Precious Faith 2 Peter 1:1

That man, I think he died, I think at 37, something like that. He was a very young man when he died. He was not a very old man. I believe that's right, but you may check me on the age, I may be wrong, but a very young man. And the amount of hymns and books that he had written in defense of the gospel are pretty astounding. But you think about that hymn in the day that he wrote that, that most religious people hated that message. You as a believer, can you imagine that? Fountain of never-ceasing grace, thy saint's exhaustless theme, object of immortal praise, essentially supreme, and yet hated. despised, even.

Well, it's still despised. It's still hated. But not by those who believe it. Not by those who know him. I'm thankful that there is a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. A fountain. Astounding, a fountain. You know what that means? It never ceases, never stops. A fountain is something that continually flows. It's not a pond. It's not a lake. It's not even an ocean. It's a fountain. A fountain of never-ceasing pardon. A fountain of God's, of Christ's blood that constantly cleanses us. I don't know about you, but I sure need a fountain of His blood, a constant stream. I'm so thankful for that. That's a blessing to hear it again.

I think the hymns that we choose, they must contain the gospel in them or it's just useless to sing. No sense in chanting and reciting things over and over and over again to stir up our flesh because that's what they do. I mean, we can do that and your flesh can get all excited. Man, if there's no gospel message, it's not going to stir the spirit. It's not going to stir the heart of man to see his need of mercy and find it in Christ. I'm so thankful for the the gospel messages we get before I preach. Because I love listening to them, I do. Man, if it don't have a gospel message, I really just don't want to sing it. I don't want it. It's not really worth anything.

Man, those that do, they really can stir the heart of God's people. I pray this morning that God will bless us, that He will be with us Strengthen us. I ask your prayers that God give me the grace and liberty to give you the message from his holy word and then take that and make it, just apply it to your heart. You can try to sit there and apply it.

Have you ever tried that? I know I do. Sometimes my heart is cold and indifferent. I really want it. I want to take it. I want to make it. You know, I can't. I mean, I'm helpless. You find yourself helpless? There isn't anybody in the congregation more helpless than the preacher. There just isn't.

I am dependent on His grace. And you here, you're dependent on Him. And if He's going to make it effectual, He will. And I pray He will. I pray He will, not for your sake, but for His glory. I don't know if you know that everything God does is for His glory. Everything God does is for His glory. Yet I pray that God would bless this to our hearts for His glory. For His glory.

I know most of you know that Patty lost her mom this last week. Let's pray for the family. The funeral is Wednesday, right? Wednesday at 11? OK, the visitation is Tuesday. What's that? 11. 11, Tuesday at 11. And then the service is at 11 on Wednesday.

So you can make every effort to pray for and come and visit with the family and encourage them, strengthen them in the bond of love. Pray for those that are sick. Pray for those that are not with us. I'm sad for those who are not with us. My heart breaks for them. My heart breaks for them because they're missing. They're missing something that would benefit their souls.

I'm going to say in a minute that you can't make that happen on them. You can't give it to them. You can't force it on them. You can't. You could chain them to that chair. Sometimes I wish I could chain my children to that chair on Sunday and Wednesday. And I did for years. I chained them there. I made them come. You don't know the arguments it took to get them here. Well, probably you do.

Man, only God can save a sinner. Only God can save a sinner, and we just pray He will. Let's go to Him in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come again to You because we need You. What an understatement. We have great need. of your grace, your mercy, your compassion, your long-suffering mercy. We have a need this morning to hear of Christ, to hear again of his perfect work, his perfect salvation. We need Thy Spirit, Father, to understand. We can have no knowledge of these things, no real understanding, except the Spirit give it to us.

I pray that He will. I pray that You will send Him in power to quicken the dead to life And in the same message, give comfort to the living. Thank you, Father, for giving us faith, for giving us the ability to believe and trust in Christ as all our salvation.

