Faith. It's a very misunderstood
word. It's a word that we hear a lot
about in our day, and most of the time it's mentioned by those
who claim to have a sizable amount of it. Folks like to talk about
their faith. I like to talk about the faith
of another. The faith of the one who loved
me, and gave Himself for me. Today, there are some who have
emerged into our society, religious groups, organizations, they call
their doctrines, their beliefs, their teachings, the faith movement. They believe and teach that somehow
by their positive thinking and positive confessions, our faith,
that can bring health and well. I know a little about this since
I once followed that way of thinking. This word of faith movement,
they call it, that teaches and believes that men and women have
the ability through positive thinking and what they call faith,
can receive powerful positions and financial prosperity longevity
and perfect health by confessing that they have it. But these
are the things that only God can grant. These are the things
that only God can give. And I'm going to be honest with
you, I find them ridiculous. Since our Lord Himself, the Believer's
perfect example, And the very one God is conforming His chosen
people to. He's conforming us to Christ
to be like Him. And only He can do it. The Lord
Jesus had no place to lay His head, the Scriptures say. And
He had to retrieve the funds to pay His taxes from a fish's
mouth. He was so poor that he was born
in an overcrowded stable, wrapped in strips of cloth instead of
fine linen, having a food trough, a food
trough of animals as his cradle. Poor, poor, poor. He was raised
in Nazareth, a place of poverty, where often people said, can
anything good come out of that place? He learned his earthly father's
Joseph's trade as a carpenter, an honorable position, but nothing
that paid a great deal of money. He experienced hunger Isn't that
something? God Almighty, in the flesh, experienced
hunger. His sustenance was provided by
His heavenly Father, but it was through the generosity of others. He Himself said, foxes have holes,
birds have nests, but He Himself had nowhere to lay His hand. 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9 tells
us plainly, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He was rich, and He was rich when He was on His
Father's throne, He's God. He owned it all. He created it
all. It all belonged to Him. He, yet for your sake, became
poor. And that He did. so that you
and I might become rich. And that's not talking about
material things. That's not talking about a big
house, big car, big boat, all that. That's talking about spiritualness. It's talking about being spiritually
rich. I'm so rich that my father owns
the cattle on a thousand hills. Faith simply means to believe,
to trust, to depend wholeheartedly in and on the Lord Jesus Christ
to be the only means of spiritual prosperity. Not material. There's no other way to be saved.
How valuable is that? If there's only one way to be
saved, and you have it, then you have the greatest thing of
all. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2.8,
you can quote it, I know, he says, for by grace are you saved. And then he added two words,
through faith. And that not of yourselves. Now,
pay attention to what that's saying there. You're saved by
God's grace. And it's through faith, through
believing. But that faith, that believing
is not of yourselves. You didn't conjure it up. You
didn't do something to merit it or deserve it. It's a free
gift of God. Both the grace and the faith
God gave to you freely. The Lord said in another place,
come and buy without money, without price. That's pretty cheap. Without money and without price.
But it's not cheap because it was charged to the account of
another, and that's being Christ our Lord. He paid the debt, the
immeasurable debt that we ourselves owe. No charge to us, but it
cost Him everything. That's what the word faith means. It means to trust loyally and
steadfastly. It means to be dedicated and
committed. It means to be true and reliable
to God and to His gospel. As a noun, the word faithful
means to be someone who's all those things. Loyal, steadfast,
committed. It's talking about believers.
Loyal followers. There was a time when I would
readily, and still do, but would readily say Christians. But today
men have made that almost a dirty word. But not a true Christian. A Christian is a Christ follower.
There are a lot today who profess to follow Christ. They don't
follow Him at all. So I like the word believer,
true believer, better. But that's who this is talking
about. Those who have unchanging affection for God and the cause
of Christ in this world. I know many of you personally.
And I know that God in mercy and grace has given that to you.
