This is the fourth part in our series entitled, The Faith That God Gives. Now we had been using probably the most popular verse on faith in the scripture that people probably have memorized. It's in Ephesians 2.8.9 which says, For by grace you are saved through faith. And that, that faith, is not of yourselves. It, the faith that's not of yourselves, is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. In other words, if it was by works, man would have some platform wherein he could boast. If you remember, it says the same thing there in Romans 4 about Abraham. Wherein has Abraham found anything but glory in the flesh? And God says, no, not before God. And it goes on in detail to explain how grace works. Harmonious with this text here. We'll get to Galatians 3 here in a second, but this is the fourth part. And let me just fly through the four points in the message. Faith is a spiritual gift produced by God. That was our first message. I think everybody already had a pretty good grip on that, but we want some more detail and talked about explain how and why it's not an offer. And we're even going to touch on that again today from a different angle. Secondly, we talked about how faith works. How does faith work? What what does it entail? And of course, with both these messages, we define faith. But how does faith come to the person and the person exercise faith? How does that work? What's that look like? And so we talked about, you know, things off the top of my head. I remember we talked about faith is not a mystical thing. It's not a blind leap in the dark. Faith has something specific in mind that is understandable. God grants that understanding. So faith looks before it jumps. It's kind of like that old look before you leap, you know, like a frog does by nature. It just doesn't. Leap without looking you know God put in its mind an instinct to look before it leaps, and that's why when he gives faith Our faith is directed in a rational way till we understand where we're getting ready to go with it and Today we're going to talk about the third point which faith has a specific and proper object That's what we're talking about today very important. There's some points that I Some points, you know, some of the messages I say, if you don't get anything, get this right here and I'll do a statement. Well, I've got maybe two or three of those in this message, which means please remember these things. And fourthly, which maybe next time around would be faith is what God's people live by. The just shall live by faith. So today, faith has a specific and a proper object. Now, we've already proved that faith is a gift of God, which means that there is no need and no excuse for people that know that to have faith in their faith. Now, maybe nobody has heard of that phrase, faith in their faith. You know what? When I had faith in my faith, I didn't think of that phrase. I didn't even know I was doing it until the gospel came to me in power. and showed me that the object of my faith was my faith. A meritorious decision coupled with my what I thought was repentance, which at that time thought repentance mean you stop sinning. I saw that I couldn't do that. And so, you know, it eventually started making me think. And of course, the gospel came and there was some clarity and I kept hearing that. And then God gave me faith. that was not in my faith. Actually gave me repentance to take my faith out of my faith and put it in to Christ and His faithfulness. So that's kind of what we want to hammer on today. And this is what people in false religion are doing and they don't know it. They really don't know it. They're sincere. They're ignorant of what they're doing. And, you know, a person could like use biblical language about the doctrine and theology and scripture and just kind of like fly through things and teach some things that are true. And sometimes people with the physical ear just kind of like just brush through it, fly through it. And some of these particular points, you need to stop and camp out and say, here's what this means. And here's what this is saying, and here's what it's not saying, and here's what some people do that it's not saying, and this is why they're lost. And we have to do that. And a lot of preachers will not do that because it starts exposing the problem. And you would think that a pastor that is a shepherd of a flock would want to show a problem. I mean, when you're up here talking about things, it's not like you have to point at a person and say, you have this problem. I mean, you can teach from the scripture and just say, hey, look out for this. You know, you don't have to announce anathema on somebody. But some preachers will not even do that because that would be stepping on toes. And if you step on toes in a theological way, People get offended, but if you step on toes in a legalistic way, some people think, oh man, I needed that today. Pastor stepped on my toes, I'd better straighten up. And then they think if they do better, they'll be okay. Thanks for getting me in line. I've even heard people claim to be sovereign grace say, a little legalism is good, it keeps me in line. Now, how about a lot of gospel? And if the gospel can't keep you in line, the law, we already know the law can't. I mean, that's a whole other issue, the way pastors deal with their members and the way they talk to them and try to help them. In other words, they're not delivering the remedy. They're not delivering the medicine, the salve of the gospel. So false religion does this. They have faith in their faith. They count faith as something originating from their own will, from inside, and they turn faith actually into a work. They can read Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. They can read that. They say faith is a gift. But in it, they'll say, but I