Good morning. Welcome to Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, Jackson, Georgia. It's October 30th, 2016. Join us now as Brother Steve Martin brings us a message from the Word. Let's pray and ask God to bless His Word. Our Father in heaven, would you take glory for yourself? Would you give your Holy Spirit to all who are here today? There are some who are careless and clueless and can't wait for the service to be over. Would you arrest their attention and make them to hear? There are some who are confused and fumbling about in their Christian life and would you make their salvation clear? There are some who know they're not Christians and need to be saved. There are some who need to be reminded of the basis of their salvation. It's not their performance but the performance of Christ. We have a thousand and one needs among a hundred and so people. Would you speak to each one of us at our point of need? Would you give your Holy Spirit both to the speaker and to those who are hearing? May you take glory for your son. For it's in his name we pray. Amen. This is Reformation Sunday in many churches. It's another Lord's Day of the hundreds of Lord's Days we've all experienced since we've been believers. But many Reformed churches have chosen to honor one day a year as the day when the Protestant Reformation first began in Germany. An Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther went up to the castle, and they had giant doors, 10-foot oak doors going into the castle church, and it was used as a bulletin board, and there's all kinds of, you know, mules for sale, and if you want to rent a room, and all kinds of announcements were on that door. But he posted these 95 theses, it was called, 95 things that he thought needed to be changed in the Catholic Church, and that he was inviting others to come and discuss it, debate it, talk about it. Well, unintending to start a reformation, he did. And what began as him nailing 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door turned out to be a revolution. I know Time Magazine not too long ago said he was one of the men of the millennium. One of the men of the millennium, because what he did had so many great consequences. why there was a need for the Reformation. We just read a portion of Scripture in your hearing from Romans chapter 1, where Paul says that I count it as a great privilege to preach the gospel to you. And the gospel is that if a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, is to be right with God, then they have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. The just, those who are declared innocent of their sins, pardoned of their sins, and those who are declared righteous are only done so based upon their trusting in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Now the Reformation was a struggle between people who professed to believe the Bible, some of whom did and some of whom didn't. The Roman church had been guilty for nearly a thousand years of mixing grace and works. Are you saved by the works of another, by the grace of God and Jesus Christ? Or are you saved by the grace of God and Jesus Christ and your own contribution? Do you need to add something to what Jesus did to get yourself saved, to be right with God? In the New Testament, that's called the Galatian heresy. Paul wrote a whole letter to the church of Galatia saying, you guys are blowing it. Did you get started with Christ and now you're going to graduate to Christ plus works? You guys are crazy. Actually, he used a stronger language than that. And he goes after them to say, you can't mix grace and works. If Christ is not sufficient, then you're undone. You have no hope of salvation. And the Roman Church said very definitely, no, Christ is not sufficient. His perfect life, His atoning death, His powerful resurrection in and of themselves are not enough to save you. You must add your own works to what Christ did in order to be saved. Christ only makes salvation possible to those who work hard enough afterwards. Now, they would have said that Jesus Christ was the Savior. They would have said that they believed that Jesus Christ was the only Savior. They would have said that they believed that salvation is by grace, through faith. But they would leave out one word in all their discussions. It was the word alone, by itself. Is Jesus Christ alone, by himself? the basis of a person's salvation, or do you need to add something to it? Is salvation by grace alone, or grace plus works? Is it by faith alone, or faith plus works? The Lord Jesus Christ instituted two ordinances, Baptists call them, or sacraments, other denominations call them, two sacred things that we're to obey him on. We're to be baptized when we become believers, and we're to participate in the Lord's Supper. Today we will participate in the Lord's Supper. But the Catholic Church added five other sacraments, they call them, to the two ordained by Christ to make a total of seven, and these things had to be done in order for a person to have fairly good assurance that they're going to purgatory. As we'll see in tonight's message, the Roman Catholic Church officially teaches and pronounces you anathema if you say that you know that you're saved and you know you're going to heaven. It is official Catholic dogma that you cannot say, you cannot know, no one can know, the Pope cannot know, Mother Teresa cannot know, they're going to heaven. The best you can come up with is that when you die, you'll go to purgatory and be purged for your sins for some unlimited period of time and then