Unless we believe that He is.
Unless we believe that He is according to who He says He is
in His Word and in His Son. And it's absolutely impossible
to please Him without faith. We've got to believe Him. A sinner
has got to believe God. Our text this morning is Hebrews
11, verse 6. Without faith it is impossible to please Him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that
He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Throughout
the Scripture, faith is so carefully distinguished as that which is
the direct opposite of works. Throughout Scripture. And yet
I want to be so careful We've been looking for some time now,
building block upon block, how that the believer is not under
the law. And we're entering in the books
that we're studying now, we're entering into passages that have
to do with faith. And it's so clearly revealed
throughout Scripture that faith is distinguished as opposite
from works, and yet in our day, I hear faith described as just
one more work that the believer has power to perform by himself. Just as if it was circumcision,
like that which the Galatians were talking about, or the Judaizers
were talking about in the Galatian church. Faith is presented, in
most circles, faith is presented as Christ plus my act of doing
something, and that's how I'm justified. Folks are sincere under whatever
denomination they worship. I don't doubt that at all. But
I fear that there are many who have by traditions and doctrines,
by their particular code of morality, and I say code of morality because
what you and I call moral in our day is not what they called
morality in the 50s. It's not what Abraham called
morality in his day. and the further back you go,
there's a different code of morality in every generation. And we get
more lax and more lax as we go. But there's folks who will take
these various codes of morality, and they'll take particular ceremonies
of worship, how they do particular things in their congregation,
and they basically turn the external rites of the Mosaic Covenant
They've actually just taken now and embraced another set of external
rights under the head of Christianity, but haven't moved one inch from
the law of Mount Sinai or the deadness of the heart. True faith is the gift of God. It's the gift of God. It's free,
just like every other spiritual blessing given by God. It's free.
by God's grace. And true faith receives justification
that has been accomplished by its object. Faith looks upon an object. This is an object. Faith looks
upon that object. And what I'm saying is faith
looks upon Christ Jesus the Lord who justified us. And faith receives
the justification that He wrought on our behalf. And that's where
in Scripture it says we're justified by faith. It's not by my act. It's not by something I did.
It's received through the righteousness of God. And it comes to us as
something already accomplished, something already finished. And
it's through faith, the gift of faith, we receive this accomplished
work on our behalf. And true faith is pleasing to
God because it's wrought in us by God. The title of the message
is Faith Which Pleases God. Faith Which Pleases God. Seeing
that so much of faith is based on this high pressure to get
folks just to make a decision for Christ. Well, I want to start
here, and I want you to see something in this scripture. that that
which pleases God is the work which God is pleased to perform.
The work that pleases God is that which God is pleased to
perform. That faith which pleases God
is the faith which God gives when He leaves a sinner no other
choice, so that the sinner can do nothing else but trust Him. That's what true faith is. And
I want to show you five things that Scripture tell us bring
satisfaction to God. Five things which bring satisfaction
to God. And I want you to see what every
one of these things have in common. And I'll tell you what every
one of them have in common. God works every one of them.
He does every one of them. Look with me first of all at
1 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 22. It pleased God to choose a people
in Christ Jesus before the world began. In 1 Samuel 12, verse
22, we read, Samuel was pleading with Israel, and he was saying,
and this was one of the reasons he gave for them not to turn
from the Lord. He said, For the Lord will not
forsake His people for His great namesake, because it hath pleased
the Lord to make you His people. It pleased Him to do it. It wasn't
that there was anything more worthy in them, or any acts that they had performed
that made it so that God decided He would choose them. This is
what Scripture says concerning God's election of grace. Just
as He said to to Rebecca, the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, hadn't done anything,
that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works, but of Him that calleth. If it would have been of work,
if God would have looked and seen some good in these two beforehand,
then it would have been by works that He chose them. But that's
not how He chose them. It was before they had done any
good or any evil. It was irrespective of them.
