If you'd like to turn with me,
we're gonna be in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. Hebrews, chapter 10. There are, always have been,
and always will be, only two types of people on this earth.
Just two types. The believer, and the non-believer,
the just and the unjust, the righteous and the reprobate,
the elected and the passed by, those who are chosen unto salvation
and those who are left to themselves. That's the only two that ever
exist, ever. There's only one difference between
these two, grace. 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. This hour, I hope to look
at the distinct difference of these two individuals. And my
prayer is that the Lord would reveal to us this hour, where
there would be no doubt as to which one we are. Are we a believer? fully trusting in the salvation
of the Lord Jesus Christ, or we, a non-believer, trusting
in ourself, there is no in between. Let's read our text here, Hebrews
chapter 10. I've titled this message, How
the Just Live. How the Just Live. Hebrews chapter
10, look at verse 38 and 39. Now the just shall live by faith, But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving
of the soul. How do the just live? By faith. By faith. But ask yourself this, what is
it to live by faith? What is it to live by faith?
Well, the first way we can answer that is say, whose faith is it?
Is it my faith? Is it something I produce? Or
is it God's faith given by grace? Turn with me to Romans chapter
three. Romans 3 19-26 says, Now we know
that whatsoever, we know that what thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be
justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God Without the law is manifested
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Unto all and upon
all them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. whom God has sent forth to be
a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of
him which believeth in Jesus. There's only one kind of saving
faith, and it's the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. You ever
heard somebody say, put your faith in this or put your faith
in that? Did you know we can't put our
faith in the Lord? He has to give us the faith to
put to him. He's not pleased with my faith.
He's not pleased with your faith. He's pleased with the faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's his faith that he freely
bestows to his people in his time. This faith is not given by our
works. I love how it's described here.
The righteousness of God. It's not our righteousness, it's
his and he gives it. It's not our faith, it's his
and he gives it freely by his choice. His his. His authority
he decides we don't get to decide. Someone asked me. Someone asked
me recently. What does our church congregation? How does our church congregation
live, is how he worded that. He said, do they live good Christian
lives? And I said, well, they live like
a bunch of dead dog sinners at the master's table desiring another
crumb. And he was really taken back
with what I said, because that's what living by faith is, is desiring
one thing, Christ. Not desiring the glory of man
or the praise of man. Not to be able to say, look at
me and what I'm doing, but look at him, what he has done, what
he accomplished. And the only way we can do that
is by the faith that he gives, his faith, his faith. Well, So
first of all, whose faith is it? It's his. Second of all,
what does the faith I live by do? What is the faith, if you're
just, if you've been justified, and we see, we've already read,
God's the justifier of his people. There is nothing we do to justify
ourself. God is the one that makes us
the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. We don't do that, but
When he gives this faith freely, what does it do? What does it
mean to live by this faith? What does it do? What does this
faith do? Because this man was asking me, what does a Christian
life look like in your church? And I was, I told him it's like
sinners saved by grace. Do you know the difference between
a believer and a non-believer? It's really simple, a believer
believes, a non-believer doesn't. A believer looks to Christ as
all their righteousness before God, a non-believer doesn't.
They add one thing or take away one thing, A believer believes
what thus saith the Lord. What does the faith I live by
do? Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
12. Hebrews chapter 12 verse one
and two says, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with
so many a cloud of such with so great a cloud of witnesses.
Let us lay aside every weight in the sin, which does so easily
beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us. How do we do that? He's gonna tell us. Looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now
you see that word after finisher of, our faith, that word our
is in italics. That was not in the original
translation. He's the finisher of faith. The faith that he gives
to his people. And yes, it becomes ours because
he freely gives it. But here we see how our faith
that we live by, what it does. It looks to Christ, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. So faith is from God,
from the Lord Jesus Christ, and our faith looks to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what it does. That's what faith always does.
It looks to the Lord Jesus Christ as all of our acceptance before
God. Doesn't look to our works. Doesn't look to our law keeping.