And we ought to be thankful. But there is really only one
who is suitable, fit, and right for the title, faithful. Everyone
else falls short. of this glory of being faithful
because of one thing, a little three-letter word, you know what
it is. Sin. All of us have sinned to come
short of the glory of God. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. We're all sinners. We fall short. for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3, 23. And in the
Old Testament, Deuteronomy 7, verse 9, let me read that to
you. Now, know therefore, excuse me, know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy
with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand
generations. So we see there's only one who
fits that bill perfectly, keeping those things, and it's the faithful
one, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, who is also God. God is in three persons, God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. None of
the three inferior to the other, all equally God. No man, no woman born of woman
except one in and of themselves is faithful. And that is Christ. He had a earthly mother, but
His Father was heavenly. And most men... Listen to this
verse, Proverbs 20. I'm going to turn you to the
Scripture in a minute. Most men will proclaim everyone
his own goodness. Boy, we good at that. We're good
at talking about ourselves and our goodness. I'm the chief. But a faithful man who can find. Proverbs 26. Concerning wealth,
no one's going to take their bank account into glory with
them. Nobody's taking their bank account, their retirement account,
their 401k, or anything else to heaven. I remember when my
dad lay dying, he had several $100 bills in his pocket. He
wasn't a rich man. He was not rich at all. But he
had his little mad money, and he kept it in rummaged garage
sales and things like that. And I'm going to tell you that
I think he had $1,800, which was a lot of money to me. But
he wasn't thinking about that. He knew he wasn't taking that
with him. He wasn't concerned about that money. We're not taking
it with us. Naked we came into the world,
and naked we're leaving. You can write that down. That's
what God says. Concerning health, everyone in
heaven's glory are not going to shed any tears. They're not
going to be sick or experience death. So, why are we worried? We're not
worried about that. Matter of fact, we've got to die to get
there. And to die is a promotion. It's a departure. It's gain. To die is gain. And I'm going to tell you this,
mansions, gates of pearl, streets of gold will garner no interest
or no attention by God's chosen people for Christ Himself will
be there. And if Christ is there, what
else is there? He's all they need. He's all
they desire. There'd be no need of earthly
physicians in heaven when the great physician's there. So, biblically speaking, God-given
faith cannot be what these faith-based professors believe it to be.
Our faith has nothing to brag about. It's nothing to glory in. The
psalmist wrote, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto
Thy Name give glory. Why? For Your mercy and for Your
truth's sake. Now that's all we're talking
about. His mercy to the undeserving. His grace to the ungracious. God doing for me what I cannot
do for myself in order for me to spend eternity with Him. It's
the greatest transaction that ever transpired in this world. We've never done a thing, none
of us, that would be worthy of any glory. All that we've done
only brings us shame. Paul tells us about such. He
wrote, Their end is destruction, whose God is their belly. and
whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things, for our
conversation, our conduct, our manner of life is in heaven,
from whence also we look before the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."
You see, friends, by nature, by birth, and by practice, you
and I are the opposite of God. Now, that's right. I know some
folks have convinced themselves that they're like God. You know,
they say silly things like, me and Jesus, we got a good thing
going. God one day said, you thought
that I was altogether such a one as you. And He said, you're so
wrong. We're nothing like God. We're
the opposite of Him, naturally speaking. We're unfaithful. He's faithful. We're not saved by our faith.
Now listen to me. This is the content of my whole
message. We're not saved by our faith
in Christ. We're saved by the faith of Christ. It was not by works of righteousness
which we had done. But according to His mercy, He
saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. Listen, God took our sin, He put it on His beloved Son,
and then He took His beloved Son's righteousness and put it
on us. And now when He looks at us,
He sees His beloved Son, who is holy, unblameable, and unreprovable
in His sight, as we talked about the first time. He conformed me to Christ. He
conformed me. He still is. He shed on us abundantly His
mercy and grace and faith through Jesus Christ our Savior. We're
not saved by our faith. We're saved by Christ's faith.
There's no faith in Christ apart from the faith of Christ. Our
faith is in and of His faith. And this is crucial. I mean,
absolutely necessary to know. If men attribute their salvation
to their faith, now listen to me, it won't be long, it will
be very soon, that it will be their faith that saved them.
