I want you to take special care
in your mind, your ear state to pay close attention to this
teaching. While it may be simplistic in
some of our minds that faith is just a given, we know what
it is, we understand what it means and we just sort of assume
that I've got faith, you know, we've all got faith, got saving
faith. I'm going to challenge you today
to put that to the test, to ask yourself, What is saving faith? And then how do I know that I
have saving faith? Because here in this recipe,
if you will, Paul is now prescribing that in all circumstances, in
all ways, at all times to take up the shield of faith so that
you may be able to stand and extinguish all the fiery darts
of the evil one. So you got all circumstances
and all the darts of the evil one. And in the metaphor of the armor, we as Christians in this world,
in this land, in this time, we fail to see the severity and
the reality of spiritual warfare that even as the words are coming
out of my mouth today, the enemy of God in the places of darkness
is fighting against your ears and your heart and your soul
for the very life that you have. The devil does not want you to
hear what is going to be said today. So I decided that while I felt
necessary to read 1 John 5. Greater is he who is in us than
he who is in the world. For God created the devil and
all of his angels. He owns them, sovereignly ruling
them. They are locked and chained except for his absolute decree
that they must do. And the greatest lie that the
devil ever preaches is for you to say, I don't really
believe that. The devil wants to be like God.
So the devil wants you to worship your doctrine and the devil wants
you to worship your definition of faith. And the devil wants
you to worship the things that you worship, Christianity and
church and good living. He wants you to worship your
friends and worship your children. He wants you to worship all these
things because this is the theology that he has given you. And when
you worship that, you worship him. It is not a joke to be a Christian. It is not fun. It's not a woo
party. It's a serious, grave reflection
of the majesty of God on high. We represent the magnitude of
the fullness of the awfulness of the glory of God. And we present
it to the world and to the devil and to the enemies of God. And
friends, we as the church in America are a laughing stock. Thus, we make the face of God
a laughing stock. And when I look at the prophets
of old and I see what God said when they walked into the towns
who rebelled against God and say, listen, Hear the Word of
God. You are going to die because
you have failed to worship the one true God of heaven. And you
have fallen down to the idols of Baal. And you have worshipped
the sons of man. And you have worshipped the gods
of others. And you have worshipped the ideologies
of your own creation. You have worshipped the creature.
And you have worshipped passivity and sustaining your own selves.
And you have worshipped man. And you will die. And Isaiah
preached. Thus said the Lord. God said
to Isaiah, go and preach mercy and grace and repentance and
tell them that they can't have it. Wow. See, that's nasty. If every Sunday we gathered as
the saints and that's all I said, I don't care if it's cool or
not. I don't really want to come to
church. That's the message of God. Thus
saith the Lord God. And God says through now the
words of Paul to the people of Ephesus, take up the shield of
faith. And I would say scripturally,
John 3, 16, Philippians 4, Psalm 23, places like that, Ephesians
2, 8, 9, Romans 10, 9, Romans 10, 17, those things, those popular
voices, Romans 3, 21 verses, you know, we like to use them
and throw them out and take them and push them. And we play the
game of evangelical idealism and we play the game of churchmanship
and we play the game of programmatic evangelism and all this kind
of stuff. And we think we're doing Christian stuff, but we're
really doing devil stuff with Christian clothes on. And we fail to know that we like
to say these words. This is really good stuff. And
we say, take up the shield of faith. Yeah, we just move on.
Let's get to something else. Let's get another letter even. And we assume we know what it
means to have faith in Christ, but we don't. We don't. And so above all things today,
church, I pray for you to hear. That by the power of the Holy
Spirit of God, that he would give you ears that have been
rung through with his mercy. That the Q-tips of his grace
would just clean them out and that you would hear fully everything
that God wants you to see and that he has said to Paul and
that Paul is saying to us. And I want you to understand
that faith as a doctrine is the most abused and misdelivered
and false talk doctrine of the entire Scripture. And it is the
core, sola fide. It's the core of election. It's
the core of salvation. It's the core of God's essence.
It's the core of His mercy. It's the core. It's how it is
received. It's how it is applied. It's how it is given. It's how
it is known. It's how you know you know that
you know that you're going to heaven. Faith. And so if the
devil can take that and twist it into something that it's not,
and you hold on to that which he has twisted, you hold on to
a faith that is not a saving faith. And friends, I have heard
the arguments. For nearly 20 years, I've heard
the arguments. Well, at least it saves some. It doesn't save any. The misappropriation of faith
does not save any. The false message of faith saves
no one. If you are saved in confidence
by those ways, you are lost and going to devil's hell and don't
know the difference. And by the very nature that in
your subconscious mind you went, not me, you're one of them. You
are deceived. The heart is deceptive. The heart
is wicked. It cannot be trusted. It cannot
be looked upon. It cannot be referred to. The
Scripture tells us in the Old Testament and Paul says it in
Romans. Time and time again, don't listen
to your heart. It is corrupt. It is deceitful. It is wicked. It is of the flesh.
