Good morning. Good to see everyone. If you
would, let's open this morning's worship with hymn number 15 in
your hardback hymnal. 15. Brethren, we have met to worship,
and we'll stand. Brethren, we have meant to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is vain unless the Spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Brethren, pray and holy manna
will be showered all around. Brethren, see poor sinners round
you slumbering on the brink of woe. Death is coming. Hell is moving. Can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers
and our children sinking down. Brethren, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around. Sisters, will you join and help
us? Moses' sister aided him. help the trembling mourners who
are struggling hard with sin. Tell them all about the Savior. Tell them that He will be found. Pray and holy manna will be showered
all around. Let us love our God supremely. Let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for sinner
till our God makes all things new. Then he'll call us home
to heaven. At his table we'll sit down. Christ will gird himself and
serve us with sweet manna all around. Be seated. Thank you, Adam. Let's open our
Bibles together to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter
1. I ask the Lord's blessings on our
time together. Our heavenly father, we come before thy throne of
grace, confident that thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has
fully paid the debt for our sin. and that all our acceptance before
thee is found in him. Lord, we, as we sing that hymn,
we are reminded of the struggle that we have ourselves with unbelief. Lord, we pray your forgiveness
and your mercy and your grace for Christ's sake that you would
speak to our hearts this morning and show us how successfully
he was able to put away the guilt and shame and condemnation of
all our sin and enable us to enter into that spirit of worship. We might praise thee from the
heart. Lord, we are dependent upon thy
Holy Spirit to that end and so we ask that you would send him
in power. We thank you for the gift of
faith. And we ask Lord this morning
that you would increase our faith. And Lord, for those who remain
strangers to your grace, we ask that you would give them this
hour, thy grace and thy faith. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
Colossians chapter one. I don't know if this is a message
or a Bible study, but I want to try to bring from God's word
what he has to say about faith. I don't suppose that there's
any word in all of scripture that is more fundamental and
more important to be understood. And yet the subject of faith
is the subject of most debate among religious people and the
most misunderstood, perhaps, word in all the Bible. I realize
that we could say that about grace We could say that about
righteousness. We could say that about sin.
We could say that about Christ. These words are fundamental and
essential to the gospel. And yet it seems like everybody
talks about faith. What is faith? What is faith? What does God say about saving
faith? Saving faith, I wanna know. And
I wanna have saving faith. Wednesday night, I don't remember. For a preacher, there's only
two days in a week, Sunday and Wednesday. And I don't know if
we looked at verse 22 in Colossians chapter one, Wednesday night
or last Sunday, but we're told that the Lord has reconciled
his people in the body of his flesh through death to present
us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." What a reconciliation
that the Lord has accomplished, that he presents sinners unblameable,
that not a charge can be made against them. Holy. sinless, unreprovable in the
sight of God. We don't see ourselves that way
when we look at ourselves, obviously, but The hope of our salvation
is not how we see ourselves, but how God sees us. I've said
this before. Each of us are three different
people. You understand that. You are three people. You are
the person you see yourself to be. You're the person that others
see you to be. And you are the person that God
sees you to be. And that's the most important,
isn't it? And here the Lord has told us
that in Christ that the Lord sees us unblameable, holy, unreprovable
in the sight of God. So whatever man sees us to be
and whatever we see ourselves to be is irrelevant if this is
the way God sees us in Christ. This is our hope. And then verse
23 says, You continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you
have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven, whereof I, Paul, am a minister." Now, the first thing I want to
say about faith is that faith by its very nature, saving faith
by its very nature, excludes all boasting. It excludes all
boasting. You won't hear someone who has
saving faith talk about when they decided to let Jesus come
into their heart or when they made a decision to believe. Faith by its very nature excludes
all boasting. We do not talk about how our
faith has changed us or how we are in faith doing things for
God. Let me show you that in the scripture.
Turn with me to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three. At verse 23. Romans three. at verse 23, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has set 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 that believeth, which
believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? Where
is boasting then? It is excluded by what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law
of faith. Now, a law has inflexible rules. And the inflexible rule of the
law of faith is that it excludes all boasting. Faith by its very
nature is a declaration of our weakness, our dependence. It defers all praise and all
glory to its object. A child does not boast in its
ability to trust. Trust is the very evidence of
that child's dependence. And so faith is, by its very
nature, dependent, weak, gives all credit to the testimony of
God. Faith, saving faith, relies upon
the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill all of His promises. It does
not look to itself for anything. The law of faith excludes all
boasting, all boasting. Turn with me to 1 John 5. 1 John
5. Verse nine. If we receive the witness of men, The witness of God is greater.
For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his
Son. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son. And this is the record that God
has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son
of God hath not life. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the
name of the Son of God." Saving faith relies completely upon
the Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill everything that's required for
our salvation. It rests all of its hope and
all of its trust in the person and work of Christ. It denies
itself any praise or any glory. Faith is the act of a desperate
man with no place else to go. What boasting can there possibly
be in faith? He's been shut up. to only one
option. That's why faith is not a choice.