finally join the rest of the believers in heaven. But the Catholic Church officially teaches that nobody can know for sure if they're saved. Nobody can know for sure if they're going to heaven when they die. There is no doctrine of assurance in the Catholic Church. Tonight we're going to be looking at that. And for many of you, you're not sure you're a Christian, or you're not sure sometimes, well, I don't know, I've sinned a lot this week, maybe I lost my salvation. Or you were never clear in the first place. Tonight we're going to look at what is the biblical teaching on assurance, what are the kinds of things you might do or fall into that would make your assurance kind of rocky, and then how to get back to having assurance. Some of the things that the Romans added to the work of Christ were indulgences. And that's what set Martin Luther off. They were trying to pay for a new huge building in Rome, St. Paul's Cathedral. But cathedrals cost money, a lot of money, a lot of money over time. How are we going to do that? Let's hawk some indulgences. Now, why would I use such a prejudiced term, hawk indulgences? Doesn't that sound cheesy and smarmy and kind of Yeah, it does, really. But when you have a guy going around, the moment the coin into the coffer clings, a soul out of purgatory springs. You know, your mom's been in purgatory how long? You don't want to see her staying there too long, do you? So how about some bucks to pray some masses to get her out of purgatory? You go, that's so crass and carnal. Precisely, but that's what they were teaching. You could pay to have people come out of purgatory. Luther said that's an abomination. You had to make pilgrimages to Rome. If you made a pilgrimage to Rome, you get so many years off of purgatory. Once in Rome, if you climbed up certain stairs in a certain cathedral on your knees, you could earn time off of purgatory. The priest said mass is for the dead to take time off of their time in purgatory. There was the idolatry of Mary. Jesus was out of the question. Jesus was no friend of sinners. Jesus is harsh and a judge, but ah, who's nicer than your mother? So you cut Jesus out entirely and you go to His mother. You can have a university, Notre Dame, Our Mother. You can have all the Catholic churches in the world praying about Our Mother, Mater Dei, Mother of God. You can have venerating of relics. It was said that there were enough slivers from the cross of Christ in Europe to make Noah's Ark. I just have to think about that. In other words, there was so much con going on in Europe, there were all these things. Here's a bone of St. Peter's little toe. Seriously. In one place, here's milk from Mary's breast that had been saved all these years that she nursed Christ at. It was incredible, all the junk that was floating around. And all of these somehow helped the person who took advantage of them. Now, five hundred years later, you think, well, times have changed. The Reformation came. Surely the Catholic Church changed. I'd like to say they did. I'd like to say that they're a biblical church, but they're not. Five hundred years later, all the things that Luther opposed are still in force. Except you can no longer pay for an indulgence, you have to work for it. I was watching a TV special and they were interviewing people, this is about 10 years ago, but the Pope said if you made a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France, you could go straight to heaven and bypass purgatory. All these people were going there and going to Lourdes and making financial contributions so they could skip purgatory and go straight to heaven. You had to work by going to this shrine at Lourdes. The point is, If you can think of a really bad religious guy on TV and combine it with an Amway mentality, but if you combine this, it's all about money, all about making money. And you prey upon people's superstitions and their ignorance. The ignorance of the Catholic priest at the time of the Reformation was legendary. They couldn't name the Ten Commandments. They couldn't name the four Gospels. Most of them didn't know Latin, so what they were repeating was, at best, mumbo-jumbo to them. The people didn't understand Latin. It was a huge, massive, superstitious claptrap. And here comes Martin Luther saying, the Word of God says this. I don't care what the Catholic Church says if it's opposed to the Word of God. The Reformers did not invent the Gospel. They simply uncovered it from 1,000 years of barnacles of church superstition and tradition. The Catholic Church had taken the burden of salvation off of Jesus Christ and placed it on your shoulders. Can you save yourself? Can Christ save you with your help? I mean, he's not big enough in and of himself. He's only the God-man. But maybe you could help out. Maybe you could contribute. And deep down, as foolish as it may seem, our pride says, there's a little smidgen I think I could contribute. I had a good day. I was a good guy this week. I was a good girl this week. And we want to contribute to our salvation. The Reformers pointed to the Bible and said, no, no, no, a thousand times no. It's Christ and Christ alone. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 things that were wrong with the church that needed to be dealt with. And he set off a revolution that he never expected. The cry of the Reformation from Scripture was, the just, that person who's right with God, the just shall live by faith, by trust, not in themselves, but in another. You've heard me emphasize the verse in the New Testament, that we're to look to Christ, for God made him who knew no sin, Jesus Christ. to become sin, when? On the cross. That we, Paul's writing to the Corinthians, me Paul, you Corinthians, we believing sinners might become the righteousness of God in him. I don't make myself righteous. I'm unrighteous. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. My righteousness would be a joke, But Christ has perfect righteousness. And in this great swap, which is called justification, in fact, every time in the New Testament you see the word just, justified, justification, your heart should sing. That's the basis of your salvation with God. It's not on the basis of anything you do or contribute. It's based upon the finished work of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.21, God made him who knew no sin to become sin. that we, believing sinners, might become the righteousness of God in Him. Christ's perfect life, Christ 24-7, 365, I love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I loved my neighbor as myself, that's counted to the believing sinner in the place of their unrighteousness. I who am unrighteous become righteous, not through my working, but because of the life and work of Christ. We just read here, and you're hearing Romans 117. Turn in your Bibles, please, to Romans for a minute, and we're going to look at a couple of verses. If you've gotten in the bad habit of not paying attention to Scripture and sitting back when the preacher reads the text and says, okay, now wow me, you're going to be disappointed because I do not have a wow factor. But the Word of God does. The Word of God has a wow factor. Paul says in Romans 117, for in it the gospel, the righteousness of God, is revealed from faith to faith all through your Christian life, as it is written, the righteous, or the just, you could put the same word, shall live by faith. Why am I preaching today? Because I'm a great guy, because I really got my act together, because I'm living in la-la land. No. Because I've been justified by Christ. And so because I'm justified by Christ and called by Him, I'm subsequently able to stand up and tell you, this is the gospel. But I'm not doing it on the basis of my own righteousness, imagined or real. I have no righteousness of my own. But the just are to live by faith. How can you go to work tomorrow? How can you take the Lord's Supper? How can you pray expecting God? Why would He want to answer you? Because I have the righteousness of Christ. I'm as righteous as Christ in His eyes. And there are no sins clamoring for my condemnation. They've all been taken care of in Christ. We'll go over to chapter 3. Justification is the big subject of Romans. And the Reformers rightly camped there. Romans chapter 3, verse 21. Paul's been teaching about why by law-keeping you don't make yourself righteous, because you and I don't keep the law. We break it. Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested, manifested means to be openly displayed, apart from law, although the law and the prophets had witness to it, bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. There's a righteousness which God gives to those who trust in Christ. It's not their own righteousness. Luther would call it an alien righteousness, not because an alien came to planet Earth. Oh, yeah, I know. I watched a show on aliens on the Discovery Channel. No. This alien righteousness is something that didn't come from ourselves. It came from Jesus Christ. And this one came to Earth, and this one gives his righteousness. He says it's not by law-keeping. although the law and the prophets had borne witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." Is Jesus Christ enough for you? Are you going to give in to the Galatian heresy? Are you going to think that Jesus plus something you crank out on your own is going to make you acceptable to God? Really? Do you want to go back to that? No. Look at chapter 5, verse 1. based upon all I've been teaching you for four chapters, since we have been justified by faith, not by works, not by faith plus works, we've been justified by faith, trusting in another Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I was an adult when I became a Christian, and I remembered how wonderful it was to know that my sins, which I had been viewing for a year, were all cleansed by Christ. There are no warm coals in the ashes of the completed work of Christ. Christ totally took God's nuking, totally took God's righteous wrath toward all of our sins, all believers. There are no warm coals in that pile of ashes. We have peace with God. I can remember I was almost giddy for several months that I would have my sins forgiven. Since we have been justified by faith in Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God's not my judge. God's not angry at me. God doesn't curl His lip when He sees me coming. God's not impatient. What do you want? I'm counted as Christ. He delights to see me come. Turn over to the book of Galatians. This is a great book which My next door neighbor should read because he's turned back to Judaism. He's Judaizing the New Testament, which a bunch of other people call themselves Messianic Christians, and they're trying to Judaize the New Testament. I'm not real smart, but I do remember reading in the book of Acts in the New Testament that the Judaizers were the bad guys. They were saying Christ wasn't enough. You had to keep a kosher kitchen. You had to of the Mosaic Law. Paul says that's not true. Look at the book of Galatians. I won't read Paul's nasty things he says in chapter 1, but in chapter 2, look