came to
me and asked me to marry a woman who was fabulously wealthy. And just people who had grown up
in church all their life. And I said, well, I can only
marry two Christians. Give me your testimony. And this
man began to tell me what I knew that he would tell me. He said,
I'm a member of a church that believes there's five things
that you have to do to be saved. You have to be baptized. You
have to be baptized by one of their members, by one of their
ministers. You have to be a member of their
church. And walk me through this litany." And I said, I'm sorry,
I can't marry you because I can only marry two Christians. And
until you have come to the place where there's only one thing
that you have done, and that is put your faith in Jesus Christ,
then you're not yet a Christian, regardless of what the outside
label says. You see, sola fide is uniquely
exclusive, and that is the only thing that God requires of the
sinner in order to be the recipient of the saving grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ. While we're in Romans 3, look
at verse 28. Luther, as he translated the
Bible in his day into the German language, as he translated verse
28, he by his own admission added a word to the sacred text, but
While it's not explicit in the text, it is certainly implicit
in the text. And in Romans 3, verse 28, Paul
writes, and Luther translated this into the German language,
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from
works of the law. And here was the rub of the Reformation. Here was the rub of church history. Luther, after the word faith,
added the word alone. He added the sola. For we maintain
that a man is justified by faith alone. apart from works of the
law. And this is where this battle
cry of the Reformation came from, sola fide, as Luther inserted
the word alone after faith. It's not justifiable as far as
a strict translation, but it certainly is justifiable in the
sense that nothing can be added to faith. The sinner putting
faith in Jesus Christ. Well, you can imagine the Roman
Catholic Church did not like this, and a couple years later,
in 1545, they convened the Council of Trent, and they fired this
response to sola fide, and it's never been rescinded. It remains
to this very day. Listen to it. Quote, if anyone
says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence
in the divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that
this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified, let
him be anathema. Let him be damned. Let him go
to hell forever. if you believe that it is simply
faith alone in Christ alone that we give you a holy standing,
a right standing before a holy God. Well, this is what the Reformation
was all about. It was uniquely exclusive. Look at chapter 4 in the book
of Romans. Romans chapter 4. There are three
additives that people are always trying to add to faith alone. I want to point these three out
to you. The first additive is found in
verses 1 through 8, and it is good works. Faith and good works. Notice verse 1. What then shall
we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? What
has he found? For if Abraham was justified
by works, He has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed. That's the
word for faith. Pistou, Abraham believed God
and it was credited to him as righteousness. The word credited
here means it was imputed into the account of Abraham, the very
righteousness of Jesus Christ, or the righteousness of God in
Christ. It was given to the account of
Abraham simply because Abraham believed God. Verse 4, now to
the one who works, His wage is not credited as a favor, but
as what is due. But to the one who does not work,
but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited
as righteousness." It couldn't be any more abundantly clear
from the Word of God. But the only way you may ever
have a righteous standing before a holy God in heaven is for you
to exercise faith alone in Christ, and the very righteousness of
God will then be deposited into your account in heaven by faith
alone. And if you trust in works to
bring about a right standing before God, you will never receive
the righteousness of God in Christ. There's a second additive that
people would attempt to add. It's found in verse 9, 9 through
12, and it's religious ritual. We read in verse 9, is this blessing
then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also? Well, you know what circumcision
is. It was the religious ritual,
the religious rite that was given to Jews for the circumcision
of the foreskin of the male that was a symbolic thing, but it
certainly did not bring about salvation. It was only like water
baptism, simply an outward symbol, and there certainly had better
be an inward reality because the outward symbol is just that.