had to receive that gift. And that's the meritorious part. So we need to stop that. We need to put up a roadblock and say, you can't do that. You know, it's and it's not just that you're totally depraved and you're not able to do that. That's that's the minor point. The major point is you're shifting the efficacious manner of salvation away from Christ to yourself. Christ's death is what makes the difference between heaven and hell, not what you're doing with your faith. Right. So a lot of times I think, and this is a criticism that I've got of Sovereign Grace preachers and pastors all across the world, is lack of clarifications. They see a problem. They'll see, like, for example, Calvinism versus Arminianism. You see it all over the place. And what they'll do is they'll run to free will versus predestination. That's not the issue. That's the symptom. That's the fruit. Universal atonement is bad fruit of Arminianism. We don't go for arguing with people about free will. And those people don't even get particular with, hey, you have a will, but it's not free. And explain why and how it's not free. They'll just blurt out, you don't have free will, which implies in their minds, I don't have a will. You've lost your hearer. These distinctions, I'll move on. But that's what they can do and that's what they do do and that's what I did and some of you did. You actually turned what you thought faith was into a work. Scripture says faith is not of works, faith is not of the law. And they even read that and we read that and say, yeah, I'm doing this thing right. But I know in my mind, I was counting on my faith, no getting around it. I could look back and I could split that thing up and dissect it and say, at this point, this point, this point, that's what I was doing. I was counting on me all the way through because I was ignorant of the righteousness of God revealing the gospel, which is Christ coming and establishing that righteousness alone for, you know, for curing salvation. So they have this fundamental ignorance, really, of what faith is to begin with. Just like some of the people that this argument about imputation, they have a fundamental ignorance of what imputation is, what it does and how it works. So the same with faith. So it's my job as a preacher of the gospel and your job, no reason why everybody here shouldn't be preaching the gospel to somebody. It's your job to see what maybe you missed in the past and say, hey, maybe you're not seeing this this way, and explain. We're called to explain, not just proclaim, because sometimes proclaiming by itself can be vague, and when you explain, you clear up whatever fogginess is in their brain, mystery, because today, the whole world's ate up with mysterious, vague, goofy ideas that are just not true at all, and we have to The later it gets in our society, the more we have to explain, because the garbage pile keeps growing on this theological landscape in this world. So the fundamental problem is ignorance of what faith is and what the gospel is. And that's two halves of the whole problem, really. Faith and the gospel. Ignorance of both of those. Now remember this. The gospel itself is the good news about the person and work of Christ, who he is and what he did. That's what the gospel is. Who he is and what he did to save his people. There's a tract over here, it's called Counterfeit Gospels. It's put out by the Trinity Foundation. And it goes and lists the things that people say the gospel is, that the author of the tract says the gospel is not. And it's pretty common, some of the things that are listed, you hear a lot of people say. And I kind of ran this test myself. I did it more than once, but on Facebook, I made a definitive, clear, God-glorifying statement, proposition about the gospel alone, by itself, who Christ is and what he did. And I'm just going to see what people are going to say about it. not what you do with the gospel, not how you react to the gospel, but Christ, who he is and what he did. And, you know, I took my time and wrote something as God-glorifying as I could. And you sit back and wait, see what happens. Some people comment, amen, brother. Some people comment, go further. Yeah, I'm so blessed and happy to believe this gospel and trust in this Christ that here comes one. But, salvation is not election. For one thing, I didn't say anything about election. But, another one says, you have to repent. And you have to confess. And as you unwind this and unpack for these people and you kind of want to give them the benefit of the doubt and you ask them qualifying questions and sometimes they the rope that they're given, they hang themselves with it, they expose that they're not trusting in Christ alone. And some people, MacArthur, Ray Comfort, Paul Washer, they say that the gospel includes repentance in it. The gospel is about Christ. After the gospel's preached, you're dealing with the work of the Spirit. That's another person of the Trinity, that's another office, that's another activity. You do not include conditions. That's what they've done. They've included conditions in the gospel. It's a crafty deception when this message gets twisted into making it an offer, which automatically makes it conditional. It takes the focus off Christ and Him crucified, and it puts everything on the center. His sincere commitment repentance being enough, belief being enough, confession being enough, and what other conditions, confession with the mouth, you know, the list goes on of steps that have to be taken that are conditions. I've even heard some sovereign grace preachers talk about if a person, this is like in a lordship way, but these are not lordship sovereign grace preachers. They'll say, if a person does not end up getting baptized, They think that they're lost. I'm all for baptism, and everybody