Did you hear what I said? If men convinced themselves that
it was their faith, their belief, their doing, their works that
saved them, then those things will be their salvation. They'll have glory in their faith
instead of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have friends right now that
just can't wait to tell me all that they and their church are
doing for God. That's not what this is about.
It's about what He's done for us. Unfaithfulness. Let's talk about
that just for a minute. Unfaithfulness is one of the
most appalling, horrific, and nauseating of all sins. It began
in the garden when Adam, by his unfaithfulness to God, assaulted
God. And that's what it was. God said,
I've created this wonderful place for you, and I've provided all
this for you, and you can partake of every bit of it except for
one tree, one fruit. He said, that's mine. That's
mine. You leave that one alone. In
the day that you partake of it, you'll surely die. And though
he lived 930 years, he died that instant spiritually. But it didn't alter God in the
least. God didn't change one iota. He's still holy. He's still righteous. He's still
perfect. But He sure did change Adam.
And it changed you and I because Adam was our federal head. He was our representative. And
we died spiritually in Him. That's what the book of Genesis
teaches us, chapter 3. And along with the sin that caused
it, it's continued on since that day. It's still going on today. This unfaithfulness of sin reinvents
itself in so many ways against all in any. It's defined as disloyal. It
engages in acts of infidelity. It breaks promises and covenants.
It's adulterous, untrue, untrustworthy. It's unreliable, undependable,
and deceitful. And whenever the word unfaithful
is mentioned, our thoughts and our minds immediately run to
adulterous and fornicating acts. But unfaithfulness manifests
itself in so many other ways in the Scripture. You know, the
Old Testament, we've seen this in our studies. The Old Testament
compares Israel, God's chosen nation, to an adulterous wife
who whored after other gods. The God of the Bible, the true
and living God, considers idolatry. And we make idols out of anything
and everything. Idolatry is infidelity and unfaithfulness,
and it no doubt is. Lustful thoughts of any kind
that desire something over or more than God is unfaithfulness
to the God who provides everything for us. To want and desire more
than what God provides us is an act of disloyalty and treason
to God. And we're all guilty of it, every
single one of us. It's unfaithfulness. And the
Bible's full of acts of disobedience because you and I are full of
disobedience. Just as the earth was full of
wickedness when God destroyed it, because the men and women
who live in the earth were full of wickedness. We're not sinners
because we sin. You've heard me say this many
times. We sin because we're sinners. And here's the question of the
hour. I'm fixing to turn you here. If salvation is provided
for those who faithfully love, trust, and obey God, how then
can any be saved? Because none of us do. There's none of us that are naturally
faithful. And I have the answer. Are you
interested? It's by Christ's faith. It's
by what Christ did, not us. Our faithfulness is given to
us in Christ. His faithfulness, like our righteousness,
is freely given to us, imputed to us, freely charged to His
account, which is freely given to us. Not by our faith in Christ,
who cannot fail in His perfect holiness, by His faithfulness
to us. We love, trust, obey, and are
faithful. Because He first loved us, we
love Him. And this is the teaching of Holy
Scripture. Turn with me to Isaiah. The Old Testament book, Isaiah
chapter 49. And look at verse 7. I could
have went to so many places here. We'll look at a few others. This
is a good place to start. Isaiah 49, verse 7. While you're turning, let me
say that men and women who speak often of their faith, and there
are many that do, have yet to see the truth concerning themselves
and the God that saved them. People perish because of a lack
of knowledge. And that lack of knowledge is
in God and in themselves. They believed what men have told
them all their lives without ever looking into this book,
which is God's Word to sinners, to see what God says about it. Verse 7, Isaiah 49, Thus saith
the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, the Lord and
His beloved Son Christ, to Him whom man despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhors,
to a servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise. Princes also shall worship because
of the Lord." Now look at this, that is faithful. "...and the
Holy One of Israel, and He shall choose thee." Well, I've decided
to follow Jesus. No, you didn't. Well, I chose
to give Jesus my heart. No, sir, you did not. He chose
you. And that's the only reason you
did. Verse 8, Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have
I heard thee. He heard our cries in the day