It is only an outward symbol. And he goes on in verses 10 through
12 to say that no one has ever been justified before God in
heaven by faith and the keeping of any religious ritual whatsoever. And then there's a third leg
that Paul knocks the legs out from under, beginning in verse
13 and extending through verse 15. And he says that it is not
only apart from good works, and not only apart from religious
ritual, but it is apart from law-keeping. The attempts by
man to obey the law of God, it is absolutely impossible. And verse 13 through 15 makes
this abundantly clear, verse 13, that it is not through the
law, but through the righteousness of faith. And so, beginning in
verse 16, he tells us, oh no, it is not by good works, it is
not by religious ritual, it is not by law keeping, it is not
by faith and any of these three things. It is only by saving
faith in Christ alone is anyone given a right standing before
God. Verse 16, for this reason, it
is by faith in order that it may be in accordance with grace. Sola fide and sola gratia are
inseparably bound together. And so, in verse 17, the word
believed. In verse 18, the word believed. Verse 19, the word faith. Verse 20, the word faith. Verse
24, But for our sake only, to whom
it will be credited, referring to the righteousness of God,
as those who believe in Him, in Christ, or in God, who raised
Jesus our Lord from the dead. Look at the first verse of chapter
5. This couldn't be any more clear. Therefore, having been
justified by faith. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I must hasten. There's
a third truth that I want you to see about Sola Fide, and this
is so very important, and I want you to see number three. It is
divinely given. What is divinely given? Faith. Saving faith in Jesus Christ
is the gift of God to the unbelieving sinner. You see, no one can believe
on their own. Let me ask you a question. What
can a dead man do? I was in a class one time and
that question was asked and the student in the back of the room
yelled out, stink. That's the only thing a dead
person can do is just stink. Ephesians 2 verse 1 says that
we are dead in trespasses and sins, right? What can a spiritually
dead, unbelieving sinner do towards Christ? And the answer is stink. There is no capacity of the will
to believe upon Christ until God, by sovereign mercy, creates
the gift of faith God creates saving faith in the spiritually
dead heart of the sinner that enables them to believe upon
Christ. Let me take you to a couple verses
on this. Come to Ephesians chapter 2,
verses 8 and 9. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8
and 9. A passage I think that we're
all very familiar with, but I want you to look at it more carefully
with me tonight. Notice. For by grace you have
been saved through faith." There is sola gratia, by grace, sola
fide, through faith. Notice, nothing is added to grace,
nothing is added to faith. Now he says, "...and that not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God." Question, what is the
that and what is the it? Well, obviously we would say
that grace is the gift of God and not of ourselves. But for
those of us who remember our English class, if we say it refers
to anything, it would be to the closest antecedent in the sentence. And it refers not only to grace,
but first and foremost, if it refers to anything, it refers
to faith. You see, faith is the gift of
God, and faith is not of yourselves. Out of the spiritually dead heart
of the lost sinner comes only corruption, not saving faith. Come with me to Philippians chapter
1 while we're in the neighborhood. Philippians 1 and verse 29, for
to you, the you refers to those true believers in the church
at Philippi, for to you it has been granted for Christ's sake
Granted means be given to, not only to believe in Him, but also
to suffer for His sake. You see, it must be given to
the spiritually dead sinner to believe in Jesus Christ. You see, sola fide, the faith
That is, a saving faith is the gift of God. Come back to Acts
3 and verse 16, an obscure verse in some ways, but it greatly
makes the point. In Acts chapter 3 and in verse
16, we read, kind of coming apart here, Rick. I've made preaching
a contact sport here. There we go. All right, verse
16. Peter is preaching. The church
has just been born. Now, notice verse 16. And on
the basis of faith in his name, this faith is saving faith. It is the name of Jesus, which
has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith
which comes through him. Where does faith come from? It
doesn't come from you. It comes from Him. You exercise
it, but you only exercise the God-given gift of saving faith
to believe upon Jesus Christ. So then why isn't the entire
world saved? Because God doesn't give saving
faith to everyone on the planet. He gives it to His elect whom
He chose before the foundation of the world. Faith is the gift
of God that must be exercised by the sinner. Come to John 6,
John chapter 6 and verse 44. John 6 verse 44, we're talking
about sola fide, and it is such an extraordinary doctrinal truth. We want to understand its richest
and fullest implications that it alone unites my heart and
soul to Jesus Christ and it is the exercise of faith which Christ
Himself gives to me that enables me to believe upon Him. So in
John 6 verse 44 we read, no one, I've done a study of this and
here's what it means in the Greek, no one. It's very profound. No one can come to me. He's not talking about physically
walking up to Jesus and like receiving something out of His
hand. To come to Christ means to believe upon Christ. It means
to come to Christ with the heart. It means to come to Christ with
your soul. It means to commit your life
to Christ. It means to entrust your life
to Jesus Christ. And he says, no one can come
to me. Now, you know the difference