Choice and free will implies that you have two or more options
to choose from. But when God shuts you up as
a sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have no place else to go
but to him. And so the law of faith, the law of faith, as we
just read in Romans chapter three excludes all boasting. Is there any other situation
in all of life where a person facing certain death would be
delivered by someone else from that death and take credit for
that deliverance? No. Now, all the praise and all
the glory would go to the deliverer, would it not? And so it is in
saving faith. Saving faith is humble. Saving
faith is dependent. Saving faith gives to Christ
all the praise and all the glory. Saving faith continues. Notice
in our text, go back with me to Colossians chapter one. If
you continue in the faith, saving faith, once given by God, cannot
not believe. The scripture says that the gifts
and the callings of God are without repentance. We know that faith
is a gift of God. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourself, it is a gift of God. The calling
of God, the effectual calling of the Spirit of God to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord doesn't repent of that.
He doesn't change his mind. He doesn't take it back once
he gives saving faith. This faith continues. Perseverance in faith, is the only true evidence of
salvation. This faith, which by nature cannot
boast in itself, can only boast in the one who gave it to them
and in the one in whom that faith rests, will continue. until faith is
no longer needed. When will that be? When we draw
our final breath in this world, and we're ushered by the angels
of God into his presence, and we see him in the fullness of
his glory, and our faith will be turned to sight. Our faith
will be turned to sight. Our hope will be turned to experience.
And for all eternity, the only thing left will be perfect love. Perfect love. Now, I understand that oftentimes,
most of the time, the little word if is conditional. But that's not the case here. The word if is used hundreds
of times in the Bible. But this particular word, is
only used four times in the Bible. The one that we find here in
our text, in Colossians 1, verse 23, is only found four times
in the Bible. It is not conditional. It is
evidential. I'll say that again. This if
is not conditional. God is not saying if you, you
see, if you continue, if you persevere, if you work it out,
that would give, that would deny the very nature of faith. It
would give to man some glory. If we said to a child, if you
finish your dinner, then you can go out to play, that's conditional.
But if we said of a person, recovering from an illness in the hospital,
if they begin to eat, it'll be evidence of their getting better.
You see, that's not conditional, that's evidential. And that's
the way this word is used here. Let me show you another place
where this particular if is used. It's in Ephesians chapter three,
Ephesians chapter three. We'll begin reading in verse
one. For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ
for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of
grace, which is given to me to you. Now he's speaking to these
Gentiles who have heard of this. That word is sense. You see,
it's not conditional, it's evidential. He's not saying, if you, if,
if by condition you have heard of the dispensation of grace,
he's saying, since you heard of this dispensation of grace
that God has given me as a disciple or apostle to the Gentiles, uh,
there's your hope. If the Lord has taken down the
middle wall of partition and made from both Jews and Gentiles,
one nation, one church, um, If the Lord ever gave true saving
faith, it will be evidenced by perseverance. Since faith is
not of our will to begin with, the continuation of it cannot
be of our effort. It's a work of grace in the heart. So what the Lord's telling us
in our text is that What the Lord Jesus Christ has done to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight,
if you continue in the faith, the continuation of the faith
is evidence that the Lord has done that for you. Continuing
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, continuing to give to
him all the praise and all the glory for the hope of your salvation.
That's what faith is. And that's the evidence that
you see it. If we ever stop believing, it's
only gives evidence that we never believed to begin with, because
the gifts and repentant, the gifts and callings of God are
without repentance. They can't be taken back. The
one who's been given true saving faith cannot not believe. Let me show you that another
place in Hebrews chapter 10. We're gonna be looking at several
passages. That's why I said I wasn't sure
if this was a message or a Bible study. I
hope that it's a message to the heart. I hope it is. But I want
us to see what God says about this subject of faith. Hebrews
chapter 10, look with me at verse 35. Cast not away therefore your
confidence. Where's our confidence? Our confidence
is in Christ. All of our confidence is in him.