He wasn't looking on them. It was simply according to the
good pleasure of His will. It's not of works, but of Him
that calleth. It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the
younger. And He said, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. He chooses whom He will and passes
by whom He will. But here is the blessing in the
doctrine of election. Because God chooses a people
based on nothing in them, nothing in them can cause God to reject
them. Do you hear me? Because God chooses a people
based on nothing in the people, then nothing in the people can
cause God to ever reject them. Free grace was the cause that
we were made His people. Free grace is the reason why
He keeps His people. And free grace shall be the reason
that none of His people shall be lost. The gifts and calling
of God are without repentance. They have to be. Because if it
was based on us as fickle and fumbling and foolish and ignorant
and as not dependable, It would change constantly. It has to be something that's
not changeable, that's immutable. And that one is God. And because
He's the one that determines who will be saved, it's based
on His grace and not anything in the believer. And it's to
the praise of the glory of His grace. Wherein He, God, has made
us accepted in the Beloved. that we should be to the praise
of His glory, God who first trusted in Christ. And I notice it's
God who performed this work which pleased Him. It's God who performed
this work which pleased Him. It pleased God, Samuel said,
to make you His people. It pleased God to do it. The
Lord came to His disciples and He said, you didn't choose me,
I chose you. And he said, and I ordained you
that you should go forth and bring forth fruit and that your
fruit should remain. Because what I did for you, not
because something you did for me. You go and pick out a puppy.
You go to a litter of pups and pick out a pup that you want
to take home with you. Would it be foolish to think
that that puppy would rebel against you and say, no, you can't take
me unless you take the rest of these puppies? And you say, well,
that's kind of foolish, Clay. What can a puppy do like that?
Well, God calls us worms. What can a worm do? What can
a worm say? I hear these preachers talk about
you shouldn't preach something like that because you catch more
flies with honey than you can with vinegar. I ain't catching
flies. With maggots, a maggot exists
before a fly does. We need to back up a little bit.
We give ourselves too much credit calling ourselves flies. But this pleased God. And that
faith which pleases God is the faith God gives which believes
that God truly chose me freely based on His grace and not anything
good or bad in me. That's the faith God gives. And
that faith is pleasing to the believer because that believer
is pleased with it to be that way. And because he's pleased
with God and how God is determined to save, God said, I'm pleased
with him. I'm pleased with him. I'm pleased
with Him. But without faith, it's impossible
to please Him. That's why the psalmist said,
Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causeth to approach
unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied,
we shall be pleased with the goodness of thy house, even thy
holy temple. God's pleased with those whom
He's worked a work in, who He's made pleased with Him. And he's
pleased with them. And that's what faith is. Being
pleased with God. Now secondly, Colossians chapter
1. Colossians chapter 1. If you'll look at verse 19, it
says, It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. It pleased God the Father that
in His Son should all fullness dwell. Man had absolutely nothing
to do with it. Absolutely not. God the Father
first trusted Christ as mediator before any of us ever trusted
Christ. In the everlasting covenant of
grace, when God trusted Christ, His Son, He trusted the faith
of Jesus Christ. That is, He trusted that by His
faithful performance, in our place, as our substitute, that
He would accomplish all that was necessary for the salvation
of God's elect. God trusted that to Him. And
that He would reveal the righteousness of God. God's own righteousness,
His own righteous purpose and divine decree and how He would
save sinners without the sinner's obedience to the law. That's
the righteousness of God that is revealed by the faith of Christ. It's in His fidelity to God that
that righteousness is revealed. And God trusted Christ to faithfully
carry out that which He had trusted with Him into His hands. And
he trusted Christ to carry it out because it was the way God
determined that he would be just and he would justify them that
believed. Just like if you trusted your son with all your household
to make your name honorable, to magnify and honor your name.
