Tonight's topic that we have before us is a very important topic, saving faith. Just this week, in the last two weeks, Shepard has asked me several times, what does it mean to have faith? What does that look like? What is faith? How do I have faith? All these kind of very important questions. So I hope that we'll answer some of those things. Maybe even think to yourself, if you had a six-year-old, come up to you and say, what is faith? Do you feel like you could answer that question? It's kind of a hard question to answer when we talk about faith. What is faith? That's an important one. So we're going to be in the confession tonight, studying this topic of saving faith. Chapter 14 is where we'll be at, and we'll go through all three paragraphs of the confession. As a reminder, before we jump into this, as Chris just prayed and reminded us in this prayer, the confession is not scripture. We don't treat it as scripture, but we see it as something that is summarizing what scripture teaches. And we think that it does a pretty dang good job at it. In the very first chapter, chapter one, paragraph one, it tells us that scripture is the only infallible standard of all saving knowledge, truth, and faith. So, We come to the confession knowing that it's not scripture. We go to the confession knowing that this is something that we stand on the back of giants with, wanting to understand the reasons why they were writing these things down in the 17th century. Because church, we don't wanna come up with new ideas of scripture. That would be dangerous if we were seeing new things in scripture. We have something that's an ancient faith, a faith that has been believed in the days of Abraham and the days of Moses in the days of Peter and Paul. And so we want to be in union, unity with those saints of old. So chapter 14 of the confession where we'll be at, let's go ahead and pray before we consider any scripture, before we consider what the confession itself even says. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord God, I am so thankful, Lord, to be able to come here tonight with the fellow saints here in this room, Lord. To worship you, to sing praise to you, to fellowship with one another, Lord, and to, even in this prayer right now, Lord, to see these things as strengthening of our faith. This is an important time for us. Lord, God, in this week, there has been a reminder even to myself of death, Lord, even within my own family. But Lord, also in our family, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we know of a death that has taken place, Lord. And God, we are thankful for saving faith, a faith that rests and receives and is placed in Christ and Christ alone. And so, Lord God, tonight, as we consider this gift of faith that is to your elect, to your sheep, We want to give you praise and honor and glory for giving us this gift, Lord. God, I would ask that you would help us increase in our faith and decrease in our pride and in our flesh and in all our sinful tendencies that we have, Lord. May you receive more and more glory as we come to you more and more empty-handed, Lord. God, be glorified and just build your church tonight, Lord. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, the one in whom we place our faith in. Amen. Well, it's been two weeks since we've been in the confession. I first want to tell Chris, thank you so much for filling in for me last week. And thank you for all the prayers for while we were out of town, visiting family in Montana for the funeral service of my wife's grandfather. So thank you all very much for that. But since we're back in the confession in chapter 14, it's always important to remind ourselves of what's going on in any sort of context, especially when it comes to things of faith, things of the religion, things of the church, things of doctrine. And so the last chapter that we were in was in chapter 13 of Sanctification. Just some quick notes on there, that chapter that what we discussed from Scripture is that Sanctification is really talked about in two different ways within Scripture. First of all, there's definite Sanctification that thing, not the thing, the act of God setting us apart for holy and special particular use. And then there's the ongoing sanctification, that which you and I are continually experiencing, and I hope are walking more and more towards Christ, following and being obedient to his commands, that ongoing sanctifying process that we see within scripture. Was there anything, and I know it's been two weeks, if no one raises their hands right now, I respect that, I understand that, I'm forgetful too, but is there anything from that study from chapter 13 that stuck out to you that you would like to remind others about that might bless one another in here? Jude, were you going to say something? Amen. Amen. Yep. Yeah, we're not set apart to go and eat it in and out, even though that would be a glorious thing if it was. We're set apart for God's use, for God, for His glory, for His purposes. Thank you, Jude. I am thankful that you wrote that down, brother, because I do not remember even saying those things, and so that sounds like a great thing to have written down right