of salvation. Have I helped thee? And I will
preserve thee. and give thee for a covenant
to the people to establish the earth to cause to inherit the
desolate heritage, speaking of the Gentiles, who we all are. So how can men and women naturally
be faithful to one that they despise and abhor? You're not
going to be faithful to somebody you hate. You're going to look
for every opportunity to destroy them. Let's just be frank. They despised His person. They
despised His attributes. They abhorred His doctrine and
His miracles. The Scripture says they hated
Him without a cause, for no reason. They would not have Him to rule
over them. They persecuted and sought to
kill Him from the very time He was born. set out to kill every child under
two years old because they were out to kill Him. They delivered
Him up to be crucified. After 30 years of working with
His Father in the carpenter's shop, He started His ministry,
and for three and a half years, at every turn, they sought to
kill Him. They hated Him. They delivered
Him up to be crucified. They were anything and everything
but faithful. That's my point. But kings of
sea and princes shall worship. Why? Because the Lord is faithful,
they're promised. If you are ever saved, and I
have great hope and confidence that many of you are, it'll be
because God divinely intervened. God divinely interrupted in your
life. And God was faithful to save
you by His grace. The Lord is faithful to His promises. God was faithful to raise Christ
from the dead. God was faithful in giving Him
the glory. God was faithful in giving gifts
for men. God was faithful in spreading
the Gospel. God was faithful in choosing
those who believe. Causing them to believe. We've
not chosen Him because we're faithful. He chose us and He
was faithful. And He made us faithful. He gets
all the glory. He gets all the credit. In the
acceptable time, He heard us. In the time of love, God saved
His people before the foundation of the world in Christ. Christ
was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But in the process
of time, in the acceptable time, He heard us crying. Lord, I need
help. Lord, help me. Lord, save me. I'm dying in my sin. And in the
day of our salvation, He heard us and He helped us. He established
us and He preserved us. He gave and made a covenant with
us. That sounds to me like He was
the one that was faithful. Okay, turn with me to Galatians
chapter 2 in the New Testament. Look at Galatians 2 verse 16.
Galatians 2 verse 16 says, that a man is not justified,
not made just by the works of the law, how then? But by the faith of Jesus Christ. Not faith in Christ, but the
faith of Christ Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that
we might be justified by the faith of Christ. He says it twice. And not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. You can't
keep the Ten Commandments and be saved. Why? Because you can't keep the Ten
Commandments. You can't keep one of them. Not perfectly. We are justified by His faith. The faith of Christ justifies
us. Our faith in Christ doesn't justify
us. Are we justified by hearing with
faith? In other words, we hear the Gospel
preached and we have this mustered up faith within us that we apply
to what we hear and we're saved? No. That'd be an action done
by us, done by our believing. Or, are we justified by the hearing
of faith? Hearing of the faith of Jesus
Christ and bowing to His finished work, done in our room instead. Now that's what saves us. It's
an act that He did, not one that we did. Look at chapter 3 of Galatians
here, verse 5. He therefore that ministereth
to you, preaches to you, the Spirit, and worketh miracles
among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? When the Lord sent out the disciples to preach,
and they themselves did miracles just like the Lord did, was that
a gift that they themselves developed? Or was that a gift that God gave
them? You know which it was. Look down at verse 22. But the
Scripture hath concluded All understand that the promise,
the promise of justification and redemption and salvation
might be by the faith of Jesus Christ. And it might be given
to them that believe. If I believe, that's faith. Faith
is believing. So that it can't be by my believing,
it's by Christ believing His Father and being obedient to
what His Father told Him to do for wretches like you and me. Again, we're given to believe.
That's what faith is. God promises His people salvation
according to the faith of Christ. That faith that the Lord had
and carried out for His work for us. Salvation is by works. What? It's just not our works. Salvation is by His work. Not
by works of righteousness we've done. We have faith, we have
confidence, we have assurance, we have peace, we have rest,
we have comfort in His actions of faith, not ours. What must
I do to be saved? That's what everybody asks and
still does when they're confronted with their sin. Well, what must
I do to be saved? Nothing. You can't do anything.