at just verse 16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. He says it three times. Three times. Works won't justify you. You can't be justified by works. No one will be justified by works. It's either by faith in Christ alone, as the Bible teaches, or you make up your own amalgam, jury-rigged religion, but don't say that the Bible teaches you're saved by your works. You're not. I have no works. All of my works are tainted. Even though I've been saved for many years, 40-some years now, my works are still tainted by my remaining sin. I've never had a totally pure motive. I've never had a totally pure act, because the remaining sin clings to all that I am. But I'm not looking to my righteousness as my relationship with God to stand on, but I'm looking to the righteousness of Christ. Turn over to the book of Philippians. We'll finish, this is the last verse we'll look at for now. Philippians is a book about joy in Christ and finding your joy in Christ again. Chapter 3 is Paul recounting his own testimony and says, there used to be stuff that was a really big deal to me, it was really important to me, and I count them all rubbish in order that I might gain Christ. In chapter 3, pick it up at verse 8, indeed I count everything as loss, Because of the surpassing worth or surpassing value, what does the word surpassing mean? That means you're driving down the road in your little Volkswagen and somebody goes past you in a Maserati and they go way beyond you. They're surpassing you. This stuff used to be important. It's nothing compared to the bypassing, surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, as dung, the King James said, in order that I might gain Christ. Why? And be found in Him. Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, I'm not trying to be a goody-goody. I'm not trying to save myself by climbing some ladder of good works. but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Do you believe that God gives a righteousness to you? Do you believe? I'm asking you straight up. You don't have to raise your hand or tell me, but I'm asking you, do you believe that God gave His Son's righteousness to you when you believe? Do you believe that all of your sins were atoned for on Christ? That's the New Testament basis of salvation. So again, every time you read the word just, that means you're right with God based on the work of Christ. Justified, it's something that God has done in the past. Justification, the state of reality that you're in. A right standing with God because of what Christ did, not because of what you did. Now, trying to have established this a little bit, where are we going? Three things. I'm going to try to show you what saving faith is not. There are things that people think, what does it mean to believe in God? What does it mean to have faith in God? I'm going to show you some things that it's not. And then I'm going to try to show you what it is. And then, what does it mean to have faith in Christ alone? Okay, what is not saving faith? First of all, saving faith is not a feeling. I was taught a diagram when I was a new Christian. It was called the train diagram. You have the engine, which is the fact of who Christ is and what He accomplished, faith, my believing in these things, and feelings is the caboose that pulls up the rear. Now the train runs with or without the caboose, but It would be foolish to try to pull the train with the caboose. Oh, my feelings. I don't feel very safe today. I don't feel very righteous today. Feeling is not the basis of Christianity. Feeling is not the basis of being right with God. Faith is my entrusting myself to Christ and what He did. Feelings come along and they may vary from time to time. I called a pastor friend of mine the other day, Earl Blackburn, who was just with you. He has a terrible head cold. He sounded like he was in the bottom of a deep well. If you ask Earl, Earl, do you feel saved? Not really. Earl, do you feel anything? No, I just feel like my head's full of cotton and I can't think. Does that mean he's not a Christian? Does that mean he lost his salvation because he doesn't feel saved? I don't always feel safe. All kinds of things can be going on. Salvation is not a feeling. A train will run with or without the caboose. Your feelings shouldn't determine your Christian life. But for so many Christians, that's how they live their life. I don't feel very spiritual this morning. And the biblical response is, so? I mean, is the Christian life, according to the New Testament, kind of one big emotional high and you're just giddy all the time? No. You don't always feel saved. It has nothing to do with the reality of your salvation. Talk to someone who's been in prison and they're out. They know they're out of prison, but is feelings the basis of them enjoying their life out of prison, or is it just the reality of it? Faith is my entrusting myself to Christ and what he did. Feelings may come, feelings may go, they may vary from time to time, but feelings is not the basis of my salvation. Some people think sincerity is the basis of saving faith. You just need to be sincere. You just need to sincerely believe these things. Now, I don't know anybody who insincerely believes in it. Oh, yeah, I insincerely believe. Well, nobody would admit to that. But what is sincerity? It has to do with your honest and zealous belief in something outside of yourself. Let's say we all decide we're going to take a Trinity Church fishing trip. We've hired the world's biggest pontoon boat and we're all going to go out in this pontoon