Read Psalm 108. Psalm 108. O God, my heart is fixed. I will
sing and give praise, even with my glory. Awake, psaltery, and
harp, I myself will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among
the people, and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.
For thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth
unto the clouds. Be thou exalted, O God, above
the heavens, and thy glory above all earth. that thy beloved may
be delivered. Say with the right hand and answer
me. God hath spoken in his holiness.
I will rejoice. I will divide Shechem and meet
out the valley of Sukkoth. Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine. Ephraim also is the strength
of mine head. Judah is my lawgiver. Moab is
my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my
shoe. Over Philistia will I triumph. Who will bring me into the strong
city? Who will lead me into Edom? Wilt
not thou, O God, who hast cast us off, and wilt thou not, O
God, go forth with our hosts? Give us help from trouble, for
vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly,
for it is that shall tread down our enemies. Let's pray. Father, we come to you this morning
thankful for the chapter that you've given us to read this
morning. And Father, we come to you, we ask that you open
our hearts to hear the message. And Lord, let us be not deceived
that anything we do, any function that we serve, or any process
that we go through, Father, can save us, and that we look only
to Christ. And Father, we just ask that
you give the one that you have sent here to preach to us the
message that you'd have us to hear. And again, Lord, please
open our hearts and our eyes and ears to hear it. And Lord,
we just ask that you watch over and care for us in Christ's name. As you remain sitting, let's
sing 512, saved by grace 512. Today the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing, But o'er the joy when I shall
wake, Within the palace of the King. And I shall see Him face
to face, And tell the story saved by grace, And I shall see Him
face to face, And tell the story saved by grace. Someday my earthly house will
fall, I cannot tell how soon't will be, But this I know, my
all in all, Has now a place in heaven for me. And I shall see
Him face to face and tell the story saved by grace. And I shall see Him face to face
and tell the story saved by grace. Someday when fades the golden
sun beneath the rosy-tinted west, my blessed Lord will say, well
done, and I shall enter into rest. And I shall see Him face
to face And tell the story saved by grace And I shall see Him
face to face And tell the story saved by grace Someday till then
I'll watch and wait My lamp all trimmed and burning bright When
my Saviour hopes again, My soul to Him may take its flight, Then
I shall see Him face to face, And tell the story saved by grace. Then I shall see Him face to
face, And tell the story saved by grace. Good morning. Turn with me to
2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 12 is going
to be our text. Alright, 2 Timothy 1 verse 12.
I'm going to begin reading here what Paul writes. For the witch
cause, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day." Now, I heard it said by A man, a faithful
preacher, who also said he heard it, said that this verse contains
probably the best description of faith in all the scripture. The best description of faith. And the reason why I think that
that is so is because it puts our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. It shows us him whom We believe. And we believe Him according
to the will of God, which is the promise of life in Him, the
promise of life that our God gives to us in His Son, Jesus
Christ. So today what I want to do is
first spend the majority of our time looking at this definition
of faith, which is given here in this verse. We'll break that
down phrase by phrase. And then we'll answer the question,
well, how do I come to have How do I come to have this faith?
And then we'll confirm as the Lord says here by Paul that our
God will prove. his work. He'll prove his faith
and show that it's genuine and of the Lord. And I've titled
this message, Faith That Endures, because that's what our Lord
proves. He gives to his people faith that endures to the end,
ever looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's begin here with
a definition of faith and know this, that the child of God has
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith in Jesus Christ is
the distinguishing mark. It's the evidence that this is
a child of God, one who believes Jesus Christ, one who believes
in him. And we could say that a person
without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and notice that I keep
saying faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because we're not talking
about someone who just has faith. A lot of people have faith. They
have faith in themselves. They have faith in their religion. They have faith in their works.
They have faith in family. They have faith in their church.