Because it has to be perfect to be accepted. And you've got
to keep the whole law or you're guilty of the whole law. So what
are we going to do? We're going to trust in Him that
kept it for us. His faith accomplished it. Not
ours. Verse 23, but before faith came,
we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should
afterwards be revealed. It's not our faith that was revealed
and removed us from the curse of the law. It was Christ's faith
and His righteousness that did. We've got to be perfectly righteous
to be accepted, and our righteousness is filthy rags. That's what God
said. His righteousness is perfect. So it's His righteousness and
His faith that saves us. Okay, Romans chapter 3. I wasn't going to turn you to
this one, but I want you to see it. Verse 20. It's very similar to Paul saying
here what he said in Galatians 2. Romans 3 verse 20, Paul wrote,
Therefore, because of this, by the deeds of the law, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. The law reveals to us what sin
is. These speed signs that we pass
out here on the road that say speed limit 35. Well, if we didn't
have them, we wouldn't know that the law, the speed limit, is
35. And I know how heavy footed some
of you are. You'd be going 80. That's what
the law was given to show us what CNN is. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified in sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law was 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, the whole world, no,
them that believe. For there is no difference. For
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now let me just throw something
in here. But not all believe and love His Son. All are going
to hell unless they believe and love the Son of God. For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And everybody
says, that means God loves and saves everybody. No, it proves
just the opposite. That whosoever should believe
in Him should have everlasting life. But now the righteousness of
God, verse 21, without the laws manifested, being witnessed by
the law and prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is
by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all, that believe,
for there's 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 Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation and appeasement a satisfaction through faith
in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of who? God. To declare, I say
at this time, His righteousness that He might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. And this is a good
time to ask the same question Paul did. So where's boasting
then? What have we got to brag about?
What have we got to boast in? It's excluded. By what? By law? Of works? Nay, but by the law
of faith. That's speaking of Christ's faith.
What Christ in faith did for us. Christ's faith is the law
of faith. Turn over to Romans 10. Not far
from here. Chapter 10, verse 1. Paul here is praying for his
Jewish brothers, his friends, his family, and he says, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, the Jewish
nation, is that they might be saved. He said, for I bear them
record that they got a zeal of God. There's a lot of zeal for
God out there today. People raising their hands and
singing and clapping and all that. But it's not according
to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God
For Christ, now look, is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. Christ is the end of the law
when it comes to our obtaining righteousness. It's to everyone
that believes, has faith. Believes what? Has faith in what? Our faith must be in Christ.
But it was His faith that established our righteousness. And it was
His faith that brought Him into the law and justice of God for
us by His perfect work of righteousness for us. It's His faith, not ours. It's the faith of Christ that
saves us. Boy, you repeat yourself a lot.