there, so love it. Well, yes, Bruce. Amen. Yep, I do remember covering that. Amen to that. Absolutely. Well, tonight, as we come into chapter 14 of the Confession, I cannot stress, though, the importance of tonight's topic. We are talking about saving faith, and as we've gone through the book of James, I hope that you've been able to see that Scripture talks about multiple types of faith. There is both saving faith and then there's also a dead faith, a superficial faith. It's one thing for anybody in this world can go about saying, I believe in Jesus, right? Anybody can do that. It's another thing to actually possess a true faith. Jesus and so I hope that tonight we will better understand this concept of saving faith something that I hope that today you today in this room are possessing but to begin I want to just go ahead and read some scripture before we even consider the confession if you wouldn't mind turning with me to Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 and is where we will start, because I think we need to define some terms to help us understand the concept of saving faith a little bit better. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 says this. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. This is a definition from the author of Hebrews found for us on faith. So let's read it one more time just to see what it has for us. Now faith, the topic that we're studying tonight, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So it's an assurance and it's a conviction. That's what we see right here according to Hebrews 11, verse one. Let's look down at verse six now as we continually consider this. Verse six says this, and without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. In this whole chapter, this is the chapter of those saints of old, the heroes of the faith, the faith chapter in the Bible, and we list out a whole plethora of names, people who were saved and did these wonderful and awesome things from the Old Testament, and they were done by faith. They were done with faith, possessing faith while those things were taking place. And so we see the author of Hebrews telling us that this is the definition of faith. Here's examples from the Old Testament of people that possessed faith. And then if you go to chapter 12, just flip to the next page, most of our Bibles will be on the next page, chapter 12, verse 1 through 2, we see this continual speaking about what faith is. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with an endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. When we consider all these things, there's much to talk about in here. Galatians 2, verse 16 says that we maintain that a man is justified apart from the works of the law, but through faith, just as we have believed and have been justified. It's through faith that a man is justified. Romans 4 says that it is apart from works. It's not by works. It's only through faith. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, the text that we all know, that it's for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, unless any man should boast, it is a gift of God. Philippians 1.29, I think it is, it says that it's not only been granted for you to suffer for his sake, but you've been granted with faith. You've been granted faith. Faith is something that we have scattered across both the Old Testament and the New Testament for us. And so this is, I hope you see why this is such an important topic for us to be studying tonight. So if we take all those verses and we were to start to consider these things, how would you today define Faith. How would you define faith? Let me just open it up for all of us to consider and maybe try to interact with that. Looking at those verses, how would you, in your own words, a six-year-old, comes up and asks you, what is faith? Rick, I love how you just said that. So, how many of us in here can see our sins paid for? Can we see that? Can we see our sin debt be taken from us and placed on another person? Can you see that? This is something that is not seeable, right? Not visible in that way. How many of us in this room can see the righteousness of Christ clothing us right now? Can't see that. Can't see that. How many of us can see Christ crucified right now? can't see that. And so, yeah, absolutely. But I like what you also said, brother. You said in there that it's trusting and knowing the words of Scripture, the truth teller has told us the truth. And this leads perfectly, brother, I think this leads perfectly into what tonight's topic we're covering. Before we even open up the confession, I have three Latin terms up here. And the reason I wrote down the Latin terms is because this is a traditional way of referring to these three elements that we see in relation to saving faith. This is something that is talked about for many, many years. This is not a novel, new idea that I've come up with. But these are the three elements that people argue, theologians argue, that you see within saving faith. Firstly, it is notitia, and that is the Latin word that means to notify, to be told something, to know something. So, I'm going to put this in just very simple terms for us to kind of