Doesn't look to how we live our life. Doesn't look to what we
do or do not do. Doesn't look if we're tasting
not, touching not, handling not. It looks to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you want evidence that you're a believer, look to Christ. Don't
look to self. Don't look to self. Men will
go and look for evidences in their life that I know I'm a
believer because I'm doing this and I'm not doing that. That's
not looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. No, He is our sanctification. He is our righteousness before
God. We're not looking to our life,
we're looking to His life, aren't we? We're not looking to our
good deeds, we're looking to His good deeds. It was done perfectly
under the Father, and the Father accepted it. The Father accepted
it. You know, the Lord won't accept
a single work you and I do, but every single thing that the Lord
Jesus Christ did, He accepted. The glorious news is that he
accepted it on his people's behalf, so it was you that doing it in
Christ Jesus. That's the glorious truth of
substitution, the gospel, isn't it? Now we don't glory in what we
do, we glory in Christ and have none, zero, not a bit of confidence
in this flesh, not a bit. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter one. First Corinthians chapter one,
and look at verse 28 through 31. God, let's do verse 27 first. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. And the base things of the world and the things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, the things that are not,
to bring to naught things that are. Here's the reason why, that
no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. What does this faith
that the Lord's given us do? It glories in the Lord only.
It doesn't have any confidence in the flesh. It sees that God
chose us unto salvation and did all the work and saved his people
from their sin. We glory in that. We don't glory
in our choices. We don't glory in our lifestyle.
We don't glory in our anything, us. We glory in him. If the Lord
ever makes me a sinner, if he ever makes you a sinner, you'll
see that there's nothing worth glorying in us, nothing. Not
one good thing that we are before the Lord. Our righteousness is
filthy rags. We're born in sin. We're created
in iniquity, shaped in iniquity. In sin, the scripture says, our
mother conceived us. What does that mean? That's because
everything we do is sin. No, not him. We see right here,
but of him are ye in Christ Jesus. And because of him, you can't
get out of it. He's fixed it. of Him, you are
in Christ, not because of what you've done, but because of what
He done. We glory in that, don't we? We glory in God choosing
to save sinners. And you know, if Lord's made
you a sinner, you know if you're not saved by grace alone, you
won't be saved. There's no other way to be saved.
That's the only way. God doesn't make you, if we never Now, if
the Lord made us a sinner, we'll see. I can't, I can't help myself. I can't save myself, but thank
God for his saving grace. We glory in that. We glory in
that. The just live by the faith of
Christ that looks to Christ and glories and nothing else but
Christ. If I'm looking to myself as any part of my justification
before God, I have not been justified. If I'm looking to what I'm doing
as part of my sanctification, I have not been sanctified. If
I'm looking to anything I've done or said or prayed or anything
that I have, I think that I've accomplished as part of my righteousness,
I am not righteous. Righteousness is still filthy
rags then. But oh, if the Lord's given me
faith that looks to Christ, who is our righteousness, who is
our sanctification, who is our justification and our wisdom,
then I am all those things in Christ Jesus, because God hath
made him unto me thus. Which brings me to my next point,
and this is kind of a two part, because he says more things in
this particular verse other than just the just shall live by faith,
but I want us to understand where the faith comes from, what the
faith does, and the last point is who gets all the glory? And
I've already established that. We glory in nothing but the cross,
the cross of Christ. We don't glory in the cross itself,
but we glory in the work that was accomplished on the cross.
We have glory in the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work
alone, alone. Who gets the glory for the faith
that I have is the question. Ask yourself that question. Who
gets the glory for the faith that I have? If I get any glory
for it, that's not the Lord's faith, because the Lord gets
all the glory with his faith bestowed. He gets all the praise,
all the adoration. That means there's none left
for you and I. If what I'm confessing doesn't completely and utterly
condemn me, What I'm confessing doesn't completely and utterly
condemn me because of what I am and exalt him. I have the wrong
confession. I have the wrong confession.
But if the Lord makes you a sinner, you'll see that everything that
we look at, Lord have mercy on me, the sinner, is going to be
our response to whatever he said. Remember the Sarafinian woman
that came to the Lord, she needed healing, her daughter was sick.
and came to the Lord and said, Lord, help me. And she was a
Gentile, wasn't she? And the Lord said, it's not meat
to take the children's bread and cast it among the dogs. And
what'd she say? That was an insult. I mean, the
Lord insulted her. And how did she handle that? Did she look at him and say,
well, some of us might buck up a little bit, right? No, not
if you've been given the faith of Christ that looks to him.
She saw him as Jesus Christ. She saw him as God. And she said,
truth, Lord, I am a dog. I'm a dead dog sinner that needs
a savior. I need the crumbs that fall from
the master's table. And he said, well, I've not seen
such great faith in all of Israel. The Lord gave that faith, didn't
he? What did that faith do? It confessed Christ was right. I am wrong. If my confession
doesn't condemn me, completely and exalt him completely, I have
the wrong confession. If my confession exalts me, I
have the wrong confession. But if my confession is Christ
is all, I've been given the right confession. Faith comes from Christ. Faith
looks to Christ. Faith gives God all the glory,
all the glory and salvation. Romans 9.23 says, and that he
might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy
which he had aforeprepared unto glory. He gets all the glory. He prepared his people unto glory
before the world ever began that he might get all the glory in
salvation. Makes us to know, makes us to
know that it has to be his purpose, his will, his choice, his grace,
that it all, Where's boasting then? To what Paul said in Romans
chapter three, where we just were a minute ago. Where's boasting?