between can and may, don't you? May speaks of permission. Can
speaks of ability. I remember when I was in elementary
school, I raised my hand once and I asked the teacher, can
I go to the bathroom? And in front of the whole class,
she said, I don't know if you can or not, but you may. I've
never forgotten the difference between may and can. You have
permission whether or not you can. When the gospel is preached,
sinners may come to Christ. It's just that they cannot come
to Christ because they have no saving faith within themselves. They have no ability in their
dead soul to believe. This is what the scripture teaches
as radical depravity or total depravity. And so we read in
John 6, verse 44, no one can, no one has the ability to believe
upon me unless the Father who sent me draws him And this speaks
of the supernatural work of God the Holy Spirit in the heart
of the lost sinner, enabling the lost sinner to believe upon
Jesus Christ. He repeats it in verse 65 of
this chapter. For this reason, I have said
to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted
him from the Father. The fide, a sola fide, is a faith
that must be given to the lost sinner by Christ. Let me tell
you, this was one of the key truths of the Reformation. Martin
Luther has written more, if you go into the average public library,
there are more books by Martin Luther, by Luther, and about
Luther than any other figure in history except Jesus Christ. Luther said before he died, in
fact, I teach a men's study on Friday morning in my church,
and the men, wanting to show their love to me, they presented
me with the 56-volume set of the works of Martin Luther. I
hugged all of them, said, thank you very much. And it occupies
three shelves, long shelves in my study. Luther said, of all
of it, there are only two things worth extending beyond my death. You can just throw the whole
thing away. One was a little catechism that he wrote for children. The other was his blockbuster
book entitled, Bondage of the Will. That book turned Europe
on its ear. And Luther taught the bondage
of the will held captive by sin until God liberates that will
by the power of the Holy Spirit and gives the gift of faith to
enable the lost sinner to believe upon Jesus Christ. You know,
sometimes we have the mistaken idea that salvation works this
way, that grace is the hand of God reaching down to the lost
sinner. And man's contribution to his
own salvation is the hand of man of faith, the hand of faith
reaching up. And when grace meets faith, that's
where salvation occurs. And there's a sense in which
that is true. It's just that there's more to the story. The
faith that you exercised in Jesus Christ is a faith that God gave
to you to believe upon Christ at a time when you had absolutely
no capacity whatsoever to surrender your life to Christ. It must be divinely given. Let me just show you a couple
other verses quickly, and then I want to finish this. I have
a flight to catch in the morning, so that's good news for you.
So, but until then, hey, We'll have a lock-in here tonight,
okay? Get Eric Bancroft up here. Well, then, never mind. Okay.
Hebrews 12, verse 2. Look at Hebrews 12, verse 2. One more, and then we'll press
on. As we live our Christian life,
Hebrews 12, verse 2, we are to be fixing our eyes on Jesus. Now, I want you to notice His
relationship to faith in your life. He is the author and perfecter
of faith. Who authored saving faith in
your once spiritually dead heart and soul? And the answer is Jesus
Christ. He is the one who came to you
and enabled you to believe upon Him. He is the author and perfecter
of saving faith. All right, I want to give you
one more, and then we are going to move on. 2 Peter 1, verse
2. 2 Peter 1, verse 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and
apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of
the same kind as ours." It's not talking about the faith,
it's talking about a faith. It's not talking about the objective
faith, the faith referring to the truths of the gospel. It's
talking about a faith, subjective faith in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. You must receive faith There's
only one source for that faith. It is the author and perfecter
of faith, Jesus Christ. Do we not see tonight what a
debt of love we have to God, that He loved us so much that
He would not allow us to continue to run away from His Son, Jesus
Christ, and to continue to reject Him, and to continue to run according
to the course of this world? that God was so merciful and
so gracious and so kind that He performed open-heart surgery
within us knowing that the only way I could be connected to Christ
is by faith, and that I had no capacity to believe upon Christ,
and that God did in my heart and soul what I would have never
done and could have never done, that is, believe upon His Son,
Jesus Christ. And in a sense, God induced labor
in the new birth, and God did a work within me by planting
saving faith in my heart. which enabled me to trust Him. And the Reformers, Luther and
Calvin, at the head of those lines, rightly understood that
saving faith is the gift of God." Well, I must press on, and I
want to quickly cover a few more things with you. And I think
that this is really worth our consideration tonight. Number
four, I want you to see concerning saving faith, it is internally
comprehensive. By that, the scripture teaches,
and what we mean is that God has made you on the inside with
a mind and with emotion and with will, with a will. And if you
are to be saved by saving faith, This will involve the entirety
of who you are on the inside. We've often heard it put this
way. Some people believe only with their head, but they've
never really believed with their heart. And what they are saying
