All right, we are in the midst of studying what the Bible has to say about saving faith. And in this particular paragraph of the chapter on saving faith, we've been seeing that saving faith is not this leap that a lot of people like to talk about when they talk about the word faith, but it's actually taking the best evidence there can be of anything, God's own words, and responding to them as God's own words. And yet, God's word especially reveals the way of His salvation. If we were to go back to chapter 1 and look at how the Bible evidences itself to be the words of God, the revealing of the gospel in the way of man's salvation is the crown jewel among the many evidences that chapter 1 lists. And so it's not surprising that if saving faith is a response to God's word, taking it as the actual words of God, receiving Jesus Christ, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace, that that would be the principal act of saving faith. So let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that the way we come into this faith is not by our bloodline or by our own will to be able to believe or someone else on earth's will for us to be able to believe, but Your will, Your pleasure to give us this faith by which You save through Your Son. And we pray that Your Holy Spirit, who is the one who gives that birth, who is the one who gives that faith, who is the one who carries out Your pleasure, Father, that He would be acting upon us now and helping us as we read Your Word think about it, teach it, and receive teaching, that you would help us unto your glory, for we ask it through Jesus. Amen. So, but the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace. And the passages that we have, we've taken each of those four verses at the bottom, their letter I, and we've set them in their context. They kind of follow the flow of this ending part, ending clause, or sentence, rather, of the, of the second paragraph. So we'll see that the principal acts first are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ. And then in the Act 16 and Galatians 2 passages, we're really going to hit that alone, that it's Christ alone. And not only Christ alone for justification, but also Christ alone for sanctification and all of our eternal life. And then that too, but especially in Acts 15, by virtue of the covenant of grace, by virtue of the covenant of grace. And we'll see the covenantal aspect of the benefits that come to a household when just the head of the household believes there in Acts 15. Since that, I think, is an area that is sometimes foggy for Presbyterians and doesn't even exist for Baptisterians, and then full-fledged Baptists, we'll park there for a while. We may end up spending the entire class next week on that. So John chapter 1 verse 9, he's been talking about the Word who is God from all eternity. He's already God at the beginning, and who became flesh and dwelt among us. Actually, he's going to say that in verse 14. He's talking about the Lord Jesus. We're just coming out as we come into verse 9 of John's testimony. John was a man that set over against the word who had to become man. He doesn't tell us about the Lord Jesus becoming flesh really until verse 14. And so the fact that John is a mere man already disqualifies him in verse 6. if you've got Bibles open, I only listed from verse 9, disqualifies him from being the one about whom God has been talking in the first five verses. The Holy Spirit's been talking about someone who is God from all eternity. And so when he says a man sent from God named John, we already have a clue, and he bears witness to the light, and he is not that light. That brings us to verse nine. So if we could have four readers for these four verses very quickly. Asa, why don't you just read verse nine, and then whoever has it has it as we proceed from there. Thank you very good, so this was the true light of Okay, so who is Jesus? Just from that phrase. He is the true light, which gives light to every man. So what is one thing that Jesus has done? He gives light to every man. He's the one from whom we have our life and our being, which gives light to every man coming into the world. So what else has Jesus done? He came into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. So what else has Jesus done? He made the world. He made everything. He is the creator and he came into the creation. He's among the creatures and says, and the world did not know him. He came to his own. So to whom did he come? his own, and this is in two different ways. One, primarily in the context so far, how are they his own? Because he did what to them? He made them. He came to his own, he made them. But what is the second way that we know that this means, and we'll see developed in the Gospel of John, as a certain group of people in particular reject him repeatedly and increasingly. Who are his own as far as his human nature and his human lineage is concerned? The Jews. So it says he came to his own and his own did not receive him. So what didn't they do? They didn't receive him. They rejected him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him, but as many as received him. So what did this other group do in verse 12? They received him. This is not that difficult, kids, right? Every question I ask, and then you hear somebody answer, maybe you're