We're going to be in Galatians
chapter three this morning. Galatians chapter three, we'll
finish up Galatians three, the first hour and the second hour
will be in Galatians four. Most believe and preach or accept
preaching that states God requires something out of us for salvation. Paul is making it very clear
that that's not the case. That's not the case. Everything
required by the Father, Jesus Christ successfully accomplished
on the cross once and for all in the salvation of the Lord's
people. Paul is saying to them that they are not justified by
what they do. They're justified freely by His
grace. They're justified by the faith
of Christ. That is our justification, His
faithfulness, not our faith in God, His faith towards the Father,
His faithfulness unto the Father, faithfulness in serving us as
well as our substitute surety. That's our justification before
God. His faithfulness in shedding His blood, remitting our sin,
His faithfulness in putting away our sin. This is His faithfulness. how we are justified. So the
real question is, why are we saved or how are we saved? How
are we justified? How are we sanctified? Those
are the questions Paul's not saying to them, but he's given
the answer to those. If you were to ask those questions,
what we're about to read, here's the answer. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's who is our justification
is he is our righteousness. He is our salvation. He is our
sanctification. He's all of this all the time.
The real question is, how are we made the very righteousness
of God? How has God's chosen people made
the very righteousness of Christ in God? Because if we're not
righteous in Christ, we have no hope of eternal life. So how
is it the Lord does that? How is it the Lord does that?
How am I saved? The answer is simple. because
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of the
faith of Jesus Christ. That's what I've titled this
message, The Faith of Jesus Christ. Now let's read our text, Galatians
3, 23 through 29. But before faith came, we were
kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards
be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come,
we are no longer under a schoolmaster, for ye are all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you have been
baptized unto Christ to put on Christ, there is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be
Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. He's saying here, you thought
you were justified by the law, by the deeds of the law, but
the law was just a schoolmaster bringing us unto Christ. You
were not, how's he word that here? He says, before faith came,
we were kept under the law, shut up under the faith, which should
afterwards be revealed. So until the faith in Christ
was revealed, we were shut up to the law. We were under bondage.
We were, without hope in this world, I
could put it that way. So the title is The Faith of
Jesus Christ. What faith is Paul talking about
here? He uses the word faith about four times, three or four
times here. What faith is he talking about?
Is he talking about my faith? Is it my faith? Because he says
clearly here that, for ye are all the children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus. Well, whose faith is it? This
is a very important question, because as I said to start this
message, a lot of men state that God requires something from you
for salvation. And Paul's saying, no, the law
was just our schoolmaster. All it could do is expose our
iniquity if we tried to keep it. All it could do is expose
our sin, that the whole world may become guilty, that every
mouth would be closed. Told us in one place also that
if Christ, that if we justified by the law, then Christ is dead
in vain. You remember that last, I think it was chapter two, he
says this. Yeah, chapter two, verse 21, I do not frustrate
the grace of God, for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. That's plain and simple, isn't
it? We're not justified, we're not righteous because of what
we do. We're justified, we're made righteous
by what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for his people. If it's my faith in Christ that
saves me, if it's my faith in Christ that I'm able to believe
with that saves me, then I am the one saving myself. Do we
see that? If it's my faith in Christ that
saves me, then I'm saving myself. But that's not the case. It's
the faith of Christ given that always points to him in everything.