is, in a way that we can understand, you have the facts of the gospel
in your head, but there has never been the exercise of your will
to commit your life to Jesus Christ. Let's think about this
just for a moment. First, with the mind. This is
where saving faith begins. It begins with the mind. This
is the first requirement of true saving faith. Faith never happens
in a vacuum. We must know the truth. We must
know the facts of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you do not
know the truth of the gospel of Christ, then there is no way
for you to be saved. That's why we even send missionaries
to the corners of the earth, because no one can be saved anywhere
on the globe except they hear the proclamation of the good
news of Jesus Christ. You need to know the truth about
God, that He is a holy God, and that all have sinned. The truth
about yourself and fallen short of the glory of God. You need
to know the truth about Christ, that Christ is a Savior who died
a substitutionary death upon the cross for sinners, that He
bore our sin in His body upon the tree, and that He suffered
under the wrath of God. He shed His blood for sinners.
It makes the only atonement for our sin that he was taken down
off that cross, buried in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day he
was raised from the dead, he is ascended back to the right
hand of God the Father, where he is judge of heaven and earth,
and there is salvation in no other name. For there is no other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me. Jesus claims an exclusive monopoly
on access to the Father. No one will ever come to the
Father except they come through Jesus Christ. And the only way
for you to come to God through Jesus Christ is for you to surrender
your life to Christ, for you to confess your sin, for you
to acknowledge your transgressions, to turn away from the world,
to turn away from your sin, and to surrender, to submit, to commit,
to entrust, to rely upon. The Lord Jesus Christ, you must
know that crystal clear in order to be saved. John Calvin said,
quote, faith rests upon knowledge, not upon pious ignorance. Luther said, quote, I've made
a covenant with God that he sends me neither visions, dreams, nor
even angels. I am well satisfied with the
gift of the scriptures. which give me abundant instruction
and all that I need to know." What both these men were saying
is there must first be the knowledge of the truth. And I trust that
here tonight you know the knowledge that is contained in the saving
gospel of Jesus Christ. But that's only the first of
the three components of saving faith. You must know that, but
not everyone who knows that has truly believed upon Christ, have
they? Hell is filled with people who
have this head knowledge in their head. God will send people to
hell from the pew just like He will from the gutter. Even the
demons themselves believe, James 2, 19 says, second, not only
with the mind, but second with the emotions, with the heart.
There must be a deep heart conviction that the facts of the gospel
are true, that Jesus is who He says He is. A deep conviction
that I am a sinner and I am in need of salvation. that I am
separated from a holy God, and there is a deep heart persuasion
of the truthfulness of the gospel. I believe that there is a God
in heaven. I believe that this God created me and made me in
his image. But I am separated from this
God by my sin and an infinite chasm separates me from this
God. And I cannot come to God except
through the exclusivity of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And is the only way that I may
come into his presence, the heart must be persuaded of this truth. And then finally, third, with
the will. There must be the exercise of
the will to consciously, intentionally, and purposefully choose and do
actually believe upon Jesus Christ for eternal life And the word
belief means far more than merely intellectually accept the facts
of the gospel. It means to volitionally choose
to entrust your life to Christ alone to save you, knowing there
is no other savior under heaven by which you must be saved. This is the internally comprehensive
nature of saving faith. It is very possible for it to
be in your head. And it is very possible for you
to even be emotionally persuaded of its truthfulness, and yet
your will has never made the decisive choice to surrender
your life to Christ, whereby you give yourself in saving faith
to Him who suffered and bled and died upon a cross 2,000 years
ago. This is the internal comprehensive
nature of true saving faith. And in Sola Fide, all three of
these will be present. Well, number five, outwardly
evidenced. Where there is true saving faith
in the heart, it will inevitably and always and necessarily be
evidenced with the outward witness of a changed and transformed
life. The Reformers put it this way,
faith alone saves, faith alone saves, but faith that is alone
does not save. In other words, it is only my
faith in Christ that brings me into saving union with Christ. And if I have truly believed
upon Christ, there will be the evidence, the outward evidence
of a truly transformed life. If I am rooted and grounded in
Christ, there will be the fruit that will be evidenced and produced
in my life. What did James 2 say? Faith without
works is what? It's dead. It's not true saving
faith. If all you do is say, I believe,
but continue to live like the devil, then you've never exercised
saving faith in Christ. If you say, I'm a Christian,
Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven. You're not saved by doing the
will of God in heaven, but there is the affirmation that your
faith is real by doing the will of God in heaven, because everyone
who is genuinely saved will be rescued out of the kingdom of
darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son.