answering, you're thinking, it can't be that simple, can it? Well, yeah, it can. God has been pleased to give us a word that is very clear in most places, and especially about the most important things. To as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. Okay, so what are they called? The ones who received him at the beginning of verse 12, they're described as the ones that received him, as many as received him. How are they called? Okay, they receive the right, he gives them the right to be called the children of God, but then they're described a new way, a different way at the end of the verse, to those who, believe in his name. So this believing in his name and this receiving him in verse 12 are the same thing. And one of the ways that he tells us here, because we want to know this, right? Who are the ones to whom Jesus has given the right to be called children of God? the ones who believe in his name. And that's the question, that brings up the question that we've been answering these several weeks. What does it mean to believe in the name of Jesus? You know, I grew up in church. I grew up being told. to believe in Jesus and I would be saved and get a card and collect all the cards with all the days on which I got saved growing up in church. And don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not a Christian. Well, what if the Holy Spirit tells me? Neither here nor there. But no one ever really explained what believing in his name was. Well, it's right here. Believing in his name is receiving him, and receiving him is the opposite of the not receiving him in verse 11. So as you go through the rest of the Gospel of John, and Jesus is repeatedly presenting himself as God the Son, the creator who has entered the creation to redeem because we have no redemption in ourselves, no good in ourselves, no power in ourselves, no life, no righteousness, no goodness in ourselves. He says, believing in his name, verse 12 is teaching us that believing in his name is to receive. It's the opposite with the Jews. So when Jesus presents himself as God to you in the scripture, what do the Jews do? They argue against it in their hearts. And you will find in your own heart and your own mind the same kind of skeptical pushback from your flesh. Is Jesus really God? Is he not maybe one of the creatures, maybe the greatest creature? Like he made Jesus first and then he used Jesus as a creature to create everyone else or everything else. These heresies that come from the flesh, that come from the devil, are alive and well in many of the churches. And so when you hear that kind of idea in your own mind or your own heart, one part of saving faith is to reject it and say, I'm going to receive Jesus the way Jesus has presented himself to me in the gospel. So if you join the church, you're taking vows, or if you're professing your faith, you're already a member but you're coming to the table, you're taking vows, one of the things you're gonna be asked is if you receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation as he has offered to you in the gospel. And there is a submission to who Jesus is as he describes himself that is a part of that. But it's not just an agreement either. Does it say he came to his own and his own did not receive ideas about him? Jesus is offering himself to us in the gospel. He's not just offering us a collection of theological ideas about himself. Believing in his name is not just believing certain ideas about his name. It is receiving him as your God and your creator, first of all, and also as your redeemer. It is embracing him. It is following him. his disciples when they wanted him to be what they wanted him to be, the buffet master. And he started talking to them about this exact thing. That he's come down from heaven and that he's the bread of life. That he's actually done more than provide us carbohydrates. The very fact that we are living beings is from him. And that we now need to eat his flesh and drink his blood. We need to look to him, turn to him, look to him. He uses that kind of language in chapter 6. And that's offensive to them. Not just because in their resistance to what he's saying about himself being God, they talk as if he's talking about cannibalism. How will this man give us his flesh to eat? And he says, oh, I'll do you one worse than that, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. He is making reference to something that they were familiar with in sacrifices, eating meat and drinking wine at the sacrifices. And Jesus is saying, I not only am God, I am the God by whose sacrifice alone you can have any life in you. Everybody else leaves. What does he say? He turns to his disciples, are you going to leave too? And they say, where would we go? you have the words of eternal life. So to receive Jesus, not only as God your creator, but the God who came to give himself for you, that you would be his and he would be yours, and through him you would be the fathers. To them he gave the right to become what? Children of God. And if we were to go on to verse 14, you read, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father. And so Jesus has come to give you by a transfer of right, by an adoption, by a decision, what is his in his person. It is naturally his, by his divine nature. And so believing in his name, the principal act of