We pray, Father, that you would keep us fixed on Him. Be with those who weep, who sorrow and grieve for the loss of their loved ones. Be with them, that family, Father. I pray that you would guide them and lead them and use this. Use this, Father, for the glory of Christ, for the furtherance of the gospel. I pray that you give me grace and liberty to preach your word and these to hear. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, take your Bibles, turn with me to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1, a text will be found in verse 1. The title of this message, Precious Faith. Precious Faith. Peter says this, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, this is who he's writing to, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

A way of introduction, I want you to be reminded of this, of the necessity of faith, of the necessity of faith. The apostle in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6 says this plainly, without faith it is impossible to please God. There is no one saved apart from faith, listen, in Christ alone. That is vital. Now, we know this, that there are all sorts of people who claim to have faith in many things.

But according to the scripture, only he that believes in Jesus Christ alone is saved. In John chapter 3, And verse 36, the Lord Jesus Christ, Apostle John writes this, He that believeth on the Son hath, what? Everlasting life. But conversely, he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him. What makes the difference is this matter of faith. Faith not just in anything but He that believeth in the Son. He that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. So faith then in Christ is necessary. And the Apostle Peter in this text is writing to those, listen, who have obtained like precious faith.

Obtained. Now, look up that word, obtained. It means, it's only used four times, I think, in the New Testament. And it has to do with casting lots. You remember that the Jews, when they were to cast lots, they didn't know which way the Lord wanted them to go. They would cast this lot, and God would determine where the lot fell. This is what Peter is saying.

Faith is only obtained by the law of God. It is only obtained by God. The gift of God. Look at that in verse 3. According as His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, listen, through the knowledge of Him, that called us to glory and virtue. When God gives us the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, what do we do? We believed. Faith is necessary for life and godliness. Where did it come from? Peter says, according to divine power. So that's my first point here is that faith is obtained only from God. No man could believe on the Lord Jesus Christ except the Father give him faith.

Now there's all types of faith that is common. You ask anyone in religion if they believe on Jesus, you're going to get an answer yes, because it's easy to say, isn't it? When you examine their faith, you'll find this, that their faith is pretty common among everyone.

Most of them have a historic faith. They look up all the historical documents about Jesus. They look up all the evidences. And then according to the evidences, they say, OK, I believe. Their faith is based on history. Some are based on an academic faith. Some are just blind faith. They just believe because they believe. They don't know anything about the Word of God. Never care to hear it, and yet they just say, well, I believe. It's ignorant faith.

Some faith is based on feelings. How many in our generation is like that? This is a very emotional generation. This is very emotional. And so their faith is based on how they feel or what they think. Ask them, they say, well, what do you believe? Well, I believe God's like this. I think God's like this. I feel like God is like this. Some are based on experience. Well, I saw a lot. I saw this vision. So their faith is based, and listen to me, this kind of faith is just natural. Anyone can have this faith.

In other words, this faith is not valuable. You know why gold is valuable? Because there's little of it. You know why diamonds are valuable? Because there are a few of them. Why dirt is not? Because it's so much. It's common. This faith that man has is worthless because it cannot save them. Peter says our faith is precious. Precious. Faith. It's valuable.

You can't put a price on this kind of faith, Peter said. This faith in Jesus Christ cannot be bought. This saving faith cannot be earned by the works of the flesh or religious deeds. It cannot be learned by academic study. It cannot be merited no matter how sincere a man is. You see, it's not earned by sincerity.

Most men think that salvation is if I'm just sincere enough. Now, I'll tell you this. Religious people are very sincere. Don't you dare question their sincerity. They're very sincere. Yet your sincerity cannot merit this faith. And even we who have this faith, as I told you earlier, we can't give it to anybody. We can express it. We can preach it. We can declare it to you. We preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in hopes that God would use it and give you faith. Why? Because I cannot give you faith. Cannot transfer it.

We can live it and we should and must express our faith by our lives. That's the whole book of James. The Apostle Paul spends most of his time dealing with justification by faith. But what James does is he's dealing with the justification of faith. Do you really have it? That's what James is dealing with.