boat and we're going to go fishing. Well, it's kind of a mess because there's 87 reels and rods and lines, hooks and messes, and we're all out there. And then someone notices that we're getting lower in the water than we used to be, and that's because the boat is sinking. And so we all scramble to find the life preservers, and they always say, you know, there's these things under the seat, and there's vests, and we're all scrambling to find something. And I see a large battery that's operating one of the electrical systems, and being very foolish, I grab the battery and I jump overboard, very sincerely clutching the battery. Now, the sincerity, is it going to make the battery save me? As I'm whizzing toward the bottom of the lake, holding on to the battery, is the battery worthy of my sincerity? No. Sincerity has nothing to do. It's what is the object of my sincerity. If I sincerely believe in Christ, that's a saving thing. Just to say, well, just be sincere in whatever you believe. That's bogus. That's false. During epidemics, there used to be people who were called patent salesmen. Patent meant that they had these weird little drinks and potions and elixirs that they'd sell door to door. And if you would buy their magic elixir, you could be saved from whatever the particular epidemic was, but warts, lumbago, earaches, lice, you know, whatever he chose to say. And they were just quack. They were patent salesmen. And you could take their medicine and they would do absolutely nothing and you could still die from the disease. Sincerity is no cure for anything. How about assent or agreement? I believe Jesus Christ is God. I believe he died on the cross in first century Palestine. I believe he's called the Savior and I believe he's called the Lord. James says the demons of hell believe that too. You don't earn any branding points with believing that. merely giving mental assent, yeah, I agree with that, is not saving faith. When I was a kid, I believed George Washington was the first president, Mickey Mantle was my favorite baseball player, and Jesus Christ died on the cross in the first century in Palestine. And they all impacted my life about zero, because that was simply assent. I understood these things. simply agreeing that George Washington was our first president, and Mickey Mantle was a great baseball player, and Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross, does not change your life just by believing those facts. Some have said, well, you know, Christianity, there's no real reason why you should believe, but you just have a leap in the dark, just a leap of faith. In fact, there was even a movie with Steve Martin where he played a faith healer, and it was called Leap of Faith. Well, he was a faith healer who had a miracle happen and totally discombobulated him because he didn't believe in the whole thing anyway, and he had to have it re-do. Is that what you believe, being a Christian, is just a leap of faith, kind of turn your brain off and just leap out there and believe something? In fact, some cynics have said, Christianity is believing what you know to be false. Well, that's very patronizing. Again, believing carries no power. Faith in and of itself has no power. It's weightless. It carries no power. It's entirely dependent upon the object of your faith. What do you put your faith in? What do you believe in? If the object of my faith is inadequate or useless, my faith is inadequate and useless. I mentioned before that you think the ludicrous illustration of grabbing a big car battery and jumping over the side of the boat, hoping, thinking this would save me, you go, well, that's stupid. Well, you should listen to the things people think will save them, and a lot of those are biblically stupid. I know you tell your children you shouldn't use the word stupid, you used to say, that's foolish. Okay, it's foolish. It's not going to save you. It's the object of your faith, not your faith. Paul told the Corinthians, look, if Christ isn't raised from the dead, this is all a sham. It's a pretense. There's no reason to be believers. Your faith is worthless. Did Christ really, was He really born in Palestine? Did He really grow up? Did He do miracles? Did He say amazing things? Did He die an atoning death on the cross? Was He raised? Is that true? It makes all the difference in the world. That's the object of your faith. We've seen here, in my mention of the Catholic Church, that works can be added to what Christ did. Or works on their own, just like, I don't need Christ, I'm just saved by my own efforts. Well, that would be a hard stretch from the Bible, but so would be a hard stretch to say that Christ plus my work saves me. In attacking the teachings of the Catholic Church, I'm not attacking your aunt, who's a Catholic. I'm not calling your parents stupid because they were Catholics. People go, why don't you like my relatives? I don't know your relatives. This isn't about individuals. This is about stated teaching of a church. It's public, documented teaching. Is it true to the Bible? Does it square with biblical teaching? If it's not, it's false teaching. Now, one good thing is that God is gracious to sinners. A person can be in the Catholic Church and believe in Jesus Christ despite what the Catholic Church teaches. I have no doubt that there are Christians running around the Catholic Church who are Christians not because they believe Catholic doctrine, but because they might have read the Bible and believe what the Bible says and they just happen to be in the Catholic Church and don't know