It is dead. It is nothing. And unless you're
listening to God, to the Spirit of God, and He gives you a new
heart, you're listening to the devil. I don't know about you, friends,
but some of my Word of Faith cohorts would say, well, see,
you preached us into existence, Pastor Tiffins. When you told
us, starting in verse 15 or verse 10 of chapter 6, when you said,
get ready because the spiritual battle is going to start to come,
you said it, so you should have said it. The devil heard it and
he came in here. Look, the devil is always here. You see how faith is misunderstood?
In all circumstances, 616 of Ephesians, take up the shield
of faith with which you distinguish all the flaming darts that you
want. So there's a preparation that we've seen. There's a preparation
there that we've already been told. Stand firm for the belt of truth,
the breastplate of righteousness tucked into the belt of truth.
It holds it up and choose for your feet the readiness of the
gospel of peace. Now, take up the shield of faith. Now, I'm going to give you a
picture, a historical picture of a shield. And in this day,
in this Greek-Roman culture here, when someone thought of shield,
they didn't think of the shield that we see on television, the little
tiny circles that are a little bit big like that, and you sort
of try to deflect things. The shields of this day were
full shields, six feet in height, sometimes taller, and at least
four feet wide. They were huge. And you put that
shield in front of you, and your brother put his shield next to
you, and then a line, and then the people around you had shields,
and the people in the middle put shields over their heads,
and you were an immovable box of mighty men. You're just like
a box of iron. That's how the Romans fought,
and that's why they ruled the stinking world. You couldn't
kill them. Couldn't kill him. God had to
kill him. So we think of the shield, it
is a covering of massive proportion. It's not something that we have
to hope the enemy starts hit. If it's in place, the guards
don't hit us. It's the shield. Think of the extinguishing of
the flaming darts. You know, they would dip, they
would dip arrows in this tar stuff. And a good archer in that
day could shoot 300 yards. Three football fields away, and
you're thinking, I've got a sword, and all of a sudden there's a
fireball coming at you. Not just one, hundreds of fireballs. Thousands
of fireballs. And your enemy's shooting arrows
of fire. And they would not only be burning, but when they landed,
and all of that stuff would fly all over everything, and it would
catch everything on fire. You couldn't put it out. And it touched
you, it burned you, and you called flame, and you went running,
going, ahhh! And then as you ran through, you burned your
company. That's sort of macabre. It's
not as macabre as the enemy of God trying to take your soul. That's why Paul uses this metaphor.
It's a fiery dart. You ever look at the fiery dart?
You're thinking about a pub. You've got your diet coke and
whatever else in your head. A fire dart. Set it on fire,
dude. There you go. See something funny? Set the dart on fire.
Hey, we burnt the dart board. That's not a fiery dart. That's a bad redneck joke. A fiery dart could lose you the
war, take your life and just put everything you are in flames. Faith is misunderstood and it's
mistaught because it is the power to stand firm and not get hit. So I believe you need to listen
today. Why this aggressive? Because I really do fear with
the core of my heart. That if you don't listen, you're
going to miss it. And this may be the last time any of you ever
hear the truth about saving. You may not have another option.
I will not assume any of you are born again. Because if I
do that, I failed as a messenger of God. And don't sit here and
assume that I'm talking to your neighbor because I'm talking
to you. So I'm not talking, God's talking to you. So let's look
at faith. from a negative perspective.
People like to say that faith is a force. It's not a force.
Faith is a gift, as we'll see soon. Some people teach that
if you have enough faith to do anything, you can have anything,
you can be anything. That's so out of context that
it's ridiculous. And these men that purvey that
stuff, they're riding around with their fifth and sixth luxury
vehicle in their second or third home with suits on that could
feed a small nation. while their people starve. But if you exercise faith, you
give your money. If you exercise faith, you won't have sickness. If you
exercise faith, this will happen, this will happen, this will happen.
You know what the Bible teaches us? The Bible teaches if you
exercise faith, your life is no longer yours, but it belongs
to God. You will lose it. It will cost you everything.
You will suffer greatly, and you will indeed possibly die.
But you will live. That's the promise of God. God
does not promise help in the Bible in this world. God does
not promise wealth, health, prosperity. He doesn't promise any of these
things. Matter of fact, he talks against it. He says, if you love
that stuff, you're not mine anyway. Go on and enjoy your best life
now, just like Joel Osteen and the rest of those false prophets. Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, T.D. Chase. What's some more? Turn on TV and There you go.
Throw a fiery dart at it. Whatever you hit is probably
a false prophet. They don't preach the gospel.
I've been ridiculed. Why would you say stuff like
that? Why would you call people's names? Because they're wicked tools of the devil.
And I care more about you than what you think about them. And
there's a guy outside and he's going to kill the first six people
that come out, but I'm not going to talk bad about it. So see
y'all tomorrow. They're not coming back. That's
just absurd. So why would we not say that?