They have faith in religion. A lot of people have faith, but
that's meaningless. It's those that have faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And a person without faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ really can receive no words of comfort
from this word, the Bible. There's no words of comfort for
someone who has no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is
faith? What is faith? Well, the verse
here, 2 Timothy 1 verse 12, gives us a faithful definition of the
faith, the faith of the saints, the faith of them that endure,
the faith of them that are the lords. They receive comfort from
the word of God and they shall endure unto the end. Now, we're
going to focus the majority of our time here looking at these
three phrases, where Paul says in the middle of the verse, For
I know whom I have believed, second, and am persuaded that
he is able, and third, able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. So first off, Paul says, I know
whom I have believed. And the object of our faith is
a person. We believe a person. We believe
the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe in the person named
Jesus Christ, who was sent of the Father. He is the Son of
God and He came in the flesh. He was sent to the Father and
He came here in the flesh and that signifies that He came to
be our surety, our sacrifice, a sacrifice for us to put away
our sins and to redeem us to Himself, to redeem us unto God
and that this Jesus was justified in the Spirit. justified in the
spirit, not just in the things that, well, he justified him
when he raised him from the dead, verifying and justifying everything
he said, everything he did, and verifying to us, yes, he accomplished
everything he came to do. He accomplished the will and
purpose of God his father for his people. Thou shalt call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And we must know him. Our faith is in him, this one,
this Jesus, this Jesus sent of the Father. And what the Lord
shows us in his word is that we need a spiritual knowledge
of him. We're not going to know Jesus.
We're not going to know Christ the King by this flesh and a
fleshly carnal understanding, we need a spiritual knowledge
of Him, a spiritual understanding, which is a work that God must
do for us to make us to know Christ as born-again creatures. He's got to make us alive in
the Spirit. We've got to know Him, and it's all by His work
being wrought in us by the Spirit of God. And so this is how we
are brought to call upon Christ. It's through a spiritual knowledge
and a spiritual understanding that is given to us, worked in
us by God, our Savior. And so he brings us, in the purpose
and will of God, he brings his people under the sound of the
gospel. He separates us out to come and
hear the gospel. And being here and hearing it,
he gives an ear of faith whereby we hear what is being said and
we believe the testimony that we're hearing by the Spirit of
Christ, that he is our Savior. Listen to Romans 10 verses 13
and 14. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. We're calling upon a person. We're calling upon Christ, our
Savior, the Savior, the only Savior that God gave to men.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And what we see in
that is that our God, our sovereign God, has predestinated all things
for you, his people, to bring you to hear Christ, to bring
you to hear that gospel and to believe what you're hearing,
and to hear Christ, to hear Christ preached. And he does that in
order that we should know him, that we would have light and
life in the sun, that we would know him. As Paul said, In 2
Timothy 1.1, the first verse of this book of 2 Timothy, we
read, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God according
to, look at this beautiful word here, according to the promise
of life which is in Christ Jesus. That's what our God is bringing
us unto, to this promise of life in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what he gives to you, his children. That's the simplicity. Christ. The simplicity of our salvation
is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where all life is given
to His people in the Son. It's all in Christ there. And
so we've got to know Christ to have life. Knowing Him is life. And God's grace makes us to know
Him, that He is the very life spiritual of His people, the
very life eternal of His people. And His name is Jesus Christ,
the Lord and Savior, whom God has sent to save you, His people,
to deliver you from your sins, that you may know Him and have
fellowship with your God. and be found in him righteous,
accepted of God. Your God has done that for you.
And so in addition to knowing his name, we know what he's done,
what he's accomplished for his people. Let's stay there in 2
Timothy 1 and look at verses 9 and 10. who had saved us and called us
within holy calling. You see there, God sought us
out. We didn't seek him, but he seeks us out, having predestinated
everything for us. And it says there that it's not,
this is how he saves us, not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose. and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest
by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished
death and hath brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel. What he's saying there is God
is pleased to make known to his vessels of mercy what he's accomplished
for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He declares to us the mystery
of the gospel which is now plainly revealed to us and seen and witnessed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He makes us to know that what
was in our hand, what was our confidence, is sin. It's repulsive. It's repulsive to God. It's defiled. And he makes us to see that what
we are in ourselves, what we did, what we thought was our
salvation, our righteousness, was actually sin and vile and
putrid before God. and showed us that's not life.
You're not going to save yourself and earn your own salvation.