saving faith is to receive and rest upon Christ, to receive Christ himself, to accept Christ himself, to rest upon Christ himself. So we continue to... Oh, sorry, I flipped when I was talking to you earlier. Acts 15 and Acts 16. Acts 15 is going to be at the Jerusalem Council. Here we're going to have the virtue of the covenant of grace especially. So Acts 16 verses 29 through 34, what's happened is Paul and Silas are in jail in Philippi. They have kept to themselves the secret of their citizenship. so that they could end up being where they are. And they have been praising God in the midst of the jail, and a whole bunch of other prisoners have been hearing this occur. And then God has opened up the entire prison, and none of the prisoners have left. Similar reason to why Peter, on behalf of the disciples, said, we're not going to leave you, Jesus. These prisoners are all around because they have been hearing words of eternal life. It's a pretty amazing thing, isn't it? The jailer would be surprised if just Paul and Silas were there. But they answer that they are all there. All of the prisoners in this jail stayed. That's extraordinary. That's as extraordinary as the jail being opened. And so the jailer, whose life is on the line if the prisoners escape, is about to kill himself. And they say, no, do not harm yourself. We are all here. And that's where we pick up in chapter 16, verse 29. So if I have someone read verse 29, Emily. and then just move on from there as you have it. And he took them that same hour of the night and watched their stripes. And immediately, he and all of his family were baptized. Then he brought them into his house and set them before him. And he rejoiced in his entire household that he had believed in God. Thank you. Very good. And I appreciate it's probably ESV, right? So they changed the word order a little bit to show that the rejoicing was with the whole family over the singular he believing in God. So that's very good in that translation. OK, so he calls for light. He runs down. Of course, he sees by the light that what What Paul had said was true for we are all here end of verse 28 and he falls down Trembling before Paul and Silas he brings him out. What is his question? What must I do to be saved it is a It is a testimony to the apostle's testimony that this is his question. We need to have a lot of questions. What happened to the jail? How'd you guys get out? How'd you convince the other guys to stay? There are a lot of different things, but what has been heard thus far from Paul and Silas has made the first thing on his mind when the Lord does this as a witness to the reality of salvation in Jesus Christ, this thing that they have been talking about, that they have been singing about, that they have been praising about, maybe even similar to in the Acts 2 sermon or the Acts 4 prayer, that the salvation that God had planned, he is executed by the hands of these wicked men who all gathered against his Christ and crucified him according to God's plan and foreknowledge. We kind of know what both the preaching and the praising of the apostolic preaching and the apostolic praising had at its core. There's something in what he's heard so far that makes his number one question at this moment, what must I do to be saved? Now he asks a singular answer. He asked a singular question, but he gets a covenantal answer. So he asks, what must I do to be saved? And they say, what? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. You and your household. Now in the rest of the passage, you get these benefits, these covenantal benefits that come from being part of a household where the head has been saved. First one is verse 32. What does verse 32 say happened to him and to all who were in his house? They spoke the word of the Lord to him. So there are many of you children that the first times that you were hearing the word of the Lord, it was because your parents were believers. Around here, I'm usually not evangelizing completely unchurched people. But sometimes when I'm evangelizing completely unchurched people, they say, well, that's all good and well for you. But a lot of that depends on what house you were born into. And I say, well, yeah. And the God who saved me is the one who decided what house I would be born into. Hearing the word of the Lord spoken to me was a benefit that I received because my parents were believers. And that's something that he's promised to believers. Now the same Lord has put me in front of you. And I am telling you the gospel of Jesus Christ It's a benefit that belongs by promise to the children of believers, but here you are, you're not even the child of a believer and you're getting that benefit. Do you see how merciful God is being to you right now? And all of you children who heard the word of the Lord spoken and you now have come to believe as your parents believed, this promise about the saving benefits that come through faith, not just to your parents, For you, there are covenantal benefits, and when you believe, you discover that they have been saving benefits for you. So first benefit that comes to the whole house is they spoke the word of the Lord to them. What's the second benefit, verse 33? It's a benefit that actually Paul and Silas receive in kind of a physical way. And then they turn around, and they apply a