understand this a little bit better. How many of you guys are sitting in a chair right now? All right. I'm assuming when you were growing up at some point, your mother or your father said, sit down. Okay. You were told something. There was a time when you had never sat down in the first place, right? I know none of us can probably even think back to that day, most likely. But you were told at some point to sit in a chair, okay? The next Latin word that we see in here is a census, and that is a word that means to ascend, to climb, and in this concept, when it comes to faith, it is referring to accept, to have a mental acceptance of something as truth. A chair. It's meant for you to sit in. You can know that, but it's another thing to know it enough to actually want to sit in it. Somebody, and we live in a day today that does, this has to deal with the laws of logic, accepting truth for what it is. For example, how many of us have ever heard someone in today's modern world say, I was born a man, but now I'm a woman? Right? That's the same type of thinking of saying, this isn't a chair. This is a 2026 Ford truck. That's the same type of logic. So this is an important thing. So I hope you can understand there's a difference between something being true and accepting it as true. Those are two different concepts. So that's what a census is dealing with. One thing is truth. Another one is seeing and recognizing it as truth. So Rick, going back to what you said there, the truth teller You are insinuating that God has spoken and given special revelation, right? We would argue that that special revelation is God's Word. This is truth, regardless if we accept it or not. Regardless if the world outside accepts it or not. This is truth. This is the Word of the Lord. It's another thing for us to say, I trust that this is the Word of the Lord, or I see it. I have a mental acknowledgement that this is the Word of the Lord. This is scripture. So then another element that comes into play when we talk about faith is fiducia, and that is a Latin word that means to trust, to trust. And so if we remove any one of these components, we're going to have issue with this, right? Somebody told me there's a chair. I have the mental ability to understand that this is a chair, it will hold my weight. What if I choose not to sit in it? I'm not using the chair. I'm not using the chair. What if I set a chair right here and I try to sit in it right here? It's not gonna work, right? When we consider these things in relation to what the topic of tonight's point is, is Jesus says to the Pharisees, to the Jewish people of his day, unless you believe I am, you shall die in your sins. These are Jewish Pharisees, Jewish people who are saying, I believe in God, the God of Abraham. I believe in the God of Abraham. I believe in him. And Jesus is saying, no. Just because you think you believe in Him, you're not actually believing in the way that He has told us to be. You're not hearing the words of Scripture. You're not seeing me for who I actually am. You've placed faith in something other than the God of Scripture. A census would be like saying, well, I see the truth for what it is. But you know what? I think all paths lead to God. How many of us have ever heard somebody say something like that? Not true, right? We've heard people say things like that. And so you can understand that this chair is sitting there, but you don't have to necessarily accept that that's what its purpose is. But then fiducia is when we would place all those things together. The most important part is actually trusting in that message, right? And so in regards to evangelism, we're telling people about their sin, about the law that they have broken, trying to let them see that. But unless they're willing to accept that that is truth, they won't see the need to actually trust in the remedy of Christ. And so I hope those things kind of help play out in our minds a little bit. Joel Beakey, a Reformed preacher of today that I absolutely love, this is something that he said that I really enjoy. He says, Faith is the hand that receives Christ. but it is not the hand that works to merit justification, but the hand that humbly receives the pro-offered gift of God." It's the empty hands that receive Christ, and I'm not saying hands as in that you're working to receive it. It's the empty hands that are receiving out of a gracious, kind act of God that receives Christ. That's what faith is when we put all these things together. Now, something else I want to clarify for us, we haven't even touched the confession yet, so far. I hope that this is helpful before we get into the confession, but I want to talk a little bit about repentance and faith. These words are very important for us. We see them scattered a lot throughout Acts, for example. Sometimes we'd see that the apostles use the word repentance, sometimes we see that they use the word faith, sometimes you see faith and repentance, and some people sometimes have a hard time understanding what's going on in these texts. For example, Acts chapter two, what must we do to be saved? And Peter says, repent and be baptized. But then later on, there's very clear