Look to me. Look to my son whom I've sent,
perfect, holy, righteous, accepted by me. Come to me in him, because
all who come to him have life, life in the Father, because God
is gracious to us in his son he sent his son who came in the
flesh who died on the cross shedding his blood which now covers our
sins and his death obtained our forgiveness obtained reconciliation
for us with the father and he was buried showing that yes he
died and he was raised again showing that he is the first
man to be raised from the dead never to die again, and he shall
return for his purchased possession." This is the promise of God. This
is what God is showing in the mystery of the gospel. He's making it known to us in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. Faith believes Jesus Christ. Faith believes that He is the
Savior. That is the salvation. He is
the salvation whom God provided for the people. There's no other
salvation. It's not about just having faith
and just trusting some religion and walking some path. to please
God. No, there's one way. There's
one salvation. It's the person, the Lord Jesus
Christ. All who are of God believe the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we believe that He accomplished
our salvation perfectly. God's looking to me for nothing. Nothing. It's all accomplished
in His Son. Even now, we that believe on
Christ are righteous. righteous before God. And so
Christ, we know that he's unseen with these natural eyes, but
faith sees him, faith believes him, we trust him by faith. We read in Hebrews 11, one, most
people think of this verse when they think of a definition for
faith, and it is good, it's true. And he says, faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But what
I like about our verse here in 2 Timothy 1.12 is that it's confirmed,
it's laid out for us, we believe in Christ. We believe the person
and work of our Savior Jesus Christ. We look to Him. Now second,
Paul then says, and I am persuaded that He is able. Faith is persuaded
that Christ is able. So the believer trusting Christ
trusts Christ. We trust Him. We believe Him.
We believe He is the salvation God has provided. We're persuaded
that He's able to save. We're persuaded that He is able
to save all that come to Him, trusting Him. And our confidence
lies with Him. Our confidence doesn't lie with
ourselves. Does your confidence lie in you
and what you're doing to please God? Our confidence is not in
our faith. Our confidence isn't in our coming.
Our confidence isn't in what we're doing. Our confidence,
our faith, our persuasion is in Christ. That in spite of me,
what I am in this flesh, my sin, all my failings, all my shortcomings,
which are many, cannot undo or cancel out the work that my Savior
accomplished for me in the shedding of his own blood on the cross,
where he sacrificed himself and pleased the Father well for his
people. That's where our confidence is.
We've done nothing to save ourselves. Even our faith is the gift of
God. It didn't come from us. It didn't come from this flesh.
We didn't earn it. We didn't do enough things to
get this faith. It's all freely given by the
Lord in grace. And we praise his name, and we
glory in him. Because in spite of us, God is
gracious to whom he will be gracious. And so Christ is able. Look at Romans 4. Let's go to
Romans 4. Verse 20 and verse 21. Here Paul is describing the faith
that Abraham had. He says he staggered, Abraham
staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Now watch this, and being
fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also
to perform. What has God promised? I'll remind
you what we read in 2 Timothy 1-1, that it's according to the
promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. God has promised you,
looking to Christ only, life in Christ Jesus. That's the promise
of God. Is God able? Is He able? Is He not able to save? He is
able to save. Jesus is whom God has promised
to give us life by Him and we currently receive it by faith.
The promise of God that He's able to save us. That He is the
Savior. Are you fully persuaded that
Jesus Christ is the life? Or do you continue to walk, looking
to your own works, trying to make sure, trying to work a righteousness,
trying to do any and everything you can to obtain salvation?
Or are you resting in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing the testimony
of God, who promises us life in his son? Is he able? Is he willing to save you? That's
what we believe. that God is able. And we struggle
sometimes to think, is He willing to save me? Would God save a
filthy sinner like me? Well, according to His word of
promise, yes, He is. He saves even the vilest of sinners.
God declares, this is how He puts it, He that hath the Son
hath life. You that believe Christ have
life. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He tells us this in His Word
and He's declaring to us that He's willing to save all that
come to Him seeking forgiveness. All who come to the Father in
Christ seeking forgiveness by the blood of Christ shall find
that which He seeks for. You shall find peace and comfort
in the Lord. Listen to John 7 verses 37 and
38. I'll pick up in the middle of 37. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me. If anyone thirsts for righteousness,
thirsts for forgiveness, thirsts for acceptance with God, let
him come unto me, Christ said. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. We shall continually be satisfied
with Christ, who is the Savior, provided by God in grace to save
his people, to heal his people, to comfort his people, to assure
you that he has done everything for your salvation and you shall
be saved in him. Again, Hebrews 7.25, wherefore,
he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us. Are you fully persuaded that
what God has promised, he is able also to perform? Yes, the
children of God are persuaded, not in themselves, not because
their faith is strong, not because they have confidence or confidence
in themselves. We're persuaded that he is the
Savior and that he is able and he said he's willing to receive
all that come to him by faith. Our Lord again said, come unto
me. all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for it
is light and easy, and I will give you rest. And so we come
to Christ by faith, believing that he is the salvation whom
God provided for the people. be that he is able, he's able
to save all that come to him, and he willingly receives all
who come to him, having nothing of themselves, nothing to offer
to God, nothing to bring to God, no confidence, all who look to
Christ alone. That's what he works in his people. Now the last phrase is this definition
of faith that says that Christ is able to keep that which I've
committed unto him against that day. So the child of God having
come to Christ believing What Paul is saying, what we are saying,
what we are confessing is, Lord, I've hung all my hope on the
Lord Jesus Christ. If I stand before you in that
day and Christ does not appear as my advocate, I got nothing. I got nothing else because I'm
trusting fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm persuaded that He
is the Savior that you provided. I'm persuaded that He's able
to save me. And I'm persuaded that he's done
this. He's worked this in me. He's
called me by his grace. I have no other hope. And that's
what every child of God has. We're not looking at our strength.