God chose his son. That all fullness would dwell
in his son. All the fullness. Think of how
many words you could think of to describe the fullness of the
glory of God. Think of, you'd just be forever
listing the words when you think of the character of holy God. the fullness of God. It pleased
God that He would manifest in His Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ,
all His fullness. And He trusted Him to go and
perform the work that would reveal who He is and how He saved sinners. And therefore, that which pleased
God, God performed. The Lord Jesus Christ said, sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not. You weren't pleased with what
men were doing trying to offer sacrifices and offerings to you.
So a body as thou prepared me, determined before the foundation
of the world. And John 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, the fullness of
God the Father in grace and truth. That's what we beheld. And because
it pleased God, we read in Colossians 2, 9, that in Him dwelleth all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It pleased God that in Him should
all fullness dwell, and so in Him all fullness dwells. Whatever
God's pleased to do, God brings to pass. When I keep talking to you about
the fullness of Christ and the faith of Christ, turn to Ephesians
3. Ephesians 3, verse 11. This is what I'm talking about.
It pleased God the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.
According to the eternal purpose, verse 11, which He purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord, In whom? In Christ. We have boldness and
access with confidence by the faith of Christ. God trusted it into His hands. And it's by His faithfulness.
We haven't got to our faith yet. I'm not talking about faith in
Christ. I'm talking about Christ. What He's done. It's by what
He's done. God entrusted all the fullness
to dwell in Him. And it's by the faith of Him
that all fullness dwells in Him. This is in whom we have boldness
and access to come to God. It's by that which He performed. That which He did. The fullness
of God's great name and glory is in Him. The fullness of wisdom
is in Him. The fullness of our standing
before God. justification, sanctification,
redemption is in Him. The fullness of our spiritual
life is in Him. He's the life. The fullness of
power which keeps us is His power. The fullness of glory to come
is His glory. All fullness dwells in Him. Fullness
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is in Christ Jesus, the God-man. You remember the blind man? Look
at Acts 3. I'm going to have you turn to
some scriptures today. Acts 3, 16. You remember the
blind man at the gate called Beautiful? They healed him and
they came and asked Peter and they said, how is it that this
man has been made to see? How is it? Here's this fullness
we're talking about. Here's this fullness in a name.
In the fullness of His name and everything His name embodies.
His person and His work. I can tell you this, you can
learn everything you can learn and find out everything you want
to find about His finished work. And you have your doctrine down
every T cross and every I dotted. If you don't know the person,
you don't have anything. Oh, you don't have anything.
But look here what it says. How was He healed? Acts 3.16. In His name, Christ's name, the
one in whom all fullness dwells, through faith in His name, hath
made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith
which is by Him, by Christ, hath given Him, this blind man, this
perfect soundness in the presence of you all. God gives faith which
is pleased that all fullness dwells in His Son. And when God
gives that faith, we behold, all fullness really does dwell
in His Son. I am made perfectly sound, body,
soul, and spirit. My spirit now, and my body and
my soul come after I die. But I've been made perfectly
sound in His name, by Him, by the faith of Him, by His faith.
And that faith says, that God has given to see that, says,
and I believe it. I believe Him. I trust Him. Isn't
that simple? Isn't that simple? Now, but God
did that work, you see. God chose a people and God chose
that all fullness would dwell in His Son. Now let me give you
a third thing. Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. How is
it that God is going to be perfectly
satisfied toward this people that He's determined to give
faith to. Towards this people that He's going to say, I'm well
pleased with them. How is He going to be satisfied? Look at
verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord. It brought
satisfaction to the Lord to bruise His Son. He hath put Him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
sin. The most shameful act ever recorded
in human history was no accident, but it was by God's own will.