You know, you can't see evidence of faith. If you could, we would
brag about it, wouldn't we? People make faith a work. That's
exactly the opposite. Faith is not a work. Faith looks
to Christ. Faith believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
is the result of salvation, not the cause. Faith is the result
of being justified freely by His grace, not the cause, not
our faith, but the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
faith we need. That's who we look to in all
things. And that faith looks to the Lord Jesus Christ all
the time. This faith, it's the free gift of God. This is the
faith that came to deliver us from the schoolmaster, from the
curse of the law. Look at verse 22. But the scripture
hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. Now it's saying
by the faith of Jesus Christ here. Do we see that? That's
the faith that came to deliver us from the law. What we believe
in and what we do not believe in doesn't change our salvation. See, salvation was accomplished,
and this is something that men don't preach, that people can't
believe. It's unbelievable. What we do doesn't determine
our salvation, meaning I can't mess it up. Look, salvation was
accomplished on the cross of Calvary. Salvation was accomplished
in eternity in the covenant of grace before time ever began. This salvation is God's salvation. This is what he does. He comes
to a center when he chooses to. He reveals his truth, giving
faith to believe in his salvation, to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, to believe on him as your justification, as your righteousness. This is what the free gift of
God is. Men will take the verse, without
faith, it's impossible to please God. You ever heard that? Well,
that's true, because faith looks to Christ. And if we're not looking
to Christ, see, we are physically unable to look to Christ. We're physically unable to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It has to be done by the Lord
allowing us, causing us. We don't have the, uh, We don't
have the means to believe. See, faith is the means whereby
we can believe. If we don't have that, we can't
believe. So that means we're dead. See, once we're alive,
think of faith as being a breath that a baby takes when it's born.
The baby breathes because it's alive, not to become alive. That's
what faith is to the believer. It's our life, our breath, that
looks to Christ alone. It looks to him. Most preach
that you need to exercise your faith. And they use that verse.
Without faith, it's impossible to please God. You need to exercise
your faith. You need to just believe more.
But how can they believe on whom they've not heard? Now, I don't
mean heard about. How can they believe, what's
what Paul was saying? How can they believe on whom
they have not heard? It doesn't say about, it says
of whom they have not heard. They haven't heard his voice.
He said, my sheep hear my voice. How can they believe on him they
have not heard, on whom they have not heard? Christ has gotta
be the one that says live. Christ has gotta be the one that
says breathe. Christ is the one that's gotta
say, receive thy sight, take up thy bed and walk. This is
what he does for his people. It's impossible for us to please
God. It's impossible for us to please God. So the Lord Jesus
Christ gives us his faith and causes us to look to his faithfulness,
his finished work. When I say his faithfulness,
he was faithful to the Father, He was faithful as our substitute.
He's faithful as our priest. He's faithful as prophet. He's
faithful as king. He's faithful in every office
of God. He's faithful. And he's faithful
to redeem his people from their sin. He did. Now we can't produce what the
faith that God is looking for. We cannot merit it. We cannot
obtain it by doing something. Scripture's clear on this. Romans
10, 17, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word. So somebody
says, okay, that means I just need to hear more of the Bible.
No, you have to hear his voice. That's the difference. I have
to hear his word. His word is life. In him is life. His Word is life. The Word of
God, I would remind us, is Jesus Christ. You remember, in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him, not
anything made that was made. You go down a few verses, it
said, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and full of truth. The Word of God is Jesus Christ.
The wisdom of God is Jesus Christ, according to scripture. We have
to have ears given to us. It's not just that we need our
ears fixed. We need to be given new ears.
It's not that we need a heart bypass. We don't need a bypass
in our heart. We need a new heart. It's not
that we need a new We need a brand new everything. The Lord has
to make us literally a new creature. That's what the scripture calls
it, a new creature. And that's what he does when he births his
people by his spirit. They become new creatures in
Christ. And that new creature looks to Christ in all things,
in all things. And how does it look to Christ?
By faith alone. Not by sight, by faith alone. The message here is simple and
clear. Do not look at what you do or
have done. Look to and believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. This is the message here. He's
saying you've been given faith to believe, now believe. You
know how, I can't remember if I have this next message or this
message, I may say it two or three times, I don't know, but
I have, those of you who desire to be believers, act like it.
Well, how do you act like it? What is it we're supposed to
do? Look to Christ. That's how you act like it. If you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, look to Christ, that's it, because
he's given you the faith to do that. He's given you the ability
to do that. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
one. Actually gonna be in Ephesians
chapter one both hours, but we're doing the latter part of the
chapter this time, and then we'll do the beginning part next hour. Look at verse 15. Wherefore I
also, 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. Now why did he call it your faith
in the Lord Jesus? Because that is bestowed faith
of God. It's just, is it the Lord's salvation
or is it your salvation? Both. Both. It's the Lord's salvation
that He's given to His people freely by His grace. He'd give
you His salvation. It's yours. It's my salvation.