We have no confidence in the flesh. We are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit, rejoicing Christ Jesus and have
no confidence whatsoever in anything that our flesh has ever done,
including believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That was a work
of grace where God shut me up, took away all my choices and
gave me faith. Hath not away therefore your
confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. What is
the great recompense of reward? Oh, to see him, to be made like
him. For you have need of patience,
that after you have done the will of God, you might receive
the promise. It's what it's all about, receiving
the promise. For yet a little while, and he
that shall come will come, and he will not tarry. Now the just
shall live by faith. And 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. There's the, there's what the
Lord's telling us. If you continue, if this faith
has been given to you of God, you will continue. You will believe
to the saving of your soul. It's a last drawing breath. You there in the book of Hebrews
turn back with me to Hebrews chapter three. This is a theme
though. And these things are evidential. They are not conditional, at
least not conditioned on something that we do. Hebrews chapter 3, look with
me at verse 6. But Christ, as a Son over His
own house, whose house are we? if we hold fast the confidence
and rejoicing of hope firm until the end. This is the evidence of saving
faith. When God gives faith, it remains
just that. As you received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him." How do we receive him? We receive
him by faith. How do we walk? The just shall live by faith.
We walk by faith. And faith by its very nature,
by its very nature, defers all glory to the object of that faith
and takes no boasting in itself. That's so important because this
thing of faith is, you know, people talk about, well, I, you
know, I believed and I did this and I did that. No, no, no. You there in Hebrews chapter
three, look at verse 14. For we are made partakers of
Christ. Union with Christ made that way. put there by God in Christ. For God has made Him to be unto
us, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption.
He's placed us in Christ. For we are made partakers of
Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. You see, this is not just a,
this is our hope. Rather than we, you know, Faith remains steadfast to the
end. You didn't do anything to get
faith. You can't do anything to keep it. We are kept, the
scripture says, by the power of God unto salvation. Kept by the power of God. This
is what saving faith does. This is what saving faith is.
What we're saying is that perseverance is the result of preservation. And preservation is the work
of the Spirit of God. Faith, notice in our text, go
back with me to our text. Faith is grounded and settled,
verse 23 of Colossians 1. And it cannot be moved away from
the hope of the gospel. Now, we all know that there are
plenty of things in life that shake the foundation of our lives. And this word grounded means
firm. And this word settled means it's
no longer mixed up. a bottle that has liquid and
solids in, you stir it up, it's all stirred up. But when it settles,
the solids settle to the bottom, it's no longer stirred up. So
he says, if you continue grounded, firm, and unmixed, settled in
the hope of the gospel. Now, the Lord in his good providence,
shakes the foundation of a lot of things in our lives. A lot
of things. Everything for that matter. The
scripture says everything that can be shaken will be shaken.
In order that that which cannot be shaken might remain. What
is it that cannot be shaken? If you have saving faith, what
is it that cannot be shaken? The ground of your faith is the
person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one can convince you
otherwise. You're sure of that. You've been
taught that of God. That's the essence of faith.
And you're not mixing it up. You're not stirring it up with
works. Yeah, it's settled. It's grounded and it's settled.
Your hope is in the gospel, the good news that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Christ, the son of the living God, that he is
the successful savior of sinners, that he is your sin bearer, your
substitute, your surety before God. And you've got no place
else to go but to him. Whatever else becomes unsettled
in your life. That is grounded and settled. That is your hope in the gospel. Why? Because that's the essence
of faith. That's the nature of faith. You've
been shut up to Christ. All the trials and troubles that
the Lord sends our way. All the unsettling, and shaking
of the foundations of so many things that we try to find our
comfort and our happiness in. The Lord will shake those things
so that that which cannot be shaken remains. Is that your faith? What is it
that cannot be shaken? I believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God. I believe that he was absolutely
successful. in satisfying all the demands
of God's holy justice, that he fulfilled all the demands of
God's holy law. I believe, I do believe. And
when that poor man said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.
He was talking about the, he was talking about his two natures.
The new man believes perfectly. The old man doesn't believe anything.
And so Lord, I do believe. Restrain my unbelief. Restrain
my flesh. Restrain all the things in my
life that cause me to doubt and fear and turn away from Christ. You hear the gospel right now. If you've got saving faith, you
are grounded and settled that your only hope before God is
in the gospel of His free grace, in the glorious person and accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't be moved from that.