exhortation, believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. It doesn't even say anything about repentance right there. So how do we understand these things? So repentance means to turn away from sin, okay? Faith means to turn to Christ. These things are not the same. They're not synonyms with one another, but they are inseparable from one another. All right? They're not synonyms, but they are inseparable. And what I mean by that is if someone turns from sin, but they don't turn to Christ, where did they just turn to? They turn to more sin, right? I can think back when I was LDS, and I was thinking I was repenting, and if I was not turning to Christ in that process, I was just turning to another sin that I thought would make me a God one day. If somebody turns from one sin and they don't actually turn to Christ in the process, they're just turning to another sin. But likewise, can someone turn to Christ without turning away from their sin? No, that you can't. So you see how these things are different. One's turning from sin and the other one's turning to Christ, but you can't have one without the other. And so when we see in scripture when, for example, Peter, back in that example, he says, repent and be baptized. We should look at that text and know that the context, the author, the speaker in there understands that you can't turn from sin without turning to Christ, and you can't turn to Christ without turning from sin. So when you see that word faith, you should assume that repentance is implied. When you see that word faith, you should assume that faith is implied. I hope that helps you as you study God's word and consider these things. But on that note, let's transition and actually go to the confession now. Saving faith. Saving faith. Chapter 14 for tonight. Before we read this, why is it saving faith? Well, faith is only as good as the object that you put it into. You put your faith in a chair that can actually hold you up. None of us fell on the ground. You place good faith in the chairs that you sat in tonight. Faith is only as good as the object that you put it into. If you went out and bought a beat-up car that had no engine in it and had no gas in it whatsoever, and you thought you were going to be able to drive to LA with it, are you going to be able to? No, you won't. If I place faith in Jesus, but I say that Jesus never rose from the grave, and Jesus is not the I Am, or that Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, or some other essential of Christianity that we have in Scripture, does that Jesus save? So no, it's a different Jesus. So by definition, my faith is not a saving faith. So I hope that that helps you rationalize some of these words right here. All right, so chapter 14, paragraph one says this, the grace of faith enables the elect to believe so that their souls are saved and it is the work of the spirit of Christ in their hearts. Faith is ordinarily produced by the ministry of the Word. By this same ministry and by the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God, faith is increased and strengthened. So faith is what enables the elect. I first want to ask this question of why would God choose faith as being the instrument, the means of us to receive justification? Why does God do that? And there's a lot of answers. Debbie, I saw your hand go up. Amen to that. Our God wants to show and demonstrate his glory by being gracious to those who are undeserving. Turn with me to Judges. Let me see you here. Judges chapter seven real fast, just to see this principle. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with faith right now, but just to help us understand this. Judges chapter seven. of why is it that God uses faith to justify a man. Why does he not use works? Why does he not use other means other than faith? Judges chapter 7, we'll read verses 1 through 9. In fact, would somebody like to volunteer to read verses 1 through 9? But you've got to read loudly if that's the case. Chris, read loudly, brother. Thank you. Thank you, brother. I chose the right guy to read that. That was very well done, brother. Notice in there, this does not sound like a smart military tactic. Let's reduce the numbers. Let's not just reduce the numbers a little bit. Let's do it a significant amount. Almost like this small, random amount. And the purpose is so that the Lord demonstrates that He's the one that delivers them over to their hands. God has chosen faith to be the instrument, the means of us to receive His grace so that we cannot boast in ourselves at all, so that we would say it's the Lord who has done it, not us. I hope that helps you in understanding the concept of why is it faith? Why is it not my good works that saves me? If it was our good works, we would try to boast and say it was of myself. God wants to show his glory and his goodness to us and he has done that through us having faith in him. That's how it's done. It's the hand that lets everything else out of its hands. All the good works that you had in your hands, you throw it off. It's the hands that are now empty that receives God's grace. It's a beautiful scene for us here in Judges. Something that doesn't have to do with faith, but we