For this hour, we're gonna be in the book of Ephesians again, chapter one. Most men have God as someone that is dependent, dependent upon them, on their obedience. And that literally would render God powerless, if that's the case, and we know that's not the case. But as we said the first hour, the natural man can't come up or fathom the truth about who God is. They can't understand his purpose because it has to be revealed. The Lord has to give it. If we live or believe, not live, if we live, if we believe that we can limit the Lord, then we are wrong. We are very wrong. And our minds oftentimes, our flesh believes that it can, that's the problem. Our flesh truly believes that God is subject to us because it wants to be God. And we cannot come to the natural conclusion that He is God and I'm the sinner. That has to be the gift of grace. That has to be by repentance and faith alone. God has a purpose that cannot be altered or threatened, nor can it be changed pertaining to all things. He does whatsoever he wills, and none can say his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? Thank God salvation is of the Lord. Thank God salvation is of the Lord. He reigns supreme. He is sovereign. It is his salvation. A lot of places preach that. Now I understand the concept of it being my salvation once he gives it. I get that. But the truth of the matter is, it's his salvation to give in the first place. It's not my salvation. And that goes hand in hand with what the message is this morning. It's pertaining to faith. I've titled the message, Professed Faith or Bestowed Faith. professed faith, men say, you need to profess your faith in Christ, you need to make a profession, you need to confess him, you need to put your trust in him. And yet the scripture says that the Lord doesn't want anything from us. The Lord doesn't want my trust. The Lord doesn't want my faith. Everything required, he must provide. And so as we heard, he read that the Lord gives the measure of faith. That's a gift. That's the gift of grace that God gives to his people. And then with that gift, we believe Christ. We look to Christ. So it's not my salvation and it's not my faith. It's His salvation, it's His faith bestowed. And then, miraculously, by His grace, He says, now it's your salvation. Now it's your faith. I'm going to give that to you, and you're going to believe. It's one of the great gifts of our God, all by His grace alone. He chose who He wanted to choose, saved who He wanted saved. In the fullness of time, He gives that faith. to believe Him not as just our Savior, not as just our Lord, but all of our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Everything, we believe is everything. So let's read this. I just wanna read two verses. Verse 15 and 16 says, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith, and he calls it your faith, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. professed faith, or bestowed faith? He said, after I've heard of your faith. I was studying down through here, and I don't know, as far as a message is concerned, typically, the Lord had to show me this, because I wouldn't have even gathered that. When he says your faith, it stuck out to me. What does he mean, your faith? Because if the Lord requires it, I can't provide it. That's clear throughout scripture. But I realized that when he gives it to us, it actually is our faith. He gives. It's not that we produced it, and it's not that we saved ourselves. Salvation is of the Lord, but it is our salvation because he gave it to us. It is our faith because he gave it to us. It's the gift of grace. Therefore it's bestowed. Men say that it's professed faith. So what that means is you need to put your faith and your trust in the Lord. You need to do this. And it's a work, it really is. The way that they're saying it, faith doesn't work, faith rests. Faith doesn't work, faith believes. Faith, bestowed faith, looks to Christ alone as all. The problem is God only accepts what he provides. He doesn't want anything from man. He's not in want of anything. He demands perfection. He demands perfect faith. And you and I can't produce anything perfect, can we? So if I can't produce the faith and it's gotta come from somewhere else, so whose is it? It's the faith, you can see we're justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. It's his faithfulness that was our justification. It's not ours. It's what he produced. It's his sacrifice. That's what merited salvation. It's not mine, not my sacrifice, not my works, but his. And that's the biggest difference between false religion and the truth is that men say do and the Lord says no, it's finished. It's finished. believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody said, well, believing is a work. No, believing is the result of faith bestowed. If you can believe, it's because he's given you faith to believe. He's given me faith to believe. It's not a work that we do. Believing is passive. We get to call it our faith because it's a gift. It's the gift owned by all of God's elect at the expense of Jesus Christ. It's his expense. What did it cost for you to have faith? His death, his burial, his resurrection. It cost his blood, his lifeblood. It cost his sacrifice. It cost his servitude. It