So he said, faith without works is dead. What he means is that your faith is empty if it doesn't have anything behind it. You can't claim to live unless you breathe. You can't claim to believe unless you use it, unless it's applied in the things of our life. But yet, no matter what we do, we can't convey it to someone. Faith is obtained only by the free gift of God. Only by the divine power.

Go to Ephesians 2. Hold your place in Ephesians a little bit. We'll come in here, in and out. Look at Ephesians 2 and verse 8. The apostle says, For by grace, Now what is that? Grace is not something that's just floating up that you reach up and grab. That's the idea of religion. That God has grace on everybody, and all you gotta do is reach up and grab it. That's how you get it. That's how you get grace. That totally ruins the meaning of grace. Grace is unmerited, undeserved favor. By unmerited, undeserved favor, you are saved. Through what? Faith. Never going to be saved apart from it. It's through faith. And that. Now, what is that? Anybody that has any grammar understands that the antecedent of the word that is faith. He's talking about that faith. Some people say, well, he's not talking about faith. He's talking about salvation. Well, does anybody say without faith?

How does that make your argument any better? It doesn't. That salvation through faith is not of yourself. It, faith, is a gift of God and not of words. Now why is that? Lest any man should boast. Wouldn't that give you the right to have some glory in yourself if faith came from yourself. God made it so that faith, even faith, is not of yourself. All of salvation has nothing to do with your works.

It is all the work of God in grace through Jesus Christ, and yet even the application of that work through faith is not of yourself. It's like precious faith is a gift of God. It's a gift. Therefore behold how precious is faith. If you have true faith in Christ, see how precious it is.

You didn't earn it. You didn't strive for it. You didn't get it because you were sincere. You didn't get it because you were the, you know, we as believers confess we're sinners. You realize that I didn't obtain faith because I was a sinner? My sin did not obtain this faith, nor did my righteousness. I didn't have any.

It was totally a gift of sovereign will. There you were, dead in sins, and God says, give you faith. Passing by a multitude, He gave us faith. You see how precious this is? It is an act of God's sovereign mercy. Go to Romans 9. Go to Romans 9. The apostle here is dealing with this matter of salvation of Israel. And he says, God promised to save Israel. Does that mean that since Israel crucified Christ that God's word somehow failed? No. Because Paul explains here that Israel is not carnal. It's not physical. It's spiritual.

He talks about these two children, Jacob and Esau. Verse 11, For the children, not yet being born, neither having done good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. He said to her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Can you understand that? Can you grasp that? God loved Jacob. without any goodness in it, before he had done any good, even before he sinned. God loved him. Now you listen, the same is true of Esau. God hated him before he had done any good or evil. Do you see the rub? Without that, there's no rub. If you say, well, he just loved him a little less, you know, what are you trying to do? You're trying to erase the rub.

And Paul says, no, don't erase that, because when I say that, and you understand what I'm saying, you're going to say to me this, is there unrighteousness with God? Is God unrighteous to do that, to love one and hate the other before they've done anything? Is God unrighteous? Answer the question. Is God unrighteous? Would you dare say that God is unrighteous? God forbid. Look what he said. Verse 15. For he said to Moses, I will have mercy. Oh, that's good. Isn't that great? On who? On whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion. On who? on whom I will have compassion. What's the conclusion?

So then, you listen to this, here's the answer to your question. So then, it is not of him that willeth. See that? Anybody can misunderstand that. Mercy is not of him that willeth. You can will for God to have mercy on you all you want to, but it's not of him that willeth. Nor, listen, what about those running around? What about those working real hard? Can they obtain mercy? No, not of him that runneth. But what? How can one obtain mercy? But of God that showeth mercy. You that believe.

Why is faith so precious? because it is a sovereign act of the will of God to love you and give you faith in Christ. If you have it, how precious is that? You didn't earn it, you didn't merit it, and I'm going to get to this later, but you can't even keep it. Once you got it, you can't even keep it. He that gave it has to sustain it. You see the preciousness, how rich God is in mercy. He had compassion on us. We were born dead in sins by nature we could not ever believe. I thought of this this week.