We're not looking at how good we feel about ourselves. We're
looking about him whom God has provided. We're looking to him,
trusting him, persuaded that this is what he's given me. He's
given me this hope and I have none other. Nothing else to recommend
me to my God. And so that day, when Paul says
that day, he's talking about the coming judgment day, when
we all are raised from the dead and stand before God. Our Lord,
he said it this way, that the dead shall come forth, they that
have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done
evil unto the resurrection of damnation. And Paul, We worded
this as well, and he said, for we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things
done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it
be good or bad. That's John 5.29 and 2 Corinthians
5.10. Are your works good? Are your
works good? If you say, well, they're good
enough. I think they're good enough. I think they're pretty
good. I think God will be pleased with what I bring to him. Well,
understand this, that your good works need to be nothing short
of perfect. They must be perfect to be accepted
by God. Anything less than perfect is
not worthy of God, and He will not accept our works. And the scriptures speak of our
works in this way. In Isaiah 64, verse 6, the prophet
declares that we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses,
not our sins, but our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. See that? Not our good works, I mean, not
our bad works are filthy, but our good works are filthy rags
in God's sight. And we all do fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. He's shown there that all our
works are corrupt, are deceitful, are vile, are offensive to God. We don't have any good works
of this flesh. Those who come to God in those
works of the flesh, they're going to come to God and meet a God
of wrath and anger and fury against righteous, holy, righteous indignation
against their works. They'll come short of God's glory,
unaccepted by God, unaccepted by Him. We'll fall short of life,
and we'll only have obtain that which we've earned by our works,
which is eternal death. Eternal death. So what is this
good that Christ and Paul speak of here? The good is to believe
on Jesus Christ. That's the good work that our
God works in us by his grace, by his power, by his glory is
to believe Christ, and that is the work which our God works
in his people, effectually, by his grace, trusting nothing else,
nothing of this flesh, trusting Christ only. Jude, which is one
chapter, so verse 24 says, now unto him that is able to keep
you from falling, that is keep you from falling away in unbelief. and is able to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. You that
believe Christ and trust Him alone, that day of judgment will
be a day of exceeding joy for you. All thanks to Christ. That's why we say when we see
Christ, all of us will be casting our crowns of righteousness to
Him. Because what do we have to boast of? It's all by His
grace and mercy. He's made us righteous. All thanks
to Him. What a glorious, gracious Savior. So believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, he says, and you shall be saved. It's because you are
saved that you believe on Him. All right, now, I want to take
a little bit of time and just answer this question, well, how
is this faith obtained? How do I come to have this faith? Seeing then what faith is, How
do I come to possess this faith? Well, faith isn't earned by man.
It's not obtained. It's not incrementally worked
up to. We get ourselves to a certain
level, and then God will give it. It's not there in the beginning.
It's all of God. It's not of this flesh. So the Lord teaches us that salvation
is only by grace. that means faith is a gift of
God and he tells us in his word all men have not faith Paul says
it just like that all men for all men have not faith it's given
by God to whom he's pleased to give it turn over to Ephesians
2 Ephesians 2 and we'll pick up in verse 8 Ephesians 2.8, for by grace are
ye saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. In
other words, without God's grace, every one of us would perish
in unbelief. We'd all perish in our sins. We might be very religious. There's
been a lot of people throughout history that have been religious,
but they didn't believe Christ. And that's because religion doesn't
save. Religion doesn't make us to believe
on Christ. Only God makes Christ to us salvation,
life, light, liberty, hope, the promise of life. It's all in
him. So we might be religious, but
without Christ to save us, we'd all perish in our sins. We'd
all die in our sins. Only by God's grace is a sinner
given grace to believe Christ. And it's the work that God performs
for his child. Now, verse 10 confirms that.