much greater spiritual analog. So the jailer takes them that same hour of the night, and he washes their stripes. And immediately, he and all who are his are baptized. And the New King James supplies family here, but it's actually all who are his, everyone who belongs to him. So his household probably included servants or whoever was under him, whoever was attached to him providentially was baptized. So here is a second covenant benefit that comes to the whole house just because he has believed. And then I'm so glad that we had ESV for verse 34, because it is a little paraphrastic, but it backs up what I was about to tell you. The having believed in God there in verse 34 is in the singular. There's only one who has believed in God thus far in the Philippian jailer's household, according to the testimony of the text. And yet they all had the word of God spoken, and they all were baptized, and they all rejoiced. Rejoicing over the benefits that come to a house when the head of the household is saved is another covenant benefit that comes to an entire household for the sake of the one. Now this would make us, who are dads, really desire sanctification as God brings more joy to our house as a result of our being converted, but also the salvation of those who are under us. So, what further future benefits are implied, the last question down there, in the benefits that they have received thus far? Well, in that baptism, it would be implied that he was going to receive teaching from apostles and hopefully elders after the church is getting established in Philippi, and also give teaching to his household, right? Because when you're baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, you do what else? Teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you. What is one of the things that they are taught to keep? Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. So his believing does not save them, but his believing does get them the word through which Jesus saves them, the baptism through which Jesus saves them, the rejoicing through which Jesus saves them. So there is a real sense in which it is in response to his faith that the Lord gives those who are in his household faith. You are responsible for your own believing, but when you believe, dear children, It is the fulfillment of a promise that was made to your Christian parents. And when you come to the Lord, your household now, Lord willing, you become Christian parents, or if you were already a parent when you came to faith, your household also receives this promise. And they're all upon Christ alone. You're not hoping that it's your faith, you're not hoping that it's your efforts. Christ alone, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. So Jesus Christ is the one who is the substance of all of these covenantal benefits that come to the rest of the family. Very important for us to see all of these things in their connection, to be able to see them like right out of the text. Because these are things that even in circles where we use the word covenant, sometimes we don't understand very well. And we'll come to a passage like this and we'll say, see, it's a household. And that's right. It's a household. And they'll say, well, we don't know if there are babies in it. Well, yeah, but it's a household. If there are babies in it, the babies in the household receive the covenant benefits as members of the household. And you know what? A whole bunch of adults in the household receive covenant benefits as part of the household, too. even though they weren't babies. They were covenant benefits for the household. So I just want you to see all of those things together, and especially for us, so that we don't fall off the other side of the horse. Recognize these are benefits that come only in Jesus Christ. And then the rejection of our works and of the law We'll take that next week in Galatians and Acts 15, which does give us a couple minutes if there are questions about either of these passages. All right, let's pray. Our Father, how we thank you that You who gave us Your Son, created us by Your Son, made Him the light who has given life to every single one of us. When we had sinned against You and despised Your glory and were worthy of a hell that is equal to the greatness of Your glory, You gave Him for us. And we pray, Lord, that you would make us to receive him, to know him as very God of very God, to receive him as the one who came not only to give himself for us, but to give himself to us. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would give us this life that comes from the new birth, that you alone can give, that we would not only recognize that these things are true about Jesus, but that you would enable us and make us to grow in truly receiving him. We pray that if there are any who have not faith here, that you would give it to them. We thank you that it is your word through which and your sacraments, your word through which you give faith and your word and sacraments through which you build it up. So as we come into that worship that you have filled with these means of your grace, We pray that you would build up all who are believers and attend, and that you would give faith to any who come if they have not yet believed. Do it for us, we pray, and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.