If we were talking about goats and sheep this last Wednesday, Goats on the left hand, sheep on the right hand, only the sheep enter into heaven. You know what, if you give a goat a million years to believe, he never would. If he had a million years of life on this earth, he would never believe. Ever. Except God give him faith, he would never believe.

Isn't it just dishonoring to God how men view faith as nothing more than a mere decision? It's an abomination, friends. It's not just a different, we're not just off a little bit on doctrine here. It's not just a small error and calculation. No, it is an abomination to believe in what they call decisional regeneration. If you'll just accept Jesus into your heart, He will save you. No! Faith doesn't come that way. When God gives it, do we receive it? Absolutely! Freely? Yes! Willingly? Sure! But my will had nothing to do with it.

It was all the will of God, but God, who is rich in mercy. He quickened us. Why? Because God, who is rich in mercy, for with great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead. Isn't that astounding? There we were, spitting in the face of God, despising God and His Son, despising His Word. I will not have this man to rule over me! And then all of a sudden, Lord, please, be merciful to me. What happened?

That was the will of God, friends. That's why faith is precious. Because it's only an act of divine mercy. Jesus said, no man can come unto me except. I like that. Aren't you thankful for that word, except? There's a divine exception here. Except the Father. which hath sent me, draw him."

Secondly, if salvation, if faith is only a gift of God, if faith is necessary, and it is, and faith is only a gift of God's mercy, then to whom will God be merciful? That's the question, isn't it? This is my second point, to whom will God be merciful? Who in the world will obtain like precious faith. Now just as I've expressed to you, only the elect. That's what God said. Only the elect.

When Jesus said that in John 10, he said to those that did not believe, he said, you believe not because you're not of my sheep. But here's the difference, my sheep, what do they do? They hear my voice, and I know them, and I give unto them, they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Who is gonna get faith?

Only the sheep. That's it. Who are they? I don't know. I don't have a clue. I mean I'm looking at, I've seen many come into the church and I really believe them to be the elect of God. I really believe them to be saved by the grace of God and they're gone! Never to return! I've seen men express so much love and zeal for Christ and then turn their backs so much that they deny the gospel itself. So you ask me who the elect are, I get it wrong. I have been wrong so many times. I know this, God knows who the elect are. But there's one thing about the elect.

They all need mercy. Every one of them. When God comes to give faith to a sinner, that's the first sign of life. They need mercy. Now, what kind of mercy am I talking about? Because there's a lot of mercies that God gives men. When the Lord Jesus walked on this earth, he had mercy on a lot of people. There's a lot that were sick. And I mean they were ill. on death's door and Christ come and in mercy, He heals them.

That's a mercy, isn't it? Anybody that's ever been sick and been healed, you understand that kind of mercy. Now, which of us has ever been sick that didn't ask for mercy? I do it. Well, I'm pleading a lot. The older you get, the more you plead because we're sick a lot. But I tell you, God does heal physical ailments and physical troubles.

Men come and ask these things, but you know what? Distinguishes the elect from everybody else. Those that receive those kind of mercies, when they get what they ask for, where do they go? They go back to where they were before. They go back. You know what the scripture says?

As the dog returns to his vomit, That's what a natural man does. It's like a pig. You take a pig and you wash him off. Get him all nice and shiny. What is his nature? His nature is to return to the mud. And so is everyone who just receives natural mercies.

Now some will come and they'll be afraid of dying, afraid of hell. I've seen that. I've seen men come and have a fear of death. They're on death's door and they're afraid of hell and they make a profession of faith. They just, man, they're in desperation. You can see it in their eyes. Their eyes just open so wide and they're like, oh, help me, forgive me. They're sincere.

But how do you know it's not God-given faith? Because as soon as God delivers them, where do they go? Go right back to where they started. So false professors of faith return to their sin. They return, they do not enjoy. I've seen them grit the teeth for so long. Man, I watch men come in and I mean, they really tried to stick it out. But it won't be long if God has not given them true faith, they'll go away. they'll return to their own nature.