For we are His workmanship. We're not our own workmanship.
We're Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. which is faith, and he bears
fruits of righteousness in the new man by his spirit, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So our God, he reveals to his
child the name in whom we are saved. He reveals Christ. He
brings you to know Christ is salvation. Christ is able. He accomplished it. God is satisfied. So he brings us to know that
name. He told Moses back in Exodus
33 verse 19, he said, I will make, Moses, I'm going to make
all my goodness to pass before thee. And I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious, and I will be merciful to whom I will be
merciful, or I will show mercy. That is, without God's grace
and mercy revealing Christ to us by faith, we would refuse
to hear him. But he makes us to know that
name. He passes by and makes us to
know this is salvation. He gives it to us. Otherwise,
we'd be no better than the Jews who were very religious, knew
a lot of things about the Bible, but knew nothing, nothing in
regards to salvation, nothing in regards to life, nothing in
regard to God's grace and mercy. And so as our Lord said to the
Pharisees who said, tell us whether you be the Christ. And he said,
if I tell you, ye will not believe me. You won't even believe me. And that's how we would be without
the grace of God. So everywhere in scripture, the
spirit confirms that God is gracious to save sinners. And he does
so by revealing in them the gift of faith, which looks to Jesus
Christ only. and believes Him, being persuaded
that He is able, that He is the Savior, that He is able to perform
that which God has promised to us, the promise of life which
is by Jesus Christ. And so, a man left to himself
would never believe, but look what he says in 1 Corinthians
1. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. We see that same wording, but
of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us. God makes Christ unto us. And look, wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. In other words, he's showing
that Christ has made everything to us from start to finish. He makes him to be the wisdom
of God to us, so that we see in him is all salvation. He makes
him to be our righteousness, or in other words, that we're
justified by Christ, justified by his blood, justified by his
death, justified by his resurrection. And then he's our sanctification. As he grows us and teaches us
and brings forth fruit in us, it's all of Christ. He's our
sanctification. And he's our redemption. That
is, he's our glory. He'll return and raise us up,
those whom he's purchased with his blood. He's everything from
start to finish for his people. And Paul would say in Romans
10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God. So in other words, your faithful
God brings each of you, his children, under the sound of the gospel,
sets you down, and opens your ear to hear the word of faith
being preached, that word which turns your eyes away from self,
to look to your gracious Savior, your glorious Savior, your beautiful
husband, friend, and salvation. And so that's why God makes Christ
everything to us, makes us to see He's our wisdom, our righteousness,
our sanctification, our redemption. Christ is all, and that's the
testimony that the Spirit reveals in His word. Christ is all. And
so we obtain faith, if you want to say it that way, as it's a
gift. It's a gift which God gives to
whom he will, when he wills to give it. You come and hear the
gospel, and the Lord will reveal it in his child, making them
to look to Christ. And really, when you think about
faith, you're like, well, when am I going to have faith? Well,
do you believe? Do you believe Christ? Is he the Savior? Do
you believe that he is the Savior? Do you believe that he's able,
that he accomplished salvation for his people? If you believe
it, it's because you have faith. If you don't believe it, it's
because you don't have faith. And that's really what it is.
We come to see God has done this for me. He's made me to look
to Christ. to believe Him, to trust Him. And then finally,
faith, I told you, is proved by God. So when our Lord gives
faith to His chosen children, He's going to prove that faith.
And that's what Paul is saying here. Let's start back in 2 Timothy
1, verse 11. Verse 11 and 12. He says, Whereunto I am appointed
a preacher, and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. For
the which cause? For the promise of life in Christ,
of which I preach, Paul is saying, for that cause that I preach
this word, because Christ is life, I suffer. I also suffer
these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed.