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, ye have taken and with wicked hands have crucified and have
slain. But it was done because that's the only way God's going
to be pleased toward that people. The only way. What ignorant men
looked at as contemptible. Christ crucified. Christ hanging
on a cross. What they view as the greatest
view of weakness is the pinnacle of God's satisfaction. It's the
pinnacle of that which satisfies God. And you pay particular attention
to this verse, He has put him to grief. When thou shalt make
his soul an offering for sin. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. This is God providing Himself
a lamb. This is God satisfying God. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son. The emphasis in that verse of
Scripture needs to be placed on God's love. He so loved that
He gave His only begotten Son. And at the same time, this was
voluntary on the Son's part. He hath made Him sin for us who
knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. God Almighty said, Awake, O sword,
against My shepherd, against the man that is My fellow. Smite
him. God unleashed His own fury on
His own Son who stood there as the perfect faithful servant
of God in the place of all those God gave Him. And in this was
manifested the love of God. We didn't love Him. We didn't
care about Him. He loved us and gave His Son
to be the propitiation through faith in His blood. Not through
faith in my faith. Not through faith in my act of
coming to God. Not through faith in some external
outward profession I made sometime. What's going to happen when we
get Alzheimer's and we can't remember that experience? What
matters is God says, I know you. I know you. And the faith that
God gives shuts us up to what He's accomplished in His Son.
And by the precious blood of His Son, we know that it doesn't
matter what I think about Him. What matters is, and what faith
grasps and truly believes is, what matters is, He knows me.
And He gave His Son for me. And He laid down His life for
me. And He redeemed me. And I'm bought with a price.
And I'm not my own, I'm His. Whether I remember it tomorrow
or not, because of physical infirmities, He knows me. And I know He knows
me. And He did all this to declare
His righteousness. I know Romans 3. Faith is either objective or
subjective. And I know the argument over
the years, folks get all in the tizzy when you start talking
about, herein is the righteousness of God revealed. without the
law. And it's revealed by the faith
of Christ. And even so, we believe in Him.
We believe in Him. But righteousness is not revealed
by me believing in Christ. Righteousness was revealed in
Christ. The faithfulness of Christ is
there before I ever believed Him, before I ever trusted Him.
God's righteousness and how He saved sinners apart from the
law was already revealed in His Son. You know, you have a designated
batter, designated hitter in baseball. You have folks that
play baseball, even in the big leagues, you know. The pitcher
sometimes, he may be good at pitching, but he can't hit. Or
the catcher may be good at being a catcher, but he can't hit the
ball. And so they have what they call a designated hitter. And
when it comes to that person's turn, they tell him, you just
go back over and sit down. And the designated hitter comes
up and he bats for the person. And if he hits a home run, he
goes all the way around the bases back home. You know who gets
the glory? The person that hit the ball, not the person sitting
in the dugout. And that's how it is with God's
glory. Substitution is Christ taking our place and He gets
all the glory. We don't get any glory. And until
we're brought and given faith that wants Him to have all the
glory, we'll start saying things like, well, I know that's so
now, but faith's not passive. It's active. Yes, it is active.
I have no doubt about that. But I could count, I don't have
enough digits to count the times that I've heard that statement.
But now faith's not passive, and the rest of the message disannulled
everything that was said before. So that the people go home with
the idea that they have something that they've done that made them
justify with God. I want you to leave here with
faith that's centered on Christ, looking at Him and going, look
at everything God has been pleased to do so freely for me. What
amazing grace! Well, fourthly, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 21, For
after that in the wisdom of God, by God's own wisdom, The world by its own wisdom didn't
know God. Couldn't find Him out, couldn't
seek Him, didn't want to know Him, didn't want to have anything
to do with Him. All after the wisdom of God. And it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. It
pleased God to save them that believe through the gospel of
His Son. I'm beginning to see a pattern
here. I'm beginning to see it pleased God to choose a people
in His Son It pleased God that all fullness should dwell in
His Son. It pleased God to satisfy His own justice by bruising His
Son. And now I hear that it pleased
God to save His people by the preaching of His Son. I believe
this thing about faith has something to do with believing on His Son,
looking to His Son and not looking to us. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. And here's why. It's the dynamite.