Why would I say that? Because these people have a multimillion,
billion, gazillion, trillion dollar industry where they go
out and they purvey that false gospel and that false definition
of faith and false hope. And then now they've taken third
world countries on their Gulfstream jets. And I'll tell you, if you're
looking to save your life, your life is lost. If you're looking
to make your life better, go for it. It's yours and it's the
best you'll ever have. If you're looking to live for
Christ, embrace the suffering and endure like a fellow servant
of God. Like Vincenza Settles, who told us on Facebook this
past week, she turned 25. Number five, I know that at all
times and forever, I always have and always will be, as a paraphrase,
I will be a student in the school of suffering, but Jesus Christ
will be the valedictorian of the class. Beautiful stuff. Beautiful stuff. Let's talk about the reality
of faith. Faith, as Paul is explaining here, is a shield. It's a shield
that guards. And as I was talking about the
illustration there in the Roman day, it's a covering for the
complete body. So therefore, it's a covering
for the complete person. In other words, with the faith
of God exercising, taking up that faith, you are covered completely. That means your body is covered.
From persecution, listen to what I'm saying, then I'll fix it.
If you think you're contradicting yourself, I'm not. Your mind
is covered, your eyes are covered, your ears are covered, your heart
is covered, your life is covered. It's protected against the fiery
darts of the enemy. The greatest example of this
type of faith is Job. One of the greatest examples
is Job. Job had the shields of faith all around him, and the
only way the devil could bother him is when God said, go get
him. And look at his life. All of
his children were killed, his wife left, his friends abandoned
him, he lost all of his wealth. That's God's doing. God said,
have you considered my servant, Job? I can't touch Job, Lord, because
the shield of faith is all around me. And God said, I'll take it
down. And you take anything you want
from him, but his life. You do whatever you want to with him,
but his life. You kill his kids, but don't touch him. And the devil said, if my fiery
darts are going to hit Job, he's going to curse God. And Job didn't
curse God. He praised God. Praise God from
whom all blessings flow. Praising in the good and the
bad times. Praising. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. It's what Job cried out after
his children. It was reported to him that his children had
died, and he said, blessed be the name of the Lord. For the
Lord gives and the Lord takes. That's the shield of faith. So
I want you to get the picture of what the promise is, and I
want you to get the picture of what the reality of that is. It's not a good life. in the world's eyes. You see
that? And it also doesn't mean that
if you're experiencing discipline, that it's not that it's because
that it's that it's a good thing, because sometimes God disciplines
those. No, not sometimes. God always disciplines his children
when they rebel and disobey. And that is in marriage. And you're
going through discipline because you're disobedient to God, you're
not saying the word, you're not praying, you're not being kind to your
spouse, you're not being kind to your wife. You're not being kind to your
children and nothing. And you're just not at peace
at all. And what God is doing is He's molding you and He's
forming you and He's pressing you. He doesn't let you go. He
just squeezes and pushes and presses. And then you come out
and go, OK, I can't do anything else. God, please. I'm yours. I'm stopping trying to do this.
And now you do it. And wow, look at there. We've
grown. We've been sanctified. It's like for us who have wives,
and our wives are disobedient and disrespectful, and they won't
submit. And God disciplines them. God puts the screws to them,
and they get depressed, and they get frustrated, and they can't
stand anything, and it's always... Because what does God want? He wants us to be sanctified,
to be holy. Let's try to avoid those things.
Let's stand with the shield of faith. So anything the enemy can throw
at us with the shield of faith, we extinguish it. It doesn't
just hit it, deflect it, burn those around us. It puts it out. How does that work? Well, let
me give you some because you don't want to have to look these
up, because there's a lot of them, because God is our shield. Well, that's
the thing, the proof of that is this, Genesis 15, 1. After
these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision.
Fear not, Abram, for I am your shield. Your reward shall be
very great. In Psalm 512, bless you, the
righteous. For you, bless the righteous,
O Lord. You cover them with favor as a shield. Psalm 1830, this
God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord proves true.
He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him. Psalm
287, the Lord is my strength and my shield. In Him, my heart
trusts and I am helped and my heart exults. That means it's
joyful. It kicks its heels up and runs
with joy and frolics in the fullness of the glory of God. That's what
exaltation is. Exaltation is as ascribing awesomeness
to and exaltation is being awesomely joyful because of. And with my song, I give thanks.
And so the shield of faith in the reality is God, but it's
not a passive shield. It's a shield that Paul tells
us to pick up, to put on. Now, if I were just taking this
particular text, I'd probably do an error and say, see, now
Paul tells us to pick up something because it is metaphorical. But because of other places in
Ephesians, we know we must be active in our faith. Listen to
this. We've already learned this. Ephesians 1.13, in him you also,
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and
believed in him, were sealed with all promise of the Holy
Spirit. Faith. Ephesians 1.15, for this reason, because I've
heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the
saints. Ephesians 1.19, a very strong verse, no pun intended. And what is the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the
working of his great might? Faith. is how we receive and
apply the power of God to our lives. For by grace we have been
saved through faith, and this is not a gift of God, Ephesians
2.8, Ephesians 3.12, in whom we have boldness and access with
confidence through our faith in Him. So we have strength,
we have presence, we have power, we have adoption. We have unity. We have love. Ephesians 3, 17.