cost him everything. That you might be made the righteousness of God in him and be given repentance towards God and faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. The question I have this morning is which faith do I have, professed faith, which is a choice that I make, or bestowed faith, which is a choice God makes. It better be bestowed faith or I don't have saving faith. See, bestowed faith is saving faith. What does the scripture say? There's one God, one faith, one baptism. That's simple, isn't it? We don't have different kinds of faith. It's bestowed faith. So the question I have is, which faith do we have? Well, I got three questions for us this morning to answer that question. And at the end of each of these, you can just ask yourself, well, who gets the glory? Because that's what it always comes down to. Always. If a man says, you have to come here and do this, or you have to go there and do this, or don't do this, and don't do that, it all comes down to glory and praise. Men love the praise of man more than the praise of God. That's what Christ told the Pharisees. He said, you will not come to me that you might have life. And he told them why. He said, the love of my father is not in you. The word's not in you. The truth is not in you. You don't know me. You're not my sheep. He told them why. You're a pure father of the devil. He told them very clearly. But men will not come because they want glory for themselves. The Pharisees loved the attention that they got dressed up in their robes, dressed up, uh, living the life that they lived. They were, they were, they would have been what we would have today as, as, uh, I guess it'd be the Catholic church, the ones that are exalted like that, but they were treated as if they were, uh, a popular star of some kind, a movie star, that kind of publicity. You understand what I'm saying? They were exalted up to that. They love that. He said, here you go. You're walking around and you pray out loud for everybody to hear you. And he said, you have your reward. That is your reward right there. That's it. He told them, search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which speak of me. It's not their choice and their lifestyle that was gonna save them, it has to be by grace alone. It has to be bestowed faith that the Lord gives to believe Him. If someone says, or the question is, which faith do I have? Well, the question I have for us first is, is your faith the cause of your salvation? Is your faith, your faith, the cause of your salvation? That's the question I have. If somebody says, the best decision I have ever made was making the Lord Jesus Lord of my life. If somebody ever says that, they do not have saving faith. They do not have saving faith. As what's written in this scripture on the authority of the word of God, they do not have saving faith. Saving faith says Christ chose to save me. entirely. That's what saving faith says bestowed faith looks to him doesn't point to my choice doesn't point to my effort doesn't point to my works. Faith looks to Christ does my is my faith. The reason that I'm saved? Is it the cause of my salvation? These men say that you have to You ever heard the expression, I've said this before I believe here, I know I have, exercise your faith. Exercise your faith. We were in false religion, and I don't wanna be sarcastic or facetious or whatever else, but they made it sound like you go to the gym, exercise to get stronger. I'm serious, that's how they made it out to be with faith, and that's not possible. Faith is of the Lord, it comes from Him. I can't make it grow. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word. Who is the word? Jesus Christ. John chapter one. So no, it's not exercising my faith. It's not a choice that I'm making. It's not professing faith. It's bestowed faith and it comes freely by grace alone. Anything else results in death because it glorifies the so-called believer and not the Lord Jesus Christ. The ones that say they believe Christ are actually believing in their choice. They're actually believing in their self. They're actually believing, they don't know this, but they believe they saved their self. They don't really think that, I don't think. But their choice certainly did, didn't it? So they believe they saved their self. It's sad. Professed faith always says, look at me. But faith bestowed by God says, look to Christ. Professed faith always points to the one doing the professing. The bestowed faith of God always points to the Lord Jesus Christ as all in salvation. That's the difference. There's only one true faith, only one true faith, and it's bestowed faith. Faith, now this is important. I want you to hear this and understand what I mean by this. Even God-given faith is not the cause of your salvation. It's the effect of your salvation. When God saved his people on the cross of Calvary, they were saved. In eternity past, they were saved on the cross of Calvary. So they're already saved. Faith is the result. Faith is the fruit God gives to his people to bear unto him by the true vine. If I find myself believing, if I find myself trusting, if I find myself looking to His finished work as all my hope of salvation, He gets all the glory because I didn't choose to