It's the dunamis. It's the power of God unto salvation. There is a wall built around
us by nature. And it's so thick and so sturdy
and so impenetrable that there is absolutely no way we can get
out of that wall that's built around us. No way. We think we
can. We move around and call ourselves
free. Look at how I'm free to do whatever
I want to. In that little cubicle you are.
That's just free. You're free to do whatever you
want to right there. Just so long as it's pleasing
to God and He's purposed it for you to do it. And even that you
can't go beyond. But you're in that wall and there's
no way to bust out of that wall. There's no way to see God, to
know God, to believe God, to have any conception of who God
is at all. And God sends somebody, no different
than you, preaching the Gospel of Christ, telling you that this
is God's own Son, that this is man, just as much flesh and blood
as we are, that this is the one who perfectly obeyed God, who
perfectly fulfilled all prophecy written of Him, who perfectly
fulfilled all law ever given by God. who perfectly justified
His people and sanctified His people, made His people holy
and righteous before God, made them complete so there's nothing
else that holy God can look upon them and say, something else
needs to be done. He made them that complete. The
holy, omniscient God can't even look upon them and say, there's
something yet to be done. They're complete in His Son.
And that message, through that message, bust that wall down like you
set a stick of dynamite and just bust it down. And you behold
the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. And Paul said,
and for that reason, I'm not ashamed of this Gospel. It's
the power of God unto salvation. For therein, in this Gospel I'm
preaching to you, is the righteousness of God revealed. What I'm telling
you is how God can be just and yet justify a hell-deserving
sinner. It's only when He Himself satisfies His own justice and
justifies the people Himself. He has to do everything. If He's
going to do something that's pleasing to Him, it's because
He's done it. He's done it. And God's pleased to save by
preaching, so you know what He does? He sends preachers. He
sends preachers. Jeremiah 3.15, he said, I will
give you pastors according to mine heart which shall feed you
with knowledge and understanding. That's what Paul meant when he
said, how shall they preach except they be sent? I can nominate
somebody to preach, load them up with cash and send them off
anywhere I want to. But if God hasn't sent them to
preach, if it's not a pastor after his own heart, I'm laboring
in vain. But God said, because I've chosen
to do it, I'll do it. And if He has a people in a city,
He'll invoke His servant and He'll tell him, I have much people
in this city, just like He did Paul. And Paul stayed there for
a long time preaching the Gospel. If he has a Lydia that's sitting
down by the river meeting with some ladies and studying the
Word, he'll send his Paul down there to preach the Gospel to
them to save them. If he has a eunuch somewhere
that's just out in the middle of nowhere reading scripture,
he'll say, Philip, go join yourself to that chariot. And he'll save
him through his gospel. Because it pleased him to do
it that way. You know, we like hearing our children bragging
on, don't we? I love it. You tell me to start bragging
on my kids, man, I'll get all smiles from ear to ear. So does
God. And that's what gospel preaching
does. It don't brag on men, it brags on His Son. And God said,
that pleases Me. That's how I'm going to save
My people. Just like that. Just like that. The King of glory receives all
the glory for the man who preaches too. Look with me at 1 Timothy
1. Paul said this, Paul was telling Timothy, and
he said in verse 11, he said, this glorious gospel of the blessed
God was committed to my trust. God committed it to His, the
Lord Jesus Christ committed it to His trust. Now I want you
to look at these action verbs. People say, we're not passive
in this thing of faith. We're not. But we're active only
when we're acted upon by God. Now look here at these action
verbs. He committed it to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus
our Lord who hath enabled me. He did it. That word there is
the same word as power. Go home and look it up. It's
the same Greek word as dynamite. Same word, the dynamite. How
did He enable me? Preach the Gospel to me. He did
it Himself. He enabled me. He counted me
faithful. You know what that word counted
means? He charged me. And he said, you're going to
be faithful. And Paul said, yes sir, I'm going to be faithful
because I've got no other choice. You've enabled me and emboldened
me and charged me and made me faithful. Yes sir, I'm going
to be faithful. And look here, he said, and you put me into
the ministry. And Paul said before, I was a
blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy.