much better. But as an official body of teaching, it's false teaching. My works are tainted by my sinful heart. They taint whatever they touch. and try to add to Christ's work is two words, prideful and ignorant. How could I, a finite creature, a sinful creature, add to the finished work of Christ? That is just foolish pride and monstrous ignorance. In John chapter 6, The Jews found Jesus out in the wilderness and they said, just speak to us straight. What works does God want us to do to do the work that He will accept? Tell us what to do. Jesus goes, okay. They go, well fine, we'll get a straight answer. What does God want us to do? The work of God is this, that you believe in the one whom He has sent. You don't do anything. Believing is looking away from yourself. It's not looking at myself, Navel, Navel, what should you do? It's looking away from myself and believing upon God Himself and what He's done for us. What did the Son of God do when He came to earth? He took my place on the cross. He lived the perfect life I could never live. The work of God is this, that you believe in the one whom He has sent. They went, oh, I thought you were going to give us something to do. I thought you were going to give us something to do. No, I don't want you to do anything. I want you to look away from yourself. Okay, I've given you five things that aren't saving faith. So what is saving faith? Saving faith has three component elements. It'll help you to understand some Bible passages that might have been confusing to you. Because I can remember reading in John's Gospel where in John chapter 8 it says, But in John's Gospel, believing shows the three component parts. It's not simply believing like, I understand this, I see what's happening. But there are three component parts, and in John's Gospel he makes clear, if you don't have all three component parts of saving faith, you don't have saving faith. The first component is understanding. If you don't understand what's going on, then how can you believe? God doesn't say, I want you to believe in nothing. Just let your mind go blank. That's not biblical Christianity. First of all, do you understand what the Bible teaches about your condition? Do you see that you are desperately in need of a Savior? Do you see that if you died tomorrow, you'd be undone? Because you've lived your life as a willful sinner. Willfully living for yourself and your glory and your fun. Do you see your dire predicament? Do you see that you're helpless to do anything about that? Do you see that God sent his son on a rescue mission to save guilty sinners, anyone who would put their trust in him? Do you see how desperate your situation is and that you need to be saved? And then, do you understand who Jesus is? Do you understand that he's the God-man? He's God come to earth to take upon himself human flesh. You go, I don't know how you can do that. Shh. I don't know how you can do that. But God did it. He was God and man at the same time. He can represent God to us because He's the God-man. And He can represent us to God because He's the God-man. And He represented us on the cross. And our sins were placed upon Him, if we're a believer. And His perfect record, His perfect life is counted to us. Do you understand who Jesus Christ is and what He did? And again, do you understand that you can't save yourself, that if you don't trust in Christ, you're undone? That's the first thing, understanding. The second thing is assent. I must understand and agree. Assent is agreement. I understand what the deal is, and I agree with it. Okay? Because if you don't understand to begin with, it doesn't make any difference. But understanding what's going on, do you agree that this is the disease you have of sin, and this is the antidote, this is the curing vaccine, Jesus Christ? Do you agree that that's what you need? I must understand and agree that I'm guilty, vile, and helpless before a holy God. I must understand and agree that I can't save myself. I must understand and agree that Jesus is who He claimed to be and He's the only one who can save me. These are the first two parts of saving faith. Understanding you get it. And second of all, agreement. Yep, that's what I need. The third part is a conscious trust in Christ. The conscience, conscious, I can't do this, I'm entrusting myself to Christ. Lord, I'm entrusting myself to you. With all I am to all you are, I am trusting myself to you. You alone are my substitute. You alone are my guarantee on judgment day. You alone are my righteousness. You alone are my atonement. I trust that God will not require anything of me on judgment day that Jesus is not providing. I entrust myself to Jesus Christ wholly for my salvation. So I understand. I agree, boy, I need this. Now I act on it. I trust. I believe. Such is saving faith. These three component elements. Do you understand the basic biblical facts of what's going on? Number two, do you agree that that's what you need? Because if you go, nah, I don't believe that, I don't agree with that, well, fine, you don't have saving faith. You may have some historical understanding of the facts, but you do not have biblical saving faith. And also you say, well, I understand what's going on, and I agree that that's what I need. In John chapter 8, I think it's verse 31, It says, to the Jews who believe, Jesus started marching them down a road, and they go, we don't believe that, we don't believe that, we don't believe that. And you're a demon and a Samaritan, which is first century swear words for you're a bad person. And it showed