And if somebody stood before you and told you something else,
you wouldn't have it. You wouldn't have it. Now, I want to make this equally
clear if I can, and that is the time of faith. Notice in our text in verse 23,
the phrase, which ye have heard. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing comes by the Word of
God. There's no faith. If all you've heard is a false
gospel You can't have saving faith. There's no No lie is of
the truth. And so God's not you if God was
using All these freewill gospels that talk about Jesus and use
the Bible as their text, if God was using them and saving people
through them, why make a distinction? Let's just get on board with
everybody else. And because they're having more success than we are,
He's not using them. Those people are not being converted.
Why? Because the gospel's not being
preached. Faith is the result of the new
birth, not the cause of it. You say that again, faith is
the result of the new birth, not the cause of it. A simple
illustration, when a baby is born, it breathes because it
is alive. It does not breathe in order
to become alive. A live birth breathes, but the
birth has to come before breathing. That baby is not going to breathe
in the womb. It has to be birthed. And so it is with a new birth.
The Lord told Nicodemus, except you be born again, you cannot
perceive of the kingdom of God. And so faith is the result of
the new birth. We come to God for faith, not
with faith. And we continue to come to God
for faith. Those disciples, when the Lord
talked to them about their unbelief, they said, Oh Lord, increase
our faith. Increase our faith. You come to God for faith, not
with faith. For by grace are you saved through
faith. And that faith is not of yourself.
It's a gift of God. Not of our works. And here's
another place. Lest any man should boast. You
listen to religious people talk about when they got saved and
when they accepted Jesus and they decided to let Jesus become
Lord of their life and they opened their heart and gave their heart
to Christ. They're boasting. They're boasting. Which is the
very opposite of what faith is. It's not of him that willeth.
Nor of him that runneth, it is of God that showeth mercy. Does God require faith? Yes. And what God requires, God must
provide. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what God requires, God must provide. And so we come to him
for faith. Lord, give us faith. Lord, enable
me to believe on Christ. There is a call. Notice in our
text, which you have heard. There's two calls spoken of in
the scriptures. There's the outward audible call. That's what we do every time
we tell someone about Christ. Every time I stand to preach,
I hope that the Lord is enabling me to issue an audible call to
come to Christ. The spirit and the bride, the
bride, that's the church, say, come. And then there's the inward call.
That's the call of the Spirit of God. That's the effectual
call. That's the irresistible call. That has nothing to do
with us. That's completely, all we can
do is declare the outward call, the audible call. Only the Spirit
of God can make that message effectual to the heart and call
one spiritually out of darkness into His marvelous light and
give to them through the hearing of that audible voice, faith
to believe on Christ. And yet we make no apologies.
We make no apologies for saying audibly and publicly believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show you that in Acts
chapter 17. Acts chapter 17. Now, when we call on men to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, we've already told them who Jesus Christ
is. That He's the sovereign Savior
of sinners. He will have mercy upon whom
He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens. And so,
the message in its entirety is, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
but you can't. But we don't say it that way.
Not if we're going to be consistent with scripture. We don't find
anybody in the Bible calling on the masses by saying, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, but you can't. You can't do it. That's implied in the entire
message of the gospel. You can't. But we conclude the
message of who Christ is and what he's accomplished by this
call, belief. Paul is in Athens in Acts chapter
17, and he is preaching the gospel to a bunch of men and women who
have lived their whole lives believing in the mythological
gods of Greece. These are pagan people who have
never heard anything about Jehovah. They've never heard anything
about the gospel. And this is the first time they ever heard
the gospel. And we'll begin reading in verse 30. And the times of this ignorance
God winked at, God overlooked your unbelief, but now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent. God's commanding all men everywhere
to repent. You say, well, how can that be
that God would command a man to do something that he's not
capable of doing? Well, when the Lord Jesus Christ was at the tomb of Lazarus in
John chapter 11, did Lazarus have the ability to come forth? You see, it's in the power of
God's word. It's not in the power of man's will. Yes, God calls
dead men to believe. He calls deaf men to hear. He calls blind men to see. That's what the Lord said to
the Pharisees when they said, are you suggesting that we're
blind? And the Lord said, if you were blind, then you'd be
able to see. But because you say that you can see, therefore
your sins remain. That's the miracle of the new
birth. The miracle of the new birth is that God commands what
man cannot do. Why? So that their faith gives
to him all the glory for their ability to see and to hear and
to believe. That's the very essence of faith. And some believed in Acts chapter
17. God commands all men everywhere
to repent. That's the issue that we call.
God commands you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God commands
you to repent. Change your mind. How can you
change your mind? You can't. God holds you responsible. If you owed someone an exorbitant
amount of money, I don't know what your financial abilities
are, so let's just put it off on me. If I owed you a million
dollars, I'd be responsible to pay you, but I wouldn't be able.