But it's His. You see what I'm saying? It's
the same thing with the faith here. Paul's not saying, I really see
your faith. You guys have a lot of faith over there. I'm really
impressed with you. No. Paul said, I see your faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. I see who you're looking to.
I see who you're praying to. I see who you're worshiping.
I see who you're devoting yourself to and the love that you have
towards the saints there. I see that. And those are evidences
you won't be able to see in yourself. You'll just find yourself loving
those that believe the gospel. That's what the Lord does by
shedding his love in our heart. Look at verse 17. that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his
calling and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us were to believe according to the working of his
mighty power. Now, is it that they believed
and therefore his mighty power is to us word now? No, they believe
because of his mighty power. This is all about him, what he
does for his people. This isn't about what we can
do for him. This is about what God must do for us. Verse 20, which he brought in
Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own
right hand in heavenly places far above all principality and
power and might and dominion and every name that is named.
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come and
hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head
over all the church, all things to the church, which is his body,
the fullness of him that filleth all in all. In one place, the
Lord is called the firstborn of the brethren. Why is he called
the firstborn? Because the same power that resurrected
Jesus Christ from the grave is the same power that causes you
and I to be born again. The same power, nothing shorter,
nothing less than what the magnificence of the Lord being resurrected.
He's the firstborn of the brethren because of that. When God comes
to a man or comes to a woman and he has made purpose, his
purpose to reveal himself to them, he must cry with the same
voice as he did to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth. but he don't do it
audibly. He does it in the heart. He must
speak the words of life. He must breathe life into you.
Remember whenever Adam in the garden, God had formed him out
of the dust of the ground. He just corpse was laying there
and never had life. And what happened? God breathed
the breath of life into him. He became a living soul. This
is what God does by, uh, the preaching of the gospel. He allow,
he causes, you to hear it by giving his spirit and giving
faith to believe it. That's what he does for his people.
That's the message here. Don't look at what you're doing
or not doing. Look to Christ and live. Salvation's of the
Lord. It's his will, his work, his
glory, all for his glory, his power, all by him, by himself. That went on with the scripture
says in Hebrews chapter one, verse three, when he had by himself
purged our sin, he sat down. It's all him. Believing this, if you believe
everything I just said, then that's what Paul is calling your
faith in Christ. The focus is not the faith. The
focus is the object of the faith. Do we see that? If it's my faith,
I'm now the object of faith. And God don't get the glory for
that. But my faith in him is all because he gave me the faith
to believe him. This is the good news of the gospel. Everything
he requires, he provided. All men are not born, people
say, everybody's born with faith. No, they're not. Faith is the
gift of God. Faith is the gift of God, all
by grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, in that not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Very simple verse. That's misconstrued
often. Faith must come by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Must be done by his spirit, and
he only does it to his people. You know the difference between
somebody that believes and somebody don't believe? A believer just
believes. You're not going to see some
amazing outward transformation if the Lord's given you this
faith to believe him. You're just going to believe God. You're
going to be able to rest your eternal soul on the finished work of
Christ alone. You're going to have rest in
what he accomplished. You're not going to have rest
in what you see around you. You're not going to see, you're not going
to feel like you're getting any, matter of fact, you're going to feel
like you're getting worse. Because the more you look to
Christ, the more wretched, the more vile, the more unclean you
will see yourself. But here's the good news. God
don't see it that way. Because we are in Christ, seated
in the heavenlies, God sees his people as the perfect righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ by his substitutionary work on the cross
of Calvary for his people. That's the good news of the gospel.
He doesn't see your sin, it's gone. Even though you see it,
it's already been put away. It's amazing how this, Gospel
is, well, it's unbelievable, isn't it? It's unbelievable.
It really is. We don't understand anything we believe. We just
believe it. Why? Because God said it and caused us to believe
it. He gets all the glory in this. This isn't... It's not... Well, I guess it is complicated.
It's not a complicated message. It's just impossible to believe,
isn't it? Let's go back to Galatians 3. Verse 23, but before faith came,
we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should
afterwards be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith.