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. We have
Christ, that you being rooted and grounded in love. Ephesians
4, 5. We have unity. One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
Ephesians 4, 13. Until we all attain the unity
of the faith and then the knowledge of the Son of God. Faith gives
us knowledge and then maturity to mature manhood to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 6, 23. The very last
point. We're not there yet. Peace be
to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is saving faith? If you're
supposed to put it on and pick it up and utilize it? That's
awesome. What does it look like? What's
the reality of saving faith? Because most of us in the room
think we can answer that question. What is faith? Well, let me give you a few things
that faith is not a full, exhaustive idea, but just a few things to
get your brain going. And then I'm going to tell you
what faith is not. And then you're going to take a test. It's classroom
day. Faith is a gift of God. By grace, you've been saved,
and this is a gift. Romans three to be received by
faith. This is a gift. How clear do
you want it? Faith isn't an offer. Faith is
a gift. Mercy is not an offer. Mercy
is not a condition. Mercy is a gift. If someone's
merciful and they don't give you mercy, they're not merciful
to you. If they say, here's mercy. No,
no, no. That's not mercy. That's cruel. So if God gives you mercy, you
get it. What do you mean by that? It's
called logic. Let's walk through it a little
bit. Critical thinking is a dead art in America. Let me help you.
Mercy is not tangible, it's an intangible or what you would
call metaphysical reality. In other words, it's an expression
of something given to someone else. And in order for mercy
to be applied, it actually must be prescribed. So in that, let
me break it down. If you owe me money, And you
can't pay me. And I say, don't worry about
it. I've given you mercy. Now, I may be the most merciful
person in the world, but if I say you owe me with interest, that's
not mercy. Even if I'm merciful, you didn't
get my mercy. The only way mercy is given,
if it is actually applied to you. Mercy can't be an offer. It has to be a gift. Does that
make sense? And why is it a gift? Because
the Bible teaches, Romans teaches, the Old Testament teaches, the
apostles teach, Jesus teaches. Jesus knew the heart of man.
Many believed in his name that day because of the miracles that
he did. And John, the end of John, said the last few things,
but Jesus did not entrust himself to them for he knew what was
in man. No one had to tell him what was in the heart of man.
Period. Many people believe. Many of the Pharisees believed,
but they would not profess their belief because they loved the
glory that came from man instead of the glory that came from God.
That's not saving faith. That's a dead faith. That's a
dead faith. It's a non-saving faith. It's
faith. If you can't get this, you can't
be saved. If you don't see faith as a gift,
you're not saved. If you didn't come to receive
Christ because of the gift of faith, you aren't born again.
But when you see that and it becomes
real in your life, you're born again. When did it happen? Why
do you care? Is it happening now? Are you a believer this moment?
How do you know? Because you better be exercising
saving faith now, not yesterday, not last week, not ten years
ago. No, no, no. It's a lie of the devil straight
from the wickedness of his own heart. He wants you to put your
faith in what you did instead of what Christ has done and is
currently doing. Stop putting faith in faith. If you breathe into a bag long
enough, you pass out, because eventually the oxygen is depleted. You can't breathe until the day
you exercise space. It is a dead memory. God gives faith as a gift to
who He gives mercy to. If God gives mercy, faith is
there. If faith is there, belief is
there. If belief is there, the works
of faith are there. If the works of faith are there,
you persevere. And if you don't, you weren't
in it. Faith is given, and then faith
is exercised. Otherwise, the creature is able
to, what I say, enact a force of security against God. Hey,
God, you got no claim on judging me now because I exercise faith.
See that? How silly does that sound? But
that's what we do. That's what the evangelicals of the devil
do. That's what the evangelists of
darkness do with a shroud of light. And they're deceived.
They think they are preaching the light of God. They're preaching
the light of the demons, which is darkness. You cannot stand before God and
say, but God, I. Because you'll never have that
opportunity. It says every mouth will be shut. You cannot argue
your case against God when He says, depart from me, you workers
of iniquity. What were these people doing? They were preaching
and cleaning out demons and raising people from the dead and healing
the sick. I'm not talking about crazy people living in sin and
looking like crazy Sodom and Gomorrah types. I'm not talking
about that. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells those people Depart
from me, you workers of iniquity, into hell." And then according
to Revelation, he throws them in, against their will. He throws them right in there,
and all the church is at peace. Because throughout the ages,
God has revealed himself to all humanity. There without excuse. But that general Revelation does
not save. Only the Revelation of the Word of God, Jesus Christ
alone saves. And so if you care about the
loss, you need to share your faith. Let me just put it this way.