Why? Because I was ignorant and I
was an unbeliever. And the only way I could be brought
into this grace and have this gospel committed to my trust
was if he showed me mercy. That's what he's saying. He's
not saying I received mercy because I was ignorant. He's saying because
I was ignorant, it couldn't come any other way but by mercy and
grace. That's the only way it could come. And the grace of
our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is
in Christ Jesus." Well, but doesn't a man perform this work? We're
not passive in preaching. No, we're not. I study, but God
gives me a heart to study. I look into His Word, but it
gives me a message. I get up to come here to this
place to preach, but He makes sure I arrive here safely. I
stand up and actually preach, but he gives me the strength
to stand here before you and preach. Paul said to the Corinthians,
though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity
is laid upon me. Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel. I don't have any choice, Paul
said. And I willingly don't want another
choice, Paul said. I do this willingly. I want to.
He said, and he told the Corinthians too, he said, in my speech when
I came and preached this gospel to you, it wasn't in man's wisdom,
it wasn't with enticing words. Why? So that your faith wouldn't
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The man
who God sends to preach by His power is going to preach in that
power and he's going to leave the message up to the power of
God to effectually work it into people. But now look, it pleased
God to do this through the gospel. It pleased Him to do this and
He provided everything necessary to accomplish His purpose. He
did it. Now fourthly, or fifthly, it
pleased God at His appointed time to call out His elect by
His grace. Galatians chapter But when it pleased God, verse
15, when it pleased God, Paul says, who separated me from my
mother's womb, called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me
that I might preach Him among the heathen. Immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood. Everybody that God elected to
save in Christ Jesus, everybody for whom Christ died and redeemed,
The Lord is going to send His Spirit when it pleases Him, and
He is going to call them by His grace into this glorious liberty. He does it because it pleased
Him to do it that way. When God is pleased to make a
sinner pleased with Him, He gives that sinner faith to
behold that He has supplied everything for him. everything. When God gives the gift of faith,
if you ask me to explain to you what that is exactly, I can't
explain it to you. I don't have any idea. But I
know something it involves. I know something it involves.
I know this. That when we have spiritual life
given to us by the Holy Spirit, God gives us a heart that's new
that replaces that stony heart we had. That heart that didn't
like God. That hated God. It didn't like
it were. Now, we start drawing to Him. We want to hear what He's saying.
And we don't understand exactly why, but we want to hear what
He's saying. And what He says to us is, look upon My Son. I've accomplished all your salvation
in My Son. And He shows us how to walk faithfully. What true faith is. I said, look
at my son. You want to see what faithfulness
is? You want to see what a faithful walk is? Look at my son. And
he says, you want to know more about this faithfulness? You
want to know more about my son? I provided you with the doctrines
of this faith. the doctrine of grace to teach
you how it is that I provided all this for you. Listen to this
man that's preaching the gospel to you. Listen to him more and
more and hear what I'm saying through him through these doctrines. And that believer discovers that
God has provided everything. And that believer, that sinner,
one day says, I believe God. Adam. God created Adam. And He
had already created the heavens and the earth. He had already
created everything in it. And He created Adam. And Adam
is just a lifeless form laying there. And that's what we are
when we come forth. We have physical life. But spiritually,
we're dead. We're cut off. We're separated.
And yet, when God breathed into Adam, and breathed life into
him and gave him everything that's necessary for life. Adam's eyes
opened up and Adam beheld everything God had already provided for
him and it was all there and he didn't need anything added
to it and couldn't anything be taken from it. It was a perfect,
perfect creation. That has something to do with
what happens when God gives a man faith. God opens his eyes And
he beholds that in Christ, God has provided everything for him.