But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster,
for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put
on Christ, there is neither Jew, nor Greek, neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you be Christ, then you
are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Do we see the focal point throughout
those verses? The word Christ, or the word
Lord, or the word Jesus, that's mentioned half a dozen times
right there, just in that little bit. He's the focal point of
faith. He is the object of it. He's
the sum and substance of it. It's what faith does is look
to him. To have faith in Christ is to
be given the faith of Christ. To have faith in Christ is to
be given the faith of Christ. And how does that happen? By grace, by his grace. Now grace is thrown around a
lot. People talk about grace, they don't preach it though.
They say, oh yeah, we're saved by grace. Well, what did you
do to be saved? Well, we did this and I did that.
That's not grace, it's not works. I mean, that's works, it's not
grace. It can't be both. When you're saved by grace, This
is, we preach a, I want to say this right, I don't, I was going to say we preach
a do nothing salvation. After you're saved, I don't,
I'm not referring to that. I'm talking about salvation is
of the Lord. We preach a don't move a muscle
salvation. That's what we preach. I think
I said that right. After you say, what do we do?
Unto the Lord. That's what we do. We look to
Him and you'll find yourself doing unto Him. That's just how
it is. He gives you a heart that loves
His people, that loves His gospel, that loves His church. We come
in here, somebody, I know there's people thinking like that some
people, they wish they could do more things than others. And
even cleaning the church, whenever Lord gives you the opportunity
to clean the church, you're doing that unto your brethren. You're
doing that unto the Lord. It's a labor of love, whether
you see it that way or not. And it's glorious. When we serve
one another food, we're doing it unto each other, but we're
doing it unto the Lord. The Lord said this, I'm gonna have to paraphrase
a little bit. He said, whenever I was naked, you clothed me.
When I was in prison, you visited me. When I was sick, you nurtured
me. And when I was hungry, you fed me. Thirsty, you gave me
to drink. The disciple says, Lord, when do we do all these
things? He said, and you've done it to the least of these. My
brethren, you've done it unto me. You've done it unto me. When God comes, And God, the
Holy Spirit, comes to an elected, redeemed child of God for the
purpose of making them know him. He says live. He says live. And this comes by the preaching
of the gospel. This doesn't come when we're
sitting on the couch at home watching TV. It doesn't come
whenever we're listening to the radio. This comes through the preaching
of the gospel. I guess if you're listening to preaching on the
radio, it's the gospel. Do you understand what I'm trying
to say? It's the work of God, and it's a mystery. It's past
finding out. But oh, it's our only hope is
that God would take us as we are, wash us in his blood, make
us the righteousness of God in Christ, and give us faith to
believe him. What a salvation. What do you
contribute? Nothing. Nothing, I didn't even
contribute my sin, the Lord took those. I mean, I would gladly
give them now, but before you and I knew the gospel, we weren't
trusting God. You know why? We didn't know
who he was. Only way you can know God is to have his faith.
That's the only way we can know who he is. You can have an idea
of who God is, but until God comes to us and says, live, We
won't have a clue about spiritual things. Can anybody testify to
the fact that the Bible rewrote itself after you heard the gospel?
Anybody else? Anybody else? I mean, it literally
rewrote itself. I was open, I was like, I've
never seen that before. I've never seen that before.
Why? It's a living word, but it only speaks to those who are
alive. And if you're alive, you're in Christ. And if you're in Christ,
Alive, he's giving you faith to believe him. And he gets all
the glory. So he's telling these Galatians,
before faith came, you had a schoolmaster, but you're not a child anymore.
You're no longer a child. A schoolmaster is for children.