If you are in Christ, you will share your faith. If you don't
share your faith, you're not in Christ. And if you're not
sharing your faith and you are in Christ, you're guilty as all
get out and you're in some type of turmoil right now. You must fully believe in Christ,
but this is his faith. Faith in Christ is not of the
mind, it's not of the heart, but it's the fullness of the
entire will and essence of the human. A true believer understands
that God's mercy is needed in order to believe and a true believer. Knows that God is not crawling
around with his fingers crossed, hoping that you'll see his mercy
hanging from a tree. God is actually casting mercy
on unable sinners, and this is glorious. There's nothing merciful, there's
nothing glorious about wasted mercy. There's nothing glorious
about a cure that can't be given. It's a waste. It's a waste. Not
to give you a movie, but Schindler's List, the very open closing scene,
if you don't know what that is, it's a true story about Schindler
who saved many Jews, several thousand Jews from termination,
extinction and extermination. And he pulled his ring off and
he says that could have been so many more. I could have sold
this coat and it could have been so many more. I could have sold
my car. I could have been so many more. Because he had great wealth
and he gave everything he had away except for what he had on
his body in his vehicle to save and purchase Jews from the Nazis. So in essence, he said this ring
was a waste. It was a waste. What was it worth? See, what's
the mercy of God worth if he just leaves it on a shelf hoping
somebody will grab it? It's garbage. At the end of time, it's like
that last brush of the broom that you can't get in. You just
sort of sweep it away. Well, nobody will know. We'll
pick that up in the bigger portion. You know what I'm talking about.
Don't lie. You just back it up and you back it up and you back
it up and you're 12 feet away and you just go. God's mercy is not like that. God throws and puts mercy on
sinners who are unable to do anything. And friends, that is
the foundation of regeneration. If you do not know that you are
not born again. Because that's the step one of
the gospel. You fall short of the glory of
God. You deserve absolute, eternal damnation. That is who you are.
And therefore, you cannot do anything to affect God's judgment
against you in any way except giving it. But God in what? In His rich, deep mercy. And the only place in the New
Testament that Paul says this here in Ephesians 2, because of the
great love with which He loved us, He what? Made us alive together
with Christ. Made us alive together with Christ.
Mercy. You want to worship a God that
gives you mercy? Yes. But don't put too much hope in
there. That's number one, the reality
of seven faith. Second, the reality of seven
faith is that God's power is appropriated to the church through
faith. So the exercising of faith, the
power of God is given to the church and the power of God does
a lot of things. And that's not what the sermon
is about today. It's about faith. But just as a way of reminder, the
power of God is able to successfully permit us and enable us to, I
know I'm being redundant there, to stand against the schemes
of the devil, which are what? Temptation, lust, sin, attitude
issues, mind, what we look at, what we listen to, how we look,
what we care about, what we love. To be able to stand up under
persecution. God does that. If you can't do
that, you're not in Christ. You don't give up as Christians.
You give in to the power of God through faith. Third, the reality of saving
faith is that there is, in the life of every believer and in
the church, a, I say it this way, a God-size going. God-size going. Not a, I don't
know, known-size going. It starts with a G. But a God-size
going. What does that mean? Well, there's
a God-size going against the forces of darkness in the world,
in the heavenly places. We are at war, and there's a
God-size war that we are a part of. And we are at war with the
enemy, and we win. It's over. We are winning now
if we are in Christ and we will win and we are victorious for
Christ is victorious. There's also a God size going
of the grace of God through the giving of the gospel. Where is
it? Why is it so easy? Listen. Why is it so easy to feed and
befriend and fellowship and clothe and teach? Why is it so easy?
Because that's the devil's number one business. You think the devil
is trying to starve people? No, he's trying to feed them.
You think about some naked and cold? No, when people are starving
and naked and cold and in despair, they cry out to God, not Satan. So your Christian going is not
about giving stuff to make people's lives more comfortable, make
them hurt. If they're hungry, feed them.
If they're naked, clothe them. If they're sick, heal them. But
it's not the reason you go. It's not your motivation. Missions
is not about making people's lives better. Missions is about
showing them the true life. Because one day, friends, there
won't be wealth to make lives better. We'll all be in this
hell basket together. Now, who's going to have a better
life? Are you going to sing Amazing
Grace when they set a fire to your feet? And your children
watch you burn as a pike because you proclaim the gospel of Jesus
in Georgia? Are you going to cry out like Christ?
Dear Father, receive my spirit as the flames burn your eyeballs
out? Not if you don't preach the gospel,
you won't. Because nobody will ever care what you do. A benevolent evangelism is the
bread that perishes. So why don't more people who
are missionaries preach and teach the gospel? Because they're not
born again. They don't know. They're deceived. We all have been deceived, and
some of us may be deceived today. We're not better than anybody
else because we see it. We're thankful that God in His mercy
showed us. We're not worthy to see. We're
grateful that we have. So what's the going look like?