that they didn't have saving faith. They might have had some awareness of what was going on, that Jesus was this amazing person. They needed to be saved, but they didn't agree that Jesus was what they needed, and they didn't entrust themselves to Christ. Do you understand? Really? Do you? Do you agree that's what you need? Do you trust yourself? Have you entrusted yourself? Are you entrusting yourself to Christ alone? So what does it mean to have faith in Christ alone? I'm demonstrating that my understanding, my agreement and my trust are all in Jesus and nobody else and nothing else. I'm demonstrating that Christ is my Savior and my only hope and my only trust. If I put my faith in anything else but Christ, I'm denying His power, His uniqueness, and His adequacy. Did Christ really do it on the cross? Is He really God come in the flesh? Was what He did adequate, or is it kind of chintzy and small and needs to be added onto by my jury-rigged, half-baked, sin-empowered doings? When I have faith in Christ, it means I don't have confidence in anything else. I spent most of 1968 looking at the world and looking at the world's sins and seeing that they were in me, just about all of them. If I looked really deep, I think I could find the rest of them. Robert Murray McShane said, having seen my own heart, I now know that I am incapable of any sin. And I thought at the time, well, he's just kind of a, has a real sensitive conscience. There's some things even I wouldn't do. And it's like the Lord said, really? Do you want to go there? Do you want to see the depths and recesses of your wicked heart? There is no sin that you could not commit if God gave you over to it. If he took his restraint off of you, he took his Holy Spirit away from you, he put you in the right situation, you and I are capable of any or every sin. But seeing my sins didn't make me a Christian. I understood that the world was a sinful place and that I was a sinner and whatever was messed up with other people was messed up with me. I understood that. I agreed that I needed to be saved. I came to agree that Jesus Christ was the only Savior. The question is, the question is, would I believe in Jesus Christ for my salvation. When the gospel was presented to me, I saw very clearly, here's this great God who's holy, holy, holy. Here is the chasm, the Grand Canyon of my sins between me and God. And I could picture in my mind the gap between me and God. What could bridge that? Well, Jesus Christ came. God in the flesh. God came to earth. God became one of us. He came to live in planet hell that we live in. He came to live where we live and go through the stuff we go through, only never giving in to sin, never having an attitude, never speaking a wrong word, never doing a wrong deed. And he earned the right to be my substitute. He took my place. Would I trust him? And as I was watching this in my mind, I was thinking, if I don't trust Christ, I'm history's biggest fool. Because I see, I see my need, and I see that Christ is the only provision. If I don't trust Him, God help me, I have no other hope. Sola Fide. It's only by faith alone and Christ alone. Faith alone and Christ alone. Only what Christ did. Only what Christ did. This sola fide, this faith alone was the watch cry of the Reformers because salvation is by faith alone and Christ alone. In 1541, 1517 I had earlier said was when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the castle door. In 1541, there was a meeting hall held in Regensburg, Germany, and leading Catholic theologians and Reformers tried to work out some agreement on salvation. but it ultimately failed because the Roman church would not budge on its teaching on faith plus works. They would not embrace salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Rome stumbled over the little word alone. They wanted to keep Mary. They wanted to keep indulgences. They wanted to keep relics. They wanted to keep masses. They wanted to keep all these things. They wanted to keep all the mumbo-jumbo that keeps people in confusion and pang, pang, pang, working, working, working. Now, sadly, some of the men who were there, some of the Protestant reformers were kind of weak-willed, and while Philip Melanchthon was a great Greek scholar, he wasn't the world's most confident man, and he kind of gave in, and he came home and told Luther they'd reached kind of, sort of, an agreement. And so Luther started questioning them as to what they actually believed. Do they believe salvation is by grace alone, through Christ alone, and faith in Christ alone? No, they still... Well then, why do you believe you've reached a concord? Why do you believe that you've reached some kind of agreement? Are they willing to get away with Mary, saying Mass is for the dead, purgatory, relics, the five other sacraments that aren't named in Scripture that they've added, all the things you must go to, all the rigmarole that keeps you under their thumb and keeps you paying, paying, paying? Melanchthon had to admit no. Then Luther said, this is bogus, this is false. Man, you've been hoodwinked. You've given in. You've gone right back to where you started. If salvation isn't a gracious work of God, if that gracious work of God is not in Christ, if Christ is not received by faith alone, you're back to Rome. You're back to the treadmill. Now, you've heard what I've been saying. Let me ask you. Are you still in the mindset that you need to kind of sort of clean up your life first and make yourself better before you come to Christ? Is it Christ alone after you've cleaned up your