You who believe on Jesus Christ, what makes you to differ from them? Why is it that you still endure in faith? Why is it that you who believe will continue to believe until faith is lost in sight? Listen to this, even because it is not of yourself. Our faith is precious, valuable to our souls because of this. Because the object of our faith is precious. I tell you this, when I look at my faith, I cannot see it to be precious. Why? Because it's mutable, isn't it? How many believe like they want to believe? How many believe like they should believe? What believer desires less faith? Every believer desires more faith.

And so why is our faith precious? Listen, because the object of our faith is precious. Because we come to God needing mercy, and we find it only in the precious Savior. The object of our faith. the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, I know my need of God's mercy and God's pardon for my sins only by the grace of God. And this need of mercy is constant.

Is that true of you? You that believe? Have you ever come to a point where you say, OK, I don't need any more mercy? I'm full up of mercy. This is a constant state and need of everyone who has true faith. We constantly need his mercy. Therefore, if true faith cries, if God is going to save me, it has to be by free mercy. Can't be by anything else. I never get to a point where I can start trusting in my works ever. Matter of fact, the more I live, the more I need Him.

And the power of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, when one finds he needs mercy, what does he get? He obtains it. This is the glory of the gospel. When God opens a man's understanding to see his need of mercy, why does He do that? Why does God give us a need of mercy? So He can fulfill it. So He can fulfill it. And listen, how then is this mercy obtained? Go back to your text, look at this.

This mercy of faith, this mercy of grace to give us faith in the precious Son of Christ. Listen, who have obtained like precious faith with us, notice this, through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Everyone who's obtained mercy, what are we obtaining? We're obtaining righteousness.

Why? Because that's what we need. When our Lord Jesus Christ came to this world, that's what He came to provide. He says in this Verse 3, He'd given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. What do we need for life and godliness? We needed righteousness. So our Lord Jesus Christ, He has come to be the mediator, the representative of His people, Knowing that God required of us righteousness, Jesus Christ has Himself fulfilled all your righteousness.

All of it. Now, you that believe, what do you want to contribute? Well, Christ is all my righteousness, but you know what? I did something over here. Surely He'll want to add this. He said, no believer ever. Why? We've obtained this through the righteousness of God's Son. The righteousness. And not only this, not only righteousness. I don't think we can comprehend what righteousness truly demands. It demands not only outward actions.

How many times have you, you get to a point, Either lie or not lie. You're faced with that situation. And in your mind, you know this, you won't lie. Because it would be easier for you if you just lied. But you buck up and you say, well, I'm going to take the righteous road and I'm going to tell the truth. Don't you know you already sinned? To lie was already in your heart.

But my Lord Jesus Christ, in every thought, in every motive, in every feeling, He was righteous. And that righteousness is mine. Therefore we who believe desire to add nothing to it, not a thing. But not only this, our Lord didn't just provide righteousness and go to heaven, did he? No. Sin had to be punished. And my Lord Jesus Christ, with all the love that God himself could give, gave his own life for my sin.

There's more than just he stopped breathing. He did stop breathing. He did physically stop breathing. He did physically suffer. But that's not the death we're talking about. That's not the punishment of my sin. Just a physical death. Punishment for my sin was the justice of God pouring over his soul. He had done the work. The object of my faith said, it is finished, it is done, God is satisfied. Sin is completely put away, completely removed.

Consider then the object of your faith. When you consider your faith, don't consider your faith, consider the object of it. Man, you consider your faith, you're going to be, you're going to feel defeated. You'll feel lost if you start to consider your faith. But faith doesn't consider itself. Faith is always looking to an object. When you consider the object of your faith, only then can you be comforted. You've obtained, like precious faith, how? Through. This word through. It doesn't mean like a channel. That's not what it means. It means like a source. The actual word has something to do with something immutably still.