And it's excluded. There's no boasting. When we
find, when the Lord reveals to us that we are the chief sinner,
and then he tells us, not by works of righteousness which
you have done, but according to my mercy, according to my
grace have I saved you. Done it all. Where's our glory
in that? Not a bit. He gets it all. And
we love it that way, don't we? We love God getting all the glory.
I don't want any glory. I'm not saying look at me. I'm
saying look at him. Don't look to me in my life. You won't have to look very far
to find something wrong with my life. But I can tell you about
a man who was never wrong. Look to his life. Looking at
my life ain't gonna do you any good. The point, look to his
life. Look to his death, burial, and resurrection. That's what
faith does, is it looks to Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, 6 says, for God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is exactly what faith does.
It reveals Christ. It looks to Him. We see His face
unto salvation. This is what He does for who
He loves, for who He died for. He does this. Those chosen, He
successfully redeemed. We started out saying there's
two kinds of people in this world, the chosen and those who've been
passed by. The ones that are chosen, this is what He gives
them. He gives them saving faith, the faith of Christ that looks
to Him and gives Him all the glory. We say with Paul, when we hear
this, Galatians chapter six, verse 14, that God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. God
forbid that I should glory in anything else. He's the only
thing worth glorying in, isn't he? Faith comes from him, it
looks to him and it believes him. It confesses him alone and
gives him all the glory in his salvation. Now let's go back
to our text here in Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 38 says, now the just shall
live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have
no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw
back into perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. What does it mean to live by
faith? Well, he gives a stark contrast, a very blatant contrast
that's obvious. Those that are not kept go back
to perdition. That is to go to damnation. That
is return to their own damnation. That's what they're doing. Those
who live by faith look to Christ and those who do not, they don't
have any hope of eternal life. They're looking to themselves
as their righteousness, and that's how men go back to perdition. Even if they hear the gospel,
they may go return to the law, where they have to do something
in order to please God, or they may have to, whether it's the
moral law, the civil law, or the ceremonial law, they'll do
something, and they think that they've pleased God. That's not
what faith does. Faith looks to Christ. It comes
from Christ, and it gives him all the glory. Faith looks to Christ in everything
as our righteousness before God. Faith says you have no righteousness
in yourself, but He is righteous. He is righteous. We do not examine our lives to
see if we are pleasing to God. We don't examine our lives for
evidence of salvation. I had somebody come in here one
time and was asking some of the things that we believe. I try
my best to just say, well, just sit and listen. I mean, it'll
be pretty clear as best I can. And the Lord will answer your
questions in time. That wasn't good enough, so she kept asking
me different questions. And it came to be what her righteousness
was is called progressive sanctification. She believed she was getting
better. She could see evidence in her life that she was getting
better and better and better. And I thought, OK, well, you
just told me that you're not a believer, because we're not
getting better. Paul didn't start out and say,
I'm the chief of sinners, and then say, I'm not worthy to be
part of the brethren, and then say, I'm the least of the saints. No, it's the opposite. He said,
I was the least of the saints. I'm not worthy to be one of the
brethren. Then he said, I'm the chief of
sinners. That was how he said, oh, wretched man that I am, not
wretched man that I was. No, God didn't come and save
this flesh. God didn't change this nature at all. This flesh's
nature is exactly the sinful nature that it always has been. He gave us a new nature that
looks to him in faith to believe him. That's what he did. We don't
examine ourself for evidence of salvation. That's not looking
to Christ. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We look to Christ who pleased God. We don't try to, I say this,
I wanna say this the right way. When I say we don't try to please
God, I mean we don't try to please God for our salvation. That's
what I mean by that. We don't try to please God for
our righteousness. But you know how a believer lives
their life? By the faith of Christ, they live it in love unto him.
They live it in love unto him. And there's nothing sweeter in
this life than seeing a married couple loving one another and
taking care of one another and doing for each other because
they love one another. And that's exactly what the Lord's people
do. We love each other, take care of one another, don't we?