see the principle of why God has shown himself in such a way to save us. So look back at the confession. The grace of faith. So why is it faith? It's so He can show His glory of His grace to us. It's that which enables the elect to believe so that their souls are saved. It is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts. What does that phrase right there mean? It is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts. I hope you can recall back to Hebrews chapter 8 where it says in there that He's going to make a new covenant. He's going to write His law upon our hearts and upon our minds. We think of John chapter 3 where Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born again. You must be born of the water and of the Spirit. And he's quoting from Ezekiel 36 that says, I will write my statutes upon your heart. I'll remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. You can see Romans chapter 2 that says that God is the one that circumcises our hearts, that a Jew is not one who is one outwardly, but a Jew is one who is one inwardly, who has been circumcised by God himself in our heart. It's that new heart that today I hope all of us have received. by God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit. But that is what it says in this confession. It says it's the work of the Spirit of Christ in our hearts that produces this faith. And it says following this, faith is ordinarily produced by the ministry of the Word. Now, I want to talk about this for a moment. Turn with me to Romans chapter 10, if you wouldn't mind. Romans chapter 10. It is a supernatural event, a miracle when God changes us and we are born again. It is a miraculous work of God. How is it that this takes place? I would say it's typically, and when I say typically, I mean it's ordinarily the case. Sometimes we'd see examples of something other than this, but most of the times it's through the ministry of the Word, of Scripture, and Scripture lays that out for us. If somebody wouldn't mind volunteering to read verses 8, so Romans chapter 10 verse 8 through 17, anybody want to volunteer to read that one nice and loud? Yeah, Caesar. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Imagine for a moment you've been locked in a very tight cell for however many years you've been alive. You've never been able to sit in your life. You don't even know what the concept of sitting is. It sounds miserable because I'm a person who likes to sit. What if you had never known what a chair was? You never knew the purpose of a chair. How are you going to know the purpose of a chair? How are you going to hear of the good news that you can get relief from standing all your life? You've got to be told. Somebody needs to come and inform you of that truth. And so, likewise, we see that that's the same case when it comes to us knowing Christ. We, who were once dead in our sins and trespasses, we, who reject and hate and are enemies of God, need someone else to have first told us, telling us, reporting to us, exhorting to us that This is how someone is saved, and it's through faith in Jesus Christ. That is what we would see, and I would hope that most of our testimonies in here would bear witness to that truth. And think about your own testimony of how God saved you. I know mine, as many of us already know with my testimony, John 1 is what open my eyes. That's what I could not any longer deny Jesus was my Lord and my God. I had placed trust in him all of a sudden because someone told me about it and I'm so thankful that person told me about it. So that's how faith starts, and I hope that that's something that you've seen in your own life as well, is that someone told you this, and now you have come forth to have faith in this. But notice also in here, how sweet was it when you heard the good news? We are now to go and tell others of this good news. Where would you be at, those of us that have been saved by the typical means, which is through the word of Christ, Where would you be at right now if that person that you can think of in your mind didn't plant a seed? Or didn't tell you about Jesus? Or didn't come to you on that day when you were in desperation? It's an important thing. It's an important thing. We get to be ministers of reconciliation and that starts with us opening our mouth and telling people about Jesus. So please be considering that and doing that in your own lives. We know from here that the word of the Lord, we would see in John chapter 10, for example, my sheep hear my voice, they come to me. Other verses like that, that it's through the word of Christ that we understand these things. I would, let's say, Another place, let's finish reading paragraph 1 one more time here. It says here in the second half of the paragraph, "...by this same ministry and by the administration of baptism in the Lord's Supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God, faith is increased and strengthened." I don't want to spend too much time on this paragraph as we've already given it ample time for tonight. but the Word of Christ is the ordinary, typical means that faith is produced in our lives. However, it's that same ministry. This is one reason I hope that