do anything. He chose in mercy to bestow His faith that does just that, looks to Him in all things. So does my faith. Is it the reason that I'm saved? No, Christ is the reason I'm saved. Faith is the evidence that he saved me. Faith is the ability, the gift that causes us to look to him alone. And who gets the glory for that? He does. It's bestowed faith, isn't it? It's bestowed faith. Second question. There's a lot of people that talk about how You've heard me mentioned before somebody told me what is the what is your congregations walk look like? What is the Christian walk in your church look like? I've said that before. I said bunch of dead dog sinners wanting crumbs from the master's table. And I don't think that was the answer that guy wanted, but there's a lot of people that always says what does that look like? What's the actual application look like? And it's almost like a. A process that I don't even understand what they're or they're getting at, but the question I have is what does your faith look like? And the reason I wanted to ask that question is because we don't look to faith. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. It's the conduit that allows us to see him as he is by faith alone. Faith, look at this. Notice verse 15. Wherefore also after I heard of your faith in the Lord. That's what it looks like. In the Lord, nothing else. Faith is looking to him alone. Faith doesn't look to self, it doesn't examine self, it doesn't look to works, it doesn't look to deeds, it doesn't look to actions, it doesn't look to taste not, touch not, handle not. Faith looks to Christ alone if it's bestowed faith. Anything else, it's not bestowed. It's not the free gift of God's grace. It's not saving faith. Saving faith looks to Christ, never to self. Faith doesn't look to man-made objects. Faith doesn't look to what I do and what I don't do. Faith looks to Christ. Faith looks to Christ. To the contrary, profess faith. Man's faith in himself is what that is, looks to self. Man's faith that he produces looked to self as evidence or part of salvation. We were, I got an example of this. We were gonna baptize for the first time a couple years ago. We got a portable baptistry over here. Camera can't pick this up, but you guys can see it. Actually, I like the fact that it's shaped like a coffin. Yeah, it's death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's what you're identifying with him. Anyways, I didn't think nothing of it, but we have a carpenter with Joe. He was looking at it. He's like, yeah, man, I don't know if that's going to hold. And I said, OK, well, I trust you. I have confidence in you. You can get it. You can fix it. And he did. He said it was hard. He had to get underneath. He had to do all this stuff and that stuff. So I had faith in Joe and faith in the wood that he put underneath there that it's going to hold up to battery. It's got several, I think it's a couple hundred gallons it holds, plus the weight of a person, plus me in that one little spot. So I need to be confident that that's going to be taken care of. So I had faith that the job was done. That's not saving faith. That's not saving faith. What was I looking to? I was looking to the wood. I was looking to the man that did the job. I was confident that that was gonna be the case. That's not what faith does. Faith rests. It can't see what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Physically, it's by faith alone. It's spiritually that we see it. And right now, we look through a glass darkly, but one day, face to face, we'll be able to see him and be made like him, for we'll see him as he is. Another example would be kind of faith that men have, professed faith. They say, put your faith in Christ. They're talking the same way. Each one of us, I'm assuming, and if I'm wrong, you can tell me later, I'm assuming we sleep on a bed. That bed had to be made somewheres. In that, we have faith that when we're gonna lay down, I'm not gonna break it. It's gonna hold me up. We used to have a chair up here. You guys are sitting in benches. Did you even think about, whenever you sat on those benches this morning, about, is this gonna hold me up? No, you had faith that they were going to hold you up. You have evidence that because they've done it before, they looked like they're pretty solid pews. You had confidence, you had faith that is going to hold you up. That's not saving faith. My point is this, that is professing faith, but it's not bestowed faith. Faith doesn't look to what you can see with your eye, doesn't look to what I can see with my eye. Faith looks to Christ. It comes from him and he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. Professed faith always walks after the flesh, minds the things of the flesh, looks to circumstances, looks to morality, looks for evidences of works, choices. So you put your trust in Jesus, but it's an absolute denial of the definition of faith. Faith looks to Christ. Think of faith as resting. Faith rests. Faith is the only reason you and I can rest on Christ alone and not put our hand to salvation. That's the only reason. God-given faith is the only reason we can rest in Christ alone. If he doesn't give that faith, I won't rest in him. I will put my hand to it just like