He says, now you're an adult. Every time you go back to the
law, he's kind of saying, well, you're acting like a bunch of
kids. Quit acting like children. Saying you're no longer children,
but you're now adults. And we operate now in the realm
of faith. We look to Christ by faith. We
no longer go back to the law physically, but we look to Christ
spiritually by faith. It's the Holy Spirit that convinces
us. convinces us of our sin, convinces
us of Christ's goodness, convinces us of what we deserve, hell,
wrath, judgment, and convinces us that Christ took away the
sin, put it away, that Christ endured the judgment and the
wrath of God, that Christ satisfied justice on the cross. This is
what faith reveals to us. This is what the Lord reveals
to us by his faith given. We believe God. Remember the
scripture says, Abraham believed God. How do you think he believed
God? God gave him faith to believe him. You imagine, I've said this
last week too, I think, can you imagine Noah? Man, that's just
as bad as everybody else. And the Lord said, Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And the Lord said, Noah, build
an ark. And it's going to be big, 400 feet long, I think,
or something like that. I can't remember. I'll have to
do the math later. I mean, that's a big boat, 400
feet. And then he said, I'm going to send the animals to you two
by two. And for 100 years, it took 100 years to build that
boat, 100 years. Can you imagine working every day and getting
heckled every day by people around you? He was called a preacher
of righteousness. He was warning them of the wrath to come. That's
what we do. We warn people of the wrath to come. We warn people
of what they deserve. But we also preach Christ, the substitute. That's what he was telling them.
Here's the ark. Here's Christ. That's a picture of Christ. All
you have to do to be saved from this is get in the ark. And they
wouldn't get in the ark, would they? Why did Noah get in the
ark? God gave him faith to believe
him. You will not come to me that
you may have eternal life. Why? My word's not in you. I
haven't given you my faith to believe me. That's what he told
the Pharisees. But oh, I love the verse in John chapter 10. The Lord said, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them. And you know what they do? They
follow me. and I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish." This is all him doing it. It's,
I know my sheep, they follow me. Why? Because he knows the
sheep. That's the cause and effect of it. What's the cause and effect
of eternal life? He gave it. I give unto them
eternal life, therefore they'll never perish. Neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. Holy Spirit convinces a man or
a woman of their lost condition, that it's not of their works,
that it's not of their merits, that it's not their choice, but
it is the finished work of Christ, it is the merits earned by Christ,
it is the choice of God that saves a sinner. It's God's choice. Christ is the only one that believed
God perfectly. He believed him in life. He believed
him in death. He knew the Lord would not allow
his holy one to see corruption. He believed God in death. Why
did the Lord say on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He knew the answer. Because he
wanted you and I to know that he was forsaken so that you and
I would never have to be forsaken. He was forsaken so that you and
I would never have to be forsaken of him. And what does he say
now? I'll never leave you. I'll never
forsake you. Do you believe that? If you do,
it's because of faith. It's just faith given. I'll go
with you all the way, even to the end. He believed God. Thank God he believed God on
behalf of his people. He believed God because we couldn't
believe God. He served God because we can't
serve God perfectly. He obeyed God perfectly because
we can't obey God. And you know what all that amounted
to? All that amounted to us, after
he died, shed his blood, everything that he did amounted to us being
made the perfect righteousness in God. We have a new history
now. We don't have our old history anymore. You look at in the past
what you've done, Lord's not gonna bring a record of that
up, it's gone. Your sin is gone. Your record's gonna read at the
top, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's gonna be the name whenever
your name is pulled up. All the elect of God, when they
stand before God, that's why the Lord says, enter in thou
good and faithful servant. Enter in thou good and faithful.
How's the Lord gonna call me good? How's he gonna call you
good? because he says, fear not Jacob, I have saved you, I have
redeemed you, I've called you by thy name, you're mine, you're
mine. That's how, that's how. And now
he sees his people perfect, sees his people, he calls us precious
in his sight. What's something precious to
you? The Lord says you're precious, isn't that? I'm precious to God,
the creator of this universe. Oh, if I'm in Christ, I'm precious. You're precious to him. A great mystery, brethren, is
our sin was laid upon the Lord. We were gloriously and mysteriously
relinquished of all the guilt of all the claims of the law
saying guilty, guilty, guilty. And that guilt and that shame
that was under the curse of the law, the Lord took into himself. He took our sin into himself. into himself, he hath made him
to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Our Lord became guilty. He became guilty. Or the Lord killed him unjustly.