I wouldn't be able. And if someone else paid my debt
for me, then they would get all the credit and all the glory
for having done that. And that's exactly what, of course,
you're responsible, but you're not able, but he is. He's able. When he speaks, dead men come
out of the grave. When he speaks, lepers are cleansed. The blind see, deaf hear. That's the power of his word. When Paul, when Peter was preaching
on the day of Pentecost, and the scripture says, after they
heard the gospel, they were smitten in their hearts. And they said,
men of Israel, what must we do? Peter didn't say you can't do
anything. He didn't say you can't do anything. He didn't say go
home and, you know, see if God did something for you. He said,
believe, he said, repent, repent. God commands all men everywhere
to repent. When Peter or when Paul was speaking
to Simon Magus, you remember he wanted to buy the Holy Spirit
in Acts chapter 8? And Paul said to him, he said,
you're in darkness. He said, you're in the gall of
bitterness. He said, you think you can buy
the Holy Spirit? And Simon Magus said, oh, pray
for me. And Paul looked at him and said,
no, you repent. You repent. You see, the outward
call, the audible call is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and repent of your sins. And the inward call. When the
Lord told Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 37, he said, son of man,
can these dead bones live? Remember Ezekiel was going to
preach to a valley of dry bones and he said, can these bones
live? And what did Ezekiel say? Lord, thou knowest if they're
going to live, you're going to have to make them live. And so
the Lord said, well, preach to them, preach to them, prophesy
to them. And so Ezekiel just preached
the gospel to a bunch of dead bones. He said, well, what's
the, what's the, what's the benefit of that? That seems futile. Well,
the bones started coming together. Bone upon bone, sinew and flesh
started coming together and yet there was no life in them. These,
you see, that's what happens when we preach the gospel, we
call men to Christ. They start hearing, they start,
they start understanding, they start putting things together.
They start believing that, you know, some things about the gospel. And then when the, and then Ezekiel,
the Lord said, now prophesy to the wind. call upon the spirit
of God to come. And when the spirit of God came,
he breathed life and gave those dead bones. And the scripture
says, this is the whole house of Israel. So we're responsible
to call on men to believe and to repent. That's the outward
call. And we make no apology for that. It's the work of the Spirit of
God to make that message effectual. Now, you might say, well, don't
we have to worry about some people hearing the audible call from
a man and never hearing the inward call from the Spirit of God and
making a profession of faith? And now you have an unbeliever
who is a tear among the wheat. That's always going to happen.
Oh, it happened to the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the son of man. He's called the son of God. Judas saw him only
as the son of man. He heard everything he had to
say. He saw his miracles and he professed to believe. He never, never received the
inward call of God. children of Israel when they
were bitten by serpents. Now some estimate that perhaps
the Israelites were in numbers of a million people when they
came out of Egypt. I don't know. But however many there were,
you know that by percentage there would have been blind people
among that group of people. People who physically could not
see. And those blind people would have been probably the first
ones to get bitten by snakes, poisonous snakes. And when Moses
put a serpent on a pole and stuck it up in the middle of this mass
of people and said, if anyone looks, he shall see. The blind
man who's been bitten by a snake and is dying says, well, I can't
look. I can't see. Look. Look. And if he looked, he saw. When the Lord healed those 10
lepers, he said to the lepers, go and show yourself to the priest. Now, when the Lord said that,
they were full of leprosy. And as they were going on the
way, their leprosy was taken away from them. So the Lord says, go. We see
the disciples doing this in Acts chapter nine, when Paul went to Tabitha, also known, or Peter,
I'm sorry, also known as Dorcas. The scripture says that she was
dead. She was dead. And Peter went
to her bedside and said, Tabitha, arise. Tabitha, arise. He commanded a dead person to
do something that that dead person could not do. God commands dead men to believe. And at the same time, we know
that no man can come to the Lord except the Father, which sent
me, draw him. I'll close with one passage.
Turn with me to John chapter five. John chapter five. Look with me at verse 25. Here's our Lord speaking. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live." God speaks to dead men. We speak
to dead men. We call upon dead men to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing that the Lord himself
must issue forth an irresistible, effectual call for us to have
saving faith. If you continue in the faith,
settled and unshaken in the gospel the hope of the gospel, grounded
and settled and not moved away from the hope of the gospel,
which you have heard and which was preached. Our heavenly father, thank you
for the miracle of faith. Lord, we know that there's so much about
us in our natural state that is filled with unbelief. We thank you for making your people holy and unblamable
and unreprovable in thy sight through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. For it's in his name we pray.