And he cannot, there is no way he can resist believing Him. He just can't resist believing
Him. You know what it is to say that
a man can resist believing God? It's to say that God's not able
in His Son to provide something so incredibly better than anything
else we've ever held on to It's saying He can't provide something
better in His Son. It's saying that we're able by
our own flesh to look away and say, no, I think there's something
better over here. The man that says that don't have, he don't
know Christ from a hole in the ground. He don't know, he don't
have one idea what the Scripture's talking about. Because that's
not the case. When God shuts up a sinner to
Christ, He shut up. He can't move to the left or
to the right. He can't go backwards or forwards. He's right where
God put him. Look at Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.
He didn't have any other place to look but up. That's what happened. That's what Scripture means when
it says, By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. For where His workmanship, the faith that we have, the new
creation we are, where His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. And when He's ordained it, And He provides everything
that pleases Him for it. Then we walk in it. We look at
Him and say, Lord, I believe You. I believe You. I trust You. Because He ordained for us to
trust Him. And we believe Him. But listen to this next point.
Listen to this next point. This right here, this one point,
is more amazing to me than Hell, it's not more amazing to me.
It's just amazing to me. But this point right here is
something else. Look back there at Hebrews 11, verse 5. It says there, By faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death, and he was not
found because God had translated him. For before his translation,
he, Enoch, had this testimony, that he, Enoch, pleased God. In amazing grace, after performing
all this work, that pleased Himself, bringing satisfaction to Himself
after performing all this work Himself and giving us the gift
of faith. God says, I'm pleased with you
for believing Me. Pete, I'm pleased with you for
believing Me. He calls that faith that He's
responsible for giving, that He wrought to please Himself
with, yours. And says, I'm pleased with you.
As if you did it all on your own. That's amazing. That's amazing. But you know we do it every day,
don't we? Don't we do it every day? You
raise your children, and you provide the best you can for
your children, do everything you can for your children, and
when they grow up and do something pleasing to you, it's because
you provided everything for them. You fed them. You clothed them.
You protected them. You taught them. You did everything.
And yet when they do it, you say, oh, I'm so pleased with
her. I'm so pleased with him. Well,
that's what our Father does. He does it all. And then when
we say, Lord, I believe you, He says, I'm so pleased with
you. I'm pleased with you. Well, do you wonder if your faith
is pleasing to God? Do you? I'll give you four questions
to ask yourself. Who gave it? Who gave it? Who's responsible for it? You
or God? Who increases it? Who keeps it? Who grows you in it? You or God? In whom does it rest? Who does
your faith rest in? You rest in yourself and your
decision. Something you did, does it rest
in Christ alone? And who does it look for? What's it looking
for? What's it hoping for? Is it hoping
for pie in the sky and a sweet by and by? A mansion? A place where we can just consume
more lust of our flesh? Or is it looking for Christ?
That faith that can answer God alone. That's true faith. That's
true faith. Well, Psalm 36, 7. And I'm going
to close. Read this last verse of Scripture.
And I think this sums it up. It pleased God to choose a people.
It pleased God that all fullness should dwell in His Son. It pleased
God to satisfy His own justice by bruising His Son. It pleased
God to save sinners by the preaching of the gospel of His Son. And
it pleased God at His appointed time to reveal Christ in those
that He worked us all for. And then God says, by the faith
that He's given them, He's pleased with them. And here's what the
believer says. Psalm 36, verse 7, How excellent
is thy lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of thy wings." Do you get the
order there? It's His excellent loving kindness
that make the children of men put their trust under the shadow
of His wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied. That word there is pleased. God's
pleased and His people are pleased. They shall be abundantly satisfied
with the fatness of thy house. And thou shalt make them drink
of the river of thy pleasures. That which pleases Him, that's
what we're drinking of. Isn't it? For with thee is the
fountain of life. Now look at this last phrase.
And in thy light shall we see light.