That's a soapbox. What's the going look like in
the attack against the devil? Just listen to first Peter 5,
8, 9. Be sober minded. Be, that's how
you should be, be watchful, Peter says. Your adversary, the devil,
prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him. That's a command. Resist him. Firming your faith,
knowing that the same kinds of suffering you're experiencing
are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
He didn't say resist him and get up and be a better life and
get up off that suffering. He said, just keep suffering
to be thankful. God starts going, number four,
the reality of saving faith is a growing faith. It grows. We learn Christ every day. His
mercies are new. Friends, there is not a day that
goes by that if I went to John 3 and read that, that I wouldn't
fall on my face in glorious amazement. Gosh, it's like I've never seen
it before. It's a new mercy. Today, the
mercy of God must be new to you, or you are still wishing you
had that mercy that you had last week. And I don't know about
you, but I don't want food to sit on the table for a week. It's junk. It's nasty. The growing of faith. And one
of the ways it grows is it gives certain assurance of God's power
as it is applied and held fast in one's life. So with that,
let's then give a few things as to what saving faith is not.
Let's think about this for a minute. And here's the test. And then
I'll close. Some of us would all say, OK,
I've got saving faith, I hear you, preacher. Let me tell you what saving faith
is not. Saving faith is not believing in the doctrines of grace or
the doctrines of Christ or the doctrines of whatever. You can believe all the doctrines
you want. Scripture says that the demons believe in tremble.
They know everything and they could teach seminary better than
anybody that ever lived. Believing in the right stuff
is not saving faith. That's just right knowledge.
That's called orthodoxy. There is no prescription for
you are saved by orthodoxy. And an expression of the mind
through academics is a work energy. It's a work. It's something that
you can do and that that you know with your brain is useless. God, I know that all this is
true. Good. You're lost. Depart from me. Saving faith is not to believing
in the actions of faith. Well, I know I'm safe. See how
I live? I know God saved me because I used to be like this. Let me
tell you what used to be is. The devil loves for us to think
about how we used to be and compare it to how we are. That's a trick.
You must be safe because look, you don't do this anymore. You
don't do that anymore. What did the devil tempt Jesus
with? Jesus was starving. He said, make some bread. How would he tempt us in this? He'd have us looking back on
that day that we did something. It's not the actions of faith.
It's not looking back and saying, you know, when I was noun, I
ate the bread of life. I know I'm saved. You tasted
the heavenly gift. You were enlightened by the Holy
Spirit of God, you know, it says in Rome and Hebrews 10. I mean, he was 16, I'm sorry,
64, it is impossible. In the case of those who have
once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who
have shared in the Holy Spirit and tasted the goodness of the
word of God, the power of the age to come and have fallen away
to restore them again to repentance. It's impossible. And it says
there at the very end of that, in the end, that would be burned. You can taste faith. You can
taste Jesus. You can taste Him like an hors
d'oeuvre. I have friends in Savannah who are so chintzy, they like
to go to the mall and get a plate and they get all the free samples
they can get and eat a meal for free. Pretty good idea. If you like whatever that is,
they feed you. But they've not had anything.
They had a taste of this and a taste of that. And when they
look at the plate, all it's the same. They don't even know where it
came from. They can't tell you where, what store they got that
piece of chicken-like substance from. Some of us taste faith and we
trust in Christ and we did trust in Christ. And we think that
that's what we've got. We go on that. You go on that, you'll
go to hell. You said that a lot today, Pastor.
I have because I want you to see it. And some of you are sitting
there going, He's wrong. Well, you come prove me right.
You come prove yourself right then. You argue before the Word
of God today that you know you're saved because of something you
did back then. And take that before the throne of God and
tell Him to stick it in the gate and open and let you in and see
what He does. That ain't a key to get into
heaven. Past faith is dead, gone memory. present faith. John 3, 16, for
God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever
is believing, and if you like the KJV, whosoever is believing,
what does that mean? Whoever so believes. Whoever
is believing has eternal life. Whoever is not believing is condemned
already, for they are not believing in the Son of God. That's what
it says in every translation. So where's your hope? In that
past believing? Or you presently believe? I look at past faith as expelled
through the bowels and flushed. It's done. Thirdly, saving faith
is not feeling God. It's not feeling the Spirit.
It's not, woo, I felt the Spirit. It's not that one fuzzy. It's
not that assurance inside your spirit. It's not that stuff that
you feel. I feel good. I feel right. I
feel God. God is good. That's not saving
faith. That's endorphins in your brain
making you feel good. You drink a Red Bull, you can
feel God if that's what you think God is. Get your quad shot at Starbucks,
shoot that sucker down. Express yourself to heaven. It's
not going to happen. Fourthly, saving faith is not
a sense of peace. I've just got peace. Most people
I share the gospel with have peace. Are you certain of your
eternal salvation? Oh, I have peace with God. How'd
you get that? Well, when I was 12. Honey, how
old are you now? I'm 81. Well, you better think
about how far that's been. How's your walk with Christ today?