that believes the gospel should be baptized. But you do not condition a person's salvation on baptism, on whether or not they end up getting baptized. Just things like that. I mean, salvation, from start to finish, is unconditional. God says some things will happen, and you know what? They will. He'll do it in the person, and it'll get done. Now, what this does too is this bad doctrine, it makes all people, or what it shows is it makes all people potentially savable based on them fulfilling those conditions. And when these preachers preach what they call the gospel, they on purpose leave out election. They won't get distinct about the death of Christ. And they'll say that Christ died for sinners. which is a biblical statement. But can we not go to the scripture and show what the scripture says a sinner is? Because when you describe to some people what a sinner is, they'll say, that's not me. Yeah, I know. He only came for these others. It says that he came for those that needed a physician, those that were sick. He didn't come for the righteous, the self-righteous, in other words. Those are the ones that say, that's not me. So all these distinctions are kind of like swept under the carpet and you keep getting these people coming in and you keep stepping on their toes in a legalistic way and people are having rededications and different things like that and the money keeps coming in and the pastor can make a living by speaking out of two sides of his mouth. Now in Galatians 3 there We know that the gospel is the promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone. If you could like sum it up, condense it down, that's the promise of the gospel, that salvation is conditioned on Christ alone. In verse 22, and the subject is faith, the proper object of faith. Verse 22 says, but the scripture has concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster, some versions use the word tutor, was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now remember, other texts say that, even in the same book, the Galatians says, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. And that's the whole argument of the book. So the law is shown to us to show that we cannot keep it. Therefore we must turn to the one that requires us to keep the law and the one who kept the law in our place. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. He died under the penalty of that law that we could not keep. And notice here verse 25, but after faith came, this is God given faith that we place our faith and our belief in the faith, the message, the body of truth, But after faith has come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster. And this is the last verse here I want us to see. For you are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. So what do we see here? I want us to bring us here for that last line. We are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. When we went through Galatians a few years back, I stressed that we note in the book of Galatians that there are no promises to anybody that does not have faith. All the promises of God are by and through faith that he gives us. Nobody can make any claims. No children of believers. No hybrid group that says, I believe Judaism and Christianity combined. It's Christ alone. Faith is given to look to Christ alone. Otherwise no promises can be claimed by a person. Turn to John chapter three. John chapter three in verse 14. And then we'll get into some points here about faith. Now this is gonna be some, just a easy proof text. Some of these verses you're very familiar with easy proof text that says a person has to have faith verse 14 Start reading there, read about four verses, four or five. But as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, remember when back then a bunch of serpents came and they were poison and bit some people. And God says, you know, you make a, get some brass, make a brazen serpent, lift it up on a pole. And all you gotta do, the people that got bit, all you gotta do is look at it and you'll be okay. that typified the serpent raised up was looking to Christ and living. He said, you know, all you gotta do is look, that's it. That refers to faith. That's what faith does with spiritual eyes. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now that cuts a distinction right there. Right? I mean, it already, before we get to some other verses that are gonna be redundant and spelled out pretty clear in case we're dumb and didn't catch it. But in verse 15, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Don't you think that means those that don't believe in him are not gonna have everlasting life and they will perish? Well, it does say that later. Verse 16, for God so loved the world. And we've been over what this word world means and we'll, you know, in the future do it. We don't have time to labor on it right now. He loved the world and He gave His only begotten Son that here we go, whosoever believes in Him should not perish and have everlasting life. Same statement. Verse 17, for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. Well, you know what? First of all, the world was already condemned, right? We already know that. The world is born condemned. The world was condemned in Adam as the world's representative. So Christ didn't have to come to do that because it was already done by the Father through imputation of Adam's sin through the whole human race. The second half of verse 17, but so that the world might be saved through him. Same word world is applied in verse 16, world, world, same people. Verse 18, he who believes in him is not condemned. That rhymes with Romans 8.1. There is now no condemnation in him that is in Christ Jesus. But he who does not believe is condemned already. That's what we wanted to get to, this verse right here. If you