Paul was given the gift to preach the word of God. He was also
made an apostle to go around and establish the word, the truth,
to establish the churches. And then he went and taught this
word to the Gentiles. So he was hated by the Gentile
nations, the Gentile peoples, because he was wrecking their
business of idolatry, which was big dollar, big money. And people were turning away
from idolatry because they believed on Christ. They looked to him
for salvation. And then he was hated by the
Jews who hated Christ, but they didn't like the fact that he
was teaching them the way of salvation in Christ. They didn't
want the Gentiles knowing these things. And so it wasn't good
for them, and they didn't want anybody else to know the joy
that we have in Christ. And so Paul said, I suffer these
things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed. And the reason why he suffered
so willingly is because he said, I know whom I believe. And I'm
persuaded that he's able. He's able to do that, to keep
that which I've committed unto him against that day. I've hung everything on Christ.
And he's my confidence, right? And so the thing to know, though,
is that Paul wasn't a rare example. He wasn't just an anomaly in
his sufferings. He would tell Timothy a little
later in this very epistle, 2 Timothy 3.12, he said, yea, in all that
will live godly will in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. All who would live trusting Christ
only. and confessing Him alone, they'll
suffer persecution. And so what we see here is that
the God who gives faith, He proves the faith that He gives. He'll
prove the faith that He gives. He'll make you to know. He's
making Christ everything to us, including He'll make us to know
that that faith which He's given to us is fixed in Christ, His
salvation. And He'll show you that His faith
that He's given to you shall endure. unto the end, even to
the day of judgment, when we stand before his throne in the
promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. Now, in closing, I'm going
to close with 1 Peter 1. So turn to 1 Peter 1, and we're
going to look at a few verses where Peter confirms this this
proving, this proving of your faith, this trial of your faith.
And we'll pick up in 1 Peter 1 verse 5. He writes to us saying,
you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation
ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through
manifold temptations. Your faith is being tried with
losses in the flesh. Let me just say this about Paul.
Paul, for his confidence in Christ, for his trust in Christ, he suffered
losses in the flesh. He was a prominent Jew before
faith came to him. He was a prominent Jew and well-respected. had great teaching under Gamaliel
as far as the Jews were concerned and he stood to do very well
for himself and yet he forsook his friends and his family while
they forsook him for his faith in Christ And he suffered the
loss. And he gave up having a wife
and a family. He gave up riches and the opportunity
to do very well for himself in the Pharisees' religion, in all
that respect, and rather suffered greatly in the flesh, losing
parts of his flesh, I'm sure, under stonings and whippings
and beatings and shipwrecks and everything. He suffered loss
in the flesh for Christ, because he counted it all just dung. But our faith will be tried,
and there will be losses in the flesh, only in the flesh. And it'll show you whether or
not you really believe in the Lord. The Lord knows. He knows
them that are His, and He's keeping them that are His. And He brings
these trials where there's losses that are suffered in the flesh.
that faith which is genuine, which he's given, continues looking
to Christ, continues trusting Christ, is willing to suffer
the losses that come in the flesh. And that's what Peter says in
verse seven, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,
might be found, that your faith would be discovered even to you,
God discovering that faith to you, that it might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,
whom having not seen, ye love, and whom though now ye see him
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls. Amen. Let's close in prayer,
brethren. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy. We thank you for your gracious
gift of faith, which looks to your son, knowing that he is
the salvation you provided for your people and that there is
no other, knowing that he is able to save all that come to
him. And Lord, trusting that you're
willing to save even a wretched sinner like me. Lord, have mercy
upon your people. Lord, keep us ever looking to
Christ. Preserve that faith. Keep us
in that faith that endures to the end, trusting and being fully
persuaded in Christ, who is able and cannot fail. Lord, we thank
you for your mercy and grace upon your people. We thank you
for the blessing of your gospel. We pray that you take this word
and lay it to our hearts. Lord, help us to feed continually
rejoicing upon our Savior and bless each and every one of your
people here. Comfort them and lay this word
to our hearts. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. Let's all stand and sing a closing
hymn, 224. I know whom I have believed out
of your heart back, 224. I know not why God's wondrous
grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love
redeem me for his own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. I know not how this saving faith
to me he did impart, nor how believing in his word brought
peace within my heart. But I know whom I have believed
in and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've
committed unto Him against that day. I know not how the Spirit
moves convincing men of sin, Refilling Jesus through the Word,
creating faith in Him. But I know whom I have believed
in, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've
committed unto Him against that day. I know not what of good
or ill may be reserved for me. Of weary ways or golden days
before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able keep them which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or noonday fair, nor if I'll walk the vale with Him
or meet Him in the air. But I know my heavy leaving and
persuading that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. Thank you.