you are coming to church on Sundays, is to hear the Word of God preached. This is a means of grace that your faith is increased. This is why it's so sad that modern evangelical just totally disregards the local church, totally disregards the preaching of God's Word. Because just as important as that Word was preached to you in the first place when you first accepted Christ, it's It's important afterwards. It's what strengthens you. I can't think, or I know many of us in here can think of this, and I know I can relate to it. How many times have you been down and just heartbroken and just downtrodden, and I just need to hear the word of God. I need to hear it. Even this last Sunday while we were out of town, I was like, I miss our church so much. I want to be fellowshipping with the saints here in Moorpark. We went to another church, and we walked down the street for it, so we got to hear the preaching of God's Word, and it was a great message. But the preaching of God's Word is so important for our lives. But likewise, there's other means that God has given to us, such as, and we have some, we have two people here tonight that just partook in one of these means, and that's baptism. I hope that following your baptism, I hope today your faith is strengthened." These two brothers in the room that got baptized a couple weeks ago. I hope your faith has been strengthened from going under the waters of baptism. I hope every time that us as a body takes communion, that you are reminded of what Christ did and that your faith is strengthened. a prayer. I hope that when your faith is weak, when your faith is strong, it does not matter, I hope you're falling on your knees and you're being strengthened through prayer. Your faith is strengthened, is what the Confession says. But also, what are some other means that's not listed here, that's not listed here? It says, and other means appointed by God, faith is increased and strengthened. What are some other means that you can think of that strengthen faith? Yeah. Yeah, basking in the glory of creation, yeah, that's a good one, yeah. Something else, I thought I heard someone. Serving the body, so serving itself, absolutely, absolutely it is, yeah. I would say fellowship. I know Bruce gave an excellent series of sermons on the means of grace, and fellowship is one of those means. Every time I'm with a saint in this room or a saint that's in the rooms on Sunday, Man, oh man, I feel strengthened in my faith, and I hope you do as well. Music! Where's, where's, yeah, Chris, I had you read just a second ago, where's Chris at? Chris, what you're helping with when you're helping lead music is helping strengthen the faith of saints around here. When we participate in worshiping the Lord, it's strengthening our faith. That's why I hope that when you are, again, when you're downtrodden and you're having a hard time, you have that tendency of, I gotta get some worship music in right now. Those are good tendencies, those are good fail-safes, good things for you to fall back on. They are means of grace. Let's go ahead. I have some scripture to read in relation to that, but we'll go ahead and skip that due to time for tonight. Let's go ahead and read paragraph two. Paragraph 2 of the Confession says this, by this faith, so what faith is it referring to? It's referring to the saving faith, the faith that actually is resting in Christ. It says in paragraph 2, by this faith, Christians believe to be true everything revealed in the Word. Recognizing it as the authority of God Himself, they also perceive that the Word is more excellent than every other writing and everything else in the world, because it displays the glory of God in His attributes, the excellences of Christ in His nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in His activities and operations. So, they are enabled to entrust their souls to the truth believed. They respond differently according to the content of each particular passage, obeying the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and the one to come. But the principal acts of saving faith focuses directly on Christ accepting, receiving, and resting upon Him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. So there's a lot to break down right in here. So we made mention that the faith that this is referring to is the saving faith. It's the only faith that Christians possess. Other non-Christians, meaning that they have not been born again, they are not trusting in Christ, they don't possess this type of faith that is talked about in here. That's important to distinguish from the next paragraph that we'll soon be reading. But it makes mention of in here that there's There's a new love for the word of God when we are born again. You recognize it. You might not be able to reconcile and understand every text. I doubt any of us in here can do that today. And you might've been walking with Christ for 20 plus years at this point, but you know it's true. And I don't want to get too mystical with this, but again, John chapter 10 says, my sheep hear my voice. When we open up the Word of God, you just know that this is the Word of Christ that we have before us. And I don't know how to