God will give that person a new heart and a new mind and a new
will and new desires and new inclinations. If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold,
new things have come. And so, it will be outwardly
evidenced. There are so many verses to turn
to, but I'll just turn to one so that We can keep our pace. This one is, I've already turned
to, but Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. There are three prepositions
that you need to keep in place, by, through, and for, or unto. We are saved by grace, through
faith, for good works. We're not saved by good works,
but we are saved for. good works. You see, we are saved
exclusively sola fide by faith in Christ alone, but the faith
that He creates and puts inside of you is a supernaturally charged
faith that is active, it is dynamic, it is a real living faith. that continues throughout your
Christian life to trust God. And it leads to the doing of
good works, because true faith is a living faith. It is a dynamic
faith. And if you truly have faith,
you will not merely say words. There will be the doing of that
which is honoring of God. In sola fide, this faith is a
faith that involves on the inside your mind, your emotion, and
on your will. And on the outside, there is
the bearing of fruit of a transformed life. You can study the book
of 1 John when you get home, and there are 9 or 10 or 11,
depending upon how you cut the pie, 9 evidences of the one who
is truly born again And in the one who is saved, all nine of
these evidences will be found in the person's life who is saved. Let me give you two more just
to give you hope, and then I'll wrap this up. Number six, regarding
Sola Fide, it is dynamically progressing. dynamically progressing. In other words, the faith that
God plants within us is a faith that grows. It grows deeper and
stronger over time. It is a faith that is capable
of degrees. And there are times when our
faith can grow weak. There are times when our faith
grows strong. There are times when our faith
may be plateaued. But on the whole, it is a faith
that is growing In the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, Romans 1 verse 17, for in it the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith to faith, and we could add to faith to
faith to faith to faith. Listen to this. Matthew 14 31
talks about little faith. Matthew 15, 28 talks about great faith. 1 Timothy 1, 5 talks about sincere
faith. Romans 14, 1 and 15, 1 talks
about strong faith. Romans 14, 1 talks about weak
faith. Romans 4, 20 talks about growing
strong in faith. And so this faith that we have
received from God, that we have exercised towards Jesus Christ
is a faith That is a total commitment of my life to Christ, but it
is a faith that grows deeper, it grows stronger over the passing
of years, and there may be seasons in my life when I am turned away
from the Word more so than I should be, and at those times my faith
is weak. But God inevitably brings me
back to the point where I continue to grow in my faith, and if I
choose to remain turned away from the Word, God has a wonderful
way of getting our attention. It's called discipline. And God
continually brings us back to the place where our faith is
anchored into Christ in a way in which I am growing deeper
and more fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, there's a final
point that I want you to see, and we'll wrap this up, regarding
the nature of saving faith, or sola fide, and it is that it
is eternally indestructible. it is eternally indestructible. In other words, true saving faith
will never implode. True saving faith will never
collapse to the point that it ceases to exist in function. That is to say, a true believer
will never become an unbeliever. It may grow weak and it may be
stretched thin, but it will never cease to trust in Christ. Philippians 1 verse 6 says, He
who has begun a good work in you shall perfect it until the
day of Jesus Christ. What is the first work that He
began in you when you entered into the kingdom of heaven? And
the answer to that is saving faith. That is the first good
work that God did within you other than opening your eyes
and allowing you to see that you are poor in spirit, and you
are spiritually naked before a holy God, and you have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God, and then He created saving
faith within you. This faith is a faith that will
never turn away from Christ. Not in the big scheme of things.