don't have faith, if you don't believe, you are condemned. Okay, so I wanted to start the message with that. Number one, God requires that a person have faith. If a person does not have faith, they're not gonna end up being with him in glory. Now, having said that, did I just make a conditional statement? No. If I qualified, it's not. What God requires of His elect chosen sheep, He will provide for them in the form of a free gift that He powerfully, effectually works in them to make it happen. Some people just can't get that through their head. You know, so I dealt with some primitive Baptists this week, and they just think if you make a statement that a person must have faith or they're condemned and they will not be in heaven, they think we are making it conditional. But when you talk about how that it's all of grace, God provides what he requires. He states and we're going to look at him here in a minute. He states that that's the way he's going to do it. It will happen. Turn to John 17. John 17. I don't know how long ago we went through John 17. I think we did 25 messages out of this chapter. And this will refresh your memory about some of this. Now, let me say about John 10. Everybody knows John 10, the sheep shepherd chapter. Christ says, my sheep hear my voice. and they follow me and I give them eternal life. You know what that is? That's about faith. That's about God quickening the sinner, giving him faith with the ear of faith, with the eyes of faith, seeing and hearing spiritually, understanding in other words, and believing the gospel. Says all of the sheep. We'll hear his voice and we'll follow them and they're going to have eternal life. Now in verse one of chapter 17, this is a prayer of Christ shortly before his crucifixion. And remember, as we did this series in John 17, it was called the effectual prayer of Christ. And which means whatever Christ prays for, he's going to get because he's the God man. And he says in verse one, Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes into heaven and said, father, the hour has come. He's talking about I'm about ready to be crucified. This is what I came for. Glorify your son so that your son may also glorify you. Here's what I just want us to see here. Verse two, even as you have given him authority over all flesh so that he should give eternal life to who? All you have given him. That's the elect. The father has given a people to Christ and he has power to give them eternal life, authority to give them eternal life. And this is life eternal that they, those same people that the father has given him, might know you, the only true God, see the distinction, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So this is Christ saying, look, I know you gave me a people, And I'm praying, thanking you for all authority you've given me over all flesh. You've given me this work that I'm doing so that I can do this work and that the eternal life is given to all these that you have given me. And this is eternal life and this is the way it's going to work. They're going to have knowledge about you. That's the work of the spirit in them that does that because of the work that Christ did for them. because the Father had chosen them. So the whole Trinity's involved in this, and we know that through this John 17. We wore that out through that thing. Now look at verse 17. Here's part of the means that talks about sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. So Christ praying to the Father. He's talking about separating them. That means make them holy, by the way. Separate them, consecrate them, set them aside for this one thing. Show them your truth. Give them your truth. Your word is truth. You know, the place he says truth will set you free, right? Go down another couple verses. It talks, you know, in between there, it talks about that the disciples that are with him are going to be kept and they're going to do their thing, he's praying for them. Then he goes to verse 20, he talks about us in this day, as well as all the believers throughout the generations. He says, I do not pray for these alone, speaking of his disciples, but for those also who shall believe on me through their word. Either the literal preaching of their word or the word left that's pinned in the New Testament. That's the means that we believed by. the Apostles Doctrine, which is matches the doctrine of Christ, which matches the Old Testament prophets as they preach the gospel. So here we see that God requires faith. He gives faith. And here Christ prays about this faith that's connected with eternal life, gives the means that are he prayed about that. This is what's going to happen. This is what I want to happen, that they be sanctified through the truth, which means faith in him. And he's particularly praised for all those that will believe throughout all the generations to come after he prayed that prayer. We know John 6, 37, a famous one, all that the Father gives me shall come to me. That harmonizes with that verse two up there, John 17, as many as you have given me. All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and that's by faith. That's the only way you can come to Christ, by faith. Christ is at the right hand of the Father right now. We can't go to him, but we can go to him by faith, the faith that God gives, and have that connection with coming to him for salvation, and walking by faith every day, looking to him. All the Father gives him shall come to me, and he that comes to me I will no wise cast out. So there's the security there after faith is given. So today the specific subject is that faith has an object, a specific and proper object. And this is like a, it's really a big deal. If you think about it, there's so many connections. It's connected to the whole gospel ministry. Think about statements and