Through that immutably still object of His righteousness, we have received this precious faith. to the precious Son of God who has satisfied the demands of God's law and justice for all our sins. And the proof of that is what? The empty grave, isn't it? Isn't that the proof of our... Our faith is not ignorant faith, you know that? Our faith is not blind faith.

God has left us so much in His Word, so Yet we couldn't get it until God gave it to us, right? No matter how much proof we had. We couldn't believe. But yet after we believe, how much proof do we need? And yet He still pours out this proof to us. Our faith is not blind. Our Lord Jesus Christ has obtained all our righteousness and redemption. And we receive it only through this precious faith. And the third thing is this, all who have this precious faith given by God, obtained by Jesus Christ through His obedience and blood, listen, it's the same.

Your faith is no different than my faith. Now your faith may be stronger. Your faith may be more mature than others. But listen, since it all comes from the same source, robed in the same righteousness, washed in the same blood, your faith is just as good as mine.

It's the same. Isn't that what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4? Let me see. Ephesians chapter 4, verse, yeah, verse 5. One Lord, one faith. One faith. One baptism, one God and Father of all, above all, through all, and in you all. Puts us all in the same field, doesn't it? Nobody that has faith gets to boast about their faith. Why?

Because your faith is my faith. It is the faith that God gave us. It's like precious faith. It was purposed of the Father, it was purchased of the Son, and it was given to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And there's one thing about faith. If it is God-given, it has one object, Christ. And the second characteristic is this.

It never ceases. It never ceases. You that believe on Christ, through His righteousness, you have everlasting life. You have it. It's not something... I know how many times you feel like you've lost it. We do. David did. David said, Lord, restore to me the joy of my life. He lost it. Asaph said, you know, I'd just given up altogether in Psalm 73. My faith was void, empty. How many times do you feel like that?

Well, the good thing about this faith is this, and it's true of every believer, is that it never ceases. Because it is through the Lord Jesus Christ, it has obtained for us eternal life. Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Now that's true of you, and you, and you and you and everyone who has true faith. You'll never die.

It yields the same result because it has the same source. Isn't that wonderful? Because I look at someone's faith and their faith far exceeds mine. But you know what? Does that really toward my everlasting life? No. Does that give them any more everlasting life? Do they have more everlasting life than I do? No, they don't.

Because it's all the same. It yields the same. It's like precious faith. Now listen to this. Our faith is precious because of its source. and because of its source, it's eternal, it'll never cease. True faith survives and endures when there is no feeling to verify it. True faith endures when there's no evidence to confirm it. True faith endures when there is no fleshly strength to sustain it. True faith, like all of God's gifts, is without repentance. Isn't that great? What does your feelings have to do with your faith enduring? Nothing. Why? Because when I don't feel it, I still believe.

When all evidence is gone, now listen, when they start presenting all these evidences and flying saucers and things like that that's coming around and UFOs and all that, you know what they're gonna do with that, right? They're gonna try to remove your faith. That's what they'll do with it. That's what they've always done with it. So when all evidence points that your faith is wrong, we don't care. True faith doesn't look to that stuff.

It looks to the Word of God. True faith that is given of God never ceases. We may know that we have like precious faith through the righteousness of Christ when we never repent of it, but believe on Christ in the face of every opposition. And notice this, if your faith is the same as mine, is the same as every other one that has it, it will be tried. This life-precious faith is obtained by God. This salvation through faith that is obtained by Jesus Christ, having Him as the object, it's the same in that it will endure and never cease because it is sustained by God, yet it will be tried. Go to 1 Peter 1. Look what Peter says about this. He says in verse 5, this is our comfort. 1 Peter 1 and verse 5, who are kept by the power of God.

Through what? Through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. One day our faith is going to end. You know that? When it's lost in sight. You don't need faith anymore when you can see it. But until then. you're kept through faith. When you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, listen, if need be, you in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than gold. What's more precious, the trial or faith? Faith is the precious thing. You don't say, oh, my trials. Oh, how wonderful my trials. Oh, this affliction is so good, I just can't wait for another. That's not what's precious. The precious thing is faith. But what reveals the preciousness of faith is what?