You will never apostatize. A true believer will never turn
away from Christ and renounce Christ. You may say, well, you
know, I knew some kids in high school who went to camp, and
they made a profession of Christ, and they came to church for a
while, and then we haven't even seen them since. Have they lost
their salvation? Oh, no. You can never lose your
salvation. Well, are they still saved, and
they just have a faith that is no longer being exercised by
them towards the Lord? And the answer is, oh, no. No,
they are L-O-S-T. Let me give you a little slogan that
we have down in Mobile, Alabama. The faith that fizzles before
the finish had a flaw from the first. Now you're southern too. Did
you write that down? The faith that fizzles before
the finish had a serious flaw from the first in that it was
not true saving faith. There were religious feelings
and there were intellectual acknowledgements But there was never coming to
the decisive fork in the road whereby you must decide that
I will get off of the broad path that is headed for destruction
and repent of my sin and enter in through the narrow gate that
leads to life. It is only faith in Christ, true
faith that takes me through that narrow path. And others may give
appearance of having done that, but if they have fallen away
from the faith, they have given evidence that the faith that
fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first, because
true saving faith is eternally indestructible. It will hold
fast through thick and thin, and even if it's strapped to
a stake and the torch is lit, and that person will become a
martyr for Christ, God the Holy Spirit in them will strengthen
their faith and give them dying faith and they will hold fast
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this is Sola Fide, and
it was the message that rocked the world in the 16th century,
and I want you to know it is just as true tonight as it's
ever been. There's only one way that you
will ever be accepted by a holy God in heaven, and that is through
the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross. Jesus was born
of a virgin that he might live a sinless and perfect life under
the law, perfectly fulfill that which you and I could never accomplish,
a perfect obedience to God. When He went to the cross, He
died in our place upon that cross. And as He was lifted up to die,
God took our sins and placed them upon Jesus Christ and Him
who knew no sin. God made to be sin for us, and
He bore our sins in His body. As He bore our sins, God the
Father inflicted the Son. With the punishment that was
due us, it fell upon Christ. And it was in His death upon
the cross that the only atonement for sin has been made. And the only way I can be rightly
related to this atonement, the only way that there can be the
forgiveness of sin, the only way that there can be an atonement
made to cover over my guilt and depravity and wickedness and
sin, is for me to exercise faith alone
in Jesus Christ. So the question before every
one of us here tonight is, have you exercised faith alone in
Christ? It's not enough just to be in
church. It's not enough just to be in a Bible study like this.
It's not enough to have a Bible and a notebook And to have these
truths even in your head, you must come to that time, that
place in your life where you make a decisive choice with the
faith that God creates and puts within you to believe upon Christ
and to commit your life to Him. If you would commit your life
to Christ, if you'd come to Him on His terms, I want you to know
He would receive you. He would save you. He would forgive
you. He would give you a new start.
He would come to live inside of you. He would go before you
the rest of your life. He would walk beside you. He
would cause all things to work together for your good and for
His glory. He would give you peace. He would
give you pardon. He would give you a right relationship
with the Father. And when you die, He would take
you immediately to be with Himself in heaven and save you from His
wrath on that final day. And so if you've never believed
upon Christ, How strange it would be to study Sola Fide and you
have never exercised Sola Fide. So now you know the truth. You
know what the truth of the Reformation was all about. And more importantly
than that, you can know the truth that is incumbent upon your life
as one who has now been a hearer of the word, that you would entrust
your life to him alone who can truly save you. You've never
committed and surrendered your life to Jesus Christ. I would
urge you to do so tonight, this very night. Today, now is the
accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. He who hears his voice being
often reproved shall suddenly be cut off, and that without
remedy. But now is an accepted time.
Tonight is a day of grace. The gates of paradise are swung
wide open. And you have this opportunity
to enter into the kingdom of God. And you may enter by faith
alone in Christ. For those of us who have believed
upon Christ, we just... Live from faith to faith to faith.
There's no other way. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in Him. And every day is a day of faith,
trusting in Christ. And so may all of us here tonight,
whether for the first time or rather deepening our own initial
commitment to Christ, may all of us be found as those who have
put faith in Christ alone. There is no one greater to whom
you could ever commit your life than Jesus Christ. Don't be committed
to this world. Don't be committed to anything
or anyone ultimately. You need to be committed to Jesus
Christ. He will save you and He will
save you forever. Let's pray.