questions and different things in the scripture. Like what is assurance? It goes back to this object of faith. What must I do to be saved? Goes back to the object of faith. You think of verses like, it's on the wall here, that in all things he might have preeminence. Everything's pointing to him. Galatians 6.14, one of my favorite verses, God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything's pointing back to him. This is where our faith goes. 1 Corinthians 2, 2, for I have determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's just scraped the tip of the iceberg. I mean, everything in the scripture points to this issue today of the proper and specific object of faith. And if you look at a lot of the problems in the New Testament, the authors wrote about, it was problems of people taking their eyes off the object of faith. We know there's types and pictures and metaphors and different things like that, and we see that problem there, too. You know, Peter walking on the water, looking at Christ. Storm comes. He checks the storm out. His object of faith changed. It started doubts and fears and maybe trust you in flesh if I don't know walk on water by yourself I don't know but he took his eyes off Christ he was done so it's all over the place it's important subject and we need to to be able to know how to deal with distinctions on this issue right here to be more effective in communicating the gospel now we want to take note here that As we have already said, people are confused about just the overall subject of faith, especially on whether faith is a condition or not. And I'm talking about it. It's talking about being surprised. You're talking about being surprised earlier. I continue to be surprised about certain things. And it's it's because I don't know if it's because of preachers are lazy. Maybe they maybe. I don't know. I don't know. But this thing right here, and I'll go into it in a second, gives some specifics about how this can be botched up, about faith being a condition or not. We know about the idea of an offer. That really does turn faith into a condition in most people's minds. Here's faith. Do you want it? And when the person reaches out to take that faith, that offer of faith, he's credited with being smart enough to take it, right? I know people that think that way. I've seen their writings. I've had conversations with them. And they can even wear reformed Calvinistic clothes, so to speak. Not only does that idea, it's just a bad idea in and of itself because it's faulty theology and doctrine, but it's a bad reflection on the atonement because of what it's saying is, I'm making the difference in my faith, taking this offer, And it's potentially, like I said earlier, most people think people are all potentially savable if they fulfill this condition of taking up the offer. And that casts disparaging views on the atonement of Christ, which is God's chief glory. First of all, when I did it, I didn't know I was doing it. I was sincere in religion. As a Baptist, I could almost be like Paul when Paul saw his religion. The first week I was born, I was in church. I went to church like five days a week, four days a week. My mom and dad were piano player, song leader, youth group. I was there for all that stuff. Sword drills and vacation Bible school. I mean, it was just like I was hardcore religion, and I was proud of it, and I bragged about it. And of course now, since God saved me, I count that as loss. I don't want to carry crap with me. You know, this is what it is. It's to be flushed. And I didn't realize I was doing that. And when the gospel comes to a person, when Saul, whose name changed later to Paul, he was on his way to go kill Christians, and God supernaturally, spectacularly knocked him off his horse and blinded him. That doesn't happen to everybody, but that shows that God humbles a person to repent of what they gloried in, what they were counting on, and to relinquish their own righteousness out of themselves, to be humbled and to submit and to surrender to God's authority, God's sovereign work in salvation, and to bow to that. Now, I know God gives levels and measures of faith, and some people see that clearer than others. And some people's quote-unquote experience of conversion is not as spectacular. It doesn't have to be. All it requires is faith in the singular sole object of faith, Christ. And what I'm saying is, overall, the focus will not be on us. getting credit, because in false religion, that was the talk. You know, that was that was the argument. And if you bring that argument up, if you see resistance as evidence, that's what they're counting on. And I always do this. You know, when I come across people, I want to open that up. And if they're willing to listen, I can talk in a civil way, a patient way and investigate and find out, you know, have have you maybe thought this? What do you think about this? Were you counting on this? How come you see this and saw this and said this this way? Sometimes not so. They pretty quick come out that they're not counting on the cross and the cross alone is not making a difference, but it's what they're doing with the cross or what they are crediting themselves with making the difference between heaven and hell. Sometimes it takes a little more time. Sometimes it's tough. Sometimes people aren't honest, you know. But when a person does believe, it is giving them the spiritual smarts. Because it's like, He's just showing you. And those spiritual smarts are not your own by nature. It's the new heart. And it's the first thing you see. You have a new heart. It's just like Christ. He healed some blind people. And those blind people, they didn't turn around and say, Man, I really was able to kind of clear my eyes up and see better than that other blind dummy over there, you know?