not get too mystical with that, but you just know. Listen, when I was LDS, and I'm sure many of us Catholic or before we were converted, you read the Bible. You read the Bible, but after you were born again, there was something now new when you read the Bible. It was now alive and it was present in front of you, where before it wasn't like that. I read John 1, 1 several times when I was Mormon. It didn't mean anything to me until after I was born again, and then all of a sudden my eyes were open, and it was new now. It was new now. There was something different about it. And so that's what this paragraph is teaching, is that the sheep of God will indeed hear the voice of Christ in Scripture. I'll turn to Acts chapter 24, verse 14 real fast. Acts 24, verse 14, as you're turning there, even think about Jim, Brother Franco finished out Psalm 119 this last Sunday. Think about how many times it said in there, I love your law, I love your law, I love your law. It tells me, it informs me, I trust in it, it guides me. You hear the the psalmist in that chapter express a love of scripture, a love of what God has revealed in his own day. So Acts chapter 24 verse 14. Verse 14 says this, but this I confess to you that according to the way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets. We as Christians must believe in everything. You see this in the modern world outside again. where you'll have people who say, I am a Christian, but I just don't like this. And they say some chapter or some verse or some concept or some doctrine. I don't like hell. I don't like go to church, I don't like these things in scripture that it tells us there. When someone says that, my alarms are going off. My alarms are going off, right? Because we should love God's word. We should love God's word. I'm sorry, but that is a profession. And they might just be confused. They sincerely just might be confused on something. But that's a profession that most likely what they are possessing inside of themselves is not saving faith at this point. is not saving faith at this point. There's a difference between not being able to understand or reconcile Scripture other than, I'm just going to reject it because I don't like it. There's a huge difference with that. With just this in our mind, we'll keep on going. Let's go ahead and read now paragraph three. So this faith again, it tells us that it trusts in the word of God. There's several different acts that come along with it. It's one that hears the voice of the shepherd. It's one that loves the word of God. But now in paragraph three, I love this paragraph very much and I find myself reading it often. And I hope that after tonight that you would too. So again, it prefaces this paragraph by saying this faith, so again, talking about saving faith, saving faith, may exist in varying degrees so that it may be either weak or strong. Church, I want you to see that again, that it may be either weak or strong. And you might be here tonight with weak faith, but praise the Lord that it's saving faith. Because listen to what the confession says, even when it's the weakest faith, yet even in its weakest form, it is different in kind or nature, like all other saving graces, which is referring to, I'll pause there and just let us know, this is referring to adoption, sanctification, that which has come before in the confession. So, saving faith, like all other graces, is different in kind and nature than that of what? From the faith and the common grace of temporary believers. Therefore, faith may often be attacked and weakened, but it gains the victory. It matures in Christ to the point that they attain full assurance through Christ, who is both the founder and perfecter of our faith. When studying for this tonight, there were several different scriptures that I wanted to go to in relation to this paragraph. Let's go first read 1 John 5, 4 through 5 as a scriptural reference that's listed for us here. 1 John 5, verse 4 and 5. 1 John 5, verse 4 and 5 says this, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Notice in there, if you have been born of God, You have won. You have a faith that gains the victory. If you've been born again, if God has regenerated you, if God has changed your heart, you have won. Yes, your faith might be weak today. Yes, you might have fallen into sin. Yes, there might be hardships going on. Yes, there might be a plethora of things that are building up against you, but God who has started a work in you will finish that work. You're not going to be lost. You're not going to fall out of His hand. He's got you. He's holding you. He's securing you in all things. I love this so much because I think that this is exactly what you see in the book of James that we went through. that there's a, and we won't turn there and read it because we just don't have time tonight, but we all know that James chapter two text, it says, faith alone is not going to save us, that it's a dead faith. And when we went through that as a church, what that was speaking on was a faith that is not true faith. It's a faith that actually is not active. It's a faith that's not actually working inside of us. It's not a faith that actually is justifying