Oh, I'm at peace. How are you at peace with God?
I just feel him all around me. Let me tell you what the peace
of God that feels all around you with it keeps you numb to
exercising faith today. I believe it's a blanket of the
devil keeping you good and tuned to being fine with not working
out your salvation with fear and trembling to see what God
has done in you. Sense of peace. It's not a sense
of peace. It's not a sense of confidence. Many will say, peace,
peace, when there is no peace. I'm just quoting Scripture here.
Many will face the fear of judgment, and they'll grab the lifeline
of easy believism. They'll hear the evangelist go,
do you know that you know? Do you want to go to hell? No,
I don't want to go to hell. Then do this. Come on down here.
Say that. Did you mean it? Your dad don't
ride a minute. I'm not going to hell. That's not saving faith. I'm not standing in your way.
No. I'll give my left shoe for that. I'm terrified of all that. What do I got to do? That's a
fake peace. It's a fake confidence. And the
fear of judgment, any lifelong, you know, the old cartoons, they're
swinging through the jungle, you know, and inevitably it doesn't
matter if somebody's swinging through the trees in the jungle
in a cartoon, one of them is going to grab what? A snake. That's what easy-believism is.
You want to die? No. Then eat this microphone. They'll do whatever is necessary,
whatever they're told psychologically to do, they will do. Why do people
do this when Benny Hinn does this? And why do people fall?
Because they want to fall. This blowing people down with
my jacket is just like bringing people down the aisle. Come on! Come on! Come on! See how that feels? It makes
me feel sick in my stomach when I even pretend to do it. Because this evangelistic proof
is what I call the lazy river of false hope. You know what
a lazy river is? It's my kind of ride at Six Flags.
I don't like height, I don't like fast, and I don't like wet,
but a little bit of moderate water if I want to dip my toe
in it. The lazy river is where you sit in an inner tube so big
nobody can dip it over. In the middle of the water, certainly
dry, and the fastest you get is about like that. And it's
just relaxing until you get sunburned. You don't know, but you're headed
nowhere. You're headed to the start line. You just keep on
going. It's like a water tube treadmill
to nothing. Saving faith is not a fear of
judgment. Well, I know I'm saved, but I am scared to death of the
judgment of God. Saving faith is not a hatred
of sin, because hatred of sin could come from a fear of judgment. Actions that follow a fear of
judgment are not salvific, but preserving. If you're scared of judgment, anything
you do is not so that you will be saved, it's so that you will
be preserved. It's not dependent upon the mercy
of God because he is the greatest thing that ever happened. And
you would willingly and lovingly and excitedly give up everything
that is precious to you because you absolutely affectionately
adore all the holiness of God in every aspect of every fiber
of your DNA. All who seek to save their life
in this world will lose it. Did you exercise faith to save
your life? You've lost it. I hope you're scared. I hope you're challenged. The last thing that saving faith
is not. Saving faith is not security. This is going to blow your minds.
Saving faith is not security in the Word of God and its promises. Jesus says, unless your righteousness
is greater than the Pharisees, you cannot be saved. The Jews were secure in the promises
of God through the scripture. They were so at peace that God
was a promise keeper. They had no concern. I know I'm safe because God promised
I'm safe. God promised you're safe if you believe in the sun. If you don't believe the sun,
that promise is not yours. Until you believe. So for all
those who want to challenge our theology that we're not evangelistic.
Erase your mind. And get a better dictionary. The Jews were secure in the promises
of God, but they never laid hold of them. They never laid hold
of God. They never laid hold of Messiah.
God that promised them hope came to them and they said, nah, don't need you. We got this. And Jesus says, I am that. The
scriptures speak of me. Moses spoke of me. Abraham was
delighted to see my day, and he rejoiced in it. You are yet
fifty. How would you say before Abraham
was, I am? And they picked up stones to
kill him, but he vanished. Don't reject the true God of
the Bible and the true Jesus of the Bible. Don't reject the
true promises of God in the Bible by failing to believe fully in
faith continually and forever in the work of Christ. So I can
stop right here and we can all go home a little distraught.