It's that simple. The Lord wouldn't have killed
him unjustly, would he? No. No. The most amazing part
is the law looks at us now and says, perfect. righteous, holy,
good, justified. This is what the substitutionary
work of Christ did, and the only way we can believe that is by
his faith bestowed, the faith of Jesus Christ. I love after he had died, He
had already put the sin away. Whenever he said it's finished,
it was accomplished right there. Resurrection was evidence of
our justification. He was resurrected because. That's
the sign, isn't it? Three days and three nights,
the heart of the earth, and he was resurrected. That's the sign that we have,
that God was satisfied with his son. But I love the fact that
he goes, I don't know how to say this exactly, but he goes
into, how do you even say God died? Explain that. I mean, it's
just mind boggling, isn't it? But he died in our place. And when he did, he enters into
death, and death has to say, I find no fault with this man.
Do we see that? He conquered death, hell, and
the grave. We can't hold him. There's no way. He's not guilty
of anything. Sin was already put away. So
what did God do? God resurrected him. God resurrected him. Let's read verse 22. That's simple,
isn't it? The promise, the faith of Jesus
Christ might be given to the Lord's people. And that faith causes us to look
to him. This is our evidence of being
justified. We believe he justified us. This is our evidence of salvation.
We believe God has saved his people from their sin. These
are the things that faith believes that we can't believe in our
flesh. And this is what Paul is messaging to the Galatians.
He's saying, don't look to the law because you're looking at
the physical. This is the problem. look at something with their
eyes. They're looking at a feeling.
They're looking at an experience. They're looking at an emotion.
They're looking at things around them that they've done. And the
Lord says, none of that matters. Feelings can be deceiving, can't
they? You can be, I know I'm not the only one that's like
this. You can be happy, abundantly happy. You wake up and be having
the best day and something happens. I mean, I got teenage daughters.
Things happen a lot. Something happens and the day
just goes downhill and that happiness is gone, isn't it? It's just
gone. But you know what's never gone in the believer? You ask
me at any point, I ask you at any point, if you believe God,
I say, who do you believe Jesus Christ is? You say, I believe
he is the son of God, the substitute surety of his people that successfully
redeemed them. We never stopped believing that,
do we? That's not a feeling. We can get excited about it,
but we don't look to the feeling. We look to the person. Faith
looks to Christ. This is the point here. Faith
looks to Christ. Someone might try to argue and
say, well, you have to believe. Believing is not the cause of
salvation. And I slow down whenever I get
to these points because it's so misconstrued in our society,
in the world, really. Believing is not the cause of
salvation, it's the evidence of salvation. Christ accomplished
salvation on the cross. Salvation's not an offer to man,
all you have to do is come up and take it, no. Christ saved
his people from their sin, they've been redeemed. Gloriously and
mysteriously, they've been redeemed back to God in perfect oneness
and unity. If you believe God, it's because
God said believe. Believe, and give you faith to
do so. Be terrible to hear the words
believe, but he never gave you what he required, that would
be Well, it just doesn't work that
way, thankfully. He says believe, and his people can't help but
believe. Just can't help but believe. You ask Peter the night
that he betrayed Christ, or he denied Christ, rather. You ask
Peter, who is Jesus Christ? You ask him that. His faith couldn't
fail, because Christ said, I've prayed for you, Peter, that your
faith fail not. I've given you that faith. They didn't go fail.
Peter would have said he's Christ, the son of the living God. But
nobody asked him that. You know it's true. His faith
couldn't fail. He believed God. He believed
God. He just got afraid. And what
a picture of us and our flesh and how often we get afraid and
that feeling that we had that was good turns to terrible because
now, like Peter, we're in a scary situation, an uncertain situation,
and yet, Did not Christ pray for his people? Does he not intercede
for his people? Did he not give us the faith
that cannot fail? So at no matter what point or
what happens, if we are his, we are kept by his power and
we look to him as our salvation before God. You who desire God's salvation,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you can, it's because he's
given you the faith to do it. He's given you the faith to do
it. He gets all the glory, because it's the faith of Christ freely
bestowed by his grace. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take these words, take your word, and bless it to our
understanding for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's
take a break.