faith. It's a faith that even demons have. and they shudder. They probably possess these two top things, but they don't trust an actually true trust, right? So they don't have a true saving faith. And so James is dealing with the faith of an unbeliever, somebody who's not truly and really trusting in Christ. But we as believers, those that have been justified by faith alone, will go on to do good works. They will go on to hear the words of Christ and try to obey him. But in all of our lives, there's going to be times, and that's the reason why I hope you can understand this illustration now, man on steroids, falls off steroids, goes back on steroids. Just kidding, of course. We in our Christian walk sometimes feel like we're riding a cloud, we're up high, we're doing good things. Things are going well and then all of a sudden there's a death in the family or there's some turmoil in the church or there's something and all of a sudden now those muscles of ours and all the strength that we had seem deflated and I'm now worried about what tomorrow is going to bring, I'm struggling, all those kind of things. Where would you, what would you, church, what would you counsel your brother or your sister that is in this time of weak faith? What would you tell them to do? Yeah. God is faithful, so ensure them of the promises of God. What else might we do? And paragraph two tells us. Faith is the victory, yeah. You're going to be saved. You haven't lost your salvation in that way. But even in its weakest form, the confession tells us the preaching of God's word helps strengthens. What else? What other things? Prayer. We should counsel. You're struggling today, go pray. Go pray. You're struggling today, go to church. you're struggling today, go and sit under the preaching of God's Word. These things will strengthen your faith. It's like getting back into the gym, right? Don't take that analogy too far, but you get what I'm getting at with that. You need to be strengthened. And so, if you are weak today, know that your faith, if you've been born of God, it gains the victory. It's a saving faith, it will save indeed, because it's a faith that comes from God. However, if you're weak today, I don't want you to be weak. I want you to be strong in your faith. And so listen to the means of grace that we have seen here in the confession. Prayer, the preaching of God's word, we talked about worship and singing, fellowship, all those different means. Be strengthened in your faith today. Because I don't want to see you struggle. I hate it when a Christian is struggling. Be strengthened, be strengthened. That is the end for tonight's confession. Let's go ahead and close in prayer. know that this prayer, I hope, is a means to strengthen your faith tonight. So let's go ahead and pray. Lord God, I thank you, God, for what you have done to save sinners like myself, Lord, like ourselves in this room. Lord God, we see from this text that we see that saving faith, the faith that we possess, is not a mere decisionism. It's not as if we just chose a different cup of coffee in the morning, nor was it some emotional manipulation, but Lord, This is a supernatural gifted grace that has caused the sinner to know of Christ, to be committed convictionally to Him as the truth, and to trust solely in and on and upon and through the finished work of Christ. And so, Lord, I thank you for this supernatural saving faith that we possess. God, I do thank you for the confession that we have looked at tonight, Lord, that the confession of our church, the confession that was written in the 17th century, to see that these things are not novel or new ideas for us, Lord. God, I thank you that we can look back to years past and know that Abraham, Moses, Noah, Isaac, and all these other Old Testament saints, that they were saved by the exact same means that we are saved today by. Lord, that we actually can look down the corridors of time and say, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who have always been saved by the same means. So Lord, I thank you for that. God, may that encourage us to go forth boldly and strongly, recognizing and seeing that these men and women of old before the cross had less supernatural revelation, this special revelation of the entirety of your word, the canon that is before us, Lord. And yet they did mighty things. They knew you. They had faith in you. And then even when we consider the apostles and see the gruesome deaths that they had, Lord, we see that it was because their faith was strong. And so God, I ask that today you would empower and embolden our faith that it might be made strong in you. Lord, whether it is weak today and we die tomorrow in this weak faith, Lord, it will gain the victory because it rests in Jesus Christ. Lord, if we have come to your throne unwilling to let go of the world with our hands, may today be the day that we lose grip of those things and come to you with those empty hands that receive grace. Lord, I thank you for faith. I thank you for this topic tonight. I thank you for your word. It is the word of Christ, and we hear your voice in it, Lord. God, be glorified, and we ask this in your name, Jesus the Christ, amen.