Let me give you now what saving faith is and then we'll pray. Just paint some pictures. Saving
faith is, as David cries, a broken and contrite heart. Saving faith
is a broken mind, a contrite soul, a lowly, humble, exhausted,
absolutely insufficient spirit. that recognizes that nothing
in me can affect anything in you, and all that I am is worthy
of your judgment. But in your mercy, God, you have
stretched out your love and kindness, and you've snatched me out of
death. me into the baptism of Jesus,
and all that I am was put on him, and you judged him, and
you killed him, and he died, and you raised him to life, and
his righteousness is my righteousness, and if it's not, I am going to
be dead." That's what it looks like. Nothing done in the flesh will
afford God's mercy. Nothing. Saving faith is eternally
present, not a distant past. Saving faith is being poor in
spirit. Blessed are those who are poor
in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Pastor
Luke preached last week a wonderful sermon about what that means. That means you are justified
and adopted. If you are blessed, you are received
as a child of God. You are saved. The one that is poor in spirit,
blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Saving faith. is continually
and always, forever, even, I believe, in glory, always recognizing
that there is no effective way to come to Christ apart from
the mercy of God and that He has effected all things in me
to bring me to Himself through Christ. The strong and the bold and the
righteous and the well are not in Christ. He did not come to
save them. Those are his words. I did not
come to the well, but to the sick. So those who think they're
well, they don't want Jesus. I did not come to the saved,
but what? To seek and save the lost. What is meekness? I like it. I like to think of
it this way. The worthless, the helpless center. Meekness, worthless, helpless
center, the meek are the lowly who are broken and submit to
the grace of God. That's saving faith. The broken submit, they yield
to the grace of God. They yield to the mercy of God. They yield to the Lordship of
Christ. Yielding. That's what saving faith looks
like. The saving faith is the power over sin and wickedness. Yes, you will see sanctifying
power. You will see obedience in your
life. You will see desires of holiness changing your affections. You will see a change in your
will. You don't want sin. You don't glory in it. You don't
care about looking at it or thinking about it or wondering about it. Exercising saving faith is the
ability to see sin and temptation and go, shield. Not even sweat
it. We're not running uphill. And
as we'll see next week, the sword of the Spirit. And we're not
trying to just stop the enemy to bits. The enemy's defeated.
Just stand in faith that God has effected all things in Christ
for you and to you. Blessed be the God of our Lord
Jesus Christ. who has given us all spiritual
blessings in Christ Jesus and the heavenly places, all of them.
We've been elected. We've been adopted. We've been
predestined. We've been sanctified. We are in Christ. These are the
things that we've already learned here in the last year or so. We change, saving faith changes
our will from self-will to Christ's mind. Have this mind among you,
which is yours in Christ Jesus. And look at what Christ did.
Christ is the perfect God man. He fulfilled all the righteous
requirements of the law to be absolutely obedient, not only
in essence and action, but in heart and desire and will. He
lowered himself to become a slave and be obedient to die as a criminal,
even though he was innocent, so that he could glorify the
Father. That's what Christians do. That's what saving faith
does. And friends, that's what you have if you are in Christ. The Spirit gives assurance of
adoption, not just that you're justified. God looks at you as
a child. And how many children does God
have? One. God has a son, the only son. from the Father, full of grace
and truth. And we who by faith are in Christ are the body of
that one Son. And He looks at us, not as sin
or clean, but as sinless always. Never sin. He looks at us and
sees His Son and says, That is my child. That is my child. And they are spotless before
me. Do you believe in Christ? Saving faith is holding fast
to all that this is. And it's a continual exercise.
It's trusting that God alone saved you in Christ and is saving
you and will continue to save you. It is so complex, but so
simplistic. We're so simplistic that we've
added so many things to the table of faith that we have actually
changed it. Now, let me warn you in this
closing statement. If you sit here today convicted
of a non-saving faith, but you fight the reality of the Spirit
of God, you quench the Spirit of God and you say, I know, but
I know I'm saved because, and you keep doing that very thing
that I've preached against this day, woe be to your eternal soul. For if you continue to spurn
the Son of God, God will turn his word from your heart. And you will no longer seek after
him. Today is the day of salvation,
not tomorrow, and not yesterday. Be broken before God, church.
Cry out for mercy and hold fast to the hand of the one who saves.
the hand of grace as he grabs you out of that eternal darkness
and transfers you to the light of his son who bore your sins
on the cross. Believe in Christ. Receive fullness
of who he is today, not just in your heart and your mind,
but the fullness of your being by faith. Let's pray. Father,
you save That's what you do. You say through the hearing of
your word and God, I pray that you put the hearing in our ears
today. Lord, I know that you put it
in my ear. Thank you. That you do testify to our spirits
that we are your children and you do so through the word of
God that we are challenged in our faith and we rest in the
assurance of faith alone. being born again, that we do
believe for all who believe in Christ have been born of God.
Father, give true peace and true confidence and true assurance
to your saints and those who you are saving, give them that
confidence and that peace. And as they work it out and try
to figure it out, Lord, help them to rest in the fullness
of knowing that only Christ satisfies your judgment against them. Lord, work it in us and through
us in such a way that your name is glorified, Father. And I pray
so heavily, Lord, for those who haven't come today for whatever
purpose, for illness, for travel, for work, for other engagements,
Lord. Maybe some of them are just down
in their hearts. God, give them give them hope. We pray for the
loss, Lord, that we will encounter. We pray for the saints who will
worship in a few hours across this world. That the gospel, Lord, If it
pleases you, would you just empower every pastor and teacher of your
word today just to proclaim the gospel, even if they never do
it again when they do it today? And when revival come starting
in my heart, in the hearts of Grace Truth Church, that we might
go out and become a people for your glory, by your grace. In
Jesus name we pray. Amen.