Uzzah would to kill my son. Instant death, isn't it? If you touch the things of the Lord like that. That's what the picture is of. Faith that pleases God comes from him, freely by his grace. This bestowed faith looks to him when? Right now, and right now, and right now, forever and ever. It always looks to him. It doesn't look to self, doesn't look to circumstances, doesn't look to merits, doesn't look to what we do or do not do. It looks to Christ alone. And he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. It literally rests everything in Christ. In the book of Luke, chapter 17, there's 10 lepers that come to the Lord, and they desire to be healed. And each one of them went, he told them, he said, go show yourself to the high priest. And they did, and on the way there, they were all healed. And only one returned back to the Lord and thanked him, said he worshiped him and thanked him for healing him. You know what the Lord told that man? Thy faith made thee whole." Thy faith has made thee whole. I was thinking about that story and trying to figure out where the Gospel application was in it. And I realized something, He did show Himself to the high priest, the highest of priests, the high priest. He showed Himself to the Lord Jesus Christ. He returned back to the Lord because God had given Him faith to do so. The other men were healed at the Word of the Lord, but This man was healed because God gave him faith to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that man didn't get any glory for this. He was the only one that God saved out of those 10. That's the picture. They got their physical healing. That's what they needed. They moved on. He came back to the master because God had given him grace to see this is God. This is my savior. Just like we heard first hour with Simeon holding the Lord Jesus as an infant, he says, now my eyes have seen the Lord's salvation. This man saw the Lord as salvation. And you and I do too whenever he bestows this faith all by his grace. When the gospel goes forth and the Spirit's pleased to bless it, the Lord breathes the breath of life into one of his children, one of his elect. They become a living soul. They become alive unto him. He gives them faith. And you might as well just think of faith as the breath that you have. Are you alive because you breathe? Are you breathing because you're alive? Yes. But a baby is born not breathing, correct? So once it starts breathing, that's just evidence of life. It's got to start pretty quick after it's born. If you're a believer, you're believing in Christ Jesus alone, and that's because of faith given. We're just taking another breath of him over and over. He's our life force, spiritually, and he's our life, physically, too. The object of this leper's faith was in himself, or was it Christ? Think about that. The object of your faith. That's the most, that's something very important. What is the object of our faith? Object can't be me, can't be something I do or do not do. The object of faith has to be him. That's what bestowed faith does, is it's the gift that causes us to look to him for his glory. Bestowed faith causes us to see him as the object of salvation. Therefore, he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. That's the difference between professed faith and faith bestowed. Who gets the glory? He does. How do I know I have saving faith, bestowed faith? How do I know if I have that or not? Well, what does, what does my, I think I've already answered this, but what does my faith look to? What does it look to? We talked about what it looked like. It looks like a bunch of dead dog sinners crying out for mercy, doesn't it? That's what it looks like. It doesn't look like we have a polished life where every, I don't sin anymore. I remember my, I had a grandmother that actually said, I haven't sinned in three months and so many days. She was on her deathbed. I thought, I didn't think anything of it at the time, but everybody thought, man, I wish I was as holy as you are. That's how they acted. Looking back on that, That was sinful for her to even say that. You understand what I'm saying? We're sinners by nature. We're sinners by practice. We're sinners by what we are, not because of what we do. And we know this to be true. But the point that I'm making to us is faith doesn't look like people think it does. Faith looks to Christ. Faith looks to His blood alone. Faith looks to His merits alone as my only acceptance before God. Faith looks to His righteousness as hope, that that's my righteousness bestowed by His grace. Faith looks to Him, not to me, not to circumstances, not to my works, but to His finished work. Faith looks to His salvation alone. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 15. You know this story, I've told this many times, but I wanted you to see verbatim what it says here. Matthew 15 verse 21 through 28. Then Jesus went thence and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him saying, have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil, but he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him saying, send her away. For she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worship saying, Lord, help me. Lord, help me. You want to know what faith looks to? You want what faith looks like? That's it. Lord, help me. I'm powerless. But he answered and said, it is not meat to take the children's bread and cast it into dogs. And she said, truth, truth, Lord. Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. And Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. Faith looks like dead dog sinner crying for mercy. Faith looks to Christ, help Lord. Faith looks to Christ like Peter sinking. What did he say? Throw me a rope and I can figure this out. No, don't give me a choice. Don't give me a hand. Save me. I'm powerless. This is what faith does. It cries out for mercy unto the Lord. It looks to him alone. Lord, help me. Lord, save me. Have mercy upon me. Jesus, thou son of David. This is what faith causes, saving faith. And it's always accompanied by repentance. And I love the fact that the Lord tells us that we're dead dog thieves and liars. We say truth, Lord, but I want to be your dog. Can I be your dog? Can I eat the crumbs from your table? That's what faith allows us to do. Now we're not worshiping faith this morning, we're worshiping the God that gave us this faith. We rejoice that he gave us the ability to worship him in spirit and in truth. How? By his faith bestowed. You wanna know what bestowed faith looks like? It looks like this, thief on the cross. He's about to die. There's two thieves, one on the right hand of Jesus Christ and one on the left hand. And the one said, if you be who you say you are, then you could save us. The other said, the other one rebuked him, told him he didn't know what he was talking about. This man's done nothing wrong and we're here because we deserve to be here. And he looks to the Lord and he says, Lord, remember me when you come to your kingdom. That man saw God on the cross. How? God gave him faith to do so. God gave him the ability to see Jesus Christ, the God man on the cross and believe on him. That's what faith does is it believes on Christ. It's what it looks to and it gives all the glory to God, not to man. Faith is the ability to completely relinquish and deny self, self-righteousness, self-worth pertaining to salvation, self-merit, self-power, self-pride. Faith causes God's elect to deny our self. True God-given faith causes God's elect to confess the blood as all of our righteousness. To confess his death is all of our justification. To confess his spirit is all of our sanctification. It's not that we confess anything about ourself any longer. We don't say, I chose Jesus and I made a good choice. We say, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Is that not what faith says? Lord, I believe. And then you have this old man still yet where we say help my unbelief because I still have it strapped to my back also. Faith causes his people to boast in nothing but the finished work of Christ look nowhere else for acceptance, but Jesus Christ. Faith looks to his life as our perfection. His death, burial, and resurrection as our salvation. Faith looks to him who completed the work. It doesn't look to us to work anything. I find it comical. Scripture says, work out your own soul's salvation with fear and trembling. What do you think he means by that? Who you looking to? That's what that means. Who you looking to? Don't look to self. Don't look to self. If you think you can figure it out by looking to self, you're wrong. That's what he's telling us. God bestowed faith, believes that unless God does all the electing, all the saving, all the calling, and all the keeping, I am lost. I am lost. Now in closing, let's go back to Ephesians chapter one. I love the beauty of our Lord giving us these free gifts by His grace, and then allowing us to say, because He's given them, they're ours. He earned them. He earned them, but now He says this, verse 15, wherefore I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, seeth not to give thanks for you, making mention of you, in my prayers. He said, I heard of your faith. I heard of the love you have for the brethren. I heard that you believe the Lord Jesus Christ is all your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. I heard that you're trusting in the blood alone and you're looking to him alone as all your acceptance before God. I heard about your faith. It's God-given faith. Make no mistake, God never said, when I see your faith, I'll pass by you. That's important. It's important, he didn't say that. He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass by you. When I see the blood, I'll pass by you. And you know what faith does? It looks to the blood. It looks to the blood alone. That's the difference between professed faith and bestowed faith. And who gets all the glory? Bestowed faith, God does. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful that you chose to bestow your faith freely by your grace to your people. Bless us to our understanding. Lord, as we are about to take these elements, we ask that you would bless them, cause us to remember their meaning, cause us to look to you by bestowed faith. Thank you for your blood and your body that was shed and broken. for the salvation of your leg. We ask that you would bless it according to your purpose in Christ's name. Amen. Last Mack and Steve, if they'll come disperse the elements.