act? Is that what the New Testament teaches? Come ye sinners, come ye who have kind of cleaned up your act and made yourself savable, more nice, and don't be a dirty, filthy sinner, be a clean, self-disciplined sinner. Is that what the New Testament teaches? No. If you wait until you've made yourself better, you'll never come at all, because you'll never make yourself better. Are you still waiting on a feeling that you're saved before you'll trust in Christ? Well, I've heard this for years, but I just never feel saved. Let's go through this again. Is salvation a feeling? Is saving faith a feeling? Or is it putting your trust in someone outside of yourself? You go, I don't feel saved. I didn't say you would feel saved. I remember that one day I placed my trust in Christ. That was an important thing. I knew it was important. When I went to bed that night, I'd go, Lord, if I wasn't sincere this afternoon, I'm really sincere tonight. I really must have be saved. I must have your son to be my Savior. And I went through the whole thing again. I waited for angels to sing? No. Church bells to chime? No. Howl of the chorus to go off somewhere? No. I just went to sleep. And the next morning, I woke up. angels, still no hallelujah chorus, still no church bells, but I knew for the first time that God was in my life, that God the Holy Spirit had taken residence in my life, that I was now right with God and I had to live my life for Him. And it wasn't a feeling, I just knew it. And faith, saving faith is not a feeling. What you're saying is, I don't believe Christ saves. I know what he says. Whoever comes to me, I will not cast away. But I want to feel that he'll accept me before I come. That's not faith. If I said, I've got a $100 bill in my pocket, and if you'll come up here, I'll give it to you. I don't know. I just don't feel like he'll give it to me. Then you don't believe me, do you? Maybe you believe Christ is a cosmic trickster. Ha ha ha, gotcha, you thought I'd save you, what a fool. Really? Is that how you think of Christ? If you came to Him, He wouldn't accept you because of whatever you are? When Christ makes sincere promises, if you come to me, I will never cast you away. The best friend I've ever had is Jesus Christ. He is the best friend a sinner could ever have. Because He knows what it's like to live in this fallen world. He knows what it's like to face temptation. You go, well, yeah, well, He did not like... He faced temptations you and I have never dreamed of. New Testament scholar B.F. Westcott said, we always give in eventually somehow, someway to some sin. Christ never did. Can you imagine how high you can ratchet the pressure of temptation and keep ratcheting and keep ratcheting and keep ratcheting? And He never gave in. Eventually we would have caved somewhere along the line. He never gave in. He knows temptation. He knows sorrow. He knows hunger. He knows thirst. He knows desertion by friends. He knows betrayal. He knows every human emotion we can go through practically. He says, I want to be your Savior. I offer myself to you. Do you think I'm lying? Don't think I'm trying to trick you, do you? Would I go through all this to trick you? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. Whoever comes to Me, I will not cast away. For by grace are you saved by faith. And that is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast. It's a day to celebrate. It's a day to celebrate because the gospel was recovered. Sinners can be saved. Sinners can have the righteousness of God. Sinners can know that all of their sins were atoned for, every one of them. Is Christ your Savior? If I saw you in the parking lot and I said, excuse me, you heard me speak this morning, are you trusting in Christ? What would you say? I don't know. Right. Well, I don't know. What does that mean? No or yes? Um, I don't want to talk about it. Well, I'm not saying that because I'm trying to be mean. I don't get any brownie points. I don't keep a notch. We don't have notches up here for every person who comes to Christ when we preach. Wow, look at all Brandon's notches over here. No, we don't have, we don't get any feed, we don't get anything positive for ourselves. But I'm jealous for you. I want you to know Christ. I want you to have your sins forgiven. The greatest thing in the world is knowing Christ. Jesus said the greatest thing in the world, the greatest thing in this world and the world to come, the greatest thing in eternity is knowing my Father. I came to save you so you can know my Father like I've known Him for eternity. I want that for you. Do you understand the situation? Do you agree with your condition and what Christ has come to do for you? Are you entrusting yourself to Christ? I hope so. Our Father in heaven, would you take my stammering words, and when you seal them to our hearts, would you take glory for your Son? He doesn't receive near enough glory. Would you receive glory for your Son and take captivity captive? Would you grant faith to the confused? Would you grant them clarity? Would you grant them understanding, agreement, and trust? Would you grant trust to those who've been kind of dithering and can't really make up their mind? Would they see that they've been postponing a decision that will be made for them when they die, if they don't decide this side of eternity? Lord, glorify yourself this day, this Reformation Sunday, 2016. We thank you for the Reformation. We thank you for the recovery of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ alone. It's in his blessed name we pray, amen.