Trials. You have a lump of gold in your hand, and it's got all this junk in it. Try to sell it. They'll look at it, and they'll give you a couple bucks for it. Melt it. Let it harden. Then sell it. See how much more valuable? It was always the same value, wasn't it? It was always the same. You melting it didn't do anything to the gold, didn't make it any more precious. It just showed it to be precious.

What do your trials do? They show that Christ is precious. Isn't that right? When you lose everything, you see then the value more of the value of Christ than you did when you had all this stuff. See, what God does is He purifies the faith. He shows you how precious it is because He shows you the preciousness of Christ.

You that believe, are you more sinful now than you were when you started? I'll tell you this, you feel more sinful You may have stopped doing many, many things, but I'll tell you what, aren't those things still in your head? Aren't they still in your heart? That old man of sin is still with us?

What does God use that for? To try your faith. You know what? True faith, when it is tried, will always hope in Christ. Let me give you an illustration. Abraham. I'll close with this. I got more, but we'll close with this. Abraham. In Romans chapter 4, 16-25, Paul talks about Abraham being the imminent type of every believer. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. That's you. Same as him, same faith he had, same faith you had. Same result. But Abraham's faith was tried.

God said to Abraham, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. He was talking about Christ coming from that boy, Isaac. He said, In Isaac, specifically in Isaac. And this boy, well, before he had Isaac, he didn't have a child. He was 100 years old. His wife, Womb, was dead.

Scripture says, He staggered not at the promises of God. What does true faith do? True faith does not stagger at what it sees, what it feels, or what men think. True faith trusts God completely. This is what faith does. Abraham's faith was not necessarily in just having a kid. It was in the coming of the Messiah. He knew he was going to have a son because in that son, the Messiah was coming. So what did he trust in? He trusted in the Messiah. And so whatever takes place, does it really matter? Does that really affect anything? No. It only amplifies our trust in Him if one has true faith. And so then, therefore, in your weakness, and our faith is really weak.

You let the slightest wind seem to blow, and we're like the disciples. Lord, save us. And they had the God of the universe sleeping in that little boat. And they thought they were going to perish. I know we do that. But notice they didn't go to anybody else. They didn't wait for anybody else. They had faith that He alone could save them. And that's what we do. True faith always, in the storm, comes to the same conclusion.

That Christ is all my salvation. Christ is all my righteousness. Christ is all my peace. Christ is all my joy. Christ is all! True faith is precious because of the precious Savior, the precious object through which we've obtained righteousness. Peace. Have you obtained like precious faith? Is your faith a gift of God? You that believe, you know it is. You know this, that your faith has one object, Jesus Christ, his righteousness, his blood, as all my hope is standing before God.

I don't have any other hope. I don't, I'm not, I'm not straddling any fence. I don't have two foundations, Christ's righteousness in my words. I have one foundation on which my soul is laid out and that's Jesus Christ. Completely through his righteousness alone, I've obtained this and my salvation is completely in him. And I know this, I'm going to continue to believe only because of his grace.

And I know this, the apostles using this in that text, now if you read on in Peter, he's encouraging us to move, if we have faith, should we not be virtuous people? Man, is that not just sensible to you that believe? It is, it's just sensible. Seeing we have been objects of grace, should we not be the most gracious?

It's just peaceful. The one who has faith, we understand that. God help us. Keep us. I'm so thankful for this precious faith, aren't you? You could have it. Would you trade it for anything? Anybody want to give up their faith? Anybody want less? No. I want to know Him more.

May God help us and keep us. Let's stand and be dismissed in prayer. Our gracious Father in heaven, we bow ourselves before you again, thanking you for the grace. Oh, the grace of election, the grace of redemption, the grace of calling, the grace of keeping. the grace of Jesus Christ's righteousness and blood, the grace, Father, that moves our heart to continually look to him. I pray that you'd be with everyone here, bless their hearts with this message, comfort them, strengthen them. I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Precious Faith 2 Peter 1:1

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Precious Faith 2 Peter 1:1

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