That's what that love does. That's what the faith of the
Lord causes, is for us to look to Christ and love Him and love
Him. There are those who do not love
Him seek their own glory." And what does the Lord say about
that in John 7? "'He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory,
but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true
and no unrighteousness is in him.'" What is He saying? Well
if you're speaking of yourself you're searching for your own
glory. If you're saying, look at me, that's not saying look
at the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you come and declare the
Lord Jesus Christ and say, look at Him, He says there's no unrighteousness
in that man. Why? Because the Lord's given
him faith. And with that faith comes the ability to believe
the Lord Jesus Christ finished the work on Calvary. With that
faith comes the understanding that he put away the sin of his
people on the cross of Calvary. With that faith comes the understanding
he's God and I'm not. Salvation's of the Lord and it
is finished. That's what faith believes. We
seek the glory of God only found in the person and finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have no confidence in
the flesh, why? Isaiah says, look unto me and be saved, all
you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else, that's
why. Because if we don't look to him, we're not saved. We're
not saved. But if we're looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, of faith, the Lord's given
us that ability to do so. That means he loves us. That
means he loves us. That's what he does for those
who he loves. Looking to self, on the other
hand, is drawing back. Looking to Christ is life eternal.
Don't look to your works. Look to Christ for all the work
that he accomplished is everything God requires for your salvation.
Don't look to your life. The life that you live is your
acceptance before God. Look to Christ's life who was
accepted by his father. Don't look to your Good deeds
are your righteousness. We don't have any righteousness.
Look to the righteousness of Christ who has made unto his
people their righteousness. Don't look to your sin. Don't
look to your sin. Look to the redeeming blood of
Christ that washed away the sin of his people. Don't look to
your failure. Cry out, Lord, have mercy on
me, the sinner. Come to Christ. Don't look to your failures.
Look to Christ, the successful Savior. I had a man one time
make this statement. He said, and it's actually self-righteous,
and it might not sound like it, but it is. He said, I invited
him to church, and he said, no, I can't come to your church.
I said, why not? He said, well, if I come to your church, then
the building will catch on fire as soon as I walk in the door.
I was like, I don't understand. He's like, well, that's just
how bad I am. I said, I'm unsavable. And I thought, okay. There's
a lot of things that I could've said in response to this, but
I said point blank, what you're saying is, is Christ's blood
is not sufficient to put away sin. That God is not God. I said, that's what you're saying.
Because I can tell you there is nothing that you can do that,
nothing we can do can make our sin go away. All we can do is
add to it. But every person that Christ
died for, their sin is gone. Completely gone. We can't look
at our sin and think that we're bad, so bad, and sorrow. I know people who sorrow really
over their sin, and if you're convicted, cry out to him, Lord
have mercy upon me, but look to Christ who put away that sin. Run to him. Beg for him. He came to save sinners. He came to save the needy, the
sick, Not the whole. They that are whole need not
a position, but they that are sick. If you see your sin, come to
Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't look to your weakness. Look to Christ, who's your strength.
Don't look to your self-righteousness. You and I have none. Look to
Christ, who is our righteousness. This is what it is to live by
faith. Said the just shall live by faith. This is what it is
to live by faith. Looking unto Christ in all things. Looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. Sometimes somebody might say,
preacher, I don't feel like I look to Christ all the time. Your
new man does. Created in Christ. Your new man
does. All the time looking to Christ.
Paul talked about crucifying the flesh and a lot of times
we see the spiritual warfare that we have and that's why we
need manna, isn't it? We need that daily manna. We
need to get in the scripture and read and pray and maybe listen
to a message just to try to see his face because we have all
this chaos around us. And oh, it's sweet when we finally
get to kneel at his feet, it feels like, just for a moment,
and see him high and lifted up. What just squashes that flesh,
don't it, every time? Flesh ain't got nothing to say
then. Problems seem to disappear. And if they don't disappear,
it just doesn't seem like they're, you just know who's seated on
the throne, is my point. And at that time, you have rest,
because your Heavenly Father knows what you have need of. He gives you faith just to believe
Him, just to believe Him, the just, live looking unto Christ
with the faith that he gave them, faith that gives him all the
glory, gives him all the glory in all things. The unjust live
looking to self and their works and they go after the lie, but
the just think me to God. I like the word shall in this.
The just shall live. That means God's gonna make us
do it. Aren't you glad for that? It doesn't say the just might
live by faith. No, that's how the just live
is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you
that you provided everything needed for salvation of your
people. And we know that if you had not
and had not saved us by grace, we would be unsavable. But thank
you for this gift by grace through faith. Bless us to our understanding
for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's
take a break.