Thank you. Me too. Don't you imagine that's what
Paul meant when he said, I can do all things through Christ
that strengthen me. What didn't he say? I can't do
anything without Him. But I can do all things with
Him because He strengthens me. Paul saw that immeasurable power
working in him through the faith of God's Son. And this revelation,
it's a divine revelation. It's got to be taught to you
by God. You can read it, and you can study it, and you can
hear it preached all your life, and unless God reveals it to
you, you'll never see it. It relieves us from trying to
believe in our strength. We are without strength. It isn't
my faith that matters. Salvation is accomplished in,
by, and through the faith of the one who has the strength
and the power to save. And that leaves us out. We don't
have it. It's the faith of Christ that's
working us. Now many commentaries and commentators
and Bible scholars will tell you that these words, the faith
of Christ, really mean faith in Christ. They're one and the
same. It's not just another way of saying faith in Christ, though
many will say that. It completely alters the meaning
of the Bible. When Paul speaks of our faith
in Christ and the faith of Christ, the distinction is clear and
unmistakable. Our faith has everything to do
with Christ and what He has done and provided for us. We can make
such a big to-do over their faith. that they wind up making and
believing that their faith is the reason and the cause of their
salvation. Our faith, we have nothing to
glory in when it comes to our faith. But Christ's faith, we
have everything to glory over. We have to be perfect to be accepted
of God. How then can our imperfect faith
save us? It can't. But Christ's faith
is perfect, sure can. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4 verse
13, till we all come into the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God and to a perfect man and to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That's what we preach,
Jesus Christ, salvations of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't have faith or unity
or as fellow believers in someone that we don't know. And we cannot
truly trust someone's character until we see how they themselves
conduct themselves. And in Christ, we've seen all
that. We're saved by grace through
faith. Both grace and faith is a gift
of God, as I've already said. Romans 3.25, 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. Romans 3.28, therefore we conclude
that a man is justified, saved by faith without the deeds of
the law. Romans 4.5, to him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness. Galatians 3.26, for ye are all
the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Colossians 1.4,
since we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love
which you have to all the saints. Now in these passages and in
those scriptures that I just read you, and many more like
them, there is no question about whose faith they're referring
to. We're talking about your faith. Well, for sure you're
contradicting yourself. No, I'm not. Who is our faith
in? Whose blood was shed to save
us? Christ. It's Christ's finished
work of the law that causes our work to be done. It's His righteousness
that justifies us. We don't have any. And all of
these things were because of His faith. So, what am I trying
to say? Our faith is in His faith. Well, if you had said that, we'd
already be out here. Well, that'd take the long way
around. Our faith is in His faith. Our faith is not what we did,
but what He did for us. When the Apostle Paul is declaring
our faith in Christ, along with the faith of Christ, he's not
being redundant. They're two different things.
But only one of those two saves. Our faith in Jesus Christ is
our faith. The faith of Christ was His faith. But we can never be saved by
our faith. Never. So the conclusion of Scripture
is this. We must have faith in Christ.
Our faith in Christ is the result of the faith of Christ. We must
believe that Christ in faith did all these things for us.
And the only thing that will keep us centered from total alienation
and separation from Christ is unbelief. The opposite of faith. The opposite of believing. But
the faith of Jesus Christ It'll guarantee salvation every time
if we have faith in Him. So what exactly does the faith
of Jesus Christ mean? Well, when the Holy Spirit speaks
about the faith of Christ, He's referring to our Savior's faithful
performance of all that the Father gave Him to do as our covenant,
surety, substitute, and redeemer. And let me tell you, He did it
all. And He did it all perfectly. That makes me happy. The faith of Christ refers to
our Lord's fidelity as Jehovah's righteous servant. The faith
of Christ speaks of His faithful performance in our place as our
substitute, doing all that was necessary for the salvation of
His people. The faith of Christ refers to
His faithfulness in accomplishing all that the Father trusted His
hands to do as our mediator. He did it all. When the Word
of God speaks about the faith of Christ, the Word of Faith
speaks both of our Savior's trust in His Father and His faithfulness
to God as His servant. Remember our definitions in the
beginning. I'll close with this. Loyalty. That's faith. Fidelity. Devotion. These are all ours
by faith in Christ and His faith. If salvation is of the Lord,
then faith is of the Lord also. And His faith is the only acceptance
that we have with God and that God can be pleased with. Because
the Lord said, without faith it's impossible to please Me.
If you, dear sinner, trust Christ, you now live by the faith of
the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you. Everything
included in salvation is yours. All of it. Even your faith in
Him was obtained for you by the faith of Christ. Faith is not
a magic potion that we drink or a little slogan like abracadabra
that we say and just everything works out the way it does. Makes
a man healthy, wealthy, and wise as the old song used to say.
Faith is God's gift to undeserving, wretched, and wicked men and
women who didn't earn it, didn't merit it, nor deserved it. It's
a gift of God. It's not by our works that we
should boast. Because if it was, we'd be boasting.
It's by the faith of Christ. And we boast and we brag on the
One that gave it.